As his body began to relax, he tipped the bottle over, a petulant gesture that sent the vessel rolling away to clatter upon the floor. He hated himself, hated laudanum. But at least he no longer cared about the day that had come to be known as Peterloo.
He drank more.
Turning his unshackled thoughts to the strange killings in London’s sewer, he tried to imagine what kind of wickedness would inspire a man to wrap his victims in sorghum and fennel. Except that it was not both victims, just one. Was the tosher simply a bystander? A witness to the crime, in need of silencing? Perhaps he had been murdered elsewhere, by an entirely different perpetrator, and his corpse had floated on the city’s subterranean river of effluvia to find a resting place near poor Betsy Milne. One thing was certain, beyond tall tales of Italian heresy, Hawke had little of value to add to the case. At best he would receive a tongue lashing from George Ruthven, laced with more mockery, as was the Patrol Officer’s way. The most celebrated of Bow Street’s enforcers despised Hawke as a prime example of wasted opportunity. A man toppled from a great height by his own self-loathing, kept languishing in the gutter by addiction and sin. He replayed Ruthven’s jibes in his mind, imagining himself driving a dagger into the Runner’s heart every time the bastard issued an insult or brayed that smug laugh.
Then Joshua Hawke sat up. Despite the effects of the laudanum, despite the gin in his veins and the tiredness in his limbs, something else Ruthven had said had struck a chord within him. The tune was distant, barely perceptible, but Hawke strained to hear it, to discern the notes. What had Ruthven said? It made sense. Suddenly, brilliantly. What was it?
“What was it?” he snarled aloud.
He noticed faces turning to regard him with the hostility of those disturbed from their own private wallowing. He stood, knocking over his chair. The clack of wood reverberated about the low ceiling. Someone growled angrily. The music in his mind faded, Ruthven’s words lost once more.
Hawke cursed. He stooped to retrieve the stool but fell, sprawling on the tacky floor. He could smell his own vomit, ripe and bitter as it swirled about his face and bubbled at his nostrils. He closed his eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUNDAY
“Looks like shite warmed up, I can tells ye.” Milky Mayhew, named for his right eye, which was entirely white, stood on the Thames foreshore in the shadow of Blackfriars Bridge, oblivious to the grubby tidewaters that lapped at his feet. He leaned against a long hoe, the principal tool of his trade, its butt-end driven deep into the sandy shingle. With his good eye, shot through with livid veins, he scrutinised Joshua Hawke, suspicion unconcealed.
Hawke, having tracked him down easily enough via the small community of toshers and mudlarks who had made their homes in hovels along this little stretch of the north bank, breathed deeply to ward off a wave of nausea. “I do not sleep well.”
Mayhew grunted, rubbing leathery cheeks with fat, grimy fingers. “I must a earn a crust, Mister Hawke, so,” he scrunched up his mouth in an expression of insincere apology, “say what you’ve come to say, if you please.”
It was late morning already. Hawke had slept away the day’s earlier hours, shaking off the heaviest effects of the laudanum, though he felt exhausted now, encumbered by a state of heavy-limbed torpor. It helped not a jot that he had made do with a supremely uncomfortable canvas hammock in the muggy, fetid doss-house at Black Horse Yard, the hours passing to the inharmonious comings and goings of drunks, whores, beggars and opium-fiends. The only thing that would fend off the impending shakes was another dose of the drug, but his supply had run dry, and he inwardly berated himself for not having made provision earlier. Today, he knew, would be one of suffering. He gripped his guts as they churned again. “My apologies.” He stared into the mist that clung stubbornly to the surface of the river. “You work on a Sunday?”
Mayhew, who might have been anything from forty-five to sixty, effected a wry smile that suggested Hawke was stupid. “If I wish to eat.” He winked the dead eye. “And I was at church for a dawn sermon, sir. Were you?” When Hawke did not answer, Mayhew kicked a small mound of pebbles into the water. “Now then. You asked to speak of my friend?”
When Hawke had been dashed from his stupor the night before by a painfully chill bucket of water, he had found himself out on Red Lion Square, swearing viciously at the gin palace landlord as he staggered towards the tobacconist’s shop. But a shred of wit must have lingered, for, halfway across the immaculate gardens, he had swerved away, thinking better of attending a meeting that would, after all, provide Ruthven with precious little.
Instead, he had wandered the city as a biting, hoary dusk had taken hold and the lamplighters had set to work. He had thought of the murdered resurrectionists, Lucas and Harlowe, and of Seamus, the Giltspur Boy whose life had been snuffed out in revenge, and he asked himself who might have reason to exterminate the Szekely gang. The answer, naturally, was a great many folk. The proverbial needle in a haystack. So he had replayed the conversation with Ruthven in his mind, that which had given him cause to depart the gin shop in the first place. He smelled again the heady scents of baking bread and reminded himself of the Runner’s smug superiority. Out of it all had grown a theory. A wisp of a thing, but one that had refused to diminish as the shadows lengthened. It was small but persistent, like a sapling’s first, delicate shoots, to be nurtured and fed if it was to survive. He had mulled it over during the deepest, darkest hours, and it had begun to take root.
For now, though, he knew that he must ease it aside as he considered the fate of poor Betsy Milne. He needed to find out more. Discover her final steps. But there were no witnesses to question, no body to inspect, and her grieving father’s proximity to the underworld of Szekely and his associates meant that Hawke could not so much as speak with him, let alone ask anything meaningful. Then he had remembered the tosher whose body had been found floating beside the mutilated girl, and he had decided to come here, to this community of ramshackle sheds and gaunt faces, in order to speak with those who had known Tapp personally. He did not know what was to be gained, but it would surely be a more productive use of his time than making empty reports to Ruthven or dodging Giltspur daggers in St Giles. “Varney Tapp, that’s right. You discovered his body?”
Milky Mayhew’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the hoe harder. “Aye. In the sewer ‘neath Upper Thames Street.”
“But he had been missing some weeks?”
Mayhew pursed lips that were cracked and red. He took a while to wet them with his tongue before he spoke. “Several. It stood to reason that he would turn up somewhere down there, but the tunnels stretch for miles.”
Hawke blew warm air through his nostrils, making a roiling cloud of vapour in the cold. “Then he must have been badly decomposed. How did you recognise him?”
Mayhew hesitated, gnawed his chapped lower lip, then patted his own breast. “His clothes.”
Hawke noted the tosher’s long velveteen coat and canvas trousers. Together with the hoe it certainly painted a particular picture. “You are a distinct breed, granted.”
“I knew he was one of ours immediately, and his bag, lanthorn and hoe were near too.” Mayhew screwed up his face suddenly, as if tasting something rancid. “His skin was all dark and rotten. Body dreadful bloated, I can tells ye, but he’d taken a French sabre, just here,” he traced a line along his jaw with a fingernail, “at Cacabelos back in ‘09. I could still see it, in spite of everything.”
“Then it was you discovered the girl too?” Hawke suggested.
“God help me,” Mayhew said. “Gave me a fright, I can tells ye.”
“She was wrapped in vines, they say.”
Mayhew frowned, worried by the revelation. “Who says? Who are you?”
“A friend.”
The hoe tilted in Hawke’s direction. “A liar. Them what knows about the vines, about what happened to the girl, they’re few and far betwixt.”
Hawke shook his head. “The story’s found it
s way onto the crime broadsides.”
“Shite on a stick. That’ll shake the hornet’s nest.”
“Hence our urgent need to bring the killer to ground.”
“Our?” Mayhew’s face set hard. “You with the law? I told your lot everything already. You ain’t pinning fack-all on me, I can tells ye.”
Hawke stepped back, boots crunching on shingle, raising hands to placate. “I would search for the truth, that is all.” The urge to vomit was sudden and strong, and he paused to allow it to subside. When it had released its cruel grip, he fished in a pocket for a coin, flicking it to Mayhew, who plucked it deftly out of the air. “The truth, sir. The girl deserves it. Varney Tapp deserves it.”
Milky Mayhew’s face became strained, as if invisible threads tugged from all directions. He stared out across the river, at the jetties and wharves on the south bank, the shallow-draughted barges criss-crossing the waterway between. He was seeing it all, but somehow bearing witness to another time and place entirely. At length, he said quietly, “She was wrapped in vines, aye, but her face, what was left of it, was something I shall ne’er forget.”
Hawke took a tentative pace towards the tosher. “But not Mister Tapp?”
“No,” Mayhew answered, still gazing sightlessly away. “Old Varn had been stabbed all right, but not like her.” He blinked suddenly, eyelids fluttering like moth wings, and he turned back to Hawke. “She was different.”
She was different. Ruthven had suggested as much, but he had shown such wilful disregard for Varney Tapp that the fellow’s fate barely warranted a mention. After all, the demise of a sewer dweller was hardly of interest to Bow Street. Mayhew’s confirmation was useful, nonetheless. He said as much to the tosher, adding, “Clarity is useful. Though the bodies were discovered together, the respective murders were not necessarily two halves of the same crime.”
Again that careworn expression emerged through the lines on Mayhew’s face. “I am sorry I could not be a greater help.” He pinned the sore lower lip between his teeth once more.
Hawke sensed something was out of kilter, and gave Mayhew a long look. The tosher immediately threw his gaze upon the Thames as if he had noticed a passing skiff rowed by chimps. That did it, and Hawke took a step inward, concealing himself from prying eyes up on the riverbank as he pressed the tip of his knife into Mayhew’s soft stomach, gently, carefully, but hard enough to elicit a satisfying whimper. “I am not a cruel man, Mister Mayhew,” he said quietly, “and I wish you no harm, but believe me when I say that cruelty is, on occasion, necessary.”
“What do you want from me?” Mayhew stammered. “I told those fackin’ Runners that...”
“Look at me,” Hawke interrupted. “Look at me, Mister Mayhew, and speak plain. Do you believe me capable of using this blade?”
Mayhew did look at him, his milk-white eye reflecting Hawke’s face like a mirror. Did the tosher see a cold-blooded killer or perhaps just the pathetic visage of a gin-soaked wastrel on the edge of desperation. It mattered not, Hawke thought to himself, so long as the fellow believed in the steel at his belly. Sure enough, Mayhew gave a mute, slightly tremulous nod.
“You did not give the Runners everything,” Hawke said, keeping the knife steady and hidden. “I can tell, you see. I do not pretend to read men’s minds, but I smell a lie well enough. You’re holding something back, sir, and I intend to use any means at my disposal to draw it forth. I can bribe you. A reward for your assistance. Or I can take your good eye so that you never search another drain again. I will have candour, Mister Mayhew, one way or the other.” Mayhew shifted his feet a little. Perhaps he had soiled himself. Hawke smothered the pang of guilt as he said, “Do you understand?”
“I do, sir,” Mayhew replied in little more than a whisper. “I do.”
“Then?”
“I was there.”
Hawke frowned. “You were where?”
“In the tunnel with Varn.” Mayhew swallowed audibly. “When he died.” He must have heard the indirect incrimination in his own words, for he blurted, “But I didn’t do nothin’, sir, ‘pon my honour!”
“You saw it?” Hawke asked. “The murder?”
Mayhew shook his head. “We were far apart, working different stretches. But I heard his cries.”
“Tapp’s?”
“Aye. Went to him as fast as I could, but I’m no spring chook, Mister Hawke, I can tells ye. Took me a while, wading as I was.” He clamped shut his eyes, reliving it all. “When I reached him it was too late.”
“Dead?”
“Almost.” Mayhew shuddered. “I held him in my arms as he slipped away. There was no hope.”
“Did he speak?” Hawke pressed. “Come, Mister Mayhew, the time for timidity is long gone.” He removed the knife, sheathing it, but stayed close, his tone earnest. “Your testimony may yet catch a murderer.”
Mayhew gave a despondent sigh. “I have nothing more to testify. Varn gasped, he choked on blood. He told me to pray for his soul.”
“And the killer?”
The tosher shrugged meekly. “Varn never saw the devil’s face.”
Hawke cursed softly. “Nothing more was said of him?”
“Only that he was an Irisher.” Mayhew evidently noted Hawke’s nonplussed frown, for he added, placing a hand upon his own breast, “He wore a brooch, here. Shaped like a harp, it was. Varn was in Dublin in ‘98, putting down the rebellion. The bog-trotting bastards wore it as their symbol.”
The revelation threw Hawke utterly, and he stepped away, leaving Mayhew to shake himself down like a dog freed from a leash. An Irishman? Christ, but half of St Giles was Irish. It hardly narrowed the search down. But what of the Benandanti connection? Was he no longer searching for an Italian? The thought brought him round to the second of the sewer’s corpses. “Mister Mayhew, did Varney mention the girl? Did he witness her death?”
“I’ve told you everything he said, and that’s the Almighty’s truth, I can tells ye.”
“But you found Betsy Milne with Varney. Was her body rotten?”
“Nay,” Mayhew answered, “not then. Only when I returned.”
Then the deaths, Hawke mused, might truly be connected. He met Mayhew’s single eye. “It was weeks before you reported any of this.”
For the first time a glimmer of defiance animated Mayhew’s face. “I was terrified.” He tensed, standing slightly taller as his shoulders rounded, his jaw quivering with the clench of his teeth. “Facking terrified. I ran out of there like Satan’s own hounds were at my heels. And who was I to report this to, without receiving a stretched neck for reward?”
Despite Hawke’s annoyance, he could not refute the point. Blame would surely have been attached to Mayhew, a man with neither the friends nor resources to make a robust defence. Especially when this was the kind of case in which the authorities would seek a speedy conclusion, one way or another. Ruthven had implied as much. “So you waited until the coast was clear. Discovered them for a second time, once they had suitably decomposed.”
“Aye,” Mayhew confirmed, “that’s about the size of it. I ain’t proud, I can tells ye. Truth is, I’m downright ashamed. But I am alive.”
Hawke nodded. He stepped away, looking back up the slope towards the city. “Thank you. I’ll not betray your confidence.”
Milky Mayhew gave a rueful grunt. “Yet I’ve given you nought that’ll catch Varn’s killer.”
“Time will tell, Mister Mayhew. It is something to learn that they were murdered at around the same time, albeit in very different ways.” He began the short walk up the shingle. “Still, perhaps your friend was simply robbed by other tosher-men, with young Miss Milne’s corpse nearby as a matter of coincidence.”
“Robbed?” Mayhew scoffed at his back. “No, sir, he weren’t robbed, I can tells ye. His bag and pockets were well weighted with trinkets when I stumbled across him. Poor things, mind, but worthy of theft. I took them when I fled.” He looked sheepish. “Not to steal, mind, but what use were they do
wn there?”
That peaked Hawke’s interest and he stopped. “What kinds of things?”
Mayhew shrugged. “Couple o’ spoons, few coins, the chain from a pocket watch.” He smiled, a little embarrassed. “We are mudlarks of the sewer, you understand. Magpies. We collect what we may.” He snapped his fingers as something else dawned. “Old Varn was clutching one such item when he perished, God rest his soul.”
“Oh?”
Using his hoe for support, Milky Mayhew rounded Hawke and led the way towards the ramshackle homes clinging to the edge of the bank. “See for yourself, sir, by all means. I have it still.”
Θ
Hawke went back into the city after leaving Mayhew, heading north and west, the breeze beginning to sharpen at his back. At the end of Dorset Street he was waylaid by a small crowd where the road opened into Salisbury Square, and he slowed, curious as to the commotion.
The mob, collecting new members at an alarming rate, appeared to be focussed on a kneeling man who looked for all the world like a penitent, his head dipped, his hands clasped together. Except that it was not forgiveness he sought, but mercy. As Hawke drew closer, he could see the latticed fingers were raised in urgent plea, begging for those around him to relent. The man on his knees was dressed like a swell, a blue tailcoat and cravat complimenting saffron-coloured trousers and a fine, high-collared waistcoat, but all that was crumpled now, sullied by the muck from the road, and his tall hat had long since been kicked to the gutter. Above the shabby finery was a thatch of ink-black hair that looked matted above his left ear, and Hawke realised he bled substantially from the temple.
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