Except the Dying
- Автор: Jennings Maureen
- Серия: The Murdoch Mysteries #1
- Год: 1997
- Язык: английский
- Год: McClelland & Stewart
- ISBN: 9780771043208
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Except the Dying». Краткое содержание книги:
In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the unclad body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. Detective William Murdoch quickly finds out that more than one person connected with the girl's simple life has something to hide. From the Paperback edition.
“Men!”
Owen Rhodes knew that he should be getting dressed if he was going to be at his lecture on time, but every movement seemed an effort. He stared into his wardrobe, unable to decide what suit to wear. Courtney had shown up yesterday in a navy mariner’s sweater. He said it was practical, considering what they had to do all day. The demonstrator had been furious and would have dismissed him if it had been anyone else. However, Courtney’s father and grandfather were both directors of the college, so he got away with it. Owen didn’t own a mariner’s sweater, but he could wear his brown bicycle jersey. Yesterday he’d got blood on his cuffs when he was doing the dissection and, sickened, threw the shirt away.
A female cadaver the colour of lard was ready for them on the table. An old woman, by the look of the wasted limbs and the grey hair, but the information card said she was forty-five, only two years older than his own mother. Illness and poverty had aged her like all the others. Dr. Cavin, the demonstrator, was excited. For the first time the class had the opportunity to see an example of galloping consumption first-hand. Its “ravages,” was the word he used. Owen had tried to hover behind his friend McDonough so that his view of the cutting was restricted, but Cavin made him step forward. He pretended to do it in a teasing fashion but Owen could feel the malice. The demonstrator didn’t like him and seized every opportunity to goad him.
Cavin pushed aside the flaccid breast, the skin stretched and marked from the suckling of many children, then sliced through the sternum and moved aside the flesh to reveal the ribs, reddened with blood. “Take those pliers and open the ribs for me, Rhodes.”
Owen clenched his teeth, determined not to retch or, worse, faint like a green girl. The woman was dead. He didn’t know her name or her circumstances. He didn’t know who grieved for her, if any did. He pried apart the bones of the rib cage, and Cavin reached in with his snips and severed the arteries and venous system of the right lung. He tugged and the organ came out with a sucking sound as if it were in mud. The blood ran over Owen’s fingers and he bit down hard so as not to gag. He was dimly aware that Hugh had stepped to the rear of the group. All the students were quiet.
“See the holes that the bacillus had made? She must have gone fast,” said Cavin. He held the soggy mass aloft, admiring it. The woman’s chest gaped open, empty. “We’ll see if there are traces in the intestines, and the bones. Gentlemen, work in pairs. Each take a limb. You have one hour.”
There were no traces of disease in the humerus that lay white in its bed of red muscle, but Owen and his partner found that the thoracic vertebrae were riddled with it, the bone crumpling to the touch. Feverell termed the cadaver “TB Tilly,” and all the students laughed. They never knew what her name was because it wasn’t on the card.
Owen decided on his navy merino suit and pulled off his nightshirt. The wardrobe mirror reflected back his pale, naked body. For a moment he stared at his own image, assessing the slim shoulders and hips. He often wished he was taller and heavier, not so much like his father. Tentatively, he touched his finger to his lips. He could still feel the kiss, the soft tongue inserting itself between his lips. He took the sleeve of his nightshirt, spat on it to moisten it and rubbed hard across his mouth until his mouth burned.
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday, February 14
THE WIDOW JENKINS HAD ROUSED a neighbour to go for help. The man, Jimmy Gallagher, who was not young, ran as fast as he could up the laneway to Mill Street. Excitement gave him strength as he slipped and staggered through the deep snow, but by the time he reached Parliament his chest was close to bursting and he had to stop for breath. A man in a bread wagon was plodding by and, realizing he knew him, Gallagher ran out in front of the horse and stopped him. Through gasps he related what had happened, but Taylor wasn’t too willing to give him a ride to the police station.
“Rosie isn’t so spry any more and I’m not a-going to kill my horse for no strange Jezebel.”
“You don’t know the poor dead woman was one such thing,” said Gallagher.
“Sure she was. Why’d she get herself killed down by the lake, else? Besides, I have my deliveries to make.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they’ll wait an hour, surely?”
“Ha! And who’ll thank me if I lose my job?”
However, he finally conceded. Gallagher climbed up beside him, and Rosie was persuaded to canter up Parliament to the station. Crabtree had just arrived for his shift and Murdoch was in the orderly room brewing himself a breakfast tea. As soon as the Irishman spit out his story, Murdoch commandeered the police ambulance from the adjoining stables and they galloped off to the lake, Gallagher hanging on to his hat inside the wagon. He hadn’t seen so much excitement in many a long day.
Crabtree pulled up the panting horses at the end of the laneway within sight of the ice-pitted shore. The area was deserted. Either from fear or indifference, nobody else had emerged from the ramshackle huts. Only Mrs. Jenkins and the lunatic were there waiting. She was seated on a rock by the marge and had wrapped herself in a voluminous grey shawl. The lunatic was standing beside her, swaying back and forth, muttering to himself. Murdoch walked over to the old woman.
“Mrs. Jenkins? I’m Detective Murdoch.”
She nodded. “We’ve been sitting here in the perishing cold. Thought it best to keep guard.”
“Thank you. That was very sensible. Is this the man who found the body?”
She cupped her hand to her ear. “Eh? What you say?”
He repeated the question.
“Yep, that’s him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Calls himself Zephaniah. S’not his real name but he’s probably forgot that by now. He don’t understand much.”
The old man’s white, matted hair hung down his back, and the grizzled beard reached to his waist. His head was wrapped around in a woollen turban and his stained and torn coat had once been a soldier’s greatcoat. At Murdoch’s approach, he whimpered and shrank back. He had been jailed barely a month earlier for vagrancy and responded to the police like a beaten dog responds to the sight of the stick.
“She’s out there,” said Mrs. Jenkins, pointing out to the frozen lake.
The lunatic suddenly shrieked. “I will punish the princes, saith the Lord. All the merchant people are cut down–”
“Mr. Zephaniah…”
“A cry from the fish gate … a great crashing from the hills … thick darkness…” His eyes were rolling back in his head, spittle coming from his mouth. “Their blood shall be poured out as dust and their flesh as dung…”
“Perhaps you could take him back to your cottage,” said Murdoch. “I’ll come and talk to you shortly.”
“Eh?”
He yelled in her ear. Stiffly, she got to her feet and took the old man by the elbow.
“She obeyed not the voice…”
They both shuffled off, Zephaniah still shouting.
Gallagher was hovering behind Crabtree. “D’you want me to help with the stretcher, Officer?”
“Probably, but we’ll have to wait until the coroner arrives. You can tend to his carriage when he comes. Wait here for now and don’t let anybody come near the area.”
The old man gave him a soldierly salute and Murdoch and Crabtree set out to the body.
The sky was a brilliant blue and the lumps of ice glittered like glass in the bright sun. Here and there black branches, from bushes that had drowned in the lake before the ice came, reached upwards with desperate fingers. A trail of footprints was clearly visible in the fresh-fallen snow. Murdoch bent down. One pair of prints was wide and flat and would belong to the lunatic, who was wearing clogs; the other, smaller pair that overlapped were no doubt those of the widow Jenkins. He looked closer. Underneath those marks, the snow had earlier been brushed into wide swaths.