Who Buries the Dead

Chapter 30

Friday, 26 March

The next morning, Sebastian drove toward the Tower of London, to Paul Gibson’s surgery.

He left Tom to water the horses at the fountain near the ancient fortress’s walls and slipped through the shadowy, narrow passage that led to the unkempt yard at the rear of the Irishman’s old stone house. Only, this time, in place of Gibson’s throaty tenor warbling some Irish drinking song, he could hear a Frenchwoman’s soft, clear voice singing, “Madame à sa tour monte, mironton, mironton, mirontaine. .”

He reached the open doorway to find Alexi Sauvage bent over the naked, eviscerated body of Douglas Sterling laid out on the stone slab before her. She had a leather apron tied over her simple gown and a bloody scalpel in one hand and was singing softly to herself, “Madame à sa tour monte si haut qu’elle peut-”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. He knew she had trained as a doctor in Italy, knew she must have done this sort of thing before. But finding her here was still disconcerting.

A lock of flame red hair fell across her eyes as she looked up at him. She pushed it back with one bent wrist. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Where’s Gibson?”

She set aside the scalpel with a clatter. She was an attractive woman, with pale, delicate skin and a high-bridged nose and brown eyes, dark now with an old hatred. Sebastian might have had a good reason for killing the man she’d once loved, but he knew she had never forgiven him for it.

“Gibson is”-she hesitated, then finished by saying-“not well today.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, your friend is an opium eater. How he managed to meet his responsibilities with even a semblance of normalcy before I arrived is beyond me. But I don’t think he could have kept it up much longer.”

Sebastian studied her set, angry face. “You said you could help him. Yet you have not done so.”

She reached for a rag and wiped her hands. “As long as he suffers the phantom pains from his missing leg, he will never be able to free himself of the opium.”

“You said you can help him with that too.”

“Only if he allows it.”

“Why would he not?”

“Perhaps you should try asking him that yourself.” She picked up her scalpel again. “Although you’re not likely to get a coherent response from him at the moment.”

Sebastian nodded to the decapitated body between them. “What have you discovered?”

“Not much. For an old man, Douglas Sterling was as healthy as an ox. He’d likely have lived another ten or more years, if someone hadn’t stabbed him in the back and cut off his head.”

“In that order?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“Are you suggesting I’m incompetent?”

I’m suggesting you’re probably not as good at this as Gibson, he thought. But all he said was, “Is there anything that might tell us who did this?”

She gave him a tight, unpleasant smile. “I was under the impression that was your job.”

Sebastian shifted his gaze to where Sterling’s bloodless head rested in a basin on the shelf, and for a moment, all he could think about was the tale Knox had told him, of the smuggler who’d come home to find his wife missing and his little boys hideously dismembered.

He said, “Where’s Gibson?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to see him.”

“No. But I think I should.”

Her gaze met his, but her eyes were hooded and he could not begin to guess at her thoughts.

Then she said, “He’s in the parlor.”

He found Gibson sprawled in one of the old cracked leather chairs beside the cold hearth, his coat rumpled, his cravat gone, the collar of his shirt stained with sweat. Sebastian thought his friend lost in an opium-induced stupor. Then the Irishman looked up, his eyes hazy, his smile dreamy.

“Devlin.”

Sebastian walked over to pour himself a brandy, then gulped it down in one long pull.

“You’re here about this latest headless fellow, I suppose.” Gibson waved one hand vaguely in the direction of the yard. “Haven’t started yet, I’m afraid.”

Sebastian poured himself another drink. “Alexi Sauvage has almost finished the postmortem.”

Something flickered across Gibson’s features, then faded into bland contentment. “Has she, now? She’s very clever. Wish she’d marry me. But she won’t.”

“She says your leg has been troubling you.”

“My leg?” Gibson’s fuzzy smile never slipped. “I think about it sometimes, still over there, doubtless a bare, weathered bone by now. While I’m here. Not yet a pile of bare bones.”

When Sebastian said nothing, the surgeon drew in a slow, even breath that eased out like a sigh. “It’s a bit like a woman, you know. Opium, I mean. Soft. Caressing. . Deceptive. A delightful exaltation of the spirit mingled with cloudless serenity. Truly a gift from the gods.”

“That can kill,” said Sebastian.

Gibson’s smile grew lopsided. “The gifts of the gods are often double-edged, are they not?”

“Did you look at Sterling yourself at all?”

“Who?” said Gibson, his head lolling against the back of the chair. “Sometimes I wish I were a poet-or maybe a composer-so I could share this joy and beauty. Everything’s so much clearer. Brighter. More intense. Delicious. .”

His voice faded and his gaze grew unfocused again, his face slack.

A soft step in the passage drew Sebastian’s gaze to the doorway.

“He wouldn’t have wanted you to see him like this,” said Alexi Sauvage, her hands cupping her bent elbows close to her body, her voice low.

Sebastian turned toward her, aware of a powerful rush of fear and guilt all twisted up into a helpless rage that somehow ended up being directed at her. “God damn you. Why don’t you help him?”

“I told you: He won’t let me.”

“Why not?”

She shifted her gaze to the man now lost in a cloud of opium-hued bliss. “Fear. Embarrassment. A man’s peculiar notion of pride. I don’t know. You tell me; you’re a man-his friend. All I know is, he can’t keep going on like this. It’s destroying his mind and body. Killing him.”

“When will he be. .”

“Normal?” she shrugged. “He’ll sleep for some time now. When he wakes, he’ll be listless, depressed. Nauseous. Tomorrow will be better than tonight.”

Sebastian set aside his second brandy untouched. “Then I’ll be back tomorrow.”