by J. J. Durham
They crept down the steps to the basement window, where they each put an ear to the glass. They could hear voices, one male, one female. Although he couldn’t hear what was being said, Pilgrim recognized them immediately. Tanner gave a grim nod. They crept back up to the street.
‘That’s him, all right,’ said Tanner. ‘And it sounds as if your Mrs Piper is with him.’
Anger flashed through Pilgrim. Why hadn’t the bloody woman obeyed his instructions? Was she wilfully contrary? Hadn’t he made himself clear?
Tanner watched with a wry expression as Pilgrim struggled to master his frustration. ‘What now?’ he asked.
‘I have my key. I’ll go in through the front door and down to the kitchen. You come in through the window. We’ll have the element of surprise.’
‘I’ll give you till the count of twenty.’
‘That’s not long … ’ He was going to say ‘enough’, but Tanner had already gone.
One. Pilgrim muttered a curse and hurried up the steps. Two. He slipped his key into the lock and turned it. Three. He stepped inside. Four. Closed the door carefully behind him. Five. Crept down the hall. Six, seven, eight, nine. Paused at the top of the basement stairs. Ten. Made his way gingerly down in the darkness. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. A stair creaked under him. He froze. He could hear the voices in the kitchen clearly now.
‘What did the Sergeant say, exactly? About the killer?’ Wainwright’s tone was casual.
Water splashed into the sink.
‘Just that you and the Inspector were after the wrong man and that I was to be the next victim. He also said that the killer hid that poor baby here the night you and he were dressed as Hebrews. Lord knows how he got it into the house.’
Pilgrim put his eye to the keyhole. He saw Mrs Piper’s hand hesitate on the cupboard handle, but only for a second.
‘Do you take cream, Constable?’
‘Please.’
Pilgrim shifted position. Where was Tanner?
Mrs Piper took a jug from the cupboard. ‘Didn’t I hear you were an artist, Constable Wainwright?’
Wainwright gave her a sharp glance, but she was concentrating on pouring the cream into a smaller jug and not looking at him.
‘Who told you that?’ he asked.
‘Dolly.’
Wainwright relaxed. ‘Yes, I am an artist.’ His voice took on a note of pride. ‘I’m workin’ on an exhibition just now, in fact.’
Charlotte took a plate from the meat safe, her hand trembling under the weight of it. She opened a drawer and took out a carving knife. Wainwright peeled it from her grip.
‘Why don’t you let me carve?’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself, would we?’
WHERE THE HELL WAS TANNER?
Pilgrim’s question was answered by an almighty crash. The air filled with flying glass and splinters as Tanner swung himself, feet first, through one of the kitchen windows.
Pilgrim ran into the room, saw Tanner stagger as he landed. Wainwright whirled, grabbed Charlotte, and stepped back, pressing the knife to her throat. He clapped his other hand over her mouth.
‘One more step and I’ll do for her,’ he said. ‘I swear it. I’ll do for her the way I done for the Dutchman.’
Pilgrim and Tanner stared at him. The affable young constable had gone, and a stranger stood in his place.
‘You took your time,’ he sneered. ‘The oh-so-clever Detective Sergeants.’
Tanner’s chest was heaving, but whether it was with the exertion of coming through the window or outrage it was hard to tell. Charlotte Piper’s eyes locked on Pilgrim’s, but the expression in them wasn’t what he expected: not fear, but fury. The table stood between them: there was nothing he could do. His guts knotted.
‘Move!’ Wainwright growled at Tanner. ‘Away from the window.’
When Tanner was slow to obey, Wainwright pressed the knife into Charlotte’s throat. Blood trickled down the blade. Charlotte’s eyes widened. Tanner backed away reluctantly.
‘We’ve been leadin’ you both round the garden for weeks, and you had no idea.’ Wainwright’s gaze flicked to him. ‘The great Sergeant Pilchem. The Prince of Detectives! Ha! If only Mr Dickens could see you now.’
His boots crunched on glass. He was almost at the window. Once he was there he had a decision to make. Pilgrim knew he wouldn’t be able to take Charlotte through the window with him, which left two choices. Given Wainwright’s recent actions, only one was likely.
It all passed through Pilgrim’s head in an instant. Charlotte, who had never taken her eyes from his face, saw his expression change in the moment the knowledge hit him: Wainwright was going to kill her. In the next fraction of a second, Pilgrim read her intention. She bit down on Wainwright’s hand with all her strength.
Wainwright howled. The blade passed a hair’s breadth from Charlotte’s cheek as she twisted away from him. Pilgrim heaved the kitchen table towards Wainwright, sending him staggering backwards.
Tanner threw himself at Wainwright, but the other man somehow managed to regain his balance and turned to face him. Carried by his own momentum, Dick Tanner ran straight onto the knife in Wainwright’s hand.
A stunned silence. Everything moved slowly, as if the world had stopped on its axis.
Tanner had folded over Wainwright’s fist. Wainwright released the knife and stepped backwards, blood on his hand. Charlotte goggled up at them from the floor, her own hand over her mouth. Then Tanner groaned.
‘You bastard,’ he said. He dropped to his knees.
The words released them all from the spell. Wainwright pushed past Tanner to leap up and out of the smashed kitchen window. Charlotte rushed to Tanner.
Pilgrim hesitated, torn.
Charlotte pressed her hand to Tanner’s wound and glared up at him. ‘What are you waiting for?’ she hissed. She nodded at the window. ‘Get after him!’
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Glass stung Pilgrim’s palms as he levered himself out of the window. He scrambled up the steps, just in time to see Wainwright vanish at the far end of the street. He ran after him.
Wainwright headed towards the Holborn Bridge, or rather, the junction where the old bridge used to stand that now marked the entrance to the Farringdon Market. The market was closed and dark, and there were few carriages and even fewer pedestrians about. Pilgrim arrived at the junction, and saw Wainwright run to the market gates and rattle them. A figure detached itself from the watchman’s hut.
‘’Ere!’ It shouted. ‘What do you think you’re doin’? Hook it, cully!’
Wainwright darted off.
Pilgrim ran to the gates. Old Charlie Rouse, one of the last night watchmen in the city, lifted his lantern to peer at Pilgrim’s face.
‘Harry Pilgrim, is that you? What’s goin’ on?’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Down there, into the Fleet ditch.’ Rouse pointed to a low wall.
‘Give me your lantern,’ said Pilgrim. ‘Your cutlass too,’
‘You’re not goin’ down there after ’im, are you?’
In answer, Pilgrim tucked the cutlass into his belt and swung his leg over the wall. Rouse handed him the lantern, his expression saying exactly what he thought of the pursuit.
‘Stick to the main ditch,’ he advised, ‘and get a move on. The sluices open at low tide to flush the tunnels. With all the rain we’ve had, it’ll wash you right down to the river if you ain’t careful.’
Pilgrim nodded to show he’d heard, and jumped down into the culvert on the other side. He landed in mud that oozed over the top of his boots. He looked to his right, along the open ditch, where thick wooden stakes propped the walls of the channel. The stakes were black, festooned with hanging debris; a barrier to anyone in a hurry. In the other direction the ditch disappeared into a tunnel that ran beneath the market as dark and hollow as an empty eye socket. He strained his ears. The sound of splashing came faintly from inside.
‘Bollocks.’ He looked back u
p at Rouse. ‘Do me a favour, Charlie, fetch some of the lads from F Division. Tell them to come quick.’
‘Right you are.’ Rouse disappeared.
Pilgrim headed for the tunnel. The Fleet was one of the ancient rivers of the city, now used only as a sewer: fed with waste from the meat markets, tanneries, and all the households of the city, south of Hampstead Ponds. It was notorious for its stench and many parts of it had been enclosed and built over as a result. The section of tunnel ahead of him led beneath Farringdon Street, under the market, and ran, as far as he knew, all the way down to the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge; a distance of a mile or more, with no exits or access shafts.He reached the mouth of the tunnel and ran inside. There was just enough room to stand upright. Mushrooms clustered on the roof above him, reminding him of dead things. Of Clara Donald’s finger.
‘Wainwright!’ He bellowed into the darkness, thick as soot. ‘Wainwright!’ He paused. There was no noise ahead of him now: the other man had stopped, and was listening. ‘Don’t be a fool. You have no light. God knows what you might fall into.’ He had heard that in some of the tunnels the floor had collapsed, leaving great sinkholes where decades of filth had accumulated. He was knee deep in ooze himself. He could see turnip tops, oyster shells, and potato peelings, and the occasional turd, but much of it had decomposed into an unidentifiable slime. Here and there on the surface he could see spiky prints and droppings. A thought occurred to him.
‘Wainwright!’ he yelled. ‘There’re rats down here. Hundreds of them. Stay where you are and let me fetch you.’
Silence, for a moment. Then the suck and slap of boots resumed. Pilgrim swore. He pressed forward again. It was much warmer in the tunnels than up on the street. The air was moist, like the breath of a great beast. At least he had the lantern. And yet, in some ways he wished he hadn’t. He felt as if its light was pulling something towards him, something merciless and ravening. It was a fancy born of fear, he knew, but as much as he tried to reason it away, he couldn’t shake off the sensation that he was being watched.
He walked on, until his thighs ached with the strain of pulling his feet repeatedly up and out of the mud. After a while he had to stop to catch his breath. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve and frowned. The light of the lantern had revealed a hole on his left. He went to investigate and discovered that it was a side tunnel that inclined upwards, big enough for a man to climb in. A trickle of filth ran out from the bottom. He paused, trying to calculate how far he had come along the main tunnel, and guessed that the smaller one must lead up to the old Fleet Prison that stood dilapidated and half-demolished some twenty feet over his head. He doubted that Wainwright would be stupid enough to have taken it, but he listened, to be sure. There was no sound at all, from any direction.
Then came a shout. ‘Help!’ It echoed faintly off the brickwork and bounced towards him from the direction of the main ditch. He heaved a sigh of relief.
‘Help me,’ shouted Wainwright again.
Pilgrim hurried towards his voice. He walked for three or four minutes before the lantern picked out movement in the mud ahead of him. Wainwright had fallen, thigh deep, into a sinkhole, and the slurry held him fast. When he turned his head towards the light, Pilgrim could see his long face, rigid with fury.
‘I can’t move!’ He floundered in the muck, his shadow casting grotesque shapes on the tunnel walls.
Pilgrim moved towards him. He was still several yards away when they both heard the sound: a great rumble, like a subterranean beast clearing its throat. He turned and lifted the lantern, but at first could see nothing. Then, as he stared, the mud began to ripple towards him. He heard another noise, high pitched and frantic, and he realized that it was not the mud itself that was moving, but something running over it.
Wainwright realized what it was before Pilgrim. He squawked and tried to heave himself up out of the mud. But he only sank further, up to his chest.
The rats surged towards them; a great squealing, heaving tidal wave of fur, tails, and paws. They parted to flow around Pilgrim and he could only watch in horror as they engulfed the fallen man. All he could see of Wainwright was his arms, thrashing as he tried to fight them off. He could hear him, though, gibbering and howling, a sound that made Pilgrim’s blood thicken in his veins. And, all the while, the rumbling grew louder and louder, like an approaching train.
Pilgrim launched himself at Wainwright as the rumble burst into a roar. He dropped the lantern and grabbed Wainwright’s collar just as the water hit them both. Pilgrim’s feet went from under him. He gasped at the shock of it. Water swept over his head, but he still kept his grip on the other man. At first he thought Wainwright’s weight might anchor them both, but then he felt the mud give way and release its prisoner. The two men were swept down the tunnel. The water tumbled and buffeted Pilgrim; filling his mouth, his nose, roaring in his ears, until he was no longer sure which way was up and which way was down. Swimming was out of the question, even if he’d known how. He fought down the panic, and kept his grip on Wainwright’s collar.
They were buffeted against the tunnel sides, again and again. Once, Pilgrim had the breath almost knocked out of him completely. He swallowed water and thought he was done for. He reached out blindly, instinctively, with his free hand and grasped something. Something buoyant. He clung on to it. Was he imagining it, or was the noise of the water lessening? No, the current was definitely slowing. It slowed until he felt the ground scrape beneath him, and he landed with a jolt.
He opened his eyes to mud. He lay face down, still clutching the section of barrel that had kept them afloat. He pushed himself up, wincing, as pain shot through his shoulder, and looked about him. He was on a mudbank. Behind him gaped the mouth of the sewer and ahead he could see the dark rush of the Thames. He turned his head to his left and recognized the arches of Blackfriars Bridge, and behind, the great upturned pudding basin of St Paul’s.
He flopped back onto the mud. Every bone and muscle in his body ached as if he’d been cudgelled, but he knew he was lucky to be alive. The thought spurred another. He sat up again. Wainwright lay facing the sky, a few feet away; somehow, Pilgrim had managed to keep his grip on him all the way down the tunnel. But his eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving.
‘You all right there, guv’nor?’
Pilgrim looked up. Several people gawked down at them from the embankment parapet.
‘What you doin’ down there?’
‘Drowning.’ The word rasped out without a thought. He wanted to laugh. He looked again at the faces. There was one he knew, smeared in mud, with a single snaggled tooth.
‘Is that you, Blackey?’
‘Yes, sa?’ The mudlark blinked and looked more closely. ‘Sergeant Pilgrim?’
‘Go to the Whitehall station. Fetch someone. There’s a shilling in it for you.’
‘Right away, sa!’
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
‘You stink. And you look terrible.’
‘Thanks, Charley.’ Pilgrim gripped the blanket and pulled it further onto his shoulders. ‘But you’re right, I’m not feeling well.’
‘You’ve probably swallowed half the shit in the city. Here take this.’ Field thrust a glass of port into his hands. ‘It won’t kill you, for once.’
He took a gulp and felt it burn down his throat into his belly.
‘How did you know it was Wainwright?’ asked Field.
‘I saw blood on his shirt, the morning he cut Appler’s throat. I dismissed it at the time, thinking he’d cut himself shaving. But what man shaves with his shirt on? And then I remembered the gingerbread.’
‘Gingerbread?’
‘Appler was left unattended because Constable Anderson had an attack of the flux. Gingerbread is Anderson’s favourite.’
Field rubbed his nose. ‘I’m not following you.’
‘Wainwright brought gingerbread into the station that morning. Presumably he’d laced it with something, knowing Anderson was on slops duty. But I didn
’t know he was the killer, not for certain, until I saw his name in the Hatchell and Manson ledgers.’
‘Those books you asked me for?’
Pilgrim nodded. ‘Wainwright had taken delivery of American wrapping canvas and some canvases three months ago. No red ink, though.’ He frowned, following a train of thought.
Field broke it. ‘And you say he’s done paintings of all his victims?’
‘He could take all the time he needed to sketch them in the morgue. He was choosing them carefully. Eliza Grimwood for her handsome looks. Mena Levy and Johannes Appler, not only for their looks but also for their religion. Clara Donald for her hair. Martha Drewitt for her condition …’ he tailed off. ‘He didn’t use her baby in the end. I don’t know why, perhaps it wasn’t developed enough, so he was forced to improvise and use the study he’d made of Louis Drake.’
Field shuddered. ‘What about Trinkle?’
‘He was the perfect St Sebastian, exactly like the one in the Royal Academy. Wainwright poisoned him with strychnine so that his body made similar contortions. I don’t know where he got it, though. We should ask him.’
‘He won’t be telling us anything. Cruikshank’s had to truss him up like a Christmas goose.’
‘He’s mad?’
‘As a Whitechapel hatter.’
‘I’d like to speak with him anyway.’
‘What the devil for? Anything he says isn’t admissible as evidence.’
‘When he was boasting about the murders in Mrs Piper’s kitchen, he said “we”. He said, “we’ve been leading you a dance”. He was working with someone. Townsend, perhaps. The handwriting on the notes definitely wasn’t his.’ Pilgrim’s eyes opened wider. ‘Townsend would have had access to strychnine, at the hospital.’
Field sighed. ‘Go ahead. He’s in Appler’s old cell.’ He paused and grinned. ‘Or should I say yours?’
Pilgrim tried to smile, but couldn’t. The memory of his arrest was still too raw.
Dr Cruikshank was about to administer a dose of laudanum when Pilgrim let himself into the cell. Wainwright rocked backwards and forwards in his straight waistcoat, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge something from it.