by Alex Grecian
“You? But I was going to—”
“And you should. By all means. Not stepping on your toes at all, old man. But we’re all so in and out, I was afraid we might miss a chance to talk to some of them if I didn’t seize these bulls by the horns, as it were.”
“And have you found anything?”
“Oh!”
“What is it?”
“I can’t believe it slipped my mind to tell you. First thing as you came in I wanted to tell you, but I let it go right by me.”
“Yes?”
Blacker beckoned and Day leaned over the desk, resting his hands on the papers there.
“He’s struck again,” Blacker said.
“What? Not another detective.”
“No, none of us this time. But another man with a beard was found dead last night. We only received word a few minutes ago.”
“A man with a beard?”
Day straightened back up, annoyed.
“Men with beards are killed every bloody day, Blacker. This is London, for God’s sake.”
“Well, that’s true enough. You’re beginning to sound like an old hand at this.”
“I’m sorry, but I thought you were going to tell me that we were being stalked and picked off, one by one.”
“The body that was found—”
“Yes?”
“His beard was trimmed and his throat was cut.”
“Just like Robinson.”
“Exactly like Robinson. Except that this bloke was found with his head in a toilet, not in a bathtub. But otherwise it’s the same, through and through.”
“Has Kingsley had a chance to look at it yet?”
“I rather doubt it. Sir Edward’s assigned this new murder to Waverly Brown, but I believe we can wrest it from his grip with very little effort. Little effort, right? Not bad. I haven’t lost my wits entirely.”
“I’m not convinced this means what you hope it does,” Day said.
“What do you mean? What do I hope?”
“If anything, this murder done up in exactly the same fashion as Robinson’s says to me that we have two completely different murderers. This one continues to kill, doing in bearded men right and left, while the man we’re after did the one killing. It’s something to do with Little specifically, not with any beard.”
“But surely you can’t ignore the bizarre features of the three murders when looked at together.”
“Little’s beard wasn’t shaved.”
“But Little didn’t have a beard for the killer to shave in the first place.”
“Exactly.”
“If he’d had a beard, it would have been shaved.”
“If he’d had a beard? It doesn’t matter what would have happened if he’d had a beard. He didn’t have a beard. There’s no beard and it’s not a clue that there’s no beard since there never was a beard.”
“Listen, we’re both tired. You’re getting upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m simply…”
Day sat down. He picked up a pile of papers from atop another pile of papers and tossed it back down.
“I’m at sixes and sevens. I feel as though I’ve missed out on a great deal of activity and conjecture because I went home.”
Blacker sighed. “I owe you an apology.”
“No, not at all.”
“But I do. Perhaps I should have waited for your arrival before launching inquiries within the ranks here.”
“No, you were right to set things in motion. I’m struggling to find a foothold here, and you’re already firmly established. I suppose there’s a touch of envy in me this morning. That’s all it is.”
“No need for envy. You’re off balance. Let me tell you a secret: That feeling never goes away. We’re in the dark here, utterly hated by the people we’re trying to help and blindly seeking things we’ll absolutely never find. It’s a miserable experience that I wouldn’t wish on my most intimate enemy.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because it’s the only game in town, old man. This is the best and only way to feel you’ve got the inside track. Because what you’ll eventually come to realize is that everyone out there is groping around in the dark, too, but in here we know it. Gives us a leg up.”
He winked at Day, and after a long moment, Day laughed.
28
I was outnumbered.”
“’Course you was. Otherwise you could’ve handled Big Pete, eh?”
“Well, he was rather fierce.”
“Fierce. That’s Big Pete.”
“Thank you for stepping in when you did.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Pete seemed to calm down as soon as you spoke up. I’m curious, why did he let us leave so easily?”
“Don’t fret about it.”
“He seemed a bit frightened, really.”
“I have a reputation, is all.”
“A reputation?”
“I’ve been known to do a bit of violence in my day.”
“Oh.”
“Best if you don’t know much about that, being as you’re a bluebottle.”
“Why help me at all?”
“Don’t know, really. Strikes me you might be a different sort than the bluebottles I run up against. You coulda pinched me at that posh house yesterday, but you didn’t. You cared about that chavy more’n you cared about lookin’ the big man and impressin’ me. S’pose that meant somethin’ to me.”
“I see.”
“I’ll let you go on about your business, now you’re not gettin’ yerself killed.”
“Wait. Are you looking for the chimney sweep? The one who left that boy?”
“I put out the word I’m lookin’ fer ’im. Somebody’ll point ’im out soon enough.”
“Don’t approach him yet. I want to be there.”
“Stay out of trouble, bluebottle. And getcher nose fixed up or it’ll heal crooked like mine.”
“Did you hear me?”
“No worries. I’ll find you again when our friend shows hisself.”
29
Walter Day took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He glanced to his left where Michael Blacker shifted from foot to foot. Neither spoke.
After a pregnant moment, Day heard shuffling footsteps behind the door and the metal-on-metal rasp of a chain being drawn. The door opened a crack and dull brown eyes peered out at them from a woman’s heavy grey face. Day thought of raisins pressed into a lump of clay. From somewhere in the flat behind her, a strange wailing sound drifted out to them, rising and falling, like an animal crying out in pain. It was accompanied by the more familiar din of a baby crying. The wailing noise would occasionally stop on an up note and then begin again.
“What is it?” the woman said. “Got some more dead you wanna tell me ’bout?”
Her lips barely parted when she spoke, her mouth an unmoving slit.
“Mrs Little?” Day said.
The woman nodded. “Yeah.”
“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs Little,” Blacker said.
“Yeah? Well, you lot done your duty by me. That one-arm bloke come an’ tole me last night, so I got nothin’ I need from you an’ yours.”
Day held his hands up in a gesture of peace and calm.
“We’d like to ask you some questions if we may, ma’am.”
The Widow Little turned from the door and it opened wider, but she held on to the edge of it, not letting them in yet. Ropes of loose skin and fat swung from the underside of her arm and slapped against the jamb.
“Gregory, I tole you already you better see to yer brother. That singin’s just made the baby worser. You see to him right now, you unnerstan’ me?”
“Yes, Mama.”
It was a boy’s voice, followed by the patter of small feet on wood. Mrs Little turned her attention back to the two detectives in the hall and pursed her lips as if trying to remember who they were.
“What’s in it for me I answer these questions you got?”
> “Could we come in, ma’am?” Day said.
Blacker widened his eyes and shook his head at Day. He was on the other side of the doorway, his shoulder pressed against the outside wall of the flat, and thus was out of Mrs Little’s line of sight. Day had no way to respond to him without Mrs Little’s seeing. He had no more desire to enter the flat than Blacker did, but he smiled at her and nodded as if she’d already agreed to let them come in.
She shrugged and turned and they followed her inside. Her grubby housecoat ended well above her thick ankles. Day looked up at the water-stained ceiling.
The stench of old food and human waste hit them like a physical force as soon as they entered the dingy flat. The floorboards were worn so smooth and colorless that the men could have skated across them but for a faded threadbare rug in the center of the front room. A battered, dun-colored sofa, buttons dangling like fruit from its back, hunched against the wall under a curtainless window where a single ray of sunlight fought its way through the smeared glass. Three chairs stood upright, grouped around a barrel. A large pearl-colored doily was draped over the barrel in a vain attempt to disguise it as a table, and peanut shells and dust were scattered across it. Day recognized a cigar box in the center of the table as the same one Sir Edward had brought to the squad room. A fourth chair was tipped over on the floor, its upholstery unraveled from the top, cotton batting spilling out. A baby lay on the chair back, its arms and legs stretched out toward the ceiling. It hiccuped and coughed when it heard their footsteps, then began to cry again.
A naked moon-faced boy was strapped to a wooden chair in the corner of the room. Drool ran in rivulets over the boy’s chin and down his chest. He rocked back and forth, the leather straps digging into his flesh, his eyes rolling wildly in their sockets as he gibbered and howled at the baby. A smaller child, wearing nothing but a filthy pair of knickers, was attempting to silence the monster boy, patting his arm and clucking at him. Day realized that the boy in the chair was singing to the baby in some strange, unrecognizable language.
Day drew back. “Good Lord,” he said.
The woman chuckled and her black eyes sparkled. “Hard to look at, ain’t he?”
“Let that child free from there right now.”
“I undo ’im and he’ll fall straight onto his face, see if he don’t.”
“But this is barbarous.”
“Only looks to be. He’s a happy boy, ain’t you, Anthony?”
At the sound of his name, Anthony let out a fresh wail and bounced up and down in his seat. The other boy, Gregory, whooped and danced around his brother’s chair, which excited Anthony even more. The baby fell suddenly silent. Day and Blacker stared, entranced and disgusted, as the two boys worked themselves into a contained frenzy, colonial natives dancing for rain.
“’At’s enough,” the woman said. “Enough, I say. Gregory, you settle ’im down now.”
The smaller boy stopped hopping about and laid a hand on Anthony’s head, which seemed to calm him. In the fresh silence, Day could hear the baby wheezing.
“Gregory, see to that baby.”
Gregory scampered over to the infant and stuck a dirty finger into its mouth. He fished out half of a peanut shell, dripping with spit. The baby let out a long wail and immediately began to snore, which excited the boy in the corner. Anthony began rocking his chair once more, beating his head against the wall behind him.
Gregory threw the shell on the ground, where the baby could presumably pick it back up when it awoke, and ran back across the room. While the others watched Gregory stroke his older brother’s head, Day reached down and picked up the wet peanut shell. He slipped it into his pocket and wiped his fingers on the leg of his trousers.
When Anthony had calmed down again, Mrs Little turned her attention back to the detectives. Day nodded toward the boy in the corner.
“What’s—?”
“What’s wrong wiff ’im? Hell if I know. Come outta me that way and been that way ever since. But he’s a good boy.”
“Has he seen a doctor?”
“’Course he seen a doctor. Ain’t savages, is we? Too much fluids, says they, too much blood. They bled ’im near dry, cupped ’im and leeched ’im and leff ’im so’s he couldn’t hardly move no more. Ain’t takin’ ’im to no more doctors. He’s happy here, and anyway, he ain’t likely to live too much longer. Money’s better spent than on doctors.”
Day was filled with a mad passion to run from the room.
“Gregory, you seem like a responsible young man,” Blacker said.
The boy blushed and looked down at his feet.
“But I don’t see how you can hear anything with that growth in your ear.”
Gregory looked up, wide-eyed. His hands flew to his ears.
“I don’t feel nuffink there,” he said.
“Come here, lad.”
Blacker dropped to one knee and reached out to the boy. Gregory went to him, his expression frightened.
“Nothing to fear,” Blacker said. “We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
He looked at the boy’s left ear.
“Well, that’s odd,” he said. “I was mistaken. That’s not a growth. Now why would you keep money in your ear?”
Gregory gasped. Blacker grinned at him and his fingers flitted through the air next to the boy’s head, barely grazing his ear. He brought his hand up to show Gregory a shiny penny.
“I think you’ll be able to hear much better now.”
Gregory gulped and stared at the penny in Blacker’s hand.
“Well, go on and take it,” Blacker said. “It was in your ear, so it must be yours.”
“Cor, that’s magic, that is,” Gregory said.
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Blacker winked at the boy and Gregory finally smiled back at him. The boy took the penny from Blacker’s hand and goggled at it.
The Widow Little took two steps toward them and snatched the penny from her son’s hand. She made it disappear somewhere within the folds of her housecoat.
“Any money comes into this flat is mine,” she said.
She glared at the detectives, daring them to contradict her. Gregory shrugged and smiled at them. Blacker patted him on the head and stood back up. He frowned and cleared his throat.
“When’s the last you saw your husband, Mrs Little?” Blacker said.
“Can’t recall. Maybe a week, maybe more.”
“Is that unusual, not to see him for a week?”
“He hardly never come home no more. The sight of Anthony made him sick to his stomach.”
Anthony wailed again and Day noticed that the tonal shift he’d heard before was present again in the boy’s voice.
“He asked you where our daddy’s at,” Gregory said.
“You understand him?”
“Sure. He ain’t dumb. Just different’s all.”
“Don’t matter where yer daddy’s at. Hush now and let these gennemen talk. They’s friends of yer daddy.”
“He was a fine man, your father,” Blacker said. “One of the best the Yard ever saw.”
Gregory switched his gaze from Blacker to Day and stared unblinking at him.
“He only come home most times when he got his pay,” Mrs Little said. “Leff enough with me for the groceries and such. He dint spend much time ’ere, though.”
Hardly a surprise, Day thought.
“Did you talk to him? Did he discuss any cases with you or anything that might have been bothering him? Anyone who may have threatened him?”
“You lot’d know better’n me. He was up there alla time. Never tole me nothin’. One of them killers he was after most likely done ’im.”
“I see. Well, thank you for your time, ma’am.”
“Where I’m gonna get paid from now?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Without Mr Little’s pay, how I’m gonna take care of these young’uns? You think on that. Without food money, I’m gonna have to tak
e young Anthony and drownd ’im in the river.”
“I don’t—”
The Widow Little suddenly smiled and her face rearranged itself. She looked almost pleasant. Day realized that she was much younger than he’d first supposed. It was unlikely that she’d ever been a great beauty, but Day could see the ghost of the spirited bride she once was.
“I’m havin’ a laugh on you boys, is all. I know you don’t have nuffink to do wiff it. The money, I mean. I done talked it over wiff your man there, the one’s got no arm. He’ll see to it, see I get Mr Little’s pinchins.”
“His pension? How wonderful.”
“He’s a good man, that one. He brung that box, too,” she said. “More’n five pounds there. Thanks to you an’ yours. Gonna do a bit o’ shoppin’ later in the day.”
“Yes, of course,” Day said. “Well, we should—”
“Was Inspector Little planning to grow a beard, by chance?” Blacker said.
Day scowled at him and Blacker shrugged.
“Don’t think so. Beards is filthy, all full-up with food and dust and such. Won’t have no beard near these lips, I tell you. Mr Little was allus considerable about such things. Knew how them whiskers scratched and kep hisself tidy for me. Allus kep hisself tidy, he did.”
Without warning, the widow burst into tears. Her lips opened wide, trailing stringers of grief, a cobweb of spit connecting the two halves of her face. She seemed suddenly vulnerable in her ugliness and Day wanted to put an arm around her, but Gregory reached her first, patted her jiggling arm.
“There, there, Mama. Don’t cry.”
Across the room, Anthony began to bounce in his chair again, howling, and Day could almost make out words. The back of the wooden chair beat against the plaster wall as the hideous woman and her strange children celebrated their grief. The baby woke then with a start, its tiny arms windmilling against the floor, and joined its voice to the Little family’s horrible wailing.
Day took a pound note from his vest pocket and slid it under the top of the cigar box. He laid a calling card atop the barrel and grabbed Blacker by the arm. The two of them left, pulling the door closed behind them.
“I need a drink,” Blacker said.