Corbett watched her curiously. Here he was in this haunted, unhallowed place, the sky visible through the beams above, the cold wind sending the flames dancing. Before him the remains of some poor woman and this widow telling eerie stories about Melford’s dark past.
‘Anyway,’ Sorrel continued, ‘I paid him no heed. I told you people talk about the murders, other women disappearing. I saw it as no business of mine.’
‘Until after Furrell disappeared?’
‘Yes. Now I reasoned that Furrell would never enter someone’s house. The night he disappeared he didn’t visit the Golden Fleece or any tavern or alehouse in or around Melford. I reasoned that if he had been killed, it must have been out in the countryside and his corpse secretly buried. I began to search.’ She bit her lip. ‘Shall we put the remains back?’
‘In a while,’ Corbett replied softly. ‘Continue your story, Mistress.’
‘I won’t be held responsible?’
‘You will not be held responsible,’ Corbett confirmed. ‘But,’ he added wryly, ‘I wish you to add flesh to the bones.’
She laughed at the macabre joke. ‘Furrell was once an outlaw. He knew all about Sherwood and the other great forests north of the Trent. He told me how outlaws, if they killed a traveller, would never take the body far but bury it near the road or trackway where they’d planned their ambush. The places Furrell told me to stay away from were always near a trackway or path. Now, you have seen Devil’s Oak and Falmer Lane. If you were a bird, master clerk, yes. .’ She closed her eyes. ‘Imagine yourself a falcon flying above the meadows and fields around Melford. Go on, close your eyes!’
Corbett did so. ‘Strange,’ he murmured. ‘The day is not clear but grey and overcast.’
‘Good,’ Sorrel agreed. ‘Now, remember the fields on either side of Falmer Lane — they roll and dip, don’t they? The lanes and trackways are deep, more like trenches through the countryside. That’s what Furrell called them.’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve thought of that,’ Corbett agreed. ‘It’s a vision enhanced by the high hedgerows.’
‘That’s the work of the sheep farmers-’
Corbett opened his eyes. ‘What are you implying?’ he interrupted.
‘A poacher,’ she replied, ‘always stays within cover. He will, where possible, always scurry along a ditch or a hedgerow. It’s common sense. One side is protected and he does not want to be caught out in the open. Rabbits and pheasants do the same. The night Furrell disappeared, he must have followed the hedgerows down to a certain place to meet someone. He was probably killed there.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘And his poor corpse buried. Good, I thought, that’s where I’ll begin.’
‘But I saw you in a copse well away from Devil’s Oak?’
‘Patience,’ Sorrel murmured. ‘I mentioned one path Furrell would take but he also favoured the secret copse, the hidden clump of trees. I searched both places. In my first week, Sir Hugh,’ she tapped the skull, ‘I found this. It was behind a hedgerow down near Hamden Mere, a place Furrell had warned me to keep well clear of. I was curious. I dug, no more than a foot, and came across the grave, just a shallow in the ground, the remains tossed in. I noticed the ring, bracelet and piece of girdle. I was going to leave it there but my conscience pricked me. Here was I, searching for poor Furrell’s corpse yet I couldn’t give these pathetic remains proper burial. I don’t trust Blidscote, or any of those wealthy burgesses. I thought of going to see Parson Grimstone, but who’d believe me? I took the ring as payment, wrapped the skeleton in a leather sheet and brought it here.’
‘This was once the chapel, wasn’t it?’ Corbett asked. ‘In your eyes, a holy place?’
‘Yes. I later regretted my charity.’
‘Why?’ Corbett asked.
‘I found two more graves,’ she confessed.
‘What!’
‘I tell you, I found two more graves. That’s why I called the killer of those young women a weasel but. .’ She paused.
‘What?’ Corbett asked.
‘How do we know these poor women were murdered? I’ve examined these bones. There’s no blow to the head. No mark to the ribs. Nothing!’
Corbett got to his feet. His fingers felt cold and he stretched out towards the warmth from the sconce torch. What do we have here? he thought, staring into the heart of the flame. Sorrel was an expert poacher. She knew the land around Melford. He’d met similar people on his own estates. They could tell if the ground had been disturbed, what animals had passed along which trackways. Furrell must have discovered these graves scattered around the countryside. Being shrewd and clever, he must have disturbed them, realised what he had found, covered them over and, because of superstition, kept Sorrel well away from them. She, in turn, when looking for his grave, sharp-eyed and remembering what she had learnt, had found one grave: out of respect or superstition, she’d then moved the pathetic remains to this ruined chapel. But were they murder victims?
‘What do you think, master clerk?’
‘They could be murder victims.’ Corbett spoke his own thoughts. ‘They could be the prey of the slayer of Elizabeth Wheelwright and the others but, there again, another killer could be responsible, years earlier. Look at the skeleton. The flesh and clothes have all decayed — nothing but brittle, yellowing bone. Indeed, these graves may have nothing to do with murder.’ He sat back on the floor. ‘In London, Mistress Sorrel, beggars die every night on the streets, particularly during wintertime. Their bodies are buried in the mud flats along the Thames, out on the moorlands or even in someone’s garden. Melford is a prosperous place,’ he continued. ‘Think of the young girls from Norwich and Ipswich, the Moon People and the travellers. A woman sickens and dies of the fever or, frail with age, suffers an accident. What do these people do? They leave the trackway. They don’t go very far but dig a shallow grave, place the woman’s corpse there in some lonely copse or wood. A skeleton does not mean a murder,’ he concluded. ‘We don’t even know when this poor woman died. Do you still have the ring?’
She shook her head. ‘I traded it with a pedlar for needles and thread.’
Corbett examined the bracelet. ‘It’s certainly copper, the damp earth has turned it green.’ He held it up against the flame. ‘But I would say. .’
‘What, clerk?’
Corbett took out his dagger and tapped it against the bracelet.
‘It’s not pure copper,’ he confirmed. ‘But some cheap tawdry ornament. The same probably goes for the clothes and the girdle.’
He crouched down beside the skeleton and examined it carefully. Sorrel was correct. None of the ribs was broken, nor could Corbett detect any fracture of the skull, arms or legs. He examined the chest, the line of the spine: no mark or contusion.
‘The effects of the garrotte string,’ he murmured,
‘would disappear with decay. How many more of these graves did you say?’
‘Two more and the bodies are no less decayed than this.’
Corbett, mystified, replaced the bracelet. He rearranged the bones back on to the board, covered them with the cloth and slid them back into the recess. Sorrel replaced the bricks; Corbett helped her. He tried to recall his conversations with his friend, a physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.
‘You found no string? Nothing round the throat?’ he asked.
‘No, I didn’t.’
Corbett was about to continue his questioning when he heard a sound. He got to his feet and moved to the window.
‘You have sharp ears, clerk.’ Sorrel remained composed.
‘I thought I heard a horse or pony, a rider. .’
‘I told you, someone I wished you to meet,’ she explained.
Corbett, one hand on his dagger, stood by the window. He heard the jingle of a harness. Whoever had arrived had already crossed the bridge. An owl hooted but the sound came from below. Sorrel went to the window and imitated the same call. She grasped Corbett’s hand.