who were openly shivering now as the wind increased. There were three of them: a constable, a sergeant and the third whom Pitt took to be the police surgeon.
‘Morning, sir,’ the sergeant said smartly. ‘Sorry to get you all the way up here so early, but I think this one might be yours.’
‘We’ll see.’ Pitt refused to commit himself. He did not want the case any more than the sergeant did. Even if the body was Kitty Ryder’s, her death probably had nothing whatever to do with Dudley Kynaston, but the danger of scandal was there, the pressure, the public interest, the possibility of injustice.
‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant agreed, the relief not disappearing a whit from his face. He indicated the older man, who was shorter than Pitt and slightly built, his brown hair liberally sprinkled with grey. ‘This is Dr Whistler,’ he introduced him. He did not bother to explain who Pitt was. Presumably that had been done before he arrived.
Whistler inclined his head. ‘Morning, Commander. Nasty one, I’m afraid.’ There was a rough edge to his voice from perhaps more than the wretched morning, and an unmistakable pity in his face. He stepped back as he spoke, so Pitt could see behind him a rough cloth covering the body they had found.
Pitt took a deep breath of the air, cold and clean, then he bent to remove the cloth. In summer there would have been a smell, but the wind and the ice had kept it at bay. The body had been severely mutilated. Most of the face was so damaged as to be unrecognisable: the nose split, the lips removed as if by a knife. The eyes themselves were gone, presumably taken by scavenging animals. Only the arch of the brow was left to give an idea of their shape. The flesh was stripped from the cheeks, but the jawbone and teeth were intact. One could only imagine how her smile might have been.
Pitt looked at the rest of her body. She was quite tall, almost Charlotte’s height, and handsomely built, with a generous bosom, slender waist, long legs. Her clothes had protected most of her from the ravages of animals, and the normal decay had not yet reached the stage of disintegration. Pitt forced himself to look at her hair. It was wet and matted from exposure to the elements, but it was still possible to see that when one took the pins out it would fall at least half-way down her back, and that once dry it would be thick and of a deep chestnut colour.
Was it Kitty Ryder? Probably. They had said she was tall, handsomely built, and had beautiful hair, a shade of auburn like that found on the area steps, with the blood and glass.
He looked back at the surgeon. ‘Did you find anything to indicate how she died?’ he asked.
Whistler shook his head. ‘Not for certain. I think there are some broken bones, but I’ll have to get her back to the morgue to remove her clothes and look at her much more carefully. Nothing obvious. No bullets, no stab wounds that I can see. She wasn’t strangled and there’s no visible damage to the skull.’
‘Anything to identify her?’ Pitt asked a little sharply. He wanted it not to be Kitty Ryder. He would be very relieved if the body had no connection to the Kynaston house, except a reasonable proximity. More than that, he wanted it to be a woman he knew nothing about, even though they would still have to learn. Nobody should die alone and anonymously, as if they did not matter. He would just prefer it to be a regular police job.
‘Possibly,’ Whistler said, meeting Pitt’s eyes. ‘A very handsome gold fob watch. I looked at it carefully. Unusual and quite old, I think. Not hers, that’s for sure. It’s very definitely a man’s.’
‘Stolen?’ Pitt asked unhappily.
‘I should think so. Most likely recently, or she wouldn’t be carrying it around with her.’
‘Anything else?’
Whistler pursed his lips. ‘A handkerchief with flowers and initials embroidered on it, and a key. Looks like the sort of thing that would open a cupboard. Too small to be a door key. Might be a desk, or even a drawer, although not many drawers have separate keys.’ He looked across at the sergeant. ‘I gave it all to him. I’m afraid that’s it, for the meantime.’
Pitt looked back at the body again. ‘Did animals do that to her, or was it deliberate?’
‘It was deliberate,’ Whistler replied. ‘A knife rather than teeth. I’ll know more about it when I look at her more closely, and not by the light of a bulls’-eye lantern when I’m freezing up here on the edge of a damn gravel pit at the crack of dawn. It looks like the bloody end of the world up here!’
Pitt nodded without answering. He turned to the sergeant, holding his hand out, palm up.
The sergeant gave him the small square of white embroidered cambric and a domestic key about an inch and three-quarters long, and the old and very lovely gold watch.
Pitt met his eyes, questioning.
‘Don’t know, sir. There’s a few gentlemen as could have a watch like this. If someone picked his pocket he would have complained, depending where he was at the time, if you get my meaning?’
‘I do,’ Pitt answered.
‘Or ’e could ’ave given it ’er, as payment for services,’ the sergeant added.
Pitt gave him a bleak look. ‘It’s worth a year’s salary for a lady’s maid,’ he said, looking again at the watch. ‘What about the handkerchief?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘No ideas yet, sir. The initial on the handkerchief is an “R”. Seeing as how Mrs Kynaston’s name begins with an “R”, I thought I should leave that to you.’
‘There are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet, Sergeant,’ Pitt pointed out. ‘There must be scores of names beginning with “R”. If it had been Q, or X, that might have narrowed it down a bit. Even a Y, or Z.’
‘That was exactly what I was thinking, Commander,’ the sergeant replied. ‘And I’m sure Mr Kynaston would have told me so, with some disfavour, if I had started out by asking if this was his wife’s handkerchief.’ Again he seemed about to add something more, and then changed his mind. Instead he turned to his own constable, standing a couple of yards away with his collar turned up and his back to the wind. ‘I expect the commander’ll want you to stay until his own man gets here — more than Mr Stoker, that is. So I’d better get back to the station.’ He gave Pitt a bleak smile. ‘That suit you, sir?’
‘What happened to the man who found her?’ Pitt asked, turning beside the sergeant and starting to walk back over the rutted ground towards the road.
‘Got his statement, written and signed, then sent him on his way. Poor devil were a bit shaken up, but he’s got his living to earn just the same,’ the sergeant replied.
‘Do you know him?’ Pitt said a trifle sharply.
‘Yes, sir. Zeb Smith.’
‘But you know him?’ Pitt repeated.
‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant increased his pace. ‘Zebediah Smith, Hyde Vale Cottages, about a mile or so over that way.’ He pointed north, towards Greenwich port, and the river. ‘Had a bit too much to drink a couple of times — must be a few years ago now. Then he got married and settled down.’
‘Zebediah …’ Pitt murmured, more to himself than to the sergeant.
‘Yes, sir. Religious mother. We know where to find him, if we need him again. Frankly, sir, ferrymen are good witnesses. Don’t want to get the reputation for giving them a hard time for no reason.’
‘Understood,’ Pitt acknowledged. ‘Did Mr Smith tell you anything useful? Does he walk up here often? When was the last time? Did he see anyone else up here this morning? Any sign of someone? A figure in the distance, footprints? There’s enough mud and ice to show them. What about his dog? How did it react?’
The sergeant smiled, a tight, satisfied expression. ‘Not a lot, sir. Except that he came up here yesterday morning as usual, and the body wasn’t here then. Even if he hadn’t seen it himself, his dog would. Good animal. Good ratter, apparently. Didn’t see anyone else. I asked him that several times.’ He stepped over a ridge of tussock grass and Pitt followed. ‘Not a soul,’ he went on. ‘No footprints as make any sense. Looks like there’s been an army up here, but not recently. Weather does that. No more to see a couple of hours ago than there is now.’ He looked down at the ground with a slight curl of his lip. ‘Useless,’ he added, regarding the cracked, rutted earth, as they came closer to the road, some of it was still frozen, more swimming in mud. ‘Anything could have passed that way.’
Pitt was obliged to agree with him. ‘And the dog?’ he asked again.
‘Didn’t see anyone else,’ the sergeant said. ‘Didn’t bark. Didn’t want to chase anything. Just found the body, an’ howled!’
Pitt had a sudden vision of the dog throwing its head back and letting out a long wail of despair as it came across sudden death in the grey fog before dawn, shivering and alone amid the dripping weed heads and the few shadowy, skeletal trees.
‘Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll keep you informed as I may have to hand the case back to you.’
‘Ah … yes … sir,’ the sergeant said awkwardly.
