Free Horatio Lyle by Catherine Webb

trying in vain to push his way through. He could see how many dirty looks the coppers were getting from the locals, especially the costermongers, traditional enemies of the police, and wondered why. Thomas had always been taught to respect the police force as a tool against revolution, a wall of steel against any insurrection that might come from the lower orders. He looked at Lyle, and wondered if he thought the same way.
    Lyle, meanwhile, had elbowed his way to the front of the crowd and was climbing over the parapet of the bridge on to a flight of creaky stairs that led down to the mud, greenish in places, of the river at low tide. The flight was missing some steps, and Thomas held his breath as he watched Lyle cautiously move each foot, sometimes pausing for thought, and then carefully avoiding a tread that looked particularly unsound.
    At the bottom of the stairs was a shape almost impossible to see with the mud that caked and camouflaged it. Around it was a small crowd of filthy boys in rags, shoeless, and several policemen with their trousers pulled up around their hairy knees for fear of having to pay for a new uniform. Lyle stepped into the mud, which rose up around his ankles. He seemed oblivious, picking his way over to the body.
    ‘Who found the body?’
    ‘Miss saw it,’ said a raggedy boy, pointing up at a young, handsome woman standing by the top of the bridge and looking pale.
    ‘Did you touch it?’
    ‘No.’
    Lyle glanced at them suspiciously, but a constable said, ‘We heard a commotion so we came running. They couldn’t have got to it till low tide, sir.’
    ‘So it hasn’t been moved?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘How long ago was it found?’
    ‘Half an hour, maybe?’
    ‘How long till the tide comes back in?’
    ‘Maybe an hour or two, sir.’
    ‘Right. Help me turn it over.’
    The constables looked at each other uneasily. Lyle saw their expressions and tutted. ‘Come on, don’t fuss.’
    They took an arm each and dragged the body unevenly round. Thomas saw mud settled on a shape in the man’s throat that shouldn’t have been there, and felt bile rising. Next to him, Tess looked on with a disinterested expression. Thomas heard Lyle say distantly, ‘A very clean cut. Entry from the left, right on the artery, dragged straight across to the other side. A lot of force behind this. Good, sharp blade. And a second stab wound to the lower abdomen.’ He saw Lyle scrape green-brown, probably toxic mud away from the man’s wet clothes without any sign of a second thought, and again felt nauseous. He turned his face away. At his side he heard Tess say excitedly, ‘Look! Do you think he’s goin’ to poke it? That ’s horrid !’
    Down in the mud, Lyle bent further forward over the body, oblivious of the brown squelch which crawled at his knees. ‘This abdominal wound would probably have bled heavily, but not enough to kill.’ He looked thoughtfully up at the nearest constable. ‘Did it rain last night?’
    ‘Don’t think so, sir.’
    ‘Right. I want . . . ’ He froze. ‘Constable?’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    Lyle bent down and carefully picked up the corner of the man’s muddy sleeve, dragging it and the limp arm within it from the mud with a slurping noise. A white hand sagged heavily in the sleeve. It had only four fingers. ‘C.R. Wells,’ sighed Lyle. ‘Egotist.’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Carwell. This man’s name is Gordon Carwell. He’s a thief. You’ll find an indecent tattoo dedicated to “Inga” on his back. He lost the middle finger of his left hand during a fight in Limehouse last year. He ’s notorious for small-time burglaries in the more expensive suburbs - Hammersmith, Chiswick, Putney and Hampstead mostly. A master of the “humble workman” ruse, along with his brother, Jack Carwell. He knocks on the door saying he’s come to repair a shelf, and doesn’t leave until his pockets are full. His brother plays look-out, or distracts people while he does them and their property over.