A Killer in Winter

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The winter that gripped England was the worst anyone could remember. It came early, brought by bitter north winds that were laden with snow and sleet. The River Cam and the King’s Ditch – usually meandering, fetid cesspools that oozed around the little Fen-edge town like a vast misshapen halo – froze at the end of November, and children made ice skates from sheep bones. Both ditch and river thawed soon after, but not before claiming two lives: a pair of boys rashly ignored the ominous cracks and increasing slushiness, and plunged through the treacherous surface to their deaths.

At the beginning of December came the first heavy snows, smothering the countryside with an ivory blanket and transforming the brown desolation into a landscape of dazzling, pillowy white. As the snow continued unabated, buildings and trees disappeared beneath drifts. Because winter had come so early, people were unprepared. They had not cut enough firewood, stored enough vegetables, salted enough meat or ground enough grain. Ice choked the mills, and prevented them from satisfying the demand for flour. The price of food – already high after the plague that had ravaged the country five years before – began to spiral upwards again.

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