Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 6

Sebastian was crossing Whitehall, headed toward St. James’s Park and the site where the first victim’s body had been found, when he heard an imperious voice call, “Devlin.”

He turned to find Alfred, Lord Stanton striding toward him. A haughty-looking man in his late forties, Stanton had the broad shoulders and substantial height of his son. But when Sebastian looked into the Baron’s brown eyes and bony, sun-darkened features, he found himself thinking that the boy, Dominic, must have taken his fair coloring and full cheeks from his mother.

“I understand you’re responsible for my son ending up in the hands of some common Irish surgeon.”

Sebastian stood and let the Baron walk up to him. “It’s within the magistrate’s power to refer a murder victim’s body for a postmortem.”

“Bloody hell. This is my son we’re talking about. My son. Not some back-alley whore to be handed over to a bog Irish nobody.”

Sebastian stared off beyond the Guards toward the park and tried to make allowances for the anguish of a father who’d just lost a son in one of the worst ways imaginable. Although from the sounds of things, it wasn’t the postmortem Stanton was objecting to as much as the social status of the surgeon conducting it.

“Paul Gibson is the best student of anatomy and death in London. If anyone can help discover who killed your son, it’s he.”

Stanton’s jaw jutted out. “And what business is it of yours, who killed my son?”

There were those, Sebastian knew, who still believed him guilty of the terrible rapes and murders that had frightened London the previous winter. It was always possible that Lord Stanton was one of that number, although Sebastian doubted it.

“Do you know if your son had any enemies?” he asked, as much to see the man’s reaction as anything. “Someone who might wish him harm?”

Stanton’s face darkened with anger. Sebastian could see a father’s grief in the man’s slackened facial muscles and bruised eyes. But there was something else there, too. Something that looked very much like fear.

Stanton poked the air between them with one meaty finger. “You stay out of this, you hear? It’s no affair of yours. None!”

Sebastian watched the big man stride away toward the Privy Gardens, the September sun golden on his broad shoulders.

“Well, that was interesting,” said Sebastian.

He followed the canal in St. James’s Park to a slight rise with a single black mulberry tree, where on a warm summer’s morning three months before the rising sun had shed its rays on another butchered young man.

Barclay Carmichael had been found with his ankles lashed together by a stout rope thrown over an arching branch of the mulberry. Hoisted high, his mangled arms dangling toward the grass, he’d been found at first light. Just like Dominic Stanton.

Two wealthy young men, thought Sebastian, one eighteen, the other seven-and-twenty. One the son of a powerful banker, the other the scion of one of England’s oldest families. Both bodies butchered and left as if on display in very public spaces.

Standing on the rise, Sebastian turned in a slow circle. From here he could see the Palace of St. James’s and the Houses of Parliament, the Old Admiralty Building and the Horse Guards Parade.

Why here? he wondered. And then he thought, Where next?

He found Sir Henry Lovejoy descending the steps of the Public Office on Queen Square. At the sight of Sebastian, the magistrate paused and made to swing around. “My lord. Please, come in.”

“No. I won’t keep you,” said Sebastian. “I just had a few questions I wanted to ask. I take it you’ve had the opportunity to speak with Lord Stanton?”

An indefinable quiver passed over Sir Henry’s normally bland features. “Yes. Unfortunately, his lordship was rather upset by the choice of surgeon for his son’s postmortem.”

“As well as by my possible involvement in the investigation into the circumstances of his death, I gather?”

Sir Henry blinked. “As a matter of fact, yes. How did you know?”

Sebastian simply shook his head. “Where does his lordship say his son spent last night?”

“It seems the boy made one of a party of friends who rode down to Merton Abbey for yesterday’s prizefight.”

Bare-knuckle boxing was illegal and could, technically, be stopped by the magistrates, which is why the matches were typically held several hours’ ride from London. But the match between the Champion and his Scottish challenger, McGregor, had been the subject of such intense speculation there couldn’t be a magistrate in the area who hadn’t been aware of it.

“They set out from London for Merton Abbey as a group, just before eleven yesterday morning,” Sir Henry was saying.

“So what happened?”

“Mr. Stanton was expected home for a dinner party his mother was giving. He never arrived.” Sir Henry paused. “Lady Stanton is said to be hysterical.”

The bells of Westminster Abbey began to chime the hour, the rich notes floating out over the city. “Do you have the names of these friends?”

“Yes. Young Lord Burlington, Sir Miles Jefferies’s son Davis, and a Charlie McDermott. At the moment they’re gathered at a pub in Fleet Street. I was just on my way there to interview them.”

Sebastian squinted against the bright September sun. “Let me approach them first.”

He was aware of Sir Henry studying him. “I didn’t think you were interested in the case, my lord.”

Sebastian gave a grim smile and turned away. “I’ve changed my mind.”