The Devil's Breath

by Tessa Harris

  Footsteps. His heart leapt as she emerged from behind the shutters. She was wearing leather stays over her shift and a petticoat and her golden hair was loose over her shoulders. Reaching for a brush on her table, she began running it through her hair with long, firm strokes. His breath came in short pants, now. There was no doubt about it, the devil possessed her. No ordinary woman could have this much power over a man.

  He watched her stand and reach around the back of her waist to the laces of her stays. But wait. What was that? More footsteps. There was someone with her. He craned his neck and suddenly saw a man’s hands, brown and rough, reach for the laces and begin to loosen them. He saw Susannah close her eyes and her lips curl in a delicious smile, as if pleasure was rippling through her body. Now there was a voice, deep and low. The half-closed shutter obscured his view. She let out a short laugh at something, then gave out a sensuous moan as the man began kissing her neck. The vicar’s gaze darted to the rough hands once more. They were sun-tanned hands, hardworking hands that bore many scars on them. It was then he realized: They belonged to the knife-grinder.

  The hour was late when Thomas finally arrived back at Boughton Hall. He had stayed much later than he intended at Mr. Peabody’s dispensary, ensuring that everyone who needed physick was able to take some away with them. His throat was gritty with dust from the road and he felt exhausted.

  The house was silent as he made his way up the stairs to Lydia’s bedroom. On his return journey from Brandwick his thoughts had turned to her and how easily she had taken on the mantle of motherhood. He recalled the look of love on her face as she stared down at Richard. There was something of the Madonna in her manner; a serenity that surely only came with complete fulfillment. He thought, too, of Sir Montagu and how he had enlisted the law to keep them apart. She had had no choice but to agree to the terms of the wardship. And for his part, how could he have refused to allow Lydia custody of her only son? It would have been morally reprehensible. Not only that, but she would have ended up hating him for forcing her into such a decision. He did not doubt for one second that she still loved him, but now he would have to share her love.

  Slowly he opened her bedroom door. The room was warm and silent and completely dark. Normally Lydia did not snuff out her bedside candle until he was safely beside her. He edged his way in, reaching out for familiar furniture to guide his path toward the bed. His eyes grew gradually accustomed to the darkness as he approached it and he felt the covers. They remained smooth and the pillows cold and crisp. The bed was empty.

  Standing for a moment in the darkness, he thought. Then he realized. Making his way out of Lydia’s chamber, he walked along the corridor to the nearest guest room. Slowly, and as quietly as possible, he opened the door. And there they were; mother and son in bed together. Both slept peacefully, with Lydia’s arm cradling Richard in its crook.

  For a few moments he watched them, listening to their breathing: hers steady and familiar, his shallow and erratic. A pang of sadness shot through him. Had he lost his beloved? Suddenly he felt compelled to kiss her and he walked forward and bowed low, brushing her forehead with his lips. Her eyes opened immediately and she smiled.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you, too,” she replied, closing her eyes once more.

  Moving away from the bed he breathed a sigh of relief. He believed her. Silently he made his way to his own room by the light of a lamp that still burned in the corridor. He resolved to tell Lydia that he understood that she and her newfound son needed time together on their own. He would also tell her that when she felt ready, he wanted to be as a father to Richard, if she would allow it.

  Once in his own room he flung off his coat, almost disdainfully, as if wanting to slough off the unsettling feeling left by the evening’s strange events. He noticed the lining was torn at the seam as a consequence of his exertions. He would ask Mistress Kidd to mend it in due course. He walked over to the pitcher and ewer. Splashing his face with tepid water, he felt a stinging sensation and remembered the scratches on his cheek. He recalled the baying crowd by the market cross. Someone had cried out “witch.” Someone—it may even have been Ned Perkins, humble, docile, Ned Perkins—called for the girl to be burned. Young and old alike had put their faith in such a superstitious ritual. The witch trials of Salem may have been held in a far off land, he told himself, but the sentiments and superstitions were as true today in Brandwick as they had been almost one hundred years ago in his homeland.

  Chapter 40

  The following morning Thomas went early to check on Richard. He found Lydia already dressed and sitting on the bed, holding her son’s hand. She smiled as soon as she saw him enter the room.

  “Dr. Silkstone has come to see you, Richard,” she said softly, then to Thomas she added, “I think his fever has broken.”

  Thomas felt the boy’s forehead with the palm of his hand. He nodded and looked into his eyes. They were still bloodshot but not as glassy as they had been the day before.

  “So, you are feeling better, young man?” he asked gently.

  The boy nodded his curly head.

  “Perhaps you would like to try and eat today. Some porridge maybe, and we may even find some strawberry jam to put on top, eh?”

  Lydia let out a girlish giggle. It was a sound Thomas had never heard her make before and it brought a smile to his own face. He could not recall seeing her so happy. Perhaps this is what it would be like; all of them, laughing together, being together, forging a family. It would not matter that he could not call her his wife in law. He had no interest in her title or her estate.

  A sudden knock at the door interrupted the mirth. Thomas answered it. Howard stood anxiously at the threshold. “Sir, there are men from the village to see you.”

  The smile disappeared from the anatomist’s face. He could hear voices below. He glanced back at Lydia. “I am needed,” he told her.

  She nodded. “Of course. There is no need to worry about us.”

  Thomas grabbed his case and followed Howard downstairs where a motley bunch of men from Brandwick had assembled in the back hallway. Ned Perkins stepped forward, fingering the brim of his hat, and spoke for them.

  “Dr. Silkstone, sir, something terrible has happened.”

  “What?”

  “The Makepeace children are dead.”

  “How? Why?” Thomas was stunned.

  Hastily Lovelock made ready the wagon and drove the doctor, and the half-dozen men who had walked out to Boughton, back into the village.

  “They’re saying the devil came back to collect his own, Dr. Silkstone,” said Perkins as the wagon rumbled its way toward Brandwick. “They’re saying the demons weren’t never cast out and now they’ve taken their revenge.”

  Thomas’s mind flashed back to the exorcism and the contorted faces of the crowd. After witnessing such primeval behavior he knew the villagers could believe anything if they chose to. They stopped outside Joseph Makepeace’s cottage, where a cluster of women had gathered. Some were weeping.

  Thomas found Joseph Makepeace inside, being comforted by a neighbor. He was huddled in a blanket on a chair. He lifted his baleful eyes.

  “The children,” said Thomas. “I . . .”

  Makepeace said nothing but the neighbor jerked his head toward another door. Entering the room Thomas confronted the sickening scene. The boy and girl lay dead where they had slumbered a few hours before, their skulls seemingly crushed. A bloodied shovel had been discarded close by on the flagstones.

  The boy was lying slumped on top of his sister. Perhaps he had been trying to protect her, thought Thomas as he surveyed the room. A blow had been struck to the boy’s forehead, a ferocious blow dealt, most probably, as he rose from sleep. The girl’s nightshift was also stained crimson with the blood from a head wound.

  Thomas glanced over at the window. It was open. The killer would have entered there, carried out his gruesome deed, then left the same way. Despite a slight breeze waftin
g through the open casement, the room was already growing warm as the outside temperature rose. The bodies needed removing before they started to turn. There would have to be a postmortem. Dr. Carruthers had always taught him to keep an open mind, but on this occasion, Thomas was finding it hard. These murders were far more brutal than those of Lady Thorndike and Gabriel Lawson. The children were struck in uncontrolled anger rather than cool calculation. Could there be more than one murderer in the village? Or might the adults’ killer be the same fiend who bludgeoned these two unfortunate children in their beds? Only science could provide the answer, the anatomist told himself.

  After consulting with the watchman, Thomas ordered the bodies to be lifted into the wagon and taken to the game larder at Boughton. Once again he sent word to Sir Theodisius. He did not seek immediate permission to conduct a postmortem. A non-invasive examination would suffice for now. This time, he knew what he was looking for and he did not need to use a scalpel to find it, even if it was only to disprove the same killer might be behind all four murders.

  Just as he was leaving the cottage, he saw the Reverend Lightfoot approach, prayer book in hand. He was looking careworn and anxious. “Is it true?” he asked Thomas.

  The doctor nodded. “They were both bludgeoned to death.”

  The vicar’s brow crumpled and he shook his gray head. “What monster could do such a thing?”

  “At this moment I am not sure, sir, but I intend to find out,” replied Thomas.

  Reverend Lightfoot nodded. “I will pray that you do, Dr. Silkstone,” he said.

  Inside, the vicar found Joseph Makepeace still trembling and mumbling incoherently. Ned Perkins had joined him. He sat on a chair next to the baker and the blacksmith by the empty hearth.

  “Why would the Lord let this happen, sir?” asked Ned Perkins after a moment.

  The reverend sucked in air thoughtfully, then shook his head. “ ’Twas not God’s work. This has all the hallmarks of the devil,” he replied after a moment.

  Perkins’s head shot up. “Aye, and we know who that devil is,” he said through clenched teeth.

  All five men looked at each other knowingly, but it was Joseph Makepeace who, suddenly finding his voice, mouthed the name first. “Joshua Pike.”

  “ ’Tis the knife-grinder that killed Lady Thorndike and Gabriel Lawson and now these young ’uns, too,” snarled Ned Perkins, balling a fist and punching his palm. “The sooner we find him, the sooner we can put paid to his murderous ways.”

  “He’ll be hiding up somewheres ’round here,” said the baker, wiping his hands on his floury apron.

  “Fog means he can’t go far,” added the farrier.

  “It certainly does,” said Perkins.

  It was then that the vicar, who had been keeping his own counsel, listening carefully to what the men were saying, chose to speak. “And I think I know where he can be found,” he ventured. All eyes turned on the Reverend Lightfoot. Had they heard him right? He fixed each one with a knowing look, then said, “And, you are correct. ’Tis very near.”

  Chapter 41

  Once again Thomas found himself in the presence of the dead in the game larder. He never relished his task when a life had been taken cruelly and by another’s hand, but when that life was a child’s, it was doubly hard. Not only that, but two children lay side by side on the cold marble slab. The nature of their injuries was so repellent that he had to force his own anger down as it welled up inside him.

  First he looked at the boy. His large, wide forehead and low set eyes had presented the perfect target to the murderer. It appeared his injuries had been caused by his father’s own shovel that Thomas had retrieved from the cottage. Strands of hair clung to the congealed blood on the blade. The spade, he mused, had been brought down with enormous force in a single blow to the frontal lobe.

  Lifting the child’s unruly fringe, Thomas inspected the wound. The depression in the boy’s skull was at least half an inch deep, but it was not the contusion that arrested his attention. He reached for his magnifying glass and peered at the small flakes caught in the victim’s hairline. At first he took them for the familiar particles of sulfur in the air, but when he examined them more closely, he could see they were not. Carefully he retrieved a fragment and dropped it into a phial.

  Next he turned his attention to the girl. He guessed she was about twelve years of age. She looked so much younger in death than she had on the steps of the market cross. Gone was the strain in her features; the taut skin across her cheekbones had relaxed and the ridge above her nose caused by frowning was smooth. He noted several bruises on her body, but it was hardly surprising that she bore the marks of her uncontrollable fit in the marketplace. There were contusions around her wrists where she had been restrained and on her knees where she had slipped up the steps. There was bruising around her neck, too, which puzzled him. It was clearly she who had borne the brunt of the killer’s wrath. She had been struck not once but at least three times on the head and torso. Her brown hair was matted and made darker by the blood and her chemise soaked around her chest and left shoulder.

  Thomas took a comb and teased partings around the head wounds to inspect them more closely. He knew what he was looking for. And there they were. Through the lens of his magnifying glass, in among the egg cases of head lice, he spied larger dots of foreign material. Again he plucked three or four such fragments out of the hair with tweezers and dropped them into a separate phial. Could it be that these small particles linked all four killings?

  “Most interesting,” he said to himself, lowering another piece of potential evidence into a glass tube. If only he had the facilities of a laboratory nearby. As it was, he would have to wait until a return journey to London to identify the source of these odd and various samples. And with the fog still lingering, he had no idea when that would be.

  He was contemplating making a trip to Oxford. Perhaps he could ask his old friend Professor Hans Hascher, who had been so helpful in the past in the quest to prove Michael Farrell’s innocence, if he could work in his laboratory? Before he had given the idea more thought, however, there came a knock on the door. He glanced at the table. The bodies of the dead children were a most distressing sight.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “Will Lovelock, sir,” came the reply through the door.

  Thomas wiped the blood from his hands. “Yes, Will,” he said, opening the door only narrowly so that the boy could not see inside the room.

  “Her ladyship says that the vicar is here and she requests that you come now,” he panted, the speech memorized by heart.

  Returning to the young lord’s bedroom a few minutes later Thomas found the Reverend Lightfoot talking with Lydia. After the morning’s traumatic events he had not expected to see the vicar. He was sitting by the boy’s bedside reading a passage from the Bible to him, the story of Abraham and his son Isaac. Thomas had assumed he would be busy dealing with Joseph Makepeace and the rest of the shocked community, offering words of comfort after the horror of the double murder, but no, here he was imparting an Old Testament story to a young child as if it were a bedtime fairytale.

  “I heard about the children,” said Lydia, rising to greet Thomas.

  “Most shocking,” chimed in the clergyman.

  “Indeed,” replied Thomas, then turning to Lydia he said, “I am afraid that yet again I am obliged to turn your game larder into a mortuary, your ladyship.”

  Lydia frowned as she digested the full implication of what Thomas had just related. “So be it,” she said.

  The Reverend Lightfoot, on the other hand, remained practical. “So while the bodies are in your custody, Dr. Silkstone, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to call on Lady Lydia,” he said, closing the Bible. “My time is not my own these days. One never knows when one will be called upon.” There was a certain smugness about the vicar that did not endear him to Thomas. He tapped his cane sharply on the floorboards, like an officious court clerk, as if his ev
ery second was precious.

  Richard was sitting upright in bed. It was clear to the doctor that his fever was gone, though he knew he might relapse at any moment. Indeed, Thomas himself had been asked by many an anxious mother to baptize her sickly newborn if it was thought it was not more than a few hours for this world. He had always willingly obliged. Offering those few grains of comfort was a sweetener to the bitter pill so often swallowed in such circumstances. However, it seemed young Richard was mercifully growing stronger by the hour.

  The vicar opened his satchel and began unpacking the small flasks of sacred oil and water required for the baptism. Taking advantage of the distraction, Lydia moved closer to Thomas. “He does not know,” she whispered cryptically, looking at Richard. Thomas understood. Lydia wished to keep her son’s identity a secret, at least for the time being.

  A moment later Reverend Lightfoot wheeled about, his surplice ’round his neck. “And you are to be the godfather?” he asked, looking directly at Thomas.

  “That is my honor,” replied Thomas, masking his surprise.

  “I explained to the Reverend Lightfoot that Richard is the son of friends of mine in Oxford. The fog sickness claimed them both, so I have taken him into my care.” Lydia spoke in a strange, slightly exaggerated tone that told Thomas he was not to question or contradict her any further.

  He nodded. “Indeed.” He could understand why she did not feel ready to announce to the whole world that she had a son. It would take time for them both to adjust to their new relationship.

  “Then let us proceed,” announced the vicar, handing both Thomas and Lydia lighted candles.

  Richard remained slightly bemused by the proceedings, his dark curls resting on the pillow. His skin was still sallow, but his amber eyes were full of life and they followed Lydia around the room wherever she went. During the baptism he only moved when the reverend poured a little holy water over his head to signify spiritual cleansing. His small body jerked up, but his mother held his hand and soothed him. Shortly afterward he was pronounced free from original sin and both Lydia and Thomas rendered a hearty “Amen.”