by Paula Guran
She broke down and began to sob. Kit wanted to join her, but tears would solve nothing. She patted Mrs. K on the shoulder and made soothing noises, managing a strangled It’s all right, which caused the woman to rear up.
“It’s not,” she said forcefully. “It’s not all right! Here’s me going to all these women’s meetings, listening to calls for the vote and equality, and I go and wreck your future, your steps on a path none of us are allowed to take.”
“I thought you went to church and séances, Mrs. K,” said Kit, somewhat bewildered. The idea of the landlady as an advocate for women’s rights made Kit think she’d not known her at all. Mrs. K looked a little affronted, then abashed.
“Well, I do go to séances, yes, but where do you think we have our suffrage meetings? Where’s the safest place in the world? A church. Anyway, what I need to tell you didn’t come from going to church or from women’s groups, but from the séances. You know I go to chat to my dear old mum?”
Kit didn’t, but she nodded anyway. She felt ashamed that she knew so little about the woman who’d spent so much time looking after her mother and brother. It seemed terribly disloyal.
“Well, that poor friend of yours, Mary Jane, I knew I knew her from somewhere. From the séances, Kit. They bring in sensitives—mediums who can contact the spirits and the spirits speak through them. Your Mary Jane, she was one of them.”
Kit felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. Séances—clairvoyants didn’t perform for free. It was paid work that didn’t involve being drilled up against a wall by a man you barely knew. The kind of work that Mary Kelly, who’d touched Kit’s hands and accessed her worst secrets, could do standing on one leg. The kind of work at which the Whitechapel Witches would all take a punt, given the chance. Was that how he found them, this purported Jack?
“Mrs. K, did you recognize any of the other women who were killed? When the papers printed their photos, did you know any of their faces? Might they have been at the séances too, as your mediums?”
Mrs. K thought hard and finally nodded as if making a tough decision. “May well have been, Kit. May well have been at least one of them—sometimes they stank of gin when they arrived and they didn’t look like good women, but they were very good mediums. Your Mary Jane gave me the best connection I’ve had with Mum in years.”
“Do you remember anyone else there, a man showing particular interest in the women?”
Mrs. K shook her head. “Lot of different people, lot of different groups, Kit. I can’t think of anyone—anyway, I’m not there to socialize with the living.”
So, perhaps he hadn’t been at one of the same séances as Mrs. K, but London was a veritable hotbed of people desperately looking for contact with the Other Side. Kit supposed one was bound to stumble across at least one genuine sensitive amongst all the shysters and fakes. And Jack, whoever he was, had certainly been in attendance somewhere he’d seen the power of those Whitechapel women, and he’d chosen them for whatever he was trying to do.
“Mrs. K,” she said, swinging her feet off the bed, “I need to go out for a while. Can you keep an eye on the madhouse?”
The landlady straightened and threw back her shoulders; she seemed to regard the task as a chance to redeem herself.
It was late afternoon by the time Kit located Bagster Phillips, after traipsing far and wide. She discovered only after she’d arrived at Old Montague Street that Kelly’s body had been taken instead to Shoreditch mortuary. When she’d arrived there, the autopsy was well and truly over, and there was only the attendant who told her, for an unreasonably hefty bribe, that Bagster Phillips had been joined by that unbearable snob Dr. Bond. While they’d begun proceedings with a good deal of sniping, at the end of their combined labors they seemed to have developed a kinship forged in Mary Kelly’s blood and guts. Both were pale and silent when they’d finished picking through the woman’s dreadful remains, said the attendant with unhealthy relish.
Kit knew Bond wouldn’t have truck with her, but there was a chance Bagster Phillips would. When she at last found him at the Angel and Crown, he looked as though he’d been doing his best to wipe all memory of the morning’s activities from his mind. He peered at her blearily, then gestured drunkenly to the seat beside him. He licked his lips—not in a salacious way—and chewed for a few moments as if his mouth was filled with cotton, then opened his eyes wide and tried to focus. A fat finger waggled at her.
“I always thought there was something different about you, Caswell.”
“Every man is a genius with hindsight, Doctor Bagster Phillips,” she said primly, her purse sitting ladylike in her lap, and he grinned.
“I used to think what a pretty boy you were, and lo, here you are, a slightly less pretty girl.” He snorted with laughter. “I am willing to bet there are several coppers sighing with relief to discover that the young man they were staring at a little too long is, in fact, a damsel.”
“I don’t bet PC Airedale’s one of them,” she said, and he gave a great bellow of a laugh that almost disguised the fart that followed it.
“Oh dear, pardon me,” he said and waved his hand. Kit wasn’t sure if the gas was worse than the smell coming from his mouth as he belched. “Yes, you certainly took care of that great ape. I’m assuming you had good reason.”
“Doctor Bagster Phillips . . . ” she said. “Doctor Bagster Phillips, did you find anything in Mary Kelly’s autopsy?”
He looked terribly sad. “Poor girl. Poor little girl, didn’t deserve that.”
“What did he take?”
“Take?” He looked confused.
“His souvenir, Doctor. He’s taken something from all of them, as you well know.”
He shook his head, but then answered, “The heart. Her poor heart was gone. And the baby.”
Kit felt her stomach heave as it hadn’t even when she viewed Kelly’s remains. “She was pregnant?”
He nodded, tears in his rheumy eyes.
“Doctor, the instrument—it wasn’t a bayonet, was it? I mean, there was too much—the cuts—I saw . . . ”
Slowly, he nodded.
Kit continued, “Then might it not have been a Liston knife? I’ve seen you use one when a saw won’t do . . . ”
Bagster Phillips blustered—the idea that the murderer might be a medical man made him deeply unhappy, she could see—before finally agreeing. “It could have been. But he’s not a doctor, Caswell, he’s a butcher, make no mistake about that.”
“Oh, I know, Doctor Bagster Phillips, I know.” She stood, but he stopped her with a meaty hand on her arm. She raised her eyebrows.
“Be careful, Caswell. There’s a man out there who really doesn’t like women.”
She nodded and patted his shoulder, then left him to his next swig of gin.
Out in the afternoon cold, she glanced at her father’s fob watch, which she’d begun wearing since Mary Kelly’s demise, in spite of Louisa’s protests. She still had time, if she was swift, to go to the shop in Limehouse, to make one final request of Mr. Wing. If required, she would tell him his debt would be paid in full for this one last assistance. She wondered if that would be enough.
XIV
There was something she was missing, Kit was sure of it. Something that was in her head, certainly, something she knew but couldn’t quite grasp the significance of—it was refusing to let itself be noticed. She picked over each tiny morsel of information, no matter how insignificant it seemed—as much to take her mind off the earlier polite but firm rebuff as to find a solution—yet her memory would still not oblige.
After leaving Dr. Bagster Phillips to his cups, she’d made her way to the apothecary’s shop and found the door locked, with no sign of Mr. Wing inside. It took some determined knocking before he appeared and shook his head at her through the window. In the end, when it became obvious she was looking around for something to hurl through the glass, he gave in and opened the door but a sliver, not inviting her in.
Kit
was exhausted and chilled to her bones, as if the cold had settled in them and would never go away no matter how many roaring fires she sat in front of or how many warm rugs she wrapped herself in, but she didn’t press him, merely asked outright.
“Where is the boy? The youngster who came to me about the woman in Duffield’s Yard? The one who brought me the gun?”
He made an exasperated sound and she knew she was very close to the borders of his patience. “Why do you ask this, Miss Katherine? What could you possibly need to know this for?”
“Because I think he saw the man who killed Elizabeth Stride. I think he came and found me of his own accord—I don’t think you sent him at all. I think he found me because he was terrified—too terrified to tell me anything else—but not so scared that he didn’t want someone to know.” She held onto the edge of the doorframe so he couldn’t close the door without hurting her. “I think when I saw him last night he made a mistake then covered it up. He said “I saw her” then he changed it to “Saw her body.” I think he was saying he saw her being murdered.”
“What an interesting idea, Miss Katherine. Perhaps you should take it to the police.” His voice was flat as was his gaze, but she could tell that he knew what had happened, that he knew she’d lost her position, that everything was different.
She’d surrendered then, left before he could tell her she was no longer welcome to the privilege of a place at the lock-up—and frankly she’d lost enough already. She wasn’t prepared to let something else slip from her grasp.
Now, sitting in the parlor as evening closed in outside, her stockinged feet were as close to the fire as she could bear, trying to melt the ice from her very core. Mrs. K had thoughtfully provided nips of port and cups of tea and they’d gone some way to helping, but she did wonder if the alcohol hadn’t also dimmed her senses. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t identify that essential clue.
She was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear the knock at the front door, didn’t rouse until Mrs. K stood poised in the doorway, the shadow of someone looming behind her.
“Katherine? Kit, you’ve a gentleman caller.”
Mrs. K stepped back and Makepeace filled the space. Kit laughed out loud at the idea of her former boss as a gentleman caller. The Inspector held his bowler hat, twisting it around as if it was the best way to keep his hands occupied. Kit was perplexed at his demeanor. He had every right to charge in and interrogate her as if she was some stripe of criminal, in fact she’d been expecting his arrival all day—had half-expected to return from her expedition and find him furious and fuming. Perhaps it was Mrs. K’s presence that kept his ire in check.
Kit carefully tucked her feet back under her skirts and nodded for Makepeace to enter. Mrs. K bustled away, muttering about tea and biscuits. Kit wondered vaguely when the landlady had last set foot in her own kitchen upstairs, or if she’d completely moved down to theirs now.
Makepeace settled in the wingback chair across from Kit and took some time crossing his legs then balancing his hat over his knee. He leaned back against the particularly lumpen cushion and tried to get comfortable. Kit watched with amusement as he wiggled as much as a man well over six feet could be said to do so, and politely tried to beat the item into submission. Finally she took pity and said, “We usually just throw it on the floor.”
“Thank God for that.” He whipped the thing out from behind him and dropped it beside the chair. “I will never understand the female insistence upon cushions, Caswell.”
“That makes two of us, sir,” she said, old habits dying hard. “But I suppose it’s not ‘sir’ anymore. It’s Mr. Makepeace.”
“Edwin, if you prefer,” he offered awkwardly. Kit was amazed that he wasn’t angry, more aggressive and demanding. Perhaps the sight of her in a dress, knowing she was meant to be wearing it, calmed him down and reinstated his naturally chivalrous behavior.
“I imagine you’re here, Mr. Makepeace, to ask some difficult questions.” She played with the edge of the crocheted rug on her lap, tracing the knots and links carefully. “I’ll answer them, of course.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said dryly, then leaned forward. “How did you know? How did you know he’d be there, that it would be Kelly?”
And she told, everything, from her first meeting with Kelly, to the revelation of witchery amongst the Whitechapel whores—his face convulsed with disbelief, but she didn’t care. She told him about the letter she’d received and the agreement she’d reached with Mary Jane, she told him the horrid end of that partnership and its aftermath even though he already knew. Telling and re-telling the tale of her own failure was the very least punishment she could mete out to herself, she decided.
“And you didn’t tell me any of this because you thought I’d think you mad, all this rubbish about witches?”
“Don’t you now? She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve nothing to hide anymore, nothing to lose. He’s got what he wants—Mary always said he only wanted five, that there’s magic in the number, like the points of a star; that’s what’s needed for summoning and making requests. That’s what she believed he was doing—that’s why he kept little parts of them for the soul to cling to at least until he’d done what he needed to with that currency.”
“And why this . . . Katherine?” He gestured to her clothes, to the uniform that wasn’t there. “Why the disguise?”
She would not share the details of that, the how of her double life, about the lock-up or the help from Mr. Wing—those secrets weren’t hers alone.
“Are you saying, Mr. Makepeace, that had I walked into the Leman Street nick in my bustled gown and bonnet, and asked for a job that I’d have been given a respectful hearing? That I wouldn’t have been laughed out the door or threatened with a stay in an asylum until I changed my ways and ideas? I have several mouths to support, Mr. Makepeace—do you know how far the salary of a milliner’s apprentice goes amongst three people, one of them ill and one increasingly . . . ”
She did not finish the sentence.
“I did what I needed to. No,” she corrected herself, “I did what I wanted to do.”
“You did what you thought was right.”
“Right? Or convenient? Don’t think I don’t know how much of this is my fault. If I hadn’t been so determined to keep my secrets then this might have been over long ago. I’m very aware that I put myself and my family ahead of the lives of the streetwalkers, because I’m as bad as any man, because I didn’t set sufficient store by them. I didn’t think they deserved to be safe as much as I did though I didn’t say it; I thought they somehow brought the violence on themselves by the very nature of their lives. I judged them less worthy than me and mine, Mr. Makepeace, and I will live with that every damned day for the rest of my life.” She pointed a finger at him as he made to contradict her. “And don’t tell you haven’t thought the same—that they’re worth less, these women. If it wasn’t true then you wouldn’t be sitting here so calm as you question me, acting as if I’ve done nothing more than steal a bag of sweeties.
“You don’t think they’re worth enough to get angry about—you’re more infuriated that this man dared to defy you and make a mess on your streets, made your men look like idiots, than you’re outraged by the loss of these women’s lives. Deny it and I’ll know you’re a liar.”
His lips went white and Kit thought she might have gone too far, but he didn’t lose his temper, didn’t deny her accusations.
“Tea and biscuits,” announced Mrs. K, and entered bearing a tray. She fussed a little, making teaspoons clatter against porcelain saucers as she put the tray down on the small table beside Kit’s chair.
“Thank you, Mrs. K,” said Kit in a tone that said quite clearly the woman should vacate the room at speed.
As Kit poured the dark brown liquid into a rose-patterned cup, Makepeace’s shoulders slumped and he said, “I heard you.”
“What?”
“I heard you, when Airedale was marching you to th
e cells. I was in the storeroom behind the front desk and heard you tell Wright to find me. I heard it and I ignored it. I thought Let that be a lesson to you, little miss, teach you to make a fool of me.” He looked at the hat perched precariously on his knee.
“How long had you known?” she asked.
“The night after the double event—I came to see how you were. I was on the other side of the street and what should I espy instead of my brightest police constable but a tall woman in a nightgown freezing on her own doorstep, watching a whore wander off down Lady’s Mantle Court Road.”
“You knew all that time? You knew and you didn’t say anything? You knew and you still listened to me when I told you about the souvenirs?” she said wonderingly.
He shrugged. “It made sense and I already knew you weren’t an idiot. I didn’t imagine that a change in your sex would alter that.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, gratefully.
“But I was annoyed at you. Very much so. When Abberline had you locked up, I didn’t intervene. I thought that’ll serve her right.” He rubbed his face and she heard the rasping of skin against thick bristles that hadn’t been shaved in a little too long. “So when you’re apportioning blame, don’t forget my share. I’m the one who let them lock you up. I’m the one who let Airedale cart you off—though, I swear, I didn’t know he’d hit you—I’m as much at fault for Kelly’s death.”
She examined her hands, looking under the nails for specks of dirt, looking anywhere but at him. She was resentful, but knew she had no real right to be—it didn’t matter. She’d been the one to live a lie, she’d been the one to take the risk with the other woman’s life. It was all on her.
She felt suddenly very tired. She’d not slept since finding Kelly’s body; only stared at the ceiling, the door, the walls, hoping Kelly might break through Kit’s lack of eldritch sight and appear before her, so that she could tell the woman what had happened, that she’d not been betrayed and left to the darkness.