The Constable looked up from the desk when the door opened, suddenly alert as he saw Lister’s expression.
‘Christ, lad, what is it? I thought you’d gone home.’ He poured a cup of ale and passed it over. ‘Drink that.’
Rob sat, trying to steady the mug in his hand, framing how to tell what he’d witnessed.
‘The bell pits by the Cloth Hall,’ he began slowly, watching Nottingham’s eyes intent on his face. ‘There are bodies in one of them.’
‘Bodies?’ he asked sharply. ‘More than one?’
Lister nodded. ‘Three that I saw.’ He paused. ‘They were just children, boss,’ he said hopelessly. ‘One of the men who died at the Talbot had three children.’
The Constable sat up straight. ‘You think it’s them?’
‘I don’t know, boss.’ Rob swilled a little more ale around his mouth then swallowed, trying to wash the dank taste away.
‘Who found them?’ Nottingham asked urgently.
‘One of the workmen.’
‘You’ve sent for the coroner?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll come straight down. Go and find some of the men to help you get the corpses out.’
‘Yes, boss.’ He stood, ready to leave.
‘Rob?’ The lad turned. ‘If it helps, this is probably as bad as the job will ever be.’
Lister tried to smile, but it was weak and empty.
The Constable remembered the face of every dead child he’d seen since he’d begun the job. They were impossible to forget, each one clear and sharp in his head. Many had gone from hunger, little more than ghosts even before their hearts gave up the battle to keep beating, some from accidents, crushed by carts or lost to the river. Precious few had been murdered, and he thanked God for that, at least.
Some of the workmen were sitting on the grass when he arrived, others stood in a small group. He nodded and asked, ‘Has the coroner arrived yet?’
‘Gone down there with a candle,’ one of the men answered.
When Brogden climbed back out there was dirt on his immaculate coat and he’d vomited on his shoes with their expensive silver buckles. He brought a flask from his waistcoat, fingers shaking so hard he could barely unscrew the top. He took a long drink and saw the Constable.
‘What’s down there?’ Nottingham asked.
The coroner shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d seen. He raised his eyes. ‘Three of them,’ he replied quietly. ‘Someone’s killed them. None of them look older than eight.’ Tears began to roll down his cheeks and he pawed at them angrily before walking away.
The Constable ran a hand across his mouth. His thoughts raced away from him. Three? It seemed impossible. Unless they did belong to the dead man, how could so many children vanish without anyone noticing? For the love of God, why would anyone want to murder them and leave them that way? He was still standing there thinking when Lister returned with four others, a ragtaggle group who looked more like beggars than Constable’s men.
‘You’ll have to be my eyes down there,’ he told Rob. ‘I can’t use a ladder. Not yet.’
‘I’ll tell you what I see, boss.’
‘Tie linen around your faces,’ Nottingham advised them all, ‘and try to breathe as little as you can when you’re down there.’ He looked at them. ‘They’re children, it’s going to be difficult. There are three of them.’ He noticed their eyes widen. ‘I’m sorry.’
There was nothing more he could do until they started to bring out the bodies. The workmen had left hurriedly, not wanting to see, and he couldn’t blame them. They didn’t need this haunting their dreams for years.
The first, a boy perhaps six years old, was placed gently and lovingly on the grass by men who kept their faces deliberately expressionless. Then a girl of maybe eight and finally another boy, small and emaciated, who couldn’t have been more than three.
They were all naked, covered in coal dust from the pit, grime all across their faces. Their small corpses had bloated and an army of maggots crawled over them, around their wounds, in their mouths and ears and eye sockets. They’d been dead a few days, maybe even longer; nothing to do with the dead man, the Constable decided. He walked between them, studying each one intently before softly saying, ‘Cover them up and take them to the jail, please.’
Rob hung back, his face ashen. Nottingham placed a hand lightly on his shoulder.
‘Go and find Mr Sedgwick, then get some sleep.’ He glanced back at the children. ‘We’re going to find the bastard who did this.’
They placed the bodies in the cold cell the city used as a mortuary. The Constable cleaned the worst of the pit dirt off them with a cloth and cold water and washed the maggots and blood from their wounds on to the floor. Now they lay on the bunks and the floor, so tiny, beyond help. The warmth of the pit had left their bellies distended. Rats and the Lord knew what had stolen their eyes, so they were sightless in death; chunks of hair were torn away by vermin, skin bitten and torn. Bruises blossomed dull purple all over their legs, arms, chests and faces, and knife cuts marked every part of their bodies. Each one had been stabbed in the heart. They’d suffered before they were given release.
Nottingham left them there and went back to the desk to pour himself a mug of ale. He swilled the liquid around in his mouth, trying to take away the lonely, bitter taste of death before swallowing. He stood, gazing out of the window at the people who passed, their thoughts on business or worries, a pair of women laughing brightly, all of them a world away from what he’d just seen.
Pain rumbled through his belly. He kept still until it passed, then breathed slowly and drank a little more before returning to the cells.
He’d lost count of the bodies he’d seen in this job. Young, old, male, female, the ones who died as he held them and those who’d gone weeks before, with barely any traces left to show they’d ever been alive. He believed he’d seen every evil man could do. But he hadn’t.
Very carefully he lifted the girl’s arm, as thin and light as a twig, so tiny and fragile in his hand. He could feel the break in the bone and saw the little finger twisted away from the hand. On the smaller boy, so frail he seemed to be more air than flesh, he could see the imprint of fingers around the neck, the child’s tiny fists clenched tight in death. The older boy had a broken nose, his face a swollen mass where he’d been hit over and over.
Gazing around the three of them, at the bodies where the ribs showed clear against the skin, the arms and thighs so scrawny he could close his hands around them, he began to understand. He realized who they’d once been and why no one had reported them gone. He closed his eyes and said a short prayer for their souls.
‘Boss?’
He hadn’t even heard the deputy enter. Nottingham turned slowly to face him.
‘Rob told you?’
Sedgwick nodded, his eyes wide. His son James was six, recently started at the charity school, and he had another young baby at home. For a long time he stood silently and the Constable saw a tear begin to trickle down his cheek. He wiped it away in a swift movement. ‘How?’ he asked.
‘Because they’re the ones no one cares about.’
‘Were they. .?
‘Yes,’ he answered simply.
‘The boys too?’
‘Yes,’ he repeated, scared of what might come out if he said more. He knew the signs and they’d been there on all three of the children. Nottingham returned to the office and sat at the desk, steepling his hands under his chin. He closed his eyes but the faces with their empty, lost eyes remained in his mind.
‘Fuck,’ the deputy said.
‘I doubt it mattered to him what sex they were. He probably just wanted to hurt and use and kill.’
Sedgwick kept gazing at the battered faces. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen one of them before.’
‘Scavenging at the market?’