‘The Mortimers seem to have done rather well out of the King so far,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘He sold Edward a pardon.’
‘Not the King,’ said Bernarde sharply. ‘His clerks. They are the corrupt ones, not His Majesty. We rent this mill from the King, and I do not want treasonous comments muttered in it, thank you very much. I do not want him to take it away from me – or to find against us in favour of the Mortimers in this dispute about water.’
‘Never mind that now,’ said Michael. He heaved himself up from his sacks and walked unsteadily to Bottisham’s body, where he knelt and began to fumble for the holy oil he kept in his scrip. Bartholomew and Bernarde were silent as he said his prayers, accompanied only by the whisper of water under the wheel and the distant hoot of an owl. When the monk had finished with Bottisham, he went to do the same for Deschalers.
‘I am sorry, Brother,’ said Bernarde softly when the monk eventually completed his sorry task. ‘I did not know Bottisham well, but he was a kind man. He visited Isnard the bargeman several times after his accident, and took him spare food from Gonville Hall’s kitchen.’
Michael looked away, and when he spoke, there was a catch in his voice. ‘This has not been a good week. First, there was Master Lenne and Isnard, and now there is Bottisham.’
‘And Deschalers,’ added Bartholomew. While he had not much liked the haughty grocer, he was still saddened that he had died in such a manner, especially given that he had been so ill. But then he thought about Bottisham, and was sorrier still. The lawyer had been courteous and compassionate, and Cambridge would be a poorer place without his gentle, kindly humanity.
Michael took a deep breath to pull himself together. He coughed as dust caught in his throat, and gratefully accepted a gulp of the strong wine Bartholomew kept in his bag for medicinal purposes. He tried to speak, coughed again, and drained what was left in the flask. He handed the empty container back to his startled companion, cleared his throat, and began to speak, becoming businesslike in an attempt to disguise his distress.
‘The question we must answer is why a wealthy and fastidious town merchant should be found dead in a mill with a lawyer from Gonville. If Deschalers’s was the only body here, I would say you could be right, Bernarde: the Mortimers did away with him. But his death makes no sense when combined with the murder of poor Bottisham. He is not a member of your Society, is he?’
Bernarde shook his head. ‘Gonville scholars patronise other mills.’
Michael wiped his forehead with his linen and went to sit on the sacks again. ‘Since both these men died in an identical manner, we must assume their deaths are related. It cannot be coincidence. But what is their connection?’
‘They have known each other for a long time,’ said Bartholomew. He had spent some of his childhood in Cambridge, whereas Michael hailed from Causton in Norfolk and had only lived in the town for a decade or so. ‘I vaguely recall a legal matter many years ago, which threw them together.’
Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘Can you be more precise? What kind of legal matter? What was it about? And when?’
‘A long time ago,’ repeated Bartholomew helplessly. ‘I recall my sister talking about it, but I do not remember the details. You must ask someone else.’
‘It was something about a contested field,’ said Bernarde, scratching his head as he, too, searched distant memories. ‘Deschalers hired Bottisham to prove that he owned some piece of land, but they lost the case. Is that the incident you mean, Bartholomew? It was years ago. I imagine they would have forgotten about it by now.’
‘You are probably right,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘An ancient lawsuit will have no bearing on what happened today. You will need to look elsewhere for your answers, Brother.’
‘So, what else can you tell me, then?’ asked Michael. ‘Other than that they were both murdered by some deranged killer, who then hurled their corpses into the machinery?’ He sounded angry.
But Bartholomew could add little more. He was deeply repelled by the grisly nature of the crime, although he had been careful to maintain an outwardly professional indifference; revealing his own shock would not have helped Michael. He was also disturbed by the disrespectful way the bodies had been treated, and was aware of a burning desire to see the perpetrator brought to justice. However, none of this meant he could tell the monk anything useful to catch the killer – or killers – and all he could do was speculate.
‘Perhaps Deschalers and Bottisham were pushed into the machinery to hide the fact that they had been murdered?’ he suggested tentatively. ‘Master Bernarde said it had been disengaged for the night, which suggests someone restarted it for a reason.’
‘But it did not work,’ countered Michael. ‘You saw almost immediately what had happened with the nails.’
‘But it might have done, had Bernarde not rushed here so quickly and stopped the wheel to prevent further damage to the bodies.’
‘Did you see anyone leaving?’ asked Michael of Bernarde. ‘Or hear anything else?’
‘I heard another change in pitch as I was running towards the mill,’ replied Bernarde, still scratching his pate as he struggled to remember. ‘That must have been the second body hitting the cogs. When I reached the outside door, it was open, so I locked it behind me as I came in …’
‘You locked yourself inside?’ interrupted Michael. ‘Why did you do that?’
Bernarde shrugged. ‘Habit, I suppose. This is a large building, and my apprentices and I always lock the door when we are in it alone. There is a lot of valuable grain in here – and it is especially valuable now, at the end of winter, when supplies are low and demand is high.’ He jangled the large bunch of keys that always hung at his belt.
‘So, once the door was locked, the killer could not have escaped from inside?’ asked Michael.
‘No,’ said Bernarde. ‘But that assumes he was in here when I arrived, and he was not. No one was – other than Deschalers and Bottisham – and I saw no one leave.’
‘Is there another door?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Or a window?’
Bernarde shook his head. ‘All the windows are shuttered for the night. You can see for yourselves that they are all barred from the inside. That front door is the only way in or out.’
‘But you said you heard the second body fall when you were running towards the mill,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘That means the killer was still inside when you arrived, or you would have seen him come through the door. He must have been here – there are a lot of places to hide.’
‘No one was here,’ said Bernarde firmly. ‘And there are not as many hiding places as you might think, because everywhere is full of grain right now. Also, we would be able to see footprints in the dust if someone had dashed away to hide, and you can see there are none – other than our own. The only place a third party could have been is here, in this chamber, and then I would have seen him.’
‘So,’ concluded Michael. ‘The killer was here when you raced towards the mill, because you heard him performing his gruesome work, but he was not here when you arrived? He did not leave through the door, or you would have seen him, and there is no other way out?’
‘That is correct,’ said Bernarde firmly. He had the grace to look bemused. ‘It is odd, is it not?’
‘Very,’ agreed Michael, eyeing him in an unfriendly manner. ‘If not impossible.’
‘Then perhaps there was no killer,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps we were right with our first theory: that Bottisham and Deschalers killed each other.’
Michael and Bernarde started to argue. The monk was certain Bottisham was too gentle to turn killer, while Bernarde maintained that Deschalers would have hired someone else to commit murder and would not have done it himself. Bartholomew listened to them and became increasingly troubled. No matter how the situation was presented, there was no mistaking the fact that a scholar and a townsman had been murdered. He hoped their deaths would not pre-empt a bloody battle between town and University. He turned his attention to the bodies again. He did not like the notion of them remaining in the machinery overnight, so he began the unpleasant process of extricating them.