Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 3

Leaving the Yard, Sebastian cut behind the massive stone walls of the House of Lords to where a set of stairs led down to the banks of the Thames. The fog was beginning to lift with the strengthening of the sun; in the clear morning light, the water showed flat and silver.

He didn’t want this again, he thought, pausing at the top of the steps to stare off across the river to where a wherryman worked his oars in slow, rhythmic strokes. Didn’t want to find himself once again sucked into the midst of the kind of tortured emotions that destroyed people’s lives. Murder always seemed to lead to more killing, and Sebastian was tired of killing. Tired of death.

He’d spent last night in the arms of the woman he would make his wife, if only she’d let him. But she wouldn’t let him, and so he had left her bed before the sun rose. He’d just reached his own house on Brook Street when Lovejoy’s constable found him. He rasped his hand across his unshaven face and wished he’d stayed in Kat’s bed.

He heard the magistrate, Sir Henry, come up behind him. “Tell me about the other one, about Barclay Carmichael,” said Sebastian, keeping his gaze on the river.

“His body was also found early in the morning,” said Sir Henry, “hanging upside down from a tree in St. James’s Park. But it was obvious he hadn’t been killed there.”

“You say he had been mutilated, as well?”

“Yes. The arms.” Sir Henry paused at the water’s edge a slight distance away. “He’d been with friends the night before. Left them at White’s and said he was walking home. According to his friends, he was slightly foxed, but not excessively so.”

Sebastian glanced at the magistrate. “That was nearly three months ago. What have you discovered?”

“Very little. No one remembers seeing him after he left White’s.” Sir Henry lifted the collar of his coat against the breeze blowing off the river. “When we found him, Mr. Carmichael’s throat had been slit and his body drained of all blood. The flesh was missing from the arms.”

“Who did the examination of the body?”

“A Dr. Martin, from St. Thomas. I’m afraid he was able to tell us little beyond the obvious.”

“You’ll be ordering a postmortem on Stanton?”

“Of course.”

“You’d do well to send him to Paul Gibson on Tower Hill.” If Dominic Stanton’s body had any secrets to tell, Paul Gibson would find them.

Sir Henry nodded.

Sebastian stared down at the waters of the Thames lapping the algae-covered stones of the steps at their feet. The smells of the river were strong here, the stench of dead fish mingling with the odor of the tanneries on the river’s banks. “You say Stanton was eighteen. How old was Mr. Carmichael? Twenty-six?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Nine years’ difference. I doubt you’ll find the two had much in common.”

“Not have much in common, my lord? But…both were wealthy young aristocratic men from the West End.”

“You think that’s why they were killed?”

“I fear it’s what people will say.”

Sebastian lifted his gaze to the far side of the river, where the bulky outlines of the Barge Houses were just beginning to emerge from the mist. The fortunes of both families were indeed immense, but there were subtle differences. For while the Stantons were one of England’s oldest families, Sir Humphrey Carmichael had been born the simple son of a weaver.

Sir Henry cleared his throat, his voice coming out sounding tight, worried. “May I count on your assistance, my lord?”

Sebastian glanced over at the magistrate. He was a funny little man with a shiny bald head, pinched, unsmiling features, and an almost comically high voice. Painstakingly moral, upright, and fastidious, he was also one of the most sincere and dedicated men Sebastian had ever met.

The urge to say no was strong. But the memory of the dew beading on the dead boy’s fair curls haunted him. And the kind of debt Sebastian owed this earnest little magistrate could never really be repaid.

“I’ll think about it,” said Sebastian.

Sir Henry nodded and turned toward the Yard.

Sebastian’s voice stopped him. “When you found Barclay Carmichael, was there anything in his mouth?”

The magistrate swung back around, his Adam’s apple visibly bobbing as he swallowed. “As a matter of fact, yes. Although we could never determine its significance.”

“What was it?”

The breeze from the river fluttered the hem of the magistrate’s coat. “A blank page torn from a ship’s log. Dated 25 March.”