Somehow he doubted it. After all, it had been a long time - more than ten years - since he’d regularly done this kind of work; since he’d resigned from his position as a Bow Street Runner.
Having been released from Pyke’s grip, Hart made exaggerated choking sounds to indicate his discomfort. ‘Really, this is the most unacceptable behaviour I have ever witnessed ...’
‘You can see,’ Pyke said, pointing to the woman’s face and chest, ‘that the quicklime has eaten away the skin ... here and here.’ She was lying face up on the table. ‘But if we roll her over on to her front ...’ He paused while performing this manoeuvre. ‘You’ll see how clean and unblemished her back is.’ Her biscuit-coloured skin felt cold and hard to the touch.
Tilling rubbed his chin. ‘So what are you suggesting?’
Rolling her on to her back again, Pyke held up one of her hands. ‘In spite of the quicklime, there’s hardly a blemish or a callus. Not the hands of a servant or a seamstress, I’d wager.’ He looked over at Tilling, surprised at how good it felt to be using his mind. ‘My question is: how did she earn a living?’
Pyke could see that Tilling was thinking what he was thinking.
‘Perhaps,’ he added, though Tilling hadn’t said anything, ‘but I don’t think she was a street-walker.’ Pyke glanced down at her fleshy curves and felt his stomach tighten. ‘She’s too exotic, too refined. And that dress would have cost a few pounds, too.’
Tilling nodded, conceding the point. ‘You’re suggesting she had money?’
‘I don’t know.’ Pyke picked up one of the woman’s hands and had another look. ‘Of course, if she had money, why would she be staying at a lodging house on the Ratcliff Highway?’
‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Tilling said. ‘At least not until young Jenks returns with the landlord.’
‘Then we should start with what we do know. Tell me what you found out from the dram-shop owner.’
Tilling explained that the old man had come across the corpse the previous morning while emptying night soil and had reported it to the police at once. According to his testimony, the dram-shop owner had found the body lying on the bank of a stream that trickled under the Ratcliff Highway. He hadn’t touched it and therefore, if he was to be believed, hadn’t seen the woman’s facial mutilations. The bottle of rum and the dress had been found next to the body. The man’s wife hadn’t slept well that night and claimed to have heard voices, and a horse and cart stopping somewhere under their bedroom window, although she hadn’t climbed out of bed to have a look.
Pyke considered what he had just been told and weighed up the likely cause of death - strangulation - against the removal of her eyeballs. He was unable to find a way of reconciling the two acts. In some ways, the murder struck him as cold and clinical. The woman had been strangled and her body tossed away like a piece of rubbish. There was no indication that she’d been beaten and there was no sign of sexual congress. But her eyeballs had been gouged out with a knife; she’d been defaced in the most gruesome manner imaginable, as if the man who’d done it hadn’t merely wanted to kill her but to annihilate her.
‘Why cut out her eyes?’ Tilling said, reading his mind.
‘And why sprinkle her face and body with quicklime but leave a scrap of paper in her dress with the name and address of a lodging house?’
Pyke bent forward and sniffed the body. He’d smelled the odour as soon as he’d stepped into the room but hadn’t been able to place it. Not simply the ripeness of putrefying flesh, but something sweeter, tangier.
‘You said a half-empty bottle of rum was found next to the corpse?’ he said, ignoring Hart.
‘That’s right,’ Tilling replied.
‘Here.’ Pyke stepped aside to let Tilling do what he’d just done. ‘Can you smell it on her?’
‘The rum?’
‘On her body. All over it, in fact.’
Tilling offered Pyke a puzzled stare. ‘What are you suggesting? That she was embalmed with rum?’
‘Perhaps.’ Pyke took another look at the body, particularly the colour of her skin. ‘I wouldn’t describe her as Negro but could we say she was mulatto?’
‘For what it’s worth,’ Hart interrupted, ‘that would be my opinion on the matter.’
‘That she was mulatto?’ Tilling asked.
The coroner shrugged. ‘Well, look at the swarthiness of her skin here and here,’ he said, pointing to her hands and wrists.
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Together with the rum,’ Hart said, looking warily at Pyke, ‘it could mean she had some kind of connection to the West Indies.’ He waited for a moment. ‘After all, those people are a law unto themselves, aren’t they?’
Tilling and Pyke looked at one another, frowning.
‘Well, do you honestly believe a godly white man would have done that to her?’ Hart added defensively.
‘Are you saying that someone with darker skin than you or I is naturally predisposed to gouge people’s eyes out?’ Pyke asked.
‘I didn’t say that ... I simply meant that the negro race is more predisposed towards savagery. Science has proved this to be so.’
Pyke looked again at the dead woman and tried to work out whether her features were Caucasian or not.
‘I’ve been in touch with the magistrate at Shadwell. The inquest will take place here, in this room, tomorrow at ten. After that, if no one has claimed her, someone will have to make arrangements for her burial.’ Hart put his scalpel back into his bag and snapped the fastener shut. ‘Otherwise the stink will become unbearable.’
Tilling thanked Hart for his work and ushered him to the staircase. ‘You’ll recommend that the jury deliver a verdict of wilful murder, won’t you?’ Pyke overheard Tilling say to the coroner.
Pyke went to cover the body with a sheet. A few moments later Tilling joined him.
‘So you want me to find the man who did this to her?’ Pyke asked eventually.
Tilling nodded. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not interested. I can see it in your eyes.’
Pyke walked across to the window and stared down into the yard below. It felt strange, disconcerting even, to be free all of a sudden. ‘What I am interested to know is why a man in your elevated position, and with your newfound responsibilities, would consider employing the services of a lowly convict.’ He paused. ‘The last time I checked, there were something like three thousand men working for the New Police.’
‘And how many of those men do you think have been trained to run an investigation of this type? Of any type.’ Tilling sighed. ‘You know as well as I do that the emphasis has always been placed on prevention rather than detection. That was Peel’s intention when he first proposed the force ten years ago and it still holds true today.’
This much was true. Contrary to the belief of Pyke’s mentor at Bow Street, Sir Richard Fox, Peel and subsequent Home Secretaries for Melbourne’s Liberal governments had argued that the role of the police was not to investigate crimes after they had taken place but to prevent them from happening by crowding the streets with policemen. For his part, Pyke had always found this reasoning to be obtuse. To prevent crime, you needed to find a way of eradicating poverty - something no politician wanted to do. Until then, all you could hope to do was go after the worst offenders and use every dirty trick and every soiled piece of information to put them behind bars.
‘You’re telling me that the Metropolitan Police doesn’t have any specialist detectives?’ Pyke turned around. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute. What usually happens when someone is murdered?’
Tilling considered this. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t have seen or read the newspapers in Marshalsea.’
‘What do you think?’ In fact he hadn’t read a newspaper for more than nine months.
‘Two days ago Lord William Bedford was murdered in his own bed, while he slept. He was stabbed in the stomach with a letter opener.’
‘Return to sender, eh?’
Tilling stared at hi
m. ‘Do you think for one moment that’s amusing?’
Pyke shrugged.
‘I don’t think you appreciate the pressure we’re under to apprehend the murderer.’ Tilling wiped his forehead and thinning pate with his handkerchief. ‘Bedford is, or was, a well-respected member of the aristocracy. If we don’t find his murderer quickly, we’ll face public ridicule and political censure.’
‘And because of that, you don’t have the time or resources to lavish on a poor mulatto woman who had the misfortune to be murdered at the same time.’
Pyke could see he’d landed a small blow; Tilling gave him a grudging nod. ‘You always did have the ability to see through bluster.’
‘So who killed Bedford?’
‘At present, I have no idea. But as you can probably guess, our much-lauded press has already worked itself up into a frenzy of speculation.’
‘And all your best men have been assigned to the investigation.’
Tilling grimaced. ‘The commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne, has taken control of the case but he’s handed over the day-to-day responsibilities to two of our best detectives: Inspector Baker and this chap called Benedict Pierce. I’m told he used to be a Bow Street Runner. Perhaps you know him?’
Pyke didn’t even try to hide his disdain. Pierce was an unlikely combination of Christian piety and ruthless ambition - hence the kind of man who attributed the wealth he accrued to God’s grace rather than his own grubby machinations.
‘Let me guess. In the meantime, Mayne’s instructed you to take care of this “lesser” problem. Or make it appear as if you’re taking care of it.’
‘I see prison has made you even more cynical.’
‘I wonder how Mayne would feel if he knew you were offering work to a jailbird such as myself?’
‘If it came down to it, I could persuade him. Mayne listens to Peel and you know you still have a friend there.’
A few years earlier, while he’d still owned his own bank, Pyke had unwittingly done battle with, and vanquished, one of the Tory leader’s most feared political adversaries, and he had yet to call in the favour.
Pyke turned back to the window and stared up at the sky. It felt oddly exhilarating to see it without the imposition of bars or walls. And he had already decided to do what Tilling was asking him to do; it would be a way of trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his son. ‘I’ll need some money to live off and a purse to run the investigation.’
Tilling nodded but waited for a few moments. ‘Five pounds a week, until the killer is caught.’
Pyke turned back to face Tilling and shook his head. ‘Not enough.’
‘That’s more than a sergeant would earn.’ Tilling crossed his arms. ‘Of course, I could always take you back to Marshalsea.’
‘Fifteen.’
It must have been the way Pyke said it which angered Tilling because almost at once his colour rose. ‘You’re acting as if I’ve come to you holding a begging cup. In fact, you’re quite right. I could get a hundred men to do this job but I thought you might appreciate the chance to make a fresh start - if not for yourself, then for your son.’ Tilling’s expression softened. ‘Look, Pyke, I don’t see this as an act of charity. You’re the best detective I’ve ever known. But if you sink any deeper into the quagmire, you might not find a way back.’
Pyke considered Tilling’s outburst, admiring the man’s doggedness but hating him for being right. He nodded slowly.
‘So you’ll do it? You’ll find the man who did this to her?’ Tilling looked at him, expectantly.
‘I’ll see what I can find out. I’m not making any promises.’
‘None expected.’ Tilling waited. ‘What do you need?’
‘I’ll need an artist with a strong constitution and a sense of discretion who can sketch as good a likeness as is possible under the circumstances.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Some money to get things started.’
Tilling threw him a purse. ‘There’s twenty pounds. That should be enough for now.’ Pyke caught the purse and pocketed it without inspecting the contents. ‘Won’t you get into trouble for hiring my services?’
Tilling shrugged. ‘I might, but that’s for me to worry about.’
Lifting up the sheet, Pyke had another look at the woman’s mutilated face, but it wasn’t necessary. Every curve and undulation, every blemish and bruise, had already been lodged indelibly in his mind.
TWO
The landlord’s name was Thrale and he’d once been a bare-knuckled fighter. Pyke didn’t recognise him straight away, even though he’d seen the man fight William Benbow ten or fifteen years earlier. Thrale told them that the woman’s name was Mary Edgar; that she had rented a private room in his lodging house about a week ago and had paid in advance; and that she’d shared the room with a black man called Arthur Sobers, who, until that point, had been staying in one of the general rooms for two pence a night. Sobers, Thrale said, had first shown up about three weeks earlier, having just arrived on a ship from Jamaica. Thrale seemed to be in awe of Sobers’ physical presence and he struck Pyke as the kind of man who worshipped toughness, even though his own body was now old and broken. Pyke recalled the fight he’d witnessed all those years ago. In the end, Benbow had taken Thrale apart, punch by punch, but the beaten man had refused to lie down. It was as bloody a spectacle as he’d ever seen. Thrale should have stayed down but didn’t. That told Pyke something about his character.
‘So the two of them, Mary Edgar and this man Sobers, were intimate with one another already?’
‘I’d say so.’ Thrale’s nose had been broken in numerous places.
‘You’d say so or you know so?’
‘She told me she wasn’t used to the cold, coming from Jamaica. He told me he was just off the ship from the West Indies. They shared a room. The rest I worked out for myself.’
When they had shown Thrale her body, he hadn’t flinched, not even when he saw her face. He’d identified her immediately, and when Pyke had tried to push him - how could he be so certain, given the mutilations and the effects of quicklime? - Thrale had shrugged and said he just knew. He’d identified her dress, too. He’d seen her wearing it the night before she was killed.
‘Is Sobers still staying at the lodging house?’
‘Ain’t seen him for a couple of days.’ Thrale scratched his chin. ‘You think he done it?’
‘That was going to be my next question.’
‘How should I know? He’s a tough one, that’s for sure. Apart from that, he didn’t give much away, kept himself to himself. She did, too.’
‘You think they were attached?’
‘You mean was they fucking?’ His grin revealed an incomplete set of uneven, yellow teeth.
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
Thrale considered the question. ‘They was sharing a room not much larger than a cell. They’d have to be intimate.’
‘But you don’t know what brought them to London in the first place?’
‘No.’
‘Or which ship they came on?’
‘I didn’t say for certain they’d come on the same ship. He told me he was just off the ship; but he didn’t mention a name. She said she was from Jamaica. That’s all. I don’t like to pry into my guests’ affairs.’
Pyke waited for a moment. ‘You described him as black. Would you say she was a mulatto?’
‘A blue-skin?’ Thrale looked into his face. ‘If I walked past her on the street, I’m not sure what I’d think. She could certainly have passed as white.’
‘Anything else you can tell me about her?’
Thrale sniffed and then stared down at the corpse, now covered with the sheet. ‘I ain’t disparaging my lodging house or the folk who stay there. But she was nicely dressed and well spoken. She looked as out of place as a butterfly in a cage of rats.’
Pyke thought about the scrap of paper they’d found in her dress. It was almost as if the man who’d killed her had wanted them to
find out who she was and that she’d stayed at the Bluefield. ‘But you didn’t ask her why she’d chosen to rent one of your rooms?’
‘Like I said, I don’t pry into my guests’ affairs.’
Pyke told him they’d need to find Arthur Sobers as soon as possible and that he would have to search the room and put some questions to Thrale’s lodgers about Mary Edgar. He arranged to drop by the Bluefield later that afternoon and made Thrale promise not to disturb the room - and, if he saw Sobers, not to tell him what had happened.
Kill-Devil and Water Page 2