Rack & Ruin

by Carol Hedges

  Greig goes out to post his letter. Darkness is filling up the footstreets, leaving the main thoroughfares lit up with gaslight like yellow string. Somewhere in the white distance, there is the sound of church bells.

  Above him, a silver peppering of stars. A city bright and cold as a diamond. Cobbles turning to asphalt turning to waste ground. He crosses from pool of light to pool of light, like someone connecting dots.

  Everywhere he goes he hears the echo of construction sites. Carpenters and construction teams are still working under artificial illumination. London is one gigantic building site. Sewers, railways, rows of terraces, all are being built at topmost speed.

  The city changes, mutates, is different from week to week. It is brittle but unforgiving. The constant spatial alteration means he has a sense of never quite knowing where he is, of people falling away, a line of eyes at a window, gone in a blink.

  ****

  Letitia Simpkins wakes to a day that is already bright with sunshine. She watches the dust motes spiral in a shaft of sunlight like a fairy tornado. It is 6.30, time to start her morning chores.

  Her hard-won victory has proved to be Pyrrhic. Yes, she has the key to the front door, but no time to use it. The one remaining housemaid has been sacked, leaving her to do all the cleaning and housework. Only the cook has been retained as both her father and Mrs Briscoe enjoy eating.

  She rises, and goes down to the kitchen, where she stokes up the range and places a large kettle on top of it. Father must have hot water to shave, and the boys to wash.

  Next, she lays the breakfast table, remembering how she used to lay Mama’s tray ready to take up to the sickroom. How easy her life was then, and how little she appreciated it. The bad thing about death is not that it leaves one alone with one’s memories, but that it changes the future.

  Her future is a thing of the past. It stopped the moment she stepped over the threshold of the place she once thought of as home. Now books are rare treats, to be consumed at night, in the secrecy of her room. She wraps herself in a shawl and burns candles as she reads and makes notes.

  Today Mrs Briscoe is going to go through the linen cupboard with her. It is a job that only requires one person, but her presence has been requested. Her presence is always requested. She pours hot water into jugs and begins the weary task of transporting them up to the first floor bedrooms.

  By the time the cook has arrived and breakfast is underway, Letitia has already completed two hours of household chores. More await when Mrs Briscoe arrives. But unaccountably, she does not arrive. Father glances at his watch. The boys fidget and spill their tea.

  Once breakfast is over, the boys put on their caps, locate their books and slates, and reconvene in the hallway, waiting to be frog-marched to school. But there is still no Mrs Briscoe to escort them.

  “Do you wish me to walk the boys to school? They will be late if they don’t leave soon,” Letitia suggests after another five minutes has passed.

  Her father harrumphs, frowns, fiddles with his watch chain, then says brusquely,

  “On this occasion, you may do so. But make sure you come straight back afterwards. Mrs Briscoe will be here on your return. I do not know what has caused the delay, but I expect there will be a good reason.”

  Light of heart, Letitia ties her bonnet and sets out. How wonderful everything looks, fresh, newly minted and sparkling. The air is sweet with the smell of blossom. There are lilacs in neighbouring gardens and she can hear a blackbird singing its heart out.

  The boys caper like small colts let out to pasture. They pass the pastrycook’s shop and recklessly she treats them all to slabs of the yellow cake piled temptingly on a tray by the door. Happily munching, they progress.

  Upon her return, Letitia finds no Mrs Briscoe in situ. Instead a note on the hall table from her father informs her that the hated one has a slight indisposition and will not be presencing herself today after all.

  Letitia feels her spirits lift even further. She crumples the note and drops it into the parlour grate. Unexpected opportunities like this may never come her way again. They need to be seized with both hands.

  She runs upstairs and changes from her shabby black dress into her slightly less shabby black dress. Then she slips out of the front door and sets off determinedly on foot for Regent Street. After all, she reasons to herself, what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to her?

  Letitia’s welcome, when she finally arrives at the Regent Street Ladies’ Literary & Philosophical Society, is warm and effusive and all she could hope for. She is hugged and petted. She is led into the restaurant and bought coffee. It is in complete contrast to the way she is ignored and treated at home.

  Carrie Bradstreet and Sarah Lunt sit with her, and gently coax her to tell them what has been happening to her since they last met. Their shocked faces confirm her own deep sense of injustice.

  “We hoped you might be among the first group to take the Cambridge Junior Locals,” Carrie says, then seeing Letitia’s puzzled expression, “that’s the exam sixteen-year old boys take. Your brothers will take it when they reach sixteen.”

  “It is the right of all girls to have the same chances as boys,” Sarah says. “Several of our younger members are studying for the exam, in the hope that the authorities relent and let them attempt it. Sophie Jacques is petitioning for permission and we have high hopes she will succeed. Would you like to try for it too?”

  “Do you think I am able enough?”

  Both women smile at her.

  “You are as able as any of us,” Carrie says warmly. “Let me fetch you a copy of the syllabus to take away.”

  “The exam is in December,” Sarah says. “It is quite a commitment and I am afraid all the students have had to turn down many invitations to balls and parties and afternoon teas to study for it.”

  “That will be no hardship - given that I do not receive any invitations. And even if I did, I could not attend.”

  Letitia gestures at her black frock.

  “Of course you couldn’t. Poor girl. Sophie is coaching the other candidates. I suggest you write to her and arrange to send her your work to mark. In the circumstances.”

  Letitia nods. She cannot see Father allowing her to attend classes. Actually, she cannot see Father allowing her to do anything. If she wants to take this exam, she will have to study in secret.

  “Thank you, Sarah, I shall do exactly that,” she says.

  “And here comes Carrie with the syllabus. Let’s go through it carefully together before you leave to make sure you understand what is expected of you.”

  “Will she do it, do you think?” Carrie asks, after Letitia has gone.

  Sarah shrugs, “I believe she will try her utmost, Carrie. Whether she’ll succeed against the tyranny of her father? Only time will tell.”

  Letitia returns home shortly after lunch - in her case, a ham sandwich bought from a stall on the way back. There are letters on the mat. She picks them up. One is from Daisy. She takes it up to her room to enjoy at her leisure. Before reading it, she hides under her bed the syllabus, and the notebooks and pencils she has bought.

  Daisy writes that she has important news. And a new special friend for Letitia to meet. The word ‘special’ is underlined three times. Letitia guesses that it refers to the dashing Dragoon officer - Daisy’s handsome beau.

  She searches her heart and can find no jealousy lurking there. For all her present predicament, she would rather be herself than Daisy Lawton.

  Letitia has no illusions about what married life entails - she has heard enough through the bedroom wall, and seen enough at the dining table to convince her that her future lies elsewhere.

  As soon as the boys leave for boarding school, she will get down to her studies, pass the exam and then ... but her mind cannot contemplate what ‘then’ awaits. All she knows is that she must somehow earn her own bread and live independently. Preferably under a different roof.

  ****

  Inspector La
chlan Greig is on covert surveillance with Inspector William ‘Ally’ Atherton. Recently there have been written and oral complaints from members of the public that it is taking the beat constables far too long to respond to street crime and robberies.

  As usual these complaints have been picked up by the press, inflated beyond all reason and put on the front pages, resulting in a week of headlines like:

  London Police Asleep on The Job (The Daily Sun)

  Crime Flourishes While Coppers Kip (The Inquirer)

  The police force’s nemesis Richard Dandy has even gone so far as to declare that the presence of the press is a greater deterrent to the London criminal fraternity than the forces of law and order.

  Greig is tempted to call him out, given that he has conspicuously failed to supply evidence of crimes that haven’t been committed.

  Be that as it may, the Superintendent is taking the complaints and the bad press seriously. Thus, the senior officers have bowed to public displeasure and decided that an unexpected morning visit to their men on the street might be a strategic move.

  The two men walk on at the steady pace known throughout the police as ‘proceeding’. Goods carts clatter by as they progress. London. It doesn’t seem beautiful to Greig. Only permanent. They proceed in silence. London is like that, he thinks, it renders you speechless.

  They pass rows of new houses, hurriedly thrown up by speculative builders to meet the growing population of the city. The houses all have the same three storey design. The top storey, the servant floor, is narrower as if the builders had run out of room in the dull London sky.

  Some of the houses still bear the name of the developer. Some are unoccupied. Small dusty children follow the two detectives, keeping their distance. Their ragged clothes and pinched little faces remind Greig of the children that hang about Covent Garden, snatching bruised fruit and sleeping in baskets or under carts.

  London. The greatest city in the world. A place where children are abandoned to fend for themselves on the streets, and babies are sold off to be neglected and deliberately starved to death. The city is shaped by the shadow that it cast.

  While awaiting developments in his investigation into the eleven (now twelve) baby murders, Greig has been looking into the backstreet practice of child minding for profit. What he has uncovered appals him. So many tiny babies kept in a state of continued sedation so that they perished from severe malnutrition.

  In the interest of research, he has ploughed through page after page of coroners’ reports all giving ‘debility from birth’ as the cause of death, when the truth is far darker, and probably contained in a bottle of Godfrey’s Cordial or some other paregoric.

  And these reports are only the tip of the iceberg. The ones whose deaths are recorded. Many other infants are probably just dropped into the river, left in a back alley, or dumped on the steps of a city church.

  Greig has seen advertisements in newspapers for childcare and confinement services. A euphemism if ever there was one. Wherever there is money to be made, there are people eager to make it, even at the expense of innocent babes.

  He regards it as deeply ironic that there are laws against mistreating animals, strict licensing laws for the numerous cow-keepers who supply the city with fresh milk, but not a single law to safeguard the lives of children.

  It is the utter waste of potential that gets to Inspector Greig. Each dead child might have grown up to be a person, to live and laugh and enjoy life. That is why he is grimly determined to catch the Halls and make a public example of them.

  As if reading his thoughts, Atherton breaks the silence and asks,

  “How’s your little matter coming along?”

  “It moves forward, albeit slowly.”

  “I was mentioning your business to some of my pals in Scotland Yard,” Atherton says. “They were of the opinion that you are wasting your time.”

  “They are entitled to their opinion.”

  “Ah, face it man, you haven’t a chance of finding two people in a city of this size. There’s millions of people and a billion places to hide. City’s built of bolt-holes. Now, I am on the brink of bringing a couple of notorious villains to justice and I could do with an extra pair of hands. What do you say?”

  “I say good luck to you. You go your way and I’ll go mine.”

  Atherton gives him a sideways glance, raising his eyebrows. Greig pretends he hasn’t seen it. He is not overfond of the fair haired, moustached, cigar smoking inspector, who has a reputation as a ladies’ man - ladies being a polite way of putting it.

  They turn a corner and spy two young constables leaning against a wall doing nothing much. Seeing their senior officers approach, both suddenly straighten up and look terrible alert.

  “All right men?” Atherton inquires.

  “Nothing to report sir,” one says.

  “Quiet as the grave,” adds the other.

  “Stay alert,” Atherton nods. “The morning is yet young.”

  “Oh, we are ready,” the first constable says. “Nothing will get past us!”

  Privately Greig doubts this. In his experience, most beat constables had an uncanny ability to develop selective deafness and temporary blindness, unless a crime was taking place directly under their noses.

  “See that it doesn’t,” he says crisply. “We do not want any more unfortunate stories in the newspapers.”

  “Ah, that was D division, sir. Not us,” the first constable says virtuously.

  “Well, as nothing criminal seems to be occurring in this doorway, maybe you should be on your way?” Greig suggests drily.

  The two stroll off at a slouching pace. Greig imagines their conversation as soon as they are out of earshot.

  Atherton touches his elbow.

  “Shall we move on? I have to meet one of my contacts.”

  That was the other thing about Atherton, Greig thought. He had numerous ‘contacts’. Most of them were female. Atherton swore that his interest was purely professional and that they, the ‘contacts’, were a useful conduit to the criminal underclass. What Mrs Atherton thought about it, nobody knew.

  He follows Atherton through an archway, down a cobbled passageway and out into the bright sunshine once more. A few more paces, another footstreet, and his companion stops at the door of a shabby public house.

  The painted sign proclaims that this is the Queen’s Head, though from the peeling paint, it is hard to make out which queen and from what country.

  “You are welcome to join us, if you wish,” Atherton says.

  Greig hesitates, then shrugs.

  “Maybe just for a short while, then”.

  Atherton pushes open the door. The two men are greeted by a nasal kaleidoscope of smells broken down into: tobacco, stale beer, and cheap perfume overlaid with animal dung: the pub has a piggery to the rear.

  Atherton glances round, then heads towards a round table where sits an attractive young lady in a low-cut dress. Greig follows him. On closer inspection, the attractive young lady is maybe not so attractive as she appeared from a distance. Nor as young. She has reddish dyed hair, a battered brown bonnet and the pale ashen complexion of a consumptive.

  “Morning Freda,” Atherton greets her. “Another gin?”

  “Oh, go on then, h’if you insists,” the not-so young lady agrees.

  She hitches her salmon satin top back up onto her bony saltcellar shoulders. There is a grease stain on the front of it.

  “Who’s yer friend?”

  “Fellow I work with. Lachlan - this is the lovely Freda Dowling.”

  Freda stares at Greig. Her blue eyes are heavily lidded and set slightly too close together, giving the impression of someone who might possibly be sixpence short of a half-crown.

  “Nice to meet you,” she says.

  Greig perches temporarily on the edge of a bentwood chair.

  “Any friend of Willyum’s is a friend of mine.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Especially a good lookin’ one like
what you are.”

  “You are too kind, madam.”

  “Madam?” Atherton places three glasses on the table. “Hear that, Freda?”

  “Very p’lite, I say,” she says, giving Greig a slightly imbecilic smile. Her lips are wet and slack, her teeth stained and uneven. One bottom tooth is missing.

  Atherton takes a long pull at his drink, then wipes his moustache with the back of his hand.

  “So, Freda, how’s tricks?”

  “Not bad.”

  She pulls a man’s gold watch out of her pocket.

  “Look what one of my gentl’men friends give me.”

  Atherton takes the watch, turns it over, then hands it to Greig who reads the inscription on the back which says: To Fred from your loving Mama. Carefully keeping his facial expression tuned to neutral, he places the watch on the table.

  “Nice watch.”

  “Another friend’s gonna change Fred to Freda. Not that I had a lovin’ Mama, but a gold watch’s a gold watch, innit?”

  “Indeed.”

  Finishing his drink, Greig signals to Atherton that he is leaving.

  “I’ll be seeing you later.”

  Atherton stands. They exchange a look over the top of the woman’s head. Greig inclines his head significantly towards the watch, pats his pocket. Atherton nods his understanding. Without saying another word or giving him a backward glance, Greig walks out into the muddy shit-smelling street.

  He had recognised the watch as soon as he saw it: it was identical to the one Fred Grizewood, the hapless young engineer, fiddled with each time they’d met. It needed only a look at the inscription to confirm his suspicions.

  Atherton was wrong: it was possible to find people in a city the size of London. You just needed a chance meeting and a lucky break.

  ****

  By no stretch of the imagination is the engineer a man who gets lucky breaks dropped into his lap. Yet here he is, in the very house inhabited by his beloved Angel. Since the revelation of her presence, he has taken to watching the coming and goings of the Lawton family from his window. He now knows that her name is Daisy, and that she laughs like a tinkling bell.