Chapter 40
The following morning Thomas went early to check on Richard. He found Lydia already dressed and sitting on the bed, holding her son’s hand. She smiled as soon as she saw him enter the room.
“Dr. Silkstone has come to see you, Richard,” she said softly, then to Thomas she added, “I think his fever has broken.”
Thomas felt the boy’s forehead with the palm of his hand. He nodded and looked into his eyes. They were still bloodshot but not as glassy as they had been the day before.
“So, you are feeling better, young man?” he asked gently.
The boy nodded his curly head.
“Perhaps you would like to try and eat today. Some porridge maybe, and we may even find some strawberry jam to put on top, eh?”
Lydia let out a girlish giggle. It was a sound Thomas had never heard her make before and it brought a smile to his own face. He could not recall seeing her so happy. Perhaps this is what it would be like; all of them, laughing together, being together, forging a family. It would not matter that he could not call her his wife in law. He had no interest in her title or her estate.
A sudden knock at the door interrupted the mirth. Thomas answered it. Howard stood anxiously at the threshold. “Sir, there are men from the village to see you.”
The smile disappeared from the anatomist’s face. He could hear voices below. He glanced back at Lydia. “I am needed,” he told her.
She nodded. “Of course. There is no need to worry about us.”
Thomas grabbed his case and followed Howard downstairs where a motley bunch of men from Brandwick had assembled in the back hallway. Ned Perkins stepped forward, fingering the brim of his hat, and spoke for them.
“Dr. Silkstone, sir, something terrible has happened.”
“What?”
“The Makepeace children are dead.”
“How? Why?” Thomas was stunned.
Hastily Lovelock made ready the wagon and drove the doctor, and the half-dozen men who had walked out to Boughton, back into the village.
“They’re saying the devil came back to collect his own, Dr. Silkstone,” said Perkins as the wagon rumbled its way toward Brandwick. “They’re saying the demons weren’t never cast out and now they’ve taken their revenge.”
Thomas’s mind flashed back to the exorcism and the contorted faces of the crowd. After witnessing such primeval behavior he knew the villagers could believe anything if they chose to. They stopped outside Joseph Makepeace’s cottage, where a cluster of women had gathered. Some were weeping.
Thomas found Joseph Makepeace inside, being comforted by a neighbor. He was huddled in a blanket on a chair. He lifted his baleful eyes.
“The children,” said Thomas. “I . . .”
Makepeace said nothing but the neighbor jerked his head toward another door. Entering the room Thomas confronted the sickening scene. The boy and girl lay dead where they had slumbered a few hours before, their skulls seemingly crushed. A bloodied shovel had been discarded close by on the flagstones.
The boy was lying slumped on top of his sister. Perhaps he had been trying to protect her, thought Thomas as he surveyed the room. A blow had been struck to the boy’s forehead, a ferocious blow dealt, most probably, as he rose from sleep. The girl’s nightshift was also stained crimson with the blood from a head wound.
Thomas glanced over at the window. It was open. The killer would have entered there, carried out his gruesome deed, then left the same way. Despite a slight breeze wafting through the open casement, the room was already growing warm as the outside temperature rose. The bodies needed removing before they started to turn. There would have to be a postmortem. Dr. Carruthers had always taught him to keep an open mind, but on this occasion, Thomas was finding it hard. These murders were far more brutal than those of Lady Thorndike and Gabriel Lawson. The children were struck in uncontrolled anger rather than cool calculation. Could there be more than one murderer in the village? Or might the adults’ killer be the same fiend who bludgeoned these two unfortunate children in their beds? Only science could provide the answer, the anatomist told himself.
After consulting with the watchman, Thomas ordered the bodies to be lifted into the wagon and taken to the game larder at Boughton. Once again he sent word to Sir Theodisius. He did not seek immediate permission to conduct a postmortem. A non-invasive examination would suffice for now. This time, he knew what he was looking for and he did not need to use a scalpel to find it, even if it was only to disprove the same killer might be behind all four murders.
Just as he was leaving the cottage, he saw the Reverend Lightfoot approach, prayer book in hand. He was looking careworn and anxious. “Is it true?” he asked Thomas.
The doctor nodded. “They were both bludgeoned to death.”
The vicar’s brow crumpled and he shook his gray head. “What monster could do such a thing?”
“At this moment I am not sure, sir, but I intend to find out,” replied Thomas.
Reverend Lightfoot nodded. “I will pray that you do, Dr. Silkstone,” he said.
Inside, the vicar found Joseph Makepeace still trembling and mumbling incoherently. Ned Perkins had joined him. He sat on a chair next to the baker and the blacksmith by the empty hearth.
“Why would the Lord let this happen, sir?” asked Ned Perkins after a moment.
The reverend sucked in air thoughtfully, then shook his head. “ ’Twas not God’s work. This has all the hallmarks of the devil,” he replied after a moment.
Perkins’s head shot up. “Aye, and we know who that devil is,” he said through clenched teeth.
All five men looked at each other knowingly, but it was Joseph Makepeace who, suddenly finding his voice, mouthed the name first. “Joshua Pike.”
“ ’Tis the knife-grinder that killed Lady Thorndike and Gabriel Lawson and now these young ’uns, too,” snarled Ned Perkins, balling a fist and punching his palm. “The sooner we find him, the sooner we can put paid to his murderous ways.”
“He’ll be hiding up somewheres ’round here,” said the baker, wiping his hands on his floury apron.
“Fog means he can’t go far,” added the farrier.
“It certainly does,” said Perkins.
It was then that the vicar, who had been keeping his own counsel, listening carefully to what the men were saying, chose to speak. “And I think I know where he can be found,” he ventured. All eyes turned on the Reverend Lightfoot. Had they heard him right? He fixed each one with a knowing look, then said, “And, you are correct. ’Tis very near.”