A Necessary Murder

by M. J. Tjia

  “Pardon me,” says a voice, as she bundles into someone walking in the opposite direction. The rough texture of his wool coat rubs against her ear, just as her eye catches the blue and green tartan tie at his neck.

  Amah takes a sharp breath as she pulls away, and her fingers curl around an iron fence paling. That voice, it’s still as deep as a bronze gong. And that scent that rises from his body, the sweet pungency of nilam oil. She stares into his face, at the pores on his cheeks that resemble the oily skin of an orange.

  McBride.

  He takes a step back, bows, lifts his top hat from his head. “Please forgive me. I was searching my way and didn’t see you in my path.”

  He doesn’t recognise her. Of course he wouldn’t. She’s so much older now, and the veil covers her face, thank heavens.

  “That is no problem, sir,” she murmurs, as she veers around him to move on down the street. Her legs tremble and the skin on her neck feels clammy.

  She glances back once she reaches the main thoroughfare. He’s staring up at Heloise’s house. Pushing the gate open, he strides up her front steps.

  Seeing that horrible, orange man takes Amah back.

  She presses her eyes shut in the back of the hansom cab. Ignoring the sound of carriage wheels crunching across gravel, and the call of a costermonger by the side of the road, she thinks of Makassar. The pallid men who rode through town towards the port, and the Arabs and Chinese men who hawked silks, birdcages and bamboo chopsticks. She recalls the smoky fragrance of teak and cloves, and the sweetness of rambutan, how sometimes ants hid in its spiky skin, and bit into her tongue as she slurped on the fruit’s flesh.

  But London’s wretched cold seeps back into her mind. Months and months go by and it feels like her bones cannot thaw. Her right hand is puckered with arthritis, and her skin is papery. Not like that last night she spent in Makassar, when her skin was plump and had the lustre of an olive.

  She still had droplets of Tiri’s blood on her arms when her mother’s youngest brother, Chee, fetched her. The blood had dried into her skin, staining it. She wanted the spots to stay there forever, a memory of revenge, a mark of her anger, etched into her like the tattoos the dark sailors had scored into their flesh.

  With the servant’s help, Chee made Amah pack a few pieces of clothing. He said he had to take her far away, before the governor found out what she’d done and hanged her from the persimmon tree by the marketplace. She took no notice of what the silly servant packed, but she made sure her mother’s bangles and earrings were tied into a piece of silk. Chee hurried her along, so all she had time to grab from her mother’s dressing table was her comb, made of carved sandalwood. Even now, if Amah closes her eyes and breathes in, she can smell its spiced fragrance. But the comb is gone. Lost on that first voyage to this chill land.

  It was almost dawn by the time they left Tiri’s house. The light of the moon glimmered across the slate sky, lighting the clouds. Uncle Chee held her tightly by the wrist as they scampered towards the waterfront, her bare feet wobbling across the rocks in the road. Finally, they arrived at the Dukano, a dark mass that rose out of the sea, blocking Amah’s view of the sky.

  “Come,” he said, ushering her forward on the gangway. “You will be a maid for my master’s wife, Mrs Preston.”

  A white woman’s maid? Never. She did not know this Mrs Preston. She barely knew her Uncle Chee. He had only been in port for a matter of days to take care of her mother’s things. “But…”

  Again, Uncle Chee gripped Amah’s wrist. “Li Leen, you come with me, or you stay behind. It is this or death.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I place the bunch of Michaelmas daisies my friend Charles Cunningham has given me in the porcelain vase on the window ledge. They’re a simple flower—really, lilies or roses would have been better—but I do love their warm lilac hue. As I plump them in the vase, I catch sight of Amah walking along the footpath in front of our house. She’s covered head to foot in dark colours—there’s only a peep of her white linen blouse at the neckline of her overcoat—but I know it’s her from that tight, determined gait of hers. Where the hell is she off to?

  I pick up my champagne glass again, and survey the guests gathered in my drawing room. The fashion is, of course, to entertain pretty poets and elegant men of words—I do myself, at times—but I prefer the company of these men of science, and their more intrepid compatriots who discover and conquer new worlds. I love the earnestness with which they bow their heads towards each other, discuss whatever new theorem they have formulated or reptile they have discovered. They have colour in their cheeks, their arms are sturdy and, sometimes, they carry the scent of faraway—bergamot, clove tobacco, aged leather.

  Tonight there are seven men and two women in my drawing room. Sir Henry Pidgeon—who doesn’t look like a bird at all, more like a spaniel with drooping cheeks and sad, sagging eyes—stands under my portrait above the fireplace with young Charles Cunningham.

  I come up to them, sipping champagne. My third glass; I mustn’t drink so fast. I pretend to frown at Charles. “You are blocking all the warmth, gentlemen.”

  “Pidgeon here was just telling me of his time in the Orient, Heloise,” says Charles, not budging from his position in front of the fireplace. In fact, to speak to me, he faces his broad back to the fire even more squarely. “I’m to go to Hong Kong soon with my uncle. I’m starting out as his clerk, but he says that’s how I will learn most quickly.”

  I can see he is about to embark on an eager litany of his father’s past adventures in the East, which usually I would enjoy hearing of, but I don’t want to concentrate, or nod at the right moments in his monologue. It almost feels like the bubbles of the champagne have risen to the top of my skull, floating, bursting with sweet little pops. So I pat him on the forearm and leave him with Pidgeon.

  Maurice Cosgrove—explorer, some-time professor in medicine at King’s College—holds court at the card table in the corner of the room. Although middle-aged now, he’s as trim and handsome as ever he was; more so perhaps. His skin is still tanned from his time in India, and there’s always something appealing about a man who has a fan of laugh lines at the corner of his eyes and the pepper of silver at his temple. Mostly, I like the stories of his scars: the nick above his left brow from when he clipped his head falling from a steamboat on the Ganges; the welts across his wrist from a stinging sea-monster; the red line on his palm that’s repeated on the back of his hand, from where a Chinese pirate ran his sword straight through his hand. I take a cigarette from the lacquer box on the table, and Cosgrove lights it for me. He smiles at me with that lazy smile of his and turns back to the others.

  Three budding scientists are seated around him. I know Milly Simpson; she nurses at a dispensary in Bloomsbury, but really she wants to be a doctor. When I first met her I thought she was Cosgrove’s lover, but I don’t think she is, somehow. I think he admires her tenacity, enjoys her devotion to him and her work. The other two youngsters I’ve never met before. Cosgrove jabs his finger on the table, explains something to the chubby young man to his right. The third one ignores the conversation. He’s as tall and well-built as Cosgrove himself, and his eyes are trained on me, over the top of Milly’s head. He licks his fat, lower lip as he stares, as if I’m a platter of glossy steamed lobster. I want to stick out my tongue and pretend to heave, but I smile instead. I don’t know who he is yet. He might be important. Rich.

  I try to slide onto the sofa next to Isobel, Pidgeon’s daughter, but the space is too small for my wide skirts and she laughs as she shifts over to make room for me. We’re quite similar, really. Her father has dragged her around the world and society for so many years, she is at home in any situation.

  “Who is that oily creature?” she whispers to me, lifting her fan. Her eyes dart to the card table and back.

  “I don’t know,” I say, blowing my cigarette smoke away from her. “But he’s a toady-looking thing, isn’t he?”

  I look across at Ha
tterleigh, who is on the opposite sofa, talking with Hunt. There’s a pleasant hum in my ear from the champagne.

  My butler, Bundle, ushers a tall man into the room. I’ve never seen him before. His hair has that gingery colour of a red fox fur, and his skin is ruddy, bodes of time spent in foreign climes. He strides straight over to Pidgeon, takes his hand, shakes it vigorously. There’s surprise in Pidgeon’s face, and he smiles, grips the handshake with his other hand—but is there something else? A slight shadow across his cheeks, a furrow between his brows?

  “Heloise, listen to this,” says Hatterleigh. “Hunt was just telling us of a dinosaur feather that’s been unearthed. A feather. From some beast that is a cross between a bird and a dinosaur. I don’t believe it can be true.”

  Bundle pours more champagne into my glass, so fresh its bubbles tickle my nose as I lift the glass to my mouth. This will be my fourth glass.

  Through the hum in my ears, I can hear Hunt talking about his next dig in somewhere called Bernissart, but I’ve lost the thread of the conversation. As he speaks, the gold tip of his front, right tooth glints in the candlelight and I watch as his grey whiskers lift and separate, like the legs of a prone hairy caterpillar. I wonder what it must be like to kiss him, but only for a moment. He’s a bit old, even for me. I glance across the room, catch Cosgrove’s eye. He cocks an eyebrow, smiles. I smile back, only briefly though, return my attention to Hatterleigh and Hunt. I take two more sips of my champagne, and am surprised I’m at the bottom of my glass already.

  Four men follow Bundle into the room, chums of Cunningham’s, one of whom I’ve met before, but the others are new to me. I spy the bottle of champagne on the piano. I’ll pour myself a glass on my way to greeting the newcomers. Pushing myself up from the sofa, I squeeze past Isobel’s knees. Lovely Isobel. Her hair is so pretty, so golden. I’ve always wanted hair like that. I thread my way between the sofa and the low table. I’m in that nice, floaty stage, when the wine has relaxed my shoulders, mellowed my thoughts.

  Isobel’s father, Pidgeon, is across the room from us, still by the door, talking with his gingery friend, and as I reach for the bottle I hear his voice rise in surprise. I can’t quite hear what’s been said though, because the chatter in the drawing room has reached a low roar. The gingery fellow looks over towards me, and there’s something in his face—is it recognition, or perhaps realisation? He turns and shakes Pidgeon’s hand vigorously, rushes from the room, bowling Bundle to the side so that his tray of canapes almost slides to the floor.

  Cosgrove takes the bottle from my hand. “What very strange behaviour,” he murmurs, topping up my glass. His fingers brush mine as he hands my glass back.

  There’s something about Cosgrove, something unsettling. Whenever I’m near him I have to remind myself to be still, slow things down. I will my face to be as tranquil as that of the carved Javanese mask on the wall, while my heart judders, my breath shortens, like the time I tried belladonna drops in my eyes. I probably would avoid inviting him if I could, but he’s one of this set. It’d be odd if he wasn’t included. I glance over at Hatterleigh. He’s laughing at something Hunt has said.

  Pidgeon makes his way to the others and collapses onto the settee that is adjacent to the sofa, gestures for Isobel to join him. He takes her hand and says something in a low voice, and she gasps.

  I look up at Cosgrove, pull a face. “I wonder what that’s about?”

  “It seems Pidgeon’s Scottish friend left him with some unhappy tidings.”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve been reading about that in the papers,” Hatterleigh says to Pidgeon, his voice booming above the others. He twists around, gestures to me. “Heloise and I were just discussing it earlier today.”

  I brush past Cosgrove, note the scent of his cologne—cedar bark, and something that reminds me of the woodlands near Paris—and lean on the back of the sofa, place my hand on Hatterleigh’s shoulder. Cosgrove stands a little behind me. “What were we discussing?”

  Pidgeon frowns, shakes his head. “I won’t burden you with it.”

  “But you must,” says Hatterleigh. “Didn’t I tell you she’s been working for that charlatan—Avery? He runs some sort of detective agency, apparently. He has my Heloise stick her nose in here and there.” He looks up at me. There’s pride in his eyes, but, deeper, I can see concern. “She was in quite a bit of a mess the last time he had her look into something.”

  Suddenly, it feels like there’s a slippery eel in my guts. I think of that time in Waterloo again as my tongue finds the chip in my tooth. The gleaming, blonde curls. The chill morgue. The blood. My grip on my glass is tight as I take a long sip of champagne.

  Isobel, too, urges her father to tell me about what’s happened. As I make my way to a seat opposite him, he glances around the room. Cunningham and his coterie have joined the three young ones at the card table. They’ve set up a game of loo and are busily betting and drinking great gulps of my burgundy.

  “What were you discussing?” I ask again.

  “Yes, tell us of what you are talking,” says Hunt. His voice has that querulous note found in those who are hard of hearing. “And speak up.”

  “It’s Lovejoy.” Pidgeon digs a finger in under his tie, loosens it. “His little girl—what’s her name again, Isobel?”

  “Meggie,” she says. A tear hovers on her lower eyelid, looks like a bead of hot wax ready to streak its way down the side of a candle. “Margaret.”

  Pidgeon nods, sadly, swallows hard. “She’s been murdered.”

  My eyes find Hatterleigh’s. “Not the murder we’ve been reading about in The Times?” The child found in the outhouse. Throat cut.

  “Yes, it would seem so.”

  Margaret Lovejoy, then. Only three years old.

  “Not Bob Lovejoy?” Hunt looks aghast.

  Pidgeon’s face is ashen as he nods again. “I’m afraid so. That was McBride just then. He tracked me here to tell me of it.”

  “Don’t tell me that was McBride!” says Hunt. “He did not greet me. Very strange. Travelled with him years ago.”

  We’re silent for a few moments, listen to playing cards whisk across the felt surface of the card table, to Cunningham exhorting Milly to play fair.

  “Cosgrove, you were in Sarawak with him, too, weren’t you?” says Hunt. “That’s right. Young cub, you were, arrived in town just after all the trouble. Helped patch poor Wilkins up, from memory.”

  “Where? What trouble?” Hatterleigh asks.

  Hunt frowns. A cloud of film, as murky as a fish scale, partially covers his left iris, from too much time in the sun. “Sarawak. Must be over twenty-five years ago now.”

  “You weren’t there during that riot, were you?” Hatterleigh looks from Hunt to Pidgeon. “I remember my father reading about it in The Times.” His face is even ruddier than usual. He looks more like a farmer than ever. Hatterleigh is utterly fascinated with the expeditions and adventures of these older men, but not enough to stir himself further than his own library or his club. Which suits me. What would I do if he were to wander off for some godforsaken place every few months like Cunningham does?

  “Yes, that’s when we were there. Blasted Chinamen, tried to force us out,” says Hunt.

  He’s cross, but it’s Pidgeon’s hand I notice, how it trembles slightly against his knee.

  “What is it, Papa?” asks Isobel.

  Pidgeon’s jowls sink low, giving him more than ever the appearance of a hound. “Remember there was that Chinese man outside our house a few days ago? I was sure he’d been trying to break in through the parlour window.” Sir Henry squeezes Isobel’s hand. “He moved off quickly when I called out to him, but not before I saw a damned dagger in his hand.”

  “You think he meant you harm?” I ask.

  Pidgeon opens his mouth to say something, closes it again.

  “Papa thinks the man is threatening us in some way, that it wasn’t just a simple burglary,” explains Isobel. Her eyes widen as she looks at me, like she thin
ks he’s being a little silly.

  Hunt snorts. “Pidgeon, you’ve always been too fanciful. What on earth would a Chinaman want with you?”

  Pidgeon shrugs. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But he gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. And now, this matter of Lovejoy’s daughter…”

  “Her murder? You can’t think they’re connected?”

  Pidgeon leans forward, taps the table for Hunt’s attention. “McBride said Lovejoy had received a threatening note. A note that warned him of a terrible tragedy. What if it was from that Chinaman? Surely it’s too much of a coincidence that I’m menaced by that blackguard in the same week as Lovejoy receives a threatening letter and his daughter is murdered?”

  Hunt lets out a long breath, leans back against the sofa. Looking over his shoulder to where Cosgrove still stands, he says, “And you, Cosgrove, have you had any threatening letters?”

  Cosgrove lights a cigar, a plume of smoke rising about his head. “Hunt, I’m a man of science. I’m always receiving ugly correspondence from the more godly people of this town. One glance and I throw the missive in the fire.”

  “Nothing in particular lately?”

  “No, sir, not that I’ve noticed.”

  The others turn back, resume talking, but Cosgrove’s gaze holds mine. For once, his eyes are not smiling. He looks troubled.

  CHAPTER 4

  It’s dark by the time Amah Li Leen makes her way along Limehouse Causeway. With each step, she edges further away from the muddy stench of the water. On almost every corner, fish shops reek of rancid, burnt oil, the smoke adding to the smog from the chimney stacks, coating the already dark brick buildings in soot. Alleys she hopes she never need enter are heaped with kitchen waste, and as she walks along the cobbly courts, muck squishes under her shoes, but it’s too gloomy to tell what she’s treading upon. She passes many sailors, and dockworkers, mooching home or to one of the noisy taverns along the way. Two Malay men—there’s no mistaking those high cheekbones, the neatly chiselled lips—huddle together by a baked-potato vendor. How surprised they’d be if Amah approached them, lifted her veil and exchanged a few words in their own language. Many foreign men wander these parts, but very few women—women not stuck in a bagnio or in a backroom of a public house at any rate.