The Canterbury Murders by Maureen Ash

and then held her by the shoulder while he used his knife on her throat. After that, she must have fallen forward into the water.”
    Clare nodded. Edith’s calm assessment steadied her, and as Clare considered it, she thought the explanation made sense, except that it did not look as though a club had been used. If one had been, she thought, the assailant would have been far more likely to have smashed it onto the victim’s head and not her back. Pointing to the bruises on the corpse’s shoulder, she said to the other woman, “Or the bruise could have been made by the pressure of her assailant holding her down with his knee while he grasped her there, to keep her from struggling while he dealt the death blow. She looks to be a strong woman; I do not think she would have been easy to overcome—hence the need to pin her down.”
    “Aye, you’re right,” Edith said with a glance of respect. “I never thought of that. You’re not as fainthearted as you look, mistress.”
    Taking a few deep breaths to steady herself, Clare helped return the body to its original position and then said a prayer for the dead woman’s soul while Edith replaced the headdress and strip of linen. She then moved from the bier and went through the dead woman’s clothing, which was lying in a neat pile on a stool, alongside a cloth sack which Edith told her contained Molly’s few belongings.
    The washerwoman had been wearing a plain grey gown of thickly woven material and a white head-cloth when she died. Both were still damp from contact with the bathwater, especially the head covering, and stained with blood. On the floor underneath the stool was a pair of sturdy boots, large in size and well worn, and a pair of thick knitted leggings which had been neatly rolled up and placed atop the footwear. In the bag that contained Molly’s belongings was another gown of almost the same shade of grey as the other, a spare head-cloth and a comb carved from bone. At the bottom were a few little keepsakes that the washerwoman must have collected over the years—a pewter medal bearing the image of Thomas Becket, a pretty little seashell with an iridescent hue on the inner surface and a brightly coloured peacock feather. Each had been separately, and carefully, wrapped in small squares of white linen. A lump formed in Clare’s throat as she examined them, imagining the pleasure the dead woman must have felt in handling her little mementos, and she reverently replaced the wrappings before laying them aside. She searched once more through the folds of the clothing in case she had missed anything, but still found nothing of significance, not even in the capacious pocket fitted into the skirt of the gown she had been wearing when she was killed, which contained nothing but a tiny sliver of scented soap and two silver pennies.
    After thanking Edith for her assistance and expressing sorrow to Maud for the loss of her sister, Clare left the death house. Miles and Gianni were waiting outside alone, the priest having returned to the church. They listened with full attention as she told them of the bruises she had seen on Molly’s body.
    “If your assumption about the manner in which she was subdued is correct, it is certain to have been a man who killed her,” Miles said. “The washerwoman was strongly built, and I doubt whether another woman, even if she took her by surprise, would have been able to overcome her.” Gianni gave a confirming nod and scribbled something on his tablet for the knight to read.
    Miles read it and then looked at Clare, who was not literate, and said, “We need to ask Mistress Cooper some questions about her sister; whether or not she had any enemies here in Canterbury or mentioned any quarrels she may have had with others in the king’s household. Do you think she is composed enough to speak to us now?”
    “She is very upset at the moment,” Clare replied. “I think it would be best to wait until her wits are clearer. In her