‘You stole it,’ cried Young Toad.
‘I took,’ said Toad.
‘You stole it an’ pawned it and bought gin with the money. And it were mine. I bought it from Finch’s up on Spyglass from what I earned—’
‘How did you earn it?’ I said.
Young Toad fell silent. ‘I just earned it,’ he muttered.
I did not have time or patience to wheedle and coax, and I had no intention of beating it out of the lad, though I was sorely tempted to do so. And so I resorted to the only currency he understood. No doubt his father would do the beating later. I pulled out a shilling. I held it up between my thumb and forefinger. ‘If you tell me how you earned it, I will give you this, and perhaps another too,’ I said.
The boy hesitated, torn between confessing his misdemeanours and getting his hands on another coin.
‘Young Toad!’ I cried. ‘You said you saw Dr Proudlove cut Mr Aberlady’s arm that night?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Young Toad. ‘I seen ’im.’
‘But you didn’t, did you?’ The coin glittered. A mere shilling for the truth. If only it were that simple. ‘You didn’t see Dr Proudlove at all, but someone told you to say it was him, and someone paid you to do it.’
‘No!’ squeaked Young Toad.
‘You bought cake and a waistcoat with the money,’ I said. ‘How much did he give you? Half a crown?’
‘No—’
‘More? It must have been a serious lie, and a wealthy man asking you to tell it. How much did he give you?’
‘A thick ’un,’ muttered Young Toad. ‘It were a crown, sir. Said I weren’t to say nothing about it or I’d end up just like Mr Aberlady.’ He peered fearfully over his shoulder at the dead body of Dr Proudlove. He began weeping.
‘Who was it?’ cried Will, stepping forward. ‘Who was it or I will finish you off myself—’
‘It were Dr Sackville. Dr Sackville I saw take the skin from Mr Aberlady’s arm. He said I weren’t to say. He gave me the money. Said I was a good lad.’
I tossed him the shilling. He reached out a dirty hand, but his father’s fist shot out, and snatched it from the air. He seized his son’s collar and hauled him away.
I took out my knife and went over to the body.
‘Jem,’ said Will. ‘What are you doing—?’
‘I’m quite myself again,’ I said, watching the knife blade gleam like an icicle in my hand. I knew I was not, but I was sober enough to do what had to be done. ‘How did you know I was in the Golden Swan?’
‘I asked Toad, who said he had seen you go out with Miss Proudlove, who said she had left you on Spyglass Lane. Mrs Flannigan – on payment of half a crown – said she had seen you go into the Golden Swan opium house. What on earth possessed you?’ said Will. ‘To go into that place alone? To take a pipe? You an apothecary too! If anyone knows what might happen in such places it’s you!’
‘That’s precisely why I went there,’ I said. ‘Of course I knew what would happen. At least, I didn’t expect to be held down, to have the pipe put to my lips by someone else.’
‘By whom?’
‘I don’t know. At least, I’m not sure. I saw lots of faces in my mind’s eye – including yours. I can’t be certain who it was.’
Will looked at me doubtfully. ‘So why did you go there?’
‘I wanted to think. To escape from my own thoughts. To escape from myself. Just for a while! You know who I am, Will, you know how I live. Have you any idea how hard it is? Always dissembling, always hiding, always afraid someone will find out? The wonder is not that I went there, but that I have never gone before.’
Will was silent.
‘Besides,’ I said. ‘I wanted to go to the place where they said Aberlady had been.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I thought I might find something out. He knew, Will. He knew what was happening – perhaps not about the second two girls we found, but he knew about the first, about Mary Mercer – though in fact she was the last to be killed. Or he suspected what was going on, at least.’
‘And he went to an opium den to think about it?’
‘Oh, he’d gone there many times in the past. I think he went there again before he died – he could not do without the stuff. I think they intended to give him an overdose. Perhaps he was more used to it than his assailants realised, as he was a habitual user. Unfortunately, Dr Proudlove was not.’ I thought again of the hands that had pressed me back onto the charpoy, the pipe I had felt against my lips.
‘Would he stay in an opium den for a week?’ said Will. ‘You recall a week passed between his disappearance, and his throwing himself from the apothecary window.’
‘I think he was hiding somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘The Blood, perhaps? That would be the best place.’
‘Where on the Blood? The place is like a floating termite hill. Where could he possibly hide?’
‘Perhaps we should ask Dr Rennie that question.’
‘And why? Why would he hide? You’re not making any sense—’
‘Perhaps he was waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘For proof? For evidence to confirm his suspicious? Perhaps he was watching someone. But then they found him and took him away.’
‘But who are “they”, Jem?’
I clicked my tongue. ‘Must I spell it out? Aberlady discovered something was happening to certain of the girls from Siren House – some of those who had gone to work as nurses on board the Blood. But he had to be sure, had to be quite certain if he was about to accuse Dr Sackville, Dr Cole, Dr Antrobus—’
‘All three?’
I pointed to Dr Proudlove. ‘Perhaps all four.’
‘All of them? Why not accuse Dr Rennie too?’
‘I think his involvement is coincidental. Marginal at best—’
Will shook his head. He was still wearing the canvas trousers and jacket from his day’s work at Deadman’s Basin, and he looked tired, despairing. ‘I fear you’re not in your right mind, Jem—’
‘But I’m perfectly well,’ I cried. ‘In fact I’m thinking clearly. Very clearly. It’s a pity I can’t say the same for you, for you seem exceptionally doltish and obstructive today. Anyone would think you didn’t want to know why five people have turned up dead in the last week.’
Will looked at me coldly. ‘Were you thinking clearly when you told Miss Proudlove who and what you really are—’
I blanched. ‘She told you?’ I whispered.
He turned away. ‘I don’t understand you, Jem. For three days now we have walked amongst death and murder of the most unspeakable kind, and yet you share your most precious confidences with strangers. Do you not know what will happen if you are discovered?’ His face was tense, angry. He turned away from me. ‘Sometimes I hardly know you at all, Jem. I thought we were friends. More than friends—’
‘Did you?’ I muttered. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you.’
I turned to the body on the slab before me, and with my knife I cut a slit in Dr Proudlove’s shirt sleeve from the elbow to the shoulder. I exposed his right arm – for it had been on Aberlady’s right arm that the skin had been excised, and I knew I would find the same mark. This time, I hoped, it would be complete. And there it was. Newly inked: the keys, the chains, the bound skeleton. Like John Aberlady before him, Dr Proudlove had tried to obliterate the mark, as if they no longer wished to own whatever it signified. The crude tattooed letters were scabbed and scratched, as if he had sought to tear them off with his own fingers.
‘What’s that word?’ said Will.
‘Icorisss,’ I said.
‘What does it mean?’
The mortuary had grown dark, the air damper and chillier than ever. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Not yet anyway.’
Outside, the clear weather had vanished. The afternoon had drawn down darkly, hastened by the thickening fog, which slunk down streets and lanes like the spectre of a huge grey dog. As we
emerged from the mortuary, we could hardly even see the Blood, and she was but fifty yards away. I saw a figure on the deck – dimly, like a ghost. I could tell by his tall stooping silhouette that it was Dr Sackville. He lit a lantern at the stern, and for a moment his face was illuminated by the yellow phosphorous flare.
The quickest route to where I wanted to go was through Deadman’s Basin. The basin itself had been drained of water when we found Mary Mercer, and what filled it now was a putrid, lumpen mud. Across the basin, we could just about make out the burnt-out remains of the old villa – partly dismantled now, and the smell of old mortar and brick dust hung on the air. At the top, Bishop’s Entry vanished like a drain between the buildings.
The door was opened by Mr Jobber. ‘She ain’t in,’ he said before we could speak.
‘You mean Mrs Roseplucker?’ I said. ‘We don’t want to speak to her.’
‘Ain’t no gen’men allowed in without Mrs R being here,’ he said. He blocked the door. He held a paintbrush in his hand, and his shirt was stained red. He looked tearful. From behind him a voice screamed out.
‘Close that door, you great fat idiot. You’re letting all the heat out.’
‘That Poll?’ I said. ‘It’s her we want.’
‘Can’t. Can’t see the girls.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, man,’ cried Will. ‘We don’t want to pay for the girl. We just want to talk to her. It won’t take long. Now just . . . get out of the way!’
Mr Jobber’s chin trembled. ‘Don’t shout,’ he said.
Inside, the place was as wretched as ever. The walls had been painted from top to bottom in red, and some of the lurid prints depicting scenes of elaborate congress that had adorned Mrs Roseplucker’s old premises on Wicke Street had been hung about. The two girls we had previously seen playing dominoes were now intent on a game of snakes and ladders. They played in dogged, unsmiling silence, the dice rattling in the cup like teeth. Poll was sitting in Mrs Roseplucker’s chair, her feet – shod in a pair of tatty satin slippers – up on the desk. Her skirts had slipped back, revealing a pair of bruised and dirty knees. She grinned when she saw us. ‘’Ello, sirs!’
‘You’ll get a slap if she comes back and finds you sitting there,’ said Will.
‘It’ll be worth it,’ said Poll. She grinned, and took a swig from a bottle that was hidden beneath the desk. ‘Well now, gen’men, what can I do for you?’ She said it in a cracked harridan’s voice I recognised as an excellent imitation of Mrs Roseplucker herself. ‘Lookin’ for a lovely young girl, sir? I got three. Virgins, all of ’em!’
Mr Jobber gave a great guffaw of laughter, and clapped his hands together like a caveman smashing rocks.
‘Poll,’ I said. ‘Have you ever been with Dr Cole and Dr Antrobus?’
‘Course,’ she said. ‘Far too often.’
‘And do you recognise this?’ I showed her the picture of the tattoo Jenny had drawn. ‘Did either of them have this tattoo?’
‘Cost you.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ spluttered Will, who had been getting more and more agitated. He hated these places – the briny smell, the lolling girls, the vile red walls and hot damp rooms. ‘Nothing for nothing at Mrs Roseplucker’s, eh?’ He tossed her a shilling. ‘Now tell us, Miss Poll or I’ll tip that pot of red paint over your head.’
I glanced at Mr Jobber, who was advancing on Will like a prizefighter.
‘Now then, Mr Jobber,’ said Poll hastily. ‘Don’t hurt the nice gentleman. Mrs Roseplucker’ll go mad if she comes home and finds you’ve wrung a man’s neck while she were out visitin’.’ She turned to us. ‘Yes, I seen a tattoo like that. Yes, they both have one. No – before you ask – I don’t know what it means. I didn’t ask them ’cause I’m not interested and I don’t care. That enough for you?’
It wasn’t far from Cat’s Hole to Siren House, and it was there that we went next. All at once the urgency of our situation was clear. Four men with the same tattoo, two of them dead, the dead men both seeking to remove the mark that bound the four together. I had to find out more about the dead girls. It was they who would provide us with the link we needed, the link that would show us who the murderer was.
Annie opened the door. When she saw it was Will and me she looked relieved.
‘Thank God you’ve come,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Is it Miss Proudlove? Is she here? I presume she’s heard?’
Dr Birdwhistle had been sent to tell Miss Proudlove that her brother was dead. I wondered whether I should have offered to tell her, but after what had happened between us in the physic garden it seemed better if it came from someone she knew well. And yet in my heart I knew that was just a cowardly excuse. I had seen her not two hours before we had found him; she and I had passed the door to the opium den together – had he been inside even then? The truth was that I could not bear to witness her sorrow, or hear her rebuke.
‘Miss Proudlove’s not in,’ said Annie. All at once her face split into a grin. ‘Oh, I know it’s a sad house, Mr Flockhart, after what’s happened, and all. But—’ she sniggered. ‘You best come in.’
The house was silent. I wondered why. But then Annie led us through into the parlour. The girls of Siren House were sitting on their chairs, the way they had been the last time we had visited the place, only on this occasion there was no ladies’ committee, and no singing. The mirror above the fireplace had been swathed in black crepe, along with the clock, and a rustling length of the stuff was draped along the dado. All the girls were dressed in their most sombre of clothes. Yet the atmosphere in the parlour was far from solemn, but simmered with suppressed mirth. Dr Birdwhistle was standing beside the fireplace, his hands gripping the lapels of his waistcoat, his face set into an expression of revulsion. At the same time, he appeared to be attempting to smile. Before him, sitting on one of the easy chairs usually reserved for the more august members of the ladies’ committee, was Mrs Roseplucker.
‘Dear God!’ cried Will. He clapped his hand to his mouth.
‘My good sir,’ said Dr Birdwhistle – he seemed relieved to have something more familiar to deal with – ‘might I remind you not to take our Lord’s name in vain? Exodus, chapter twenty, verse seven. Deuteronomy, chapter five, verse eleven. Leviticus, chapter nineteen, verse twelve. And so on—’
Will gave a wild laugh. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Birdwhistle. But – oh!’ He gaped at Mrs Roseplucker. ‘You?’
Mrs Roseplucker turned her gaze upon him. Her eyeballs were yellow, their rims red and drooping in her pale powdered face, her lips and cheeks smeared with scarlet. I had never seen her outside of a brothel’s parlour, never seen her out from under the dim candles of her whores’ ante-chamber. She was not wearing her madam’s crimson off-the-shoulder finery, but had got hold of some black widow’s weeds and she was buttoned up to the neck in a giant woollen coat. A great black bonnet the size of a dust-bin lid framed her face.
‘Mrs Roseplucker,’ I said. ‘What a pleasure.’
‘Ain’t it.’ She exposed her brown, corroded teeth. ‘I were just talking to this here clergyman gentleman about my redemption. We’re old friends him and me, ain’t we, sir?’ She winked. Dr Birdwhistle’s face grew sweaty as the eyes of twelve ex-prostitutes rested knowingly upon him.
‘Are you hoping to join Siren House?’ I said.
‘I am. Is there a law what says the more mature whore ain’t allowed to seek a new life?’
‘No, madam,’ said Dr Birdwhistle, quailing under Mrs Roseplucker’s piercing gaze. ‘The Lord accepts all sinners.’ He held his arms wide. ‘“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Matthew, chapter six, verse fourteen—’
‘I ain’t forgiving no men,’ thundered Mrs Roseplucker. ‘They should be askin’ us for forgiveness.’
There was a general murmuring and nodding of heads from the assembled ex-harlots. ‘I assume you have read my pamphlet, madam?’ said Dr Birdwhistle desperately.
&nbs
p; Mrs Roseplucker beamed. ‘Oh, you write too, sir? I could help you with that sort o’ thing if you’ve a mind to write more stirring tales. I brought some o’ my work along, in fact.’ She plunged a claw into one of her pockets and dragged out a crumpled copy of Tales of Violence and Blight. “The Curse o’ Black Peg”,’ she said. ‘Ain’t half nasty! You’ll like it!’
‘You can’t really want to come here, Mrs Roseplucker,’ said Will. ‘You’ve only just set up shop around the corner.’
‘I’ve changed me ways.’
‘You’re looking for girls, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Mrs Roseplucker,’ said Dr Birdwhistle. ‘Are you aware that entry to Siren House comes with certain requirements?’
Mrs Roseplucker blinked. ‘Go on, sir.’
‘Girls must promise to relinquish their past life.’
‘Cross my heart,’ said the old hag. She licked her forefinger with a brown fissured tongue, and drew it across her bosom with all the seriousness of a priest performing a liturgical gesture.
‘This must be done formally. A confession must be taken – your life story. All you have done that has led you to the steps of Siren House. Everything you say will be taken down, in writing, by me. You will sign it, and together we will lock your confession away in this box here.’
Aware that he had a rapt audience, Dr Birdwhistle seemed to swell before us, his chest puffing out. He laid a hand on top of a large box of polished walnut that was secured to the mantelpiece by two brass brackets. A hush fell upon the room, as if each of us was thinking about the stories that lay within that box. Dr Birdwhistle’s spectacles glittered, his face turning pink with excitement as the girls gazed up at him. ‘The confession goes into the box, where it is locked away – not once, but twice. In the outer box, which represents that secret room in our hearts where trust and redemption lie and to which only I have the key. Within that is the inner box. It is the inner box which represents the safety of Siren House. Our superintendent Miss Proudlove possesses a key to that.
‘Once girls have unburdened themselves of their past then that past is locked away and never mentioned again.’ He lifted his chin, his voice now a confident boom. ‘Here at Siren House we look only to the future, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah, twenty-nine, eleven. Thus unburdened, you emerge into Siren House to begin your new life.’ He flung out his right arm, a finger pointed accusingly at the old woman’s breast. ‘Will you, Mrs Roseplucker, allow me to take your confession? Will you leave your past under lock and key, never to be alluded to again? Will you put your trust in me, in Siren House, in the love of the Lord?’ He slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and rooted about for the key.
The Blood: What secrets lie aboard? (Jem Flockhart Book 3) Page 27