by Alex Scarrow
That was all Argyll had managed to spot, but there might just be more of them.
‘Tell me the truth or I’ll take your left eye out!’
Yesssss! That’s the spirit, ‘John’.
‘Honest! Just us! It’s just us!’
‘That’s not many.’
The policeman, his eyes still clenched shut, sneered humourlessly. ‘Well . . . you fu-fuckin’ well already c-carved up two of us. What do you fu-fuckin’ expect?’
I like him. He’s funny. Pity.
‘You people don’t learn, though.’ Argyll prodded his cheek with the tip of his blade. ‘Do you?’
‘I . . . I just work f-for ’em, right? Do . . . do what the L-Lodge asks of me.’
Far away, he heard the muted sound of a whistle blowing again. There was a train to catch. And Mary was out there on her own. He had to hurry up.
‘I want you to go and tell them others—’
No, ‘John’. No! There is no ‘go and tell’. You finish him!
Argyll shook his head. ‘It’s . . . I . . . don’t need to—’
Finish him!
The policeman cracked open one eye, blinking the blood out of it. ‘Wh-what?’
FINISH HIM!
Argyll gripped the knife hard; he wanted to hurl it far away, but he couldn’t. That little bastard inside his head was stamping around like an angry boar in a china shop.
KILL HIM!!!
Argyll winced at the screaming, shrill voice. ‘I’m . . . sorry . . .’ he finally muttered.
‘What?’ The man’s eyes shot wide open. ‘No, please!’ He struggled and kicked on the floor, suddenly realising what ‘sorry’ meant for him.
Argyll punched the blade of his knife into the man’s chest, up to the hilt. A relatively quick kill, as it skewered the left ventricle of his heart, sending the organ into a shuddering paroxysm. Less messy, too. There were no jets of blood to dot Argyll’s shirt; the trauma was all on the inside of the man. A dark bloom of crimson spread across his pinstriped shirt and his wide, blood-caked eyes rolled slowly to one side as his feet kicked and scraped the tiled floor pointlessly. Then he was still.
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Argyll again.
Warrington cursed under his breath. No, he hadn’t wanted that idiot Hain to follow the man into the cloakrooms; he’d just wanted him to keep a discreet watch on the doorway. The last thing he could afford to have happen was for the slippery bastard to catch wind that they were watching him. All he had was two men, just two. If Babbitt took flight, they’d lose him for sure.
If he didn’t have to keep an eye on this tart, there’d be three of them. He glanced sideways at her. The woman was plainly here because she wanted to help; as far as she was concerned, they were the police. He decided he could take a risk and let her go.
He pulled a leather wallet out of his morning coat. ‘Here,’ he said, digging some coins out. ‘Thank you for assisting us and pointing them out. This could get very nasty. Probably best you get yourself safely back home. You can take a cab.’
She took the money off him quickly.
‘A cab, all right? Not a bloody bottle of cheap gin.’
She nodded. ‘What about Mary?’
‘She’s going to be fine. We’re not going to let this man disappear with her. I’ll make quite sure of that.’
Liz turned to go and then stopped. ‘And what about the reward?’
Warrington flicked an impatient smile at her. ‘Yes, yes, of course. We have your address. I’ll make sure one of our boys comes by your lodgings later. Best remain there tonight. Now, go on. Off you trot.’
CHAPTER 54
1st October 1888 (8.50 pm), Euston Station, London
Mary was beginning to get a bit concerned. The departure platform had opened and the congregation of passengers and porters peppered with islands of baggage in the middle of the Great Hall had begun to migrate towards the gate. An officious-looking LNWR clerk, with a walrus-like face full of grey whiskers, was carefully examining every ticket and ushering the passengers through.
Where is he?
She glanced at the big clock; it showed eight minutes to nine. No need to panic just yet; there was still enough time before the train was due to depart, but she wondered if there were going to be enough seats aboard the train for everyone. And if they were the last ones through the gate, might there be none left for them?
She stood anxiously on tiptoes and cursed under her breath as three gentlemen in top hats blocked her view of the cloakroom doors.
Robson shook his head. The poor young girl looks frantic.
Hopping around out there from one foot to the other. She looked like a rabbit in a wheat field, perched up on its hind legs, ready to scarper at the first sight of a farmer’s dog. She looked so young; barely more than a child.
What the hell is she doing going on the run with this man, anyway?
Robson had a niece her age, or thereabouts. Rebecca. Between him and his brother still serving in the army, they were managing to pay for her to stay at a small finishing school. It was costing them a king’s ransom, but with no children of his own, Robson was happy that money he might otherwise have thrown away on a card table was buying his niece a much better chance in life than this poor lost child stuck out there in the middle of the Great Hall.
He vaguely recalled a nursery rhyme, or was it a story? About a butterfly attracted to a candle flame. A butterfly who flew too close and burnt to death. Quite a horrible story, really. He was about to ponder on the grim, unforgiving morality of tales that lurked beneath the surface of many a bedtime story when he felt the lightest tickling at the back of his neck. He reached to scratch it.
‘I’d suggest you remain perfectly still,’ a voice whispered in his ear.
Robson turned his head and the tickling became, very quickly, a sharp jabbing pain.
‘Be still! Yes, that’s the tip of a knife you’re feeling,’ the deep voice murmured next to his ear. ‘I think you’re one of the chaps who’ve already witnessed what I can do with a knife. Hmmm?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, I was . . . I was there at the warehouse.’ He glanced quickly up to the gallery, hoping Warrington was looking this way and had already spotted that he was in trouble. ‘You got the jump on us pretty well,’ he added.
Warrington wasn’t watching; he was saying something to that tart he’d brought along.
A hand lightly grasped the crook of his arm and guided Robson a step backwards into the walkway behind the columns. The glow of light from the ornate chandeliers high above was wasted here in the shadows beneath the gallery floor.
‘Now, if you’ll just come along with me . . .’
Robson stood rigid. The knife dug into his skin. His mouth was suddenly as dry as parchment. ‘G-go easy there, ch-chap . . . I . . . I . . .’
‘Ahhh. In here will do perfectly.’ He heard the click of a door opening behind him, felt a gentle insistent tug on the crook of his arm and that jabbing, tickling, of the knife at the base of his skull. He obediently shuffled backwards into a dark room and the door closed in front of him, pitching them into complete blackness. Robson was vaguely aware that he’d begun to piss himself.
A single bulb in a wire cage snapped on. He saw shelves stacked with soaps and cloakroom hand towels, large metal mop buckets on the floor, mops and brushes lined up against one wall. The room reeked of polish and turpentine.
‘I do apologise. I’m going to have to be very quick with you. I have a train to catch.’
‘Please, mate . . . Th-there’s no . . . n-need . . .’
Robson felt a hand probe the pockets of his coat, locate the heavy lump of his gun and then remove it. The tickle of the blade at the base of his neck stopped.
‘Yes, you can turn round now, if you want.’
He turned his head to look at the man. His first proper, close look at him. Beneath the glare of the bulb, his eyes were lost in the pooling darkness below a prominent brow. The angular geometry of his face left sp
ills of shadow running vertically from the recessed orbits of his eyes, down gaunt cheeks to a thin-lipped mouth.
‘L-look . . . there’s really no . . . n-need to—’
‘Oh, I don’t intend to kill you. Just incapacitate you. Now, why don’t you sit down?’
The man pulled a wooden chair from the corner of the small storeroom and placed it on the floor beside Robson. ‘Sit.’
Robson did as he was told, his eyes still on the knife but feeling a surge of relief. Until, that is, he thought he saw a smear of blood on its tip.
‘Whose blood is that?’
‘Your colleague’s.’ The man pouted a lip with mock sympathy. ‘Oh, he’s quite dead.’
‘J-Jesus Christ!’
The man rummaged along one of the shelves with his spare hand. ‘You see any rope here? Some twine, perhaps?’
Robson twisted in his seat at the mention of rope, a little more hopeful that he was going to get out of this room alive. ‘There!’ He pointed. ‘There! See? S-second shelf d-down!’
‘Ahh! Thank you.’
Argyll unravelled a couple of yards from the ball of green twine and cut it with his knife. He turned round and looked down at the thick-set man sitting on the chair; it creaked and rattled under his weight as he trembled uncontrollably.
‘Have you noticed how rude people are to each other? Hmmm?’
The man stared up at him, bewildered. ‘I . . . I . . . no . . .’
Oh yes, of course . . . the voice rasped. He’s the polite one, if I recall correctly.
‘It’s the small gestures, I think,’ said Argyll absently.
Small things . . . yes. You recall? In the busy street? This one bent down, picked up a child’s toy, gave it to the chattering woman with the pram. Such a small thing. A kindness. Hmmm. You can let him live, if you must.
A whistle blew outside, muted by the storeroom’s thick door. Argyll’s attention focused back on Robson. ‘No, I’m not going to kill you. But I do need you not to follow me.’ He dangled the twine in front of him.
Robson eagerly presented his hands to be tied.
‘Not necessary.’ Argyll stepped forward quickly and punched the knife deep into the man’s thigh, leaving the handle protruding like a flagstaff.
Robson screamed. ‘FUCK!!!’ Looking down boggle-eyed at the wooden handle, he reached to pull it out.
‘No. You should leave it there,’ said Argyll. He stooped down and quickly wound the twine around the top of the man’s thigh. He reached for a slating peg on the storage shelf beside him and inserted it into the loop of the twine. He twisted it several times, cinching it tight. Robson gritted his teeth with the pain.
Argyll grabbed one of the man’s shaking hands and placed it on the peg. ‘Like that, all right? You’ll need to hold it as tight as you can, for as long as you can, if you wish to live.’
‘FUCK!!’ Robson grunted again. ‘FUCK!!’ His forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.
‘And I really wouldn’t suggest that you try getting up. You’ll open the wound and bleed out. If you stay right there, you’ll be just fine.’
Argyll turned back to the door and switched off the electric light. ‘I’ll send someone along in due course.’ He stepped outside and closed the door gently behind him.
CHAPTER 55
1st October 1888 (8.56 pm), Euston Station, London
Now Robson was damn well gone as well. Warrington couldn’t see any sign of the man. He’d been distracted, talking to the tart for less than a minute, and in that time Robson seemed to have vanished into thin air! He could still see the girl though, still standing in the middle of the Great Hall next to her bag on the floor, looking anxiously around her at the last of the passengers funnelling through past the ticket clerk.
The floor was almost empty now. Most of those who intended to get the nine o’clock train for Liverpool were now already on the train or on the departure platform saying their goodbyes.
Warrington wondered whether Robson had followed Hain into the cloakroom. Perhaps, whilst he’d been busy dealing with the tart, Robson had made his way across to help. Perhaps Hain had actually taken the initiative and made a move and taken the man by surprise, with his trousers down, quite literally.
In which case, excellent! To hell with Rawlinson’s instructions not to approach the Candle Man. If Hain had actually managed to drop the bastard right there in the public toilets, then Warrington was going to make sure the reckless, disobedient, son-of-a-whore Hain got a damned bonus for using his initiative.
He let go of the railings and began to hurriedly make his way down the stairs from the gallery when his eyes caught a quick scooting movement across the floor below. Mary Kelly was being hustled by a tall dark figure towards the departure platform.
Warrington stopped dead in his tracks.
It’s Babbitt. Where the hell are . . . ? There was no damned sign of those other two fools. Hain he’d seen disappear into the public conveniences and Robson had just disappeared.
He watched Babbitt and the Kelly girl approach the ticket clerk, the man waving his ticket at the clerk frantically. Warrington glanced up at the clock; it was three minutes to nine.
Dammit!
Something must have happened in the toilets. Something must have gone wrong for Hain and now that slippery American bastard knew he’d been followed here to the station. All of a sudden, he wasn’t quite so sure Hain was going to get his bonus. He wasn’t quite so sure the poor bastard was going to be doing anything anymore. He cursed under his breath. Perhaps the same fate had befallen Robson as well.
How the hell did he manage to . . . ?
Warrington carried on down the steps until he reached the polished granite floor of the Great Hall. His eyes locked firmly onto the backs of the girl and Babbitt, proceeding more calmly now down the departure platform.
It’s just me now.
A guard blew his whistle and the engine at the far end of the platform impatiently huffed a column of billowing steam that rose up towards the underside of the wrought iron roof and then rolled along it, scattering pigeons that had been roosting on the spars.
‘Where were you?!’ cried Mary. ‘I was getting so worried about you!’
‘There was a god-awful long queue in the cloakroom,’ he replied. ‘Quite the wait.’
She held his hand, which felt clammy and warm. Concerned, she touched the back of her hand against his cheek. ‘You’re hot, John. And you’re shaking. What’s the matter?’
‘I’m fine. Come along.’ He smiled. ‘We don’t want to miss our train.’
Further up the platform, he could see several guards walking through the wraiths of steam that billowed out from beneath the carriages, down the side of the train, closing the doors left open and politely cajoling embracing sweethearts to conclude their goodbyes.
He looked through the compartment windows they passed as they made their way up the platform, seeking a compartment that was empty, or at least if not that, then not full. ‘Here . . . this one looks good for us.’ He pulled the door open and offered Mary a hand as she stepped up into the carriage.
‘A quick thing I have to do,’ he said.
‘John?’
‘I’ll be back in just a moment.’ He handed her his satchel and, leaving the door open, he double-timed back down the platform towards the clerk. It was then that he saw a gentleman remonstrating with the ticket clerk.
George.
‘I’m sorry, sir, if you ’aven’t got a ticket, you can’t come through!’
Warrington bared his teeth in frustration. ‘Goddammit, man, this is . . . this is police business! I need to get on that train right now!’
The clerk shrugged. ‘Well, if it’s police business, sir, then I’m going to have to ask you to identify yourself properly.’
Warrington cursed and then tried to push past the man.
‘Sir!’ The clerk grabbed hold of his arm firmly. A surprisingly strong grip for such an old man. ‘I’m sorry, sir, you can
’t go through!’
‘Is this man troubling you?’
Warrington turned away from the walrus-whiskered clerk to see Babbitt standing a few feet away. He stopped struggling with the clerk immediately.
‘George!’ said Babbitt, as if greeting a long-lost cousin. ‘How are you, old chap?’
Warrington stared at him dumbfounded; a perfectly still moment between both men that seemed to last an eternity.
‘Sir,’ the clerk replied to Babbitt, ‘I can deal well enough with this customer, thank you very much! You’ll need to board the train now. It’s due to leave.’
Argyll acknowledged him with the faintest nod, but his eyes remained on Warrington. ‘George, I’ll be leaving soon. Going home. I suggest you tell your friends that our business together is finished now.’ He smiled. ‘It’s perfectly safe with me.’
‘The girl . . .’ Warrington glanced quickly at the clerk. ‘Let go of me, damn you!’ The clerk loosened the firm hold on his arm. He’d really much rather this conversation wasn’t being held like this: conspicuous and overheard. There were several other guards walking down the platform to see what was going on. ‘The girl?’ he said to Babbitt. ‘How much have you told her?’
Babbitt said nothing.
‘She knows . . . doesn’t she? She knows what you are? What you’ve done?’
‘She’s not your concern,’ Babbitt replied coolly.
‘Gentlemen, if you please!’ said the clerk.
‘She’s a damned liability now you’ve involved her,’ hissed Warrington. ‘You know we can’t leave it at that!’
The clerk had had enough. He turned to Babbitt. ‘Sir! If you want to take this train, you need to board it now! And you, sir.’ He turned to Warrington. ‘Would you mind buggering off? This gent needs to leave. Now!’
‘We might have let you go, but not . . .’ Warrington shook his head. He wanted to say ‘but not with some young slapper who might drink a little too much one night and tell a tale’. He didn’t need to, though. The Candle Man narrowed his eyes with a tacit understanding and the slightest nod. He took a step backwards away from the clerk and Warrington.