Resurrectionist

4

The apothecary took a deep breath, as if to compose his thoughts. “Truthfully, have you ever seen anything like this?”

“No,” Hawkwood admitted. No one had.

He’d investigated killings, of course, seen scores of murder victims, usually as a result of drunken brawls, burglaries that had gone wrong or family feuds that had gotten out of hand, even crimes of passion, but this was different, a new experience. It wasn’t the manner of death but the mutilation of the victim that set this murder apart. The excising of the priest’s face had not been the result of a blood-crazed, frenzied attack. The skin had been removed with great precision. Peeled away like a mask, the apothecary had said. And so it had been; deliberately and specifically removed for the purpose of aiding the colonel’s exit from the hospital. Which indicated the escape had not been a spontaneous act but the culmination of a carefully thought-out strategy. And that, Hawkwood knew, opened up a whole slew of possibilities, not one of them palatable.

“Why was the colonel here?” Hawkwood asked.

They were back in the apothecary’s office. Locke was seated at his desk. Hawkwood was standing by the window. Thankfully, there were no bars and no illustrations of any description on the walls. Even the view over the well-trodden ground of Moor Fields was a consolation after the claustrophobia of the colonel’s cell.

A shadow moved across the apothecary’s face. “Warriors survive the battlefield bearing many scars. Not all are caused by damage to the flesh. There are other wounds that run much deeper. The effect of war on the human mind is a fascinating concept and one that has occupied me for some time. It’s not an interest shared by the majority of my fellow physicians, despite the increasing number of poor souls committed to hospital asylums by the Transport Office and the Navy’s Sick and Wounded Office each year.”

The apothecary paused, then said, “Am I right in thinking you’ve knowledge of such matters? It occurred to me when we met that you have the look about you; that scar beneath your eye, for example, and the distinct mark of an ingrained powder burn above your right cheek. You were a military man; the army, perhaps? Am I right?”

Hawkwood stared at his inquisitor. The burn mark was a legacy most musketeers and riflemen carried with them; a rite of passage, caused by flecks of burning powder blowing back into the face when their weapon was discharged.

“I was a soldier,” Hawkwood said.

“May I ask what regiment?”

“The 95th.”

“The Rifles! I’ve heard great stories of their exploits.” Locke put his head on one side and nodded thoughtfully. “Though you were not of the rank and file, I suspect. You were an officer? You commanded men in battle?”

“Yes.”

“And saw many of your comrades die?”

“Too many,” Hawkwood said truthfully.

“So you know the nature of war, the horror of it.” It was a statement not a question.

Hawkwood thought of the times he’d woken in the dead of night, drenched in sweat, with the smell of death in his nostrils and the screams of men and the crash of cannon fire ringing in his ears; sounds so real he’d thought he had been transported back in time to the blood and the mud and the flames.

War wasn’t glorious, despite the pageantry, the colourful uniforms, and the fifes and drums. War was, without exception, nothing short of hell on earth. There were moments of extraordinary bravery and heady triumph, as sweet as honey on the tongue, but mostly there was fear; massive, gut-wrenching, knee-jerking fear. Fear of being killed, fear of being wounded or crippled, fear of being thought a craven coward by your comrades, fear of dying alone on some bleak, godforsaken foreign hillside with no one back home to mourn your passing. That was the real horror. That was the truth of it.

He hadn’t had the dreams for a while, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, waiting to emerge unbidden, like demons in the darkness.

“I apologize,” Locke said. The eyes behind his spectacles glinted perceptively. “It was not my intention to stir up unpleasant memories. In answer to your question, Colonel Hyde was admitted to the hospital a little over two years ago. According to Dr Monro, the colonel’s admission was due not to mania, as you might suppose, but an acute state of melancholy.”

“Melancholy?”

“Correct. You saw the carvings above the entrance, I take it?”

Hawkwood recalled the naked stone figures and nodded.

“They are known as Raving and Melancholy Madness. I’m sure you can guess which was which.”

Hawkwood said nothing. He was remembering the manacles and the silent scream.

Locke went on, “There was a time when diagnosis was considered that simple. If the patient was not obviously suffering from one, he or she was inevitably a victim of the other. It is not, however, as you may have surmised from my discourse, as simple as that. Melancholy comes in many forms. Take the unfortunates contained within these walls, for example. For every ten patients suffering the effects of drink and intoxication, I could show you twenty who suffer from excessive jealousy. For every fifteen stricken by religion and Methodism, I can list thirty whose minds have been addled by syphilis or smallpox. Pride, fright, fever, even love; the causes of insanity – melancholy in particular – are numerous, Officer Hawkwood. But by far the most common are misfortune, trouble, disappointment and grief.”

“You’re trying to tell me that the colonel was disappointed about something?” Hawkwood said. “Hell’s teeth, if he removed a man’s face because he was disappointed, what the devil’s he going to do when he’s angry?”

The apothecary ignored Hawkwood’s retort, but continued in the same calm manner. “My understanding is that it was the commissioners’ judgement that the colonel’s experiences working amongst the wounded and the dying precipitated a state of chaos within his brain. It was as if his attempts to mend the broken bodies of his patients had a debilitating effect on his own sanity; a terrible price to pay for years of dedicated service. I can only imagine the horrors that he witnessed, trying to make whole the shattered bodies of men, but there’s little doubt Colonel Hyde arrived here in a state of severe distraction.”

Locke pursed his lips, and then continued.

“As with all patients, he was reassessed after twelve months. I was not involved in the colonel’s case, you understand, it was before my time. Regrettably, it was the commissioners’ collective opinion that the colonel was incurable. The usual procedure is that incurables are discharged unless their family or friends are unable to provide care. He has no living family. There was a child that died, a daughter, though he did not talk about her. So, grief, too, has undoubtedly played a significant role in his state of mind. Fortunately, it appears he had friends who were willing to stand surety for him, on condition that he remained in our charge. It was at that juncture that he was transferred to our incurable department.”

“Was he ever restrained?”

Locke looked nonplussed. “Restrained?”

“Like Norris.”

“Ah, yes, Norris. You saw him?”

“Briefly,” Hawkwood said.

An expression of sympathy moved across the apothecary’s face. “He’s an American, a seaman. Came to us almost twelve years ago. He’s attacked his keepers on at least two occasions.” Locke gave a wan smile. “But I assure you, he is an exception. The vast majority of our incurables are perfectly harmless. You may even have heard of a couple of them. There’s Metcalfe, for example, who thinks he’s the heir to the throne of Denmark; the Nicholson woman; and Matthews, of course.”

Clearly the apothecary was expecting Hawkwood to recognize the names. He didn’t. He took a stab at one.

“Matthews?”

“Possibly a little before your time. He was the one who accused Lord Hawkesbury of treason on the floor of the House of Commons. In his defence, he told the court that an influencing device controlled by French Revolutionaries was manipulating his mind. The Air Loom, he called it. Fascinating case. He’s still here. In fact, believe it or not, he actually submitted plans for the new hospital. His talent for architectural drawing is considerable and yet he’s a tea planter by trade. Who’d have thought it? He’s undoubtedly one of our more … interesting patients. There are many others I could tell you about.”

The apothecary smiled again. “There are those who would tell you the colonel was in good company. But restrained, you ask? No, he was not shackled, despite the irons on the wall.”

“And yet he had his own quarters, separate from the others. Isn’t that unusual?”

Locke shrugged. “Not especially. A number of patients have their own rooms. Certainly, those with a tendency towards violence, like Norris, must remain segregated at all times, and chained. There are others, however, who, through good behaviour, have been granted the privilege of privacy. Matthews is one example. And there are those whose comfort is maintained by the generosity of their friends and family.”

“And the colonel?” Hawkwood prompted.

“Up until now, he was considered to be one of our most obedient patients.”

“You make him sound like some sort of lap dog.”

Locke smiled thinly. “Sickness is a strange beast, Officer Hawkwood, and none is stranger than sickness of the mind. There are those patients who thrive on the companionship of others and there are those who shrink from human contact. In either case, the patient’s welfare can also be affected by the circumstances of his or her confinement.” Locke raised an eyebrow. “You look at me as if I were mad. I assure you the theory is nothing new.

“Colonel Hyde is no drooling imbecile. He’s a well-born, educated man, a former army officer, and a surgeon to boot. He is not some prancing fool in a cap and bells. Indeed, I’d put it to you that, had you met and talked with him about the general turn of things, there’s every possibility you’d have considered him to be as sane as you or I.”

“Does he know he’s mad?”

Locke sat back in his chair. He was silent for several seconds before voicing his reply.

“You pose an interesting question. There are doctors who consider madness to be a sickness of the soul, a spiritual malaise. My own theory is that madness is in fact a physical disease, an organic disorder of the brain, which manifests itself in an incorrect association of familiar ideas, ideas that are always accompanied by implicit belief. In my view, the reason people see objects and hear sounds that aren’t there is not because their sight or hearing is deficient, it is because their brains are not functioning properly. Nor is their intelligence necessarily at fault. On the contrary, they will frequently reason correctly, albeit from a false premise. In their own minds they are being perfectly rational. And so it is with Colonel Hyde. He is perfectly lucid and articulate. He does not think of himself as either sane or insane. One could argue that is the nature of his delusion.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Hawkwood said. “I still don’t understand. If you’re telling me that he was admitted into the hospital due to – what was it, melancholy? – what made him change? What made him commit murder?”

“To answer that, one would have to know how his delusion arose in the first place.”

“And do you?”

The apothecary shrugged. “In the colonel’s case, I’m not privy to the full facts of his admittance. It was Dr Monro who oversaw his arrival. I can only generalize.”

“Maybe it’s Monro I should be talking to,” Hawkwood said.

“That is certainly your privilege, though, judging by Dr Monro’s preoccupation with his extracurricular interests, I would submit that you would be unlikely to learn much. I doubt he has had one moment’s contact with Colonel Hyde since he was admitted. I can assure you, Officer Hawkwood, without fear of contradiction, that I am far more conversant with the colonel’s mental health than Dr Monro, who rarely attends the hospital, even for the Saturday meetings. But you must do as you see fit. There is also Dr Crowther, of course, though I doubt you’d find him sober, let alone lucid. When he is here, he does little except administer purgatives and emetics. That, Officer Hawkwood, is the sum total of their lamentable involvement. In their hands, treatment here amounts to little more than meaningless gestures. Purgatives are given to constipated patients. Syphilitics are prescribed mercury. Emetics are given to patients to make them vomit. It’s a way of ensuring that fluids move through the system. All other afflictions are prescribed laudanum. Do you know one of the side effects of laudanum? No? Well, there’s no reason why you should, but I’ll tell you anyway. It’s constipation. You see my point? Oh, and if the purgatives and the emetics don’t work, we bleed them or give them a cold bath. That way, they’ll either die from the flux or pneumonia. Purging, bleeding and inducing patients to vomit may be the recognized methods of mad doctoring, Officer Hawkwood, but they are not the way to treat patients like Matthews or Colonel Hyde.”

“You’re telling me there’s another way?”

“I believe so, yes. It involves a number of techniques, acquired after lengthy experience of dealing with such cases, but they all have one goal and that is for the doctor to gain ascendancy over the patient, similar to breaking in a horse or …” The apothecary paused expectantly.

“Training a dog,” Hawkwood said. He wondered if his moment of enlightenment would result in Locke rewarding him with a treat, a biscuit or a bone, perhaps? But it wasn’t to be. Locke continued, uninterrupted.

“Exactly. The patient must never think he or she is in control. It is not the patient who must set the agenda. It is the doctor. One must not confuse this with punishment, however. Corporal punishment, even severe chastisement, must always be considered a last resort. I do not believe it is possible to gain ascendancy over patients whose thoughts are constantly consumed by their plots to escape. I can safely say that by using understanding and kindness I’ve never yet failed to obtain the confidence and respect of insane persons.”

“Or their obedience?”

The apothecary inclined his head. If he resented the barb in Hawkwood’s question, he did not let it show. “Indeed. Honey, not vinegar, is the answer.”

“So that’s why he has his own room, his own belongings?”

“In part. And, as I mentioned, the colonel is not without benefactors. It is, however, more than anything, a matter of providing stimulation.”

“Stimulation?”

“You recall I mentioned the wound below your eye?” The apothecary pointed with his finger. “May I ask if you have suffered any other injuries; to a limb, an arm or a leg perhaps?”

Too many to remember, Hawkwood thought, though the most recent, the knife wound in his left shoulder, had been sustained not on the battlefield, but in the swirling darkness of the Thames riverbed. It wasn’t a memory he enjoyed revisiting.

He nodded warily and wondered where this was going. The apothecary was too damned perceptive, he thought.

“And during your recovery period, the more you used your arm, the quicker the wound healed; would I be right?”

Hawkwood nodded again. Though, if truth were told, the damned shoulder still ached with a vengeance if he slept awkwardly.

“And so it is with the brain. It is like a muscle. The greater the activity, the more exercise it receives, the healthier it is likely to remain. That is why the colonel was allowed his study area, his books and his drawings and his paper and pens. D’you see?”

Hawkwood nodded.

“They also proved most useful as a reward.”

“Reward?”

“For adhering to the hospital routine. It’s an established practice. We make the patient aware that if there are any infringements, privileges such as access to writing materials, personal possessions and so forth, may be withdrawn. For someone with the colonel’s intellect the removal of such privileges would be a very serious matter and, in the long term, likely to be detrimental to his health. A patient he may be, but with his military background he is a man who understands only too well the consequences of not observing protocol. It has proved a most effective system with a number of our patients.”

“Really?” Hawkwood said. “From where I’m standing I’d say the colonel didn’t give two figs for your so-called routine, or your damned protocol, and that makes me wonder just how well you knew him.”

“On an intellectual level, I would say I knew him tolerably well. I’ve spent a number of hours in his company. We would talk of all manner of things: literature, politics and science … medicine, of course. We are, after all, both doctors, though our backgrounds are somewhat different. My family comes from modest stock. The colonel’s family were land owners. We both studied abroad, however. I studied in Uppsala before going on to Cambridge. The colonel attended the university at Padua. He was – is – a learned man. You saw his library. I even consulted with him on several occasions, seeking his advice on the treatment of some of my patients. His understanding of anatomy far exceeds my own and his knowledge of medicine in general is far superior to that of Dr Monro and that drunken sot, Crowther. I found his assistance invaluable. Some of his opinions were rather … innovative. It made for interesting discussion.”

“You sound as if you liked him,” Hawkwood said.

Locke reached for his handkerchief and spectacles. It was a tactic Hawkwood had come to expect. It allowed the apothecary a few seconds to compose his reply.

“Perhaps I did. But then, you’ve seen the calibre of the staff. Is it any wonder I sought out his company?” The apothecary held up his spectacles and squinted through the lenses. Satisfied that he had removed every smear, he tucked the handkerchief into his waistcoat pocket and placed his spectacles back on to his nose. He looked, Hawkwood thought, not unlike a self-satisfied barn owl.

“When I asked you if you knew how the colonel’s delusions arose, you said you could only generalize,” Hawkwood prompted. “How?”

The apothecary placed his hands palm down on the desk, and nodded. “From my study of other patients in my immediate care, I believe it’s as if every event in their lives, even those that might appear trivial to someone else, carries a hidden significance. It is as though their brains are under attack from a never-ending whirligig of possibilities. Thoughts swirl through their heads in a maelstrom until one thought eventually forces its way to the surface and breaks free of the maelstrom’s pull. Suddenly everything becomes wondrously clear, as if the mind has been set free to soar above the clouds. From that point, every germ of thought becomes indelibly linked to that blinding moment of enlightenment.

“I believe that sense of awakening is so intense that the fabric of the delusion begins to expand backwards and forwards in time, forming a kind of framework, an explanation, if you will, for events that took place long before it existed, perhaps as far back as childhood. It’s the same going forward. Whenever a new experience is received, that too is perceived to be an intrinsic part of the framework.”

Hawkwood’s head was starting to ache. It occurred to him that the colonel wasn’t the only one whose brain was spinning. “So to the colonel this moment of enlightenment would have been like some kind of …” he searched for the word “… revelation?”

“That’s as good a definition as any.”

“And this revelation gave him the idea to escape?”

“I see that you have begun to follow my reasoning.”

“So to us, killing the parson was cold-blooded murder, but to the colonel it would have made perfect sense.”

“Yes.”

“Cutting the priest’s face off made sense?”

“To Colonel Hyde, yes.”

“So escaping may not have been his sole ambition. It was only the beginning. And unless we discover the nature of this … revelation, we won’t know the form of his delusion or what he might be planning to do next?”

“That is so, broadly speaking.” Locke leaned forward, his face earnest. If he was impressed with Hawkwood’s apparent grasp of the situation, he gave no indication. “And that, of course, is the problem, for the colonel’s delusion is his reality, no one else’s. Only he does not know that. You recall, I told you about Matthews and his Air Loom, the thing that he believes controls people’s minds?”

Hawkwood nodded.

“Let me show you.” Apothecary Locke opened a drawer in his desk and took out a sheaf of documents. He began to sift through them. Hawkwood moved to the desk to look over Locke’s shoulder.

“Here,” Locke said. Extracting four sheets from the bundle, he spread them out on the desk.

Three of them were clearly architectural drawings.

“These are Matthews’ plans for the new hospital. As you can see, they are of a very high standard. And this –” Locke said, passing over a fourth sheet “– is his Air Loom.”

Hawkwood stared down at the drawing in front of him.

It looked like a piece of furniture, a large box with a set of four large organ pipes protruding from the top. On the left-hand side stood three barrels which were connected to the box by flexible hoses resembling the tentacles of some strange sea monster. Seated in front of the mechanism was the figure of a man. His arms were manipulating two huge levers. Three other human figures were also shown, one standing, the other two lying down. Each one appeared to be transfixed by what looked to be a beam of light radiating from the device. The drawing, like the other two, had been very skilfully fashioned. Each component of the device had been designated a letter of the alphabet. The key to the letters was written in a neat copperplate.

“What are these?” Hawkwood pointed at the beams, which were tinted a pale yellowish-green.

“Magnetic rays. They are controlled by the man you see seated at those levers. He is using the beams to manipulate the thoughts of his victims.”

“And he really believes all this?” The whole thing was preposterous, Hawkwood thought.

“Most assuredly, and yet this is the same man who produced these splendid architectural drawings. If you knew nothing of Matthews’ circumstances, and someone else had shown you these plans, I’d wager that you’d never for one moment suspect the artist was of unsound mind. Am I right?”

Hawkwood stared down at the designs. There was little else he could do except agree.

“You understand what I am saying?” Locke said.

“I think you’re telling me,” Hawkwood said, “that, unless you happen to know the colonel’s history, to look at him there’s no way to tell that he’s mad.”

Locke nodded. “Essentially, yes. He can formulate ideas and arguments, but in his case it’s as though – how can I put it? – his thoughts and feelings, even his memories, have been taken over by an outside force. To the colonel, it would be as though messages are being forced into his brain.”

Hawkwood hesitated, trying to grasp the implications. “Messages? You mean he thinks people are talking to him, telling him to do things? Like … what? Voices in his head?” Even as he posed the question, he thought the idea sounded ludicrous, but to his surprise the apothecary nodded.

“And these … voices … told him to murder the priest?”

Locke made a face. “A simplification, but, yes, I do believe that might account for his actions. Not unlike Matthews and his revolutionaries.”

“Tell me about the priest,” Hawkwood said.

The apothecary’s face seemed to sag. He suddenly looked older than his years. “There you have me. The Reverend Tombs was here because I chose to disregard the hospital’s regulations.” He looked up. “Ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

“What are you telling me, Doctor?”

Locke sighed. “A hundred years ago, the superintendent thought it would be a good idea if visiting days were introduced, allowing the public to interact with patients. The scheme proved very popular. The crowds flocked, the patients flourished. But then the gawkers began to arrive, and with the gawkers came the pedlars and the pickpockets and the pulpit bashers, not to mention the doxies. Come to Bedlam, pay tuppence and watch the lunatics perform. What fun! It wasn’t long before Bethlem became just another attraction, like the Tower and the Abbey. So, the visits were stopped. No more sightseers, no more pedlars, and no more preachers. It was the governors’ fear that their sermons were as likely to inflame the patients as pacify them.”

“But you didn’t agree?”

Locke steepled his fingers. “On the contrary. At the time, they were probably right. It’s hard enough trying to keep the poor devils quiet as it is, without having some irate Wesleyan ranting up and down the corridors. But there are preachers and there are preachers. I am not a particularly God-fearing man, Officer Hawkwood, but I’m quite prepared to believe in the efficacy of prayer and contemplation as a means of calming the fevered mind. Not that it works in every case, of course. But, in certain instances, I would consider the taking of counsel to be very therapeutic. And they do say, after all, that confession is good for the soul, do they not?”

“They might also say that ten o’clock at night was an odd time to be hearing someone’s confession.”

The apothecary flattened his palms on the desk. “The governors’ ruling still applies. Although I personally saw no harm in the Reverend Tombs’s visits, I felt that a certain amount of discretion was advisable. At that time of night there are fewer staff around, not so many eyes to see or mouths to spread idle tittle-tattle. Though I understand that on this occasion Reverend Tombs was a little later than he had intended. He told Attendant Leech he’d been attending to parish matters. A burial, I believe it was.”

“His parish is St Mary’s, correct?”

The apothecary nodded.

“We dispatched constables to his house,” Hawkwood said. “Not that it’s done any good, seeing as we sent them after the wrong bloody man.” Hawkwood paused to let the point sink in. “Which prompts me to ask you how the two of them came together in the first place. How did they meet?”

“It was purely by chance. We had an application, about a year and a half ago, to admit a patient who was suffering from the most distressing and quite violent fits. His family arranged his admittance, as they were no longer able to cope with his condition. They were fearful the poor devil would harm his children. The commissioners accepted the petition and we took him in. He was later transferred to our incurable department. Sadly, his condition continued to deteriorate. When it became clear there was no further hope, the family asked that he might receive visits from the Reverend Tombs. The patient had been one of his parishioners and it was hoped that, in his final days, he might derive some comfort from the reverend’s presence. I took it upon myself to arrange for the Reverend Tombs to visit him. I do believe it helped. Towards the end, there were moments when he was able to converse in quite lucid terms and bid his family goodbye. It was a very sad case for all concerned. The patient, incidentally, was a former soldier, an infantryman who’d fought in the Peninsula. It was my suspicion that his condition also harked back to his time on the battlefield. Not that it could be proved, of course, though Crowther’s examination of his brain did at least confirm it had suffered morbid damage.”

“You examined his brain?”

The apothecary blanched and said hurriedly, “Not I, Crowther. At least we can be thankful that the man was sober on that occasion. He –”

“I don’t care who wielded the damned knife, Doctor. You’re telling me the hospital cuts open its dead patients?”

“Not all of them.”

Not all of them. Good Christ, Hawkwood thought. What sort of place is this?

“You look shocked, Officer Hawkwood,” Locke said, his composure restored. “Dissections are a necessary procedure if we are to advance our knowledge. As I’ve told you, I believe there’s a direct correlation between diseases of the brain and madness. My own research has convinced me, for example, that the lateral ventricles in the brain are greater in maniacs than those who are sane. I –”

“I’m sure that comes as a comfort to the grieving widows,” Hawkwood growled, not having the slightest clue what the apothecary was talking about and unable to keep the bite from his voice. “You were telling me about the Reverend Tombs.”

For a moment it appeared the apothecary was about to attempt further justification for his argument, but Hawkwood’s demeanour obviously made him reconsider. Clearly the Runner was in no mood to engage in a bracing discussion about ethics.

“Indeed,” said Locke. “I understand the colonel heard of the Reverend Tombs’s visits from one of the keepers, a passing reference perhaps and mention made that the patient had been a military man like himself. Whatever the circumstances, I do recall that after some consideration I decided there’d be little harm if the Reverend Tombs were to accept Colonel Hyde’s request to call upon him. That would have been about six months ago. Since then the reverend has been a regular visitor to his room, usually once a week.”

“So the priest was here to hear the colonel’s confession?”

The apothecary shook his head. “You misinterpret the situation. Besides, Reverend Tombs was an Anglican. No, although on this latter occasion he was here to play chess, I’m sure their conversations touched upon a variety of topics: medicine, philosophy, history, the war …” The apothecary frowned and added pointedly, “I did not place my ear against the door.”

“Did they ever tell you what they talked about?”

The apothecary shrugged. “Only in the most general terms.”

“So you weren’t aware of any recent disagreement the two of them might have had?”

Locke pursed his lips. “No, not at all. As far as I was aware they always parted on the best of terms.”

There were plenty of men who’d come to blows over a game of hazard, Hawkwood mused. Why not chess? But even as the notion entered his mind, he dismissed it as so unlikely, it bordered on the ridiculous.

“What about the colonel’s mood? Did you notice any changes recently?” Even as he posed the question, he was reminded that the colonel had been diagnosed as incurably mad. The man had probably suffered more mood changes than there were fleas on a dog. How could anyone, even a mad-doctor, differentiate one from the other?

But Locke shook his head. “None. There was nothing in his manner to suggest his state of mind had been … transformed in any way. In any case, the colonel was never one to display emotion. Indeed, that was one of his characteristics. In many respects it made him an ideal patient. His demeanour was always calm, one might even say tranquil, accepting of his lot, if you will. You’ve seen his room. It was a place of order, of study and contemplation.”

Hawkwood considered the implications. If there had been no obvious disagreement or falling out between the two of them and the colonel had displayed no startling changes of personality, that left … what? He needed more information; a lot more.

“I want to see your admission documents on Colonel Hyde,” Hawkwood said. “And I need a description. We know what he was wearing when he left, but we need to know the rest – his height, hair colour and so forth – if we’re to hunt him down.”

“Very well.” The apothecary paused before continuing. “I can tell you that Colonel Hyde is forty-nine years of age. His hair is still dark, though it is receding and he has some grey around the temples. He is of slender but not slight build and he has a military bearing which can make him look taller. If truth were told, his physique is not dissimilar to that of the unfortunate Reverend Tombs.”

How convenient, Hawkwood thought. “Other than his madness, is he well … physically?”

Locke blinked, as if the question had been unexpected. “Indeed he is. The colonel enjoys excellent health. In fact, he made a point of maintaining his physical condition through a routine of daily exercises. I recall it was the cause of some amusement among the staff.”

Hawkwood frowned. “What sort of exercises?”

“He told me once that he learned them from his regimental fencing master. I believe that, during his military service, the colonel was considered an excellent swordsman.”

“Scalpels and sabres,” Hawkwood said. “My, my.”

Locke coloured.

“Anything else we should know?”

Before the apothecary could reply there was a sharp rap on the door. Locke started in his seat. He turned, a look of mild annoyance on his face. “Come!”

The door opened. Mordecai Leech stood on the threshold.

The apothecary’s eyebrows rose. “Mr Leech?”

“Beggin’ your pardon, Doctor, there’s a Constable Hopkins from the Foot Patrol down below. Wants to see Officer Hawkwood. Says it’s urgent.”

But the constable wasn’t down below. He was behind Leech’s shoulder, presumably having shadowed the lumbering attendant up the stairs without the latter’s knowledge. Young, and dressed in an ill-fitting blue jacket and scarlet waistcoat, he looked dishevelled and was breathing hard, as if he’d been running. He elbowed the startled Leech aside and thrust his way into the room. His gaze settled on Hawkwood and his eyes widened in recognition. “We have him, Captain! We have the parson!”

It was on the tip of Hawkwood’s tongue to ask what bloody parson, when it struck him that Hopkins had been one of the constables dispatched to St Mary’s earlier that morning by James Read and that, as far as they and the Chief Magistrate were concerned, Reverend Tombs was still the man they were looking for.

As though suddenly mindful of his surroundings, the constable removed his black felt hat and held it behind his back. The removal of the headgear revealed a mop of unruly red hair and prominent ears that would have made a fine pair of jug handles.

“Where?” Hawkwood was already heading towards the door, aware that both Locke and Leech were staring at the constable as though the latter had sprouted a second head.

“The church. We tried the vicarage first. Knocked on the door.” The words came out in a rush. “But there weren’t no answer. Then we heard someone movin’ around inside, so we called out that we were from Bow Street, under orders from the Chief Magistrate, and that he was to let us in on account of questions we wanted to ask him about a murder.” The constable fought for breath. “We couldn’t see anything, so Conductor Rafferty left Constable Dawes and me at the front and went round the back to see if he could look through the window and find out what was going on. That was wh—” The constable paused, transfixed by the look on Hawkwood’s face.

“Rafferty?” A nerve flickered along Hawkwood’s cheek. “Edmund Rafferty?”

The constable blinked at the growl in Hawkwood’s voice and nodded again, nervously this time.

“God’s teeth!” Hawkwood rasped. He swung back to Locke. “Don’t stray too far, Doctor. It’s likely I’ll need to talk with you again. You, too, Mr Leech.”

Locke nodded dully.

But it was a wasted gesture. Hawkwood, with Constable Hopkins at his heels, had already left the room.