A Necessary Murder

by M. J. Tjia

  Amah adds a few stitches, then rests the bonnet back into her lap. “You know I told you once that I thought I recognised that man Pidgeon?”

  “Mmm. From your voyage here? But that was years ago.”

  “That’s correct. Well that Lovejoy, and McBride too, were on the ship.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, they joined us in Sarawak. A whole party of Englishmen set sail with us, fleeing Kuching.”

  My eyes widen and I sit up again. “I heard them talking of some riot. Was it after that?”

  “Yes.” Amah’s eyes fall to her embroidery.

  “What about Cosgrove? Hunt? Were they there too?”

  An irritated frown creases her forehead. “I don’t know, Heloise. I was very young then. Hadn’t seen many white men. They all looked the same to me. Tall, the colour of a knob of garlic, hairy faces.” She runs her thumb across the silk thread that forms the petal of a chrysanthemum. “But I know many of them died in Kuching. I saw it with my own eyes. The local overseer, his wife, some miners, the doctor. Mr Preston. Mrs Preston told me it was caused by the local kungsi fighting the Englishmen over an antimony mine, but Uncle Chee always said it was over a woman.”

  “Why is Jakub interested in that time?”

  Amah’s shoulders lift a little, tense. “You might as well know. You will hear it from your Aunt Miriam soon enough. That woman, she’s worse than the local newspaper. Limehouse Bugle I used to call her.”

  “I remember,” I say, my voice dry. I’ve never understood her dislike for Aunt Miriam but, pressed upon it, she always denies it. “What is it she might tell?”

  My mother has never spoken much of her journey here, except to say that she was a maid to a British woman, Mrs Preston. She now tells me that Jakub suspected Uncle Chee wasn’t his father, that one of these British men were.

  “Who did he think was his mother then?” I ask.

  Her lip lifts as she meets my eye. “Me.”

  “But why on earth would he think that?”

  A log dislodges in the fireplace, falls to the side with a crack. She hands me her embroidery and then lifts out the poker and prods the log back into place. Settling into her seat again, she says, slowly, “He knew that something terrible happened on that voyage. Uncle Chee had told him—I think to stress to the boy that there might not always be justice at hand for people like us on these long passages.”

  I can see she’s not telling me something. She’s choosing her words too carefully. “What happened?”

  Her mouth twists to the side as she contemplates me. “A man tried to violate me. One night in our cabin.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh no.” Oh God, and I remember that night long ago. That carriage. Not my mother too? “But he didn’t…”

  “No.” She shakes her head. I think I see a flash of something—fright? apprehension?—in her face. “He attacked me in Mrs Preston’s cabin. She was too far gone with fever to hear.”

  “But you managed to get away?”

  And then there’s that familiar look in her eye—the unblinking disdain of a black cat, a warning twitch of its tail. She nods.

  “Who was he? You must’ve found out who he was?”

  She shakes her head. “No, it was too dark to see beyond a shadow. And we had much more important things on our mind after that. The next morning is when poor Mrs Preston had her baby. When our Jakub first entered this world.”

  Amah is sure it won’t be too difficult to find sleep tonight. She’s found Jakub. They have sorted out their misunderstandings. Foolish boy.

  Even the reminder of that evening on the Dukano, when that scoundrel tried to take what wasn’t his to steal, doesn’t speed her heart, can’t force her heavy eyelids open.

  In fact, her lips lift in a smile when she thinks of how that meeting came to an end. Of how her reaching fingers found the handle of her paring knife, how it made a clinking sound against the china plate as she drew it forward. One of his hands held Amah down, pressed against her throat, but his other hand was what…? Untying his cravat? Raised to strike her? All Amah knows is it was at that moment she managed to stab him. She meant to thrust the blade into his chest, but it went straight through the palm of his hand. He reared back, bellowing like a slaughtered ox. Devil. She’s never been troubled by the likes of him again.

  Amah hears a slight bump below, in Heloise’s rooms, and realises that her daughter is still awake, pondering the death of those men. Heloise has never learnt to walk away, to not involve herself. Always has to be part of an adventure. Isn’t that how she first came to work in the alley, setting up skittles at only ten years old; how she was tricked away from Amah by that cherry-lipped vixen from the tavern?

  When Amah thinks of Heloise, it feels like a snake awakens in her chest, uncoils itself, raises its coffin-shaped head. There are months, years even, of her daughter’s life that Amah knows nothing of. Even if Heloise has learnt to protect herself, Amah’s afraid that fate’s greedy fingers still seek her out, will catch her one day.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Amah,” I say, pushing open her bedroom door.

  The room is quite dark, apart from a gentle glow from the grate. I pull the curtains apart. It’s so overcast, it’s almost as if the sun hasn’t yet risen, despite it being past the hour Amah usually wakes. It’s a very rare occurrence, indeed, that I am up before her.

  She lies on her side, nestled into her bedcovers, the blanket pulled up over her ear so that only a narrow strip of her face is apparent. One dark eye blinks at me, and she yanks the covers over her nose. She mumbles something I don’t catch, as I light the lamp next to her bed.

  “What did you say?”

  She flings her arm out and rolls onto her back. “Why are you up so early?” she says. Her eyes scan my gown. “Why are you dressed already?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have things to do.” I’ve already had two cups of coffee, but I know it’s not just the brew that’s left me feeling skittish. In the dead hours before dawn, a jumble of nightmares and tangled images seem to have fermented my blood, so that I can feel it rushing in my fingertips, sparking in my mind. “But first, I can’t find my damned atlas. Tell me, do you know where Mandalay is?”

  Amah rises onto her elbow, frowns up at me. “Burma. But why…”

  “Just as I thought. Thank you, Amah,” I say, as I leave her room.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Bundle helps me into my overcoat.

  As I tuck a hat made of sable with silk sashes onto my head, Bundle says, “Taff has the carriage ready outside, Mrs Chancey, waiting your convenience.”

  I gaze into the mirror of the hallstand. The soft fur tickles the tips of my ears, and although the bonnet frames my face nicely, I can see the bruising under my eyes from lack of sleep. I don’t look my best. How could I? Snatching up the matching sable muff, I hurry outside.

  First, Taff waits for only a matter of minutes in Holborn as I have a word with Cosgrove’s man, Meadowes. Then we make our way to Vine Street. I tell Taff I might be some time, so he jumps down from his box to lead the horses up the road.

  A constable leaves me in the same small room from the last time I sought out the Detective Inspector, but it’s not long before Hatch joins me.

  “Mrs Chancey?”

  I stand so fast the chair teeters behind me. “Detective Inspector, do you think I might look at Cosgrove’s body?”

  Hatch’s sandy eyelashes positively flutter with surprise. “You want to see his body?”

  I nod. “I think there might be a clue to the killer.”

  He stares at me. Maybe he’s shocked at how unladylike I am, or worried I might faint. He might be offended that I think I can be of assistance. A uniformed policeman passes the open doorway, and one door, then another, slams shut down the corridor. Finally, he blinks, says, “Right you are. Follow me.”

  I am close on his heels as he makes his way out through the front door and turns to his left. Three doors down, he crosses the road,
his arms out to bar oncoming traffic so that I can pass with him, until we reach a low-set building.

  “In here, please,” he says, bowing me in before him. “You might need your handkerchief to mask the smell.”

  As soon as the words leave his mouth, a bloody awful odour slams my nostrils. I bury my nose into my muff.

  My eyes water, the stench so sharp, so thick, I’m surprised the air before me is clear, not a soupy miasma of filth and poison.

  “What is this place?” I ask, wisps of fur catching in my mouth.

  “The closest thing we have to a morgue. Be thankful it’s winter.”

  He leads me down a short hallway. We pass three doors, and I can’t be sure if I’m just imagining that the closed doors bulge slightly against the weight of gaseous pressure from within. I choke against the fur of my muff.

  In the end room, a body is laid out upon a bench, a white shroud across its length. On a table close by, ensconced in liquid like a pickled cucumber, is his head, his longish, dark hair floating like seaweed. I grimace, but I don’t back out. Either the sickening smell has faded in this room, or I have become somewhat accustomed, although an underlying scent of raw meat makes my stomach heave. I lower my muff.

  Gazing down at the shroud, I ask Hatch to remove it.

  Below the jagged flesh at his throat-line, which I take pains to not stare at, the corpse is still attired in shirt and trousers. The lapis lazuli pin is fastened to the filthy collar.

  My hand hovers over it as I look up at Hatch. “May I?”

  His eyes are bulging, but he nods.

  I draw out the pin, slowly, and attach it to my bodice. Then I part the top of his shirt. The flesh of his chest, marble-white, is covered in a robust mat of brown hair. So it’s true. I am right.

  My eyes find his lifeless fingers. I inspect the neat blue fingertips, stiff now, and note the unblemished skin on the back of his hand. Taking in his other hand, I see that it’s much the same, apart from a torn fingernail. I step back from the table. Each time my suspicions are confirmed, it’s like a heavy stone is wedged into the pit of my stomach.

  I glance up at the head in the jar. Its face is turned away from me, but I’ve seen enough.

  “This isn’t Cosgrove.”

  CHAPTER 34

  I expect Hatch to exclaim, to baulk in surprise, but he just nods slowly, frowning. “How do you know?”

  I gesture towards the corpse’s hands. “Cosgrove has scars on his left wrist, and a knife wound,” I point at the unblemished right hand, use my fingernail to indicate where a slice an inch long should be, “on the inside of his palm, and the outside, from the time a pirate drove his knife through.” I don’t feel the need to mention the smooth, almost hairless skin of Cosgrove’s chest. My fingertips find the pin, now attached to my bodice. “This stone, it confused me for a little while. That, and the shock. But eventually last night I remembered his hand,” I nodded towards the body, “when it dropped from the side of the stretcher. It was pale and unblemished.” Looking up at Hatch, I ask, frowning, “But you are not surprised? You knew it wasn’t Cosgrove?”

  Hatch ushers me from the room, doesn’t speak until we’ve escaped the stink of the corridor and are standing back out on the side of the road. Taff is still walking the horses, turning them at the next junction.

  “I did wonder,” he says. “Amongst Pidgeon’s papers we found an interesting letter from McBride. Written the night that he died.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That he knew who the rascal was who set up the riot in Sarawak.”

  “Who? Not Cosgrove?” With each revelation, the heavy sensation of stones in my gut stretches, gathers weight. How had I been so hoodwinked by this man?

  Hatch nods. “In his letter to Pidgeon, McBride wrote that he was related to a couple called the Crookshanks, who were stationed out there. They both died in that riot. When McBride returned five years later, he found their diaries, had a word with the servant who was with them at the time. According to the servant, the whole thing was set up to look like a riot over a mine of some sort, but really, a young man—who he said was named Morris,” Hatch spells the name for me, “organised it to cover up his affair with Mrs Crookshank, and the murder of Mr Crookshank. McBride wrote that at the time he’d completely forgotten about Cosgrove—his presence in Kuching, and how he joined them at the last moment on the ship to travel home—until he saw him at your soiree. Apparently, Cosgrove, Maurice Cosgrove, was very young then, not really a part of their group.”

  The leaves of a young ash tree rustle above us and two sparrows hop across its branches. I take a deep breath in, wonder at how blank my mind feels.

  “Why pretend to be dead? Why murder…” I wave my hand in the direction of the makeshift morgue.

  “Perhaps he knew it was only a matter of time before we caught up with him. He shut McBride up on impulse with the kris from your house and then had to continue with this revengeful Chinese gang subterfuge. And Pidgeon was troubled, obviously, maybe confused as to whether a Chinese man was the culprit or if it could really be his friend Cosgrove. Although he was hesitant to come to us, he did reach out to you and Sir Thomas. Unfortunately, Cosgrove must’ve clocked his suspicions. And who knows? McBride might have written to Hunt too, but the post missed him before he went to Belgium. In fact, I sent a constable around this morning to check all Hunt’s mail.”

  “This morning I spoke with Cosgrove’s servant,” I say. “He knew nothing about the note Cosgrove received last night. I think Cosgrove must’ve written it himself, to lure me to his special denouement. He wanted a witness who would swear the body in the cesspool was his. All Meadowes—Cosgrove’s man—knew, was that Cosgrove sent him out with a message for someone else. A man named Thatcher. Cosgrove instructed him to hand it to him personally.” I look behind me at the morgue. I think of Thatcher—Cosgrove, Webb and Milly’s “friend”—who always leered at me with his wet lips. He was a gross creature, but damn, he didn’t deserve to be lying in that pestilent hell. I shudder, clench my fingers together deep in my muff. “The message must have lured Thatcher to the East End.”

  Hatch turns on his heel and moves back towards the police station. We leap over a pile of horse manure to gain the road, and he says, “Cosgrove must’ve known it’d only be a matter of time before that man’s head would be found and cleaned, identified by someone. So what’s he up to?”

  That’s exactly what Cosgrove needed, I realise. Time. Just enough to make his next move.

  “I think I might know.”

  The police buggy pulls into the kerb of Derby Street before us. As I hop from my carriage, Hatch steps from the buggy. In front of Pidgeon’s house is a large travelling coach, and Isobel stands on her front step, directing the driver where to deposit two hatboxes.

  “Where are you going, Isobel?” I ask, striding towards her.

  Two footmen, wearing bottle-green aprons and long cuff shields over their sleeves, struggle down the steps under the weight of a large trunk.

  Fright widens her pretty eyes. “I’m going away. The stress…”

  Hatch steps close, sends several constables into the house.

  “But what are you doing?” Isobel asks, her gaze following the policemen.

  “We have reason to believe that a certain Maurice Cosgrove might be upon the premises,” says Hatch, his voice heavy. He starts up the front steps to follow his men.

  Isobel’s eyes fly to her coach. I look too, just in time to see one of the footmen climb into it, leaving his partner to heave the trunk alone. Picking up my skirts, I run to the coach and, just as I reach it, the valet leans out the coach’s doorway, shouts up to the driver, “Leave now, Sharpe! There’s an extra twenty guineas in it for you!”

  Cosgrove. He’s in servant’s dress and his hair has been darkened to the colour of boot polish, but I can see it’s him. How could I not recognise those blue eyes?

  I grab onto the door handle and holler for Hatch, but before I can think,
Cosgrove swings out, hauls me into the coach just as it careers out from the side of the road. I push and kick at him, but only manage to get tangled in my damned petticoats as the coach lurches at top speed down the street. Finally, he pushes me into the seat next to him.

  “What are you doing here, Heloise?”

  “We know everything, Cosgrove.”

  He rests back in the seat next to me, his body swaying as the coach’s wheels grind over uneven ground. “Ah. You think I murdered him? You have it all wrong. I fear for my life. That murdering Chinaman has me in his sights for his next kill. I’m trying to escape, incognito.” His handsome face softens. “It was a terrible thing that he mistook that poor man for me. As soon as I knew it was a trap, I fled.” He smiles, rueful. “I called for you, but when I received no answer, I figured you’d run off too.”

  “You’re taking Isobel?”

  “Well, it’s become impossible to retrieve what funds I have, and she has just inherited a tidy sum, after all. She’s always had a soft spot for me. Knew her in Mandalay, many years ago, you know. Young thing she was then.”

  For a moment, I wonder if I should go along with his story, pretend I believe it. Maybe a part of me wants to believe it? But no. I can already feel scorn harden my face. He sees it too, and as he makes a move for me, I hold myself steady against the seat and rake my fingernails down his cheek. He slaps my hand away and lifts a dagger between us.

  My eyes are trained on the knife’s edge as he pulls me against his chest so that I face away from him. The coach heaves to a stop. I feel the dagger’s cold blade against my cheek. By the time the coach pitches forward again, one of Cosgrove’s arms holds mine pinned to my sides, the other holding the dagger close to my neck.

  “It’s a pity you saw through my latest disguise,” he says, the tip of his dagger digging into my high collar so that I can feel the prickle of the collar’s lace against my skin. “Made a change from being the Indian suspect. Nothing easier than donning a turban, like I did last night. Just wind a scarf around the head and it’s done.” The coach hurtles left around a corner and the weight of his body slams me against the side of the carriage.