Page 1 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)
Chapter One
Billingsgate, London
‘I t’s the strangest thing, sir.’ The Thames River policeman crouched over the body. ‘You can see what did for ’im, and it ain’t the river. Fair warning: it’s not a pretty sight.’
The sun slanted along the Thames from the east, bringing a chilly start to the new day.
The masts in the Pool by the Tower of London formed a leafless forest sprouting from the water.
Small boats plied like ants between bank and the ships, carrying off the cargo. Life continued, but not for this man.
Bracing himself, Alex Smith kneeled in the puddle of water on the cobbles of Billingsgate Fish Market and pulled back the sacking that covered the victim’s face.
Formerly a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Battalion 2nd Foot Guard, Alex thought he was used to violent death, but he’d never seen anything like this.
Scales glinted in the muck of fish guts, the stench masking any odour of death that had accumulated.
Alex took off his hat but then thought better of it as his fringe flopped in his eyes.
He swiped that back and replaced his hat.
The man was too far gone to notice any disrespect.
Sir Richard Leyburn, well known in society for his wiry red sideburns and galvanised hair, as well as his booming laugh, stared back at Alex, shocked.
As well he might be, with that curved head of a shepherd’s crook shoved down his throat.
The end had been fashioned out of polished ram’s horn.
It emerged obscenely from the open mouth like a devil’s tongue.
‘We think that was done after… you know…’ the policeman ventured.
‘After he was strangled.’ Alex sincerely hoped so.
The victim hadn’t been in the water long.
The bruises around his neck were livid and the body barely bloated by exposure to the Thames.
Clearly, this was no accidental drowning.
Alex felt the skull and found a contusion at the back.
‘It looks to me like he was knocked down first, possibly with the crook while it was still intact.’ The broken pole had been discarded, propped against a stack of fish barrels.
‘How did you discover him, Constable Goole?’
The policeman, round-faced with a thick black beard and drooping moustache, had a fatherly air to him.
That had to take a battering each day as he dealt with the smuggling, stealing and suicides on this busy stretch of the river.
He got up, his knees clicking. ‘We didn’t, son.
Maud Watkins found ’im when she came in for ’er shift.
’ He gestured to the strongly built woman who was knocking back brandy from the policeman’s hipflask.
Usually used for reviving those dragged alive from the river, it would do perfectly well to bolster the spirits of a Billingsgate fishwife.
‘She moved a crate off the edge of the quayside, saw the rope and pulled. Hey presto, up bobbed Johnny.’
She’d probably hoped she had stumbled upon a pilferer’s cache, thought Alex. ‘Not a pleasant catch.’
‘Cruel– to leave ’im like that, don’t cha think?’
‘I can identify him for you.’ Alex gave the man’s name for Goole’s notebook.
‘Thought you might. Too well dressed to be one of my usual customers and your crowd all know each other. I guessed ’e’d belong to the Ton.
Lord love us, the fur is going to feckin’ fly when Bow Street get wind of this.
We can’t keep the market shut for long but he’s a, you know, person of importance . ’
Alex grimaced in sympathy. The two men– former army officer and river policeman– had met on an investigation the week before, a mystery Alex helped solve about a missing cargo of costly nutmegs.
The insurers had been very pleased and given them a bonus to divide between them.
In the drink down the pub to celebrate, Goole and Alex had taken a liking to each other, recognising that they both hid their true inclinations from the rest of society.
But one didn’t talk about that.
‘I’d prefer to be gone when you send for the runners,’ said Alex. His employers had a policy of keeping a distance from the law enforcement officers, in an attempt not to tread on their toes. ‘I’ll tell you what I know about the victim and you can pass that on.’
‘Right-o. Go ahead.’ Pencil poised.
‘I remember Leyburn mainly for his laugh– it would boom out above society gatherings, drawing attention.’
‘Larger than life, eh? My uncle’s like that.’
‘He was well respected. A couple of sons, one in the army, another in the Church. I don’t recall much about them– no scandal there. I believe his family comes from Cockermouth.’
‘Cocker-what?’ Goole’s mouth quirked in amusement.
‘A place quite north of here– not far from Carlisle.’
‘Northerner then.’ The constable made a note; in his cockney brain, everything merged into one when you travelled a day outside London. ‘So, Sir Richard, what the ’ell were you doing ’ere in the middle of the night and who did you piss off so much that they shoved that down your gullet?’
‘Those are both very pertinent questions.’
‘I’m not being impertinent, sir, just flummoxed.’
Alex opened his mouth to explain, then gave it up. He handed Goole a card. ‘If the family want any help beyond that of the runners, will you give them the details of our agency?’
Goole slipped it into his notebook. ‘Will do. Death by shepherd’s crook? First time for everything, I suppose.’