The Stone Wife

‘Did Chaucer ever go there? Some of the experts say he didn’t.’

‘The locals think he did. And there was a house — long gone — where Thomas the son definitely lived. It was in existence in the 1330s, so it’s well possible that Chaucer senior lived there towards the end of his life.’

‘When did he get the job of deputy forester?’

‘1391. He’d been incredibly busy up to then on all kinds of official duties that kept him in London, but with frequent trips to Europe. It’s amazing, the travelling people managed all those years ago: Spain, France, Italy. But in middle age, he seems to have looked for a place in the country — first in Kent, where he was a justice of the peace and MP — but that didn’t last and he came back to London as clerk of the king’s works. Two years on, he retires — so some experts believe — to Somerset. His wife Philippa seems to have died in 1387. It’s a fruitful period of his life when most of The Canterbury Tales are written.’

‘So he was a widower, like you.’

‘Mm.’ He looked away, never comfortable when the spotlight shifted to him.

‘And it turned out to have been the most creative time of his life. Did you find out anything you didn’t already know?’

‘We were taken to the site of the house but there’s bugger all to see now. It’s been ploughed over many times.’

‘Shame.’

‘But what I did learn is that there was an excavation in early Victorian times led by a local vicar. This was 1843. There’s no record of what was found in the dig, but about the same time, the Wife of Bath stone is acquired by William Stradling, the antiquarian.’

Paloma smiled. ‘Someone did a smart deal.’

‘Stradling was the sort of man who missed nothing, a proper scavenger. He lived only seven or eight miles away.’

‘Didn’t he admit where it came from?’

‘I expect it was known locally, but there’s nothing in writing. And after his death, people seem to have lost interest. It eventually got into the museum and was put in storage.’

‘So the theory is that the tablet was originally part of the structure of Chaucer’s house?’

‘It is now, but no one in recent times linked it to the 1843 dig for the simple reason that all news of the dig was unknown until quite recently when an archivist came across a small report in the local paper. When Gildersleeve came along in two thousand with his team from Reading, he thought they had an untouched site to explore and even a possibility of proving Chaucer himself was once the owner. They found nothing of real interest the whole summer they were there.’

‘Quite a blight on the professor’s career, poor man,’ Paloma said.

He nodded. ‘Some cruel things were said by his so-called colleagues.’

‘I can understand how excited he was when the tablet came up for sale. A chance to have the last laugh.’

‘Yep. But who would want to frustrate him?’

‘Some other Chaucer expert?’

‘Another academic?’

‘Depends,’ Paloma said. ‘You may not appreciate the competition that exists between universities and even within departments. I’ve seen it close up. Suppose some equally fanatical Chaucer expert knows he doesn’t have the funds to make a decent bid. I’ve no idea what it would cost to fund a hold-up, but it may be less than Gildersleeve was able to pay for the stone.’

‘True. He’d married into money. But then the rival gets the thing by criminal means and what can he do with it? He can’t write a learned paper or put it on exhibition. He’s stuck with it and has to stay silent. What’s more, if the Old Bill come knocking on his door, it’s a big item to hide.’

‘That holds true whoever planned to steal it.’

He smiled. ‘Dead right.’

‘You obviously have another theory,’ she said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it a theory. I simply think if the tablet was going to be taken by force — and wouldn’t be any use to the perpetrator — there must be an element of spite, a personal issue with Gildersleeve, closer to home.’

‘You’ve been delving into his private life,’ she said, unable to mask a note of disapproval.

‘We have to. It’s the job. There were people close to him who may have borne a grudge.’

‘Such as?’

‘His wife’s former husband, a property developer with a tough reputation. He’s called Bernie Wefers and he was particularly brutal to Monica — savagely so — when he found she was having an affair with Gildersleeve. The fact that Wefers himself was unfaithful, sleeping with his PA, didn’t seem to register. At the divorce hearing, he issued a personal threat to Gildersleeve — “You’ll pay for this” — and he wasn’t talking about money.’