Read The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) for Free Online

Methodically stripping the twigs from it, Joan fashioned it into a pole, using her knife to sharpen the tip,
cutting a barb into it. Then, while Emma waited below, watching with some anxiety in case her friend should be overwhelmed by a fresh fall, Joan stabbed at the cloth. The stick caught, the barb
snagging in the cloth, but when she pulled, although there was a light scattering of soil, the stick pulled free. Poking again, she managed to pull a shred of the material away, and crouched to
gaze closer.
    ‘What is it?’ Emma called.
    ‘There’s nothing,’ she returned. ‘It won’t come away, though. There’s another rock behind it. Maybe it’s trapping the cloth in there?’
    She squinted in, beckoning to Emma, who sighed with relief, and began the slow ascent to rejoin her. Behind her, the man with the packhorse was climbing stolidly up the slope. And then something
odd happened.
    Joan had pushed her stick back into the cloth, trying to pull it away, and the stone behind had moved. It rocked, once, twice, and then the material tore. At the back of her mind Joan had been
thinking that she might be able to rescue it to bind her hair or something, and now it was ruined. She screwed her face up with bitter disappointment. As she did so, the stone toppled out.
    It wasn’t the way that the stone fell from the hole, so much, although it bounced somehow more slowly than she would have expected, as though it was lighter than it should be; no, it was
the hollow sound it gave as it rolled haphazardly towards Emma.
    At first Joan thought nothing of it, but then Emma’s horrified scream made her head snap around. ‘What?’
    To her astonishment, she saw that her friend had already turned tail, and was fleeing from the rock, screaming her way down the slope towards the vill. As Joan watched, her mouth gaping, Emma
hurtled past the traveller and his horse, alarming the beast and making it rear and snort. The man swore loudly, yanking at the leading rein and smacking the horse on the nose to calm him.
    As he approached Joan, he glanced down and enquired, ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘Yes, I think so.’ Joan was still staring after her friend, wondering what could have so scared her. She glanced down, at the rock which had rolled so oddly from the wall.
    But it was no rock. It was a skull, and it seemed to be gazing up at her as though in sardonic amusement.
    Nicole Garde felt a stab of fear when the figure appeared in her doorway.
    She hadn’t been expecting anybody. At that time of day, before noon, in the last hour before the sun rose to the highest point in the sky, visitors were the last thing on her mind. She had
been preparing her family’s meal, squatting before the fire, teasing the embers into life with small quantities of wood chips and a lot of careful, steady blowing. Once she had the fire
burning brightly, she would throw her large flat stone into the midst of the flames, getting it good and hot, while above it the pottage in her prized iron bowl began to bubble. When it was almost
ready, she would drag out the stone, wipe it, and cook her bread.
    But today the process was taking time; the fire was reluctant. She had already used up much of her store of tinder, and was worrying that she would never tempt the fire into roaring life. The
room was smoky, so she had opened the door wide to release the fumes, and the sunlight streamed in, making everywhere look bright and cheerful when for so long the room had been dull and gloomy.
That was how she knew someone had arrived, because the place was suddenly thrown into darkness again. Without even looking round, she felt the hairs on her neck rise, the breath catch in her
throat, knowing it was
him
.
    Only one man merited such contempt, mingled with fear: her brother-in-law Ivo Bel, Manciple to the nuns of Canonsleigh. He lusted after her, had done so for years. Thank God he was not often
here at Sticklepath, and his nasty little eyes could not fix upon her