Chorus of the Dead

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

One more Unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!

London, November 1867

Doctor Peter Ainsley desperately needed a stiff drink of something, anything to dampen this feeling of pity he had for the girl who lay dead on his examination table. Her body was pulled from the Thames earlier that day. Scotland Yard had brought her to Ainsley, as they did with all of London's suspicious deaths. His workspace was overrun with bodies of the dead, nearly every examination surface was occupied, and many more waited in the adjoining room. He was slow, methodical, much to the dismay of his employers who would rather see him quickly process the bodies and move on. No one cared about the poor and unfortunate, the children especially, who arrived there more often than most. London was rife with lowlifes and ne'er-do-wells, the morgue only represented a small fraction of the suffering which awaited them beyond the hospital's stone walls.

The girl before him possessed a classic beauty, a striking similarity to many ancient Greek statues with a gently sloping jaw and high cheekbones. Her damp, needle straight hair hung limp and motionless off the edge of the wooden table where she lay, the ends slightly matted together due to the churning of the muddy tide waters. She smelled like the putrid liquid of the Thames, the vile filth and garbage thrown in by thousands of local residents looking to the current to wash it away. Her skin was made nearly ash brown by the feces and urine tossed into the water by the bucket full. Ainsley did what he could to wash the grime away but much had already seeped into her pores causing permanent discolouration.

Her lips were blue and her skin waxy to the touch. Ainsley leaned over the body, carefully surveying for any outward sign of what had brought her to the waters' edge. There was no bruising on her throat, no lacerations on her face or head. He lifted her limp arms and separated each finger so he could look at them better. There were no defensive wounds, no marks of struggle. Nothing that could justify her sudden loss of life.

Scalpel in hand, he cut a Y-shaped incision in her abdomen and then sawed through her rib cage to gauge the functions of her internal organs. His colleagues rarely had to go so far. Often it was enough for them to regard a wound on the head or neck to determine a cause of death. Ainsley was far more scrupulous and was determined to find out as much as he could about the moments prior to death.

He gingerly pulled each organ from her torso, separating them on the shelf behind him so he could weigh them later. By the time he was done her corpse lay like one of Madam Tussaud's wax replicas of tortured criminals.

The sound of a distant door creaking open pulled Ainsley from his extreme focus. He saw Dr. Crawford heading towards him, weaving between sheet-covered bodies as he made his way to the examination table. Ainsley washed the girl's blood from his bare hands at a nearby sink. Dr. Crawford gave a quick glance to the girl on the table, her innards separated in glass jars on the opposite table. "From the Thames?" he asked, no doubt seeing the telltale signs with just a passing glance.

"She is. Haven't determined a cause-"

Crawford would not let him finish. "Suicide," he answered bluntly.

Ainsley gave an inquisitive look as he dried his hands on a towel. "I haven't examined the organs yet."

"No need," Crawford answered with a shrug. "A governess swore she saw this girl jumping from Waterloo Bridge. Her brother is outside the door." Crawford peered over his half-moon spectacles, as if daring the young upstart doctor to challenge his authority. "Now stitch her back up and let's get him in here to identify her. Then we can all go home." He gave a false benevolent smile and clasped a heavy hand on Ainsley's shoulder.