Murder

by Sarah Pinborough

  At last he slept, and the visions came. The Upir was not in Leavesden, he knew that, for the horror gripped him and he saw. It was in London, and it was hungry. He whimpered again, dribbling onto his thin pillow, lost in the moments unfolding behind his closed eyes, and somewhere deep in the part of him that was conscious and aware, he cursed his grandmother for her gift and he cursed his own mother for ever bringing him into this world.

  She came back because she was greedy and she thought the man a fool. It was there in the shine of her eyes and the smile that stretched across her face. He did not know she had his watch. She’d get some money from him for her services and then she’d have both. She wasn’t old – despite the cheap powder and skin puffy from the drink and cold she was still in her twenties, and her body was firm under her tired clothes. She walked with more purpose, swinging her hips, looking at the old man as if he were prey. The closer she drew, the more the scent of blood travelled with her: the last dregs of her monthly loss had escaped her, not so much that a customer would notice, but enough to carry in the stagnant air like honey.

  ‘Not in the streets,’ he said. He was not aware that he was speaking; his mind was still in an opium fog, but watching from his place both there and yet not there, Aaron knew this was not the Upir alone. She had angered the doctor and the Upir was using his rage, feeding it, to achieve its own ends. They were becoming one. ‘Come to my house. I will pay you well.’

  In his bed, Aaron sobbed loudly, his eyes squeezed shut tight. There was no release from the vision, however. This was not like before. This was immediate, not simply sensory or a terrible dread: it was as if the Upir now carried a part of him with it, and that link would never be broken. He had been tainted, and that taint would remain for ever.

  The woman was excited, that was clear by the racing of her heart and the rise in her body temperature. A night in a gentleman’s house? She’d take that happily. She took his arm and held him steady, quite unaware of the unnatural strength that filled him. They found a hansom and he directed the driver to Westminster as she climbed aboard, flashing her legs at him and laughing raucously. She was East End born and bred, and even with his watch tucked into her bodice she felt no fear. Maybe, if he paid properly, she’d drop it on the floor in his bedroom, make it look like it came from his clothes. He was old and drunk and she doubted she’d be working hard for her money tonight – if she was lucky he’d fall asleep and she’d get to spend the night in a big soft bed in a warm room.

  She leaned in towards him and whispered all the things she would do for him. He didn’t speak much, but he stared at her and his eyes were filled with lust. She was right, she thought. This wouldn’t take long.

  Somewhere in his dream, Aaron tried to scream a warning at her. She was not a good woman, this prostitute. Her heart had been hard long before she had ever lifted her skirts for a living. She had abandoned her own newborn babes – two of them – without so much as a backwards glance. She preyed on the weak, stealing where she could, even from her own – but still Aaron cried for her, and for what he knew he was going to see.

  They walked a bit after the hansom had dropped them, but that didn’t surprise her. Gents did not like to be seen with women like her, even though they liked to be touched by them well enough, and she was so glad when they reached his big, warm house, and was so impressed by the height of the ceilings, the richness of the gilt on the hall mirrors, that she didn’t even notice him locking the door securely behind them.

  ‘Would you like some wine?’ he asked. The beast was beating on his back, hungry and filled with anticipation of the moment, and Bond’s mouth watered with it – and in turn so did Kosminski’s. It was black in the doctor’s head, like the depths of every riverbed in Europe, and the Upir’s grip was like fronds of weeds gripping him, holding him down until he had drowned. Aaron willed the doctor to fight it, but the opium held him still; there would be no battle tonight.

  The woman giggled, a crude sound that lacked anything of innocence. She made a mock curtsey before following him into the kitchen. He watched her as she drank, before coming to stand inches from her face. He stared hard into her eyes, as if looking for something in their reflection. He lifted his hands to her face, softly stroking her cheeks. Perhaps it was the intensity of his stare, or the way she found herself backed up against a wall, but Kosminski felt her stiffen and her mood shift. Suddenly she was wary.

  ‘You took my watch,’ he said, softly, his hands caressing her neck. ‘You are wicked.’

  She tensed at that, the discovery of her theft, but still she thought she could control the situation – she had been in worse than this and got herself out. She laughed a little, denying it, and pressed her body against his. There were ways to control men, and she was schooled in all of them.

  ‘But you don’t know what wickedness is,’ he muttered. He slurred his words as his hands tightened around her throat. ‘You have no idea. But it wants you, and I must give it what it wants.’

  ‘What are you—?’ Suddenly the danger was real, and she was no longer in control. The gloved hands around her throat were growing tighter – so much strength for a drunk old man.

  ‘Can you see it yet?’ he hissed. ‘Can you see it?’

  And then she did, and so did Aaron, and they both screamed in terror, she silently as the last wheeze of life left her; Aaron loudly enough to wake the attendants, who shook him from the moment even as he continued sobbing and scrabbling at his throat and shouting of river demons.

  He did not sleep the rest of the night.

  38

  London. February, 1898

  Edward Kane

  It was still dark outside and the winter dawn hours away, but they were both awake. He liked the nights best, when they were free of the constraints of polite company and business and could enjoy each other as he was sure they had been born to do. Harrington, God rest his soul, had never been the man for her – how could he have been? She was too powerful a woman for someone that gentle. She needed a man who was her match, and Edward was that man.

  He loved the feeling of her naked body curled up across his in the aftermath of sex almost as much as he loved the sex itself. She was tall and elegant, but in bed she was like a cat, full of stretches and contented purrs that made his heart both race and tighten. What had his life been like before her? Sometimes he could barely remember. When he had told his friends back home in New York that he had fallen in love with an English widow, they had laughed to his face, so well known was his reputation as a womaniser. He had taken their mocking in good humour, pointing out that it was only because he had had so much experience with the fairer sex that he knew this to be something entirely different – indeed, he intended to marry her and never disappoint her. He had promised that when they met his Juliana, as they would one day soon, they would understand his change of lifestyle.

  Now he looked down at her as she stretched an arm across his chest and played with the hair there that was still damp from their exertions. Her own red curls hung loose and she pushed one out of her face and sighed.

  ‘Are you happy?’ he asked.

  ‘I am.’ He watched her perfect mouth curl into a smile. ‘I feel so much better than I did.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Give me ten minutes and I’ll do it again.’

  ‘Not that.’ She slapped his chest playfully. ‘Although I cannot deny you do have certain skills …’ She looked up at him and winked, her skin glowing. In all her naked glory, she looked about nineteen. Gone was the fraught, uptight woman he had first met, still struggling with her grief and about to resign herself to marriage with a man as old as her father. She was almost a girl again, bright and vibrant and full of life, but with all the good sense and experience of a grown woman.

  Charles Hebbert’s leaving had been difficult for her, but they had the selfishness of love on their side and over the past few weeks they had been so wrapped up in each other that had he still been here, he would have been ignored for the most par
t, however unintentionally. Edward took consolation from the fact that Charles was happy that it was he who would marry his beloved daughter, as he had intimated on several occasions. He was leaving his girl in safe hands, and perhaps he too would find a new love on a different continent.

  ‘I am glad Thomas knows,’ Juliana said now, changing the subject to one less welcome, ‘but I do worry for him. He said barely a word to me but just ushered me out of the house – I had expected something more, I confess. I would not have been surprised if he had been angry with me. I half-expected him to be.’ Her brown eyes darkened with worry. ‘I fear I was unkind to him by not being honest with him sooner. But I was not being honest with myself, either. He has been such a good friend to me, and for such a long time.’

  ‘But no regrets now?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I am sad for him, but I can’t deny I feel like a weight has been lifted from me.’

  Edward took her arms and pulled her up towards him so that her long hair hung around both their faces, as if curtaining them off from the world outside.

  ‘I cannot wait for you to be my wife,’ he said. ‘And I promise you now that I will never do anything to hurt you, or James. I will protect you from everything. And I will love you until the day I die.’

  She smiled again and kissed him, her tongue touching his as their lips met. Even though they had barely finished, he felt a shiver of pleasure run through him again.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘because I feel the same way about you.’ She rolled away and lay on one side, propping her head up on one hand. ‘And that is why I had to break poor Thomas’ heart. Perhaps if I had never met you, if I had never known how much more I could feel, then I might have made him a good wife. But not now. Even if I had kept my word and married him, he would have grown to hate me, and I him – and that I could not bear.’

  ‘You did the right thing. You did the only thing you could do. He had no claim on you and you have nothing to feel guilty about. You cannot control your heart.’ He loved her goodness and her care for others. New York was full of people who claimed to love each other but were only concerned with their own gain. It was a thrilling city and he adored it, but it was selfish and hungry, unable to combine ambition and decency. His father, the coldest and most practically ruthless man he had ever met, was venerated in the city, even after his death. Juliana was a million miles away from that mentality. He wanted to take her home – of course he did – and the business would not allow him to stay away forever, but he had yet to broach the subject of where they would eventually settle. Once they were married, it would be his decision to make, but he could never force Juliana into something that would make her unhappy. He felt no less of a man for that; Juliana was his equal and only a fool would think otherwise.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ she asked.

  Back to Thomas Bond. He wished she would forget the old man now that she had told him she was no longer his. ‘Doctor Bond is a good man,’ he said, and he meant it, for after all, if it hadn’t been for his care and ministrations during her pregnancy and in the aftermath of James’ murder then he had no idea how damaged Juliana might have been. She might even have died. ‘And neither is he stupid. I imagine that he understood why you were delaying better than you did yourself,’ he said firmly. ‘I am sure in his heart he knows that this is better for you. Give him time. He loves you, and he will always be your friend. We will just have to make sure he knows he is always welcome in our home, that’s all.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. For James’ sake as much as anything.’ Her right shoulder had risen slightly to her ear, an endearing habit he had noticed she did without realising when she was thinking hard about something. ‘I have you – and James is starting to love you, I can see that. You bring out the boy in him. But Thomas has been there all his life and James needs him, especially now that Father has left.’

  The mention of James dissipated the rising lust Edward had been feeling. Since he had got back from New York he had realised the boy was not the same. Even at Christmas, when his grandfather had still been here, he had been quiet and unresponsive. He had had moments of good humour, sure, but he had withdrawn into himself a lot more, and his smooth brow was too often furrowed with thought for a boy that young.

  ‘How is James getting on with his lessons?’ he asked. It was a genuine concern, but he wanted to distract her from her preoccupation with Bond. The changing light told him he would need to creep back to the spare bedroom soon if they were to get any sleep – and they must if they were to be able to function at all the next day – and he didn’t wish her ex-suitor to be the last thing they talked about before separating. It was natural she was concerned – she had told him only that morning – but Dr Bond was a grown man. He could cope with this news. They had spent enough time worrying about him.

  The distraction worked. Juliana glowed with pride as she said, ‘Mr Chard Williams is very pleased with his progress. He says he’s very clever. He should be ready to go to school soon.’

  ‘Good,’ Edward said, and leaned in to kiss her again. ‘He must get all that cleverness from his mother.’

  He didn’t raise James’ strange behaviour with her, but instead reached for her warm body and pulled it on top of him. There had been enough worry for today, and soon the night would be over. He wanted to enjoy it as long as it lasted.

  39

  London. February, 1898

  Dr Bond

  It was dark on the water, broken only occasionally by a dapple of moonlight on the inky surface when a break came in the clouds above. This being our second night out, there was no real conversation beyond the occasional mutter and the grunt of the rivermen rowing us out to where the water was deepest. That suited me. There was little I wished to discuss with these men beyond what was necessary, and they in turn appeared to prefer ignorance as long as I paid well.

  ‘Nearly done.’ Beside me, George sniffed as he threw the last package over the side, his nose no doubt running from both the cold and the terrible stench of rot and human filth that still rose from the river, even in these modern times.

  I could not make out the hour on my pocket watch in the dark, but I knew it was gone three in the morning. I huddled in my cheap coat and scarf and enjoyed the splash as the last of her slid into the dark depths, where hopefully the stones wrapped into the package would drag her to the bottom, preventing her from being washed up on the banks.

  ‘Take us back, Jimmy,’ George grunted, and the other man turned the small boat around. London loomed large on either side of us, but even on the busy water thoroughfare I felt as if we were in a world apart. I had drawn George into my madness. Not that he knew what was in the packages – he might suspect, but he had not asked. I had told him I was a surgeon and hoped that was enough. I had sown the seeds and could but hope they had grown into his suspicion that I was one of those fellows who paid for corpses of the dead in order to study them and now was simply disposing of my used materials. I pulled a small purse of coins from my pocket – I had bought several such purses from a shop far from anywhere I usually frequented – and handed it over to him.

  ‘Pleasure doing business with you, sir,’ he said. I could see the whites of his eyes in the dark, and he was studying me. Something had shifted in our relationship over the past few days. I felt there was a new respect there, and more than a little wariness. In our first dealings, with the unfortunate dogs, he had been the confident villain, but though he maintained that attitude with the wheezing, bronchial wherrymen who rode us out, he no longer used it on me. Perhaps he had a native sense of danger; maybe he could feel the unnatural energy that came over me when we were on the water. I could not deny it myself; it was exactly what had forced us all here in the first place.

  I had awakened that morning with a terrible sense of dread, and when I had seen my pocket watch on the table beside my bed, I knew that what I had hoped were merely the echoes of the nightmare haunting me were nothing of the kind. When I forced mysel
f to face whatever awaited me in the cellar I found a terrible mess. The Upir – I – had cut the unfortunate woman to pieces; had torn her soft flesh apart and consumed it. The taste was still in my mouth.

  I drank a lot of wine and brandy that morning, but I could not get drunk. I was filled with such overwhelming remorse at my actions that for a while I could not think clearly at all. It was only after several hours of railing at myself for being so weak that I had allowed such a terrible murder of an innocent to be committed by my hands that the truth began to dawn on me and I calmed slightly. She had not been an innocent, this woman who now lay dead in my cellar: she was a thief, and doubtless worse. Who knew what other wickednesses she had been responsible for in her past? For all I knew she had intended to murder me in my bed and make off with more of my possessions. She had been a criminal, rather than a hardworking member of society.

  I drank more brandy as I muttered to myself, trying to justify my actions: if she had not pressed herself upon me – if she had not stolen my watch – this fate would not have overtaken her. I did not seek her out as Hebbert or Harrington had their victims; no, she had forced this situation upon me. And so I was not yet a murderer, in my own mind at least, not truly. I had no doubt this woman had committed a crime in her past that was worthy of the hangman’s noose.

  By the afternoon I had decided that this was no different in many ways to when I had despatched James Harrington. Society was safer without her. But it had been a sobering lesson. The parasite had forced my hand last night, and now I knew for certain that the dogs were no longer enough to satisfy it; something I had suspected for a while. I could no longer deny the hunger had become as much a part of me as of it, and that had made me let the Upir take over. I might have no choice but to be part of this devil’s pact, but I was going to have to approach things differently from now on. I could see that I would have to kill again, and again, but I would choose my victims. I would select those who were damned souls already, the criminal and depraved.