by George Mann
When it became clear that Clarence wasn’t simply running late, but wasn’t going to turn up for his shift at all, Henry had heaped extra fuel into the furnace and had marched back here to Clarence and Cornwell’s cabin to find out exactly what was going on.
As he’d stalked through the passenger carriages his indignation had grown. What was the lazy blighter playing at? They had a job to do, and Henry was damned if he was going to do twice as much work as he was paid to do. It wasn’t as if any of them got enough sleep between shifts. Why should Clarence get away with bunking off?
He rapped loudly on the cabin door. “Clarence?”
There was no response.
“Clarence! Get up, you lazy beggar! You’re needed. Your shift started an hour and a half ago.”
Henry waited for the panicked response, the sound of Clarence scrambling from his bunk, suddenly surprised that he’d been allowed to oversleep. Where was Cornwell, though? Why hadn’t he kicked Clarence out in the first place?
Henry leaned closer to the door so that his ear was nearly touching the panel. He could hear noises from inside—the shuffling sound of someone moving about. He waited a moment longer, but still no one came to the door. He knocked again. “I know you’re in there, Clarence!” He could hear the agitation in his own voice. “I tell you what, I’m finishing the shift an hour and a half early today, and you can see how you like it.”
There was more shuffling, but still no response.
“Look, I’m coming in there,” said Henry. “I don’t know what you think you’re up to.”
Angrily, Henry grabbed the handle. The door was unlocked, so he shoved it open and took a step forward over the threshold.
At first, the scene that presented itself was so alarming, so disturbing and unnatural, that his mind had trouble processing it. He had to do a double take. He stood there for a second or two in the doorway, as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
Clarence—or rather, some thing that had once been Clarence—hunched over the sprawled body of Cornwell on the cabin floor. Cornwell’s belly had been viciously ripped open and one of Clarence’s hands was ferreting around in the dead man’s guts. There was blood everywhere: dripping from the bunk, smeared on the window, and forming syrupy puddles on the floor. Cornwell’s face was stricken, his eyes wide open and mercifully lifeless. His mouth was locked open in a silent scream. Beads of blood flecked his pale cheeks.
Clarence, on the other hand, looked as if he had disinterred from his grave after three weeks in the ground. His flesh had taken on a strange translucency, and in some places had begun to sag and bloat—even peeling in loose flaps behind his left ear. His eyes were yellowed and sunken, and flitted nervously like those of an animal. His fingertips were bloodied, his nails grown long to form vicious-looking talons. Worst of all, Cornwell’s blood was dribbling down his chin as he chewed on a length of the man’s glistening intestine. There was no trace of humanity left in the creature. Clarence had become utterly feral. A revenant.
Henry took a step back into the passageway, coughing back on the cloying tang of spilt blood, the horrifying stench of faeces. He emitted a thin stream of vomit, unable to prevent it splashing over his boots. How had this happened? They always took precautions. How had Clarence been so careless? How could he have got himself infected? And Cornwell … Good God, what the hell was he going to do?
Perhaps if he backed up carefully, closed the door, and ran for help. Yes, that was it. He had to fetch the train guards.
Slowly, Henry edged back. He clutched shakily for the door handle, but couldn’t find it. He glanced back at Clarence. His former colleague was watching him, beady yellow eyes tracking every movement, like a hunter tracking prey. Henry swallowed. His throat stung.
Which way should he run? He glanced left and right. Neither direction promised much help of cover. He would go the way he came, get into the next carriage and close the door behind him, tell the passengers to stay away while he fetched the guards.
Clarence was still resting on his haunches over Cornwell’s corpse. Surely Henry could outrun him.…
He turned and bolted.
There was a sound behind him. He didn’t look back, but he knew, with a horrible sense of dawning certainty, that Clarence had come after him. The creature’s pounding footsteps were the only sound he could hear, coming up behind him, almost upon him. It was too fast, moving with preternatural speed.
The door was in sight. He just had to make it through. He extended his arm, reaching out for the handle, but he was too late. He felt Clarence’s talons rake his shoulder, tearing right through the fabric of his boiler suit, drawing blood. He flinched, turning the handle, but there was no time. The creature’s breath was hot on the back of his neck.
He struck out with his elbow, trying to shake it off, trying to buy himself time. He felt one of its ribs give. But then its teeth were in his flesh, biting deep and hard into his shoulder like a wild dog.
Henry screamed, trying to wrench himself away and almost swooning with the pain. Clarence’s teeth were clamped on hard, rending his flesh. Blood spurted. He could feel its warmth running down his back and chest. This was it. There was nowhere else to run, nothing else to do.
The door hung open, but the pain was too much. Blackness limned the edges of his vision. Henry sunk to his knees, and the revenant let him fall. He pitched forward onto his face. The creature raised its head and issued a sound like none that should ever come from the throat of a human being.
All of Henry’s strength was gone, and he lay there on the floor in a spreading pool of his own blood, watching the revenant step over him and through the open door into the next carriage.
The last thing he heard before darkness overcame him was the scream of fifty passengers, all running for their lives.
CHAPTER
12
Veronica unfolded the slip of crisp, white notepaper and stared again at the message scrawled upon it in Bainbridge’s neat copperplate:
MISS HOBBES
ONE OF THE MISSING NURSES HAS BEEN LOCATED. MEET ME AT 12 BROWNLOW MEWS, CAMDEN, ONE O’CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON. YOUR ASSISTANCE IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
It was signed with his usual flourish.
Veronica glanced up at the property in question, and frowned. It seemed like an insalubrious sort of place, both for a meeting with Sir Charles, and for a nurse. The woman couldn’t possibly live there, Veronica decided, as she took in the cobbled street slick with mud, dirty rainwater, and God-only-knew what else. The buildings on both sides of the lane were dilapidated and largely given over to industry and merchants: a sign painter, a wheelwright, a builder’s office. Their frontages, once brightly painted to attract custom, were now peeling and in dire need of attention, although—judging by the thunderous noises she could hear coming from the wheelwright’s shop—they were still very much in use.
Above many of these establishments were upper storeys, with tall sash windows draped with dirty nets, denoting, Veronica presumed, small flats or living accommodation for the owners. From street level, the row of mews appeared to have flat or gently sloping roofs, peppered with narrow chimneystacks and wreathed in curling smoke and soot. Two wooden carts and a police carriage were parked up ahead, outside an unmarked building on her left. There was an acrid stink about the place, of oil, burning wood, and human waste.
“Oh well,” she said aloud, folding the note and slipping it back into her coat pocket. “I suppose I should be used to it by now.” She had been hoping for a slightly more congenial setting for the afternoon’s activities, but then, on reflection, she should have known better.
Bainbridge’s note had arrived just after breakfast, delivered to her house by a young constable who gave every impression of being generally disinterested with his lot. She’d opened the door to find him kicking the stone step with the edge of his boots like a restless child, and he’d muttered only the requisite number of words as he’d asked her to verify her identity before handing o
ver the note. He hadn’t even waited around long enough for her to read it before bidding her good day and retreating down the garden path, disappearing along the high street.
With Mrs. Grant away visiting her sister for a few days, and Newbury in the North chasing after ghosts, she had to admit—the idea of some company appealed to her. It had been two days since she’d heard from Bainbridge, and aside from her brief visit to the Natural History Museum, she’d found herself with little to occupy her time. So she’d dug out a warm cardigan, wrapped herself up against the rain, and set out for the day, with the intention of grabbing a spot of lunch in Camden Town before searching out the address in the letter. And now, standing on the corner of Brownlow Mews and Roger Street, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d have been better off staying indoors.
Veronica felt a sputter of rain on her cheek, and a quick glance up at the sky told her that another downpour was imminent. With a sigh, she stepped over a brackish puddle and crossed to the door of the unmarked building, which she assumed to be the place to which Bainbridge had summoned her for their meeting with the aforementioned nurse.
There was no number on the door, no glass insets, and no knocker. From the drab exterior of the place, she found herself doubting that the building was inhabited at all. Shrugging, she removed her glove and rapped loudly.
A moment later she heard a bolt slide on the other side of the door, and then it swung open to reveal a short, plump woman in a scarlet silk gown. The woman’s hair was pinned up in an elaborate whorl, and powdered in a style that had gone out of fashion at least a hundred years earlier. Her lips were a slash of glossy red, her eyelids an unsightly blue, and her face was stark and lily-white with paint. It wasn’t at all what Veronica was expecting.
“We’re closed, lovey,” said the woman, in a broad, Scottish brogue. “The party’s over.” She stepped a little closer to Veronica, looking her up and down and pulling the door to behind her, so that they were both standing out on the step. “And to be honest with you, lassie,” she continued, in a sepulchral whisper, “a respectable woman like you, you’d be best hotfooting it as far away from here as possible. The Peelers are inside,” she gestured back over her shoulder with a nod of her head, “and I’m sure you don’t want to go getting mixed up in all that. No one likes questions, eh?” She tapped the side of her nose conspiratorially with one finger.
Veronica frowned. “Actually, Miss…?”
“Madame Gloria,” replied the woman, placing a hand on her hip and jutting out her chin.
“Actually, Madame Gloria, that’s precisely why I’m here. I’m with the police.”
“With the police?” said the woman, utterly scandalised. “You’re with the police?”
“In an manner of speaking,” said Veronica, stifling a laugh. “I’d be very much obliged if you’d allow me to come in.”
“Well, I don’t suppose I’ve got much choice in the matter, do I?” said Madame Gloria, reluctantly stepping to one side. Veronica decided it was best to consider it a rhetorical question.
She found Bainbridge and Foulkes on the first-floor landing, both wearing brooding, thoughtful expressions. Bainbridge’s aspect brightened considerably when he saw Veronica coming up the stairs, Madame Gloria in tow.
“Ah, Miss Hobbes. Most excellent. Good to have you here,” he said. She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was dreadfully embarrassed. He shook her hand as she arrived on the landing, and leaned close, lowering his voice. “So you found the place all right, then?”
“Evidently,” said Veronica, amused.
“It’s a house of ill-repute,” said Bainbridge, as if expecting Veronica to be at a complete loss. “A lushery.” He was quite red in the face, as if the very notion of explaining this to a woman represented a terrible contravention to the natural order of things.
“I gathered,” said Veronica.
“You did?” Bainbridge looked almost affronted. Veronica caught Foulkes’s eye. He was grinning.
“Quite so, Sir Charles. It’s not the first brothel I’ve visited in the course of my duties, and I dare say it won’t be the last.”
Bainbridge opened his mouth to speak, but no words were forthcoming.
“Well?” said Veronica. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to this ‘missing’ nurse?”
“Ah,” replied Bainbridge, his brow creasing. “You see, Miss Hobbes, when I wrote that she’d been located … well, I fear…”
“She’s dead,” finished Veronica, with a resigned shrug. “I feared as much.”
Bainbridge nodded. “Quite.”
“She’s in there, Miss Hobbes,” said Foulkes, indicating the open door they’d been clustered around when she arrived.
“But for God’s sake, cover your face,” said Bainbridge, catching her arm, “and don’t touch anything. I refuse to be responsible for any one of us succumbing to that blasted disease, whatever it might be.”
Veronica nodded, and pulled a cotton handkerchief from her jacket pocket. The thing had probably seen as many crime scenes as she had, she mused, or at least as many corpses. She held it firmly over her nose and mouth with her left hand, and Bainbridge stepped aside to allow her to pass.
The scene inside the room was both heartbreaking and strangely beautiful. The room itself was nothing to speak of—the sort of small, dilapidated box room found in such places: peeling wallpaper, damp patches, a dark claret-coloured carpet to hide stains, dim lighting, and a double bed. There was a distinct lack of personal effects.
Upon the bed, however, was something else entirely. Two figures were locked in a passionate embrace, their limbs intertwined, their faces turned to one another, lips almost touching. Both of them had bloomed, their bodies twisting and altering into weird organic shapes. Vines had sprouted from fingertips and follicles, arms and legs twisting and growing, wrapping themselves ever more intricately around the other person. A sweeping cascade of foliage and button-like fungus cups had displaced hair. All over the flesh had puckered and shifted, taking on new forms, melding with the other host. This had occurred to such an extent that it was now nearly impossible to decipher where one person started and the other stopped. They’d become locked in an eternal lovers’ embrace; quite literally, they had grown together.
There was a thick, floral scent in the air, very different from the stench of decay that had been so evident at the police laboratory. She wondered whether that had as much to do with the revenant as it did the disease. She walked around the bottom of the bed, noticing as she did that the vines had tangled themselves amongst the brass spokes of the bed frame.
It was all quite ghastly, of course, but at the same time, Veronica found the whole scene deeply moving. At least these unfortunates had died together, and would remain together, whoever they were. She supposed it might only have been a casual acquaintance, given the venue, but something about the intimacy of the episode was different from the scores of other death scenes she had witnessed in her time working alongside Newbury and Bainbridge.
Veronica left the room, pulling the door to behind her. The others were still waiting on the landing. She lowered the handkerchief from her face. “So, the first of our missing nurses,” she said.
“Yes, but what was she doing here?” said Bainbridge. “Did she work here?” He seemed doubtful. “Surely she wasn’t a dollymop?” He was frowning, as if attempting to fathom what a young female nurse might be doing frequenting a place such as this.
“Och, no,” replied Madame Gloria, with a flutter of her gaudily painted eyelids.
Foulkes gave an uncomfortable cough. “I think she was a client here, Sir Charles. A customer, if you catch my drift.”
“But … but…,” stammered Bainbridge. “She’s a woman. And that—” He waved his hand in the direction of the open door. “That’s two women. Together.”
Veronica shook her head, exasperated. “And what of it, Sir Charles? How two women choose to express their carnal desires is no business of ours. Women have s
ought each other’s company in such fashion since history began. Whether they come together out of love, or merely passion, what right have we to pass judgement upon them?”
Bainbridge looked suitably admonished. “I’m not nearly as unworldly as you would care to believe, Miss Hobbes. I understand what goes on behind locked doors. It’s simply that I’m rather surprised a woman should lower herself to visiting a place such as this.”
Veronica smiled. “Women have appetites, too, Sir Charles.”
“Well, quite. And some clearly more than others.” He waved in the direction of the entwined corpses with the end of his cane. “Now, what’s to be done? I mean, we need some way of properly identifying these unfortunates.”
“Their clothes, Sir Charles,” said Foulkes. He reached for a pile of neatly folded garments, which he had evidently placed upon a chair on the landing earlier. He handed them to Bainbridge who, fumbling with his cane and looking slightly uncomfortable with the idea of handling them, passed them straight on to Veronica.
Veronica accepted them with an amused sigh. She draped them over the banister behind her and took them each in turn, unfolding them and holding them up so that she might examine them properly.
The clothes of the prostitute were just as she might have expected; a pale silk gown decorated with frills and lace that had once been grand but was now worn and mended. The nurse, however, had clearly come here in her uniform, and amongst her articles was a white, starched smock, spattered with chemical stains. Veronica checked the front pocket. Inside was a small slip of yellow paper. She held it up for the others to see.
“What is it?” said Foulkes.
“A wage slip,” replied Bainbridge. He held out his hand and Veronica allowed him to take it. He examined it for a moment. “Made out in the name of Molly Wright, and issued by the St. Giles Hospice, Percy Street.” He paused for a moment, a broad smile growing on his lips. “Oh, well done, Miss Hobbes. Well done indeed!”