The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (2 page)

Sticklepath itself has had a great history. There is the Finch Foundry, until the 1960s a working tool-manufacturer which exported its billhooks and spades all over the world. Nowadays the
foundry is a National Trust museum dedicated to water power, and I would recommend anyone who has an interest in metalwork and smithing to visit it, especially since ‘Dartmoor Dave
Denford’, to whom this book is dedicated, can often be found there giving demonstrations of blacksmithing. Just remember not to ask if he makes horseshoes. He is keen to point out that
‘I don’t do ’orses’, since he is not a farrier. Yes, there
is
a difference.

A short way further up the river from the foundry’s water-wheels is the old mill of Tom Pearce, made famous in the song ‘Widecombe Fair’. Now the main buildings have gone, to
be replaced by houses. The mill too has been converted, but not so long ago, a thick serge-type of cloth was still being manufactured here from wool shorn from the sheep on Dartmoor; it was then
worn all over the British Empire by soldiers and sailors alike. All this from a tiny little village hiding in a valley in the middle of Devonshire.

The success of the place came from two factors: its abundant water power, and its location on the main road to Cornwall. The village supplied the needs of visitors and travellers, because during
the age of horse travel, everyone going to Cornwall passed through Sticklepath and made use of its inns, cooks and grooms. While other villages lost their trade, like South Zeal, which was bypassed
centuries ago so that the mail coach horses didn’t have to cope with the two hills at either side of the town, Sticklepath somehow survived.

There was no bypass for the hilly part of the road which gave the ‘Stickle’ or ‘Steep’ path its name until fairly recently. In fact, there are many local families who can
still remember grandparents talking about the time when the road went up the hill.

In reality, it seems that the road has changed direction twice. If you walk along Sticklepath’s High Street heading westwards, you will come to a left-hand turn towards Higher Sticklepath
and Belstone. Follow this, and only a matter of a couple of yards down from the road junction you will notice a narrow track on the right which has been partly metalled over. This is the start of
the old Sticklepath, now replaced by the modern roadway itself which follows the countours of the hills towards Okehampton. Walk on up this old track a short way, and soon you’ll find that
there is a flagpole on your left. Between this track and the ‘White Rock’ pole is a sunken pathway, now largely obliterated by bushes and straggling brambles, gorse and ferns, but
clearly visible early in the year. This is the old Exeter to Cornwall road. And if you try to walk up it, you will see why it was necessary to build the new road, because, by God, it’s
steep!

At the other end of the village is a relatively modern bridge. This would not have been here in the Middle Ages. However, before the bridge was built, the River Taw would have been easily
fordable at that particular point. Often when bridges were thrown up over rivers, the builders then charged money for people to use them in order to recoup the cost of construction. And equally
often, the more wily travellers would bypass the bridge and find a new ford. I think that this is what happened at the Taw. While there were charges for the use of the bridge, people went a little
upriver along Skaigh Lane to where there was a ford, and when the charges were dropped, they returned to the new bridge and used it.

Like so many small settlements, there is little written down for Sticklepath during the Middle Ages. We know that there was a chantry chapel, which seems to have been
established in the reign of Henry I, but there are no maps and few documents.

Apparently in 1147 Robert Fitzroy (illegitimate son of Henry I) and his wife Matilda d’Avranches gave lands to Bricius, Empress Matilda’s Chaplain, so that he could build a small
chapel. It was to be called the church of ‘St Mary of Stikilpeth’ in the manor of ‘Saunforde Curtenay’ or ‘Sandy Ford’ over the Taw. Later, in 1282, Robert de
Esse was installed as priest to the church by Hugh Courtenay. The latter’s son, Hugh II, provided ‘a messuage and one carucate of land’ to the two chaplains of the church. The
messuage is thought to be where the present Chantry Cottage now stands, while I am told that there is still a field off the back lane called Chantry’s Meadow.

Sadly, though, there’s little proof of the precise location of the land, and nobody knows where the priest would have lived, nor how the vill would have been set out in those far-off days.
All we can do is extrapolate what we know about other vills and use some logic to see what the place might have looked like, seven hundred years ago.

For those who are interested, the Sticklepath Women’s Institute has produced an excellent history which is available in the West Country Studies Library in Exeter.

There is one facet which will no doubt concern the casual reader, and that is my use of vampires. I know that I will be told off for bringing foreign bloodsuckers into my
stories, so here is my defence.

Vampires were brought to the public’s mind by the marvellous story of Dracula, written by Bram Stoker. It is known that vampire stories were once quite common on the continent, especially
in Transylvania and Slovenia, but it is less well known that such stories existed in England too.

The earliest examples I have found were written by Canon William of Newburgh (1136–98). He details four cases of
sanguisugae
or vampires in his account of English history: one in
Buckinghamshire, and three others in the north of the country. Of course, the stories of vampirism covered a wide range of offences; it is only since the invention of Dracula that it came to mean
drinking blood and nothing else. Before that, vampires were thought of as especially evil people, probably infested by demons, who would torment an area. Some accusations were undoubtedly
malignant, made by neighbours who coveted a patch of land or a pig, perhaps; others derived from genuine fear and superstition.

The worst period, as one can imagine, came after a famine. We know that there was talk of cannibalism in the British Isles during the terrible famine of 1315–17, and to an ill-educated and
starving population of peasants, it is no surprise that in order to explain away such a hideous and inconceivable crime, some might have suggested that a supernatural agency was responsible.

In this tale, I have taken only the details which Canon William wrote down. I have not invented these elements of the story, although I have of course elaborated on them. Some readers may be
surprised by the exhumation scene. I can only say that the villagers’, Gervase’s and Baldwin’s views are borne out by research in several countries.

For those who are keen to find out more about the subject, look at Jean-Claude Schmitt’s excellent
Ghosts in the Middle Ages
.

There is one final point I must make. As always, this book states that all characters are fictitious and any resemblance to the living or the dead is entirely coincidental, and
I should like to say here that I have been as careful as I possibly could be to avoid using the names, characteristics or features of any of my friends from Belstone, South Zeal or Sticklepath.

This is particularly important because, as with any work of crime fiction, so many of the folks in this book are unpleasant, motivated by questionable urges, with deceit, dishonesty, racism,
adultery, greed and corruption forming a large part of their makeup. All I can say is, I have encountered
none of these traits
in any of the people of the area – and I hope that all
my friends will understand that a crime book which features only pleasant, laughing and above all honest men and women like themselves, would make for a less than riveting read.

I cannot complete this note without expressing my immense gratitude to the people of the three villages who have made my family and me so welcome since we moved to Devon some years ago.

Our thanks to you all.

Michael Jecks

North Dartmoor

March 2001

Sticklepath, 1315

They were out there.

In the darkness about his cottage, as he sat inside, panting like a wounded dog, he knew they were silently gathering, like rats about carrion, and Athelhard shivered not only from the pain of
his wounds, but from the knowledge that he was soon to be slaughtered and burned until nothing remained, nothing but the lie that he had killed the girl; that he had drunk her blood and eaten her
flesh; that he was a
sanguisuga
– a vampire. It was that thought, more even than the pain, that made him snarl in defiance like a bear at bay in the pit.

His leg felt as if it had been savaged. The hole through his flesh was more painful than he could have imagined, a pulsing agony that produced a sort of deadening cramp in his groin. Not that it
compared with the injury to his back. That was sharper, like a knife thrust. That was the one which would kill him, he knew. The arrowhead was lodged deeply, and he could feel his strength seeping
away with his blood.

Why? he wondered again. Why attack him? Why think
he
could have done that to the girl?

The arrow in his leg heralded the attack.

He’d had no premonition all that long day he’d been at his holding, far on the western outskirts of the vill, peaceably chopping and storing logs in preparation for the winter. At
the beech tree that marked the eastern edge of his plot, he set down his axe while he ducked his head in his old bucket and rubbed his hair. It had been hard work, and tiny chips and flakes of wood
were lodged in his scalp, making the flea bites itch.

Puffing and blowing, he shook his head, relishing the coolness, feeling the water trickling down his back. As he did so, he thought he heard something, an odd whirring noise which came from his
left and disappeared to the right, but his ears were filled with water and he didn’t recognise it. Probably a bird, he told himself.

Then the missile slammed into his thigh.

The jolt itself was vicious, yet even through his shock he was conscious of every moment of the impact: he could feel the barbs pierce his flesh, slicing through muscle, tearing onwards until
they jerked to a halt against his thigh-bone. Even as he collapsed, he was aware of the arrow quivering in his thigh.

And then he was on his arse, while water scattered from his upturned bucket, staring at his leg, scarcely able to believe his eyes. It was tempting to think it must be an accident, that someone
had been aiming at a bird or a rabbit, and the arrow had missed or skittered up from the ground, like a spinning stone on water, only to find him, a fresh target, but as the idea occurred to him,
he realised it was impossible. There were no rabbits here, and an arrow wouldn’t bounce upwards when it struck the ground; it would bury its entire length. Yet he had no enemies. Who could
have deliberately aimed at him?

As the stinging grew more painful, he studied the arrow, seeking clues as to who might have fired at him. The fletchings were bright blue peacock feathers, moving lazily with the beating of his
heart. Like most longbow arrows it was at least a yard long, a good missile over long range, he told himself, an ideal weapon for an assassin.

As the pain increased, he realised he must move. His attacker must still be there, perhaps drawing back the bowstring a third time. Athelhard stumbled to his feet and scurried around the
tree’s trunk like a vole looking for a hedge, leaning back against it while the nausea washed over him.

His axe was around the other side of the tree, right in the line of another arrow and he daren’t reach for it, but somehow he must get away, and first he had to remove the arrow. Looking
down at the slender stem protruding from his hose, the thought of what he must do made him retch. While a soldier he had seen others do the same often enough, but that didn’t make it any
easier. Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, he touched it gingerly. He couldn’t pull it out backwards, as the barbs would rend his flesh and do more damage. No, he must drive it
forwards, so that the arrowhead cut through the thickness of his thigh and came out the other side.

It was firmly lodged at his bone, however, and he wept freely as he twisted and turned it, trying to move it away without harming himself more than he must. When he finally succeeded, he fainted
as a gush of hot blood fountained from the wound, flooding his hands, but he came to only a moment or two later, shivering and nauseous deep in the pit of his stomach. At first he was fearful to
see the bright crimson puddle, but he felt all right. No arteries had been broached.

It was done. He snapped off the remaining length with the fletchings, then tugged the splinter of wood which was left attached to the point through his leg, his face pulled into a mask of
revulsion. Tearing off his hose, he fashioned a makeshift tourniquet which he bound as close to his groin as he could. He couldn’t touch the arrowhead again. Slick with his blood, he was
repelled by it. Instead he took up the piece with the fletchings and shoved it into the cloth, twisting it until the ligature was tight and the blood ceased flowing. Then and only then did he turn
his attention to the man who had ambushed him, who must still be there, waiting for him.

A good bowman could hit a butt at four or five hundred yards. Trying to get a moving man was more difficult, especially if he could dodge and sprint, but Athelhard wouldn’t be doing that,
not with his leg in this state. He would only be able to hobble, presenting an easy target to the most incompetent archer.

There was the crack of a breaking twig and he knew that his attacker was edging forward. If he remained here, he would be killed. He climbed to his feet as quietly as he could, gritting his
teeth as his ruined leg refused to support his weight.

With infinite caution he peered around the tree. That was when he felt his heart plunge. There was more than one man: he could count at least three at the edge of the nearest line of bushes. One
held something in his hands – it must be a bow. Athelhard gripped his knife, frozen with indecision. Should he throw it now, kill one of his attackers, and then cry for help? The vill
wasn’t far from here. Someone would be bound to hear his screams, and it was possible that the remaining two would bolt if they saw their companion fall.