'It is used as a remedy for some ailments, is it not?'
'In small doses it relieves constipation, and has other uses. There is some in my infirmary, I often prescribe it. Many of the monks will have some. Its properties are well known.'
I thought a moment. 'Last night Simon began to tell me something. He said Commissioner Singleton's death was not the first. I intended to question him again today when he woke.' I gave him a sharp look. 'Did you or Alice tell anyone what he had said?'
'I did not, and nor would Alice. But he might have rambled deliriously to his other visitors.'
'One of whom decided his mouth must be stopped.'
He bit his lip and nodded heavily.
'Poor child,' I said. 'And all I could think of was that he was mocking me.'
'Things are seldom what they seem.'
'Here least of all. Tell me, Brother, why have you told me this rather than going straight to the abbot?'
He gave me a bleak look. 'Because the abbot was among his visitors. You have authority, Master Shardlake, and I believe you seek the truth, however much I suspect we might disagree on matters of religion.'
I nodded. 'For the moment I instruct you to keep secret what you have told me. I must think carefully how to proceed.' I looked at Brother Guy to see how he would take orders from me, but he only nodded wearily. He looked down at my mud-caked leg.
'Have you had an accident?' he asked.
'I fell in the bog. I managed to get myself out.'
'The ground is very unsafe out there.'
'I think there is no safe ground under my feet anywhere here. Come inside, or we'll catch an ague.' I led the way indoors. 'Strange that my misplaced fear he was mocking me should lead to this discovery.'
'At least now Prior Mortimus cannot say that Simon is surely in hell.'
'Yes. I think that may disappoint him.' Unless he is the killer, I thought, in which case he knows already. I gritted my teeth. If I had not allowed Alice and Brother Guy to dissuade me from talking to Simon last night, not only might I have had his full story, not only might I have been led to the killer, but Simon would still be alive. Now I had two murders to investigate. And if what the poor novice had muttered in his delirium about Singleton not being the first was true, then there were three.
CHAPTER 14
I had hoped to go into Scarnsea that afternoon, but it was now too late. In the last glow of the sunset I trudged again through the precinct to the abbot's house, to talk to Goodhaps. The old cleric was again bibbing alone in his room. I did not tell him that Novice Whelplay had been murdered, only that he had been very ill. Goodhaps seemed uninterested. I asked him what he knew of the account book Singleton had been studying just before his death. Singleton, he said, had told him only that he had prised a new book out of the counting house, which he hoped would be useful. The old man muttered in a surly tone that Robin Singleton kept much to himself, using him only to burrow in books. I left him to his wine.
A cold, keening wind had risen, cutting through me like a blade as I made my way back to the infirmary. As those loud bells pealed out again for Vespers I could not help reflecting that anyone who might have information was at risk: old Goodhaps, or Mark, or me. Whelplay's killing had been carried out with a cold and ruthless hand, and might have escaped detection had I not put Brother Guy in mind of belladonna by mentioning Simon's strange postures and gestures. We might be dealing with a fanatic, but not someone ruled by impulse. What if he was planning to put poison in my dinner plate, or sought to make a gap between my head and shoulders such as he had with Singleton's? I shivered and pulled my coat tighter around my neck.
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