The Alehouse Murders by Maureen Ash

in the taproom?”
    “No, sir,” she denied positively. “I never have Jews in my house—and they wouldn’t come in neither—and the other two I never saw before, before . . .” She faltered to a stop.
    “Then they must have been brought to your yard and put in the barrels, or brought to the yard already inside them.” Agnes looked at Bascot in confusion as he went on. “Your husband, Wat—did he leave the premises at all yesterday?”
    “Only to do deliveries,” Agnes said.
    “What deliveries?” Bascot asked with more patience than he felt for the woman’s slow thinking processes.
    “There were three. Master Ivo the Goldsmith—he took two kegs; Mistress Downy, the widow—she took one ’cause she has her son and his wife coming to stay for the fair; and the steward of Sir Roger de Kyme, he took two for his master’s house in town.”
    “And how did Wat go about these deliveries—what was his routine?”
    At Agnes’ look of bewilderment, her sister Jennet, who had seen the purpose of his questions, gave the answer. “He would put the kegs full of ale on the cart, get the cart-horse from its stable at the end of the lane and deliver them. If there were any old kegs that were empty, he would bring them back and put them aside for cleansing and reusing. That’s how the bodies were brought back, sir. In the empty kegs.”
    “Thank you, mistress,” Bascot said gratefully. “Then Wat must either have killed them himself, or have knowledge of who did.”
    “Oh no, sir,” Agnes protested. “My Wat would never have killed anybody. I know he wouldn’t.”
    “Seems he knew somebody else had, at least,” Jennet remarked to her sister dryly. “If they had died natural-like he wouldn’t have been stuffing them in ale kegs and lifting them out after dark, would he?”
    Bascot felt satisfied that it was now known how the bodies had arrived at their final destination, and that Wat had been an accomplice in their deaths, if not the actual murderer. But he was already dead when the priest had been stabbed, so the person Agnes had seen in the yard last night must have been responsible for the attack in the church.
    The noise of the rain pelting down outside was louder now, and Bascot looked to where the carpenter and young boy were respectfully standing a short distance away. He beckoned for them to come forward.
    “This is your son?” he asked Jennet. She nodded and told Bascot his name was Will. He looked strong, with the big bones and wide frame of his aunt, rather than the slight ones of his mother and father. The boy stood uncertainly before Bascot, awed by his presence and that of the sheriff’s guard, and looked anxious at being singled out for attention.
    Bascot pointed to the hammer tucked into the belt of the lad’s leather apron. “You know how to use that, Will, do you?”
    “Aye, sir. I helps me da in the yard,” the boy answered. Behind him his father nodded.
    “Then keep it with you, and stay by your aunt for the next few days. If anyone threatens her, use it on them as you use it on the wood in your father’s yard. Do you understand me?”
    Will nodded his head in a determined fashion. “Aye, sir. I’ll not let anyone harm her.”
    Bascot looked down at the drained face of the alewife. “If you recall any more of what you saw last night, send a message to Ernulf at the castle. He will see that I am informed.”
    Relieved that she was not to be taken to the castle for questioning, the alewife left the church with her sister and family. Bascot waited until the priest, still unconscious but with his wound now neatly bandaged by the barber with strips torn from an altar cloth, had been removed on a hastily constructed stretcher before he called to Gianni and Ernulf and they rode slowly back through the downpour of rain to the castle keep.

Nine
    “Y OU BELIEVE, THEN, THAT THE VICTIMS WERE KILLED elsewhere and their bodies transported to the ale house in empty casks? The obvious question