The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) by Michael Jecks Page B

now. What need I fear on the moors? There are
bogs and pools in which a man may drown, but I can make sure that a guide shows me the safest roads.’
    ‘Baldwin, it’s not that. It’s the spirits and ghosts I fear. If they have taken against you and choose to make you their plaything, there is nothing you can do to protect
yourself.’
    He smiled. ‘Ghosts are things to petrify peasants. There is nothing in them for me to fear.’
    She saw she had lost him. Her concerns had overwhelmed her to the extent that she had lost her powers of persuasion. He would listen to no more. She knew him too well, and the slight smile that
played about his eyes told her that this particular conversation was at an end.
    Yet for her the dangers were very real. The Church taught that souls could return to haunt the living, and sometimes, walking into a new house, or passing by a gibbet, or merely riding along a
quiet road, she had the oddest sensations, as if someone else was nearby, although nobody ever was. Baldwin laughed at what he called her ‘superstition’, but the thrill of fear which
shivered up her spine on these occasions felt very real.
    He continued, ‘No, do not fear for me, my love. There may be ghosts which the eyes can see, perhaps, but just because the eyes can accept them does not mean that they are real. They are
illusions, no more. We need not fear them.’
    ‘The priests tell us of ghosts which can take on violent forms! Ghosts which can kill, which can give birth to children and—’
    ‘You have been listening to too many wandering friars. Once the body dies, the spirit flees to Heaven or to Purgatory. And now I must plan my journey to Sticklepath.’
    She turned away, staring out over the many miles to the south, to where, dark and sullen on the far horizon, she could see the cloud-covered hills of the moor.
    ‘I shall come with you and bring Richalda.’
    ‘There is no need. I made the same journey returning here from Oakhampton Castle without your nursing,’ he pointed out. ‘And my wounds were fresher then. Surely now it will be
much easier.’
    ‘Baldwin, you know I fear that you may be injured and die and that I should be widowed again – this time with our baby daughter to bring up on my own. Can you not understand my
concern? Can you not remain here a while longer, just until you have fully recovered?’
    ‘You need not worry. I shall be perfectly safe. It is a journey of a little over a day and a half from here if the weather holds, no more. And by the time I arrive there, I am sure that
the good Coroner will have arrested the culprit. After all,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘the vill of Sticklepath is only very small. Not above about ten households all told. There
can’t be too many suspects if Coroner Roger is correct and the crime is that of one man eating another!’
    Father Gervase walked to the door of his tiny cottage and leaned against the post a while, waiting till he could force his feet over the threshold. He was physically exhausted,
his rounded features grey after a day spent labouring in his little field. It was the same feeling that people had so often early in the year, when there were fewer vegetables and the meat was
heavily salted, sometimes even rotten in the barrels. It was an all-but-unbearable lassitude, as though he was suffering from a malaise, one from which there could be no recovery.
    Another death. Somehow, through all the intervening years, Gervase had hoped that she lived, poor little Aline; that her disappearance was caused by her running away, or perhaps drowning and
being swept away. He had hoped that this was not merely further proof of his guilt. Yet she had been found.
    They had thought years ago that this horror was ended, that when they slaughtered Athelhard in front of his hut, this evil would end. Instead it had enveloped the whole vill in a miasma so foul
it infected everyone. Gervase could do nothing about it. It had been he who had caused