Page 45 of Who Cries for the Lost

“Only his head?”

“No,” said the boy, his gray eyes wide with a combination of horror and excitement. “He ain’t got a head or feet!”

Chapter 26

Sebastian arrived at the wharves below Blackfriars Bridge to find Hero’s yellow-bodied carriage drawn up outside a neat redbrick eighteenth-century inn with white-painted double-hung windows. The door to the carriage stood open, and she was sitting inside drinking a cup of tea while scribbling in the black notebook she held balanced on one knee.

“Ah, there you are,” she said, looking up. She was wearing one of the walking dresses she typically wore for her interviews, the color a soft silver that seemed to bring out the sooty sparks in her gray eyes; a tall, shako-inspired hat of the same midnight blue as the beading at the neck of her gown rested on the seat beside her.

“Have you seen him?” asked Sebastian, hopping up to take the seat facing her.

She finished her tea and handed the empty cup down to the inn’s boy. “If you mean the latest mutilated corpse, no, I have not. The River Police aren’t letting anyone near the wharf. But I have spoken to the two wherrymen who pulled the body ashore.”

“And?”

“They confirmed what the leatherworker’s apprentice told me.”

“No head or feet?”

“To quote one of the wherrymen, ‘Nuttin’ but two bloody stumps an’ a raw neck lookin’ like somethin’ ye’d see in a butcher’s shop.’ ” She set aside her notebook and pencil. “But here’s the strange thing: they said he’s still wearing his clothes—or at least his shirt and pantaloons.”

Sebastian drew a deep breath that smelled of the river and the climbing roses trained around the inn’s doorway. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Perhaps that’s because you’re trying to make sense of it, and there is no sense. Whoever is doing this is simply mad.”

He shook his head, although he couldn’t have said precisely what he was denying—that the killer was mad or that the killings were senseless and therefore unfathomable.

She said, “The body was lodged against the bridge’s third pier when they found him. The younger wherryman told me he thought it had been in the water a couple of hours, but his uncle said no, it was probably more like twenty-four.”

“How old is the uncle?”

“Forty-five, perhaps. The nephew is in the second year of his apprenticeship.”

“Given the number of bodies he has no doubt pulled from the river over the course of his career, I think I’m inclined to believe the uncle.” Sebastian stared out the carriage window at the crowds still milling around in the street. “Somehow I suspect the River Police aren’t going to let me anywhere near the wharf, either.”

“Probably not,” said Hero, nodding to where a small man in spectacles with a high-pitched, squeaky voice could be seen determinedly working his way through the throng. “But I’ve no doubt Sir Henry will.”

“Lord Devlin,” said Lovejoy when Sebastian threaded his way to him through the pushing, shoving mass of curious onlookers being held back from the wharf by the River Police. “How fortuitous. I hadn’t expected the lad I sent to find you so quickly.”

“He didn’t,” said Sebastian as the River Police stepped back to let them through to the wharf. “Lady Devlin was on her way to an interview when she came upon the disturbance, and sent me word.”

“Good heavens. I trust her ladyship was not unduly alarmed by the spectacle?”

“She’s fine, thank you.”

Lovejoy cleared his throat. “Yes, well... Her ladyship is a truly remarkable woman.” He drew up at the base of the steps that led down to the old wharf, his gaze fixed on the silent, formless lump that lay halfway down the stretch of weathered gray planks, the wind off the water flapping the corners of the worn canvas tarp that had been thrown over it like a shroud. “Have you seen him?”

“Not yet.”

The magistrate nodded to one of the constables as they climbed down the stairs. “Let’s see what we have here, shall we?”

Reaching down, the constable flipped back the tarp to reveal the headless body of a man dressed only in a waterlogged shirt and a fine pair of pantaloons; his legs ended at his ankles.

“Merciful heavens,” whispered Lovejoy, groping for his handkerchief.

Sebastian found himself having to draw a deep breath, and then another. Once, his life had been filled with the mutilated remains of men strewn across more battlefields than he could remember. Sometimes they still came to him in his dreams, men missing arms and legs and jaws, the sides of faces, the tops of their heads. Men with bodies so shredded by cannon fire and grapeshot as to be nearly unrecognizable as human. He should have been used to it, should have long ago become inured to the sights and smells of carnage. Instead he found he had to look away from what was left of this unknown killer’s latest victim. He was suddenly aware of the wind off the river ruffling the hair at the base of his neck in a way that sent a chill down his spine as he stared out over the choppy, sun-dazzled water.

“This one looks younger than the last,” said Lovejoy, his hands braced on his knees as he leaned over.

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