The Reckoning

It was a macabre vision, for the surgeon’s hands were red with gore, as was the apron he was wearing. Hawkwood couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t seen Quill in his bloody apron and didn’t like to think what the rest of the stains might be. Beneath the examination table, the flagstone floor was slick with dark fluids.

“Warned?” It was all Hawkwood could do not to clamp a hand over his nose and mouth, for the smell was appalling; worse than anything at the burying ground.

Quill grinned. Clearly unmoved by the reek coming off the bodies around him, he also seemed unaffected by the cold. Beads of sweat shone across his bald pate and Hawkwood could have sworn there was steam rising from the apron. He’d seen similar sights when heat appeared to ascend from the innards of wounded and just-killed soldiers; and in Smithfield slaughterhouses, too, on market day. But these bodies weren’t warm; they were anything but. He decided it had to be a trick of the light.

“Good to see you again,” Quill said. “I take it you’re here for the St George’s cadaver?”

Hawkwood realized the surgeon was clasping a scalpel in his right hand. His stomach turned.

“I am.”

“I couldn’t have examined it where it was?”

“If you had,” Hawkwood said, “you’d have ended up like me.”

The surgeon studied the gap in Hawkwood’s coat and beneath it the stained breeches and boots to which the mud was still clinging.

“You think that would have made a difference?” Spreading his arms, the surgeon invited Hawkwood to inspect his apron.

“It was a burying ground. It was in the wet and I didn’t think it was a proper place to perform an examination.”

“There wasn’t convenient shelter nearby?”

Hawkwood thought about Sexton Stubbs’ cottage. “No.”

“And, in any case,” Quill said wryly, “you wanted it done directly.”

Hawkwood nodded. “Yes.”

Quill fixed him with an accusing eye. “You thought I would move your find to the front of the queue?”

The inference was clear. There were procedures when it came to performing necropsies. Surgeons like Quill worked for the Coroner, but the latter couldn’t act without permission from a justice of the peace. Since inquests were expensive, they were ordered only when there was evidence of violence or the cause of death was suspicious. However, if the death involved someone from the impoverished layers of society, many justices would rule an inquest unnecessary; thus there would be no crime to investigate. Hawkwood was relying on his past association with Quill in a bid to circumvent the system.

Hawkwood glanced around the room. It looked as though the surgeon was behind in his work. Below the curved roof, the walls were lined with bodies, awaiting either examination or dispatch to their place of interment. It wasn’t hard to see why Quill, despite their past dealings, might be irked by another one turning up unannounced.

But when he turned, the smile was back, which could only mean one thing.

“You’ve already taken a look,” Hawkwood said. “Haven’t you?”

Placing the scalpel on the examination table and removing a blood-stained cloth from behind his apron string, Quill wiped his hands. “As it’s you, I have – and it’s not pretty, though she was once, I think, poor mite.”

The surgeon moved to an adjacent table and then stepped aside to provide Hawkwood with a better view.

Covered to the neck by a grubby sheet, the body was lying on its side in almost the same position in which it had been found. Hawkwood thought about the dead woman’s naked state and the pit she’d been lifted from and how many bodies there might have been buried beneath her. Tied, thrust into a sack, cast down into a stranger’s grave and then covered with a filthy shroud that would have been used on God knew how many other remains; if ever proof were needed that the dispossessed were robbed of all dignity, even in death, this was it. The one redeeming feature, if it could be called such, was that the corpse’s eyes were no longer wide and staring, but half-closed. Presumably, Quill had taken advantage of the rigor leaving the body to make the adjustment. The cord, Hawkwood saw, had been cut from her wrists.

“You’ll appreciate it’s been only a short time since I took delivery,” Quill said, “and that my initial examination was somewhat cursory.”

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

“As you wish.” Tucking the cloth back into his apron, Quill placed both hands on the table and gazed down at the remains. “We have a young female – eighteen to twenty-five years of age or thereabouts. Cause of death: asphyxia … strangulation.” The surgeon paused, as if mulling over his diagnosis. “Probably.”

“Probably?”

“There is noticeable bruising under the throat, caused by some sort of ligature.” Quill pointed towards the corpse’s jawline. “Possibly the same cord that was used to bind her wrists and ankles.”

“Her ankles were tied as well?”

Quill shrugged philosophically. “Easier to fit her in the sack.”

There was less engrained dirt than Hawkwood remembered as he gazed down upon the remains. From the state of the water in a tin bowl placed by the corpse’s feet, Quill had already made a token effort to wipe the body down prior to his examination. As a result, the discoloration in the skin was even more pronounced than it had been when Hawkwood had observed it at the bottom of the pit.

“And if it wasn’t … strangulation?”

“There are several contusions, a fracture of the zygomatic – the cheekbone – as well as dislocation of the mandible. There is also damage to the left side of the skull. Here, you see?”

“She was beaten?”

“Severely, I’d say.”

“Beaten and throttled?”

“Yes. But then you’d already guessed that before you brought her up, am I right?” The surgeon eyed him perceptively.

“I thought it was a possibility, from the parts of her I could see.”

“Which is why you referred her to me.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“The constable described the circumstances in which she was found. Clearly she was not meant to be discovered.”

“Clearly,” Hawkwood repeated softly.

“If you’re wondering about the constable, by the way, I did ask him if he wanted to wait, but he declined; said he had to make his report. I believe this was his first visit to a dead house. He did well, considering, which is more than can be said for his companion. The poor boy had to be helped out.”

He meant Dobbs. At this rate, Hawkwood thought, the apprentice’s first day was likely to be his last.

“There is more,” Quill said.

Without ceremony, the surgeon folded the sheet back to reveal the top half of the body. There was a mottled tint to the pale dead flesh. Hawkwood wondered if it was due to the candle glow. The most noticeable aberration was the dark area of what looked like bruising along the left side of the torso. Hawkwood had to bend slightly to study it. “She was hit that hard?”

Quill shook his head. “It’s called lividity. When the heart stops beating, the blood settles into the lowest parts of the body. This indicates she was lying on her left side as she is now; as she was when they found her, yes?”

“Yes.” Struck by a thought, Hawkwood turned. “Might she have been alive when she was put down there?”

Quill considered the question. “From the state of her, I’d say whoever was responsible made sure she was dead before they put her in the hole.” The surgeon sighed. “A small mercy, I fear.”

Hawkwood stared down at the body.

“There are other injuries,” Quill said, and pointed to the area below the breasts.

Hawkwood looked. Because of the way the body was lying all he could see was the discoloration caused by the blood settlement. And then he saw the lesions.

“What are those?”

“Stab wounds.”

“Throttled, beaten and stabbed?”

“She died hard,” Quill said heavily. “I’ll have a better idea of their cause when the rigor’s left her completely. That will allow me a closer examination. Otherwise I’d have to break bones. I’d prefer not to do that if it can be helped. We’re almost there. An hour or two and I’ll have her properly laid out.”

Hawkwood couldn’t think of a single appropriate reply. He looked down at the body. “Was she violated?”

“As I said, I’ve yet to make a full examination. I will check, though.” The surgeon frowned. “Forgive me asking, but why this one?”

“This one?”

“Most would have left her there.”

Hawkwood turned. “Because a brave soldier didn’t think it right that someone tossed her into a hole without due ceremony, and I didn’t want the bloody resurrection men getting to her.”

Though they still might.

Quill grunted non-committally and then Hawkwood saw the surgeon’s eyes narrow. Taking the rag from his apron, Quill wetted it in the bowl and used it to gently rub the skin on the corpse’s right upper arm. “Now, what …” he murmured softly “… do you suppose this is?”

Hawkwood moved closer.

The pigment in the skin could easily have been mistaken for a consequence of what Quill had termed the lividity process, but as the damp cloth did its work and the dirt was wiped away, Hawkwood saw that it was something else. There was pigmentation but it had been there before the body had settled.

“I declare,” Quill said, straightening. “She has a tattoo. Looks like a flower; a rose, unless I miss my guess. Nicely wrought, too. See how the petals are drawn?”

Quill’s admiration for the ink-work made Hawkwood wonder again about the surgeon’s background and if he had indeed seen naval service. He eyed the man’s forearms. There didn’t appear to be any anchors or sea-serpents or salutes to Mother, though they could have been high up on Quill’s arms and hidden by the sleeves of his shirt. Maybe he had a large one on his back – HMS Volage under full sail, surrounded by mermaids.

“Intriguing,” Quill murmured, appearing not to have noticed Hawkwood’s surreptitious perusal of his anatomy.

“You mean, what sort of woman gets herself tattooed?” Hawkwood said.

“Indeed.”

“And what happened to her clothes?”

“Ah,” Quill said. “Now, that one I can answer. They were buried with her, at the bottom of the bag.” The surgeon jerked his head. “Over there, the small table in the corner.”

Crossing the room, Hawkwood found it hard to avert his eyes from some of the horrors on show. The space was not well lit and shadows were playing across the intervening tables, revealing a stomach-churning vista of part-opened chests, excised ribcages, and basins and weighing scales containing items of viscera that would have looked more at home on a butcher’s block. From the condition of the bodies on display, Quill liked to work on more than one at a time. Hawkwood couldn’t think of a single conceivable reason why that should be.

Arriving at the opposite wall, mercifully without losing the contents of his own stomach, Hawkwood examined the items to which Quill had referred. The bundle did not consist of much: a thin muslin dress, a cotton chemise, a pair of stockings and a pair of half-boots. The sacking had not protected them from the wet. All were soaked and heavily stained. The stench of the pit rose from them, though it was more than likely they had also absorbed some of the odours seeping from the walls and tables in Quill’s dead house.

Placing the clothing to one side, Hawkwood picked up the boots. They appeared to be of good quality, or at least they had been before the water had got to them; made from some kind of velvet material, with a small heel, not for walking but for evening wear.

“I don’t think she was a vagrant,” Hawkwood said, re-joining Quill at the examination table, one of the boots in his hand.

Quill looked down at the footwear and nodded in agreement. “I thought that, too. The clothes do not strike me as hand-me-downs. Indeed, the stockings would appear to be silk. Also, as you’ll have noticed, other than the water damage, all are intact, which suggests they were not removed from her by force. She disrobed prior to being attacked.”

He turned back to the body. “Notwithstanding her current condition, there’s no evidence that she was malnourished.”

Hawkwood did not reply. He focused his eyes on the tattoo. Quill followed his gaze. “The rose is significant, you think?”

“Maybe,” Hawkwood said, as a thought struck him.

Quill looked at him. “You’re asking yourself what sort of woman who’s young and pretty and who wears expensive clothes and removes them voluntarily, might carry a tattoo on her shoulder.”

Hawkwood considered the boot he was holding.

“I think we can both hazard a guess, don’t you?” Quill said.

Hawkwood nodded. “It’d be a place to start.”

Quill held out his hand. “Then I think you have your work cut out. Don’t let me detain you.”

Hawkwood passed the boot over. “I don’t suppose you can tell me when she might have been killed?”

Quill shook his head. “Not with any certainty. Rigor’s not a precise measure. It can take between two and twelve hours to take hold fully, but the process can also be slowed or accelerated depending on location and temperature.”

Hawkwood thought about the rain and the cold and the mud she’d been buried under. Mud had remarkable properties. It could both protect and preserve. He recalled the times on campaign when on cold nights he and Jago had smeared their blankets with clay; with straw bedding for a base, the mud had provided extra insulation against the cold and they’d generally passed the night in relative comfort.

He realized Quill was still talking.

“A body returns to its flaccid state after a further eighteen hours or thereabouts. I note the flies have started their work, but the eggs have yet to reach the larvae stage, which could be down to the temperature of the ground. Given that, and from her current condition and from what you and the constable have told me, I’d estimate she’s been dead for between twenty-four and thirty-six hours.”

Hawkwood absorbed the information.

“You really do end up with the most interesting ones, don’t you?” Quill murmured.

“It’s a curse,” Hawkwood said as he turned to go.

Quill smiled grimly. “You should have my job.”

“I’m sorry, but can you explain to me again why this is Bow Street’s case,” Hawkwood said, “and not the Garden’s?”

The “Garden” was Hatton Garden. St George the Martyr’s burying ground fell within the Hatton Garden Public Office’s area of jurisdiction, though only by the width of a few streets.

Chief Magistrate James Read turned away from the rain-spattered window, clasped his hands behind his back and raised his coat-tails to the fire. Late middle-aged and trimly built, with aquiline features and swept-back silver hair, the magistrate’s fastidious appearance exuded quiet authority. If he was irritated by the lack of grace in Hawkwood’s enquiry, he gave no outward sign.

“It was at Hatton Garden’s request.”

“Request?” Hawkwood said cautiously.

“For assistance; from Magistrate Turton.”

“Magistrate Turton has his own Principal Officers,” Hawkwood said, still unconvinced. “Why does he need us?”

“It would appear he has a shortage.”

“Of Principal Officers.”

“Correct,” Read said patiently. “He has six at his disposal. Four are engaged in investigations of their own and thus cannot be spared. The other two are confined to their beds because of illness; hence the request. And before you say anything, I confess that I, too, was somewhat surprised. However, as we are on Magistrate Turton’s doorstep, I saw no reason why we could not offer him assistance, on this occasion.”

Excluding Bow Street, there were seven other Public Offices located across the metropolis. Autonomous save in matters of staffing and the setting of annual budgets – for which the Home Department was responsible – each one operated independently from its neighbours. So much so, that it was almost a point of honour for offices not to exchange information. Requests for help, therefore, were rare. Requests for help from Bow Street were exceedingly rare.

“Besides,” Read continued, “an initiative has been issued; from the Home Department, from Mr Callum Day, the official conduit between this office and Whitehall.”

Hawkwood groaned inwardly. He’d never met Day, but the last time the Home Department had used its initiative, he’d ended up in France and, as a consequence, the other side of the Atlantic, an endeavour from which he was still smarting.

Leaving the fire and returning to his desk, the Chief Magistrate took his seat. “It has long been felt among certain circles that the fight against the criminal element would be better served if there was more cooperation between the Public Offices.”

James Read smiled thinly at Hawkwood’s less than overjoyed expression. “I can tell what you’re thinking. Nevertheless, I’m inclined to agree that there is merit in the idea and, in times of adversity, I see no reason why the parishes should not combine their resources. We are, in case you’ve forgotten, supposed to be on the same side.”

Read’s eyes flickered to the paperwork on his desk. One of the communiqués, Hawkwood saw, was affixed with a broken wax seal, upon which the indentation of the Home Minister’s office was plainly visible.

“Also …” Read said, “… it will give you something to do after your adventures abroad.”

Placing the Home Department correspondence to one side, the Chief Magistrate looked up. “And now that your curiosity has been satisfied, what can you tell me – besides the fact that we have a body … in a grave?”

Ignoring the Chief Magistrate’s mordant comment, Hawkwood nodded. “The burial plot was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital. I thought it might be a child, a cast-off.”

“But it wasn’t and you have another theory?”

“In as much as it’s not a child but a woman. Surgeon Quill and I think she may have been a working girl.”

Read frowned and listened as Hawkwood described the tattoo.

“You’re suggesting that if we can identify the victim through the ink-work, we may have a lead to her killer?”

“Yes.”

Lowering his forearms on to his desk, his fingers still laced, Read appeared sceptical. “If she is a working girl, I put it to you that you’ll have more than a lead, you’ll likely have scores of them.”

“There is that,” Hawkwood admitted.

“You have a means of establishing her identity?”

“I’m working on it.”

Read looked thoughtful.

Hawkwood recognized the look. “Sir?”

Read let out a sigh. “Murder’s a foul business, though, sadly, a far from uncommon occurrence, especially among the more – how shall I put it? – socially disadvantaged. And our resources are not infinite. Truth be told, they are anything but. So, given what we know, this could be a fruitless exercise. While the young woman’s death is undoubtedly a heinous crime, if I were to assign an officer of your experience to the case for a significant length of time it would seriously deplete our own resources. In short, therefore, while I’m willing for this office to render assistance to Magistrate Turton, I do not intend it to become our life’s work. It will be for a few days at the most. So use them well. I take it your strategy is to cultivate your informers who have access to the more shadowy areas of our city?”

He means Jago.

“It is.”

“Very well. But if nothing is forthcoming after what I consider to be an appropriate period, know that I will reassign you to more pressing duties and a lower-ranked officer will be delegated to continue the enquiry; that is, if Magistrate Turton remains short-staffed. Young Hopkins is proving to be a most capable individual and has, in fact, expressed a desire to become a Principal Officer. It would be a shame to discourage him from pursuing that ambition.”

“Indeed it would, sir.”

Hawkwood was rewarded with a sharp look. Then the Chief Magistrate nodded. “Keep me informed and do try not to tread on too many toes.”

“I’ll do my best.”

But if all else fails …

Reaching the door, he was about to let himself out when Read’s voice sounded again.

“Officer Hawkwood.”

Hawkwood turned.

“Regarding Surgeon Quill; I assume it was on your authority that the body was delivered to his dead house?”

“It was.”

“Rather presumptuous, was it not? You do know there are coroners and rules governing investigations into wrongful deaths?”

“I’ve always thought of them more as a set of recommendations than hard rules.”

The Chief Magistrate fixed Hawkwood with a flinty gaze. “Only when they suit you, you mean.”

“I used my judgement. If we’d gone by the book, by the time we’d found a coroner willing to drag himself from his bed, there would have been two bodies in the pit. There’s nothing worse than a confused coroner, sir. Take it from me.”

“By two, you are referring to the plot’s intended occupant.”

“The funeral party was already on its way. It would have been a bit crowded down there.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Chief Magistrate closed his eyes. Then, after letting go a sigh, he re-opened them and nodded in weary acceptance.

A knock sounded. Before Read could respond and Hawkwood move aside, the door opened and Bow Street’s Chief Clerk, Ezra Twigg, entered, bearing a note.

“My apologies, sir.” Twigg blinked owlishly. “I’ve a message for Officer Hawkwood, from Surgeon Quill. It’s marked ‘urgent’.”

“Speak of the devil,” Read murmured. He nodded at Twigg. “Very well.”

Twigg handed Hawkwood the note. Hawkwood opened it. The message was concise.

There is more,

Quill

Hawkwood folded the paper without speaking.

“Will there be a reply?” Twigg enquired.

“No,” Hawkwood said.

Read frowned.

“Quill’s completed his examination,” Hawkwood said. “I should go.”

“Oh, by all means,” Read said drily. “Don’t let us detain you.”

Ezra Twigg glanced towards the Chief Magistrate; when no further directive was forthcoming, he turned for the door. Hawkwood followed.

“Officer Hawkwood,” Read called again.

Curbing his irritation, Hawkwood turned and saw that the Chief Magistrate had left the sanctuary of his desk and resumed his pose in front of the fire.

The magistrate raised his chin. “There is one thing I neglected to mention.”

“Sir?”

James Read held Hawkwood’s gaze for perhaps three or four seconds. Then the corner of his mouth twisted to form an oblique smile.

“Welcome back.”

5

When Hawkwood re-entered the dead room, there was no shouted order to close the door and this time, when Quill turned to greet him, there was no humour in the surgeon’s expression, either. Instead, Quill’s face looked as if it had been carved from stone. The cellar appeared darker than it had before; colder, too, perhaps because of Quill’s less than welcoming disposition. The smell, though, was as bad as ever.

Taking his cue from the room’s chilly atmosphere, Hawkwood did not speak as he took the note from his pocket and held it up. Quill crooked a finger and, with a rising sense of dread, Hawkwood followed him across to the examination table.

The body was there, covered by the sheet. Wordlessly, Quill drew the material aside.

The corpse now lay on its back in the prone position, hands by its sides. This time the eyes were fully closed but it was not to her eyes that Hawkwood’s attention was drawn. It was to the dead woman’s abdomen and the trauma that had been inflicted upon it.

“They’re not stab wounds,” Hawkwood said cautiously. “They don’t look deep enough.”

“No,” Quill said. “I was mistaken. She was not stabbed.”

“Scratched, then.”