Imogen Robertson: Anatomy of Murder

LONDON, 1871

Key Points of Interest

1 Residence of the Earl of Sussex

2 Residence of Lord Carmichael

3 Mr. Fitzraven’s rooms

4 Mrs. Spitter’s house

5 Adams’s Music Shop

6 Mr. Bywater’s rooms

7 His Majesty’s Theatre

8 The Admiralty Office

9 Mrs. Bligh’s room

10 The Rookeries

11 The Mitchells’ rooms

Thursday, 3 May 1781, sixth year of the American Rebellion; third year of the Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce

HMS Splendor of the North American Fleet, under command of Captain James Westerman, off the coast of Newfoundland

SIX BELLS OF THE MORNING WATCH (7 A.M.)

Captain Westerman was in his cabin reading the letter from his wife for the fourth time when he heard the officer of the morning watch ring Six Bells. At the last double clang the door opened and his servant, Heathcote, came in with the coffee. Westerman did not need to go on deck to know they were having a good run on a fine day. The creaking of the planks and sound of the water hissing at the stern told him that. The air of happy expectation in the ship had curled into her timbers; even the bell sounded tuneful.

Heathcote tried, none too subtly, to read over James’s shoulder as he delivered the coffee. James twitched the papers to his chest.

“Any news from home, Captain?”

“Yes, Heathcote. Your wife has run off with the innkeeper and my wife is forced to cook her own dinner.”

His servant drew his brows together and pursed his lips.

“Always thought yourself amusing, haven’t you, sir? Mrs. Heathcote might have the sense to run from me, but she’d never leave Caveley or Mrs. Westerman, so there’s no good funning.”

James took his coffee and drank. “Fairly said, Heathcote. Your wife is well and comfortable, as is mine. Harriet says the new Lord Thornleigh has returned to London with his sister and guardian-oh, and the baby uncle-while the rebuilding works at the Hall are carried on. Also, the squire has sent them a ham.”

“Is it recent news, sir?”

“No-two months old.”

“Well, you do keep running about, sir. Makes it hard to keep track of you.”

James smiled. Other than his first lieutenant, his current officers on the Splendor were a relatively young lot, so inclined to be respectful of their captain. Heathcote, however, had sailed with him for years, and had got in the habit of treating Westerman like a slightly wayward nephew.

The Splendor , a neat frigate of forty-four guns, had been hailed the previous night by the sloop Athena . The latter had been dodging American and French sails for a week to reach them, bringing letters from home and orders from the fleet. The letters were very welcome, and the orders to join and help protect a convoy of merchant ships bound for England equally so. The crew of the Splendor had not thought they’d have a chance to kiss their wives for another year, but the merchant fleet was valuable and Admiral Rodney wanted good men to guard it, so had ordered James and his men back to England.

However, it was the tidbit from the Athena’ s captain that had caused the general state of excitement. His crew had spotted what seemed to be a French frigate the previous day sitting low in the water and apparently alone, heading up the coast. The Athena’ s captain had recognized, he regretfully informed Westerman over dinner, that the French ship outgunned him, but reckoned the more heavily armed Splendor could take her.

The crew was desperate for a decent prize. By the time they had arrived in the Leeward Isles early the previous year, the place had been picked clean by the admirals, and though James and his crew had taken some merchantmen and privateers, these had not been sufficient to make their fortunes. If they managed to take a frigate with her holds bulging with powder and ordnance for American rebels, every able seaman would receive enough gold to go home a respectable man, and James would be able to buy another estate if he had the mind. It felt as if the ship herself were straining at the leash to reach it.

Heathcote normally left James alone to drink his coffee in the morning, yet today he was slow to leave the cabin. James looked up at his servant’s long face therefore with his eyebrows raised.

The man reached into his pocket and produced a pamphlet. Even before he could read the title, James sighed.

“Who had that then, Heathcote?”

“One of the young gentlemen, sir. His mother enclosed it with her own letter. I caught him showing it to the other boys and boxed his ears for reading trash.”

“Thank you.” James picked it up. A rather unpleasant woodcut on the front of the pamphlet depicted a man’s body lying prone on a patch of grass. Beside him, a woman stood in a bad actor’s stance of horror. There was a castle in the background. The woman looked nothing like Harriet, and Thornleigh Hall, unlike this castle, was an elegant residence fitting for an ancient and wealthy family, but without a turret in sight. The title claimed that the pamphlet was a complete, accurate and astonishing account of the late terrible murders in Sussex and London and the investigations of Mrs. Harriet Westerman and Mr. Gabriel Crowther. James flicked through it and curled his lip.

“What nonsense this is! Half stolen out of the Advertiser , and half the perverted imaginings of the writer.” He held it up and tapped the female figure on the front. “Does this look like my wife to you, Heathcote?”

Heathcote considered. “Looks more like the master gunner in a dress, sir.”

James did not laugh. A career in the Navy was as much about politics as prizes, and it did him no good to have a wife that drew such attentions to herself. He loved Harriet unashamedly, but such things were, at best, awkward.

There was a knock at the door and one of the youngsters, a bright lad of about fourteen and James’s favorite among the midshipmen, put his head in, his face shining with excitement. “Mr. Cooper’s compliments, sir, but he thought you might like to know we’ve spotted a sail.”

“Did he, indeed, Mr. Meredith?” James replied, downing the last of his coffee and clambering into the coat Heathcote was already holding out for him. “Tell him I shall join him directly.”

Mr. Cooper found his captain beside him on the quarterdeck in moments, already twisting his telescope open as he spoke.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.”

“Good morning, sir. Fine on the starboard bow and a fair way off still, sir.”

James lifted his glass and pointed it where Cooper had indicated. There it was, a little smudge of sail on the horizon. This could indeed be a piece of luck. If they had had no sight of the potential prize today or tomorrow, James would have been forced to abandon the chase to meet the convoy, but there she was, as early as could be expected.

Mr. Mansel, the major in the command of the ship’s company of marines, joined them. He had been up in the rigging straining for a better view.

“Lord, I hope she’s a fat one,” he said. “The Americans and those damned French have seemed to know where we are more often than the Admiralty, and keep sneaking round our backs like rats. I met a fella in Kingston says every ship has a soothsayer on it who kills chickens and reads where our ships are in their guts.”