The Pierced Heart: A Novel

by Shepherd, Lynn

  “How many more times—this is an urgent matter. A police matter.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help that, sir.” He closes the ledger, and then picks up a pile of loose papers.

  “Ah,” he says, a moment later. “This might be more to the purpose.”

  “What are they?”

  “Delivery receipts. I’m afraid there aren’t any names on these, just addresses, but they may be of some—really, sir, there’s no need for that—”

  Because Charles has already seized the papers from his hand and is going through them. Fifteen minutes later he has his answer: one scarificator was sent to Guy’s Hospital, four to Harley Street, one to Albemarle Street, two to Jermyn Street, and one to the Albany. And three of those addresses are within half a mile of Piccadilly.

  Piccadilly is a glow of beautiful brick and stone frontages in the June-evening light, and none more so than the gloriously proportioned façade of the Albany. Then—as now—this beautiful Georgian building, with its symmetrical wings east and west, offers some of the most exclusive and envied apartments London can afford (though those wishing to appear well informed should be aware that it is fashionable these days to refer to it without the definite article). By 1851 its bachelor lodgings had already housed both the famed and the infamous—Byron and Gladstone both had rooms here, and on this particular summer afternoon those in residence include an eminent historian, several Lords, a clutch of MPs, and a notorious Irish swindler who will in due course give Dickens meat for the character of Merdle. At the Doric-columned porch of the main house a suitably obsequious porter in perfect white cotton gloves conducts him up to the first floor, then knocks on his behalf before bowing and discreetly retiring. He fully expects a similarly deferential manservant to open the door, so he is somewhat taken aback when the door opens. Because this man is clearly nothing of the kind.

  “Baron Von Reisenberg?”

  “Yes? Who are you?”

  “Sergeant Samuel Wheeler of the Metropolitan Police, sir. Detective Branch. Can I come in?”

  The nobleman frowns. “What is it you want?”

  Sam looks back down the stairs, where two elegantly dressed and coiffed young men are slowly ascending the steps towards them, chatting in a modishly desultory manner. One of them looks up and gives Wheeler a frankly inquisitive stare.

  “It’s a routine matter, sir,” Sam continues, turning back again. “But all the same I ’spect you’d prefer to discuss it in private.”

  The Baron stares at him with undisguised antagonism. “Very well. But I can spare you only five minutes. I have an appointment that cannot wait.”

  Sam bows and follows him through the dim vestibule into the sitting-room beyond. The walls are upholstered in red damask and hung with ornate frames, and there are so many pieces of furniture—sophas, Pembrokes, chests of drawers, even a piano—that the thick turkey carpet is barely visible beneath them. The blinds are drawn, and the room almost completely airless.

  “Very nice,” says Sam, as he begins to wander about. There is a door to what is clearly a bedroom, but that is ajar. “You’re ’ere on yer own, are you, sir?”

  “Of course I am alone. These apartments are designed only for one.”

  “You didn’t bring yer own servants?”

  “I find such attendance … irksome. My intention in hiring these rooms was to avoid such inconvenience by availing myself of the services of the establishment’s own domestics. Not that I consider my household arrangements to be any of your business.”

  There is a pause.

  “I repeat,” says the Baron heavily, watching Sam glancing at the papers on the tables, and the letters on a small silver tray, “I have only five minutes.”

  Sam turns to face him. “Are you aware, sir, that four young women ’ave been murdered in London in the last few weeks?”

  “I cannot believe that is so uncommon, not in a city of this size, with such a large population of cut-throats and whores.”

  “Per’aps not, sir. But these killin’s are the most brutal I’ve ever seen. In fact none of us’s ever seen the like of ’em, and that’s a fact.”

  The Baron eyes him calmly. “I have seen nothing of the kind reported in the press.”

  “You ain’t likely to. If people knew, we’d ’ave a panic on our ’ands.”

  “And you come here to tell me this? I assure you, Mr—er—Weller—?”

  “Wheeler, sir.”

  “—Wheeler. I, for one, am not so easily unnerved—”

  Sam nods slowly. “I’m glad to ’ear it, sir. But that’s not why I’m ’ere. The bodies of these young women were found only a few yards from ’ere.”

  “I still do not see how this should concern me, any more than any other resident at this address. For you have not called elsewhere in the Albany, I note.”

  “And ’ow do you know that, sir?”

  “I observed your arrival. I happened to be looking out of the window at the time.”

  “I see.”

  “And I repeat, why should you call on me, and not on any of the other tenants, some of whom, I am reliably informed, have led less-than-law-abiding lives?”

  “That’s as may be, sir. The fact is we now ’ave evidence that the man we’re lookin’ for is a foreigner. Which rather narrows it down. As I’m sure you can appreciate.”

  There is another pause, a blackly hostile pause.

  “Are you accusing me of some involvement in these crimes, Mr Wheeler?”

  “Just routine enquiries, sir,” says Sam brightly. “Like I said.”

  But the Baron is no longer deceived by his superficial Cockney chirpiness. If he ever was. He laughs grimly. “London is full of foreigners at present. The police might take their pick of likely suspects.”

  Sam smiles. “Ah, but there are rarver fewer, sir, as arrived just before these killin’s started, and lodge no more’n a mile away. Fifteen of you, to be precise. Accordin’ to the ’Ome Office. I’ve got a list of ’em ’ere.”

  He takes it from his pocket and holds it out. The Baron pointedly does not touch it.

  “There is no reason why anyone should connect me with these crimes,” he says eventually. “The very idea is ridiculous. I am a member of the Austrian nobility—a scientist, an industrialist—”

  “Indeed, sir?” says Sam lightly, folding up the paper again and tucking it in his coat. “All the same, I’m sure you can understand that we ’ave a duty to ascertain whevver any of the persons on this list matches the description we ’ave lately received of the man as might be responsible for these ’einous crimes.”

  The Baron’s eyelids flicker, and he turns away.

  “The man in question was tall an’ wore a top ’at an’ a long dark coat.”

  The Baron swings round. The policeman—this insolent little runt of a policeman—is staring at his clothes.

  “I defy you, Mr Wheeler,” he says, moving slowly towards him, “not to go out onto Piccadilly and find a dozen men dressed in exactly that manner.”

  “Funny you should mention that, sir, because that’s precisely where he were seen. On Piccadilly. Not four an’ twenty hours gone.”

  He smiles again. “Where were you last night, sir? Between the hours of ten and eleven?”

  The challenge is unmistakable now. Sam can hear his own heart—two beats, three, four—

  “At dinner, here in my rooms,” says the Baron eventually. “As the steward downstairs will no doubt be able to confirm. But frankly, I see no reason why my whereabouts, whether last night or at any other time, should be any concern of yours. And now, as I said, I must ask you to leave.”

  It’s gone five in the morning when Charles wakes from a sleep peopled by monsters to the sound of pounding on the street door. It’s one of Sam’s constables. A young man white-faced and terror-eyed.

  “Sergeant Wheeler sent me,” he gasps, leaning against the door-post. “He says will you come.”

  Charles starts to shake his head. “Please don’t tel
l me—”

  “There’s been a breakin. At the morgue. That girl they found in Shepherd’s Market. Someone’s broken in and hacked her bloody head off.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lucy’s journal

  26 APRIL

  We have been here now two days. Though where here may be I do not know. We came by night, with the blinds pulled down, and I saw only a courtyard and the man who came forward to take down the luggage, though by the noise nearby of people and carriages I guessed we were not far from some much larger street. We were brought up here, to this door, and this set of rooms that I could see at once have not been lived in for many months, so filthy they are with dust and so empty of any sign of inhabitance. He stood there, watching, as my little trunk was brought to me, then nodded without speaking and locked the door behind him. Where he lodges, I do not know, but it cannot be far, for he brings me my meals, but stays only to hand me the tray, and otherwise I am absolutely solitary, kept like a prisoner, in the dark. For he has bolted all the shutters and told me they will remain so. It is for my own good, he says, and the success of my treatment depends upon it, though why the darkness is so necessary, or in what my treatment will consist, he does not say. He allows me a lamp turned low, while I eat, but returns within the hour to remove it, and I must write these pages quickly and then conceal them in my clothes, for I am sure he would take this journal from me if he knew I still possess it. For I no longer trust him, and he has seen in my eyes that it is so. That first night we came, I asked about the housekeeper he said would be here, and he looked me full in the face and said he had made no such promise, and I knew then that he had lied. And sitting here, on this narrow bed, hour after hour, the fear that has been growing upon me all those long silent miles since we departed all but overwhelms me, and I wonder in what else I have been deceived. Did he truly talk to my father, that last day, as he claimed? And if he did not, does my father even know where I have gone? My heart aches when I think of it—it is unbearable to imagine him returning to the house to find that I had vanished, leaving no message, and I curse myself for my own stupidity—for allowing myself to become so bewitched by this man that I sought—no, I yearned to have him to myself alone. For I have my wish now, in all its terror. I am truly alone, and utterly in his power. For the door to my bedroom cannot be bolted, and I lie awake at night, listening for his step.

  28 APRIL

  There were voices this morning. When he brought me my breakfast I heard the noise of heavy footsteps somewhere below, and the muttering of men coming up the stairs. He would have closed the door on me then, but one of the men called up and he was forced to go to the banister to answer him. And so it was that I saw them, one carrying a small mahogany case, the other two bent beneath a long box of cheap unvarnished wood. Weighty, it was, to judge of the way they were bent beneath it, and all three rough men, in aprons and coarse coats—had they not been so, I might have attempted to speak to them, but they kept their eyes averted as they passed, and he directed them to the door next along this landing, where I knew at once that he himself must be lodged. But what those boxes contained or whence they came I do not know, for when I pressed him he said only that he required certain equipment for my treatment, and this would form a part of it. That he had already told me this before, and it would be of no use to explain it to me further because I would not understand. And then he ushered me back inside, and I sank slowly down and placed my cheek against the door and gazed, as the hot tears trickled down, to where the last edge of pale light still seeped through.

  30 APRIL

  I find myself listening, now, at the wall that separates us. My hearing has become so sharpened I can hear every tiny noise, every minuscule movement. Sometimes I tell myself I can even hear him breathing. For the first days I heard only such sounds as I might have expected—the scrape of a chair, the opening of a door—but last night, after he had taken away my dinner, and my lamp, I heard voices from beyond the wall. His voice, and a woman’s voice. My heart began to pound then, and I pressed my ear closer to the wall, but I could not discern their words. But it seemed to me he spoke to her as he used to speak to me, when he would hold my hands and question me and draw me into his eyes. But soon there were no words at all, only the sound of drumming against the floor and low breathless moans that brought the hot blood to my cheeks as my mind made pictures I fought to repulse. And then one long cry. And after that nothing but the silence, and the dark.

  I sat there, I do not know how long, wondering if the next sound I would hear would be the key in my own lock, but it never came. And the next I knew was a door opening and closing, and steps descending the stairs.

  When he brought me my food just now I said I was not hungry, and I asked him who the young woman was whose voice I had heard.

  “You are mistaken,” he said after a moment, avoiding my gaze. “There is no young woman here. But we know, do we not, that you have always been vulnerable to the delusions of an enflamed imagination.”

  “I thought,” I stammered, “that you believed me—that I was not mad—”

  His eyes narrowed. “And of all the doctors who were brought to see you, I alone believed so. You should remember that. I will leave the food. I advise you to eat it.”

  NO DATE—

  I no longer know how long I have been here. Something has happened to me, since the last time I wrote in this book. Whether it is an illness, or the consequence of all these dark and solitary hours, I cannot tell, I know only that I have spent what seems like many days on my bed, unable to move, drifting between half sleep and waking. Sometimes I have roused myself to find he has been here, but I have no recollection of seeing him, and the food he has left me tasted sour in my mouth. I have heard cries in the night, and wondered if it was my own voice echoing in my ears. I have felt the touch of fingers on my skin, and not known if I have dreamed. And I have endured, once more, the nightmare.

  It was the light, once, that protected me—it was the sunshine of common day that kept the nightmare confined, and consigned its horrors only to the abyss of slumber. But here there is no light, no day, and the visions of the night hours begin to invade my waking mind. He knows not the torment he is inflicting, for else, surely, he would pity me. For here in the dark I cannot escape them—the looming shapes circling above my head, the hands reaching down towards me, the gaudy lights and the incessant repeating music, and always, always, at the last, that terrible image of my mother’s smiling face.

  It comes—every night now it comes, and I wake to the sound of my own voice, crying out a name I do not know—

  Do not leave me—do not leave me—

  NO DATE—

  I was sick today, wretchedly sick, and though my flesh feels scoured and drained, and I tremble to hold my pen, my head is a little clearer. And because my mind is steady now that my body is empty, I am starting to wonder if he has been poisoning me. Whether ever since I was foolish enough to tell him about the young woman I heard, he has secured himself from my inquisitiveness by drugging my food. I know he would not hesitate, for if there is a man capable of such a thing, it is he. And if it is truly so, what hope do I have? He can do with me what he wills, for no-one knows where I am, and no-one comes near, neither maid nor messenger. How I wish now that I had spoken to those men when I had the chance—for I have heard no human voice since, only the muffled drone of the city which rings about us. I listen until the hissing silence thunders in my ears but still no-one comes. I no longer live as others do, by day and night, but by lamplight and darkness. By dark I curl upon my bed, hearing mice scuttling in the skirting, and what must be great birds flapping and scuffling on the rooftop outside. By light I sit here huddled on the floor, enclosed within the pale circle of the lamp, tracing patterns in the bare boards. Following with my fingers where the grain combs into threads, or parts round the whorls in the wood like river water past a stone, but I stop always at those two knots, there, at the edge of the light, which stare back at me even now, slop
ing and menacing, like the eyes of some great and savage wolf.

  When he comes to take the lamp, I beg him, on my knees, for news of my father. I take his hand and caress it, pleading for just a little daylight, but he throws me from him in disdain, saying that my case is a grave one, and the measures he is taking proportionate to my need. Surely, he says, a little patience and perseverance on my part is not so much to ask. And when he has gone, and I am left lying abject on the floor where he left me, I wonder if this is a punishment. The vengeance of a God my father confessed not to believe in, for perverting the powers only a deity dare assume. For surely we offended against Him, in counterfeiting the souls of the dead and conjuring false terror from empty shadows. And perhaps it is for that dire sin that He shows me now what face terror truly wears.

  LATER—

  I am become a thing of darkness. My eyes are too weak to bear even the dim glow that comes when he opens the door, and I recoil from it in pain, as I recoil from his touch. I can no longer even see his face, as the light streams in behind him and he seems monstrous, like the fiend of some half-forgotten myth. My world has shrunk to these two narrow rooms and I sense it only by sound, and by skin. When he takes the lamp from me, I feel my way along the walls, seeing through my fingers. And once or twice, when my hands have grazed the mirror, or the coal-scuttle, I have seen a dull colour blossom at my touch. Not the icy flames I saw in Vienna, or the beautiful light that rose from Dora’s grave, but a meagre glimmer pricking at my nerves. I shrank from this, once, not knowing what it was and terrified that it branded me as mad. And then I gloried in it, because he told me it was a gift—a wondrous talent that drew him to me as to none other before. And then I think of that girl I heard, and those cries so suddenly cut off, and I am afraid.

  NO DATE—