“A lady,” Steele supplied, his tone warning.
The constable’s ears reddened. He swallowed. “Begging your pardon, Your Grace. This isn’t a place for… for?—”
“Is the coroner present?” Steele cut in.
“Yes, sir, but he’s…occupied.”
“Then he will be interrupted,” Steele said, already moving past him.
I followed.
The examination room felt colder than the night outside. A surgeon stood beside the long table, hands damp from washing, spectacles low on his nose. A sheet draped the body beneath it.
At a smaller table nearby, another man waited with papers and a pen, watching with practiced stillness. He looked up sharply at our entrance, irritation already forming. “Sir, you cannot simply?—”
The constable hurried forward, clearing his throat. “Mr. Hargreaves—this is the Duke of Steele.”
Hargreaves froze. His gaze flicked over Steele only then, taking in his bearing, his coat, the unmistakable authority of him.
“I see,” he said, his tone shifting at once. “Your Grace. This is hardly a place for?—”
His eyes moved to me. He faltered.
“—a lady,” he finished, a moment later.
“Mr. Hargreaves is the coroner for the parish,” the constable blurted out before gesturing to the figure at the large table. “And Dr. Barclay is the surgeon.”
“Gentlemen,” I said. “I am here and will not leave.”
The coroner cleared his throat, drew himself up, and fixed his attention squarely on Steele as if I were no more than a troublesome piece of furniture.
“What is your business here, if I may ask, Your Grace?” he said, with brittle politeness. “This is an official examination. You cannot simply arrive in the middle of it and—” his gaze flicked, unwillingly, toward me “—bring company.”
Steele did not so much as glance in my direction. He remained perfectly still, as though the coroner’s objection were a gust of wind and nothing more.
“I have reason to believe this death is connected to others currently under investigation,” he said. “You will proceed, Mr. Hargreaves. And you will answer my questions as they arise.”
The coroner’s mouth tightened. “That is not how an inquest?—”
“No,” Steele cut in, his voice low and absolute. “It is how this one will be conducted. Now show us what you have found.”
For a moment, Mr. Hargreaves held himself rigid, color rising in his cheeks. I could see the protest trembling on the edge of his tongue—could see, too, the calculation that followed. A parish coroner might bristle at interference, but he did not have the luxury of defying a duke. Not if he wished to keep his post.
At last, he gave a stiff nod, as though granting permission rather than yielding it.
“Very well,” he said, each word clipped. Then he turned and inclined his head toward the surgeon. “Dr. Barclay.”
Dr. Barclay did not speak. He merely stepped closer and, with practiced hands, folded the sheet back to the girl’s shoulders.
The first sight struck me like a physical blow.
She was so young. Younger than Chrissie. Younger than I had been when my parents died.
A child wearing the shape of a woman.
The river had done its work. Her skin held an awful bluish-grey—part pallor, part stain, as though the Thames itself had claimed her. A lock of dark hair clung to her temple, flattened there as if it had only just been brushed aside.
The smell reached me a heartbeat later. Not merely carbolic, but cold water and silt, riverweed and decay—something dank and metallic that caught at the back of my throat.
