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The sexton’s chin lifted. “Thirty-sixth.” The reply came quickly, proudly.
“You served under Burne?” Hawkwood said.
The sexton looked surprised and drew himself up further. “That I did.” He threw Hawkwood a speculative glance, as if taking in the greatcoat for the first time. Though it had a military cut, it was American, not British made. “You?”
“The ninety-fifth.”
A new understanding showed in the sexton’s eyes. He studied Hawkwood’s face and the scars that were upon it. “Then you know what it was like. You’ll have seen it, too.”
Hawkwood nodded. “I have.”
The sexton brandished his stick. “Got this at Corunna. So, like I said, seen a lot of folk die before their time.” He stared down into the trench. “That ain’t how it’s supposed to be. She didn’t deserve this.”
“No,” Hawkwood said heavily. “She didn’t.”
The sexton fell silent. Then he enquired softly, “So?”
Hawkwood studied the lay of the body and took a calming breath.
Don’t think about it; just do it.
As if reading his mind, Constable Hopkins took a tentative pace forward.
Hawkwood stopped him with a look. “Any idea what you plan to do when you’re down there?”
Hopkins flushed and shook his head. “Er, no, s—, er, Captain,” the constable amended hurriedly, clearly remembering their previous association when he’d been warned by Hawkwood not to address him as “sir”.
“Me neither. So there’s no need for us both to get our boots wet, is there? We’re officers of the law. One of us should still look presentable.” As he spoke, Hawkwood removed his coat and held it out.
Managing to look chastened and yet relieved at the same time, the constable took the garment and stepped back.
The trench was around eight feet in length and wasn’t that deep, as Hawkwood found out when he landed at the bottom and felt the surface give slightly beneath him. The height of the trench should have been the giveaway. Most graves were close to six or seven feet deep. This one was shallower than that, which meant there was, in all probability, an earlier burial in the plot. And if there was one, the chances were there had been others before that.
The burial ground had been in use for at least a century and there wasn’t much acreage. That meant a lot of bodies had been buried in an ever-diminishing space. A vision of putting his boot through a rotting coffin lid or, worse, long-fermented remains, flashed through his mind, dispelled when he reasoned that Gulley – or more likely his apprentice – wouldn’t have been able to dig the later grave as the ground wouldn’t have supported his weight while he worked. Even so, it was a precarious sensation. As it was, the mud was already pulling at his boots as if it wanted to drag him under.
Planting his feet close to the corners of the trench, still not entirely sure what he expected to find, he bent down. The smell was worse at the bottom, a lot worse. He could feel the sickly-sweet scent clogging his nostrils and reaching into the back of his throat. Trapped by the earthen walls, the smell was impossible to ignore and would have been impossible to describe. Holding his breath wasn’t a viable option. Instead, he tried not to swallow. He looked up and saw four faces staring back at him. Bowing his head and adjusting his feet for balance, he eased the edge of the sacking away from the skull and used his fingers to scrape mud from the face. As more waxen flesh came to light the gender of the corpse was confirmed.
And it was a woman, not a child.
Plastered to the face, the original hair colour was hard to determine. Lifting it away from the cold, damp flesh was like trying to remove seaweed from a stone. The smell around him was growing more rank. He tried not to think of the fluids and other substances which, over the years, must have been leaching into the soil from the surrounding graves.
Lying on her left side, mouth partly open, it was as if she were asleep. The position of the hand added to the illusion. Unsettlingly, as he brushed another strand of hair from her brow, he saw that her right eye was staring blankly back at him. It reminded Hawkwood of a fish on a slab, though fish eyes were usually brighter. Removing the mud from her face had left dark streaks, like greasy tear tracks. There was a tight look to the skin but as his fingers wiped more slime away from the exposed flesh he felt it give beneath his fingertips.
Hawkwood was familiar with the effect of death on the human body. He’d seen it often enough on battlefields and in hospital tents and mortuary rooms. There was a period, he knew, beginning shortly after life had been extinguished, during which a corpse went through a transformation. It began with the contraction of the smaller muscles, around the eyes and the mouth, before spreading through the rest of the body, into the neck and shoulders and through into the extremities. Thereafter, as the body stiffened, feet started to curl inwards and fingers formed into talons. With time, however, the stiffness left the body, returning it to a relaxed state. From the texture of the skin, Hawkwood had the feeling that latter process was already well advanced. She had been dead for a while.
Using the edge of his hand, he continued to heel the mud away gently, gradually revealing the rest of the features. The dark blotches were instantly apparent, as were the indentations in the cheekbone, which beneath the mottled skin looked misshapen and, when he ran the ends of his fingers across them, felt uneven to the touch. Tiny specks in the corners of the eye were either tiny grains of dirt or a sign that the first flies had laid their eggs.
Hawkwood let go a quiet curse. There had always been the chance that the body had been left in the grave out of desperation and the worry – probably by a relative – of not being able to afford even the most meagre of funeral expenses. Had that been the likely scenario, Hawkwood would have been willing, if there had been no visible signs of hurt, to have left the corpse in the sexton’s charge with an instruction to place the body in the most convenient poor hole. But the bruising and the obvious fracture of the facial bones prevented him from pursuing that charitable, if unethical, course of action.
He probed the earth at the back of the skull on the off-chance that a rock or a large stone had caused the damage post-mortem but, as he’d suspected, there was nothing save for more mud.
He was on the point of rising when what looked like a small twig jutting from the mud caught his eye. He paused. There was something about it that didn’t look right, but he couldn’t see what it was. Curious, angling his head for a better look, he went to pick it up. And then his hand stilled. It wasn’t a broken twig, he realized. It was the end of a knotted cord. Her wrists had been bound together.
“What is it?” the sexton enquired from above.
Hawkwood sighed and stood. “We’re going to need a cart.”
“A cart?” It was Gulley who spoke. The question was posed without enthusiasm.
“It’s a wooden box on wheels.”
Hawkwood’s response was rewarded with a venomous look. It was clear the gravedigger had been resentful of the sexton’s act of civic duty from the start. Hawkwood’s sarcasm wasn’t helping.
“You do have a cart?” Hawkwood said.
“It’s in the lean-to.” Sexton Stubbs pointed helpfully with his cane towards the cottage and the ramshackle wooden structure set off to one side of it.
“One of you, then,” Hawkwood said, pointedly.
The directive was met with a disgruntled scowl. Mouthing an oath, Gulley turned to his protégé. “All right, you ’eard.”
Looking relieved to have been delegated, the young gravedigger turned to go, anxious to put distance between him and the pit’s contents. His commitment to the job looked to be disappearing by the second.
“Leave the shovel,” Hawkwood said. “You’ll get it back.”
The apprentice hesitated then thrust the tool blade-first into the mound of dirt.
“And bring more sacking,” Hawkwood instructed. “Dry, if you have it.”
He glanced towards the sexton, who nodded and said, “There’s some on a shelf inside the door. You’ll see it.”
With a wary nod the youth about-turned and hurried off through the drizzle and the puddles.
Hawkwood addressed the older man. “You have something to say?”
The gravedigger jerked his chin at the open trench. “Don’t see why we can’t leave the bloody thing down there. We throw in some soil, we can cover it up.”
“Her,” Hawkwood snapped. “Not it. And no, we can’t. Unless you’ve a particular reason you don’t want her brought up?”
The gravedigger’s jaw flexed.
Hawkwood felt his anger rise. “Had the idea you might make a few pounds, maybe? Got an arrangement with the sack-’em-up men for the one on top? Throw in this one and you’d make a bit extra? That it?”
It could also account for the shallowness of the trench, he thought, because it made the task of exhuming the bodies that much easier.
The look on the man’s face told Hawkwood he’d struck a nerve, but he felt no satisfaction, merely increasing repugnance. Gulley wouldn’t be the first graveyard worker who earned extra spending money by passing information on upcoming funerals to the resurrection gangs, to whom freshly buried corpses were regarded as regular income, and he wouldn’t be the last. Interesting, too, that Gulley had referred to the body as the “thing”, which was what the resurrection men called their hauls.
The expression on Hopkins’ face told Hawkwood that he wasn’t the only one recalling the run-in with the carrion hunters. Some of the darker memories from that experience had evidently been awakened in the constable’s brain; images that were best left undisturbed.
For a moment it looked as though the gravedigger was about to offer further protest, but Hawkwood’s expression and tone of voice must have warned him that an argument was futile and might prove detrimental to his own health.
It was then that the wisdom of what he was about to do struck Hawkwood forcibly and he cursed his rashness. It was too late now, though, for he had no intention of giving Gulley the satisfaction of knowing he might be dealing with a police officer who’d just made what could well turn out be a very unwise decision. But as he caught the sexton’s eye, he was rewarded with a small, almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgement, or it might have been gratitude.
Over the constable’s shoulder, he saw that Dobbs was on his way back, pushing a flat, two-wheeled cart before him, the sacking folded on top. The cart’s wheels had become clogged with mud, making progress difficult. The older gravedigger, Hawkwood noted, could see that his assistant was struggling but made no attempt to assist. By the time the cart rolled to a halt, the apprentice was perspiring heavily.
Hawkwood addressed Gulley. “Your turn. Get down here – and mind where you step.”
The gravedigger’s knuckles whitened against the handle of his shovel.
“You won’t need that,” Hawkwood told him.
Sensing tension in the air, the constable went to step forward again.
Hawkwood, wondering what assistance Hopkins intended to offer while still holding his coat, waved him away.
It took a further ten minutes to scrape away the mud and, with Gulley taking the feet and Hawkwood the torso, and with the apprentice Dobbs helping to take the weight, lift the sack and its contents up and out of the grave, though it seemed more like a lifetime. The mud was reluctant to release its grip and by the time Hawkwood and the gravedigger were helped out of the pit, their boots and breeches were wet to the thigh and caked in clay. Hawkwood had also been uncomfortably aware of the ominous creaking sounds that had come from beneath his and the gravedigger’s feet as they’d taken the weight of the corpse between them. It had been with great relief that he had stepped back on to solid ground.
“I want her delivered to the dead house at Christ’s Hospital,” Hawkwood instructed as the cadaver was placed on the cart and covered with the dry sacking.
“You know it?”
The constable nodded.
“For the attention of Surgeon Quill. He’s to expect me later.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good.” Hawkwood took back his coat, but did not put it on. “Dobbs can assist. Make sure the body’s covered at all times. I’m probably in enough trouble as it is; God forbid an arm should come loose and frighten the horses.”
Hawkwood knew that wasn’t likely to happen, but having the two men watch over their gruesome load was one way of ensuring it would arrive safely. The other reason for the precaution was that during the excavation it had become obvious that inside the sack the corpse was naked. A clothed cadaver being carted through the streets was bad enough. The ramifications, if the state of this one ever came to light, didn’t bear thinking about.
“You can’t do that!” Gulley protested.
Hawkwood spun back. “Of course I bloody can! I can do anything I want. I can even leave you in the damned hole if you don’t stop whining.”
Gulley bristled. “But there’s graves to dig!”
“Then do your own bloody digging! You’ve got a shovel. It’s not hard. You hold it at the thin end and use the other end to move the dirt.”
Gulley coloured under the onslaught.
Ignoring him, Hawkwood addressed the constable. “What the hell are you waiting for? Go.”
Jerked into activity, Hopkins swallowed and called Dobbs to him. As the cart trundled away, Hawkwood turned to the sexton. “When’s the funeral party due?”
The sexton drew a pocket watch from his jacket. “Not for an hour, yet.”
“Then you’ve time to make the site presentable?”
The sexton gazed about him. “Aye, reckon so.” He looked down at Hawkwood’s muddy forearms and clay-covered boots and breeches, and jerked his chin towards the cottage and the smoke curling up above the black-slate roof. “Got hot water on the fire, if’n you want to clean up.”
Hawkwood considered the filth on his hands and the activity they’d been engaged in. “It’s a kind offer, Mr Stubbs. I’m obliged.”
The sexton nodded. To the hovering Gulley, who’d retrieved his shovel and was holding it across his chest as if he was about to defend an attack on a bridge, he said, “I’ll be back soon as me and the officer here have concluded our business. Smartly now, Solomon, if you please. Don’t want to keep the widow waitin’.”
Before Gulley could reply, the sexton gestured to Hawkwood. “This way.”
Hawkwood was not surprised to find the interior of the cottage was as tidy as a barracks. Not that there was much to it. The ground floor consisted of a single room which served as both parlour and kitchen. The furniture was plain and functional. There was an oak table, a bench and small dresser in the cooking area and a settle that faced the open hearth, which was protected by a metal guard. The wall at the back of the hearth and the ceiling immediately above it was black with soot. Cord had been strung across the ceiling from which several threadbare shirts had been hung to dry. A set of stairs in one corner led to the first floor and the sexton’s no doubt equally neat sleeping quarters. Incongruously, a small writing desk sat against the wall opposite the fire. Above it was a shelf bearing half a dozen leather-bound volumes.
Asking Hawkwood to take a seat, the sexton poured hot water into a jug from a pot on the hearth and emptied the jug into a blue enamel basin which he placed on the table. A drying cloth and scrubbing brush were produced from a table drawer.
The basin had to be replenished twice, by which time Hawkwood had removed most of the dirt from his hands and arms and his skin was pink from the scrubbing. Cleaning the mud from his breeches and boots would have to wait.
The sexton took the basin outside and emptied it on to the ground. Returning, he set it on the dresser and from a cupboard beneath produced a flask and two battered tin mugs. Without asking, he poured a measure into each mug and handed one to Hawkwood.
“It’ll take away the taste of the pit.”
Hawkwood drank. Brandy: definitely not the good stuff, but the sexton was right. The smell of the grave had been so strong that by the time the body had been loaded on to the cart it did feel as though the back of his throat had become coated with the trench’s contents. Two swallows of the sexton’s brew and it felt as if his entire larynx had been cauterized. As cures went, it was eye-wateringly effective.
When his vocal cords had recovered from the shock, he asked the sexton if he’d heard or seen anything during the night.
Predictably, Stubbs shook his head. “Not a bloody thing. I tends to sleep right through. Might stir if a field battery was to open up by my ear, but that ain’t likely round these parts.”
And the rain would have covered most sounds, anyway, Hawkwood thought, as well as every other sign that might have pointed to whoever dumped the body in the pit. As for the place of entry, in retrospect it was ludicrous to think the corpse might have come from over the hospital wall, which meant access had either been made via the main gate or else the body had been carried over the dividing wall from the adjacent burial ground.
Which left him where? Maybe the body would provide the answer. Suddenly, Gulley’s argument was starting to make sense. Perhaps it would have been easier to have left the thing where it was.
The thing.
Dammit, he thought. Now I’m calling her that. He drained the mug.
Sexton Stubbs, he saw, was throwing him a speculative look.
“You’ve a question?” Hawkwood said.
The sexton hesitated then said, “Back there, the constable called you ‘Captain’. If’n you don’t mind me askin’, that mean you were an officer when you was in the Rifles?”
“Eventually,” Hawkwood said. “It didn’t last.”
The sexton turned the statement over in his mind. Emboldened by the cynical half-smile on Hawkwood’s face, he enquired cautiously, “You miss it?”
“The army?”
The sexton nodded.
“Sometimes,” Hawkwood admitted. “You?”
Hawkwood thought about the sexton’s admission when they were standing by the graveside. Stubbs had received his wound at Corunna. Hawkwood remembered Corunna; the epic retreat across northern Spain in appalling winter weather. Discipline had broken down, food had been scarce and the dead and wounded had been left by the roadside. When Moore’s army eventually reached the port, there was no sign of the transports that should have been there to carry them home. By the time the ships arrived, four days later, the French, under Marshal Soult, had caught up and the town was surrounded, forcing the British to take to the field.
