‘Hypocrite!’ Baldwin laughed and threw a cushion at Simon’s head.
‘That,’ Simon said slowly and with great dignity, ‘was not kind, Baldwin.’
‘No,’ said Baldwin and threw another.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
They walked along Paul Street and into Southgate Street, where they found themselves dazzled by the sun shining straight down the road at them. Simon winced and screwed up his eyes, but Baldwin only slapped his back and chuckled.
At the Carfoix they continued a short distance until Baldwin spied a baker’s shop. ‘Let us break our fast.’
‘Isn’t it a little early for food?’ Simon enquired tentatively.
‘Nonsense. And the bread smells wonderful, doesn’t it?’
Simon made no comment, which Baldwin took for acceptance, and the two entered.
The place was already busy, with men and women selecting their loaves from the pile on a table near the unglazed window. At the rear a pair of men wielding long wooden shovels moved loaves about in the large ovens while Mary Skinner stood at a bar and took people’s money. There was no mistaking her, not with her raven-black hair. Simon grinned to himself remembering how she had strained and moaned with her man on the evening of Christmas Day, but then the savoury smells of cooking assailed his nostrils and he staggered to the door.
Baldwin went to the counter and ordered a good thick pasty. Paying his money, he smiled at the woman. ‘Hello, Mary.’
‘Hello,’ she answered suspiciously.
‘I wonder if you could help me and my friend.’
The older of the two bakers whirled around and stood with his shovel resting butt-first on the ground. ‘What sort of girl do you think she is, eh?’
‘I am helping the Coroner with his enquiries into Ralph Glover’s death,’ Baldwin said mildly. ‘Of course if you want to conceal anything, I shall simply tell the Coroner. I have no wish to cause any trouble.’
The man glanced over Baldwin, then Simon, then grudgingly nodded. ‘Go outside with them, Mary, but stay in sight.’
He managed to convey his deep distrust of the strangers in his tone, but Baldwin ignored him, walking outside chewing on his pasty.
From closer, Baldwin could easily see how Mary could have attracted the glover’s apprentice. Slim, with a white complexion, grey, steady eyes, and full, soft lips, she had the grace of a Celt with the calm beauty of a Norman.
‘What do you want from me?’ she asked, resting on a fence-post.
‘We have heard from Elias how he was with you the day Ralph died. We wanted to know whether you had been asked to delay him,’ Baldwin said.
‘ “Delay him”?’ she repeated scornfully. ‘Why should someone want to do that?’
Simon answered testily, ‘So that they could make the poor devil look guilty while someone else murdered his master, girl. Why do you think?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t see it’s any business of mine.’
‘If you weren’t asked to keep him here, it probably isn’t,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘But if you did help a murderer by keeping the poor apprentice here, you would be guilty of conspiracy.’
‘Me? I’ve done nothing.’
‘That may well be true, but if you continue to do nothing, you may be helping Elias to swing. Still, if you’re content to carry the responsibility for his death on your conscience, there is little we can do. Come, Simon. We had better go and explain to the Coroner and Receiver that this woman doesn’t wish to help.’
‘You do that,’ she said, unimpressed. ‘It doesn’t scare me.’
‘The Receiver may be interested in the profits of the bakery,’ Baldwin mused.
‘Well, you tell him how unhelpful I was. We’ll see whether he’s interested in the bakery, won’t we?’ she said and returned into the shop as another customer appeared.
Baldwin remained staring after her with a frown of shock on his features.
‘What is it, Baldwin?’
‘The girl has just answered my problems.’
Simon gazed at him, then back at the shop. ‘I don’t think I quite…’
‘She clearly doesn’t care for Elias, which after her fornicating with another man is no real surprise. That means that when she delayed him, we can be sure that it was so that he would be late, not because she wanted his company.’
‘So we aren’t any further forward.’
‘Of course we are. We know who the killer was.’
Simon’s head snapped round to stare, and once the pain had diminished he gasped, ‘Who?’
‘Simon, think about it. Adam was poisoned before lunch, by someone who was not in the Cathedral. All the Canons, Secondaries and others were in the Cathedral at Mass. So someone from outside the Cathedral was responsible. Adam’s bread had been poisoned. When Peter died, it was because he had eaten something bad – we think his bread. And the bread is made in the morning, then distributed after the dawn Mass. Someone always attends that service. Someone who had a good reason to want Jolinde dead.’
‘I really don’t see who you’re getting at.’
‘Probably not, so follow me,’ Baldwin said confidently.
His path took them along the High Street, but as they passed by the turning which led down to Karvinel’s house they heard a scream. They exchanged a look, then ran together down the lane to the merchant’s house.
Outside, a little boy stood shaking with horror while a young woman tried to comfort him, cradling him in her arms.
‘My master, my master…’ he kept repeating.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, while at her side a foolish looking boy stared at the door, shaking his head and weeping.
Simon and Baldwin followed the boy’s terrified gaze and walked straight in through Karvinel’s door. Nothing in the hall, nothing in the solar downstairs, but from the base of the ladder they could smell the vomit and excrement. Simon curled his lip at the odour and pointedly held the ladder for Baldwin to climb. He was soon back, his face grim and forbidding ‘We must fetch the Coroner.’
‘I’m here,’ Coroner Roger said from the doorway. He clambered up the ladder and while Simon waited below, the two men took in the scene.
‘There’s no need to guess how they died,’ Coroner Roger said.
‘No,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘Both in agony, both contorted, both vomiting and emptying their bowels.’
‘Quite. So both were poisoned, although it looks like Nick beat his wife before they died,’ Roger said thickly. ‘Who did this? And how?’
‘I cannot help but feel guilty for this,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘I should have guessed what was likely to happen as soon as I had spoken to Jolinde. I should have guessed… Especially with what my wife told me last night. I should have guessed.’
Coroner Roger eyed him for a moment without speaking. ‘You think you know who killed these two?’
Baldwin shook his head regretfully. ‘Coroner, I know who murdered Ralph, who murdered Peter, who attempted to poison Adam, and who killed these two as well. I only wish I had been more wise last night. Come. I shall take you to the murderer.’
He turned to the ladder and slowly descended, his heart full of despondency. Like a tapestry, Baldwin knew that an enquiry into a murder would throw up coloured threads which, if arranged correctly, would create a picture that was instantly recognisable. So many of the loose cords had been in his hands the previous night, yet he had not managed to complete the picture until that last comment from the baker’s girl. If only he had not been so tired the night before, these two people might not have died.
Walking with the pensive gait of a doomed man, he left the house of death and went into the road. The young woman was still holding the boy, while near her the idiot boy had covered his face with his hands. Behind them a man leaned against a wall, his face shadowed under an overhang. A small gathering of neighbours stood near to hand, murmuring resentfully among themselves.