Strange Images of Death

Chapter Seventeen

Joe could feel his companion’s shock through the hands that grasped his arm for support. After a few minutes of rigid stillness, Nathan’s whole body began to tremble but he could not take his eyes away.

It was Nathan who spoke first. ‘What is this? Some kind of sick joke? It’s not real … Joe!’ He turned an anguished face on him. ‘Are you in on this? Is she dead or is she acting? Tell her-okay, okay! I’m sorry! And I’m knocked for six! She can get up now …’

Joe’s pained silence swept away his attempt at self-delusion.

Joe placed a restraining hand on Nathan’s shoulder and stepped forward himself towards the tomb. He went swiftly through the familiar gestures to establish that the girl was indeed lifeless and shook his head.

Nathan groaned. ‘She is dead, isn’t she? Do you see it? That dagger? Isn’t that …?’ A quivering finger pointed to the dagger in the woman’s breast and moved on to point at the stone dagger in the knight’s belt.

In a calming policeman’s voice, Joe answered: ‘You’re right. It’s the same thing. The carved one is a representation of a vicious stabbing blade, designed to penetrate plate armour with a short underhand stroke. A misericord. The word means compassion, pity. Such blades were often used on the battlefield to put dying soldiers out of their misery. What kind of sick trickery is this? The carved dagger and the wrought metal one in the heart are identical!’

‘Sick is right,’ Nathan murmured. ‘She’s on display. Some bugger’s left her here to be … viewed. Joe, we’re being used! We’re an invited audience. We’ve been set up to witness this horror.’

Nathan whirled about, hearing a sound Joe had not detected. His gaze searched the gloomy corners of the chapel, his slight frame crouched and hunted. ‘He’s here! Where’s the devil hiding? Listen! He’s in here with us, isn’t he? Watching.’

His rising panic was catching. Joe spoke steadily to calm him. ‘I don’t think so. That creak you just heard? Would have been the woodwork expanding or righting itself after last night’s buffeting. I think the murderer’s long gone. They do sometimes return to the scene-that’s true, in my experience-but I don’t know of one who’s waited several hours by the body expressly to enjoy the dismay and horror of the poor sods who discovered it. And she’s been dead for some hours. We’d be looking at a seriously aberrant piece of behaviour. But, then, nothing surprises me any more.’

‘Sheesh! How can you keep so calm? Face to face with a dead body like this? Someone you know?’

‘I’m not calm! I’m as distressed as you are. I’m revolted and angry. It’s just that it’s my job to stare at corpses and make them talk back to me. And, if you’ll be silent and use your keen eye for detail, Nat, she’ll start talking to you as well. She would want us to hear what she has to say. Think of this as the last thing we can do for her.’

In an attempt to dampen the photographer’s spiralling panic, Joe began to involve him in the scene by shooting a series of questions at him. ‘Look at the wound. Focus on it. That’s the idea! Do you see much blood? Come on! Answer me!’

Nathan focused on the spots of dried blood surrounding the blade. ‘No. I’d have expected a gush, a trail … Heart wound-you’d expect a fountain … There’s no more than a spot or two or five. All around the blade. Like a speared rose. And it’s dark brown. She bled some time ago?’

‘Right … “On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I’ the bottom of a cowslip,”’ murmured Joe. ‘That’s the sleeping Imogen in Cymbeline. But this poor girl is beyond sleeping.’

‘You can stand here, quoting bloody Shakespeare at a time like this?’ Nathan’s voice was strangled.

‘I find myself responding to the killer’s imperative-as you do. It’s a scripted craziness. An Elizabethan melodrama we’re being offered. Perhaps if we follow him in his descent to hell, we’ll catch sight of his ugly features.

‘Look again. What’s he telling us? The wound was placed with precision, would you say? Nathan?’

‘Anyone would. I’m sure I’ve never seen a heart wound before, not even a knife wound of any kind, but it does look sort of … meant … placed.’

‘Expertly done, I think,’ Joe confirmed. ‘And what do you make of the hair, spread out like that? And the careful draping of the dress?’

‘Lord knows! It’s crazy! I can only say again-sickness.’

‘Not crazy. I believe it’s very deliberate. Have you seen this white dress before?’

Nathan shrugged and shook his head. ‘It looks very old. Like something an ancestor might have worn. Hey! Where is the original wife?’

Joe pointed to the corner in which the cairn of remains still stood, the shattered head, as before, displayed on its red silk cushion.

It triggered in Nathan the same nauseated revulsion that Joe had felt the previous day. ‘More madness! Anywhere around here a feller can be sick?’ murmured Nathan.

‘No, no! Stiff upper lip, old man!’ advised Joe. ‘Quite enough bodily fluids around here to keep the police busy. Don’t add to them. Tell you what-if you need to pop out for a breath of air, why not go and pick up your bag? You put it down outside. Go and fetch your camera gear. Have you brought a flash?’

‘You’re not thinking …?’

‘I certainly am! First thing we do these days. Photograph the scene. If you object, pass me the equipment and I’ll do it myself. We can be quite certain that the man from Marseille won’t have thought to bring a camera with him.’

‘No! You unfeeling bugger! I won’t do it!’ Nathan protested angrily. ‘I can’t. You’ve no idea what you’re asking. And I’m wondering just exactly when you’re going to get up the courage to speak her name. Or are you waiting for me to say it? Don’t you have to get a close friend to make the identification? I can see you’re going to do everything by the book.’

Joe waited, uncertain whether the American intended ever to address another word to him. He had pushed Joe angrily into the background and his whole attention was focused on the pale features. Finally, he whispered: ‘It’s Estelle. My friend. She’s been lying dead on a cold marble tomb this night when she should have been warm and safe in my bed.’

He turned aside and his body began to shake with dry sobs.