by Maren Smith
Her stomach quivered, the knots tensing so deliciously that she could feel the pull of every wayward string all the way down between her legs. She clenched her thighs, hardly aware of it when her breathing hitched at the same time. “I-I don’t know. I… don’t remember anyone.”
“Remember him or not,” he decided, “there’s a man out there waiting for you. A lover maybe, but I’m more like to think husband, otherwise you’d have been in the workhouse before this.” Unless she was someone’s mistress. He discarded that almost as fast as he thought it. He didn’t even have a good reason for doing so, apart from how physically repellent it was to think of her wrapped in the arms of another man. “No,” he repeated, as if the act alone of saying it could instantly make it true. “I’ll bet he doesn’t even know you’re out, does he? No man worth his salt would allow so fine a wife to put herself in the kind of danger that found you today, I guarantee it.”
“Maybe I’m just a really rotten wife.” She got her chin back only because his fingers at last released her. “It’s none of your business anyway.”
“No, it’s not. But if that’s the case, then I hope he does whatever he needs to keep you home. Were you mine to mind, I’d like as not tie you to the bed, although a good thrashing might do you turn better.”
That startled her. The tiny pulses of heat and tugging strings between her legs burst in a single startling sensation that made her catch her breath all over again. “To mind?” she echoed, every bit as certain she should be offended as she was that she shouldn’t be aroused. Her face flushed hot, and then hotter still when the doctor chuckled.
“Amen to that,” he agreed. “And on that happy note, I shall take my…”
From somewhere downstairs, a great pounding rattled the entire building. It shook the bed she was in. Judging by the way Draven snapped his attention to the windows, he could feel it too. The frown he’d been aiming at her only a moment before grew dark and fierce as a shout rang up from the street just below them. “Open! Open to the law!”
Draven looked to Dr. Phillips. “Did you lock the door?”
The elderly doctor both shook his head and shrugged, but a half second later that question was answered when they heard the thunderous bang as the back of the door slammed into the opposing wall and several pairs of boots tromped into the shop one floor below.
“Butcher! Show yourself!”
Pushing off the bed, Draven went to the window first, craning his head to see down into the street. “Bugger me,” he growled, his already low voice dipping even lower and growing raspy in its softness. “It’s the peelers.”
“I confess I was going to suggest summoning a constable.” They both looked toward the main door where already a thunder of heavy boots could be heard ascending the stairs. “I haven’t had the chance. Have you?”
Draven shook his head.
“Someone on the street, then.”
“You’re in Butcher Row, doctor.”
A shiver ran through her as he lowered his head, the dark of his gaze locked upon the door, the only barrier between them and that herd of boots coming up the stairs.
The darkness was courting her. The frigid fingers of it tickled at the back of her aching head, but that wasn’t what made her skin prickle, raising all her fine hairs to stand on end. It was Draven himself, and the grim intent that darkened his handsome features as his broad hand found the handle of the massive cleaver that dangled from his apron belt.
“What are you about, young man?” the doctor asked warily.
“We don’t call the bobbies,” Draven said, ominous threat ringing in his tone like a promise. “We handle our problems ourselves.”
***
It was shades of four years ago all over again. A swarm of constables invading his shop in search of a young girl in trouble. Only this wasn’t Elise, Draven told himself, and he seriously doubted the injured woman lying in his bed was being hounded now because she’d stolen a loaf of stale bread and a few apples from the grocer’s cart two blocks over. But now, as he had done back then, Draven found himself stepping into the middle of something he had no part in.
And, as had happened back then, he felt that niggling itch at the back of his skull that said the repercussions of this small act would be felt for the rest of his life.
Uniformed policemen hit his apartment door, throwing it open with the same force as the one below and in they came, four of Her Majesties finest, the leader of whom, a man a good six inches shorter than the rest, took stock of the prone woman first, him second, and then the doctor.
The doctor startled him, which told Draven everything he needed to know about this visit: These men were not here by accident. They had come with a purpose.
“Dr. Phillips, what are you doing here?” the lead constable demanded. “Did the runners not find you? You’ve been summoned to a murder!”
“I have received no such summons.” Straightening slightly, Dr. Phillips returned, “As it so happens, I’m tending a patient who very nearly became a murder victim herself.” The officer looked past the doctor to Draven’s bed. His surprise reverted back to irritation when the doctor asked, “My heavens, it’s… Sergeant Hatman, is it not? What, may I ask, brings you here?”
“The Queen’s business,” he snapped.
“To my house?” Draven countered.
Hatman turned on him. “Unless you wear a rank higher than Sergeant, I’ll be the one asking the questions.” Frown hidden behind the giant bush of his salt-and-pepper mustache, he looked Draven up and down. Clearing his throat, he ordered, “Drop the knives! Put up your hands!”
Uniformed officers dressed in blue and brass came charging up the stairs, pouring out from behind the Sergeant to spread out through the room. All of them had truncheons in hand, and all of them were looking at Draven, as if waiting for a reason to use them. Few looked eager about it. He stood at least two inches taller than the tallest officer there, and he had every intention of giving back as good as he got. But he was outnumbered, and he had no delusions about his chances of coming out the sole winner when this all went south.
Still, that was a victory he was going to make them work dearly for. He would hurt more than a couple before it was done, and judging by the looks on most of their faces, the peelers knew it.
Palm already itching, Draven let go of his cleaver and raised his hands. “Don’t move,” he told the woman on his bed, just before he took two slow and deliberate steps towards the Sergeant.
Was that anger or nervousness that flickered through the other man’s eyes? Draven couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, in a blink it was gone and he quickly raised a staying hand. “That’s far enough.”
Draven stopped. Both the mustached Sergeant and the younger constable at his side licked their lips.
“Check him, Constable New,” Hatman ordered.
For a moment, the younger officer seemed about to protest. Edging closer, hardly daring to take his eyes off Draven’s face, in spurts and glances, he made himself look down. He looked at Draven’s knives. Then his clothes. He walked around him, twice. Glancing back at Hatman, the young man double checked himself and then did it all a third time.
“There’s no fresh blood on him,” he said, surprised. Even more surprised, he added, “Clothes are stained here and there, but not more than a few drops and the blades are clean.”
Draven glanced down at himself. Had they come two hours before opening, they’d have found him elbows deep in his last cow carcass, with sheep and pigs already done and hanging up to age. It took him a good hour of scrubbing and a change of clothes before he dared open his doors. This was his good apron, the other was even now hanging out back of the shop, mostly scrubbed clean.
“What exactly am I supposed to have done?” he asked cautiously.
Hatman frowned, though Draven couldn’t tell if it was because he was disappointed or relieved. It was Constable New who answered, “Another woman was killed last night. It was… horrible.”
“Shut your hole,” Hatman snapped. Clasping his hands behind his back, he hiked his chin in an attempt to stare Draven down. “They say a woman was attacked in front of your shop.”
Not flinching, Draven stared back at him. The hell ‘they’ did. In the last few years, more than one reform-minded policeman or politician had thought himself important enough to come down to the Row, intent on shutting the small family-owned butcheries down. It was unsanitary, they said. Progress lay in big factories, they said. Let the factories take over the stockyards, they said, and there’d be no more blood, shit, piss, death and disease in the streets.
Well, there were some places in Whitechapel too dangerous even for police to go. More than one politician had been sent back to his upper-class home, and vastly more than one policeman back to his precinct, with his fair share of bumps and bruises. Courtesy of the butchers.
Nobody in Butcher Row talked to police.
Draven almost put his hand back on the handle of his cleaver. He crossed his arms instead, watching Hatman and saying nothing. Waiting.
“Is that the woman?” Hatman demanded, his exasperation showing in each short, clipped word he uttered.
“This woman was attacked,” Dr. Phillips finally provided when it became clear Draven wouldn’t. “By whom, we don’t know. He ran off.”
“You think the two attacks are related?” Though he probably should have kept his mouth shut and his thoughts private, that she would have been killed had Draven not acted when he had was as clear to him now as it had been in those startled few seconds that he’d stood watching as the shadow first strangled and then put his knife to the unknown woman’s neck. “Was it a Ripper murder?”
The Sergeant’s mouth flattened, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Was it?” he countered pointedly.
Apparently, police didn’t talk to butchers, either.
“Is that your way of asking if I’m the bloody Ripper?” Draven almost lost his patience. “There’s only a street full of people who saw me chase her attacker down the alley.”
“A street full of butchers,” Hatman sniffled. “Every one of which’ll happily lie for one of their own.” Dismissing him, the Sergeant tried to march around him. “I’ll speak with her alone.”
“You’ll speak to me.” Draven blocked his path. “Or you’ll get the fuck out of my house.”
More than one officer gripped on his truncheon, but their superior—although temper did flash through his eyes—made no move to retaliate. He hiked his chin and moustache that much higher. “The… horrific nature of the murdered woman quite closely resembles the other maniac murders committed these last two months. Last night’s was the worst of the lot and happened not far from here. There were witnesses. People who saw a woman fleeing the scene with a man in swift pursuit. Unfortunately, all of them got a better look at her than they did at him. Not one saw his face. So, now you know as much as I do.” Closing the already sparse distance between them with a single step, his gaze as cool as his tone, Hatman asked, “What, if anything, do you know?”
He shouldn’t say one word. Not once had Draven ever known a single conflict with the local constabulary to ever be improved by talking with one. Still… if it was true that one woman had been killed, while the other lay under his roof, barely having escaped the same fate… If ever exceptions were to be made to hard and bitter rules, surely this was the time.
Draven ground his teeth. Not entirely certain he wasn’t making a horrible mistake. “I know he had a knife, and I know he runs faster than I do.”
“Did you see him?”
Draven shook his head. “It was too dark. I could barely distinguish man from shadow.”
“And her?” the constable pressed.
When the woman herself failed to answer, Draven glanced back at her. She lay beneath his rag quilt as pale and as still as death itself. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slightly open, her breathing soft and deep. Either she had lost consciousness again, or she was sleeping. Draven looked to the doctor for help.
In all the years that he had known the elderly Dr. Phillips, not once had the old man minced his words, and he didn’t mince them now. “The girl’s wits have been addled. A severe blow to the head. She remembers nothing, including her own name.”
Hatman flattened his lips so hard, his moustache quivered. “When will she recover them?”
“Ha!” Surprised, Dr. Phillips underwent a volley of subtle changes from incredulous shock to amusement, before eventually settling on dismay. “Dear boy,” he censured. “She may never recover them. She might remember all five minutes from now. When it comes to injuries of the brain, your guess is as good as mine! Here, have a look if you don’t believe me.”
Following the doctor to the bed, Hatman bent to get a better look as Phillips pulled the curtains back to allow the daylight to illuminate her. The knot on her forehead was still impressive, made even more so by the gash that ran up into her hairline. It had taken seven stitches to close it. The cut on her throat added emphasis, although neither deep nor severe enough to require stitches itself. The dark shadow of strangulation bruises showed easily against the pale flesh of her neck.
“Strangled,” Constable New noted, as if anyone present might fail to recognize what they were seeing. “Like the others.”
“And here.” Tipping a finger under her chin, the doctor gently rolling her head far enough to expose the full two-inch length of the cut that had missed killing her.
Draven’s gut clenched at the sight of it. A low thump of anger stirred in his blood. Without thinking, his hand found his cleaver. He clutched the handle until he felt all the comforting grooves his grip had made in the wood over time biting into the callouses of his palm.
This wasn’t Elise.
It didn’t matter. Someday he hoped he learned the identity of that shadowy figure who had tried so unsuccessfully to kill this girl. He also hoped, somewhere on the streets of London’s East End, that same man was right now praying he never did. It would be one dream he wouldn’t at all mind dashing. Preferably upon the same bloody cobblestones now in need of washing in front of his shop.
Straightening slowly, Sergeant Hatman nodded once, his frown deepening. He gestured to two of his men. “Take her into custody.”
“What?” Draven’s hand was still on his knife when he stalked forward.
“You can’t be serious?” Dr. Phillips said, aghast.
“On what grounds?” Draven demanded.
“By whose authority? I guarantee you’ve overstepped yours!”
A flush stealing into his cheeks, the sergeant turned on them both. “This girl may well be the only witness we have to a villain who has murdered most horrendously seven unfortunate women! Martha Tabram, Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman—”
“Get out of my house.” Draven’s gut wasn’t just cold now. It was twisted, the knot growing so large and so tight that he could barely breathe around its constrictions.
Hatman’s flush deepened. Thrusting a finger at her, he spat, “She is the only witness we have!”
“She remembers nothing!” Dr. Phillips repeated.
“But she could recall all in as little as five minutes,” he shot back. “You said so yourself!”
“She can’t even stay conscious!”
“All the more reason to keep close watch on her and get what information we can during her lucid moments.”
“Get out of my house,” Draven growled, perilously close to losing his temper. He could feel it, that low ominous tremble as the last few threads on his self-control stretched thin. Had Dr. Phillips not stepped between them, he would have closed the distance between him and the police, hand still on his knife, and God alone knew what he’d do once he was within arm’s reach.
“Now, wait just a moment.” Holding both hands up, the aged doctor glanced once to make sure Draven had indeed halted, before turning to Hatman. Striving for reason, he said, “If you put this woman as a witness in jail, she may well die.”
The cons
table scoffed, all but rolling his eyes. “She may die anyway. I am trying to stop a murderer and to that end, it is vital that she be protected by any means necessary!”
“You’re trying to get your name in the paper,” Draven corrected him, his voice dipping to even softer, more ominous growls. “By any means necessary.”
Snapping his mouth shut, steel determination flashed in his eyes as the sergeant advanced on Draven. “Take care, butcher, before you find yourself in a cell as well.”
“There’s seven of you,” Draven acknowledged, not backing down. Not even when Constable New nervously pulled his truncheon from his belt. “But you’ll not arrest me.”
“You forget yourself,” Hatman seethed.
Draven shook his head. “No, you forget where you are. There’s enough of you, you might knock me down. But dragging me from my own house is as close as you’ll ever get to arresting me. This is Butcher Row, mate. Lay hand on me and none of you will leave here without bruises. Lay hand on her—” Every nerve in his body quivered on the edge of violence. “—and I will personally send you straight to the devil’s front gate. We have a long-standing relationship, he and I. You can give him my regards. Get out of my house.”
Half a head taller than the constable, Draven stood over him, each hand on the handle of a long blade, staring down the other man without blinking. Close as he was, he got to see all the subtle nuances as the constable realized the futility of his situation.