AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All kinds of instruments lay neatly put out on trays. He would find out what they did if he had to. Some of them were obvious in their purpose: several Bunsen burners, scales of various degrees of refinement, calipers, magnifying glasses of different sizes.
‘Come in.’ Miriam guided him to where a coffin stood on a trestle, the size and height of the table near it. The lid was open away from the table, so it would be easier to move her body.
Daniel took a deep breath, and looked down at Ebony Graves.
She seemed small, with her face so charred he had no idea what she had been like in life. Most of her hair was gone. He could not have told, from what was left, even what colour it had been. Her jaw must be broken; it hung at an odd angle. The left side of her skull above her ear was terribly misshapen.
He looked at the eyes, then looked again. They were not there. She had no eyes. Just deep hollows where they had been. And now that he looked again, her nose was gone, too. Was this what happened to you, when you were burned?
Miriam touched his elbow.
Gently, they lifted the body out of the coffin, Daniel taking her head, Miriam her feet, and laid her down on the table.
‘Now that you are behaving like a detective, forget the woman she was; the spirit has gone. Where to is a matter of belief. Cling on to whatever seems to you good.’
‘Her hair . . .’ he began. ‘Her eyes and . . . what happened? She looks so – small!’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ she answered gently. ‘You are going to write down everything I can deduce, without touching her. Pick up the pad there, and the pencil, ready to begin. It doesn’t have to be neat, only legible.’
Just as well, Daniel thought silently. He would have trouble holding the pen steady.
Miriam told him the height she measured, with a note that she was not lying straight, so she was probably taller alive. Then she described her clothes, her boots. She touched one of them lightly. ‘It looks . . . too small. It isn’t on properly. I wonder why. Very fashionable. Expensive. A pair of boots like these would cost several guineas.’
‘Could she have worn a smaller size out of vanity?’ Daniel asked.
‘Don’t look very beautiful if your face is creased up in pain.’ She gave a little gesture of pity. ‘It’s not much too small. I wonder if the leather tightened? Or the foot swelled? I’ll have to think more of that when I see her feet, and look at the burns.’
She worked upwards on the body for a few moments in silence. ‘Dress is too short,’ she observed. ‘Not much. But she didn’t seem from her wardrobe to be the sort of woman that skimped on her appearance. And she certainly wouldn’t have had hand-me-downs.’
For a little while, she said nothing more, and Daniel had time to look at the body on the table. The frizzled and burned hair made it easy to see where the blow to the side of the skull had been. It was also easy to see the flesh of the neck, which was burned to the bone in some places. In other areas, he could see the flesh coming away from the bone, burned deeply.
She had once been beautiful, according to the accounts of her. He stared at her and was overwhelmed by the reality of death. The mess of torn and burned clothes, charred flesh, face and hair destroyed, only a few months ago had been a woman. Now she looked pathetic, so alone, without dignity or meaning. Was death always like this, so . . . real? So complete?
And how unusual that she had been buried in the clothes she was wearing when she died. Maybe it was a favourite dress, but that seemed unlikely as it didn’t even fit very well.
Miriam became aware of his stillness and looked up. ‘Do you want to go away for a little
while?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘She barely looks like a person at all. She’s . . . anonymous! She hasn’t even . . . a face?’
‘I know,’ Miriam said quietly. ‘She doesn’t need one now. But we have to find who destroyed this one, how, and eventually why. I’ve learned what I can from her clothes, although what it means I don’t know yet.’
‘What? What did you learn?’ He wanted to know, he had to, and yet he was afraid. Death was more visceral, more intensely real than merely speaking of it would ever convey.
‘I cut a little of the clothes free. She looks older than I thought. Older than I expected. And her hands, too. But many women show their age in ways you would expect, even when they take care with their faces, and hair of course. Her hair is . . . destroyed.’ For a few moments, she regarded the face and neck very closely.
Daniel marvelled how she could do it dispassionately, as if this were not all that was left of a woman who had been intensely alive less than three months ago. Who had laughed at jokes, loved her children, fought for causes she believed in. Now she wasn’t even recognisable!
The contrast with the living, breathing Miriam was strong. Standing only fifteen or twenty inches away from Ebony’s face, or where it would have been, her own skin was perfect, her auburn hair shining with colour, so soft it tickled her and irritated, until she pushed it aside.
Then she moved down a little and looked at the edge where the burned skin met the skin still whole. ‘Pass me the glass,’ she requested, gesturing toward the magnifying lens.
Daniel handed it to her.
She took it and looked at the charred skin, and the whole skin, just reddened a little.
Daniel found himself holding his breath.
