Anne Perry - Belgrave Square

Innes shivered but kept his face stoically expressionless.

“There you are,” the attendant said cheerfully. “The late Mr. William Weems, as was. Of all the citizens of Clerkenwell, he’ll be one of the least missed.” He sniffed. “Sorry, gentlemen, p’r’aps I spoke out of turn. Shouldn’t cast aspersions at the dead-not decent, is it.” He sniffed again.

Pitt found the smell of death catching at his stomach, the wet stone, the carbolic, the sweet odor of blood. He wished to get it over with as quickly as possible.

He lifted the sheet off the body and looked at what remained of William Weems. He was a large man, flaccid in death now that the rigor had worn off and the muscles of his abdomen were relaxed and his limbs lay slack, but in life Pitt guessed him to have been quite imposing.

The manner of death was hideously apparent. The left half of his head had been blasted at close range by some sort of multiple missile, a gun with a very large barrel and loose bullets or even scrap metal. There was nothing left to judge what his appearance might have been, no ear or cheek or hairline, no eye. Pitt had seen many a constable sicken and faint at less. His own stomach tightened and beside him he heard Innes suck in his breath, but he forced himself to remember that death would have been instant, and what was left here on this table was simply the clay that used to be a man, nothing more; no pain, no fear inhabited it now.

He looked at the right side of the head. Here the features were intact. He could see what the large broad nose had been like, the wide mouth he could guess at, the heavy-lidded, greenish hazel eye was still open, but somehow inhuman now. It did not strike him as having been a pleasing face, although he knew it was unfair to judge in any manner of death, least of all this. He was ashamed of himself for feeling so little grief.

“A shotgun of some sort,” Innes said grimly. “Or one of them old-fashioned things they load at the muzzle, with all sorts o’ stuff, bits of iron fillings an’ the like. Very nasty.”

Pitt turned away from the body and back to Innes.

“I take it you didn’t find the gun?”

“No sir. At least I don’t think so. There’s an old-fashioned hackbut on the wall. I suppose ’E could ’ave used that, and ’ung it back up again.”

“Which means he didn’t bring it with him,” Pitt said doubtfully. “What does the doctor say?”

“Not a lot. ’E died some time yesterday evening, between eight an’ midnight ’E reckons. As you can see, it must ’a bin straightaway. Yer don’t ’ang around with a wound like that. No tellin’ at this time what distance away, but can’t ’a bin far, ’Cos the room in’t that big.”

“I suppose no one heard anything?” Pitt asked ruefully.

“Not a soul.” Innes smiled very slightly. “I doubt we’ll get a great deal o’ help from the locals. ’E weren’t a popular man.”

“I never knew a usurer who was.” Pitt took a last look at the pallid face, then allowed the attendant to cover it with the sheet again. “I suppose they’ll do a postmortem?”

“Yeah, but I dunno what for.” Innes pulled a face. “Plain enough what killed ’im.”

“Who found him?” Pitt asked.

“Feller what runs errands for ’im an’ does some clerking.” Innes wrinkled up his nose at the odor in the room. “If you don’t want anything more in ’ere, can we get on to Cyrus Street, sir?”

“Of course.” Pitt moved from the wet stone, carbolic and death with a sense of release. They thanked the morgue attendant and escaped out into the heat, dirt, noise, the gutters and horse manure and overspilling life of the street. He resumed the questions. “He has no housekeeper?”

“Woman what comes and cooks and cleans a bit.” Innes marched sharply beside him. “She only does breakfast in the mornings. She saw the light on in the office and took it ’E was awake, so she made his meal and left it on the table without disturbing him. She just called out that it was ready, and weren’t bothered when she ’eard no answer. Apparently he weren’t given to pleasantries an’ it didn’t strike ’er as nothing wrong.” He dug his hands into his pockets and skipped a step to avoid tripping over a piece of refuse. It was a brilliant day and still hot. He squinted a trifle in the sun. “O’ course she fairly threw a fit when we told ’er as she’d cooked breakfast for a dead man, within yards of ’is corpse. ’ad ter fetch ’er two glasses o’ gin to bring ’er ’round.”

Pitt smiled. “Had she anything interesting to say about him, in general?”

“No love lost. On the other ’and, no particular grudge either, no quarrel as far as we can learn. But then she’d not likely mention it if there was.”

“Any callers of interest?” Pitt avoided a fat woman with two children in tow.

“Who knows?” Innes replied. “People don’t often make a big show o’ calling on a moneylender. Come in the back door, and leave the same. ’is establishment was designed to be discreet. Part of ’is trade, as it were.”

Pitt frowned. “It would be. He would discourage a good deal of his custom if he were obvious, but for precisely that reason I would have expected him to keep some sort of protection.” They stopped at the curb, waited a few moments for a space in the traffic, then crossed. “After all he must have had a lot of unhappy clients,” he said on the far side. “In fact a good many even desperate. Who was he receiving alone at night?”

Innes supplied the obvious answer. “Someone ’E weren’t frightened of. Question is, why wasn’t ’e? ’Cos ’E thought ’E were protected?” He sniffed. “Or ’E thought the person weren’t dangerous? ’Cos ’E was expectin’ someone else? ’Cos ’E were crossed by someone ’E knew? Gets interestin’, when you think about it a bit.”

Pitt would like to have agreed, but at the back of his mind was the spare, charming figure of Lord Byam. Would Weems have expected his lordship of the Treasury to commit murder over a sum of twenty pounds a month? Hardly. And if he were going to, then surely he would have at the beginning, not now, two years later?

“Yes it does,” he agreed aloud. “What about this clerk and errand runner? What sort of a man is he?”

“Very ordinary.” Innes shook his head. “Sort of gray little man you see ducking in and out o’ alleys, hurryin’ along the edge o’ pavements all ’round Clerkenwell, an’ can never bring ter mind again if yer try. Never know if it were the one you were lookin’ for, or just someone like ’im. Name’s Miller. They call ’im Windy, don’t know why, unless it’s because ’e’s a coward.” He pulled a face. “But then I’d say ’E was canny rather, more sense than ter stay and fight a battle ’E in’t fitted ter win.”

“Description fits half a million gray little men around London,” Pitt said unenthusiastically, passing a group of women arguing loudly over a basket of fish. A brewer’s dray lumbered by majestically, horses shining in the sun, harness bright, drayman immaculate and immensely proud. A coster in a striped apron and flat black hat called out his wares with no audible pause to draw breath.

They bore left from Compton Street into Cyrus Street, and within moments Innes stopped and spoke to a constable standing to attention on the pavement. He stood even more stiffly and stared straight ahead of him, his uniform spotless. His buttons gleamed and his helmet sat straight on his head as if it had been dropped on a plumb line.

Pitt was introduced.

“Yessir!” the constable said smartly. “No one come or gorn since I bin ’ere, sir. No one asked for Mr. Weems. I reckon as ’ow the word’s gorn out, and no one will now. Everyone pretendin’ as they never knew ’im.”