A companionable silence settled over them while they finished their breakfast.
“Well, I’ll be off,” Algernon announced half an hour later. “I have a meeting with Everson in a minute, and need to see the farmer about the rent on the cottage. I will be back in time for dinner.”
“By the way,” Jeb called when his father had reached the door. “Where is the girl now?”
“Oh, she has been taken to the church where it was cold, but her body has already started to decompose because it has been outside for so long. I understand it is not a pretty sight.”
“I will go and take a look,” Jeb said anyway.
He knew from the dour look his father threw him that he wouldn’t like what he would see, but this was Jeb’s job. He had to face things most people shied away from. Once he was finished with his breakfast, he left the house and made his way over to the church.
“I am sorry,” the vicar said softly when he opened the door to the church. “The smell is a little noxious I am afraid. While I am more than happy to accommodate God’s children in their hour of need, I have had to arrange for her to be moved to the store room at the back of the vestry. Are you sure you want to see her? It is a little disturbing I am afraid.”
The vicar looked at him as though he had lost his mind when Jeb nodded.
“It is all part of my job. I need to see her to find out how she died,” he explained.
“I understand from the magistrate’s men that you are here officially so please, be my guest.” The vicar waved a hand vaguely toward the back of the church but made no attempt to accompany him.
“How did she die?”
“She was murdered, poor soul,” the clergyman replied somewhat hesitantly.
“I know, but was she stabbed, knifed, suffocated?” He saw the horror build in the cleric’s eyes and offered him a commiserating smile. “I am sorry. I don’t mean to upset you. It is the investigator in me talking. I need to establish a cause of death to be able to get some idea of what kind of person took her life. Please, you don’t have to come with me if you find it too distressing.”
“Oh, thank you,” the vicar gushed suddenly looking intensely relieved. “I was waiting for Mrs Banks to come. She is usually excellent with matters like this, but she hasn’t appeared yet which is most odd.”
He turned away with a frown, still mumbling about how uncharacteristic it was for such a stalwart lady used to her daily routine not to turn up on time.
Jeb let him go, and opened the door to the store room.
The smell hit him first. Whoever had placed her in the room had, thankfully, had the foresight to open the window, but the gentle breeze that swept through the room did nothing but stir the odour. Blocking out all thought of his roiling stomach, Jeb approached the body and lifted the sheet.
He began his search at the top of Tabitha’s head, prepared to make his way down the body until he established how she died. He didn’t have to search for long before he came across numerous ligature marks and dark bruising around the girl’s neck.
“Strangulation,” Jeb murmured aloud as he stared at the marks.
They looked startlingly similar to those on the corpses of Samson and Balgravia. They had been members of the aristocracy who had been murdered recently in London, and left hidden in parks to be found once the stench of rotting flesh became noticeable.
“It can’t be. This is nothing but a coincidence,” Jeb tried to reassure himself. Inside, though, he was less than convinced.
In a quest for answers, he ventured further down the body, and noted the clawed hands, most of the nails on which had been broken during her desperate struggle for life. He suspected from the mottled state of her flesh, and the fact that her limbs had gone limp again after rigor mortis, that she had been killed as soon as she had disappeared several days ago.
An hour later, he covered the body and quietly made his way out of the room. He came across the vicar standing beside the main doors, wringing his hands anxiously.
“What is it?” Jeb asked with a scowl.
Right now, he desperately wanted to see Sophia. He needed her sunny warmth and pleasant smile to chase away the lingering memory of what he had just witnessed, but it seemed that Fate, and the vicar, had other ideas.
“I am worried about Mrs Banks. It is so unlike her not to come to help out. The cleaning ladies will be here any moment and I need to go through their tasks with them so I cannot go to check on her,” the vicar fretted.
Jeb heaved a mental sigh. He knew what the clergyman was asking, and knew it would be churlish to leave him to worry.
“Do you want me to go and check on her?”
The vicar looked immensely relieved. “If you wouldn’t mind, that would be most helpful. There is nothing to say she has not had a fall, you see? Her house is so far out of the village that nobody would hear her cries for help. I wish I hadn’t done some paperwork in the office before I came here. I just assumed she would be here.”
Sensing he would be a while if he didn’t get away soon, Jeb interrupted. “I will go and see her. If there is anything wrong, I will summon help and send word to you. If you don’t hear anything it is because she is not at home and has undoubtedly been waylaid somewhere. Alright?”