Hatton hands were shaking as he muttered, ‘But this means nothing, Inspector. Roumande has sent a thousand like this to anyone with money in this city. Lady Bessingham was a well-known patron of Science. Does he even remembering signing this? Have you asked him?’
‘It was amongst her general correspondence, dated six months ago. He recalled it but when asked simply shrugged in that annoyingly Gallic way of his and said, “Quoi?” and then clammed up. Silence is just another show of guilt, in my opinion. He killed her because she wouldn’t advance the money. I had one of my men check with your Director at the hospital. Despite the begging, she gave St Bart’s nothing.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting that Roumande would murder for that? It’s ridiculous. And Babbage? Dr Finch? Mr Dodds? And what about the little girl leading us to the bookseller? How does that fit in? Are you pinning all of this on my friend, as well, Inspector?’
‘I’m not sure I welcome this tone, Professor. The link is tenuous, granted. But we’ll get there.’
‘There’s no connection and you know it. And while I’m about it, have you followed those other leads? Dr Canning? Flora James? The only connection we have, Inspector, are Broderig’s letters, which are missing. There’s a trail, Inspector, and yet you seem happy to ignore it. Someone has these letters and is willing to kill for them, or kill anyone who has seen them. Broderig will be next.’
‘You need to calm yourself, Professor. You are at sixes and sevens.’
‘Very well, then. Tell me I imagined it when I saw the bookshop on Millford Lane ablaze this afternoon. All evidence lost, Inspector? Coincidence? I am happy to swear I saw what I thought were two plainclothers fleeing from the place. Not unlike the fellows who you were with at the bar. On your orders, were they?’
‘If you carry on like this, Professor, I’ll have you arrested.’
Hatton could see it wasn’t working. He took a seat, sat down, his head in his hands as he said, ‘Have you spoken to his wife yet, Inspector? Roumande will have an alibi and I can vouch for his character. Please, Inspector, was it something he said to you?’
Adams leant forward and lit his cigarette. ‘I know my job, although it seems to me you think you have some sort of elevated understanding of police work. I’m still waiting for your final conclusions on the autopsies, and yet here you are, picking holes in my arrest and making all sorts of accusations.’ Hatton went to speak, but Adams held his hand up. ‘Not that I have to justify myself, but so you know, we did indeed trace one Dr Canning to a place in Gordon Square, but by the time we arrived, it was empty. We did, however, find an invitation to Lady Bessingham’s funeral, which he must have dropped on the floor. If Dr Canning is not some lunatic killer, I shall have a chat with him tomorrow, assuming he is on his way there. As for the bookshop? Accidents happen, Professor. But I have nothing else concrete to go on, and I am under considerable pressure to draw this situation to an end. Four people are dead. The little girls are another thing, altogether.’
‘But you will draw nothing to an end, Inspector, by arresting an innocent man.’ Hatton looked at his adversary. ‘I’ll raise the bail, Inspector.’ But this man wouldn’t be moved. Hatton only had to look at him to know it.
And as Hatton watched the Inspector’s face through a haze of smothered blue, he knew that this was a smokescreen. God knows, it was what everybody said about The Yard. Hatton looked at the cut of Adams’s suit. What had Mr Gad said? That Adams smelt like a rich man. Money was always at the bottom of things. Adams was hiding something or protecting someone.
‘You dress very well, Inspector, if I may say so. And no stinting on little pleasures. I saw the single malt on your desk. Whatever your claim to the contrary, The Yard must pay you very well.’
Adams toyed with his glass, as he said, ‘I think I’ve heard enough from you, Hatton. It’s not easy to accept you’ve been wrong about a man, but if you think you have any future with police work, you had better get used to it.’
‘Get used to it? Put up with it? Do as I’m told? Is that what you mean, Adams? Is that what you do? I’ll leave you to your brandy, Inspector. I hope it chokes you.’
‘Thank you for seeing me like this, Mr Broderig. I didn’t know who else to turn to.’
‘This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. There’s no evidence, then? Nothing to link your friend to any of these crimes?’
‘No. Adams simply wants someone in a cell and he’s picked up the first man to come to mind. He muttered things about letters and linen thread.’ Hatton took another slug. ‘But I can’t help thinking he’s covering something up. Do you know anything about him? Beyond what we read in the papers?’
‘I know only that he also does a little private work and he has a lodging house in Whitehall. I suspect he keeps a tart there. But I don’t criticise him for that. It’s his relief from the pressures of the city. Here’s mine.’ Broderig topped his glass up. ‘Can I get you another, Professor?’
Hatton shook his head but it was good to have someone to talk to, knowing this young man’s mind was broader than most. Broderig had travelled, seen the world, and he was prepared to think beyond the usual, as the Professor must.
‘Do you know, I still haven’t got my letters returned and I know they were in the house at Nightingale Walk. It’s very strange that they should disappear. They were very distinctive and written on parchment. And as I think I mentioned to you on the train to Cambridge, there’s some delicate information contained within. You see, I met an extraordinary man in Borneo. His name is Alfred Russel Wallace.’
‘Yes, you’ve already mentioned him, but what of it?’
Broderig shifted on his chair a little before answering. ‘Well, the reason I mention it is I rather stupidly jotted down a few ideas of his and sent them to Lady Bessingham. I regret sharing them now, but since my letters have vanished I can’t help thinking, after what you’ve said tonight, that the Inspector knows more than he’s letting on. Perhaps he has secured them for someone, or means to sell them himself.’
‘They are of value, then?’ Hatton asked, intrigued.
‘To some they are. To others they could spell trouble, but as I say, they were only jots and scribbles. Some embryonic ideas, nothing more, but perhaps it was enough. These ideas bring everything we know into question. Not just how the world was made, but how the world should be governed. I asked Katherine to keep them so we could discuss them properly on my return. Well, I returned a month ago but have been busy with my other work and Katherine was a very impetuous woman. I think she may have spoken to someone or done something with them that she shouldn’t have done.’ As if remembering something, Broderig pushed his chair away from his desk, moving across the room to a display cabinet, and opening it up, said, ‘I have something here to show you, Professor. I brought one or two specimens home with me. The rest will be here any day now. Do you remember I told you about the ship I travelled on called The Advancement?’
‘The one that was circumnavigating Indo-China?’
‘I see you paid attention, Professor. Well, apparently there were problems with the crew and they were forced to abandon the mission on the coast of Borneo. Inside the hold are one or two crates of mine and they will shortly arrive in England. They include a creature called the Mias. Have you heard of it, perhaps?’
Hatton was fascinated, saying, ‘Yes, you mentioned the Mias on our journey to Cambridge.’
‘Well, I didn’t tell you everything. I held a baby once. It died you see, and the grief I felt, the anger, was a little overwhelming, but it has abated now after all that has passed.’ Broderig opened a small, lacquered box. ‘Look, Professor. They’re very small but perfectly preserved.’
Hatton was intrigued. ‘Ants?’ he asked, because Hatton wasn’t totally sure.
‘Exactly. Giant forest ants. Camponotus gigas. They look ferocious, but are harmless enough. And such a singular sense of purpose, it’s wondrous. Many times in the jungle, I lay on the ground and marvelled at thei
r blind faith, their sense of absolute conviction. We would put bits of bark in their way, stones, handfuls of mud, but nothing would stop them. On and on they would go till they got the job done. But come, this is no time for ants. You have work to do. Why don’t you go back to wherever you left the Inspector? See where he goes. If he has a secret, as you say, and this arrest is some kind of elaborate cover, follow him and who knows what you’ll discover.’
Broderig was right. Hatton shook the young man firmly by the hand, thanked him for his time, and before leaving said, ‘Be careful, Mr Broderig. Four are dead. Have you located that pistol yet?’
Broderig patted his top right-hand pocket. ‘Don’t worry, Professor. I have taken heed of the Inspector. I can take care of myself.’
Hatton waited outside The Northumberland Hotel. It was closing time and after a few shouts, the Specials tumbled out followed by Inspector Adams, who took a different direction to his men, heading towards St James’ Park at a brisk pace. Was he heading for his lodging house, then?
Hatton watched the Inspector turn left into Whitehall Road. Adams carried on, his black beaver on, his face shielded against the snow. Hatton followed as The Inspector turned right, left again, and then up a winding street with a sign, ‘Grenadier Row’. Hatton was half expecting the detective to look round at any minute and announce, ‘You fool, Hatton, do you really think you could follow me?’ but Adams didn’t.
Towards the end of the street there was a hotel, The Horse Guards Arms. Hatton watched him go in. Who was he meeting here? Hatton waited in the shadows and beat his hands together, very gently, so as not to make a sound, but the cold was creeping into his bones and flakes were gathering on his lashes. He wiped them away, for a moment blinded, and then saw something.
Two men, arm in arm, leaning on each other, but not through drink. Hatton looked away. Why was the Inspector here? Was he meeting someone?
Hatton heard bells chiming, telling him it was midnight, as he moved towards the tavern. It was dark, dimly lit, but he could still make out Inspector Adams sitting in a bay window talking to someone and they sat close to each other, furtive and whispering. But who was this man? An informer or a witness? Through another window, Hatton could see a few soldiers, a throng of other men and a very dapper looking landlord, standing at the bar. There was the tinkling of light piano music and a hubbub of male voices in the air, as Hatton crept forward, pressing himself close to a wall, where he spied Adams huddled over a brandy, still talking, still whispering. And then, Hatton saw all he needed to. Adams was brushing the other man’s hand with his lips, caressing him, and he wasn’t a man at all. He was a youth, highly rouged, smiling and fluttering his eyelashes, like a woman. Hatton staggered back. Roumande was in a cell somewhere. There was no going back on anything. Hatton knew the sentence for this perversion, but here was Adams, secretive yes, but still able to be seen, in the front window of a hotel with a molly boy. Surely he knew the terrible risk he was taking?
Hatton waited back in the shadows. For how long he wasn’t sure, but when the Inspector stepped out of the hotel again, he was alone. Hatton watched as Adams looked over his shoulder before taking a swig from a small silver hip flask. Adams passed him, head down, and was muttering something which sounded like ‘God forgive me’ or ‘God protect me.’
Adams stopped suddenly and lit a penny smoke, which wasn’t easy in such filthy weather. Adams was shrouded in a veil of smoke as Hatton stepped out of the shadows and touched the Inspector’s shoulder very lightly. So pale, Adams was a ghost, and his voice, when he spoke, faltered. There were no bombastics now. He simply said, ‘How long have you been following me, Professor?’
‘Long enough,’ Hatton answered. ‘I know everything.’
Benjamin Broderig shut the box. It was late but his mind was spinning, like the earth on its axis. He thought of Katherine, who would be buried tomorrow. Perhaps she could see him even now. Her breath in the air; her words, a whisper in the night.
But this was London. There were no rocks, no flowers, no water spirits. The sky was sullied. It was unclean, despite the feathering snow. Broderig thought about his journey here and the places he still wanted to go. He walked over to his desk and found the map of the Aru Islands, and with a quill plotted out the route he might take and thought about how if he went there, he would have no one to write to and no one to share it with as he had when Katherine Bessingham was still alive.
Sarawak
December 22nd, 1855
Dear Katherine,
I think I have changed. Not just that I am a little bearded now, and less like the boy you once knew, but that I have changed in my outlook. I think this is more profound a change than the physical, don’t you think? And of course, with bated breath, I am in some anticipation to hear your reaction to Mr Wallace’s ideas.
But I am still surprised that he shared his thoughts so freely. Perhaps here in Borneo, away as we are from England, a man can really think about the way of things. There is no fear here. No Society. Yes, of course, there is fear of a snake bite, perhaps even a fear of reputation. But we are freer here. Less formed.
Mr Wallace will return to Singapore before he plans his next adventure. He said he only waits on money. I had hoped that he might see something in me, and ask me to join him, but sadly, he did not. He is clearly a man who is happiest when he is working alone. Perhaps this is what makes him so good at this trade. I can see now that I was just passing his time for him, playing chess, talking of theories whilst he readied himself for the next expedition.
The day we left Brooke’s cottage, Emmerich packed up and got ready in the greatest of moods. I heard him chatting on the veranda. His ‘ummings arrhings’. And his hilariously Germanic, ‘Jawohls’ at each of Mr Wallace’s questions. So polite and deferential.
I am slightly at a loss to be back now in Sarawak and wish Mr Wallace was here. Don’t get me wrong. Good old Emmerich will always be my friend, no matter how far I travel. But it is close upon me, I can feel it. The time for leaving again. The rainy season is just around the corner when collecting will become impossible. The forest will be beaten down with pounding rain and Wallace will escape it by heading east. Emmerich, on the other hand, enjoys the rainy season and the immobility of it all. And the more I think on this, the more convinced I am that he will never leave. In Sarawak, he needs little to live on. He has his house. His trade in orchids. But I have none of these things now the Mias are spoken for and my Dutch friends are gone and little San, who I think of often, far away with my gun in his hand.
I have even started to gather up my belongings and pack away some instruments no longer needed in boxes marked ‘Handle with Care’.
I heard a church bell ringing this evening. There is a Calvinist chapel in Sarawak. It must have been the way the breeze was blowing that let the low, plaintive rings reach my ears. So out of place in this world and yet when I heard it, I felt homesick. I wandered down to my moonlit beach in the vain hope that I might see a ship I knew, but there was nothing on the horizon. No chugging steamer, no glorious junk, no surveyor’s ship. Just flat black ocean; sea and sky melding together into a void. I sat down on the beach and then noticed it was moving.
First flurries of sand flying into the air. Then tiny creatures: turtles. Not one or ten, Katherine. To my astonishment, there must have been a thousand or more, moving across the sand to the sea. Where were they going? Would they all get there? Something was calling them. I picked up a little hatchling. It was a leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and it struggled in my hands. I was not God, but I felt, just then, at that moment, that if I wanted to, I could be. It made me shudder. So instead, rather than killing the little creature as ‘The Collector’ should have done, I set it down. Released, it scuttled forward, kicking up the sand with its tiny flippers. I watched it go. The gentle waves lapped up onto the beach and as the sea pulled its might out again, I saw my little turtle rise up, then disappear.
When the spectacle was over and the beach was left w
ith only two or three stragglers, I wandered back. And like the turtles, I knew it was my time to set off in a new direction. To have faith, if not in God, then in destiny. To stop looking out hopelessly at horizons, but to pack up my cases and go home.
The rest of my thoughts, my ideas, my journals I will keep with me, for you must be growing tired of my rambling letters, Katherine, and so I promise you this is the last. Journeys home are not the same as journeys leaving. The next words you shall hear from me shall be face to face, together at Ashbourne. And thinking of that, of home and familiar company, yes, it’s true to say, I feel almost myself again. In fact, quite content with the world and well.
Yours etc.
Benjamin Broderig looked out of the window and his hot breath steamed up a panel, so that he could easily draw his own initials on the glass. He breathed on the letters purposefully again, so the initials evaporated. Then somewhere in the house, he heard a voice. Perhaps his father was up? But the voice sounded rough and inelegant, so more likely a servant. He folded up his map again and placed it by the bookcase and as he did so, heard a soft creak of wood, and the fall of footsteps. Broderig looked at the door, braced himself, and took his pocket pistol out. Inspector Adams had been right about one thing, he knew he was in danger. But there was nobody there, and so he put the pocket pistol back, deciding a snap of cold air was needed. Just an echo in his head, he thought to himself.
The topiary garden was heaped with snow, the gate left swinging open. Broderig started towards the city, hugging the wharfside as he went. Every now and then stopping and looking out at the vast expanse of flattened water, veiled in a shroud of low-hanging mist. Broderig kept going until he reached the shadows of Parliament. He had some shillings in his pocket. He passed a church, but the place he needed was just across the street. The tavern looked long closed up. But Benjamin Broderig rapped on the door, and a panel slid open and an eye presented itself, unblinking and bloodshot. ‘W’dya want?’ said a voice from within. Harsh and unwelcoming.
Devoured (Hatton & Roumande) Page 19