Evans gestured to the left arm. “There is one thing, but I doubt it will be helpful. On the forearm, just there. I can’t make out what it might be.”
Rutledge leaned closer for a better look. The skin was broken, bits missing. But there was something. Holcomb came up to peer at it over his shoulder.
“It’s not the same color as the skin around it. A tattoo, do you think?” Rutledge looked up at the doctor. “In the war, were you?”
Evans shook his head.
“It was a popular thing among the ranks. A sweetheart’s name, one’s regiment, a battle.” Straightening up, Rutledge added, “I can’t be sure, of course. But I think that’s what we’re seeing here. Do you have a magnifying glass?”
Evans nodded, opening a drawer against the wall. “Will this do?”
It was small, but Rutledge took it and held it over the dark patch. It magnified the rotting skin as much as it did the faded pattern. He handed the glass to Holcomb as he went on. “My guess is that our unknown body was in the war. And given how short he is, I’d say that could very well be the insignia of the Bantam Battalions.”
Pressing the square of gauze hard against his nose, Holcomb peered at the discoloration. “I can’t say I can make out a bantam rooster. Looks more like a”—he searched for the right comparison—“like a tree, don’t you think? An oak, perhaps?”
Oaks were a popular tattoo, given their association with the Stuart King Charles II hiding in an oak tree during his escape from England and the clutches of Cromwell. Any number of pubs and inns had been named for that tree. There was even, Rutledge remembered, a Revenge-class battleship brought into service in November 1914 named Royal Oak.
Had the dead man served on her? It might prove to be the link between the body and the narrowboats. Had he once worked on them, before the war?
Ignoring the smell, Rutledge looked more closely at the faint pattern. Oak—or rooster?
The tree was generally shown in full leaf, and with a massive spread of roots below, the same width and depth as the tree was wide and tall.
The Bantam tattoo, as he remembered it, showed the rooster above with larger entwined Bs below it.
But so much of the skin was missing, it was hard to determine any size here. He looked away, then returned to his inspection. There—at the bottom left. Was that the straight line of a B? There were no straight lines in roots . . .
Rutledge looked away once more, staring at the wall for an instant, then turned back to the arm before him. Leaves went up. A rooster’s tail went down. He thought he could just pick out the faint blue line of half a feather.
The smell was getting to him, the trenches, the dead—
He moved back, trying to evade the odor of decaying death, but it seemed to be everywhere, distinctive, cloying, strong.
Taking a grip on the sudden flood of memories, he forced himself to think clearly.
There was nothing in what little was left of the design to indicate a tree. But there were a straight line and then a downward line with three short lines perpendicular to it. A possible B—a possible feather.
“I think not,” Rutledge said, answering Holcomb. “But given the number of shorter men finally allowed to enlist in the Army by Kitchener, it doesn’t narrow our search all that much. And short men were allowed to join the Navy, in due course.”
“Well,” said Holcomb, stepping back and handing the glass to Evans, “I’m fair flummoxed. It could be a tattoo right enough. I’ll give you that. But I’m damned if I know what it might be showing.”
Dr. Evans said, “The only thing in the Inspector’s favor is the fact that the top appears to be larger on the right than on the left. A rooster has a small head to the left, large body in the center, and larger tail to the right. Still, that could be a problem with the torn skin and not the design.”
“There’s little else to be going forward with. I’ll look into the Bantams to see if the body can be identified through the regiments.”
Holcomb shot him a look of relief as Rutledge started for the door. Evans followed, with Holcomb at his heels, coughing sharply.
The air in the passage seemed fresh and sweet by comparison as the doctor shut the door firmly behind them. Back in the office, Evans didn’t sit down.
“I’ve given you all I can. I don’t recognize this man, and nor does Holcomb, and we know most of the men in the village and on the surrounding farms. Besides that, so far we have no missing person query. I don’t think our body is actually ours. You’d be better off inquiring among the narrowboats that cross on the Aqueduct.”
Beyond the door to the waiting room, Rutledge could hear voices, and so could the doctor. Patients waiting.
Hamish spoke suddenly, jarring Rutledge.
“He’s no’ a man wi’ imagination, yon doctor.”
Holcomb glanced at Rutledge, who said briskly, covering his reaction, “Thank you, Dr. Evans. If I have more questions, I’ll be in touch.”
“Can’t think what they might be, but you’ll be welcome to come again.”
And then they were passing through the curious stares in the crowded waiting room and out onto the street.
Holcomb looked back at the closed door of the surgery, then said, “Well, he’s right, I expect. It’s our body because the poor sod landed here. But not our inquiry, do you think? Sir?”
A man no one wanted. The thought passed through Rutledge’s mind. Inconveniently dead on their patch.
Or was he?
Time would tell.
“At the moment, he’s still ours.” They started in the direction of the station. “Who should I speak to at the Aqueduct?”
“I’ve not spent much time up there. Once after a thief who’d strayed our way. He’d been robbing the boats over that winter. Went with my brother another time when he was looking for work.” He shrugged. “We don’t have that much in common with the narrowboat folks.”
“Where is your brother now? Did he find work there?”
“No, no experience handling the craft. But it was worth a try, he kept telling me he wasn’t cut out for farming. Until of course he met a lass who was a farmer’s daughter.” He cleared his throat. “Lost him in the war, died of gangrene during the Somme Offensive.”
It had been hot that July, the dying and the dead everywhere, and no time to save half of them. It would have been easy to die as gangrene set in, taking the leg and then the man.
Shutting out the past with an effort, Rutledge nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Holcomb shrugged. “Nice memorial brass in the chapel so he’ll be remembered. But I’d rather have had him home, leg or no leg.”
They finished the short walk in silence.
“You’ll want to speak to the lad who found the body,” Holcomb said when they reached the police station.
“Yes.” He glanced at his watch. “This should be as good a time as any.”
“He can’t add much to what the doctor told you, but he’s a good lad, and still shaken by what happened.”
Rutledge crossed to the motorcar. “You’ll show me the way?”
“Happy to, sir.” He turned the crank for Rutledge and then got in beside him.
“Straight through the village, and the first left. After that, it’s not far.”