Corpse Thief

by Michael Arnold

  A woman’s Irish brogue brought him back. “There is a vinegar manufactory some distance yonder.”

  Hawke chided himself for the reaction and straightened, removing his hat and swallowing down the bile that singed his throat. “Vinegar?”

  The woman, exceptionally tall and clothed in garish yellow and pea green, had emerged from beyond the men with cudgels. They moved apart with obvious deference. She came to the edge of the step and nodded. “When the breeze takes it towards us, the stench can be quite something.” She was perhaps in her forties, with fair hair sprouting from the confines of a wide-brimmed bonnet. Her eyes were blue and bright, and Hawke thought she might once have been markedly attractive, had not the ravages of syphilis caused her skin to decay and her nose begin to cave. To conceal the damage, she fluttered a fan before her face, the flower motifs only adding to her gaudy appearance.

  Hawke met her keen gaze, noting how she scrutinised him in the manner of one permanently anticipating danger. “You are Madam Yvette?” She gave the slightest nod and he went on, “I would enquire of your guards.”

  “Enquire?” she said, an exotic bird perched betwixt two oxen.

  “Do you have Frenchmen in your employ?”

  The blue eyes narrowed above the fan’s edge. “Is that a crime? The war is over. Peace reigns, praise the Lord.”

  “No crime,” Hawke said. “I was told you had former French soldiers keeping the place safe.”

  She lowered the fan a touch, her expression visibly tightening. “Told by?” She edged off the step and out beyond the cover of the porch, glancing up and down the road. “Who sent you, Mister Smith?”

  It would have been easy to invoke the name of Colan Szekely, for mention of their mutual employer would surely allay her fears, but the story of his unusual visit would eventually find its way back to the Hungarian’s ears, and what then? Hawke said, “I work for Boris Milne, butcher up at Smithfield. His daughter was recently murdered, and he has engaged me to investigate.”

  Madam Yvette eyed him dubiously, raising the fan again. “And what qualifies you for this task?”

  “I have experience in matters similar.”

  Amusement danced over her creased brow. “You are experienced in murder, Mister Smith?”

  “In the detection of miscreants.” Hawke glanced at the baleful guards. “I merely wish to speak with any Frenchmen in your employ. I accuse them of nothing. I seek no trouble.”

  “You speak French?” she asked.

  “I wager they have English, or their usefulness hereabouts would be sore limited.”

  Madam Yvette gave a short bark of laughter. “Their usefulness extends only to their skill in throwing undesirables onto the street.”

  “And how do they decide who is to be desired and undesired?”

  “The decision is mine,” Madam Yvette said, the delicate flutter of her fan jarringly at odds with the steel in her tone.

  Further along the street, a meeting of three men erupted into a spontaneous brawl. They collapsed together into the mud, scrabbling for eyes and throats, and groping for blades or firearms. Madam Yvette, alive to potential disruption to her business, made a clicking sound with her tongue and the guards pushed open the Red Petal’s doors. She indicated that Hawke should follow. He stepped up and into the porch.

  Inside the building, the light was warm and soft, and it took several moments for his eyes to become accustomed. He was pleased to smell the heady funk of perfumery and tobacco smoke in place of pungent vinegar.

  “Fetch Paul,” Madam Yvette instructed the tall doorman with the beard and long hair. He took himself off along a dim passageway, while she fixed Hawke with an iron stare. “I’ll brook no discord in my establishment. I’ve a business to run, sir, and trouble affects profits.”

  “I will give you no trouble if your men give me candour,” Hawke replied, calmly enough, though he was acutely aware of how close the bald, stocky man had come.

  Madam Yvette made a sucking sound with her teeth, then abruptly nodded. “Top rooms. Do not worry. They are unlikely to be occupied until dusk.” She tilted her head to the side, watching Hawke. “Unless you’d like...?”

  “No, thank you,” Hawke said. “I must not tarry.”

  Madam Yvette told him to follow, and she led the way up a winding flight of stairs. Over her shoulder, she said quietly, “I’ve a mind to help you, Mister Smith, for I lost my own wee girl, many moons ago.”

  “Lost?” said Hawke, tiring by only the fifth or sixth step. How he hated stairs.

  “Murdered,” she said, without breaking stride, “like your butcher’s daughter. Raped and throttled by her schoolmaster, would you believe?”

  Hawke muttered a stunned oath. “I am sorry.”

  “It is done,” Madam Yvette said flatly. “I could not help her. But perhaps I might help you.”

  They reached the first floor, where some of the rooms were already in use, despite the early hour, for shrieks, groans and good-natured laughter carried through the closed doors. Yvette took them up another staircase, which opened onto a narrow landing and three more doors. It was silent up here apart from their footsteps. One door creaked loudly as she pushed it open, and Hawke followed her inside. Their muscle-bound escort did not accompany them, waiting instead in the corridor like a grim sentinel.

  Hawke looked around. The chamber was barely furnished, save a low truckle bed occupying one corner. A single bay window projected from the room, glazed with diamond-shaped panels, through which beams of watery light came to cut the gloomy interior down the middle. He walked to it across chattering and uneven boards, propping a knee on the low sill to peer down at the Thames. At the water’s edge, a pair of boatmen had moored their vessels side by side. They were dabbing at the dark surface between them, an oar each, and Hawke saw that they were working together to corral a package that spun and bobbed, buffeted by the unseen current. It was small and pale, a bundle of rags, and, though Hawke was too far away to make out any great detail, he recognised the shape well enough. “Is that a child?”

  “Was once,” Madam Yvette said, joining him at the smudged panes. She shrugged. “Stillborn. Newborn, mayhap. Unwanted, that’s the thing. Plenty wash up along this stretch.” She fluttered the delicate fan below her eye-line. “Not as if they’ve travelled far.”

  “From the..?”

  “Whores?” she cut in with a note of confrontation. “Aye. Most.” Then she gave a rueful laugh. “But a good few from betwixt wealthy thighs, too. They all look alike when they’re floating ‘pon Mammy Thames.”

  Footsteps outside. Murmured voices. They looked to the doorway to see the tall, hirsute guard returning from his errand, announcing himself with a cursory knock before entering. The man at his side, limping severely, was new to Hawke, and he presumed this must be Paul, a wiry fellow with brown hair, rotten teeth and boils blighting cheeks and chin.

  Madam Yvette said, “Paul Garis and Serle Lamere. Good men, both.” She shot the taller of the pair a sidewards glance. “They keep us safe.”

  So the bearded man from the porch, Lamere, had been French after all. Hawke nodded to each in turn. “Speak English?”

  Lamere’s expression did not change, but Garis gave a non-committal jerk of his narrow shoulders. “Little.”

  You know enough, Hawke thought. He eyed them both warily, for these were precisely the kind of men he was looking for. Could one of them be Betsy’s killer? Or both? He held their twin gazes, trying in vain to distill thought from stance and expression, but both were implacable. “Why London?” he said after a half-dozen tense breaths, suddenly wondering if allowing himself to be cornered like this had been entirely advisable.

  “On ships first,” Paul Garis said, picking at an oozing boil that was erupting from amongst a patch of wispy hair below his bottom lip. “We came together, Serle and I. Unloading cargo at the wharves. But,” he hesitated, looking a little embarrassed, “this work easier.”

  “This work?” Hawke said. “You mea
n brothels?”

  Garis nodded. “And pay better. I have a wife now. English. London is my home.”

  Hawke looked at each man in turn. “Did you ever serve, during the war?”

  “Oui,” Garis said, evidently answering for Lamere as well as himself.

  “Where?”

  The Frenchman frowned. “Who would wish to know this?”

  “Me,” Hawke said bluntly, irritated by the sudden clamming up. He supposed the question might be a little unexpected, but it hardly posed any hostile intent.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Garis said, “Portugal and Spain.” He glanced up at Lamere’s bearded face. “Us both.”

  “Regiment?”

  “Fifty-fourth.”

  “Can you prove this?”

  Garis grunted. “Not something I flaunt in England, Monsieur. I would hardly wear my old uniform on the Strand.”

  Perhaps you wear it only to commit murder, Hawke mused, though he kept his own council.

  The Frenchman went on, “I am abused by our customers every time I open my mouth, as it is.” He grimaced. “Spat upon. Cursed to hell.”

  “Did the Fifty-Fourth serve in Italy?” Hawke asked, trying a different tack.

  Garis said that it had not. “Serle and I were wounded at Vittoria.” He patted his upper left thigh, which presumably explained the limp. “Discharged then. The regiment went on to fight the Prussians and Austrians.” The hint of a shudder. “Then Waterloo. Without we two amongst its ranks, to our shame.”

  Hawke dipped his head, deflated, for it seemed he had strolled up a dead-end. “Thank you for your time, Monsieur Garis. Monsieur Lamere.” He looked beyond them to Madam Yvette. “I apologise for the inconvenience. May I attend the necessaries before I take my leave?”

  Yvette pointed out into the landing. “There is a piss-pot in the next room. Feel free, Mister Smith, so long as your aim is true. I’ve no wish to be mopping the floor before our first clients arrive.”

  Θ

  Hawke pissed as the footsteps of the others faded down the staircase. The room was narrow and rectangular with a single tiny window, in truth little more than a cupboard, but this was a house arranged for profit, and Madam Yvette had somehow managed to squeeze a small mattress on the floor beside the chamber pot. His mind turned as he relieved himself, wondering at the veracity of Garis’ claims. The man seemed genuine, his answers offered quickly and without marked consideration, though the question around their military past had evidently rankled. Then again, if they were lying then he had little way to prove it. In all, he had discovered nothing of use, and he wondered what exactly he would tell Ruthven. Moreover, today was Tuesday. Tomorrow would be the first day of the Ember Week. The realisation chilled him to the marrow.

  He cracked his spine, tucked in his shirt and fastened his breeches, leaning over the acrid-smelling pot to peer out of the window. Below, in a nameless alley, a three-legged dog was attempting to copulate with a piglet, which squealed and ran, dragging the mangy mongrel in its wake. Hawke snorted with laughter.

  The first he knew of the cudgel was when it appeared beneath his chin, tickling the skin, its leather surface smooth and cold. He froze.

  “What do you want with us?” a voice said close to his ear. The English was competent but heavily accented.

  Hawke did not need to see who had spoken. “Serle Lamere, I presume?”

  Lamere’s bulky frame moved into view, his dark hair and beard like a lengthening shadow at the edge of Hawke’s vision. He did not retract the cudgel. “Who sent you?”

  “Boris Milne, as I told the bawd.”

  Lamere leaned in, his fetid breath as foul as the stink of urine. “Liar. I’ll shatter your skull like an egg.”

  “Let me die with dignity then,” Hawke said, fumbling frantically at his crotch. Part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He had survived so much, only to be bludgeoned to death while astride a privy.

  To his surprise, Lamere seemed to consent, hesitating as he waited for his victim to button up. Except that Hawke had already made good on that account. When he ducked and spun, he brought the knife up from his waistband and slashed viciously at the Frenchman’s forearm. Lamere reeled back, hissing a curse in his native tongue as blood blossomed like rose petals through his shirt sleeve. He tripped on the mattress, collapsing backwards onto it as the cudgel splashed in the slop bucket, his tricorne tumbling across the floor. Hawke kicked him in the face and advanced, taking a fistful of the felled man’s collar and holding the blade beneath his chin.

  “Mutilate a child, would you?” he hissed, aware that they had already made more commotion than was sensible. Now was therefore the time to play his hand.

  “Pourquoi?” Lamere, suspended in Hawke’s grip against the wall, grunted through hands latticed across a buffeted nose.

  Hawke knelt on the mattress, leaning in, panting with the exertion. “Benandanti, fennel, sorghum.” He shook the Frenchman hard. “Witchcraft!”

  “Merde!” The fingers, blood leaching between them, slid away. “You are crazed.” There was genuine bafflement in his expression, mixed with the shock of having been bested by so slight a figure. “Who are you?”

  Hawke glanced at the open doorway, relieved to see that no one had come to investigate. He said, “Why attack me?” Another rough shake. “Talk, damn you!”

  “Leave us alone, you dog,” Lamere opined, his tone one of desperation. For all his relative size, he seemed utterly cowed. He stared up through an oily curtain of hair, eyes pleading. Bloody rivulets traced a path from both nostrils to gather on the bristles of his upper lip. “That is all we want.”

  “We?” Hawke echoed, finding it strange that Garis, likely formidable in his own right, would let Lamere fight for him. Then the image of Madam Yvette ghosted across his mind’s eye. The way she had looked at Lamere. “You and the bawd,” he murmured as the answer dawned. He sat back a little, though he made sure the blade did not flinch. “Speak plain, if you please, or there’ll be more blood in that bucket than piss.”

  “You are not Gendarmerie?”

  Hawke frowned. “Do I sound like a frog?”

  “That does not matter,” Lamere said in a constricted voice, his lips a tight line so that his chin would not make contact with the blade. He blew away a bead of blood that tumbled across his lips. “They have agents everywhere.” Evidently he saw no guile in the Englishman’s face, for, after a long sigh, he simply said, “I ran.”

  Hawke remembered the man’s wound. “From the army?” His answer was emblazoned upon Lamere’s pleading eyes. “You’re a deserter.”

  Lamere made to nod, but thought better of it as the steel nicked him. “Oui. I took you for one of their hounds sent to hunt me down.”

  “But Bonaparte’s armies have dissolved.”

  Lamere’s head quivered in a suppressed shake of the head. “They give allegiance now to the restored monarchy. The old regiments persist. Old deserters are pursued with vigour. I feared you were here to take me away from her.”

  “Yvette. She’s your woman?”

  “Oui.”

  Hawke took away the knife and released Lamere from his grip. “What I said was the truth.” He stood up. “I hunt a child-murderer, not a deserter.”

  Lamere’s face sagged as the tension drained. “You will not betray me?”

  If only you knew how similar we are, Hawke thought, but he simply shook his head.

  “I came,” Lamere explained, straightening out his twisted collar, “as Paul told you, ‘pon a ship. He had been discharged, wounded, while I had deserted my post. We decided to stay in London. It is a good city in which to hide.” He clambered slowly to his feet, gingerly probing the wound at his forearm with reddened fingertips. “Worked as wharfmen on the Legal Quays, but my friend’s injury was too bad. He needed softer employment.”

  “So he came to Southwark. Why did you follow?”

  “The stevedores do not like we French. Common crapauds, they call us. T
hey say we steal their jobs.” He gave a wry little chuckle. “And their women.”

  Hawke understood. “You found the south bank more appealing.”

  “Bankside is a honey pot,” Lamere replied. “It attracts every creature, for one reason or another. There are rich here and poor. French, Spanish, Bavarian. Orientals, Musselmen and Africans. Here we are accepted.” He bent to fetch up his hat. When he placed it upon his head, he said, “And now Paul and I, we each of us is settled. He has his family.”

  “And you Madam Yvette.”

  “Oui.”

  Hawke kept hold of his blade, just in case, and glanced at the big man’s slashed forearm. “I would apologise for that, but you’d have dashed out my brains given half the chance.”

  “For Yvette,” Lamere agreed, “I would murder.” He shrugged. “That does not make me a killer of children.”

  “No, it does not,” Hawke said. As he spoke, an image of keen eyes above a fan’s edge came to him. He said, “She is Irish.”

  “What of it?” Lamere said, nonplussed. “It is a big city of many different nations.”

  “Would she have England ousted from her homeland?”

  Lamere gave a deep laugh as though amused by Hawke’s stupidity. “She is a good Papist.”

  “Does she wear the harp?”

  “Wear?” Lamere repeated, bemused by the question.

  “The Celtic harp that is the symbol of her country,” Hawke said, scrutinising the Frenchman’s expression for a flicker of guile. “Might she display its image as a point of pride? Upon a piece of jewelry, perhaps?”

  For answer, Lamere looked utterly baffled. Then his mouth pressed firm in sudden disgust. “You work for the government, yes? Some kind of spy? She is no revolutionary, you English bastard. We want only to be left in peace.”

  Hawke stared hard at the brothel guard, but read nothing more than loathing in the man’s bearded face. He stepped back, checking again the landing that led to his escape. It was empty, and he knew he should be relieved, but he felt a profound sense of deflation all the same. For a moment, when the cudgel had slid beneath his chin, he had found the murderer of Betsy Milne. At least that was what, in that split second, he had believed. He rubbed his face with a hand, suddenly tired. As he did so, he was struck. Not by a weapon, but by a thought. He looked up. “You said common crapauds.”