9_2

A long slick mess drooled from Arkwright’s broken mouth, and de Hogue gently placed the head on the ground again. He stood up and moved away to breathe in the cold mid day air, and one of the Chatham men passed him a water canteen with a sympathetic shrug.
He let the cool water run down his throat, enjoying at the difference it made in him and trying to imagine how Arkwright could have come to be stabbed in that particular angle. If he had been upright, then the weapon would have had to down from above, like a scythe perhaps. And looking at how Arkwright had fallen, the blow must have been whilst he was facing away. Running perhaps?
The idea chilled him.
He walked back and picked up the short cut down pistol which had been left lying a few feet from the body. It was certainly Arkwright’s weapon, de Hogue had seen it before, and it had been fired. He sniffed it, but the powder smell was dull.
If he had dropped the weapon here, then the chances are he had just fired it, then turned to run… de Hogue shook his head as he pondered the chain of events. It didn’t make sense. He began to search for any evidence of a bullet mark in the surrounding trees but found nothing.
Finally he turned to Kirby.
Like the three previous victims, Kirby had been mutilated. Unlike those first victims though he was lying on his face. His trousers had been ripped with the cut which had taken off his right leg, then judging by the look of it, his intestines had been pulled from the resulting wound. De Hogue had no idea how long this would take to kill some one, but he could not imagine it would be slow. He gently eased Kirby onto his back and instantly regretted it. Kirby’s face was frozen in a rictus expression of sheer terror. It was obvious that he had died in extreme pain and fear, and the dried blood which had congealed about his mouth and nose made him ever the more chilling and macabre to regard.
With a curse, de Hogue dropped the corpse back onto its face and strode away. He had reached the limit of his endurance, and he passed the Chatham men with a curt remark, ordering them to stay where they were whilst he arranged for men from the village to come and collect the bodies.
Angrily he stalked through the trees, oblivious to the sunlight or cold wind, and returned to the village, walking back up the hill.Standing by the ruined Norman tower he came across the reverend Butler and Bartholomew Thatcher who were examining the blood stain where Norris had lain with grave faces. At the sight of Thatcher, de Hogue regained his composure and as he approached the two men he regarded the tall man with interest. According to Melchior’s estimates the smuggler had lost close to fifty thousand pounds in last nights encounter, but as de Hogue approached he could see no indication that Thatcher felt the loss. Indeed he seemed to look upon de Hogue with benevolence.
“Hello Mister de Hogue” Butler greeted him as he came within earshot. “We hear of terrible things having taken place during the night.”
“There are two men dead down in yonder woods” de Hogue said, his eyes meeting Thatcher’s. “And another… an Admiralty man taken back to Chatham with a musket ball in his gut.”
“The killer?” the priest asked with wide eyes.
“No. It was Jack Kirby who shot him, and Jack Kirby who’s now lying back there, cut to ribbons with…” he stopped in mid sentence as the priest’s eyes widened in shock.
“I’m sorry” he added.
“So, Kirby’s dead” Thatcher asked in a tone of wonder. “I always said he’d come to a bad end with that temper of his.”
Butler looked at Thatcher in surprise but catching the taller man’s eye he blushed and the words he had begun to say, died in his throat.
“I must make preparations” he said. He looked once again on Thatcher’s impassive face then hurried away with only a vague farewell to de Hogue.
“Who’s t’other dead un?” Thatcher asked.
“Joseph Arkwright” de Hogue answered.
Thatcher stared up into the sky, then asked; “Mister Bailey’s friend? The Chatham magistrate’s man?”
“Aye”
Thatcher scratched at his beard in honest surprise.
“Who killed who?” he asked.
De Hogue pondered how much he should tell Thatcher. He owed the man nothing, and in many ways he felt that Thatcher was indirectly to blame for all of what had happened. He scowled and turned away, but then stopped and looked back.
“They didn’t kill each other” he said. “Some one else killed them both.”
Thatcher stared at him digesting the implication of his words. Some one had killed both men, and de Hogue had no idea who…
“We need to bring the bodies back to the chapel” de Hogue continued. “Can you round up a few of the harder men from the village?”“Aye” Thatcher said absently, his mind working furiously. “I’ll talk to some of the lads”.