Death at the Bow Chapel Bone-Yard

by VL Redmaine

  I felt the air move as I walked across Bow Bridge. I don’t like water and especially when I know it is flowing beneath my feet, so I was glad to feel the solid metalled path on the other side. Fingering the pen-knife in my pocket, I looked left and right, examining each side street as I crossed it. I didn’t know where Grimes had met his attacker, but the image of those teeth was fresh in my mind and I fancied I could see dark shapes moving in the shadows, just beyond the range of my squinting eyes.

  Finally, I arrived at The King’s Head. I sighed with relief as I saw the welcoming light coming through the glass door and made it my first order of business to soothe my dry throat with a pint of porter as soon as I arrived. As I stood at the bar, I surveyed the inside of the public house and its clientele. They were both equally disreputable though the patrons were few enough by this time.

  Gas light flickered from the glasses and brass surfaces but it was a dim place and, soon enough, I remembered my errand and motioned the landlord over.

  “I’m looking for Mr Doyle,” I said, keeping my voice only just above the level of the background murmurs. “I was told he resides here.”

  The landlord was a scar-faced man of middle years with the sort of rotund strength perfectly suited to keeping order in a working class meeting place. He leaned on the bar, and regarded me carefully while he absent-mindedly flexed his tattooed biceps.

  “Who wants to know?”

  This presented me with a problem. Like a fool, I hadn’t asked Grimes if he wished his name to be revealed to a third party. On the other hand, he hadn’t cautioned me against doing so. I am a somewhat unimaginative man and it’s this, perhaps, that means I am extremely uncomfortable telling untruths.

  “I was asked to deliver a message to Mr Doyle by a Mr Grimes who is a fellow tenant at the lodging house on Bow Road. He was injured tonight and wishes me to inform Mr Doyle.”

  I watched the landlord’s craggy face as his mind worked. “You ain’t with the peelers, then?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he smiled and shook his head. “No, I don’t reckon so,” he said, leaving me feeling unaccountably offended. “As for Jasper, I ain’t seen ‘im since supper-time. Went out for a blow, he said. Not been back.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

  The landlord’s smile disappeared. “Look, mate, I ain’t my brother’s keeper, right? You want to go look for ‘im, be my guest. Or you can leave your name and I’ll let ‘im know.”

  “I was instructed to hand the note to him in person,” I responded.

  “Then I suggest you starts with the brothels.” With that, the landlord stood up, took my empty glass and swept it away.

  I turned to go, determined to walk back to my lodgings and remonstrate with Grimes who, I suspected, knew exactly what sort of man this Doyle was, when I walked into a shape lurking in the shadows by the door.

  My apology was interrupted by a harsh whisper. “You want to find Doyle?”

  The stranger was of slender build, wearing a ulster and with a head that was completely covered by a rabbit-fur cap wrapped in a rough woollen scarf. I didn’t have time to properly compose myself, but I must have nodded because I was soon out in the cold night air.

  “You’re a woman?” I gasped as the cap was pulled off to reveal dark hair severely tied at the top. When the scarf was unwound, I was left in no doubt. She was woman of indeterminate age, neither young nor old, and of an appearance I can best describe as hawkish, though indisputably attractive.

  “And you are observant,” she responded in the perfect English of the well attuned foreigner. German, I suspected.

  I ignored the barb. “Do you know where Mr Doyle is?”

  “Follow me,” she said, before marching across the road with barely a look. I scampered on behind, aware that I was being manipulated by this striking woman, and yet unable to do anything other than to follow her.

  She moved with fluid grace and I struggled to keep up as she strode along Stratford High Street. Finally, she stopped at a door, above which hung the sign Marshall’s.

  “He’s here?” I said, unable to hide my astonishment. “In the match factory?”

  The woman pointed to the alley that ran alongside the factory. “He is in that shed.”

  I looked from her to the wooden building she was indicating and my blood turned to ice. Despite myself, I edged towards it to find the door half open. I pulled on the iron latch and it swung back to reveal a scene of such horror as I’d never experienced before. There, swaying gently in the half-light of the street lamps was a body. Its throat had been cut, though there was little enough blood on the torso or, as far as I could tell, the floor, and it was suspended on a hook that, I could only imagine, had been thrust into its back. I only prayed he had been dead when that was done.

  I choked down the vomit that was rising in my throat and croaked, “Do you mean to say that this is Doyle?”

  She nodded, but said no more.

  “Did you have anything to do with this?”

  “I did not kill Mr Doyle, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “I saw him leave and, when he didn’t return, followed his trail to here.”

  “What happened? Who killed him?” I said as disgust turned to anger and frustration. “Why haven’t the police been called?”

  The woman reached into her pocket and, to my utter astonishment, pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She took one and lit it, before offering the packet to me and then withdrawing it as I shook my head. “Why did your friend Grimes not call the police? Was he not involved in an altercation earlier this evening?”

  “I don’t know why, I just remember that it seemed to make sense at the time. Something about a lunatic,” I managed as my mind struggled to make sense of all this.

  “Let me ask you this, Mr Makepeace. Yes, I know your name,” she said, sensing my shock. “How much do you know of Mr Grimes’ business?”

  “Nothing.”

  She smiled. “Then you are fortunate. You can simply forget what you have seen here, hand me the message and walk off into the night. I suggest finding a different lodging house but, otherwise, you may walk away and continue to live your ordinary life.”

  “But I promised to hand this message to Mr Doyle,” I said.

  “Then do so, he is right there.”

  I huffed about, pacing back and forth in the wet alley as the corpse swung. “I should return to Grimes and tell him of this,” I said, finally.

  “And risk the police finding the body?”

  “Whose body?”

  She gave an amused grunt. “The corpse of whoever tangled with Mr Grimes tonight.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “I didn’t,” she said, before taking another drag on her cigarette. “But it is the logical conclusion. You would not be here if Grimes were dead or if he’d survived uninjured. Therefore he must have been attacked somewhere near to his lodging house and, yes, you were unfortunate enough to give him aid. Perhaps your choices narrow, Mr Makepeace.”

  I leaned against the wall of the factory, looking back to the road for any sign of the police. “Who are you?”

  She seemed surprised by my question, and then, perhaps, pleased. “You may call me Valentina, and if you wish to return to your ordinary existence, you will ask no more questions. Now, please hand me the message.”

  “First tell me this,” I said. “The man that attacked Grimes had pointed teeth and I can see, even from here, that Doyle’s body is punctured. Could the same man be responsible for both crimes?”

  Valentina sighed. “I told you not to ask any more questions, Mr Makepeace. This is my final warning. If I answer you, there will be no possibility of resuming your life as it was. If I answer, then you will be swept into events that are far more dangerous, far more shocking than anything you have seen before.” With this, she waved at the still swaying body of Doyle and I caught a glint of light reflected in his dead eyes as if he were warning me like some criminal
on a gibbet. Do not follow my path, he seemed to say, or you will suffer the same fate as me.

  I looked into her dark eyes. “Tell me,” I said.

  My mind was in turmoil as we strode along the road back to the graveyard. Valentina had revealed little - it seemed she was reluctant to expose me to the secret shared by herself and Grimes despite my insistence. What she did say only served to increase my frustration and I could feel the anger building as we neared our destination.

  The man whose body lay behind the Baptist Church was, according to her, a member of a secret organisation that indulged in what could only be described as Satanic rituals. Their aim, she said, was to undermine civilised order and spark a revolution - Grimes was an agent of the government tasked with infiltrating this group and providing intelligence. If this weren’t unbelievable enough, Valentina then revealed that she, also, was such an agent although not working for my government.

  So, as we approached the graveyard, I felt as though I was as much groping in the dark mentally as I was physically. The body lay where it had been left and I watched as Valentina kneeled beside it and sought out the wound on the back of the man’s head with her fingers. I cringed as I imagined it, but no longer had any doubts of her capability to handle actions that most women - most people - would find disgusting. Something deep within my mind, some reptilian vestige from antediluvian times, was stirring as if I were a prey animal on the plains of the Transvaal. In all this uncertainty, I knew one thing - she was dangerous.

  She drew her fingers up to the dim illumination of the factory lights and, for one horrific moment, I thought she was going to lick the blood from them. Her eyes met mine and it was all I could do to stop myself from running. We held the gaze for a moment before she gave a slight nod and resumed her inspection.

  “Come, we must return him to the asylum.”

  “So he is a lunatic!” I cried, “That explains everything!”

  Again, her eyes locked with mine. “Does it? Well, if so, then let that be your way of rationalising what you have seen here tonight.”

  I felt anger flood my body again. It was as if she were toying with me. “What better explanation can there be than that he is an escaped madman?”

  “And what better place to hide the unusual than in a lunatic asylum?” she responded. “Do people not look the other way when they pass it? Madness is the hidden fear that lurks inside the minds of those who call themselves ‘normal’ and so they pretend it is not there. The irony is that they are correct to fear it and it is better that they do not examine it more closely.”

  I helped her lift the body. It felt surprisingly light - or perhaps she was unexpectedly strong. “How are we going to get it to the asylum without being stopped?”

  She pointed at the buildings behind the graveyard. “That factory backs onto Convent Green and the asylum grounds are on the opposite side of that.”

  We pushed the corpse over the low wall that marked the edge of the chapel’s grounds. On the other side a narrow alley ran between the brick and tin sheds of the factory. There was a distinct tang of creosote and something else in the air - the Anderson factory made waterproof clothing so it might have been rubber or some chemical used in the process of making felt.

  We only had the light of the occasional lamp to guide us but Valentina took us faultlessly along the alley and towards the northern edge of the factory. There, a more substantial barrier met us - a high brick wall - but she nudged my arm to direct me along the wall until we reached what felt like a studded door, though I could see little of it.

  I could hear a scraping sound and perceived that Valentina was concentrating on a point halfway up the door. After a few moments, she gave a satisfied grunt and it swung open, squealing against hinges that clearly weren’t often used. Cool air wafted in from the open space beyond and we hauled our cargo through.

  I couldn’t say how long it took us to reach the outer fence of the hospital and to then trace our way round until we reached the main gate.

  A shape detached itself from a small booth beside the entrance.

  “Hospital’s closed,” said the gruff voice of a man.

  “We are returning one of Mr Peregrine’s charges,” Valentina announced.

  The man’s demeanor altered instantly. “Oh, I’m sorry ma’am, didn’t recognise you. Of course, go straight in. I’ll send a signal through to the office.”

  “Thank you,” Valentina said, before hoisting the dead man’s arm back around her shoulder.

  We dragged him across the cobbled yard and towards the only lit set of windows on the dark facade of the block which, to my eyes, looked more like a prison than a hospital.

  “Who is this Peregrine fellow?” I asked as we struggled with the dead weight strung between us.

  “He is responsible for cases such as this,” she said. “Ask no more. You will meet him soon enough.”

  And indeed, as we climbed the stone steps to the entrance, a man emerged and stood, arms crossed, awaiting us. He was a short man with dark hair that was receding from a high forehead. He wore a white coat and, for no obvious reason, round spectacles of black glass.

  “It’s Klaus, isn’t it?” he said, holding out his hands and lifting the head of the dead man. He sighed. “I thought so, he has been so restless these past weeks, though how he escaped, I do not know.”

  “I’ll expect a full report,” Valentina said and, to my surprise, rather than protesting, Peregrine nodded nervously and muttered an acknowledgement.

  Valentina looked into the hallway beyond the door. “Where are the night porters?”

  “I am sorry,” Peregrine said, “they are otherwise engaged, I am afraid.”

  I felt Valentina’s sigh rather than heard it. “Will you help me, Mr Makepeace? At least then we will see the job to its end.”

  I grunted assent though, in truth, I wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave this place never to come back. We followed Peregrine into the hospital’s entranceway and I was, presently, quite lost.

  More than once, as we walked those dark corridors, our boots squeaking on the polished floors, I was startled by a cry echoing from somewhere else in the hospital. It was only the little pride remaining to me that kept me going. If Valentina had been a man, I doubt I’d have made it past the entrance, but I was determined to show no weakness in front of a woman.

  We finally paused outside a door marked ‘Mortuary’ while Peregrine found a key and turned it in the lock. An electric bulb hung from the ceiling, its light reflecting on two long tables that sat, side by side, in the centre of the room. Each had a marble surface and on one lay a body covered in a white cloth.

  “He will have to wait here until the morning,” Peregrine said, indicating the empty slab but doing nothing to help as Valentina and I lifted the body into place. I could tell she was holding back her fury, but couldn’t understand quite why. I caught her dark eyes and, to my horror, saw fear there.

  I hurriedly pulled my arms from beneath the corpse, allowing the broken head to fall back onto the marble with a sickening slap, before following Valentina out of the door and back into the hallway.

  “Now then, my dear Valentina,” Peregrine said in a steady, almost regretful, voice, “you know what must happen now. Please do not make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”

  She turned suddenly to me. “Run.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Go!” she pushed at me.

  I hesitated no longer, setting off along the corridor and trying desperately to remember the twisting route we’d taken here. Over the echoing sound of my boots as I ran, I heard Peregrine’s voice. “Pointless. It would have been merciful to allow me to end it quick—”

  His voice was cut off as I rounded the corner and headed in the direction, I hoped, of the front desk. My insides had turned chill and I thought only of escaping into the night air, though there could be little safety in that. All I knew was that to remain here was certain death.

  Shape
s moved in the shadows. I was being pursued. Steps coming at me from all directions. I felt, or thought I felt, hot breath on the back of my neck. There was an all pervading sense of hunger and anticipation about the place. And the inmates - those who were still safely locked away - were screaming.

  I turned a corner, then another. I was lost. A hand grasped my arm and I swung around ready to strike.

  “Valentina!” I cried. In her hand she held a blood soaked knife and her face was covered in scratches, her eyes blazing with rage and fear.

  “This way,” she said, pushing me towards a corridor I’d have missed in my panic.

  A shape leapt out of the shadows and my arm exploded with pain. I was knocked backwards, dragging my attacker with me - all I could see in the halflight was a bald head, its jaws wrapped around my arm as it gnawed at me.

  With a thud, Valentina thrust her knife into the bald head, showering me with blood. The jaw tightened its grip and then, mercifully, was pulled away.

  I held my arm as she pulled me upright before yanking me over the body of my attacker and along the corridor. “Come!”

  “What is happening? Who are these people?” I called as she ran ahead.

  Suddenly, she stopped and turned around, grabbing my arms. “Be quiet! We are being hunted and if we are to have any chance of escaping this place we must be quick and we must be silent.”

  So I kept my thoughts to myself as we jogged as quietly as possible along the polished halls. Since that day, I have been in many terrifying encounters, but it was that night, as we stole through the dark corridors chased by a pack of ravening monsters, that remains in my memory as my induction into the underworld and perhaps the closest I came to losing my mind.

  Valentina stopped and put out her arm to hold me back. “We are near the entrance,” she said. “They know we’re heading this way and so we can expect at least some to have arrived here before us. Here.” She bent down and, to my embarrassment, lifted her black, tight fitting, dress and pulled from beneath it a small knife.