The old man’s attempt to shield Adkins’ eyes from the image before him proved a dismal failure. As Attendant Grubb fell to the floor, clutching his scrawny chest, the scream of terror was already rising in the pot- boy’s throat.
1
There were times, Matthew Hawkwood reflected wryly, when Chief Magistrate Read displayed a sense of humour that was positively perverse. Staring up at the oak tree and its grisly adornment, he had the distinct feeling this was probably one of them.
He had received the summons to Bow Street an hour earlier.
“There’s a body …” the Chief Magistrate had said, without a trace of irony in his tone. “… in Cripplegate Churchyard.”
The Chief Magistrate was seated at the desk in his office. Head bowed, he was signing papers being passed to him by his bespectacled, round-shouldered clerk, Ezra Twigg. The magistrate’s aquiline face, from what Hawkwood could see of it, remained a picture of neutrality. Which was more than could be said for Ezra Twigg, who looked as if he might be biting his lip in an attempt to stifle laughter.
A fire, recently lit, was crackling merrily in the hearth and the previous night’s chill was at last beginning to retreat from the room.
Papers signed, the Chief Magistrate looked up. “Yes, all right, Hawkwood. I know what you’re thinking. Your expression speaks volumes.” Read glanced sideways at his clerk. “Thank you, Mr Twigg. That will be all.”
The little clerk shuffled the papers into a bundle, the lenses of his spectacles twinkling in the reflected glow of the firelight. That he managed to make it as far as the door without catching Hawkwood’s eye had to be regarded as some kind of miracle.
As his clerk departed, James Read pushed his chair back, lifted the rear flaps of his coat, and stood with his back to the fire. He waited several moments in comfortable silence for the warmth to penetrate before continuing.
“It was discovered this morning by a brace of gravediggers. They alerted the verger, who summoned a constable, who …” The Chief Magistrate waved a hand. “Well, so on and so forth. I’d be obliged if you’d go and take a look. The verger’s name is …” the Chief Magistrate leaned forward and peered at a sheet of paper on his desk: “Lucius Symes. You’ll be dealing with him, as the vicar is indisposed. According to the verger, the poor man’s been suffering from the ague and has been confined to his sickbed for the past few days.”
“Do we know who the dead person is?” Hawkwood asked.
Read shook his head. “Not yet. That is for you to find out.”
Hawkwood frowned. “You think it may be connected to our current investigation?”
The Chief Magistrate pursed his lips. “The circumstances would indicate that might indeed be a possibility.”
A noncommittal answer if ever there was one, Hawkwood thought.
“No preconceptions, Hawkwood. I’ll leave it to you to evaluate the scene.” The magistrate paused. “Though there is one factor of note.”
“What’s that?”
“The cadaver,” James Read said, “would appear to be fresh.”
The oak tree occupied a scrubby corner of the burial ground, a narrow, rectangular patch of land at the southern end of the churchyard, adjacent to Well Street. Autumn had reduced the tree’s foliage to a few resilient rust-brown specks yet, with its broad trunk and thick gnarled branches outlined against the dull, rain-threatening sky like the knotted forearms of some ancient warrior, it was still an imposing presence, standing sentinel over the gravestones that rested crookedly in its shadow. Most of the markers looked to be as old as the tree itself. Few of them remained upright. They looked like rune stones tossed haphazardly across the earth. Centuries of weathering had taken their toll on the carved inscriptions. The majority were faded and pitted with age and barely legible.
At one time, this corner of the cemetery would probably have accommodated the more wealthy members of the parish, but that had changed. Only the poor were buried here now and single plots were in the minority. The graveyard had become a testament to neglect.
And a place of execution.
The corpse had been hoisted into position by a rope around its neck and secured to the trunk of the tree by nails driven through its wrists. It hung in a crude parody of the crucifixion, head twisted to one side, arms raised in abject surrender.
Small wonder, Hawkwood thought, as his eyes took in the macabre tableau, that the gravediggers had taken to their heels.
Their names, he had discovered, were Joseph Hicks and John Burke and they were standing alongside him now, along with the verger of St Giles, a middle-aged man with anxious eyes, which Hawkwood thought, given the circumstances, was hardly surprising.
Hawkwood turned to the two gravediggers. “Has he been touched?”
They stared at him as if he was mad.
Presumably not, Hawkwood thought.
A raucous screech interrupted the stillness of the moment. Hawkwood looked up. A colony of rooks had taken up residence in the graveyard and the birds, angry at the invasion of their territory, were making their objections felt. A dozen or so straggly nests were perched precariously among the upper forks of the tree and their owners were taking a beady-eyed interest in the proceedings below. The evidence suggested that the birds had already begun to exact their revenge. They’d gone for the tastiest morsels first. The corpse’s ragged eye sockets told their own grisly story. A few of the birds, showing less reserve than their companions, had begun to edge back down the branches towards the hanged man’s body in search of fresh pickings. Their sharp beaks could peck and tear flesh with the precision of a rapier.
Hawkwood picked up a dead branch and hurled it at the nearest bird. His aim was off but it was close enough to send the flock into the air in a clamour of indignation.
Hawkwood approached the tree. His first thought was that it would have taken a degree of effort to haul the dead man into place, which indicated there had been more than one person involved in the killing. Either that, or an individual possessed of considerable strength. Hawkwood stepped closer and studied the ground around the base of the trunk, careful where he placed his own feet. The previous night’s rain had turned the ground to mud. But earth was not made paste solely by the passage of rainwater. Other factors, Hawkwood knew, should be taken into consideration.
There were faint marks; indentations too uniform to have been caused by nature. He looked closer. The depression took shape: the outline of a heel. He circled the base of the oak, eyes probing. There were more signs: leaves and twigs, broken and pressed into the soil by a weight from above. They told him there had definitely been more than one man. He paused suddenly and squatted down, mindful to avoid treading on the hem of his riding coat.
It was a complete impression, toe and heel, another indication that at least one of Hawkwood’s suspicions had been proved correct. Hawkwood was an inch under six feet in height. He placed the base of his own boot next to the spoor and saw with some satisfaction that his own foot was smaller. The depth of the indentation was also impressive.
Hawkwood glanced up. He found that he was standing on the opposite side of the tree to the body. The first thing that caught his attention was the rope. It was dangling from the fork in the trunk, its end grazing the fallen leaves below. The noose was still secured around the neck of the deceased.
In his mind’s eye, Hawkwood re-enacted the scene and looked at the ground again, casting his eyes back and to the side. There was another footprint, he saw, slightly off-centre from the first. It had been made by someone planting his feet firmly, digging in his heel, taking the strain and pulling on the rope. The indication was that he was a big man, a strong man. There were no other prints in the immediate vicinity. The hangman’s companions would have been on the other side of the tree, hammering in the nails.
Hawkwood stood and retraced his steps.
He looked up at the victim then turned to the gravediggers.
