Naked and eviscerated, it lay on the stone table in the outbuilding at the base of Paul Gibson’s unkempt yard. The Irishman was there, cold sober and cranky. He was not singing.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said when Sebastian came to stand in the doorway.
“Good morning,” said Sebastian.
The surgeon grunted. “Nice black eye.”
“Thank you.”
Sebastian took one look at what was left of Toop, then looked elsewhere. “So did he drown? Or was he murdered?”
“Maybe both. Maybe one, maybe the other. It’s hard to say.”
“It is?”
“It is.” Gibson set aside his knife with a clatter and reached for a rag to wipe the gore from his hands. “He could have been hit over the head, then thrown into the river, whereupon he drowned. Or he could have fallen and hit his own head, slipped into the river, and drowned. He could even have slipped into the river, hit his head on something, and then drowned.”
“But you’re saying he was alive when he went into the water?”
“Not necessarily. He could also have been hit on the head, died, and then been tossed into the river. That’s a nasty blow he’s got there—nasty enough to kill him without any help from the river.”
“Was there water in his lungs?”
“There was. Water, sand—even a few bits of grass.”
“So he must have breathed all that stuff in. Right?”
“No. If there hadn’t been any water in his lungs, then I could tell you, yes, he was probably dead when he hit the water. But the action of the river could have driven water into his lungs even after he was dead.” Gibson picked up his knife and pointed at what Sebastian realized must be Rowan Toop’s lungs, sitting on a rusty tray parked on a nearby shelf. “See that white foam?”
“Yes,” said Sebastian, who had no desire to peer too closely.
“You often find a fine white froth like that in the lungs of drownings pulled from the Thames. But you also see it in the lungs of men whose hearts have failed, or who’ve hit their heads. Now, your Rowan Toop’s heart was just fine. But you obviously can’t say the same thing about his head.”
Sebastian blew out a long, frustrated breath. “So you can’t tell me anything?”
“No. Only thing remotely queer about any of this is that they found him so fast. A freshly dead body’ll usually sink like a rock. They don’t typically come up again until enough gas builds in their guts to float them to the surface. And this time of year, that usually takes about five days.”
“Five days? So why was Toop found on Romney Island less than twelve hours after he disappeared?”
Gibson shrugged. “Must’ve been something about the way he went in the water. Trapped air in his cassock. It happens. He floated down to the island and got caught in the trees before he had a chance to sink.”
Sebastian braced his hands against the stone table and stared at the dead man’s pale, bony face. “I can’t believe he just slipped and hit his head. Somebody killed him.”
“Probably,” agreed Gibson. “But unless they find a bloody cudgel by the side of the river, you’ll never be able to prove it.”
Later that morning, Sebastian joined Sir Henry Lovejoy at a coffeehouse just off the Strand.
“I’ve had the lads looking into this Diggory Flynn you were asking about,” said Lovejoy, taking a cautious sip of his hot chocolate. “Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to find a trace of him.”
“It could be an assumed name.” Sebastian wrapped his hands around his own steaming coffee. “I’ve just come from Gibson’s surgery.”
“And?”
“He says Toop’s postmortem is inconclusive; the virger may have been killed, or he may simply have slipped and fallen in the river.”
Lovejoy looked thoughtfully at Sebastian’s discolored eye. But all he said was, “Perhaps that explains why Toop’s head wasn’t cut off—because he wasn’t actually murdered.”
“He was murdered,” said Sebastian.
“Then how do you explain the differences in both the method of murder and the treatment of the body?”
“It could be because the killer didn’t have time to be more grisly. Or perhaps he didn’t want us to realize that Toop’s death was connected to those of Preston and Sterling. Or . . .”
“Or?” prompted Lovejoy.
Sebastian rested his elbows on the table. “Ask yourself: Why would a killer cut off his victims’ heads?”
“Because he’s mad.”
“That’s one explanation. But there are others. The killer’s purpose could be to create fear—either in the community at large, or in one specifically targeted individual who knows he’s next.”
“Such as whom?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t know.” From the distance came the rat-a-tat-tat of a military drum and the tramp of marching feet.
“Either way,” said Lovejoy, “it’s still the work of a madman. No sane individual goes around cutting off people’s heads.”
“I think most of us are a bit mad, each in our own way.”