An Act of Mercy

by J. J. Durham

  ‘Is there any point?’

  ‘You’re fortunate not to have been arrested.’

  ‘I am aware of that. Thank you.’

  The three stared one to the other, and when it seemed that no one could find anything else to say, Rebecca Wood turned on her heel and headed back to the door. Mrs Wallace looked entreatingly at Dickens. Pilgrim’s words chimed in his head. You send them on their way with a purse? New clothes? References?

  ‘Do you have any money?’ he called after her. ‘Somewhere to sleep?’

  The girl replied without looking back. ‘I’ll manage.’

  And then she was gone.

  Dickens crossed to the window and parted the curtains, shading his eyes with his hand so that he could see into the garden beyond. He watched as Rebecca Wood pulled the shawl over her head and made her way slowly down the path. He forced himself to harden his heart. She had brought her misfortune on herself, and had almost brought it down on everyone in Urania Cottage. Rebecca Wood wasn’t the first girl he had had to turn out into the night, and she wouldn’t be the last.

  But he couldn’t help wonder what would become of her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Dolly. ‘About seven months, in Dr Fairweather’s opinion. But there was no sign of the baby. I hope we don’t get it in a parcel.’

  Pilgrim scanned the autopsy report:

  The stomach contained little food … no alcohol … evidence of malnutrition. Approximate time of death, evening of 6th February. Minor injuries, including bruising to the right hip, and a sizeable contusion on the back of the skull, consistent with a blow from a blunt instrument. Cause of death: the intestines had been severed from their mesenteric attachments, whilst from the pelvis, the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina, and the posterior two thirds of the bladder had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found and the incisions were cleanly cut, avoiding the rectum, and dividing the vagina low enough to avoid injury to the cervix uteri … also evidence of thickening of mucous membranes and significant development of alveoli in the breasts.

  He sighed and put the report on the cabinet next to the photograph of Stella Drake. ‘You’d better hurry up and finish dressing, Dolly. The cab’s due in ten minutes.’ He frowned. ‘Am I right in thinking that Wainwright’s list of bodies included a foetus? We should look into that in the morning.’

  Dolly vanished back through the curtain, leaving Pilgrim alone with his thoughts as he shrugged on his tailcoat, and adjusted his collar. The voices of Dolly and Tanner drifted to him through the curtain, filling him with a terrible despondency. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to be dressing in rented finery, and he didn’t want to be living in the barracks at his age. He had to find a new lodging. The thought conjured a figure in black bombazine, with wheat-coloured hair. He blinked it away.

  He sighed and reached for the clothes brush on his bunk, disturbing Thomas the cat, sleeping there. The cat spat at him and leapt off the bed. He ignored it and brushed the sleeves of his coat. Field had made it clear he was expected to attend the Gala. But why? To promote the new Detective Force? To be patronized by the other gentlemen present, who thought themselves masters of the Empire? What were they, any of them, but cocks crowing on a dungheap?

  He gave himself one final, reluctant inspection in the mirror. As he turned away again, his eyes met those of Stella Drake. He took up her photograph. What could drive a woman to kill her own son? And where had she gone? Tomorrow he would follow up Frances’ lead about the Bluebird Tavern, but, for the time being, he had no choice but to give his full attention to the Royal Academy and the Lord Mayor of London. He pushed though the curtain.

  ‘Ready?’

  Tanner was already waiting at the door, but Dolly lingered at his mirror.

  ‘One minute sir. For the life of me, I can’t get this cravat straight.’

  ‘Come here.’ Pilgrim fastened the cravat with a few twists of his fingers. ‘We’d better hurry; we have to collect Wainwright on the way.’

  The interior of the cab was shabby, the leather seats cracked and worn with use.

  ‘It smells of piss in here,’ muttered Tanner. He glowered at the other two men. ‘And we look like trained monkeys in these suits; sent to entertain the lords and ladies.’

  Pilgrim stared out of the window into the passing streets. Tanner had echoed his own thoughts exactly. As detectives they were in a no man’s land between the classes, neither one thing nor another: a source of curiosity to the middle and upper classes, perhaps, or even of sympathy, but never fellow feeling. Dickens no doubt meant well in his attempt to champion the new Detective Force, but it was a lost cause. The profession was destined to a life in the shadows. Pilgrim was glad of it: he had no desire for the limelight.

  Tanner tugged viciously on his starched collar and glared at Pilgrim. ‘Has Dolly told you about the autopsy on Martha Drewitt?’ he demanded.

  Pilgrim nodded.

  ‘Wainwright mentioned a foetus on that list of his,’ said Tanner. ‘I wonder where it was found.’

  ‘In a privy,’ cut in Dolly. ‘But he didn’t say where. Here’s his lodging now, we can ask him.’

  The Hackney drew up in front of a large detached house, where Wainwright was waiting on the pavement. He climbed up into the cab.

  ‘Not a bad sort of place, for a Peeler,’ said Tanner. The men were thrown back onto their seats as the cab lurched forward again.

  ‘It’s cheap, sir,’ said Wainwright. ‘Landlady’s a hundred if she’s a day. She’s deaf as a bloomin’ post, and there’s more holes in her roof than what’s in her clothes, and that’s sayin’ something. There’re mice too. Big uns that would fright a lady into ’asteriks to see.’

  ‘No rats, though,’ said Pilgrim with a smile, remembering Wainwright’s reluctance to go down into the sewers.

  The constable shuddered. ‘No. Old Nick himself couldn’t drag me in there if there was.’

  ‘We were talking about the murders,’ snapped Tanner. ‘Wasn’t there a foetus on that list of corpses of yours?’

  ‘Yes, sir. What of it?’

  Pilgrim answered his question. ‘Martha Drewitt was pregnant, but the baby gone.’

  Wainwright turned to him with eyes as round as cheeses. ‘No!’

  ‘Can you remember where it was found?’

  ‘Not right off. But I’ll look it up in the morning.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Pilgrim pointed to a red smear on Wainwright’s sleeve.

  Wainwright rubbed at the mark. ‘Oil paint, sir. I hadn’t noticed it there. But it should come out with a drop of naphtha, right as ninepence.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you have any naphtha on you?’ asked Pilgrim. He saw the consternation on Wainwright’s face. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

  Wainwright’s expression became eager again. ‘I’ve been lookin’ forward to this.’

  Pilgrim and Tanner sent him a look.

  ‘No, truthfully … they have some capital drawin’s by Mister Hogarth, and there’s Titians too. I go whenever I get the chance.’

  ‘If you’re so keen on art,’ said Dolly, ‘what made you become a policeman?’

  ‘I would’ve gone to art school, but Ma couldn’t afford the fees. I applied for one of them scholarships, but never stood a chance of gettin’ one, not really. People like me, from the Rookery, we don’t get nothin’ for free.’

  ‘You look very cheerful about it,’ said Tanner.

  ‘What’s the point of complaining?’ Wainwright shrugged. ‘I got myself a job at a printer’s, and managed to get onto the Force from there. There’re not many so lucky.’

  The four men alighted onto the pavement in Trafalgar Square, in front of the Royal Academy. The windows were aglow, and music and the murmur of voices spilled down the steps under the monumental portico. Dickens was greeting guests at the top of the steps, together with a woman, and a man with a c
hain of office around his neck.

  A spot of rain fell onto Pilgrim’s cheek. He lifted his face to the sky. He didn’t want to go inside.

  ‘Just in time, boys.’ Field dashed down the steps to join them, at the same time as another carriage arrived at the pavement. The footmen hurried to help the passengers alight. Field nodded at them as they passed.

  ‘Sir Harold. Lady Maud.’

  The woman smiled and went eagerly up the steps. Sir Harold glared at the group of detectives before following his wife.

  Field’s smile vanished. ‘Let’s have a look at you.’

  He surveyed them critically: Pilgrim, with his pock-pitted face and bruised eye; Tanner, with his jaw rubbed raw from his over-starched collar; Dolly, whose hair was sticking up resolutely, despite lavish amounts of hair oil; and Wainwright, who had paint on his sleeve and under his fingernails.

  ‘God help us,’ muttered Field. ‘Come on, we’d better go up.’ He nodded for them to climb the steps ahead of him. Pilgrim tried to hang back, but Field pushed him ahead.

  The Lord Mayor, as host, was waiting to shake their hands first. He stared at their cheap evening suits, with obviously no idea of who they were.

  ‘These are our new detectives, Your Honour,’ Dickens announced, over his shoulder. ‘May I introduce Constable Williamson, Sergeant Tanner, Constable Wainwright, and Sergeant Pilgrim? And, of course, you know Chief Inspector Field.’

  ‘Of course. Of course. A pleasure, sirs.’ The Lord Mayor pumped their hands in turn. ‘Come along to keep an eye on the silver, eh?’

  Dickens caught Pilgrim’s eye and smiled.

  ‘This is our Chief Patron of the Royal Academy, Baroness Burdett-Coutts. She is also a great friend of mine. Angela, these are the gentlemen I’ve told you so much about.’

  A slender woman in a fox fur wrap turned to greet them. With her stern features and severely parted hair, she seemed an unlikely friend to Dickens. But she shook Pilgrim’s hand warmly enough.

  ‘Angela is also patron of Urania Cottage, the refuge I was telling you about, Sergeant. We had hoped to bring some of our girls along tonight, but,’ Dickens tailed off and glanced at the Baroness, ‘they were indisposed.’ He smiled. ‘Do go on in. Not you, Chief Inspector. There are some people I would like you to meet.’

  They made their way inside, and followed the flow of guests through the impressive reception hall into one of the main exhibition galleries, where the Gala was being held. They paused on the threshold to take in the scene.

  The gallery was a soaring space, topped by arched clerestory windows that, by day, would provide the daylight necessary to view the hundreds of paintings hanging on the walls. For the Gala, however, the gallery was illuminated with dozens of candelabra, and dotted with extravagant planting displays. Footmen darted between the guests and the plants, bearing trays filled with glasses. The chatter of refined voices competed with the sawing of a chamber orchestra in the corner.

  The detectives moved further into the room. They collected glasses from a footman.

  ‘I’ve never been to a shindig like this before,’ said Wainwright. ‘It’s grand, ain’t it?’

  The nearest group of guests turned to stare. Wainwright slurped his champagne and grinned.

  Pilgrim slipped away from the others and headed to the edge of the room. He hated feeling so conspicuous. It made him itch, made him want to crawl out of his skin and leave it there. In an attempt to distract himself he looked up at the paintings. He didn’t pretend to know anything about art, but as he wandered around the circumference of the gallery even he could see there was little consistency in period, skill, or subject matter. Seascapes, landscapes, and portraits hung hugger-mugger on the walls.

  He almost bumped into a round-shouldered youth staring upwards through a pair of opera glasses at the pictures on the topmost row. He looked up to see what had caught his attention: a wanton Venus, her flesh spilling onto the cushions of a sumptuous divan. She was surrounded by a jumble of nymphs, satyrs, gods, and goddesses, all in an equal state of nudity. Scattered here and there among the profane paintings were a few sacred ones – a naked Mary Magdalene, a pale and writhing St Sebastian – but even they appeared to be painted with the same desire to titillate. Pilgrim’s gaze was drawn by a dark Salome, dressed in red, bearing the Head of John the Baptist on a platter. The saint’s eyes were half closed, his mouth gasping in coital ecstasy.

  Just under Salome, a second Venus was seated, looking at her reflection in a mirror. She reminded Pilgrim of Mrs Piper. Charlotte Piper, of the swaying hips and wheat-coloured hair. I suppose you think your disfigurement excuses your rudeness? He gave an exclamation of annoyance, loud enough to make the youth put down his opera glasses to stare at him. Pilgrim left him to his pleasure, and headed back to find his colleagues.

  Field was in a group surrounding Mr Dickens. The writer had his audience enthralled with some tale or other that seemed to require much nodding and gesticulation. Under their attention he seemed even larger, even more colourful, even more … Dickens than usual. Pilgrim smiled to himself and went to find Tanner, Wainwright, and Dolly.

  They were exactly where he had left them, but had been surrounded by a group of ladies, all eager to find out more about the detective police, and anxious to put them at their ease. Unfortunately, they seemed to be having the opposite effect. Tanner’s expression was pained to the point of tortured, and Wainwright was blushing so hard he looked as if he might burst a blood vessel at any moment. Only Dolly seemed to be enjoying himself, flirting with a pretty girl in ringlets. The little group was being observed, Pilgrim saw, by a line of gentlemen standing with their backs to him. He moved closer, until he could hear what was being said.

  ‘Just look at them. Ruffians and upstarts, to a man.’ Pilgrim recognized the man as the person whom Field had greeted as Sir Harold on the steps. The commentator puffed out his cheeks. ‘I blame Charles Dickens, filling their heads with prattle about deduction and justice for all. It will come to nothing, mark my words.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what the Academy was thinking.’

  Sir Harold snorted. ‘They’re not likely to gainsay the Baroness. Her money’s too useful. They forget, of course, that she’s only a generation away from trade herself.’

  Pilgrim gave his glass to a passing footman and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Bluebird Tavern was a cut above most of its neighbours in Charing Cross. Bank clerks, tourists, and shop girls sat in the walnut-panelled bar to flirt and discuss the day’s business. Pilgrim found a seat in the corner, and positioned himself to watch the door. His smart evening clothes set him apart from the other customers, but his expression invited neither comment nor conversation. He sat, perfectly motionless, as time passed. The tavern filled and emptied, then filled again. Bottles were drained. Clothes loosened. Faces reddened. The noise gradually increased. Candles burned down.

  Two hours later, Pilgrim was still sitting exactly as he was.

  ‘Something the matter with that ale, is there?’ The landlord nodded at Pilgrim’s tankard.

  When Pilgrim didn’t answer, the landlord threw him a disgruntled look, and strode back to the bar, muttering. Pilgrim ignored him, his attention pulled to the door, where a man and a girl had entered. The man was tall, dressed in blue, with the air of a soldier. The girl was just as tall, and wore a grey gown and a gaudy shawl. She had her arm threaded through her companion’s, and, although she was laughing at something he’d just said, her face was strained. Her whole body was tense, like a bowstring on the verge of snapping. Pilgrim stared. He didn’t need the photograph to know he was looking at Stella Drake.

  She laughed again, but her eyes didn’t register her mirth. They scanned the bar, moved over Pilgrim, and then returned to him. Perhaps she had sensed his interest. Or perhaps her attention had been caught by his evening clothes. Their eyes locked … and held. Something passed between them. Her face drained of animation. Without a word to h
er companion, she turned and walked out of the door.

  ‘’Ere, where are you off to?’ The soldier called after her. When she didn’t answer he shrugged and joined the crowd at the bar.

  Pilgrim shook off his trance, and hurried out.

  The street was deserted. Clouds raced across the sky driven by a wet wind. A high moon, bright as a sixpence, shone on pavements still gleaming from the earlier rain. At first he couldn’t see Stella Drake, but then a movement caught his eye. A pale flash – her face turned towards him – as she ducked into an alleyway. He heard the echo of her heels as she ran. He raced to the mouth of the alley and plunged after her. The tunnel was black, and he had to stretch out his hands to prevent himself from careering into them. His breath came loud in his ears, and his footsteps ricocheted off the brickwork. He was glad when he spotted a blur of light. He ran out into a yard, lit fitfully by moonlight. Stella Drake was gone.

  He stopped, chest heaving, and looked about. The yard was large, empty apart from a stack of crates and several piles of gravel. As his breath steadied he heard a noise – a scattering of shale – from the other side of the yard, by a wooden fence. He ran to it, splashing through puddles. The ground fell away steeply on the other side to a railway line. Stella Drake was at the bottom of the embankment. Her frightened face flashed up at him, and then she took off again, along the railway line, towards the mouth of a train tunnel.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  He jumped the fence. The embankment was steep, and he had to slow his descent by sliding down it on his backside, and using his heels and hands. By the time he reached the bottom his palms were bloody, and Stella was already halfway to the tunnel. He put on a burst of speed, desperate to catch her before she reached it. He was still forty yards away, however, when she arrived at the tunnel mouth. Rather than run into the darkness, she started to scramble up the embankment to one side. He propelled himself up after her, close enough now to hear her ragged breathing, ducking to avoid the stones and mud she dislodged down on him as they climbed. When he reached the top, he heaved himself to his feet, and slithered to a halt.