A Summer of Discontent

However, the fact that the body had not been touched provided Bartholomew with some clues. Chaloner’s fingers were deeply caked in mud, which was also ingrained under his nails. That it had not washed away was a sign that he had probably not died in deep, fast-running water, but somewhere sheltered and boggy. He might have clawed at the banks in an attempt to pull himself out. But Bartholomew knew it was possible to drown in very shallow water, and the evidence on the hands alone did not allow him to ascertain whether Chaloner’s death had been accidental or deliberate. It did imply, however, that he had probably known what was happening to him, which suggested that he had not wandered into the river in his cups.

Beginning at the head, Bartholomew made a careful inspection of the body, paying special attention to the neck. He said nothing when he had finished, and moved on to the next corpse.

‘That is Haywarde,’ explained John. ‘He was found dead on Saturday. Like Chaloner and Glovere, he went to the Lamb for a drink before going home. He left the inn after dark, and-’

‘Let me guess,’ interrupted Michael. ‘He was found the following morning floating face-down in the river opposite the Monks’ Hythe.’

John nodded. ‘All three were. So, what do you think, Doctor? Can we bury them in the churchyard? Or are they are suicides?’

‘You can bury them in the churchyard,’ said Bartholomew soberly, straightening from his examination of the second body. ‘They have both been murdered.’

Michael gazed at Bartholomew in the soft shadows of St Mary’s Church. Somewhere outside a dog barked and a child gave a brief shriek of laughter, and then it was silent again, except for the buzzing of flies. The sun had broken through the morning clouds and was blazing hotly through the windows. St Mary’s did not boast much stained glass, but it had a little, and light pooled in occasional multicoloured splatters on the nave floor.

‘Are you sure, Matt?’ Michael asked. ‘Both murdered?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They were killed very carefully, using an unusual method, but the signs are there for anyone to see. Had you examined the corpses yourself, you would have drawn the same conclusion.’

‘I did examine the corpses,’ said John indignantly. ‘But I found nothing to help me one way or another.’

‘Oh,’ said Bartholomew, not certain what else to say. He was astonished that anyone could have missed the clues that he thought were so obvious, even to the casual observer.

‘Did they die in the same way as Glovere?’ asked Michael.

‘What?’ asked John in sudden horror. ‘You think Glovere, Chaloner and Haywarde were killed by the same person?’

‘I cannot tell you that,’ said Bartholomew pedantically. ‘But I can tell you that they were all killed in an identical manner.’

‘Explain,’ ordered John. ‘I want to know exactly what you have learned. Use Haywarde to illustrate your points. We will move away from Chaloner: he is too ripe for my stomach.’

‘All three bodies have traces of mud on them,’ began Bartholomew, pointing to smears of dirt on the inside of Haywarde’s left ear. Someone had given his body a superficial wash, but it was insufficient to hide the fact that he had died out in the open.

‘Of course they are less than pristine,’ interrupted John. ‘They were found in the river.’

‘The river is not especially dirty in Ely,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And it is low at the moment and the banks are baked dry, because it is high summer and it has not rained for a while. I would not expect the bodies to be covered in mud.’

‘But they are not covered in mud,’ objected John. ‘Haywarde has the merest trace of dirt in his ear, and you are using it to claim the man was murdered! I can see I made a mistake in securing your services for an honest verdict!’

‘If you listen to him, and do not insist on interrupting with your own facile observations, you will learn why he considers the mud to be important,’ snapped Michael. ‘Matt and I have solved more murders than you could possibly imagine, and I can assure you that he has a lot more experience of what is and what is not important in these cases than you do.’

‘Very well,’ said John sullenly. ‘Explain, then.’

‘The first point to note is that you said the bodies were floating in the river near the Monks’ Hythe,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘They were waterlogged, if the stains under the coffins are anything to go by, and they probably continued to drip for some time after being brought here.’

‘They did,’ agreed John reluctantly. ‘I had to pay St Mary’s thieving parish priest another penny, because he claimed they were fouling his church.’

‘But this soaking failed to wash away the mud in their ears,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘Why should their ears be muddy, if they were found in the middle of a fairly large river?’

‘It came from when they were pulled out, I imagine,’ suggested Michael. ‘Dirt caught in the ears when they were dragged up the bank.’