A Necessary Murder

by M. J. Tjia

  He shakes his head. “It was hard going, last night. She was too far gone on sherry, I’d say. I’m going to question her right after this.”

  “And my kris? How do you account for its presence here?” I ask.

  He takes to his feet again, and stands looking down upon the dagger where it lies on the side table. “Very puzzling, isn’t it?” He brings out a magnifying glass from an inner pocket, studies the kris. “You’re sure it’s yours?”

  “Yes. It went missing on the night McBride was murdered outside my house.”

  “Which was after Miss Margaret was killed in the outhouse?”

  “Yes.”

  He stares across at me. “And the fellow in the shop said a nightsoil man found it after Lovejoy’s murder?”

  I nod.

  He frowns down at the kris again. “So it may link Lovejoy’s murder to McBride’s. But not necessarily to Miss Margaret’s.”

  I’ve had a little time to think on this, and have come to the same conclusion.

  “I think it might be best if you follow up on Nurse Marie, while I contact the detective on the McBride case, see which one of us will question this…” Hatch glances down at his notes, “this Tomkins. The nightsoil man.” He tears a page from his notebook. “The clerk at Duke’s Registry supplied me with the directions of a special servants’ home where you might find more information on Nurse Marie, although now I’m not convinced it’s necessary. But I won’t know for sure until I’ve seen Mrs Lovejoy.”

  The cab is buffeted by the strong wind as it pauses at a crossroads. I glance down at the slip of paper Hatch pressed into my hand as I left St Chad’s Lodge. On it is written a White Lion Street address.

  I decide that after my work with Hatch today, I’ll return to Mayfair, finally have a full night’s rest. I don’t relish another evening in the nursery, and anyway, Cyril is in Emily’s charge now. My eyes follow a man being driven down the street by gusts of wind, his hand clamped against his hat, and wonder what Hatterleigh is doing. Has he tried to contact me in the past few days? Has his brat been born? I turn my head, gaze out the other window. What do I care?

  Finally, we pull up in front of a building made of bricks the colour of biscuit, with crisp, white window frames. According to Hatch, it belongs to an organisation that helps “fallen servants” find their way again. After paying the cabman, I rap on the brass knocker.

  I smile up at the middle-aged woman who opens the door and introduce myself. “I believe Detective Inspector Hatch has written to you in regard to my visit,” I say. “You had a nursemaid named Marie Brown.”

  “Yes, yes,” she says, ushering me into the hallway. “I’m Miss Agnew. I can tell you what you need to know.”

  I follow her through a doorway to the right, where she asks me to take a seat. The room is cold and quite bare, furnished with hardback chairs and a table covered with skeins of wool and unfinished baby booties and bonnets. Miss Agnew’s a large woman, very tall. The ringlets in her short, brown hair fall loose and her mouth purses over bucked teeth. Her eyes are bright and friendly.

  “What did you want to know about dear Anne-Marie?” she asks me, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

  “Anne-Marie?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s her full name, and how we always referred to her here. Anne-Marie Bromley. Although I have heard she prefers just Marie now. I can’t think why. Anne-Marie is such a pretty name, I think you’ll agree.”

  “That is strange,” I say. “We call her Nurse Marie. And I’m sure the detective said her surname was Brown.”

  “Yes, yes.” Miss Agnew’s head bobs side to side. “Often the girls like to use new names when they leave here. The stigma, you know, if they were to be connected to their pasts.”

  “Their pasts?” I know what she’s talking about, but would like her to clarify.

  She sucks her cheeks in for a moment, so that she looks like a duck. “With child, but without husband, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s how Nurse Marie—Anne-Marie—came to be here?”

  “That’s correct. She was with us nearly seven years ago.”

  “And you still remember her?”

  She nods, vigorously. “Oh yes. I’d just started working here, you see, and then what happened to her… so awful.” Miss Agnew sits forward, looks around. “I forgot to bring the tea things in. Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs Chancey?”

  I do, but not as much as I want to hear the rest of her tale. “No, thank you.” I wait for her to lean back in the chair. “You were saying…?”

  “Ah yes. Anne-Marie. Well, as you must surmise, she came to us heavy with child. She was a nursemaid for a well-to-do family in Somerset, and had managed to convince her mistress that her dying mother needed her home for four months.”

  “Her employer didn’t suspect the truth? Surely she was showing by that stage?”

  Miss Agnew thinks for a moment. “She was quite a large lass, Anne-Marie. I don’t think she would have looked that much different attired in a wide skirt and apron.”

  I think of Nurse Marie, of her sinewy arms, her gaunt face. I can’t be sure we are talking of the same woman until Miss Agnew says, “The last time I saw her, though, she was a mere shadow of herself. As thin as straw. She never was her jolly self again after what happened.” She shakes her head sadly.

  “What happened?”

  “She had a lovely little boy. Matthew, she called him, after her own father. Well, he wasn’t the bonniest baby you’ve ever seen, but very placid, like his mama, I used to say to her. She stayed on with us a matter of weeks—maybe three, four? Usually, after confinement, the girls stay for only a fortnight at the most before they return to work, but Anne-Marie was a bit sickly, so she stayed on.”

  “And the babies? What happens to them when the women go back to work?”

  Miss Agnew sighs. “Yes, well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? We are able to help unfortunate mothers-to-be through confinement, but we are not set up to care for the newborns, so sometimes we send them on to church organisations we know of, or to an orphanage run by an affiliate group of ours. And, of course, sometimes, the mother is fortunate enough to find a man to marry. But that’s quite rare, sadly.”

  “And Nurse Marie?”

  “Anne-Marie was smitten with her baby. They all are, you know. People don’t realise how harrowing it is for these poor women to give up their babies. Most only see the children as the bruised fruit of sin, to be discarded, hidden. But these women really want to keep their babies, they really do.” She takes a deep breath. “Nobody more than Anne-Marie.”

  “But she couldn’t?”

  “No. Not if she was to return to work at her former station. And she had to. It was the only way for her to make any sort of income to support the baby. It’s a terrible bind.”

  “So what did she do?”

  “It was my fault, really. I told her of certain women who look after babies for a fee. I knew of quite a few mothers who used this type of service so that they could still be the child’s mother, visit them once in a while, despite being unwed and working full-time.” Miss Agnew stared into the empty grate. It was nearly a full minute before she spoke again. “Anne-Marie found an advertisement in the newspaper for just such a service and contacted the woman. A very respectable-looking woman she was, too. I saw her myself.” Again she paused, shook her head. “Broke her heart to give her little boy up. But I put my arm around her shoulder, reminded her that she could visit the boy whenever she wanted. Then Anne-Marie went back to work as a nursemaid for the lady in Somerset. It was maybe four months later I saw her again. She was in a terrible state, just terrible. Told me she couldn’t find the woman or her son, and asked me if I knew anything. But, of course, I didn’t. I took her straight around to the police.”

  “And?” I begin to see the end myself. Things I’ve learnt over the last couple of days are coming together in a dreadful kaleidoscope.

  “And,” her voice is hollow. “They’d re
cently arrested a woman for neglecting children in her care. They took poor Anne-Marie to somewhere north of here, had her look at the bodies of two children who’d starved to death in this woman’s care. Little Matthew was one of them.”

  *

  My heels click along the pavement as I strive to keep up with Hatch. His strides are long, but he doesn’t seem to notice how I struggle to match his pace. His chin is tucked into his chest, his hands deep in his pockets as he walks, deep in thought. What I’ve told him has given him much to think about.

  After my interview with Mrs Agnew earlier I had the cab drop me at Sullivan’s rag shop again, where I made a special purchase. By the time I returned to St Chad’s Lodge, my mind was seething with notions. Hatch was still with Mrs Lovejoy in the study, which was fine with me because it gave me time to ask Cook some things while she prepared a chicken for dinner. I then checked on Cyril, who was playing in Joshua’s room with his siblings.

  “Are you leaving now?” Emily asked. Her tone was nonchalant as she looked at me from behind the novel she was reading, but her dark eyes were sharp, maybe a little anxious.

  “Not until everything is resolved.” But would it ever be for these children? I looked at Joshua, who was writing something at his desk, and Cyril, who looked up from his picture book and said, “Milk, Nursie?”

  I knew that there would definitely be more trouble ahead for them, but hopefully the loyalty the two older children had shown to Cyril earlier in the day would carry them all through.

  “I’ll ask Ruth to bring you some, Cyril,” I said. Then to his sister, “Keep this door locked, Emily. Stay together. Until you hear otherwise from Hatch, don’t talk to anyone except Cook or Ruth.”

  Joshua glanced over his shoulder at me and Emily frowned. They both nodded, and watched as I backed out of the room.

  Trotting along now next to Hatch, I ask him how far away the nightsoil man lives.

  “Not far at all. I have it from the local constable that this Tomkins lives just down this alley,” he says, turning to the left.

  The low-set homes look more fitted to a stable yard than to a row of human dwellings. We pass five doors before Hatch stands back, looks a squat building up and down. “This is it, I think.” He knocks, and then has to knock again before the door is answered.

  “Tomkins?” he says.

  The man squints, and his eyes are bleary. His brown hair is snarled close to his skull like sheep’s wool, and his thin wrists poke out from his coat sleeves. “Yes. Who may you be?”

  “Detective Inspector Hatch. I have some questions for you.”

  Tomkins’s eyes widen a little, but he gestures for us to follow him inside. “We have to be quiet though. The missus is just trying to settle the children.”

  We find ourselves in a cramped kitchen so clotted with smoke it’s like we’re caught in a thick fog. The beams and chimney flue are as black as tar and the floor is unboarded. I take the one seat at the rickety table, while Hatch leans up against a bench. Tomkins stands by the closed door to the other room.

  “Who’s she?” Tomkins asks, looking at me.

  “A witness of mine,” says Hatch. “She’s found some items we thought you might be able to help us with.” Hatch lays a bundle of cloth on the table and unravels it until the kris lies sparkling in the gloom. “I believe you sold this to the rag shop in the village?”

  Tomkins stares at it, and nods. “What of it?”

  “We’d like to know where you acquired it in the first place, Tomkins.”

  “Well, it’s mine, isn’t it? Been in the family for years. Yes, years. And I didn’t want to sell it, but things have been very slow for me lately. Usually I’m a labourer, earn a tidy living, what with that during the day and my nightsoil work at night. But I hurt my back a few months back, had to give up the labouring. And the missus just had another baby. Have to keep the bread on the table, so I sells that there knife to Mr Sullivan.” He sucks his bottom lip when he finishes speaking.

  A baby mewls in the other room, and the longer I sit here, the harder it is to ignore the reek of human waste.

  Hatch stands to his full height, the top of his hat brushing the ceiling. “Tomkins, we know this short-sword was stolen from its rightful owner. I do not, for a moment, believe that you ever owned such a valuable item.”

  “But I did, I…” he protests. He looks Hatch dead in the eye and it’s as though the fight leaves him immediately. “All right. All right. I’ll tell you the truth. It’s not a family relic. I found it, long ago. On my rounds.”

  “Long ago?”

  Tomkins nods, vigorously.

  “Where?”

  Tomkins screws up his face. “I think it were down on the riverbank, I found it.”

  “And yet Sullivan says you found it within the last week in Grayling Road.” Hatch’s pale skin almost glows in the dark kitchen and the nightsoil man looks up at him, fearful. “I have to warn you, Tomkins, you keep this up and I’ll be forced to arrest you for theft. Now, unless I hear some truth come out of your mouth, you won’t be around much longer to support your missus and children.”

  I’m surprised at the detective’s intimidating manner, but it seems to work. Tomkins wilts, runs his hand over his face.

  “I found it on the roadside. Last week.”

  “When, exactly?” I ask.

  “Several mornings ago. Yes, Monday, it were, because I don’t usually work of a Sunday night, but Driscoll couldn’t work on account of being sick.”

  “And where did you find it?” Hatch asks.

  Tomkins gulps, as though he’s swallowing a lump of bread. “Lordship Road.”

  “Speak up. Did you say Lordship Road?”

  The nightsoil man nods.

  “Whereabouts on the street did you find it?”

  “Well to be precise, it were at the corner, where the road crosses the next street.”

  “Just on the ground?”

  “Lying in the grass, for anyone to see.”

  “Was this after or before you found Mr Lovejoy’s body?”

  Tomkins runs his hand down his face again. “Before, it were. The sun weren’t quite up.”

  “But why, Tomkins, didn’t you report it straight away to the police when they were called?”

  “Well, it were difficult, weren’t it,” he says, his tone lifting. “On our rounds we often find things we can pawn or sell to the ragman. People usually give us a bottle of gin for our troubles, but that Mr Lovejoy had a tight purse. So when I saw that knife, I could tell straight away that it would fetch a pretty penny, so I swiped it, hid it in my bag, I did, so’s the others wouldn’t want a share.”

  “And later? After you found Lovejoy?”

  “Do you know how horrible that was to find a dead man, his head near sliced from his shoulders? What with that and running for the police constable, the knife went clean out of my head, it did.”

  “And when you remembered it? It didn’t occur to you that it might have something to do with the man’s death? That you should hand it in?”

  Tomkins sags against the closed door. Something bumps in the next room, one of the children squeaks. The planes of his gaunt, starved face catch the shadows. “I didn’t think it would do any harm, me keeping it. The whole village knows it’s one of them crazy Lovejoy children who’ve murdered the child Margaret and their father.”

  Hatch presses his lips together as he regards the other man. He shakes his head and says, “This won’t do. It won’t do at all. You might be in for some serious trouble for withholding this evidence, Tomkins.”

  The nightsoil man bows his head, clutches his forehead in his hand. I wonder if he’s crying, and I feel a small stitch of sympathy.

  “I’ll tell you what, Tomkins,” says Hatch. “I have one more thing to ask you about. If you tell me the truth—no prevaricating, mind you—I will see what I can do so that the authorities are lenient. How does that deal sound?”

  Tomkins stares at him. “What do you want to know?
”

  Hatch nods to me. “I want you to tell us about this.”

  I reach into my bag and bring out an item wrapped in a handkerchief. As I place it on the kitchen table, Tomkins gasps.

  CHAPTER 26

  It’s late by the time we return to St Chad’s Lodge. The household’s already eaten supper and Mrs Lovejoy has passed out in an armchair by the fire in the sitting room, the whisky decanter nestled in her lap.

  All is quiet upstairs, and as we walk down the hallway, Ruth peeps around the corner of the kitchen door at me, only to be pulled back by Cook. I knock on the housekeeper’s door.

  “Nurse Marie?” I call lightly. I turn the knob, let myself into the room.

  She’s seated in that chair again, staring out the window into the darkness. As I draw nearer, I realise all she can really see cast against the glass by the candlelight, is her own reflection.

  “Nurse Marie,” I say. “I wanted to discuss something with you.”

  She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move.

  I place the tortoiseshell comb on the little table by her chair. “Do you recognise this, Nurse Marie?”

  Her eyes swivel down, fix on the comb.

  Something clangs in the kitchen, the back door claps shut. I can smell remnants of their roast chicken dinner and I feel queasy, for the task ahead of me is exhilarating, yet daunting. “Do you recognise it?”

  Her head swings slowly side to side.

  “No?” I say.

  She continues to shake her head. Her lips are so chapped, I can see the keen fissures sliced into the skin.

  “Cook says it’s yours. She recognised it straight away,” I tell her, picking the comb up again. Its teeth are spindly, more rounded than usual. Carved into the tortoiseshell is an intricate pattern of flowers and leaves, while at its centre, wings spread, is a swooping swallow. “Cook said your uncle brought it back for you from his travels and that it was your most cherished belonging. She also said she hasn’t seen you wear it since… Well, for quite a while.”

  I’ve left Hatch standing on the other side of the door, which is ajar. I told him that I thought she was more likely to speak to me if I appeared to be by myself.