Murder

by Sarah Pinborough

  ‘But what can we do?’ Juliana, hot and flustered and weighed down by the child who was so very nearly grown inside her, fanned herself. ‘It can’t go on. Is there any way you can call on some of your police colleagues to get us into the house?’

  ‘It’s not impossible – there are plenty of the Force who owe debts of gratitude to him. But to break into a respectable man’s house with no real cause …’ He paused, and then said, ‘It could do more harm than good. He will not welcome the intrusion.’

  ‘I do not care about upsetting him, Mr Moore,’ Juliana said. ‘I care only about his welfare.’

  ‘You make a good point.’ Moore smiled at her. ‘Leave it with me. I shall go make some enquiries and let you know this evening. We won’t be able to do anything until tomorrow at the earliest, though.’

  ‘Tomorrow is plenty soon enough,’ Edward said, relieved. He shook Moore’s hand. ‘And we owe you for this. I know you’re a busy man.’

  ‘No, you owe me nothing. My problem is that I’m often too busy or distracted by work,’ he said. ‘I’ve neglected my old friend and I feel bad about that.’ He got to his feet. ‘You’ve come a long way to see Thomas’ – he looked at Juliana – ‘at a time when you should be concentrating on other things. I won’t add to your worries. We’ll get you in that house.’

  After Edward had seen the erstwhile policeman to the door Juliana asked for the hundredth time, ‘But why won’t he let us in? We are his friends.’

  ‘You are, my darling.’ Edward poured a cup of tea from the tray and took it to her. ‘Me? Perhaps not. I stole you from him, after all. Maybe he doesn’t want me to see him weak and old.’

  ‘That is not like Thomas. He’s a good man – a kind man. He always has been.’

  ‘Sickness changes people,’ Kane said. Although he didn’t wish to upset Juliana, he was regretting their trip. Andrews was dead, Bond was sick and there was something deeply oppressive about the city that he could not quite shake. He wasn’t sleeping well, and as he lay awake with his hand on Juliana’s stomach, taking comfort from the kicking child, he thought if anything were to happen to her or the baby he would never forgive himself.

  He had no idea where this dread had come from. Juliana had been in perfect health throughout her pregnancy, unlike when she had carried James, and the travel had caused her no sickness at all. They were staying in one of London’s finest hotels and wanted for nothing. There was no danger – and yet still his skin prickled with it. Whatever love he had had for London was gone. He ached for the grime of New York.

  ‘Perhaps we should try calling on him again?’ Juliana asked.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see what Moore says. I suggest we take a day for ourselves.’

  ‘We could visit James’ grave,’ she said softly. ‘And perhaps Walter Andrews’.’ She looked out of the window. ‘While the weather is so pleasant.’

  The air felt clammy to Edward. He had hoped they might walk in the park and then have an early dinner before a quiet night in, but it looked like that was not to be. The graveyards were what she wanted to go. He shuddered, for no reason. Why was he so overwhelmed by the presence of death? Why wouldn’t it leave him?

  ‘If that’s what you want.’ He leaned over and kissed her soft cheek, enjoying the scented warmth of her skin, ‘then that’s what we’ll do.’ He smiled, and she smiled back.

  He wished he truly felt like smiling.

  60

  London. 6th June, 1901

  Dr Bond

  I lay on my back in my stinking sheets, ignoring the pain from the lacerations that covered my skin. I needed the agony to distract me from the terrible hunger. I was weakening, not only in body, but in spirit. I knew that. I had allowed the beast to grow so strong that there was little I could do to fight it.

  I reached sideways to pick up the pipe, and the welts on my back shrieked in pain as the scabs caught and tore away as I moved. The stink of the pus confirmed my suspicions: the cuts were infected. Trembling, I prepared the bowl and sucked deep. I had not managed to get the same clarity as when I had taken this strange drug before, but it did numb the pain and calm me, and I was certain it helped to distance the true me from the raging Upir. Though I might be happy that the cuts were infecting my blood, the creature was far from pleased. I hoped the heat burning through my body was a symptom of a poisoning that might carry me off once and for all. And if no one found me, then the Upir would finally die. It could sense that too, and it was taking all my resolve to keep myself pressed to my bed and not throw myself around the room in its anger.

  When I had first seen it after returning home with the opium, I had been less affected than I had expected. In fact, it was rather a relief: I was not mad; I had not invented any of this. I was a victim as much as Harrington, or Hebbert or all the poor dead women we had left in our wake. The hideous, malignant creature on my back was testament to that. It had grown since I had first seen it on Harrington; the red eyes were more sentient, and filled with terrible wickedness. When I turned sideways I could see the bulbous growths on its misshapen body and the shades of blue that spread out from my own skin where we were connected.

  I went back to the East End and paid a woman who specialised in extreme pleasures to score my back with a knife in the hope that I could dislodge the Upir slightly, maybe even make it more likely to jump to someone else. But still it clung on, even though it writhed and hissed behind me as I screamed into the rag stuffed in my mouth. My own blood incensed it, and if it hadn’t been for the terrible pain of the knife slicing through my skin I was not sure I wouldn’t have turned and strangled the woman there and then before tearing into her body and devouring her soft organs.

  I staggered home and once through the door collapsed to the floor where I lay, semi-conscious and bleeding for several hours. When I came to, cold, aching and with a pounding headache, there was another envelope waiting for me. Juliana had called again. I stared at it and then clutched my head in my hands. I railed against her persistence, and against the love she had for me – if not the kind of love I had craved – that was bringing her closer to her undoing.

  I had given in to the Upir for too long and I knew I had left it too late to change. My current resolve would crumble, I knew that – and then what? I could see it all so clearly: I would open the door and tell Kane I had no wish to see him, but I would let Juliana in. She would be shocked by my appearance and rush to my aid, telling her husband in no uncertain terms to go back to their hotel and wait for her, which he would do because he loved her and respected me. Then the door would close and I would take her to the kitchen to make tea and there I would kill her. I would kill her and mutilate her and eat those parts of her I had once wished to touch so tenderly, and then I would run until the Upir had no more use for me. I knew all this would come to pass should I let her visit because although it disgusted me to my very core, I could not stop my mouth from salivating at the thought of wringing the life out of her and cutting through her tender flesh.

  I clenched one fist, shoved it into my mouth and started moaning and rocking backwards and forwards on my haunches like a lunatic in an asylum. I could not let it happen. I could not. I stared at the door for a long time and finally I pulled myself to my feet and breathed deeply. I knew what I had to do.

  As I locked the door from the inside, I filled my head with random thoughts of Juliana, allowing the Upir to become excited and distracted at the thought of his ultimate prey. I then went to the kitchen and did the same. I took the keys upstairs with me. I imagined Juliana’s eyes wide in terror as I squeezed her throat and the creature behind me squirmed with delight and unfulfilled hunger. I had fed it so well I had made it greedy, and now we both starved.

  I opened my bedroom window and suddenly launched the keys out into the summer air, smiling as the silver glittered in the sunlight and tumbled to the pavement so far below. The creature shrieked in anger, but it was too late. The doors were locked and I could not get out
– and more importantly, I could not let anyone in, no matter how hard they knocked or begged.

  I lay on my bed and smoked more opium, allowing a quiet sense of satisfaction to overwhelm me. My back was bleeding, but I did not care; it would weaken me and that was a good thing.

  And weaken me it did. Within three days of entombing myself what little food was left in the house was gone. When I found the energy I would drink a little water, but mostly I lay on my bed with the curtains closed, smoking the strange opium and growing weaker. The weakness was a good thing. There were moments when the urge to run down the stairs and beat against the door almost overwhelmed me. I thought of smashing my front room windows and climbing out, but even with the Upir’s hunger raging at me, my body lacked the strength. I drifted in my strange fever and opium haze, through memories, good and horrific, from my childhood until now.

  A life was very short when it folded in on itself at the end. It all came down to a whisper at midnight, the echo of a laugh. The years just rushed by in a whirlwind. I remembered the boredom of childhood in long hot summers, and then in a snap they were gone and I was on the battlefields, saving lives rather than taking them. It all passed in one breath. I did not dwell on how different things might have been if Harrington had never returned to England. Where was the point in that? What had been, had been. I thought of little James, though, and how badly I had misunderstood him, from birth until my murder of him. As my fever grew, I saw him in my bedroom doorway, standing perfectly still and staring at me and the beast that writhed on my back, but I was no longer afraid; instead I drew strength from him. He was there to stop me leaving, to remind me that if only I could save Juliana then perhaps I could redeem some part of myself.

  All I needed to do was lie here until I died. It was a simple task when put like that, and I intended to go through with it.

  *

  I was in a mildly delirious haze, which was why it took a moment for the noise downstairs to wake me. Not noise – noises. I sat up and pain shot through my torso. I was slick with sweat and shivering. What was that? I got out of bed, my legs unsteady and went to the hallway. Someone was ramming at the front door – even from upstairs the sound was loud and clear – a heavy thud against the wood that rattled the solid frame. That was not someone knocking. This was more. Someone was trying to break the door down. My heart raced and the Upir squirmed excitedly on my back, giving my weak body a surge of energy. I ran back to my bedroom window and opened it wide so I could peer out. There were two constables on the street, and there, standing a little way back, was Juliana. She was pacing a little up and down the pavement, her beautiful face tight with worry. Her deep red hair shone in the sunlight. My eyes rested on her and I realised she was heavily pregnant.

  The creature hissed in anticipation behind me and I was filled with both its mouth-watering excitement and my own overwhelming dread. The house shook with every hit of the battering ram and I moaned in fear, not for myself but for the woman who waited outside. I was about to run back to the hallway and down the stairs to scream at them to leave me alone, to go away, when I heard the sharp retort of heavy wood cracking. They were getting in. Henry Moore must have arranged it at Juliana’s insistence. She would be the first to rush in, I knew that. Even if I did not harm her now, at this moment, as soon as I had recovered enough I knew I would.

  I paused in my bedroom and stood in front of the mirror. The creature was squirming on my back, its tongue running round my neck and up and down my face as it hissed wetly, red eyes shining out from the black mess that was its body. It was Death. It was Madness. It was everything I had become. I looked at myself, a stinking wreck of a man with hollowed-out cheeks in my skeletal face. I was a man teetering on the precipice of a grave.

  ‘Dr Bond?’

  ‘Oh! What is that stink?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Dr Bond—?’

  The voices drifted up from downstairs as I faced myself. Feet started to pound on the stairs.

  ‘Thomas?’

  Juliana—! They would have told her to wait outside, but Juliana was strong-willed. For a moment, time froze. The air was still around me and I was completely calm. There was only one thing left for me to do. Suddenly I moved. I reached around and clawed at the Upir, grasping its slimy, river-soaked body, catching it by surprise. As I did so, I staggered and spun backwards in circles, moving away from the door. It shrieked at me, but I was focused on the sounds from downstairs, getting closer. They would get to my bedroom at any second.

  If I was going to do it, I had to do it now.

  Wheeling and lurching as I fought with the devil on my back, I threw myself out of my open bedroom window.

  The sunlight was beautiful. I did not close my eyes as the ground rushed up to meet me.

  *

  ‘Thomas! Oh God, Thomas—!’

  Faces bent over me: Juliana. Moore. Kane. I fought for breath despite the agony. The world was a haze. I tried to speak, to tell them to stay away, but though my mouth moved, no words came out, just a terrible wet rattle from my ruined lungs.

  ‘Let’s get him to the hospital. Juliana, step back – someone take my wife!’ It was Kane, strong and handsome, looming over me. ‘It’s okay, Thomas. It’s going to be all right.’

  I wanted to smile. I was the doctor – I had been a doctor a long time ago – and I knew this was not going to be all right. Black clouds were forming at the edge of my vision that had nothing to do with the sunny day the rest of them occupied. I could hear Juliana sobbing, but I could no longer see her. She was safe, though. I had saved her.

  My body screamed in agony as the men lifted me from the ground and began to carry me across the road to the building I knew so well. The sky juddered overhead. My broken bones scraped against each other and the pain was terrible and distant and very nearly over. Death was coming for me, but I was happy. I had not killed Juliana. She was safe.

  Suddenly I gasped and my hand shot out and grabbed Kane’s arm, pulling him towards me with a strength I did not know I had left.

  ‘What? What it is?’ Kane leaned forward, his face full of concern.

  It was not my strength, I realised as the dark clouds grew larger. I wanted to scream, to sob and cry. Kane’s eyes filled what was left of my vision and in them I saw it reflected, strong and eager and rushing forward with such speed. Kane’s eyes widened, surprised and confused, as I felt the terrible weight leave me.

  I had been so stupid. I had been blinded by my own love. It had not been Juliana the Upir had wanted after all. It had been Edward Kane. And I had delivered him. My damnation was complete.

  61

  The Times of London

  June 7, 1901

  OBITUARY

  MR. THOMAS BOND

  Mr. Thomas Bond, F.R.C.S., surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, who destroyed himself yesterday morning in a fit of insanity by jumping out of a third-floor window at his house, 7, The Sanctuary, Westminster, was educated at King’s College and King’s College Hospital, and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1864. In 1865 he graduated as Bachelor of Medicine at the University of London, in 1866 as Bachelor of Surgery and gold medallist, and in the same year he became a Fellow by examination of the Royal College of Surgeons. After a short period of service with the Prussian Army he returned home, and was appointed assistant surgeon, and in due time surgeon to the Westminster Hospital and to the A division of police. By reason of the last-mentioned appointment his attention was early directed to medicolegal questions, in which he soon became an acknowledged expert; and he has been concerned in the inquiries which have been made into almost all the important murder cases for many years past. His experience was also frequently appealed to in cases of real or alleged injuries received by railway passengers, and he was permanently retained as surgeon or consulting surgeon by both the Great Eastern and the Great Western Railway Companies. He contributed the article on “Railway Injuries” to Heath’s Dictionary of Surgery, and was an occa
sional contributor to the medical journals. Mr. Bond’s health is understood to have been failing for some time past, and during the last few months he is said to have been the subject of melancholia, a form of insanity with depression in which attempts at suicide are not infrequent.

  The Morning Star

  July 13, 1901

  TRAGIC DEATH OF A DOCTOR

  A FAMOUS LONDON SURGEON COMMITS

  SUICIDE AT WESTMINSTER

  Dr. Bond, the famous medical coadjutor of the British Criminal Investigation Department, the man whose name has been professionally associated with practically every sensational London murder mystery for the past quarter of a century, has himself become the central figure of a tragedy. He committed suicide on June 6 by throwing himself from the third-floor window of his residence, 7, the Sanctuary, Westminster. He was carried across the road to Westminster Hospital, on whose staff he had been for twenty-six years when he retired in 1899. He had been suffering from melancholy and was confined to his bed.

  It was in the De Tourville case in 1875 that Dr. Thomas Bond’s name first came prominently before the public as that of a medico-legist. De Tourville was a waiter in a French restaurant who was taken into service by a travelling Englishman, with whom he visited a number of places. The Englishman mysteriously disappeared, and De Tourville came to London, entered the Temple, was called to the Bar, cut a great dash at Scarborough as a French count, married a young woman of fortune, and killed her mother. But no suspicion was aroused at first. The body was buried after a brief inquest, and it was not until both the first and second wives of De Tourville died strange deaths, leaving their large fortunes in his hands, that the body of the first wife’s mother was exhumed. De Tourville had declared she had accidentally shot herself while looking down the barrel of a pistol. Dr. Bond’s examination of the skull proved that she had been murdered from behind.