The Treason of the Ghosts

triptych.
    ‘I
wonder...’ he murmured.
    He
smoothed this out, took a piece of vellum and began to write down everything he
had seen, heard or learnt since arriving in Melford. The first afternoon in the
crypt; the conversation there; the daubed markings on the grave; the piece of
parchment pinned to the gibbet. He wrote down a list of names and, taking each
one, carefully recalled how they had looked, what they had said.
    An
hour passed. Ranulf came up but Corbett was so immersed he simply mumbled good
night and went back to his studies. The taproom below emptied. Corbett lay on
his bed for a while, thinking, trying to study each person, each death.
Blidscote could have helped.
    ‘That
was a mistake,’ Corbett murmured. ‘I should have questioned him before. But,
there again, he wouldn’t have told the truth.’
    He
returned to his writings: slowly but surely a pattern emerged.
    ‘Let’s
take one murder,’ he murmured. ‘Deverell’s. No.’ He
shook his head.
    He
wrote down Molkyn’s name. Molkyn the miller? A drunkard, an oaf, frightened by a verse from Leviticus? Corbett was now certain two assassins were loose in Melford: Molkyn was the
bridge between them. He had been specially elected to that jury, therefore he must have been blackmailed. But was he killed to keep his mouth
closed? Or executed for his role in Sir Roger’s death? Corbett underscored the
word ‘executed’. He sat and reflected, half dozing. He slipped into a dream and
woke with a start. For a moment he was back in the cold, stark belfry with that
grisly corpse swinging by its neck.
    He
got up and splashed water over his face. He had his suspicions but who could help?
Peter kin? He would have to wait until the morning. Matters, however, were
proceeding too fast. The hostility in the taproom might spill over and, as the
news of Bellen’s death spread, people would say the murderer had confessed and
hanged himself. So, why should this clerk be poking
his long nose into other people’s affairs?
    Corbett
was about to strap on his sword belt and go out but then thought of Maeve, her
face pale and anxious, eyes studying him. Her departing words echoed in his
mind. She had whispered them as she put her arms round his neck and kissed him
on the cheek.
    ‘Be
careful of the shadows,’ she’d murmured. ‘Remember, if you hunt murderers, they
can hunt you.’
    Corbett
paused, hand on the latch, and changed his mind. Instead he went to sit on the
bed and thought of that bell tower, the hanging corpse and those other ropes
with the weights at the end. If he could resolve that, he might trap the killer
and, with the help of Molltyn’s daughter, bring these deaths in Haceldema to an
end.
    Corbett
returned to his studies. He put Bellen’s murder to one side for the moment and
returned to his theory of two murderers loose in Melford.
    ‘Not
Furrell and his wife,’ he murmured — he was now sure of that — so who? He
examined, once again, the parchment from Bellen’s chamber and recalled
Furrell’s song about the angel and the devil. What else had Sorrel told him? If she was not exacting vengeance then who? There was
something about her story? Corbett worked on and, as he did so, the mystery
began to unravel.



Chapter 16
     
     
    ‘Who
is the Mummer’s Man?’
    Corbett
sat in Old Mother Crauford’s small, mud-packed earth cottage. It was smoky and
dark. The fire in the makeshift hearth was lacklustre, the green logs gently
resisting the licking flames. Old Mother Crauford put down the bellows and
looked over her shoulder at Peterkin sitting on a three-legged stool. The
simpleton was cradling a bowl of leek soup on his lap. He dropped his horn
spoon with a clatter, frightened eyes still on Corbett. He slowly put the bowl on
the ground beside him.
    ‘What
nonsense is this?’ Old Mother Crauford asked. ‘It’s barely dawn and you come
knocking on my door? We have nothing to do with Haceldema.’
    ‘I
know why you call it that, Mother,’ Corbett replied. ‘No, no...’ Corbett put
out a hand.
    Peterkin
was now staring at the doorway but that was blocked by Ranulf.
    ‘You
mustn’t run,’ Corbett said gently. ‘I’ll only catch you. Hush!’ He held up a
hand to fend off more questions from the old woman. ‘Look, Peterkin.’ Corbett
held a silver coin between his fingers.
    The
slack face relaxed. Peterkin smiled, opening his mouth, tongue coming out as if
he could already savour the sweetmeat he’d buy.
    ‘He’s
a poor,