The Devil's Ribbon by D. E. Meredith

piled up in the bindery in Clapham. There are heaps and heaps of them and their guts are hanging out. Gregory Clause? Now you come to mention it …’
    ‘What?’ O’Brian rasped, practically salivating.
    The boy, having recovered a little, was not without insolence. He eyeballed the priest. ‘First I need to know, will you be taking me to Lourdes? Will I get to meet the little Bernadette girl, who cures the sick?
Like you promised me, Father
.’
    The priest went to pull the boy’s ear, but then thought better of it, saying, ‘Don’t push it, Tooley. Gregory Clause. Yes or no?’
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    The priest patted the crippled boy on the head. ‘You’ll make us a fine little foot soldier one day. The Home Office, eh? So, Senior Intelligence Officer Jasper Tooley, take a pen and write this down.’ He cleared his throat and repeated, ‘“The Gregory Clause 1847.” Got that, lad? The exact detail of this clause has been denied on a number of occasions, but Mr O’Rourke and I are sure it exists. But we need to see it. We need to see how they did it. We need to see who sanctioned the tumbling.’

SEVEN

    HIGHGATE
    The day had been a long one. The house in Highgate offered very little in terms of forensic evidence, but nevertheless Hatton had taken three samples of household ash, a variety of bottles from the cleaning cupboard, and what Mrs McCarthy claimed was her husband’s draught – a small, blue bottle containing laudanum. The sun was just beginning to dip as Hatton wandered into the meadows of White Lodge, which were ablaze with poppies, iridescent dragonflies, beewhals, and butterflies. Getting his notebook out from his medicine bag, he added ‘antimony’ to the lists of common poisons he’d already found, or knew he would find with a bit more quizzing of the maid. Mercury and arsenic in the household paint, hydrochloric acid, morphine for bouts of indigestion, tincture of Belladonna for ladies’ complaints. All highly toxic, yes, butnot enough to kill a man, and no sign of that deadliest of all – crushed from the seeds of an Indian deciduous tree –
nux-vomica
.
    But knowing all the time that murder left an imprint and that to doubt, to look again, to ask questions, always questions, and to look beyond the obvious was all that mattered. Death would speak to him, he just had to listen. But right now, all Hatton could hear was the burring of chickens as he bent his head under a lintel, stepping into the cooling shade of one of the outhouses, an ancient half-forgotten place which smelt of dry hay, rushes, and something he knew at once – the cut of turpentine.
    Leaning up against a wall was an easel, a few pots of paint, some brushes, and a number of half-finished paintings. Brightly coloured oils of romanticised places and one in particular which caught his eye, having the air of a Constable about it – a riverscape, a muddy beach, a dear little skiff named
Liberty
nestling under a weeping willow, and in the distance, what he knew to be an ait – a river island.
    Her voice made him jump when it came.
    ‘Are you admiring my paintings, Professor?’
    She was wearing a linen smock with a thick, brown leather belt around her waist. Her hair hung loose in a most becoming way, and her feet, he noticed, were bare. ‘My poor, dear husband wasn’t one to stand on ceremony, Professor, and I could no longer wear those heavy mourning silks. The heat is making me ill.’
    Hatton was embarrassed. ‘It’s not for me to judge, madam …’ he said, clearly averting his eyes. There was a strong, bright light behind her which melded the dove grey dress into practically nothing, a diaphanous shift.
    ‘No, it’s not for you to judge, though I find the English often do,’ she said, stepping out of the light, her dress becoming thick again in theshadows of the outhouse – the long line of her thighs, the curve of her hips, the nip of the waist, other things, secret things, disappearing again.
    He hung his