by Tessa Harris
* * *
That night in bed, I don’t cuddle up to Flo as I usually do to keep warm. Normally, in autumn and winter, I put my feet on her knees, but not tonight. In the space between us lies a sense of betrayal. It’s deep and it’s cold and I’m so angry with her that I clench my fists under the covers.
After a few moments of icy silence, she finally speaks from the bottom of the bed.
“I know I shouldn’t have said about your dream, Con.”
I let her stew for a moment, then say: “No, you shouldn’t.”
There’s another silence. “But you’ve got to admit you’ve been acting odd these past few days, thinking you saw Miss Tindall and—”
I jerk up onto my elbow, feeling the anger tighten my chest. “I saw her, I tell you. I did.”
A shaft of light from the streetlamp illuminates her and I see her body shudder as she starts to giggle. But then she catches my expression and puts her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. She understands it’s not funny.
“Let’s get some sleep,” she says.
It takes me a while to drop off, but when I do, I have another dream. I see a large room with drawn velvet drapes at the window. In the center is a large bed, a rich person’s bed, and in it is a woman. At first, all I can make out is her outline. Her hair is dark and there are two men standing by her. One, a doctor I presume, is listening to her chest with a stethoscope; the other watches anxiously.
“As I feared,” says the doctor. “It’s pleurisy.”
The other man is tall, with sandy hair and a moustache. He bows his head.
“But she will live?”
The doctor shakes his head. “I fear I cannot say for sure, Mr. Cutler.”
I wake suddenly and find myself struggling to breathe. My forehead’s damp with sweat. “No,” I mutter.
At the bottom of the bed, Flo stirs. She turns over, then settles again. I know I need to tell Miss Beaufroy about what I’ve just seen as soon as I can.
EMILY
In the darkness of a Harley Street town house, something stirs. The fires have been doused, the doors bolted and the servants all taken to their beds in the attic, but someone, or something, is about. Terence Cutler is suddenly awakened from his slumber by a sound. A footfall on the stair? A step on the landing? A click of a lock?
At first, he lies still, listening, but all he can hear is the thrum of his heartbeat in his ears. But then, there it is again. He jerks upright and throws off the bedclothes. Thrusting his feet into slippers, he rises to investigate. There is a spill and some matches on his bedside table. He manages to strike one and lights a candle. Thus armed, he feels his way, bleary-eyed, toward the door. He opens it.
“Dora,” he calls in a half whisper. There is no reply.
Holding up his candle, he squints into the gloom. Geraldine’s bedroom is across the landing. He tilts his head and listens again. A rustle? A drawer opening?
“Geraldine?” he murmurs, shaking the sleep from his head. He feels his heartbeat grow faster as he pads across the landing. ” Geraldine?” he says again, only louder this time, as if each of his footsteps brings with it a renewed confidence. “She has come back,” he says aloud. “Thank God!”
In his eagerness, he flings open the door. Moonlight floods into the room from the open drapes. He sees the bed, the dressing table, the chaise longue, in perfect relief. He smells her perfume, too. But there is no one there. Everything is as she left it the day she walked out. The room is empty, and suddenly so is he. There is a longing inside him when he realizes he has been mistaken. She has not returned. There is no one there, and his hopes, wrought between sleep and wake, are dashed by her palpable absence. As he stands by the doorway, he misses her more than ever.
“Geraldine,” he whimpers, unable to stem a tear.
He turns and slowly makes his way back to his cold and lonely bed.
CHAPTER 26
Friday, October 26, 1888
CONSTANCE
I have to see Miss Beaufroy again to tell her about my dream. Before, in the tearooms, we agreed that if I needed to meet her urgently, we should plan a place. She gave it a fancy French word. “Renday-voo,” or suchlike. She said that for the next few days she’d remain at the hotel and that she’d always take a walk in Berkeley Square at eight o’clock every morning.
“I’m off to Mayfair today,” I tell Flo, slipping on my stockings under the bedcover. I try to sound like my old self, even though I know I’m different inside.
I sleep with my drawers and petticoat and stockings under the blankets so that they don’t freeze over when it’s this nippy. My own body heat keeps them warm, so that I’m not chilled to the bone when I pull them on next to my skin. As I slip my petticoat over my head, it suddenly occurs to me that I may never feel like my old self again.
“You was there the other day,” she says, shivering on the side of the bed.
“It’s good over there,” I lie. “I sold a dozen oranges.” Despite my best efforts to keep warm, I notice I’m still covered in goose pimples. I shiver, but I’m not sure it’s only because I’m cold.
“Suit yourself,” Flo says, making a dash for the chair where she left her skirt last night. She’s gone all shirty with me, but I’ll have to live with it, just as long as she don’t follow me.
An hour later, I’m standing outside the railings of Berkeley Square gardens.
“Oranges, lovely juicy oranges,” I call as soon as I see Miss Beaufroy strolling toward me, all carefree like. But when she draws close, I can see I’ve worried her. She looks about her, then at me with a frown.
“What is it, Constance?” she whispers as I hand her an orange from my basket.
“Last night, miss, I had a dream,” I tell her.
I hear breath being sucked into her lungs. “A premonition?” she asks.
I don’t like it when she gives what I see fancy names. “More a flash of something that happened in the past, I think,” I say, biting my lip.
“About Geraldine?” She leans in as she hands me a sixpence.
I nod. “I saw a lady lying sick in a bed.”
Her eyes widen. “Sick?”
“There was a doctor by her side and another man, tall he was with sandy hair and a moustache.”
“Terence!”
“Terence?”
“Geraldine’s husband!” she tells me.
I eye her, dumbstruck. How could I possibly have known what he looked like? Yet she seems unperturbed.
“What happened?” she urges me.
“The doctor looked at the gentleman and said: ‘I fear it’s pleurisy.’ ”
At my words, Miss Beaufroy puts out her gloved hand and has to steady herself against the railings.
“Oh, miss!” I cry, dropping my basket and reaching out to help her. I manage to guide her to a nearby bench. “I’m sorry, miss,” I say as she reaches for her handkerchief from her bag. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She rolls her hankie into a ball and presses it against her mouth; then she bows her head. “Oh, dear God,” she says, gasping for air. I think she’ll pass out. After a moment, her breathing steadies. “Describe the lady to me, will you, Constance?”
I picture the scene again in my mind’s eye. “She’s in a big wooden bed carved with fish and shells and . . .”
Miss Beaufroy thrusts her handkerchief to her lips once more to stifle a cry. She’s lost all the color in her cheeks. “But that is the bed my father gave Geraldine as a wedding present.” Her face suddenly screws up and tears start to flow. I’ve brought her the worst news possible. She turns to me and there’s horror in her eyes. “Don’t you see? It must be Geraldine.”
“Is this girl troubling you, ma’am?” Suddenly a shadow looms over us both and I look up to see a copper, slapping his truncheon on his palm.
Miss Beaufroy lifts her gaze. She’s a bit confused at first, then says firmly: “No. Not at all, Officer. I have just had a nasty shock.” She straightens her back as s
he dabs her eyes.
“Very good, then, miss,” he says, giving me a sideways look. He walks off slowly, whistling.
Miss Beaufroy takes a deep breath as she watches him go. “You know what this means, Constance?” she says, turning to me.
“What, miss?” I play the fool, even though I’m fairly certain what’s coming next.
As she fixes me with an odd look, I remain still, but a strange tingling sensation runs down both my arms. Suddenly she takes both my hands in hers. “Oh, Constance, we need to go to the police with our suspicions.”
I know she is right. I nod, even though I’m afraid that I’m being sucked deeper and deeper into something so horrible that it threatens to draw all the life out of me, like sinking sand. It’s taking me further away from finding Miss Tindall, too. I’m confused and tense and I really don’t know which way to turn. I try to focus on the matter at hand. I ask myself what Miss Tindall would do.
“Don’t we need to tell your sister’s husband first?” I suggest.
Miss Beaufroy’s brows arch in unison and she looks at me aghast, as if I’ve just suggested we consult Saucy Jack himself. It turns out I’m not too far off the mark. “Good heavens, no,” she replies bluntly. “As I told you, it would not surprise me if he did have a hand in her disappearance.” A fire burns in her eyes as she speaks. “I know Terence Cutler,” she says between clenched teeth, but she can tell that I need to know more. “You see, Constance,” she begins, “I went to Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary yesterday to make discreet inquiries.” I picture her in that dingy, filthy building where no one ventures unless they have to. “I spoke to some of the women.” She bites her lip. “I told them . . .” She finds it hard to relate. “I told them I was with child and needed help. They told me Mr. Cutler was the man who could help.” A short pause allows me to take in her meaning. I can’t hide my shock. She fixes me with a dark look. “That’s how I know he is capable of terrible things.” Then she answers the question that she must be able to read in my expression. “And, yes, I fear that just might include murdering Geraldine.”
EMILY
Terence Cutler is readying himself for an afternoon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. It’s where he practices two full days and two afternoons a week. He has breakfasted and is gathering his papers in his study. Any moment now, his regular cab will draw up outside his home to convey him to his place of work. Or so he imagines. But the knock he is expecting is particularly loud this morning; there is an urgency about it, as if its instigator is the bearer of bad news. He hears Dora rush to answer the call and listens as the door opens.
“This is Mr. Cutler’s residence?” The voice, a man’s, is unfamiliar.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Terence Cutler?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re from Scotland Yard. May we come in?”
In his study, Terence Cutler endeavors to steady himself. The police. He feels his guts rise and twist. He must remain calm. Dora knocks.
“Sir, there’s the . . .” The girl is fretful.
“Show the gentlemen in, will you,” he instructs. He looks in the mirror on the wall, straightens his cravat, smooths his hair.
The policemen enter. There are three of them—two detectives and a uniformed constable.
“Gentlemen, this is an unexpected pleasure. Normally, I would welcome you, but I fear you come at a rather inconvenient time. You see I—”
The senior officer, his face as gnarled and weathered as an old oak, lifts a hand. “Bad news never comes at a convenient time, Mr. Cutler,” he pronounces.
Cutler swallows down his anxiety. “Bad news?” The papers he has in his hand suddenly slip out of his grasp.
The officer nods. “I am Inspector Marshall and this is Detective Constable Hawkins. We have been assigned to the case of the Whitehall torso. You are familiar with it, sir?”
Cutler suddenly feels the need to sit down. He slumps into the chair behind his desk as if he knows what is to come. The Sword of Damocles has suddenly appeared above his head. It is poised to fall.
“I am,” he replies, trying, but failing, to remain impassive.
Marshall signals to Hawkins, who produces a brown paper packet from his coat pocket. “And you know that this brooch was found nearby. I believe you have already identified it as belonging to Mrs. Cutler.” Hawkins, the younger detective, thrusts the jewelry under the surgeon’s nose.
Cutler recalls Troutbeck’s highly irregular visit to warn him of the brooch’s discovery. He looks at it, lying on tissue paper in the palm of Hawkins’s hand.
“Yes.”
Marshall shifts his weight. “Then it is my duty to inform you, sir, that we have reason to believe that the remains found buried on the embankment, and those found both previously and subsequently, may be those of your wife, sir.”
“Oh, God!” mumbles Cutler; then, more intelligibly, he adds: “Surely not?”
“I’m afraid we’d like you to come to the mortuary with us to make an identification, sir,” adds Marshall.
The surgeon is silent for a moment. His eyes have drifted toward his wife’s portrait above the mantelpiece. He hasn’t been able to digest the possibility before. The thought has always stuck in his craw. Up until a few moments ago, he was still convinced that his headstrong wife, who’d walked out on him when she discovered he performed abortions for fallen women, was still living in high dudgeon somewhere. But now, it seems, this really is happening. These policemen are telling him she may be dead. He finds the prospect hard to swallow. He feels his lips start to quiver.
“Of course,” he replies, still looking at Geraldine’s framed face.
“We’d also like to conduct a search of Mrs. Cutler’s bedroom, sir,” pipes up Hawkins, seemingly buoyed by the senior officer’s presence.
The surgeon suddenly switches back, frowning. “A search? Whatever for?”
“For anything that might help confirm the remains are Mrs. Cutler’s. We have some fabric from a dress and—”
“Very well,” snaps the surgeon, cutting off Hawkins in mid-flow. “The maid will take you upstairs,” he tells the young detective. Trying to appear calm and dignified, the surgeon rises slowly and moves toward the door. As he opens it, he is not surprised to see that Dora has been hovering outside. Her pimply face is redder than usual and her cheeks are damp.
“I shall be going out with this gentleman, Dora,” says Cutler, deferring to Marshall. “Meanwhile, you are to show the other officers into your mistress’s bedchamber.”
Dora’s hands fly up to her face, but Cutler’s disapproving look brings her back to the moment. “Pull yourself together, girl,” he hisses sternly through clenched teeth. She drops a negligible curtsy and hands her master the hat and coat that were draped over her arm. “Ask Mrs. Jones to send word to Barts. I shan’t be in this afternoon.”
Marshall talks little in the carriage that conveys them to the mortuary located on Millbank Street. The journey seems to take an age, each second marked out by the clop of the horses’ hooves.
The trip is well under way when the inspector displays a rare show of compassion. “I am sorry to ask you to do this,” he says, staring out of the window.
Taken slightly aback by the remark, Cutler is not sure how to respond. When he does, it is a clumsy attempt at black humor, trying to shrug off the gravity of the situation. “It’s a good job I’m used to seeing corpses,” he says. The policeman is not amused.
The mortuary is a travesty of a building, no more than a makeshift facility attached to a dwelling house and a shop. A few wooden partitions provide a little privacy, but there are three other covered corpses occupying tables that are clearly visible to Terence Cutler as he is shown into the room. The amenities are minimal, and if one judged by the stink and the flies, no thought has been given to sanitation, either. Even the surgeon, accustomed as he is to the unsavory detritus of the human body, is unsettled. The sight of a familiar face approaching him does nothing to calm him, e
ither. The man with the walrus moustache who greets him is known to him. Cutler searches his memory. Bond. Thomas Bond. They were at St. George’s Hospital together for a time.
Bond offers his hand. “I’m sorry about this, Cutler.”
The surgeon takes it and gives a tight smile. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
“This way, if you please.” Bond makes an arc with his arm and stands back as an attendant leads them past the row of corpses. Marshall and Bond follow Cutler into the small area that has been portioned off, where a mound lies under a cloth on a table. The air in the immediate vicinity is pungent with preserving fluid. The tang fights with the underlying reek of rotting flesh.
“You may wish to make use of your handkerchief,” Bond warns.
The surgeon, however, ignores his advice as he approaches the table. Dr. Bond signals to the attendant to pull back the cloth and Cutler steels himself to look. His features are set hard. For a moment, he is professional as his eyes examine the mutilated trunk, then carry on to the amputated leg that lies adjacent but separate. Seemingly oblivious to the stench and the maggots, he does not turn away in disgust as most men would, but he leans closer to inspect the jagged stumps and the dark chasm where the uterus once lay, before leaning back again. He takes two steps away from the table and lifts his head.
“That’s not her,” he says finally.
Inspector Marshall and Dr. Bond swap glances. “You are sure?” asks the detective.
Cutler seems unmoved. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life,” comes his retort. “That is not my wife.”
The cloth is returned over the mound and Bond leads the way out of the room and into the reception area again.
“You must be relieved,” says the doctor. He allows himself a restrained smile.
“Naturally,” replies the surgeon, even though his expression remains inscrutable.
The inspector stands close. “So, Mr. Cutler,” he begins. “I must apologize for putting you through such an ordeal. My men will take you wherever you wish to go.” His tone has changed. He is humble in his manner, even though humility does not sit naturally with him.