A Moorland Hanging
“On the way they spoke about the corpse. Simon was not convinced by Baldwin’s preoccupation with the thin mark on Bruther’s neck. “Are you sure it wasn’t anything to do with the rope he was hanging by?”“It could not be the rope,” said Baldwin with certainty. “If a man is hanged, the rope makes a bruise; if a man is throttled, fingers and thumbs will show as marks. But you can hit a dead body as hard as you like—it does not bruise.”Simon shrugged. “Perhaps so, but what’s that got to do with it?”“...On this body, the rope did not bruise. It burned, it’s true, but did not bruise. What does that mean? It means that Bruther was already dead when he was hanged. The thin cord killed him because that one did mark his neck.”“Fine! So someone hanged him after killing him to show how he had died. Very kind of them,” said Simon sarcastically.Baldwin smiled. “Someone strangled him before he was hanged,” he agreed. “But then someone—presumably the same ‘someone’—went through the charade of hanging him for some purpose.”MoreLess
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