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injury and death, was not going to let a town constable lecture him on the subject, and he dropped to a crouch to examine the body more closely.
    'Still stiff in the arms and legs,' he barked, as he cranked the elbows and knees of the dead man. 'And eyes not clouded yet!' He prodded the eyelids with a long finger as he spoke.
    'The face is a proper mess, looks as if he's had a kicking,' said Gwyn judicially. From eyebrows down to jawline, the face was a welter of lacerations and bruises, the skin ripped, the lips puffed and torn and the nose smashed out of all recognition.
    Thomas plucked up enough courage to venture a comment, similar to the one Gwyn had made earlier to the constable, 'We've had corpses from the water before, where you've said the injuries were due to being knocked around against stones and rocks after death. Could this not be the same?'
    The coroner shook his dark head. 'The cuts and wounds are only on his face and neck. The rest of him is intact. When a corpse drags along the bottom, the knees and backs of the hands get ripped as well.'
    Gwyn hoisted up one of the stiff arms. 'And look at these, Crowner! Bruises on both his forearms and hands.'
    Thomas was uncharacteristically stubborn today.
    'Isn't that what the crowner just described?' De Wolfe, content to expound further, prodded the blue marks with his forefinger. 'You can't bruise a corpse, Thomas! These were inflicted during life, though they're very recent, still being blue in colour.' His officer nodded sagely. 'Men get them from holding up their arms to defend themselves against a beating. This poor fellow's had a good old hammering.'
    They stood in a silent ring around the body for a moment, looking down at what had been a living person not long before. Thomas crossed himself several times and murmured some verses of a Latin requiem under his breath.
    'We know how he died, but who the hell is he?' grunted Gwyn.
    De Wolfe questioned the two labourers and the constable, but none of them could offer any suggestions, which was hardly surprising given the state of the man's face. Crouching again alongside the body, John picked up the hands and studied them, turning them over to see both the backs and the palms.
    'He's no rough peasant or manual worker. His hands are free from calluses - though he seems to have a number of small scars and old burns on the inside of his fingers. Maybe he was some kind of craftsman.'
    After Gwyn had rolled the corpse on to its face to allow them to examine the back, de Wolfe motioned him to pull the makeshift canvas shroud over it again.
    'Nothing more we can do herel We'll have to wait for someone to report their husband or father missing - though he may have come up on the flood tide from Topsham. I doubt it would be as far away as Exmouth, the corpse is too fresh.'
    'Where shall we lodge him, Crowner?' asked Osric.
    'It's a long way to carry him up to Rougemont.' Corpses from the central part of the city were usually housed in a cart shed in the castle, but on standing up and looking around, de Wolfe decided on an easier option.
    'We can put him in one of the lower chambers of the Watergate - no one is likely to steal him!' The two wharf workers found a wooden device that porters used for carrying heavy crates or bales from the ships, a stretcher with short legs that looked remarkably like a bier. On this they carried the unknown victim, decorously covered with the sailcloth, to the nearby gate in the city wall. This had a narrow tower on each side, in one of which lived the watchmen who had the strict duty of closing the large gates when curfew was rung at dusk. In the base of the other bastion was a dank chamber half filled with junk and rubbish, but with enough space to leave the corpse on its trestle.
    Gwyn pulled some lengths of timber across the small arched entrance to discourage intruders and Osric went across to the gatekeeper to order him to keep an eye on the place until further notice.
    'Not much point in