by Steven Price
There’s something between Shade and Charlotte Reckitt and Reckitt’s uncle, William said. Some history there. I haven’t got it all sorted yet. Charlotte and Shade were lovers.
And that’s why she jumped that night. On Blackfriars.
Maybe.
Shore grunted. There’s always some damned history. Hell of a couple months you’ve had.
You’ve been busy yourself.
Aye. Fenians and muggings and this bloody business coming up in the papers. Did I tell you about the department review? Fat lot of nonsense. My father used to carve a pig into trotters of a morning and wipe down his apron by noon. Old bastard never knew how lucky he was.
Then on to the next pig, though.
Shore smiled bitterly. Aye. There was always a next pig to stick. He shook his head. So. You sail over to confront Reckitt because there’s a chance she’s an old acquaintance of Shade. She dies, the business looks to be left unfinished. But you meet a man later with a lead on the Reckitt woman’s murder and he turns out to be, according to a ghost—tell me I’ve got it wrong— none other than Edward Shade himself.
William took a long ragged breath. I know how it sounds.
You have no evidence. Nothing. Only a damned spirit conjuring and your own conjecture.
It’s him, John.
Listen, William. Your conjecture is worth a hell of a lot more than any other man’s, at least to me. You must know that. But speaking as a chief inspector and not as your friend, I’d be negligent if I didn’t tell you this sounds damned thin.
I know it.
You tell this to anyone else you’d be laughed back to Chicago. Shore started to walk again, slowly. I’d half expected to get back from Brighton and find you sailed for New York. I’d thought you might have let it go. Got back to your own life.
You never did.
Shore glanced at him and then away as if not quite satisfied and at last he said, I’m damned sorry about your father, William. You know I am.
He could feel the chief inspector’s small eyes on him. He wondered briefly if the man had known already about his investigations into Foole but dismissed it. He thought of Foole in that tunnel under the Thames and the regret in his face and he thought of the man’s strange violet eyes at the seance. There was the weight of his small hard body as they collapsed in the sewers and the ferocity in his visage as he stood wavering over William in that alley wiping blood from the head of his walking stick. He thought of all this and he thought of the articulated precision in the man’s voice when he spoke as if placing each word one by one down.
So what is it you want? Shore said. If you’re not mad as a hatter, that is.
William gave him a long slow dark look. I want Edward Shade. I want him to answer for what he’s done.
And just what exactly is that? Do you have a single particular offence that you can charge the man with? Anything? Shore hooked his stubby fingers over his lapel and the hand hung there, a red crablike thing in the cold. I’ll be frank, William. I’m not convinced you’ve found the man, and I’m not convinced the man’s a criminal. If you want my assistance, you need to convince me. Find me a reason. Find me evidence of a crime. Until then anything you do to this Mr. Foole is done to an innocent citizen. You understand what I’m saying.
William ran an angry hand over his moustaches.
You met with Shade in the Thames tunnel, you say? How did you find him? Your father was looking for years. Ben Porter was looking.
William hesitated. I didn’t.
You didn’t.
I didn’t find him, John. He found me. William rubbed at his wrists in the cold. His bad knee was aching. I know what you’re thinking. But I think maybe he’s been trying to tell me something.
Like what?
He turned his palms up. I don’t know.
There came a low thump from somewhere ahead of them and then a ricochet rolled back towards them from the trees and William knew it for what it was. The sound of a gunpowder trace going off. He could see the silhouettes of skaters gliding along the ice of the Serpentine unconcerned and he raised an eyebrow and Shore shrugged. He said the explosion would be from some lunatic blowing a hole in the ice so he could bathe. William thought he must be joking but as they passed over the stone bridge he could see at the north end of the waterway a mound of block ice tumbled there, a slash of dark water opened and gleaming in the rough green surface.
He felt unexpectedly deflated, lessened by the admissions. Saying it all aloud had made it sound half crazed and he knew Shore’s doubts were sensible. Tell me about the Reckitt case, he said, shifting the focus of their talk. Any progress?
Charlotte bloody Reckitt, Shore growled. I’d have pitched her head back in the drink with my own bare hands if I’d thought it would drag out like this.
Blackwell’s no closer then?
He barked a laugh. Mr. Blackwell has his notions. Thinks the evidence suggests a crime of passion. Thinks he has the pub and even the man responsible, seeing as the man’s wife matches Charlotte Reckitt’s description and has been missing a month. He believes there’s a cellar on the premises that might contain Dr. Breck’s sawdust and insects. Shore squinched up an eye. I told him if he thinks he can close the case quickly I don’t care if it’s the bloody footman to the Queen.
A crime of passion, William said. Nothing to do with Charlotte Reckitt?
Aye. The publican’s dear wife is in France, he’s told, visiting relatives. Might not ever return, he’s told. Some kind of a row between them, she’s up and off to her mother without a word to anyone, hardly a stitch of her clothing packed and taken.
How sure is he?
Not very. Not yet.
If that wasn’t Charlotte Reckitt fished up out of the river—
I wouldn’t put too much stock in Mr. Blackwell’s notions just yet, Shore said. I’ve been a police detective twenty-seven years, William. The simplest explanation is always the right one.
Except when it’s not.
Shore gave him a queer sidelong look and William raised his eyebrows and then the two men smiled.
William did not mention his conversation with the inspector in the records closet. On a low knoll ahead a hot-air balloon drifted at its tethers in the dead grass. Men in heavy coats and scarves leaned into the anchor ropes to hold the basket in place and the balloon was painted red and white with an advertisement for Pears soap curving across its face. Two ladies in winter shawls clambered aboard and the aeronaut loosened a bag of sand and the basket rocked and began to drift upward. The ladies shrieked and laughed and clutched at their hats with gloved hands. The crowd broke into muffled applause. The balloon lifted higher and higher, its long slouching tethers sloping down from that other world of buckling winds, of drenching light.
It was then William saw the man. He wore a tall silk hat that gave him extra height and his enormous flesh seemed squeezed into his morning coat so that the buttons strained across his chest. His black beard was trimmed, his chin shaved clean in an empire style. He kept his head up, he walked casually. William knew him at once.
Adam Foole’s manservant.
He said nothing to Shore but started after the giant and Shore quickened his pace to keep up. The chief inspector was talking about the Great Exhibition that had been held in Hyde Park when he was a boy, the Crystal Palace with its walls of steel and glass, the great trees it had been built around.
Foole’s manservant stopped at a bench and checked a large pocket watch in his vest and after a moment two men came along the promenade and shook hands with him and they began to walk. One of them wore the dress regimentals of a British officer. Men doffed their hats as he passed. William interrupted Shore, gestured.
Who’s that?
Shore followed his eyes. Ah. Colonel Vail.
Vail who was in Afghanistan?
The very one. Our hero of Kandahar. You’ve heard of him?
We have newspapers in Chicago, John.
I keep forgetting you Yankees can read
, Shore smiled. The colonel’s leaving for the Congo next month. I almost pity the poor man. Look at him. A feather in the hat of your every bloody ladyship in London. You can’t go out to a dinner without him being seated beside your host. I reckon he’s had to let out his uniform more than the once this winter.
Shore glanced again across. Now that other’s a big bastard. Him I don’t know. But on the left is George Farquhar, the gallery owner. Sir Farquhar someday, I’d wager. He’s a friend of Lord Dugan’s. His wife was rather a famous actress some years ago, there were rumours she was the mistress of the Duke of York. Has a notorious collection of diamond jewellery, rivals Lady Margaret’s, it’s said. Mr. Farquhar’s been drumming up publicity for a painting they say will fetch a record price at the auctions.
The auctions.
Christie’s. You never read about this? People lining up out the door to see it? It’s been front page of the Times for a month.
William shrugged.
I thought you Yankees could read.
I don’t read the gossip.
Shore smiled. Gossip is news too, my friend. They say this painting could command thirty thousand pounds. It’s a painting of Emma Hamilton. Rather saucy, I understand.
Thirty thousand pounds for a painting?
Aye.
I don’t believe it.
Rumour has it your Mr. Amherst is interested. The financier.
William saw Foole’s manservant nod gravely and turn and make his way through the crowds and then the two men continued in the opposite direction. He felt something, a lightness, as if he had just glimpsed some stitching in the fabric of it all. Some hidden fold that held the thing together. You don’t just get lucky, he thought. You don’t.
It was just after midnight when he awoke. He could hear the dog barking from the wire enclosure next to the pumphouse and then it went quiet and then he heard the slow drag of boots climbing the porch steps and a pause and then a soft knocking. Margaret was asleep beside him and he rose from the bed and wrapped himself in his night robe and walked barefoot through the house and down the wide stairs and drew back the bolt and opened the door. It was Robert, half dressed, his hat pulled low over his grey face.
He’s gone, Willie, he said. He passed just after midnight. Never woke up.
William nodded. He stood there nodding in the darkness with his hair standing out upon his head and the sash of his robe hanging unevenly and then he looked up and he said, Do you want to come in? And then he said, He’s gone. Jesus.
I should go, Robert said. Ma’s back at the house. And the kids are awake.
But he did not go.
Come in, William said. Come in. You want a pot of coffee?
He turned and walked past the stairs and into the kitchen leaving the door standing open behind him and after a moment he heard Robert step inside and shut the door and follow him through. He thought of Margaret upstairs.
Margaret’s asleep, he said. Should I wake her?
Even as he spoke it he knew he would let her sleep. There was nothing to be done at that hour. Robert had stopped at the threshold to the kitchen and taken off his hat. William lit an oil lamp, set it on the planked table, and the scrubbed room bloomed into light. The two brothers blinked and blinked.
William felt nothing. That was the shock. He had imagined this moment for days now but had not thought it would feel so strange, so disconnected, as if it were only a rehearsal for the loss that was still to come. He banged a pot down on the stove and struck a match and poured out a half pitcher of water and then he sat heavily, his big hands open on the table before him.
Robert said, It’s better for him. It’s better this way.
Yes.
He didn’t want to keep suffering.
William studied his brother, the clear brown eyes swollen with exhaustion. He did not tell him how their father did not want to die. He did not say it. He said, instead, I guess so.
I wanted to let you know, Robert said. I wanted to come tell you.
I appreciate it.
I guess there’ll be plenty to do. Arrangements and all. Ma says she doesn’t want a big funeral. I don’t see how we can get around it.
William looked at his brother. How is she?
Robert rubbed at his unshaven face. Aw, you know. She’s stronger than any of us.
William nodded. How are you?
It’s strange.
It is. It’s good you were with him. At the end. You were always his favourite.
Robert made a quiet noise in his throat.
What?
Jesus, Willie. His brother pushed back from the table, hands white-knuckled on the edge of his chair. He stared at his boots and after a time he said, I should go, I should be getting back.
But he did not go.
William could hear the floorboards creaking overhead. He thought Margaret might come down but she did not and they sat on together in that late kitchen, their blurred reflections warpling in the windows. Neither brother spoke. The water started to boil. William got up, pulled the pot from the stove. The water was crackling and belling up into vapour and he watched it feeling nothing at all and then it was still, a clear, lightless, rapidly cooling thing, holding the shape of that which held it, and William stared at it a long time wanting to plunge his hands into it but he did not and his brother did not speak and slowly around them the huge night deepened into morning.
When he called in at Scotland Yard three days later it was Monday again and the sun gone and a fog curled over the Thames. He removed his leather gloves finger by finger and signed in with the sergeant at the desk. It was a man he had not seen before. Then he pushed his way through the crowded halls and up the stairs and found Shore gruffly directing two labourers outside his office. There was a stink of fish oil in the corridor and he wrinkled his nose at it. A massive frame of glass stood angled between the men and they were walking it carefully through into Shore’s office and they leaned it up against the back wall with a grunt and it only just fit.
Right, lads, Shore said, though the men were old enough to be his brothers.
What’s this?
Shore grunted. A gift from the Kaiser’s police. Have a look.
William stepped closer. It looked to be sixty or so photographs of different women seated in the same studio. Young women, old women, some blond, some dark, dressed in rags or finery and smiling or glowering. It might have been a rogues’ gallery. William frowned and let his gaze drift from one to the next. Something was strange about it and then he knew what it was. They each had the same eyes.
Not just their eyes, Shore corrected. It’s all the same woman. Just done up differently.
William looked again and then he could see it.
Makes you think, Shore said. We all of us have more than the one face but used to be I thought that was just an expression. Look at her. I think of her whenever I find myself staring at a photograph of anyone. You see what you look for. We think it’s a kind of evidence.
Isn’t it?
Shore shrugged and sat behind his desk and pushed a stack of papers to one side.
I guess you didn’t send for me just to show me this.
No.
William took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. Well?
A man matching the description of your Mr. Foole was seen entering Millbank two weeks back, Shore said. Signed in as a law clerk to one Gabriel John Utterson, barrister. Under the name of Mr. Guest. He was visiting our dear Mr. Reckitt.
William rubbed at his eyes. Do I look a little less crazy now?
Shore grunted. Needless to say Mr. Utterson denies knowing the man in question and claims his clerk Guest—who does exist—was with him in chambers all that day.
Rose Utterson was the medium at the seance.
She’s the one called him Edward?
William nodded. Her brother was there too. I met him. He knew Foole by sight.
Aye. I expect your Mr. Foole will turn out to be a client.
So we br
ing them all in. Catch them in the lie.
No point. Utterson will just change his story. Or someone somewhere will get paid off and the whole thing will leave you looking foolish. No. But, and here Shore paused and stared blearily at William. I’ve found another connection. I know where to find your Mr. Foole next.
And where is that?
At a charity dinner this Saturday, a Valentine’s dinner. For the Knights of the Guild, in honour of our Colonel Vail, before he sets off for the Congo. The host of the evening is none other than Mr. George Farquhar.
William moistened his lips. The men from the park, he said.
Aye. Now, this Adam Foole, Shore said. I had him looked into. Seems a rather respectable gentleman. Has taken a house off Piccadilly, on Half Moon Street. Some kind of import business, an Emporium for select clients, quiet, keeps to himself. No complaints from neighbours. No trace of him in our files. You still believe this is Shade?
It’s him.
Shore sucked at his cheeks, considering. I can imagine what a man like Edward Shade would want with the Colonel.
William could imagine it also. There would be wealth attached to the Colonel, prestige, extended absences from England. He sat with his knuckles steepled before him and his big feet planted on the carpet and he stared out the dirty glass thinking about Foole and the charity evening and the possibilities there. How did you hear of this dinner? he said at last.
We’re the CID, William. We keep an ear to the ground.
When you’re sleeping maybe. How?
Shore smiled. Wife’s on the committee. I saw a copy of the guest list. He’s to come alone.