In spite of the cold, Abbess Draigen was right. She did need the piece of lavender-impregnated cloth. While herbs and other scented plants had been strategically placed around the body, there was no mistaking the bitter stench that rose from the already decomposing corpse. Fidelma involuntarily caught her breath and raised the linen to her nostrils. Winter chill or not, the corpse was reeking with putrefaction.
Abbess Draigen, standing on the other side of the corpse, smiled thinly, her face half hidden by her own lavender-impregnated cloth.
‘The burial service will be performed at first light tomorrow, sister, that is if you do not require the corpse further for your investigation. The sooner it is done, the better.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
Fidelma did not answer but, bracing herself, she drew back the cloth from the body.
No matter how many times Fidelma encountered death, and violent death was no stranger td her, she always felt an abhorrence at the savagery of it. She always tried to look at corpses as an abstract, tried not to think of them as once living, sentient beings who had loved, laughed and enjoyed life. She compressed her lips firmly and forced herself to look down at the white rotting flesh.
‘As you will see, sister,’ the abbess pointed out unnecessarily, ‘the head has been hacked off. Thus we have no means of identifying the unfortunate.’
Fidelma’s eyes had immediately gone to the wound above the heart.
‘Stabbed first,’ she said, half to herself. ‘The slight bruising shows that the wound was not made after death. Stabbed in the heart and then decapitated afterwards.’
Abbess Draigen watched the young dálaigh with an impassive expression.
Fidelma forced herself to examine the severed flesh around the neck. Then she pulled back and looked at the body as a whole.
‘A young woman. Scarcely beyond the age of choice. I would hazard that she was no more than eighteen. Perhaps younger.’
Her eye caught a discolouration of the flesh around the right ankle. She frowned and examined it more closely.
‘Was this where she was tied to the well rope?’ she demanded.
Abbess Draigen shook her head.
‘The sisters who found the corpse said it was hanging by the left ankle and tied with rope.’
Fidelma turned her attention to the left ankle and saw faint marks and indentations on it. Indeed, such marks looked more consistent with rope burn and there was no bruising, showing that the rope had undoubtedly been placed after death. She turned her attention back to the right ankle again. No, this mark had been made during life. And it did not look as though a rope or cord had made such a mark. It was a regular circle around the leg, a band of discolouration of two inches in depth. The skin had clearly been marked while it was still living flesh.
She turned her attention to the feet. The soles were padded with hardened skin and there were innumerable cuts and sores on them showing that the owner, in life, had not led a pampered existence and probably had not worn shoes much. The toenails were unkempt and several of them were cracked and broken. And curiously, under the nails, there were dirtdeposits. There had been an attempt to clean the body but this dirt seemed ingrained and was curiously red in texture, like a deep red clay that permeated into the very skin of the toes themselves.
‘I presume that the body has been washed since it was removed from the well?’ Fidelma asked, glancing up.
‘Of course.’ The abbess seemed irritated by the question. It was the custom to wash the body of the dead while waiting burial.
Fidelma made no further comment but turned her attention to the legs and the torso. These could tell her nothing except that, in life, the girl had a well-proportioned body and limbs. She next turned her attention to the hands. Fidelma controlled her surprise for the hands did not seem to balance the image of the feet. They were soft, without callouses, the fingernails were clean and manicured. She saw that the right hand had a strange blue stain on it covering the side of the little finger and the edge of the hand. The stain also occurred on the thumb and forefinger. She examined the other hand but there was no such identical staining there. The hands were not the hands of someone accustomed to manual work. Yet this seemed to contrast totally with the feet.
‘I was told that the corpse was clutching some items. Where are they?’ Fidelma inquired after a while.
The abbess shifted her weight from one foot to another.
‘When the sisters washed the body and prepared it, the items were removed. I have them in my chamber.’
Fidelma controlled the disapproving response that came to her tongue. What was the point of her examination if vital evidence had been removed? She checked herself and said: ‘Be so good as to tell me where these items were placed on the corpse.’
Abbess Draigen sniffed dangerously. She was obviously unused to being ordered to do anything, especially by a young religieuse.
‘Sister Síomha and Sister Brónach, who found the corpse, will be able to inform you of this matter.’
‘I will speak with them later,’ Fidelma replied patiently. ‘As of this moment, I would like to know where the items were found.’
The abbess’s mouth tightened and then she relaxed a little yet her voice was stiff.
‘There was a copper crucifix, with a leather thong, poorly made, gripped in the right hand of the corpse. The thong was wrapped around the wrist.’
‘Did it seem to have been placed there?’
‘No; the fingers of the hand were clasped tightly around it. In fact, the sisters had to break the bones of two fingers to extract it.’
Fidelma forced herself to examine the hand in order to verify it.
‘And apart from the breaking of the fingers, when the body was washed, was any particular attention given to the hands? Were they specifically manicured?’
‘I do not know. The body was washed and cleaned in accordance with custom.’
‘Can you speculate on the blue stain?’
‘Not I.’
‘And what was the other item which was found?’
‘There was a wooden wand inscribed in Ogham on the left arm,’ continued the abbess. ‘This was tied on to the forearm and more easily removed.’
‘Tied on? And you have this still? You have it together with the binding?’ pressed Fidelma.
‘Of course,’ replied the abbess.
Fidelma stood back and surveyed the corpse.
Now came the most distasteful part of the task.
‘I need help to turn the corpse over, Abbess Draigen,’ she said. ‘Would you assist me?’
‘Is it necessary?’ demanded the abbess.
‘It is. You may send for another sister, if you so wish.’
The abbess shook her head. Sniffing at her piece of cloth to inhale the odour of lavender, before thrusting it into her sleeves, the abbess moved forward and helped Fidelma manipulate the corpse, firstly moving it on to its side and then over so that the back was exposed. The blemishes were immediately apparent. The marks of recent welts crisscrossed the white flesh as if this body had been scourged before death. In life, some of those abrasions had broken the skin and caused bleeding.
Fidelma breathed in deeply and promptly regretted doing so for the stench of decay caused her to retch and cough, scrabbling for her lavender cloth.
‘Have you seen enough?’ demanded the abbess, coldly.
Fidelma nodded between coughs.
Together, they returned the corpse to its former position.
‘I presume that you now want to see the items found on the corpse?’ asked the abbess, as she conducted Fidelma from the cave into the main store room.
‘What I want first, mother abbess,’ Fidelma replied carefully, ‘is to wash.’