Free Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain by M. J. Carter Page A

dark, but I was used to that so I didn’t think nothing of it. I’d find my way over there,’ she pointed to the far corner, ‘and lie down for a bit. It’s quiet and there’s no draughts.’
    She described coming in and finding the floor wet. She described stumbling, walking to the window, pulling away the shades, then turning to find Wedderburn lying across the press, his feet leaning upon the ground, his arms spread out. At each stage, Blake stopped her, probing every detail, how many steps she had taken, where she had stood, what she could see. He watched her every movement. She replied to his inquiries with a dispassion that I could not decide was plucky or alarming.
    ‘Tell me more about the body,’ said Blake.
    She took a breath. ‘There were these long thin cuts over his chest, but his stomach …’ She gulped, at last losing her composure. ‘I’ve not ever seen anything like it. It was gouged open and gutted. Like a pig. Like a fish. And the insides spilled out.’ She put her hand over her mouth.
    ‘I think we have heard enough, Blake?’ I said. But Blake was not satisfied.
    ‘Was the room disordered?’
    She took a moment. ‘Nat’s tools were laid neat on the workbench. Chair and desk in the usual place. But the pamphlets on the folding bench were spattered with blood. There could have been a struggle by the press. But it wasn’t just blood, it was ink too. There was black ink on his face and more on his chest and fingertips. I mean, not just the usual printer’s stain, but like his fingers had been pressed in it. There was a pool of blood at his feet, and his trousers were soaked with it.’
    ‘Your skirt,’ I said.
    She looked down at the uneven black stain around the hem. ‘I washed it but I couldn’t get it out. Carn afford to throw out all my clothes.’
    ‘The wounds on his chest, what made them?’ said Blake impatiently.
    The girl considered. ‘It’s been nagging at me. Gravers and burins – printer’s tools – would do that. But I doan recall any were dirty. And acid – they use it for burning the metal away in engraving.’
    ‘Anything else? Any small detail. The press, the floor, his body?’
    ‘The way he was lying. I said it later to Abraham, it was like he’d been laid there, special. It was like Jesus, come down from the cross. My pa took us to church. And it’s funny that, cos Nat Wedderburn, he was about as far from a churchgoing man as you could imagine.’
    ‘What did you do after you found it?’ Blake said.
    ‘It?’ she said, puzzled.
    ‘The body.’
    She ran her hand across her face. ‘I wanted to spew.’ She paused. ‘Then I thought Connie and the children shouldn’t see it. I ran to Abe’s. I knew he’d be up. He knocked on a few doors. Moises next to him. Dugdale and Wenham over here. They called the copper from the Strand. He looked a bit green. The fellow who teaches the school, Thomas, he was walking past and came in. People were starting to gather outside, so we had to lock the door. Thomas, Abe and I went up to tell Connie. She fell on the floor. She couldn’t speak. I stayed with her. When I came down there was a coffin brought and an undertaker took the body out. Another coppermade me tell what I’d seen. Then I helped to clean up. We moved all we could upstairs.’
    ‘Good of you,’ Blake said.
    ‘I wouldn’t have done anything else,’ she said sharply, ‘they been kind to me.’
    ‘Was there a coroner’s court?’
    ‘Yeah, it was at the back of the Spotted Dog tavern.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And the coroner, he and the jurors go and look at Nat’s body. And when they come out, most of them were looking sick. Then he calls the witnesses. Abe and me and the others. Asked me what I saw. So I told him. Then Thomas, he stood up and said that Nat had it coming to him, cos of what kind of a man he was and what he did. He said he consorted with criminals and it was the Lord’s judgement.’
    ‘Thomas the school-teacher?’
    ‘Yeah.