Rack & Ruin

by Carol Hedges

  Rack & Ruin

  A Victorian Crime Thriller

  Carol Hedges

  Little G Books

  Copyright © 2016 by Carol Hedges

  Cover Artwork and Design by RoseWolf Design

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  This edition by Little G Books (June 2017)

  For Avalyn and Edward

  About the Author

  Carol Hedges is the successful British author of 16 books for teenagers and adults. Her writing has received much critical acclaim, and her novel Jigsaw was shortlisted for the Angus Book Award and longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

  Carol was born in Hertfordshire, and after university, where she gained a BA (Hons.) in English Literature & Archaeology, she trained as a children’s librarian. She worked for the London Borough of Camden for many years subsequently re-training as a secondary school teacher when her daughter was born.

  Carol still lives and writes in Hertfordshire. She is a local activist and green campaigner, and the proud owner of a customised 1988 pink 2CV.

  The Victorian Detectives series

  Diamonds & Dust

  Honour & Obey

  Death & Dominion

  Rack & Ruin

  Wonders & Wickedness

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Gina Dickerson of RoseWolf Design for another superb cover. Also to my two patient editors: Martyn Hedges and Archie Young.

  To those wonderful individuals who have urged me to give Stride & Cully another outing: Terry, Barb, Shelley, Liz, Cathy, Rosie Amber, Jo, Val and so many others too numerous to mention. This book would not have been written without your encouragement.

  Finally, I acknowledge my debt to all those amazing Victorian novelists for lighting the path through the fog with their genius. Unworthily but optimistically, I follow in their footsteps.

  Rack & Ruin

  A Victorian Crime Thriller

  ‘Babylon was a great city.

  Her merchandise was of gold and silver

  Of precious stones, of pearls, of fine linen.

  Sheep, horses, chariots, slaves

  And the souls of men.’

  Belshazzar's Feast

  ‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.’

  Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

  London 1863. It is the month of May, and the city is in full bloom. Green leaves unfurl, yellow celandines peep from their lowly beds. Violets beckon coyly. Pink frothy waterfalls of blossom cascade from park cherry trees. Birds and bees go about the purposes for which they were created and everywhere from crook to cranny, in garden bed or bow pot, warmth returns and nature reasserts itself in song, hum, bud and flower.

  Except here.

  Here there is only the shrill roar of escaping steam, the groans of machines heaving ponderous loads of earth to the surface, the blasts of explosives, and the clack of pumping devices as the future arrives in lines of steel rails and a thundering in the blood.

  Here, carcasses of houses lie untenanted. They rot, their windows gaping like the mouths of corpses, empty of teeth. Here, no sellers of fruit or flowers huddle over their baskets. No newsboys shout the day’s headlines. No sleek cat creeps through the area railings.

  For this is Hind Street, scene of the latest encroachment of the great iron railway. And while not a dead end, Hind Street has been seriously wounded by its present change of circumstances.

  Eight houses at one end of the street have been pulled down already, leaving the occupants who rented rooms on a day to day basis scattered to the four winds to shift as best they can.

  The rest of the houses still stand on the brink of destruction, clinging precariously to their foundations with the spectral lines of demolished ceilings, staircases and floors imprinted on their remaining walls.

  Only the houses at one end of the street, numbers 12 to 18 are still occupied. We shall return to number 18 later on.

  For now, let us peer through a slat in the unpainted wooden hoardings that surround the area and watch as Fred Grizewood, the young civil engineer in charge of the demolition gives his team of contractors careful instructions on placing the explosives around the base of number 9.

  The fuse is lit. The men jump clear. There is an almighty bang like the loudest clap of thunder you have ever heard. Followed by a long echoing crash and the crumble of falling brick and timber. The ground shakes underfoot.

  When the noise has ceased, the dust has settled and the men have stopped coughing, everybody re-gathers around the hole that was previously surrounded by number 9 Hind Street.

  They stare down.

  There is a long, puzzled silence.

  One of the contractors jumps into the hole, and stirs something with his boot. He bends down and pokes it cautiously. Then he looks up at Grizewood and says quietly.

  “I think you’d better send for the police.”

  ****

  Inspector Lachlan Greig of the Metropolitan Police Force, recently promoted to ‘A’ Division makes his way up Bow Street towards his place of work. There is a lot to be said for being based at the 'oldest and most celebrated Police Office in London' (Bradshaw’s Illustrated Hand Book to London and Its Environs).

  Inspector Greig says it quite a lot, usually under his breath as he elbows his way through the groups of tourists who stand gawping outside the handsome police house on the east side of the Covent Garden piazza and requesting officers who emerge to ‘do a runner’.

  Greig is an imposing man, thirty years old and well above the regulation five feet seven inches. He is handsome, with a clear complexion, broad shoulders, bright chestnut hair and beard of a slightly lighter colour, and a certain glint in his eye. Life had taught him, sadly, that being gifted with a high degree of intelligence didn’t always play out well with those of his colleagues, and those of the criminal fraternity, who were not equally gifted.

  He enters the building, whistling his favourite air: The Bluebells of Scotland, slightly flat, and is greeted by the desk constable who has a worried expression and a piece of paper. He passes Greig the latter.

  “Railway site back of Hind Street, sir. Bodies discovered. Police presence requested. Sergeant Hacket and a couple of constables have just left.”

  Greig rolls his eyes. There are always drunken fights breaking out between the various tribes of navigators swarming like tiny black ants all over the developments that have transformed London into one gigantic ruined, dust-laden brickyard.

  Frequently the fights end in fatalities. A lot of police time is spent trying to sort out who was responsible.

  “On my way,” he says resignedly.

  He spins on his heel and heads for the door.

  ****

  There is nothing resigned about Daisy Lawton’s progress. Daisy Lawton is positively skipping along the pavement. Why shouldn’t she? It is a fine sunny day after all. She has a new cherry striped dress and a straw bonnet with matching cherry ribbons. She is young and pretty and in love. And it is Spring ... lovely lovely Spring, when even the noxious city streets seem to smell sweeter.

  Daisy approaches the Burlington Arcade where, to complete her happiness, her best friend Letitia Simpkins is waiting for her.

  “Tishy! Oh Tishy - what a perfectly splendiferous day,” Daisy exclaims, throwing her arms around her best friend’s neck.

  Letitia Simpkins gently frees herself from the exuberant embrace, straightening the rather plain bonnet that has been knocked cockeyed.

  “You are in hi
gh spirits this morning,” she says.

  Daisy’s expansive gesture takes in the uniformed beadles, the shoppers, the brightly lit plate-glass shop windows and, were it able to stretch that far, the whole of the city itself.

  “It is Spring!” she cries. “The sun is shining and Papa has paid my allowance, so I can treat us both to tea and cakes.”

  She links arms with Letitia and steers her up the elegant colonnaded thoroughfare and into a small tea-room, where a smiling waiter directs them to a table by the window.

  “Oh good. We can watch people passing and quiz their clothes,” Daisy says.

  Letitia sits, carefully placing her leather satchel on the floor beside her chair. Daisy eyes it and frowns prettily.

  ‘What have you got there Tishy? Please don’t say it’s books.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  “Books are for the schoolroom. And we left Putney and Miss Chadwick’s Academy ages ago.”

  “I think it was only last Christmas.”

  “Oh. Was it? Well, it seems like ages ago. And how tedious it was. All those French verbs and times tables and what to do in a thunderstorm. I can’t remember a single thing. And I certainly have no intention of opening another book - unless it is a novel about love or mysterious happenings.”

  The waiter places two tiny porcelain cups of coffee on the table, together with a plate of cakes. Daisy dimples her thanks.

  “Now Tishy, tuck in. My treat. And I want to know everything you’ve been doing since we last met.”

  Letitia sips her coffee, reflecting how their two lives have diverged since those days of girlish confidences and whispered conversations in the dormitory they shared. Back then the two girls were inseparable, comrades in arms against a world of rules and regulations and the spiteful girls who took out their frustration at the pettiness of a girls’ boarding school by bullying the other pupils.

  And now here they are. Beautiful, loved and adored Daisy living in a world of romance and silk dresses. And she, plain as a pikestaff Tishy, the clever one whom no man courts and no man ever will.

  For Letitia Simpkins has few illusions about her attractions - her nose is not retroussé and her mouth is not rosebud - she is entirely lacking in r-factor. Plus, there is a set to her jaw and her figure is so flat you could use it as a plank. Only a good-natured liar would call her attractive.

  “Oh, I haven’t been doing much,” she says, putting down her cup. “Just reading a bit and walking and looking after Mama.”

  “Is she still unwell?”

  “She manages to come downstairs sometimes. Most of the time she stays in bed.”

  “Poor you. I remember she was ill while we were at school. That was why you didn’t go home in the school holidays, wasn’t it?”

  Letitia looks out of the window, where women in the latest bonnets and shawls flit by like brightly coloured butterflies. She prefers not to think about those long dreary holidays in the company of the school servants and the French mistress who was too poor to return to her village and used to sob in her room at night.

  “It was. But enough of me and my humdrum days,” she says. “Tell me about your life. Is there a new beau? I expect there is. Where did you meet him?”

  Daisy rolls her eyes and sighs ecstatically.

  “Oh Tishy - there are several. But one I like in particular. I met him at the house of Mama’s friend, Mrs Osborne. She had a five o’clock tea and Mama let me go as there were going to be a lot of young people there. He has the bluest eyes you can imagine, and the dearest moustache in the world.”

  “Sounds divine.”

  “Oh, it is. He was standing by the French window when I came in and our eyes met across the crowded room and ... well ... that was that. He is a Dragoon Guard.”

  Letitia smiles to herself. Daisy and her various beaux have been a source of amusement since they were both thirteen and she fell madly in love with the art master. Still it is pleasant to be sitting here, enjoying her harmless chatter.

  Listening to Daisy rattling on takes her mind off the more pressing problems: her mother’s sickness, the doctor’s bill that arrived today, and whether her father is going to be sufficiently in temper to be asked for the money to pay it.

  Letitia often wishes her family life was less tense and complicated.

  “What do you think, Tishy?”

  Letitia blinks. She has been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she has failed to focus on Daisy.

  “Oh - I think ... well, it’s what you think that’s the important thing?”

  “I think pale pink spotted tulle, with puffings and a heart shaped berthe.”

  Letitia stares at her. For all she knows, Daisy could be speaking double Dutch, not that the subject was ever taught at school as far as she recalls.

  “Well then, I agree.”

  “I knew you would!”

  Daisy finishes her coffee, runs a wetted finger round her plate and licks the crumbs before signalling the waiter to bring the bill which she settles, brushing Letitia’s protests aside.

  The two friends put on their gloves, make their way out to the street, kiss each other fondly and go their separate ways. And there we shall have to leave them for the time being. For we have a far more important, though far less pleasant elsewhere to be.

  ****

  Inspector Greig has served in the police force since he was eighteen. Therefore, he has seen and heard things that would turn the stomachs and harrow the souls of lesser men.

  It takes a lot to move him, but as he scrambles into the hole where number 9 Hind Street formerly stood, and looks down on the small bundles that are being carefully examined by two of his men, he feels an unexpected surge of emotion.

  “What have we got?”

  Sergeant Ben Hacket stares at him, his youthful face white and stricken. He is a country lad, new to London and to the Metropolitan Police. He hasn’t yet developed the hard carapace needed to survive the horrors he will encounter.

  “Eleven dead babies, sir.”

  A couple of contractors watching proceedings from the edge of the hole, turn their faces away. Greig nods, takes out his notebook and begins the laborious procedures necessary whenever a dead body - or bodies - is discovered. Upon these notes will depend the report that he will submit to the authorities and the sort of inquiries that he may be requested to undertake as a consequence.

  He writes down where the tiny bodies are lying, drawing sketches of their exact position and relation to each other. He makes notes on the old rags and newspapers covering them, and checks for any objects that may be in the vicinity that might have contributed to their deaths.

  He works swiftly and in grim silence, watched by his colleagues and the shocked group of contractors. At last he closes the notebook and glances at Sergeant Hacket.

  “There will have to be a coroner’s inquest.”

  Hacket nods, his mouth a thin, tight line.

  “Poor little beggars,” he murmurs. “Barely had time to draw breath.”

  Greig reopens his notebook, scribbles a few lines, then tears out the page.

  “Run over to University College Hospital. Ask for a couple of porters to move the bodies to the morgue as quickly as they can. Don’t take no for an answer and don’t accept 'later'. If there’s any quibbling, explain what we’ve found and say that the coroner will want a post-mortem examination and full report as soon as possible. I’ll notify him when I get back to the station.”

  All this time Fred Grizewood has been standing some way off, nervously passing the brim of his hat between his hands. Now he approaches the edge of the hole.

  “Officer, once you have removed the ... the ... corpses, is there any reason why I cannot order my team to continue working?” he asks.

  Greig gives him a stare so hard you could bounce rocks off it.

  “I’m sorry sir, there will be no further work done here until my men have finished examining the site and the inquest has ended.”

  The young man flinc
hes under his gaze.

  “But the men are paid a day rate. If they do not work, they will not get paid,” he persists.

  “At least they are alive. Unlike those poor little creatures,” Greig says flatly.

  There is a silence. The engineer’s face flushes. He studies his boots, which are caked in damp yellow London clay.

  “I was not meaning to be disrespectful to the dead.”

  “No. I’m sure you weren’t.”

  “Mr Wandle won’t like the men stopping.”

  “That is of no concern to me. It is highly possible that a crime has been committed here and until the inquest jury has reached a verdict, no further work will take place. Is that clearly understood?”

  The engineer bites his lip, fiddles with his watch chain and looks away.

  “Now I suggest you secure the entrances,” Greig says. “Once word gets round, you’ll have the mob at your gates. Not to mention journalists from the popular press, which is probably even worse, in my experience.”

  The engineer nods dumbly.

  Greig beckons to his constables.

  “Go and talk to the navigators. They may have come into contact with the people who lived in the house. See what they can tell you about them. A name, a description, anything.”

  As he returns to Bow Street, Inspector Greig thinks about what he has just viewed, and how these infants and their sad deaths are all part and parcel of the great city he now works in.

  Greig has been living in London for some time. He started his career in the Leith Police as a newly qualified officer and moved up the ranks, before making the decision to leave his home town and come south.

  London. The overwhelming vastness of it still has the power to both amaze and appal him. The immense tangle of streets, courts and alleys. The filthy crepuscular interiors of the poorer houses with their wooden beams and crazed confusion of staircases. The hard, unyielding noise.