Why Mermaids Sing (10 page)

W
EDNESDAY
, 18 S
EPTEMBER
1811

E
arly the next morning, Sir Henry Lovejoy was just leaving his bed when one of his constables banged at his door.

“What is it, Bernard?” Henry asked when the constable came stomping in, bringing with him the cold damp of the morning.

“You know that case you was telling us about yesterday? The one you think might be linked to some poem about mermaids and mandrake roots?”

Henry felt a twist of anxiety deep within his being. “Yes.”

Bernard ran a hand across his beard-roughened face. “I think there’s somethin’ down near the docks you need to see.”

In the dim light of dawn, the forest of masts out on the river were mere ghostly things without form or function. Sir Henry Lovejoy thrust his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat and suppressed a shiver. The mist coming off the water swirled around him, cold and damp and smelling strongly of hemp and tar and dead fish.

“Oye. You there.” The bulky form of a constable appeared out of the gloom. “T’ain’t nobody allowed any farther ’ere. Orders of Bow Street.”

“Sir Henry Lovejoy, Queen Square,” snapped Henry. He brushed past the constable, his footsteps echoing on the wooden planking of the docks.

He could see a knot of men clustered near an old warehouse up ahead. Henry paused, aware of a hollowness yawning deep inside and trying to swallow the thickness that had come to his throat. The sight of violent death was never easy for Henry. He had to steel himself for the sight of yet another human being butchered like a side of beef.

At Henry’s approach, one of the men near the warehouse straightened and came toward him. A fleshy man with protruding watery gray eyes and loose wet lips, Sir James Read was one of Bow Street’s three serving magistrates, a small-minded man Henry knew to be both ambitious and fiercely jealous of his dignity.

“Sir Henry,” said the magistrate with a show of bluff good humor, “no need for you to have braved the cold on such a foul morning. This one had the courtesy to get himself offed well away from Queen Square.”

The Thames-side docks in the city fell under the authority of Bow Street, and Sir James’s words were carefully chosen to let Henry know his presence here was both unnecessary and unwelcome. Henry looked beyond the magistrate, to the shadows of the warehouse. “I heard the victim has a mandrake root stuffed in his mouth.”

Sir James’s show of bluff good humor slipped away. “Well, yes. But what has that to say to anything?”

“I believe this gentleman’s death may be linked to the recent murders of Mr. Barclay Carmichael and young Dominic Stanton.”

“You mean the Butcher of the West End?” Sir James gave a harsh laugh. “Hardly. No one’s been carving up this gentleman.”

Henry knew a moment’s confusion. “The body wasn’t mutilated?”

“No. Just a neat knife wound through the side…and that bloody mandrake root in his mouth, of course.”

Henry let his gaze drift around the docks. In the growing light, he could now make out the dark hulls of the ships lying at anchor out on the river. He had to force himself to bring his gaze back to the sprawled figure beside the warehouse.

The man lay on his back, one leg buckled awkwardly to the side, as if he’d simply been left where he had collapsed. No butchering of the body. No careful display of the remains. The cause of death was different, as well: a knife wound to the side rather than a quick slitting of the throat from behind. Yet the presence of the mandrake root in the man’s mouth surely tied this man’s death to the murders of Thornton, Carmichael, and Stanton. So why the differences?

Henry’s footsteps echoed dully as he approached the body. No one had covered the man up. He lay with his eyes staring vacantly, the features of his face relaxed in death.

He was young, as Henry had known he would be—probably somewhere in his early twenties. A handsome young man, with light brown hair and even features and the sun-darkened skin of a man who lives his life on the sea. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant in His Majesty’s Navy, the brass of his buttons and buckles neatly polished.

“He’s a naval lieutenant?” said Henry.

“That’s right. Lieutenant Adrian Bellamy, from the HMS
Cornwall
. A far cry from the likes of your banker’s son and future peer.”

It was said with a faint sneer that Henry ignored. “How long has the
Cornwall
been in port?”

“Put in Monday night, I believe. They were meant to sail again at the end of the week.”

Lovejoy frowned. It had been less than a week since Mr. Stanton’s murder, which meant that after leaving a lapse of two or more months between his other killings, their murderer had struck again within days. Why?

“You’ve spoken to the captain of the
Cornwall
?” Henry asked.

“Of course. According to the captain, the lad came ashore last night after receiving a message.”

“From whom?”

“From his family, it would seem. At least, he told the captain he was going to visit them in Greenwich.” Sir James stared down at the body at their feet. For a moment the cloak of bluff insensitivity slipped, and a muscle ticked along the man’s fleshy jawline. “He didn’t make it far, did he?”

“No,” said Henry. “No, he didn’t.”

S
ebastian found Sir Henry seated behind his desk in Queen Square. The magistrate had his head bowed, his forehead furrowed by a frown as he scribbled furiously on a notepad.

“I heard about Lieutenant Bellamy,” said Sebastian as soon as the clerk Collins had bowed himself out.

Sir Henry removed the small set of spectacles he wore perched on the end of his nose and rubbed the bridge. “It’s puzzling. Most puzzling. There was no mutilation of the body, and the young man was killed by a knife wound to the side. Yet the presence of that mandrake root surely links his murder to the other three.”

“I would have said so.”

Sir Henry picked up a volume from his desktop and rose from his chair. “When I saw him on the docks, Sir James was dismissive of my conclusions. I then spoke to his colleagues Aaron Graham and Sir William and presented them with my notes on the case. Both agreed the evidence suggests the death of Mr. Nicholas Thornton may well be linked to the murders of Mr. Carmichael and Mr. Stanton. However, they remain skeptical of the relevance of the poem by John Donne. They therefore agree with Sir James that the docks killing is unrelated to the other three.”

Sebastian watched the magistrate lock the volume away in a glass-fronted case beside the door. “And they’ve taken over the investigation.”

“Yes. It was inevitable, given the breadth of the case.”

Sebastian nodded. Bow Street was the first public office formed in London, back in 1750. The original Bow Street magistrate had been Henry Fielding, followed by his brother John. Together the brothers had been so successful at stemming the rampant spread of crime in the growing metropolitan area that another half dozen public offices were established in 1792, including the one at Queen Square. But of them all, only the magistrates of Bow Street exercised authority over the entire metropolitan area and beyond. Bow Street’s famous Runners operated the length of England.

“My jurisdiction is limited,” Sir Henry was saying. “Technically I should have contacted Bow Street after our discoveries in Kent.”

Sebastian watched Sir Henry resume his seat behind the desk. “So what can you tell me about Adrian Bellamy?”

“Little you won’t be able to read in the papers, I’m afraid. The young man was from Greenwich. His father is one Captain Edward Bellamy.”

“Also a Navy man?”

“No. Retired merchant captain.” Sir Henry hesitated, then said, “The differences in the murders are considerable. Not simply in the manner of killing and the lack of mutilation, but in other ways, as well. Bellamy was left where he fell, in the shadow of one of the warehouses beside the docks. There was no public display of the remains, no flaunting of what had been done.”

“Perhaps the killer was pressed for time,” Sebastian suggested.

Lovejoy carefully fitted his spectacles back on his face. “You may be right. You were certainly correct about the mandrake root. It’s as if the killer deliberately skipped that line of the poem, fully intending to return to it later. But why?”

“Because Bellamy’s ship was out of port. The designated victim was beyond his reach.”

Sir Henry looked at Sebastian over the top of the spectacles. “You think he’s putting his victims in some sort of order?”

“So it would appear.”

“‘Teach me to hear mermaids singing,’” whispered Sir Henry.

“What?”

“It’s the next line of the poem. ‘Teach me to hear mermaids singing.’ If he’s putting his victims in order, he must already have the next one selected.”

Sebastian blew out his breath in a harsh sigh. “And Bow Street doesn’t believe any of it.”

S
ebastian studied his reflection in the mirror, then leaned forward to add a touch more ash to his hair, blending it in until he gave all the appearance of a man just beginning to go gray.

He wore a decidedly unfashionable coat and sturdy breeches of a cut that would give his aunt Henrietta an apoplexy if she were to see them, for they’d come not from the exclusive shops of Bond Street but from a secondhand clothing dealer in Rosemary Lane. There were times when Sebastian’s aristocratic bearing and the trappings of wealth gave him a decided advantage. But there were other times when it served his purpose better to pretend to be someone else.

He was just slipping a slim but deadly knife into a sheath in his right boot when Tom came hurtling into the dressing room, bringing with him the scent of the rain that had been threatening all morning.

“There’s somethin’ you might want to know about that captain in the ’Orse Guards, that Captain Quail you asked me to trail. I think he mighta run into debt. Seems ’is wife threatened to leave ’im if ’e didn’t spend more time with ’er. And seein’ as ’er da is the one with all the blunt, that’s why ’e’s been sticking pretty close to ’ome.”

Sebastian kept his attention on the task of tying his dark cravat. “Keep looking into it when you have the chance. There’s no doubt the man’s hiding something. I’m just not certain it’s related.”

Tom eyed Sebastian’s unfashionable rig. “What’s this fer, then?”

Sebastian adjusted his modest shirt points. “Greenwich.” He turned away from the mirror. “How would you like to take a ride on a hoy?”

“Gore,” said Tom on a breath of pure ecstasy as the hoy slid past the Tower of London and the docks beyond, past merchantmen lying heavy in the water with their cargoes of sugar and tobacco, indigo and coffee, their masts thick against the cloud-filled sky.

Sebastian stood at the rail, the moist wind cool against his face as he watched the tiger dart from one side of the boat to the other, dodging coiled lines and scattered crates and some half a dozen fellow passengers. Sebastian smiled to himself. “Ever been to Greenwich?”

Tom shook his head, his eyes wide as the hoy slipped past the massive bulk of India House and, beyond that, the docks and warehouses of the West India Trading Company on the Isle of Dogs.

“We should have time to take a look at the Queen’s House and the Naval Academy, if you’re interested.”

“And the Observatory?”

Sebastian laughed. “And the Observatory.”

Tom squinted up at the rusty red-brown canvas flapping in the wind. The hoy was spritsail rigged, with a topsail over a huge mainsail and a large foresail. Its flat-bottomed design made it perfect for the shallow waters and narrow rivers of the Thames estuary it plied. “This cove ye want me to nose out about—this Captain Edward Bellamy—what you expectin’ to find?”

“I’m hoping for something that might link either the captain or his son to Carmichael, Stanton, and Thornton.”

Tom screwed up his face. “It don’t seem likely. A clergyman, a ship’s captain, a banker, and a lord?”

“You’d be surprised at the threads that can bind one man to the next, across all levels of society. Or one woman to the next.”

“You want I should listen to the jabber about Mrs. Bellamy while I’m at it? If there is one?”

A line from Donne’s poem kept running through Sebastian’s head.
And swear, no where, lives a woman true and fair….
It had occurred to him that he’d given little thought to the
mothers
of these murdered young men: the Reverend’s recently dead wife, Mary Thornton; Lady Stanton, who’d insisted her son return early for her dinner party and was now said to be so hysterical her doctors were keeping her sedated; and Barclay Carmichael’s mother, the marquis’s daughter, the woman who tended to the needs of the working poor and had lobbied her husband to limit the hours labored by children in his factories and mines. He’d been focused on finding a tie among the young men’s fathers. Yet couldn’t the link as easily lie with the victims’ mothers?

Sebastian settled back against the rail. “I think that might be a good idea.”

C
aptain Edward Bellamy lived in a sprawling white-framed house trimmed with dark green shutters and set in expansive gardens overlooking the river.

Slipping into the demeanor of Mr. Simon Taylor of Bow Street, Sebastian climbed the short flight of steps to the front door and worked the knocker. His peal was answered by a slip of a towheaded housemaid who looked to be no more than fourteen or fifteen. She started to deny both her master and mistress, but hesitated when Sebastian removed his hat and said loftily, “Mr. Simon Taylor, from Bow Street. Please announce me.”

The little housemaid opened her eyes wide and scuttled off.

Captain Bellamy proved to be a tall man, well over six feet and robust, despite his sixty-plus years. A life at sea had given him a weathered, deeply grooved face and left his flaxen hair liberally streaked with white. His stunned grief at the death of his son could be read in every feature.

He received Sebastian in a spacious sitting room overlooking the gardens and the river beyond. With him sat a small, olive-skinned woman with dark hair and liquid brown eyes, her pretty, unlined face streaked with tears. Looking at her, Sebastian at first assumed her to be the murdered man’s sister, but Bellamy introduced her as his own wife.

“My apologies for intruding on you at such a time,” said Sebastian, bowing low over her hand.

“Plees, sit down,” she said in Portuguese-accented English.

“Brandy?” offered the Captain in a gruff voice, going to lift the stopper from a crystal decanter on a nearby table.

Sebastian took a seat on a graceful settee covered with green-and-cream-striped silk. “Thank you, but no.” He let his gaze drift around the room. It was elegantly furnished with heavy mahogany tables and glass-fronted cases filled with everything from Chinese jade carvings and delicate ivory statues to Murano glass from Venice. Captain Bellamy had obviously prospered in his voyages.

“The constable who was here this morning said someone would be calling later,” said Bellamy, splashing a hefty measure of brandy into a glass for himself. “But I must admit I hadn’t expected to see you so soon.”

“Bow Street is most anxious to come to a better understanding of this dreadful series of killings.”

Bellamy paused with his glass raised halfway to his lips. “Series of killings? What other killings are you referring to?”

“The recent murders of Barclay Carmichael and Dominic Stanton.”

Bellamy took a long, slow swallow of his drink. What little color he’d had seemed to drain from his face. “What makes you think my son’s death is in any way related to the deaths of those other young men? My son was stabbed on the docks. What happened to young Carmichael and Stanton was an abomination.”

“Whoever killed your son left a mandrake root in his mouth. Mr. Stanton was found with the severed hoof of a goat in his mouth, while Mr. Carmichael was found with a page torn from a ship’s log. There’s also another young man, a student of divinity at Cambridge named Nicholas Thornton, who was found with a papier-mâché star in his mouth. We believe all four killings are related in some way.”

Bellamy downed the rest of his brandy in one swallow and turned to pour another drink with a hand that was not quite steady. “I heard what happened to Carmichael and Stanton, but not Thornton. When was that?”

“Last April.”

“And he was butchered? Like the others?”

“Not exactly. Certain of his internal organs were removed.”

“Mãe de Deus,”
whispered Mrs. Bellamy, bringing a black-edged handkerchief to her lips.

Sebastian turned to her. “I beg your pardon, madam. But I must speak of these things.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her fist tightening around her handkerchief. “What does it all mean?”

“We believe the objects refer to a poem by John Donne. ‘Go and Catch a Falling Star.’ Do you know it?”

“I know it,” said Bellamy. He went to stand at the window overlooking the green sweep of the front garden and the river beyond. “But I don’t understand what any of this has to do with my son.”

“Are you in any way acquainted with Sir Humphrey Carmichael or Alfred, Lord Stanton?”

“No.”

“What about the Reverend William Thornton?”

A muscle jumped along the Captain’s tight jaw. “Who is he?”

“A clergyman at Avery, Kent. The father of the first murdered man.”

Bellamy shook his head. “No. I don’t see how Adrian could have known any of them, either. He was just a lad when he first went to sea. He was a midshipman on the
Victory
, you know.” A father’s pride shone through the heavy grief. “Saw action with Nelson at Trafalgar.”

“I understand his ship docked in London just this week?”

“That’s right. Monday.”

“Did you see him?”

“Right after he docked. He gave me a tour of the
Cornwall
. They took on some damage when they captured an American merchantman trying to run the blockade last month. It’s the reason they put into port.”

“Did you send a note last night, asking your son to come to Greenwich?”

The Captain’s face went slack. “No. Of course not. Why? Did he receive such a note?”

“So we understand. Although the note itself has not been found.”

Sebastian watched Captain Bellamy move to pour himself another drink. He walked with the careful deliberation of a man who holds his liquor well, yet has been drinking heavily for some time.

“You’re from Greenwich, Captain Bellamy?”

Bellamy shook his head and replaced the stopper on the carafe. “Gravesend. My father was a sea captain in his time. And his father before him.”

“What made you settle in Greenwich?”

“My first wife was from Greenwich.”

“She was Adrian’s mother?”

“Yes. She died fourteen years ago now.”

That must have been shortly before young James joined the Navy, Sebastian thought. He looked at the sultry Portuguese beauty now sitting quietly, her gaze on her husband, and wondered if the Captain’s remarriage had precipitated his son’s entry into the Navy.

“You have other children?”

“A daughter,” said Mrs. Bellamy softly. Sebastian realized that she, too, was watching her husband’s brandy consumption. A frown line had appeared between her brows. “Francesca. She is twelve.”

“You’re from Brazil,” he said, giving her a smile.

She returned his smile shyly. “Yes. How did you know?”

“I spent some time there when I was in the Army.” He glanced back at Bellamy. “You sailed to South America and the West Indies, I gather.”

“Frequently. And to China and the East Indies, Africa and the Mediterranean. There are few places with a port I haven’t been.”

“Spend much time in India?” Sebastian asked casually.

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed, and he took a sip of his drink before answering. “Been there many times. Why do you ask?”

“His last voyage was to India,” said his wife.

Sebastian turned toward her. “When was that?”

The woman faltered, aware of her husband’s intense gaze upon her. “Five years ago,” she said in a small voice.

“This has all been most distressing for my wife.” Bellamy came to stand behind her and rest a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps we could continue the discussion some other time, Mr. Taylor?”

Sebastian met the Captain’s steely gaze. “Yes, of course.” Sebastian pushed to his feet. “Someone from Bow Street will be contacting you again.”
And no doubt asking some very different questions,
thought Sebastian as he turned to leave. “Mrs. Bellamy.”

Shown to the front door by the nervous little housemaid, Sebastian was letting himself out the garden gate when he became conscious of being watched. Tilting back his head, he looked up into a pair of big brown eyes framed by dark ringlets. A half-grown girl perched on the stout branch of the spreading oak that grew near the gate, her brown scratched legs dangling from beneath the torn hem of what had once been a neat muslin gown.

“You must be Francesca,” he said, tipping his head back farther. “How do you do?”

She regarded him intently for a moment without smiling. “Gilly says you’re from Bow Street.”

Gilly, Sebastian assumed, must have been the towheaded housemaid who’d opened the door to him. “Yes, I am.” He executed a flourishing bow. “Mr. Simon Taylor at your service, Miss Bellamy.”

She frowned. “How do you know I’m Miss Bellamy?”

“I’m a detective. It’s my job to know these things.”

“Where’s your baton?”

“I carry my baton only when I’m chasing criminals.”

She considered this explanation for a moment and didn’t seem to find it wanting. “Something’s happened to Adrian, hasn’t it?”

Sebastian felt an ache pull across his chest. They hadn’t told her yet. How could they not tell her?

“I’m afraid that’s a question you’ll have to ask your papa,” he said.

“I know it’s true. His ship’s in, but he hasn’t come home.”

“Does Adrian usually come home when his ship is in port?”

She nodded. “He brings me presents.” She fished a silver chain from beneath the ruffled neck of her dress, a chain from which dangled a filigreed representation of a hand. The hand of Fatima. “He brought me this from North Africa once.”

“But he didn’t bring you anything this time?”

“I don’t know. Papa wouldn’t let me go with him when he went to see Adrian.”

“Did your papa say why Adrian wasn’t coming home?”

“He said Adrian had to stay on his ship.”

“Did he say why?”

She shook her head, her curls bouncing around her face. “Only that it would be better.”

She slid from the tree in a rush to stand before him, all skinny arms and legs and big brown eyes. “I saw Mrs. Clinton making a black wreath. He’s dead, isn’t he? Adrian is dead.”

“You ran out here and hid when you saw the wreath, did you?”

She nodded. “Mama thinks I’m in my room.”

“I think you need to go talk to your mama.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, one escaping to run down her cheek. Sebastian watched, helpless, as another tear brimmed over to slide down her face, then another.

“Are you really a Bow Street Runner?” she asked in a small, broken voice.

“No.”

“But you’ll find out who killed Adrian, won’t you?”

“How do you know someone killed him?”

“I know,” she said, and Sebastian had no doubt that, somehow, she did.