Highly amused with himself, the cowherd swatted at a rump with a switch. It took Kipper a few seconds to realise he had been insulted.
“Can I help you, mate?”
Kipper spun around to find a man in a greasy bowler hat and even greasier overall peering at him. Kipper showed his warrant card and the fellow’s demeanour changed at once.
“Listen,” he broke out in a sweat, “I didn’t know they was swans. I thought they was big quails. Really big quails.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” said Kipper. “But I do need to see your records. Who books which stall and when. You must have such a thing?”
The fellow straightened with a look of injured pride. “Of course! In the old days, it was first come, first pick. Folks would set up their pitch anywhere they liked. It was chaos.”
Kipper glanced around at the melee and the clamour and was unable to imagine a scene of greater disorder. “I’d be obliged if you’d show me, Mr - ah?”
“Ratcliff,” the man nodded. “Irving Ratcliff, general supervisor. My office is this way.”
He led the inspector through the market hall where the high ceiling amplified the din of the transactions under way as well as the sound of the cleavers hacking through bone and into wooden blocks. An eerie scream pierced the air.
“What was that?” Kipper froze.
“Cattle,” shrugged the general supervisor. “They knows they’re in for it. They can smell the fear and the blood or something. Don’t worry, they soon shuts up when the hammer smashes their skulls in.”
Kipper was less than reassured.
“Of course, I thought for a minute you was here with yet another bleedin’ complaint. We get them all the time.”
“Complaints?”
“The noise, the smell, the animals. Oh, it’s cruel, people say. Oh, it don’t half pong! Hypocrisy, says I. They just don’t like it on their doorstep. They wants it on their plates and served up in aspic or a fancy French sauce but they don’t want to know where it comes from. It ain’t a pretty picture - nobody’s saying it is. But if you want meat for dinner you have to accept a bit of murder in your life. I mean, it don’t grow on trees, does it? Here, are you all right, Inspector? Only you’ve gone a bit green around the gills.”
Kipper offered a weak smile. He ran a finger under his collar in a bid to loosen it a little and then dabbed at his brow with his handkerchief. “I’m fine,” he lied.
“Through here.” Ratcliff opened a door and ushered the inspector in. Closing the door muffled the din and stifled the stench - for which Kipper was grateful.
The room was home to a table and chair and stack upon stack of papers and ledgers. Nevertheless, Ratcliff was able to lay his hands on what he wanted without a moment’s delay.
“Here you go. Market diary going back five years or more. Who had what pitch and when and who still hasn’t bleedin’ paid for it.”
He slammed a pile of thick tomes, each of them bulging like overstuffed upholstery, on the already cluttered table top. Kipper was daunted by the amount of paperwork before him and he’d thought coppers had it bad.
He took out his notebook. “There’s three dates I’m interested in. Any of your regulars fail to show up on these nights? Or did any leave early? Turn up late?”
Ratcliff glanced at the list and frowned. “What’s all this in aid of, Inspector? I am allowed to arsk, ain’t I? On account of me being so cooperative and all.”
Kipper was tight-lipped. “I’m just following a hunch.”
“That’s funny,” said Ratcliff. “Most people’s hunches follow them.” He laughed. Kipper didn’t. Something occurred to the market supervisor. “Here! It’s about them murders, ain’t it? All over the papers. Foggy Jack! You think one of my butchers is Foggy Jack!”
“I am not at liberty to-”
“You do! Well, I never! Here, I hope there’s a reward in it if I helps you catch him.”
“Well, I-”
“Only joking. Happy to help get that bastard off the streets. Give’s them dates again.”
He reached for the notebook but commotion from outside caused him to swear and, shoving Kipper aside, burst from the office. Kipper followed but hung back in the doorway, clinging to a jamb for support. His legs were limp as sausage links and his face had taken on the pallor of beef dripping.
The market hall was in a state of clamour and confusion. A brown cow was careering between stalls, crashing into them more often than not. People were either chasing after the animal or trying to get out of its unpredictable path. The creature was stumbling and lurching at full pelt.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Ratcliff complained, reaching for an axe from a wall. “Another one’s got loose. Best keep out of its way.”
The cow was bearing down on them, eyes rolling wildly, blood streaming down its snout from the wound in its skull. Kipper gasped to see the handle of a hammer protruding from that wound.
“This won’t take a minute,” Ratcliff glanced over his shoulder. He spun around, swinging the axe up, around and down into the animal’s neck, but the cow kept coming, mewling in terror. Ratcliff struck again and again, severing a front leg at the knee. The cow toppled and at once a swarm of butchers was upon it, hacking and stabbing long after the beast was well and truly stilled.
“Phew,” said Ratcliff, wiping a hand across his face and bloodying his forehead. “We could do without this sort of carry-on.”
“Carrion,” murmured Kipper, sliding down the doorpost in a swoon.
Five
Doctor Hoo gave me a white coat to put on and a surgical mask to cover my nose and mouth. We looked the same. Well, what I mean is we was dressed alike in our white coats and masks and little cotton caps. Only he was taller, wasn’t he, Doctor Hoo. Well over six foot if he’s an inch. Nearer seven, I shouldn’t be surprised. He must have to go to a special tailor.
There was a knocking at the door but before I could scoot off to answer it, Doctor Hoo stuck his finger in the air (he was still wearing them gloves) to stop me.
“I’ll do talking,” he said. The mask over his mouth didn’t budge. Throwing his voice, I’d wager, like one of the fellows I saw down the old music hall. Ventriloquist.
And guess who’s the dummy.
Not me.
The dummy was on the other side of the warehouse door, knocking on it fit to bash it in. Doctor Hoo tilted his head, ever so slightly, and then I did scoot off to answer it.
It was a youngish chap. Early twenties, I reckon, with blond curls and piercing, although slightly bloodshot, blue eyes. His clobber was all posh and he had a silver-topped cane with which he had tried to bash the door down. Young then and not unhandsome but already his jawline was softened by a fondness for drink. One of your idle rich, then, what’s never done an honest day’s work in all his born days. All right, come to think of it, neither have I and I’m bleedin’ skint so something’s gone wrong somewhere.
“You there!” he barked and when he did I recognised the voice. It was him, weren’t it? The toff that was stamping around and giving old Hoo an ear-bashing. “I am Edward,” he said but it cut no ice with me. “Lord Beighton,” he added, like that made it any nicer to meet him. “I say, is the doctor in?”
I bowed low and beckoned him in with a sweeping gesture - all sarcastic, mind, because I don’t bow to nobody. In he stepped, unclasped his cloak and dropped it on top of me. The brass neck of it! He strode across the floor, limping a bit and twirling his cane. I bundled up the cloak - lovely bit of shmutter - and chucked it into a corner. Well. That’s what you get when you don’t tip the help.
He waited at the foot of the winding staircase. I don’t know what for. Perhaps he was expecting me to give him a bleedin’ piggyback or something! Remembering my instructions, I didn’t make a peep. I bowed again and made gestures to him as if to say, Feel free to
go up, my lord. In fact, we’d be honoured if you’d oblige.
Oh, I should have been on the stage because he copped my meaning right away and climbed the stairs, and it was all I could do not to laugh. Glad of that cotton mask I was and no mistake.
It was a bit of a struggle for him, climbing them stairs. He was puffing and panting and perspiring in no time. I waited until he got to the mezzanine at the top before I went up after - I didn’t want him keeling over and tumbling down on top of me like we was bleedin’ Jack and bleedin’ Jill.
He was waiting outside the door and getting his breath back and he shot me an impatient look like it was me what had took my time and not him. I pointed at the floor as if to say, Wait here, and I went through the door to where Hoo was standing by his workbench, which was all cleared off and covered with a bright, white bedsheet. Hoo must have connexions with the local laundry, I shouldn’t be surprised.
I jerked my thumb at the door behind me. “He’s here,” I whispered. Hoo stiffened; I’d broken his No Talking rule.
“Sorry,” I said. His narrow eyes narrowed further. He nodded: I was to show our visitor in. With more bowing and arm-sweeping, I shepherded the toff into the laboratory - ’cause that’s what it was. Let’s call a spade a bleedin’ spade.
“Good day to you, Doctor,” the toff said, leaning on his cane. He was sweating like a pig with a guilty conscience and his face was the colour of turned milk. He didn’t look at all well. “Is it here? Is it ready?”
Hoo inclined his head in one of them slow, graceful nods of which he is a master. The answer perked the toff up considerably, almost to the point of clapping his hands.
“Then it shall be done today?” his eyes lit up with hope.
Hoo nodded again. “Now,” he intoned, gesturing at how ready his table was and everything. He turned to me. “Gentleman’s trousers,” he said, baffling me at first. I frowned and I almost said, What about ’em? But then I cottoned on. He wanted me to take ’em off so I went to the toff and made for his belt. Well, he didn’t like that and slapped my hands away.
“I can do it!” he snapped. “One learns how to survive on the butler’s day orf.”
He divested himself of his shoes and his trousers and handed them to me. I put them on a chair but I wasn’t really paying attention. I couldn’t stop staring. It was his leg. All green it was from the knee down to the ankle. Green and black and purple and oozing in places. Disgusting it was. Fair turned my stomach, it did. But I couldn’t stop gawping at it like it was a freak show at the fair. He caught me looking and shooed me with his cane.
“Gangrene,” he said.
I can see it has gone green, mate, I felt like saying. He hobbled over to the table and I had to help him climb on. He lay on the sheet and propped himself on his elbows, looking down the length of his horrible limb. “This is it, old stick,” he said with a tremor of trepidation and a smidgeon of sentimentality in his voice. “Goodbye and all that. Thank you for all the support.”
Blimey! I reckon if he could have reached it, he would have kissed his foot goodbye. I shouldn’t mock though; I’m quite attached to my body parts and all.
Doctor Hoo held a folded hanky over the neck of a little brown bottle and upended it. Then he pressed the cloth over the toff’s north and south and snuffed him out like a candle.
“Anaesthesia,” said Hoo.
“Bless you,” I replied.
What happened next was horrible. One of the worst things I ever had the misfortune to witness (up to that point). I’ll spare you most of the details but after he’d tied a length of rubber tube around the toff’s thigh, Hoo got involved in a lot of slicing and sawing. It’s hard work, taking a man’s leg off, but Hoo looked like he knew what he was doing and I couldn’t help wondering how many times he’d done such a thing before. His eyes burned with concentration but he didn’t break a sweat despite the physical effort.
Then it was off. Oh, it did whiff, that rotten old leg! Even through my mask. I backed away in case Hoo tried to pass it to me. I didn’t want to touch it, not even with me gloves on. Hoo nodded to me to bring the wooden crate. It had been topped up with fresh ice, I noticed, to keep the toff’s new leg fresh as a bleedin’ daisy. The old leg was tossed unceremoniously into the crate.
Out came that brass contraption, the kneecap cap. Hoo attached it first to the stump - which took bleedin’ ages because of threading the veins and arteries and whatsits through it. The cap was a link between the two bits of leg, you see. Hoo was wearing his magnifying specs and kept beckoning me to hold the lamp so he could get a better squint at what he was doing.
At long last, after an hour or two or three or four, it was done. Hoo stood up straight and allowed himself a sigh of satisfaction with a job well done.
“What’s next?” I had to ask.
“You tidy up. Him sleep.” He stalked out of the laboratory, leaving the toff snoring and oblivious and me wondering what the bleedin’ hell I was going to do with that rotten old leg.
***
Well, I bundled up the bloodied sheets and stuffed them in a sack - perhaps Hoo’s mates down the laundry would be able to do something with them stubborn stains, and good luck to ’em. I wasn’t going to try. I’ll do a lot of things for Doctor Hoo but I ain’t no washerwoman.
I ran his tools under the pump and was careful to dry them, although I don’t think they was made of stuff that rusts. Then, with one last look at Sleeping Beauty (well, Sleeping Long John Silver, more like!) I went downstairs to find Hoo standing slumped. Almost bent in half he was. He looked like a puppet hanging up after the show was over.
“Doctor...” I approached with caution in case all it was was he had fallen asleep standing up. I’ve heard of such a thing is possible but I’d never seen it before. His eyes was open but then I’ve heard about that and all, but his lips were set tight and it seemed to me he was struggling to right himself, like a beetle on its back. “Doctor? What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Pocket...” he said, almost too quietly for my lugholes to pick up. “Left pocket...” His eyes rolled sideways in case I didn’t bleedin’ know my left from my right.
I put my hand in. Deep, them pockets are, on lab coats, and at first I couldn’t find nothing but then my fingers closed on a scrap of paper. I pulled it out and squinted at it.
“This?”
All it was was a list of numbers. I read them out loud. Hoo tried to shake his head. He seemed to be getting slower and slower.
“Safe...” he uttered and his head dropped.
Oh, yeah, of course! The numbers was the combination for a safe. I won’t write them down because Hoo swore me to secrecy. He didn’t want the numbers falling into the wrong brass bands.
The safe was in the little kitchen bit, covered by an oilcloth. I’d been using it as a table. I cleared the tea things off of it and whipped the cloth away. I crouched and turned the dial this way and that, according to the numbers. Something clunked inside the door. I twisted the handle and lo and behold-
-Nothing!
I put my hand in and patted around until I found something right at the back of the shelf. I pulled it out. It was a key, one of that sort with a butterfly bow at the top and a hollow shaft with a square hole at the bottom. Like the kind you’d have to wind up a music box only bigger.
I hurried back with it to the doctor who was like a broken scarecrow by now, his legs buckling, one more than the other.
“This, Doctor?” I held the key under his nose. “Is this what you want?”
His gloved hand shot up and snatched the key from my palm, giving me quite a start.
“Go!” he urged. “Get out. Leave... me...”
I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied.
“Go!” he barked like a rusty hinge. I bolted, back up them stairs to where the toff was sleeping it off.
What the bleedin’ hell was going on? I slumped against the back of the door.
Crikey, Damien Deacus, you don’t half get mixed up with some rum sorts and no mistake.
Six
Inspector Kipper woke with a start. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, surprised to find himself back in his office at Bow Street nick. Sergeant Adams was in front of him, cup of tea at the ready.
“What?” Kipper looked at his surroundings with a dazed expression. “How did I-”
“Meat wagon brung you here, sir. You had quite a turn.”
Kipper frowned. “Meat wagon? Do you mean the ambulance?”
“No, sir. The meat wagon. From the market. Dead to the world you was.” Adams placed the cup and saucer on the desk like a votive offering. “You needs looking after, sir, if you don’t mind my saying.”
Kipper ignored that remark. He composed himself and sat up straight. Adams’s eyes flickered to his notebook.
“A Mister Ratcliff, sir, sends you the ledgers you’re interested in and his sincere good wishes for your swift recovery.”
“Does he, indeed?” Kipper stirred the tea.
“Indeed he does, sir,” Adams indicated a stack of ledgers on a chair. “Lot of paper there, I should say.”
“You’d be right to,” Kipper sipped.
“I’ll get the men to start sifting through it right away, sir. Many hands and all that.”
“What? Oh, yes!” It hadn’t occurred to Kipper that he could delegate some of the drudgery to the other officers. “Good idea. Lovely drop of Rosie and all, Sergeant.”
Adams blushed, causing his cheeks to clash with his orange facial hair.
“And I’ve taken the liberty, sir, of making appointments on your behalf with most of the doctors what work on Harley Street.”
“You’ve - what? Appointments?”
Adams handed him a schedule. “Fastest way to get to see them, if you don’t want to wait for warrants to be issued.”
Kipper glanced at the list up and down. “This doesn’t warrant warrants. Not at this juncture. Most of them, you say? Not all?”
Trapping Fog Page 3