Devoured (Hatton & Roumande)

by D. E. Meredith

  Finch had been arranged as if in study. His left hand grasped a quill. There was a book in his other. Hatton peered closer at a leather-bound copy. Vestiges. The publication they had discussed on the train.

  The creator of this thing had been thorough, if not exact. With Adams’s permission, Hatton touched it and felt the human leather. He moved around and pressed his fingers into the form. There was no blood, no gristle or mucus. Nothing to suggest the terrible violence which must have preceded the crime.

  ‘So, Professor. Best guess. When did he die?’

  Hatton answered, shaking his head in disbelief, ‘It would have taken time to do this sort of work, Inspector. There can’t be that many people in Cambridge who could do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Adams said. ‘We shall need to round up anyone who dabbles in this art. We must start at once. Three bodies, now. Dammit.’ Adams lit a penny smoke, his agitation showing. ‘The local Specials will help us. The remains must be somewhere.’

  Hatton stood for a few more seconds, but staring at this form didn’t help. They needed the rest of the body. The Inspector was right, so Hatton followed Adams into the other room, where the porter and Broderig were now flaked out together, the old man mumbling, the young man comforting.

  ‘I want everything left untouched, Mr Hedge. No one is to enter this room. Do I make myself clear? Then I want everything you have on Finch. All the papers, all the documents. Anyone who knew him, worked with him, talked to him, liked him, hated him. And Mr Broderig, a little more information from you, too, sir.’

  ‘You know I have told you all I can, Inspector.’

  ‘You have told us very little about the content of the letters you seemed so concerned about. What, sir, was the nature of your correspondence to Lady Bessingham?’

  Broderig stared at the floor and then looked to Hatton, who looked to the ground, not knowing what else to do. ‘My letters were personal but essentially the details of my journey to Borneo, a few sketches, illustrations, some rough ideas. Nothing else. But I want them back, Inspector. They’re not worth killing for. They had nothing to do with Dr Finch and are all that I have left of Lady Bessingham.’

  Adams stubbed his cigarette out. ‘Well, I’m very concerned about your safety. Each of these murders is linked by science and you, too, are a botanical. You need to mind yourself, Mr Broderig. May I ask if you carry any means of protection?’

  ‘I have a small pistol which I keep in London. It’s at Swan Walk, under my pillow. Are you suggesting I carry it, Inspector?’

  Adams nodded. ‘And Mr Broderig, I also suggest you keep it in a locked drawer, or in a safe with the safety catch on. I can’t tell you how many gentlemen I’ve known who have accidentally shot their own heads off keeping a gun under a pillow. It’s easily done.’

  Adams helped the old man up, and then without waiting for anyone, marched out of the room. Hatton turned to his friend and said, ‘I’d better keep in his step, Mr Broderig. Are you sure you’re alright?’

  Broderig nodded. ‘It’s poor Mr Hedge I’m worried about. I’ll stay with him awhile.’

  Mr Hedge started to retch but Hatton could see he was in good hands. Broderig was stroking his hair, telling him, ‘No, I won’t leave you and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I feel sick to the stomach myself.’

  Outside, the Inspector was frantically hailing a carriage.

  ‘Hurry up, Professor. Get inside. No Mr Broderig, then? Not that we need him now. Three botanicals dead. What a damn mess.’ And he yelled at the driver, ‘Hurry up, for God’s sake, man, or I’ll drive the thing myself.’

  The local Cambridge police station was nothing like The Yard. For a start it was quiet.

  ‘Never thought I’d see myself back here again. Bloody useless lot when I left. I see nothing much has changed. Oi! You! Yes, you, Officer Dimwit. Look lively, and get me whoever’s in charge.’

  A desk was hurriedly found, a line of command decided. Hatton watched as Adams, a terrifying taskmaster, bellowed at the rural constabulary and they jumped, every last man and boy. Whistles blew, papers flew, telegrams were dispatched at will. Interviews and searches commenced at speed. Cigarettes were rolled quicker still, and as each corner of the city was turned over, one man cast his shadow. But as night became day and day became night … nothing.

  ‘I need an extensive netting and wading of the Cam,’ the Inspector barked, but as the dull sun broke out fractured beams from a grey dawn, still nothing.

  Dead cats, abandoned books, and bicycles were hauled up through the broken ice. The following morning passed and Hatton watched from the sidelines. By midday, still no body parts.

  The meeting in the makeshift incident room told Professor Hatton little. And what they did know, Adams read like a riot act. ‘No talking at the back.’ He paused, letting a billow of smoke swirl about before addressing the now hushed room.

  ‘Finch was almost friendless, having courted controversy once too often. He’d not been seen for weeks. He was apparently quiet but when he did speak up, was arrogant. We know he was well turned out in silk shirts from London, but lacked manners.’

  One brave soul asked, ‘Do we know about his family, Inspector?’

  Adams looked at his notes. ‘All we know so far is that he came from a teaching post at University College, but was thrown out for something he said or wrote. Nothing’s verified. No paper was circulated. And there’s nothing immediate to link him to our other victims, Mr Dodds or Lady Bessingham, other than what we already know. So, anything else on Finch?’ Adams looked around the room.

  One Special spoke out, ‘Well, he never went to church. Some thought him an atheist. Others, a genius. Ladies liked him for his wan good looks, and for his intellectual daring, as well, until he wrote something or said something which upset people.’

  ‘Yes, but where is this thing? What the devil does it say?’

  No one seemed to know. More detail followed, and Hatton sat at the back of the meeting room where he listened to how Finch played cricket in the summer, enjoyed beetle collecting, went to London whenever he could, but kept himself to himself. Finch’s life in a nutshell.

  One of the Specials spoke up again, trying to look useful. ‘We have three taxidermists in Cambridge and one in Ely. We’ve talked to nearly all of them. But have nothing to go on.’

  ‘But not spoken to everyone, then?’ Adams stared back at the hapless policeman.

  ‘Word is there’s a skilled stuffer in the Fens. He’s a breedling, Inspector. A waterman, otter skin hat, the lot. He’s out on a punt by day slipping through the waters round Wickham way. It’s hard to catch him, for he blends in with the rushes and doesn’t relish the law. But our boys will track him, be sure of it.’ Adams caught Hatton’s eye.

  ‘But it makes no rhyme or reason to me for a bog-trotting breedling to bother with this sort of freak show, unless there was money in it. What’s this slodger’s name?’

  ‘Locals call him Mucker. By all accounts he’s a strange fellow, living off the marshes like a regular wader and selling his trade of skinning and stitching when the fishing season’s on.’

  Hatton was intrigued and began to follow these strange words. It seemed breedling and slodger were one and the same – watermen. Men who still lived off the Fens in a traditional way. He knew a little of their history. How they’d been thrown off their islands and inlets when the drainage men came. Some had put down their nets to work the land, but others still lived in the remotest parts of the Cambridgeshire marshes. By all accounts, they were strange people, half savage, living in damp huts and muddy holes.

  ‘Well,’ said Adams, ‘for God’s sake, let’s go there.’ Adams pushed his chair away and moved quickly to the door. ‘Come on, Professor. I’ll need you for a start.’

  ‘What about Mr Broderig, Inspector? Should we check on him, or at least tell him what we’re doing?’ Hatton guessed where his friend might be and felt bad simply leaving him. But Adams was insistent, saying, ‘He’ll be at The Eagle, perfectly
happy. I’ll send word for him to wait for us there. He’s had enough shock for a lad of his age. A week or more, you reckon? To stuff a man like that?’

  Hatton nodded, knowing where this was leading. A week or more. Finch had been the first.

  TWELVE

  WICKHAM FEN

  Snow was falling and Hatton feared the search would be hampered, although Adams had given orders to swell the search party to twenty more able men. Sources at the local tavern proved good and the men were soon led out to Wickham Fen, a mile or more from Ely. Word was, the Mucker had a hut somewhere along the banks, but to the untrained eye, it was well hidden. They took a lad with them who had said he knew trapping and could act as their guide. With a nod of encouragement from the tavern owner and a shilling from Adams, the child seemed happy to oblige.

  ‘What’s your name, child?’ Adams asked him, as they set off.

  The boy looked him square in the eye. Not frightened, as Hatton would have been at his age. He seemed fearless, despite the posse of men who stood with the Inspector like a pack.

  ‘Bob Feltwell and I know Wickham. My family, when I had some, were breedlings. I know the Mucker, too. He takes the best pikes but he’s getting creaky now, and I’m creeping up on him. Last summer I caught a nine-pounder. He stuffed it for me, for a mean price, the old miser. But it was worth it, for I sold it and ate like a king.’ The boy sniffed and rubbed his face as he talked. Hatton felt sorry for this strange child. Countless children who roamed the streets in London were far worse off than he, yet somehow his poverty touched the Professor. The boy’s hand-me-down clothes had been gathered from who knows where, and they were fit for a man of twenty, hanging off his tiny frame.

  ‘Well, young Bob. You find this Mucker for us and you’ll be supping like a king with a bevy of stove-piped Specials before sun goes down,’ Hatton said to the child, smiling.

  The child, head down and trudging along the frozen banks of the waterways, replied, ‘Maybe. Though I’m not intending to sit with no Specials. They are not inclined to favour boys like me. I hide from the law, but if the money’s right, well, I’m here, aren’t I? I’ll find him alright. He thinks he’s the king of trackers, does Mucker, but I’m creeping up on him.’

  ‘Does he live alone, boy?’ asked Adams.

  ‘He had a daughter once, same age as me, but she disappeared. They think she was drowned in the marshes. It happens when the floods come. No one ever found her body, nor nothing to say she’d ever been alive. It was all the talk for a while round these parts. But it’s not so unusual for children to die here.’

  And the boy trudged on along the icy boardwalks till they reached a flat gully of water, and then he skitted away, up a bank of snow. Adams stopped in his tracks and, twisting round, cautioned the men to fall silent.

  The silence felt like hours. Had the boy given up? Adams seemed content to look at his boots, hands behind his back, gently rocking back and forth. Only the bite of the wind through thickets of scrub and spindly hawthorns broke the eerie silence. Wickham Fen was a desolate place, empty and sullen.

  Then, suddenly, the caw of a crow and a low whistle. The boy appeared down the slope covered in frosted twigs and grasses. He had tracked the old man. Hatton was sure of it.

  The boy mumbled something to Adams who in turn beckoned to the Professor.

  ‘It appears we have the breedling in his little winter’s nest. Mr Feltwell here has tracked him, helped by a little smoke which is rising from his hut. The men can stay here till I give the call, for this Mucker fellow is afraid of the law, and will be off like a frightened rabbit if we don’t step softly. Professor Hatton, you seem to me to have an uncommonly light touch and an enquiring nature, so I suggest you come with me.’

  Up and down banks of snow, the two men followed the child, until they reached a huge, expansive lake, edged by a tangle of rushes, frosted and hanging bent in the cold. The lake looked treacherous. The boy lay on his belly and gestured at the ice. Then slipping along, he pushed his body skidding across it. There was little choice and they followed. But as he glided, Hatton heard the sound of cracking, and was sure he felt the water and the lake dragging him down, but no, the boy was right. The ice held solid. Hatton’s hands were tingling, but the sight of the curling smoke ahead made him forget his lack of comfort. The child had not failed them.

  The old man’s hut was a tumble dwelling made of muck and bits of old wood. No windows, just a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, and for a door, a mouldy, mildewed cutting of spruce wood. Outside the hut was a collection of tools and frozen fish heads. Bits of old leather hung over branches in the surrounding trees. With no window to look through, Adams knocked on the door.

  ‘Who goes there?’ asked a rough voice from inside.

  ‘It’s Bob Feltwell, Mucker. I’ve men here that will give you money.’

  Adams glowered at the boy, but the child paid no heed and pulled the wood flap back on its hinge.

  Inside the hut it was dark, airless, womb-like. In the centre, a small fire was lit, heating an ancient black cooking pot on a big metal chain. Something was bubbling away, something rotten. Just a hint of tanning in the air. Hatton had seen the fish leather outside, left hanging over the sedge, like forlorn oily flags.

  And curled up tight, in a ball, was the breedling. At first, he was hard to make out. His feet were swaddled in reed, his body tangled up in a torn cape of strange leather, slimy and badly done. As Hatton’s eyes adjusted in the dingy light, the Mucker’s face formed. No beard but rough, caked stubble full of twigs, dirt, and grass. His eyes, fishlike.

  ‘What d’ya want? Speak now,’ the voice was scratching. Then, without even moving, he spat on the floor.

  ‘What do’ya want with old Mucker? Speak, why don’t you?’ The breedling slowly sat up and looked at the door. Adams sensed the escape and held back, using his full height to block the only exit. The Mucker fell back on his bed.

  The boy spoke up, ‘These men want information. They will pay a handsome price. There’s a man gone missing. I told them you are the best of trackers and that maybe you can help them.’

  ‘Help them? I had someone once. She went missing. None helped me, though I begged them. Men like you came, said they’d do something, but they did nothing. Missing, you say?’

  ‘Yes, Mucker. I told them about your daughter. But look at the state of yourself. You could do with a pouch of baccy, couldn’t you?’ The child was clever.

  ‘Money, eh? There’s money says I know nothing.’

  The Inspector took a step forward. ‘The boy’s right, there’s money if you help us. And if you don’t, well, let’s just say I’ve heard there’s been a fair lot of fish being poached on Mr Wade’s land and there’s plenty of fish skins hanging out to dry on those hawthorns. They look like trout to me; not the sort of fish you’d get here in Wickham.’ Adams lit a cigarette and billowed out the smoke as he spoke.

  ‘You the boss, eh? The jailer? I’m not afeared of your threats. You have nothing on me. I keeps myself to myself and those skins are pikes. Just look at their size. There’s no trout rustling in December. You think I’m a fool, don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you Mr Jailor Man, I’m ancient, I’ll grant you that, but I’m not afeared of your type. You wants old Mucker’s help, well, I’ll give it but not with these threats. Money is the speaker here. As I bet it is with you. I know your sort, sir.’ The ‘sir’ was said with a snarl, and though this breedling was cornered, Hatton could sense even Adams was wary.

  ‘Well, given that we understand each other so well, what can you tell us and how much will it cost? Mind you, any jiggery pokery and we’ll pay you nothing.’

  The boy laughed to hear Adams’s retort. And the breedling scratched his damp, matted head. Lice, Hatton didn’t wonder. He was probably crawling with them.

  ‘There was a strange gathering of birds up yonder on Barnet’s Mound, maybe a month ago. Like there was food to be had. I did think it strange at the time, for its winter and not feasting t
ime for crows. They had gathered up there like it was autumn on sowing ground. Hovering, cawing, and flocking about in a round. Maybe you’d best look up there.’

  ‘Can you take us?’ asked Adams.

  ‘Take the boy. You know the mound, boy, don’t you? I’ve been out all night tracking badgers.’

  The urchin nodded yes. But Adams remained tight-lipped and continued, threatening, ‘Badgers? A likely tale. What if I told you that a man has been murdered? That this man has been flayed and skinned. That some devil has stuffed him like one of your pikes. What would you say to that, stodger? Would you know anyone who could do that to an innocent man, rise in the morning, and go about his work not flinching or praying for God’s mercy?’

  The breedling stirred in his bed. ‘God’s mercy? What’s that? I know no mercy in my life. There’s no God’s mercy for my kith and kin. It’s just the rich that’s served. Stuffed, you say? That would be a job. To tan and stuff a man. I’ve heard that there are those that will do anything. But I just do fish. Nothing fancy. My tools are over there. You can check if you like. Try the rich taxidermists in Cambridge – they’re the artists. How was he done? Fancy like or plain? Was he in a cabinet or sat down for tea? That’s what they do, those charlatan stuffers. They dress owls up as schoolmasters and rabbits as maids. I see nature for what it is. I stuff little things. Not a man.’ His voice faltered as he shrunk back.

  ‘Just look on the mound. I know nothing more. You’ll leave me the money, won’t you?’ Adams looked in his purse and pulled out a shilling. Even he seemed moved by this pitiful creature.

  ‘If this money’s for nought, I’ll be back old man.’ Adams stubbed his cigarette out on the floor.

  Back across the ice, and up the bank, Adams blew his whistle and in a minute the Specials arrived. ‘Let the boy lead, come on.’

  ‘This is it,’ said Feltwell. ‘This is the mound.’