Corbett cradled the cup in his hands. ‘Then let me act the lawyer, Mistress. For the sake of argument let’s assume that Sir Roger left and did not return. The killer comes tripping down the lane.’ He paused. ‘So what would happen? The murderer tapped on the door, Widow Walmer must have been so assured that she opened it and let her assassin in. So sure of him, she probably turned her back and that’s when he slipped the garrotte string around her throat. I have seen similar murders in London. It doesn’t take someone long to learn how to use the garrotte: it’s silent and very quick. I don’t know,’ he rubbed his face, ‘whether he first made her lose consciousness, then raped her, or just defiled her dead body. What I am sure of is that he didn’t wear a mummer’s mask. Widow Walmer would never have let such a creature into her house. So, whom would she allow in?’
‘The list is endless,’ Sorrel replied. ‘Sir Louis, Taverner Matthew, Repton the reeve, who was sweet on her. Parson Grimstone, Burghesh, Curate Bellen. Even Molkyn and Thorkle can’t be ignored.’
Corbett rocked himself backwards and forwards on the stool. Why would a widow, he wondered, open her door at the dead of night? There again, she was respectable. She had the protection of a man like Sir Roger. If her visitor was a worthy burgess or priest from Melford. .?
‘The killer,’ he declared, ‘must have used some pretext to get into her house.’
‘That would be easy,’ Sorrel smiled. ‘Widow Walmer was full of wine and happiness. Perhaps the visitor posed as a messenger from Sir Roger?’ She caught Corbett’s sideways glance. ‘I know what you are thinking, clerk!’
‘What am I thinking, Mistress?’
‘Furrell, he was a poacher, wasn’t he? Well liked by Widow Walmer. He was near her cottage that night. Widow Walmer would see him as no threat. Furrell had squeezed the life out of many a pheasant or partridge.’
‘I am thinking that,’ Corbett agreed. ‘And you must have thought the same in the days following Sir Roger’s execution.’
‘That’s why I told Furrell to keep his mouth shut. I pointed out how people might begin to think, perhaps regret Sir Roger’s death and point the finger at him. I told him I didn’t want to hear any more about the business so he kept it to himself.’
‘Did he ever hint that he knew the truth?’
‘Sometimes. Once he mentioned Repton the reeve but, as I have said, he’d grown secretive.’
‘Did he go anywhere? Meet anyone?’
‘If he did, he didn’t tell me.’
Corbett started as he heard a sound from the hall beyond. His horse whinnied. Corbett’s hand went to the dagger in his belt.
‘Oh, you are safe,’ Sorrel reassured him. ‘I’ve sat here many a night, clerk. I can tell one sound from another. We are alone.’ She grinned impishly. ‘Apart from the ghosts.’
‘And the night Furrell disappeared. You said he left one night?’
‘Furrell had stopped talking to me. Oh, we’d discuss the weather, what he’d poached, what goods we should buy. He also avoided the Golden Fleece and drank in other taverns. He’d grown very tense and watchful. He mumbled more and more about the devil. One night he left, all cloaked and hooded.’
‘Was he armed?’
‘Like me, a dagger and a cudgel. He never returned the next morning. I wondered if he had got drunk and was sleeping it off somewhere. Or had he been caught? I went out into Melford but no one had seen him. A week passed. One night I was praying before that statue. Autumn had come early. I remember a mist sweeping through the hall. Do you know, clerk,’ her eyes filled with tears, ‘I just knew Furrell was dead and buried somewhere so I began to wander the countryside. I didn’t believe the rumours. Furrell wouldn’t run away; he wouldn’t leave me or his house.’ She blinked quickly. ‘I am not fey-witted. I don’t really believe in visions or dreams but I used to have nightmares of Furrell’s corpse lying in some shallow, muddy grave all scarred and unhallowed. I remembered what he used to say. How, when he died, he wanted his body churched and blessed; a Mass sung for his soul.’
‘Did you go to see Parson Grimstone?’
‘Yes I did. Him and Master Burghesh were very kind. The parson said he’d sing a Mass for him and refused the coin I offered. I still want to find his grave. I’ve discovered many things — that’s what I want to show you — but not Furrell.’
‘Many things?’ Corbett queried.
‘Come with me.’
Sorrel put her cup down. She took a torch from the wall, handed it to Corbett and grasped one herself. She led him back into the hall, across the courtyard and in through a small stone-fretted door.
‘Take care,’ she warned as she led him up some weather-worn steps.
Corbett followed warily. The steps were narrow, steep and slippery. They reached a stairwell. Corbett steeled his nerves against the scampering rats. At last they reached a long, narrow room very similar to the hall. The roof was gone, the plaster walls soaked by the wind and rain. Corbett could tell by the shape of the empty windows, the small platform at the far end and the recesses in the walls, that this must have been the manor chapel.
‘I want to show you something.’
A bird, disturbed by their arrival, abruptly burst from where it was nesting in the rafters and flew up into the night sky. Corbett closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He fought back the waves of weariness. He should be back at the Golden Fleece but, on their journey into Melford, Corbett had repeated to Ranulf and Chanson, time and again, how quickly they must act.
‘We must take people by surprise,’ he’d told them, ‘not give them time to concoct stories.’
‘Master clerk, are you asleep?’
Corbett opened his eyes. The torch felt heavy, he lowered it and smiled in apology.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
Sorrel was now taking away bricks from the wall. Corbett joined her; he realised that a recess lay beyond. Sorrel told him to stand back and pulled out a makeshift platter.
‘Part of a doorway,’ she explained.
She threw back the dirty linen sheet. Corbett stared in disbelief at the skeleton which sprawled there. He lowered the torch. The bones were yellowing with age. The jaw sagged, the blackened teeth had crumbled, faint tufts of hair still clung to the skull. He muttered a prayer, moved the bones and glimpsed the tawdry, green-tinted bracelet lying beneath.
‘What is this?’ he murmured. ‘A former inhabitant of Beauchamp Place?’
‘No, no,’ she replied. ‘All its owners were buried in the parish graveyard. I put this here.’
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’
‘Oh come, master clerk.’ Sorrel took the bracelet from his fingers. ‘You know the old law. Whoever finds the corpse falls immediately under suspicion. You know what they’d say? “Were you involved in this, Sorrel? Is this the work of your man, Furrell? Is that why he fled?”
‘They’ll say the same if they come here.’
Sorrel shook her head. ‘I’ll be sly. I’ll say I never knew the bones were here. I know nothing of them. Perhaps they belonged to a lady or maid who once lived here.’
‘So, you know it’s a woman?’
Sorrel closed her eyes. ‘Of course it’s a woman, hence the bracelet. I also found a cheap ring, the remnants of a girdle. I kept them as treasure.’
Corbett, still holding the torch, sat down on the cold damp floor.
‘But why, Sorrel? What is this skeleton doing here?’
She took the torch out of his hand and stuck it into a niche in the wall; she did the same with hers, then she made herself comfortable before him.
‘You’ll tell no one,’ she warned. ‘I won’t be troubled because of this. I am as innocent as a child.’
‘Tell me,’ Corbett insisted.
Sorrel rubbed her face in her hands. ‘Furrell was a very good poacher. He knew all the trackways and wood lore. When I used to go hunting with him, he’d always tell me to stay away from this place or that. I asked him why. That’s when he told me how Melford used to be, about the sacrifices. He tried to frighten me with stories of the dead wandering the woods.’ She laughed abruptly. ‘He just wanted me to be safe on dark nights, indoors by the fire.’