Holy Orders

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At first they thought it was the body of a child. Later, when they got it out of the water and saw the pubic hair and the nicotine stains on the fingers, they realized their mistake. Male, late twenties or early thirties, naked but for one sock, the left one. There were livid bruises on the upper torso and the face was so badly disfigured his mother would have been hard put to recognize him. A courting couple had spotted him, a pale glimmer down between the canal wall and the flank of a moored barge. The girl had telephoned the Guards, and the desk sergeant had dialed Inspector Hackett’s office, but Hackett was not there at that hour, and instead he got the Inspector’s assistant, young Jenkins, who was in his cubbyhole behind the cells writing up his week’s reports.

“A floater, Sarge,” the desk man said. “Mespil Road, below Leeson Street Bridge.”

Detective Sergeant Jenkins thought of telephoning his boss but then decided against it. Hackett was fond of his night’s sleep and would not take kindly to being disturbed. There were two fellows in the duty room, one, Quinlan, from the motorbike corps and the other in off his beat for a tea break. Jenkins told them he needed their help. Quinlan had been about to go off duty, and was not pleased at the prospect of staying on. “He’s on a promise from his missus,” the other one, Hendricks, said, and snickered.

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