Текст книги "The Anger of God"

Автор книги: Paul Doherty

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Athelstan rubbed his eyes. ‘Ah, well!’ he muttered. ‘Cranston and I now have his answer.’ And he wearily climbed the stairs to his small bed chamber.

CHAPTER 12

Athelstan awoke fresh and invigorated the next morning. He washed, shaved, changed his robe, fed Bonaventure and ate a hurried breakfast. Athelstan then went across to celebrate the Requiem for Ursula the pig woman’s mother. Benedicta was waiting for him at the entrance to the rood screen after he had finished in the sacristy.

‘What is it, Benedicta?’

‘I am sorry to trouble you, Father, but I’ve received messages from the Minoresses. You’ve got to come. Last night Elizabeth Hobden tried to hang herself!’

Athelstan bit back his curse, said he would lock the church and meet her within the half-hour on the steps of St Mary Overy. Athelstan quickly made sure all was secure, left oats and hay for a snoring Philomel and hurried down to where Benedicta was waiting for him.

‘What else did the message say?’ he asked breathlessly as they hurried on to London Bridge.

‘Nothing, Father. Apparently the girl kept repeating the same story. Late last night a sister heard a crash from her cell and, when she went to investigate, discovered the girl had tried to hang herself with the sheets from her bed.’

Under the gateway of London Bridge Athelstan stopped and looked up at the severed heads of traitors spiked there. Benedicta followed his gaze.

‘Father, what on earth…?’

Athelstan shrugged. ‘I find it difficult to believe, Benedicta, that Cranston is actually hunting someone who steals such grisly objects.’

She crossed her arms and stared out at the mist still floating over the middle of the river.

‘Sometimes,’ she muttered, ‘I hate this place. I have thought of moving away to some country place – more peaceful and clean.’

‘You can’t.’ Athelstan bit his lip. He looked at her squarely. ‘If you went, Benedicta, I’d miss you.’

‘True, true.’ She grinned back. ‘And who would then look after you and Cranston?’

They hastened across the bridge and into East Cheap, following the alleyways along Mark Lane into Aldgate and turning right on to the street leading to the gleaming sandstone buildings of the Minoresses. The sun was beginning to rise and Athelstan wiped away the sweat from his brow.

‘We should have come by horse,’ he muttered. ‘God knows why I am here.’

‘She has no one else.’

‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘That’s as good a reason as any.’

The nuns greeted him warmly and insisted both he and Benedicta refresh themselves in the refectory before the novice mistress, a stout but very pleasant-faced nun, described what had happened the previous evening.

‘We found her lying on the floor,’ she began. ‘Half-choked by the sheet she had wrapped round her neck. If it hadn’t torn, if the commotion hadn’t been heard…’

She spread her hands. ‘I’d be sadly reporting her death now. Brother Athelstan, what can we do? We have a girl here, a mere child, who might commit suicide!’

The friar got to his feet. ‘Let me see her.’

The novice mistress took them along a cool, porticoed passage and knocked on a cell door. Another nun answered and the novice mistress took them in to where Elizabeth Hobden sat on the edge of her bed, dark-eyed and pale-faced, a purplish bruise round her soft, white neck.

‘How is Anna, the nurse?’ Benedicta asked.

‘Oh, she’s well enough, eating and drinking as if there’s no tomorrow,’ the nun replied.

Athelstan picked up a stool and sat beside Elizabeth. He looked up at the two nuns.

‘Sisters, will you please leave us for a while? The lady Benedicta will stay.’

The nuns left. Benedicta stood by the door as Athelstan gently took the girl’s listless hand.

‘Elizabeth, look at me.’

She raised her eyes. ‘What do you want?’ she muttered.

‘I want to help.’

‘You can’t. They murdered my mother and now I am an outcast.’

Athelstan stared at the girl and then at the crucifix nailed on the wall behind her. He took this down and held it up before the girl.

‘Elizabeth, do you believe in Christ?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Then put your hand on the crucifix and swear that your accusation is true.’

The girl almost grabbed the cross. ‘I swear!’ she said firmly. ‘By the body of Christ, I swear!’

Athelstan put the crucifix back and crouched beside her.

‘Now, promise me one thing?’

The girl stared at him:

‘Promise me that you’ll do nothing foolish again? Give me a week,’ he pleaded. ‘Just one week. I’ll see what I can do.’

The girl nodded and Athelstan flinched at the hope which sparkled in her eyes.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ he repeated, patted her gently on her hand and left.

‘What can you do?’ Benedicta asked as the gate of the Minoresses closed behind them.

‘I don’t know,’ Athelstan replied, ‘But perhaps Cranston will.’ He sighed. ‘I had intended to leave Sir John alone, at least until Monday. I’ll just have to remind him there’s no rest for the wicked.’

They walked back into the city, down Aldgate and Cornhill. At the corner of Poultry the stocks were full of malefactors taken after roistering on a Friday evening whilst the huge iron cage on the Great Conduit was full of night hawks and bawds who raucously jeered as they glimpsed Athelstan pass by with a woman. Poultry, Mercery and West Cheap, however, were quiet because the market bell rang late on Saturday. Apprentices were laying out stalls whilst rakers and dung-collectors made a half-hearted attempt to clear the refuse and rubbish of the previous day. A maid answered their knock on Cranston’s door and blithely informed them that Lady Maude was still abed for Sir John had gone to Mass at St Mary Le Bow.

Athelstan hid his smile and led Benedicta straight across to The Holy Lamb of God where they found the Coroner in his favourite corner breaking his fast on a meat pie and a jug of ale. He greeted them rapturously, refusing to be satisfied until Athelstan and Benedicta agreed to eat something. He then listened attentively as Athelstan described his visit to the Minoresses.

‘What can we do?’ Athelstan asked softly.

Cranston drowned his face in his tankard. ‘Well, first, we have no proof that Walter or Eleanor Hobden committed any crime so under the law we have no right to question them. However, I am the King’s Coroner in the city. I do have the authority to exhume a corpse. Hobden said his first wife is buried at St James Garlickhythe?’

Athelstan nodded.

‘Right, we’ll begin there.’

‘Can we do that, Sir John? What will it prove?’

‘First, I can do anything. And, second, who knows what we’ll find?’ Cranston stared out of the window. ‘We’ll have to wait until early evening. Part of the cemetery there is used as a market.’

Athelstan closed his eyes and sighed in exasperation. There was so much to do at St Erconwald’s but, as Sir John would say, ‘ Alea jacta ’, the die was cast.

‘Well, aren’t you pleased?’ Cranston asked, a tankard half-way to his lips.

‘There’s something else, Sir John.’ And Athelstan briefly described the message left by Ira Dei the previous evening, trying to ignore Benedicta’s gasps of annoyance at not being told of the danger.

Cranston wiped his lips on the back of his hand.

‘It makes no difference,’ he said. ‘Gaunt was stupid. Ira Dei would scarcely trust you.’

‘Yes, but why reply so quickly?’ Athelstan replied. ‘Who knew about the Ira Dei message?’

‘Gaunt and the Guildmasters. They told us at the same time as they did about the attack on Clifford.’

The conversation stopped as the taverner’s wife brought across a bowl of sugared plums for Sir John. Athelstan absent-mindedly picked one up and popped it into his mouth. He was about to speculate further when he realized the plums were so heavily coated with honey and sugar they stuck to his teeth and gums. He excused himself as he walked to the door and tried to prise the cloying morsels free. Suddenly he stopped and stared down at his fingers.

‘When did I do that last?’ he murmured to himself.

He looked back over his shoulder at Benedicta and Cranston, heads together, whispering, the Coroner undoubtedly explaining what had happened at the Guildhall. Athelstan walked to the lavarium in the far corner of the taverrt, dipped his hands in the rose water and wiped them on a napkin. He felt slightly elated; for the first time since these dreadful murders had started, he began to see a flicker of light in the darkness. He stared at a cured ham hanging from the rafters of the tavern and recalled the words of his mentor, Father Paul.

‘Always remember, Athelstan,’ the old man had boomed, ‘every problem has its weakness. Find it, prise it open and a solution will soon follow.’

‘What’s the matter with you, Friar?’ Cranston bellowed.

Athelstan sat down again. ‘Sir John, are you busy today?’

‘Of course, I am! I’m not some bloody priest!’

Athelstan smiled. ‘Sir John, let us retrace the steps of our murderer. Let me go back to the Guildhall, to the garden where Mountjoy died and the banqueting chamber where Fitzroy was poisoned. Benedicta, do you wish to come?’

The woman nodded.

‘What’s the matter, Friar?’ Cranston asked curiously.

Athelstan grinned. ‘Nothing much, Sir John, but a sugared plum could hang a murderer!’

He refused to be drawn further as a grumbling Cranston led them across Cheapside, into the Guildhall, down passageways and across courtyards until they had reached the small garden where Mountjoy had been stabbed. A pompous official tried to stop them but turned and fled when Cranston growled at him. Benedicta stared around, admiring the bronze falcon on top of the fountain, the clear water pouring from leopards’ mouths into a small channel lined with lilies and other wild flowers. She slipped down the tunnel arbour, made of coppice poles tied with willow cords, and openly admired the grape vines and roses which had wound themselves around these. She came out, her face flushed with excitement.

‘This is beautiful,’ she cried.

Athelstan pointed to the small enclosed arbour. ‘The seat of murder,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s where Mountjoy was killed.’

They all stood by the fence. Once again Athelstan wondered how any murderer could approach Sir Gerard and get past those fierce hounds.

‘Look, Sir John, let’s play a mummer’s game.’

Athelstan tugged at the Coroner’s sleeve, opened the small gate and led him into the garden. ‘You sit on the turf seat.’ He grinned. ‘Benedicta, you must pretend to be a wolf hound.’

Both smiled, shrugged, but did what Athelstan asked. Cranston slumped on the turf seat and took a generous swig from the wineskin.

‘Now,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘Sir Gerard is sunning himself in the garden with his dogs. Sometime that same afternoon he is stabbed to death, the dagger driven deep into his body, yet he made no resistance and those fierce dogs made no attempt to defend him.’ Athelstan walked back to the wicket gate and pointed to the brick wall of the Guildhall which bordered one side of the garden. ‘Now, a murderer couldn’t come through there.’ He changed direction. ‘He could scarcely climb the fence behind Sir Gerard because both the Sheriff and his dogs would have noticed him. Nor could he come through the wicket gate, knife drawn.’

‘What happens if he did?’ Benedicta asked. ‘What happens if he was a friend, whom the dogs would accept, as their master cordially greeted him?’

‘Mountjoy had no friends,’ Cranston muttered.

‘No.’ Benedicta waved her hands. ‘The assassin gets very close, he draws a knife and plunges it into Sir Gerard?’

Athelstan shook his head. ‘It’s possible,’ he replied. ‘But hardly probable. Sir Gerard would at least have seen the dagger being drawn; the assassin would scarcely enter the garden carrying it. There would have been a fight which would have alarmed the dogs. Remember, Sir Gerard was killed without any sign of a struggle.’

Benedicta stuck her tongue out at him.

‘There’s only one way,’ Cranston growled, pointing to the fence paling at the bottom of the garden. ‘The pentice between the kitchens and the Guildhall.’

‘There are gaps in the fence,’ Benedicta added.

Athelstan shook his head. ‘Too narrow for a man to throw a dagger with such force and accuracy. Look, wait here.’ He took Cranston’s dagger, rather similar to the one the assassin used, walked back into the Guildhall and down the darkened pentice. He stopped and, through gaps in the fence, could see Cranston sitting opposite him on the turf seat. He pushed the dagger through; the gap was wide enough but he was right, no man could hurl a dagger through it. Scratching his head, Athelstan went back into the garden. ‘A mystery,’ he muttered. ‘Come, let us visit the banqueting chamber.’

Cranston pulled a face at Benedicta but followed the rather bemused friar up to the banqueting hall. The room was deserted and the tables still left as they were on that fateful night. Athelstan badgered Cranston with a string of abrupt questions.

Who had sat where? What had they eaten? How late it had begun?

Then, without explanation, he wandered off, saying he wished to talk to the steward who had been present that night.

Cranston didn’t mind. He knew his ‘little friar’ had started some hare and would become engrossed until he had resolved the problem facing him. Moreover, the Coroner was only too willing to sit and chat with the lovely Benedicta who questioned him closely about Athelstan’s story of a thief stealing the severed heads of traitors from above the gatehouse at London Bridge. At last Athelstan returned.

‘Well?’ Cranston bellowed. ‘Have you found anything? Would you like to share your thoughts with mere mortals?’

Athelstan grinned and tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s all a jumble,’ he explained, I need to sit, write and think.’

‘No better place than The Holy Lamb of God,’ Cranston mumbled.

He led them out of the Guildhall, down the steps into a busy market place. The stalls were now laid out for a day’s trade. Apprentices shouted goods and prices or tried to catch the sleeves of passersby. On the corner of the street, Cranston’s hated relic-seller was busy proclaiming his litany of goods for sale. He stopped as the fellow listed his different relics from the stone which killed Goliath to the arm of St Sebbi.

‘I have the relics,’ the fellow bellowed, ‘in a secret place, bought specially at a great high price from the Archbishop of Cologne. The head of St John the Baptist, miraculously fresh as on the day the great martyr died. I tell you this, good sirs and ladies all, you pious citizens of London, his hair is red and soft, his skin as supple, as that of a child!’

Cranston sneered and shook his head.

‘Why don’t you bloody priests,’ he muttered, ‘put an end to this stupid trade?’

‘I wonder where he would obtain the hair of John the Baptist?’ Benedicta muttered.

Cranston just gaped at her. ‘What did you say?’ he whispered.

‘How could he get the head of St John the Baptist? And how does he know the prophet had red hair?’

Cranston grabbed the surprised woman and kissed her on both cheeks.

‘Come on!’ he whispered. ‘To The Holy Lamb of God!’

The Coroner forced his way through the throng. Athelstan could see how excited he was by the way Cranston kept bellowing at people to get out of his way. Once in the tavern he dug into his broad purse and drew out a silver coin.

‘Benedicta, take this across to the relic-seller. Say you have five more to purchase the head of St John the Baptist.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sir John!’ Athelstan interrupted.

‘You know the man’s a fraud. There’ll be no head, just some stupid trick or device. Who knows, Benedicta may even be robbed?’

‘Shut up, Athelstan!’

‘But, Sir John,’ he pleaded. ‘You know! I know!’

‘What?’ Cranston snapped.

‘He can’t have the head of the Baptist…’ Athelstan’s voice trailed away and he grinned at Cranston. ‘Ah! To quote the good St Paul, My Lord Coroner, I see in a glass darkly.’

Cranston clapped his hands like a child and Benedicta, with the assurances of both men ringing in her ears, walked back across Cheapside with Cranston’s silver clasped firmly in her hand. Athelstan and Cranston watched her go. Benedicta stopped and whispered to the relic-seller and the man left his perch as quickly as any hungry gull. He led her off, down an alleyway with Athelstan and Cranston following quickly behind. Cranston was excited, Athelstan fearful for Benedicta’s safety, but the man seemed harmless enough. At last he turned off an alleyway going down to Old Jewry. He stopped before the door of a house, said something to Benedicta, she nodded and they both went in. Cranston and Athelstan hurried up.

‘Give the bastard a few minutes,’ Cranston whispered.

Athelstan nodded. Cranston counted softly and, when he reached thirty, kicked with all his might against the rickety door and sent it flying back on its rusty hinges. The house was dingy and smelly and, as they hurried along the passageway, Athelstan gagged at the terrible stench. They heard raised voices, Benedicta’s exclamations. They found her in a small chamber at the back of the house with the relic-seller and the latter’s young assistant. Benedicta looked white, the two tricksters paled with fright at the commotion and Cranston’s shouts, whilst on a table in front of them lay the severed head of a red-haired man, eyes half-closed and purple lips agape. If the two relic-sellers could have escaped they would have but they just huddled together in a corner as the Coroner grabbed the severed head and lifted it up. Benedicta had seen enough and, hand to mouth, hurriedly left the chamber for the street beyond.

‘Well, well, my buckos!’ Cranston grinned. ‘You are both under arrest!’

‘What for?’ the relic-seller shouted.

‘Theft of Crown property, my lad, counterfeiting, deceptive practices and blasphemy. This is not the head of John the Baptist but of Jacques Larue, the French pirate taken off the Thames and legally executed!’ Cranston gazed round the chamber. ‘Lord, this smells worse than the shambles at Newgate!’

He walked out of the door, pushing Athelstan before him, and took the key from the inside lock, imprisoning the two very subdued relic-sellers within.

‘There are no windows or other doors, Athelstan. The rogues can stay there until I hand this key over to the ward officials. Now, let us see what this house of treasures contains.’

Athelstan followed him around but, after a while, gave up in disgust at the different grisly objects discovered and went to join Benedicta in the street outside.

‘Hell’s teeth!’ he whispered, quoting Cranston. ‘The place should be burnt from top to bottom.’

Cranston, however, came out full of himself. He pulled the house door close then locked it.

‘Benedicta,’ he grinned, ‘you are an angel. Where else would a relic-seller get a head to sell as that of a saint except from the execution yard?’ The Coroner rubbed his hands together. ‘One more small victory for old Jack, eh?’

They walked back into Cheapside and waited whilst Cranston summoned officials and sent them to the house. One of the beadles was eating a meat pie, munching insolently as Cranston talked to him. The Coroner grinned as he watched the men stride away.

‘I haven’t told them what they’ll find,’ he joked. ‘But the insolent one with the meat pie will soon receive a short, sharp lesson on eating when the King’s Coroner is giving him instructions!’

He led them back to The Holy Lamb of God, loudly guffawing at Benedicta’s wondering how anyone could be so stupid as to trust such rogues.

‘Stupid!’ Cranston laughed. ‘If you go to any city in England, France or beyond the Rhine, you’ll find men, Princes of the Church, the most intelligent and educated of priests, spending fortunes on pieces of dirty bone and rag. Do you know, here in London, I heard of a merchant who paid a hundred pounds sterling for a napkin on which the Blessed St Cuthbert wiped his mouth. Devil’s balls!’ He mumbled an apology to Benedicta. ‘But hell’s teeth! I wish everything was as easy. Brother, did our journey to the Guildhall clarify anything?’

Cranston eased his great backside down on to the stool and stared pitifully at his clerk. ‘Athelstan,’ he pleaded. ‘Sooner rather than later, the Regent is going to ask me to account.’

The friar stared at the table top. ‘Let us see,’ he began slowly. ‘We know why Mountjoy and the other two were murdered. Not because of any secret sin or personal rivalry but to upset the Regent, to block his ambitions, to build up support amongst the powerful merchant class of London. Well, that has been achieved so there will be no more murders. At least, not for the time being.’ Athelstan paused, I am sure the murders can be laid at the door of the Ira Dei, but suspect he is only the architect. There’s a traitor and a killer in Gaunt’s party – Goodman or one of those powerful Guiidmasters.’

‘Why, Sir John?’ Benedicta interrupted. ‘Why hasn’t the assassin struck at Gaunt himself?’

‘Because the devil you know, My Lady, is better than the devil you don’t. Someone has to be Regent or, to put it more bluntly, someone has to be there to take the blame. If Gaunt were removed, his chair would merely be filled by one of his younger brothers. No, these murders are to clip Gaunt’s wings.’

‘Has there been any reaction to our meeting with the Guiidmasters about Sturmey’s private life?’ Athelstan asked.

Cranston shook his head. ‘Not as yet.’

‘Sir Nicholas Hussey was a boy when the scandal occurred?’

‘Only very young,’ Cranston replied. ‘God knows, he may remember whispers, but according to the records there is no indication that he was involved, even as a victim. Ah, well.’ He put his tankard down on the table.

‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Wait, Sir John, think, reflect. As I have said, the murders at the Guildhall are not crimes of passion but cold and calculating. I doubt if we will discover any further clue or sign. We must gather all we know, apply logic, and so squeeze out the one and only solution.’

‘If there s one,’ Cranston added wearily.

The conversation became desultory. Cranston’s elation at the arrest of the relic-sellers dissipated under a cloud of gloom as the fat Coroner began to sink into a sulk. Benedicta took her leave, saying she had no wish to stay, she’d had her fill of cadavers and mystery. Sir John took Athelstan back to his house but Lady Maude was busy and the poppets out with the nurse in the fields north of St Giles. Cranston became impossible so Athelstan left him for a while, deciding to visit his brethren at Blackfriars.

The friar returned just as the market in Cheapside drew to an early end and people hurried home to prepare for Sunday. Cranston, more refreshed, clapped him on the shoulder and they went back to The Holy Lamb of God to meet Cranston’s friend and physician, Theobald de Troyes, whom the Coroner had visited earlier in the afternoon.

‘Are you sure you wish to come?’ Cranston asked.

‘Sir John, I am always at your disposal,’ the physician replied. ‘Does the priest at St James know?’

‘I have already sent a constable down there. There will be labourers to dig out the grave and lift Sarah Hobden’s coffin.’ Sir John licked his lips. ‘Perhaps a drink first?

Both Athelstan and the physician flatly refused and, one on either side of him, escorted the reluctant Coroner out of West Cheap across Watling Street into Cordwainer and then along Upper Thames Street to the rather sombre church of St James Garlickhythe. The priest, Father Odo, cheery, red-nosed, and much the worse after a generous lunch, came out of the priest’s house and took them into a rather overgrown graveyard where three labourers were resting under the cool shade of a yew tree. At first there was absolute confusion as Father Odo tried to read the burial book and discover where Sarah Hobden had been buried.

‘I can’t find it,’ he mumbled, swaying dangerously on his feet.

Athelstan peered over his shoulder, realized the inebriated priest was reading it upside down, and took it out of his hand.

‘Let me help, Father,’ he offered gently.

Glaring defiantly at Cranston and daring him not to laugh, the friar sat on a tombstone and leafed through the pages until he found the entry: ‘Sarah Hobden, obiit 1376, North West’.

‘Where’s that, Father?’

Odo pointed to the far corner of the graveyard. Athelstan smiled and returned the burial book.

‘Father, you sit down and take your rest.’ He patted the old priest gently on the shoulder.

‘Don’t you dare!’ he hissed at Cranston as the Coroner’s hand went to where his miraculous wineskin was hanging beneath his cloak. ‘The poor man has had enough and, to be quite frank, Sir John, so have I!’

They called the labourers and crossed to that part of the cemetery Father Odo had pointed out. After some searching, they found Sarah Hobden’s grave, derelict, overgrown and neglected; the wooden cross, battered and lopsided, still bore her faded name. Cranston snapped his fingers and the grumbling labourers began to hack at the hard-packed earth.

‘What will this prove?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Ah.’ Cranston leaned on the grave stone, cradling his wineskin as if it was one of the poppets. He tapped his nose and pointed at the physician. ‘Master Theobald, instruct our ignorant priest!’

The physician winked at Athelstan. ‘When I received Sir John’s invitation, I made careful study of the cause of death.’

‘And?’

‘Well, if it’s arsenic, particularly red arsenic, we might well see what the populous would call a miracle. Let me surprise you, Father.’

The physician went and watched the labourers as their spades and picks began to ring hollow as they reached the coffin lid. More earth was dug out. Athelstan peered round the graveyard and shivered. The shadows were growing longer. The birdsong had stilled. Nothing except the grunting of the labourers and the shifting of earth broke the eerie silence.

‘Why are these places so quiet?’ Athelstan murmured. He strained his ears: he could just hear the sound of chatter and laughter as the traders and tinkers on the other side of the church cleared away their stalls.

‘We are ready. Sir John!’ the physician called.

‘Then pull it out, lads!’

One labourer jumped down into the grave on top of the coffin, ropes were attached and, after a great deal of heaving and cursing, the faded, dirt-covered coffin was hoisted out of the earth. Cranston thanked the labourers and told them to go and rejoin Father Odo. He pulled out his long dagger and began to prise open the coffin lid. Athelstan watched attentively as the clasps were broken. The lid creaked open slowly, almost as if the person inside was pushing it up and threatening to rise. He pushed his hands inside his sleeves, closed his eyes and muttered a prayer.

It’s God’s justice, Athelstan thought. This is God’s work.

The last clasp broke free. Cranston lifted the tattered winding sheet. Athelstan opened his eyes as he heard Cranston’s gasp. The physician was kneeling beside the lid of the coffin, carefully examining the inside.

Athelstan drew a deep breath and walked over and looked down in the deep wooden coffin. The friar stared in stupefaction at the corpse’s face; fatty, white and waxy as if fashioned out of candle grease. Nevertheless, it was free of any corruption; the dead woman’s features were quite pretty, oval-shaped and regular, with a generous mouth and aquiline nose.

‘For God’s sake!’ Athelstan breathed. ‘She’s been dead three years! Corruption should have set in!’