Devoured (Hatton & Roumande) Read online

  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.