The Herring in the Library (20 page)

‘And your conscience?’

‘Is as clear as it needs to be. I had no choice but to sign. I also got a reasonably good breakfast (and lunch). When you became a nun, you signed up to do God’s work and fight
Evil. I am against Evil in principle too – I’m just not contractually obliged in the way that you are.’

‘That’s despicable.’

‘No, that’s how you survive in the real world that most of us have to live in.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The real world?’

‘No, that noise out there.’

And indeed there was a sound of scuffling and heavy boots on the stone floor.

‘If they’ve come to arrest you again,’ said the Prioress, ‘don’t expect me to pray for you this time.’

‘You didn’t pray for me last time.’

‘And how right I was,’ said the Prioress, turning indignantly to Thomas and thus missing the entry of the Sheriff and his two henchmen, plus a fourth man who did not appear
entirely happy to be with them. This last-mentioned individual suddenly pitched forward, either having been precipitously released from their hold or perhaps having been deliberately flung onto the
rush-covered flagstones. He groaned softly and pulled himself to his knees, where he remained. Thomas noticed that the man was dressed as a clerk and wore a dark grey hood. It was a bad choice of
costume under the circumstances.

‘I think,’ said the Sheriff, addressing Master Thomas, ‘that we have our murderer.’

The man looked imploringly at Thomas.

‘I’m not sure . . .’ Thomas began.

‘Not sure?’ repeated the Sheriff. ‘You signed a statement to say that you saw clearly a man dressed as a clerk, wearing a dark grey hood. A hood the colour of summer
thunder-clouds, I think you said. Very poetic. This is just such a man. We also found a dagger . . . as close by as we needed to.’

‘Only not my dagger,’ said the man in a way that suggested he had said it a few dozen times before.

‘It is to be expected that you would deny it,’ said the Sheriff indulgently. ‘There was fresh blood on the dagger.’

‘If I were the murderer,’ said the man, ‘I would have cleaned my dagger straight away. It only takes a moment. Never let the sun set on dried blood – that’s what
my grand-mother always used to say.’

‘You know a great deal about murderers then,’ said the Sheriff. ‘Why should that be?’

‘It’s because he is one,’ said one of the henchmen, with a genuine desire to be helpful.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said the Sheriff. ‘Now, Master Thomas, could you just confirm that you saw somebody like this lurking (as I think you so skilfully phrased
it) near the scene of the murder.’

‘For pity’s sake,’ said the man, fixing Thomas with an imploring eye. ‘Tell them the truth. Tell them that you did not see me.’

‘But,’ said the Sheriff, before Thomas could answer, ‘Master Thomas has already signed a statement to say that he did see somebody exactly like you. He signed it . . . where
was it now? . . . ah, yes, it was in Bramber Castle only this
morning. I am sure that an upright servant of the King would not have committed the crime of perjury, carrying as it does so
many heavy and painful penalties. Extremely painful penalties that it would make me quite nauseous even to describe. I am sure that Master Thomas would not wish to retract a statement of such
importance to those who enforce the King’s Law. I am sure that he would merely wish to confirm that you fit the description of the man he
swears
he saw, so that he can go peacefully on
his way and have a trouble-free journey back to his family in London. Is that a fair summary, Master Thomas?’

Thomas did a quick count. That was two thinly veiled threats, possibly three. Obviously one good one was all you actually needed-say the one about waylaying him on the way home. That was
easily good enough on its own.

‘I am not retracting my statement,’ Thomas began, ‘but . . .’

‘But?’ asked the Sheriff, getting more meaning into a single word than most poets managed to get into several quatrains.

‘I beg you,’ said the man on the floor. ‘I am innocent. They have dragged me out of a tavern, and taken me to some desolate spot that I never visited before in my life. They
have gone through a play-acting to find a knife dripping pig’s blood, or some such thing, that I am supposed to have cast aside when I stabbed Sir Edmund. They have brought me here, to meet a
man I have also never seen before. I thought it was a bit too good to be true when somebody made me a present of a nice new hood this morning. Talk about a complete stitch-up. Kind sir, if you are
a Christian, I beg you. Tell them that you have never seen me.’

‘He is a Christian,’ chipped in the Prioress.

‘Let me help you,’ said the Sheriff to Thomas, in tones so mild and friendly that they struck fear into Thomas’s very soul. ‘If you do not wish to state categorically
that this is
not
the man – as perhaps is the case – then I have the right to assume that it
is
the man. Do you follow me? You don’t actually need to say a thing.
Silence is fine. In many ways, silence is the best thing for all of us – except possibly for the guilty person snivelling in front of you.’

‘They will torture me,’ said the man.

‘That’s true,’ said the helpful henchman.

‘Only if he denies his guilt,’ said the Sheriff, with a mildly reproving look. ‘We are not savages.’

‘Reverend Prioress,’ said the prisoner, switching his attention away from Thomas. ‘Can you not intercede for me?’

‘How,’ said the Prioress, squaring up to the Sheriff, ‘do you know he is guilty?’

‘We won’t know until he confesses or we have tortured him or both,’ said the Sheriff. ‘But Master Thomas’s testimony is admirably clear. You have no idea how
grateful we are to
him.’

‘The man says he’s innocent’

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’

‘But – St Lawrence’s lemons! – you could be torturing an innocent man. You imperil your soul, sir knight’

‘It rarely happens that we torture an innocent man. Almost all prove to be guilty – or so they tell us eventually. My lady Prioress, you must pray for the unhappy prisoner, which
is what you do best, and leave us to do . . . what we do
best. In view of Master Thomas’s very conclusive silence, we shall be on our way.’

‘Dolted daffe,’ said the Prioress, though it was not clear which of the men she was addressing.

The Sheriff smiled. ‘Pax vobiscum,’ he replied.

The henchmen half-dragged, half-carried the prisoner to the door. With difficulty he turned his head towards Thomas one last time. ‘Please?’ he begged.

‘I . . .’ said Thomas.

‘Take him to Bramber,’ the Sheriff said. Then turning to Thomas he added: ‘Bramber is many miles away and the walls are fourteen feet thick. Unlike me, you will not be
troubled with this miserable wretch’s screams. Probably. So I bid you both a very good night and a restful repose.’

The footsteps echoed again on the bare stones, then there was the crunch of boots on soft snow, then, at long last, blissful silence. The fire spat and crackled briefly, as fires
will.

‘Well, that was good,’ said the Prioress with some of the heaviest irony Thomas had encountered in a person of religion.

‘What was I supposed to say?’

‘You could have said you definitely saw somebody but that wasn’t the man.’

‘I suppose I could . . . I just didn’t think quickly enough.’

‘Dolted daffe,’ said the Prioress, thus clarifying who the remark had been addressed to earlier.

‘What now?’ asked Thomas.

‘You have,’ said the Prioress, ‘just sent an innocent man to be tortured and hanged. Maybe drawn and quartered as well if it’s not his lucky day. I have never seen
anyone framed in a
more blatant manner. You’d better come up with a way of springing him from gaol’

‘How?’

‘Tell you what,’ said the Prioress, ‘I’ll do what I do best: pray. You can do the rest of it.’

It was getting late. From what seemed to be a long way off, I heard Elsie’s gentle snore from my bedroom (and indeed from my bed). I reread what I had just typed. The
Master Thomas stories were normally quite light. This tale had suddenly become much darker – the moral dilemma that Thomas was in more complex – than in previous books. If writers draw
constantly on their own experience, how did this relate to my own? Or was it just a story about fourteenth-century England?

I closed the lid of my computer, changed into my pyjamas and, pulling an inadequate blanket over myself, tried to find a sufficiently comfortable position on the sofa to allow me to sleep. There
was no such position, but eventually I slept anyway.

Twenty

‘Shouldn’t you be back in London by now?’ asked Ethelred (always the perfect host) over a fairly late breakfast.

‘My place,’ I said, ‘is by your side.’

‘I’m going up to London anyway,’ he said, ‘to talk to Fiona McIntosh. I phoned her earlier. I’m meeting her this afternoon.’

‘But you’re coming back?’

‘Yes, I’ll be back late afternoon.’

‘Then I think I should stay until I’m sure you are absolutely safe,’ I said. ‘You need more butter, by the way.’

‘I don’t think any of us needs protecting,’ said Ethelred. Outside, the sun was shining and there was the reassuring sound of the world going about its
business. ‘The Maggs girl was probably just out at some club in Worthing. That she wasn’t home by midnight might worry her mother, but for teenagers these days, the evening is only just
beginning round about then. It doesn’t mean she’s been murdered or that she’s fled the country. If I need more butter, it’s because you’ve eaten it.’

‘That’s what you are supposed to do with butter. Let’s ring her later. What time do teenagers get up these days?’

‘You must have been eating it straight from the tub with a spoon. If she’s supposed to be at school or college or something, she should already be up,’ said
Ethelred, looking at his watch.

‘I certainly did not eat it with a spoon. I licked it off the knife-the one you were using to spread your toast. We could go and doorstep her again,’ I said.

‘Or,’ said Ethelred, putting his knife to one side, ‘we could ask Mrs Michie what she knows. They work together, after all. If Gillian Maggs had a trip
planned, she ought to have known. We’ve time to see her before I catch the train to London. I’ll also ring Gerald Smith later and see what was in the envelope that I forwarded on
Robert’s behalf

Mrs Michie’s number was equally easy to track down and, with more or less good grace, she agreed to see us before she went off to work at Muntham Court. Her bungalow in
Findon Valley was neat and almost identical to all of the others in the road.

‘No,’ she said, eyebrows raised, ‘I didn’t know that Gillian Maggs was planning to go anywhere. She should really have checked with me first that it was
convenient. Still, if Her Ladyship knows and approves, who am I to question it?’ I think it was what is called a rhetorical question, in the sense that she ended it with a sniff.

‘Barbados would be a bit expensive for her?’ I asked.

‘Her Ladyship doesn’t pay any more than she has to.’

‘Would that apply to John O’Brian as well?’

‘I can’t say. She certainly doesn’t overpay Gill Maggs, or me come to that.’

‘Does Mrs Maggs’s husband have a good job then?’

‘Doesn’t have any sort of job at all. Who says that’s where she’s gone anyway?’

‘Her daughter.’

This time Mrs Michie just sniffed, but it was an eloquent sniff.

‘What does the daughter do?’ I asked.

‘Same line of work as the father.’

‘So not likely to be able to afford a trip to the Caribbean at short notice?’

‘What do you think?’

On the subject of the passage she was more contemplative.

‘Everybody in the village knew there was supposed to be a secret passage. It’s even mentioned on the village website,’ she said with a frown, ‘but I
thought it was just a story. I never saw it myself. If Gillian Maggs knew, she never said nothing to me.’

‘Could Gillian Maggs have discovered it – while cleaning, say?’ I asked.

‘Could have done, I suppose. She worked for the previous owners of Muntham Court too. She could have known about it for a long time.’

‘And not told anyone?’

‘She’d have told Her. Maybe not Him.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Just a feeling. I sometimes thought Gill Maggs was a bit too pally with Her Ladyship.’

‘Why?’

‘Just because,’ said Mrs Michie, as if the answer was obvious, except to somebody who used the subjunctive on a regular basis. ‘Anyway, Her Ladyship might have
found a secret passage quite handy.’

‘Why?’ repeated Ethelred, though again the answer was pretty obvious to some of us.

‘Good place to hide one of her boyfriends if Sir Robert came back unexpected, eh?’

Back at the flat, Ethelred made coffee for himself and hot chocolate for me.

‘I need to get some more coffee,’ he said, inconsequentially, as he handed me my own steaming mug. ‘I’ve still got plenty of decaffeinated, but I never
drink it myself

For a while we consumed our respective hot beverages and thought about the late and much-missed Sir Shagger Muntham.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘this business with the passage. It’s all starting to make sense. Annabelle knew about the passage. So did Gill Maggs. When questioned on
the night of the murder, Annabelle said nothing to the police about a secret route into the library.’

‘
Out of the
library’ said Ethelred.

‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Then, the next day, it’s suddenly vital that the passage is discovered, and we go through the farce of having to discover it for
her.’

‘Even allowing the unlikely premise that Annabelle knew about the passage beforehand, it still doesn’t make sense.’