Who Buries the Dead

Chapter 4

Sebastian turned to where Preston’s body lay on its back, arms flung out to the sides, one leg slightly bent, the wet grass dark with his blood. He’d seen many such sights-and worse-in the six years he’d spent in the Army. But he’d never become inured to carnage. He hesitated for the briefest moment, then hunkered down beside the headless corpse.

“Who found him?” he asked, resting a forearm on one knee.

“A barmaid and stableboy from the Rose and Crown,” said Lovejoy. “Just after eleven. It was the barmaid-Molly Watson, I believe she’s called-who alerted the local magistrate.”

Sebastian twisted around to study the deserted lane. “What was she doing here at that time of night?”

“I haven’t actually spoken to her. Sir Thomas-the local magistrate-told her she could go home before I arrived. But from what I understand, she couldn’t seem to come up with a coherent explanation.” Lovejoy’s voice tightened with disapproval. “Sir Thomas says he suspects their destination was the hayloft of that barn over there.”

Sebastian had to duck his head to hide a smile. A staunch reformist, Lovejoy lived by a strict personal moral code and was therefore frequently shocked by the activities of those whose approach to life was considerably freer than his own.

“Was his greatcoat open like this when he was found?” asked Sebastian. He could see Preston’s pocket watch lying on the ground beside his hip, still fastened to its gold chain.

“One of the constables said something about searching the man’s pockets for his cards. I suspect he must have opened the greatcoat in the process.”

Sebastian jerked off one glove and reached out to touch the blood-soaked waistcoat. His hand came away wet and sticky. “He’s still faintly warm,” he said, wiping his hand on his handkerchief. “Do you know when he was last seen?”

“According to his staff, he went out around nine. His house isn’t far from here-just off Hans Place. I’m told he was a widower with two grown children-a son in Jamaica and an unmarried daughter. Unfortunately, the daughter spent the evening with friends and has no knowledge of her father’s plans for the night.”

Sebastian let his gaze drift over the darkened, grassy banks of the nearby stream. “I wonder what the devil he was doing here. Somehow I find it doubtful he was looking for a warm hayloft.”

“I shouldn’t think so, no,” said Sir Henry, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

Sebastian pushed to his feet. “You’ll be sending the body to Gibson?” he asked. A one-legged Irish surgeon with a dangerous opium addiction, Paul Gibson could read the secrets of a dead body better than anyone else in England.

Sir Henry nodded. “I doubt he’ll be able to tell us anything beyond the obvious, but I suppose we ought to have him take a look.”

Sebastian brought his gaze, again, to the head on the bridge, the puddle of blood beneath it congealed in the cold. “Why cut off his head?” he said, half to himself. “Why display it on the bridge?” It had been the practice, once, to mount the heads of traitors on spikes set atop London Bridge. But that barbarity had been abandoned nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.

“As a warning, perhaps?” suggested Sir Henry.

“To whom?”

The magistrate shook his head. “I can’t imagine.”

“It takes a powerful hatred-or rage-to drive most people to mutilate the body of another human being.”

“Rage, or madness,” said Sir Henry.

“True.”

Sebastian went to study the ground near the bridge’s old brick footings. He carried no torch, but then, he didn’t need one, for there was an animal-like acuity to his eyesight and hearing that enabled him to see great distances and in the dark, and to distinguish sounds he’d come to realize were inaudible to most of his fellow men.

“What is it?” asked Sir Henry as Sebastian slid down to the water’s edge and bent to pick up an object perhaps a foot and a half in length and three or four inches wide, but very thin.

“It appears to be an old metal strap of some sort,” said Sebastian, turning it over in his hands. “Probably lead. It’s been freshly cut at both ends, and there’s an inscription. It says-” He broke off.

“What? What does it say?”

He looked up. “It says, ‘King Charles, 1648.’”

“Merciful heavens,” whispered Sir Henry.

Every English schoolboy knew the story of King Charles I, grandson of Mary, Queen of Scots. Put on trial by Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan cohorts, he was beheaded on 30 January 1649. Only, because the old-style calendar reckoned the new year as beginning on 25 March rather than the first of January, chroniclers of the time recorded the execution date as 1648.

“Perhaps it’s unrelated to the murder,” said Sir Henry. “Who knows how long it’s been here?”

“The top surface is dry, so it must have been dropped since the rain let up.”

“But. . what could a man like Stanley Preston possibly have to do with Charles I?”

“Aside from sharing the manner of his death, you mean?” said Sebastian.

The magistrate tightened his lips in a way that whitened the flesh beside his suddenly pinched nostrils. “There is that.”

A church bell began to toll somewhere in the distance, then another. The mist was beginning to creep up from the river, cold and clammy; Sebastian watched as Sir Henry stared off down the lane to where the oil lamps of Sloane Square now showed as only a murky glow.

“It’s frightening to think that the man who did this is out there right now,” said the magistrate. “Living amongst us.”

And he could do it again.

Neither Sir Henry nor Sebastian said it. But the words were there, carried on the cold, wild wind.