Langelee was not very interested. He cocked his head to one side. ‘There go the bells to announce the midday meal. I will walk back to Michaelhouse with you.’
‘I want words with Weasenham first,’ said Michael. ‘The Visitation looms ever closer, and my solution to these crimes does not. Food will have to wait.’
Langelee and Bartholomew gaped at him. ‘You are willing to miss a meal?’ asked Bartholomew in disbelief. He became concerned. ‘Are you ill?’
‘I am perfectly healthy,’ snapped Michael haughtily. ‘At least, I think so, although it appears others do not. Thomas unnerved me yesterday with his predictions of my early death, and I have resolved to eat a little less from now on.’
Langelee looked pleased. ‘That should help the College finances. Will you be applying these new resolutions to wine, too?’
‘No,’ said Michael shortly. ‘Wine is good for a man, because it increases the amount of blood in his veins. It is only green vegetables that make him fat, especially peas, because they adhere to his liver. I shall forgo those completely, and in a couple of weeks I shall be as lean as Matt here.’
‘I think it might take a little longer than that,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘And peas do not . . .’
But Michael was already walking away, unwilling to hear that his dietary plans might be flawed. Bartholomew followed him to where the stationer was enjoying a brief respite from his labours. Most scholars preferred to be served by Alyce, particularly when they were in a hurry, because she fetched the goods they wanted, accepted their money and let them leave, whereas Weasenham waylaid them with chatter. With the Visitation only two days away, people were too busy to gossip, so while Alyce had a queue, Weasenham was temporarily at ease.
‘I have a question,’ said Michael, marching up to him. ‘Who told you to summon Matt for your toothache on Ascension Day? He came at the expense of fulfilling certain obligations to me.’
‘Then I am sorry, although it was hardly my fault. I sent for Rougham, but he was unavailable, so I asked Bartholomew instead. That is how these things work: if one man cannot help you, then you send for his rival. I was very satisfied with Bartholomew, in fact, although I will not hire him again because he is too friendly with you – and with that lecherous Langelee.’ Weasenham glowered at the Master, who was wrestling with the door but failing to open it because he was exchanging smouldering simpers with Alyce.
‘Why should his association with me be considered a negative?’ asked Michael archly.
‘You blackmail people, Brother,’ said Weasenham coldly. ‘I do not want Bartholomew giving you details of my ailments, which you can then use to expose me to ridicule.’
‘I would never do such a thing,’ objected Bartholomew, affronted by the insult to his professional integrity.
‘I do not know what you might do,’ snapped Weasenham. ‘How can I trust the word of a man who visits a prostitute night after night? And now you have led Doctor Rougham astray, too! I saw him sitting in Matilde’s window this morning, while his colleagues are under the impression that he is with his family in Norfolk. I suppose he will pretend to arrive home today, claiming he has been working for Gonville’s good, and all the while he has been enjoying himself here.’
‘You will say nothing about Rougham, unless you want me to tell folk that Langelee has made a cuckold of you,’ said Michael coldly. ‘Then you will learn first-hand how hurtful such chatter can be.’
Weasenham regarded the monk with such glittering hatred that Bartholomew was alarmed. He wondered to what lengths the stationer might go to avenge himself on the College that was home to his wife’s lover and the man who so brazenly subjected him to extortion.
‘You have not answered my question,’ said Michael. ‘Who told you to summon Matt? He says your case was not urgent, and that you could have waited until your regular physician was free – or even visited an apothecary for a remedy.’
‘It was urgent,’ insisted Weasenham. ‘I was in pain. And, as I have told you, I summoned him when my first choice of physicians was unavailable.’
‘Who told you Rougham was unavailable?’ asked Michael. ‘The Gonville porters? The messenger you used? Who?’
‘A customer,’ replied Weasenham. ‘He offered to fetch Rougham, because he said he had nothing else that was pressing. I rewarded him with a pot of my best green ink for his kindness, and thought no more about it.’
‘Who?’ insisted Michael.
‘Green ink,’ said Bartholomew, turning to Michael. ‘Who do you know who uses green ink?’
‘No one,’ said Michael. ‘It would be an odd thing to do when brown and black are available.’
‘Hamecotes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Hamecotes had a penchant for green ink.’
* * *
‘Hamecotes,’ said Michael as they left the shop. ‘We know he left Cambridge – perhaps heading for Oxford – on or just after Ascension Day. All his King’s Hall colleagues agree on that point.’
‘And it was on Ascension Day that he offered to fetch Rougham to tend Weasenham’s toothache,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Rougham was with Matilde by then, so could not have obliged, but Hamecotes did not summon him anyway. We know this for a fact, because Rougham’s students recorded all the consultations he missed, and Weasenham’s name is not on their list.’
‘He fetched you instead, so you would not be available to inspect Okehamptone. When I arrived – with the inept Paxtone in tow – the Oxford scholars harried me to be brief. They wanted to be done with Okehamptone’s body, so they could go about the far more important business of praying for his soul. Meanwhile, the Oxford merchants had some guild meeting they were desperate to attend. They were not the only ones rushing me: Tynkell did, too. He told me to be quick, because he did not want trouble between us and Oxford so close to the Visitation. I should have resisted them all.’
‘You probably thought Tynkell was right at the time,’ said Bartholomew soothingly. ‘You had no reason to think otherwise.’
‘That will teach me to bend to the will of others in an attempt to be placatory. I should have waited for you to become available. But let us go back to this tale. Hamecotes ensured you were out of the way, probably hoping I would dispense with the services of a Corpse Examiner altogether. I did the next best thing, which was to secure Paxtone’s help, not realising that he has an aversion to cadavers, and Okehamptone went to his grave unexamined.’
‘You have left something out. The evening before Okehamptone died, Rougham went to Merton Hall to visit him. He saw his friend through an open window, and said that although Okehamptone might have become ill later, he was healthy at that point. In other words, Rougham did not think he was on the brink of contracting a fatal fever.’
‘And Polmorva, who answered the door to Rougham, declined to let him in. So, is Hamecotes our killer? Did he murder Gonerby in Oxford, then do away with Okehamptone here? We know he had Oxford connections.’
‘And then bit out his own throat, before tying a rope around his legs and hurling himself in the cistern?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I do not think so!’
‘Was it suicide, then? Because he was overcome with remorse?’
‘Can you reach your throat with your own teeth, Brother? Of course not: it is impossible. But the fact that Okehamptone, Gonerby and Hamecotes were killed in a similar – if not identical – manner means there is certainly a connection between them. Still, at least this exonerates Clippesby.’
‘It does not. All it does is demonstrate that Hamecotes did not want Okehamptone’s death investigated. Clippesby might still be our man – or perhaps he was in league with Hamecotes.’
‘We cannot prove they even knew each other, let alone conspired to kill together,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘And all along you have been saying there is an Oxford dimension to these deaths. Clippesby has no links to Oxford. He loathes the place, and never goes there.’