Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  “Reload, you bastards!” he yelled, his voice breaking with rage. His men were already on it, their faces as dark and bloody as his own. A ball from the cannon on the top deck of the Marquis burst through the bulwark no more than four feet from him, sending a blast of splinters up around it like a firework. Meredith clutched his leg and closed his fingers around a little dagger of wood. He pulled it out, hissing between his teeth. The cannonball spun crazily across the deck before tumbling out of a port on the starboard side. It was like a child’s marble game. Meredith laughed. James Westerman, his face white, was striding up the deck and clapped his shoulder as he passed.

  The Splendor would not permit the French to get behind her but let the wind spill from her sails till she was once again in the rear. The Marquis let her stern-chasers fire at them on the upward roll of the sea, trying again to savage their rigging. Meredith looked up, but could hardly tell what damage had been done, the rigging was so wreathed in gunsmoke from the marines’ muskets. All around him, the balls flew with a sharp crack. The mood was vicious.

  The Splendor’s forward guns gave another great bark and there was a cheer as the English crew saw that the Marquis was hulled at the waterline; the sea was pouring in. Meredith could see men in the hole, nails in their mouths and batons in their hands, trying to keep out the ocean. “Drown, you bastards,” he murmured. He could feel tears on his own cheeks. He dared not think what damage the broadside had done on the lower decks, but would swear it was the smoke from the guns.

  “Prepare to board!” The Splendor began to inch back alongside the Marquis.

  Meredith watched in horrid fascination as a French gunner put a slowmatch to his cannon. The world disappeared in smoke for a moment and Meredith heard the air spilled with a scream. Hobbes had been caught and thrown to his knees on the deck. His arm was shattered and already his blood was making the boards under Meredith’s feet slippery and treacherous. “Get below, Hobbes!” he yelled, and the boy began to drag himself toward the hatch with his good arm. Then: “Fire!”

  The Splendor’s broadside at this distance was devastating. Metal ripped through the French ship like a holy fire. Meredith aimed for the base of the Frenchman’s main mast. There was a thunderous crack and it fell toward them, catching on the Splendor’s spars and holding the two ships together in a bloody embrace—yet still the French did not cease firing.

  The captain was striding back down the length of his ship, his face set and his sword already in his hand. Behind him, men were lifting pikes from their racks under the mainmast, and the little boys who fetched the powder from the magazine were pressing fresh cartridges into the hands of the marines. Meredith felt for his sword.

  “Boarding party!” he roared, and his men dropped their business at the gun and ran for pikes of their own. As he swung his legs over the bulwark, preparing to leap onto the deck of the Frenchman, below him he could see others of the crew clambering from their portholes over their dead and their guns to swing themselves into the Marquis through the gaping holes torn in her sides. Meredith leaped and caught onto the Frenchman and hauled himself up. A light wind touched his cheek and in front of him the smoke parted enough for him to see a couple of French officers in fierce argument even as the English surged toward them across their bloody, shattered decks. He looked behind him and noticed a marine, his musket loaded and raised back on the Splendor.

  “There!” he shouted, pointing at the two men with his sword. The marine nodded and Meredith dropped to the deck as the musket fizzed and cracked behind him, his arms over his head and his whole body trembling. One of the officers fell, the other at once dropped to his knees and began to fumble under the corpse’s coat, pulling his sword free with such force the body rolled on its back, gaping up sightlessly at the fallen mast.

  The officer remained kneeling and lifted his captain’s sword above his head, shouting as loudly as he could above the yells and gunshots: “On se rend! On se rend!”

  Captain Westerman emerged from amidst the smoke: “Cease firing!”

  The English cheered and the gunfire came raggedly to a halt. Meredith lifted himself to his feet and looked around him. Dotted about the decks, his fellows from the Splendor stood over their French captives looking bloody and wild. The captain looked more ferocious than Meredith had ever seen him; his sword was red and wet.

  The living officer remained on his knees, still offering up the sword. Westerman grabbed it from him, spun on his heel and smashed the flat of the blade against the fallen trunk of the mainmast. The blade flew away from the hilt and skittered on the deck.

  The French officer flinched.

  “Rendez vos armes!” Westerman shouted, and as the pikes, guns and knives of the remaining French crew clattered to the deck, he threw down the hilt of the captain’s sword by his corpse and turned back toward the Splendor.

  EIGHT BELLS OF THE AFTERNOON WATCH (4 P.M.)

  James’s cabin was restored to order while he visited the surgeon and sick bay to find out what men he had lost. When he finally returned to his cabin, there was already more coffee on his table, his wife’s letter had been returned to the place where he had left it and his first lieutenant was waiting for him.

  “How bad is it, Captain?” Mr. Cooper asked.

  “Forty dead. One of the young gentlemen, Hobbes, has lost an arm, but he took the operation bravely and will live. Major Mansel is dead.”

  Around them, the ship echoed with the sound of hammering and the shouts of the carpenter. Mr. Cooper shifted on his boots and put his hands together behind his back. His captain’s mouth was set in a thin line. He was like a being formed from the ship’s mind. The rage each member of the crew felt at the false surrender soaked through the timbers and into James Westerman’s flesh.

  Cooper cleared his throat. “I’ve been talking to the officer—the one who gave up his captain’s sword.” James looked up sharply and Cooper wet his lips before continuing. “His English is as good as mine. They had a run-in with one of ours a week ago, but managed to get away. Half the crew was in the sick bay being treated for their wounds before we came near them. Good thing too, or that broadside would have ripped us to shreds. They wanted their captain to find a safe harbor for repairs, but he insisted on pressing on. I think they were near enough shooting him themselves.”

  James sighed and passed a hand over his forehead. “Any notion as to why he wouldn’t stop?”

  Cooper straightened, but continued in a firmer voice, “She’s stuffed with supplies for the rebels, including a vast amount of powder. It’s a miracle she didn’t blow, given the pounding she received at our hands, so you have made us all rich if we can get her into home waters.”

  “What says our carpenter to that?”

  “That we can make her sail, though he’d like to tan Meredith for taking out the mainmast.”

  “Good. You’ll command her, Cooper. Pick your crew as soon as repairs are sufficient to make us both seaworthy.”

  “Thank you, sir. But there’s something else. It seems their captain had a guest—a civilian, Frenchman—and the officer reckoned it was on his account that their captain made them fight so hard.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. He told them the passenger could not fall into English hands.”

  James frowned. “Is he alive?”

  “He is, though he has a nasty splinter wound in the belly. Seems he owes his life to Meredith. When the French captain was shot, he had just given his lieutenant the order to cut the man’s throat.”

  James began to put his coat on once more. “Where is he?”

  “Just being brought over to our surgeon now, sir. Theirs is dead, so our boys are seeing what they can do for the prisoners. What will you do, sir?”

  James looked at him, his expression hard. “There are too many men dead, Cooper. That Frenchman is not going to die without telling me what he knows.”

  The surgeon was sent away from his post to rest an hour, and Heathcote placed to give the captain
and his guest some privacy. Heathcote never looked around, though he heard the sounds and could think what they meant. For a moment in the midst of all the French talk spoke low behind him, the captain’s voice harsh and strong, the man from the other ship whispering and gurgling, he thought he heard a thin voice singing. Then there was another rattling gasp, a whimper like a dog struck, and the sounds ceased.

  THURSDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 1781, HIGHGATE, NORTH LONDON

  Mrs. Harriet Westerman was watching her hands. They were shaking slightly. The door to the parlor opened suddenly and she looked up. The owner of the house had entered the room; he started on seeing her then said softly in his light Scots voice, “My apologies, Mrs. Westerman. I had thought you still with your husband. Is everything as it should be?”

  Harriet tried to smile at him, but found she could not and looked back at her hands, which trembled still on the stiff purple silk of her skirts like nervous children forced to recite in front of the dining-room draperies. She did not know why she had let herself be persuaded into buying this dress. It was uncomfortable and James had never liked this color.

  “My visit this evening was not particularly successful, Dr. Trevelyan,” she said. She heard him take up a chair, positioning it close to her with the sort of sigh that precedes bad news calmly spoken, and she added in a rush, “Please do not take away my hope, sir.” Even in her own ear her voice sounded rather desperate.

  The doctor caught his breath and waited a moment before speaking.

  “There is always hope, madam,” he said finally. He stood again and moved across to the fireplace, picking up the poker to stir the logs a little. The flames chattered and shrugged; there was a pale-colored thread hanging loose from the high collar of his bottle-green coat. “Your husband’s mind is struggling to repair itself. His injury was grave. Because you see his limbs are whole, you expect him to be himself. Do not. He is changed.” Trevelyan turned back toward her, frowning. “Madam, you push him too much. Your love and energy in your care of him are commendable, but you cannot will him into health.”

  A wave of frustration knitted her fingers together and made her joints whiten. As the wife of a naval commander in time of war she had feared shot, the vicious killing splinters of wood that flew deadly from the impact of a cannonball, fierce winds and high seas. She had met widows enough, or women whose husbands returned to them with a sleeve pinned up, or swinging on crutches, but she never thought to fear something like this, this invisible maiming. “It was such a stupid accident.”

  “A blow to the head that left him unconscious two weeks, madam.” Trevelyan ceased frowning at her and said more gently, “But, my dear Mrs. Westerman, let me give you hope—I will not take it away. I believe parts of his memory are returning. I believe he will, in the coming months, better learn to govern his emotions and behave more fittingly toward his family, but you must allow time to do its work. He has improved since he arrived here, and he will continue to do so.”

  She was silent a few moments.

  “You said when we first met, sir, there was a man in your hometown who recovered from a similar injury . . .”

  Trevelyan turned away from her again and let his eyes rest on the painting of a stag at bay that decorated the wall over his mantelpiece. The beast was injured, but its great pronged horns were still lowered, ready to joust with the dogs that had cornered it, its sides torn and bleeding. The morbid little scene was surrounded by a landscape of purple heather that was beautiful and felt nothing. “I did,” he said, as his eyes traveled over those distant hills. “John Clifford lived with his family again and earned his bread. But he was changed. Commander Westerman will never again be the man you married, madam. You must both find the courage to accept that.”

  Harriet bit her lip and listened to the fire before speaking in a small and rather helpless voice. “What must I do?”

  “Do not come here—” he raised his hand as she started to protest. “No, madam, I speak in all seriousness. Promise me you will not visit here for a few days, and when you do, bring your son.”

  Harriet thought of her little boy, his face pale and afraid, his terrible confusion. “Stephen has become frightened of his father.”

  Trevelyan nodded slowly. “Perhaps a little. But he has not seen the captain in some time. Stay away for only a few days, madam. The captain will certainly miss you and make efforts to manage himself better when you return, and greater efforts still in the presence of your son.”

  Harriet managed to unclasp her hands. “Perhaps if I no longer tried to force him to recall events . . .”

  “A few days, Mrs. Westerman. Occupy yourself in other ways.”

  PART I

  1

  FRIDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 1781, LONDON, NEAR BLACK LYON STAIRS

  “Come on! Pull, damn your eyes!”

  “No use breaking your lungs at me! He’s tied or stuck or something.”

  The two red-coated men hunched in the wherry looked down into the dirty waters of the Thames and considered.

  It was already full light, or as near to full light as it could be on a London day in November, and up and down the river the city was awake and hustling. Carts and cattle fought for space across Westminster Bridge and the people walked fast with their heads down through the clatter and stink. Among the jostling crowds the hawkers shouted and swore and rattled their pails. Mud spattered up from the horses’ hooves and the fat wooden wheels of wagons. The air was heavy with city scents—woodsmoke, horse manure, fried meat—and tanged with frost. In any place within a half-mile of the riverbank you’d hear hammering and the crash of stone on stone. Someone was always building, someone else knocking something down. Smoke poured from the chimneys along the south bank into the damp air and blackened it. London’s skyline was smudged in blood and soot.

  There was no peace on the water either. The Thames, the fat brown god of London, its flowing heart, was belching and grumbling with boats from dawn. It offered to the city its food and trade; all its riches and influence were borne on its broad twisted back one way or the other. Sometimes the mudlarks who swarmed over the shingle at low tide found little fetishes, some ancient sword or offering to the river from times past, to show them they were nothing but the latest of its acolytes. Sometimes the river spat up what it was offered more speedily.

  The current pulled at the wherry. The two men it held made an odd sort of couple. One of them was skinny and young; the other had a chest like a rum barrel and a thick beard that stood out angrily from his chin. Proctor and Jackson. Uncle and nephew, now partners of a sort and servants of the river in their way. The passage across the waters put bread on their table. The nephew’s ready smile got them trade, and the uncle’s strong shoulders got them a reputation for a swift and easy crossing through the currents and their rivals.

  Proctor was working hard enough now at the oars to make his face red just keeping his place in the water. With a fierce pull on his right arm he inched the boat far enough upriver so he could see better what they had noticed from the bank. It was certainly a man, or at least it had been. The back of his green jacket was hissing bubbles under the swell, and his wig was still attached to his head; the wisps of horsehair swam about him in searching tendrils. The body’s arms were outstretched and the head hung forward like the Christ on the Cross in St. Martin’s Church, as if the man was looking for something lost in the muddy waters below.

  Proctor spat into the river on the opposite side on the boat. Of course the body was tethered somehow. If he hadn’t been, the river would have given itself a laugh flying him halfway to Woolwich by now. Nothing stayed in this part of the river that wasn’t stuck.

  “Well, get a rope round him, cut him loose from what binds him and get him in then.”

  Jackson shot him an angry look, before tying a lasso from a length of rope in the bow then slinging it around the body’s chest, working it under the arms with an unhappy frown. Drawing the noose tight, he checked the knot on the samson post before stripping off his c
oat and shirt. His pale skin turned goosish at once. He slipped off his shoes and pulled a knife from his waistband.

  “Why’d you never learn to swim then, Proctor?” he grumbled. “Twenty years on ships and boats and not a stroke. I’d be ashamed.”

  The older man scowled back. “Fate might see it as an invitation to throw me in, boy. Now get to it, will you!”

  The younger man drew a deep breath, put the blade between his teeth and hauled himself over the side, gasping as the chill of the waters held him; then, he duck-dived. Proctor held the boat steady, watching as his nephew used the body as ladder and anchor in the muck of the river. Strong tides. He saw the activity in the water, then felt a sudden yank as the weight of the body shifted from its anchor to the samson post in his own boat and the river tried to carry the corpse off over its shoulder.

  The boy rolled himself back in—then, settling solidly on the floor of the boat, he pulled on the rope. The wet lengths slapped onto the wood as he hauled on it, then as the dead man’s spine knocked against the gunwales, the boy reached back into the water, got his arms around the corpse’s chest and with a shout of effort dragged it in over the side. He toppled backward and the body followed. With a shove and shiver he got out from under it.

  “Christ!” He backed his way into the bow to catch his breath and began to rub himself dry with his shirt.

  “Least he’s fresh,” Proctor said. The boy did not reply but took his place and clambered back into his red coat. They began to pull out for the Black Lyon Stairs. “Though we could have towed it.”

  His nephew looked black. There’d be a crowd there already, ready to tut at the corpse and bless themselves for having survived another day. Damn, his hands were cold! The noise of London was full-throated now. Whistles and shouts rang from the boats making their way up and down the river. Smoke poured out of every chimney and the banks were alive with hammerings and thumps as the warehouses were filled with and emptied of sugar and timber, cloth and spices, fancy goods and dried fruits. Off downstream on the far side of London Bridge where the Tower stared down into the waters, the merchant ships would be pulling at their anchors like dogs eager to be off and running again, yapping over the oceans for fresh trade.