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and a few moments later the three of them collected Osric from the guardroom. They began striding down Castle Hill towards High Street, which ran from the East Gate to the centre of the city. Thomas de Peyne limped behind on his short legs, as the constable repeated the meagre information to de Wolfe.
    'Close in to the bank he was, according to the fellow who hauled him out. Could well have gone in on the Exeter side of the river, anywhere between here and Topsham.'
    This was the port a few miles downriver, where the Exe widened out into its estuary, six miles from the open sea.
    'And there's nothing at all to show who he might be?' demanded de Wolfe.
    The Saxon shook his head as they hurried through the crowded main street. 'Doesn't look a rough fellow, Crowner. He's shaved and has a decent haircut. Hard to tell how old he is, but he's not a young man. There's a belly on him and his hair has a bit of grey at the temples.'
    The town was already filling up ready for the fair the next day, and the press of people, barrows, handcarts and heavily laden porters slowed their progress until they got past Carfoix, the central crossing of the four main streets. Then they turned into side alleys and began going down the steeper lanes towards the quayside. At the bottom of Priest Street, they turned left to reach the Watergate, driven through the southwest corner of the city walls in recent years to give better access to the busy wharf and warehouses that Exeter's rapidly growing commerce demanded.
    'He's just past that last cog, Crowner,' said Osric, pointing to the most distant of three vessels that were tied up at the stone quay. As the tide was well in, they were floating upright and would stay like that until the ebb dropped them down on the thick mud to lean over against the wharf. The whole place was busy with men jogging up and down gangplanks with sacks and bales on their shoulders. Shipwrights and sailors yelled garbled orders at the tops of their voices and merchants and their clerks were standing around heaps of cargo on the wharf, checking items by means of notched tally-sticks or knotted cords, as well as from a few parchment manifests.
    Ignoring the noisy activity, John de Wolfe led his party onward, threading through the merchandise and shoving the odd labourer out of his path until he reached the last cog, which looked like a fat, bluntended Norse-longboat, its single sail now tightly lashed to the yard that crossed its stubby mast. Just beyond it were two figures, standing guard over something covered with a piece of canvas. They were rough-looking men, one dressed in a ragged tunic, the skirt of which was pulled up between his legs and tucked into his belt.
    The other had a leather jerkin over breeches of coarse cloth, and both were barefooted, the lower part of their legs being caked in brown river mud.
    'These men found the corpse, Crowner,' declared Osric. 'And this is him,' he added unnecessarily, jerking a thumb down at the canvas-covered mound.
    The two men mumbled something and shifted uneasily, as any contact with officers of the law was something to be avoided, however innocent a man might be. The coroner's trio stood around the body, Thomas as reluctant as ever, for even a year's familiarity with his job had not inured his sensitive soul to the sights and smells of sudden death.
    De Wolfe nodded at Gwyn, who, well used to the routine, bent and whipped off the piece of sailcloth to expose the corpse.
    As Osric had promised, the deceased was stark naked, lying on his back, and against the dark muddy ground his pallor was almost obscene, like that of a plucked goose on a butcher's slab. The belly protruded, and Gwyn gave it a firm prod with his forefinger.
    'That's fat, not gassy corruption!' he observed with satisfaction.
    'I told you he was fresh,' said the constable, indignantly. 'Look at his hands, they're hardly wrinkled, so he's not been in the water long.'
    De Wolfe, who considered himself an expert on