Page 77 of Who Cries for the Lost

“Why exactly are we here?” said Hero, picking her way carefully between deep pits half filled with foul-smelling water.

Sebastian looked over at her and grinned. “Because it seemed like a good idea when we talked about it in the comfort of Brook Street?”

She huffed a laugh but sobered quickly. “We don’t even know that this murdered wherryman had anything to do with Sedgewick’s death.”

“No. But you must admit the timing makes it a curious coincidence.”

“You keep using that word.”

“I know. And I don’t like it.” He paused at the top of the high riverbank, his gaze scanning the refuse-piled waterfront. “There,” he said. “There’s the stairs down to the old wharf.”

They worked their way over to the broken stone steps, then climbed carefully down to the weather-beaten dock. The narrow old arches of London Bridge lay just downstream.

“The wherryman’s body might have ended up down by the Isle of Dogs,” said Sebastian, “but if his boat was found here, then I suspect he was killed here.”

Hero turned to stare up the river to where they could see the towers of St. Paul’s rising on the far bank. “Or the wherry could have drifted here from upriver someplace.”

“Perhaps, but I doubt it. The currents are all wrong to bring it ashore here.”

He was silent for a moment, his gaze fixed on a nearby pile of rubbish.

“What is it?” said Hero, watching him.

Reaching down, he shifted a worn timber and some brush, then came up with a boot—and not just any boot but a fine Hessian such as a gentleman of the town might wear. Except for a bit of mud on the heel and its somewhat bedraggled silver tassels, it looked new.

“Good heavens,” whispered Hero. “Do you think that could be Sedgewick’s?”

Sebastian turned the boot in his hands. “I don’t know. But I suspect his bootmaker would recognize it, if it is.”

Hero looked back up the bank at the blighted landscape of the old tannery. “Why here, I wonder? Because it’s a good place to kill someone?”

“Either that, or because it’s a good place to strip and mutilate your victim’s body and toss it in the river.”

Hero brought her gaze back to his face. “So why kill the wherryman?”

“I suppose that depends on the role he played,” said Sebastian. “And whether Sedgewick—or whoever this boot belonged to—was alive when the wherryman brought his passengers here.”

“This is troublesome,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy when Sebastian stopped by his Bow Street office. The magistrate sat back in his chair, frowning as he turned the fine leather boot in his hands. “You think it belonged to Miles Sedgewick?”

“I think it’s worth asking his bootmaker about it,” said Sebastian.

Lovejoy nodded. “I’ll put one of the lads on it right away—and send a couple of constables out to take a look around this tannery, too.”

Sebastian went to stand at the window, his gaze on the turbulent white clouds gathering above the city. “Was there a wherryman found stabbed last week?”

“To be frank, I’ve no idea. The River Police handle that sort of thing, and they only inform us if it seems pertinent.” Lovejoy carefully set the boot aside. “The truth is, the entire metropolitan area needs a centralized, coordinated police force.”

“It will never happen,” said Sebastian.

Lovejoy sighed. “Well, probably not in my lifetime, at any rate.” He peeled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Remember how you asked us to look into the background of Reverend Sinclair Palmer?”

Sebastian turned from the window. “Yes?”

“It seems he didn’t take up holy orders immediately after coming down from Cambridge.”

“He didn’t?” No one Sebastian had spoken to earlier had mentioned that. But then, they might not have known.

Lovejoy shook his head. “No. He spent two years as a cornet in the 40th Foot. He sold out after being wounded at Roliça and was ordained some six months later—just in time to take up the living at Marylebone.”

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