Hawksmoor

The young man behind him was about to sit on a small office chair but he stood up again awkwardly, brushing his sleeve against an indoor plant which quivered in a stream of air from the ventilation system. The connection is, sir, that they were all strangled, all in the same area, and all churches.'

'Well this is a mystery, isn't it? Do you like mysteries, Walter?'

'It's a mystery they're trying to solve.'

And Hawksmoor was impatient to see it for himself. The strip lighting in the corridors emitted a vague hum which pleased him, but when he looked up he could see its exposed cables covered in dust: part of the corridor was in darkness, and so they waited in darkness for a little while before the doors of the lift opened for them. And as he and his assistant drove away from New Scotland Yard, he gestured at the streets outside and murmured, 'It's a jungle out there, Walter.' And Walter laughed, since he knew Hawksmoor's habit of parodying the remarks made by their colleagues. A song was passing through Hawksmoor's head -One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, but what was the third for?

The oddly shaped tower of St George's-in-the-East, which seemed to have burst through the roof rather than simply to rise from it, was visible as they parked by the river; and, as they walked across Ratcliffe Highway towards the church, Hawksmoor bit the inside of his mouth and drew blood: once again, as with every such inquiry, he was faced with the possibility of failure. The church and its precincts were already cordoned off, and a small crowd had gathered in front of the white tape -a crowd composed largely of local people who had come out of curiosity to stare at the scene of the child's death. And there were murmurs of 'here he is!' and 'who's he?' as Hawksmoor passed quickly through them and ducked under the tape before walking around the side of the church to a small park behind. An inspector and some young constables from the local CID were crouched over, looking at the ground beside a partly ruined building which had the words M SE M OF still visible above its entrance; the inspector was dictating observations into a tape-recorder but, as soon as he saw Hawksmoor striding towards him, he switched it off and stood up, grimacing at a pain in his back. Hawksmoor chose not to see it and came very close: 'I am Detective Chief Superintendent Hawksmoor, and this is my assistant Detective Sergeant Payne: your Divisional Superintendent has been in touch with you about my involvement?'

'Yes, he's been in touch, sir.' Hawksmoor, satisfied that everything had been explained, turned round to look at the rear wall of the church and wondered how long it had taken to erect. A group of children were peering through the railings of the park, their faces pale beside the dark iron. 'Some queer found him late last night,' the inspector was saying and then he added, since Hawksmoor did not reply, 'Some queer might have done it.'

'I need a time.'

'About four in the morning, sir.'

'And there is an identification?'

The father -' and the inspector glanced over at two figures, a man sitting down upon a bench beneath an oak tree with a woman constable standing and looking down at him, one hand upon his shoulder. A siren could be heard somewhere in the distance.

Hawksmoor took out a pair of spectacles from his top pocket and examined the man: he knew the face of shock and this one seemed no different, although now the father looked up and caught his gaze.

Hawksmoor held his breath until the man looked down upon the ground, and then he turned suddenly to the inspector.

'Where is the body?'

The body? The body's gone, sir.'

Hawksmoor examined the man's uniform. 'Perhaps you have been told, inspector, that you must never move the body until the investigating officer has arrived?'

'But the father came, sir -'

'Never move the body!' And then he added, 'Where has it gone?'

'It's gone for examination. It's gone to the pathologist.'

And so the atmosphere of the murder was already destroyed. He walked over to the father, who started to get up from the bench until Hawksmoor waved him down. 'No, no,' he said, 'Don't move. Stay where you are.'

The father smiled apologetically, but his face was so red from grief that it seemed raw and unformed. Hawksmoor imagined himself peeling off the layers of skin and flesh until there was nothing left but the gaping holes of mouth and eyes. 'He was such a friendly boy,' the father was telling him, 'He was always so friendly.' Hawksmoor bowed his head. 'I was asked to bring something of his,' the father was saying, 'Is it for the dogs? I couldn't take any of his clothes, I just couldn't, you know, but I brought you this' -and he held a children's book in front of him. Hawksmoor wanted to touch its bright cover, but already the father was leafing through it and sighing. 'He used to read this book over and over. So many times.' Hawksmoor watched his hand turning the pages, and then by chance saw an engraving of an old man with a stick, while beside him a child scraped a fiddle. Even as he stared at it he remembered other such illustrations from his own books: a picture of a graveyard with a hare reading from one of the tombs, of a cat sitting beside a pile of stones. There had been verses beneath them which seemed to go on for ever, line being added to line in succession, but he could not now recall the words. He took the book from the father's hands and gave it to the policewoman before asking him gently, 'When did you last see your son?'

'Do you mean what time?'

'Yes, can you remember the time?'

And the man frowned with the effort, as if nothing really existed before the fact of this death. He might have been sitting there for ever in the shadow of St George's-in-the-East. 'It must have been about six yesterday evening. Yes it was, because the clock struck.'

'And did he say -'

'Dan. He was Dan.'

'And did Dan say where he was going?'

'He said he was going out. He just opened the door and went out.

That was the last time.'

Hawksmoor rose and said, 'We're doing all we can. We'll keep you informed.' And the father stood up beside him in order to shake his hand, in an almost formal gesture. Walter had been watching all this from the middle of the park, and now he cleared his throat as Hawksmoor came up to him saying, 'Well, we might as well go and see it'.

The body of the child was already in place in the examination room when they arrived. Labels had been tied around its left ankle and around both of its wrists; the head had been placed in a wooden block, with the nape of the neck resting in the curvature. The pathologist had just finished washing his hands and glanced up at the two men with a smile: Hawksmoor made a point of smiling also, but none of them glanced at the naked corpse which lay only two feet away. 'You don't waste any time,' the pathologist said as he took a tape-recorder out of his pocket.

'Time is not on our side.'

The pathologist, not hearing this, bent over the body and spoke softly into the tape-recorder: 'I am now examining the external surface of the body. The face has become engorged and discoloured blue, the eyes are bulged and showers of tiny petechiae in the eyelids and conjuctivae indicate asphyxia. The tongue is protruding through the teeth. A small amount of blood has trickled from burst vessels in the ears but not in the nose. There is evidence of the emptying of the bladder and back passage. No evidence of sexual assault. I am looking now for fingertip or nail impressions on each side of the neck at around voice-box level -' and then, after a sudden pause, he continued -'None of these. Several scratches on the neck which could have been made by the victim trying to prise off the attacker's hands.