16 - The Three Kings of Cologne Read Free Page A

certainly stir up some controversy. But, as I say, that’s for the future. The land itself has to be cleared first; it’s very overgrown. I shall set the workmen to start on that as soon as the better weather comes. Mid-April or early May. Perhaps a little earlier if we should have a clement spring. Who can tell? Now, let me buy you another beaker of ale and then I’ll bid you goodnight. You must be wanting to get home to your family.’
    I suppressed a grimace and thanked him, but could not forbear from asking, ‘Why have you chosen me for these confidences, Alderman?’
    He didn’t pretend not to understand me, but replied frankly, ‘I like you. I was impressed by the way you solved that little mystery down at Wells last year. My kinswoman has informed me of the outcome – in the strictest confidence, of course. And I hear rumours that you have a reputation for that sort of thing. You have, I believe, worked for His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester, on occasions. You are not quite the simple pedlar you pretend to be. And who knows? I might have need of your services myself one day.’
    It was almost as if the Alderman had been granted second sight. For, two months later, when the woman’s body was discovered in the ground at the top of Steep Street, and the nuns had disowned it, John Foster felt himself to be responsible for it. The land was now his, and the poor creature had most certainly never received a Christian burial, for when the skull was lifted, it was found to have a great hole at the back, plainly indicating that its owner had been battered to death by some blunt instrument. Whoever the woman was, there was no doubt whatsoever that she had been murdered.

Two
    I t was another two days after the discovery of the body that I received a request from Alderman Foster to visit him at home. The messenger was a scruffy urchin whom I recognized as a regular scavenger in the central drain that ran along the middle of the roadway.
    ‘Oi! Master Foster wants t’ see you.’
    The April weather had turned cold again after several days of springlike warmth, a chill wind sweeping the streets, sending dust and bits of dried onion skin skimming along the ground, whistling up through cracks in the floorboards and under doors and making me reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. Fortunately for the state of my finances, Adela and the children made it impossible for me to turn over and snatch another half hour’s sleep, the former shaking me vigorously before getting out of bed herself, and the latter jumping all over me. That particular morning I had been roused not only to wakefulness but to fury by Adam’s instructions to his siblings to ‘kick him in the nuts!’
    ‘Adam!’ I roared, heaving myself into a sitting position and thereby dislodging both Nicholas and Elizabeth from the bed, so that they tumbled on to the floor. All three immediately set up a wail that brought Adela hotfoot back into the room, anxious to know the cause of the disturbance.
    I repeated Adam’s remark and demanded to know where he’d got hold of such expressions. ‘He’s only two!’
    ‘He’ll be three in a couple of months’ time,’ my wife pointed out, but could hardly speak for laughing, which she tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to turn into a fit of coughing.
    In the end, I could see the funny side of things myself, swung my feet out of bed and kissed all three children soundly before shooing them from the bedchamber while I dressed.
    With the coming of the lighter nights and warmer days, life had eased considerably and, as a family, we were again on friendly terms, the children able to play out of doors in the tiny yard at the back of the house, or upstairs during the day without freezing to death. And until this particular morning, when, in typically English fashion, winter had once more interrupted spring, I had been content to be out on the road shortly after sunrise and the opening of the city gates, hawking my wares in