priest stepped out into the night then paused, his head half turned. When he spoke, his voice was muffled. “Thank you, no. I’m sure I can find my way. No need for both of us to catch our death. Good night to you, Mr Grubb.” He set off across the courtyard, head bent.
Grubb stared after him. The priest looked like a man in a hurry, as if he couldn’t wait to leave. Not that Grubb blamed him. The place had that sort of effect on visitors, particularly those who chose to come at night.
The priest vanished into the murk and Grubb secured the door. He cocked his head and listened.
Silence.
Amos Grubb drew his blanket close and mounted the stairs in search of warmth and slumber.
It was the pot-boy, Adkins, who discovered that the food tray had not been touched. An hour had passed since it had been placed in the gap at the bottom of the door, and the two thin slices of buttered bread and the bowl of watery gruel were still there. Adkins reported the oddity to Attendant Grubb, who, shrugging himself into his blue uniform jacket, went to investigate, keys in hand.
Adkins wasn’t wrong, Grubb saw. It was unusual for food to be ignored, given the long gap between meal times.
Grubb banged his fist on the door. “Breakfast time, Colonel! And young Adkins is here to take your slops. Let’s be having you. Lively now!”
Grubb tried to recall what time the colonel’s visitor had left the previous evening. Then he remembered it hadn’t been last night, it had been early this morning. Perhaps the colonel was in his cot, exhausted from his victory at the chessboard, although that would have been unusual. The colonel was by habit an early riser.
Grubb tried again but, as before, his knocking drew no response.
Sighing, the keeper selected a key from the ring and unlocked the door.
The room was dark. The only illumination came courtesy of the thin, desultory slivers of light filtering through the gaps in the window shutters.
Grubb’s eyes moved to the low wooden-framed cot set against the far wall.
His suspicions, he saw, had been proved correct. The huddled shape under the blanket told its own story. The colonel was still abed.
All right for some, Grubb thought. He shuffled across to the window and opened the shutters. The hinges had not been oiled in a while and the rasp of the corroding brackets sounded like nails being drawn across a roof slate. The dull morning light began to permeate the room. Grubb looked out through the barred window. The sky was grey and the menacing tint indicated there would be little warmth in the day ahead.
Grubb sighed dispiritedly and turned. To his surprise the figure under the blanket, head turned to face the wall, did not appear to have stirred.
“Should I take the slop pail, Mr Grubb?” The boy had entered the room behind him.
Grubb nodded absently and slouched over to the cot. Then he remembered the food tray and nodded towards it. “Best put that on the stool over there. He’ll still be wanting his breakfast, like as not.”
Adkins picked up the tray and moved to obey the attendant’s instructions.
Grubb leaned over the bed. He sniffed, suddenly aware that the room harboured a strange odour that he hadn’t noticed before. The smell seemed oddly familiar, yet he couldn’t place it. No matter, the damned place was full of odd smells. One more wouldn’t make that much difference. He reached down, lifted the edge of the blanket and drew it back. As the blanket fell away, the figure on the bed moved.
And Grubb sprang back, surprisingly agile for a man of his age.
The boy yelped as Grubb’s boot heel landed on his toe. The food tray went flying, sending plate, bowl, bread and gruel across the floor.
Amos Grubb, ashen faced, stared down at the cot. At first his brain failed to register what he was seeing, then it hit him and his eyes widened in horror. He was suddenly aware of a shadow at his shoulder. Adkins, ignoring the mess on the floor, his curiosity having got the better of him, had moved in to gawk.
“NO!” Grubb managed to gasp. He tried to hold out a restraining hand, but found his arm would not respond. His limb was as heavy as lead. Then the pain took him. It was as if someone had reached inside his body, wrapped a cold fist around his heart and squeezed it with all their might.
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.
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