James McGee - The Reckoning

Sleeves rolled up above his elbows, Quill was bent over one of his examination tables when Hawkwood arrived.

“Door!” he commanded with his customary opening brusqueness. He did not turn immediately, but when he did, he smiled upon recognizing his visitor. In the gloom, his breath misted as he spoke. “Officer Hawkwood! Hah! I was warned you’d be along.”

It was a macabre vision, for the surgeon’s hands were red with gore, as was the apron he was wearing. Hawkwood couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t seen Quill in his bloody apron and didn’t like to think what the rest of the stains might be. Beneath the examination table, the flagstone floor was slick with dark fluids.

“Warned?” It was all Hawkwood could do not to clamp a hand over his nose and mouth, for the smell was appalling; worse than anything at the burying ground.

Quill grinned. Clearly unmoved by the reek coming off the bodies around him, he also seemed unaffected by the cold. Beads of sweat shone across his bald pate and Hawkwood could have sworn there was steam rising from the apron. He’d seen similar sights when heat appeared to ascend from the innards of wounded and just-killed soldiers; and in Smithfield slaughterhouses, too, on market day. But these bodies weren’t warm; they were anything but. He decided it had to be a trick of the light.

“Good to see you again,” Quill said. “I take it you’re here for the St George’s cadaver?”

Hawkwood realized the surgeon was clasping a scalpel in his right hand. His stomach turned.

“I am.”

“I couldn’t have examined it where it was?”

“If you had,” Hawkwood said, “you’d have ended up like me.”

The surgeon studied the gap in Hawkwood’s coat and beneath it the stained breeches and boots to which the mud was still clinging.

“You think that would have made a difference?” Spreading his arms, the surgeon invited Hawkwood to inspect his apron.

“It was a burying ground. It was in the wet and I didn’t think it was a proper place to perform an examination.”

“There wasn’t convenient shelter nearby?”

Hawkwood thought about Sexton Stubbs’ cottage. “No.”

“And, in any case,” Quill said wryly, “you wanted it done directly.”

Hawkwood nodded. “Yes.”

Quill fixed him with an accusing eye. “You thought I would move your find to the front of the queue?”

The inference was clear. There were procedures when it came to performing necropsies. Surgeons like Quill worked for the Coroner, but the latter couldn’t act without permission from a justice of the peace. Since inquests were expensive, they were ordered only when there was evidence of violence or the cause of death was suspicious. However, if the death involved someone from the impoverished layers of society, many justices would rule an inquest unnecessary; thus there would be no crime to investigate. Hawkwood was relying on his past association with Quill in a bid to circumvent the system.

Hawkwood glanced around the room. It looked as though the surgeon was behind in his work. Below the curved roof, the walls were lined with bodies, awaiting either examination or dispatch to their place of interment. It wasn’t hard to see why Quill, despite their past dealings, might be irked by another one turning up unannounced.

But when he turned, the smile was back, which could only mean one thing.

“You’ve already taken a look,” Hawkwood said. “Haven’t you?”

Placing the scalpel on the examination table and removing a blood-stained cloth from behind his apron string, Quill wiped his hands. “As it’s you, I have – and it’s not pretty, though she was once, I think, poor mite.”

The surgeon moved to an adjacent table and then stepped aside to provide Hawkwood with a better view.

Covered to the neck by a grubby sheet, the body was lying on its side in almost the same position in which it had been found. Hawkwood thought about the dead woman’s naked state and the pit she’d been lifted from and how many bodies there might have been buried beneath her. Tied, thrust into a sack, cast down into a stranger’s grave and then covered with a filthy shroud that would have been used on God knew how many other remains; if ever proof were needed that the dispossessed were robbed of all dignity, even in death, this was it. The one redeeming feature, if it could be called such, was that the corpse’s eyes were no longer wide and staring, but half-closed. Presumably, Quill had taken advantage of the rigor leaving the body to make the adjustment. The cord, Hawkwood saw, had been cut from her wrists.

“You’ll appreciate it’s been only a short time since I took delivery,” Quill said, “and that my initial examination was somewhat cursory.”

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

“As you wish.” Tucking the cloth back into his apron, Quill placed both hands on the table and gazed down at the remains. “We have a young female – eighteen to twenty-five years of age or thereabouts. Cause of death: asphyxia … strangulation.” The surgeon paused, as if mulling over his diagnosis. “Probably.”

“Probably?”

“There is noticeable bruising under the throat, caused by some sort of ligature.” Quill pointed towards the corpse’s jawline. “Possibly the same cord that was used to bind her wrists and ankles.”

“Her ankles were tied as well ?”

Quill shrugged philosophically. “Easier to fit her in the sack.”

There was less engrained dirt than Hawkwood remembered as he gazed down upon the remains. From the state of the water in a tin bowl placed by the corpse’s feet, Quill had already made a token effort to wipe the body down prior to his examination. As a result, the discoloration in the skin was even more pronounced than it had been when Hawkwood had observed it at the bottom of the pit.

“And if it wasn’t … strangulation?”

“There are several contusions, a fracture of the zygomatic – the cheekbone – as well as dislocation of the mandible. There is also damage to the left side of the skull. Here, you see?”

“She was beaten?”

“Severely, I’d say.”

“Beaten and throttled?”

“Yes. But then you’d already guessed that before you brought her up, am I right?” The surgeon eyed him perceptively.

“I thought it was a possibility, from the parts of her I could see.”

“Which is why you referred her to me.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“The constable described the circumstances in which she was found. Clearly she was not meant to be discovered.”

“Clearly,” Hawkwood repeated softly.

“If you’re wondering about the constable, by the way, I did ask him if he wanted to wait, but he declined; said he had to make his report. I believe this was his first visit to a dead house. He did well, considering, which is more than can be said for his companion. The poor boy had to be helped out.”

He meant Dobbs. At this rate, Hawkwood thought, the apprentice’s first day was likely to be his last.

“There is more,” Quill said.

Without ceremony, the surgeon folded the sheet back to reveal the top half of the body. There was a mottled tint to the pale dead flesh. Hawkwood wondered if it was due to the candle glow. The most noticeable aberration was the dark area of what looked like bruising along the left side of the torso. Hawkwood had to bend slightly to study it. “She was hit that hard?”

Quill shook his head. “It’s called lividity. When the heart stops beating, the blood settles into the lowest parts of the body. This indicates she was lying on her left side as she is now; as she was when they found her, yes?”

“Yes.” Struck by a thought, Hawkwood turned. “Might she have been alive when she was put down there?”