by Alex Grecian
“Help!”
Pringle moved toward them, but the tailor held his free hand up, smiling.
“He’s playing a game with you, Constable. My son’s a mischievous child.”
“Let me talk to him directly, please.”
“Of course, of course. But let’s go inside where we won’t draw a crowd. Someone might misunderstand.”
Pringle nodded, but he kept his eyes on the boy. He didn’t look like a mischievous child; he looked like he was in trouble.
Cinderhouse kept his hand over the boy’s mouth and reached out to pick him up with his other arm. He looked up and down the street, then yanked the boy out of the cab and bustled him past Pringle and into the store. Pringle followed. The tailor set the boy down in the same chair Pringle had slept in, then hurried back past Pringle to shut the door.
The boy leapt from the chair and ran to Pringle. He wrapped his arms around Pringle’s leg. He was small and frail and his thin pajama trousers were soaking wet.
“What’s your name, son?” Pringle said.
“Fenn, sir. Please help me.”
“Well, Fenn, what seems to be the-”
Something slammed against Pringle’s back and the impact forced the air out of him. He felt a mild burning sensation somewhere in his back, and there were little echoes of it tingling in his toes and fingers, the way an itch sometimes appears to be in several places at once. He shook his head and smiled at the boy, but Fenn was backing away, a horrified look on his face.
Pringle moved his head. He was trying to nod, but the gesture was loose, as if his head wasn’t properly attached to his body. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, and he felt confused. His mouth was dry.
He turned around and something hit him in the chest. Again, there was a burning sensation, but it wasn’t as strong as the one in his back had been. He shut his eyes and opened them again as he was punched in the stomach. He doubled over and noticed that his shirt was completely ruined. Someone had got blood all over it.
He looked up at the tailor in time to see Cinderhouse’s hand descend again. The tailor’s hat came off as he moved into the thrust. Sunlight through the window gleamed on Cinderhouse’s bare scalp. Then there was a glint of silver as the tailor punched him in the throat, and Pringle’s legs finally went out from under him. He tried to hold up his arms to ward off another blow, but they didn’t respond and Cinderhouse’s fist fell on him again.
“I won’t let you take him from me!”
The tailor was screaming, but the ebbing tide of blood was still in Pringle’s ears and he couldn’t hear, he could only read Cinderhouse’s lips as if from a great distance. Cinderhouse, still silently screaming, dropped to his knees over Pringle and thrust down at him again and again, and Pringle noticed that the silvery thing in his hand was a pair of shears. He tried to smile at the bald man to let him know that he finally understood the situation. He was being stabbed to death. Then he frowned. It should hurt more.
From the corner of his eye he could see a pool of blood expanding across the floor and realized that it was his own. Somehow the thought of all that blood rushing out of his body was worse than the nearly absent pain of the wounds themselves, and Pringle turned his head just in time to avoid soiling his clothing as he vomited on Cinderhouse’s shoes.
Cinderhouse stopped stabbing him and Pringle tried to rise, but his body wouldn’t obey.
A moment later the tailor returned, holding a spool of black thread and the largest needle Pringle had ever seen. He felt a distant pressure in his lower lip, and then Cinderhouse drew the thread up past his eyes and down, and there was more pressure in his upper lip as the tailor went on sewing Pringle’s lips shut. He tried again to move and felt Cinderhouse’s hand on his chest, holding him down. The breath went out of him, but it sounded far away, like wind in the trees. He wanted to tell the tailor to stop pushing on him, that it didn’t matter, that he couldn’t move anyway, but the only sound he made was a low gurgle, and the thread came back up through his lips, drawing them tightly shut.
The tailor leaned in and whispered in Pringle’s ear. “I’m terribly sorry about this, Mr Pringle. You were always one of my better customers, and I hate to lose your business. But I can’t let you take my son away from me again. And I can’t let you tell anyone about him. You shouldn’t have seen him. You shouldn’t have come here and put your eyes on him.”
The deadly scissors snicker-snacked and the needle came back past Pringle’s eyes with the short thread dangling loose. The tailor pulled it out and expertly rethreaded the needle. Pringle ran his tongue over the insides of his lips. They were sealed shut. The needle dug into his eyelid and the tailor was back at work, closing Pringle’s right eye. Pringle rolled his eyes to the other side so that he wouldn’t have to watch, and saw the fluffy white cat padding around the pools of blood on the floor. The cat rubbed against Pringle’s ear.
Pringle wondered how much of his murder had been witnessed by the boy. A child shouldn’t have to see such a thing. He hoped Fenn had turned away before the worst of it.
The needle began its work on his left eye and, as darkness closed in, Pringle’s last sight was of a small drop of bright red blood nested deep in the white cat’s fur.
He sighed. The air dribbled out of him and he didn’t draw another breath.
35
Hammersmith found himself once more in the East End and once more across the street from the Shaws’ brownstone. He hadn’t set out for the East End, hadn’t given Charles Shaw or his wife any conscious thought, but here he was. The brownstone looked different in the daylight than it had the previous night. Golden bricks shimmered in the sun, and the tree-lined street spoke of generations, of children playing on sidewalks and of families supping in quiet splendor.
Never mind the brothels and the seedy saloons just steps away.
He watched the house for long minutes before crossing the street and pulling the bell. He had no idea what he might say to Charles Shaw, but at the last minute he decided he would apologize for his behavior. He recognized that he had overplayed his hand with Shaw and had consequently embarrassed both himself and Sir Edward.
When Penelope Shaw opened the door, she said, “I was just thinking about you.”
She took a step back and raised a hand to her mouth.
“You’ve been hurt,” she said. “What’s happened.”
Hammersmith removed his hat.
“I’m just fine, ma’am. Small accident, is all. Is your husband home?”
“Please come in.”
She walked away from him through the foyer and he had no choice but to follow. Her hair was done up in a loose ball on her head, and she wore a long green gown that swayed against the floor with each shift of her hips. She turned to him in the archway that led to the great room. A wisp of hair, escaped from the chignon, curled down over her throat. She took his hat from him and hung it on a hook. When her hand brushed against his, Hammersmith noticed that his own fingernails were filthy. He put his hands in his pockets.
“Would you like something?”
“I’m fine, thank you. I’ll just wait for your husband, if that’s all right.”
“You may have to wait for some time.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He isn’t here today.”
“But you said…”
He realized that she hadn’t told him her husband was at home, only asked him to come in.
“I’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I should be going. Please tell Dr Shaw when he arrives home that I-”
“Please sit,” Penelope said. “I’ll bring you something to drink.”
“I don’t need anything, thank you. I came to apologize for the way I acted last night.”
“I don’t recall being offended by you at all.”
“You’re too kind.”
“No one is too kind, Mr Hammersmith. Everyone wants something. When we get it, we’re kind; when we don’t … well, when we don’t, we’re simply
surviving.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You want to apologize to Charles. I know Charles would want you to stay. And I would like some company. You could make us all happy at once by accepting a cup of tea.”
“You don’t mind if I wait?”
“I insist upon it.”
“A cup of tea would be lovely, then. Thank you.”
“No, Mr Hammersmith, thank you.”
She lowered her eyes and walked slowly out of the room. Hammersmith pulled out a chair and sat and watched her go. He was not a patient man, but he was resolute.
36
The corpse on the table grinned at the ceiling. His expression changed to a grimace, then a smile, then a grimace again as Kingsley manipulated his features. The incision under the corpse’s chin ran from ear to ear, and Kingsley worked his hands up under the skin and along the skull, loosening connective tissue as he went. The corpse had once been named Thomas, and Kingsley spoke to him quietly as he worked, as if reassuring a nervous patient.
“There we go now, nothing to it, old boy.”
But he didn’t look at Thomas’s eyes.
He kept Fiona out of the room for this stage of the autopsy, and for this stage of every autopsy he performed. Although she seemed to handle everything with the same quiet concentration, the dead were so very vulnerable, and Kingsley felt they deserved privacy and respect. In this room they were as naked as anyone would ever be.
Thomas’s jawbone was now fully visible, streaked pink with blood.
Kingsley pushed his fingers farther up, tearing thin dense layers of muscle away from Thomas’s cheekbones. A little pressure from beneath and the top of Thomas’s nose broke, the narrow peninsula of cartilage snapping away from the skull, an arrowhead cavern exposed in the middle of the corpse’s face.
“I’m sorry about this, Thomas,” he said.
His voice was barely audible, trace echoes beating back at him from the close walls of the laboratory.
Thomas’s ears shifted and the flesh tore loose around his eye sockets. Kingsley removed his hands from under the corpse’s face and grasped the ragged whiskered skin that had once sagged under Thomas’s jaw but was now stretched across the middle of his head. He flipped the skin over onto itself and pulled toward the top of the corpse’s skull, and Thomas’s face turned inside out. Now it lay like a hood at the back of the corpse’s head, its expression hidden from view.
Someday, Kingsley knew, it would be him on the table, maybe this same table. He hoped he would be treated with respect.
Kingsley picked up a small straight saw from the table beside him and scored a careful circle around the top of the corpse’s skull. He sawed back and forth, around and around. He set the saw down and fitted a chisel into the shallow ridge he had made above Thomas’s brow. He held the chisel steady and struck it hard with a hammer. He moved the chisel and tapped it again. And again. All round the top of the skull he went, deepening the groove left by the saw.
Sweat dripped from the end of Kingsley’s nose onto Thomas’s naked skull. He wiped it off with his sleeve.
Kingsley had always imagined that his own death would come as an embarrassment, a sudden interruption as he went about some other task. He would have no opportunity to make plans, or to make his peace, would not suffer the long wasting disease that had taken his wife. The dark angel would come upon him without warning and he would feel an instant of shame, a loss of control. It was that loss and no other that he feared.
He assumed that Fiona would be the one to find his body. He had spent years acclimatizing her to the many forms of death so that she would not suffer the loss of him as she had her mother. By then, if there was any mercy, he would be just another corpse in her eyes.
One final whack with the hammer. He held the cap in place and tapped it, gently now, again, again a little harder. Finally it came free and he eased the bone off, exposing Thomas’s brain. Fluid ran off the end of the table and spattered Kingsley’s shoes.
“Doctor?”
Kingsley turned to see a one-armed man approaching him. He recognized Colonel Sir Edward Bradford, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
“Sir Edward, my nurse didn’t tell me-”
“Your daughter let me in, sir. She assured me it would be all right.”
Sir Edward caught sight of the body and blanched. Kingsley grimaced and moved himself between the commissioner and the corpse. He stamped the liquid off his shoes and held out his hand. Sir Edward looked at it.
“Generally,” Sir Edward said, “I try to be carrying something so that I can gracefully avoid this very situation. I hope you understand, but I couldn’t possibly shake your hand.”
Kingsley looked down at his hands. They were covered in gore. He nodded and crossed the room, dipped his hands in a basin of reasonably clean water and rubbed as much of Thomas off them as he could.
“Terribly sorry, Sir Edward. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Of course not. I apologize for intruding. I’ve meant to visit your morgue, but I’m afraid I haven’t had the opportunity.”
“Shall I show you round?”
“Your daughter, what was her name?”
“Fiona, sir.”
“Yes, Fiona was kind enough to show me much of the facility. I take it this room is where the most … in-depth work takes place.”
“You might say that. This is where our victims give up their secrets to me.”
“Our victims?”
“We’re still alive, after all, and they are not.”
“And we must claim some responsibility for that, I suppose?”
“If we choose.”
“How poetic, Doctor.”
“It’s often a lonely occupation and my mind travels to strange places.”
Sir Edward nodded and glanced around the room, taking in the long tables and the instruments and the drain hole in the center of the floor.
“You’ve been helping the police with these matters for how long now?” he said.
“Nearly two years, sir.”
“Commissioner Warren appointed you?”
“No, sir, I took this work upon myself.”
“You’re a busy man, Doctor. I’ve seen your laboratory and the classrooms. Why would you choose more work for yourself?”
“I would rather not speak ill of anyone.”
“Ah, you leave that to me, then. Am I to assume that the previous facility was not up to your high standards?”
“One might say that.”
“And so you simply stepped in, took over, and nobody challenged you?”
“Until this moment.”
“This is no challenge, Doctor. I’m here about a different matter. You have never drawn a salary from the Metropolitan Police. I checked.”
“You seem to be well informed.”
“I am endeavoring to manage a great many things that have gone untended. A great many things that escaped the notice of my predecessors.”
“I’m sure they were busy men.”
“I’ve no doubt. Did you know that one of my detectives left the Yard before I arrived in London? He has disappeared somewhere in the Midlands, and there was no notice taken at all.”
“He’s disappeared?”
“I’m being dramatic. He apparently retired. My men have continued the farce that Inspector Gilchrist is still on the job. It’s humorous, I suppose.”
“A joke?”
“In its way.”
“You’ve let them continue with it?”
“There’s no harm in it. Perhaps it boosts the men’s morale. I don’t know.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to replace the man and ease their workloads?”
“Of course. And I will, but I’ll do it without exposing their prank.”
“I see.”
“My point, Doctor, is that I intend to do things differently than they have been done before, and that includes the Yard’s relationship with you, sir. It’s one thing to take thi
s extra work on yourself, but why not receive payment for it?”
“I don’t need the additional income, and I thought it might be put to better use. Perhaps helping to prevent this sort of thing in the first place.” He gestured at Thomas.
Sir Edward glanced at the cavity where the top of Thomas’s head had been.
“What happened to him?”
“He was mugged.”
“Is it necessary to do…” Sir Edward waved his hand, taking in the body, the tray of instruments, and the exposed brain, mottled and shiny under the lights. “To do all of this? If we already know that he was mugged, I mean.”
“There’s still more that he might tell us. His brain has swollen with the impact of some blunt tool, but the question is, where on the brain did the swelling take place in relation to the site of impact? Had he been hit at a different point on his skull, might he have survived? Thomas is teaching me things.”
“Is he a good teacher?”
“I find that if you’re a good student, the teacher hardly matters.”
“Very good. I’ll leave it to you, then.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sir Edward smiled and turned to leave. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned back.
“These things you learn, they’re for the benefit of the police force, are they not?”
“Of course. For the benefit of us all, but primarily for gathering evidence.”
“You shall draw a salary from this day forward. I’ll have a check sent round.”
“That’s not necessary, sir.”
“Doctor, I can’t have you gallivanting about a crime scene and engaging in police business if you are not a proper member of the Yard. And the Yard does not pay its people well, but we do pay them.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“No, Dr Kingsley, thank you. And in the future I would greatly appreciate it if you shared the things you learn here with me.”
“You have but to ask.”
“And now I have asked. I’ll let you get back to it, but I hope to see you again soon. Thank you for your time, Doctor. And for everything else.”