Читать книгу An Act of Mercy: A gripping historical mystery set in Victorian London - J. Durham J. - Страница 12

St Bartholomew’s Hospital had long occupied its site to the west of Smithfield, its classical facade dominated by a bullying statue of Henry VIII. Inside, the baroque reception rooms surrendered to a warren of smaller rooms and corridors. After descending a stone staircase and passing countless drab-painted doors, Pilgrim and Dolly at last found themselves admitted to the Coroner’s Office.

It was a gloomy room, lined with shelves laden with dozens of jars, filled with gelatinous samples. A human brain and a human foetus floated among them. The other contents were thankfully unidentifiable.

‘Sorry to keep you.’ Dr Hector Fairweather wiped his hands on his bloody apron. With his limping gait, bald head, and bristling moustache, he always reminded Pilgrim of a walrus he had once seen at the Zoological Gardens.

‘Hector.’ Pilgrim signalled for Dolly to step forward. ‘This is Constable Williamson, one of my new detectives.’

Fairweather nodded at Dolly. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake hands, lad.’

They were distracted by a noise coming from the corner of the room: the clink of glass on glass. Pilgrim and Dolly turned to find the source: a young man they had not previously noticed was sitting at a table laden with a number of large specimen jars. The young man gave them a baleful stare over the top of his spectacles.

‘Pay no attention to young Townsend,’ said Fairweather. ‘He’s helping us to catalogue our collection of matrices.’

‘Matrices?’ prompted Dolly.

‘Wombs.’

Dolly cast a horrified glance at the jars.

‘Come on through.’

Fairweather led the way into the mortuary examination room. The wooden peg that stuck out from the bottom of his trouser leg kept pace with his boot, step for step, and made a hollow sound whenever it struck the floor. Dolly’s attention was riveted by it.

The examination room was tiled from floor to ceiling and had a drain in one corner. A slab, rather like an altar, occupied the centre of the room, bearing a shape covered with a blood-spotted sheet. As they drew closer, Dolly’s face registered his distress.

Fairweather took a lid off a jar, and offered it to him. ‘Camphor,’ he said, ‘it’ll help with the smell.’

Dolly smeared his finger in the jar and glanced at Pilgrim for some clue what to do with it. Pilgrim rubbed his own finger under his nose to demonstrate. Dolly followed suit, and his expression betrayed his relief. Fairweather offered the jar to Pilgrim, and then pulled it back.

‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘Smallpox, wasn’t it? Quite common to lose your sense of smell that way.’

Fairweather pulled the sheet down to the boy’s shoulders. The marks around the throat were more noticeable than they had been before, but were upstaged by the crudely stitched incision that now ran from the boy’s sternum to his groin.

Fairweather caught Dolly’s expression. ‘No point wasting time on fancy needlework,’ he said.

‘He was strangled?’ asked Pilgrim.

Fairweather nodded. ‘Apart from the obvious trauma to the throat there is cyanosis, and considerable petechial haemorrhaging, particularly under the eyelids. The killer throttled the boy, probably with the kerchief. He didn’t exert enough force to do it cleanly, however. The trachea is still intact.’

‘It was a woman.’

They turned to see Townsend, who had followed them into the mortuary. He blinked at them through the thick lenses of his spectacles. ‘She wasn’t strong enough,’ he added, with a distinct transatlantic accent.

Fairweather nodded. ‘That would account for the trachea, I daresay.’

‘A man wouldn’t have made such a botch of it.’

Fairweather glared at him. ‘Don’t you have anything to do? I’m sure Dr Cuthbertson can find a use for you.’

Townsend slunk out of the room, giving the detectives another baleful glare over the top of his glasses as he went.

Pilgrim was still studying the corpse.

‘Do you think he suffered?’ he asked.

Fairweather shook his head. ‘I would say he probably lost consciousness early on. I doubt he would have felt the injuries to his neck. Some small mercy, I suppose. What do you want me to do with him?’

‘It’ll be another parish burial. And it had better be soon.’

‘Yes, it’s been a week or so. You really can’t smell him at all?’

‘No.’

The doctor pulled the sheet back over the boy. ‘There are times when I wouldn’t mind a dose of smallpox myself.’

‘Have you had any luck with the laundries?’ asked Pilgrim, as he and Dolly emerged from the mortuary.

‘’Fraid not, sir.’ Dolly rubbed the camphor from under his nose, leaving a mark on his sleeve like the track of a snail. ‘But I’ve only managed to visit half a dozen so far. Did you know there are more than a hundred and eighty laundries in London? I’ve organized some of A Division to help, but it’ll still take us days to get round them. Do you think we should be starting at Euston and working outwards?’

Pilgrim shook his head. ‘It’s the only station with trains to Essex, so it doesn’t necessarily follow that the killer lives nearby. Start with all the districts that begin with “F” – Fenchurch, Finsbury, Fulham …’ he hesitated. ‘Of course, the “F” might not be a district. It could be a name, in which case … ’

‘We’re well-buggered. Beg your pardon, sir.’ Dolly’s gaze slid away, and he shuffled his feet.

‘Is there something else?’

‘Dr Fairweather.’ Dolly coloured. ‘There’s a rumour in the barracks that he cut off his leg with a sabre when it got trapped under his horse at Waterloo. Is it true?’

‘No.’ Pilgrim saw Dolly’s look of relief and smiled. ‘It wasn’t a sabre. It was a bayonet blade.’