The Tinner's Corpse (19 page)

The two men continued along the coast road, keeping up a good pace on the dry track. The weather was dull but dry, with a persistent cold breeze. The trees and bushes were well into leaf and bud, and primroses brightened the verges. Patches of scrub and woodland alternated with hamlets nestling in their strip-fields, and more ground was constantly brought under cultivation by cutting assarts from the surviving forest.

De Wolfe rode immersed in his own problems, but Gwyn, in his contented, easy-going way, had time to contrast this mellow coastal strip with the bleak harshness of Dartmoor, which they had visited a few days earlier. One such prosperous village was Holcombe, the second of the de Wolfe manors and Hilda’s original home.

John deviated a little from the main track to visit the manor farm, in case his brother was there, but the bailiff told him that William had returned to Stoke-in-Teignhead the previous evening. The elder brother, though also tall and dark, was quite different in nature from the warrior John. He was devoted to managing the two estates and improving the farming. This suited de Wolfe, as he had been left a share of the profits by their father Simon. He was content that the land had been given to William, who cared so much for its welfare. A lesser share of the income had been bequeathed to his spinster sister Evelyn, their sprightly mother Enyd also having a life interest in the estate.

‘The whole family will be at Stoke, Gwyn. I’ll be happy to see them all together – and no doubt you’ll get your usual welcome from the maids in the kitchen, who’ll fill you to bursting point.’

As they rejoined the track to Teignmouth, where they could cross the river, he felt happier at the thought of a pleasant afternoon and a dalliance with Hilda on the return journey that night, after his disappointment earlier. Having made sure that Thorgils’ boat was away from Dawlish, he had called at the fine stone house in the middle of the village. His first setback was being told by a giggling maidservant that Mistress Hilda had been in Exeter for the past two days, shopping for a new gown and cloak to attend her younger sister’s wedding next week. She was expected back that afternoon and de Wolfe left a discreet message that he would call upon her that evening.

But ‘Man proposes and God disposes’, as the devout Matilda could no doubt have told him. De Wolfe’s anticipation of a family reunion followed by an evening of passion was dashed within minutes of their leaving Holcombe. Two riders came towards them, trotting so purposefully that Gwyn instinctively felt for the handle of his mace, which hung from a loop on his saddle. ‘Careful, Crowner, these fellows are coming at too fast a clip to be out for some morning exercise.’

His caution proved unnecessary, for de Wolfe soon recognised one of the horsemen as they came nearer. ‘It’s the reeve from Teignmouth. I’ve known him since we were lads – we fished together in the river there.’ The coroner’s boyhood home of Stoke was within walking distance of the reeve’s village.

The recognition was mutual, and a moment later the village headman from Teignmouth reined up alongside them, astonishment written on his broad face. ‘Have you dropped from the sky, Sir John? We were on our way to Exeter to find you or the sheriff’s men.’

Their story was soon told, the other man being an armed companion for the messenger: lone horsemen were easy targets for trail-bastons.

‘A body was found washed up at the mouth of the river early this morning, though he probably came downstream during the night. Our bailiff says that strange corpses must be notified to the sheriff or the crowner without delay these days.’

‘Or else the village gets stuck with a big fine,’ added the other man wryly.

‘Any knowledge of who it might be?’ asked de Wolfe.

The reeve shook his head. ‘No one local, that’s for sure. And by his clothes he’s no peasant.’

These words caused the first niggle of concern to rise in de Wolfe’s mind. ‘You’d better lead us to this mystery man,’ he grunted. ‘Is he still where he was found?’

‘Indeed he is, Crowner. The bailiff said that, these days, on no account must we interfere with corpses.’

It was less than two miles to the river and the four horsemen spurred their mounts to a canter, covering the remaining distance in a short time. As they jogged down the slope to the Teign, John looked ahead to gauge the state of the tide. It had been ebbing at Dawlish, so should be nearing low water now. The river had a broad estuary about two miles long running straight inland, but at the seaward end a sand bar cut across much of the outflow, leaving a narrow gap that could be forded at low tide.

As they moved on to this grass-grown spit, they could see that a dozen or more people, some leading sumpter horses, were clustered at the edge of the water, slightly inside the tip of the sand spit, where debris washed down by the river had been beached by the falling tide. A tangled mass of broken branches, reeds and even a length of wattle fencing was strewn along the foreshore where the crowd was gathered.

‘A train of pack-horses has arrived, by the look of it,’ said the reeve, sliding off his mare and walking her across to the group. De Wolfe and the other two followed him across the coarse grass. There were some local people with the hauliers, one a sailor by his cloth breeches and short tunic, and a couple of villeins holding mattocks. The inevitable flock of urchins was running around, and Gwyn called to one to hold their horses while they pushed through the small crowd. Then he bellowed at the onlookers to make way for the King’s coroner.

They stood aside and let John through to look down at a bedraggled body, lying under a heap of twisted branches and part of a holly tree.

‘Washed down with all this heavy rain,’ volunteered the reeve. ‘Yesterday, the river was in spate far more than this.’

The corpse was lying face down on the muddy sand, its tunic washed up over its head, exposing breeches and one riding boot; the other foot was bare. The saturated clothing was soiled and badly torn from snagging on obstructions in the river.

‘Get him up from the waterline and turn him over,’ ordered de Wolfe, a grim thought already forming in his mind.

Willing hands disentangled the cadaver from the holly-bush and pulled the thorny twigs off the tunic. Gwyn and the reeve each took one of the outstretched hands and slid the body up the wet sand to the grass, then rolled it over on to its back.

Puffy and sodden, with scratches on cheeks and forehead, the square face stared sightlessly up at the grey clouds. The soaking hair was plastered to the scalp, but the fair ringlets confirmed the identity the features had already proclaimed.

It was Walter Knapman, lately a tin-master of Chagford.

John de Wolfe wrestled only a short time with his conscience. His rigid sense of duty soon convinced him that both his visit to his mother and the dalliance with the delectable Hilda were now out of the question. One dead tinner from Chagford was mystery enough, but to have two within a week was pushing coincidence too far. The news would have to be taken to Knapman’s family without delay, and investigations would have to be made in earnest. He motioned to Gwyn to step back from the chattering crowd, who fluttered around the body like agitated birds. ‘We must get him away from here and examine him properly. Which direction was this pack train going?’

Gwyn shouted across to one of the men and found that they were bound for Exeter, the panniers of the eight sumpters laden with cloth from a mill at Paignton.

‘They can carry the corpse there for us. If one of the horses has its load shared out among the others, we can lash the body across its back. I’ll even buy a length of their cloth to wrap round it, for decency’s sake.’

Gwyn gave his master one of those looks that de Wolfe had come to recognise as an expression of doubt. ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ he asked, with a sigh.

‘These pack trains move awful slow, Crowner. They’ll not be in Exeter until this time tomorrow.’

‘So? Knapman’s in no hurry – he’s dead.’

Gwyn refused to be brushed aside. ‘The body’s been soaking in water a day or so already. By the time he’s bumped along all the way to Exeter tomorrow, he’ll not be that fresh. Shouldn’t we take a look at him now?’

As usual, his henchman was right. But to strip the body here, on a bleak sandbank in full view of the village, was unseemly, even to a hardened character like de Wolfe. Then inspiration came to him. ‘We’ll take him just up the road to Holcombe and use one of my brother’s barns to examine him. Then we can ride on to the city and let these folk take their time bringing him the rest of the way.’

An hour later, they pulled open the tall doors of a wattle and daub farm building at Holcombe, aided by the local manor reeve, who fussed over his master’s brother like a hen with a favourite chick – he had known him from infancy. He was Hilda’s father and was well aware – even secretly approved – of John’s affection for his daughter.

Knapman’s body had been rolled in a length of serge and lashed over the back of a sturdy pony, his head resting on one pannier, his legs on the opposite one. Gwyn untied the corpse and carried it like a baby into the barn, even though the dead Walter was no lightweight. The two hauliers, who rode their own steeds, one at each end of the line of roped pack-horses, waited patiently outside, mollified by the promise of a fee for this funereal transport.

In the barn, which in early spring was virtually empty, the reeve rolled out a small handcart to provide a flat platform for the body. Gwyn laid it down and they stood back to view it carefully.

‘No blood to be seen,’ observed the Cornishman, ‘but he’s been well washed in the river.’

‘Where did your alehouse gossip say he went missing?’

‘Last seen near the mill near Steps Ford on the upper Teign.’

‘The same river, certainly. He must have been washed down twenty miles or more – but it’s been in full spate after that cloudburst.’

De Wolfe looked at the pallid face, the skin soggy and peeling in places. But the expression was calm enough, giving the lie to the nonsense about contortions of fear and agony remaining after death. His experience of hundreds of corpses on the battlefields of Europe and the Levant had long ago disabused him of that fable.

He moved to the side of the cart and pulled up the half-open eyelids to examine the whites of the eyes. The globes were already softened and partly collapsed, but there were no blood spots to suggest throttling. Some fragments of grass floated out of the corners of the eyes as the water drained away and John pulled down the lids to blanket the sightless stare. ‘Nothing around the neck, no marks of a rope or throttling fingers,’ he commented, as Gwyn and the reeve watched him pull aside the neck of the brown tunic.

‘Could he have been thrown from his horse, perhaps?’ asked the reeve who, as an old retainer, was bold enough to ask questions of the man he once knew as a child.

‘Quite possibly, it happens often enough,’ conceded de Wolfe, though he thought that it didn’t happen that often to folk who have just lost an employee through murder. He motioned to Gwyn to go round to the other side of the cart, and together they began to remove Knapman’s clothing.

‘One boot missing, but that’s common enough in drowned men, both in sea or river,’ boomed Gwyn, who, as a former fisherman, considered himself an expert on waterlogged corpses.

They removed Knapman’s broad leather belt and de Wolfe picked up the purse slung from it. There was a chink of coins and when he opened it, a handful of silver pennies and a small gold crucifix tumbled out. ‘Doesn’t look like a robbery. No outlaw or footpad would leave these behind,’ he remarked.

They hauled the long brown tunic over the head, having to fight the stiffness of death to free the arms from the sleeves. Underneath, Knapman wore a shirt of fine linen and a pair of worsted breeches tied around the waist with a drawstring.

‘Nothing on the front of him, apart from these scrapes and scratches,’ grunted the coroner’s officer.

‘That happened after death, I’m sure – no bruises or blood under the edges of the rips. All done against rocks and tree trunks, rolling down the river.’

De Wolfe moved to the head and felt with his long fingers among the thick wet mop of hair. When they reached the back point of the scalp, they stopped abruptly. ‘Ah, here we have it. The head is cracked like an egg.’ The reeve, bending to peer more closely, jerked back when he heard the grating crepitation of bone fragments rubbing together as de Wolfe massaged the rear of the skull.

‘So he might have taken a heavy fall, Sir John?’ The manor servant was keen to promote his theory.

‘He might, indeed. It’s a long way down from a big stallion, especially if you land on a rock.’

John’s presumption of foul play was starting to waver a little, but it was soon revived when Gwyn hauled the body over on to its face.

‘What have we here, Crowner?’ he bellowed, almost gleefully, pointing with a massive forefinger at a red mark running diagonally across the back between the shoulder-blades.

De Wolfe hunched over the corpse, to peer down at the pale, macerated skin. There was no purplish-red
livor mortis
due to the sinking of blood, because the body had been constantly rolled and twisted by the currents. But a clear double track of red bruising ran from the back of the right shoulder across the spine for a distance of four hand spans, fading away below the lower edge of the left shoulder-blade. The two lines ran parallel, with a clear central zone the width of a thumb between them.

The reeve gave an amateur but accurate description. ‘Looks as if someone has dipped two fingers in blackberry juice and drawn them across his back,’ he said.

The coroner and his henchman looked at each other across the corpse, their eyes meeting in silent agreement.

‘Struck with a staff, no doubt about it,’ observed Gwyn, in a satisfied voice.

‘Maybe he did come off his horse, like the reeve says – but he didn’t fall, he was knocked off,’ concluded John. ‘It takes quite a blow to leave a clear track like that.’