The Kingdom of Bones by Stephen Gallagher Page A

happened for a while, and nobody came to speak to him. He went to the door and, looking out through the bars, saw that he was in a police yard with a high brick wall around it. An ostler was leading horses across open ground while, over at the yard’s far side, the gates by which they’d entered were being closed by an elderly watchman. The watchman had lost a limb, but moved with speed and skill on his remaining leg and a wooden crutch.
    Sayers settled again, and after a while they came for him. He heard the padlock being removed, and then one of the uniformed men looked in through the bars, in case the prisoner should decide to come out fighting.
    Six of them were waiting for him in the yard. Big, experienced-looking men, and their sergeant the biggest of them all. They had truncheons at the ready, and for a moment Sayers thought that he was to be driven with a beating toward the police station’s jail entrance. But they formed a group around him and he was pushed, prodded, and generally herded toward the grim redbrick building overlooking the yard.
    During the next hour, he was given a prisoner’s examination and photographed. The handcuffs were removed and he was finally able to button his shirt and put on his waistcoat. He moved wherever he was sent, stood where he was told to stand. He resisted any urge to argue or rebel, knowing that neither would go well for him. He needed to maintain his composure until given the opportunity to speak. Any protest before then would be wasted indignation.
    At no point was he left alone or unsupervised. Finally, he was walked into a room where Sebastian Becker and two much older, more senior-looking men were waiting. Both were high-collared and bearded and had small, hard-button eyes. The big sergeant from the yard stood just inside the door, and a shorthand clerk sat ready to take down anything that Sayers might say. The room had bare walls of painted brick and a cellar-style window that was too high to reach, and too small to escape through if anyone ever did.
    There was a chair, and he was allowed to sit. Sayers was told of the charges against him, and at last had the opportunity to provide an account of himself.
    After giving his birth date and such other details of his life that he could be sure of, he started to speak in the knowledge that whatever he said now would be an important record for the days ahead. Forthright or evasive, self-possessed or sniveling, here would be set down his character as the world would know it.
    “I was a prizefighter and professional sportsman for seven years,” he said. “I was in training at Chesham for a bout with Charles Wainwright, and I was attacked and struck on the arm with an iron bar. It was an attempt to influence the result, I’m certain of that. But they did their work too well and I was unable to fight at all. I’d borrowed one thousand pounds from the Marquis of Reddesley in advance of the match, and it had to be repaid.
    “I wrote a boxing sketch and got up a small company to play it around the halls. As a fighter I had a certain popularity, and I repaid the debt. But people’s memories fade very quickly, and so I turned my hand to management. I’ve managed for several companies since. Whitlock’s for the past two years.”
    The two senior men continued to sit without expression throughout, while Sebastian Becker listened closely. He seemed to be searching for some particular meaning or enlightenment that he did not, could not, find.
    He said, “I don’t understand you, Sayers.” The story he seemed to understand well enough; it was the man he could not fathom.
    “There is much here that I do not understand, Inspector Becker.”
    “Is it some form of a blood lust? Something you could no longer satisfy in the ring and so you had to turn it onto the rest of us instead? I’ve seen murder for gain. For revenge. Out of rage or for passion. But never before have I seen such cruel and unusual murder for sheer love of its