A Summer of Discontent

‘No,’ said John, thoughtfully. ‘In each case, Mackerell the fisherman took his boat to fetch the bodies back to dry land. And it would have been disrespectful to drag them across the mud anyway — regardless of the fact that all three were miserable sinners who will not be missed. The bodies were taken from the boat, laid on a bier and brought here.’

‘The next thing I noted was that on each body there is slight grazing on the right side of the head and face,’ Bartholomew went on.

‘Could that be from when they were rolled from the boat to the bier?’ asked Michael.

‘Unlikely,’ said Bartholomew. ‘John says the corpses were treated with respect — at least until they reached the church.’ He shot an admonishing glance at the priest.

‘Then they may have damaged themselves when they fell — or were pushed — into the water,’ suggested John.

‘I thought the same, but the grazing is in the same place on all three corpses,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It occurs on the right cheek and ear. And it is the opposite cheek and ear that show the traces of mud.’

‘But what does that mean?’ asked John. ‘That they each went head-first into the water and hit themselves on the bottom somehow?’

‘Look at this,’ said Bartholomew, ignoring the question and pointing to the cut at the base of Haywarde’s skull.

‘I hope you are not telling me that caused Haywarde’s death,’ said John in disbelief.

Bartholomew understood his scepticism. The wound was not very large, although it was deep. ‘The cut may be tiny, but it has been made at a very vulnerable point. I think these men were forced to lie on the ground, probably somewhere muddy, and their heads held still by something placed across one ear.’

‘Like this,’ said Michael, making a grab for the priest. John yelped in alarm, but he was too slight and far too slow to evade Michael’s lunge. The monk, for all his ample girth, was a strong man with very fast reactions. He wrestled the priest to the ground, holding him there with a hefty knee in the middle of the back.

‘Let me go!’ howled John, struggling ineffectually against the monk’s bulk. He turned his head to one side to relieve the pressure on his neck, so that one cheek rested on the smooth stone of the floor.

‘Exactly,’ said Bartholomew, nodding at the instinctive position the priest had taken. ‘And while the head was turned one way, the murderer placed something across his head to hold him still, possibly a foot or a knee.’

Michael placed one foot gently across John’s face. Bartholomew noted that it covered the arch of the cheek and the ear, which was precisely where the abrasions on all three victims had been located.

‘And then, while the victim lay trapped and helpless, unable to do a thing to save himself, the killer took a sharp implement and drove it into that spot at the base of the skull. The wound occurs precisely between the top two neck bones, and the tip of the weapon would have been driven into the point where the brain meets the spine.’

‘No!’ shrieked John as Bartholomew knelt next to him, one of his small surgical knives in his hand to illustrate the point. The physician touched the spot lightly, then indicated that Michael was to release the priest. John leapt to his feet and backed away from the Michaelhouse men in terror.

‘You are insane!’ he whispered. ‘You could have killed me, right here, on the floor of my own church!’

‘It is not your church,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘This is St Mary’s and you are chaplain of Holy Cross. But you see how it might have been done? It would not need a very large implement to damage the delicate tissues in that area. In fact, a smaller implement is probably better, because then you would not be trying to force a blade through bone but into the gap between them.’

‘And then I suppose the killer pushed the bodies into the river, so that any casual observer would believe that they had thrown themselves in,’ mused Michael.

John was unable to repress a shudder. ‘It is well known in the city that the river slows at the Monks’ Hythe, and that anything dropped upstream will fetch up there, where it is shallow and full of weeds.’

‘That explains the weed in the hair and clothes of all three victims,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And as long as people believed they committed suicide — or had an accident — rather than being murdered, there was no need for the killer to hide the corpses.’

‘But why would these men warrant being murdered?’ asked John in a low voice. ‘What could they have done to inspire someone to slay them in so horrible a manner? I know they were not liked, but that does not mean they deserved to die.’

‘The deaths were premeditated,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully.

‘How do you arrive at that conclusion?’ asked John suspiciously. He gestured to the two corpses. ‘There is nothing here to allow you to speculate about that.’