Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 5

“It’s the wound across his throat that killed him,” said Paul Gibson, tying what looked like a stained butcher’s apron around his waist.

They were old friends, Sebastian and this one-legged Irish surgeon with a scholar’s mind, a healer’s touch, and a secret burning hunger for the sweet relief to be found in poppies. They had met on the battlefields of Europe. Theirs was the friendship of men who’d faced death together, who knew each other’s greatest strengths and private demons. No one in all of England could analyze the dead like Paul Gibson. Sebastian knew it, and he also knew why. The human body was Gibson’s bible; he ministered to its ills and injuries, he studied and taught it, and on dark nights when men with muffled lanterns prowled the churchyards of London, Paul Gibson was known to offer a ready market for what they had to sell.

They were in the small stone building behind Gibson’s surgery near the Tower, where Gibson performed his autopsies and dissections. The mist had long since burned away, revealing a clear, blue-sky morning. Through the open door Sebastian could see the bright golden sunshine of a warm September day, hear the sweet song of a lark and the faint buzzing of bees around the overgrown roses in the yard that stretched between the outbuilding and the surgery itself. But in here the air was close and dank and scented by death.

Sebastian stared down at the naked, ravaged body of Dominic Stanton lying on the thick granite slab before them. Gibson hadn’t yet progressed beyond the preliminaries in his postmortem. But even to Sebastian’s untrained eye, the slice across the boy’s throat looked neat and precise—in sharp contrast to what had been done to his legs.

“I hope for his sake that was the first cut.”

“It would appear so.” Moving awkwardly on his one good leg, Paul Gibson limped around to the other side of the table. He’d lost the lower part of his left leg on a battlefield on the Continent. “The slash was made from left to right. Probably from behind.”

Sebastian looked up at his friend’s lean, dark face. “But there was hardly any blood on the cravat.”

“I suspect it was removed along with the coat, waistcoat, and shirt before his throat was slit. The body was then drained of its blood and dressed again.”

“Jesus. Just like Barclay Carmichael.”

Gibson frowned. “You mean the man who was killed last June?”

“I’m afraid so.” Sebastian studied the body lying stiff and rigid before them. His experiences in the war had taught Sebastian more than he cared to know about the changes the passing hours bring to the remains of the dead. “At about what time would you say Stanton was killed? Around midnight?” The youth appeared to be in the full grip of rigor mortis.

“Probably. Give or take a few hours either way.”

“Any signs of a struggle?”

“A struggle? No. But this is interesting.” Gibson picked up one of the body’s arms. “There are abrasions on his wrists. See? And signs of irritation at the corners of his mouth.”

“He was bound and gagged,” said Sebastian.

“So it would appear.”

Sebastian studied the boy’s well-developed shoulders and tall frame. Dominic Stanton might have been young, but he was still a big, strong lad. It wouldn’t have been easy for one man to overpower him. “Any sign of a head wound?”

“No.”

Sebastian had to force himself to look at what was left of the boy’s legs. “Doesn’t strike me as a particularly professional job,” he said after a moment.

“No. It’s quite clumsy in fact. Done with some sort of cleaver, I’d say. Postmortem, thankfully.”

“Do you know a Dr. Martin, at St. Thomas? According to Lovejoy, he did the autopsy on Barclay Carmichael last June.”

The Irishman’s mouth thinned into a humorless smile. “The man’s a bloody pompous ass, but I’ll try talking to him. See if he noticed anything that didn’t make it into his report.”

The stench in the room was starting to get to Sebastian. He went to stand in the open doorway and draw the clean, fresh air of the day into his lungs.

From behind him, Gibson said, “Sir Henry Lovejoy told me he’s asked for your help. And why. He said you hadn’t agreed.”

“I haven’t.” Sebastian narrowed his eyes against a sun so bright it hurt. “The boy was obviously brought to the Old Palace Yard after being killed and cut up someplace else. Any idea where?”

Gibson turned away to reach for a scalpel. “Ask me tomorrow.”