Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [45]
Dominic pushed his plate away. If this were true, not a piece of melodramatic luncheon conversation designed to shock, then something ought to be done by people like Fleetwood. Carlisle was perfectly right.
He drank the end of the wine and was glad of its clean bite; he needed to wash his mouth out after the taste that had been on his tongue. He wished to God he had never seen Somerset Carlisle; the man was uncouth to invite him to a meal and then discuss such things. They were thoughts that were impossible to get rid of.
Pitt’s superiors had meantime directed his attention to a case of embezzlement in a local firm, and he was returning to the police station after a day of questioning clerks and reading endless files he did not understand when he was met at the door by a wide-eyed constable. Pitt was cold and tired, and his feet were wet. All he wanted was to go home and eat something hot, then sit by the fire with Charlotte and talk about anything, as long as it was removed from crime.
“What is it?” he said wearily; the man was practically wringing his hands with anxiety and pent-up apprehension.
“It’s happened again!” he said hoarsely.
Pitt knew, but he put off the moment. “What has?”
“Corpses, sir. There’s been another corpse. I mean one dug up like, not a new one.”
Pitt shut his eyes. “Where?”
“In the park, sir. St. Bartholomew’s Green, sir. Not really a park, just a stretch o’ longish grass with a few trees and a couple o’ seats. Found on one o’ the seats, ’e was, sitting up there like Jackie, bold as you like—but dead, o’ course, stone dead. And ’as been for a while, I’d say.”
“What does he look like?” Pitt asked.
The constable screwed up his face.
“ ’Orrible, sir, downright ’orrible.”
“Naturally!” Pitt snapped; his patience was worn thin to transparency. “But was he young or old, tall or short; come on, man! You’re a policeman, not a penny novelist! What kind of a description is ‘’orrible’?”
The constable blushed crimson. “ ’E was tall and corpulent, sir, with black ’air and black whiskers, sir. And ’e was dressed in an ’and-me-down sort o’ coat; didn’t fit ’im none too good, not like a gentleman’s would, sir.”
“Thank you,” Pitt said ungraciously. “Where is he?”
“In the morgue, sir.”
Pitt turned on his heel and went out again. He walked the few blocks to the morgue, head bent against the rain, mind turning over furiously every conceivable answer to the disgusting and apparently pointless happenings. Who on earth was going around digging up random corpses—and above all, why?
When he reached the morgue, the assistant was as buoyant as ever, in spite of a streaming cold. He led Pitt over to the table and whipped off the cloth with the air of a muscle-hall magician producing a clutch of rabbits.
As the constable had said, the corpse was a robust middle-aged man with black hair and whiskers.
Pitt grunted. “Mr. William Wilberforce Porteous, I presume?” he said irritably.
6
THERE WAS NOTHING for Pitt to do but go home, and after thanking the attendant he turned and went back out into the rain. It took him half an hours’ steady walking before he at last rounded the corner into his own street and five minutes later was sitting in front of the stove in the kitchen, the fender open to let out the heat, his trousers rolled up and his feet in a basin of hot water. Charlotte was standing next to him with a towel.
“You’re soaking!” she said exasperatedly. “You must get a new pair of boots. Where on earth have you been?”
“The morgue.” He moved his toes slowly in the water, letting the ecstasy ripple through him. It was hot and tingling, and it eased out the numbness with a caress almost like pain. “They found another corpse.”
She stared at him, the towel hanging from her hands. “You mean one that had been dug up again?” she said incredulously.
“Yes; dead three or four weeks, I should say.”
“Oh, Thomas.