The Dead Among Us

by Tracy L. Ward

  Jonathon’s body had been moved to the adjoining room. Ainsley hadn’t had the opportunity to examine the others in any great depth. He had skimmed the police surgeon’s notes but found them disjointed and vague. The truth of the condition in which they were found was hidden behind neatly stitched torsos and carefully washed bodies. Even so, he must work with them quickly. Within the week, even in the cold basement of the hospital, they would be rendered more of a hindrance than help.

  Ainsley went for a cupboard, unlocking the double doors and pulling back at the handles. Inside held his notes, a few of his own sketches he had completed the day before of Jonathon’s body, wounds and markings mostly, as well as the sketches completed by the police surgeon. Ainsley had displayed them along the back side of the cupboard the day before. Prominently positioned, yet hidden from the view of others, the arrangement of papers served as a reminder of clues he had already found with the hopes he would eventually see similarities.

  Ainsley began flipping through the autopsy reports that had come from the Yard.

  Until Jonathon, the victims had been all girls, all under ten years old and all unclaimed. They’d been butchered, their torsos rendered unrecognizable with certain organs missing, though none matched another. Jonathon was the first they could name, and the one who gave his murderer the most trouble. There was a high chance their suspect had visual bruises or cuts to his face or arms, given the damage Ainsley found on Jonathon’s hands.

  Ainsley pulled up a chair and took a seat in front of the board, his eyes darting from detail to detail as he cross-referenced the cases, jogging his memory and yet confusing it more. Jonathon’s stomach was gone, and parts of his intestines, but the girls had their lungs and hearts taken. The blond was missing her eyes. Shuttering slightly, Ainsley turned his gaze away from the sketch of the blond girl.

  There was a knock from the opposite side of the room, and Ainsley turned. The sound was loud enough for him to expect another surgeon or porter had entered the room without his knowledge but when he turned he saw nothing. That part of the room, furthest from the windows, was near black and Ainsley would have shrugged off the noise except one of the off-white sheets draped over Jonathon’s body swayed slightly as if touched by a strong breeze.

  Ainsley stood, careful not to make a noise, and slowly took steps toward the boy’s corpse until finally he was standing over the table. He knew someone was in the room. The air felt different and Ainsley’s senses were directing him to beneath the table where Jonathon was laid out. Frustrated at being spied on, Ainsley pounced. He grabbed whoever it was with a forceful fist and dragged a rather small person from under the table.

  “Benjamin Catch?” Ainsley’s anger morphed into confusion.

  Terrified, the boy hit at Ainsley while trying to pull free of the surgeon’s strong grasp. “I only wanted to see!” he yelled, pulling at Ainsley’s arms to break the surgeon’s grip.

  “See what?” Ainsley asked. Looking down at him, Ainsley held Benjamin at the shoulders, keeping the boy at arm’s length. “Jonathon?”

  Benjamin stopped struggling and wiped his nose on his threadbare sleeve. With his jaw clenched, he glared at Ainsley as if the surgeon represented all the misdeeds of the world. And then the resentment slipped away, his eyes growing wide as he took in the sight of Ainsley’s face.

  “What happened to you?” Benjamin asked, now unable to look away.

  Ainsley shook his head and waved off the boy’s concerns as he turned away. “You are trespassing, you know this,” Ainsley said, slipping his hands into his pockets.

  Benjamin nodded. “We don’t get funerals,” he called out as Ainsley walked from him.

  Ainsley turned.

  “Us charity cases,” Benjamin continued, lowering his voice. “We get put in a hole in the ground with twenty others and no one even knows we were here.”

  Ainsley knew what the boy said was true. There was no special treatment for the penniless dead; too much philanthropy was given to the homeless and starving that by the time they died no one took notice. Many saw it as a relief, one less guttersnipe to house and feed.

  “You were saying good-bye,” Ainsley said.

  Benjamin nodded, swallowing hard and then wiping his nose on his sleeve again.

  Ainsley cocked his head to the side, indicating Jonathon’s body. He pulled the sheet back from the boy’s face, folding it just at the shoulders. He turned his stool around, placing it at Jonathon’s torso and patted the wooden top. “Five minutes.”

  Benjamin nodded but stayed still. Ainsley eventually turned, leaving the room to give Benjamin some privacy, but he stopped just outside the door, his ear turned to the room, listening.

  Ainsley heard the scraping of the chair, as if the boy had moved it closer. Then the room fell silent and remained so for some time until finally Ainsley heard the faint sounds of forcible breathing, then slight whimpers followed by sniffles. For a while, Ainsley thought the boy would not speak, but then Benjamin’s voice broke out in a whisper, further muffled by hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer.

  “You’re not dead,” Benjamin sobbed. “You’re not.”

  Sniffle.

  “I thought I was going to say good-bye on a dock or something but this will have to do.” Benjamin struggled for a breath between cries. “To me you will be in Canada, hunting rabbits, running from bears”—the boy laughed—“eating and drinking with merriment like we said you would. You’re not dead. You are just another world away.”

  Ainsley pressed his palms into his face, wiping his own tears at the boy’s words. Jonathon had been scheduled to leave for Canada within the week, and Benjamin eased his pain by pretending his dear friend was across the Atlantic.

  A few moments later, Benjamin appeared in the doorframe, shoulders straight and his face stoic. “Thank you, sir.”

  Ainsley nodded but words failed him.

  “I hope you catch ’im that did this to Jonathon and those girls,” Benjamin said, while his eyes darted from Ainsley and away again, unable to hold his stare.

  Ainsley raised an eyebrow. “Those girls?” It was possible the boy had read newspaper reports, though Ainsley doubted Ben or the orphanage had funds for a two-bit paper.

  Benjamin turned slightly and looked back into the room. He pointed to the body placed directly beside Jonathon’s. “She was pretty,” Benjamin swallowed. “Not now, of course.”

  “You knew one of them?” Ainsley asked, feeling a slight flicker of hope deep inside him. Even with constables canvassing the streets of Limehouse, knocking on every door and pressing every pedestrian they came across, they had not found out the identity of any of the girls.

  Benjamin shrugged. “Not especially,” he said, raising his wrist to rub at the remaining tears at his eyes. A slight sniffle escaped him as he stood in front of Ainsley. “A mudlark, she was,” Benjamin answered. “Worked just up from the Limehouse Basin.”

  Ainsley nodded, but waited, not wanting to confirm or deny Benjamin’s story. It was still likely the boy was making these facts up, to what end Ainsley did not know.

  “It’s true!” Benjamin answered forcibly, as if he sensed Ainsley’s hesitation to believe him. “Check ’er feet den, if ye don’t believe me.”

  Ainsley glanced to the body, shrouded in a white sheet. Relenting suddenly, Ainsley crossed to her in two steps and pulled the sheet up to her knees. Benjamin appeared opposite him as Ainsley leaned in to look over the girl’s feet.

  He remembered in the report a sentence that said her feet had been deeply coloured, stained by clay that was common in Limehouse and surrounding parishes. At the time he, as well as the police surgeon, had attributed her tainted skin to her lack of shoes, a luxury few in the neighbourhood could afford, especially for the time when children grew so quickly.

  Lifting the girl’s foot from the table, Ainsley separated the toes and began counting tiny cuts he found between them. Though she was no more than eight years old, she had numerous cuts on them,
healed and reopened on the leathery pads of her feet. However, the condition of her feet was hardly remarkable. Ainsley had processed a number of shoeless children whose feet appeared quite similar.

  “I can’t say she is a mudlark,” Ainsley finally said with a shrug.

  Benjamin’s expression grew sour. With a growl, he stormed from the room, sidestepping Ainsley’s attempt to grab him.

  “Hey!” Ainsley went after him, and there was a slight foot chase before Ainsley caught up to him in the hallway, pulling back the sobbing boy, who slapped at Ainsley’s grasp. The boy felt slight beneath the threads that made up his clothing. “Stop!” Ainsley yelled. “I did not say I don’t believe you, only there is not enough evidence!”

  Benjamin scowled but calmed considerably and stopped fighting Ainsley’s grasp. The boy shrugged off Ainsley’s hands and turned. Ainsley knew better than anyone that despite considerable investment of funds from the gentry, the orphanages and workhouses in the east side only served to keep the children from dying in the streets from starvation, which was enough to allow the upper classes to sleep contently at night believing they had done all they could. Despite his loose clothes and strong attitude, the boy was far from strong. Skin and bones made up the most of him and Ainsley realized why each time it had been easy to overpower him.

  “Come then,” Ainsley said at last, “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Ainsley found a pie cart across the street from the hospital and bought two hot pies, one for each of them. Gesturing for a nearby bench, Ainsley turned to Benjamin and saw the pie devoured nearly whole. A trickle of gravy slipped out the side of Benjamin’s mouth but the boy paid no heed.

  “You will make your stomach ill,” Ainsley cautioned but did not expect the boy to slow down.

  Once at the bench, Ainsley sat and turned to Benjamin, who was hungrily licking the paper the pie had been served on. Ainsley held out his pie for Benjamin but the boy just looked at him, cautiously.

  “It’s all right,” Ainsley coaxed. “I can’t eat much in the morning anyhow,” he lied.

  As it turned out, not much coaxing was needed. Benjamin took the pie from Ainsley and ate it at a slightly more leisurely pace.

  “The orphanage doesn’t serve pies often, does it?” Ainsley asked, amused by Benjamin’s appetite and glad he played a part in suppressing it.

  “No,” Benjamin answered with pie filling his cheeks, “never. Mrs. Holliwell is a good cook an’ all but I usually give mine to the young’ uns.”

  Ainsley raised an eyebrow at this. “You give your portion away?”

  Benjamin nodded, taking his attention from his pie for only the briefest of moments. “I can do better in the streets.”

  “Pilfering?”

  Benjamin’s eagerness for the food waned slightly and he paused, thinking over his confession. “Sorry, sir,” he said after a time, bowing his head as if in shame.

  Anger would serve little purpose, Ainsley conceded. His morals held no value in the streets where every corner held a danger, every day another chance to die. While he and Margaret supped on lavish courses and endless wine at home, countless children slept in archways and under bridges across London with little to keep them warm and even less to keep them fed. To himself, Ainsley vowed to resume his mother’s donations to the Society and perhaps pay closer attention to the needs of Mrs. Holliwell and her charges.

  When Ainsley looked again he saw Benjamin licking the second paper, intent on extracting every last semblance of flavour from its fibers.

  “Would you like another?” Ainsley asked, pre-emptively reaching for his pocket.

  “No,” Benjamin answered, somewhat out of breath. “I think I have made myself sick.” The boy placed his arm over his stomach but the smile on his face never left him. So happy must he have been to experience the bloated pain of too much to eat than the twisting, dry pain of too little.

  “Mrs. Holliwell is good to you?” Ainsley ventured to ask.

  “Yes,” was Benjamin’s simple reply. He appeared apprehensive, not much used to being asked his opinion on such things.

  “She does not hurt you?” Ainsley pressed. “I only ask because we cannot know what happens when we are not looking.”

  Benjamin pondered this for some time. “Mrs. Holliwell is a better mistress than others,” he explained. “We try to avoid Mr. Holliwell.”

  Ainsley started. As far as he knew, Mrs. Holliwell was a widow. “Mr. Holliwell?”

  “Her son,” Benjamin explained. “He can be fierce and the girls shake when he comes to the orphanage.” Benjamin’s eyes moved to the hospital across the street and his expression became mournful. “Jonathon tried to stand up to him once when Mr. Holliwell was bawling at the girls. Received a black eye for his trouble, he did.” His voice became more angered as he spoke and Ainsley caught a glimpse of some threatening tears. Benjamin sniffed, using his shirtsleeve to wipe his nose.

  Ainsley vaguely remembered Elliot Holliwell from the time he spent volunteering alongside his mother. Elliot was always sullen whenever Ainsley was around him, distrustful and annoyed, though at what Ainsley did not know.

  Clenching his jaw, Ainsley shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wondering how he should best handle this newly discovered information. “How often does Mr. Holliwell visit the orphanage?” Ainsley ventured to ask.

  “Not often,” Benjamin answered with a shrug. “But I don’t have to see him to know he is there. All I have to do is look in the faces of them girls. They don’t like him much.”

  Ainsley’s throat became dry. “He bothers them?”

  Their eyes met and Benjamin gave a slight nod. Ainsley exhaled, raking his hands through his hair as he leaned back into the bench. It was commonplace enough for children who had known nothing better. Ainsley was more than disturbed by the revelations and it took all the self-control he could muster to remain seated on the bench.

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” Ainsley said, remembering his distrust of the boy earlier. “I will tell Inspector Simms you think you recognized her from the river.”

  “Her name’s Annie,” Benjamin answered quickly while licking some the pie’s juices from his fingers.

  “If you knew her name, why didn’t you say so?”

  Benjamin shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

  Chapter 8

  We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden

  The next morning, Ainsley made his way to Whitehall Place, knowing Simms would likely be there. Inside, the desk sergeant was occupied and Ainsley was able to slip by unnoticed. As he approached Simms’s door Ainsley could hear raised voices seeping into the hall.

  “You can’t do that!” Simms’s voice carried down the hall. “How is this supposed to help us?”

  “I’ve only told you as a courtesy,” another voice answered.

  Ainsley stopped a pace from the threshold once he realized Simms was arguing with Theodore Fenton.

  “Get out of my office!” Simms’s voice reached a pitch Ainsley had never heard him use before. “Get out!”

  Theodore backed out of Simms’s office with his hat in his hand. He only noticed Ainsley when he turned to walk down the hall. He smiled slyly as he replaced his hat, tipping the brim toward Ainsley with great emphasis. “Mr. Specialist.”

  Ainsley sneered as the journalist walked by. He doubted he could hold any more contempt for a single person than he did for Theodore Fenton. Whatever had caused Simms to holler like that Ainsley had little doubt Mr. Fenton deserved it.

  Ainsley rapped a knuckle on the doorframe and stepped inside when Simms looked up from his paperwork. His face was red with anger and his breathing heavy.

  “I only want good news today, Dr. Ainsley,” Simms said gruffly. “I’ve set my mind upon it.”

  “I think I may have a name,” Ainsley said with an eager smile.

  “You have two actually, and I must say it is getting rather confusing trying to remember how to address you.” Simms lowered his gaze to the papers in his ha
nd, propping his head up with his free hand.

  “The girl, the last girl, her name is Annie and, according to Ben, she’s a mudlark.” Without invitation, Ainsley slipped into one of the wooden chairs opposite Simms’s desk. “In the Limehouse district, of course.”

  “Is that so?” Simms answered with little inflection. “I was going to go canvass the area later this morning.” Simms slapped one of the sheets of paper down and picked up another. Ainsley had never seen the detective so annoyed with any facet of his position but Ainsley did not visit Simms’s office very often.

  Ainsley noticed a small pewter picture frame on Simms’s desk and pulled it closer to him. Tinted brown, the daguerreotype was a misty portrait of a boy in knee pants and a small cap. He stood ramrod still, a cheeky smile through pressed lips the only pose he could have held for long enough to accomplish the exposure. Ainsley chuckled slightly at the look of the child, who appeared obliging and pleasant.

  “Your boy?” Ainsley asked.

  Simms eyes flickered up and returned to his paperwork. “Yes.”

  “Is this a current picture?”

  “No.”

  Simms gave nothing else in response and Ainsley felt he was not welcome to pry. It may have been residual anger felt toward Mr. Fenton, but Ainsley sensed that Simms was in no mood to discuss it and perhaps Ainsley would do better to leave and return later.

  Just as Ainsley moved to push himself from the chair, Simms slapped his pen down and stood up. “Confound it!” He reached for his jacket, which he had hung over the back of his chair. “Let us go find the family of that girl,” he said, without looking to Ainsley. “I need to be productive.”

  Limehouse, an east neighbourhood of London, was named for the lime kilns operated by the potteries which used the proximity to the London docks to transport their goods. Still steeped in mariner tradition, the neighbourhood was home to many sailors and dockworkers who earned nothing more than five shillings a day for their backbreaking work. The streets as well were littered with widowed women and orphaned children whose fathers either died in a far off land or abandoned them all together.