Instead, Karvinel was delayed as he left the Cathedral. In the High Street he bumped into Coroner Roger and the City Bailiff, both standing angrily glaring up and down the road.
‘Coroner? Are you all right?’
‘No, I’m damn well not!’
‘What on earth is the trouble?’
‘That bastard Vincent. Do you know where he is?’
‘He usually attends an earlier Mass. He’s in around the middle of the day, so no, I fear I have no idea where he is – unless he’s in the Guildhall or his home.’
‘No, I’ve checked both,’ Roger spat. ‘The bastard could almost be deliberately avoiding me. And so he bloody should!’
Karvinel’s confused expression made the Coroner relent a little. ‘Vincent apparently got his son to try to ruin Ralph.’ He explained what Jolinde had told him. ‘I want to talk to him.’
‘Ralph’s death seems to become more confusing by the day,’ Karvinel said.
‘Well, not for much longer. I intend clearing up the whole sorry mess.’
‘Good.’
Roger was about to walk off when a thought struck him. ‘Tell me – cordwain and basan: Ralph bought some a short while before he died – I witnessed the deal – but it has disappeared from Ralph’s shop. Do you know anything about it?’
Karvinel felt his heart stop in his chest. ‘Ralph’s shop? Why no, no one has offered me anything like that,’ he said. ‘When was it taken?’
It was a short while later that he suddenly realised what had happened: Vincent’s cart had been seen by Peter outside Ralph’s shop only a short time before the discovery of the glover’s body. Only with difficulty could he stop himself bursting into delighted laughter.
Simon was staring at the grass as he walked a short distance behind Baldwin towards the Fissand Gate. ‘I don’t understand what is going on here at all,’ he said at last. ‘I thought we had a case of Peter’s poisoning, and that he died because of someone inside the Cathedral, yet now it seems it could have been anyone.’
‘It is not so complicated as it may appear, I think. No, not by any means. You have to bear in mind the sort of people we are dealing with. There are the city folk and the Cathedral, and the two don’t mix very easily. The city respects the Cathedral and is grateful for the money the Cathedral spends in the city, but does not truly like the Dean and Chapter. They are an alien race to the secular people who live outside the Close.’
‘But we have an appallingly tangled mess here.’
‘Perhaps – yet the more tangled this knot appears now, the more I am convinced that a small tug at the right point will unravel the whole thing.’
‘Two men dead; a third almost killed and two boys who have cause to hate him; outlaws attacking merchants… I don’t see how matters could get much worse.’
Baldwin gave him a sideways look. ‘Are you happy that Jolinde was innocent of the murders?’
‘I suppose so, since he admitted to buying the bread and meat with which Peter was poisoned.’
‘If he was. We have no proof that Peter was poisoned with the bread or meat. In fact, we have a lot of evidence that he wasn’t. Jolinde and Claricia said that they ate the food Jolinde had brought, which seems odd. And still more odd, if someone wanted to kill Peter, why should they poison food which Jolinde was buying?’
‘Why someone should want to kill Peter at all is still a mystery to me,’ Simon grunted.
‘What if the murderer intended killing another?’
‘Like whom?’
‘Jolinde, for instance.’
Simon stopped, frowning. ‘It would make sense.’
‘More than that, it would be logical. If you wish to poison a man, you poison the food he is buying. You don’t assume he’ll give it away to someone else.’
‘True. Yet the poisoner might have known that the food was to be eaten by Peter.’
‘It is possible, but what if that wasn’t known? Then we are left with the opposite perspective.’
Simon waited but his friend remained silent and the Bailiff was reluctant to break into his thoughts as they returned to the house where Adam lay recovering.
‘Has he confessed?’ Stephen asked.
Simon shook his head as he entered. He wasn’t even certain whom Stephen was asking about: Luke or Jolinde.
Adam lay on a palliasse on the floor, a rolled robe was his pillow and he was covered with a pair of thick blankets, although his shivering seemed to show they were doing him little good. Stephen had taken on himself the responsibility of nursing the boy and sat on a stool near his head. To aid Adam’s recovery, he had set a large crucifix on a table nearby, so that Adam could see it by turning his head.
Stephen had recovered greatly and now he could look upon the two law officials with a certain asperity. ‘What is it? This poor fellow needs to rest. He was almost killed.’
Baldwin took in the room with a glance. ‘We wish to ask him some questions,’ he said. ‘First, we understand you took a loaf from Luke last night. Is that correct?’
Adam glanced up at Stephen, but the Canon was telling his beads through his fingers and didn’t meet his look. ‘Yes, sir. I took it, but I didn’t touch it. He dropped it in some muck, and I threw it away.’
‘You didn’t eat any of it?’
‘No. Why should I? It had shit on it.’
‘What does this matter?’ Stephen asked.
‘Jolinde gave food to Peter. The bread was given to Luke by Peter. It is possible that the bread was poisoned.’
Adam blenched. ‘But I could have eaten it!’
‘Perhaps it would have been justice if you had,’ Baldwin stated unsympathetically. ‘Did you have a bottle of orpiment with you today?’
‘No.’
‘A bottle was found on the floor afterwards. It wasn’t yours?’
‘No.’
Stephen stirred. ‘It could have been Luke’s.’
Baldwin looked at him kindly. ‘No. I am convinced that he had nothing to do with this. I believe that while you and the Chapter were in the Cathedral someone went to your house and put poison on Adam’s bread, leaving the orpiment behind to make it appear that Luke or someone else in the room had tried to kill him. Anyone could have got in.’
Stephen sighed. ‘Oh, thank God!’
‘What is it?’
‘I had been convinced that my nephew had done this.’
Baldwin’s eyebrows rose. ‘Nephew? Earlier you told us about your brother…?’
‘I was the second son of Sir Ranulf Soth of Exmouth. My brother Thomas took the manor and I came here. When my brother’s wife died and he became an outlaw, I agreed to look after his son. That boy is Luke.’
‘And you thought that his father’s evil disposition could have led to his trying to poison Adam?’
‘I had heard that Adam had waylaid him last evening, yes, and thought my brother’s violent nature had been repeated in Luke. It wouldn’t have been the first time such things have happened.’
‘Well you may relax in the knowledge that Luke is most certainly innocent.’
‘And Jolinde took food to Peter?’ Stephen said. ‘I saw him once with something under his robe in the Cathedral. That must have been what it was. Bread and meat for his friend.’
‘You mean Luke is really Sir Thomas’s son?’ Adam cried suddenly.
‘Be quiet and try to rest,’ Stephen said.
‘Then it must have been Sir Thomas who tried to kill me! He wanted revenge for what I’d done to his son!’
‘Was he here today?’ Simon shot out.
Stephen wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I refuse to believe that my brother would have poisoned someone in my house. He is many things, but he would not risk harming me. And he would be more likely to use a dagger or sword – an honourable weapon. Not poison.’