Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake Mysteries) Read online

  ‘Not long. By God’s mercy you were only a few minutes. Did you go on the marsh?’

  ‘Yes. There have been smugglers out there - we found a fire. I had a talk with Alice, we will speak of it later.’ I lit two candles from the fire and passed him one. ‘Well, shall we try this passage again?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘Yes, sir.’

  I locked the door of our room against intruders, then we squeezed behind the cupboard and opened the door. Within lay a dark, narrow corridor.

  ‘Brother Guy said there was a connecting passage from the infirmary to the kitchen,’ I said, remembering. ‘Closed off at the time of the Great Pestilence.’

  ‘This has been used much more recently.’

  ‘Yes.’ Within I could see a pinpoint of light where the spyhole had been cut through the wooden panelling. ‘This gives a clear view of the room. It looks recently cut.’

  ‘Brother Guy chose our room for us.’

  ‘Yes. Where anyone could spy on us, overhear us.’ I turned to the door. It had the type of latch that can be opened from the outside only. ‘Let us make safe this time.’ I pushed it almost shut, but inserted my handkerchief into the gap to prevent it closing on us.

  We made our way up the passage. It was narrow, running parallel with the wall of the infirmary building. One side was formed by the wood panelling of the infirmary rooms, the other by the stone of the claustral buildings. The remnants of rusty torch brackets lined the damp walls. It was evidently long disused - it stank of damp and strange bulbous mushrooms grew in corners. After a short distance the passage took a right angle, then opened into a chamber. We stepped in and cast our light around.

  We were in a prison cell, square and windowless. Ancient leg-irons were fastened to the wall, and a heap of mouldy cloth and wood in one corner indicated the remains of a bed. I cast my light over the walls. Words were scratched all over the stone. I read one deeply indented row of letters. Frater Petrus tristissimus. Anno 1339. ‘Brother Peter the most sad. I wonder what he did.’

  ‘There’s a way out,’ Mark said, crossing to a heavy wooden door. I bent to the keyhole. There was no light from the other side. I put my ear to the door, but could hear nothing.

  Slowly I turned the handle. The door opened quietly inwards and I saw the hinges had been greased. We came out behind another cupboard, which had been pushed just far enough from the wall to let a man squeeze through. We went out and found ourselves in a stone-flagged corridor. A little way off was a door, half-open. I heard a murmur of voices, plates clinking.

  ‘It’s the kitchen passage,’ I breathed. ‘Back inside, quick, before someone sees us.’

  I squeezed in again after Mark, and bent to close the door, coughing a little in the damp air. Suddenly a hand was clamped over my mouth, and I froze as another pressed on my hump. The candles were extinguished. Then Mark whispered in my ear.

  ‘Quiet, sir. Someone’s coming!’

  I nodded, and he lowered his hands. I could hear nothing; he had indeed the ears of a bat. A moment later the glow of a candle appeared round the corner and a figure followed; robed and cowled, staring into the prison room from a gaunt, dark face. Brother Guy’s candle picked out our figures in the corner and he started.

  ‘Jesu save us, what are you doing here?’

  I stepped forward. ‘We might ask you the same question, Brother. How did you get in here? We locked our door.’

  ‘And I unlocked it. I had a message the pond was emptied and came to call you, but there was no reply. For all I knew you’d both dropped dead, so I let myself in with my key and saw that open door.’

  ‘Master Poer has heard someone behind the wall several times, and this morning he found the door. We have been spied on, Brother Guy. You gave us a room with a hidden passage behind. Why? And why did you not tell me there was an open way from the infirmary to the kitchens?’ My voice was harsh. I had begun to see Brother Guy as something like a friend in that place. I cursed myself for allowing myself to become close to a man who, when all was said and done, was still a suspect.

  His face set. The candlelight flickered strangely over his long nose and narrow dark features. ‘I had forgotten that door was in your room. Sir, this passage hasn’t been in use for nearly two hundred years.’

  ‘It was used this morning! And you gave us the one room where a spyhole could be cut in the wall!’

  ‘It is not the only room,’ he said calmly. His gaze was level, the candle held in a steady hand. ‘Did you not see? This passage runs behind the panelling of the infirmary wall, behind all the rooms on that corridor.’

  ‘But there is a spyhole only behind ours. Are visitors normally put in our room?’

  ‘Those who do not stay with the abbot. Usually messengers, or officials from our estates come to discuss business.’

  I waved my hand around the dank little cell. ‘And what in God’s name is this horrible place?’

  He sighed. ‘This is the old monks’ prison. Most houses have them; in years gone by abbots used to imprison brethren who had sinned grievously. In canon law they still have the power, though it’s never used.’

  ‘No, not in these soft times.’

  ‘Prior Mortimus asked a few months ago whether the old cell still existed; he was talking of bringing it back into use for punishment. I told him so far as I knew it did. I haven’t been here since an old servant showed it to me when I took over as infirmarian. I thought the door was sealed off.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. So Prior Mortimus asked about it, did he?’

  ‘He did.’ His voice hardened. ‘I would have thought you would have approved, the vicar general seems to want our life to be hard and cruel as can be.’

  I let a moment’s silence fall between us. ‘Be careful what you say before witnesses, Brother.’

  ‘Yes. It is a world full of new marvels, where the king of England will hang a man for speaking words.’ He made an effort to collect himself. ‘I am sorry. But Master Shardlake, for all that yesterday we had a scholarly discussion about the new ways, there is a weight of fear and anxiety on everyone here. I only want to live in peace, Commissioner. We all do.’

  ‘Not all, Brother. Someone could have come through this passage to the kitchen to kill Commissioner Singleton. It means they would not have needed a key to get to the kitchen. Yes, of course - that makes the kitchen the ideal place for someone to arrange to meet him, lie in wait and murder him.’

  ‘Alice and I were up all that night tending old Brother James. No one could have come past us without being seen.’

  I took his candle and held it up to his face. ‘But you could have done it, Brother.’

  ‘I swear by Our Lord’s holy blood I did not,’ he said passionately. ‘I am a physician, my oath is to preserve life, not take it.’

  ‘Who else knew of the passage? You said the prior spoke of it. When?’

  He put a hand to his brow. ‘He raised it at an obedentiaries’ meeting. I was there, the abbot, Prior Mortimus, Brother Edwig and Brother Gabriel. Brother Jude the pittancer was there too and Brother Hugh the chamberlain. Prior Mortimus was talking as usual of how discipline needed to be stronger. He said he’d heard tell of an old monk’s cell somewhere behind the infirmary. He was half-joking, I think.’

  ‘Who else in the monastery might know of it?’

  ‘New novices are told there is an old cell hidden in the precinct, to scare them, but I don’t think anyone quite knew where it was. And I had forgotten till you mentioned it the day you came. I told you, I thought it locked up for years!’

  ‘So people knew it existed. What about your friend, Brother Jerome?’

  He spread his hands. ‘What do you mean? He is not my friend.’

  ‘I saw you helping him yesterday with his book, in service.’

  Brother Guy shook his head. ‘He is a brother in Christ, and a poor cripple. Has it come to such a pass that to aid a cripple turn the pages of his book becomes the basis of accusations? I had not thought you such
a man, Master Shardlake.’

  ‘I seek a murderer, Brother,’ I said curtly. ‘All the obedentiaries are under my watch, including you. So, anyone at that meeting could have had his memory stirred and decided to go ferreting for this passage.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  I looked round the dank cell again. ‘Let us go. This place makes my bones ache.’

  We returned up the passage in silence. Brother Guy went out first, and I bent to retrieve my handkerchief. As I did so I saw something glimmering faintly in the candlelight. I scraped the stone flag carefully with a fingernail.

  ‘What’s that?’ Mark asked.

  I held my finger close. ‘God’s death, so that’s what he was about,’ I whispered. ‘Yes, of course, the library.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Later.’ I wiped my hand carefully on my robe. ‘Come on, my bones will freeze before I get to sit by a fire today.’

  When we regained our room I dismissed Brother Guy, then stood warming my hands at the grate.

  ‘God’s nails, that place was cold.’

  ‘It surprised me to hear Brother Guy speak against the vicar general.’

  ‘He spoke against the king’s policy, but he would have had to speak against his headship of the Church to commit treason. In the heat of the moment he just said what they all think.’ I blew out my cheeks. ‘No, I found a trail in there, but it leads to someone else.’

  ‘To whom?’

  I looked at him, pleased his sulks seemed to be forgotten.

  ‘Later. Come, we must go to the pond before they start emptying it themselves. We need to see if anything else is in there.’ We left the room, my mind racing.

  WE RETRACED our way through the orchard, to where a little crowd of servants stood by the fish pond, holding long poles. Prior Mortimus was with them. He turned to us.

  ‘The stream’s been diverted, Commissioner, and the water drained out. But we’ll have to let it through again soon or it’ll flood the land by the sump.’

  I nodded. The pond was now a deep empty bowl, shards of ice embedded in the thick greyish-brown silt at the bottom. I called over to the servants.

  ‘A shilling for the man who finds anything in there!’

  Two servants came forward and hesitantly climbed down into the silt, probing with their poles. At length one of them called out and held something up. Two gold chalices.

  ‘Orphan was supposed to have taken those,’ the prior breathed.

  I had hoped we might find the relic, but another ten minutes of searching revealed nothing beyond an old sandal. The servants climbed out again, and the man who had found the chalices passed them to me. I gave him his shilling and turned to find the prior looking at them.

  ‘They’re the ones, no doubt.’ He let out a long breath. ‘Commissioner, remember, if you find the man who killed that poor girl, give me some time alone with him.’ He turned and walked off. I raised an eyebrow at Mark.

  ‘Does he really feel for her death?’ he asked.

  ‘There is no end to the strange depths of the human heart. Come, we must go to the church.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  MY LEGS WERE TIRED and my back hurt as yet again we plodded back to the monastery. I envied Mark as he ploughed on energetically, sturdy legs kicking up the snow. When we reached the courtyard I stopped to catch my breath.

  ‘The trail in that room leads us back to Brother Gabriel. It seems he was concealing things after all. Let us go and find him. We’ll look for him in the church first. When I talk to him I want you to stand just out of earshot. Don’t ask, there is a reason.’

  ‘As you wish, sir.’ I could tell he was annoyed by my secrecy, but it was part of the plan I had made. I had been surprised by what I had found in that passage, but I could not help a feeling of satisfaction that my earlier suspicions of Gabriel had not, after all, been groundless. Truly the human heart holds strange and unaccountable depths.

  The day was still cloudy and the church interior was dim as we walked down the nave. There was no susurration of prayers from the side chapels; it must have been the monks’ recreation time. I made out the figure of Brother Gabriel halfway down the nave. He was supervising a servant polishing a large metal plaque set into the wall.

  ‘The verdigris is coming off.’ His deep voice echoed around as we approached. ‘Guy’s formula works.’

  ‘Brother Gabriel,’ I said, ‘I fear I am always sending away your servants. But I must talk with you again.’

  He sighed and bade the man depart. I read the Latin engraved into the plaque above the figure of a monk lying on a bier.

  ‘So the first abbot is buried there in the wall?’

  ‘Yes. That metalwork is exceptional.’ He glanced at Mark, who stood a little way off as I had bid him, then turned back to me. ‘Unfortunately it is a copper alloy, but Brother Guy came up with a formula for cleaning it.’ He spoke rapidly, his manner nervous.

  ‘You have a busy life, Brother, responsible for the church music and the decoration too.’ I looked up at the railed walkway, the statue of Donatus with the tools lying beside it and the workmen’s basket secured by its cat’s cradle of ropes to the walkway and the bell tower. ‘No progress with the works, I see. Are you still negotiating with Brother Edwig?’

  ‘Yes. But surely you have not come to discuss that?’ Irritation crept into his voice.

  ‘No, Brother. Yesterday I put a case to you, a lawyer’s accusation, you said. An accusation of murder. You said I was building a false picture.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I am no murderer.’

  ‘One thing, though, we haranguing lawyers develop is an instinct as to when people are holding things back. We are seldom wrong.’

  He said nothing, eyeing me intently.

  ‘Let me put another case to you, a set of suppositions shall we say, and you can correct me as we proceed if I err. Is that fair?’

  ‘I do not know what trick this is.’

  ‘No trick, I promise. Let me start with a meeting of the obedentiaries a few months ago. Prior Mortimus mentioned the old monks’ cell and a passage leading from the infirmary to the kitchen quarters.’

  ‘Yes - yes, I remember it.’ He was breathing a little faster now, blinking more often.

  ‘It was never followed up, but I think it rang a bell in your mind. I think you went to the library, where you knew all the old plans of the monastery could be found. I saw them when you showed me the library; I remember then you seemed anxious I should not see them. I think you found the passage, Brother; I think you went in there and bored a spyhole into what is now our room. The kitchener said you had been lurking round the kitchen, where I now know the entrance to the passage is.’

  He licked dry lips.

  ‘You do not contradict me, Brother.’

  ‘I - I know nothing of this.’

  ‘No? Mark has heard noises some mornings, and I scoffed at him, saying it was mice. Today, though, he explored our room and found the door and the spyhole. I wondered who had been in there, I even suspected the infirmarian, but then I found something on the floor, under the spyhole. Something that glistened. And I realized that the man who had been looking in at us had not been out to spy. He had a different purpose.’

  Brother Gabriel let out a groan that seemed to issue from the depths of his being. He sagged like a puppet with its strings cut.

  ‘You have a love of young men, Brother Gabriel. It must have come to consume you utterly if you would go to such lengths to watch Mark Poer dressing in the morning.’

  He swayed and I thought he would fall. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. His face when he looked at me was first deathly pale, then it reddened with a burning flush.

  ‘It is true,’ he whispered. ‘Jesu forgive me.’

  ‘God’s death, that must have made a strange journey, through that dolorous old cell with your cock swelling in the dark.’

  ‘Please - please.’ He raised a hand. ‘Don’t tell him, don’t tell the bo
y.’

  I took a step closer. ‘Then tell me all you have been concealing. That passage is a secret way into the kitchen, where my predecessor was murdered.’

  ‘I never wanted to be like this,’ he hissed with sudden passion. ‘Male beauty has obsessed me so long, since I first saw the image of St Sebastian in our church. My mind fixed on it as those of other boys did on St Agatha’s breasts on her statue. But they could turn to matrimony. I was left alone with - this. I came here to escape the temptation.’

  ‘To a monastery?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes.’ He laughed, a desolate sound. ‘Healthy young men do not become monks these days, or few of them. Mostly it is poor creatures like Simon, who cannot cope with life in the world. I had no lust for Simon, let alone old Alexander. I have sinned with other men but few times these past years, and never since the visitation. With prayer, with work, I have achieved control. But then visitors come, reeves from our lands in the shire, messengers, and I sometimes see - I see a beautiful boy who sets me afire, then I scarce know what I do.’