Nodding in understanding, Bowman climbed the rungs of the ladder to the very topmost shelf above him. There, he located a box marked ‘Morley, J, Southwark’ and pulled it free from its place. Stepping carefully off the ladder with his load, Bowman led his companion to a rickety trestle table, seemingly the only clear space in the room. Motes of dust danced in the watery light afforded by the two tall windows above the table as the inspector began to empty the wooden box of its contents.
“We managed to recover his cane and purse, some papers and clothing - and this.”
Bowman handed Elizabeth a rather plain looking, gold plated locket, no bigger than the size of his thumbnail. It was threaded on a thin, gold chain and had been found on the ground near Morley’s body. Perhaps his assailant had neglected to notice it as it fell from Morley’s throat in the attack, or had thought it too easily identified to warrant thieving for sale later. Elizabeth let it rest in the palm of her slender hand.
“My mother gave him this before she died. It contains a likeness of her. See?” With a deft movement of her fingers, she had flicked the locket open. The case opened on a small, delicate hinge to reveal a tiny portrait of a woman. Though clearly older than Elizabeth, Bowman could plainly discern a familial resemblance. There was something in the way the subject held her head, the same inquisitive eyes and subtle cleft in the chin.
“Quite beautiful.” Bowman was alarmed to hear the words escape from his lips, seemingly unbidden.
“Yes, she was,” Elizabeth replied quietly. Had she glanced up in that moment, she would have been puzzled to see that Inspector Bowman wasn’t looking at the locket at all. “I like to think I have inherited all her best qualities.”
Bowman felt helpless, entirely unable to tear his eyes away from Elizabeth’s face. There was something in the way the light fell upon her that struck him as familiar. “From the likeness, I should say that you have.”
Again, Elizabeth wiped away a tear and Bowman suddenly felt a wave of compassion engulf him. “Miss Morley,” he offered, carefully, “it may be a comfort to know that the villain who killed your father was himself murdered by an accomplice.”
Elizabeth at last lifted her gaze, snapping the locket shut in her hand. “I can see no comfort in the death of one criminal at the hands of another, Inspector Bowman. Only sadness.”
There was a pause. Bowman felt the full glare of her eyes as she studied the inspector’s face in detail. He could feel himself, for the second time that day, being sized up. It was not a comfortable feeling.
“You are not a happy man, are you, inspector?” said Elizabeth at last.
“Miss Morley, I - ”
Elizabeth shook her head as if to clear a thought. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to be so bold.”
In the silence that followed, Bowman picked up the now empty box and tore the label from its face. He was about to return it to a pile of similarly empty cartons in the corner when he was stopped by Elizabeth’s hand, again on his arm. This time he could feel the pressure of her grip through his coat. Turning to face her, he saw her eyes were now alive with curiosity. Whether it was a curiosity about him, he had yet to discern.
“Tell me, inspector,” Elizabeth began, breathlessly, “What do you know of the Spiritualist movement?”
The remark caught Bowman off guard. “Well, I have heard of it, of course, but not enough to reach a judgement.” He couldn’t help but laugh at her strange outburst. “Miss Morley, if you’ll forgive me. You are rather - ” he searched for the word quite deliberately. “Unpredictable.”
“I know,” she said.
As they turned back towards the door, Elizabeth now carrying her father’s cane and having secreted his other effects in her bag, Bowman found himself charmed by the creature beside him. She seemed at once both demure and impetuous.
“You see,” Elizabeth continued as they reached the door, “I believe fervently in the Supernatural. I am sure with all my heart that the spirit world exists as surely as does our own. Given this, I cannot be sad at the death of my father. Rather, I rejoice that he is reunited with my mother, and that they both await me in the spirit realm.”
“I see,” replied Bowman, seeing her out first and locking the door behind them. As they walked back through the twisting corridors to the reception hall, it felt for all the world as if they were enjoying a Sunday stroll in the park.
“I don’t believe you do, inspector,” his companion teased. “Not fully.” As they reached the lobby, Bowman was pleased to feel Elizabeth withdrawing her arm from his. As pleasant as the experience had been, he thought it inappropriate to be seen in public, arm in arm with a strange young lady still in mourning for the loss of her father. There was another feeling, too. One with which Bowman was all too familiar. Guilt. Even now he could feel Sergeant Matthews squinting at him from behind the duty desk.
Elizabeth Morley was reaching into her bag again. “If you are interested, I am to attend a meeting this evening. At the Empire Rooms at Covent Garden.” From her purse, she handed Bowman a card, the details of the venue printed upon it in a flowery font. “I should be delighted to see you there at eight o’clock.”
The inspector turned the card over in his hands, his habitual deep frown returning. “A Spiritualist meeting?” Bowman clearly wasn’t sure.
“I believe it will do you good.” For one moment, Bowman thought she was going to reach up to kiss him on the cheek. As it was, Elizabeth simply smiled. “Good day, Inspector Bowman.”
With that, Elizabeth Morley stepped from the ordered chaos of Scotland Yard into the hubbub of the world beyond, leaving Bowman alone with his thoughts.
XV
Look Down
Just an hour later, Bowman was standing at the window in his office, gazing absently out across the canopy of trees towards the Thames. He usually enjoyed his view of the river and considered it, with its ebb and tide, one of the few predictable things in London. It held its course whatever the weather, rising and falling with every tide as if it were the city’s heartbeat. Indeed, it often seemed to Bowman the very lifeblood of London, its banks the artery that conveyed the oxygen to the disparate parts of the metropolis. Trade thrived upon it, transport relied upon it. It was bountiful and generous. But not today.
Today, it was a secretive thing. Today it taunted those who would see below its surface. Only yesterday morning it had given up a secret, the severed head found just below the bridge outside Bowman’s very window. Now, it was inscrutable again. Swollen with the dirty melt water from upstream, the Thames swirled and seethed its way past Scotland Yard, dangerous and unknowable.
A knock at the door drew Bowman’s focus back to his room. “Enter,” he barked.
Sergeant Anthony Graves was his chipper self once more. His morning by the river had brought colour to his already rosy cheeks. Glad to be of practical use once again, his earlier black mood had lifted.
“What news from the Embankment?” Bowman asked, walking to the bureau for a glass of brandy.
Graves pulled a notebook from his coat pocket and placed his hat upon Bowman’s desk. “A headless body discovered this morning,” he said, declining the offer of a brandy from his superior. “That of a young woman, in her early twenties.”
Bowman walked back to his desk as Graves read on, the excitement in his voice seeming almost inappropriate.
“Loosely wrapped in torn sack and buried in the silt of the river bank - the same colour as the earth in our young lady’s mouth.” Snapping the notebook shut, Graves looked up with an expression of triumph. “Conjecture as to her stature and physical build has led Doctor Crane to conclude that both head and body belong to one and the same woman,” he said pointedly.
Bowman nodded. This was progress at last.
His message delivered, Sergeant Graves was relaxing in the large leather chair Inspector Bowman reserved for guests. “How did Doctor Henderson take the news of his daughter’s murder?” he asked.
Bowman sat in his own seat across
the desk from Graves, swilling the brandy in his glass as he recalled the morning’s events. “It was a little... uncomfortable,” he said, the very model of understatement.
“I’m sure it was,” said Graves sympathetically.
“Doctor Henderson doesn’t have a daughter.”
Graves swung his feet from Bowman’s desk and sat forward in his seat. “But Mrs Bessom - ”
“Henderson claims she’s a drunk.” Bowman placed his glass on the table, guiltily.
“Do you believe him?” Graves asked.
Bowman puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. “I have no choice. Mrs Bessom left no address.”
Graves made steeples of his fingers as he rested his elbows on Bowman’s desk, lost in thought. “Then we have yet to ascertain the woman’s identity.”
Inspector Bowman could not but agree. “On that particular point, we’re no better off now than when we first pulled her head from the ice.”
The two men sat, helpless in the silence. Reaching for his glass again, Bowman narrowed his eyes. “Why do we deal in this ghastly business?” he asked, draining his brandy.
Graves shrugged. “Someone has to catch the rats, sir.”
Bowman was staring into his now empty glass, as if inspiration might be found there.
“Nothing else has come from your piece in The Standard?” Graves asked, determined to rouse the inspector from his torpor.
“Nothing.” Bowman rose from his chair and made for the window. Clasping his hands behind his back he continued. “I should like you to send to Doctor Crane requesting a full, written post-mortem of the body to the smallest detail.” Casting his eyes to the ground outside his office window, he watched as an elderly woman fed the pigeons. “I’d also like you to liaise with Inspector Treacher from ‘H’ division to see exactly what he has on Hardacre and his gang.”
Graves was surprised at this. “You’re taking Isambard Fogg at his word? You think Hardacre or one of his gang might be responsible for her death?”
“There’s no harm in listening to a dying man, Graves. After all, he has nothing to gain and nothing to lose.”
London’s sewers were in their infancy. The grand scheme to build embankments along vast stretches of the Thames had been completed, reclaiming many acres of swamp from its watery grasp. Beneath these embankments ran the wonder of the age, great subterranean tunnels that carried the city’s effluent east and to the Thames Estuary. Hundreds of miles of tunnels had been constructed by the middle of the century. There was no feat of civil engineering anywhere else in the world to touch it. Many tons of Cornish granite had been quarried and conveyed on barges up the English Channel. Great cranes had been built to place them in situ. The pioneers and engineers who created this sprawling network of sewers would, upon its completion, be honoured for their pains, their names known throughout the land. They could never have known that, one day, the results of their endeavours would also provide the perfect hiding place for one of London’s most nefarious villains.
Jabez Kane lay propped up against a buttress in one of the deepest sewers in the network, his face set into a grimace of pain. Beads of filthy sweat stood out from his face and ran in rivulets down the deep scar that traversed his forehead, over his eye and down his cheek. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed. His breath came in irregular gasps. His sodden clothes were caked in filth. His left arm was bandaged above the elbow with the kerchief he had previously tied around his neck, a desperate attempt to stop the blood flowing from a ferocious wound. The whole of his left side was caked in blood, both his own and that of the young Constable Evan, whose life he had taken not twenty-four hours earlier in Hardacre’s den. Raising his eyes to the vaulted roof, Kane was sure he could hear a sound. In a moment or two more, it was clear there came a splashing behind him. Turning quickly, he strained to see in the half-light. The tunnel before him was swallowed in darkness. What light there was came from a single grill placed above Kane’s head, but within a matter of a few feet it dissipated. Alarmed by the ever-increasing noise, Kane inched his way painfully around the buttress. Holding his wounded arm against him, he tried to slow his rattling breath so as not to give himself away. Kane weighed up his predicament. That one of the most dangerous criminals in London should be reduced to living like a rat in the sewers would scarcely have been credited just a day before. Jabez Kane, perpetrator of the most heinous crimes of the last ten years; the Shoreditch murders, the Brixton blaze, the death of several peelers, was reduced to nothing more than a fugitive, holed up in the least hospitable place in the whole great, stinking city. As Kane mulled over his situation in his delirium, the intruder came ever nearer. And then there was silence. The waters stilled, the splashing stopped. Kane held his breath.
“My, my. Haven’t we gone up in the world?” Albert Hobbs’ great, wide face peered at him through the gloom, his dirty, felt hat hanging over his eyes. “Thought I’d find you here.”
Kane let his breath go and rubbed the sweat from his face with his good arm. “And that you have, Hobbs. What you got for me?”
Albert Hobbs pulled a hessian sack from his shoulder and took out a loaf of bread, which Kane declined, and a flask of gin from which he drank at once. “The South Bank is crawling with filth,” Hobbs continued, watching Kane as he drank. “What did you do?”
Kane wiped his lips with a tattered sleeve. “Killed a young’un,” he said. For a moment, his body shuddered with the thrill of the memory. The involuntary movement caused a spasm of pain to shoot up Kane’s injured arm and he winced with agony. Seeing Hobbs had noticed the wound, Kane licked his dried lips before offering him an explanation. “A peeler,” he began. “Took a shot at me in the alley.”
“It looks bad, Kane,” said Hobbs redundantly as he gently angled Kane’s arm into what small light there was, the better to see the wound. “Very bad.”
“I know,” Kane winced again.
Hobbs let go his arm. “How many were they?”
“Four, five. Treacher was among ’em.”
Hobbs’ hat rose almost comically on his head as he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“He’s filth, Hobbs,” Kane spat.
Hobbs nodded in understanding. A few things he had thought about Treacher now seemed to add up. “And what of Hardacre?” he asked.
Kane shrugged, then grimaced again. The pain was spreading from his upper arm into his shoulder now. “Dunno,” he said, his voice now barely more than a dry whisper, “I helped him stash everything away, and then he made a run for it.” Kane looked around, wildly. “Could be anywhere.”
Hobbs thought, then turned to his companion in crime with a renewed urgency. It was clear Kane was not in a good way. “You can’t stay here, Kane. You need to get that seen to.”
Kane let a dry laugh escape his lips. “By who? The minute I step out from here, I’m as good as hanged.”
Hobbs pushed his hat from his eyes. “Don’t you worry about that,” he said darkly, “I know someone who’ll help.”
A short time later, a young lad with curly red hair and dressed in rags approached a residence in St John’s Wood. Weaving between the traps and horses, Thomas Crowley crossed the busy road with care and rang the bell outside number Fifty Five, Acacia Road. In time, it was opened by a stern-looking footman. Pollard stooped all the more to hear the boy’s message and then, with a look of alarm, let him have admittance. Looking nervously up and down the street as he closed the door, it was clear that Pollard would be happier if this little encounter had not been witnessed. It took only the time taken for a cab to rattle past before the boy reappeared, this time accompanied by Doctor Henderson, resplendent in top hat and frock coat, a doctor’s bag in his hand. As he closed the door behind him, he gave furtive glances up and down the street, then followed the boy across the road.
XVI
An Unexpected Confirmation
Sergeant Anthony Graves was never one to hide his light under a bushel. Tonight at The Silver Cross Inn, thought Inspector Bowman, he
was plainly in his element. Bowman had thought it a good idea to join Graves for a quick dinner at the local public house. He had eaten there regularly for lunch, but an evening visit, he was finding, was a different proposition entirely. And he wasn’t sure he liked it. He sat alone at a small table with a jug of porter and the remains of his dinner on a plate in front of him. Across the smoky, low-ceilinged room, he could just about make out Graves’ head through the throng. He was seated at an aged piano, hammering the keys for all he was worth in a vain attempt to be heard above the crowd. They were currently two-thirds the way through singing ‘The Ratcatcher’s Daughter’, a song that Bowman had never heard before, nor wished to hear again. He coughed in the fug of pipe smoke that hung in the air, and stroked his moustache thoughtfully. It had been a difficult day and Graves was obviously eager to put it behind him. Bowman couldn’t help but agree but, to him, a Scotland Yarder was never off duty. Every now and then, he caught a glance thrown his way from one of the regulars, but Bowman was careful not to return the gesture. The last thing he wanted was company. As the song drew to an end, Sergeant Graves reached up with one hand to retrieve a foaming tankard of ale from the top of the piano. The assembled crowd whooped with admiration to see him play the final phrases with a single hand, downing his pint in one long draft as he held a low rumbling note at the end of the song. To great applause, he replaced the now empty jug on the piano and finished the tune with a flourish. Rising from his stool, Graves bowed theatrically several times and then, ignoring the cries for more, made his way through the pressing throng to join Bowman at his table.
The Head in the Ice Page 13