Free Figure of Hate by Bernard Knight

of any of their fellows who might have gone missing.'
    Gwyn, hunched in his worn jerkin with the pointed hood pulled up over his tangled hair against the morning chill, nodded his assent.
    'But there's plenty more booths to tackle yet, we've twice as many to visit before we give up.' He beat his arms across his chest and looked longingly at a nearby cook-stall. 'Bloody cold standing here, Crowner! I could do with something hot to warm my guts.' John sighed at his officer's insatiable appetite, though presumably his giant frame needed twice as much sustenance as normal folk.
    'I'll treat you both to a pastry, then we must get on with it. Have you got that clothing from the Watergate?' Thomas held up a shapeless bundle tied in a cloth.
    'We've found no one yet to show them to, as everyone denies any knowledge of a missing man.' Their fortune in this respect was soon to improve, however. As they stood near the baker's booth, where for a quarter-segment of a penny the fat cook provided them each with a folded pastry filled with chopped meat and onions, two men hurried down towards them from the direction of the East Gate; at the farther end of the fairground.
    From the red kerchief around his upper arm, John could see that one was a steward; the other carried the staff of a city constable.
    'Here's Theobald, rushing as if he's desperate to get to the privy!' observed Gwyn, sarcastically, as the fat constable was not one of his favourite people. He found Osric, the thin Saxon, amiable enough, but thought his colleague pompous and self-important.
    Theobald puffed up to the stall, out of breath but able to jerk a thumb at the steward, a lean middle-aged man with a set of rotten black stumps for teeth. Away from the fair, he was the senior clerk at a fulling mill on Exe Island, keeping the accounts and tallying the stock.
    'I've found Robin here, who has some information which may well have a bearing on that corpse from the river, Sir John,' wheezed the constable.
    De Wolfe's beaked nose turned to the fellow with the red armband, hoping that his news might save them much labour around the fair.
    'What can you tell us, Robin?' he growled.
    'Not so much me, Crowner, but two men at a silversmith's booth up at the end of that row.' He pointed a bony finger back in the direction from which he had come. 'They sought me out as soon as the fair opened this morning, for their master didn't turn up - nor did his servant.'
    'Who was he?' demanded de Wolfe.
    'A silversmith from Totnes, sir. I didn't ask his name, I thought it best to report it as soon as I could. Theobald here was the first to know and he said I should tell you in person. All I know is that the missing man is about forty years old.'
    Within minutes, the entourage had marched up almost to the end of the middle lane of the fair and assembled in front of a larger stall, the back and sides of which were wattle panels made of woven hazel withies, under a red striped canvas roof.
    A trestle table stretched across the front, on which were a wide selection of silver objects. There were shoe buckles, belt buckles, brooches, rings, bracelets, earrings and several silver platters, and even a three-branched candlestick. Though John was no expert, he saw that the workmanship was fine and that the display was worth a considerable amount of money. A ring of curious onlookers began to gather behind them, sensing that something out of the ordinary was going on, but de Wolfe set Theobald and the steward to clearing them away.
    Behind the trestle were two men, both dressed in the sober tunics of craftsmen, one with a leather apron covering his chest and belly. The other was hunched over the end of the table, working on some intricate design with a small hammer and punch.
    John noticed that a pair of heavy cudgels and a stout staff leaned against the back of the booth, no doubt to deal with any attempt at robbery of the valuable stock.
    As the imposing figure of the coroner and that of his massive