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While Hawkwood had been leading skirmish parties against French forward positions, the 36th Regiment, along with others, had been engaged in a decisive rear-guard action on the opposite flank. Moore’s army had saved the day, albeit at the cost of his own life, and the evacuation had been completed. The 95th and the 36th had been among the last troops to embark.
The sexton took his time answering. Swirling the dregs of the brandy around the inside of his mug, he tipped the drink back and placed the empty receptacle on the table. Drawing a sleeve across his lips, he looked Hawkwood full in the eye.
“Every bleedin’ day.”
4 (#u9bc2c893-a59f-50c2-9ea5-dc6435b02e3e)
Rumour had it that Quill had once served in the Royal Navy and that he’d been wounded in action at the Battle of Lissa while serving aboard HMS Volage under Phipps Hornby. Hawkwood had no idea if the rumours were true. From his own limited experiences of life on board a man-o’-war, he thought Quill did have the look of someone who might be at home between decks, though not as a surgeon; more likely as the captain of a gun crew. He had a bruiser’s stature. The shaven, bullet-shaped skull added to the mystique. It wasn’t hard to imagine him screaming orders, surrounded by sweaty, hard-pressed men ramming powder and shot down the barrel of a 32-pounder while enveloped in a world of fire, flame and flying splinters.
And yet, on the occasions that Hawkwood had visited him, there had been no visible sign of a wounding and he’d always appeared remarkably affable, which, given the nature of his work and the environment in which he laboured, was something of a miracle. Quill was the surgeon appointed by the Coroner to perform necropsies, usually whenever the circumstances of death were outside the ordinary. His place of work was a dead house.
Quill’s dead house was located in a dark and gloomy cellar – formerly a crypt – situated beneath an annexe of Christ’s Hospital. With St Bartholomew’s just around the corner, it was a convenient staging post for transferring bodies from hospital to grave. The authorities had been using it for decades, mostly because they hadn’t had to make any structural alterations.
Sleeves rolled up above his elbows, Quill was bent over one of his examination tables when Hawkwood arrived.
“Door!” he commanded with his customary opening brusqueness. He did not turn immediately, but when he did, he smiled upon recognizing his visitor. In the gloom, his breath misted as he spoke. “Officer Hawkwood! Hah! I was warned you’d be along.”
It was a macabre vision, for the surgeon’s hands were red with gore, as was the apron he was wearing. Hawkwood couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t seen Quill in his bloody apron and didn’t like to think what the rest of the stains might be. Beneath the examination table, the flagstone floor was slick with dark fluids.
“Warned?” It was all Hawkwood could do not to clamp a hand over his nose and mouth, for the smell was appalling; worse than anything at the burying ground.
Quill grinned. Clearly unmoved by the reek coming off the bodies around him, he also seemed unaffected by the cold. Beads of sweat shone across his bald pate and Hawkwood could have sworn there was steam rising from the apron. He’d seen similar sights when heat appeared to ascend from the innards of wounded and just-killed soldiers; and in Smithfield slaughterhouses, too, on market day. But these bodies weren’t warm; they were anything but. He decided it had to be a trick of the light.
“Good to see you again,” Quill said. “I take it you’re here for the St George’s cadaver?”
Hawkwood realized the surgeon was clasping a scalpel in his right hand. His stomach turned.
“I am.”
“I couldn’t have examined it where it was?”
“If you had,” Hawkwood said, “you’d have ended up like me.”
The surgeon studied the gap in Hawkwood’s coat and beneath it the stained breeches and boots to which the mud was still clinging.
“You think that would have made a difference?” Spreading his arms, the surgeon invited Hawkwood to inspect his apron.
“It was a burying ground. It was in the wet and I didn’t think it was a proper place to perform an examination.”
“There wasn’t convenient shelter nearby?”
Hawkwood thought about Sexton Stubbs’ cottage. “No.”
“And, in any case,” Quill said wryly, “you wanted it done directly.”
Hawkwood nodded. “Yes.”
Quill fixed him with an accusing eye. “You thought I would move your find to the front of the queue?”
The inference was clear. There were procedures when it came to performing necropsies. Surgeons like Quill worked for the Coroner, but the latter couldn’t act without permission from a justice of the peace. Since inquests were expensive, they were ordered only when there was evidence of violence or the cause of death was suspicious. However, if the death involved someone from the impoverished layers of society, many justices would rule an inquest unnecessary; thus there would be no crime to investigate. Hawkwood was relying on his past association with Quill in a bid to circumvent the system.
Hawkwood glanced around the room. It looked as though the surgeon was behind in his work. Below the curved roof, the walls were lined with bodies, awaiting either examination or dispatch to their place of interment. It wasn’t hard to see why Quill, despite their past dealings, might be irked by another one turning up unannounced.
But when he turned, the smile was back, which could only mean one thing.
“You’ve already taken a look,” Hawkwood said. “Haven’t you?”
Placing the scalpel on the examination table and removing a blood-stained cloth from behind his apron string, Quill wiped his hands. “As it’s you, I have – and it’s not pretty, though she was once, I think, poor mite.”
The surgeon moved to an adjacent table and then stepped aside to provide Hawkwood with a better view.
Covered to the neck by a grubby sheet, the body was lying on its side in almost the same position in which it had been found. Hawkwood thought about the dead woman’s naked state and the pit she’d been lifted from and how many bodies there might have been buried beneath her. Tied, thrust into a sack, cast down into a stranger’s grave and then covered with a filthy shroud that would have been used on God knew how many other remains; if ever proof were needed that the dispossessed were robbed of all dignity, even in death, this was it. The one redeeming feature, if it could be called such, was that the corpse’s eyes were no longer wide and staring, but half-closed. Presumably, Quill had taken advantage of the rigor leaving the body to make the adjustment. The cord, Hawkwood saw, had been cut from her wrists.
“You’ll appreciate it’s been only a short time since I took delivery,” Quill said, “and that my initial examination was somewhat cursory.”
“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
“As you wish.” Tucking the cloth back into his apron, Quill placed both hands on the table and gazed down at the remains. “We have a young female – eighteen to twenty-five years of age or thereabouts. Cause of death: asphyxia … strangulation.” The surgeon paused, as if mulling over his diagnosis. “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“There is noticeable bruising under the throat, caused by some sort of ligature.” Quill pointed towards the corpse’s jawline. “Possibly the same cord that was used to bind her wrists and ankles.”
“Her ankles were tied as well?”
Quill shrugged philosophically. “Easier to fit her in the sack.”
There was less engrained dirt than Hawkwood remembered as he gazed down upon the remains. From the state of the water in a tin bowl placed by the corpse’s feet, Quill had already made a token effort to wipe the body down prior to his examination. As a result, the discoloration in the skin was even more pronounced than it had been when Hawkwood had observed it at the bottom of the pit.
“And if it wasn’t … strangulation?”
“There are several contusions, a fracture of the zygomatic – the cheekbone – as well as dislocation of the mandible. There is also damage to the left side of the skull. Here, you see?”
“She was beaten?”
“Severely, I’d say.”
“Beaten and throttled?”
“Yes. But then you’d already guessed that before you brought her up, am I right?” The surgeon eyed him perceptively.
“I thought it was a possibility, from the parts of her I could see.”
“Which is why you referred her to me.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“The constable described the circumstances in which she was found. Clearly she was not meant to be discovered.”
“Clearly,” Hawkwood repeated softly.
“If you’re wondering about the constable, by the way, I did ask him if he wanted to wait, but he declined; said he had to make his report. I believe this was his first visit to a dead house. He did well, considering, which is more than can be said for his companion. The poor boy had to be helped out.”
He meant Dobbs. At this rate, Hawkwood thought, the apprentice’s first day was likely to be his last.
“There is more,” Quill said.
Without ceremony, the surgeon folded the sheet back to reveal the top half of the body. There was a mottled tint to the pale dead flesh. Hawkwood wondered if it was due to the candle glow. The most noticeable aberration was the dark area of what looked like bruising along the left side of the torso. Hawkwood had to bend slightly to study it. “She was hit that hard?”
Quill shook his head. “It’s called lividity. When the heart stops beating, the blood settles into the lowest parts of the body. This indicates she was lying on her left side as she is now; as she was when they found her, yes?”
“Yes.” Struck by a thought, Hawkwood turned. “Might she have been alive when she was put down there?”
Quill considered the question. “From the state of her, I’d say whoever was responsible made sure she was dead before they put her in the hole.” The surgeon sighed. “A small mercy, I fear.”
Hawkwood stared down at the body.
“There are other injuries,” Quill said, and pointed to the area below the breasts.
Hawkwood looked. Because of the way the body was lying all he could see was the discoloration caused by the blood settlement. And then he saw the lesions.
“What are those?”
“Stab wounds.”
“Throttled, beaten and stabbed?”
“She died hard,” Quill said heavily. “I’ll have a better idea of their cause when the rigor’s left her completely. That will allow me a closer examination. Otherwise I’d have to break bones. I’d prefer not to do that if it can be helped. We’re almost there. An hour or two and I’ll have her properly laid out.”
Hawkwood couldn’t think of a single appropriate reply. He looked down at the body. “Was she violated?”
“As I said, I’ve yet to make a full examination. I will check, though.” The surgeon frowned. “Forgive me asking, but why this one?”
“This one?”
“Most would have left her there.”
Hawkwood turned. “Because a brave soldier didn’t think it right that someone tossed her into a hole without due ceremony, and I didn’t want the bloody resurrection men getting to her.”
Though they still might.
Quill grunted non-committally and then Hawkwood saw the surgeon’s eyes narrow. Taking the rag from his apron, Quill wetted it in the bowl and used it to gently rub the skin on the corpse’s right upper arm. “Now, what …” he murmured softly “… do you suppose this is?”
Hawkwood moved closer.
The pigment in the skin could easily have been mistaken for a consequence of what Quill had termed the lividity process, but as the damp cloth did its work and the dirt was wiped away, Hawkwood saw that it was something else. There was pigmentation but it had been there before the body had settled.
“I declare,” Quill said, straightening. “She has a tattoo. Looks like a flower; a rose, unless I miss my guess. Nicely wrought, too. See how the petals are drawn?”
Quill’s admiration for the ink-work made Hawkwood wonder again about the surgeon’s background and if he had indeed seen naval service. He eyed the man’s forearms. There didn’t appear to be any anchors or sea-serpents or salutes to Mother, though they could have been high up on Quill’s arms and hidden by the sleeves of his shirt. Maybe he had a large one on his back – HMS Volage under full sail, surrounded by mermaids.
“Intriguing,” Quill murmured, appearing not to have noticed Hawkwood’s surreptitious perusal of his anatomy.
“You mean, what sort of woman gets herself tattooed?” Hawkwood said.
“Indeed.”
“And what happened to her clothes?”
“Ah,” Quill said. “Now, that one I can answer. They were buried with her, at the bottom of the bag.” The surgeon jerked his head. “Over there, the small table in the corner.”
Crossing the room, Hawkwood found it hard to avert his eyes from some of the horrors on show. The space was not well lit and shadows were playing across the intervening tables, revealing a stomach-churning vista of part-opened chests, excised ribcages, and basins and weighing scales containing items of viscera that would have looked more at home on a butcher’s block. From the condition of the bodies on display, Quill liked to work on more than one at a time. Hawkwood couldn’t think of a single conceivable reason why that should be.
Arriving at the opposite wall, mercifully without losing the contents of his own stomach, Hawkwood examined the items to which Quill had referred. The bundle did not consist of much: a thin muslin dress, a cotton chemise, a pair of stockings and a pair of half-boots. The sacking had not protected them from the wet. All were soaked and heavily stained. The stench of the pit rose from them, though it was more than likely they had also absorbed some of the odours seeping from the walls and tables in Quill’s dead house.
Placing the clothing to one side, Hawkwood picked up the boots. They appeared to be of good quality, or at least they had been before the water had got to them; made from some kind of velvet material, with a small heel, not for walking but for evening wear.
“I don’t think she was a vagrant,” Hawkwood said, re-joining Quill at the examination table, one of the boots in his hand.
Quill looked down at the footwear and nodded in agreement. “I thought that, too. The clothes do not strike me as hand-me-downs. Indeed, the stockings would appear to be silk. Also, as you’ll have noticed, other than the water damage, all are intact, which suggests they were not removed from her by force. She disrobed prior to being attacked.”
He turned back to the body. “Notwithstanding her current condition, there’s no evidence that she was malnourished.”
Hawkwood did not reply. He focused his eyes on the tattoo. Quill followed his gaze. “The rose is significant, you think?”
“Maybe,” Hawkwood said, as a thought struck him.
Quill looked at him. “You’re asking yourself what sort of woman who’s young and pretty and who wears expensive clothes and removes them voluntarily, might carry a tattoo on her shoulder.”
Hawkwood considered the boot he was holding.
“I think we can both hazard a guess, don’t you?” Quill said.
Hawkwood nodded. “It’d be a place to start.”
Quill held out his hand. “Then I think you have your work cut out. Don’t let me detain you.”
Hawkwood passed the boot over. “I don’t suppose you can tell me when she might have been killed?”
Quill shook his head. “Not with any certainty. Rigor’s not a precise measure. It can take between two and twelve hours to take hold fully, but the process can also be slowed or accelerated depending on location and temperature.”
Hawkwood thought about the rain and the cold and the mud she’d been buried under. Mud had remarkable properties. It could both protect and preserve. He recalled the times on campaign when on cold nights he and Jago had smeared their blankets with clay; with straw bedding for a base, the mud had provided extra insulation against the cold and they’d generally passed the night in relative comfort.
He realized Quill was still talking.
“A body returns to its flaccid state after a further eighteen hours or thereabouts. I note the flies have started their work, but the eggs have yet to reach the larvae stage, which could be down to the temperature of the ground. Given that, and from her current condition and from what you and the constable have told me, I’d estimate she’s been dead for between twenty-four and thirty-six hours.”
Hawkwood absorbed the information.
