The Connicle Curse (13 page)

His troops dutifully faded back into the blackness, including the two who had been standing guard, leaving me and Varcoe alone on the outside. It was clear that neither of us wanted to be admonished by Colin for stepping inside unbidden, so we stood there agape, watching as he slowly crept toward the body. Once there, he knelt by the battered remains of Arthur Hutton. It was an awful sight and I had no desire to look any closer, though I could tell that Varcoe was almost beside himself with eagerness to cross the barrier.

“Ethan . . .” Colin muttered after a moment, and then turned and looked at the two of us. “You too, Emmett . . .” he added as the afterthought it was.

I stepped over the rope at the precise spot where Colin had entered, a function of habit rather than forethought, but Varcoe was not so well trained. He began to enter to my left, which immediately brought Colin to his feet.
“Not there!”
he protested. “I've not had a chance to look there yet.” He forced a thin smile and gestured to where I stood. “If you wouldn't mind.”

The incandescent lighting revealed the depth of Varcoe's minding, as he flushed a noticeable pink. Nevertheless, he kept silent as he quickly fell in behind me. The two of us stole forward, me following Colin's footprints and Varcoe following mine, until we finally reached the body of Arthur Hutton. It was indeed a horrible sight, made worse by the fact that unlike Edmond Connicle, this body was fully recognizable.

Hutton had been severely beaten, his face misshapen by swelling, abrasions, and discolorations across the cheeks, eyes, and nose. His left eye was swollen completely shut, with something red and viscous drooling out the far corner and down into his hairline. He was on his back, legs akimbo, and it was obvious that he had been neither attacked nor killed here but likely pushed from the back of a moving wagon or carriage, as there were no signs of a struggle. The only thing the killer had stopped to do here was set Hutton on fire. The stench of kerosene on his clothing stung the eyes, but even so, his body hadn't caught well. By the time the killer disappeared the struggling flames had likely vanquished themselves, leaving the remains of Arthur Hutton only partially blistered from the midsection down.

“Who found him?” Colin asked as he glanced over at the inspector.

“One of my men. Mrs. Hutton sent word just after eleven when his horse returned home without him. She said he'd gone into town, but with things the way they are . . .” He shook his head and stared down at the body. “I sent a dozen men out here to look around.” He scoffed and looked away before adding, “Bloody hell.”

“Commendable instincts,” Colin said. “Your men may well have interrupted the killer, which would explain why this body was not fully burned, as was clearly intended.”

“I was wondering the same thing.”

Colin's eyes flew to Varcoe and I could see a whisper of distress flicker through them at the notion of him and Varcoe being in sync. “Yes,” Colin allowed rather weakly. “And did any of your men mention hearing or seeing anything while rooting about out here?”

Varcoe straightened up quite suddenly, his color flushing as he turned and hollered,
“Lanchester, get over here!”

The surly young constable who'd been at the Connicle house the first day came jogging toward us. I remembered him as being rigid and self-righteous and told myself it was only because he looked no more than a minute past his mid-twenties.

“Yes, sir,” he said smartly, coming to a halt outside the demarcated area.

“When you and the others were searching the woods, did anyone hear or see anything unusual?”

“Unusual?” he repeated, as though the word had multiple meanings.

“Yes!” Varcoe waved at him impatiently. “Like a horse bolting, or a carriage receding, or a man screaming bloody damned murder!”

Whether he meant to or not, young Constable Lanchester took a half step backwards. “No, sir.”

“That's right.” Varcoe allowed the sheerest of grins to alight on his lips. “You'd have told me if anyone noticed anything, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine.” Varcoe waved him off as he turned back to Colin. “My men are highly trained.”

“Of course,” Colin mumbled blandly as he knelt back over the body, leaning low across Arthur Hutton's savaged face. “Do you have a pen?” Colin mumbled over his shoulder to me.

“Always.”

He stuck his hand out without turning and I slipped it out of my pocket and into his palm. To my dismay he gently poked it about the cheeks and chin and then, quite suddenly, stabbed it into the mouth, using it to pry the tightened jaws apart. Two fingers went in next as he extracted a small cloth sack. “Fetishes,” he announced, though I had already figured that out and assumed Varcoe had as well. He stood up and handed the pen back to me, which I clutched between two fingers before depositing it into my handkerchief. I would throw them both out later. “Have your men dig beneath the body once it's been removed and see if there are more buried beneath as with Edmond Connicle.”

“Of course,” Varcoe answered curtly. “I was going to do that.”

“Yes.” Colin flashed a distracted smile. “And have them notice how they're buried. Carefully? Or clumsily like the last time.”

“Yes, yes!” Varcoe snapped, as though, once again, he had been planning that all along.

Colin kicked at the dirt and grass on the far side of the body a minute before abruptly stepping over the periphery rope and stalking back the way we had arrived. I gave Varcoe a quick shrug as I hurried after Colin, afraid that I might lose him in the absolute blackness beyond the blazing lights. The rigidity of his movements told me he was distracted and displeased, so I was relieved that Varcoe was too busy barking orders to follow me. Orders that had been supplied by Colin.

I drew alongside him just as he began to diverge from the rutted trail we'd entered upon and follow a perpendicular path that headed slightly away from where the body was. “Have you spotted something?” I asked.

“It's as black as the devil's ass,” he complained. “I can't even see my own blasted nose.”

I tagged along quietly while he continued on his apparently rudderless trajectory, each step taking us farther from the murder scene. If there was any sense to his course I couldn't see it, so when he suddenly drew up short I plowed ahead several steps before realizing that he was no longer beside me. “What is it?” I asked as I scurried back to him.

“This bollocky case isn't making any ruddy sense!” he snapped. “We are practically handed the Connicles' scullery maid as the perpetrator until you found that pinky ring near Albert's body. That was enticing. It seemed to propose an alternate possibility.” He turned and glared at me. “You should have seen Arthur Hutton's face when his wife said it was his.” Colin brought his fists to his eyebrows and swiped at them. “And now he's
dead?!
What the hell?
What the bloody hell?!
”

“We're fact-finding,” I reminded him. “You're always telling me the beginning of a case is about nothing more than assembling the facts.”

Even through the mantle of darkness I could see the incensed look distort his face. “Three men have been murdered in as many nights.” He turned and plunged away through the scrubby brush. “If this is the beginning of the case we're in a load of shite.”

I knew better than to push the point, so I followed along behind him and waited for his next outburst.

“There has
got
to be some detrimental connection between Edmond Connicle and Arthur Hutton,” he seethed. “Maybe it has to do with that damn scullery maid.
I don't know
. But we
must
figure it out.”

“And Albert?” I blurted without thinking.

“You're not helping, Ethan!” Colin growled. I cringed as Inspector Varcoe hollered Colin's name. “Come on,” he muttered crossly as he started back toward the crime scene, “before I change my mind about working with this bugger.”

I
nspector Varcoe's coach rumbled and rattled along the cobblestones as we headed for the morgue. Colin had gone silent, but I continuously caught the inspector shifting his gaze to him and knew it would only be a matter of time before Varcoe felt compelled to say something. That he was bewildered was as irrefutable as the fact that Colin was frustrated. I wanted to caution Varcoe to keep quiet, but even as I had the thought he spoke up. “What are you making of all this?” he asked, trying to sound offhanded as he glanced back outside and pretended to be watching the black woods jostling past.

“You have to release the Connicles' scullery maid,” Colin answered in a calm, even tone.

“Alexa,” I supplied for the both of them.

“What?” Varcoe craned around and gawked at us. “What does releasing that woman have to do with anything?”

“There could be value in having her followed,” Colin pointed out, keeping his own gaze fixed outside the carriage. “Find out if she makes contact with anyone outside of the house. Either the woman is peripherally involved or else someone desperately wants us to believe that she is. Perhaps she knows who that might be.”

“Of course,” Varcoe dismissed as though, yet again, he had already had that very thought.

Both men fell silent and remained so until we arrived at the morgue. It wasn't actually until the three of us pushed our way through the double doors into the outer room, ripe with its stink of death, that our moody silence was abruptly broken.

“I will not have those two . . .
persons
. . .” Denton Ross erupted, saying the word as though it were a euphemism for vermin, “. . . in
my
morgue when I have been rousted down here in the middle of the night. I was told this was an emergency,” he sneered. “Need I remind you that I deal with the dead?
The dead!
There
are
no emergencies when it comes to the dead because they're already bloody damned well dead!” He stood there pink of face, his soft belly and flaccid chest heaving with the effort of his twaddle.

“Mr. Ross.” The good inspector spoke in a clipped and searing tone. “You are an employee of the Commonwealth and will do whatever you are told by the Yard no matter what the bloody fig time of day it is. Are we clear?”

Denton Ross jerked his head, clearly taken aback by the unexpected détente between Varcoe and us. It is impossible to say what sort of response Ross thought he would get, but it was certainly not the one he received.

“Now you were told to have that African's body ready to be viewed,” Varcoe went on, the only one of us who seemed perfectly content to bluster through this apparent new world order. “Have you done it?”

Denton flicked a glance among the three of us, his distaste as evident as the stench assaulting my nose. “This way,” he answered in a tone as flat as my enthusiasm to proceed.

We followed him through the inner doors and found not one, but two covered bodies reclining on nearby tables.

“Who the hell else you got here?” Varcoe griped.

“Edmond Connicle.” Denton stood halfway between the two bodies with his arms crossed, apparently trying to demonstrate his displeasure, though none of us cared a whit. “Your lackey said you wanted to see him again.”

“And your report?” Varcoe barked.

“Next to the body.”

“Good.” Varcoe turned to Colin with a look of satisfaction. “There you are, Pendragon. Have at it.”

Colin stood stock-still a moment, the incongruity of the situation not lost on him, before finally stepping forward and peeling back the sheet on the closer of the two bodies. The heavily bruised and abraded remains of Albert were slowly revealed. It was our first time seeing the injuries sustained across the entirety of his face, as well as his chest and legs. Seeing them made it clear that had he fallen from a tree he must surely have hit every branch and slid along the whole of the trunk on his way down.

“Tell me about these wounds,” Colin said as he bent low over Albert's chest. “Were they occluded with dirt and debris?”

“It's in the report,” Denton replied.

“Don't be a ruddy nob!” Varcoe roared before Colin could consider doing so himself. “Answer the blasted question or I'll have your ass for obstruction.”

Denton's lips curled and his brow shriveled in on itself, making it look as though he were about to throw a tantrum. There might have been humor in his annoyance had the scene at hand not been so disturbing. “Yes . . .” he hissed.

“Sorry for troubling you,” Colin mused.

“Will the two of you
please
stop pissing about and get on with it!” Varcoe snapped. “It's three bloody thirty in the morning. I'd like to get five minutes of sleep before this rancid night is over.”

“Cause of death?” Colin asked.

“He fell from a tree.” The answer was delivered as though to an imbecile.

“What?!”
Varcoe bellowed as Colin stabbed a hand into the air, silencing him without a word.

“And these bruises and abrasions?” Colin asked with the patience of a sainted man, though I knew it was only a matter of minutes before that tolerance wore out.

“He
fell
from a
tree!
”

“Broken bones?”

“A cracked rib . . . maybe two . . . I don't remember.”

“No cranial fracture?”

“I think I know the difference between a cracked rib and a cracked skull.”

Colin glanced toward him. “Very well. And what do you make of these marks on his right wrist?”

“A minor abrasion,” he dismissed. “No telling what he and that slag of his got up to.”

Colin ignored him as he headed toward the other body. “Does it not strike you as odd that it's the same arm with the dislocated shoulder?”

“For chrissakes, Denton.” Varcoe stalked over to Albert's body. “Have you even looked at his buggered shoulder?”

“It's a perfectly common injury that—”

“Don't you dare!”
Varcoe blasted over him. “If I get so much as a ruddy
inkling
that you're impeding this investigation I will hang you by your bits off the Tower Bridge.”

Denton's face pursed. “These things are hard to say for certain—”

“
Constable . . . !”
Varcoe hollered at the young bobby we'd left in the outer room. “Find this man's bollocks and tie them up.”

“Inspector . . .” Colin interrupted from his position bent low over Edmond Connicle's charred remains. “You'll want to see this.”

Before the inspector could cross to the farther table Denton Ross was already there. He was careful not to approach Colin directly but rather sidled up across from him in an effort, I presumed, to stay out of his line of ire.

“What is it?” Varcoe asked as he reached Colin's side.

“Have you stitched this man's lips closed?” Colin flicked his eyes to Denton, his tone neither accusatory nor disapproving.

“Why the hell would I bother when he's so badly burnt?”

“Because there are remnants of a stitch here.” Colin pointed his little finger toward the center of the lips. “May I borrow a tweezers?”

“My tools?” Denton stared in disbelief. “It's not enough that you—”

“
Now,
Mr. Ross!” Varcoe fumed.

Denton released an aggravated breath as he fetched a pair of tweezers that he dropped unceremoniously onto the table. Without a word Colin snatched them up and began tugging at the tiny, single stitch binding the center of Edmond Connicle's lips together. It took only a moment before it finally gave way with a slight jerk. “It's a bit of wire,” Colin said as he held it up and turned it about in the flickering light. “Whoever did this intended for Mr. Connicle's mouth to remain shut in spite of the immolation. Curious . . .” he muttered as he passed the tweezers and scrap of wire to Inspector Varcoe.

We were all so enamored staring at Varcoe's trophy that none of us realized what Colin was up to until we heard the crack of the mortised jaw. I struggled to keep my head from spinning as Colin quickly poked two fingers inside and then leaned over and took a careful look. He heaved an audible sigh as he stood back up, leveling his gaze on me. “Take a look, Ethan.”

I would have been perfectly content not to take another step closer than my current proximity several feet away, but I knew Colin had made that statement with some purpose in mind. I gave as resolute a nod as I could muster and moved around beside him, the creosote smell of the burnt carcass stinging my nostrils. He flashed me an unseemly grin that I presumed was meant to assuage me, but it did little good. I have no stomach for this sort of thing and was certain everyone in the room knew it.

“The charred ring that was on the left hand . . .” I heard Colin saying to someone behind me as I girded myself to peer inside the gaping mouth. “Were you ever able to confirm with someone at the Connicle house that it belonged to Edmond Connicle?”

“Well, of course I did,” Denton Ross sneered back. “The housekeeper—”

“Miss Potter?” Colin interrupted him.

“Porter,” I corrected without a second's thought.

“She positively identified it,” Denton went on. “I released it to her for her mistress, if you must know.”

I tried to ignore the acerbic tone of Denton's voice as I sucked in a slim breath, determined not to swamp my senses with the fetid air, and finally leaned over. It took a moment for my eyes to focus inside the black gap and for my brain to process what was being relayed, but as soon as that happened everything clicked. Beyond the whisper of a hesitation I knew that this body, these curled, blackened remains, most certainly did not belong to Edmond Connicle.