Devoured E-Book

D. E. Meredith

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Hatton & Roumande
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 418

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

London, 1856. The specimen-collecting craze is growing, and discoveries in far-off jungles are reshaping the known world in unimaginable ways. When the glamorous Lady Bessingham is found murdered in her bedroom, surrounded by her vast collection of fossils, Professor Adolphus Hatton and his morgue assistant Albert Roumande are called in to examine the crime scene - and the body. In the new and suspicious world of forensics, Hatton and Roumande are the best. Enlisted by Scotland Yard detective Inspector Adams, the pair must make use of their expertise to help solve the case. But the crime scene is not confined to one room. In their efforts to track down the Lady's killer, Hatton and Roumande uncover a trail of murders, all connected to a packet of seditious letters that, if published, would change the face of society and religion forever.

Leseprobe

DEVOURED

D.E. MEREDITH

For Charlie, with love

Contents

Title PageDedicationPROLOGUEONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHTNINETENELEVENTWELVETHIRTEENFOURTEENFIFTEENSIXTEENSEVENTEENEIGHTEENNINETEENTWENTYTWENTY-ONETWENTY-TWOTWENTY-THREETWENTY-FOURACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAbout the AuthorCopyright

PROLOGUE

The door creaked open as the maid stepped into the room. In a flattened jungle of leaf gold and petals of magenta, a myriad of exotic birds and flowers competed with one another. On the walls, butterflies were pinned, framed, and labelled, and all around her a dizzying quietness, except for a scratching sound made by a little finch that was kept in a cage by the window.

In the maid’s hand was a key which she turned in the lock of her mistress’s wardrobe, and crouching down low, she pulled out the brushing tray. The scent of lavender bags rose from the opened drawer as she lifted it up, revealing a hidden compartment and a different scent altogether. Dried ink and woody parchment. Enveloped by this scent, the maid bound the bundle of letters together with a length of rattan cord.

It was still snowing outside. Thick pelts were falling silently beyond the huge arched window which led her down into the hall. Pushing the door open, she left nothing behind, only a flurry of air and the bracing, cold bite of December.

Flora’s instructions had been clear. Her mistress had been agitated, in a state of tortured indecision for over a month, pacing the floors, wringing her hands, and then she suddenly announced, in that way of hers, ‘I am decided at last. Make your way back to London and deliver the letters, Flora. You know where to find them. Do exactly as I have told you.’ And who was she to question anything? She was just the messenger, a mere servant, thought Flora, wrestling with her pocket watch, fearful that she would be late. But she needn’t have worried, for here, right on time, was the regular omnibus, veering around the corner of Nightingale Walk with a deafening clatter of hooves.

Flora clambered into the coach, and holding the letters close, drifted for a while with the earliness of it all, only to be jolted back to wakefulness by the cry of, ‘Next stop, Great Russell Street.’

Her heart pounding, Flora looked skywards at the towering Colossus before her and sprang up the steps, each bound made quiet by the falling snow. She knocked at the huge oak door with a resonating thud, to hear a shuffle and rattling of keys.

‘Go easy I say, or you’ll bring the house down,’ a voice grumbled through the grate. Flora showed the porter the scroll of letters, as he swung back the door and nodded her in.

‘Sit yourself down and I’ll find us a nip of something,’ he offered, peering at her. ‘It’s perishing out there.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ she said, and the porter shrugged.

‘Dr Canning never arrives early, nor any of the other curators,’ he replied. ‘But if you like, we can go and look for him.’

The museum was a pitch-black crypt as the pair, illuminated only by a tallow, climbed slowly up the central stairs past row upon row of shells, bones, mummified creatures. The mosaic-tiled floor clipped and echoed as they turned down a corridor, until finally the flame licked around a bend, where—

‘Would you fathom it, I could have sworn …’

A single lamp burned, igniting a collection of minerals into a spectacular firework display. And Flora for an instant saw her fear and the scroll of letters in her hand reflected in a glass cabinet, where a flutter of tiny birds had been caught in iridescent flight. And to the left of the hummingbirds, a door with a brass nameplate that announced, ‘Dr John Canning, Anthropologist and Naturalist.’

The door opened and a man greeted them, ruffling his hair, a half-smile upon his face.

‘Ah, excellent. I’ve been expecting these letters for some time,’ Dr Canning said, as he ushered Flora into the room. He smoothed out the first of them – a scroll of golden, weather-beaten parchment – and putting on a pair of glasses, sat back in his chair and began.

Sarawak, Borneo

June 1st, 1855

To My Dear Lady Bessingham,

You know me well enough to know that I am not a man of letters. But your unstinting support for my endeavours demandsthat I finally put pen to paper and tell you that this world is all that you imagined. Nay, madam, it is more. A country so enticing as to leave me breathless. Breathless from the sheer audacity of its mountain splendour, but perplexed because such variety disturbs me, and begs questions which cannot be easily answered. Your Council was not wanting, madam. The drumbeat of Nature beats loudly here.

By the time you receive this letter, I will be upriver near a far-flung place called Simunjan, which I’m promised will be bursting with botanical marvels. But before I elaborate, I should firstly tell you a little of my journey here.

Her Majesty’s Ship The Advancement set sail for the Malay Archipelago on December 12th, 1854, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Owen. Its primary object being to circumnavigate Africa and Indo-China, if the great magnitude of this journey does not defeat both ship and crew.

Before we left Dover, The Advancement was equipped to bursting. Crates crammed with every conceivable thing and, much to my delight, casks full of alcohol and spices for storing biological specimens. Some of my own finds have already been confined to the hold, and will be held there safely until the vessel eventually returns home. I only hope I shall be there to meet it.

One of my more interesting finds from this leg of the journey included a type of billfish I named Tetrapturus brodegius. It is like an Atlantic sailfish, with a great sword-like snout and a metal-grey body, as firm as a side of pork.The meaty flesh we ate for a hearty supper (leaving skin and bones for taxidermy), and I am hopeful that the fish will raise substantial funds on my return, which should please my father immensely.

In addition to Captain Owen, the crew consisted of seven officers, more than twenty English sailors, and at least ten native Malays, including Chief Petty Officer Alam.

He was a very fascinating fellow. Bedecked in a pristine English naval uniform, Alam had long since shed his native guise, but still had the athletic bearing of his Minang descendants. Heralding originally from Padang, his name meant three things, all at once. Each meaning was of equal bearing and boded well for my expedition.

‘Alam’, it seems, means Nature, Universe, and Teacher. Can you imagine, madam, how excited I became at this discovery? A Noble Savage made ‘Respectable’ by our British navy and representing such a ‘Universal Truth’. A sign, I hope, of things to come.

My other notable companion was Chief Scientist Dr Bacon. Perhaps you know of him? He has certainly heard of you. He proved to be an avid collector of sponges (genus, Porifera) and collected over fifteen fascinating examples from the rocks along the shoreline. These strange animals appear most simple, and yet, according to Dr Bacon, consist of a vast network of chambers and canals. We observed their comical habit of sucking up seawater, and spurting it out again. For what reason I cannot say, but it passed several hours of what might havebeen an otherwise tedious day. Indeed, these Porifera are not so unlike some people I could mention, sucking in the swell of power before it overcomes them and they are forced to retch it out.

But I digress.

Mainly, as we crossed the Mediterranean, life was quiet. The heat beat down upon the deck, and I must confess that I gave into a creeping lethargy, whiling away whole hours lolling on the deck. I still managed the odd sketch, if a gliding bird caught my eye. I would even wave my hands around frantically hollering, if a curve of flying dolphins broke the stern. But on the whole, the sea had made me listless and I longed for ground. I longed for some distinction. And we were blessed, because almost as I thought this, the softest breeze lifted and at once, sailors were shimmying up the rigging, bellowing, ‘Land Ahoy!’

After five long weeks at sea, Aboukir Bay. For me, the end and the beginning.

On arriving at the port, Alam shook my hand to wish me God Speed and handed me a talisman. It was an evil-looking thing, but all the time Alam was smiling as if he had given me his last guinea, so I took it just the same – this carved wooden figure with its protruding eyes, swollen belly, and reptilian claws raised as if to the heavens. He told me the carving was Dayak, from a hill tribe in Sarawak. The figure – a water spirit, he said – would ward off the bad spirits of the Underworld. I laughed, but his eyes unnerved me. But I thought nothing more of it, asI boarded the train which took me from Alexandria to Suez, keeping the talisman hidden, buried deep in my bag under a pile of drawings and instruments.

On the train I enjoyed more luxury than I deserved. Endless cups of mint tea, bowls of nuts, and hot linen towels brought by starched Egyptian servants, who called me ‘Master’ and ‘Yes, sir, Mr Broderig.’

The ease of this journey gave me time to drink in the desert. And it was not the arid landscape I had expected, but rather mile upon mile of luminous green. Villages made entirely of mud, crops of corn and lentils, majestic palm trees and red kites lifting in an African breeze.

The train curved along the coast towards Yemen at exhilarating speed until the line ran out, and I was forced to find another mode of transport. The most common in Egypt being straddling one’s legs over some desperately overburdened donkey, as we trundled through markets with ‘Backsheesh, backsheesh, ingleesh man’ ringing in my ears. Until at last, crumpled and exhausted, I reached the port of Aden.

The steamer which awaited took me all the way to Singapore. But I was not so happy here as on The Advancement, despite the cheering crowds and thumping bands which sent us on our way. Suffice to say, I found myself thrown in with a throng of businessmen and traders. At first, I tried to entice them by pointing out whale sharks and gliding, ghostlike manta rays, but these scurrying gentlemen were not impressed. And so I simplygave up and spent the last few weeks in my cabin, preparing for my work.

My final ship was a Chinese junk crewed entirely by Cantonese fishermen who took me to Sarawak. And for a few guineas, I had my own thatched-roof cabin with a bamboo floor, a lamp to read by, and the most comfortable little bed.

These fishermen were the very opposite to the men on The Eugene. They were enthusiastic about my work and cooked some of the finest meals I have ever tasted, and it’s true to say that the last little bit of my voyage was, if not the best, certainly the most peaceful.

But I am here now in Sarawak. Ants crawl across the paper as I write. Geckoes hang, pink embryos, winking knowingly at me. For this is a world where spirits dwell in every rock and crevice. They weave in rivers and lie waiting, breathless in the ground. But the talisman sits beside my bed and I am beginning to understand its purpose. It is, I believe, benevolent and here to bring me luck.

And as for my friends from The Advancement? Their journey is still ahead of them. I often wander down to the beach and gaze out upon the South China Sea, thinking of Alam and his long journey of discovery, which will end here, where mine is just beginning, in the Malay Archipelago.

But it’s late now. I must attend to my arrangements, because we have but three months before the rainy season begins. During this Season, all expedition work ceases, for the floodingis tremendous, and would make this trip upriver impossible. And so I must to my work. To collect. To understand and ask questions, madam, as you would want me to. To look at this world as a Man of Science.

Your humblest and most devoted servant,

Benjamin Broderig, esq.

ONE

ST BART’S SMITHFIELD, LONDON 1856

Professor Hatton lay slumped at his desk, his silhouette devoured by thrown shapes from an ebbing fire burning low in the grate. In the quiet chasm of the morgue, Hatton’s eyes were tightly shut, shielding out the peeling walls around him. A lamp burned on his desk. He was still awake, but only just, exhausted by contemplation of the great task before him, knowing that the value of his new science, forensics, was forever in question.

‘Professor Hatton. Open up, sir. There’s a carriage waiting. You are needed urgently, sir.’

He shuddered, gathered his thoughts, wondering what the devil time it was, but knowing Monsieur Roumande must have gone home already. Hatton found his surgical bag, and then took his coat, his hat and his cane down from one of the meat hooks and opening the mortuary door, stepped out into a moonlit yard. Lantern light illuminated folding drifts of snow as he tumbled into the waiting carriage. There was no need to find his pocket watch as a bell was chiming somewhere, three times, across the velvet skies of London.

‘Good evening, Professor Hatton. My name is Inspector George Adams of Scotland Yard. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?’

Hatton studied the man sitting before him, who thumped the roof of the hansom with his cane and lit a penny smoke, offering one to him. Hatton shook his head, his eyes still bleary with sleep. The coach lurched off towards the river, now nothing more than a tapered line, soon lost in the swirling pall of driven snowflakes.

‘All will reveal itself when we arrive in Chelsea but are you sure you won’t join me, Professor? They’re Turkish, you know.’ Hatton declined, as the Inspector shrugged and puffed on his cigarette. ‘This could be a very long night,’ he said.

‘Your reputation goes before you, Inspector Adams,’ said Hatton finally, having taken the measure of the man. ‘So I presume this is a medical jurisprudence matter?’

‘Yes, Professor.’ The Inspector was stretching his legs out, partly enclosed in a gabardine coat. ‘It’s a case of the utmost sensitivity. But I’ve wanted to work with you for some time now; I’m intrigued by your new science, Professor.’

Hatton nodded, curious as well for he knew a little of this man, but Albert Roumande knew more. He had heard his Chief Diener talk of Scotland Yard’s celebrated new detective many times, reading snippets out of the papers about various cases.

To work with Inspector Adams? Hatton allowed himself a smile.

‘As I said, I’ve followed your work with some interest,’ continued the Inspector, in what Hatton recognised was an eastern drawl, not unlike his own accent once, when he was a boy. But Adams seemed to take delight in his drawn-out vowels, whereas Hatton had long since rubbed the edges off, keen to meet society’s expectations of a young professor at St Bart’s, in a new position of some standing. But here was a man who clearly took no prisoners, nor apologised for what he was. A man to admire, then.

‘I’m flattered,’ answered Hatton. ‘Perhaps it is the series of articles in The Lancet you refer to? We are so misunderstood, Inspector. Forensics needs all the friends it can get, and I understand from my fellow pathologists that you are indeed a friend. So, I’m delighted to finally make your acquaintance.’

‘The Yard is modernising,’ said the Inspector. ‘Look at me, for example. Do you think I would have stood a chance ten years ago? A lad from Cambridgeshire? A working man’s son? An out-of-town Special? But I’m a regular hero now, if you follow the crime pages. Although, don’t believe everything you read about me, Professor.’

The horse whinnied as they reached their final destination.

‘This way, Professor.’

Hatton followed him out of the coach, briefly stamping the snow off his boots, before ascending the steps of a house on Nightingale Walk which loomed above him, its green gloss door lit by an ornate gas lamp. Hatton glanced up at the clear night sky, brilliantly lit by an arch of flickering stars, and as a flurry of snow caught his face, he relished its cold bite. It would be overbearingly warm inside.

‘You should know this is the home of a bohemian, as they like to call themselves. Her taste is not the same as mine. Nor yours, I suspect,’ the Inspector said, as they were admitted by a constable, and Hatton was amazed to see, as they headed up the stairs, that this elegant house seemed to be crammed full of everything and anything – shelves were brimming over with a thousand books, competing for space with rocks, shells, feathers, cases of moths and butterflies. Hatton stopped in his tracks as they turned a corner into an expression of pure evil. Slashed red and black with eyes yellow rimmed and teeth as jagged as knives.

‘A tribal mask, I think they call it,’ said the Inspector. ‘So, you will meet their late owner now. Prepare yourself, for there’s a great deal of blood.’

Stepping into the room they were greeted by more jumble still and so many policemen, doing what Professor Hatton didn’t rightly know, but he could feel his temper rising as he saw all these clodhoppers poking about amongst the victim’s possessions, clearly unaware that anything they moved or altered could wreck his forensic gathering.

‘Please, Inspector. Would you ask your men to refrain from doing that? Yes, that!’ One fellow was bending over the four-poster bed and pulling off pillows. Hatton was no novice in murder, and suddenly losing patience, he loudly told the policemen to stop everything they were doing and step aside.

The wave of uniforms parted to reveal the crime.

The body before him was shockingly white, and lay on the softest, hand-stitched patterned rug, among vivid hibiscus flower petals, coconuts and palms, swinging monkeys, now becalmed by a seeping blackness still sticky to the touch.

Hatton was surprised to feel warmth at her temple, although he knew it was fast ebbing away. He sprang his surgical bag open and, finding a thermometer, confirmed his first impression. He made a note. The state of rigor mortis was setting in just around the bottom of her jawline. ‘She’s been dead three hours, perhaps four, Inspector.’ Hatton stated the facts. ‘The livor mortis effect is creeping across her body, her temperature dropping, causing this blue marbled discolouration.’

Hatton knelt down and sniffed her skin. He felt his audience’s disapproval and so added, ‘It’s an unusual practice here in England, Inspector, but it’s a device I have adopted after hearing of my colleagues’ criminal successes in Germany. But it would be better without this infernal cigar smoke.’ He may have sounded peevish, but he couldn’t help himself and beat the air theatrically, already laden with the scent of tobacco. ‘When we get to St Bart’s, there will be no smoking there.’

‘Well, of course not, Professor,’ the Inspector said, still drawing on his own cigarette and then, thinking better of it, stubbing it out. ‘But for those of us not so grounded in forensic matters, please, Professor, would you be so kind as to explain yourself?’

Hatton surveyed the room, where two men in particular were glaring at him, incensed. They were clearly not Adam’s minions. ‘Her scent is slightly odd,’ he replied. ‘I won’t know what it is until I have dissected her.’

‘Have you no respect, sir?’ growled one of the men. ‘Damn him, Adams. I thought you said this one was good. Dissected her? For God’s sake, man. You have no permission for that.’

This gentleman was dressed in garb found only in the most elevated of London Society. Hatton had seen pictures of Sir William Broderig in the papers a great deal recently. The Liberal’s views on religion and science had ensured this peer was rarely out of the limelight. Coiffed and buffed to a shine, Sir William was completely out of place in this lair of death. Hatton looked at Adams for help, who interjected, ‘It’s the word I think that vexes you, Sir William, but this is a police matter and so we must do as we see fit.’

Adams turned to Hatton. ‘Lady Bessingham was a close friend of the Broderig family. Sir William lives in Swan Walk, just five minutes from here. A scullery maid found the body, raised the alarm, and Sir William called us immediately. Isn’t that right, sir?’

‘I have known her since she was a child. And her late husband also. He was a dear friend of mine.’ The gentleman stumbled a little, grasping the edge of an armchair.

‘Hurry up and get Sir William a glass of brandy, Constable.’

Sir William took the brandy and, recovering a little, said, ‘I apologise, Professor. I am out of sorts. We’re most grateful for you coming here, but everything you see and hear tonight must remain between these four walls. We need your absolute discretion.’

Hatton bowed. ‘Of course.’

Sir William, knotting his brow, continued, ‘Lady Bessingham courted controversy before she died, as I have, Professor. She was a dear friend to me but she was also a blue stocking, a woman of learning and letters, involving herself in things which were perhaps not entirely appropriate, or this is how some might see it. But in death she deserves some dignity, surely? This brutal crime will have a thousand tongues wagging and a thousand of those Grub Street scribblers selling their lies for thru’pence. We will be awash with rumours before the sun has risen.’ Sir William wrung his hands. ‘Whatever you have to do, Professor, please do it, but I beg you, as a gentleman, proceed with the utmost discretion.’

Hatton answered that he would proceed as required and turned to the Inspector. ‘It’s a delicate question, but was she found half naked, like this?’ and as he spoke, Hatton ran his eye along the lines of her hips and curves. He was already elsewhere, thinking about the cutting of her flesh which lay ahead.

Adams nodded. ‘There’s a dress over the back of a chair in the adjoining room. There was a fire still smouldering in the grate when we found her. It’s ebbing now, but the room, as you can feel, is still warm, although I doubt she slept like this. She still has her stockings and corset on. Not normal attire for bed even for a bohemian.’

Hatton looked around him for some sort of clue as to what she might have been doing half dressed like this, and then made another note. Perhaps she was simply preparing for bed when somebody found her. Hatton knew little of women, especially rich ones, but he knew enough to tell him that few prepared their evening toilette without a maid to carry out their bidding. To brush their hair, to unbutton their stays, to warm and fetch a nightdress. But there was no fresh nightdress on the bed and no warming pan, either.

‘She hasn’t been moved or touched. She is exactly as she was found, Professor,’ continued Adams. ‘But I think we need to get her to the mortuary now. We’ll follow you on with the hearse. I assume you are happy to be observed as you work?’

Hatton said that he was and if truth were known, he welcomed it. There was no opportunity here for theatrics or demonstrating his talent, as there was in the morgue. ‘But it’s five hours till dawn, midwinter and the mortuary is gloomy at the best of times, so with your leave, I shan’t start the cutting till ten o’clock. It’s easier to do such work when the sun has fully risen.’

The Inspector said, ‘But of course, Professor,’ before turning to Sir William and saying, ‘You and your son are free to go now, sir. Ah, forgive me, Professor. I should have introduced you before. This is Sir William’s son, Mr Benjamin Broderig. He also knew Lady Bessingham.’

Another stepped forward and shook Hatton’s hand. The young man’s face was weathered and bronzed by the sun, Hatton noticed, as he said, in earnest, ‘I believe you can help us find Lady Bessingham’s killer, Professor. I’ve heard a great deal about your work. I’m a scientist myself and I’m honoured to make your acquaintance, but please forgive me, I must take my father home. But if I may, I will come by the mortuary room later. It would please my father knowing that one of us is with her. To the very end, if that’s how I can put it.’

Hatton was relieved for this support. ‘Of course, sir. Ask for me directly or for my Chief Diener, Monsieur Albert Roumande. I would be more than happy for you to observe. But, as I said to the Inspector, I shan’t start till ten, and so perhaps, till then, you can get a little sleep?’ Without another word, the younger man patted, then took his father’s arm.

‘Thank goodness they’ve gone,’ quipped Adams. ‘I can do without the relatives breathing down my neck. But Sir William’s right about the press. They’ll be all over this one.’ Inspector Adams looked at Hatton for a second, then brought out his tin of tobacco. Hatton, despite himself, said nothing.

‘I prefer a cane tip. Wool gets in the teeth. Anyway, it’s going to be hard to operate in this jumble, eh, Professor?’ The penny smoke was lit. ‘It will be easier once we’ve moved her, but do what you can. Do whatever you like, in fact.’

The Inspector smiled at Hatton as he billowed out a haze of smoke, then waved it clear again. Hatton, meanwhile, got on with his work, examining the room, a muddle of woven baskets and copper pots, fossils, lumps of crystal, and by the bay window, three little upright music chairs, covered in brocade dresses. And on a table by her bed, a gorgeous display of conches. Hatton would have loved to put one to his ear and listen to the waves. He admired the largest, Strombus gigas. It was pink and wet with shine.

‘A regular magpie, wasn’t she? No husband any more to rein her in, but plenty of money and time on her hands, I dare say, to indulge in all flights of fancy. Perhaps a flight of fancy is what got her killed, Professor?’ Adams showed less deference than Hatton, picking up the shell and holding it to his ear. For a moment he seemed lost in thought. ‘Marvellous things. Now then, let’s see what we can tell you. No sign of a struggle. No forced entry. Just the hall window slightly open to tell us someone was here that oughtn’t to be. We haven’t done a thorough search yet, but on the face of it and according to the servants’ – he looked at his notes – ‘everything, more or less, as before. Apart from one thing. A missing maid. Name of Flora James, who’s been in service here for three years and by all accounts was the mistress’s favourite. Pretty thing, I’m told. Fair-haired. Quite ladylike in her manners, of medium height, well turned out, nineteen or thereabouts. The description is a rough one but we’re putting a likeness together based on what we can gather. We’ll track her down, but it’s odd because there’s nothing of value missing, and if the little madam was a thief, well, the jewellery would be gone. Apparently, she had been sent ahead of the other staff, the day before Lady Bessingham’s murder. The rest were at the country residence, at a place called Ashbourne. Flora was on an urgent errand it seems. Are you listening to me, Professor?’

But Hatton was distracted by a tiny bird, which was scratching forlornly in the bottom of its cage. How he loathed the practice of keeping birds imprisoned like this. He had a mind to let the poor thing go, but thought better than displaying such unmanly sensibility in front of Inspector Adams. The detective might misjudge him.

He looked around the room again to find something – anything – which could illuminate this crime, but there was nothing unusual. And then as his eye fell on the surface of the higly polished writing desk, it came to him, the tiniest thing, but significant.

‘Are there any academic papers anywhere, Inspector? Any correspondence in the study, perhaps? Parcels waiting for despatch or post not opened?’ Hatton paused waiting for a response.

‘And your point, Professor? We’ve seen all her main correspondence, but they’re innocent affairs. Mainly orders for books, bills from dressmakers, and other such daily dealings with domestic matters. There are several bundles of letters to museums and other scientific institutions, as it appears Lady Bessingham was rather doting on crusty academics. She provided some money, I understand, to several beneficiaries. I shall be investigating this further to establish any links to her death, but in my experience, Professor, the crime is often an obvious one. I suspect a lover or a thief.’

There was something in his approach, so defiantly de facto, that jarred Hatton, but nevertheless, he said again, ‘Yes, but has anyone checked to see if there were other, perhaps unfinished letters?’ His eyes travelled, scrutinising this romantic testament to art and nature. A cacophony of silks, exotica, exuberant pictures of dark bodies jostling and dancing in the clearings of far-flung places captured in oil, and iridescent beetles in graded succession imprisoned in glass. Books deftly creased, to mark a point or a query.

‘Look about the room, Inspector. What do you see?’

‘I see a mess, Professor.’

‘Well, I see something else. Something I have seen before but not in a house, rather in a University. This woman was at work in her boudoir, Inspector. At work on some intellectual pursuit, and if that’s the case, then why is her desk entirely clear of papers? Where are the thoughts, the observations?’ Hatton paused to make sure the Inspector was following. ‘There’s no trace of her thinking here, at all, and you say she was a benefactor to the arts and sciences? Well, there would have been some sign of this, surely? Some scribbled notes, perhaps? Or letters pertaining to this work? So where are the letters? Her room is a jumble but it’s also like a ghost. She was no recluse, surely?’

Adams flicked a little tobacco to the floor. ‘Do you know, I think you’re right. I’m glad to have you on board, Professor. Lady Bessingham’s soirees had become a regular fixture in the Society pages. Sir William told me that the great and the good dined here at least once a month. Mainly Men of Science or Philosophy. I think it’s fair to suggest she courted conjecture, which in my view is but a stone’s throw from controversy. Perhaps she also courted trouble.’

Hatton excused himself, and as he stepped out of the boudoir, he caught a glimpse of another room at the end of the hallway, where a low lamp was throwing off a shadow. He heard childish sobbing and a voice, an old clucky one, saying, ‘There now, Violet, my luvvie. There now my lamb.’ A servant? A maid, perhaps?

TWO

WESTMINSTER

The bells of Westminster rang out nine times, a sonorous chime across London, as a cold beam of light fell on the Duke of Monreith. He cleared his throat, glared at the opposition, and, addressing The House, said, ‘Yet again, dissenters lay down their doctrine of universal suffrage, but I deny that every man has the right to vote. What every man has the right to is to be governed by those who will ensure the status quo. They who propose change will lead us into barbarism, Frenchyism, anarchy. My Lord Speaker, we, its leaders, have been ordained the responsibility to ensure everything must remain true to God, Church, and Monarchy and that England remains, forever, immutable.’

Men jumped to their feet, waving their papers in thunderous approval as the Duke looked around triumphant. But others, towards the back, were slipping out, their words drowned out. Their ‘Shame, shame on you’ a dull echo but, yet unknown to them, a shadow of the future.

The Duke, however, was nowhere near finished on matters of parliament. There was a long day ahead with a night sitting in The Lords, and so he swept up the central stairs, past a labyrinth of corridors, then through an arched door to where an old man was sitting hunched over a pile of papers.

‘Good God, a little speed if you will. Haven’t you finished the speech yet for tonight, Ashby? Another hour at the most or I’ll set the dogs on you.’

The Duke settled his rump on a leather chair by the fire, a glass of malt in his hand, whilst the recipient of this usual abuse let the wave of animosity wash over him. Because thirty years of scratching, scribbling, hurrying, and carrying had taught Arnold Ashby that duty was an onerous thing, but that order must prevail. The clerk finished scribing the last of his master’s words, then pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of a bony nose; forever sliding down again, these accursed glasses, but without them, where would he be? His eyesight, he’d noticed, as did Mrs Ashby, had started to fail him, even with the help of spectacles. Lord knows, there was no money left to buy a new pair, so he must make do.

Thinking on money, Arnold Ashby sighed. He had so little left to pawn these days, or offer those greasy fingers, the latest in a long line of lenders who had counted out the money, muttering barely above a whisper, ‘You still owes me for the last lot I gives you. Interest is mounting, but it’s a pretty ring. A little thing, but little things are often precious. Shame, ain’t it? But a man must eat.’

‘Just the money, sir.’ Though it bothered Ashby to call the lender that, for he wasn’t worth the title of a gentleman. But there was no choice because Madame Martineau had whispered that everything was at stake. The Duke’s reputation and with it all that Ashby was, all that he believed in, the very air around him, the roof over his head. Madame Martineau had been very clear about the latter. ‘Do as I say and bring me the money, or it will be more than just his head that’ll roll. It’ll be the workhouse for you, old man.’ So, Ashby had no choice. He had to protect his master as well as himself, so the money was needed and the ring had to go.

Rising up from his workbench, Ashby enquired about the diagrams which should accompany tonight’s speech. ‘Lord knows but I need maps, you cloth head, clearly depicting the various trade routes.’

Ashby bowed dutifully to the Duke, his bows shallower with each passing year, arthritis interfering with deference. Somewhere in the vast rooms a clock ticked. The crackling timber in the hearth burned.

The Duke of Monreith put his whisky down and stretched out a liver-spotted hand for his coat, and as he did so said, ‘I’ll be back from my club after lunch, and then we’ll head to the docks. I have business matters to attend to which are in need of a clerk.’ He continued talking, as if to an infant.

‘The East is troublesome. A whole consignment of spice has failed to reach us, again. And the reasons given? Trouble with the natives, of course. Well, my speech tonight will make reference to this, and all that’s required for the sound running of the Empire, because, mark me, Ashby, this is no time for treachery, for uprisings, for even a sniff of sedition.’

Ashby bowed this time lower than before, to signify his absolute understanding. He had, only a few hours earlier, sat with his quill, scratching out the words which appeared in all of the Duke’s parliamentary work. Delivered in bombastic tones, as the Duke stood, pipe lit, smoking jacket on, spouting his usual, ‘Country, nation, class. Church, party, monarchy … are you listening, Ashby? Are you getting all of this down?’

Yes, of course he had. His vowels, spider’s legs; his consonants worse, and the black ink a permanent stain on his fingertips, as Ashby drafted, corrected, copied, but rarely embellished, taking some comfort in the endless repetition, with the promise that everything that was would always be, now and forever, the same.

‘And Ashby,’ the Duke barked at his obedient dog. ‘Don’t forget that Joseph Hooker has another paper out, circulating amongst those sacrilegious Athenaeum members. He talks about flowers and the distribution of seeds, but I know where it’s leading. He’s an atheist. All those botanicals are. Secure a copy, Ashby.’

The old man scratched his head. ‘Secure a copy, Ashby.’ A command which meant having to trudge along icy streets, his head down, the wind up, to be met by the porter of the Linnean Society with a glare and, ‘Your master ain’t a member, is he? What’s he want with it, anyway? Ah, well, since you’ve come all this way. “The Distribution of Arctic Flowers” by J. Hooker. Is that the one?’

Ashby looked out of the mullion window across the frozen river, where the late morning light was half drawn – an angel breath of citrus, a rush of lilac. A thick fog was rising and out across the city, an eagle’s view warranted him a vista of winter-clad people, horses and carriages. He shuddered as he watched skeletal elms bend and twist against the ferocious weather. The snow couldn’t lie and cover it up, he thought, as Ashby watched a mud lark, a mere child, chipping the icy Thames for bones, pennies, fish heads, bits of this and that.

Ashby crossed the floor to an oversized drawer and stopping at ‘B’ he took out, then unrolled, a map. Smoothing it, he ran his finger across a coast rendered gold, a mighty river, ultramarine, wide at first, then breaking out into a cobweb of azure tributaries. And as he did, revelled in the faraway lines imagining the waves, the sand, and the busting fecundity. There was a time once when he would have fancied himself as a mapmaker who travelled on a brig, the captain’s personal cartographer, charting the lines and dips of South America. An artist of form and definition, of exact measurements and tidy summations.

But he’d better get on with the work, he supposed, and so rolled up the map and, picking up the papers, scurried along till he found himself in The House, where Ashby looked up at a sky-high monster of panelled wood and iridescent glass.

The sweet, pungent scent of beeswax and linseed oil filled the old man’s nostrils, because even in the depths of winter, the workings of government ground on. The great heart of politics kept pulsating by a thousand clerks like Ashby. The lucky ones pouring in from the suburbs, and like many men, Ashby dreamt of a time when he, too, might get away from the city before it consumed him. More fantasy again, which this time had a garden, a privet hedge, and an abundance of sweet-smelling flowers. He put his hand to the place where he kept a cameo hidden from view, on a cheap silver chain, because his mother had loved flowers, too. And told himself, that a clerk on fifty pounds a year was not nothing. That it was something to relish, and tell his children and grandchildren one day.

‘I met the Prime Minister. And the Queen. Stood as close to me as you are now.’

‘And what did they say to you, Father?’ would come the reply.

‘Well, naturally, was I well and content? And I answered thatI was and settled in my station.’

Ashby did what he had to do in The House, then made his way back again along the winding corridors to the Duke’s vast rooms, which were lined with generations of oils. Their eyes seemed to follow him, but he shrugged the feeling off, ignoring the portraits, and got back to shuffling this pile here and that pile there. To his right were logbooks pertaining to trade. To his left, hidden under a pile of papers, was Madame Martineau’s money.

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.

THREE

SMITHFIELD

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.