A Mortal Likeness

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I’m not withholding information.” My conscience is as heavy as lead. “I have none.”

  As Reid glares at me, a constable approaches. “Guv, there’s a mob of reporters outside the park. If we don’t give them an official statement, they’ll print all kinds of hogwash.”

  “All right, I’m coming.” Reid jabs his finger at my face. “I still owe you for sabotaging the Ripper investigation. Your friends Hugh Staunton, Mick O’Reilly, Catherine Price, and the Lipskys too. If you sabotage this one, by God, you’ll all wish you’d never been born.”

  4

  I postpone my search for my father because the Crystal Palace and the surrounding area are overrun with police. If I show people the photograph and ask them about the man, word could get back to Inspector Reid. The police need to know there may be a witness to the murders and the ransom exchange, but I can’t tell them. My hands are tied with regard to advancing either the kidnapping investigation or the search for my father. It’s a most frustrating dilemma.

  When I return to Argyle Square in the early afternoon, fog has obliterated the sun. I spy a constable leaning on the iron fence, and my heart thumps with more than my usual fear of the police. Then he smiles at me and tips his helmet. He’s toughly handsome with unruly black hair and dark stubble on his cheeks and jaws. It’s Police Constable Thomas Barrett. Fear yields to delight. Smiling, I hasten to Barrett.

  “I didn’t think I would see you until Saturday.”

  “I was working in the neighborhood. I just stopped by for a minute.”

  We met last autumn when Barrett was assigned to the Ripper case. Subsequent events bound us in an alliance that can be broken only by his death or mine. Since then Barrett has been—I still cannot entirely believe it—courting me.

  “Working here?” I’m surprised because his usual beat is the East End. “How come?”

  “I’ve been assigned to the Special Kidnapping Squad.” Barrett beams with pride.

  It’s a prestigious position. Barrett is eager to distinguish himself and move up in the world, and I’m happy for him, but my troubles have just multiplied. “That’s wonderful.”

  Barrett doesn’t notice my lack of enthusiasm. “I’m investigating tips. There are hundreds coming in.” His speech is carefully proper; in hopes of making a good impression on his superiors and the public, he tries to disguise his humble East End origins. “This tip was from Bloomsbury. A woman at a lodging house heard a baby crying. The other lodgers don’t have children, and she thought they’d kidnapped Robin Mariner and hidden him in the house. It turned out to be a stray cat trapped in the attic.” Barrett chuckles. “But next time, who knows? Maybe I’ll find Robin.”

  If he did, then he would receive the promotion we both want for him, but right now the only certainty is the rift I see opening between us like a black chasm. I kept secrets from him in the past. He forgave me. Now I can’t tell him that there’s been a double murder at the Crystal Palace that appears connected to the Mariner kidnapping or that I know the identity of one victim. I can’t show him the photograph and say I think the man in it is my father. Barrett would be duty-bound to report all of it to Inspector Reid. Withholding important information from Barrett would be bad enough even if I hadn’t done it before. If he finds out I’m doing it again in connection with the case he hopes will make his career, will he forgive me this time?

  Barrett isn’t just the only suitor I’ve ever had. I’m in love with him, so I have much more to lose than when I kept secrets from him last time.

  “So where’ve you been?” Barrett asks. “On a new investigation for your detective business?”

  I evade answering. “We shouldn’t talk here.” Two neighbor women are standing across the street, watching us with disapproval. “Why didn’t you go inside the house?”

  “Nobody answered the door.”

  “Oh, it’s Fitzmorris’s day off.” I’d forgotten. “He always visits his family.” We enter a quiet, empty house. “Hugh must be out somewhere, and Mick is at school.”

  “Mick is living with you?” Barrett hangs his helmet on the hat rack.

  I explain while shedding my coat, hat, and satchel. Barrett and I look at each other. “Nobody’s home,” we say in unison.

  We fly together so fast, I don’t know who made the first move. His mouth is on mine, his hands clasping my face. My hands clutch his back through the rough wool of his uniform as he presses against me. Intoxicated by the taste of his kiss and the earthy, clean male scent of him, I close my eyes. We’re suddenly on fire, and the fire is no less hot than on previous occasions. We break apart and stumble, gasping, up the stairs. This is a rare opportunity not to be wasted.

  We have so little privacy. Barrett lives in a police barracks, and although Hugh and Fitzmorris like him and I don’t think they would censure me for having relations with him in the house, I would be ashamed to do it while they’re here. And it would be cruel to Hugh, like rubbing his nose in the fact that I can legally make love to a man, but he can’t because homosexual acts are a crime.

  In my room, Barrett unbuttons my frock. I peel it down to my waist, and I loosen the lacings on my corset. We’re breathless, clumsy. I slip my chemise off my shoulders, baring my breasts, while he unfastens his trousers, then we fall onto the bed. We don’t undress entirely in case we’re interrupted. We kiss and caress frantically. My nipples tingle, and I grow wet under Barrett’s touch. The size and pulse of him while I stroke him is as exciting as the first time. He climbs on top of me, his trousers down, my skirts and petticoats up, and my knickers open. We thrust, hardness against slickness, faster and faster. Barrett doesn’t enter me; I’m afraid of getting with child. But the release is an enormous, completely satisfying pleasure. I yell as he shudders and groans.

  Exhausted, after we’re fully dressed again, we lie side by side on our backs, listening. If we hear the front door open, Barrett will rush down the back stairs. I turn my head to look at him. I never thought I would have a lover, would experience this pleasure with a man. I still can’t believe my desire is requited. I don’t know whether my love is.

  Barrett is tense; he gazes at the ceiling. Does he know I’m hiding something from him, or is there another cause for my sudden uneasiness? I’m two years older than he is; he could get a younger, prettier woman, and he’s made no promise to be faithful. Because of my past, love and loss are entangled in my mind. Is this the day he tells me it’s over?

  “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  Barrett doesn’t look at me. My uneasiness turns to fear. He says in a somber voice, “I’m tired of playing instead of—well, you know.”

  I thought it was as pleasurable for him as it is for me. I thought he didn’t mind restraining himself to protect me, but I should have realized he wouldn’t be satisfied with half measures forever.

  “And I’m tired of sneaking around as if our relationship is something shameful.”

  He’s breaking it off. Pride won’t let me cry in front of him or beg him to stay. I sit up, muster my dignity, and say, “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need, and I understand that you want to be free.” My father’s disappearance taught me that men leave, and I should have known Barrett would.

  “Hey, wait a minute! That’s not what I want.” Barrett sits up and puts his arm around me. “I’m not good at talking about things like this. What I mean is, I love you. I want to be with you properly, and all the time. I want to let the whole world know we’re together.”

  As I stare, dumbfounded, he laughs self-deprecatingly. “I know this isn’t the kind of proposal a girl wants, but . . .” He looks into my eyes. His eyes are keen and clear, bright gray like river agates in the sunlight. “Sarah Bain, will you marry me?”

  This is the proposal I never thought I would receive, from the one man I could accept. Joy makes me so giddy that I could float up from the bed. I see my own smile reflected on Barrett’s face.

  “Is that a yes?” he asks.

  I want to be
with him legally, publicly, and permanently, but sudden misgivings render me cautious. “This is so sudden.”

  “We’ve known each other for eight months.”

  “We don’t know each other very well.”

  “We know everything we need to know.”

  We’re both remembering that night in the slaughterhouse. I doubt there’s a moment when it’s not somewhere on our minds. It’s the thing that binds us more tightly than love. It’s also the thing that, should we marry, would color every day of our life together.

  “You know I’m capable of killing.” No matter that I didn’t deliver the fatal blow myself.

  “You’re capable of doing what’s right even when it’s against the law,” Barrett says, “and you know I am too.”

  If he weren’t, I would be dead now—and so would Hugh, Mick, Catherine, and Mr. Lipsky—and the Ripper would still be carrying out his ghastly crimes. I owe Barrett my hand in marriage and whatever else he wants, but my feet are getting colder.

  “Where would we live?” I ask, stalling for time.

  “We can rent a flat. I’ve been saving money since I joined the police force.” He smiles, proud of the fact that he can provide for me.

  I envision living with Barrett, going to bed with him every night and waking up with him every morning in a home of our own. Cooking his meals, washing his clothes, and cleaning house. Having his child. This normal, desirable prospect daunts me. When my father disappeared, my mother and I went to work in a factory and lived in cheap lodgings. A charity school provided my education. Barrett knows my history, but this is what I’ve never told anyone: all my imaginings about marriage end with my husband leaving me and our child to a similar fate.

  “If we married, you would have to tell Inspector Reid,” I say.

  Reid is Barrett’s superior, and there’s as much bad blood between the two of them as between Reid and myself. For that reason, Barrett and I have kept our relationship secret. Reid knows we’re acquainted but not that we’ve become lovers.

  “I’ve had it with tiptoeing around Reid,” Barrett says. “I’m not going to let him control me. If he doesn’t like my choice of a wife, that’s his problem.”

  But I’m afraid Reid will lash out against both of us, and how can I accept Barrett’s proposal while hiding information that I know he would consider important? I realize that I must pass on some of what I know before he hears it from Reid.

  “By the way, I ran into Reid today.” I tell him about the murders at the dinosaur park, but I don’t reveal why I was there or confess that Hugh and I were there yesterday and explain what we were doing. I simply say I went to photograph the Crystal Palace this morning. The photograph in my satchel downstairs tugs at my conscience as I tell him about the conversation I overheard between the two policemen.

  Barrett listens with concern. “I knew the ransom had gone wrong. It was the big news at the station this morning. But maybe these murders will provide a lead to the kidnapper.”

  “Reid wasn’t happy to see me.” I say not a word about the man in the photograph who may be my father.

  “I’ll bet.” Barrett looks worried about the possible consequences of my run-in with Reid. “I’m sorry you happened into another murder case. At least you’re not mixed up in this one.”

  If he only knew.

  “I have to get back to work,” Barrett says. “About my proposal—what do you say?”

  I avert my gaze from his eager smile. “There’s my photography. And my private inquiry business.”

  “You can still do photography after we’re married. And you won’t need to work.”

  He doesn’t understand that my photography is an art, not a hobby, and I haven’t given up my dream of earning a livelihood and a reputation from it. “But I can’t quit on Hugh.” It would be unfair to leave him to his own devices just because I’ve found someone to support me.

  “Your business doesn’t earn much money, and Hugh will have to find something else to do anyway.” Barrett frowns. “You keep coming up with excuses. Does that mean you don’t love me?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You’ve never said it.”

  I’ve never said it to any man except my father. If I don’t say it now, I’ll lose Barrett. I draw a deep breath, meet his expectant gaze, and whisper, “I love you.”

  His face relaxes into a smile; he perceives my sincerity. “I know it’s a big decision. You don’t have to answer yet. Take some time to think it over.”

  #

  After Barrett departs, I sit on my bed and quake with nerves. Barrett knows my father had a police file—he’s the one who gave it to me. Maybe I should tell him about the photograph and ask him to keep it secret. He’s kept big secrets for me in the past. But this time a baby’s life is at stake, and I doubt Barrett would agree to withhold information about a potential witness from the Special Kidnapping Squad. Maybe I can find my father and determine whether he murdered Ellen Casey, whether he was at the dinosaur park yesterday and observed anything germane to the ransom exchange. If he’s not guilty and not a witness, I’ve no obligation to share information about him with the police, and I needn’t make Barrett choose between his loyalty to me and his professional duty.

  The weight on my conscience lightens, but there’s still the problem of how to locate my father. I rise, open the drawer of my bureau, and take out the police reports. Perusing them for clues I missed last night, I notice something on the back of the one that details my father’s night at Newgate Prison, written in fresh black ink:

  George Albert, 245 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.

  5

  I’m in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for supper, when Mick comes home. “How was school?”

  “I got sent to the headmaster’s office.”

  “What?” He’s been there one day, and he’s already in trouble. “Why?”

  He drops his books on the table. “I punched some boys and knocked them down.”

  “Mick, we agreed: no fighting.”

  “They started it. I had to defend myself, didn’t I?”

  “What was the fight about?” I want the whole story before I explode.

  “They teased me about how I talk. They called me an Irish cockney bastard. They shoved me around.”

  I should have known that the children from this middle-class neighborhood would look down on Mick.

  “But I showed them. Nobody’ll mess with me again,” Mick says proudly.

  I haven’t the heart to scold him. “Well, try to keep out of trouble from now on.”

  “The lessons are easy, though. I could teach myself by reading books at home at night and work during the day,” Mick says.

  I ignore the hint. While we eat supper, I decide not to tell him about the murders, my father, or the police file because if I did, he would want to be involved in whatever happens next. I would have to tell him no, and he would feel left out.

  That night, after Mick has gone to bed, I wait in the parlor for Hugh. He’s left no word as to where he went, but it’s not the first time he’s stayed out late. I surmise that he’s meeting men in taverns, clubs, or parks frequented by homosexuals and that he’ll go to a hotel with one of them. I worry because it’s dangerous—he could be robbed by an unscrupulous lover, attacked by ruffians who hate men of his kind, or arrested by the police. We don’t talk about it. Hugh never mentions who he’s been with; I gather it’s a different man each time. I wish he could find someone to love, who would love him, and they could have a life together, but either he’s not meeting the right kind of person or he’s afraid to risk more scandal and punishment.

  That’s another reason I’m reluctant to marry Barrett. When the year is up and Hugh loses his allowance and his home, he’ll be completely alone.

  #

  By midnight, Hugh still isn’t back, so I go to bed. He returns while I’m asleep, and the next morning, the door to his room is shut. When he finally comes downstairs at noon, he looks pale, sick from the afteref
fects of heavy drinking, and ashamed; he still smells of liquor. When I offer him breakfast, he says, “Just tea, thanks.”

  His hands tremble as lifts the cup to his mouth. By tomorrow he’ll be his usual cheerful self, but I feel so sorry for him. To distract him from his unhappiness, I tell him about the murders in the dinosaur park.

  A glimmer of interest awakens in his bloodshot eyes. “When I delivered the photographs to Mrs. Vaughn yesterday, she was upset because her husband hadn’t come home. She thought he’d left her for the other woman. I never imagined they’d been murdered.”

  “Listen to the rest of the story.” I tell him about the ransom money and my clash with Inspector Reid.

  “So the kidnapper came to the park to get the cash. He had to get rid of anybody who’d seen him. That’s why he killed Vaughn and the lady.” Excited by my discovery, Hugh seems revitalized, on the mend. “I see why you didn’t tell Inspector Reid, but we can’t just do nothing. We have to solve the murders and rescue Robin Mariner ourselves.”

  I don’t balk at his grandiose thinking. Grandiose thinking enabled us to put Jack the Ripper out of action, and I welcome a chance to get in on the kidnapping investigation. “But we haven’t any information to go on—unless you saw something at the park?”

  “I didn’t, but there’s someone else who may have,” Hugh says. “The man you think is your father.”