His polite but firm interview with his Lordship, Viscount Sidmouth, now seems to have come from an earlier, calmer time. Today, Sidmouth came to him – a sign of the terrible urgency of the morning, but also a sign of Addington’s common sense. Graham needs to be at the heart of whatever investigation is now emerging into the previous night’s deaths. He has no time for perambulatory visits to government ministers.
Tomorrow’s papers will be full of it; there may even be stirrings in whatever printed matter Grub Street and its environs shits out today. And it will not be the number of deaths that the story emphasises; instead, it will be that an Earl has been taken from this earth, accompanied by the sons of a Duke and two Baronets and the brother of a Viscount. Debretts will be thinner come the next volume, while London’s reputation as a pus-filled sewer of terrible violence has been encrusted still further. And all beneath the supposedly watchful eyes of the famous Bow Street magistrates.
Graham has not even been able to visit the murder scenes; were he to walk away from Bow Street, he feels the office might be invaded by a screaming horde of rumourmongers and muckrakers, his fellow magistrates collapsing under the attention. He now knows how the magistrates of Shadwell must have felt as the shockwaves of the Ratcliffe Highway murders rattled against their windows. He’d despised them before. He thinks he understands them rather better now.
You will have whatever you need, Sidmouth had said, and his uninteresting face had been set into a mask of such fearful determination that Graham had felt not comforted but positively afraid. A killer must be found.
More than one killer, almost certainly. But how many? The great mystery at the heart of this horror rises up again: five men killed, in their beds, locked up in their houses. Outside those houses had stood Bow Street officers and patrolmen, not to mention parish constables and watchmen. It is almost satirical in its devilishness.
The morning passes in a blur of coroners and constables. He despatches riders from the horse patrol to all five addresses, charging them with guarding the front of the houses and keeping crowds away. The other Bow Street magistrates make comforting noises but, he notes, keep out of his way. They sense a terrible fall and reckoning. He believes they may be right.
In the secure room over at the Brown Bear waits Rose Dawkins, brought in last night by William Jealous, who has himself been despatched to the scene of the most important crime, at least in the eyes of society, and these are the only eyes that Graham currently cares about. Jealous is at the home of the Earl of Maidstone, and Graham awaits his return to the office. The only other man who could be of any use is, maddeningly, away and cut off from the stream in Surrey.
But then, in that mysterious way he has, Charles Horton appears, shown in by William Jealous, who has himself just returned from the residence of the Earl of Maidstone. Despite everything Graham finds enough of his old self to be both annoyed and bemused by the maddening way Horton has of appearing when he is least expected – with the least-expected news.
The stories tumble over themselves in the Bow Street parlour which doubles as a kind of office for the magistrates. Graham is put in mind both of a basket of puppies and a nest of snakes. There is a playful oddness to what he is being told by the two officers. But there is confused danger, also.
He hears from Horton first, his attention firm despite the growing clamour in the vestibule outside his office. If Sidmouth were himself sitting here, he’d be asking calmly but dangerously why strange tales of visions and poisonings from a debauched house in Surrey could possibly be relevant? Horton can say little about this, beyond his belief that there is deliberate foul play involved, and that it is aimed at the Sybarites.
‘But, Horton. A mysterious substance in the well? Visions of witch-burnings?’
‘All I know is this, Mr Graham. Ellen tried to kill Sir Henry on the same night that the other five remaining Sybarites were despatched. Does this not strike you as redolent?’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I know not. Not yet. But then there is this.’
Horton shows Graham the book he had been given by Crowley the butler. Graham opens it and immediately raises an eyebrow.
‘Sir Henry wrote this?’
‘So it would seem, sir.’
Horton watches the magistrate flick through the pages, sees him work out that the entries are dated and turn to the closing pages of the book, which he reads closely. It is a close facsimile of what Horton himself had done. When he looks up, his face has lightened a little of its previous cares. He hands the book to Jealous, open at the back pages, and speaks to Horton.
‘We know of the last two women. Carrington is dead, apparently by her own hand. Dawkins is locked up over at the Brown Bear.’
A look passes between the three men, and Horton knows what meaning it carries. The connection between Sir Henry, the Sybarites and the woman downstairs draws tight. But how does it connect with the previous night’s deaths?
Next, Jealous describes the scene at the Earl of Maidstone’s residence, just off Piccadilly. He confirms the house was locked, from the inside, during the night. The Earl was found in the morning in his bed, his throat slashed and his hands cut off and left by his side. The aspect of ritual is clear. Graham updates Horton on the other deaths, watching him as he does so. Horton’s head is turned slightly, his eyes are pointing into a corner of the room, but they are not seeing whatever rodent or insect may be there. He seems to be staring into a middle distance, an unspecified realm of revelation. Graham waits for a moment.
‘Horton, do you have a suggestion as to how we proceed?’ he says eventually. The constable looks at him.
‘I would like to talk with this Dawkins woman, firstly,’ he says.
‘Of course. You may do so immediately our current conversation is finished.’
‘And there are some questions I would have asked of every servant in every residence where there has been a killing.’
‘Jealous may deal with that. What are the questions?’
‘Have they been visited by a gypsy in recent weeks? Have they experienced any strange visions? Has there ever been a suspicion of bewitchment on their houses?’
It occurs to Graham that in any other public office in Westminster or Middlesex – or in the chambers of aldermen in the City – such a set of questions would be met with angry amusement. But not here. Here, oddness is neither here nor there; it is fitness which matters.
‘And the houses should be searched for bloody clothes, and for the implements of the killings. The beds of all the servants should be checked for bloodstains. Their means for washing themselves should be investigated.’
Jealous is staring at Horton.
‘You suspect the servants?’
Horton looks at him.
‘No one went in. No one went out. Who else can it be?’
After the clamour of the Public Office, the Brown Bear is relatively calm. Horton and Jealous had shoved their way out of the office, forcing a way through a clamour of newsmen, patrolmen, constables and watchmen and Covent Garden street-folk, all merrily getting in the way and taking part in the disarray in the manner of gawkers throughout the ages.
The Brown Bear has for decades been the traditional meeting point of the Bow Street Runners, and the place has kept its reputation as a semi-official adjunct of the office. People may come here to seek a Runner or a patrolman – indeed, those who know of such matters tend to come here before they try the Police Office. The office is the province of magistrates; the Brown Bear the kingdom of their officers.
Such is the tavern’s status that a number of secure rooms have been fashioned within it, to be used by Bow Street officers as temporary cells. This is where Rose Dawkins is being held.
Jealous walks over the road with Horton. The lad is quiet, almost reverential in his tone, but Horton scarcely notices. Since stepping away from the madhouse at Thorpe, and presumably from its surreptitiously intoxicating well-water, his head has been clearing but also c
hurning.
He checks the details of Elizabeth Carrington’s death with Jealous as they walk. The constable seems in no doubt that the woman killed herself. He seems abashed by the scene he’d found in Carrington’s lodging, and it is this which causes Horton to notice him properly. The lad has a tough London exterior and looks like he could handle himself in a brawl, but there is an obvious sympathy and natural intelligence there as well. For the first time Horton sees some of what Graham has already seen in the boy. Jealous’s father has a colossal reputation as a taker of thieves, but Horton knows nothing of his character. Perhaps at least the father’s ability has rubbed off on the son.
Jealous opens Rose Dawkins’s cell and lets Horton in. He hesitates at the door, but then Horton asks him to give him the keys, and to go and speak to the servants of the murdered men. He steps inside.
Rose Dawkins is a short woman, a fact emphasised by the enormity of her red hair. Everything about her is red: her dress, her hair, and her angry face, which is particularly ugly. She stands when Horton comes in, but then sits back in the corner of the cell like a malignant dwarf. The smell of shit and piss rises from an un-emptied chamber pot in the opposite corner.
‘Who the fuck are you, then?’ she says, her troll’s face sneering.
‘My name is Horton. I am investigating these terrible events.’
‘Done away with them, have they?’
‘Done away with who?’
‘Those so-called Sibarits. Wondered when things’d catch up with those scandalous bastards.’
Horton passes her the book, open to the page containing her description. She doesn’t take it from him.
‘This isn’t a fuckin’ school, is it? I don’t read, constable.’
He takes it back, and reads her entry back to her. She grins wider and wider as he reads, the gaps between her teeth showing black in the red ruin of her face.
‘Well, someone fancied themselves as an artist, didn’t they? Proper little portrait, that is.’
‘I believe it was written by one of the Sybarites. A gentleman named Sir Henry Tempest.’
‘Oh, it would be him. He was a rum cove, he was. Arrived all screaming and shouting, but once I got to work on ’im he was as gentle as a lamb.’
‘What is the bizarrerie?’
‘Fuck, you’re a little innocent abroad, aren’t you? The whip. The slap. The scratch. Even a bit of the blade at times. Sir Henry liked me to go to town on him, he did. Not as bad as that other one – Sir John. Oh gods, he was as soft as an old washrag until we started knocking ’im about.’
She cackles, but it’s a practised sound, not a genuine one. She is putting on a show, he realises, and he wonders where the genuine Rose Dawkins might be found, if indeed she is still alive inside this cauldron of inflamed amorality.
‘And the Duet?’
She frowns at that, and looks away, and Horton sees he has unexpectedly broken through the gutter-theatrical mask.
‘Fuck off.’
‘But it was something you performed with Eliz—’
‘Performed!’ She stands and takes a step towards him, so furious that he actually steps away before remembering himself. ‘Like a pair of fucking Barbary apes, a-kissin’ and a-touchin’ and … and …’ She takes in a great sobbing gulp of air, and then goes quiet, standing in the middle of the cell, looking at the floor.
‘Elizabeth Carrington. The woman who took her life. You knew her well.’
‘Yes.’
‘She attended these parties with you.’
‘Fucking says so in there, don’t it?’
‘And Maria Cranfield? What of her?’
‘She’s in there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Read me what it says, then.’
He does so, and still she stands, facing the floor. She does not even look up until she finishes. But she does speak. ‘
Awful, horrible, vicious bastards. The fucking lot of you.’
She turns back to the corner, and sits down. She lifts her head and rests it back against the wall behind her. Her eyes are closed.
‘Maria … well, Maria was not like the rest of us. She wasn’t even a whore.’
‘Then what—’
‘Oh, she said she was a whore. I don’t know where she came from, or anything about her. So don’t ask me, right? She showed up at that party, and she was like a boy sent off to march with Wellesley. She didn’t know one end of a gun from another. If you take my drift.’
‘Then why was she there?’
‘Who am I to say? Go outside now and ask them women on the pavement why they’re there! You’ll get a dozen different answers from a dozen different women. Some of them was gulled into it. Some of them ran out of money, or lost their job, or got thrown out by their father, their brother, their husband. Even their mother, some of the poor cows. I don’t know why she started. But starting with the Sybarites was a mistake.’ ‘
Why?’
‘Because – if you hadn’t cottoned on to this by now – they’re a bunch of vicious, nasty thugs. That book might be full of pretty words, but it doesn’t describe what happened at their little evenings. Not even half of it.’
‘Describe them for me, then.’
‘Drink, food, and whores. In that order of importance. They spent more time choosing the wine and the meat than they did the girls. Even though we were little more than meat to them. But when they saw Maria, they could smell it on her. She was like the choicest cut of veal you could imagine. You could see them sniffin’ round her, like dogs round a ham.’
‘What could they smell?’
‘Her rose.’ She frowns, and for a moment he wonders why, but then remembers her name. ‘She’d never been with a man before. Her first time. Her first fucking time. She must have been older than I am, and she’d managed to keep it under lock and key. When Talty found out, he must have thought every fucking ship in the world had come in.’
‘Who’s Talty?’
‘A panderer. Works out of the Bedford Head on Maiden Lane. Thought you lot had spoken to him.’
‘Perhaps. Not I.’
‘Well, there’s nothing worth more to a panderer than a girl with everything intact. But they’re usually young ’uns – twelve or thirteen. And they usually get sold a dozen or more times as being intact. But Maria – well, there was something exotic about a girl like that still being intact. And it was genuine. You could see the filthy swine knew that. They were clambering over each other to be her first. She was terrified.’
Horton doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how to ask what needs to be asked. But Rose Dawkins is now lost in the memory of that night.
‘They drew lots. There was eight or nine of them, and they couldn’t decide. So they drew lots. An order was agreed upon. Your Sir Henry. He drew the first one. He was her first. And then they took her. One by one, they took her.
‘She screamed at first. But that only ever inflamed them. Lizzie was particularly good at that – pretending to be scared, to be in pain. Brought them off in a minute, that did. But Maria wasn’t pretending. She screamed and cried and struggled, and they held her down, and they took their turn.
‘She went quiet for a while, and then she started laughing. Now, laughing’s not appreciated by the men. They don’t like it at all. It disturbs them. So the last two or three who had her, they didn’t like it one bit. But they went ahead. Knocked her about a bit to try and shut her up. Part of the game, wasn’t it? Couldn’t be seen to be weak or letting the good name of their society down.
‘She had beautiful clear eyes, did Maria. I saw that in her straightaway. I asked her, what you doing here, love? And she turned those beautiful clear green eyes on me and she smiled a bit. It was a lovely smile. Dark hair in ringlets down her neck. Smooth skin. She looked like a lady. A real fucking lady. What was she doing there?
‘I looked in her eyes after, when they threw her out. Her mouth was bleeding, but she was still laughing. That’s why they threw her out, see. She
was laughing fit to burst. And I saw her eyes when they threw her out. They weren’t shining any more. They were as dead as my old man.’
He turns to leave.
‘Constable?’
‘Yes?’
‘What will happen to Lizzie? Will she be buried?’
‘That’s up to the parish authorities.’
‘I can pay.’
‘You have money?’
‘Oh, I’ve got money, constable. It’s Lizzie I ain’t got no more.’
Horton looks at her. She can be no use to her dead friend in here.
‘I will arrange for your release, immediately,’ he says as he goes.
He walks back over the road to the office to arrange for Rose’s release. It is by no means straightforward. The pressing crowd inside the office has not thinned one jot; indeed, a few additional bystanders may have been levered into what little space there is. Horton recalls the crowds outside the River Police Office in Wapping in the aftermath of the Ratcliffe Highway killings; how they had clamoured and shouted, but how they had been kept outside. John Harriott, his magistrate in Wapping, is rather more forthright when it comes to dealing with crowds.
And scribblers, also. A man from the Chronicle recognises Horton from that earlier investigation and shouts his name, drawing the attention of a half-dozen others, like a wolf spotting a lone kid. They immediately surround Horton, barking questions and demanding answers, their dirty clothes reeking of desperation. But he ignores them, and forces his way through to Aaron Graham’s office.
Graham is readying to venture outside, saying he has been called to speak to Viscount Sidmouth and pointing Horton towards the Bow Street register clerk, who is sitting in the same room and keeping his head firmly down while whatever storm is lapping at his shores subsides. Graham leaves, and Horton arranges with the clerk for Rose’s release. He also asks the clerk to check Bow Street’s famed register of thieves, receivers and pimps for the address of one Talty.
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