MRS. LOCKE WAS a bright-eyed bird of a woman who asked blunt questions with the regularity of a cuckoo clock, but she was a good cook, and Jenny kept her engaged in a discussion of cheese making and the virtues of cow’s milk versus that of goats or sheep, while Rachel fed the bairn and Jamie and Ian asked questions about the regiment, all of which Locke answered readily.
Too far from the Ridge, Ian’s sidelong glance said, and Jamie looked down in agreement.
Locke seemed well organized, but even with the recent excision of Burke County, Rowan County still covered a vast area. If it was a matter of a large battle, with the militia assisting regular troops, like Monmouth, that was one thing: there’d be time to summon a number of Locke’s 167 companies. But for someone to send a rider to Salisbury, appeal to Locke, and from there summon help from surrounding areas to meet an unexpected and imminent threat to the Ridge, a hundred miles away? No.
Ian and Jamie had silently concluded that the Ridge was better off defending itself, and Ian had just raised an eyebrow to ask Jamie whether he meant to tell Locke so when a sound of footsteps came up the front steps and there was a rapid thumping on the door that stopped Mrs. Locke in mid-question.
The caller was a boy of fifteen or so, with the beginnings of a scanty beard creeping along his jaw like a fungus.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said, bowing to Locke. “Constable Jones sent me to say as he’s found a body and will you maybe come and sit on it before it gets any riper?”
“Sit on it?” said Rachel, looking up in surprise.
“Aye, ma’am,” Locke said, getting up from the table. “I’m the county coroner, for my sins. Where’s this body, Josh?”
“In Chris Humphreys’s stable, sir. But ’twas found behind the Oak Tree tavern, to start with. Mrs. Ford wouldn’t let ’em bring it inside the tavern.”
“Oh.” Locke cast a quick look at the landlord, who crossed his arms and lowered his brow. “I suppose our host has similar feelings. I’ll go out to the stable and have a look. Will you wait, Mr. Fraser? Likely I won’t be long about it.”
“I’ll come with ye, if I may.” Jamie rose, making a small gesture indicating that Ian should seize the opportunity to take his leave. Jamie was mildly curious to see the dead man, but his main intent was to have an excuse to break up the party. He could see Rachel at the table, drooping with weariness, Oggy asleep in her lap, and his sister, while still upright, had been radiating waves of impatience in his direction for the last quarter hour.
62
A Stranger’s Face
THE STABLE WAS A respectable shed with four stalls, smelling of horse but presently empty save for a pair of trestles with a sheet of tin roofing laid across them. The body had been placed on this, a handkerchief laid over the face for decency, though it was too cold for flies.
Jamie crossed himself unobtrusively and offered a brief, silent prayer for the stranger’s soul.
“Any sign he was robbed, Mr. Jones?” Locke took out his own handkerchief and a small bottle. He shook several drops from this onto the cloth and pressed it to his nose in a practiced manner. Oil of wintergreen; the sharp smell prickled the hairs inside Jamie’s own nose, and a good thing, too. The stranger was ripe.
“Well, yes,” said the constable, with a touch of impatience. “If empty pockets and a cracked skull are sign enough for you.”
Locke plucked the damp handkerchief off the man’s face with two fingers and set it aside. Jamie felt his wame clench and rise.
The man had a shocking great wound in the side of his head, but that wasn’t what was making the sweat break out in a rush on Jamie’s body.
“You know this man, Mr. Fraser?” Locke had noticed his reaction.
“No, sir,” he said. His lips felt stiff, as though someone had hit him in the mouth. The man was strange to him, but the look of him was not. Not tall, but large, a heavy-boned man who had run to fat, his bloated stomach a great round swelling under his half-buttoned breeches, tapering down to too-small feet that had flattened and spread under the weight they were required to bear and burst the seams of the man’s worn shoes.
He’d seen those feet and those bursten shoon before—and likewise the dead, broad face, hairy jaw slack and eyes half open, dull and sticky under their lids. Seen it covered with dirt as he filled in the grave, shoveling fast lest he vomit again.
LOCKE, IN HIS office as coroner, told the constable to go and inquire of the tavern’s patrons and bring any potential witnesses to view—and hopefully identify—the body.
Jones shifted his weight, restive. “Whoever robbed him’s long gone. Think he must have been in that alley for two, three days at least, from the smell.”
“Tell me about it in the morning, Mr. Jones,” Locke said, and shrugged his coat closer. It was perishing in the shed, and his voice rose in a white cloud. Jamie felt the chill in the aching bones of his maimed right hand and closed it into a fist, which he thrust into the pocket of his greatcoat.
“Do ye have such occurrences often?” he asked Locke as they made their way back through the dark streets.
“More often than I’d like,” Locke replied grimly. “And more often than used to be the case.”
“War does bring out the worst in folk.” He hadn’t meant it as a joke, and Locke didn’t take it as one—merely nodded. He closed the door of the shed behind them and they walked in silence up the street.
Jamie declined the offer of a final dram, bade Locke farewell at his door, and asked him to give their thanks to his wife for the fine supper. The Widow Hambly’s house was two streets over; he’d pass the stable again on his way there.
THERE WAS A flickering light inside the stable; it spilled through the chinks between the boards, making a ghostly outline against the night. Jamie stopped dead at the sight, but curiosity and dread combined made him walk softly toward the door.
The door was ajar, and he saw a fantastical figure inside, an elongated shadow that moved sharply at the crunch of his footstep on gravel.
“Uncle Jamie?” It was Ian, holding a lantern, and Jamie’s heart slowed down.
“Aye.” He stepped into the shed. “Are Rachel and your mother settled, then?”
“Well, they’ve got to the Widow Hambly’s, all right. As Mrs. Locke kindly came with them, to bring a packet of food for tomorrow and stayed to tell the widow everything that was said over supper, I doubt they’ll find their beds before midnight.” He twisted a forefinger in his ear, in illustration.
“Which would be why you’re here,” Jamie said. “Ye consider this gentleman better company?”
Ian held out a flattened hand and oscillated it, indicating that the difference between Mrs. Locke and an ill-feckit corpse was negligible in terms of providing good company.
“I wanted to see what he looked like.” He raised one sketchy brow at Jamie. “And ye’re here because …?”
“I wanted to see what he looks like, again. I maybe didna get a clear keek at him, earlier.”
Ian nodded and moved aside, holding his lantern high above the body. They looked at it in silence. Jamie closed his eyes and took two or three deep breaths, despite the smell. Then he opened them again.