Read Online Ellis Peters - George Felse 13 - Rainbow's End by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online
Authors: Ellis Peters
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someone, somewhere, who would admit to having seen, or heard, or even thought, anything during the past twenty-four hours. They were both guileful and resourceful men, well versed in the ways of their neighbours, and they made every approach obliquely, with mild deception in every phrase. But neither of them was surprised to find that the news had flown before them, even though no curious onlookers had had to be chased away from the churchyard. However deviously they circled the real reason for their enquiries, just as deviously the interrogated counter-circled, well aware of what had happened to Rainbow, and impervious in the armour of ignorance. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, nobody knew anything.
‘Which could well be true,’ admitted Barnes, comparing notes after an hour’s activity. ‘Because I reckon this was timed well on, round about ten if not after, and it would be dark, and there aren’t any houses so near that one heavy, dull fall, with no after-sounds, would get people rushing out to see what had happened. But no bones about it, the result would be the same if nine or ten of us had seen him shoved over the parapet.’ It was the measure of his entrenched loyalties that even in a police matter he said ‘us’ and not ‘them’, a fact which Sergeant Moon perfectly understood.
As for the choir, there was no way of getting at the boys until they were home from school and under the guardianship of their parents, and the men, scattered at work between upland farms, small craft workshops, and the factories of Comerbourne, had better also be left until evening. When, of course, they would say they went straight home after practice, and knew nothing further about anything connected with Rainbow. Still, they had to be asked.
In the post-mortem room at Comerbourne George watched what he had grown used to after many experiences, but would much rather not have had to watch. Mortality was an abstract idea, having its own solemn dignity, if not beauty, but even mortality disintegrated under the hands of Reece Goodwin, and there, but for the grace of God, went every one of us, identity and all, into sample-jars and dog-meat. The fact that the remains would undoubtedly be reassembled as decently as possible, and far beyond what would have been thought possible, hardly mitigated the harshness of this dissection. And yet it was meant for the protection of those still living, and the provision of justice towards this one, dead, and he had learned to accept it. To be the pathologist was quite a different discipline. The more impossible the task of extracting information from the material provided, the more enthusiastic did Reece Goodwin become. But this one was fresh and relatively simple, and he had to draw his ardours from its few subtleties.
‘Now this,’ he said didactically, probing round the head of the corpse with delicate, passionate fingers, ‘presents a very interesting problem. This head wound, you can see, is so situated that it cannot possibly have arisen in the course of impact after his fall. It lies low at the back of the skull, and is long and narrow and deeply indented, and was clearly inflicted before death, though probably very shortly before. It might well have been enough to cause death, if these multiple injuries received in the impact hadn’t intervened. If they really did intervene! He was not dead, or even unconscious, when he fell or was hoisted over the coping, for this stuff we’ve isolated from under his finger-nails, and these markings on his palms, are certainly traces of stone-dust – we’ll go into the kind! – and fine mosses. He was still able to claw at safety.’
‘And he couldn’t have made any such motions after his fall?’ George asked.
‘After his fall he was most definitely dead. Once for all. In fact, what is particularly interesting, though he was alive enough to try and cling to the stone at the top, he may very well have been dead before he hit at
‘Which could well be true,’ admitted Barnes, comparing notes after an hour’s activity. ‘Because I reckon this was timed well on, round about ten if not after, and it would be dark, and there aren’t any houses so near that one heavy, dull fall, with no after-sounds, would get people rushing out to see what had happened. But no bones about it, the result would be the same if nine or ten of us had seen him shoved over the parapet.’ It was the measure of his entrenched loyalties that even in a police matter he said ‘us’ and not ‘them’, a fact which Sergeant Moon perfectly understood.
As for the choir, there was no way of getting at the boys until they were home from school and under the guardianship of their parents, and the men, scattered at work between upland farms, small craft workshops, and the factories of Comerbourne, had better also be left until evening. When, of course, they would say they went straight home after practice, and knew nothing further about anything connected with Rainbow. Still, they had to be asked.
In the post-mortem room at Comerbourne George watched what he had grown used to after many experiences, but would much rather not have had to watch. Mortality was an abstract idea, having its own solemn dignity, if not beauty, but even mortality disintegrated under the hands of Reece Goodwin, and there, but for the grace of God, went every one of us, identity and all, into sample-jars and dog-meat. The fact that the remains would undoubtedly be reassembled as decently as possible, and far beyond what would have been thought possible, hardly mitigated the harshness of this dissection. And yet it was meant for the protection of those still living, and the provision of justice towards this one, dead, and he had learned to accept it. To be the pathologist was quite a different discipline. The more impossible the task of extracting information from the material provided, the more enthusiastic did Reece Goodwin become. But this one was fresh and relatively simple, and he had to draw his ardours from its few subtleties.
‘Now this,’ he said didactically, probing round the head of the corpse with delicate, passionate fingers, ‘presents a very interesting problem. This head wound, you can see, is so situated that it cannot possibly have arisen in the course of impact after his fall. It lies low at the back of the skull, and is long and narrow and deeply indented, and was clearly inflicted before death, though probably very shortly before. It might well have been enough to cause death, if these multiple injuries received in the impact hadn’t intervened. If they really did intervene! He was not dead, or even unconscious, when he fell or was hoisted over the coping, for this stuff we’ve isolated from under his finger-nails, and these markings on his palms, are certainly traces of stone-dust – we’ll go into the kind! – and fine mosses. He was still able to claw at safety.’
‘And he couldn’t have made any such motions after his fall?’ George asked.
‘After his fall he was most definitely dead. Once for all. In fact, what is particularly interesting, though he was alive enough to try and cling to the stone at the top, he may very well have been dead before he hit at
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