Dead Born

by Joan Lock

  However, Carttar had become a little pedantic over his long years in office and he was no longer a well man. Heart trouble sometimes caused him to become breathless and he was now less agile than the job sometimes demanded. This particular inquest was certainly not helping matters. Like his jurors, he already looked exhausted and there was still a very long way to go. Nonetheless, they all managed to look with kindness and sympathy at the man standing before them.

  Wilhelm Berger’s jet-black hair clung to his head as though wet. He was, Best noticed, a chunky, square-shaped man in most respects. His square block of a head sat low on his square, solid body, and his hands, with their short stubby fingers, made up another, smaller, square. In them, he continuously twisted a check cap which had seen better days. Wilhelm was obviously much poorer than many of the other victims’ relatives. His dark suit was of a cheap fustian. At his throat, a knotted black and white check neckerchief and on his feet he wore heavy, studded, Blucher boots which, to his obvious embarrassment, had resounded noisily on the parquet floor as he approached.

  The police sergeant hovering behind Wilhelm was, by now, well versed in the unique procedure of this inquest.

  ‘I never knew she vos gone down the river, Your Vorship,’ explained Wilhelm. ‘I’m not knowing vere she got the money, I’m sure.’ He paused and glanced at the policeman to see whether he was saying the right things. The policeman gave an almost imperceptible nod and Wilhelm carried on. ‘That’s vy I never come forward sooner you see. I didn’t know.’

  ‘I assure you, Mr Berger,’ said Mr Carttar leaning forward, ‘you are not alone in that. Others have found themselves in a similar predicament and, indeed, judging by the number of poor souls still unidentified, many remain so.’

  Wilhelm Berger nodded glumly, unsure of whether he was expected to respond.

  ‘As long as you are sure she is your daughter, Miss Helen Berger, that is the most important thing at the moment.’

  Wilhelm dragged a dingy handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes before murmuring brokenly, ‘I am, Your Vorship, I am. God bless my poor little Nella!’

  ‘You have our deepest sympathies,’ Mr Carttar gently assured him.

  Best knew that Wilhelm Berger had at first not been quite so sure, probably and understandably reluctant to admit his loss, but had obviously now realized that the girl was indeed his Nella.

  The coroner leaned forward and addressed him again. ‘As you may know, Mr Berger, our principal task at this stage is to hear evidence of identification so that the bodies may be released to relatives who may then have them buried here at Woolwich or take them for burial nearer home. I will issue a certificate to you so you may claim the body. The bulk of the victims will be registered as drowned, as they so clearly were, but we will be taking more evidence with regard to one or two of the deceased, to satisfy legal needs as regards to all of them, until after we have concluded the next part of our inquest on the cause of the accident. Nella will be one of those.’

  Wilhelm Berger was confused and again looked towards the police sergeant for help.

  ‘Don’t be concerned, Mr Berger,’ said the coroner. ‘You may take Nella’s body and have it interred. This is merely a legal formality.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I understand.’ His face cleared. ‘Thank you sir.’ He looked about him now unclear as to whether to commence his thunderous exit. The policeman placed a guiding hand on his arm and led him away.

  Outside, Best caught up with him. Bodies from both sides of the river were now being held in the dockyard. The drill, Best had ascertained, was that the relative took his certificate there, whereupon the body would be moved from the unidentified to the identified shed, placed in a simple, light coffin and handed over.

  It was universally acknowledged that these arrangements had worked remarkably well, considering how mammoth was the task. They had been organized by the police authorities whose representatives had now been issued with smelling salts in a vain attempt to keep the stench from their nostrils. This onerous heavy work was carried out by both dock labourers and soldiers from the nearby barracks.

  However, it had now been decreed that the unidentified bodies were in such a state of putrefaction that they could be held no longer and, if necessary, they were to be buried unrecognized. From now on, carefully labelled belongings and photographs of the dead were to be the only means of recognizing a loved one. The removal had already begun which meant Best and Wilhelm had to move with some speed to be in time to prevent Nella going nameless to her grave.

  As Best and Wilhelm arrived at the dockyard, several ambulance wagons, driven by soldiers in full dress uniform, were already proceeding slowly along the alley leading from the gates. The day’s first consignment of unidentified bodies was on its way to be buried. A snaking line of private corteges followed.

  Best helped to speed Wilhelm Berger through the procedure, making sure that although Nella’s coffin was loaded on to an army wagon it was clearly marked with her name. Then he found them a cab which tagged on to the rear of the sombre procession.

  They trundled slowly past hushed, respectful crowds lining Woolwich’s shuttered streets. Nella’s father sobbed quietly all the while. At the Arsenal Gates they turned right on to the Plumstead Road, then soon began the climb towards Woolwich New Cemetery which was set on a hillside nearly two miles from the town.

  In an onrush of pity, The Times had described this graveyard as ‘a pretty place, shaded by many trees, bright with flowers planted among the graves, and fragrant with the odour from its cedars, limes, and Italian pines’.

  Perhaps it could be all of those things, but to Best that day it was like a scene from hell. Mounds of black earth loomed over a hundred new graves and the ground between them was dark with coffins, gravediggers, clergymen, sightseers and unconsolable mourners.

  Endless sobs and agonized wailing filled the air – punctuated every now and then by the mournful sound of a ship’s siren drifting up from the river below. On the crest of the hill, like an omniscient presence, stood a surpliced clergyman starkly outlined against the backdrop of a dark and lowering sky.

  ‘Be ye also ready,’ he was almost bellowing at the groups of people scattered around the graves of the unclaimed, ‘for no man knoweth the hour, and souls redeemed by the Saviour’s love could cheerfully face even sudden death were they always ready for the Master’s call!’

  Best doubted that.

  He noticed that some of the labourers were having trouble fitting the coffins into the graves, despite the fact that both coffins and the holes in the ground had been widened to cope with the swollen state of the bodies. A final ignominy.

  By now, Wilhelm Berger’s stubbly black beard was sodden with his tears and he could only stumble blindly as Best led him alongside Nella’s coffin to a spot near one of the pines. A lady was throwing handfuls of sweet-smelling flowers on to the coffins of the nameless. Best asked for some to scatter on to Nella’s plain box as it was lowered into the cold ground.

  ‘I will avenge you, poor child,’ he murmured as he did so. ‘I will. I promise.’

  Somehow, his dramatic uttering did not seem in the least strange in such an awful place.

  Best suddenly felt he needed to know more about the life of the young girl they had just laid to rest, but he was endeavouring to contain his curiosity. To rush in would not only be unseemly, it would be unfeeling – Berger might unravel altogether.

  He waited until Nella’s father had taken a few reviving gulps of London porter before murmuring quietly, ‘Whew, that was an ordeal.’

  ‘Ja. Ja.’ Berger nodded and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It vos not very nice up there.’ He paused. ‘I not be able to do it without you.’

  ‘It was the least I could do. I liked her.’

  Berger looked puzzled. ‘You know my Nella well?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Best shook his head. ‘I just happened to be staying next door in John Street.’

  Wilhelm hung his he
ad. ‘Dat vos shaming.’

  ‘No.’ He patted the man’s hand. ‘She was a nice girl. These things happen.’

  ‘So you are knowing Mrs Dawes then?’

  ‘Oh, no. I just saw Nella once or twice when I was out in the garden next door. I was painting my watercolours and she was hanging out clothes. We just passed the time of day.’

  Berger knitted his brows. ‘You paint pictures? That’s a job?’

  ‘No,’ Best smiled. ‘I’ve been ill, you see, and I was recuperating. I just do it to pass the time.’

  ‘I don’t know vot ve will do vithout Nella.’

  ‘I expect your wife is very upset.’

  ‘Mv vife is dead.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No.’ He spread his chunky, calloused hands. ‘How you know that?’ He sighed. ‘Nella, she looked after me and the children.’

  ‘Have you many other children?’

  ‘Four. They are very sad.’

  Best knew Berger was a building labourer and wondered how he could have afforded Mrs Dawes’s fees.

  ‘It must have been hard on you – her staying with Mrs Dawes and then having to pay the fees as well.’

  Berger nodded. ‘She charge a lot.’ Then he grinned, startling Best. ‘But I got special price.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He shrugged, causing his head to sink even lower into his chest. ‘I know Mrs Dawes from a long time.’

  ‘Oh, well. That must have been a help.’

  ‘It vos. It vos.’

  ‘And the father chipped in, I hope?’

  ‘Father? Vot father?’

  ‘Of Nella’s baby?’

  A cautious look entered the man’s eyes. ‘I not know who he is.’

  ‘She never told you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had no idea?’

  He shook his head and shrugged again. ‘Who knows? Could be anyone. Zat boy she liked down the road – they got behind a shed maybe. The milkman in our kitchen while I not there. I dunno!’ He seemed suddenly agitated so Best shrugged as well and retreated behind his glass of ale.

  He knew little about Wilhelm Berger apart from the fact that he lived near the Caledonian Road, which wasn’t very far from John Street. This made it just a little odd that he had moved Nella there. Most people wanted to hide a shameful pregnancy so booked into somewhere some distance from their homes. Maybe it was the special price which had been the decider.

  One thing he did know about Nella’s father: he had fallen foul of the law at some stage. Addressing the coroner as ‘Your Vorship’, was a sure sign. But then many immigrants got themselves into little scrapes, often fairly minor, through ignorance or their dire straits.

  ‘I not understand this man who say Nella will be held back. That she not drown.’

  ‘No, no. He didn’t say that,’ Best insisted. He suddenly felt very very tired but took a deep breath and launched forth. ‘Look, it’s difficult to explain but – just so they don’t have to examine all the bodies thoroughly to find out what killed them – which they really know was drowning after the accident. They are examining only one or two and using them as specimen cases, just in case the rest of the investigation reveals anything further – such as it being a deliberate collision or caused by negligence – which could mean a charge of manslaughter.’ Best stopped to gather his resources. ‘He is holding on to one or two cases so he can add things to their certificates if necessary,’ he finished.

  Best wasn’t surprised the man looked even more confused as a result of his garbled explanation. He was, himself.

  ‘But vy my Nella?’ he asked eventually. ‘Vy her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Best lied. ‘It could be that he has selected one young girl and one young boy, then a middle-aged woman and a middle-aged man. I’ve heard it’s something like that,’ he lied again. ‘Others have been held back – the ones whose relatives are suing the company and have lawyers at the inquest. They have been held back.’

  That was true. It was also true that the coroner was basing his specimen enquiries around only one victim, William Beechey, the first person whose body had been identified.

  ‘It is very peculiar, this “specimen”,’ said Berger.

  ‘I know. I know.’

  Best hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Berger about their suspicions. Hadn’t he the right to know? But wouldn’t that complicate matters terribly as well as alerting suspects?

  ‘It is because I’m foreign.’

  ‘No! Good heavens, no!’

  He was not convinced. ‘I dunno … ’

  ‘Look, I don’t understand it all completely, but this is a very unusual inquest and inquiry as it has been a very unusual accident and they’re making up procedure as they go along.’ Best patted his hand. ‘You’ve got your Nella buried, that’s the main thing. Go home and look after your other children. I’ll see if I can get you some help from the Lord Mayor’s Fund.’

  It was true, Best didn’t really understand all the ramifications but he did know that Carttar the coroner had done his bit by including Nella on his case-to-be-kept-open list and seen to it she had a post-mortem. It was up to them now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ’You’ve got to go back in,’ Cheadle announced in his usual blunt fashion. ‘There’s been more bodies and we’ve ’ad another letter saying that that lot in John Street are still at it.’ He held up the familiar, blue speckled writing-paper.

  It didn’t surprise Best to know they were ‘still at it’. Martha had told him as much. She’d told him that, at first, she’d believed Mrs Dawes when she’d said that soon after birth the babies were taken to a house in Finsbury where they were put up for adoption. After a while, however, she had begun to find it curious that they disappeared from the scene so quickly, even if born in the middle of the night.

  When questioned, Mrs Dawes had laughed and said that that just showed how efficient they were. But minor incidents began pointing to a different story and Martha started to take notice of the other servants’ dark hints. Then, quite by accident, she’d been there at a birth and had caught Mrs Dawes and Dr Helman actually smothering a new-born. Mrs Dawes’s brazen response had been to declare that now Martha was party to the whole business and just as likely to hang as them.

  The poor girl had felt trapped. She needed the job to support her son. Soon after, they had asked her to ‘drop’ little bodies. They offered her extra money for the task, money she could save to educate little Georgie, to give him a chance in life.

  Why can’t we keep the babies and advertise them for adoption, she’d pleaded? But Mrs Dawes claimed that they had tried that for a while, but it had proved too difficult. Supply exceeded demand, so they were constantly left with spare babies on their hands, babies for which they had neither the room nor the staff to cope. Besides, the little creatures were noisy and inclined to smell, which was bad for the business.

  Not only that, further care cost money. As did the advertising and clothing to make them look halfway decent and appealing to prospective adoptees. This ate into the lump sums they received from the clients for taking the problem off their hands. Often, quite substantial sums were handed over, Martha revealed, so that the women could walk away relieved of their burdens and pretend nothing had happened.

  In any case, Mrs Dawes had insisted, so many babies died at birth – or soon after – what did a few more matter? Indeed, how few children actually reached adulthood? Think of the heartache they saved. Looking at it like that, they could almost be said to be doing a public service.

  Despite the fact that Best had half-known what was going on, he’d been horrified – and even more determined to stop the killings. But so many terrible things had happened since he had spoken to the tearful Martha and he was sick of the whole business. So much baby-farming went on anyway with a greater or smaller degree of evil intent that this case was merely a pinprick and it seemed to him now that solving it would achieve little.

  Most of
all, he was sick of living at John Street and of playing the artistic invalid. He wanted to get back to his own life with his colleagues – and to Helen. This all raced through his mind as he faced his chief inspector, took a deep breath, and asked, ‘Can’t we try another approach, sir? That one didn’t work very well last time and—’

  ‘No,’ snapped Cheadle. ‘We can’t “try another approach”,’ he mimicked. ‘It would waste all that work. Anyway, you’re in a better position now. You’ve got an in, next door.’

  Best cleared his throat. ‘Maybe new blood might be more successful. Littlechild maybe. I could say he was my cousin.’

  ‘Littlechild’s ’elping Greenham with the Russian rouble forgeries.’

  Oh, very important. The Russian Government had been complaining about rouble forgery for years. The Yard knew they were churned out by Poles and Russians in the East End but they’d never had much luck nailing them – they were too clever and their gangs frightened people. They’d only ever caught smaller fry.

  ‘They’ve caught some of the big boys,’ grinned Cheadle triumphantly, ‘an’ are on the tail of a lot more. The Russian Government is very pleased.’

  Ah, that was it. Large rewards were to be had.

  The discussion had begun with the usual quibbles about expenses which had landed him out of pocket once again despite the claims of improvement since the Commission’s recommendations last year. He felt even more worn out.

  I’ve had enough of this, Best thought. There must be some another way to earn a living. Overlooked in the new promotions. Why bother? Hand in my notice. Why not?

  But what about the pledge over Nella’s grave? He could investigate that in his own time, he decided. That was it.

  ‘Sir,’ he began firmly and there wasn’t a good deal of respect in his eyes. ‘Sir … I—’

  ‘Get them in John Street sorted out,’ Cheadle said, ‘an’ we’ll have this Nella business settled, too.’

  Best said nothing which was almost tantamount to insubordination.

  ‘You can ’ave two or three days off first,’ Cheadle conceded, obviously sensing rebellion. ‘Not too long, mind you, or the trail will go cold.’