The Treason of the Ghosts

Melford to watch you arrive. I
visited Deverell.’ She bit her lip.
    ‘I’ll
come to him by and by,’ Corbett declared.
    ‘I
then went and waited on the outskirts,’ Sorrel continued. ‘I dogged your
footsteps from the moment you left the crypt and, before you ask, I never met
any mysterious archer, though, I concede, Sir Louis was attacked.’
    ‘So
you visited Deverell? You knew about the porch, the front door and the Judas
squint?’
    ‘Yes
I did.’
    ‘And
you were there when I examined the corpse?’
    ‘So
was half of Melford. It doesn’t make me the murderer. Are you going to say I
killed Thorkle and Molkyn?’
    ‘It’s
possible,’ Corbett replied. ‘You could have taken both men by surprise. One blow
would be enough.’
    ‘But
I didn’t,’ Sorrel protested. She got to her feet. ‘And why do you accuse me?’
    ‘As
I said, two assassins are at work in Melford. Now we come to the attack on you
today. Perhaps the Mummer’s Man resents your interference in his bloody affray
and came to silence you.’
    ‘I
can’t prove my innocence.’ Sorrel walked to the window and pulled back the
shutters, eager to breathe fresh air. ‘I have never killed anyone, master
clerk.’
    ‘Haven’t
you, Sorrel? Never lifted your hand in violence?’
    She
stood by the window, shoulders shaking.
    ‘Isn’t
that why you fled Norwich ?’
Corbett continued remorselessly. ‘Perhaps a customer became too rough? Why all the secrecy, the change of name?’
    ‘Yes,
in self-defence, I killed a man.’ Sorrel turned and leant against the sill. ‘He
wanted to hurt me, cut at my body, watch me squeal
with pain. He was drunk. In the struggle I took his knife and plunged it into
his heart. I don’t know who he was or where he came from: it was in some
filth-strewn alleyway. I was just a whore fumbling with a customer. I left Norwich within an hour of
his death and never returned. Why, master clerk, are you going to arrest me?’
    Corbett
shook his head. ‘Some men bring about their own death. I am more concerned with
the present.’
    ‘And so am I, clerk! I did not murder anyone. Oh yes,
the thought crossed my mind on a number of occasions. But, take Sir Louis
Tressilyian, for example. Do you really think, master clerk, I would have
missed? And why should I kill Deverell, Thorkle or Molkyn?’ She walked back and
stood over him. ‘I prayed for your day. I would have loved to have seen such
men appear at the bar of justice and be questioned, like you are now
questioning me.’
    Corbett
stared closely at the woman. He always prided himself on his logic and his
reason but, as Maeve often advised: ‘ Follow your
heart, Hugh: truth has its own logic.’
    ‘Very well.’ Corbett grasped her hand. He folded back the fingers
and examined the white linen cloth wrapped round the wound. ‘I believe you,
Sorrel. So I must still ask myself, why should the Mummer’s Man — and I think
it was he — come out to Beauchamp Place to murder you?’
    ‘And the answer?’
    Corbett
chewed the corner of his lip. ‘When we first met, you said you had much to say
about Melford but you’d let me draw my own conclusions. Perhaps the killer
realises this. Perhaps he suspects that you know more than you do and wants to
silence you once and for all.’ Corbett snapped his fingers. ‘Or something
else.’ Corbett got to his feet. ‘Perhaps Furrell told you something? Shared
knowledge which brought about his own mysterious
disappearance?’
    Sorrel
shook her head. ‘If I could, I’d recall it.’
    ‘No,’
Corbett urged. ‘I spoke to one of the other jurors. He met Molkyn in his cups.
Our good miller confessed that Furrell had declared how the truth about the
killer was plain as a picture. Do you know what he meant by that?’
    ‘Furrell
said many things,’ she answered softly. ‘But not that. Or, if he did, I never heard it. I want to show you something, clerk.’
    She
went across and took down the piece of tapestry and described the crude map she
had drawn.
    ‘I
didn’t tell you the full truth,’ she explained. ‘But this is Melford. Here is Falmer Lane .’ She
pointed to the roughly etched map. ‘Devil’s Oak. These crosses mark the places Furrell
told me to stay away from.’
    Corbett
studied the painting. The map was very crude. He wouldn’t have understood it if
she hadn’t explained each symbol. He shook his head.
    ‘I
don’t think Furrell was talking about any map!’
    He
walked over to the other paintings and