The Manor of Death (20 page)

The agent shook his head sullenly, chastened by meeting a stronger will than his own. 'Some will end up there, but much will be taken to various places. That is why I am here, to leave instructions for the carters to take these and other goods to different destinations - Bridport, Taunton and even Dorchester.'

De Wolfe suddenly felt that he was wasting his time here. If the damned Keeper wanted to persist in hounding down those who might be fiddling the Customs duty, that was his affair, but the coroner's business was murder.

'Gwyn, Thomas! Come with me, we need to talk to this ship master.'

He marched out with his officer and clerk in tow, and after a brief hesitation Luke followed him across the road to the large cog that was sitting upright on the mud that was revealed at low tide. Men were still humping bales aboard and others were packing them tightly in the single hold. De Wolfe stalked to the edge of the river and looked across at the stern of the vessel, where a raised platform carried the steering oar and roofed over a shallow shelter where the master and mate slept, the rest of the crew cowering under a similar structure forming the forecastle.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, he yelled at the top of his voice, 'Martin Rof! Are you there?'

A figure emerged from the aftercastle and stared around to see where the shout came from. He was a burly man, broad and tall, with close-cropped fair hair and a ragged beard and moustache of the same yellow hue. Dressed in a short tunic of faded blue serge, he had breeches that ended above his ankles, his bare feet splayed out on the deck.

'Who wants him?' he demanded when he identified the caller amongst the group on the bank.

'Sir John de Wolfe, the king's coroner! Come on down here. I want to talk to you and I'm not clambering along that bloody plank.'

For a moment Thomas thought that Rof was going to refuse, but the coroner's tone was one that offered no compromise. The rough-looking sea-captain jumped down to the main deck and padded down the gangway to where they were waiting.

'What the hell do you want? I'm a busy man. I want to sail on the next tide.'

'That depends on what you have to tell me about the death of Simon Makerel. You may be sailing a horse to Rougemont Castle,' snapped John, repeating the threat he had made to Henry Crik.

'Simon Makerel? What in the Virgin's name do I know about him?' snarled the shipmaster. 'The bloody boy left my vessel at the end of the voyage, so how should I know what happened to him?'

'Did anything occur on that voyage that might have led to his murder?'

Martin Rof turned to spit contemptuously into the river mud. 'I don't know what goes on in the forecastle, man! Maybe one of the crew had some sport with the pretty lad - how would I know? He left the ship with his voyage money and was due back two days later, but he never showed up. We had to find another shipman to take his place ... not that he was much bloody use, anyway.'

'What d'you mean, not much use?' snapped de Wolfe.

'He was not cut out to be a sailor! I heard tell he wanted to be a flaming priest! Soft he was, seasick half the time and too afraid to climb his own height up the rigging! Just as well he never came back, he was a dead weight.'

'He was soon dead, right enough,' retorted de Wolfe. 'Strangled and buried! Now, let's have it straight, did anything happen on that trip to make him a target for some killer? We know he was upset and acting strangely when he got home to Seaton after leaving this vessel.'

Martin shrugged indifferently. 'I told you, I'm a shipmaster, not a bloody nursemaid! I don't know - nor do I care - what goes on amongst the crew.'

John made one last effort to get some information. 'Where did you come from on that voyage?'

Rof's pale blue eyes glared at the coroner. 'What's that got to do with anything? We took wool out of here to Dunkerque, then called at Barfleur on the way home to pick up some wine, though we had a very light load returning - didn't earn us much money. Satisfied?'

De Wolfe was far from satisfied, but short of getting Martin Rof put to the torture under the keep of Rougemont there was little more he could do. He made a final effort. 'What about your crew? Are these the same ones who sailed with Makerel that time?'

'They are indeed!' boomed the captain. 'You can ask them the same silly bloody questions if you like,' he sneered. He turned and yelled at his men in a voice like thunder, calling each by name. Half a dozen came to the bulwarks or stopped carrying bales up the plank to listen to what their master had to say.

'Tell the crowner here what he wants to know, lads,' he said in a jeering voice. 'Did any of you upset young Simon? Maybe somebody bent the ship's boy over the rail for bit of fun, eh?'

Their coarse laughter was cut off by de Wolfe's voice, which easily matched Rof's for volume and carried a sting like a whiplash. 'Enough of that, damn you all! This is serious - a young lad came to a shameful death! Now, do any of you have any knowledge of what may have happened to him, either before or after he left this ship?'

There was a silence, in which each man looked at his fellow and shook his head. They were a ruffianly bunch, even for shipmen, and John could sense straight away that even if they had anything to tell, he would never hear it from them. With a gesture of disgust, he turned away, with a valedictory threat. 'If I find that you are concealing anything from me, it will be the worse for you. So think on that!'

He stalked away and, feeling the need for some sustenance, led the way to the Harbour Inn, just inside the lower gate, opposite the church. A surly innkeeper sold them some indifferent ale and cider and put two loaves, butter and cheese on a table, along with a wooden board carrying a half-eaten leg of mutton. De Wolfe had the distinct impression that the king's law officers were unwelcome in Axmouth.

The five men sat around the food in the dingy taproom, ignored by the half-dozen others who crouched on stools or leant against the lime-washed walls. They hacked at the bread and meat with their eating knives and discussed in low voices their lack of progress.

'Now that we are here, I'm going across to Seaton to see if that widow has any further idea what was ailing her son before he died,' said John. 'Thomas, you can tackle that parish priest over there once again. Someone must know something, for Christ Jesu's sake!' His voice betrayed his exasperation at the wall of silence that seemed to surround this village.

'Looking in that warehouse got you no further,' observed Gwyn to Luke de Casewold. He was fond of baiting the choleric Keeper, who he thought was a rash idiot.

'I doubt that anything in the other buildings would tell us anything either,' replied Luke. 'False listings are easy to make and I suspect that the portreeve is an expert at deception. Looking at a pile of goods tells us nothing, it seems. All of it may have been pillaged out at sea and brought in in the guise of legitimate cargo.'

As they finished the last of the food, de Wolfe asked the Keeper what he intended to do next, now that all his avenues of enquiry seemed to have run dry.

'That pedlar who was killed - he must have fallen foul of an illicit load of goods,' exclaimed de Casewold. 'They have to move all their loot out of this village or it is worth nothing to them, so I'm going to lie in wait and see what trundles out of this cursed place at dead of night - and where it ends up.'

The coroner was worried that the fellow might rashly stick his nose into a wasps' nest and come to serious harm.

'Have a care, de Casewold! Someone has already seen off a shipman and a pedlar, with little compunction. Why don't I suggest to the sheriff that he sends a few men-at-arms to back you up?'

Luke made a deprecating gesture. 'I can spy out the situation first, Sir John. Then if I detect a pattern, maybe your idea might be the answer. Set up an ambush with king's men and catch the bastards in the act!'

Their uninspiring meal over, de Wolfe gave the sullen landlord a couple of pennies and they left the alehouse, where Luke and his clerk took themselves off up the valley towards Axminster. John and his companions made their way to a rickety wooden jetty just outside the wharf gate and spent another half-penny on a ferry-ride across to Seaton. The tide had just turned, and the old man who rowed the flat-bottomed boat had to pull manfully to broach the incoming flood. On the other side of the wide estuary, the village of Seaton stretched down to a stony beach, where fishing boats were pulled up on the pebbles. Thomas went off to the whitewashed church to seek the priest, while Gwyn asked directions to the cottage of Widow Makerel.

This turned out to be a small hut near the strand, with a roof of flat stones to ward off the winds that swept in from the sea. Behind, they could see the chalk cliffs of Beer, riddled with quarry caves from which came the white stone that formed much of Exeter's cathedral.

In the cottage's single room they found Edith Makerel gutting some fish that a neighbour had given her, while the fat girl who had been Simon's betrothed was carrying in wood for the fire that glowed in a pit in the middle of the room. Against one wall a young man lolled on a bench, which together with a table and a couple of stools formed the only furniture in the house, the corner beds being bags of hessian stuffed with ferns and feathers.

The family looked anxious when the two large men appeared but hospitably offered them the bench, the man who was Simon's elder brother moving off to make way for them.

John politely accepted some ale, and the thin brew was poured by the girl into two misshapen mugs of coarse earthenware.

'I dislike disturbing you and reminding you of your great sorrow, mistress,' he said in a voice that was unusually soft and gentle for him. 'But we must get to the bottom of this tragedy, one way or another. I wondered if you have any fresh recollections of what may have been troubling your son when he came home from the sea?'

Edith Makerel, a gaunt woman dressed in a black kirtle with a crumpled linen apron over it, dropped on to a stool and began nervously twisting the cloth belt of her apron. 'Thinking back on it, sir, I am more convinced than ever that it was the pangs of conscience that preyed on his mind. Something he had done or even witnessed, was my guess - though he would not admit it, even to me, his mother.'

De Wolfe listened gravely, quite willing to believe that a woman's intuition was to be relied upon, especially when it concerned her son. 'Have you no idea what this thing might have been? Did he have the marks of a fight or of some injury he could have sustained?'

The widow shook her head sadly. 'He would say nothing, Crowner. He just sat and stared at the fire, seeming mostly bereft of speech. Not like him at all; he was usually a pleasant, cheerful lad. It was going on that damned ship that ruined him.' Edith sounded bitter, as well she might be.

John questioned both the dumpy girl, whose name was Edna, and the elder brother, but they had nothing to add, just confirming the mother's opinion.

'Was there anything else that was out of the ordinary?' asked John, desperate to avoid the usual blank wall that seemed to face him when he made enquiries into this case.

'He seemed to have more money that usual,' said Edith Makerel slowly. 'He gave me ten pence and told me to buy some good food. On his first voyage, he came back with only a shilling for all those days at sea.'

The girl and the brother confirmed that Simon seemed to have more money. 'He gave me six pence and told me to buy a new shift,' said Edna with a tearful sniff. 'He said the coins might as well be put to some use, as he couldn't give them back. It seemed an odd thing to say.'

'He brought nothing back with him from the voyage?' asked Gwyn. 'No trinkets or a flask of brandywine or suchlike?'

There were puzzled shakes of the head, and soon John realised once more that they had exhausted what little there was to be learnt. They left the sad little family and went out into the spring sunshine, as the weather had improved again.

'We'd better wait for the little fellow,' said Gwyn. 'Let's hope he has better luck with the priest.'

They walked down to the beach and squatted on the pebbles, watching the gulls wheeling over the small boats pulled up on the stones, where men were stacking fish into wicker baskets, ready for carting to markets as far away as Exeter and Yeovil. A small island of sand and stones projected from the sea just in front of them, looking like another whale about to surface.

'We've not learnt much about this lad's death in two weeks,' complained Gwyn, throwing a flat stone to skim across the calm sea before them.

John rubbed his bristly chin, which was again overdue for a shave. 'He comes back from his sea trip different from the one before, as then he seemed quite happy,' recounted the coroner. 'But this time he is anxious, worried and depressed, as if something lies heavy on his conscience.'

'And he has considerably more money than before,' added Gwyn. 'So what was different about the second voyage?'

There was a long silence, then de Wolfe offered his opinion. 'I reckon he witnessed something violent or shocking. And that something was lucrative, as even though he was a lowly ship's boy he gets a hand-out as a part-share in whatever happened.'

Gwyn threw another stone and a seagull rose, screaming indignantly. 'And though smuggling might pay well, it's hardly likely to upset him - so what else is most likely?'