Music Macabre

by Sarah Rayne

  Daisy said, ‘Do they – um – let you out of this room sometimes?’ Because it was unbearable to think of him – to think of any human being – locked away like this all day and all night. She glanced along the corridor, and had the impression that a shadow moved behind one of the grilles.

  ‘Well?’ Madame was saying. ‘Do they let you out?’

  ‘They might do,’ he said, grudgingly. ‘Yes, all right, I come out for dinner and tea every day. Bit of a walk round the yard, too. They let me work a bit in the gardens some days. See the others then. See the women.’ Incredibly, there was a leery glint from beyond the grille. ‘And we all got to go to church service on Sundays. You should hear the chains of them paupers clanking then. Vicar got to shout to make hisself heard sometimes. They got to chain some of them, see, ’cos they’re wild and mad.’

  Again, Daisy caught the movement from the far room. Like someone whisking back out of sight, not wanting to be seen.

  ‘I don’t get chained, though,’ Pa was saying, and now there was a dreadful kind of pride. ‘I ain’t mad, see, so they don’t do that. But I shouldn’t be in here at all.’

  Daisy said, a bit desperately, ‘It won’t be for ever. It really isn’t meant to be for ever.’

  ‘I ain’t been a saint,’ he said. ‘But I might change. Vicar, he’s talked about that. He helps folk change their ways.’ There was a wheedling note in his voice now.

  Daisy said, ‘We could see if—’

  But Madame’s hand came down warningly, and she stopped.

  ‘We got to go now,’ said Daisy. ‘But we’ll see what might be done. Talk to the vicar, maybe. No promises, though.’

  ‘Never were none. But you see about it, gel,’ he said.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t come,’ said Daisy, softly, as she and Madame walked back along the dim passage. The cries of the men and women in the locked rooms still echoed around them, bouncing off the old stones.

  ‘Later on, you’ll be glad you did come,’ said Madame. ‘You saw for yourself that he’s not being treated so very badly. He’s not with the really mad ones, and he told you himself that he comes out for meals and a bit of work in the gardens. And there’s some companionship.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  Daisy stopped, because the cries from within the rooms suddenly sounded different. She turned to look back, and saw that Madame had done the same.

  ‘Daisy – d’you hear that?’ she said. ‘It’s not shouting voices any longer, it’s as if—’

  Daisy said, in a whisper, ‘It’s as if someone’s singing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s coming from that room at the end. I thought someone was standing at the grille, trying to peer out to see us – trying to listen to us …’

  They stood very still, and Daisy thought they were both trying to think that there was nothing so very unusual about hearing tuneless singing inside a place like The Thrawl. Most of the people who were locked away in here were poor helpless souls whose senses had become warped and distorted, or whose minds had gone astray. A good many of them might very well hum to themselves, or sing wordlessly. There might be comfort for them in such a thing.

  But this was not humming, and this was not wordless singing.

  This was the song written by Rhun using the long-ago composer’s music. Somewhere inside The Thrawl someone was singing ‘Listen for the Killer’.

  It seemed to Daisy that the two of them stood frozen and unable to move or speak, while the whispering echoes of The Thrawl’s strangeness swirled and eddied around them. And lying on top of those echoes …

  As the final lines of the song faded, Daisy drew in a shaky breath, then said, ‘That was the whole thing. The entire song that Rhun wrote.’

  ‘Yes. But it doesn’t mean anything,’ said Madame, a bit too firmly. ‘It’s not so many years since we taught people that music and those words. There’s nothing to say there isn’t someone in here who learned it then.’

  Daisy was about to say this could be true, when the singing started again, and this time – oh, dear God, although the tune was the same, now the singer was using words that neither of them had ever heard – words that Rhun had certainly never written. And now it was not ‘Listen’, it was ‘Harken’.

  ‘Harken to the killer for he’s here, just out of sight.

  Harken to my footsteps when it’s very late at night.

  At pallid church and bishop’s head,

  With eager hands and furtive tread,

  By midnight’s knell you’ll hear the prowl,

  And then you’ll hear the victim’s howl.

  And then you’ll know the killer stalks

  With needle and knife and butcher hooks –

  You’ll know that I still walk.’

  ‘It is that room,’ said Daisy, after a moment. ‘He’s in there.’

  They both stared at the door – Daisy thought they were both trying to find the courage to go up to it and peer through the grille, but before either of them could move, there was a patter of footsteps, and the doorkeeper appeared.

  ‘Seen what you wanted?’ he said.

  ‘Some things.’ Madame pointed to the end door. ‘The man there—’

  ‘Oh, that one,’ said the doorkeeper. ‘Heard him, have you? Real mad, that one.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Don’t think anyone knows. Don’t think he knows, either. One story is he was found wandering in them old dried-out rivers underground. Ghost rivers, they call them. They say he lost his wits down there in the dark. Enough to make anyone lose their wits, ain’t it, being down there in the dark?’

  Cold sick horror was washing over Daisy. She thought: it is him. It really is. Because of course he’d get out of the tunnel – I should have known he’d get out.

  ‘But another story says the high-ups put him in here so’s he wouldn’t have to stand his trial and end up being hanged,’ said the doorkeeper. ‘I reckon that happens more’n folks know. British justice, huh.’ He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the room. ‘Sings like he done just now some of the time. Other times you hear him kind of chanting to himself.’

  ‘Chanting what?’

  ‘Odd, it is. Names of streets,’ said the doorkeeper. ‘Knows the East End like you wouldn’t believe. Whitechapel, Spitalfields. All the streets and the little alleyways – Hanbury Street, Dorset Street, Miller’s Court – he chants them all, over and over. Even parts of the City. Mitre Square, and the like. It’s like as if he’s saying a prayer to himself. I hear some things in this place, but that one … Gives you the shivering creeps.’ He turned to lope back down the passageway, turning to make sure they were following.

  ‘Had my dinner,’ he said. ‘I’ll unlock the door for you, then I’ll be off to my own bit of room. I got a twist of baccy and a nice drop o’ whiskey to warm me. Last a few nights to come, that will, thanks to your jimmy o’goblin.’

  As Daisy and Madame walked across Fossan’s Yard, Daisy said, ‘That song – that other verse he sang. I didn’t understand that line—’

  ‘The one about “At pallid church and bishop’s head”?’

  ‘Yes. What did it mean?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Pallid church – I should think would be Whitechapel,’ said Madame. ‘And bishop’s head would be Mitre Square, most likely.’ She glanced at Daisy.

  Daisy said slowly, ‘And those places the doorkeeper said he chants to himself – Hanbury Street, Miller’s Court. They were all—’

  ‘All places where the Ripper’s victims were found,’ said Madame.

  TWENTY-SIX

  London, 1890s

  The week after the visit to The Thrawl was Ma’s birthday. Daisy and Joe were going to take her out to supper at the Cock & Sparrow, and Lissy and Vi and their husbands were coming as well. Lissy’s Lita was making a whole batch of mutton and onion pies for the evening. Daisy was greatly looking forward to it.

  ‘Shall I turn up and give a surprise performance for her birthday?’
Madame asked.

  ‘Oh! Could you? She’d love it,’ said Daisy, delighted. ‘They’d all love it.’

  ‘I’ll do it, then. The twins can go up to the Thumbprints’ for the evening – they like that, and the Thumbprints like having them. Thaddeus is reading The Adventures of Pinocchio to them. And Rhun can go along later to get them back down here to their beds. See now, what shall I sing …?’

  Ma was pleased to see Daisy and Joe, and thrilled to her toes when Madame came in and threw off her velvet cloak to reveal one of her saucy costumes. Bowler Bill was there, of course, delighted to be playing an accompaniment, and Old Shaky was in his corner, happily strumming his banjo. He mightn’t be able to stand up for more than five minutes at a time on account of his bad legs, but he could join in and play any music you cared to sing, could Shaky.

  Madame gave them the Marie Lloyd song, ‘A Bit of a Ruin That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit’, performing Miss Lloyd’s dance, in which she pretended to be tipsy for the last line about, ‘Outside the Cromwell Arms last Saturday night/I was one of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit.’ Everyone applauded and roared out the lines with her. After that, she did, ‘Oh, Mr Porter’, which was very saucily meant, with everyone delightedly roaring the lines.

  Then Bowler Bill struck up, ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, with Old Shaky plunking away at his banjo. Everyone got up to sing, Peg the Rags stood on a table and pretended to conduct, and people cheered. Daisy was pleased to see what good friends Ma had around her, and proud of her family. Lissy’s girl was taking round the trays of mutton pies, and everyone was eating and laughing. Joe did not say very much – he never did – but Daisy could see he was enjoying it all in his quiet way, drinking in the scene; probably, when he got home, he would draw it all.

  The party was still going on when Daisy and Joe, together with Madame, left, laughing when Bowler Bill shouted across the room that it was raining, and he would lend them his umbrella. Madame retorted that they would not melt from a drop of rain, but Daisy took the umbrella, and in fact they were glad of it because when they got out to the street it was raining quite heavily.

  The three of them walked in silence, Daisy and Joe on each side of Madame, all sharing the umbrella. It was a companionable silence, though. Once or twice Joe slowed his steps, looking up at a building or peering down a dimly lit alley, and Daisy smiled. One day, she would see Joe having a proper display of his work in an expensive gallery. That was a very good thought.

  They were nearing the Commercial Road, when they heard the shouts.

  ‘Fire! There’s a fire!’

  ‘Get help! Fire!’

  ‘Where?’ said Madame, looking about her in bewilderment. ‘I can’t see any fire.’

  ‘Nor can I …’

  But Joe had run back to the corner of the street, and was beckoning. ‘Over here,’ he said. ‘Across from Fossan’s Yard. Flames and smoke.’

  Huge clouds of smoke, shot with crimson and scarlet flames, were already billowing into the night sky. There was no need to ask where it was coming from. There was only one building hereabouts that was large enough to give forth that amount of smoke and flames.

  The Thrawl was burning.

  People were starting to run towards it, shouting for help to be brought, and Joe went forward with them. But there was a moment when Daisy and Madame hesitated, and looked at one another, and Daisy knew they were sharing the same thought. You did not, of course, run away from something so disastrous, something where people might be needing help, but—

  But this was The Thrawl. And inside it were secrets that needed to remain secret. Then the moment passed, and they were going after Joe, becoming swept along with the rest of the people running towards the fire, because of course they must do what they could.

  Black, evil-smelling smoke gusted into Daisy’s face as she ran, making her cough, and half blinding her. The flames were lighting up the sky now, and people were shouting and clutching at children to keep them away from the flames.

  They rounded the corner on the edge of Fossan’s Yard, and there it was – The Thrawl, with its rearing walls glowing from the heat. Bricks and huge chunks of stone were falling into the street, showering down everywhere, and men who seemed to be in charge were shouting to everyone to keep back – couldn’t they see it was bloody dangerous? You’d get crushed to fragments by a bit of falling wall if you didn’t look out.

  But already some form of order was being established. People had formed a line across the main part of the square, and buckets were being filled from a nearby pump, and passed from hand to hand, then flung on to the flames. Daisy saw Madame go over to join them, and she saw Joe helping to pump the water. She went to stand with Madame, taking her place in the line, but churning in her mind was the fact that Pa had been inside this place, and that he might have escaped in the confusion. What if he was somewhere in this throng of people, peering into their faces, searching for the daughter who had nearly killed him, and who had then got him shut inside a madhouse? He might be quite close this very minute.

  And what about that other one – that one who had sung his own version of ‘Listen’ and who chanted the names of all the murder sites to himself in the dark quiet of his room? Daisy shivered and looked nervously about her, but everyone seemed intent on the fire.

  Police constables had come running to help, their shrill whistles blowing to summon others. They were already rounding up people who were clearly the asylum’s residents – ragged, bewildered-looking creatures, they were, wandering around in fearful puzzlement. Several of them had been wrapped in what somebody told Daisy were called restraining jackets, and the warders were leading them away from the square. A woman next to Daisy said the church and a mission hall had been opened up as a temporary shelter. They would all be looked after, she said comfortably, but one of the men further down the line said this was rubbish – it was a safe bet that not all the lunatics would have been found, poor sods.

  ‘Too many of them,’ he said. ‘That place was stuffed to the attics with them. Ask me, not even the warders knew everyone who was in there. Mark my words, there’ll be some strange ones wandering the streets for many a night to come.’

  ‘But what happened?’ said Daisy, frantically passing the heavy buckets along. ‘How did it start?’

  ‘Somebody said there was a doorkeeper took to smoking a pipe near the main doors,’ he said. ‘Took a drop too much whiskey one night – although God alone knows how he could afford whiskey! – and fell asleep with his pipe burning. Place’d go up like a tinderbox.’

  Daisy stared at the man in horror, understanding that the doorkeeper had only afforded the whiskey because of Madame’s half-sovereign, and that this fire was the result of it. No time to think about it now, though – they all had to concentrate on getting the fire under control and getting people to safety.

  More and more people had joined in, and people had come running out of the Cock & Sparrow. Bowler Bill had organized a second bucket-and-pump line – Daisy saw Lissy and Vi and their husbands helping. Even Old Shaky had done his best to carry buckets, although he soon had to give up, and he told Daisy he was a useless old wreck who could not help out in trouble. Fortunately, Madame heard this, and said Shaky was not a wreck at all, in fact he could be extremely helpful to her, because here was the fare for a hansom cab for him to go out to Maida Vale and explain to Rhun and the Thumbprints what had happened and that she would be late home. Rhun would be sure to give him a drop of whiskey when he got there, she said, at which Shaky went off, feeling that he might not be so useless after all.

  By midnight the fire had been quenched almost entirely, although it was clear that the ruins would smoulder for some time. There were heaps of blackened rubble everywhere, and great pieces of masonry and chunks of chimneys that had fallen away. Most of the main walls were still standing, although the windows had fallen out, and the rooms were open to the sky where ceilings and great sections of the roof had fallen in.

/>   ‘I think we can safely leave it now,’ said Madame, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. ‘We should be able to pick up a cab – there’ll still be plenty around. Where’s Joe got to? Oh, there you are, Joe. We’re going home now – you going to come with us, are you? Good. We’ll get you taken to your lodgings first.’

  As they walked away, they could still hear the clattering of buckets and swooshing of water hosing on to the walls, but after they had turned a couple of corners, the sounds faded, and the ordinary night street noises of London started to take over. There was the rattle of carts and the clop of hooves from the cabs in the main thoroughfares. A cab would come past them at any minute, and Daisy thought they would all be very grateful to climb in and get home. They could hear people who had not known about the fire calling goodnight to one another, and a snatch of drunken singing from a tavern somewhere. Once a brace of cats yowled, and there was the sound of a window being flung up, and angry shouts to the cats to clear off. The word used was not actually ‘clear’. There were the sounds of footsteps, as well, so other people could not be far off.

  Footsteps. Daisy glanced over her shoulder, because it was not sounding like several sets of footsteps – it was a single set.

  ‘Nothing wrong in a few footsteps,’ said Madame, very softly. ‘There’re plenty of people around.’

  ‘Tisn’t all that late anyway,’ put in Joe.

  But it seemed to Daisy that, as they walked on, the footsteps walked with them. It did not mean someone was following them, of course – simply that someone was walking in the same direction.

  They were nearing the Commercial Road, when Joe suddenly said, ‘The footsteps – they’re still there. Somebody is following us.’

  Even as he was saying this, Madame’s hand was closing on Daisy’s arm, and she said, ‘He’s right. Someone’s creeping along behind us.’

  Daisy listened, and although she could not hear footsteps, for a dreadful moment a snatch of singing reached her. Her heart leapt, because it felt as if the night of the fire was being replayed. Then she realized it was only a burst of song from the nearby tavern, and she relaxed and almost laughed with relief.