‘You are not surprised to hear that Deschalers and Katherine were close?’ asked Bartholomew.
Tulyet shrugged. ‘Katherine and my wife were friends, and I have known about her relationship with Deschalers for years. He was deeply hurt when Katherine decided it was too risky to have a lover in the house next door – the affair meant far more to him than it did to her. She soon found herself a replacement, but he never did. Apparently, you kept running into them, Matt, and Katherine was afraid you might say something to her husband.’
‘But she was not afraid her son might tell?’ asked Michael curiously.
Tulyet shrugged a second time. ‘Edward detested his father, so was only too pleased to see him made a cuckold. So, if he did arrange for Deschalers to die, it would not have been over Katherine.’
‘What, then?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Is there another motive?’
‘None that I know – other than to make trouble between town and University by having a scholar and a merchant murdered in the same place. He hates us, because we were instrumental in his capture. What better way to avenge himself on Sheriff and Senior Proctor than to present us with an unsolvable crime? We will look incompetent, and it will bring about riots at the same time.’
Michael was thoughtful. ‘I thought they would be here for a week or so, try to dispatch one or two “enemies”, and then disappear when they see everyone is watching them. But they seem intent on staying and making careers for themselves.’
Tulyet agreed. ‘They are settling in more comfortably than I would like – even attending meetings of the burgesses. Edward refused to work in his father’s bakery, and is helping at Mortimer’s Mill instead. Meanwhile, Thorpe has been accepted into Gonville Hall to study. He tried his luck at Valence Marie first, but his father declines to have anything to do with him.’
‘He had the gall to apply to Michaelhouse, too,’ added Michael. ‘Damned cheek! Pulham told me that Gonville had accepted Thorpe because he offered to sew altar cloths and chasubles for their new chapel. He learned how to make them during his apprenticeship with your brother-in-law, Matt.’
Bartholomew was troubled. ‘Why not ask them to leave Cambridge, Dick? No one wants them here – with the exception of the Mortimer clan, of course. And perhaps now Gonville.’
Tulyet looked pained. ‘How can I? They have the King’s Pardon. If I were to banish them, then I am effectively saying that the King was wrong to invite them back to England. And that is treason. So, there is nothing I can do unless we actually catch them committing a crime.’
‘Damn Constantine Mortimer!’ said Michael. ‘He was the one who purchased these pardons.’
Tulyet shook his head in despair. ‘The Mortimers are already quarrelling with the Millers’ Society over the issue of water, and I am sure Edward has turned the dispute more bitter. The Millers’ Society thinks Bottisham and Deschalers were murdered in connection with the dispute, although I do not see why.’ He scrubbed at his eyes, frustrated by so many questions and so few answers.
They were silent again, as each tried to envisage a solution that would fit the evidence. How did one man come to drive a nail into the palate of another? Did he choose that method because he hoped it would be undetectable once the machinery had done its work? Was he hoping both deaths would be seen as accidents? But whatever solution Bartholomew devised merely left him with more questions, and he saw he would not solve the riddle until he had more information.
Tulyet reached for his cloak. ‘Thorpe and Mortimer are still drinking in the King’s Head, so I cannot stay here too long, lest they make trouble. You know what a volatile place that is.’
‘They are there now?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘But it is the middle of the night!’
‘If Thorpe is now a scholar, then I can fine him for being in a tavern,’ said Michael, downing the last of the wine and preparing to carry out his duty immediately.
‘No,’ said Tulyet, putting out a hand to stop him. ‘He is trying to antagonise us, to see how far he can go. The best thing you can do is have a word with Gonville, and see if they will dismiss him. If all the Colleges refuse to house him, he may move on – perhaps to Oxford.’
‘You assume he wants to study,’ said Michael. ‘But he is no more eager to learn his Aristotle than Edward is to become a miller. They have other reasons for inflicting their presence on us.’
‘True,’ said Tulyet. ‘They were found guilty of all manner of crimes – most of which they freely admitted. But their guilt will not prevent them from wanting revenge on us all.’
‘I do not understand,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘How can they want revenge when they know they are in the wrong?’
‘Because they were caught,’ said Tulyet. ‘And that rankles.’
Michael and Bartholomew returned to the King’s Mill early the following morning to inspect the building in daylight. It was William’s turn to recite the daily mass again, and he shot through the office at such a speed that there was ample time to visit the mill and search for clues among its dusty corners before teaching began at eight o’clock. They explored every crack and crevice in the rambling building, but to no avaiclass="underline" there was nothing to help them ascertain what had caused Bottisham and Deschalers to die in such bizarre circumstances. Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration, wanting desperately to find something that would tell him what had happened, but not knowing where else to look or what else to do.
‘You see this dust?’ asked Bernarde, pointing to a thick, even layer of grainy-grey powder that lay across the floor. ‘It has not been disturbed since my boy swept it last night. Watch.’
He took a few steps across it, keys bouncing importantly at his waist, and Bartholomew saw his footprints quite clearly as they left a distinctive trail behind him.
‘We always sweep the floor before retiring for the evening,’ Bernarde went on. ‘Then we bag up the dust and sell it at a reduced rate to the lepers at Stourbridge. The only footprints when I arrived last night were the ones made by Bottisham and Deschalers, as they came in through the door and made for this end of the building. These have now been overlain by our own. But you can see for yourselves that no one went anywhere else to hide – as you suggested yesterday. There would be marks leading to his hiding place, and there are none.’
‘So, this really does discount the possibility of a third party,’ said Bartholomew, disheartened when he saw the miller was right. There were no trails leading to dark corners, and the killer would have been seen had he remained in the chamber with his victims. ‘Unless he escaped before the second body fell …’
‘Not possible,’ countered Bernarde immediately. ‘I left my house very quickly after I heard the machinery engage, and I would have seen anyone leaving. I am sorry, Doctor, but there were only two men here last night: Bottisham and Deschalers.’
Bartholomew wandered outside, to see whether there were windows or cracks that might be used to effect an escape, but mills suffered from interested rats and tended to be fairly well sealed. There was no other exit, except a gate high on the upper floor that was used to hoist sacks of grain to the storage bins. But Bartholomew knew this had been barred from the inside the previous night, because he had seen it himself. He sat on the river bank and looked across the Mill Pool to Isnard’s cottage. Bottisham’s pleasant face kept swimming into his thoughts.
‘Bernarde could have killed one or both of them,’ he said, when Michael joined him.
The monk glanced behind him, to ensure the miller was not listening. ‘You would not say that if you heard the fuss he was making about bits of bone in his pinions – whatever they are. He is furious about it. Besides, Deschalers was a member of the Millers’ Society, and I do not see why Bernarde would do away with a colleague and an investor.’