His Wicked Sins

HIS WICKED SINS

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HIS WICKED SINS

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Contents:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

© 2008

Chapter 1

Stepney, London, January 15, 1813

C
rimson splatter painted a gruesome landscape on the pale walls of the Black Swan

Tavern.

Parish constable Henry Pugh picked his way around the stiffening corpse, taking note of

the arc of blood that splashed far and wide and the congealing pool at his feet. Dark and

glossy, it reflected the flickering candlelight and colored the air with a cloying heavy

scent, both sweet and sour.

He had never seen so much blood.

But then, today was Henry's first day with the Shadwell Police Office, and he had never

before seen foul murder.

Outside, on the cobbled street, the night watchman called out the time. Half past

midnight.

Raising his candle, Henry squinted at the floor, noting the bloody footprints that moved

along the hallway. Then his gaze slid back to the dead man, William Trotter, the landlord

of the Black Swan. He lay on his back, sprawled over the steps that led to the taproom,

eyes wide and staring, face twisted in a look of surprise. From all appearances, he had

been attacked from behind, likely never knowing the identity of his assailant.

Bits of brain and bone speckled the landlord's clothes, the wood of the step, the wall at

his side. His head was bashed in, and his throat slit for good measure. Rivulets of blood

wended down the stairs and across the floor, merging and puddling a small distance away.

Henry squatted low. The stink of human refuse slapped him, and he reared back,

appalled to witness such ultimate humiliation. Death was neither kind nor dignified.

An ugly thing, this. An ugly thing.

The coal-heaver, Jack Browne, a lodger here at 34 New Gravel Lane, had run to

summon Henry when his banging and ringing failed to rouse Mr. Trotter to come open the

door. On hearing the tale, Henry had expected that Jack was locked out for the night, and

the Trotters gone to bed of an early hour as was their custom. Mrs. Trotter was insistent

upon that, and lodgers, most of them sailors taking a room for a short while, knew that

should they come late, the door would be barred against them. Odd, for a tavern to keep

such hours, but that was the way at the Black Swan.

Henry's benign suppositions had proven bitterly untrue. Before him lay Mr. Trotter's

savaged remains. He'd not be answering the door this night, or any other. This man who

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had laughed and joked and drawn ale just hours past was cold and dead now, his life

snuffed in a manner that was purely evil. Henry's shock at discovering the body had been

so great that he had barely managed to hold his composure and instruct Jack Browne to

fetch more men.

With a sigh, Henry reached out now and closed the landlord's eyes.

As he drew his hand away, Mr. Trotter's lids flipped open once more, pinning him with

a blank and eerie stare, the eyes filmy, the whites gone gray.

Startled, Henry cried out and scuttled back, slapping one palm against the floor to

steady himself. The stare seemed to judge him and find him guilty. He should have

listened earlier that day when Mr. Trotter complained of a stranger lurking in the shadows

outside the parlor window. He should have listened.

But in the end the landlord had clapped him on the back and made light of his own

concerns, and so Henry had laughed along with him.

Swallowing against the sting of bile that clawed up his throat, Henry shifted his gaze

from the dead man's eyes to the gaping slash across his throat, to the blood and brains and

shards of bone. He lacked the experience to know how to set his feelings and abhorrence

aside, to see only the crime that need be solved. Still, he was determined that he would not

disgrace himself. He would not, though the provocation and justification were strong.

Fingers trembling, he closed the landlord's eyes once more, willing them to stay shut.

Then he rose and went to find the others.

He felt chillingly certain there were others.

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Chapter 2

The Great North Road, Yorkshire, England, September 1, 1828

A
lone tree endured atop a distant, windswept hill, its dead branches stretched skyward.

Charred, begrimed stones sat in the tree's twisted shadow, burned and blackened remains

of old cottage walls. They prevailed against time and weather, with the desolate landscape

stretched behind like a joyless painting colored in flat hues.

Elizabeth Canham found she could not look away, for the scene touched a place inside

her, one that nagged and ached like a sore tooth.

That cottage must once have been a home, a haven. Surrounded by harsh moorlands, it

was now a friendless place, steeped in loneliness, calling to her as the stagecoach rumbled

on its way. There was a haunting beauty to the sight, and an odd, disturbing afterthought, a

warning … but perhaps that was only the tuneless echo of her own melancholy.

Beth turned in her seat and leaned close to the window, watching the ruin until it

disappeared from view.

What had happened to them, the family who had once lived there? Her imagination

conjured all manner of terrible visions, but in the end, she decided to lean toward the hope

that they had escaped the fire and gone on to live healthful and content lives. To think

otherwise was horrific, for she had intimate knowledge of the damage that fire could do.

After a time, she glanced down and unclenched her fingers where they curled and