by Tessa Harris
“Miss Louisa. But how well you look, to be sure!” the old Irishwoman greets her. She’s shaped like a beer keg and not much taller. She is warm in her salutation. Her lined face crinkles into a broad smile and her thin lips open slightly to show stained teeth. In her arms, she holds a cream blanket and swaddled somewhere inside is Bertie. Or, rather, a baby she says is Bertie.
Louisa has been firm up until now, but her resolution is fast crumbling. If she holds the child one more time, she fears she might never let him go. The transaction, if it is to go ahead, must be businesslike. No tears. No recriminations. She will simply hand over the last installment of the payment, the final five pounds, and walk away, leaving her son behind, and with him, of course, her heart. That is what she had resolved, although now she is not so sure. Events, however, do not go according to plan.
“Mother Delaney.” Louisa’s greeting does not match the Irishwoman’s in its effusiveness, but her expression is benign enough, albeit understandably strained, given the circumstances. Yet her gaze soon switches to the bundle and the light returns to her eyes. Without thinking, her arms raise, and before she knows it, she has broken the promise she made to herself. She has to hold Bertie. In this moment, her life depends on it.
The swiftness of her almost involuntary action takes the old woman by surprise. “But . . . oh! Careful now!” she splutters as the sleeping child leaves her arms and is enveloped by Louisa. Yet, the fire that blazes in the young woman’s eyes is doused almost instantaneously, to be replaced by one of horror.
“What the . . . ?” She looks incredulously at the old woman. “This isn’t my baby. This isn’t Bertie!”
Mother Delaney lets out a nervous laugh. “To be sure, it is, Miss Louisa.” She shakes her head as she peers over the cream folds at the fair-haired baby, who has just been rudely awoken. “They change a lot in a month, don’t you know?” She places one hand under the child and takes him back into her own arms.
Louisa freezes. The color drains from her face until her instincts take over and she snatches back the boy. “That is not my baby!” she wails. “Bertie has red hair, like mine.”
Mother Delaney is adamant. “It’s grown lighter.” The baby starts to whimper. “There, there,” says the old woman, jiggling the child in her arms.
“No!” snaps Louisa, lunging for the bundle once more. “This isn’t my Bertie.”
Mother Delaney’s brow arches. “Bertie, is that his name, now?” Her question is tinged with a sneer before her mouth suddenly sets hard. This one’s a tricky customer, she is thinking. She is forced to lay down the gauntlet. “Prove it,” she goads. “If you’re so sure it’s not yours, prove it.”
Louisa is up to the challenge. “My son has a birthmark on his left thigh,” she cries. Unwrapping the blanket, she lifts the baby’s gown to reveal his leg. It is pale pink and mottled with blue veins, scrawny in appearance, but without a blemish. “You see!” There is a hint of victory in the young mother’s voice as she points to the thigh. Then the panic takes hold. “Where is Bertie? What have you done with him?” Her voice rises an octave and an arc of her spittle lands on the old woman, who wipes it from her face with the back of her hand.
There is an awkward silence before, quite suddenly, Mother Delaney’s lips lift into a smile. “A mistake,” she says softly.
Both Louisa’s brows shoot up. “A mistake?”
“I’ve five other babbies to look after at home, and I’m not as young as I used to be.” The old woman touches her temple. “I just don’t know how I could’ve done such a thing.”
There is contrition in her tone. She is owning up to her mistake, thinks Louisa. A genuine error. A stupid blunder. An easy fault. We all make mistakes. The tension in her chest slackens a little. She will give the old nurse the benefit of the doubt. After all, did they not spend many weeks living under the same roof? There was a trust between the two of them. It should not be broken lightly.
“You must bring him to me as soon as possible.” Still, there is an urgency in Louisa’s tone that smacks of desperation.
“To be sure, I will. But what with Christmas and all, does Friday suit?” Mother Delaney suggests, forcing a smile.
Louisa takes comfort in this offer. “Yes.” She wills her pounding heart to slow. “Yes,” she repeats. “Same time, here.” She points to the ground.
The old nursemaid nods. “Very good,” she says, rocking the grizzling child a little as she recovers it. “And that?” She nods at the parcel Louisa is clutching.
“Bertie’s gift,” she explains. “For Christmas.” She hands it over willingly and watches as it is stashed in a large carpetbag the old woman carries. “Friday, it is, then,” she confirms after a moment.
“Friday, it is.”
“Good day to you, Mother Delaney,” says Louisa, forcing a smile. But just as she has turned on her heel to leave, the old woman calls her back.
“There is one other thing,” she says.
“Yes?” Louise glances round.
She tilts her head. “Could you be seeing your way to parting with a little of the balance? Three pounds, say? Just to be going on with?”
Louisa’s eyes widen. The old woman’s words snag on her like thorns on lace. Unable to believe what she has just heard, she swivels round. Did she hear right? Mother Delaney’s expression tells her she did. The effrontery of the woman! she thinks.
She advances toward her, straightens herself to her full height, and glowers down on the fat little matron. “You’ll not have a ha’penny more until I see my child!” she hisses from between clenched teeth. “Not a ha’penny more!”
The Irishwoman’s mouth droops in a look of resignation, as if she is the one who has been wronged. “Very well, Miss Louisa,” she concedes, a little more humbly than before. She turns and walks away.
Louisa watches her go before she herself wheels round and marches across the concourse. Only once she is safely out of the station does she allow her angry tears to flow.
CHAPTER 14
EMILY
This time of year it grows dark early, or perhaps I should say it grows even darker. Yet, Detective Sergeant Hawkins does not notice that the sky has long blackened, that the streetlamps are lit, or that the shadows on the office wall are long. Nor does he take notice of the carolers singing outside Commercial Street Station. Since Mary Kelly’s murder, day is blending into night and vice versa. He has slept little, eaten sparingly, and returned to his police lodging house hardly at all. His landlady, Mrs. Moony, sent word to the station, asking if all was well, when he didn’t return home last night. He appreciates her concern, and regrets his thoughtlessness at not informing her of his decision to stay at work. He has recently had cause to consign all domestic considerations to the bottom of his list of priorities.
His recent secondment to Whitechapel is proving more difficult than he’d realized. He knew it would not be easy fitting in. He is, after all, younger than most detectives of the same rank. Nor do they share many interests. He prefers poetry to pints and fencing to football. Even now, he knows that some of his men—and, indeed, one or two of his fellow officers—resent his grammar-school education. Yet he has, thus far, proved himself a very able detective. None other than Inspector Frederick Abberline has placed much faith in him after his work on the Whitehall Mystery. He may not have solved the murder, but at least his detection did allow the victim’s family to give her a decent burial. That, at least, must have offered them some comfort, he tells himself. He’s thankful, too, that this latest death of an unfortunate, this Catherine or Rose Mylett or Alice Downey or whatever she calls herself, seems to have been self-inflicted. That’s the line the force is taking at the moment.
He, Hawkins, has been instructed by his commanding officer to deal with all the ensuing paperwork. It’s an open-and-shut case, or at least must be treated as such. Foul play is not on the cards and, for the moment at least, the young detective is happy to fall in behind Inspector McCullen’s order. Cath Mylett w
ouldn’t be the first prostitute to drink herself to death, and she won’t, unfortunately, be the last.
There will, of course, be an inquest, but it should be a straightforward affair. This way, he and his colleagues can be left to pursue the real enemy of the moment: the man who calls himself Jack the Ripper.
Inspector McCullen has assigned this young detective specifically to Montague Druitt, a suspect who, it seems, has caught the eye of none other than Superintendent Arnold himself. It’s Hawkins’s job to dig deep into this singular gentleman’s background and to wheedle out any facts he thinks pertinent to the Whitechapel murders.
The other detective sergeants are all family men: Glennister, Leach, Smith, and Harrison. He is not; hence, he has volunteered to work tonight and tomorrow when most God-fearing folk will be marking the Lord’s birth. He’s sent word to his uncle and aunt in Highgate that he regrets he will not be able to spend the festivities with them. With two deaths within his jurisdiction in the last seventy-two hours, he has more than enough weight on his shoulders. Little wonder that he cannot rest. And now PC Tanner is about to add to his woes.
“Copy of today’s Star, sir,” says the constable, laying down a newspaper that has clearly been thumbed by many a policeman before making its way onto the detective’s desk.
Hawkins reads the headline: IS HE A THUG? A STARTLING LIGHT ON THE WHITE-CHAPEL CRIMES. THE ROPE BEFORE THE KNIFE. Momentarily forgetting Tanner’s presence, the detective lets out an involuntary expletive. The constable shifts awkwardly and Hawkins is reminded he is not alone.
“That’ll be all, Tanner.”
The constable gives a shallow bow and is about to leave when it occurs to him that he will not see his superior tomorrow. “Merry Christmas, sir,” he says with all the cheer he can muster.
“What?” snaps Hawkins, looking up from the newspaper with a furrowed brow.
“I shan’t be in tomorrow, sir,” Tanner reminds him. “Christmas Day.”
Hawkins nods. “Of course.” Embarrassed at such an aberration, he touches his head and clears his throat. “Merry Christmas to you and to your mother, too, Constable,” he manages.
Seemingly satisfied, Tanner takes his leave. Hawkins watches the policeman go, no doubt straight back to his widowed mama and a hot meal, while he is left to study the rest of this sensationalist article by the sickly light of his single lamp. With mounting consternation, he reads the interview that Dr. Brownfield has given to the unworthy rag. The good doctor postulates that the self-styled Jack the Ripper may, in all probability, have been responsible for Catherine Mylett’s death. In disgust, the detective reads aloud: “‘All the facts seemed to combine to one suggestion—that this was the work of the Whitechapel murderer.’”
In an uncharacteristic show of anger, Hawkins hurls the newspaper to the floor. He knows that Brownfield’s outburst will trigger another wave of hysteria among the Whitechapel populace, let alone London and the rest of the country.
Inspector McCullen will, no doubt, be incensed when he sees the report. He has given specific instructions to treat the death as “self-inflicted.” Assistant Commissioner Anderson also believes that to be the case and is firmly of the opinion that this latest prostitute was not killed by anyone’s hand at all: she simply fell down in a drunken stupor, was choked by her own collar, and died.
Hawkins knows that happens in the East End. Self-destruction through poverty is a common cause of death in these parts. He himself, however, is not so sure. Somewhere on his desk, which is groaning under the weight of files and index boxes, is a copy of Dr. Brownfield’s report. Sergeant Halfhide brought it in earlier in the day, but he’d been sidetracked and had yet to read it. Seizing it triumphantly as soon as he spies the salient black folder, he hunches over to examine it intently. His eyes are sore and he massages his temples as he scrutinizes the account. Halfway down the second page, the words leap out at him: On the neck was a mark which had evidently been caused by cord drawn tightly round the neck, from the spine to the left ear. Such a mark would have been by a four-thread cord.
He reads on: There were also impressions of the thumbs and middle and index fingers of some person plainly visible on each side of the neck....
Hawkins looks up and shakes his head. It baffles him how the constables who found the body could not have seen such marks. One of the problems is, of course, that no ligature was recovered from around the dead woman’s neck. If it had been, the task of finding out exactly what happened would surely have been so much easier. He is raking his fingers through his dark hair, contemplating his next move, when there’s a knock at his door. Tanner appears once more.
Hawkins is puzzled. “I thought you’d left.”
The constable nods. “I was going, sir, but there’s one of them Piper girls to see you. The younger one.”
“Miss Constance?” Hawkins frowns.
“I didn’t want her to trouble you, sir, but she says it’s urgent.”
The remark seems to annoy the detective. “May I remind you, Constable, that Miss Piper is the person who identified Catherine Mylett’s body. She may have valuable information. She is no trouble.” He rises, pulls down his rucked-up waistcoat, and reaches for his jacket, which is draped over the back of his chair. “Show her in, if you please.”
CONSTANCE
My nerves are tight as piano strings; I’m that on edge. Sergeant Hawkins can see that as soon as Tanner shows me into the office. He shoots “mummy’s boy” a scowl, which is as good as telling him to clear off, and waits until we’re alone before he invites me to sit.
“Miss Piper, what can I do for you?” He sits down, too.
As I said, I’m all flustered, but I need to be sensible as well. It’s important that I’m—what’s the word?—credible. I think Sergeant Hawkins already respects my judgment, so I don’t want to disappoint him.
“I have something that might interest you, sir,” I say in my best voice. I fill my lungs with breath and launch off. “I’ve seen something.”
Sergeant Hawkins squints at me. “Something?”
“Something to do with the dead mite.”
“The baby?” Looking puzzled, he leans forward over the desk and picks up his pencil.
I lean forward, too. “I saw some ribbon today. It was just the same as the sort round the little child’s neck,” says I.
“Interesting. And this was in Whitechapel?” He nods eagerly.
“Yes.”
Sergeant Hawkins’s pencil suddenly stops moving and he looks up at me, intrigued. Among all the papers that sit on his desk, there’s a box. I’ve seen it before. It’s the one that contains the clothes and effects of the dead baby. He takes off the lid and there’s that reek again. He wafts it away from me with another file, then delves inside. A length of ribbon lies on top. He takes it out for a closer inspection under his oil lamp. “Something like this?”
I’d twisted my head away from the smell, but now I turn back to see the limp binding in the spotlight. The sight unsettles me and fills my guts with the horror of seeing the dead mite again.
“Yes,” says I, taking out my handkerchief and holding it to my face.
“I’m sorry,” says Sergeant Hawkins, realizing too late that he should’ve been more mindful of my sensibilities. Just because I’m Whitechapel-born-and-bred don’t mean I don’t have feelings. Trouble is, I think I’m a puzzle to him, and all. The first time he saw me was with Miss Beaufroy. He took me for a lady’s companion. I was all polite and well-spoken. Then, a few weeks later, I turned up in one of his cells an East End flower seller. Sometimes I’m a lady in my speech and manners, if not the dress; at others, I’m your typical Cockney girl, with dirt under my fingernails and on my tongue. I’m what Miss Tindall might call “an enigma.”
“Where did you say you came across the binding?” he asks, looking at the ribbon.
“The haberdasher’s in Bull Court,” I tell him, watching him return it back to the box. “That’s what killed the baby, ain’t it?” I
correct myself, “Isn’t it?”
Sergeant Hawkins nods and sighs, but he don’t seem all that grateful. I’m glancing at the box as I speak. He’s watching me and I’ve reminded him that it’s still open, so he returns the binding and shuts the lid. His actions are slow and deliberate, as if he’s playing for time, as if there’s something troubling him. I worry he’ll try and pull the wool over my eyes, but then he sends a bolt out of the blue.
“To be frank, Miss Piper, the matter is out of my hands.”
“What?” I blurt. I can’t hide my shock.
He looks at me all coy, like he’s embarrassed. “I’ve been specifically seconded here to investigate a certain suspect in the Whitechapel murder cases and now”—he throws up his hands and surveys the piles of files and papers on his desk in despair—“and now the baby and Miss Mylett. I don’t know what to think because I have neither the time nor the resources to look into either case with the rigor they both deserve.” He slumps back in his chair to draw breath and looks at me in a way that makes me feel both angry and sorry for him.
“But you don’t buy what they’re saying about Cath? You don’t believe it was the drink that killed her, do you, Sergeant Hawkins?” I’m eager for his reply, but it don’t come soon enough. Slowly he shakes his head, like he’s giving up.
“I understand,” I say softly after a moment. “I understand that it’s hard for you, Sergeant. Life in Whitechapel is cheap, and you . . .” I’m not proud of myself for accusing him of belittling us East Enders, but I’m feeling let down.
He breaks me off. He’s hurting, too. “Miss Piper,” says he. “Please believe me when I say I will do everything within my power to uncover the truth about what happened to your friend, but, as I said, my remit and my resources are finite.”
Is he wanting rid of me? I think I’m being dismissed. I stand and make myself as tall as I’m able. “Very well, Sergeant Hawkins,” I say. “Have it your way. You’re the expert and I’m only a flower girl,” I tell him. There’s acid on my tongue and I can see my words burn him.