Devoured (4 page)
According to his pocket watch, it was just past three o’clock when the barouche came to fetch him. Ashby had waited in the porchway reserved for servants, glad to be out of the cold. The walk to the Linnean Society had been a wasted one. ‘The arctic flowers paper ain’t ready. Come back in a month. Mr Hooker still has facts to verify.’
Ashby knew better than to offer up failure, and so quickly got into the carriage and said nothing. The Duke belched onion breath, and kicked Ashby sharply on the ankle, saying, ‘Pay attention and have a look at these figures, old man. By my own reading, I believe our exports of Machars whisky needs beefing up. Our jute consignments, as well.’
The barouche hurtled along until they reached the Isle of Dogs, where they got out of the carriage and fell into a great hubbub of screaming and shouting. All around Ashby was a wall of sound and a swell of multicoloured people, to which the Duke of Monreith paid no notice, using a cane to part the wave, Moses-like. Ashby followed and at last the two men reached the warehouse door of the Machars Trading Company.
Ashby looked up at the mighty stag, the company’s emblem, cast in weather-beaten iron, bellowing at nothing. Inside the building, Monreith’s arrival was like that of a king. More men, who looked exactly like Ashby, ran forward to greet the Duke. Monreith marched forward as if into battle, deaf to the chatter all about him, through the vast warehouse, where all the wares bore the proud announcement ‘Made in Great Britain by the Machars Trading Company’, including a nod to the Duke’s Scottish heritage – bottles and bottles of single malt.
‘Business is booming, sir. We can hardly keep pace,’ said one worn-out-looking clerk.
‘Give the ledger to Mr Ashby.’ Monreith was direct and to the point. The Duke paid an active interest in the profit line, but the rest ran itself, to way back when Monreith traded in other things, no longer permitted. But Monreith had said his piece on that. He had talked till The House had groaned from his endless rationales about the benefits of the slave trade, till it had yawned wide open at his arguments. That battle was long since lost. But there were other fights he could take on.
‘Did you get the Hooker paper, Ashby?’
Ashby paled, studying the ledger. Monreith took out his snuffbox, unperturbed, just pleased to listen to himself. ‘I am sick of those collectors and their so-called theorising, with their reckless ideas about how the world was made. Starting with that rag,
Vestiges
. So ashamed was the author, such a coward, that he wouldn’t even put his name to it. Calling into question as it did the very existence of God. And I hear the sound of the botanical’s geological hammers knocking in my head, knowing it is the death knell of everything we know. And let me tell you that it’s getting worse. There are more of these botanicals every day, it seems.’ The Duke took a snort of his snuff. ‘Even women, dammit. But I’ll soon put a stop to it.’ The Duke sneezed and put his snuffbox back in his pocket.
Ashby handed the ledger back. ‘Everything is in order, sir. You are on track to make an excellent profit, and it’s the whisky, I believe, that’s making the difference. It seems to be very popular, especially with our eastern customers. May I be so bold as to suggest you could perhaps refer to this in your speech, tonight?’
‘If you say so, Ashby.’ Monreith was distracted because the clock on the wall told him it was getting late and he had another place to go.
‘Come along. It’s gone five. My barouche will drop you at The Strand. I’m going to a bookshop on Millford Lane and then perhaps to Clunns for an early supper, but I’ll be back in good time for my speech. Hopefully, if all goes well, which it should at The Lords, we’ll be finished by midnight. In fact, I’m rather looking forward to it. There will be no opposition and no radicals there to contend with. It’ll be home from home.’
The barouche took off and Ashby was dropped at the far end towards The Aldwych. Ashby braced himself against the chilly air as he stood in a flurry of snow and watched the Duke’s barouche heading down Millford Lane. He lowered his head and walked on.
Earlier that day, in the eastern part of the city, Hatton had started his morning with no coffee and no respite. Two constables and some ad hoc mortuary assistants loitered in the putrid stink of the embalming fluid. The ripe mixture of various preservatives barely disguised the faecal matter and vomit which was the backdrop to Professor Hatton’s work. Stomaching the stench was the first hurdle to conquer for any young physician considering a career in the area of medical jurisprudence. That and its paltry pay.
Hatton looked at his filigree pocket watch to check that it was indeed ten o’clock and time to start the cutting. Despite the morning hour, the morgue was still gloomy. Lamps had been lit and flickered around the walls, still splattered with the yellowing body fluids from yesterday’s post-mortem. A young girl, barely twelve, who had been stitched back together with due attention by Monsieur Roumande.
‘Bludgeoned to death, then dumped in an alley off Joiners Street.’ Roumande spoke to the young man, who stood next to him and asked for her name. The man stepped away distraught, but Roumande continued. ‘There have been at least two others like this, with the same marks. But like the others, none have claimed her, and so she ends up here. Naked, wrapped in a cloth, and labelled as “pork”. Sorry to be so brutal, sir, but since you asked.’
‘Let me introduce you to my right-hand man, Mr Broderig,’ Hatton was quick to intervene, with a flourish of his hand. ‘My Chief Diener, Monsieur Albert Roumande.’ Roumande bowed as Hatton continued, lowering his voice a little, ‘I don’t think Mr Broderig needs any more detail on a nameless cadaver. He’s just lost a loved one and has volunteered to attend this morning’s autopsy. So go easy on him, Albert. This is his first cutting.’ But the young man said he was perfectly well, and to please continue.
Roumande shrugged. ‘Well, all I can tell you is her skull was smashed, her throat slashed. See here.’ He pointed with the tip of his scalpel. ‘The lower part of her body, from her abdomen down, bludgeoned to a pulp. Her arms were bruised and cut, as you can see on inspecting her wrists.’ Roumande brushed the spindly arms lightly with his fingertips. ‘Strange pricks, as if by a bodkin.’
‘She was abused, then?’ asked Benjamin Broderig.
‘Abused and murdered, though for some reason Scotland Yard seems happy to part with this one, without even a delivery note.’ Roumande looked over at Hatton. ‘Perhaps I’ll ask Inspector Adams when he gets here, because it seems out of sorts. It is Inspector Adams, isn’t it? Inspector Adams of Scotland Yard?’
‘The very same, Albert.’ Hatton smiled at Roumande, because they were friends. ‘We’ll start very shortly, Mr Broderig, but remember, if at any point you cannot bear it, we will have an assistant take you out. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘I haven’t offered my presence here lightly,’ Broderig said, his eyes gold in the light of the mortuary’s lamps. ‘But I’m used to cutting. I’m a specimen collector, although my dissection is of a different nature. For scientific research, cataloguing and so forth.’ Hatton looked up from polishing his knife, thinking it was good to have another Man of Science in their midst. But this thought was cut short by a rapping at the door.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. The bulldogs said I had to come round the back. Not the response I would normally expect for a man in my position, but apparently your Hospital Director insists upon it.’ Inspector Adams hurriedly took off his coat and continued, ‘So, tell me, where the devil are we, exactly? Is this the basement? Or a store cupboard?’
The Inspector laughed, but Hatton frowned, feeling the insult, because the cutting room had long been designated the stealthiest position at St Bart’s, far removed from the rest of the hospital. His life’s work still held by many with a mixture of disgust and loathing. Pathologists like Hatton remaining hidden, often left to struggle alone or, in his case, helped by a diener, as Albert Roumande insisted he still be called, although Roumande was far from being a mere servant of the morgue.
It irked Professor Hatton that he should be shut off in this way, and he didn’t feel better by having it pointed out. Especially when his hours were long and his income little, but today was an opportunity to impress. To prove himself. And Hatton had noticed, recently, that requests to attend his autopsies were increasing. This was the fifth cutting this month which had involved a small audience. Did he dare hope that interest was growing? Hatton narrowed his eyes and reached for his knife; there was never any question that this was simply his calling. His affinity with the exact science of forensics was something which had surprised him once, but now his life would be wholly meaningless without it.
‘Do we have a jug of porter available, Professor? Or some salts?’ Inspector Adams didn’t wait for an answer, catching sight of the Chief Diener. ‘Ah! You must be Monsieur Roumande. I’ve heard of you, sir. Every mortuary room I have ever had the misfortune to grace speaks of you, if I may say, in a hushed tone of admiration. And of course,’ the Inspector smiled broadly, ‘you’re a man of many letters.’
Monsieur Roumande gave a curt bow. ‘I’ve heard of you, too, Inspector Adams. And yes, I’m in regular correspondence with The Yard about various concerns of mine. Vice, crime, felons, and the murder of prostitutes. Perhaps it’s because I’m from Spitalfields and feel an affinity for such things. We are one up from the rookeries at Fleur de Lys, but if my wife heard me say that, she would murder me herself. Your reputation goes before you, Inspector.’ The two shook each other’s hands.
Hatton called Roumande over to wipe down the dissecting table, and then with the help of others, lifted the cadaver onto the slab.
‘Monsieur Roumande, if you please.’
Albert Roumande was a head taller than Hatton. More bear-like in stature than the Professor’s medium frame, and with the gruff voice of a man who liked to make his presence felt. And to Hatton, he was more than a friend. Roumande was an able, exacting, acutely intelligent observer without whom no post-mortem would be entirely accurate. Despite Hatton’s elevated position, the younger man, at thirty-three, still felt firmly under Roumande’s tutelage, because they had worked little more than a year together, and Hatton was not so arrogant to assume anything.
The dissection table played centre stage, the cadaver now its focus. Roumande lifted the shroud. The gathering stepped forward to see thick, chestnut hair coiled around delicate shoulders. Her hands were long, her fingers tapering. Hatton noted Lady Bessingham’s status – a ring of gold on the wedding finger. But turning her hand over like an attentive suitor, a more intriguing detail. A briar ran up the middle of her ring finger, at the bottom of which was a tiny star and at the top, a roselike flower. So delicate, the adornment would have easily been hidden by a pair of gloves and only noticed, Hatton was sure, by those whose eyes were as observant as his own. This smallest and most delicate of tattoos confirming what they already knew. That this lady was, or had been, independently minded.
Hatton lifted the hair to make his first incision. Blood. Thick, black and coagulated but he wanted her on her front, because it was clear where he needed to look. Roumande tipped the body sideways, revealing a fist-sized hole, a mangle of tissue and bone. On first impression, what looked like tiny chips of stone were embedded in the skull, and as Hatton began to pick his way through her sodden locks, he could clearly see sharp fragments framing the gaping wound. Bigger lumps lurked within.
‘An extremely heavy blow to the back of the head resulting in direct trauma to the brain.’
Hours had passed since they had moved Lady Bessingham from Chelsea, and the blue marbling of livor mortis had spread across her body like a map. Hatton lifted her hand once more. It was as he thought. ‘Take a skin sample from the index finger please, Roumande. There’s ink here.’ She had been writing. He said as much and a nod came from Inspector Adams as another note was written down.
‘We’ll have to shave these locks, Professor, at least at the back where the wound lies,’ answered Roumande, already busy cutting great tangles of chestnut locks away from her skull. The cutting finished, Hatton took each tiny shard from the wound and Roumande transferred them to a tray. ‘The fragments appear to be from a brownish-grey stone. She was either hit with a large rock, thus,’ Hatton brought his hand down, fist clenched white to the back of Roumande’s head, stopping before any possible impact, ‘or with another instrument and then she hit the ground. But the floor in her bedroom was oak and the hearth Italian marble.’ There were secrets to unlock here, Hatton was sure of it.
‘Gentlemen, I should warn you.’ Hatton looked at the young man who had stayed deathly quiet throughout. ‘A full removal of the back of her head will be necessary for me to see the full extent of her injuries, but it’s safe to say she died from cerebral contusion.’
