The Reckoning

“By two, you are referring to the plot’s intended occupant.”

“The funeral party was already on its way. It would have been a bit crowded down there.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Chief Magistrate closed his eyes. Then, after letting go a sigh, he re-opened them and nodded in weary acceptance.

A knock sounded. Before Read could respond and Hawkwood move aside, the door opened and Bow Street’s Chief Clerk, Ezra Twigg, entered, bearing a note.

“My apologies, sir.” Twigg blinked owlishly. “I’ve a message for Officer Hawkwood, from Surgeon Quill. It’s marked ‘urgent’.”

“Speak of the devil,” Read murmured. He nodded at Twigg. “Very well.”

Twigg handed Hawkwood the note. Hawkwood opened it. The message was concise.

There is more,

Quill

Hawkwood folded the paper without speaking.

“Will there be a reply?” Twigg enquired.

“No,” Hawkwood said.

Read frowned.

“Quill’s completed his examination,” Hawkwood said. “I should go.”

“Oh, by all means,” Read said drily. “Don’t let us detain you.”

Ezra Twigg glanced towards the Chief Magistrate; when no further directive was forthcoming, he turned for the door. Hawkwood followed.

“Officer Hawkwood,” Read called again.

Curbing his irritation, Hawkwood turned and saw that the Chief Magistrate had left the sanctuary of his desk and resumed his pose in front of the fire.

The magistrate raised his chin. “There is one thing I neglected to mention.”

“Sir?”

James Read held Hawkwood’s gaze for perhaps three or four seconds. Then the corner of his mouth twisted to form an oblique smile.

“Welcome back.”

5 (#u9bc2c893-a59f-50c2-9ea5-dc6435b02e3e)

When Hawkwood re-entered the dead room, there was no shouted order to close the door and this time, when Quill turned to greet him, there was no humour in the surgeon’s expression, either. Instead, Quill’s face looked as if it had been carved from stone. The cellar appeared darker than it had before; colder, too, perhaps because of Quill’s less than welcoming disposition. The smell, though, was as bad as ever.

Taking his cue from the room’s chilly atmosphere, Hawkwood did not speak as he took the note from his pocket and held it up. Quill crooked a finger and, with a rising sense of dread, Hawkwood followed him across to the examination table.

The body was there, covered by the sheet. Wordlessly, Quill drew the material aside.

The corpse now lay on its back in the prone position, hands by its sides. This time the eyes were fully closed but it was not to her eyes that Hawkwood’s attention was drawn. It was to the dead woman’s abdomen and the trauma that had been inflicted upon it.

“They’re not stab wounds,” Hawkwood said cautiously. “They don’t look deep enough.”

“No,” Quill said. “I was mistaken. She was not stabbed.”

“Scratched, then.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I’m not with you.”

Quill reached for a candle. “Take this.”

Hawkwood took the light and held it above the body. Caught in a sudden draught, the candle flame fluttered and then steadied. He stared down at the wounds, which still looked nothing more than a series of random score marks angled across the surface of the skin. While they were not deep, they were not that shallow, either. They were the sort of cuts which, suffered singly, might have been caused by catching the skin on a rusty nail; quick to bleed but, by the same token, quick to close and form a scab. Lowering the flame, Hawkwood allowed his eyes to follow the progression of the wounds across the width of the body. Only then was he able to take in what Quill had seen.

The first letter that had been carved into the flesh was a sharp-angled

. It had been made by two distinct strokes of a blade, as if the perpetrator had been trying to form a triangle and given up. The second letter had been made using the same principle, with the addition of a horizontal incision linking the two cuts to form an

. The next was an

, followed by a single vertical slash to represent an

. There were three more letters, all rendered using a minimal number of strokes.

“C-A-R-I-T-A-S,” Quill said, “in case you were wondering.”

“I can spell, damn it!” Hawkwood stared at the cuts. “What I don’t know is what the hell it’s doing there. Is it even a word?”

Quill said calmly, “I believe it’s Latin.”

“Latin?”

“It means charity.”

Hawkwood turned.

Quill gave what could have been interpreted as an apologetic shrug. “Latin studies; one of the consequences of a classical education, though a necessity when considering a career in medicine.”

Hawkwood returned his attention to the body.

“This is not something I’ve come across before,” Quill said. “You?”

Hawkwood found his voice. “Not like this.”

“Like this?” Quill countered sharply.