Imogen Robertson: Anatomy of Murder

“My visit this evening was not particularly successful, Dr. Trevelyan,” she said. She heard him take up a chair, positioning it close to her with the sort of sigh that precedes bad news calmly spoken, and she added in a rush, “Please do not take away my hope, sir.” Even in her own ear her voice sounded rather desperate.

The doctor caught his breath and waited a moment before speaking.

“There is always hope, madam,” he said finally. He stood again and moved across to the fireplace, picking up the poker to stir the logs a little. The flames chattered and shrugged; there was a pale-colored thread hanging loose from the high collar of his bottle-green coat. “Your husband’s mind is struggling to repair itself. His injury was grave. Because you see his limbs are whole, you expect him to be himself. Do not. He is changed.” Trevelyan turned back toward her, frowning. “Madam, you push him too much. Your love and energy in your care of him are commendable, but you cannot will him into health.”

A wave of frustration knitted her fingers together and made her joints whiten. As the wife of a naval commander in time of war she had feared shot, the vicious killing splinters of wood that flew deadly from the impact of a cannonball, fierce winds and high seas. She had met widows enough, or women whose husbands returned to them with a sleeve pinned up, or swinging on crutches, but she never thought to fear something like this, this invisible maiming. “It was such a stupid accident.”

“A blow to the head that left him unconscious two weeks, madam.” Trevelyan ceased frowning at her and said more gently, “But, my dear Mrs. Westerman, let me give you hope-I will not take it away. I believe parts of his memory are returning. I believe he will, in the coming months, better learn to govern his emotions and behave more fittingly toward his family, but you must allow time to do its work. He has improved since he arrived here, and he will continue to do so.”

She was silent a few moments.

“You said when we first met, sir, there was a man in your hometown who recovered from a similar injury. .”

Trevelyan turned away from her again and let his eyes rest on the painting of a stag at bay that decorated the wall over his mantelpiece. The beast was injured, but its great pronged horns were still lowered, ready to joust with the dogs that had cornered it, its sides torn and bleeding. The morbid little scene was surrounded by a landscape of purple heather that was beautiful and felt nothing. “I did,” he said, as his eyes traveled over those distant hills. “John Clifford lived with his family again and earned his bread. But he was changed. Commander Westerman will never again be the man you married, madam. You must both find the courage to accept that.”

Harriet bit her lip and listened to the fire before speaking in a small and rather helpless voice. “What must I do?”

“Do not come here-” he raised his hand as she started to protest. “No, madam, I speak in all seriousness. Promise me you will not visit here for a few days, and when you do, bring your son.”

Harriet thought of her little boy, his face pale and afraid, his terrible confusion. “Stephen has become frightened of his father.”

Trevelyan nodded slowly. “Perhaps a little. But he has not seen the captain in some time. Stay away for only a few days, madam. The captain will certainly miss you and make efforts to manage himself better when you return, and greater efforts still in the presence of your son.”

Harriet managed to unclasp her hands. “Perhaps if I no longer tried to force him to recall events. .”

“A few days, Mrs. Westerman. Occupy yourself in other ways.”

FRIDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 1781, LONDON, NEAR BLACK LYON STAIRS

“Come on! Pull, damn your eyes!”

“No use breaking your lungs at me! He’s tied or stuck or something.”

The two red-coated men hunched in the wherry looked down into the dirty waters of the Thames and considered.

It was already full light, or as near to full light as it could be on a London day in November, and up and down the river the city was awake and hustling. Carts and cattle fought for space across Westminster Bridge and the people walked fast with their heads down through the clatter and stink. Among the jostling crowds the hawkers shouted and swore and rattled their pails. Mud spattered up from the horses’ hooves and the fat wooden wheels of wagons. The air was heavy with city scents-woodsmoke, horse manure, fried meat-and tanged with frost. In any place within a half-mile of the riverbank you’d hear hammering and the crash of stone on stone. Someone was always building, someone else knocking something down. Smoke poured from the chimneys along the south bank into the damp air and blackened it. London’s skyline was smudged in blood and soot.

There was no peace on the water either. The Thames, the fat brown god of London, its flowing heart, was belching and grumbling with boats from dawn. It offered to the city its food and trade; all its riches and influence were borne on its broad twisted back one way or the other. Sometimes the mudlarks who swarmed over the shingle at low tide found little fetishes, some ancient sword or offering to the river from times past, to show them they were nothing but the latest of its acolytes. Sometimes the river spat up what it was offered more speedily.

The current pulled at the wherry. The two men it held made an odd sort of couple. One of them was skinny and young; the other had a chest like a rum barrel and a thick beard that stood out angrily from his chin. Proctor and Jackson. Uncle and nephew, now partners of a sort and servants of the river in their way. The passage across the waters put bread on their table. The nephew’s ready smile got them trade, and the uncle’s strong shoulders got them a reputation for a swift and easy crossing through the currents and their rivals.

Proctor was working hard enough now at the oars to make his face red just keeping his place in the water. With a fierce pull on his right arm he inched the boat far enough upriver so he could see better what they had noticed from the bank. It was certainly a man, or at least it had been. The back of his green jacket was hissing bubbles under the swell, and his wig was still attached to his head; the wisps of horsehair swam about him in searching tendrils. The body’s arms were outstretched and the head hung forward like the Christ on the Cross in St. Martin’s Church, as if the man was looking for something lost in the muddy waters below.

Proctor spat into the river on the opposite side on the boat. Of course the body was tethered somehow. If he hadn’t been, the river would have given itself a laugh flying him halfway to Woolwich by now. Nothing stayed in this part of the river that wasn’t stuck.

“Well, get a rope round him, cut him loose from what binds him and get him in then.”

Jackson shot him an angry look, before tying a lasso from a length of rope in the bow then slinging it around the body’s chest, working it under the arms with an unhappy frown. Drawing the noose tight, he checked the knot on the samson post before stripping off his coat and shirt. His pale skin turned goosish at once. He slipped off his shoes and pulled a knife from his waistband.

“Why’d you never learn to swim then, Proctor?” he grumbled. “Twenty years on ships and boats and not a stroke. I’d be ashamed.”

The older man scowled back. “Fate might see it as an invitation to throw me in, boy. Now get to it, will you!”

The younger man drew a deep breath, put the blade between his teeth and hauled himself over the side, gasping as the chill of the waters held him; then, he duck-dived. Proctor held the boat steady, watching as his nephew used the body as ladder and anchor in the muck of the river. Strong tides. He saw the activity in the water, then felt a sudden yank as the weight of the body shifted from its anchor to the samson post in his own boat and the river tried to carry the corpse off over its shoulder.