A Killer in Winter

His patience had paid off and the ball was now pliable. He glanced through the crack in his window shutter in an attempt to gauge the time, to see whether it was too early to wake Michael. It was pitch black, but he knew he would not sleep any more that night. It was too cold and he was restless. He decided to dress and make an early start on his daily duties. Besides examining the ball and going to visit Harysone and Ailred, there were the following term’s lectures to be prepared.

He scraped half-heartedly at his face with a knife, then rubbed a handful of snow over it, gathered from the miniature drifts that had piled up on the floor. Then he took every item of clothing he possessed from the chest at the end of the bed, and put all of them on with hands that shook almost uncontrollably with cold. By the time he had finished, he was so well wrapped that he could barely move and, with his black cloak thrown around his shoulders, he looked like Brother Michael. The candles he lit cast his shadow against the wall, making him look monstrously vast.

He drew a three-legged stool to the table and sat. Regarding the various tasks that awaited without enthusiasm, he found his thoughts returning to the mysteries that confronted him. Foremost in his mind was Philippa. He still could not decide whether the stricken distress she had first shown over Turke’s death was grief for the loss of a loved protector and companion, or whether it was something else completely.

His thoughts turned to Gosslinge, at which point he cringed. He wondered whether he had missed clues on other victims, allowing their killers to go free. He inspected a large number of corpses for Michael – any member of the University who died, usually. Many did perish from natural causes: being near the marshes, Cambridge was an unhealthy place to live, and fevers and agues were commonplace. It was also smoky, with hundreds of fires belching fumes that became trapped in the dense fogs that plagued the Fen-edge town, and the choking, stinking mists took their toll on scholars with weak chests. And then, of course, there were the usual accidents that occurred with distressing regularity: falls from buildings, collapsing roofs, bites from animals that turned poisonous, bad food, crushings by carts, drownings and many more. He smiled ruefully. Perhaps his misdiagnosis of Gosslinge had a positive side: he knew he would never be complacent about a cause of death again.

Next, he considered the fact that Gosslinge had been trussed up among the albs wearing beggarly clothes. Did it mean a thief – not the killer – had come across the body and had taken a fancy to its fine clothes? But why bother to dress a corpse in the discarded items? Why not leave it naked, thus giving the thief more time to escape? Bartholomew frowned thoughtfully. Now he was getting somewhere. No thief would bother to dress a corpse – which was not an easy thing to do, nor a pleasant one – unless he had some powerful reason for doing so. But what?

Bartholomew pondered the question, but concluded it was more likely that Gosslinge had dressed in the rags himself. Perhaps he had arranged to meet someone in the church and did not want to be recognised, so he dispensed with his livery and wore rags instead. People tended to ignore beggars and, since no one liked being accosted with demands for money, eye contact was usually avoided wherever possible. It would be a good disguise. And then what? Gosslinge had his meeting, choked on the ball and was wrapped in the albs by the person he was meeting? Or was he hiding in the albs anyway, trying to keep warm, because he was wearing thinner, cheaper clothes than he was used to and he was cold?

Bartholomew nodded in satisfaction, feeling he was finally deducing some acceptable answers: Gosslinge had gone to the church in his beggarly attire, and was so cold while he waited for his meeting that he wrapped himself in the albs. Then what? Had his assailant seized him while his arms were tangled and forced the ball down his throat? Or had Gosslinge put it in his own mouth? Bartholomew turned the question over and over, but was unable to come up with an answer that satisfied him. The evidence to point him one way or the other was simply not there.