Silent Witnesses Read online

  Silent Witnesses

  An Anna Kronberg Mystery

  Annelie Wendeberg

  Copyright 2018 by Annelie Wendeberg

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  eBook Edition

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  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and names in this book are products of the author's imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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  Editing: Tom Welch

  Cover Design: Nuno Moreira

  Contents

  All you need to know…

  Prologue

  The First Victim

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  The Second Victim

  6

  Case Notes, June 7, 1893

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  The Third Victim

  Case Notes, June 30, 1893

  12

  Case Notes, July 5, 1893

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  The Fourth Victim

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Epilogue

  River of Bones

  More…

  Acknowledgments

  All you need to know…

  Find me here:

  www.anneliewendeberg.com

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  More Victorian Mysteries:

  Prologue

  Only two people in this world know my name.

  I am one.

  The other is believed dead.

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  If there is a memory that best describes those balmy weeks of late May and early June, it is that of a small, silent child sitting under a mulberry bush.

  Nothing seemed to escape her notice, those sharp grey eyes she inherited from her father. She would watch Zachary’s every move — how his black hands grew paler as a dusting of loamy soil covered his skin, how his sun-bleached shirt darkened along his spine as he plucked and dug and mowed. How his large brown eyes twinkled in the shadow of his straw hat.

  Whenever I think back to those days, I see myself standing at the bay window, gazing out into the garden, watching my daughter and her fascination with the world, and wondering what it was that made her so quiet.

  She was two and a half years old and had not spoken a word.

  It was the time of late spring cleaning. Margery excessively aired out the house, washed the lace curtains, knocked the dust out of mattresses and rugs, and polished tables, cupboards, and floors until our home smelled of beeswax and linseed oil, with a faint bite of turpentine.

  Those were our days of peace and quiet, a time that was much too short and far away.

  With each day closer to Klara’s third birthday, my fear of Moran grew. The man had hacked off my index finger with sadistic pleasure, shot me in the shoulder and very nearly killed me.

  He was a constant itch at the back of my neck. There was not a night I didn’t lie awake going through all the precautions I had taken over these last years. And I always came to the same conclusions: Anna Kronberg had disappeared. Moran would not find us. My daughter and I were safe.

  How blind I was.

  The First Victim

  1

  All the silent witnesses … the place, the body, the prints … can speak if one knows how to properly interrogate them.

  Alexandre Lacassagne

  Corey Hill clipped the sun in half. Houses lining the embankment were painted orange, and a fiery red was bouncing off their windows. The Charles River swept past me. A crew of rowers stroked the calm water, their boat as sleek and white as a tern.

  I shut my eyes, inhaled the scents of muck and burning coal, and could almost picture the Thames. And the city I’d once called home. The men I’d loved and left.

  The air was growing chill. It was time to go.

  I slung my bag over my back, and mounted my bicycle. The brisk ride through the Common, across the channel, and down Dorchester Avenue pumped heat through my body as darkness began to descend on Boston.

  I turned into Savin Hill Avenue and trundled to a halt some distance from a freight train. For a heartbeat, I thought it abandoned — an old toy forgotten in the middle of the road. But there was movement, lights and noise. Lanterns danced like fireflies around the engine’s snout. Cries pierced the rising fog, and farther east, a ship’s horn blew.

  Cold sweat broke out along my spine, goose flesh followed. My heart kicked my ribs as my mind hollered, Not Klara! Not Klara! Despite the unlikeliness of a small child climbing a picket fence and walking two hundred yards through the neighbourhood unnoticed.

  But even the strongest logic could not put a damper on fear I had cultivated for years.

  I dropped my bicycle by the side of the road, and ran up to a clump of people waving their arms and throwing harsh words at one another. I squeezed past two burly men, asking what had happened. Irritated murmurs and an elbow to my side were the only replies. Eventually, they parted, and my gaze fell on a man who sat folded in on himself. Head between his knees, he heaved and wept. His hat lay in the grass.

  I crouched down and touched his shoulder. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I…I…’

  I waited, but that was all he managed.

  ‘He saw her too late. Couldn’t stop the train. She was… I mean…we think it’s a woman.’

  I looked up at the man who had spoken. The bruised sky reflected off his spectacles — two flecks of dark violet in a soot-covered face. ‘He’s the driver?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘He ran over a person?’

  Another nod.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Name’s Smith.’

  ‘Dr Arlington. I’m a physician. When did this happen?’

  ‘Um… A few minutes ago?’ He cleared his throat, and pulled at a small chain that dangled from his trouser pocket. ‘Eleven minutes.’ There was a click as he snapped his watch shut.

  ‘Have the police and the coroner been informed?

  ‘I…’ He blinked. ‘I’m only the stoker, Miss.’

  ‘Summon them. And point me to the victim, please.’

  ‘Which…part do you want to see first?’

  Throats were cleared, eyes dropped. The stoker’s gaze stumbled up along the railway.

  ‘I need a lantern,’ I said, snatched it from one of the bystanders, and walked away before he could protest.

  I had only ever seen one railway accident — a collision of a passenger train and a costermonger’s cart. The man had died on the spot. His screaming horse had had to be shot. That train hadn’t been going fast. But this…this was a disaster.

  I forbade myself to think too deeply about the shreds of white fabric snowflaking the grass, the dark liquid spattering steel and snowflakes and earth. The gloom leaching all colour from the blood.

  The muttering of onlookers faded, the snatches of enquiries of who, when, and why.

  My gaze snagged on something golden, a wisp of silk wrapped around a wheel. I bent down and held the lantern close to it. A lock of fair hair. Blood.

  Klara’s hair was dark and short. I pressed a fist to my heart, gulped a lungful of air, and made my way toward the engine.

  Bits of scalp trailing long hair splattered track ballast and anchors ahead of me. I almost stumbled over a bump covered with a dark, checkered blanket.

  More than a decade of medical training and sti
ll my stomach dropped at the sight. I directed light to the blanket, picked at a corner, and pulled.

  It was barely recognisable as a head.

  The lower jaw was missing, as was half the scalp, the skin of chin and cheeks, and one ear. Moths fluttered in the beam of my lantern. One caught its powdery wings on the victim’s lashes. The forehead was badly abraded, eyebrows shaved off. Blood crawled from the neck wound.

  I knelt and inspected her eyes. She’d died with her eyes open. They were clouded, her pupils constricted, the whites bloodshot. I touched my finger against one eyeball. It felt cold.

  Carefully, I turned the head face down. The vertebrae had been ripped off, and the large foramen was visible. I slipped two fingers through the opening and into the cavity. The brain was lukewarm.

  Frowning, I wiped my hands on the grass, and shrugged off my bag.

  * * *

  I was found several minutes later. Or rather my legs poking out from beneath the engine were found.

  ‘May I ask what you are doing here, Miss?’

  An overly authoritative voice. He must be police. I inched back out, and heard the fabric of my jacket crackling against rock. A seam gave.

  I wiped my palms on a handful of grass, brushed off my knickerbockers, and stood.

  ‘PC Lyons, Boston Police Department.’ The man had yet to extract his hands from his pockets, lift his hat in greeting, or abandon the cigarette that hung from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Dr Arlington. I was about to examine the torso.’

  A lazy lift of his eyebrows. His gaze slid down to the mangled shoulder joint peeking out between two wheels.

  I shone the lantern onto the mess. ‘She was dragged quite a distance before the train came to a halt. Her head lies about ten yards farther down. One foot was severed as well, and is on the other side of the tracks. I need to move her to reach her rectum. Perhaps you could assist me?’

  He stopped chewing his smoke. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I measured the temperature in her brain, and found it to be sixteen degrees too low. I need to take her rectal temperature for comparison.’

  ‘You…what?’

  ‘As I said, I’m a physician.’

  He took the lantern from me, and knelt down to peek under the train. ‘Why were you taking the temperature of the…dear God!’ The light wobbled as he pressed his face into the bend of his elbow.

  Before he could drop the lantern, I took it from him. ‘Has the coroner been notified?’

  ‘Umpf,’ he squeezed into his sleeve.

  ‘The core temperature was twenty-eight degrees Celsius. Or eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Whichever you prefer. Body temperature lowers by approximately one and a half degrees Celsius per hour after death. The accident occurred less than fifteen minutes before I took the temperature of the brain. The neck wound indicates that the head was severed by the train — meaning the head hadn’t had time to cool down faster than the rest of the body. But I need to make sure that the temperatures do match before I draw my conclusions.’

  PC Lyons had regained some of his control. He stood, slid a hand into his pocket and pulled out a fresh cigarette. With trembling fingers, he struck a match and lit his smoke. The flare gave his eyes a devilish glint. ‘Meaning to say?’

  I refrained from asking whether the police didn’t educate its officers on the most basic post-mortem procedures, or whether he’d slept through it.

  ‘It means that the victim must have died around noon,’ I explained. ‘She must have been placed on the tracks when darkness fell. The train schedule should narrow it down for you. Is a post-mortem surgeon on the way?’

  ‘The coroner has been informed,’ PC Lyons said, and sucked at the cigarette as if his life depended on it.

  I couldn’t interpret the flat tone of his voice. Perhaps he was trying to appear hardened, but I found it useless to ponder the matter. ‘Would you help me move the body so that I can take the rectal temperature?’

  The ember pinprick near his mouth flared and quivered.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Two people won’t fit under there anyway.’

  I crouched down. ‘Should anyone wish to move the train, I’d be much obliged if you would stop them.’

  The track ballast crunched and shifted under Lyons’ boots. ‘Should have told them yourself before you placed yourself in harm’s way,’ he muttered.

  Again I squeezed between train and sleepers, the track ballast cutting sharply into my elbows, hips, and knees. I placed the lantern next to the body, calmed my breath, and let my eyes roam.

  She wore the pitiful leftovers of a chemise and stockings. Skin was torn from her belly, breasts, and hips. Bones protruded through flesh. A kneecap hung limply from her leg. Blood was everywhere, and yet the total amount could only be a pint. And much of it had clotted before the force of the impact ripped her open.

  ‘Well, then,’ I muttered and got to work.

  Upon my huffing and grunting, PC Lyons grew worried and peeked under the engine. Seeing that I was tugging on a bloody thigh, his pale face disappeared at once. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed.

  ‘I’m moving her, so that I can take her temperature. She’s on her back and I can’t reach her rectum without the risk of breaking the thermometer, so I will measure inside her vagina instead.’ That was probably a bit of information too delicate to share with the good constable.

  ‘Her eyes are cloudy,’ I continued. ‘And her blood has already clotted. More evidence that her death occurred several hours earlier.’

  Lyons said nothing.

  ‘Aha!’ I said more to myself that to Lyons. ‘The temperature in the vag…of the two body parts is identical.’

  I wiped off my thermometer, stuck it back into its cardboard cylinder, and into my bag.

  Then I touched the victim’s lower abdomen, pushed bits of intact skin around, and pressed into her flesh. ‘It appears she was pregnant. I mean…with child. Possibly fifth or sixth month. From the state of her skin, I’m guessing her to be between twenty-five and thirty-five. Rigor mortis present in the extremities was released by the impact of the train.’

  I examined her limbs down to her clenched fists. ‘Her hands are cold, as one would expect in this season…’ Unfurling the stiff fingers of her right hand took some effort. ‘No blood or skin under her fingernails as far as I can see.’

  Rocks crunched as Lyons shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘It would be best to wait for the coroner.’

  ‘I’m qualified to perform post-mortems, Constable Lyons. It is imperative to examine the body as soon as possible. If you would write down the address of the coroner, I will send him my report tomorrow morning.’ I bent back the fingers of her left hand. Something white — or yellow? — was stuck to her palm.

  I picked at it and held it close to the light. ‘I’ve found a flower petal in her left hand. Hmm. From a rose, I believe. Yes, definitely, a yellow rose. A bit early for roses, isn’t it? But it might have been grown in a hothouse.’

  I directed the light toward Lyons’ boots. ‘It would be best to block off the area, and ask that the train not to be moved until all evidence can be collected in daylight.’

  2

  I scrubbed the blood off my skin, and dropped my clothes into soap water. Shivering, I wrapped myself in nightgown and robe, and slipped into my bedroom.

  An oil lamp silhouetted Klara and Zachary — he on the floor with his back against the bed frame, legs stretched out, a toe sticking through a hole in his sock, and she in my bed, her chin resting on his shoulder, and her hair a frizzly halo.

  Both looked up from a book as I clicked the door shut.

  'We fought a cobra,' he said.

  'Oh?' I knelt on the bed and kissed Klara's head. She ducked, showed me her claws and teeth, and hissed. I poked my finger into her belly. 'Are you the vicious mongoose and I the poor snake?'

  Her eyes flared. She shook her head.

  'All right. I'm the mongoose.' I grinned and nipped at he
r throat. She wiggled and squealed, making my ears ring. 'And now you are wide awake. In the middle of the night.'

  Zach pushed off the floor and placed the book on the nightstand. 'Have you eaten?'

  'I'm fine.'

  At that, Klara jumped up, her small face brimming with expectation. 'Poh!' she said, bouncing on the mattress.

  'Ah, the mongoose is hungry, I see. Perhaps, we can find cobra casserole in the kitchen?' He held out his hand, she grasped it and slipped from the bed.

  'In that case, I'll have some too,' I said and followed.

  * * *

  I learned from the morning papers that the railway had not been blocked for further investigation. Had I been male, PC Lyons might have agreed with my suggestions. Possessing a modicum of diplomatic talent might have helped as well. Nor was I well versed in the womanly art of making men believe that my superior idea had been theirs.

  The police arrested a tramp. The man had neither name nor papers. He'd been one of the bystanders, the short article read, and had yet to speak a sensible word.

  Not one of these developments surprised me.

  I sipped my coffee. The wool blanket itched at the back of my neck, and the old wicker chair poked a stray twig into my backside. I twisted and scooted about until a somewhat comfortable position was found. Then I shut my eyes and tipped my face toward the morning sun.