by Lee Jackson
‘I mean to say, two days ago, when your mother was . . . when I found you by the river, and I took advantage of your distress.’
She stares at him blankly.
‘Damn it!’ he exclaims to himself nervously. ‘I mean to say, I am sorry that I kissed you. It was not the act of a gentleman.’
Clara looks at him in surprise. Her face is still wet with tears, but a slight smile comes to her lips.
‘You’re a queer sort of gentleman, Mr. Phibbs. I know that much.’
‘I have made you laugh,’ he says, half annoyed with her gentle tone of mockery, half pleased with the result.
‘No,’ she says, though her lips still suggest a smile.
‘Very well, then. I know this is not the best of moments, but I merely wanted to say that, if I have not offended you too much, I would still like your help.’
‘I cannot go back to Wapping,’ she replies, her voice suddenly losing its warmth.
‘No, not that. Not at all. But I would still like to talk to you, about your history and so forth. We never had a proper chance, and I confess, you interest me greatly. As a study, I mean to say.’
She looks at him doubtfully.
‘Please,’ he continues, ‘let me at least take you for some food. I am sure we can find a chop-house or some such when we get back upon the road.’
‘It ain’t proper, you being seen with me.’
‘Then we will find somewhere suitably disreputable. We are in Limehouse, after all. And you look half starved in any case.’
‘I’ll be missed.’
He smiles, seeing the steps that lead up to the Commercial Road.
‘Not, my dear girl, if we take a cab. Will you come?’
She hesitates for a moment.
‘If you like.’
The chop-house is almost empty. None the less, its booths, separated by rickety oak partitions, smell of roasting, burnt toast, and spilt porter, and everywhere there is the all-pervasive scent of tobacco smoke.
‘So, Clara, where shall we begin?’
‘Where would you like?’
‘Well, you were born in the public house which you showed me. When is your birthday?’
‘The twelfth of March, I think.’
‘You are not sure?’
‘There was only my ma to remember it. And she was never that good at marking days.’
‘I see. And where did you live at first?’
‘In different places, then with my grandma.’
‘In the house by the river?’
‘Yes.’ She looks down, frowning.
‘I am sorry,’ says Cotton. ‘If it is, well, awkward to talk of it now . . . I did not mean to . . .’
‘I do not mind.’
‘What about the other places? Were they lodging houses?’
‘If ma could afford the doss.’
‘If not?’
She shrugs. ‘Doorways, alleys, any place. There was a boat for a while.’
‘You slept in a boat?’
‘When it moored up, at night. My sister was good as born in it.’
‘Really?’
‘I ain’t making it up.’
‘I am sorry. It merely sounds rather, well, colourful.’
‘It weren’t.’
Step back.
A small boat floats upon the river, tethered to the pier at Hermitage Stairs; in it are a woman and child, curled together under a heavy canvas, a makeshift bed of folded sails and twisted rope beneath them. The woman has a round belly, and turns uneasily, this way and that. The little girl is awake and watches her shifting about.
Now the little girl is dragged to her feet, and they are up once more on the pier. She looks up at the woman. Her back is bent double and she holds her stomach, repeating an inaudible prayer, again and again.
The woman squats on the muddy shore. She groans like an injured animal, and the girl watches her closely, remembering a horse she once saw fall on the Ratcliffe Highway, with its hind leg quite broken. She does not know how long it takes to come: an awkward, squeezed bundle of skin and bones, wriggling and bloody-blue, that appears between her mother’s thighs.
Some stranger hears the noise: a coal-heaver, his hands black as soot; the woman begs him for a knife and cuts the baby’s cord.
‘Clara?’
‘Clara, say halloa to your sister. Ain’t she a beautiful little thing?’
‘Clara?’
‘Your toast is getting cold.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That is quite all right. What became of you after your sister was born?’
‘That was when we went to my grandma’s.’
‘But you had not lived there before? Why was that?’
‘They never got on, her and my ma. They used to argue.’
‘I see. Your grandmother did not, how shall we say, approve of your mother? Was she a very moral woman?’
Clara laughs. ‘No. She kept the worst cadging-house north of the river.’
‘Then what was the source of the trouble?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says, buttering another slice of bread. ‘I think they were too alike. It’s often the way in families, ain’t it?’
‘Perhaps. How were they similar?’
‘Both hard and stubborn, the pair of them. Ma would storm out after some row, and we’d be back on the street until the next time.’
Cotton smiles. ‘Are you, then, hard and stubborn too?’
‘Don’t tease me.’
‘I’m sorry. But you did not think much of your poor mother, I would say?’
She shrugs. ‘I looked after her. She would have gone to the workhouse if it weren’t for me talking round Dr. Harris. That’s enough, ain’t it?’
‘I suppose so. And she is at peace now.’
‘I hope so, for her sake.’
‘Tell me about the rest of your family. Your grandmother?’
‘She’s dead. Three years last Christmas.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No-one else was.’
‘Not even you?’
‘Not much.’
‘And what about your sister? She is still alive, is she not?’
‘She is.’
‘What does she do now?’
A pause; Clara looks away.
‘She’s gone the same way as ma, except she went and got herself married first.’
‘She is married, but on the streets?’
Clara nods, not meeting Cotton’s glance, looking down at her plate.
‘The man she married, does he not object to it?’
‘Him? I very much doubt it.’
‘Ah, I see. It is like that?’
Tom Hunt. Clara can picture his face.
How old was she when they first met?
Seven years. Her mother brought him to meet her.
‘Clarrie, this is Tom. You’re to go with him today and be a good girl, do as he says.’
She looks up from her dinner and sees a boy, fifteen years old. A handsome boy, dressed in a neat waistcoat and jacket, though of cheap cloth, with a narrowbrimmed tall hat, cocked casually to one side of his head. He scrutinises the little girl standing in front of him.
‘Ain’t you pretty? Show us your hands.’
She stretches out her arms.
‘Good hands. But you’ll need nimble fingers for this game, my little darlin’.’
‘Go on, Clarrie, go with the nice man.’
She looks at her mother.
‘Don’t you worry, Aggie,’ says the young man, winking. ‘I’ll teach her how to prig a man’s pocket at twenty paces. She’ll be a little goldmine, this one.’
He looks down at her.
‘A little treasure with a face like that, eh? Butter wouldn’t melt.’
‘Tom Hunt? So it was this man Hunt who taught you how to thieve, at your mother’s request?’
Cotton looks at Clara intently, assessing her response. She merely nods.
‘I declare,’ he continues, looking
down to scribble in his notebook, ‘it is like some penny serial! I never thought such things to be arranged quite so romantically.’
‘Please, keep your voice down.’
‘Bless you, Clara, no-one here imagines either of us to be particularly respectable. Besides, it is so intriguing a story.’
A pause.
‘It is not a “story”. I should like to go now, if you please.’
‘You have not finished your meal.’
‘Mrs. Harris will be waiting. You promised me a cab.’
‘And you shall have one, you have my word. But there is one thing I would ask.’
She sighs. ‘What now?’
‘I would very much like to meet your sister, and this fellow, this Tom Hunt.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
‘USELESS.’
‘Useless, sergeant?’
‘A waste of time, sir, this diary business, even now we have the blasted transcript. It’s all the same, ain’t it? Here’s one, “November the fifteenth 1863”:
‘Went for walk along the Haymarket; it was a cold night, quite bitter, but I confess that the area quite lives up to its reputation, and not merely around the night houses and such. I was immediately accosted by two girls; asked me directions, then enquired if I wished to go with them; one had a broad West Country brogue, and said she was new to the city. The other, I believe, was a native, though she affected ignorance of the streets (claimed they were both quite lost!). For all that, I am quite sure both would know of a house-of-call within walking distance, but I did not pursue the matter. For some reason I took a dislike to both of these females.
‘It took a shilling to rid myself of them.
‘Dozens of them. Night after night. And he writes it all down. Never says nothing about himself. I can’t make no sense of it. It’s an obsession, if you ask me. He’s a deviant, like what I said.’
‘Does he bed these girls?’
The sergeant snorts, as if to indicate the naïvety of the question. ‘Never says so. But it ain’t normal, is it?’
‘Maybe. He is a writer of sorts, I think. He writes well enough.’
‘If you say so.’
‘A journalist, or some such. There is a line here, in January: “Took mss. to B. says he would be interested in monthly series on the ‘social evils’.”’
‘B.?’
‘Yes. It is little help, I know. Perhaps if we made a few enquiries around the newspapers.’
‘It is something, I suppose,’ says Watkins, glumly, envisioning a wasted afternoon in the dingy offices of a dozen sub-editors.
‘It is, Watkins, the only blessed clue we have to our Mr. Phibbs’ identity. Besides, the book is not “all the same”, as you put it. It falls into a pattern: he makes brief jottings, always in shorthand, then writes a fuller diary entry upon the subject, presumably when he is at home and free to do so.’
‘Oh, well then,’ says Watkins, affecting a sarcastic tone, ‘I can see that’s very different. Anyhow, I thought you reckoned he didn’t do it? With respect, sir, if that is the case, why are we wasting all our time on this fellow?’
‘I have never said we should not find him.’
‘Well, be that as it may, I’m done with this,’ says Watkins, putting the papers down. ‘I’ll be off, if it’s all right by you.’
Webb nods distractedly, still reading from his section of the transcription, while Watkins puts down the sheaf of paper and gets up. Then he calls the sergeant back.
‘Wait one moment.’
‘Sir?’ says Watkins, wearily.
Webb smiles; a smile of quiet satisfaction.
‘I have found it, sergeant. I have found it. Although I wonder why it was not right at the end, in sequence. Perhaps he was running out of paper. It explains everything.’
‘Found what, sir?’
Webb looks at him eagerly. ‘You ask if I thought that he did not kill her. Listen to this, in the fellow’s own notes:
‘Few people upon the streets; no suitable girls, or they have avoided me; once accosted, near Saffron Hill; did I want to “give her a good ride”? I said not; asked if I may put usual questions, if she did not object; I paid; she cursed me foully and hurried off! pretty though – wretched creature!’
‘Just like the rest of it,’ says the sergeant. ‘Though I’d say that one had the right idea.’
‘Please, Watkins, do not interrupt; I am coming to it.
‘Followed the girl; lost her by Farringdon Stn.; took fancy to go down, catch last train, bought ticket; found solitary red-haired girl lying asleep on train; smell of gin; street girl?; odd sort to find in 2nd class; grand-dame comes on at King’s Cross, gives her a strong look; sniffing air, full of crinoline and dignity;
‘Mem. article on the Underground Railway?
‘He stops there. It is dated the night of the murder.’ Webb’s face is bright with excitement. ‘The night of the murder. Do you not see what this means?’
The sergeant raises his eyebrows. ‘I can see what you’re getting at, sir. That’s all well and good, but a man can’t write himself his own alibi, can he? I wouldn’t want to rely on it, not if I was him, anyhow.’
‘Really, Watkins, you can be obtuse. In this case, he did just that, though he did not know it. I swear he did not kill her, I am sure of it. Why would he be so elaborate? Besides, you are missing my point entirely.’
‘Perhaps you could spell it out for me, then, sir.’
‘Don’t you see, sergeant? What if the girl was already on the train when he got on?’
‘What of it? She got on before him. He strangles her.’
‘At the station, in full view of the platform?’
‘He waits till the train’s moving, like we thought.’
‘No, the diary explains why no-one at Farringdon remembers her. Don’t you see? What if she was left there? She came down on the train from Paddington, and was missed when the train came to the terminus. They were short of guards, were they not? She was missed when the train emptied, and just left lying there, dead. She could have been killed at any time before the train reached the station. We have been thinking it must have happened between Farringdon and King’s Cross, whereas, if I am right, it was just the opposite, if not earlier.’
Sergeant Watkins frowns. ‘But even if that’s true,’ he says, ‘and it’s still an odd business if it is, where does that leave us?’
Webb looks thoughtful for a moment, but his face visibly sags, losing the brilliance in his eyes and the smile upon his lips.
‘Not much further on, really, are we, sir?’ says Watkins.
Decimus Webb sits in his office. Sergeant Watkins has long since disappeared home. Before him, Webb has sketched in pencil a rough map of the Metropolitan Railway, and the relation of the various stations to the Holborn Refuge, with approximate distances clearly marked. He idly traces his finger over the route, then turns to one side and picks up a nearby folder, marked ‘Agnes Mary White; Coroner’s Verdict’.
He opens the folder and reads through the contents once more, staring at the words ‘broken neck’ and ‘Verdict of Accidental Death’. He returns to the piece of paper with his map, and writes out very deliberately, in his neatest handwriting: ‘Agnes White is the link.’
He ponders this for a moment, then underneath ‘Agnes White’ writes: ‘Phibbs?’
Decimus Webb sighs, and gets up in search of coffee.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘IS THIS THE place, do you think?’ asks Henry Cotton.
‘I don’t know. She said Saffron Hill, I told you. It was your idea to come here, weren’t it?’
‘Clara, it did not have to be today. Besides, we have been in half a dozen places already, and no-one has seen them. I thought you wanted to get home.’
‘No, I want to get it over with. And I want to see Lizzie anyhow.’
‘Very well,’ replies Cotton, following her down the muddy alley. ‘Let us try this one, although if I had known, I believe I would have worn
something less formal.’
Clara looks back at him as she opens the door to the Three Cups public house.
‘You’ll do,’ she says, stepping inside.
Cotton follows her. The interior is as ill-ventilated and poorly lit as any place they have already visited. It is, however, rather smaller, and thus it is impossible to remain anonymous. Only a couple of loafers stand by the bar, and a dozen more are seated at the various tables, illuminated by the flickering light of the fireplace. None the less, all of them spare the newcomers a quick glance, and most exchange some waggish comment upon the incongruity of seeing such a prim servant-girl and gentleman together in such an establishment. Indeed, it is almost certain that several prepare themselves to go further, and say something ‘telling’, and at a volume such that everyone may enjoy their wit. They are all spared the opportunity by a voice that booms from the back of the room.
‘Well, blow me tight!’
Clara looks, and sees the figure of Tom Hunt rising from his seat to greet her.
‘There he is,’ she whispers to her companion, almost ruefully, ‘you have your wish now.’
‘I had forgotten you said he was so young,’ he replies. ‘Something of a swell about him.’
‘You expected an old Jew, did you?’
Cotton does not have time to reply, as Tom Hunt comes up and extends his arm, snatching Clara’s hand and kissing it.
‘Clarrie! How long has it been now?’
‘A good twelvemonth,’ she replies coldly, removing her hand from his. Hunt, however, ignores the severity of her tone.
‘Too long, now we’re related and all, eh? And ain’t you going to introduce us to this gentleman? Halloa there, sir!’ he says, extending his hand to Cotton.
‘This is Mr. Phibbs,’ she replies, uncertain what more she can say on the subject.
‘I say, Clarrie,’ says Hunt, smiling, ‘he ain’t your . . . I mean, you and him ain’t . . .’
‘I am just an acquaintance, Mr. Hunt, I assure you,’ interjects Henry Cotton.
Hunt falters for a moment, surprised to hear his own name. He glances at Clara, though retaining his cheerful demeanour.