The Candle Man

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Mind you take the service stairway up, as well. I don’t want you using the main one.’

  Liz was tempted to sputter outrage at him. Something along the lines of a ‘who-do-you-think-you-are’, but she could see he had known exactly what they were the moment they’d stepped into the lobby. They were lucky he was letting them through.

  ‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘We shan’t be long.’

  The concierge watched them go, amused at the tall tart’s attempt at sounding respectable. Not even a half-bad attempt, to be fair, but the faded clothes – too many frills, too much lace hemming, ill-fitting where they should be tight – gave them away. That and the gaps in their teeth; almost, but not quite, hidden by the terse-lipped way she’d spoken. And that faintly mottled skin: sure sign of the bottle.

  He watched to make sure they took the service stairway. Then, out of curiosity, he decided to be sure his suspicions were right. It most definitely had to be a single gentleman staying in room 207 and not a lady. He ducked down behind the desk and fingered through the row of room ledgers to find the one for 207. Finally, he found it and pulled the leather-bound book up onto the reception desk.

  He looked for the date checked in. Almost nine weeks ago now. He recognised the handwriting of his colleague, Nigel, who must have been on duty when he’d checked the guest in: one Mr Babbitt.

  In Nigel’s tiny, almost feminine, loops of handwriting were further details. It was a three-month booking for the room; on its own, not a particularly odd thing. There were quite often bookings of that duration. But with this one, Mr Babbitt seemed to have given some very specific instructions on his privacy as he’d checked in: that he wished for no room service; that he would ring for a chambermaid to collect his bedding when it was convenient for him; and at no other time was he to be disturbed.

  On the ledger, there were a number of entries for breakfast and evening meals taken in the hotel’s dining room, but none for several weeks now.

  He wondered why Nigel had not mentioned this guest’s particulars to him. It was pretty damned important that a duty concierge was aware of the specific instructions of a guest. But the answer was obvious. Nigel, the selfish bastard, was keeping Mr Babbitt to himself. No doubt the man was a very generous tipper. Clearly, Mr Babbitt had asked his colleague for a few little extras, and paid handsomely for them not to be a problem.

  ‘You sneaky rascal,’ he muttered under his breath. There were going to be words come the hand-over at the end of today. He was going to expect a share of Nigel’s tips for letting those tarts through; that’s the least he could do. Not only that but . . .

  His mind stopped dead in its tracks.

  He remembered . . . what was it? Yes. A busy lunchtime. A lot of guests coming in, a lot leaving with lists of instructions for him to be very clear on, things for him to deal with, cabs to hail, recommendations on places to eat, theatres and museums to visit. And yes, amid all that, there’d been that bloke; a copper or something. How long ago? About a month?

  He remembered a quietly spoken man with a beard. Asked him the most pointedly stupid questions. Have you had any oddly-behaving guests? Any gentlemen behaving in a suspicious nature? Coming and going at late hours of the night? In haste? In an odd or unusual mental condition?

  He would have laughed at some of those questions if the chap hadn’t appeared to be a copper. The toffs who visited The Grantham were all bloody unusual; mad as a box of frogs, the lot of them.

  But this one ledger for room 207: nothing, not a single thing for weeks. As if their guest had died or, far worse, done a runner without settling his bill. He had scribbled the policeman’s name down somewhere on a scrap of paper, more to get rid of the fool than any inclination to actually make a note of all his guests’ eccentric behaviours to report back to him. Good god, he’d be on the Bell telephone all the time.

  He found the torn corner of foolscap tucked into the duty book. The dialling number he’d scribbled down was not the Met’s switchboard. He knew that number. It was on a list behind the desk in case of ‘Special Contingencies’. No, it looked like a private number. Perhaps another hotel or a private club. Odd.

  You must ask to speak to ‘George Warrington’.

  He vaguely recalled the copper had said there’d be a tidy reward if his call turned out to be helpful in advancing their investigation. His blood ran cold at the thought that this guest, Mr Babbitt, might be a conman. Some bastard masquerading as a well-to-do businessman, racking up an enormous hotel bill and skipping off without paying. There’d be merry hell to pay for that.

  He took the scrap of paper along to the end of the desk and started to dial the number, muttering to himself something about it serving Nigel right if this was going to get him in trouble with the police or the manager.

  Should’ve bloody well shared Mr Babbitt with me, Nigel, shouldn’t you?

  CHAPTER 39

  1st October 1888 (11.00 am),

  The Grantham Hotel, The Strand, London

  The room appeared to be unoccupied. Liz stepped inside cautiously. ‘Anyone in ’ere?’

  There was an unpleasant odour in the room. Not overpowering, but faint, like something put away to be eaten later but then forgotten about. Liz led the way in; Cath behind her, her eyes darting anxiously up and down the quiet, carpeted hallway outside.

  ‘Come in an’ close the door!’ hissed Liz. Cath did as she was told and the heavy oak door clicked shut behind them. ‘What if . . . what if someone’s in ’ere, waitin’ to jump us?’ she whispered.

  ‘No one’s ’ere, silly.’

  Liz looked around room 207. It was left tidy. Part of her had expected to find something macabre or sinister in here. Mary’s story had worried her; to share rooms with a man she knew absolutely nothing about, especially now that it seemed there was a madman roaming the East End of London with a taste for carving up prostitutes like mutton. They were calling the murderer ‘Jack the Ripper’.

  ‘Ripper’ . . . That seems about right.

  Looking around the room, her concern eased a little. She saw a travel case open under the window, suits hanging from hangers in the wardrobe, socks and undergarments folded in drawers, and two pairs of clean, polished shoes lined up in a tidy row on the floor.

  In the water closet, decorated with rich dark green and black ceramic tiles, was one of those modern, fancy Twyford flush-down toilets. A bowl beneath a large oval mirror and a water jug beside it. She saw a porcelain-handled shaving brush, a cut-throat razor, a well-used bar of soap, a comb. The possessions of a well-to-do and quite normal man.

  She felt a rush of relief for Mary and, if truth be told, a small tug of jealousy. She always suspected Mary Kelly was somehow going to end up landing on her feet and getting out of the mire of Whitechapel. She had that air about her. An enduring optimism that had kept her from succumbing to the downward pull of gin or absinthe or opium. A relentless striving for something better. Liz always felt that Mary would one day attract good fortune her way. Perhaps even achieve something good or great.

  ‘Hoy! Liz!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s this?’

  Liz stepped out of the water closet and joined Cath, peering closely at a jam jar sitting on the writing desk by the window.

  ‘I dunno. A pickled egg or summin’?’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s bleedin’ well gone off, it ’as. Stinks proper.’

  Liz picked it up and peered closely at the murky brown liquid inside. She shook it gently, watching layers of putrid sediment twist around each other and something hidden inside bump gently against the glass. ‘Ughhh! Disgusting!’

  Cath picked up an envelope the jar had been sitting on. She turned it over and lifted the flap. ‘It’s open. Shall we look?’

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Liz, putting the jam jar back down on the table. She pulled out a couple of sheets of writing paper with The Grantham Hotel, Strand printed along the top. It was densely packed with lines of carefully neat handwriting. Bot
h sides of each sheet of foolscap.

  ‘Come on then, Liz: what’s it say?’

  Liz absently touched her lips with a finger to hush her. She took the pages, sat down on the end of the bed and began to read.

  CHAPTER 40

  1st October 1888 (11.00 am), Holland Park, London

  Argyll stared at it. The worn brown leather bag and the bundles of notes inside. The bag made some sense to him. He recognised it. He could produce half a dozen memories that in some way featured this satchel: him pulling things out of it, putting things into it.

  Suddenly he’s a young man. He’s in the middle of some battle. The air’s thick with the smell of cordite. He’s kneeling in the middle of a field of thickets and weeds and the twisted and mangled bodies of men wearing grey, butternut brown and dark blue uniforms. The hands of the dying, clawing at his boots, desperate for water. He’s drinking water from a flask. So thirsty. It’s all the smoke, drifting across the battlefield. He’s drinking water and hearing a dozen of the nearest dying men screaming at him for just one sip of his water. But he calmly screws the cap back on and puts the flask back in his bag.

  Another disembodied memory.

  He’s older now. From the satchel, he’s pulling out a long, thin-bladed knife in a dimly-lit room. Is it a loft? No, not a loft . . . a cellar, not unlike this one. And there’s a man tied to a wooden chair in the middle of it. A man in very fine clothes indeed. He looks like he was attending a ball or perhaps the theatre tonight. But now he’s struggling and squirming and screaming and crying. The leather seat of the chair is wet between his thighs and he’s saying ‘I didn’t mean to do it! Tell them! Tell them I’ll never do it again . . . I swear!’

  And another, although this one feels more recent.

  A woman in a dark street, gurgling blood onto rain-wet paving stones. He’s reaching into this same bag and he pulls out a small candle and he’s talking to her. Telling her some nonsense about how there’s no kindness left in this soulless world.

  Argyll touched the leather satchel. A familiar rasp of coarse leather on the tips of his fingers, like old friends reacquainted; the bag, he was sure, was a distinct part of who he was. He sensed that; knew that for a certainty. But the money . . . The money inside this bag made no sense to him whatsoever.

  It’s your money. Do you see?

  Argyll shook his head. No it wasn’t. He didn’t want it to be his money. ‘No, no . . .’

  It’s yours. You earned it!

  No, please, no. He didn’t want it to be his because if it was his money then it meant . . . it meant . . .

  Yes. It means she stole it from you.

  ‘No . . . she didn’t; she wouldn’t!’

  She’s been caring for a mindless fool because of all his money.

  ‘Dammit! Will you shut up!’ he snarled out loud. ‘We were . . .’ His voice quickly trailed to nothing. He was going to say that before the injury, they’d been together, man and wife in all but name. But then in all the quiet moments of reflection he’d had in this home of theirs, he’d begun to ponder the many small things that had begun to not make sense to him. Why so little of either of them seemed to exist in this home. So few possessions. No childhood mementos, no keepsakes, no family photographic portraits; nothing that marked the passing of their time living together as lovers, or their lives before then.

  He was beginning to wonder how much of Mary’s account of their shared life before his injury was entirely reliable. Genuine, even.

  Or maybe it’s ALL a pack of lies. Hmmm?

  Argyll felt the bottom of his small, womb-like world begin to fall away beneath his feet. He slumped down and sat on the travel chest, feeling light-headed. Sick.

  An opportunist. That’s what she is. A woman who found a man with an empty head and a bag full of money.

  He struggled for a moment to find a response to counter that. She could have taken his money and left him at any time. Instead, Mary had stayed, spent this money – his money, if the stunted pig tormenting him was to be believed – on caring for him, feeding him.

  Use your brain, ‘John’. If you have this money, perhaps elsewhere you have much more?

  ‘Damn you! She’s here because . . . because we love each other!’

  A snorting laugh filled his head. She wants more than a satchel of money. She imagines you’re a businessman or a plantation owner over there, somewhere in America; that it’s all waiting for her. That’s what she wants.

  A deep whine came out of Argyll’s throat. He hated the voice. If he could have dug it out from his mind with the tip of a blunt knife, he would have.

  You’re her meal ticket.

  ‘Shut up!’

  You’re her pet.

  ‘Please!’ He buried his face in his hands.

  She even named you . . . just like you name a puppy dog. She named you!

  Argyll drew down his hands and looked up. In the darkest corner of the cellar, he thought he could see his demon standing there. A twinkle in two narrow eyes, a wet pig’s snout twitching with excitement, so eager to tell him a story.

  ‘John . . . Argyll,’ he whispered. ‘That’s my name. That’s who I am.’

  No. That pitiless snigger again. She came up with a name for you. I wonder: is it the name of a real lover she once had? Or a childhood friend? Or an acquaintance? Or even someone she once hated? Or is it a name made up at random? A shop sign? A letterhead?

  ‘I’m John Argyll, goddammit!!’

  No. You’re me.

  Argyll felt a solitary tear roll down his cheek. ‘I hate you.’

  How can you hate what you are? Hmmm?

  CHAPTER 41

  1st October 1888 (11.15 am),

  The Grantham Hotel, The Strand, London

  ‘Liz? What is it?’

  Cath could see her friend’s face had blanched. ‘What’s it say?’

  Liz looked up from the pages of foolscap she was holding. ‘Oh, god ’elp us!’

  ‘What’s it say?’ Cath repeated.

  Liz put the pages down beside her, got up off the end of the bed and stepped towards the writing desk, with a look of growing dread on her face.

  ‘Liz, tell me! What’s the letter say? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I need to see . . .’ she said, reaching for the jam jar.

  ‘You need to see what?’ Cath frowned, confused. ‘Why d’ya need to look in there, Liz?’

  ‘It says . . . he took a . . . took a lady’s kidney!’

  ‘Whatcha talkin’ ’bout?’

  ‘The letter!’ she replied, jabbing a finger at the pages of writing paper on the end of the bed. ‘That letter! It’s a bloody confession!’

  ‘A confession? To what?’

  ‘Them murders! The ones they’re sayin’s been done by the mad man.’

  Cath’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean the one what got wrote in to the paper the other—?’

  ‘Yes! Him! Jack the Ripper!’

  Liz looked down at the metal lid of the jam jar. She pointed at the pages lying on the bed. ‘He said in that letter that he took a kidney from the last one. The one on Hanbury Street. He took it for proof he’s who he says he is.’

  Cath’s hand raced to her mouth. ‘And . . . and it’s in there?’

  ‘We need to see, don’t we?’ Liz grasped the lid in one hand and the glass jar in the other, then gave it a gentle twist. It popped softly and hissed with the release of fetid air. Liz gagged and recoiled at the sudden rush of the smell. The jar slipped from her hand, bounced and rolled on the desk, spilling its pottage of brown broth across the varnished dark wood surface.

  A small bean-shaped nub of wrinkled, dark flesh the size of a walnut rolled out of the jar.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ whispered Liz. She threw up on the floor.

  Warrington arrived outside the hotel to see his two men standing there: Hain and Orman. Both wheezing and doubled over from the exhaustion of sprinting from the Lodge over on Great Queen Street. He waved them to follow him inside into T
he Grantham’s lobby. He was also far too out of breath and unable to gasp anything intelligible just yet. He led both men across to the reception desk, doing his best to recover his composure.

  ‘You’re the concierge . . . Mr Davis, isn’t it?’ he said to the man behind the desk.

  ‘That’s me, sir. I’m the one who telephoned earlier. You’re George Warrington?’

  Warrington nodded. ‘You said two women?’ He wheezed. ‘Are they still up there?’

  The concierge nodded. ‘Not come down yet, sir. I presume they’re still up in two-hundred and seven: Mr Babbitt’s room.’

  Mr Babbitt? The odd name strangely seemed to fit the man he’d spoken to briefly two months ago.

  ‘You said the room’s not actually been entered in nearly eight weeks?’

  The concierge nodded. ‘Like I said, he’d left strict instructions that no one, not even the chambermaids, were to go in without prior arrangement.’

  Warrington turned to look at Hain and Orman. Both men ready to receive instructions.

  My god, this could be our man.

  ‘Could you describe the gentleman in that room?’

  ‘No, see, I wasn’t on the desk when the gentleman checked in. My colleague, Nigel, was. But I do remember now, he did mention that day an odd, tall American chap. That might just be who he—’

  ‘American?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Warrington balled his fist. That’s him. It’s got to be him.

  ‘Well, like I said to you earlier,’ continued the concierge, ‘we’ve not heard a whistle from that gentleman in quite some time—’

  Warrington raised a gloved hand to silence him. ‘How many keys does a guest get given when they check in? Just the one?’

  ‘Just the one, sir.’

  ‘And those two tarts had the key?’

  He nodded.

  Then he’s not in his room, is he? A burning chill of realisation prickled across his scalp and made the short hairs on the nape of his neck stand up. He’s not dead. He’s sent those two women on an errand to collect his things. Which means he’s outside somewhere. Perhaps even watching this very hotel right now.