Lavender watched the workmen raise their long, hooked poles to the sagging timber on the upper storey of Raleigh Close. They hooked a beam and anchored the sharp end into the rotten wood. With several poles now in place, the men pulled hard. Sweat glistened on their straining faces. At first, the rotten timbers resisted, held in place by the tenacious ivy. Then, suddenly, the front of the building crumbled and gave way. A large section of the roof and the upper-storey facade crashed down onto the mossy, cobbles below. The men dashed away to avoid the falling debris. A huge cloud of dust from the crushed rendering billowed like smoke into the air.
Coughing, Lavender and the others stepped back a pace or two.
Suddenly, Mistress Higgin screamed. She pointed back into Raleigh Close. ‘You’ve killed ’er!’ she shrieked. ‘I told you that you would! You’ve killed ’er, you stupid sapheads!’
Alarmed, Lavender followed the line of her trembling finger through the dust towards the mangled and swaying remains of the upper storey. The blackened ceiling and wood panels of the interior room where Constable Woods had once stood were now visible.
There, dangling backwards over the jagged edge of the upper floor, was the body of a young woman. She was on her back. Her lifeless eyes stared up towards the cold February sky. Raven hair, turned grey with dust, cascaded from her head down towards the courtyard below. One arm trailed helplessly and swayed in the breeze. Her lower extremities appeared to be trapped beneath the void of the floorboards of the room.
Lavender gasped and ran towards the entrance to Raleigh Close.
‘Heaven and hell!’ Woods pounded behind him.
‘They’ve bloody killed ’er,’ screeched Mistress Higgin behind them. ‘I told those Runners there was a woman in there! Them Bow Street constables have killed that gal!’
Chapter Two
Raleigh Close heaved and complained loudly with the crack of wood and the groan of straining timber as Lavender and his men raced up the narrow, swaying staircase. Lavender stopped at the doorway of the half-demolished chamber and grasped hold of the doorjamb to steady himself. The stench of death overpowered him. He recognised it immediately. One glance at the corpse, only a few feet away, confirmed what his nostrils had already told him.
‘Stop!’ he instructed his men, some of whom were only halfway up the stairs.
‘There’s too many of us. It won’t take our weight.’ He pointed to the youngest and slightest of his constables. ‘Barnaby – you stay with me. Someone fetch me a pick – and Woods, you sort out that hysterical Higgin woman and the rest of the crowd.’
‘What shall I say?’
‘Tell them that this girl’s been dead for days. The body is decaying. Go and tell the mob before we have a riot on our hands. She’s obviously been murdered and buried beneath the floorboards. It is nothing to do with the demolition of the building.’
His constables nodded and backed down the stairs, leaving him and young Barnaby alone. There was less movement now. For the moment, Raleigh Close had settled.
‘What do you want me to do, sir?’ asked the bright-eyed young man.
Lavender scanned the debris on the floor of the chamber. ‘There might be evidence of her murderers in here. We need to search this room thoroughly and collect up every item. If we crawl and spread out our weight, it might work.’
‘I’ll do it, sir!’ Before Lavender could stop him, Barnaby had dropped to the floor and squirmed across the blackened floorboards.
Lavender held his breath as he watched him, grateful for the boy’s sharp eyes, his enthusiasm and the fact that he didn’t have to ruin his own coat and breeches on the snags of the filthy floor.
It didn’t take Barnaby long to gather up a few stale crusts and scraps of paper, a mouldy blanket, a chipped pewter mug and some pieces of rope.
‘The rope may ’ave been used to bind her,’ he said as he dragged his haul back to Lavender.
‘Are there any fresh bloodstains on the floorboards?’ Lavender asked.
Barnaby set off back across the floor. ‘No. But there’s fresh footprints in the dust from a man’s boot and there’s an overturned wooden chair right on the edge of the precipice,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Could it be a sign of a struggle, perhaps?’
‘It’s difficult to say,’ Lavender said. ‘When the wall fell everything turned upside down and shifted in this room. You’ve done well, Barnaby. Make your way back to the door now.’
Lavender glanced around and spotted a discarded pannier further down the hallway. It was the type used by flower sellers in Covent Garden. Like everything else in Raleigh Close, it was rotten and mouldy, but the flimsy article would serve to collect in the evidence retrieved by Barnaby.
One of the constables arrived with the pick Lavender had requested. ‘Ned Woods has calmed down the mob,’ the constable said. ‘And ’e’s sent off to Bow Street for a cart to take the body to the morgue.’
Lavender nodded, grateful for Woods’ initiative. Now more confident in the stability of the building, he allowed this second constable to stay. ‘We’ll have to drag her backwards by the feet and pull her out this way,’ he told them. ‘If we do that we don’t have to go near the edge; it could collapse at any moment.’
Moving cautiously just inside the door of the chamber, the three men prised up the floorboards. It didn’t take them long to expose the feet of the corpse. There was something particularly helpless about those tiny, lifeless soles. The torn stockings were filthy and revealed little patches of skin beneath. Lavender felt a wave of sympathy wash through him for the victim.
‘Where are her shoes?’ he asked. ‘Nobody in their right mind would walk into this place without shoes.’
Sharp-eyed Barnaby reached down into the void and pulled out a dusty pair of high-heeled, embroidered brocade evening shoes with silver buckles. There was a label inside them which he suspected denoted the name of the cobbler: ‘Kinghorn and Naylor’.
‘Dancing shoes,’ said Lavender. He was thinking aloud. ‘I suspect that this woman came – or was carried here – in the evening. The villains used darkness to cover their crime. It also looks like whoever stuffed her body beneath the floorboards threw in her shoes as an afterthought, determined to conceal evidence.’
The two constables glanced at Lavender quietly, waiting for further deduction. But this wasn’t the time or place.
Lavender instructed the constables to grab the woman’s ankles and pull her towards them. She didn’t weigh much but their job was made more difficult because her muslin gown and short wool jacket kept snagging on the jagged timbers and rusty nails. Her clothes didn’t look particularly warm and Lavender wondered how long she had been here in this freezing building. The stench increased as the rest of the corpse was gradually revealed. Lavender fought back his urge to gag.
Despite the filth and the dust which covered the corpse, Lavender saw that the woman had been very pretty and was probably aged about twenty-five. Her bloated face had once been oval-shaped. Beneath the pallor of death, her complexion was flawless. Large, brown eyes fringed with luscious black eyelashes stared up at him blankly. He saw the marks around her wrists where she had been bound – presumably by the rope they had retrieved – but there was no obvious sign of injury. Her throat wasn’t cut, there were no bloodstains anywhere on her crumpled clothing and there were no stab wounds or tell-tale bruises from strangulation around her throat.
He knew that there was no time to further examine the body; Raleigh Close could disintegrate into a pile of rubble at any moment. He needed to get the corpse to the morgue at Bow Street.
‘Barnaby, have another look in the space beneath the floorboards. See if the killers have thrown in her reticule, gloves or anything else which might to identify her.’
Barnaby crawled on his stomach once more across the creaking floor. ‘There’s nothing else down ’ere,’ he called. ‘Oh, wait a minute – there’s some money.’
The young man stretched down into the hole and then held
up a gold coin, which glinted in the weak sunlight. Lavender was surprised to see that it was a newly minted Spanish escudo. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the small piece of metal.
What on earth are you doing here? he wondered as he pocketed the coin.
Chapter Three
Back at Bow Street, the corpse was placed into the morgue at the back of the building. Lavender went to wash off some of the grime and stench of Raleigh Close. As he brushed the dust from his black coat and splashed water onto his face, he frowned. He had intended to call on Magdalena tonight but he would have to return his rooms in Southwark to change before he made the visit. He allowed himself a wry smile as he imagined the shock in her beautiful eyes if she could see him now. Her fine, aristocratic nose would recoil at the smell and the filth. But as he smoothed his dark hair back from his temple, he frowned again. He realised with a pang of regret that he may have to postpone his plans: he had an unidentified corpse and a murder to solve. It could be a very long night. Sighing, he left the narrow washroom and made his way up to James Read’s first-floor office.
When Lavender entered the spartan room, he found the chief magistrate of Bow Street at work at his cluttered desk. As usual, James Read’s wig lay discarded amongst the inkstands, broken quills and piles of parchment.
‘Am I disturbing you, sir?’ Lavender asked.
‘No, not at all, Stephen.’ Read laid down his quill, scratched his greying head and gestured towards the piles of paperwork before him. ‘I’m ready for a respite from this. The Home Department issues more and more demands every day. I can’t keep up with it.’
Lavender sat down on the chair opposite.
‘So what happened at Raleigh Close?’ Read asked. ‘I heard that you found the body of a young woman.’
Briefly, Lavender explained the situation. Magistrate Read smiled when he heard about the mynah bird. ‘Trust you to work that one out, Stephen. You really are the best detective we have when it comes to solving bizarre mysteries. The story will be round Covent Garden by now and won’t do your reputation – or ours – any harm. For a man born in London, you have remarkable knowledge of the flora and fauna of the natural world.’
‘I had a good education,’ said Lavender, ‘and I find that reading helps accumulate knowledge.’
‘So, this unidentified woman has no visible marks on her body?’ Read asked. ‘I shall request that the autopsy is carried out by a surgeon experienced in pathology from Guy’s Hospital. We need to know how she died – along with where, why and at whose hand.’
‘It would help if we could also find out who she is,’ said Lavender, drily.
‘Well, we have not received any reports here at Bow Street of a missing woman,’ Read replied. ‘I shall send a messenger to the magistrate’s offices at Middlesex and Westminster to find out if they’re missing a woman.’
‘That’s strange,’ said Lavender. ‘The putrefaction of the corpse will have been slowed by the cold weather, but she has obviously been dead for several days. Someone must have noticed she was gone.’
Read shrugged. ‘Dozens of young women arrive in London every day, Stephen. They look for work, try to make their fortune on the stage or try to snare a rich husband. She might be a new arrival. Of course, most of them end up on the streets . . .’ He stood up, stretched and walked across to stand at the drapeless window behind the desk. His glance took in the markets, theatres and gin shops of the bustling and notorious Covent Garden. ‘The great square of Venus,’ he said, slowly.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Covent Garden,’ Read explained. ‘When Inigo Jones built his Great Piazza nearly two hundred years ago, he planned it to be a magnificent square based on the neoclassic style of the continent: the first of its kind in England, inhabited by the rich and the titled.’
Lavender was familiar with this history. ‘I don’t think he expected it to become the biggest market for fresh produce in the country.’
‘No.’ Read sighed sadly. ‘And I think he would have been shocked to know that his precious Covent Garden is now also the greatest market for carnal flesh anywhere in the world.’
Lavender said nothing. The seedy underbelly of Covent Garden was a thorn in the side for Read. The proliferation of prostitution around the area over the last fifty years had been so great that the Bow Street Officers couldn’t control it. Prostitution was against the law but unless the local whores were implicated in public disturbances, raucous behaviour, theft or other crimes, they were generally left alone to ply their trade.
‘Do you think your victim might be a Covent Garden Nun?’ Read asked, suddenly. ‘Raleigh Close has long been a den of iniquity and the haunt of beggars and thieves. It wouldn’t surprise me if a few of our nuns also take their clients there.’
Lavender smiled at Read’s use of the colloquial term for a whore. ‘She wasn’t dressed like a trollop,’ said Lavender. ‘Her clothes were brightly coloured but not gaudy or provocative – and she showed no sign of the pox.’
Read nodded. ‘I’m glad that the Duke of Bedford has decided to raze Raleigh Close to the ground and develop the area. How do you plan to proceed with your inquiries?’
‘I shall question the neighbours in the street immediately surrounding Raleigh Close. I’m not sure that this will yield much information. As you said, there was often insalubrious activity taking place in that building but someone may have noticed her – or something suspicious. By the way, Barnaby found this at the scene of the crime.’ Lavender pulled out the gold coin from his pocket. ‘It’s an escudo, minted in Spain only last year. Is it significant, do you think?’
Read turned the coin over in his hand and shook his head. ‘Scurrilous traders often palm off foreign coins when they give change to their customers. The coins are passed from hand to hand and then end up in a beggar’s bowl. A beggar spends the night at Raleigh Close and counts his takings. He discovers the foreign coin and tosses it away in disgust. It falls down between the cracks in the floorboards and is found by our sharp-eyed Constable Barnaby. Sorry, Stephen, I don’t think it will be much help in your investigation.’
Lavender nodded and put the coin back in his pocket.
‘Is there anything else you need?’ Read asked.
‘Just the assistance of Constable Woods.’
‘Now, why am I not surprised with that request?’ Read smiled. ‘Very well, take Ned Woods with you. I will deal with the complaints from the horse patrol about you filching – yet again – one of their best men.’
It was late afternoon before Sir Richard Allison, the surgeon from Guy’s Hospital, arrived with his assistant. He immediately threw the clerks at the main desk into turmoil with his demands. He was a short, loud man with a brisk walk, a jowly chin and a bulbous nose. He had a thick mop of grey curly hair, brushed forward and volumised on top of his head in the latest Brutus style favoured by Beau Brummel. Allison was accustomed to being treated like royalty whenever he deigned to assist the officers at Bow Street, and took great delight in showing off his superior medical knowledge at every opportunity. He also had a vigorous enthusiasm for carving up dead bodies, which Lavender found slightly repulsive.
A pale and flustered clerk alerted Lavender and Woods to the fact that Sir Richard had arrived and already been taken across the back yard to the morgue. Lavender and Woods had just returned from a fruitless expedition to question the residents and traders of Hart Street. As predicted, no one remembered the deceased young woman, nor had anyone seen anything particularly suspicious at Raleigh Close over the last few days. The only person they had not been able to question was Mistress Jacquetta Higgin. Her bakery had been closed when they arrived, which was unusual for the time of day, and no one answered the door when they knocked.
The Bow Street morgue was in an airless room in a shed next to some of the cells. For the past two days it had held the decomposing body of an unidentified man hauled out of the Thames, and so it stank to high heaven. Now that the body count had doubled, the stench had
magnified. The incarcerated prisoners complained vociferously through the grilles as Lavender and Woods crossed the cobbled yard.
However, none of this seemed to bother Sir Richard, who had already ordered more light, donned an apron and stripped the young woman naked by the time they arrived. Their unidentified victim was laid out on a slab in all her curvaceous glory.
‘Ah! Lavender! Glad you could find the time to join me.’
Lavender shook hands with the eminent surgeon and ignored the slur about his punctuality. ‘I’m glad you were able to find the time to help us, Sir Richard. I have to confess that cause of death in this case has left us bewildered.’
‘I’m sure everything will become clear once I begin my autopsy. It’s always my pleasure to assist you officers of the law with things you don’t understand. I trust you and Constable Woods will remain for the procedure? It’s not often I have the opportunity to dissect such a young and healthy woman. It should be a most educational experience; the internal organs will be in excellent condition.’ He picked up an evil-looking hooked knife to emphasise his point.
Lavender felt Woods stiffen beside him. ‘Alas, I’m afraid we have further inquiries to carry out regarding the case,’ he said. Woods’ sigh of relief was audible. ‘I just wondered, before you start the autopsy, if there is anything else you can tell us about the cadaver.’
The surgeon’s eyes gleamed. ‘Nothing that I’m sure you haven’t already worked out, Detective. There’s no sign of obvious injury. No sign that she was ravished against her will and – apart from the marks on her wrists where she was bound – there are no other signs of abuse or physical violence on the body.’
‘It must have been poison,’ said Woods. ‘There’s no other way. That’s how the bastards murdered her.’
‘What makes you think she has been murdered, Constable?’ asked Sir Richard.
Woods gasped and his broad, ruddy face darkened. ‘Her body were shoved beneath the floorboards of an abandoned buildin’ which was about to be flattened. That looks like a murder to me.’
The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) Page 2
