‘When did she come here?’
‘About two months ago. Said she had had to run from London, as she had stabbed her keeper, who was beating her for holding back some money. Sounded like the truth, for once.’
John looked behind the screen and saw a bundle tied up in a scarf, lying on the bed. Ignoring the fleas that hopped on the sacking cover of the pallet, he untied it and, in the dim light under the thatch, looked cursorily at two gaudy dresses, a gauze shift, some stockings that matched the one that had been around her neck and a cloth bag containing a dirty hairbrush and a tiny pot of rouge.
‘No money, I see. There was nothing on her body, either.’
Willem sneered again. ‘A girl like that would be too wise to leave a ha’penny lying here. It would be stolen within two minutes. She’ll have stashed her funds in a hole somewhere. Harlots never carry it on their person — most of their customers would cut their throat for the price of a drink. Maybe that’s what happened, anyway. Why are you bothering about a dead strumpet?’
De Wolfe ignored him and clambered back down the steps. At the door, he had one last question. ‘When did you last see this Joanna?’
The Fleming scowled at him. ‘I don’t mark the comings and goings of every whore who uses this place. She was around sometime yesterday, as far as I recall. In the morning, I think.’
They left the Saracen with some relief, Gwyn scratching vigorously after having added to the colony of fleas that normally lived in his clothing. As they loped up Smythen Street, past the clanging of the forges to where St John’s Row turned through to Fore Street, Gwyn vented his opinion of the Saracen and Willem the Fleming, his description coloured by a string of oaths.
‘But, for once, I think he has no involvement in this,’ grunted de Wolfe. ‘The business with the Biblical quotations makes this a more sinister affair than just the casual croaking of a harlot.’
They passed St John’s church and crossed the main street then turned again into the narrow lanes at the top of Bretayne to reach St Nicholas’s, squelching through a rivulet of sewage that ran down the middle of the alley and pushing aside goats and a pig. Inside the gate, the compound around the monastic building was well kept, compared to the squalor outside. A cobbled area lay around the walls and outside was a garden where the monks grew vegetables and herbs. A few fruit trees around the boundary fence were well into leaf.
A score of men hung around the door to the mortuary, watched suspiciously by two monks set there by the prior to prevent them stealing anything. Thomas was there too, looking as unhappy as ever, his lips making silent conversation with some invisible being.
‘Let’s get on with this, there’s hangings to be attended afterwards,’ snapped the coroner, going to the storeroom door and flinging it open. He heard the lane gate scrape open and turned back to see Nesta coming in, with one of her serving-maids in attendance. As the discoverer of the body, she was obliged to be present at the inquest and had covered herself for the occasion with a decorously dull-green cloak with a hood that covered her linen coif and burnished copper hair. Old Edwin limped gallantly behind them, grasping a knobbly staff in his fist, to guard them through this disreputable part of the city.
Gwyn marshalled the jury to each side of the door, like a dog with a flock of sheep. They were all last night’s drinkers from the Bush, with the two constables at each end. A handful of old men and goodwives from the nearby hovels came in to listen at the back — a dead whore was a welcome diversion from the sordid routine of life in Bretayne.
Gwyn gabbled his usual royal command to open the inquest and Thomas squatted on a keg just inside the storeroom, with his parchment and pens on a piece of board across his knees. John stood in the open doorway to conduct the proceedings and, after a quick preamble, asked Nesta to step forward. With a dead-pan face, he asked her to identify herself, then went on to question her. She answered demurely, with downcast eyes, and although almost everyone there knew that she was the coroner’s mistress, not an eyebrow lifted and not a smirk passed across a face. ‘Lady, can you put a name to the deceased from your own knowledge — and were you the First Finder?’
Nesta said softly but clearly that the woman was known as Joanna of London and that she had frequented her hostelry a number of times, even though prostitutes were not encouraged there. She had last seen her in the Bush late last night, then described how she had gone out to her brew-house some time before midnight to attend to her latest batch of mash. She had taken a horn lantern, but had tripped over something in the shadows and almost fallen. It was then that she had seen the dead girl lying on her back. She had screamed and run to the back door of the inn, where Edwin was coming out to investigate, followed by several of the patrons.
‘A nd was a Hue and Cry made straight away?’ demanded de Wolfe, with deliberate sternness.
‘It was indeed! Some of the men rushed around the yard to make sure no one was lurking there — they looked in the kitchen, the privy, the brew-house and even the pig-sty. Others ran out of the gate and searched the wasteground in Idle Lane and went as far as Priest Street, Stepcote Hill and Smythen Street. But they found nothing suspicious, so they called Osric, the constable, then sent Edwin up to the castle, where he found Gwyn of Polruan.’
The coroner had one last question, which he had genuinely forgotten to ask Nesta back at the Bush. ‘There was a drinking cup near the dead girl’s hand. Do you know where it may have come from?’
The landlady shook her head. ‘Gwyn showed it to me last night, but it’s not one from the Bush. Mine come from a different potter.’
De Wolfe thanked her gravely and Nesta stepped back to stand with her maid. Then a succession of jurors was called, those who had been involved in chasing around the streets of Exeter in the middle of the night. They all told the same story, confirmed by Osric and his fellow constable when they gave their evidence.
As with the inquest on Aaron, John felt no obligation to mention the writing and the strange circumstances, so there was little else to be said. The jurors had to view the corpse, so they paraded through the storeroom, where Gwyn showed them the stocking that had been around Joanna’s neck, then pointed out the strangulation groove on her skin and the bloody wound on the back of her head.
Outside again, de Wolfe concluded the proceedings in short order. ‘The dead woman is Joanna, a whore reputed to be from London, as her striped hood would confirm. She lodged at the Saracen, but they know nothing of her movements last night. As she is a woman, there is no need to present Englishry, which would be impossible, anyway, as she is a stranger. The cause of death is clear. She was struck on the head to relieve her of her wits, a blow that broke her cranium and which alone would have killed her within hours. But before she died she was throttled with one of her own stockings — a spare one, as she was wearing two, but it matches some that were found with her chattels at the Saracen. Dame Madge from Polsloe Priory has earlier this morning examined the girl on my behalf and found certain injuries of a depraved and licentious nature, which need not be described to you in any detail. It seems likely that they were inflicted immediately after death.’
He paused to glower around the half-circle of uneasy jurors.
‘So the verdict is yours, but I am sure you will find that her death was murder against the King’s peace, by person or persons as yet unknown.’
There was no disputing de Wolfe’s direction, and minutes later, the jury was streaming through the gate, heading back to the Bush for a few reviving quarts of ale.
Only a few yards away from the scene of the inquest, stood another of Exeter’s plethora of churches. Indeed, the thirsty jurors had to pass St Olave’s on their way back the Bush, though at that moment, praising the Lord was not on the minds of the few that happened to notice the incumbent standing at the door, which opened directly on to Fore Street.