Devoured by D. E. Meredith Page A

thick, until they reached a little hump in the road and beyond that, a girl. Professor Hatton could see it was a girl before he even looked at her. Her childlike hands just visible, ghostly in the moonlight.
    ‘Here, Adolphus. You might want a slug, first?’
    Hatton looked in Roumande’s eyes to catch a glimpse of what lay ahead, taking the flask from his friend’s hand, grateful for it.
    ‘Do you want to see her?’
    How odd the question felt. It hung, dead in the air.
    ‘Do you want me to do the honours, Professor?’
    Roumande seemed a little lost, a little hesitant, a little unsure of himself, and so Hatton, resolute, stepped forward.
    Her hair was damp but she lay on a soft down pillow as if slumbering, tucked under a woollen blanket and placed in an orange box. She was dead; dead girls were two a penny around here, but still the questions came to him at once. Who was she? Where was her family? Did she have any? And how did she end up here and like this? As a boy Hatton had watched, with some amusement, his sister Lucy tucking up her treasured doll exactly like this little girl. And this child seemed unreal, like a doll, but perhaps it was just the moonlight.
    Yet it was clear to Hatton at once that at some point she’d been in the river. Hatton gently pulled back the blanket to see wet, barely formed breasts and a child’s mouth agape, and around her mouth and in her hair a few souvenirs from the Thames. The tiniest shreds of flotsam. He checked her hands but there were no pebbles or rocks which might have been present if she had grabbed at the banks whilst trying to cling to life. But he was sure her death had been by drowning.
    ‘Look at her wrists, Adolphus.’
    Pinpricks, but not random slashes and scars as with the previous girls. They were neatly done and barely touched the skin, more like bee stings or the imprint of kisses. ‘Does it remind you of the girls we already have? The pauper girls, Adolphus?’
    ‘Cover her.’ Hatton pushed his hand in his mouth. ‘Do as I say, Albert. Cover her, for pity’s sake.’ And for a second he thought of Flora James – the missing maid. Could it be her? But no, that thought was gone in an instant. Inspector Adams had been very clear that the missing maid was ladylike and nearly twenty.
    ‘She’s perfect, Professor. Like an angel, but barely twelve is my guess.’
    ‘I can do very little here. It’s the light, the snow, the temperature, but I think she drowned. We’ll take her back to the morgue to be sure. But she hasn’t been beaten, Albert. She’s as you say. Apart from death, she’s perfect.’
    Roumande nodded. ‘Foundlings are often left like this. Lost children. But you’re right, she’s definitely been pulled out of the river. I had a closer look before I came to get you, Professor. My guess, she’s been here a couple of hours. Most of her hair’s still damp to the touch, but some of the strands near her face are beginning to harden with frost. Two hours, best guess. Maybe three at the most. The body collectors did the usual rounds to Coram’s Fields and to several of the workhouses, but no joy. I should give you this, Adolphus.’
    Hatton was shaken, but why he didn’t know. She was not the worst cadaver he had ever laid his eyes on. She was eerily beautiful. He opened the note, which said, ‘Metropolitan Police Delivery Note/For the Urgent Attention of Professor Hatton, St Bart’s Pathology Department.’
    ‘It looks official enough. But don’t the Specials normally bring corpses to the mortuary yard themselves, if it’s a suspicious death? It’s not our normal procedure.’
    Roumande shrugged. ‘Methods are sometimes slapdash between the workings of The Yard and the body collectors. You’ve heard me say it, many times. The body collectors had a tip-off. They’ve labelled her as “pork”, but she’s more than that, isn’t she, Adolphus? She seems cared for, cherished almost. She seems as if she died but minutes ago, and that