by Alex Grecian
“But why not? I should think you’d be honored.”
Cinderhouse shuffled closer, the soles of his shoes dragging grit from the floor.
“Take the hood from my head and face me,” Jack said.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Jack could feel the presence of the other man, hovering close, and suddenly the canvas was lifted and dull orange light sliced through Jack’s eyes and stabbed into his brain. He hadn’t even known that his eyes were open; there was no difference in the darkness either way and he had long ago lost track. Now his eyelids slammed shut and he gradually lifted them again, a fraction of an inch, letting them grow used to the idea of something besides their accustomed blackness. He let his eyes deal with the light, droplets of color filtering through his lashes, and concentrated on listening to Cinderhouse. The other man had stepped back from him, was loitering at the mouth of the cell, no doubt planning to run.
Frightened little fly.
“If you leave, you will never fulfill your destiny.” Jack’s voice was little more than a whisper, filling the space, echoing from stone to stone. “If you leave now, you will always be lost and afraid, running here and there like a rabbit until you are caught.”
“Who did that to you?”
“I did.”
“I meant the chains. Who chained you here?”
“I told you. I did.”
“You didn’t chain yourself.”
“Of course I did.”
“How?”
Such a stupid little fly.
“You’ve heard of a man, lived centuries ago, who worked miracles? A man who walked on the surface of the sea, laid his healing hands on the sick, and turned water into blood?”
“It was wine. You’re talking about . . . He turned water into wine.”
“Did he? Perhaps we read different accounts.”
“What does that have to do with . . . ?”
“Oh, it has everything to do. The man I speak of, when he had done what he needed to do to establish his power, he allowed lesser beings to take him, to tear his flesh and spill his blood on the thirsty ground.”
“He died.”
“Do you think so? I don’t. No, he had gone too far to die, taken too much power into himself. He allowed them to think he was gone and then he showed them that power. But only when he was ready and only after he had prepared his disciples.”
The light didn’t hurt so badly anymore and Jack’s eyes were fully open, drinking in the sight of the cell, really a cave, the tall gaunt man in prison dress standing at the edge of the darkness beyond. Cinderhouse was holding a lantern and the light from it reflected on his bald scalp, pink and vulnerable. Jack took a deep breath of cool, fresh-smelling air. He glanced down and saw that his own blood and sweat and shit and piss had turned the ground at his feet black, had soaked into the earth so deeply that it would never wash away, even if these tunnels flooded. He closed his eyes and smiled again.
“How many have you killed?” he said. “Aside from the man who followed you. Anyone might have done that. How many did you put your hands on simply because you could?”
“How did you know?”
“More than one, am I right?”
With his eyes still closed, he heard a rustle of fabric as the bald man moved, and he guessed that Cinderhouse had nodded.
“You are an infernal machine,” Jack said. “I knew that you were. But you were simply reacting, not following any sort of plan, am I right?” Jack said. Another nod from the bald man. “Wouldn’t you like to finally understand the importance of what you do?”
“Importance?”
“There is a plan, you know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. But you will.”
Jack licked the blood from his lips. It was time. He had performed his miracles, had allowed himself to be tortured, and had taken root in the soil. London grew up through him now, and he had spread out into the city, into the world, completely. He had achieved immortality. He was deathless.
He was death.
He was London.
“There is still work to do,” he said. “Come, Peter, come closer and let me whisper in your ear. You are no longer alone. You are mine now, and I call you my rock.”
Cinderhouse’s left foot moved as if he weren’t in control, as if he had become a puppet. He took a step toward Jack, and then his shoulders set and he raised his lantern and he moved fully into the little cell.
“Tell me what to do,” the bald man said.
Silly little fly.
11
I’ve been sent to watch over you, ma’am,” the constable said.
He was at least an inch taller than Claire’s husband and broader through the shoulders, she thought, but he was not nearly so handsome, nor did he possess that glint of intelligence she saw in Walter’s eyes. He had knocked on the door a few minutes after Walter had left, and Fiona had answered without looking through the judas hole first, which Claire intended to lecture her about when they were alone.
Claire looked at the rather large young man who stood in her parlor with his hat in his hand and an earnest expression on his face and she suddenly felt very tired and very irritated and wanted nothing more than to have a salty snack of some sort and then go back to bed and sleep for at least a month and a half.
“Do you have a name?”
“Of course I do, ma’am.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Oh, it’s Rupert, ma’am. Constable Rupert Winthrop. At your service, ma’am.”
“I didn’t ask for any. Service, that is. And please stop calling me ma’am. My name is Mrs Day.”
“Yes, ma . . . Yes, Mrs Day. But you didn’t have to ask, ma’am. Mrs Day, I mean. You didn’t have to ask for anything, Mrs Day. Sir Edward sent me to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Primrose Hill is a very safe area.”
“There’s been a prison break.”
“I know that. My husband is a detective inspector with the Murder Squad. He has just been called out to find those prisoners and catch them all over again.”
“Yes, Mrs Day. I know Inspector Day, ma’am. It’s just that one of those prisoners might mean to do you harm. Bodily harm, I mean. And with your being pregnant and all . . . I mean, you’re going to have a baby.”
“Am I?” Claire realized she was being very cross with this dim young man, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “I hadn’t realized. Thank you very much for the news, Constable Winthrop.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.”
“I’ll put on some tea,” Fiona said. She was doing a poor job of hiding a smile, which only made Claire feel more cross. Fiona didn’t wait for her to answer, but bustled away down the hall and through the door to the kitchen. Claire frowned at the air where Fiona had just been.
“Why would any of the prisoners mean to do me harm?”
“He’s come to your house before, Mrs Day. He’s that fellow what killed two policemen last year and your husband arrested him.”
“What, the tailor?”
“Yes, Mrs Day. His name’s Ciderhead, or something of the sort.”
“His name was Cinderhouse.”
“Yes, that’s it.” The boy beamed as though Claire had accomplished something remarkable in remembering the murderer’s name.
“And he’s coming here?” Claire pulled the top of her robe tighter around her throat.
“No, ma’am. I don’t think so. Sir Edward just wanted to be sure you were looked after. That’s all. Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do with you now? Prop you in the corner?”
“That sounds uncomfortable, Mrs Day. But if you want me to . . .”
“No. I apologize. I’m quite tired and not at all myself.”
“Well, it is early. The sun’ll be up soon enough. If it’s all the same, I’ll sit in the hall. From there, I ought to be able to see in both directions, straight through to the dining room. A
nd the front door, too, of course.”
“I don’t have a comfortable chair there.”
“It’s all right. I’ll stand.”
“Not at all. Help me move this.” There was a heavy armchair in front of the fireplace and she tried to pick it up, but a sudden sharp pain in her belly made her gasp and double over. Rupert was immediately standing next to her and he hefted the chair in one hand, swinging it in a wide arc away from her.
“You shouldn’t lift heavy things, Mrs Day.”
She smiled. “No, I probably shouldn’t.”
The cramp subsided and she followed behind as Rupert carried the chair through the parlor door. He set it down in the hall, sat down on it, and nodded at her. “Now you just pretend I’m not here. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Nonsense. You’ll have tea, won’t you?”
“Well . . .”
“Of course you will. I’ll be right back.”
She left him there and went down the hall, through the dining room, to the kitchen. Fiona was already putting on a pot, so Claire sat down at the little table and sighed. Cinderhouse was free and roaming about London and her husband was out there, once more in grave danger. She put a hand on her swollen belly and looked up at the ceiling. Tired as she was, she knew she wouldn’t sleep until Walter came safely home.
12
Did we learn anything useful?” Day said. They walked back out through the big door in the center of Bridewell’s hub, stepping into the narrow courtyard that represented the whole of the outside world to the unwilling residents of the prison. They stopped and Day looked up at the stars.
“Depends what you’d call useful,” Hammersmith said. He was looking down at his little tablet of brown paper, the pages dog-eared from being carried around in the pocket of his rumpled jacket, pulled out and shoved back in and pulled out again. “We still don’t really know how many prisoners escaped.”
“Who do you believe?” Day said. “The head warder or the clerk?”
“I leave that sort of question to you. You point, I fetch.”
“But surely you have an opinion.”
“We don’t have to believe that one of them’s lying in order to believe that he’s wrong.”
“Of course not. But I got the distinct feeling that the head warder actually was lying. Something in the way he moved his eyes about, never quite resting them on any one thing when he spoke.”
“You noticed that?”
“I did,” Day said.
“So you see why I leave the pointing to you, while I am content to do the fetching.”
“In your imagination, we are both hunting dogs then?”
“Is there anything more apt?”
“Perhaps not. Anyway, I think there are five missing men.”
“So do I,” Hammersmith said.
Day tore his eyes away from the stars above and looked at his sergeant. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“I wanted to know what you would say.”
“And what if I’d said there were four missing men?”
“I would have silently disagreed.”
“Silently? Why silently?”
“Because I would have assumed that my opinion was the wrong one.”
“Don’t do that,” Day said. “I want to know what you think.”
Hammersmith nodded, and Day let the matter drop. He was still tense and he didn’t want to take his worries out on the sergeant.
He led the way across the courtyard to the gate, where the same warder looked them over and worked the lock and swung the heavy bars outward so that they could leave. Day wondered whether a prisoner might be able to simply walk out of the place if he laid his hands on a cheap suit of clothes or a constable’s uniform. But he said nothing, only nodded at the warder as they passed. The warder tipped his cap and swung the gate closed after them, locking himself in with the remaining prisoners, his world as small as theirs for the majority of his waking day.
The strip of poorly maintained grass outside the gate was less crowded than it had been when Day and Hammersmith had entered Bridewell. But Blacker and Tiffany still waited there. When he saw them, Blacker tapped Tiffany on the shoulder and hurried over to them.
“You’re still here,” Day said.
“Decided our time was better spent checking in with you, rather than tramping around this place without a clue,” Blacker said. “Please tell me you’ve found us a clue.”
“I think we have,” Day said. He looked at Hammersmith, who flipped through the most recently filled pages in his little pad of paper.
“Best clue we’ve got,” he said, “is this fellow Hoffmann.”
“One of the missing men?”
“Yes. Seems he’s in love with a girl,” Day said. “It’s possible he’d seek her out again, now he’s free to go after her.”
“You don’t think he’d find himself a new girl somewhere?”
“Love knows no bounds.”
“Or logic,” Hammersmith said.
“Precisely.”
“Do we know who the girl is? A name?”
“Her name is Priscilla Murphy.”
Tiffany had his own pad of paper out and was writing as fast as Hammersmith could talk, the tiny stub of a pencil lost in his curled fist. He looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Address?”
“Not an exact address. There was an arrest record, but the details are a bit sketchy.”
“Christ,” Tiffany said. “There must be a dozen Priscilla Murphys in London. Your clue isn’t much of one, is it?”
Hammersmith shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”
“We’ll take it,” Blacker said.
“Good. She’s somewhere on Victoria Road, near New Hampstead. The arresting officer was working that beat and responded to the girl’s screams. So we know the general vicinity.”
“See there, Mr Tiffany?” Blacker said. “That narrows the search down by a good deal. And it’s not far from here, either. It’s a cinch he’d seek out his old girlfriend.”
“She’s his cousin,” Day said.
“Well, I might’ve gone after my cousin, too,” Blacker said, “if she didn’t know me too well to be interested. She’s a proper bit of frock.” He winked and Day chuckled.
“Listen,” Day said, “we’ve no evidence of this, so I’m not telling you a fact here . . .”
“What is it?”
Day glanced over at Hammersmith and took a breath. “We’re reasonably certain that we’re looking for five men, not four.”
“Another one escaped?”
“No, they all escaped together, but the prison’s missing the records of one of them. We don’t know what happened or who he is.”
“Probably the same sort of record-keeping that doesn’t bother with proper addresses,” Tiffany said.
“Perhaps. But I think we need to keep our minds open to the possibility that there’s another man out there. We can’t stop when we’ve found four men.”
“But we don’t have a name? Of the fifth man?”
“Nothing at all. As I say, he may not even exist. But watch for suspicious characters. Mr Hammersmith and I will try to find out more.”
“We’ll be off, then,” Tiffany said. He closed the cardboard cover of his tablet and stowed it carefully in his pocket again, along with his miniature pencil. Day noticed that Tiffany’s pad of paper still looked brand-new, despite being well-used. A stark contrast to Hammersmith’s notebook.
“Right,” Blacker said. “Wish us luck, gents. Sun’ll be up soon.”
“Too soon,” Day said. “Godspeed.”
Tiffany didn’t bother to say his good-byes. He was already stalking away down the street and Blacker had to hurry to catch up to him.
“I wouldn’t want to be paired with either of them,” Hammersmith said.
“Blacker’s not so bad,” Day said. “I worked my first case with him. He tends to lighten the drudgery with his quips.”
“So we’ve given them our only good clue,�
� Hammersmith said.
“We’ll get more,” Day said.
“Of course we will,” Hammersmith said.
“Then let’s get back to it, shall we?”
13
The cell was well furnished. His captors had left behind the key to his shackles. They had left the barrel of water from which he drank every day and a paper bag with three dry crusts of bread. Jack looked at these things and held them in his mind, knowing that he only needed to endure the present pain in order to enjoy the riches before him. Most of all, his eyes focused on the black satchel, the medical bag, which the doctor kept there in the cell. Jack thought about the doctor, tried to recollect any clues he might have heard to the man’s identity, as he concentrated on everything but the pain in his wrists and ankles. The fool Cinderhouse had used the left-behind key and was working at the shackles now, the shackles that Jack’s skin had healed around and grown over. Jack thought about the black bag and the doctor who left it each day, and he imagined that the doctor had a life up there with a wife who worried over him and might ask about an extra bag. The bag was safer here, safer left in the place where the doctor used it, where the doctor cut Jack the way that Jack had cut all of his ladies: Nichols and Chapman and Stride, Eddowes and Kelly and Tabram, oh my. So many ladies. Jack, you lucky boy.
The doctor had left his bag so that his own lady would not question its purpose. Which meant that all Jack had to do was survive the shackles and the bag would be his.
The things he might do with all those lovely silver tools that lay within!
Cinderhouse mistook Jack’s cry for a cry of pain and he stopped. He backed away from the shackle around Jack’s left ankle as if he’d been burned.
“No,” Jack said. His voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t stop.”
Cinderhouse said something that Jack couldn’t hear above the red roar in his ears and went back to work. The iron had dug deep, had buried itself under a warm layer of flesh, and the bald man was now on his hands and knees tearing it away from Jack’s bones.
Jack glanced down at the red river of blood that trickled between his toes into the dirt, into that soft, malleable clay beneath London, and he smiled and he screamed again and he returned his gaze to that beautiful black bag and its dreadful instruments of instruction.