Crowther 02 - Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  The body’s head lolled to one side and the mouth drained the dirty water of the Thames onto the floor of the scull.

  In other parts of London one could breathe sweeter air. On Bruton Street in Mayfair, a lady paused as her maid plied the door knocker of one of the graceful buildings at the Berkeley Square end of the street, and touching her high and powdered hair, which so bore down on her neck she was rarely free of a mild headache, she noticed a man on the opposite side of the street. He was consulting a pocket watch and frowning a little. She marked the cut of his plum-colored coat and thought it gentleman-like, if rather plain; and saw the man who wore it was not unpleasing, though the dustings of youth had been mostly knocked off him. He had a slightly Roman look to his face, long-nosed and rather serious, but nothing in his dress or bearing marked him out as anything remarkable.

  Turning away, she began to think of the gossip she was about to trade with the lady of the house outside which she waited, what she would be willing to reveal, and what keep secret. It might have surprised her to learn that the gentleman whom she had been observing was thinking also of the trading and flow of information, the commerce and management of knowledge. The gentleman was a spy, and a controller of spies. He had ears and eyes in every court in Europe and he collected their whisperings and spun it into the gold of intelligence—at least, that was his intent. Her friend’s footman opened the door to her, and the lady never thought of the idle gentleman again.

  Mr. Palmer, the gentleman who had been under observation, glanced over his shoulder as he heard one of the street doors open and close again behind him, then returned to contemplation of his pocket watch. It still wanted a few minutes to eleven o’clock. That was the hour he had suggested in his note that he would call on Mrs. Westerman and Mr. Crowther, that strange pair of companions recently celebrated for their role in bringing justice to some unfortunates in Sussex, and now, due to the indisposition of Mrs. Westerman’s husband, resident in London. He did not wish to be early and so looked about him.

  Berkeley Square. Some of the richest families in the country made their homes here in the Season, it being near enough the business and pleasure of the town but removed enough to offer some respite from the stink and the squalor. The air was certainly cleaner here than in the city, and the streets quieter than around his offices at the Admiralty in Whitehall. The houses were the work of various architects of the century, but though a number of hands had been employed there was among the buildings a slightly smug sense of agreement as to the fundamentals of tasteful design. Tall narrow windows peered with a certain disdain over the central gardens; the stone steps to their cellars were sheltered with black iron railings that flowered into iron brackets. The lamps they held aloft were all extinguished now, but when the gloom of a November evening stole up again from the river tonight, slippered footmen in powder and livery would emerge to light them till they decorated the square like marsh lights, each catching the glitter of gold braid in their little defensive pools against the dark. Mr. Palmer thought of those things he had lately learned, and saw himself suddenly as a lost traveler on hostile ground, chasing glimmers, and unable to say if they would lead him to greater security—or into danger.

  From his position on the pavement, Palmer could see a group of children at play in the central gardens. Two boys, of about seven he would guess, were neatly tacking up one of the lawns under the leafless trees toward a young girl and a nursemaid with a small child in her arms. They were a well-made-looking group. The boys both appeared sturdy and healthy, their coats streaks of blue and brown against the grass. The girl, still not at her full height, though older than the boys, wore a black silk mantle over a gown of blue. She picked at its edges as she walked briskly by her nurse.

  “Thornleigh, engage the enemy!” shouted the boy in the lead, the darker of the two.

  “Yes, sir, Captain Westerman, sir,” his blond companion replied.

  Mr. Palmer watched their maneuvers for a moment with a smile. So this was Captain Westerman’s son and the young Earl of Sussex, with whom the Westerman family were staying in London. He wondered what adventures they were undertaking. Perhaps they were replaying Captain Westerman’s capture of the French warship, the Marquis de La Fayette in the spring. It had been a valuable prize, since the ship was laden with goods bound for the rebels of the American Colonies from their continental allies, and worth not less than three hundred thousand pounds. It was also the last such victory the captain would enjoy in his remarkable career. An accident at sea during the repairs to his ship had left James Westerman badly injured. It had been the most appalling piece of luck, and now Westerman had returned home with his brains so shaken up, it was found after some weeks that he was not fit to live with his family but instead must reside under the care of a mad-doctor in Highgate. He was a great loss. The threat to England’s supremacy on the seas had never been so great, and the Navy felt the lack of such a competent commander most keenly.

  “Stephen!” the young lady called. “If you launch a broadside at baby Anne and myself just when she is sleeping, I shall have you flogged at the capstan and—oh, what is the phrase . . .”

  The fairer boy paused, then shouted, “Keelhauled!”

  Lady Susan grinned happily. “Indeed. Keelhauled!”

  The darker boy appeared to subtly alter his course, as if the shrubberies to the north of the gardens had always been his intent, remarking only, “It’s just the Dutch do that, actually,” and kicking up the damp late-autumn leaves with his heels.

  Palmer smiled at the young lady’s management of the boys before letting his thoughts drift back to the mother of the prudent warrior. He had met the captain’s redheaded wife in the past, and on the first occasion, some years ago, he had found her a good-humored and intelligent woman, and loyal consort. He had seen her again after her husband’s return to England, and on official business. Palmer had received information that a man taken captive on Westerman’s ship, who had later died from his wounds, might have been possessed of certain knowledge Mr. Palmer wished very much to have. He had found Mrs. Westerman as helpful as the grief and confusion caused by her husband’s injury would allow. James Westerman himself seemed drunk, childlike, petulant, but Palmer had left their orderly and apparently thriving estate in Sussex thinking well of the captain’s wife and family, and grieving for them.

  Mr. Palmer’s most recent meeting with Mrs. Harriet Westerman had been in London, and extremely unpleasant. She had appeared at the Admiralty without an appointment and had taken him to task, in vehement tones and in public. She had accused him of harassing her sick husband. It had been an uncomfortable situation and Mr. Palmer had his profession’s hatred of scenes. Yet now he sought her out.

  Examining his pocket watch again, he watched the minute hand finally creep to the head of the hour. Of her companion, Mr. Crowther, he had no personal knowledge, so knew only what the world knew: that the man was known for his expertise on the marks left on a body by violence; known for his wealth and eccentricity; known for having a father murdered and brother hanged for the killing, for having refused his rightful title and seat in the Lords to instead sell his estate and study the science of anatomy in obscurity, till Mrs. Westerman plucked him free and made him help her save the lives and fortunes of young Lord Sussex and his sister. Mr. Palmer had read the pamphlets and listened to the gossip and drawn his own conclusions.

  He stepped forward.

  2

  Jocasta Bligh pumped the handle and filled her pail in the center of Arnold’s Yard. Her arms were strong and she took some pleasure in the work, even on a morning as gray as this, twitching with the winter to come. As the water reached the brim of her bucket she became aware of a presence over her shoulder, a hopeful shadow. Without turning, she spoke.

  “Give us it here, Hopps.” Then, putting her own bucket to one side, she took another from the old man who had arrived behind her. He was a shrunken, wasted-looking thing, his teeth all memory and wearing hardly more than
rags. “Why don’t you get a girl in to do for you mornings, Hopps?” she said, working the pump again. “I’d swear you have the blunt to do it, what with the rent we pays you, and I know you ain’t spending it all on your fancy clothes.”

  Hopps looked down at his ragged linen and laughed a laugh that sounded like rocks dragged over gravel. His breath hit the back of her neck with the smell of rotted onions. “Oh, Mrs. Bligh! Why waste the money on some young thing, when you have strong arms still. Gives a man pleasure, it do, to see you working that thing!”

  She turned and passed over the bucket a little quick so he panted a bit as he took the weight.

  “Most obliged, madam,” he said, looking a little sorry. “But are you not singing today? It is how I know that the day has begun when I hear the pump going and you crooning some tune from the north. I should have thought a stranger was in the yard till I looked through the window and saw your skirts.”

  Jocasta was famous around the yard for many things, among them her patchwork skirts, voluminous, multicolored, constantly reworked and visible a dozen yards off. No one could say if she had many or few; they changed little by little like the foliage on the pear tree that hung over the pump. You could hardly say they changed one day to the next, till a moment came and you looked and saw gold where all had been green before.

  Crossing her broad arms over her chest, the woman looked down at her dried-up wisp of a landlord.

  “Here I am though, and as for the singing, we all have dreams from time to time that leave us quiet in the morning.”

  “Every day I have them, Mrs. Bligh. And always worse to come when I wake.”

  Jocasta made no reply, but took up her own pail and hauled it back to her own door, shoving it open with her thigh and growling at the little rust-colored terrier that yapped about her. Every morning she fetched water from the pump in Arnold’s Yard for boiling or washing, and every morning it was the same. Boyo thought it was a game and jumped at the swing bucket and bounced around her ankles and skirts till the water splashed and her stockings were soaked. There, now the step into the hallway was wet and she could hear Hopps’s laugh from the courtyard, enjoying the show.

  “Dog, will you settle?”

  She kicked the door to, got the pail to its place and dipped in a jug to fill the kettle. Her thick knees clicked like knitting needles and as the enamel tapped the wooden side of the bucket she sat back her bulk on her heels. Time flowed around her like water; some more years would pass and then she too would struggle to fetch her water. The dream she’d dreamed in the night whispered through her head and away; she tilted her head as if to pour it out of her mind and into the light. It was The Chariot, or at least something like it—it had run past her or run her over, or had she been swung up inside it to ride alongside a demon in a mask?

  Boyo barked, and the sound swept the dream pictures from her.

  “All right, all right, I know! The tea’s not ready and neither of us fed and there will be a dozen people to tell the future to before we can be just ourselves again.”

  She got the kettle on the fire, then twisted around with a grunt to where her pack of picture cards sat on her table. She spread them flat, let her fingers hover over them a moment and drew one out. The Chariot it was. The prince driving it, spear in one hand and the other on his hip, the golden horses surging on below.

  “Trials coming then, are they, Boyo?” Jocasta said and rubbed her chin, then clambered heavily to her feet. The dog cocked its head on one side. “Same as every day in a dirty town then.” She looked around her room. Her walls felt thin all of a sudden, and the fire small. If The Chariot did come, how much of its turmoil would she stand before her sanctuary was all crumpled to nothing and she herself was back out in the gutter? Well, so turns the wheel. Let The Chariot come, for now she was warm again and the kettle was beginning to sing. “So let’s see what business we can make of living today, shall we?”

  The cards waited on the rough little table for their first visitors. Mrs. Jocasta Bligh earned her bread plucking truth out of them with a patient hand, and a frown on her heavy face.

  3

  “Let me understand you correctly, Mr. Palmer. You wish us to go and examine a corpse?”

  “Yes, madam.” Mr. Palmer had decided that a character such as Mrs. Westerman was best approached with a mix of respect and hesitation. He had allowed himself to stumble over his words a little as he arrived. The important consideration was that Mrs. Westerman should feel she was being humbly asked for help; that he was a supplicant, not that she was all but being given an order by a servant of her king. He should be careful to avoid waking her temper again. To Mr. Crowther he hoped to offer a puzzle and see if flattery might draw him into usefulness.

  Placing his teacup on the side table, Mr. Palmer cleared his throat. The clock on the mantel of the drawing room in 24 Berkeley Square seemed very loud. The space was lit by three high windows looking out on to the Square, and could have easily contained a party of thirty. Small groups of gilded chairs and settees were scattered around it at discreet distances, the walls were decorated with classical, pastoral scenes and molded garlands, of flowers and bows; large porcelain jars, richly patterned, stood sentinel in every available nook like fat footmen. There was a great deal of gilt in the scheme. Mr. Palmer conjectured that Mr. Owen Graves, a young gentleman plucked from obscurity by the convulsions of the House of Thornleigh, and thrust from scribbler to guardian of one of the great fortunes of the nation, had probably bought the house furnished, and possibly in haste.

  In dress and demeanor Mr. Palmer’s hosts formed a distinct contrast to the room in which they sat. Mr. Crowther’s thin figure was dressed in black and he could have passed for a parson. There were some stains, possibly chemical, around his cuffs, though otherwise his person was neat and gentlemanlike, though his manner was dry enough to be offputting. Mrs. Westerman was dressed like a countrywoman—a rich and certainly handsome countrywoman, no doubt—but she was not polished and powdered to the degree usually seen in Town. She looked a great deal older than when Mr. Palmer had first seen her; in her face and manner there was a weariness, a brittle quality. The peculiar sickness of her husband had no doubt caused a strain. She could not be above five and thirty, much his own age, and he knew he was still regarded by some in the Admiralty as a young man. Mr. Palmer saw the morning’s newspaper folded on the settee, a pile of correspondence on the writing table at the far end of the room. The pair had been camping out in a distant corner of all this grandeur, waiting for him.

  “Perhaps it would be better if I explained matters from the beginning.”

  Mrs. Westerman tilted her head to one side, examining him as if he were an optical illusion to be squinted at. “That might be best, sir.” Her tone was somewhat clipped.

  Mr. Palmer began. “I have already spoken to you, madam, something of these matters. I shall repeat the story for Mr. Crowther’s benefit and so bring myself to the reason for my visit and my request for your assistance. If that is acceptable.” He turned his head toward Mr. Crowther’s narrow profile. The man did not look up from his contemplation of his fingernails. “We heard this spring that certain gentlemen of importance in the French Court were apparently crowing over some new master of intelligence they had recruited and expected to have in place in London shortly. Though we had no particulars.” He paused. “The war with the American Rebels does not go well.”

  Mr. Crowther glanced up at that, with a slight tilt to his eyebrows as if to say, “I did not need a Mr. Palmer to tell me that.”

  Palmer glanced at the newspaper on the gilded couch and cleared his throat again. The government and the Admiralty were being criticized at every point, for being either too slow or too foolhardy—both with equal vigor. The brief patriotic fervor that had flared when France made treaty with the Americans had died away. The country was sick with a war fought on the other side of the world and with people she believed to be her kin. The Navy struggled to protect trade, Spanish flag
s were flaunted in the Channel, and every piece of information that Palmer could not prevent slipping to the French was like a musket shot against his king. He was still young enough to feel those blows, and drive himself to greater efforts, more ingenious methods, stranger allies in his attempts to stem the flow. If the French received the intelligence they hoped from this new servant in London, it would be worth more to them than a dozen ships of the line. He thought of England as a body bleeding vital knowledge of her strategies, struggles and capacities into the waters around her coast. Better organization of that flow could make the wounds gout blood. He must do what he could to put pressure on the injury, sew up the tear. He watched Crowther’s long fingers.

  “I believe the captain found out something of that . . .” Palmer lifted his hand to try and conjure a term from the air “. . . spymaster our European enemies wish to install as he interrogated the individual from the French vessel he captured in May.”

  Crowther looked at him down his long nose and said simply, “Why?”

  Any question was an indication of interest, surely? Palmer seized on it and turned to Crowther, speaking quickly. “You know, perhaps, sir, that the ship was laden with supplies for the American Rebels, and this man was not one of the naval officers. I believe his work was intelligence. Captain Westerman indicated as much to his officers after his interrogation of this individual and before his accident. He also made some expression of anger about what he referred to as ‘traitorous scum in every corner imaginable.’ That they stained every beauty. Though what he meant by that, we cannot know.”