An Unholy Alliance

by Susanna GREGORY

  Bartholomew, who had only spotted it when the bell was tolling, doubted if many people would choose to be in the chamber when the bells were ringing, and so the sack and its gruesome contents might have remained hidden for months or even years. He noted the debris that coated his clothes from his crawl across the filthy floor, and suspected that the cleaning of the bell chamber was not a high priority at St Mary's. He felt through the sack to the body inside. It was upside down: the legs were uppermost, while the head and torso were further down the bell frame.

  He took a firm hold of the sack and pulled hard but it was securely wedged. He climbed further down the frame and tried to dislodge it sideways, but it was stuck fast. He leaned over to see if something was holding it in place and became aware of a rubbing sound behind him.

  For a moment, he could not imagine what it could be, and then he saw the great bell begin to tip. "The requiem mass!

  Bartholomew could not believe his stupidity! When the mass was sung the bell ringer would chime the bell three times each for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The ringer was beginning to haul on the bell rope, pulling hard to make the bell swing higher and higher until the clapper sounded against its side.

  "The bell swung upwards as Bartholomew flattened himself against the frame. It missed him by the merest fraction of an inch. "The next time it swung up it would hit him. As soon as it began to drop, Bartholomew let himself fall to the floor, knowing that he would not have sufficient time to climb. He landed with a thump and flattened himself in the muck and feathers as the great mouth of the bell swished over him. He heard Brother Michael exclaim in the room below just before the bell spoke for the first time.

  Bartholomew pressed his hands over his ears again, and tried to spit dusty old feathers from his mouth. The bell rang a second time and a third, and paused. Then came three more tolls and a pause, and then a final three and silence. Bartholomew did not wait for the last vibrations to fade before crawling away as fast as he could. He pounded on the door of the chest chamber.

  'Go away!' shouted Michael, true to the Chancellor's instructions.

  'Michael, it is me! Open the door!'

  He fretted impatiently while Michael huffed noisily across the floor and fumbled with the bar. Bartholomew shot inside, leaving a trail of feathers and dried bird-droppings behind him. Michael looked at him, aghast.

  'Have you been to that alley again?' he said, concern wrinkling his fat face.

  '"There is a body in a sack in the bell chamber,' said Bartholomew breathlessly. "I tried to move it, but it is stuck fast.' "I heard an almighty crash a minute ago. Was that you?' Michael stopped as the meaning of Bartholomew's words began to dawn on him. 'Who is the body?'

  Bartholomew shook his head. "I could not tell, but I saw the hand and it is that of an older man.' He ran an unsteady hand through his hair, oblivious to the feathers and cobwebs it deposited there. He looked at Michael.

  "I have a terrible feeling we have just discovered the whereabouts of the Vice-Chancellor.'

  Out of respect for the dead friar, they waited until he had been lowered into his grave in the cemetery before Michael approached the Chancellor and imparted the news. "The Chancellor paled and gazed at Michael in shock.

  'Another body in the tower? Do you know who it is?' he whispered.

  'Not yet,' said Bartholomew. 'We will need help to get it out'

  De Wetherset closed his eyes and muttered something.

  When he opened them again, his eyes were hard and businesslike. He called for Gilbert and told him what had been discovered.

  'What were you doing in the belfry to discover such a thing?' Gilbert asked, flashing the Chancellor a glance that indicated Bartholomew and Michael were not above suspicion themselves.

  'Matt was looking to see if the friar had hidden his lock-picking tools there,' Michael lied easily.

  Gilbert sighed. "I should have thought of that myself,' he said. 'Although I would not have gone when the bells were ringing, and from what you say, I would probably not have seen this corpse.'

  'We will recover the body ourselves before we spread the news abroad,' said de Wetherset. 'Who knows what we might uncover? Gilbert, please arrange that we will not be disturbed while I fetch Father Cuthbert. Brother, Doctor, please wait for me in the tower.'

  While Michael and Bartholomew waited, Bartholomew slit the sack and tied some pieces of discarded rope around the legs of the body inside. They tried a few preliminary hauls, but to no avail. De Wetherset arrived wearing an old gown, while Gilbert and Cuthbert hovered anxiously behind him. Bartholomew wondered whether the portly de Wetherset, the fat Cuthbert, and the slight Gilbert would make much difference to their efforts.

  While Bartholomew lay on the floor and pushed, the others heaved on the legs from the bell frame. They began to despair of ever getting it out, and de Wetherset had started to talk ominously of the skills of some physicians with knives, when they felt the body budge.

  'Once more,' cried de Wetherset. 'Pull!' "The body moved a little further, and Bartholomew joined Cuthbert to pull on one of the legs. With a puff of dust and a sharp crack from the bell frame, the body came loose, and Bartholomew and Michael hauled it across the bells and laid it on the floor by the door.

  De Wetherset, his face red from exertion, knelt next to it and slit the sack open with a knife. He gasped as the smell of putrefaction rose from the bundle, and then leapt up as the great swollen face looked out at him.

  'God's teeth!' he whispered, staring at the face in horror. 'What is that? Is it a demon?'

  'He has been hanging upside down for at least several days,' said Bartholomew gently. 'When that happens, the fluids of the body drain into the lowest part and cause the swelling you see here.'

  'You were wrong, Matt. It is not Master Buckley,' said Michael, covering the lower half of his face with the sleeve of his gown.

  Father Cuthbert coughed, his face pale. 'It is Marius Froissart,' he said. Bartholomew and Michael looked blankly at him and he explained. 'Froissart claimed sanctuary in the church about a week ago after he murdered his wife. You know it is the law that such criminals can claim sanctuary in a church, and he cannot be touched by officers of the law for forty days.

  "The clerks locked him in that night, but by the next day he had escaped, despite the soldiers outside.'

  '"The whore killer whom the Sheriff was seeking!' exclaimed Michael. 'But dead himself!'

  'But who killed him and put him here? And why?' asked de Wetherset, looking down at the body.

  'Whoever hid his body here intended it to stay concealed for a long time,' said Bartholomew. He stretched out his hand to show the others what he had found. '"There was a reason it was so difficult to pull him free. He was nailed to the bell frame.'

  De Wetherset stumbled down the stairs with his hand over his mouth. Gilbert followed him solicitously, while Bartholomew and Michael stayed with the dead man.

  Father Cuthbert hovered, uncertain whether to go or stay. When Bartholomew began to cut the sack to examine the body, Cuthbert looked away and gagged, and Bartholomew sent him with Michael to discover what de Wetherset wanted to do. He continued his examination alone. It looked as if Cuthbert's story of Marius Froissart's disappearance corresponded to the time that Bartholomew estimated him to have been dead.

  Which meant that Marius Froissart could not have killed Isobel or Frances.

  Froissart's clothes were old, but neatly patched and mended. His beard and hair were unkempt, but, after a week in a sack, that was hardly surprising. Bartholomew tipped the head back and looked at the neck. Underneath the beard was a thin red line that circled his throat and was caked with blood. Bartholomew eased Froissart onto his back and inspected the dark marks at the nape of his neck. Garrotted. He felt the scalp under the matted hair, but there were no signs of a blow to the head. He prised the eyes and mouth open to look for signs of poison, and then looked at the rest of the body. "There were no other injuries except for the marks on his shoulders an
d hips where he had been nailed to the bell frame.

  Why would anyone go to such lengths? he wondered.

  He looked closely at the marks the nails had made.

  "There was very little bruising and no bleeding at all.

  Some of the wounds were torn, but that had happened when he had been pulled out, and there was nothing to suggest that he had been alive when they were first made.

  Bartholomew walked around the chamber and looked at the great bell from as many angles as possible. When the bell was stationary, there was no earthly chance that the body would be seen. Even if someone had come to tend the bells, the body might remain hidden as long as the bells were still. And the smell? Bartholomew looked at the dead birds he had noted earlier. Anyone noticing a strong odour would assume that it came from the dead birds, as he had done.

  In the confines of the narrow spiral staircase, the stench of putrefaction became too much even for him.

  He walked down to the chest chamber and took some deep breaths through the window. He winced. "The sun was beating down like a furnace, and the ditches that criss-crossed Cambridge stank. Even from the tower he could see a haze of insects over the river.

  He turned as he heard footsteps and de Wetherset and Michael entered. De Wethersetwas as white as a sheet, and Michael was unusually sombre. De Wetherset listened at the door for a moment before closing it firmly.

  'Gilbert and Cuthbert are downstairs to ensure that we are not disturbed,' he said. 'What can you tell me about this man's death?'

  'Froissart was garrotted. If his hand had not slipped loose, I doubt he would have been found until someone decided to clean the bell chamber.'

  De Wetherset pursed his lips. 'Father Cuthbert has problems getting anyone to ring the things, let alone to clean them,' he said. 'It appears that our murderer knew this, and the body was intended to remain undiscovered for a very long time indeed.'

  Bartholomew walked to the window and rubbed his chin. 'Froissart's death must be connected to the dead friar,' he said.

  'Logic dictates that is so,'said Michael. 'It is improbable that two sudden deaths in the same place within days of each other will be unrelated.'

  'But Froissart must have been killed the night he claimed sanctuary,' Bartholomew pointed out. 'That was last Tuesday. "The clerks say the friar was here for about three days before he died. He was found dead the day before yesterday, and so he probably arrived here last Friday at the earliest, and Froissart had been dead for three days by then.' He picked up a quill from the table and examined it absently. '"The timing is such that Froissart and the friar could never have met.'

  Michael sat on one of the benches and stretched his legs out in front of him. 'But perhaps the friar was here before.

  Perhaps he was in disguise and killed Froissart, and then came back to complete his business in the chest'

  Bartholomew thought for a moment and then shook his head. 'No. It does not ring true.' He saw the Chancellor wince at the mention of bells and continued quickly. '"The clerks were very observant about the friar. Had there been another person loitering in the church before him, they would have mentioned it. But more importantly, if the friar had been in disguise and had murdered Froissart, I think he would have been most unlikely to have returned to the church as himself, and there was nothing on the friar's body to suggest he was in disguise when he died.'

  'But if he were responsible, what would he have to fear when he knew the body was so well hidden?' asked Michael.

  Bartholomew thought for a moment. 'Master de Wetherset, you said Father Cuthbert has trouble finding people to ring the bells. Whoever put Froissart behind the bell frame knew that the chances of anyone going to the bell chamber to tend to the bells were remote. Why would the friar, a stranger to Cambridge, know that?'

  De Wetherset grew exasperated. 'You two do not agree with each other,' he said. 'You, Brother, maintain that logic dictates that the two deaths are connected, while you, Doctor Bartholomew, confound any ideas we suggest to link them.'

  Bartholomew smiled. 'Just because we cannot find the link here and now does not mean that it is not there. The evidence we have at the moment is just not sufficient to support any firm conclusions.'

  De Wetherset sat heavily on the bench next to Michael and put his head in his hands. 'Tell me what we do have,' he said wearily.

  Bartholomew sat on the chest before thinking better of it and moved to the window-seat. He quickly sorted out his jumbled thoughts and began to put them together.

  'Last Tuesday, Froissart killed his wife and claimed sanctuary in the church. He was locked in Tuesday night, but had gone by Wednesday morning. It is most likely he was killed in the church on Tuesday night, and his body hidden at the same time. Three days later, on Friday, the itinerant friar arrived. He spent time, ostensibly praying and preparing himself to continue his journey, but more probably learning the routine of the church. Now that suggests to me that he had not been here before, and so was not the murderer of Froissart.'

  De Wetherset nodded slowly. 'That is logical,' he said.

  'Pray continue.'

  Michael took up the analysis. 'We do not know why the friar was here, but we know he was a careful man. He spent three days watching and learning, and obviously possessed some skill in opening locks without keys. On Sunday night, he hid in the church while the lay-brother locked up, and then made his way to the tower. He picked the locks on the chest and began to go through its contents. "The poison did not have an immediate effect, or he would not have been able to pick the third lock and open the lid. We do not know what happened next.

  He may have had a seizure brought on by the poison and fallen into the chest, closing the lid at the same time. Or he may have been put in the box by another person.'

  'Perhaps the same person who killed Froissart,' said Bartholomew. "I cannot imagine that the friar fell neatly into the chest and the lid closed of its own accord. I think it more likely that someone put him there.' He paused for a moment and continued. 'On the same night that the friar was preparing himself for his business in the tower, Evrard Buckley complained of stomach pains from a surfeit of eels, and retired early to bed. During the night, he removed the entire contents of his room through the window in King's Hall and loaded them onto a cart. At some point, he or another person, was wounded, perhaps fatally, as is attested by the blood on the ground outside his window.'

  'We have forgotten Nicholas's book,' said Michael, gesturing to where the papers lay on the table near the window. 'He died a month ago, and no one thought much about it until the friar was found dead on top of his manuscript.'

  'So, what we have left,' said de Wetherset somewhat testily, 'is a large number of unanswered questions. Who was the friar? What was he doing in the tower? Who put the poisoned lock on the chest? Was it intended to kill the friar or another? Who killed Froissart and why? Are the two deaths linked? Was Nicholas also murdered?

  Where is my Vice-Chancellor? And did he kill Nicholas, Froissart, and the friar?'

  He stood with a sigh. "I will have Froissart moved to the crypt. Gilbert will see to that. It might be most imprudent to let the murderer know his careful concealment has been uncovered, so I suggest we tell no one of this,' he said.

  'But the Sheriff has a right to know,' said Bartholomew, startled. 'If Froissart is supposed to have murdered his wife, the Sheriff will be looking for him. We cannot keep such a matter to ourselves.' "I said it would be most unwise to let the murderer know that we have discovered the body,' snapped de Wetherset.

  'Supposing news of our discovery makes him kill again?

  "The next victim might be one of us. "The townspeople complain bitterly that the Sheriff is dragging his feet in tracking down the killer of the town prostitutes. There is little point in revealing this matter to such a man.'

  'What if it were ever discovered that we kept such a matter secret?' said Bartholomew, unconvinced. 'The townspeople would have every right to be angry with the University, and relation
s between us and the town are strained as it is. There would be a riot!'

  'The only way they would find out would be if you were to reveal it to them,' said de Wetherset coldly. 'And I am sure I need not worry on that score. Anyway, I imagine the killer would be more likely to strike at those who are seen to be investigating his crime if it were to become common knowledge Froissart has been found: you and Brother Michael.'

  'Not if we turn the whole matter over to the Sheriff.'

  Bartholomew looked at Michael for support, but the monk looked studiously out of the window and would not meet his eye.

  De Wetherset continued. "I want you to question Froissart's family to see if they know anything, and I want you to examine Nicholas's body before dawn tomorrow.

  I have already obtained the necessary licences.'

  He opened the door and left without another word.

  His footsteps were heavy and, despite his belligerence to Bartholomew, attested to his growing despondency about the events of the past few days. Bartholomew and Michael followed him, Bartholomew still angry, and they saw him giving instructions to Gilbert about the removal of Froissart.

  'More lies and deceit,' said Bartholomew bitterly, watching de Wetherset walking away with an arm across Gilbert's shoulders. 'Why did you not come to my defence?'

  'Because you were wrong,' said Michael. 'De Wetherset said that the Sheriff is conducting a less than competent investigation into the deaths of the women, and that is true. The townspeople are talking of little else. Why should we alert the murderer of Froissart that we have uncovered his carefully concealed victim by revealing it to the Sheriff? I do not see that it would do any good, and it might do a great deal of harm.'

  'But perhaps one of the reasons the investigation is slow is because half the Sheriffs men are hunting Froissart, whom we know is dead. If we tell him that he need not look for Froissart, he will have more resources with which to hunt the killer of the prostitutes,' argued Bartholomew.

  Michael shook his head.'The Sheriff s problem is more deeply seated than manpower,' he said. He shook himself suddenly. 'Come, Matt! It is cold in here. You cannot reveal what you know to the Sheriff without contravening de Wetherset's orders, so do not even think about it. Let us put it from our minds and concentrate on the matter in hand.'