Alex had let out a slow sarcastic whistle when he’d seen Seb’s immaculate evening clothes. “Look at you, pretty boy,” he teased.
“Oh, sod off,” Seb said amiably. “You’re just jealous. Your coats never fit this well. What’s going on?”
“Conant’s got a new job for us,” Ben said, referring to their superior, the head of Bow Street and de facto head of police in London, Sir Nathaniel Conant. “Murder. Behind a tavern, down at the East India docks.”
“That’s hardly a reason for us to investigate,” Seb said crossly. “People are killed down there every night of theweek. Bar brawls, robberies gone wrong. It’s not our territory. What’s so different about this one?”
“Sounds like the deceased was a visitor to our shores. The innkeeper saw him drinking with another man and overheard them speaking Russian or Prussian—something foreign, at any rate. They seemed to be on friendly terms, but not fifteen minutes later, our man was found in the side alley with his throat slit.”
“I still don’t see what it has to do with us,” Seb groused. “Two foreigners had a disagreement and one of them ended up dead. It was probably over a woman. Or cards. Let the local magistrate deal with it.”
Alex shook his head. “The mention of Russia is what interests Conant. Castlereagh and the Foreign Office have been looking for a spy who passed information to the French about Russian troop movements before Waterloo. They think someone warned Napoleon the Russians were on their way.”
“Bastard,” Ben muttered savagely.
Seb nodded. All three of them had been left scarred by their years in the Rifles that had culminated in the bloody carnage at Waterloo. That the three of them had survived was nothing short of a miracle.
“Information’s still getting out. A Russian delegation arrived last week for trade talks, and Conant wants us to keep our ears open for anything that might identify the leak. So we’re investigating anything that involves Russians. Dead or alive.”
Seb snorted. “Keep our ears open? Ha. Only one of my earsworks, thanks to Bonaparte.”
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Alex added dryly, and Benedict chuckled at their gallows humor. A canon blast at Waterloo had permanently damaged the hearing on Seb’s left side. Alex had lost a portion of his peripheral vision in the same explosion.
The carriage lurched to a stop at the end of a dark alley. The three of them got out, eliciting a slew of bawdy comments from a couple of whores on the corner.
“Ooh! Come ’ere, gents. Sally’ll show you a good time.”
Ben ignored them and headed for the front door of the tavern. “I’ll talk to the landlord.”
Seb nodded to the man posted at the alley entrance to protect the crime scene and slipped between the overhanging buildings, followed by Alex.
Here, in the stinking slums that clustered round the Thames docks, murder was commonplace. Human life was cheap. Seb wrinkled his nose against the rank smell of piss and stale beer that mixed with the fetid odor of the nearby river to create a nauseating miasma. The creak of ships moored at the water’s edge could be heard above the rattle of carts and the occasional angry shout. A rat scurried behind a pile of refuse.
Blood and death didn’t bother him. He’d seen so much of it during his years in the Rifles, he’d become immune. Sometimes the fact that itdidn’taffect him worried him a little. His emotions, good and bad, seemed distant, unimportant. Had he lost the ability to be horrified or surprised by anything anymore?
Seb dismissed the thought and crouched down, careful to avoid the black pool of blood that glistened on the filthy cobbles. No point ruining a good pair of boots. The dead man wore plain clothes, nothing flash that would have attracted the attention of a thief. He lay sprawled like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Seb searched the man’s pockets and withdrew a leather money purse. “This wasn’t a robbery.”
Alex pointed at the man’s hand. “He’s still wearing a ring on his little finger too. Someone wanted him dead, but not for gold.”
Seb tugged the ring from the corpse and squinted at it in the dim light. It was too dark to see the markings on it, so he slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. “I’ll take this home and look at it there.”
Alex bent to examine the man’s neck. “It’s a clean wound, almost professional. Someone knows their way around a blade. There’s not much evidence of a struggle. The poor bastard probably never suspected a thing.”
Seb straightened, imagining the scene. “He did it from behind. Put an arm across his neck and cut, then dropped the body. No sound. Very efficient. Sneaky bastard.” He flicked a glance at the dead man’s face and experienced a fleeting stab of pity. He was young, barely thirty, maybe the same age as himself. Too young to die. Especially like this, so far from home.
Benedict appeared at the far end of the alley.
“Do we have a description of the suspect?” Alex asked.
“The innkeeper says he was wearing a hat pulled low over his face and a heavy overcoat. Said he was big, maybe six feet, with pale hair.”
Seb rolled his eyes. “A big blond Russian. Well, that certainly narrows it down.”
Alex grinned at his sarcasm. “There are Russian immigrants all over the city. It could be someone with military experience, a former soldier maybe, considering the precision of the wound.”
“He might not evenbeRussian,” Seb said irritably. “The innkeeper could have been mistaken. They could’ve been speaking Cornish or Welsh. We’re wasting our time.”
Ben shrugged. “Well, I doubt there’s any more to learn here, at any rate. Let’s go. The locals can take it from here.”
