A Coldblooded Scoundrel

by JoAnne Soper-Cook

  He didn't wait to hear Freddie's reply, but in his haste left everything behind: his pictures, his books, and his shattered, murdered fern.

  He waited until he had hailed a cab and climbed inside before he allowed the reaction to play itself across his flesh. By the time he reached his lodgings, he was weeping bitterly.

  Twelve

  Devlin accepted the glass of brandy that Freddie had poured, and waited while the constable sat down beside him on the sofa. He wondered if he looked as poorly as he felt: certainly the events of this afternoon had already taken their toll. He now doubted, more than ever, whether he would be able to catch the cold-blooded scoundrel that was John Whittaker, now that the resources of the Yard were no longer at his disposal. "I suppose Dubworth will be assigned to it," Devlin said, gazing into the amber liquid. The glass felt warm in his hand, as though the brandy still held within it the fire from which it had been forged. "He'll make a bloody mess of it - you see if I'm not right."

  "How are you?" Freddie spoke softly, leaning towards him. All day he'd been wondering what to say to his guv'nor when he arrived at Devlin's lodgings. He hoped he had the words in him to say what he wanted to say.

  "Bloody wonderful, Freddie - what d'you think?" Devlin regretted this almost instantly: it wasn't Freddie's fault that he'd made such a bollix of everything. "Sorry," he murmured. "I'm not myself."

  "Yes, you are." Freddie gazed at him with a peculiar intensity that Devlin found unsettling - was there a spot of something on his face? Perhaps his shirt was unbuttoned rather more than was socially proper. "Even if you're not on active duty, you're still yourself." He leaned back, frankly assessing the man in front of him. "You never deviate."

  Devlin was astonished that Freddie knew a word like 'deviate'. "Thank you."

  "You know who you are, Phillip. That's a lot more than most men can say."

  Devlin felt hot colour rise into his cheeks - it couldn't be a blush, he was far too old for blushing. "You're quite full of flattery tonight, Freddie. And I've noticed a new familiarity in your speech. Maybe you ought to get knocked on the head more often - "

  Whatever else Devlin had been going to say was lost for all time as Freddie leaned in and kissed him. Devlin struggled with the brandy, his body coursing towards his constable with the ferocity of the tide; he reached around Freddie and laid the glass on the floor without disengaging from the kiss. His skin was on fire, his pulse throbbing to the tips of his fingers - these fingers that now roamed unashamedly over the young constable's broad back. Freddie's hands reached round to clasp his backside, pull him hard against the younger man in a possessive gesture. Devlin watched, as from a great distance, as Freddie ripped his shirttails out of his trousers, and unbuttoned him completely.

  "I can't wait - I won't wait - this is bloody long enough." Freddie's mouth was at his throat, the tip of his tongue flickering against Devlin's skin, while Freddie's busy hands caressed him to a throbbing hardness.

  The bed came up to meet him, and he had no idea how he'd got there, only that it was soft and warm, and everything would be alright because Freddie was with him now. He turned his face for Freddie's kiss and felt the heat of his desire, transmitted so ably to him in the skin of another. He opened his arms and felt his bones compressed under Freddie's weight, the delicious press and crush of skin on skin. "You love me," he whispered wonderingly, his fingers tracing his constable's face gently. "You love me."

  He knew that things had suddenly, irrevocably changed between them.

  Devlin was lying on his stomach with Freddie Lewis beside him, and Freddie was running his fingers up and down the furrow of Devlin's spine, pausing now and then at the curve of his back. It was late afternoon, nearly dark, and Devlin felt absolutely boneless, his skin a container for heat. He turned his head and looked at Freddie, saw the smile that curved the constable's mouth. "Freddie," he said lazily, for this was as much energy as he could muster, "you're making me sleepy."

  "Let's go for a walk."

  Devlin raised an eyebrow. "A walk," he repeated. The sheets were an erotic ruin, and the quilt was somewhere on the floor. His drawers - well, best leave that one where it was, Devlin thought. He hadn't seen his drawers for some hours now.

  "I love walking at this time of day."

  "Aren't you afraid? After what's happened, I mean - " He sighed. Freddie was young, and the young never worried about anything at all. "A short walk."

  Freddie moved, quick as a mongoose, and rolled Devlin onto his back, pinned him against the bed. "Then we can come back here again." His hands slid down Devlin's sides, caressing, until the detective hissed through his teeth. He wondered where his rational, logical side had gone, that a mere touch from Freddie could so unhinge his faculties.

  "It's gotten away from me, you know." Devlin breathed in the cold air with something like gratitude.

  "What's that?"

  "This whole case - Whittaker - everything."

  Freddie looked at him queerly. "I don't believe you."

  Devlin laughed. "I figured I'd have him in custody by now - long before now, actually. I figured I could collar him quick as a thought."

  "He's very slippery, like an eel." Freddie, having uttered this pearl of wisdom, looked appropriately blank, but Devlin knew that blankness was part and parcel of Freddie's habitual expression and was therefore not alarmed by it. They had strolled some distance from Devlin's lodgings, talking companionably, with the sensual comfort of this afternoon's pleasures still warm between them. It did not seem strange to Devlin that they should walk arm-in-arm, for he perceived other men in similar states, all around them. Besides, it felt good to be in close contact with Freddie: he felt he at least had an ally in the midst of all this sordid business.

  At length they wandered into a well-lit public house, and, disposing themselves around a table, proceeded to warm themselves before the fire. The place was empty save for a group of men in dark topcoats, conversing earnestly at a corner table.

  "If I catch him, I'll have something to show Old Brassie." Devlin took a long draught of his beer and gazed at Freddie over the tabletop. "But now I wonder if I'll ever catch him."

  Freddie nodded sagely, having nothing to say. He turned to the man standing before him - the man who had not been there a moment ago. Freddie felt suddenly both hot and cold at once, wondering if they had been observed and listened to, and his gaze was irresistibly drawn to the man, who smiled at him as one might smile indulgently at a wayward child. This man was tall, and exceedingly well made, with dark blond hair and eyes the colour of a storm-lashed sea. His suit was of the finest dark stuff, exquisitely tailored, and his rings and cuff buttons were gold. He was, Freddie thought, an astonishingly gorgeous monster.

  "Hello, Phillip."

  Devlin froze inside, raised his head slowly, and he and the stranger locked glances like two strange tomcats meeting in an alleyway. He felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck come up, and all at once he was besieged by memories of John Whittaker...

  It will only hurt the first time...then we'll fit each other...Phillip, are you listening? Don't cry - you mustn't cry like that. I'm sorry about the blood, you know, but that's the way it is...Phillip, are you listening to me?

  Devlin reached into his pocket for the darbies that were no longer there. Whittaker turned as quick as lightning and vanished, the door banging shut behind him. Devlin stood so quickly that he nearly overturned the table, and the landlord of the place came scuttling over, brandishing a slop pail and a filthy rag. "Freddie, stay here." Devlin tossed some coins upon the table and headed for the entrance, his mind whirling: Whittaker, here and now, ready and seemingly willing to be taken, and perhaps he'd had enough of killing now, and wanted to be taken in...perhaps he was ready for an end to it, and an end was just what Devlin thought to give him, as swiftly as possible.

  The October darkness had fallen as quickly as ever, compounded now by a dense, thick fog and the rising damps from the Thames. Devlin squinted, peering into
the night, listening carefully for any sign that would show the direction: footsteps, the tapping of a stick on the pavement, a cough or a rustle of clothing.

  Nothing.

  He slipped one hand into his pocket and went carefully round the side of the building, where it abutted with another of its like and formed a sheltered passageway, dark and narrow. "Whittaker!" His voice fell damply around his ears, deadened by the fog. "Give it up and come out."

  "Phillip?" Freddie Lewis stood framed between the buildings, peering at Devlin queerly, as if his guv'nor had just materialised out of the mists. "What're you doing in there?"

  They rose, roaring as one voice, the men in dark topcoats, and pushed past Freddie Lewis to swarm all over Devlin like a monstrous and demonic horde. The hand that had been in his pocket came out again, brandishing a knife: as sharp as a surgeon's lance, and with a retractable blade, it was his favourite weapon.

  Freddie was roaring, laying about him with a certain dogged willingness; Devlin saw nothing except the flashing of his own blade, heard nothing except grunts and swearing all around him. One of them - huge, dark, monstrous - came at him, waving his enormous fists like cudgels, and Devlin drove the blade hard into his solar plexus, dropping him like a slaughtered bull. Another appeared, brandishing a length of pipe and screaming like a berserker. He was stopped - quite suddenly, and probably for good - by Freddie's stunning blow to the back of his head. Of course, Devlin thought, panting furiously from the unaccustomed exertion, Freddie had retained his constable's stick, and was using it now to good effect.

  As quickly as it had begun, it stopped. Their attackers scattered, disappearing into the darkness. The one that Devlin had stabbed lay very still beside the one whose head Freddie had so obligingly bashed in; Devlin had no doubt that they both were dead. He pocketed his knife with shaking hands, and tried to mop his forehead with his handkerchief.

  This was bad - this was very, very bad. There would be an investigation, Devlin knew, especially if their assailants had been, as he suspected, Whittaker's friends and members of the Hell Fire Club. The Yard couldn't possibly turn a blind eye, especially if Devlin had just murdered several members of the upper class... He sat down heavily, suddenly very sick to his stomach. The warm feelings of satisfaction and contentment vanished, leaving a howling emptiness inside. Devlin turned his head and retched quietly, each spasm seeming to tear something out of him that he wasn't yet willing to part with.

  "We have got to go." Freddie crouched on his heels and spoke quietly, urgently. "We can't stay here - they'll waste no time in alerting the Force." He helped Devlin to his feet. "Come on - we have to go."

  "Where?" Devlin struggled against Freddie, then subsided and allowed himself to be led away. "Where can we go that's safe? Of course Whittaker has been watching my rooms - of course we were followed here. Where can we go, Freddie?"

  He dimly perceived Freddie hailing a cab that had stood at the corner; everything was beginning to blur around its edges, and the city seemed strange to him, as if he'd not seen it before. He glanced up at the driver as he got into the cab, his mind remarking that the driver seemed familiar, but perhaps that was only Devlin's addled mind. He didn't know any cabbies personally - he hardly ever used the things, not if he could walk or take out one of the marias and a driver. But the cab was taking an unfamiliar route, and when Devlin darted a glance at Freddie, he saw that the younger man was slouching in his seat and gazing before him with an air of wariness and wily calculation that Devlin had never seen before. "Freddie?"

  "It's for your own good."

  Devlin moved, intending to leap from the cab, and was quickly restrained by hands that felt so very hard and pitiless - the same hands that had caressed him, only hours before. The horrible realisation clanged inside his skull like the tolling of a bell, and he watched in helpless horror as the darkened city slid quickly past them, taking him to God knows where.

  Thirteen

  The cab ride eventually gave way to a train station - a station that wasn't within the boundaries of London proper, and which Devlin did not recognise. He wondered what Freddie was playing at, and if he was in the pay of Whittaker - it would be so easy, Devlin realised, for Whittaker to corrupt someone like Freddie, someone so innocent and untouched. Almost as soon as he'd had this thought, he dismissed it - perhaps Freddie had only been toying with him, all this time, and wasn't as innocent as Devlin had supposed. His demeanour during the long cab ride had been strange, to say the least, for he was more than a little silent and morose, the complete opposite of the young man with whom Devlin had shared a bed earlier that day. Devlin thought dully that Freddie perhaps intended to hand him over to Whittaker, and he wondered why he wasn't trying harder to escape. He merely felt tired, and his hand ached where he had driven it and his blade into the bowels of Whittaker's henchman; he was hungry and immeasurably weary, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep and never wake again.

  He got down from the cab, and looked about him, measuring the ache in his body against the possibility of escape. The railway platform was deserted, and Devlin wondered if he might make it through to the other side and then onto the tracks, before Freddie caught up with him. The cabbie pulled his vehicle close against the station and got down from his perch behind; he paused to tie the reins, and patted the horse's neck amiably, murmuring some comforting phrase meant only for animal ears. Devlin was cold, shivering in the dampness, and his throat felt as though he'd been screaming for a month: sore and gritty, and entirely too warm. The station was blurred and strange, as the passing streets had been, and he found himself looking for individual particles of moisture in the fog.

  "This way." Freddie took his arm in an iron-hard grip and propelled him into the station, while the cabbie followed, tall and dark and silent as a monolith. Devlin had the odd idea that there was no actual man inside the cabbie's clothes, but a block of stone that had somehow become animated and rumbled after them like a colossus. This seemed so funny to him that he began to laugh, and laughed until tears ran freely down his cheeks, while Freddie and the cabbie took his elbows and between them, propelled him onto the train and into a private, first-class compartment that had obviously been reserved for this purpose.

  "Here - " The cabbie reached into an overhead bin and pulled out a thick woollen blanket, handed it to Freddie, whose face had assumed its normal expression of dim-witted vivacity. "Get this around him - he's chilled to the bone, poor thing."

  Devlin found Freddie's face very close to his own, and he stared, fascinated, at the gold flecks in Freddie's brown eyes. He felt that the flecks spelled out some secret message that would free him if only he could decipher it. Freddie's bottom lip was trembling, and Devlin noticed that the constable was shivering as badly as himself - why had the cabbie not given Freddie a blanket? And why had the cabbie left his cab behind them at the station? "Your cab."

  "Quiet." Freddie pressed him back against the seat, with an expression of implied violence. "Just shut it." The train lurched forward, forcing itself through the fog, as the cabbie pulled down the privacy blinds, enclosing them completely. He reached into a Gladstone bag and brought out a flask, handed this across to Freddie. "Phillip - have a little drink. It will help you get warm."

  Across from them, the cabbie was doing some peculiar business with his face - strictly speaking, he was peeling off various features and placing them into his pockets, as if skinning himself. Devlin stared at him, wondering if this was some trick of the light, but at last the cabbie finished, rubbed a handkerchief over his face, and emerged as Reginald Harker.

  "So you're in it, too," Devlin said bitterly. He wanted to turn his face to the window and weep - with weariness, with regret - but he would remain steadfast. He would go out of life like a man, not sniveling on his knees like a baby.

  The door to their compartment opened, and the figure of John Donnelly momentarily blocked out the light from the passage. Donnelly was carrying a gun, which Devlin could see was cocked and ready. He wond
ered how Donnelly would possibly mask the noise of the weapon's discharge, but figured that they would wait until the train passed over the points, and shoot him then. In such close quarters, Donnelly could hardly miss.

  "I've checked all up and down. Nothing much - two women travelling together, and a nurse with a child near the back." The apothecary nodded to Devlin and sat down beside Harker. "Did you see anyone?"

  The solicitor shook his head. "No - all the usual precautions - I made sure of it."

  Donnelly moved to the opposite side of the compartment, took a seat beside Devlin and pocketed his revolver. "You've cocked that," Devlin said dryly, "I hope you don't shoot your bollix off."

  Donnelly touched his face, a curiously gentle gesture, and peered into his eyes. His fingers pulled down the lower lids, raised the upper, and then palpated the glands in Devlin's neck. "Not influenza, thank God," he said. "Probably a bad cold. Few days bed rest should help."

  "Get your hands off me!" Devlin pushed at him, but all his strength seemed to have drained away. He wanted to lie down and sleep, but his throat hurt and his eyelids were burning hot. He coughed, discharging a globule of mucus that would have made Old Brassie proud, except that it splattered on the floor, somewhere near Harker's feet. The solicitor regarded this with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing. Donnelly reached into a pocket and extracted first a length of string, then a pencil, and what looked to Devlin like part of a finger, neatly severed at the joint. At last he produced a thermometer, which he pushed into Devlin's mouth. The instrument tasted like pocket lint, tobacco, and rotting flesh.