Why Mermaids Sing sscm-3

by C. S. Harris

  He found himself looking at a kitchen, a big farm kitchen with a wide-mouthed, smoke-darkened stone hearth that stretched across most of the far wall with a clutch of dusty pots that dangled from a blackened beam. At the battered, scrubbed table in the center of the room sat Dr. Aaron Newman, his back to the window. As Sebastian watched, the doctor wrapped his fist around the neck of a brandy bottle and raised it to his lips to drink deeply. A well-kept fowling piece—an over-and-under flintlock shotgun with a brass butt cap and steel trigger guard—lay on the table just inches from his hand.

  Anthony Atkinson was nowhere in sight.

  Sebastian blew out a long, slow breath. The boy could be anywhere in the house or outbuildings, or he could be dead. But Sebastian had come to the conclusion there was a good chance the child still lived. Newman had planned each of his murders with a chilling degree of precision and ruthlessness. The man might be a physician rather than a surgeon, but he would still be familiar with the effects of time on a corpse. And anyone intending to drag a dead body into London in the dead of the night would want to avoid dealing with a cadaver in the full grip of rigor mortis.

  With effort, Sebastian checked his first impulse, which was to burst into the kitchen and end it all right here, right now. Against that shotgun, he had only the knife in his boot. And while ordinarily that would have been enough, Sebastian knew he would be taking a terrible chance now. His left arm hung nearly useless at his side, and he was dangerously light-headed, whether from loss of blood or concussion, he had no way of knowing. Better to get the boy away by stealth, quickly and quietly. He could deal with Aaron Newman later.

  Turning away from the window, Sebastian flattened his back against the house wall, the stones cold and sharp against his palms. His gaze swept the kitchen yard, with its wood house and smokehouse, and moved on to the buildings clustered around the farmyard, the henhouse and pigsty, wagon shed and stables, barn and calf pens. All appeared empty, the old manure heap in the center of the yard now blackened with age and rain. Neither the doctor’s gig nor his horse was anywhere to be seen.

  Sebastian brought his gaze back to the stable. Constructed of the same coarse, rough stone as the other farm buildings, it had a thatched hipped roof with a central gable for the hayloft, and a wide set of double doors that doubtless gave access to a carriage room. The carriage doors were closed, but Sebastian could see freshly churned mud in the yard before them.

  Sucking in a deep breath tinged with woodsmoke and the smell of damp stone, he eased away from the window and worked his way back toward the corner of the house. Wary of being seen if Newman should chance to stand and glance out the window, Sebastian approached the farmyard by swinging out in a wide arc, his boots squelching in the mud as he neared the abandoned pigsty.

  It was raining harder now, big drops that pattered on the thatched roofs and ran down the back of Sebastian’s collar as he sprinted across the farm road to the carriage doors. The doors were old and warped, and slid apart with a harsh grating that was lost in the sound of trees bending in the wind and rain slapping into mud. Squeezing through the narrow opening, Sebastian quickly eased the doors shut behind him.

  He found himself in a space some twenty feet deep and twelve feet wide. The air here was thick with the smell of dust and hay and fresh manure. A black gig, its padded leather seat still wet with that morning’s rain, stood in the dim light. Halfway down the wall to his right, an arched opening framed with dressed stone gave access to a darkened corridor.

  Skirting the gig, Sebastian ducked through the arch to find himself in a cobbled passage. Beyond a narrow flight of stairs leading up to the hayloft stretched a row of three horse stalls, with a harness room and feed bin ranged along the opposite side of the passage. A Dutch door at the far end of the passage doubtless led to a fenced side yard.

  “Anthony?” Sebastian called, the clatter of his bootheels on the cobbled floor echoing in the stillness. A big bay tethered in the first stall lifted its head, its ears flicking forward as it whinnied loudly. From the copse up the hill came a distant answering nicker.

  “Bloody hell,” whispered Sebastian, slipping the knife from his boot. If Newman heard the horses and decided to investigate…

  Sebastian moved quickly down the passage. The second stall stood empty in the dull light cast by its high cobwebbed window. Outside he could hear the rain pick up again, beating harder on the thatched roof overhead. His stomach clenching with the knowledge of what he might find, Sebastian moved on to the last stall.

  The boy lay curled up against the thick planked walls of the third stall, his hands and feet bound, a gag prying his mouth open in an awkward rictus. His eyes were closed, his face pale and streaked with dirt and the tracks of dried tears. But Sebastian could see the shudder of his stained white nightshirt where it stretched across his chest.

  “Anthony?” Sebastian hunkered down to touch the boy’s shoulder. “I’m here to take you home. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  The boy’s eyes fluttered open, then closed again, his breath coming slow and shallow. Newman had obviously dosed the boy liberally with laudanum.

  “Don’t be afraid of the knife. I’m going to use it to cut you loose.” His hand sweaty on the handle of the blade, Sebastian sliced through the ropes at the boy’s hands and feet, then loosed the gag at his mouth.

  “You need to wake up for me, Anthony.” He grasped the boy’s shoulders to give him a little shake. “Can you stand?”

  Anthony’s eyelids opened again, his eyes glassy, his head rolling on his neck.

  “Come on then.” Slipping his hands beneath the boy’s armpits, Sebastian hauled him upright, staggering slightly as he took the boy’s weight. For one perilous moment, the barn’s dusty light dimmed, and Sebastian’s head swam.

  “I don’t think I can carry you, lad.” Sebastian wrapped an arm around the boy’s waist. “You’ve got to at least hold on and try to walk. Can you do that?”

  Anthony’s lips parted, his thin chest shuddering as he sucked in a deep breath and nodded.

  “Good lad.” Sebastian lurched toward the passage. He wasn’t sure if he was holding the boy up, or if it was the other way around. The rain pounded on the roof, pattered against the high windows. He was concentrating so hard on putting one foot in front of the other that it wasn’t until they’d reached the arched entrance to the carriage room that Sebastian heard the slap of boots in the mud outside and the rasp of the carriage doors opening.

  Chapter 64

  Sebastian shoved the boy behind him. “The door at the other end of the passage,” he whispered. “Get yourself out of here, then run like hell for the wood.” As long as Sebastian could keep Newman at the entrance to the carriage room, the shadowy recesses of the passage would be out of his line of vision.

  Aaron Newman loomed in the open carriage doors, a lean figure silhouetted against the rain-filled yard. “Stay right there and put your hands where I can see them,” said the doctor, the fowling piece gripped in both hands. “Do it, my lord. Or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you.”

  Sebastian braced his hands against the stone doorframe beside him and said, “It’s over, Dr. Newman.”

  The doctor’s hands tightened on the shotgun’s ornate stock. “I beg to differ with you, my lord, but I don’t see it that way.”

  Sebastian was aware of the boy’s frightened breathing behind him, the furtive patter of bare feet on the cobbled floor as Anthony crept toward the far end of the passage. Sebastian managed to keep his voice calm, although he could feel his pulse racing in his neck. “I didn’t come alone. Sir Henry Lovejoy and some half a dozen of his constables are on their way here.”

  Newman raised one eyebrow. “You came ahead, did you? How foolhardy of you.”

  By now Anthony had reached the far end of the passage. “I know about your son,” said Sebastian, scuffing one bootheel across the cobbles to cover the scrape made by the door’s bolt being drawn back. “I know what they did to him on the Harmony.
I understand your anger and your desire for justice. But why not kill the men responsible for what happened to him? Why murder their innocent children?”

  Newman shook his head, a muscle jumping along his tightened jaw. “Death ends all suffering. I wanted them to pay for what they did to Gideon and for what they did to me. I wanted them to feel what I have felt, to suffer what I have suffered. They killed my son. I killed theirs.”

  “Edward Bellamy didn’t kill your son.”

  “He didn’t protect him, either. My son was entrusted to his care. Bellamy was captain of that ship. If anyone had the power to stop what happened, it was him.”

  Sebastian felt the brush of cool air from the door easing open at his back, heard the slow creak of a hinge as Anthony Atkinson moved oh so carefully.

  “Yet you killed the Reverend Thornton’s son first. Why?”

  “Thornton was a man of God. A man of God. He urged them to kill my son. Urged them! Mary Thornton told me about it when she was dying. About how the good Reverend reassured the others that God would forgive them. Well, he was wrong, wasn’t he?”

  “Did you kill her? Mary Thornton, I mean.”

  Newman shook his head. “God killed her.”

  Sebastian was watching the man’s wild gray eyes. And so he knew the instant the doctor heard the bang of the Dutch door flying fully open, the distant slap of running feet hitting the muddy yard.

  His lips peeled away from his teeth in a painful grimace. “You bastard.” Sebastian jerked back just as Newman tightened his finger on the shotgun’s trigger and fired.

  The first barrel discharged in a deafening blast of fiery powder and shot that sent bits of stone coping and wooden splinters from the stairs flying. The air filled with thick smoke and the stench of cordite.

  Sebastian took one step toward the open door at the end of the cobbled aisle, then knew it for a mistake. Newman still had another barrel. Silhouetted against the open doorway, Sebastian would be impossible to miss.

  He dove instead into the first stall, his injured shoulder exploding in fire as he careened into the plank wall and slipped to his knees. The carriage horse whinnied in alarm, its head tossing, its hooves clattering on the straw-covered cobbles.

  Sebastian rolled quickly to his feet, his head spinning as he drew back into the shadows. He could feel the drops of mingled sweat and rainwater dripping from his hair to roll down his cheeks, hear the doctor’s boots in the cobbled passage. Slipping his knife from his boot, Sebastian reached out and unhooked the bay’s tether. He held the length of leather clutched in his fist, the edges of the stiff hide digging into his palm as he waited for Newman to come into view.

  He watched the doctor pass the stall, his gaze fixed on the open doorway at the end of the passage. The bay snorted and tossed its head, just as Sebastian let the tether drop.

  The sound of the leather slapping against the stall’s heelpost brought Newman’s head around, his eyes wide. Sebastian pricked the bay’s flanks and sent it charging out of the stall. Newman took a quick step back, his finger tightening on the trigger in a reflex action. The fowling piece exploded in a deafening concussion that filled the stables with flames and smoke. Shot ripped through the nearest heelpost, torn shards of wood and splinters flying through the air as Sebastian dove into him.

  The force of the impact sent Newman crashing back against the harness room wall. Their feet tangled, Newman going down to smack his back hard against the cobbled floor. Sebastian slammed on top of him, the knife blade held tight against the doctor’s throat.

  In the sudden stillness, his ears still ringing from the shot, Sebastian could hear the sawing of his own breath and the roar of the rain through the open doors. And something else. The distant thunder of approaching horses ridden fast.

  Newman’s lips parted, his chest shuddering as he sought to draw air into his aching lungs. “Kill me,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Why don’t you just kill me?”

  Sebastian shook his head. He thought about Francesca Bellamy, about Lady Carmichael, about Dominic Stanton’s mother, now half mad with her grief. And he felt a rush of fury that submerged all shreds of pity or understanding. “No. You said it yourself. Death ends all suffering. And you deserve to suffer. For what you did to those innocent young men and for what their deaths have done to those who loved them.”

  They heard a shout from the yard and a boy’s thin voice saying, “In the stables. They’re in the stables.”

  Newman’s eyes squeezed shut, his breathing still ragged. “I did it for Gideon. I was never able to do anything for him in life. The least I could do was avenge his death.”

  “No.” Sebastian closed his fist on the doctor’s coat and hauled him to his feet. “You did it for yourself.”

  Chapter 65

  Sir Henry Lovejoy hunched his shoulders against the rain as he watched his constables bundle the Kentish doctor out of the stables.

  “I thought this wasn’t your case?” said Devlin, coming up beside him.

  “It’s not,” said Henry, swinging his head to look at the Viscount. He stood hatless in the rain, his once fine coat, waistcoat, and breeches torn and smeared with mud and blood and bits of leaves and straw. “Good God. We need to get you to a surgeon.”

  “It’ll keep.” Devlin scrubbed a hand across his face, wiping the rain from his eyes. “How’s the boy?”

  “He’s a good lad. He’ll be all right. Thanks to the laudanum, I don’t think he remembers much. But I’ve no doubt his testimony—combined with whatever evidence a search of the farm buildings yields—will be more than enough to see the good doctor hang.”

  Devlin’s features remained impassive as he stared off across the mist-filled valley. “There are some bodies in the wood just past the second tollgate out of London. You might want to send a couple of your men to deal with them.”

  “Bodies?”

  “Lord Stanton and several of his henchmen. They tried to kill me.”

  “And so you killed them?”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  Henry sighed.

  “Sir Henry.”

  Henry turned to see Constable Higgins coming toward them across the yard, his plump cheeks red with exertion, something small and white clutched in one fist. “Constable?”

  “I thought you’d want to see this,” said Higgins, holding out a small porcelain figurine. “We found it in a bag under the seat of Newman’s gig.”

  “What is it?” said Henry.

  The Viscount reached to take the delicate statue in his hands. “A mermaid. It’s a mermaid.”

  Henry groped for his handkerchief. “Merciful heavens.”

  “What will happen to them?” Devlin asked, staring down at the figurine. “I mean Atkinson and Carmichael and the absent Mr. and Mrs. Dunlop.”

  “Nothing, I suspect. I’ve never known the Crown to prosecute cases of cannibalism on the high seas.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about what they did to David Jarvis.”

  Henry shrugged. “We’ve no way of knowing who struck the fatal blow.”

  “The crew was hanged for his death.”

  “The crew was hanged for mutiny.”

  Devlin’s lips flattened into a sardonic smile. “Of course.”

  Henry knew a profound inner sense of uneasiness. “You’re planning something. What is it?”

  A gleam of amusement touched the Viscount’s haunted yellow eyes. “I don’t think you want to know.”

  “I think I’ve patched you up more in the past nine months than I did during the War,” said Paul Gibson, wrapping a length of bandage around Sebastian’s upper arm. “Here. Put your finger on that.”

  They were in Sebastian’s library, with Sebastian seated, shirtless, on the edge of his desk. He smiled and held the end of the bandage in place while the doctor rummaged in his bag for a pair of scissors. “What is war, after all, but an organized, sanctioned form of mass murder?”

  Gibson cut the length of gauze and tied it off, his attention
seemingly all for his work. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard the latest rumors?”

  “What rumors?”

  “About Russell Yates and Kat Boleyn. They’ve been married by special license.”

  “What?”

  Gibson pushed out his breath in a sigh. “I was afraid you didn’t know anything about it.”

  “No,” said Sebastian. “I didn’t.” He fixed his gaze unseeingly on the bowl of bloody water beside them while his friend went to work on the knife cuts on Sebastian’s wrists. Ever since he’d turned Aaron Newman over to Sir Henry down at Oak Hollow Farm, Sebastian had been trying to figure out how, with marriage out of the question, he was going to keep Kat safe from Jarvis. But it seemed Kat had found a way to protect herself.

  Now, freed from the desperate rush to catch a killer and devise some way to shield Kat from Jarvis’s malevolence, Sebastian suddenly found himself with nothing to distract him from the brutal reality of a future without Kat as his love, without Kat in his life. He felt a hideous emptiness yawn deep within his being, and for one blinding moment, the agony of it was so raw that it took his breath.

  “Sebastian—” Gibson broke off as the sound of running feet and the bang of a distant door foretold the arrival of Tom.

  “I’ve found one,” said Tom, his breath coming fast and his cheeks flushed. “I found you a valet. ’E’s been a gentleman’s gentleman for more’n twenty years. ’E knows all about yer interest in murder and the rigs from Rosemary Lane you sometimes wear, and it don’t bother ’im a bit. In fact, ’e’ll be a right handy one to ’ave around next time we find ourselves with a murder to investigate, ’cause ’e knows near every rookery and cracksman and Black Legs in town.”

  Sebastian slid off the edge of the desk. “And how, precisely, does he come to have this information?”

  “’Is ma owns the Blue Anchor.”

  “She what?” The Blue Anchor was the most notorious flash house in town, frequented by the worst sort of Morocco Men, dashers and beau-traps.