Read Hugh Corbett 15 - The Waxman Murders for Free Online Page A

and brought it down. He could hear the crashing echo through the hall beyond, but it brought no response . . .
    The dungeons beneath the Guildhall in Canterbury were fetid, rank holes, but Lady Adelicia Decontet had been given the best: this stood at the end of a mildewed passageway, a small, narrow chamber sealed off by a heavy door with a grille at the top. The jailor liked to joke that it was the most luxurious of his lodgings, reserved for prisoners awaiting either trial or their final journey in the hangman’s cart to the gallows outside the city gates. Lady Adelicia now sat in the corner of the cell, warming herself over a dish of coals and staring around in the light of a thick, evil-smelling tallow candle which she’d paid the jailor to fix on an iron hook driven into the wall. She had read and studied all the graffiti etched there: names and initials, sometimes prayers – ‘Jesu Miserere, Maria Mater’ – but in the main curses or lewd and obscene drawings. She was manacled like the rest of the prisoners, though the chains were long enough for her to move to the small table and the scraps of food on a pewter dish, shreds of salted beef, rye bread and hard cheese, which she’d also purchased from the jailor. She stared up at the great cobwebs spanning each corner under the filthy roof, and down at the straw on the floor which, despite her pleas, hadn’t been changed. It was wet, stinking and rotting black. Thankfully the cell walls were thick and kept some of the cold out, while the chafing dish was generously heaped with sparkling charcoal. The smell of burning was a welcome relief from the foul odours which curled everywhere. She tried to close her ears to the cries and shouts of other prisoners, the banging at doors and the cursing of jailors. She’d been supplied with silver and had bribed her keepers well. At least she could eat, was allowed some form of movement, given a jakes pot and, every third day, handed a bowl of water and a rag to wash and clean herself. The pallet bed had also been sheeted and provided with two woollen rugs to wrap herself in when she eventually did decide to sleep.
    Any other woman would have been terrified at the prospect facing her, but Lady Adelicia was cold and impassive, her mind teeming like a busy beehive. She knew she was no murderess. True, she’d hated her husband – who wouldn’t? – with his dirty, cunning ways, slobbering mouth, and small hard eyes like two piss-holes in the snow! An old fox, with his pointed face, scrawny red hair and protuberant ears. A man wealthy enough to buy anything he wanted, yet he ate, lived and smelt like the poorest peasant, a miser to the bone, hard of face and hard of heart, with a foul temper and a tongue coated in venom. Adelicia, a royal ward, had been married off to the King’s money-lender; she had never forgotten that, and neither had Sir Rauf.
    Adelicia shivered, not so much from the cold but at the thought of her dead husband’s hands on her, forcing her head down, making her perform all sorts of abominable practices. In despair, she had prayed. She had visited the House of the Crutched Friars, sat in their shriving pew and whispered her confession, but what relief could they offer? She’d gone before the lady altar, lit tapers, prayed her Ave beads, but there was no escape or respite until Berengaria had arrived. She was a foundling raised by the parish who had done great service in the household of one of Sir Rauf’s clients. When the man had gone bankrupt, Sir Rauf, true to form, had seized all his goods, and Berengaria, a sly minx of about sixteen summers, with saucy eyes and a cheeky mouth, became part of their household. In a short time she and Adelicia had become allies, though not friends. They understood each other. Adelicia would give Berengaria coins, favour her, and allow her liberties never permitted before, and when she had met Wendover, the girl had come into her own.
    Adelicia closed her eyes. The