Chapter 53
Tuesday, 1 August
The next morning, Paul Gibson was sitting on the edge of his kitchen stoop, drinking a cup of tea and watching the bees buzz around a nearby patch of clover, when Sebastian came to sit beside him. The surgeon’s eyes were bloodshot, his face unshaven, his skin—where it wasn’t bruised—the color of a dead fish.
“You look like hell,” said Sebastian.
Gibson grunted and took another sip of his tea. “You keep saying that.”
“And you keep saying you’re going to do something about it but don’t.”
Gibson shifted the position of his truncated leg and glanced over at him. “If you’re here lookin’ for the results of the postmortem on some new murder victim, Bow Street hasn’t even sent over the body yet. I’ve been blessedly free of mangled corpses since I finished up with yon thatcher from Richmond.”
“No one new—thank God. It’s Coldfield I’m here about. What can you tell me about the angle of the bullet that hit him?”
“Ah, that.” Gibson jerked his head toward the old stone outbuilding at the base of Alexi’s garden. “The thatcher was a big man, and whoever shot him was pretty close, so you need to figure that most anyone shooting at him would’ve had to angle the barrel of his gun up a wee bit. Or the shooter could have been sitting down, of course.”
That was a complicating possibility Sebastian hadn’t considered. “So you’re saying the bullet did travel upward on entering his body?”
“That it did. It’s an estimate, of course, but—depending on how close they were standing—I’d say your shooter is probably around five feet tall, maybe less. Or he or she could have been sitting down, which as I said would alter everything. The impact of the bullet probably knocked Coldfield over, because the knife wounds that followed go straight down. Now, normally, they probably wouldn’t tell us much, except in this instance they’re of a nature that suggests your killer either isn’t particularly strong, or else he wasn’t trying too hard. But given that even a wounded man can be dangerous—especially when he’s Cato’s size—I suspect anyone trying to kill him would be more than desperate to get the job done. So I think I’d go with the idea that you’re looking for someone who’s short and relatively weak.”
“What about the abigail, Cassy Jones? Were her stab wounds the same?”
“They were.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. Although everything was a wee bit different since she wasn’t down on the ground.”
“And Gilly Harper?”
Gibson scrubbed a hand down over his bruised, beard-stubbled chin and neck. “Alexi did that postmortem.”
“Can you ask her about it?”
“I can. But why? What are you thinking? That an old man is doing this? Or a small woman?”
“Or a child,” said Sebastian quietly.
Gibson slewed around to stare at him. “A child? You can’t be serious.”
“I wish I weren’t,” said Sebastian, looking up as the weathered wooden gate set into the nearby old stone wall flew open and Tom came in at a run.
“Gov’nor! Been looking fer ye everywhere, I ’ave. I been askin’ ’round at both Grosvenor Square and Down Street, and I think I done found out what ye was wantin’ to know. That chimney sweep ye been looking into? Seems ’e did come at Lady McInnis when she was gettin’ into her carriage, only it weren’t when they was on their way to Richmond Park that Sunday. According to Jem—’e’s the footman I was talkin’ to before, remember?—it was a couple of days before that.”
“He’s quite certain?”
“Aye. Jem says it was when ’er ladyship was gettin’ ready t’ take Miss Emma and Miss Arabella shoppin’ on Bond Street. And as fer Master Percy, why, ’e weren’t even there!”
Casual lies, Finch had called them. Except this was a casual lie with a vicious, deadly purpose, told with the ease of a habitual liar.
“Does anyone at Down Street know where Percy was last Thursday?”
“Sorta. Graham—’e’s one o’ Salinger’s grooms—’e says ’e ain’t sure, but ’e thinks that’s the day Percy was shut up in ’is room on account of somethin’ er another ’e’d done. And get this: Graham says the lad ’as ways o’ gettin’ out of ’is room with no one being the wiser—says ’e’s done it before. Graham says Percy’s groom—a lad by the name o’ Jacob—’as been known to ’elp ’im do all sorts o’ things. I was gonna try t’ talk t’ him, only, get this: ’E’s done loped off! Ain’t nobody seen ’im since Saturday. And listen t’ this: There’s two knives missin’ from Salinger’s kitchen! The first one disappeared a week or more ago, but the second didn’t go missing till Thursday. That’s the day before the abigail was murdered in Hyde Park, ain’t it? Graham, ’e says they’re all lookin’ sideways at each other, thinkin’ there must be a thief on the staff, because other things’ve gone missin’ around the house lately.”
Tom paused, his face alight with excitement, but Sebastian knew such a deep sense of foreboding that he had to force himself to say, “What else is missing?”
“One of ’is lordship’s flintlock pistols! It’s an old double-barreled Jover ’is uncle carried in the American War, which they reckon is why ’e’s in such a takin’ over it being stolen.”
“When did it disappear?”
“They don’t rightly know since ’is lordship keeps it put away. ’E only noticed it was missin’ yesterday because ’e went lookin’ fer it.”
“Damn,” said Sebastian softly. He’d been thinking that if Finch’s gun had been used to kill Laura and Emma, then the killer—or killers—would have needed a second gun. But with Salinger’s old double-barreled flintlock . . .
“Damn,” he said again.
Damn, damn, damn.
Lord Salinger was not an easy man to find.
Sebastian searched the gentlemen’s clubs of St. James’s Street, Manton’s Shooting Gallery, and a host of other venues frequented by sporting men of means. It was a chance remark made by a barmaid in Limmer’s that led him to the wide, soaring arches of the new Strand Bridge, still two years or more away from completion.
The new bridge rose just upstream from the eighteenth-century neoclassical government complex known as Somerset House. Once, this stretch of the riverbank had been the site of the Savoy Palace, the great medieval palace of John of Gaunt that was considered in its time the grandest nobleman’s house in all of London. But over the years, riot, fire, and shifting tastes and politics had laid waste to the original buildings, reducing the palace to a hospital, a barracks, and even at times a prison. Now little remained of that once-famous structure: a crumbling Tudor chapel, some broken towers, an abandoned Lutheran burial ground, and a few stretches of shattered walls with gaping doorways and elegant arched windows that opened onto nothing. And virtually all of that would eventually be swept away when the final approach to the bridge was completed.
The bridge’s wide elliptical arches were all now in place, along with most of the superstructure. As he worked his way down the rubble-strewn slope toward the water, Sebastian could see the Viscount standing at about mid-river, near one of the alcoves that topped the bridge’s grand columned piers.
“It’s almost all gone now,” said Salinger, turning to watch him as Sebastian walked out onto the bridge toward him. He spoke so softly that his voice was barely audible above the swift rush of the river and the buffeting of the wind rising from the water to bathe their faces with the cool, sweet smell of the countryside upstream. “The old Savoy Palace, I mean. We used to come here as children, my brothers and I. We’d play amongst the old medieval ruins, pretending we were knights. Sometimes we’d drag Laura along and make her be our damsel in distress, although she always wanted to be a knight, too.”
For a moment he smiled faintly at the memory. Then the smile faded. “In those days we still had the original Priestly town house, in Pall Mall.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “The house I have now was a wedding gift from Septimus Bain to his daughter, Georgina. My own dear father sold the Pall Mall house to pay off some of his debts while I was up at Oxford. It only delayed the inevitable, of course, although I suppose in the end it did help save the Priory.” He paused. “Did you ever meet him? My father, I mean.”
“I don’t believe so, no.”
Salinger nodded, his eyes narrowing against the sunlight glinting off the water. “He was considered a most likable man. Charming and easygoing and cheerful, and yet so breathtakingly selfish that nothing—and I do mean nothing—mattered more to him than his own pleasure. Not his estates, not the family’s heritage, and certainly not his children. He sold me to the rich father of a woman who was half-mad, while poor Laura ended up with a man who will no doubt remarry before she’s been in her grave a month. All for money. Money, so that the old bastard could continue to play the horses and roll the dice and tup his whores.”
“You know about McInnis and Olivia Edmondson?”
“I didn’t before. But I do now—damn him all to hell. And to think I considered the son of a bitch my friend.” Salinger was silent for a moment, his fists curling against the granite balustrade before him. “The funerals are tomorrow; did you know? Malcolm and Duncan finally made it home late Sunday night. Perhaps once Laura and Emma are buried we can begin to put this all behind us.”
“Even if the killer has never been identified?”
Salinger’s lips twisted into an odd smile. “You think I should be desperate for justice, do you?” He rolled the word “justice” around on his tongue as if it were something bitter or perhaps simply illusory. “One puts down a mad dog, shoots a horse with a broken leg, and executes a murderer; it’s what we do, isn’t it? Our responsibility to society. But when all is said and done, what difference would that make to Laura and Emma? My sister and her daughter would still be dead. Nothing is going to bring them back.” He was silent a moment, his throat working hard as he swallowed. “I want to get my children away from”—he swept one arm through the air in a wide, violent arc that took in the river and the teeming city that stretched away to the east, north, and west—”from all of this.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on the river far below, where a heavily laden coal barge was being swept downstream by the outrushing tide. “I understand Percy is fascinated by murder.”
Salinger shot him a quick sideways glance. “He is, yes.”
“Do you know what first attracted his interest to it?”
Salinger twitched one shoulder. “I don’t recall precisely; it was one of those bizarre murders that had the city in an uproar two or three years ago. He became obsessed with reading everything he could about it, as if he could solve the murder himself by reasoning it out.” He blew out a harsh breath. “If you ask me, it’s shameful, the way the newspapers sensationalize these things. They do it deliberately, to stir up people’s fears so they can then feed the public’s appetite for shock and a strange kind of titillating, vicarious horror. And when you add in the ridiculous broadsheets they print whenever some notorious murderer is hanged, with a bunch of fabricated nonsense they pretend is the killer’s ‘final confession,’ it . . . it’s unhealthy.”
“Was that what worried your sister? Percy’s interest in murder?”
Salinger held himself utterly still. “What do you mean?”
“I’m told she came to see you several weeks ago because she was worried about your younger children.”
Salinger stared out at the rushing turmoil of the river, his jaw tightening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
Salinger shifted to look at him. “You think I killed her? Is that what you’re saying? My own sister and niece? Me?”
“No,” said Sebastian quietly. “Not you.”
Sebastian watched as understanding dawned slowly, watched as the other man’s face crumpled with revulsion before tightening with rage. “My God. You—you bloody, sick bastard!” He pushed away from the balustrade to stand facing Sebastian, his hands dangling loosely at his sides, his face flushed, his breath coming hard and fast as the wind off the river whipped around them. “There is nothing wrong with my children! Do you hear me? Nothing.”
Sebastian kept his voice even. “I’m told several items have gone missing from your house recently. Your cook is complaining of two knives that were stolen from her kitchen, and you yourself discovered that a double-barreled flintlock pistol that once belonged to your uncle is also missing.”
Salinger was breathing so heavily now that his chest was jerking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said again.
“I don’t pretend to understand it,” said Sebastian. “Least of all why they did it. Perhaps because Percy is so fascinated by murder and murderers that he wanted to see if he was clever enough to kill someone and get away with it? Because he wanted to know what it feels like to take another person’s life? Because Arabella was so jealous of her cousin Emma that she wanted to kill her, or they somehow overheard what Laura said to you, and it made them angry? But for whatever reason, Percy went out of his way to learn everything he could about the old murders out at Richmond Park, and then Arabella badgered your aunt into agreeing to take them there on a picnic. One or the other of them—or perhaps both working together—stole your uncle’s old double-barreled flintlock from wherever you keep it. And then, because they didn’t want to kill Thisbe, too—either because they had no grudge against her or because they couldn’t figure out the logistics of killing three people at once—Arabella destroyed one of her own books and blamed it on Thisbe so the child would be made to stay home.”
“No,” said Salinger, his head shaking back and forth, his face contorted with horror. “Do you hear me? No. They’re children! They’d need to be mad to do such a thing.”
“I don’t think it’s madness,” Sebastian said quietly. “I suspect it’s more an extreme form of selfishness and self-absorption, combined with a total lack of sympathy for the feelings of others.”
“What you’re describing is madness, and my children aren’t mad. Do you hear me? They are not mad! And if you—if you dare to voice this disgusting theory of yours to anyone else, I swear to God I’ll kill you. Do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”
“You can try,” said Sebastian evenly. “But that won’t help your children. Not in the long run.”
Salinger’s chest shuddered as if with a suppressed sob. “God damn you. God damn you all to hell.”
His face frozen in a rictus of pain, the children’s father pushed away from the balustrade to brush past Sebastian and stride toward the crumbling ruins of the doomed palace on the riverbank. The wind whipped at the tails of his coat and blew hard enough that for a moment he staggered, putting up a hand to secure his hat before lowering his head and pushing on.
But Sebastian stayed where he was, his gaze on the wide sun-sparkled expanse of water and his heart so heavy within that it hurt.