The Grim Reaper Read online

  ‘Stark naked, he was, standing on the end of the bloody bridge like a bush afire!’ contributed the other excitedly.

  De Wolfe rocked back on his heels to ponder the situation. Was this a final act of contrition for killing and assaulting all those people? There was no proof of that – even priests are allowed to go mad without necessarily being serial killers.

  ‘Shall we haul him off to the mortuary, as you said, Crowner?’ asked Theobald.

  John got to his feet and looked again at the scorched cadaver.

  ‘No, he’s a clerk in Holy Orders, so we must see what the cathedral wishes to do about this. The Archdeacon is responsible for the parish priests, so he must be told – and the Bishop, if he’s still in the city.’

  A wide circle of people had formed around the scene and as they moved to allow de Wolfe and his party to pass through on their way back to the higher ground outside the city wall, Brother Rufus reminded him of Ralph de Capra’s recent movements. ‘He was being sheltered by the priest at St Mary Steps, both before and after he was taken to St Nicholas. I wonder if he knows about this?’

  ‘That’s further reason to speak to him, as soon as we can,’ grunted the coroner. ‘He seemed quite fond of that deranged fellow, so it may come as a nasty shock.’

  Privately, de Wolfe wondered if the same nasty shock might trigger some useful reaction in Adam of Dol, but when they reached the little house behind the church, no one was in. The four investigators came back down the steep cobbles at the side of the church and went in through the front door.

  Inside the empty nave, they saw Adam with his back to them, up a ladder set against the blank wall at one side of the chancel arch. He wore an old black robe stained with paint, the skirt pulled up between his legs and tucked into a broad leather belt. A tray of small pots was balanced precariously on one of the rungs and he was leaning out with a small brush, meticulously putting pigment on another of his terrifying images.

  He was so intent upon his artistic endeavours that he failed to hear them come in. Gwyn nudged his master and pointed to the new scene, mostly in red and black, which contrasted starkly with the whitewashed walls. It was only partly completed, but showed an angel and a winged devil fighting over an agonised human, each trying to drag him up to heaven or down to hell. The details were very well drawn and the face of the angel was undoubtedly that of Adam himself. The devil was equally clearly that of Henry Marshal, Bishop of Devon and Cornwall!

  ‘That’ll not increase your popularity in the cathedral precinct,’ said John in a loud voice. The priest turned so suddenly that he was in danger of falling from the ladder, but when he saw who his visitors were, he snarled, ‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse what they think down there! They’re only interested in fancy vestments, good food and their fat tithes and prebends. Saving souls is the least of their concerns.’ He turned back to his painting, deliberately ignoring the coroner and his companions. He was adding a disembowelled corpse to the free hand of the bishop-devil, presumably one which Satan had already seized from the forces of heaven.

  John waited patiently, while Brother Rufus stared with rapt attention at all the other wall-paintings, and the ever-inquisitive Thomas wandered over to the chancel steps to leaf through a thick book that lay on a wooden lectern.

  After a little time Adam finished what he was painting and leaned back a little to admire his work. Then he put his brush on the tray and slowly came down the ladder. Rubbing his hands on his grubby tunic, he came across the nave towards de Wolfe, his red face as truculent as ever. ‘Anyway, what do you want, Crowner? I’ve seen enough of you lately. Can’t you leave us alone?’

  The ‘us’ brought home to John that he had an unpleasant duty to perform. Quite bluntly, he told Adam of the gruesome death of his priestly neighbour less than an hour before. If he had been hoping for a reaction, he was not disappointed, for after a moment’s shocked inertia, the burly priest gave a bull-like roar and charged at the coroner, his hands open as if to seize his throat.

  Gwyn, who had spent many years as bodyguard to his master, stepped calmly between them and grabbed the priest’s wrists in a bear-like grip, forcing the man down to his knees.

  ‘Now, none of that or I’ll have to hurt you,’ he said benignly.

  However, Adam’s mouth could still function and he poured out a torrent of invective at de Wolfe, widening it to include the sheriff, constable, bishop, all the archdeacons and most of the Exeter canons. ‘If you had not persecuted that poor man, he would still be alive!’ he raged. ‘He lost his faith, as many of us do at some time or another, but he was hounded into insanity by you all.’

  Rufus tried to intervene, pointing out that though racking doubts about the very existence of God were an occupational hazard of being a priest, few were driven to madness and self-destruction. Adam ignored him and continued to rage at the coroner and the faithless world in general, his fleshy face almost purple with anger.

  John let the abuse wash over him and motioned to Gwyn to let the man get to his feet, though the Cornishman kept a wary eye on him in case he became violent again.

  As the priest continued to shake his fist, wave his arms and rant about the indolence of the Church, Thomas sidled up to de Wolfe and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Crowner, come over here, quickly,’ he whispered, and pulled him the few paces to the chancel steps where the Vulgate now lay open on the lectern. The clerk pointed a finger at one page, where John saw faint but distinct underlining in powdery charcoal beneath some of the beautifully regular lettering of the Latin text. Thomas turned feverishly to another page, which he had marked with a small feather dropped by one of the birds that nested in the roof beams. ‘Here again passages have been marked – and in other places!’ he hissed.

  As de Wolfe stared at him with dawning comprehension, he became aware that Adam’s tirade was running down in volume and virulence. The priest had noticed the activity near his lectern.

  ‘Are these the same quotations as at the scenes of death?’ he muttered, leaning closer to his clerk.

  Thomas bobbed his head. ‘This one is from St Mark about the moneylenders in the temple – and the first was that about the millstone around the neck.’

  Adam’s angry monologue had faded to silence now and de Wolfe saw that both Gwyn and the castle chaplain had turned to listen to what Thomas was saying. ‘Hold him, Gwyn, I have some questions for that man!’ snapped John urgently, but he was too late. With surprising agility for one so heavily built, Adam of Dol raced for a small door at the front of the nave, alongside the entrance from the street. Gwyn pounded after him, but the priest slipped through and slammed it after him. They heard a bar being dropped on the inside and though Gwyn crashed his great body against the oaken door, it shuddered but held fast. The four left in the nave clustered around the doorway in excited frustration.

  ‘Where does this lead?’ demanded de Wolfe.

  ‘It can only be to the bell-tower,’ suggested Rufus.

  Shouting over his shoulder to Gwyn to break it open, de Wolfe ran out into the narrow street between the church and the city wall near the West Gate. Turning, he looked up at the squat, square tower that had been erected only a few years earlier with funds donated by a rich burgess in memory of his wife. Just under the flat top, there was a small arch on each of the four sides, which allowed the peals from the central bell to ring out over the city. He could see no one under the front arch so he hurried back into the nave.

  Gwyn had failed to shift the door with his shoulder and rubbing his bruised muscles, was on his way to fetch Adam’s stout ladder to use as a battering-ram. There was silence from behind the door and John wondered whether Adam might decide to follow his fellow priest’s example by killing himself. However, the coroner decided that it seemed out of character with the man’s truculent nature, unless by leaping from the bell-tower, he could land on the coroner and personally send him to hell, having failed the previous night with his leather bag.

  As he waited impatiently
for Gwyn to break down the door, de Wolfe noticed that Brother Rufus and Thomas were staring at the other gory scenes painted by Adam high on the walls. They were pointing at particular parts of the murals, which were frighteningly realistic in their sharp detail. ‘Crowner, look at that face – and that one,’ brayed the monk. ‘Can you see who they are?’

  John peered up, following Rufus’s finger. Though the main characters in the scenes were angels and devils, there were several smaller individuals, almost all agonised victims of sin. Suddenly, his eyes registered what the other two were indicating. In the lower corner of the first painting, one face was unmistakably that of Aaron, the Jewish moneylender, and in the next, a woman with flowing hair and prominent breasts was Joanna of London. Astounded, John moved along and found the merchant sodomite Fitz-William, then the unmistakable pointed beard and close-set eyes of Richard de Revelle.

  ‘No sign of the crowner here, in his gallery of rogues,’ chaffed Rufus. ‘I suppose as you were the last victim he hasn’t had time to include you.’

  Gwyn had by now grabbed the ladder, letting the pots of pigment crash down to stain the nave floor. As he charged across the nave with the stout timbers held like a lance, John tried to assimilate all that the last few moments had revealed. It was patently obvious that Adam of Dol was the deranged killer and the attacker that they had been so desperately seeking – for whose sake Thomas had come so close to a humiliating death. If only he had taken more notice of these damned paintings earlier, then a great deal of trouble – and even a life or two – might have been saved.

  A thunderous crashing began at the base of the tower, where Rufus of Bristol had joined Gwyn in swinging the heavy ladder against the stubborn door. While they were assaulting it, John laid a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and shouted a question at him: ‘Were all those quotations underlined in the book?’

  ‘Like the faces up on the walls, all of them except the one left at your attack, master. But that was but a few hours ago.’

  They were interrupted by the rending of wood and turning, they saw that the door to the tower was hanging from its hinges. With a roar, Gwyn dropped the ladder and dived through the opening. By the time John had followed him inside, his officer was still roaring, but with further frustration. A tiny room, the floor rush-covered, was empty but for a broom and a bucket. In one corner there was a square hole in the ceiling and below this a rope ladder lay crumpled on the floor, thrown down from above. They could hear heavy feet pacing up and down on the boards overhead and a muffled litany of imprecations.

  ‘Come down, Adam! There’s no way you can escape,’ yelled Rufus, in his usual interfering way. Thomas scowled at him, annoyed that the chaplain had been first to notice the faces in the wall paintings, though Thomas still could claim recognition of the marked passages in Adam’s Bible.

  The coroner joined in calling upon the priest to surrender, but was met by another barrage of defiance, mixed with the usual commentary on the Armageddon soon to come.

  ‘The Book of Revelation must be his favourite reading,’ muttered Thomas cynically, though he made the Sign of the Cross a few times, to be on the safe side.

  ‘Any fear of him jumping from the top?’ asked Rufus, echoing John’s earlier thoughts.

  ‘Any hope, you mean!’ countered Gwyn cynically.

  ‘It would certainly solve many problems – not least those of the Bishop,’ said Rufus wryly.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asked de Wolfe suspiciously.

  The castle priest shrugged. ‘Unlike our little friend here, Adam is a fully fledged parish priest, still in Holy Orders. The Bishop proscribed torture for Thomas, though technically he is a layman, so I doubt he’ll withhold Benefit of Clergy for this man.’

  ‘That’s not my business, thank God,’ grated de Wolfe. ‘My concern at the moment is to get the swine down from up there.’

  Adam’s head appeared in the trap above, an almost manic leer on his face as he stared down at them. ‘My work on this earth is nearly finished – but the Lord will deliver me from mine enemies!’ he yelled triumphantly.

  ‘I’ll bloody deliver you, you evil bastard!’ shouted Gwyn angrily. He bent and picked up the end of the ladder that was lying across the ruined door, and propped it just below the hole into the upper chamber, where the bell-rope hung. As he began to climb the rungs, John called a warning, as Adam’s face vanished and was replaced by one of his feet. ‘Watch your face, man!’

  The furious priest above was kicking downwards as Gwyn’s head reached the ceiling. A heel skimmed the red hair as Gwyn dodged and retreated a rung or two.

  ‘Right, your time has come, unless you can get God to whisk you out of there right now!’ he roared. Reaching behind him, he pulled his dagger from his belt and went back up the rungs. The foot stamped down again, but this time the coroner’s officer jabbed it through the leather sole. There was a yell of pain and Gwyn dropped the knife to grab Adam’s ankle with both hands and pull it with all his considerable strength.

  For a second, the open-mouthed spectators standing below thought that both men were going to fall on top of them and scattered to the opposite wall. But though the priest came bodily through the trap-door, he managed to grab the edges as he fell. Now Gwyn had him around the knees and reached up to land Adam a punishing blow in the belly. The priest jackknifed down on top of the Cornishman. Careless of any further injury, Gwyn tipped his prisoner sideways off the ladder, letting him crash on to the thick layer of old rushes on the floor. Adam lay there bruised and winded – silent for once on the subject of sin and retribution.

  By the end of that week, most loose ends had been cleared up.

  The Eyre of Assize went more quickly than had been expected and all the Gaol Delivery and criminal cases had been finished by Saturday, leaving de Wolfe relatively free of the court: the General Eyre, which the sheriff was dreading, had little to do with the coroner.

  The Justices were subdued when it came to acknowledging their grievous error over the identity of the Gospel killer, though Archdeacon Gervase assumed a rather condescending ‘I told you so’ manner. Walter de Ralegh was gentleman enough to offer a gruff apology to John in private, but Serlo de Vallibus and Peter Peverel did their best to avoid the subject.

  Richard de Revelle’s main concern was to keep his name clear of any association with the fire in Waterbeer Street, afraid that a trial might bring out some embarrassing evidence. He was therefore overjoyed to hear that Bishop Henry Marshal had exercised his right to insist on Benefit of Clergy for Adam of Dol, preventing him being dealt with by the secular courts – which in this case would have the Exeter Eyre of Assize that very week.

  Meanwhile, the deranged priest of St Mary Steps was closely confined in one of the cells adjacent to the cloisters, kept for erring clerks by the proctors, the representatives of the Chapter who, with their servants, were responsible for law and order in the cathedral precinct.

  As John de Alençon related to de Wolfe a few days later, Adam was first brought before the Bishop for his sins to be explored. As he was not a cathedral priest, the Chapter had no jurisdiction over him but, given the uniquely heinous nature of his crimes, a preliminary interrogation was considered necessary, before the matter went to the Consistory Court of the diocese. The Bishop led this inquisition, assisted by some senior canons. De Alençon, as Archdeacon of Exeter, was present as Adam’s immediate superior, and the Precentor, Thomas de Boterellis, with the Treasurer, John of Exeter, made up the group, along with Jordan de Brent, the archivist.

  The deposed incumbent of St Mary Steps was led by two proctors into the Bishop’s audience chamber in the palace. Given Adam’s tendency to physical violence, his wrists were shackled and a pair of burly servants stood on either side of him. As if anticipating his ejection from Holy Orders, he had been dressed in a smock of drab hessian instead of his black clerical robe, but he displayed no sign of shame or contrition. On the contrary, he glared at his accusers with aggressive contempt as he stood before th
e Bishop’s great chair, the others hunched on stools alongside.

  The cold-eyed Henry Marshal was more than equal to the challenge as he opened the proceedings. ‘Are you mad, Adam, or just evil?’ he asked quietly.

  The priest’s face flushed with righteous anger. ‘Neither, Lord Bishop! I do the Lord’s work in my own way, because the efforts of you and your feeble cohorts to counter the devil and all his works are futile.’

  ‘You wretched man! How dare you insult your fellow labourers in the vineyard of God, they who use compassion and solicitude in place of your sadistic perversions?’

  Adam continued to bluster about the need to warn their flocks of the torments that awaited sinners, but the prelate cut him off with an imperious gesture. ‘Be quiet! Your evil obsessions weary me. Do you deny that you have been killing and attacking innocent people in this city?’

  Adam glowered at the faces before him. ‘I carried out the tasks that the Almighty charged me to perform.’

  ‘And how did he call upon you?’ cut in Canon Jordan, in his deceptively mild voice.

  ‘His voice came to me in the night, clearer than you are speaking to me now. Many a time, God answered my prayers for guidance, telling me how to outwit Satan.’ His voice rose. ‘He told me how to make up for the weakness of our Church, for I was his appointed disciple.’

  ‘Cease this arrogant blasphemy!’ snapped the Bishop. ‘You have been indulging in these abominable practices for your own depraved pleasure.’

  De Alençon decided to join the inquisition. ‘These killings you admit to now, they began recently. What caused this escalation in your misdeeds?’

  ‘As I told you, it was the voice of God. I could see signs of wickedness going unchecked all around me in this city. I was called to bring retribution and convince those in power of the peril of neglecting their duty. I assumed that God was calling others to do the same in other places, as part of a great crusade against Lucifer, who was clearly winning the fight.’