The Mysterious and Amazing Blue Billings

by Lily Morton

  I look at Blue in question, and he steps close to whisper in my ear. I shudder slightly at the feel of his hot breath and drag myself back to the conversation. “Julian wrote a book about Jack the Ripper, insisting that the five canonical murders were the least of his crimes. He claimed that he moved about the country and there were more murders that the police never connected to him. He was disproved, and he became a bit of a laughingstock.” He shakes his head and represses a smile. “I knew you weren’t listening.”

  I wink at him, and we both turn back to the conversation. Julian sounds increasingly desperate as the man rants on about his book, the shoddy research, and Julian’s shortcomings as an author while the group shifts awkwardly.

  Blue stares intently at the man, and I sigh because I can almost guess what’s coming.

  “Maybe you should read another book,” Blue says sharply.

  The man turns to him. “What?” he says crossly.

  “Maybe you should read the one called ‘Let’s make a twat of ourselves by forcing our opinions on others despite the fact that it’s fucking cold and we all need a drink.’”

  The man’s mouth opens and shuts, and Blue gives him an innocent-looking smile that doesn’t actually manage to cover up the sharpness. “Not read that one? Shame. I think it only had a small print run. Babe, how many copies did it sell?”

  “One,” I say wryly. “Just the one, my love.” I catch his smile warming and widening and shake my head reprovingly at him.

  “You trying to say something to me?” the young man says belligerently.

  Blue tenses, but I shake my head in warning.

  “He’s saying you’re acting like a prat and to shut the hell up,” I say curtly. “He just used a lot more useless words in the middle than I did.”

  The guide seizes the silence that follows that pronunciation. “Well, thank you for your company tonight,” he says brightly. “It’s been an absolute pleasure. Please leave a review on TripAdvisor.”

  The young man walks towards us, and I straighten to my full height which is about a foot taller than him.

  “Walk away,” I say levelly.

  He glares at Blue, and I shake my head and smile coldly at the idiot. “Don’t speak to him either.”

  He obviously thinks better of what he was planning to say, and giving us a disgusted look, he disappears down the street. It’s a relief, to tell the truth. I’m not sure how threatening I could have been if he’d caught a glimpse of my pink cast.

  An elbow in my side recalls me to Blue who is staring at me strangely, his eyes wide. “What?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Why did you do that? You could have ended up in a fight.”

  “Nah.” I hug him, feeling the momentary resistance before he gives in and hugs me back. “He wasn’t going to fight me.” I pause. “Which is probably a good job. I don’t much like fighting, and I’ve only got one workable arm.”

  “Good,” he says slowly. “I don’t like the thought of you being in a fight.” He inhales sharply and hugs me tighter. “Especially not over me and my mouth.”

  I smile down at him. “I can think of no better reason to fight than for you and that mouth.”

  For the first time since I’ve met him, he actually looks flustered. “Oh,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “Well then. Erm.”

  I bite my lip to hide my smile

  He shakes his head crossly. “Don’t think you’re getting away with the bit about useless words either.”

  I laugh out loud and hug him closer. “I know I won’t.”

  “Thank you for the intervention.” The quiet words come from our side, and we turn to find Julian standing there staring at us.

  The rest of the group have gone while we were bantering, so it’s a good job Julian broke it up or we’d have lost him too. The sole reason for us being in London.

  “Not at all,” Blue says smoothly. “He was being a prat. There’s no need to be that rude.”

  Julian clears his throat. “Well, it was welcome anyway. People like that, I’ve found, tend to like the sound of their own voices.”

  Blue smiles at him. “I run a tour of my own, so I know what you mean.”

  The other man’s eyes sharpen. “You run a Ripper tour?” He doesn’t look particularly happy with the idea.

  Blue shakes his head. “Oh no, I run a ghost tour in York.”

  Relief runs over Julian’s face—he’s likely pleased that they’re not competitors—and interest replaces it. “Really? How interesting. So you cover the Devil of York, then?”

  Blue looks quickly at me and I nod, unable to believe that it’s running this way. It’s almost too easy. He turns back to the man. “I do, and that’s sort of why we wanted to talk to you. Would it be possible for us to buy you a drink somewhere?”

  Julian looks at us, trepidation and caution running over his face. Something about us must seem trustworthy though, and not as if we’re black-market organ sellers, because he finally nods. “Follow me. I know the perfect place.”

  The perfect place turns out to be the Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields, a tall building on the corner of the busy Commercial Street.

  “It’s the place where Mary Kelly had her last drink,” Julian breathes before insisting on taking our drink orders as a thank you for rescuing him and disappearing to the bar.

  I look around. “Did she die by hipster?” I mutter.

  Blue snorts and elbows me, but his busy eyes are everywhere. The pub looks like any other old place that’s been done up and infiltrated by men with beards and tight jeans. Apart from a wall of pretty blue and white tiles which must date from the Victorian time, the rest of the place is standard city cosy. There are a few people drinking, but it’s not too busy.

  Julian comes back, sliding the drinks in front of us. “Here’s to you,” he says, an almost happy expression on his face now that he’s not being confronted with fierce book critics. “Now, what did you need to talk about?” He stares at Blue. “Is it about the Devil of York? Because I have to say that I stand by my statement that those crimes were unrelated to the Ripper unless purely by copycatting.”

  “Oh no,” Blue says slowly. “I wouldn’t want to argue with you on that. I’m not much of a one for arguing,” he says almost piously, making me snort into my beer.

  The two men turn to stare at me and I sigh. “We actually need some information from you,” I say, reaching into my pocket for the photo of Connor that Amelia gave us along with the Ripper tour leaflet. “It’s about this man.”

  Julian takes it, looking dubiously down at the photo. “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I don’t know him.” He looks at us. “Is this a missing person thing?”

  Blue shakes his head. “Please look again. We believe he came to see you. After a tour, maybe.”

  Julian stares down at it and then gives a jolt of recognition. “Why, I do know him.” He looks up at us. “He came for a tour a few years ago, if I remember rightly. I don’t think I’d have recognised him again if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re from York too, and we were discussing the Devil of York murders.”

  “We were?” I say slowly. “I don’t think we’ve discussed them yet.”

  “Oh no, not us. Him,” he says cheerfully. “He was discussing it.”

  I sit back, staring at Blue. Is this the connection we’ve been looking for? But what is it about?

  Blue looks thoughtfully back at me and then turns to Julian. “Was he arguing with you over the fact that the Ripper didn’t do the killings in York? I don’t understand.”

  “Oh no. He knew the Ripper didn’t do it.” He looks at us. “He thought he knew the identity of the Devil.”

  The information feels rather like I’d imagine a small bomb detonating under me would feel. For a long second Blue and I just sit gaping at each other and then I turn to Julian who is obliviously drinking his pint.

  “He knew who the Devil was?”

  He nods.

  Blue shakes his head
disbelievingly. “And that’s what he wanted to talk to you about?”

  “Of course,” Julian says. “I’m considered a bit of an authority on the Devil, in the sense that it was my research that proved conclusively that he wasn’t Jack the Ripper. The murders were very different.” He looks puzzled. “Wasn’t this your friend? Didn’t you know this? Can’t you ask him? I must say I was very surprised that he didn’t release a book about it. I watched out for one for quite a while.”

  Blue hesitates. “No, it’s not like that,” he says slowly. “Connor is dead. We don’t know him apart from the fact that Levi now owns his house.”

  Julian puts his pint down. “Dead. That’s so sad. He was so young.” He stares at us. “So why are you here?”

  I give Blue an imploring glance. He sighs loudly and rolls his eyes.

  “Levi’s house is haunted,” he says.

  Julian blinks but doesn’t say anything, and Blue forges ahead. “Connor died there, but before the accident, he came to London to talk to you. We thought it would be something to do with the house, but it looks like he was just a true-crime fanatic after all.”

  I put my hand on Blue’s arm to shut him up. “Wait.” I turn to Julian, a sudden thought occurring to me. “Who did Connor think was the Devil of York?”

  “Why, Alfred Farrington, a local businessman, of course. He lived on a side street near the Minster and Connor seemed to believe he ended up being murdered by his own sister. Imagine that,” Julian says, smiling and staring at us over the top of his glass. “A vicious serial killer being murdered by his own family.”

  Blue

  We let ourselves into the hotel room and Levi pulls off his coat, throwing it cavalierly over a chair before subsiding onto the bed with a dramatic sigh. “What the fuck?” he groans, scrubbing his hand over his eyes.

  The journey back had been made largely in silence as we digested what Julian had told us. Obviously, that quiet period is over now.

  I pull my own coat off and climb onto the bed beside Levi, something in me thrilling when he holds up his good arm for me to cuddle into him. I consider that arm for a second, wondering whether I should refuse. At some point I’m going to have to leave him and return to my old way of dealing with things on my own. But that thought makes my chest feel tight so I slide in next to him, giving a completely silent sigh of happiness when it comes down over my shoulders.

  “I never thought of this,” I say slowly. “To me, he’s always just been this poor bloke whose sister murdered him.”

  His arm stiffens. “Is that why she killed him, do you think? She found out he was the Devil?”

  “Nah,” I scoff instinctively and then pause. “Actually, maybe.” I sit up on my elbows, staring down at his face. Those pretty dark eyes of his are looking at me curiously. “I mean, no one could find any reason for her doing it, either at the time or since. It was a complete mystery why someone as well liked and kind as Rosalind could have done that to her only family.”

  His brow furrows in thought. “Maybe she found out, Blue.”

  I shake my head. “All along I’ve thought that whatever evil was in that house was something a lot older. I actually wondered whether it was something really evil and ancient and it made her kill her brother.”

  He bites his lip. “That occurred to me too.”

  We both look at each other in silence for a second.

  “But if she knew, Levi. If she somehow found out and she put a stop to the murders…”

  “If he even did the murders,” he says. “There’s no bloody connection at all between him and those women. Otherwise, it would have become part of the legend of the Devil. You’d have known all about it. You’d have been talking about it on your tour.”

  I jerk as recognition streams through me. “Fuck,” I hiss. I go to crawl off the bed.

  His arm stays me. “Wait, where are you going? Blue?”

  “To get the book. The one you were reading when you had the accident.”

  “Have we still got it?”

  “It was under you when I found you that night. I put it in my pocket, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be with my stuff in the bag.”

  He lets go of my arm, and I hotfoot it over to the bag, rooting through it and pulling out clothes and toiletries before exclaiming triumphantly. “Here it is.”

  He eyes the title. The lettering gives the impression of dripping blood. “Is that a good thing? It looks a bit over the top.”

  “It is,” I say, riffling through the pages. “But it’s also the book I used to read where I got most of the information for the tour. The Devil section is huge.” I scan the words quickly until I find the relevant paragraph. I read it and then read it again more slowly. “Shit,” I finally say, lifting my head to stare at him.

  “What is it?” He sits in a cross-legged position, his hair ruffled.

  “There is a fucking connection. Jesus,” I exclaim. “I knew it all along. I just didn’t know it was him.”

  “Blue,” he says exasperatedly. “Tell me.”

  I throw myself on the bed next to him. “Do you remember I said on the tour that the last victim of the Devil was seen by her friend walking away from the pub that night?” He nods. “And an hour later the beat bobby was hailed by a man who said he’d seen what looked like a dead body on the street?”

  His gaze sharpens. “No?”

  I nod. “His name was Alfred Farrington.” I shake my head. “I never connected it with the house, because it’s a different surname from Rosalind’s.”

  “Because she was a widow,” he says slowly.

  I nod. “Yet somehow in my head he was called Mr Cooper too. I suppose it was the brother and sister bit. Fuck, I’m stupid.”

  “No, you’re not,” Levi says immediately and predictably. He doesn’t seem to like me saying anything bad about myself. He stands up and begins pacing. “Surely it can’t have been him. Wouldn’t the police have had him down as a suspect?”

  “Who knows if they didn’t, Levi?” I think hard. “A lot of the Ripper police records were lost, so any Ripper connection might have vanished. Some of it was due to bombing in the war and a lot of it because the security wasn’t tight and people just walked off with stuff. Who knows if they did or didn’t suspect him? As for the York police, I’ve never heard his name mentioned in connection with it. I think the problem was that they didn’t have any suspects. It’s why he got the name the Devil, because how else could he slip in and murder women so horrifically and never be caught?” I shrug. “Of course, he was then murdered himself, which would have taken anyone’s eye off him if anyone ever did suspect.”

  “So if he was the Devil, and it’s only an if, how did Rosalind know?”

  I sigh. “We’ll probably never know for sure.”

  “But you think this is it, don’t you?” He looks steadily at me.

  “I actually do. Don’t forget it was the Devil’s victim that warned me you were in trouble. I’d think she’d have to be connected to this whole mess to know anything.” I shake my head at my own idiocy at not spotting that. “I also think that Connor thought it too, but how on earth he knew that, we’ll never know.”

  “Maybe the haunting took a different theme for him, Blue. Maybe more was revealed.”

  I hum thoughtfully. “Maybe Rosalind couldn’t or didn’t protect him as well as you. For some reason she seems to have taken a fancy to you. I knew she didn’t feel evil.”

  “But why me?”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re a truly good person.” Levi looks like he wants to argue but I shake my head. “Maybe it’s because your mum was around you for a while. That’s got to have given you some protection. When I saw her in the kitchen with you the light was blinding.” I shrug. “I think that’s love. I don’t know for sure, but it felt very much like I imagine love would feel.”

  Levi winces and his soft mouth turns down as if his lips are collapsing under the weight of his grief. That sadness is becoming a little faded, but it’ll ne
ver go. It’s a part of him now, like his big feet with the long middle toe and the way he scratches his ear when he’s thinking.

  “You’re tired,” I say softly. “Let’s get some sleep. We can think in the morning. We’ve got time.”

  I climb the steps to the attic and Levi’s studio, but something feels different. In a distant part of my brain I know that I’m dreaming, but I can still feel the sleek wood of the handrail under my fingers. The air is scented with the smells of furniture polish and lily of the valley.

  The décor has changed—that’s what’s different.

  Levi’s house is painted in shades of grey with bold artwork. Now it’s papered in a flowery pattern, the details so defined that I can see the petals on the tiny roses and notice a slight tear in the paper near the top of the stairs. I try to look behind me to see any other changes, but I can’t. Something is stopping me from looking back.

  I know I shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous. But something strong keeps me moving steadily up the stairs to the open door. Behind me, a steady thudding starts to sound. A knocking that seems to come from the depths of the house. A chill runs down my spine but still I walk on, unable to look back.

  I enter the door to Levi’s studio, but it’s not the room I’m expecting. This is Rosalind’s sewing room with the shelves full of baskets from which tumble brightly coloured embroidery silks. A dainty-looking chair is drawn up under the window where Levi’s drafting table sits. A small table is pulled up next to it on which is a white cloth with coloured embroidered flowers rioting around some words I can’t read.

  My attention falls away from it as I spot Rosalind. She’s standing against the far wall of the room just like she was a few days ago. Her dress is the same. I can even see the wisps of hair that have fallen from her bun and curled around her neck just as I did before. And, as then, her attention is on the floor in front of her.

  “Rosalind,” I say.

  She ignores me. She kneels down and fiddles with something. There’s a click and I watch her push an object into the dark aperture that’s opened up at her feet.