A Killer in Winter

Bartholomew looked to where he pointed and saw the jagged hole in the centre of the Mill Pool, made by Turke crashing through it. The surrounding ice was cracked and scratched, as though Turke had fought hard to escape, while the snow on the river bank was scuffed and churned where his would-be rescuers had milled around, unable to help him in time. A piece of rope lay nearby, and parallel lines on the ice indicated where Turke had finally been pulled free. The soldier was right: the ice in the middle of the pond was far too thin for safe skating.

‘What do you think, Matt?’ asked Michael, pulling the cloth away to reveal the blue features of the fishmonger underneath.

‘I think he is still alive,’ said Bartholomew in horror, noting the slight puff of the lips as the man breathed.

‘I was told he was dead!’ said Stanmore indignantly, struggling to lift one end of Turke’s stretcher, while Michael grabbed the other. Sheepishly, trying to make amends for their mistake, Sheriff Morice’s henchmen stepped forward to seize a corner each, leaving Bartholomew to take the middle. ‘He certainly looked dead – blue and chilled.’

‘That is because he was in cold water,’ said Bartholomew, noting that crystals of ice were forming in Turke’s sodden clothes. He wondered whether he would be able to snatch the man back from the brink of death or whether it was already too late. ‘Hurry!’

He did not want to jostle Turke by ferrying him up the narrow stairs that led to Stanmore’s solar, so they took him to the ground-floor room that Cynric and his wife shared, where the physician knew there would be a fire and space to work. Rachel was startled by the sudden and unannounced appearance of a ‘corpse’ in her home, but fetched blankets and bowls of hot water quickly and without needless questions. Everyone – Philippa, Abigny, Stanmore, Edith, Michael, the two soldiers, Cynric and Rachel – crammed into the chamber to watch, advise or help.

Bartholomew knew it was important to warm his victim as soon as possible, so that vital organs could begin their normal functions again. He also knew that heating a frozen person too quickly would place excessive strain on the heart, which would then stop beating. It was a fine line between one and the other, and he was not entirely sure of the limits of either. It was not uncommon for people to fall through rotten ice in the winter, and so it was an operation he had been called upon to perform on several occasions in the past. Sometimes he was successful, and sometimes he was not.

Watched intently by a distraught Philippa, he removed wet clothes and replaced them with heated strips of linen. He concentrated on the torso first; the limbs were less urgent. When he came to remove the unconscious man’s knee-high hose, Philippa stopped him, and, with an odd sense of decorum, she whisked them off under a sheet. It seemed a peculiar thing to do when the rest of him had been so brutally exposed to view, but the physician supposed she imagined she was doing her bit to preserve her husband’s dignity.

Some of the blueness faded from Turke’s face, and Bartholomew began to hope there might be a chance. Philippa insisted on touching her husband, stroking his brow and murmuring to him. She was often in the way, but Bartholomew hoped her voice might work its own magic and pull the man back from the brink of death. Meanwhile, Abigny watched from the door, an anxious expression on his face, although who the anxiety was for – Philippa, Turke or himself – was impossible to say.

After a while, Turke’s eyelids fluttered and he muttered something incomprehensible. Philippa seized his hand and her soft calls rose to a crescendo as she pleaded with him to speak to her. Turke’s eyes opened a second time, and he stared at the ceiling.

‘I am here, Walter,’ Philippa shouted. ‘Come back to me!’

Turke turned his head very slightly in her direction, and his eyes appeared to focus on her face. He swallowed, then spoke. He uttered two words in a low, hoarse voice that had everyone straining to hear him. And then he died.

Bartholomew spent a long time frantically pushing on Turke’s chest in a futile effort to make the heart beat again, but he knew the situation was hopeless. Eventually, he stopped, rubbing a hand across his face as he did so. It was hot in the room, and his attempts to revive his patient had been vigorous. Sweat stung his eyes and he could feel rivulets running down his back under his clothes.

‘Just like the Death,’ said Philippa softly. ‘Medicine could not help people then, either.’

Bartholomew spread his hands helplessly. ‘I am sorry, Philippa. I did all I could.’

She touched him on the cheek as tears began to spill from her eyes. ‘It is not your fault. You did your best.’

‘We will have to tell Sheriff Morice what has happened,’ said one of the soldiers nervously. ‘But it should make no difference, should it, whether Turke died now or earlier?’ There was an almost desperate appeal in his eyes.