A Summer of Discontent

‘I am sure they are,’ said Bartholomew. He changed the subject, before Leycestre could start preaching. Like many men who burned with the fire of his convictions, Leycestre was tedious company once he had started holding forth. ‘Do you know a man called Mackerell? He was supposed to meet Michael last night, but he never arrived.’

‘He drinks in the Mermaid,’ said Leycestre helpfully. ‘You should ask there for him.’

‘We tried, but no one seemed to know his whereabouts.’

Leycestre rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘He is Ely’s best fisherman, but the monks insist on buying all his eels for an absurdly low price. He is finding it increasingly difficult to manage on the wages they pay him, but they refuse to give him more.’

‘He found the bodies in the river,’ said Bartholomew, refusing to be side-tracked by Leycestre’s biased assessment of fish economics — Mackerell was not that poor. He had been reasonably well dressed and had declined Michael’s offer of free wine. ‘We wanted to know whether he noticed anything that might lead us to the killer.’

‘He might have done I suppose,’ said Leycestre. ‘He has certainly been acting a little oddly since he found them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Naturally, he was unsettled at being obliged to haul corpses from the river, but he makes his living by water and such men are used to drownings. However, I was surprised they bothered him as much as they seem to have done. He is a surly fellow at the best of times, but the discovery of these bodies has done nothing to improve his temper.’

‘Other than the gypsies, who you believe are responsible for everything bad, is there anyone else who might have committed those murders?’ Since Leycestre was a man who liked holding forth in taverns, Bartholomew wondered whether he had heard any rumours that he might be prepared to share.

‘None of us know who else it could be,’ came the disappointing answer. Bartholomew supposed he should not be surprised: Leycestre was rigid in his belief that the gypsies were the source of all evil.

‘And none of the three dead men had any particular enemies?’ he tried again.

Leycestre shrugged. ‘They all had a great number of enemies. You must have heard by now that they were not popular. Haywarde drank heavily and was inclined to fight; Glovere was a miserable pig who wronged people with his vicious tongue; and Chaloner had an annoying liking for the property of other people.’

‘A thief?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘No one has mentioned this before.’

‘Well, I suppose no one likes to speak ill of the dead. We do not want them returning from Purgatory to wander among us because we have unsettled their souls.’

Bartholomew smothered a smile. While that might usually be true, few Ely citizens seemed to have any qualms about saying exactly what they thought of Glovere, Chaloner and Haywarde. ‘And Mackerell?’ he asked. ‘Is he liked in the town?’

‘Not especially,’ replied Leycestre. ‘He is an excellent fisherman, but he occasionally tops up his basket with the catches of others.’

‘You mean he is a thief, too? When he does not catch enough eels for himself, he steals?’

‘We all do it occasionally when we are desperate, but he does it frequently. I blame the priory, personally, for placing him in a position where he is forced into dishonesty on a regular basis.’

‘Father John has warned you about discussing such matters during mass,’ came a sharp voice behind them. Bartholomew turned to find he was facing the formidable Agnes Fitzpayne. Her words had been addressed to Leycestre, but it was Bartholomew she had in her beady gaze. Leycestre backed away a little, and some of his confident bluster evaporated.

‘Leycestre was telling me about Mackerell,’ said Bartholomew, hoping to placate her by revealing what they had discussed. ‘He was supposed to meet Michael last night, but failed to appear.’

‘Unreliable,’ declared Agnes immediately. ‘Do not read anything sinister into it. That man pleases himself whom he sees and when.’

‘The landlord of the Lamb tells me that you recently had quite a conversation with the brother-in-law you told me you despised,’ said Bartholomew, watching her closely for any reaction that might betray what she had been doing in the tavern with Haywarde the night he died. ‘You, Leycestre and his two nephews.’

Agnes’s eyes narrowed. ‘What of it? Barbour is a shameless gossip, and had no right to tell you my personal business.’

‘Perhaps not, but he did. What did you discuss? I was under the impression that you disliked him, but you still spent the last night of his life in eager conversation with him.’

‘What we discussed is none of your affair,’ snapped Agnes angrily. ‘But I can see that if I leave it at that, you will tell your fat friend, and then he will spread lies that it was us who threw Haywarde in the river. If you must know, we were talking about money.’

‘Money he owed you?’ pressed Bartholomew.