Gosslinge was in the south aisle, tucked out of sight behind a pile of broken benches. Bartholomew noticed that candles had been placed at his head and feet, although these had already burned away, leaving nothing but a saucer of cream-coloured wax and a mess on the floor. A piece of cloth had been tucked around him, but he was still dressed in the mean clothes he had worn when they had first discovered his body. Someone had pressed a flower into his hands. It was a Christmas rose – Edith’s favourite – and Bartholomew suspected that the small kindnesses to his body were her work.
It was gloomy in the aisle, almost as dark as it had been when Bartholomew had first examined Gosslinge, so he opened the south door to allow the daylight to flood in. It made a huge difference. He noticed for the first time that Gosslinge’s nose and mouth had a blue tinge, and that his lips looked bruised. They were small things, but they made Bartholomew’s stomach feel as though it had been punched. He rubbed a hand through his hair and closed his eyes.
‘Lord help us, Brother!’ he muttered. ‘I think I have made a terrible mistake.’
‘Why?’ demanded Michael. ‘What is wrong with you? You look as though you have seen a ghost. Have you found what that pair were looking for?’
‘Something more important than that. Now I can see Gosslinge in good light, I think his death was not from natural causes, as I told you days ago.’
‘You mean he was murdered?’ asked Michael in disbelief. ‘But you said that he had died of the cold.’
‘I said the cold had
‘God’s teeth, Matt!’ exclaimed Michael, horrified. ‘We could have been looking for his killer days ago!’
‘I know,’ said Bartholomew miserably. ‘You do not need to tell me that.’
Michael sighed irritably. ‘You had better tell me what you think now, then. Is it his swollen lips that made you change your mind? Or the fact that one of his fingernails is ripped?’
‘Is it?’ asked Bartholomew weakly. He lifted the stiff limb and saw that Michael was right. Gosslinge had possessed long, yellowish nails, and one of these had ripped jaggedly near the top of one finger. It was only a broken nail, not an actual injury, but no living person would have left it sticking at right angles to his finger; he would have pulled it off completely. It indicated the damage had probably occurred at about the time of Gosslinge’s death, and that he had been involved in something physical.
Bartholomew gazed at Gosslinge in disbelief. He knew he had not conducted a thorough examination of the body when they had first discovered it; the church had been too dark and he had been tired from watching over Dunstan the two previous nights. He had also been cold, and recalled that his numb fingers and feet had felt like lumps of wood. But these were no excuse. He saw now that he should have moved the corpse out of the church and examined it in the cemetery, where he would have been able to see. He also knew he should have pushed his physical discomfort to the back of his mind, and done his duty properly. He felt sick with self-recrimination.
‘Are you going to examine him now?’ asked Michael, growing tired of waiting while the physician did nothing but stare. ‘Or are you hoping he will sit up and tell you what happened?’
Bartholomew forced himself to move. He removed the poor clothes that covered Gosslinge, cutting them with his knife, since there seemed to be no next of kin who would claim them. Then he assessed every part of the body, beginning with the feet and working up. He palpated to test for broken bones, and looked at the corpse from every possible angle, to ensure he missed no abrasions. Carefully, he ran his fingers through the hair, to see whether he could detect a blow to the head, and finally, he spent a long time exploring Gosslinge’s neck.
‘Now you are going too far the other way,’ complained Michael, stamping his feet in an attempt to keep warm. ‘You missed evidence last time, so you are compensating by being overly fussy now. What can you tell me? How did he die?’
‘I do not know,’ said Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘I doubt it was from natural causes – because of the swelling around his mouth and that chipped tooth. And there is the fingernail. Everything points to some kind of suffocation – smothering, perhaps – but I cannot pinpoint it.’
‘Suffocation will do,’ said Michael. ‘How do you know he did not do it himself?’
‘It is not easy to suffocate yourself. You lose consciousness before you die, and whatever you are pressing against your face falls away. And I cannot see him choking himself while wrapped in the albs, anyway. I think the lack of air would have driven him away from them.’
‘Not if he intended to die, and he hid so his body would not be discovered before he was dead. You said yourself that you had no idea how long he had been there.’
