Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘I am not certain that is quite what happened, Mr Bartholomew. Mrs Westerman,’ Crowther said, ‘what do you think?’

  She considered for a while. She had served long enough with her husband to see men flogged, tied upright to the grating while the drum beat and the company looked on. Part of the theatre of discipline. She remembered too the curate laid out at Crowther’s feet, arms above his head. She imagined Crowther with a whip in his hand rather than the familiar cane.

  ‘No, I think not.’

  ‘How can you know?’ Bartholomew asked, and stopped pulling on his buttons for a moment.

  ‘The angle and placing of the strike.’ And when he continued to look puzzled, she went on: ‘Turn your back to me,’ and warily, he did so. ‘If you were struck now from behind, by someone making use of a whip in their right hand, the blow would catch your shoulder here,’ she placed her hand on his right shoulder and he flinched, ‘then come down on this slope.’ With the side of her hand she pressed against his back showing the angle she meant, the angle that matched the wound on Trimnell’s back. ‘If you were to lie face down on the ground, Mr Bartholomew, I would have to stand on the small of your back to deliver that blow. Wounds struck from the side would be longer, marked more across the body, their focus most likely on the centre of the back. Any higher wound would probably start in the middle of the shoulder-blade rather than across the shoulder.’

  The coroner turned to look at her, intrigued but slightly repulsed. She smiled tightly at him.

  Crowther was moving the lamp up and down the body again. He examined the scalp and the base of the neck, the inner thighs – then stepped back and set the lamp down with a sigh. ‘Well, I can give you my thoughts at this stage, Bartholomew. If Mrs Westerman disagrees, she may contradict me. Trimnell was hit by a fist several times in the belly. The bruises developed. Then he was hit with a whip once, when standing. His assailant began to stake him out as if for a more concerted attack, but abandoned the attempt and did not use the whip again.’

  The coroner cleared his throat. ‘What is your conclusion?’

  ‘That it seems a rather curious way to behave,’ Crowther said, looking up at him blankly.

  ‘But a whip-strike is not fatal. How did he die?’

  ‘I cannot say as yet.’

  Mr Bartholomew looked frustrated. There was a sound and they turned to see the pink-faced canon hovering in the doorway. He was trying not to stare at the naked corpse. ‘Mr Bartholomew, a word.’

  Bartholomew bowed and followed him out into the daylight.

  The mask had been left for them in a neat linen parcel by the corpse’s feet, like the grave goods of a warrior. Harriet unwrapped it and held it in her gloved hands, looking into the empty eyes. The metal reflected the lamplight. It was the lack of a mouth, she thought, that made it so unnerving. Such a complete silence was implied. You shall be voiceless. Whoever put this on another man did so because he could rip out another man’s vocal cords without killing him. The mask had held the cold of the night and she felt it suck away the heat of her fingers as she turned it over. The shadows pooled and flowed from it like water. The piece under the chin was rather jagged, unfinished. Was that part of its purpose? To struggle in it would push the soft parts of the throat against those sharp edges. She felt disgust sweep through her bones like a spring tide.

  While Crowther continued his examination of the body, she placed the mask over her own face, felt it push her mouth closed with the uncomfortable pressure of the plate under her chin. The world narrowed, she could see only what was directly in front of her – the candles, Crowther and the body. She felt her heart beginning to kick and her breathing deepen. Crowther paused in his examination of the body for a moment to look at her, and she lifted the mask away from her face and set it down again, feeling shamed.

  His expression changed. He walked up to her and with one hand lifted her chin while he raised the lantern in the other. She felt his dry fingers push her head back a little way. ‘Don’t move, my dear,’ he said, then set the lantern down and pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and with it wiped the place at the top of her throat where the mask had pressed. He released her and put the handkerchief into her hand. She looked down at it. A rusty red stain was worked into the fabric. She felt a lurch of shock, turned the fabric to a clean space and rubbed hard at her throat while Crowther picked up the mask.

  ‘Certainly blood, I think, and in some quantity,’ he said, ‘though the skin on Mr Trimnell’s neck is unbroken. Interesting.’ He ran his finger high under the corpse’s throat. ‘Perhaps whoever attached it to him was unaware it had that extra bite to it and injured themselves. There is something here though, but the lividity makes it difficult to see.’ He looked up at her to ensure that she followed and sighed. ‘The blood is quite gone, Mrs Westerman. Do stop that or you will bruise yourself, and all and sundry will start to believe I have been throttling you.’ He put his hand out and reluctantly she returned his handkerchief to him. ‘The cut must have been quite deep to have bled so much. Whoever the mask bit, we should be able to see the wound.’

  She swallowed and tried to speak again. ‘Might he have been throttled, Crowther?’

  He opened one of the corpse’s eyes. Harriet could not help noticing it had the same greenish tint as her own, but this one was as dead as glass. ‘The eyes are clear. In cases of suffocation or strangulation, one normally expects to see the blood vessels damaged.’ He stepped back slightly. ‘Now, Mrs Westerman, what of the mystery of his hands and wrists?’

  She took one of Trimnell’s hands in her own and turned it as much as the slow stiffening of the body would allow. ‘They are a mystery. Clean and unmarked. He did not bruise his knuckles while fighting back; did not pull against the ties around his wrists and ankles. Crowther, are you quite sure there is no serious head wound?’ He did not reply, but she felt the weight of his look. ‘My apologies. If he were held, perhaps?’ She thought of the bodies she had seen. ‘Might he have been drugged?’

  Crowther was now leaning against one of the wooden supports. ‘It is a possibility,’ he agreed. ‘We know there are such drugs in existence, but we also know that their traces are hard to find.’

  She nodded. ‘But fists and a whip … they suggest a brute rage to me. A man who uses a drug is, I think, more controlled.’

  ‘Perhaps. I am troubled still that there are no signs that he put up a defence. We fight death as far as we are able. It is our animal nature. He was standing when he was struck in the belly, just as he was for the whip-strike, and I cannot see how he could have been securely held without some marks being left.’

  Harriet had withdrawn a little way and crossed her arms, an attitude of protection. ‘But it is possible. He could have been held by the arms as the blows were struck. A mob?’

  Crowther had once seen a man set on by a mob, and remembered quite clearly the sounds of fists hitting flesh. ‘I doubt it. They would have hit everywhere around the body, I would think, and once begun they would not have stopped before he was dead. This is one man, punching right and left like a boxer, a fighting man. And no, if he were held upright while those blows were delivered, there should be bruises on the upper arm. Think on that wound again, Mrs Westerman. He must have been standing still when it was delivered, and anyone holding him would have been caught by the whip-strike also.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not understand it.’

  Mr Bartholomew reappeared in the doorway. ‘Mrs Trimnell was collected from her rooms early this morning by her father, Mr Sawbridge. The maid had no information as to where she might have gone.’

  ‘Mr Sawbridge, who lives above the Jamaica Coffee House?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Yes, that is her father.’

  ‘Mr Sanden told us he had gone to the balloon-raising at the Barbican with Sir Charles Jennings. No doubt Mrs Trimnell is one of the party.’

  Bartholomew put his hand to his cravat. ‘She is with Sir Charles? Then I should go myself to inform him – that is to say
, to inform Mrs Trimnell.’

  ‘I shall drive you there if you wish it. My groom and chaise are waiting for me,’ Harriet said and Mr Bartholomew bowed.

  Crowther was still examining the corpse. ‘It is a warm day. It would be best if I begin my examination at once – with your permission, Mr Bartholomew.’

  ‘Yes – that is …’

  ‘Do not fear. The body will be in a proper state to be viewed by the jury or the widow when I am done.’

  Harriet smoothed her gloves. ‘You do not wish to take the chance to see the balloon being raised, Crowther? You should applaud the pursuit of knowledge. Were you not very impressed when Mr Blanchard managed to cross the Channel in it, in January? It is his machine that is being raised this morning.’

  ‘As for knowledge, I already had reliable information as to where France is, and I was more impressed by his luck than his skill.’

  Harriet laughed softly, then caught the look of shock in Mr Bartholomew’s eye.

  ‘Come, sir. Let us leave Mr Crowther to his work.’

  I.8

  FRANCIS FOUND HE COULD not settle to his work. He had caught a glimpse of St Paul’s on his way back from Mrs Smith’s establishment in Paternoster Row, the great white heft of it dominating the city and making them all low. The thought of the man in the mask troubled him. Francis had not spent long in Jamaica, not quite a year, so it was unlikely he would know the dead man; however, his ghost still seemed to hover close by. Today, Francis seemed to notice more black faces in the crowd, seemed to feel them noticing him. It was as if they were all asking each other, who among them might have done this? His position as a respectable man of business in London felt obscurely threatened. He was in need of distraction. Walter was still flirting in a suitably avuncular fashion with Miss Thornleigh. The boy, Eustache, was reading a novel he had taken down from the shelves. Francis noticed he was stroking the page as he read as if to comfort it. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and the child looked up as if afraid he had done something wrong. ‘You like books, do you?’ Francis asked, and when the boy nodded, ‘Would you like to see one being made?’

  The boy looked a little wary. ‘May I? Yes, I would find that interesting.’ His face was not unattractive when he stopped looking sulky, and now pleasure made it almost handsome.

  ‘Come with me.’ Francis nodded to Cutter and took the boy into the back of the shop and up to the first floor where the other inhabitants of Mr Hinckley’s empire were at work.

  However refined their authors and their audience, the making of books was a messy, stinking, sweating sort of business. The compositor, Ferguson, worked where the light was best, rattling the type, the individual letters, into the composing stick held in his left hand. He plucked them from the cases in front of him, his gaze never leaving the page of manuscript pinned up at eye-level. The metal clicked into words, the sentences and arguments growing in his hands. He glanced up as they climbed the stairs and nodded to them. Francis quietly explained to Eustache what Ferguson was about; that the upper case of type held the capitals, that the largest box on the lower case held the ‘e’, that spaces were shanks shorter than those that held the letters so that the ink would not catch on them. The boy was fascinated, and in his interest Francis remembered his own. The business of creating books had become so familiar to him, he had almost ceased to wonder at it.

  ‘Can you do that, Mr Glass?’ the boy said, gesturing at Mr Ferguson.

  ‘I was trained to it,’ Francis replied, ‘but I was never as good at it as Mr Ferguson. And it requires constant practice to be as fast and accurate as he.’

  Ferguson, a white-haired, long-necked man with a slight stoop, snorted as he crossed to the form to empty out his composing stick onto the lengthening page. ‘You used to be reading the lines all the time, Mr Glass, when you should have been setting them. You’d stop moving when you got to a bit you liked and we’d have to clap our hands at your ears to wake you to what you were supposed to be doing.’ He said it with a smile and returned to the cases of type.

  Francis leaned towards Eustache and said in an undertone, ‘That’s quite right. Enthusiasts such as we are, are better off downstairs among the completed books, I fear.’ The boy looked up at him and then smiled, the first quick natural smile Francis had seen from him.

  Behind Ferguson, two others inked and pressed the forms, the second man pulling free the damp sheets and hanging them to dry over the racks that ran the whole length of the room. There was a rhythm to it that Francis appreciated. It was a pleasure to him to see things being done well.

  ‘My guardian has a shop where he prints music,’ the boy said. Francis was surprised; the children were far better dressed than he would expect the wards of a printer to be. ‘But it is not like this. Mr Crumley works on copper plates. I’ve seen them.’

  Francis realised finally who the boy and girl were. Thornleigh … of course. ‘That is more like engraving. I have seen Crumley’s work. He is a fine artist. You must be one of Mr Graves’s wards then? I have not met him, though I know something of him, of course. Are you the Earl of Sussex? I apologise – should I have been calling you My Lord all this time?’

  The boy gave a windy sigh. ‘No. I’m only an Honourable.’ He became still, staring at Ferguson as he transferred another half-dozen lines of type to the form. ‘Graves started looking after me after my mother killed herself and tried to kill me. She set fire to the Hall and she had Jonathan and Susan’s father murdered. They don’t really blame me, but I know they think about it sometimes. Especially Susan when people try and make her a lady and she wishes she still lived over the music shop.’ He said it simply. ‘I remember she was beautiful.’

  ‘Your mother? Have you not seen her picture?’ Francis asked.

  The boy shook his head and reached out to touch the damp sheets. The breeze from the window stirred them, and they seemed to sigh and whisper. ‘I am not supposed to talk about what happened. It upsets people.’

  ‘It must,’ Francis answered, then hesitated. Perhaps the boy’s guardian had his reasons, but Francis had last seen his own mother when he was six years old; her face had become clouded in his memory as if it were sinking away. He wondered what he would give to see her portrait. ‘Come with me, Eustache.’

  He led him downstairs, picked a volume off the shelves as he passed, and took the child to a quiet corner. Susan had begun to sing as she played, one of the dozen tunes that appeared each month about flowers and sweet maidens. She had a pleasant voice. Francis opened the book he held to one of the illustrations sewed in with the text and showed it to the boy. It was an engraving of Eustache’s mother, copied from the Gainsborough portrait. The engraver had added a frame, and an inscription of her name, Jemima, Countess of Sussex. She was indeed very beautiful, and her large, dark eyes were the mirror of Eustache’s own. The boy took the volume in his hands and stared. Francis put his hand on his shoulder and felt him tremble. He would happily have made him a present of the book, but he could not. It was a volume of family romances, and contained an account of Jemima that Francis felt Eustache should never read.

  The street door opened behind them and the music came to an abrupt halt. Francis heard Mrs Service’s voice; her tone was a little sharp, and he turned away from the boy so he could greet his latest guest.

  I.9

  THE DRIVE FROM ST Paul’s to the Barbican was painfully slow, and though Mrs Westerman was an excellent horsewoman, she had to concentrate to manoeuvre the little vehicle through the carts and carriages along St Martins Le Grand. Once or twice her groom hissed as she came rather close to a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. She managed to ignore him. Mr Bartholomew was either well used to the London traffic, or had developed a quick and absolute faith in her skills. He supplied the conversation himself and it seemed to centre more on Sir Charles Jennings than on Mr Trimnell or his widow.

  ‘He is a remarkable man, of course. So many men who inherited wealth in the West Indies remained in England and
left their estates to be run by lesser men and adventurers, which did them no good in the end. Sir Charles, however, only returned to England permanently five years ago. Before then he spent a great deal of time on his property in Jamaica. Now he is such an ornament of the city. Tireless as an Alderman, and he served as Lord Mayor two years ago.’

  ‘A paragon,’ Harriet said dryly. ‘I wonder what his slaves think of him.’ There was a dray unloading barrels outside the King’s Head and the shire horse in harness seemed nervous. Harriet kept an eye on him as she went by. Her own horse was fresh from the country and inclined to be skittish.

  ‘Oh, I believe they are all very fond of him,’ Bartholomew said comfortably. ‘They are better off with him than among the savages of Africa. He seldom has to buy new stock, as those born on the estate itself supply his needs for labour. It is a testament to his care of them and the generosity of his treatment. He is the model of what an owner should be.’

  The roadway narrowed as they passed by the spot where the gate in London Wall had once stood, and Harriet had no opportunity to reply. As they found themselves in Aldersgate itself and the roadway widened, she could loosen her grip on the reins. Harriet had heard of Sir Charles. He had become a model member of London society too, gracious and gregarious; friends with every man of influence, but though he had money and leisure, his address was modest, his reputation unsullied by talk of opera singers or married women, his clothing elegant but restrained. A paragon indeed, and now Harriet learned he was also very good to his slaves.

  ‘How is Sir Charles acquainted with Mrs Trimnell and her father?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr Trimnell owned a neighbouring plantation, and Mr Sawbridge was Sir Charles’s overseer for many years,’ Bartholomew said with a sort of lazy satisfaction. ‘And Sir Charles is most generous to his friends. He provides entertainments for them, such as the concert which I attended on Thursday evening, for instance. Such hospitality, and the best musicians, naturally. Mr Paxton was there and several others of similar distinction.’