Surprised, Rutledge said, “And does he, do you think?”
Holcomb frowned. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t believe the dead man is her sort. There have been a few rumors over the years about Rosie MacNabb, none proved. She has a taste for trouble, you might say. Usually the sort that comes in trousers. But she’s been careful never to push her mother-in-law far enough to send her packing. The feeling is that there was nothing much in Liverpool to draw her back. She’d as soon stay.”
“Then why is this man not her sort?”
“He was short, sir. Just a bit over five feet.” He considered the man across from him. “Rosie prefers them tall.”
By the time they had finished their tea, the rain had stopped, but the clouds overhead were still heavy with moisture. Holcomb took Rutledge to the doctor’s surgery, several houses down the road from the police station. Water stood everywhere, mirroring the gloomy sky. The house itself was not very large, but it was connected to a smaller cottage next door by an enclosed passage. The Constable led the way up the walk to the cottage. Knocking at the door, he waited. A woman came to answer the summons.
She was matronly, with a pretty face, dark hair, and a competent air about her.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Evans,” Holcomb was saying. “I’ve brought the Inspector from London to speak to the doctor.”
“Of course.” She smiled at Rutledge, then led them through a waiting room to the office beyond. Opening the door after a brief tap, she thrust her head in and said, “It’s the Constable, my dear, with the man up from London.”
“Send them in.” The voice was gruff.
She opened the door wider, and the two men went inside. Dr. Evans was standing beside the mantelpiece, knocking the dottle from his pipe into the fire. He straightened, stuck the empty pipe into his pocket, and nodded to them.
He was older than his wife, graying, fifty perhaps, with spectacles that didn’t hide the sharpness of eyes so dark they seemed to be black.
“Inspector Rutledge, Dr. Evans,” Rutledge said, holding out his hand, and Evans shook it before settling them in front of his desk. Mrs. Evans had shut the door and gone away.
“Not much to tell you,” he said, in the same gruff manner. “Dead, clearly fell from a high place. Given where he was found, that would most certainly be the Aqueduct. No water in his lungs to speak of, he didn’t drown. But my guess is that he was in the Dee for two or three days.”
“Was he alive when he fell? Or had he been killed and then dropped over the edge of the Aqueduct?”
“That’s harder to judge. The river didn’t do him any favors. Between that and his fall, any bruising or other signs of a struggle would be masked by the massive injuries he sustained almost immediately afterward. If he was alive, I suspect he saw his death coming. It’s a long drop. Not a very pleasant thought.” He shook his head. “Nasty business.”
“Was there enough left of his face for a description?”
“I can only tell you that he had light brown hair, brown eyes, was barely five feet tall, and that three ribs had previously been cracked and healed with time. Age in his early thirties, I should think. You can see him, if you like. I doubt it will do you any good.”
“Yes, I’d like to have a look. You are certain about where he fell from?”
“Given finding him in the water with those injuries, there was no other conclusion to draw. The only other possibility is having fallen from an aircraft. And Holcomb here can tell you there were none of those flying about in the week before he was discovered.”
Rutledge glanced toward the Constable, saw the shake of his head, and turned back to Evans. “Anything about his clothing that might be helpful in finding out who he was?”
“Dark suit, not of the best quality but presentable enough. English made, I expect. There’s a label in the shirt, but not, I think, from a known tailor. Holcomb here asked around, but no one seems to recognize the maker. The body was wearing no watch or ring, no watch chain. Of course, he might have had those, and they are either at the bottom of the Dee or in the pocket of whoever killed him—if, of course, this was murder. Not even a purse or loose coins in his pockets. One handkerchief, coarse linen, no initials. His boots were of good leather, reasonable wear and tear on the sole, and there was a hole in the right stocking, at the toe.”
It was an oddly human finding.
“No overcoat, this time of year? Or hat?”
“No. He might well have left them somewhere. Or perhaps his killer took them.”
Holcomb interjected, “We’ve searched for any belongings. All along the river where he might have come down. And a swath on either side of the banks. I’ve had local men out there looking. They know the Dee, they would have found a hat or coat. Or anything else.”
“I must be sure. You’re confident they were thorough?” Rutledge asked.
“We even went farther downstream in case some belongings drifted on, after the body lodged in the shallows.”
Rutledge turned back to the doctor. “Murder? Or accident?”
“Impossible to say, medically. If he fell by accident, he’d have had some form of identification with him, surely. Still, if he didn’t want to be identified, a suicide, he took care to see that he wasn’t. If it was murder, his killer stripped him of anything useful to us. And that’s what I reported to the Chief Constable. This death was probably not an accident.” Dr. Evans rose. “Again I warn you, it isn’t pleasant, what you’re about to see. And he’s been dead a week.” He went to a cabinet, took out a small bottle of disinfectant, soaked three squares of gauze in it, and held out two of them. “You will be glad of this.”
The back room, where the body was lying on a table, reeked of decayed flesh. Rutledge’s mouth tightened as he recognized it and was for a moment back in the trenches, where the smell of rotting bodies had been omnipresent to the point of being commonplace. Unavoidable, and therefore best ignored. He held up the small square of gauze, as Holcomb and the doctor were doing. It wasn’t a great deal of help.
The body was as Evans had said, badly damaged and in the river too long. It wouldn’t have bloated, given the fall, sinking to the bottom of the river and moving with the current until it lodged in roots or against rocks.
Evans was right, also, that there was too little left of the face, reminding Rutledge of a leper he’d seen in France. He found himself thinking that the dead man’s family wouldn’t have recognized what was left. But the heavy bone at the nose, the squared line of the skeletal chin were indications of a strong face. On the other hand, brown hair and eyes were common enough in Wales and on the Welsh borders.
The man’s clothing had been folded neatly on a smaller table against the wall, but it too smelled, as Rutledge touched the fabric of the man’s suit and looked at the black boots. The handmade label stitched into the neckband of the shirt was faded, not new, but he could read the ornate script: Banner. Just beneath it was what appeared to be the tailor’s mark, a needle with a loop of thread through the eye. He took out his notebook and made a rough sketch of the design.
The dead man had been dressed, he thought, to conduct business somewhere, not to take up work. Not a laborer, then. Turning away, he said, “Anything else that we can use?”