by J. J. Durham
He elbowed his way to the bar.
‘Afternoon, my lovely, what can I get you?’ The barmaid, a flat-chested woman with yellow hair, grinned at him, revealing a surprisingly good set of teeth.
‘Just ale.’
‘We have faggots, fresh made today?’
Pilgrim eyed a passing plate. He liked faggots, as a rule, but the greasy objects on the plate didn’t look like any he’d seen before. ‘Just ale.’
The barmaid shrugged. ‘Suit yerself.’
She plonked a tankard in front of him with an injured air.
He stared into it, with no intention of drinking. He needed to think. If he put himself in Stella Drake’s shoes, where might he go? The obvious place was a doss house. But there were hundreds of doss houses in Clerkenwell and Whitechapel alone, and they didn’t allow anyone in until eleven o’clock. He slipped the photograph of Stella Drake into his pocket beside Wainwright’s sketch of Martha Drewitt. Guilt prodded him: he could have shown Martha’s picture to the women at the same time as he had showed them Stella’s, but he had promised Charley he wouldn’t get involved. More to the point, he had promised himself he wouldn’t.
He scanned the taproom over the rim of his tankard. He recognized Happy Billy Brandon, the bookies’ runner, moving from table to table with his leather pouch. Happy Billy had a scar that ran from the top of his skull to his chin, a souvenir from a tanner’s hook, which had torn away one of his eyes and a goodly portion of his upper lip. The result was his perpetual and hideous grin. Pilgrim knew he should arrest him – it was illegal to make a wager anywhere except a racecourse – but he didn’t see the point. There would always be another runner to take Billy’s place. As far as Pilgrim was aware there was no horse racing that day, but that didn’t signify. If the gentry weren’t racing horses, they were setting their animals to fight each other, whether it was dogs, fowl, or footmen.
‘Sixpence on the Gypsy to win.’ A fat woman brandished a coin at Billy. He bit it, and then pushed it into his already bulging pouch.
A fist fight, then. And a big one, by the look of it.
His thoughts were broken by a crash. One of the men behind him had tipped his stool over by accident. Pilgrim turned to watch, as, with much laughing and jeering, the man’s friends helped him off the floor. Then his eye was caught by a bright gleam of russet, and he saw a woman going out of the door. She was tall, supple backed, with a green gown and fox-coloured hair pinned on top of her head. Blood pounded in his ears.
He shoved his way through the bar, but by the time he made it out onto the street the woman had vanished. He cast around, desperate. The narrow thoroughfare was still thronged with people: she could have gone in any direction. He jumped onto a nearby bollard to get a better view. There! The russet head was less than forty yards away, making for the market. He leapt down and followed it, dodging through the crowd.
‘Watch it!’ shouted a butcher carrying a pig’s carcase dripping with blood.
Pilgrim dodged around him without apology, skidding on the gore. ‘Arsehole!’ He pushed through the crowd, but by the time he reached the market proper he had lost sight of the woman again. He cast around, saw a cart of cabbage stalks and jumped up onto it. From his new vantage point he could see almost to the far end of the square. This time he saw the slender figure clearly, turning down an alley less than twenty yards away. He jumped off the cart, scattering greenery, and ran after her. She had only gone a few yards down it when he caught up with her.
‘Bess!’ He clutched her arm and spun her around. Disappointment slammed into him. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
The woman was a similar build, with the same hair colour, but that was where the resemblance ended. Bess was fine boned, but the woman in front of him was thicker featured, with brown eyes rather than blue. She smiled and his heart lurched. He turned away.
‘Don’t go, darlin’,’ the woman caught at his sleeve. ‘I can see you’re hurtin’. I can be your Bess, if you’d like me to be.’ Her voice was low-pitched. Not dissimilar. Pilgrim turned back to face her. She gave a knowing smile, took his hand and placed it on her breast.
‘There now, ain’t that nice?’
Need sluiced through him, washing away his natural reserve, common sense, and even thought. He clutched her to him as a drowning man might clutch at a raft, and groaned. He buried his fingers in her hair, shaking it loose, scattering pins, his lips seeking hers.
‘Steady on, darlin’. She laughed, low and throaty, surprised by his ardour. ‘There’s no need to be in such a hurry. I have a nice little place just around the corner, where we can take our time.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dickens emerged, frowning, from the establishment of Messrs Bolt and Son in Blenheim Street. He was discovering the life of a detective to be decidedly unglamorous, consisting more of the wearing out of shoe leather than anything else. His tailor had given him the names of two more glove cleaners in the area, in addition to the names Tanner had given him in Bond Street. He was now down to the final one, having discovered nothing but disappointment at the others. He looked at the second name his tailor had written on the receipt. Thankfully it was no more than a five minute walk away.
In the front parlour of G. Witton and Sons, a respectable looking house on Gilbert Street, he found an old man in a white apron. There were no sons in evidence, but plenty of daughters, all rubbing away at dozens upon dozens of pairs of gloves. It was a strange sight, and one that Dickens found oddly disconcerting. One pair of gloves, so unremarkable in the singular, seemed absurd and even sinister when encountered in such numbers. Dickens took Eliza Grimwood’s gloves from his pocket.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said, ‘but I was wondering if you could tell me who is responsible for cleaning this pair of gloves?’
‘Is there a problem with them?’ asked the old man.
‘Good heavens, no,’ said Dickens, hurrying to disabuse him of the notion. ‘It’s a strange story. I was dining over at Lambeth the other day, at a chophouse with some friends, when a gentleman left these behind. One of my friends laid a wager of a sovereign that I wouldn’t be able to find out who they belonged to. I’ve spent seven shillings already, trying to discover, but if you could help me I’d gladly give you another seven. Look, there’s an “R” and a “T” inside.’
The old man took the gloves and squinted at the initials. ‘I should say I should know ’em, seeing as it was me what cleaned ’em. Or one of my girls, at any rate. They belong to Mr Trinkle, the upholsterer in Cheapside.’
Elation surged through Dickens. ‘Could you give me the address?’
It took a moment or two for the old man to find a pen and paper and to write his directions down. Dickens thanked him and put his hat back on.‘Beg pardon for mentioning it, sir,’ said the glove cleaner, ‘but you said something about remuneration?’
‘Indeed I did.’ He counted out the promised seven shillings, exchanged them for the address, and left the old man in Gilbert Street surrounded by a knot of girls, all clamouring for ribbons and confectionery.
He paused on the pavement outside, wondering what to do next. It was probably unwise to beard Trinkle, a possible murderer, in his den, so the best thing to do would be to go to Whitehall, to inform Sergeant Tanner of his discovery. He had intended to call at Urania Cottage to see how Mrs Wallace’s preparations for the Lord Mayor’s Gala were progressing, but the banners of Justice had to be flown, and, at that particular moment, there was no one but him to fly them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The sky was washed with broad bands of purple and pink, the bellies of the clouds limned with gold. Staring at it through the grimy glass, Pilgrim saw its beauty and felt soiled, desperate, and damned. He thought of the Reverend Bonwell, so sure of his own goodness, so sure of salvation, and, for a moment, envied the man his certainty. But only for a moment. Whatever redemption Bonwell had earned through public piety he had surely forfeited in priv
ate, if the bruises on his wife were anything to go by. Pilgrim pushed himself up on the grubby sheet, and reached for his shirt.
The woman – he still didn’t know her name – was almost fully dressed again, and was fastening her garters, her hair hanging down her back. Her hair was her best feature: thick and wavy, with highlights of burnished copper. She went to the mirror that hung over the mantel next to a print of the Virgin and Child, and pinned up her hair. She caught his eye in the glass and smiled at him. He just stared back. He had no words. He stood up, tucked in his shirttails, and looked around for his jacket that was hanging on the back of a chair.
‘That’s a shillin’, darlin’.’ She turned from the mirror. ‘And cheap at twice the price.’
He reached into his pocket for his pocketbook. As he pulled it out, something else fell onto the floor. The woman reached for it.
‘This your Bess, is it? Pity you, if it is. She’s got more front than Brighton, this one. Nabbed a cully off me last week.’
To his surprise he saw that it wasn’t Stella Drake’s photograph she was looking at, but Wainwright’s sketch of Martha Drewitt.
‘Are you sure it was her?’
‘Sure as you’re standin’ here.’
‘Where? Where did you see her?’
‘She took him to rooms in Drover’s Yard. Sported her diddies right there in the street. What chance did I have after that?’
He pushed the coins into her hand, and strode from the room.
‘The name’s Clara, since you ask.’ The woman called after him, her smile still in place, but her tone bitter. ‘Be sure to tell your friends about me.’
Drover’s Yard in Paternoster Row, Spitalfields, had once been the site of a coaching inn. The inn had long since gone, taken over by landlords with an eye for packing as many families as possible into the looming tenements. The courtyard where wagons and horses had once jostled for space was now thick with mud and rubbish, the buildings strung with soot-speckled washing. Even before Pilgrim entered the yard he could hear voices raised in excitement. He pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered around one of the doorways. The passageway beyond was narrow, crammed with people. A fat man dressed only in an undervest and trousers was standing, arms braced, blocking the door to one of the rooms. A woman tried in vain to dislodge him.
‘Let us past, you old sot.’
‘The gennleman paid me a month in advance.’
‘I don’t care if he paid a king’s ransom, we won’t put up with it a minute longer.’
Many of the other people standing in the passage way had their hands over their noses. They muttered and cursed their mood ugly.
The woman nodded to a big man wearing a leather apron. ‘Smash it, Jem. And smash his bleedin’ head if you have to.’
‘What’s going on?’ demanded Pilgrim, elbowing his way to the front.
‘What’s it to you?’ asked the woman.
‘Metropolitan Police.’
The crowd muttered. The woman eyed his clothes. Quite a few of the people at the back of the crush melted away into the shadows.
Pilgrim turned to the man in the doorway. ‘Who are you?’
The man blinked at him over red-veined cheeks.
‘He’s the landlord,’ said the woman. ‘There’s something in that room stinkin’ worse than a gully hole, but this old fool won’t let us in. It ain’t sanitary.’
‘Do you have a key?’ Pilgrim addressed the landlord again, but the man didn’t seem capable of processing the question, let alone providing an answer. Pilgrim pulled him out of the way, and nodded at the meaty man in the apron. The man lifted a boot and kicked in the door, filling the air with the sound of splintering wood. The room beyond was dark. As the crash died away, the people at the front of the crowd took a step back, clutching their noses with horrified expressions. The mouth of the doorway gaped black.
‘I need light,’ said Pilgrim.
‘Jest a minute.’ The meaty man crashed away, and, after a few seconds, crashed back again with a tinderbox and a candle. The woman lit the candle and thrust it into Pilgrim’s hand. He advanced into the room, while the others hung back in the doorway.
At first it was difficult to see anything, but, gradually, his eyes adjusted.
‘Mother of God!’ The woman crossed herself.
Behind her the landlord craned his neck to see. ‘What is it?’
Candlelight washed over the body of a woman lying on the bed. She was naked, her hands carefully folded over her chest, eyes wide and staring. There was a clotted cavity where her abdomen had been, and blood had soaked through the mattress to pool onto the floor, where it had congealed, black as treacle.
The landlord vomited.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Give him a night in the cells. We’ll see if he can tell us anything when he’s sober.’
‘As you say, Sergeant Pilgrim, sir.’ Sergeant Phelps eyed the fat landlord stoically. ‘As long as he don’t mind gettin’ cosy with other prisoners. We’re havin’ a busy night tonight.’
‘I hear you’ve found another dead drab,’ said Tanner as Pilgrim entered the office. ‘Is it mine? Was the throat cut?’
‘No.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘“It” is at St Bartholomew’s.’
Tanner ignored Pilgrim’s irony and pushed roughly past him, out of the door.
Charley Field shrugged. ‘He brought in a suspect tonight, for the Grimwood case. I’ve a notion he’s barking up the wrong tree, though, and I think he knows it too. Who’s your victim?’
‘Martha Drewitt.’ Pilgrim ran a hand through his hair. ‘She was a friend of Frances.’ He paused. ‘At least, I think it is. She’s been dead for a while.’
‘You said you weren’t going to get involved.’
‘I didn’t intend to.’
Field turned to Dolly. ‘Be a good boy, Adolphus, and fetch the Sergeant a cup of tea, would you?’
‘Of course, sir. Right away, sir.’ Dolly hurried out.
‘Do you have a suspect?’ Field asked Pilgrim.
‘A man paid the landlord for the room in advance. But we have no description. And I doubt we’ll get one.’
‘And what about our child killer? Any progress with that?’
‘We’re looking for the boy’s mother. It’s just a matter of time.’
‘The newspapers haven’t got wind of it yet. You notice I say “yet”. I’d like to have someone in custody by the time anyone starts asking questions.’ Field paused. ‘And, speaking of questions … are you ready for tomorrow night?’ He saw Pilgrim’s blank look. ‘The Royal Academy Gala?’
Pilgrim set his lips into a stubborn line.
Field narrowed his eyes and he stepped closer. ‘I will see you there, Harry. Everyone wants to meet the famous Sergeant Pilchem.’ He fingered Pilgrim’s ragged jacket. ‘And do try to brush up a bit, eh?’
When Field had gone, Pilgrim sat heavily at his desk. He reached into his pocket and took out a locket that he had found on the body at Drover’s Yard. Apart from the long dark hair there had been nothing else to identify the body. He knew he was going to have to show the locket to Frances, but there was no hurry: it would wait until the morning.
‘Here you go, sir, the cup that cheers.’ Dolly reappeared, bearing a brimming teacup. ‘That body you found was a ripe one, I hear. Where do you want this?’
Pilgrim cleared a space on the desk. As he pushed the pile of unopened mail to one side, something caught his eye, something he hadn’t noticed before. He picked up a small package, addressed to ‘Sergeant Pilgrim, Whitehall’. Two things attracted his attention: the first was the fact that it was addressed to him using his proper name, not his alias at Household Words, the second was the use of red ink. He opened a drawer in his desk and rummaged in it until he found what he was looking for: a buff envelope, also written in red ink, addressed to ‘Mr Charles Dickens’ at Household Words: the tip-off note he had received about Appler. The red ink and the
handwriting were identical to the unopened package in his hand. He frowned, and opened it.
It contained a small parcel, neatly wrapped in canvas and secured with string. There was a note, too.
Dear Sergeant Pilchem, or can I call you Harry?
For I feel I know you. We have a lot in common, you see. We both love our work, ha, ha. By now I’m sure you’ll have found my bit of business at Drover’s Yard. I know you appreciate all the trouble I’ve taken to keep you and your boys busy, so I thought I’d send you a little souvenir, just for jolly. Hope you like it. Must get on – you know what they say, practice makes perfect.
It wasn’t signed. Pilgrim looked at the neat little parcel.
‘Don’t let your tea go cold.’ Dolly nodded at the still-brimming cup.
‘No.’ There was a tight sensation behind his eyes.
‘What have you got there, sir? A present from an admirer?’ Dolly came over to stand beside Pilgrim’s desk, and ogle the parcel. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
Pilgrim picked up his teacup. ‘You’re right. This is cold. Get me a fresh one.’
‘But I only made it two minutes ago.’
‘It’s cold.’ He thrust the cup at him. He scowled and bore it away. Pilgrim waited until his footsteps had faded down the corridor, and then took out his pocket knife to cut the string from the parcel. The canvas unfurled. Taken out of its usual context, the object inside was as pale and innocent as a seashell, holed and worn smooth by the waves. It was pierced by an earring – a black enamelled drop, etched with a symbol in gold.
The five men gathered in Charley Field’s office waited in silence for the Inspector to speak. He clasped his hands behind his back and puffed out his chest.
‘Last night, as you all know, we had several significant developments.’ He raised an index finger. ‘One, another female victim, discovered by Sergeant Pilgrim, at Drover’s Yard. Two,’ he lifted a second finger, ‘a possible suspect for the Grimwood case – a Mr Trinkle, upholsterer of Cheapside, arrested by Sergeant Tanner with the assistance of Mr Dickens.’ He nodded at the writer to acknowledge the part he had played, and then raised a third finger. ‘And, last, a note and a pretty “souvenir” from our Hackney Cab Killer. We know it’s him, because the earring is a companion to the one we found with the decapitated head. We’ve all been investigating our own cases, but the question we now have to ask ourselves is this: are some of these cases linked? Could we be looking at the same killer for the Hackney Cab victim, Eliza Grimwood, and the girl at Drover’s Yard?’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘Three murders, one murderer? Tanner, what do you think?’