“No, no,” Kipper reached for his former sergeant’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “What I want to say, Ben, is you don’t have to be sorry.”
***
“Back again, love?” cackled the flower-seller on the Portobello Road. “Twice in one day, I am honoured.”
Kipper grunted and paid for his second bunch of flowers. The first was standing gaily in a vase beside Adams’s hospital bed. This second he would take home...
Bigby had taken control. Again, perhaps that was a good thing. “Beighton killed one woman; this much we know,” he’d said, pacing outside the shaft and puffing on his pipe. “He knew we were on to him, so he has absconded. Left the country, I shouldn’t wonder. He won’t trouble the streets of London again.”
“A cover-up?” Kipper had been surprised.
“Literally,” said Bigby. He signalled to his men who set about filling in the shaft.
“I don’t like it,” said Kipper with a petulant expression.
“You would rather report the truth, old man? They’ll whisk you orf to Bedlam as soon as look at you.”
Bigby had been right. Kipper could see that and was willing to live with it. And if it should all go belly-up, Bigby as the presiding officer would cop the shit storm. Not that any of it should ever come to light. The railway people were abandoning their proposed extension; too expensive. Too much negative publicity about toads, he shouldn’t be surprised.
One thing he had insisted on before the dirt went raining down on the remains of Edward, Lord Beighton: the removal of Doctor Hoo from the underground tomb. The world might not be ready for his brand of medicine but one day it might. Kipper had the doctor transported to a secret location, the details of which he kept sealed in the safe at Bow Street.
While all this was going on, that Deacus fellow had legged it. Can’t say I blame him, Kipper thought. Best off out of it. Don’t know where he’s gone and I don’t want to. Going to try to put all this business behind me and get back to nicking pickpockets and chasing burglars. Oh, for the easy life!
He turned the key in the front door and pushed his way through to the communal hallway. Like a tiger in the undergrowth, landlady Mrs Plum sprang from behind an aspidistra.
“There you are, Inspector!” she displayed unerring mental acuity. “Nice to have you home. Spot of dinner suit you? It’ll be ready in ten. Oh, ain’t they lovely blooms?” She clasped her string of pearls in surprise. “For me, are they? Oh, Inspector Kipper! You shouldn’t have!”
“I didn’t,” said Kipper, heading up the stairs. “No dinner for me, thank you, Mrs Plum. I have other arrangements.”
Mrs Plum’s eyes widened and she actually staggered backwards. “What’s this?” she gasped. “Don’t tell me you’ve been and gone and found yourself a lady friend?”
But Kipper said nothing. He bounded up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, whistling to himself and holding the bunch of flowers like the Olympic torch.
He knocked the door to his own room before going in. “Only me,” he said. He shut the door behind him and held out the flowers.
Coppélia turned from the window and smiled.
Thirty-Seven
I stayed in my cabin the entire journey. Something about being on a steamship made me uneasy. The steam, I suppose. Too much like fog. The spray of water over the decks, too much like mist. And I must keep away from fog and mist.
I’m heading for the desert. This train will take me to California. There’s a place there called Death Valley, one of the hottest places on this Earth.
Foggy Jack won’t find me there.
That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.
Sometimes I think I should have said goodbye. To Doctor Hoo, I mean. I think that stinging feeling behind my eyes is guilt, what I ain’t never experienced before. I should have gone down that shaft and said goodbye. Even if it was like talking to a stopped clock, I should have said it. But I didn’t; I was too keen on getting away and saving me own bushel and peck. I had no time for hanging about.
Perhaps I’m being overly cautious. Perhaps he’s still confined to London. Foggy Jack, I mean. I’d like to believe that so I can sleep at night, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much.
That bastard will have found a way to get out of the city. I saw the way he looked at me. I can see it now, those red eyes glowing like coals, every time I close my eyes. There’s no way he’s going to let me get away.
He wants the key. He wants the key to Doctor Hoo.
And I’m going to spend the rest of my life, in hiding, like I’m buried alive, making sure he don’t get it.
THE END
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