“That is all? A few heartbeats?” I could not fathom the insult to the body the victim would have had to receive in order for such a horrendous thing to have transpired.
“Yes,” Yates said, succinctly.
We all stared at the bodies again and said nothing.
If this was Eliza May, then this was only the beginning. And I could not believe it wasn’t my murderess wife who orchestrated such a heinous thing.
I looked toward Inspector Elliott. Why was he here? Following Eliza May or assisting her? Why would a Whitechapel police inspector chase down a suspect to the Antipodes?
Why would Reid send him? Did he send him?
And was my wife the suspect or was I? Was Anna?
The letter I wore against my heart, much the same as a previous letter had been worn in London, burned a hole in my pocket. A hole that matched the ragged hole in the victims’ chests.
This was a far more dangerous thing than a simple murder.
She was playing with us. Breadcrumbs, Elliott had said. Little pets, my wife had called them.
No. I could not trust the man before me. And I could not trust the man I had leaned on for several years here in my chosen haven.
The only person I could trust was Anna.
But to go to her was to bring more of this blood to her doorstep. She would face it; if anyone could wear scarlet and wear it well, it was Anna Cassidy.
I closed my eyes. Took in a deep breath.
No. For now, I was on my own. I would chase down this ghost, and I would end the torment forever.
And I would condemn my soul because of it.
What Has Happened?
Anna
I walked into the hall and tried to hide how being there made me feel. There had been a time when I attended these meetings with Wilhelmina and Helen beside me.
Helen was dead. Killed by the illegitimate daughter of Jack the Ripper.
And Mina was lost to a world of addiction, sent there by Eliza May Kelly’s protégé.
A shudder ran through me. My gloved hands twisted the parasol I carried between them. I searched the room for a friend or a foe; I could not tell which. And swallowed down the sense of loneliness I was feeling.
A suffragette meeting was not the place to feel so solitary.
“Dr Cassidy,” a woman’s voice called from beside the large table set up in the centre of the room. “Over here!” An enthusiastic hand waved in my direction.
I plastered on a smile and straightened my back, then walked across the floor towards Maisey Kendrick and Louise Goodwin. The two members of our subsection of the Auckland Women’s Christian Temperance Union greeted me with warm smiles. If they noticed Mina’s absence, they did not comment.
And no one spoke of Ethel Poynton and the suffragettes she’d killed in the name of her dead father.
Beside them stood Elizabeth Yates, the sister-in-law to the surgeon who currently stood in the office I wished to claim. Mrs Yates wore a full-skirted black dress with leg o’mutton sleeves and a striking brooch at her high collar. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, grey-streaked the dark tresses.
She turned as I approached and said, “We were not certain if you would attend today’s meeting, Dr Cassidy.”
What news had travelled here?
“I have nowhere else I would rather be, Mrs Yates,” I replied pleasantly.
“Anna has always maintained a solid attendance record at these meetings,” Maisey said.
“Oh, yes. If it weren’t for Anna, we might never have found our place in the larger WCTU community,” Louise added.
“Indeed,” Mrs Yates replied. “Dr Cassidy,” she added, “may I have a word?”
She walked away from the table, which on closer inspection, bore the fruits of my fellow suffragettes’ labours. Flyers and brochures, placards and news-sheet advertisements, shouting to the world - or, at least, to New Zealand - Votes for women! Women have your say! A fearless indomitable womanhood! A fearless indomitable race!
Mrs Yates came to rest in the shadow of the stage; the heavy curtains pulled tightly shut across the grand space. She turned to look at me, worry etched on her face.
“I have caught wind of the murders,” she said quietly. “A body was found in your house.”
There was no question in her statement, so I did not offer an answer.
“Is all well with your household, Dr Cassidy?” she finally asked, filling the silence that had blossomed between us.
“Quite well; I thank you,” I replied.
She studied me for a moment and then came to some sort of decision. Head bowed, voice low so as not to carry, she said, “Michael’s brother, Barclay, he examined the bodies on request of the police.”
“I had heard Dr Yates was standing in for Dr Drummond.”
“Drummond has returned and tossed poor Barclay out on his heels. It was with much disgruntlement that he returned to us late last night to impart his side of the story.”
I barely contained my eager interest in all things John Drummond. The more I knew of the man, the better armed I would be to fight him for his position.
“How unfortunate,” I said. “Is Dr Yates quite well?”
“He was fuming; I’ll not lie.” She shook her head. “’Twas not the nature of the position that inspired him, you must understand.” I nodded. Not many would publicly announce their fondness for dissecting dead bodies. “But rather, I should say, his involvement in solving a crime.”
“Of course,” I murmured.
“It is quite the thing, is it not? What the bobbies and inspectors do?”
“Quite.” She was prevaricating. “Your husband’s brother,” I said. “Did he mention his findings?”
“His findings?” Her hand came up to her breast, and she paled. “I dare say he did not.” She leaned in again. “But I will tell you this, Dr Cassidy, for it surely is of some consequence to you. And I would not have you caught unawares due to society’s belief that we should never speak of such things.”
“What things, Mrs Yates?”
“They found your tools of the trade at the scene.” She watched me, perhaps expecting my face to show shock.
I was fairly certain it showed only disappointment.
“And Dr Drummond is back, you say?”
“Oh, now that is something Barclay was quite vocal on. Men,” she shook her head again. “They do so rage.”
I offered her a small smile.
She reached out and touched my arm.
“Doctor,” she said, her face grave now, “our franchise is mere months away from success. We have garnered Wellington’s attention. The lion is being forced from his den. He cannot withhold any longer. It is ours for the taking.”
I sensed a caveat in there.
“We must lead by example now and tread with much care,” Mrs Yates added. “Our previous branch leader has unfortunately brought us the wrong type of fame. Mrs Poynton’s exploits may have shone a light on our efforts, but for all the wrong reasons, I fear. Surely you see this, too, do you not?”
I did, but I also saw where this conversation was going.
“You have my word; I have every intention of lifting us over that final hurdle. Of securing for us the franchise, you yourself have fought so hard for all these years. You have done your part, dear Doctor. You have toiled beside us. And I am grateful. However, from here it is not wise for you to tarry. We cannot afford a crack in our armour. And you are, my dear Doctor, a crack waiting to split us asunder.”
I stood before her, swaying. As if every agonised breath in punched me hard enough in the stomach to cause me unmentionable pain. My ears buzzed. My throat felt parched. My eyes scanned the hall, searching for an ally.
Mina was at home.
Helen was dead.
I knew some of these women. I knew some of them quite well. But none would stand for me as Helen or Mina would have. I looked back at the woman before me; who had taken on the reins of our franchise in Auckland City. Who had st
epped out from the shadow of her councillor husband and in doing so had found a place in the world of, until now, male-dominated politics.
Elizabeth Yates was said to be the first woman nominated for the position of mayor; in her hometown of Onehunga.
She was a good woman. A solid woman. A woman with a head on her shoulders and the will to take on the men she would be surrounded with in due course. I did not envy her the role she would have to play. And yet I respected her so very much.
Elizabeth Yates had done what I had not been able to achieve in my own chosen profession to date.
“I am sorry,” she said and I was quite sure she meant it. “Ours is not an easy row to hoe.”
I nodded.
“You are much admired, Doctor. By myself. By my brother-in-law. Much admired.” She was silent for a moment, and then she moved up to my side and looked at me. “This too shall pass, Anna Cassidy,” she whispered. “This too shall pass.”
And then she walked back toward the waiting suffragettes, her boots clipping on the hardwood floor of the hall, the sound echoing up into the rafters, banging against the inside of my skull. My heart thudded painfully.
I did not glance back. I did not take a moment to look upon the faces of the women, my sisters, who had marched with me, who had fought with me. Maisey and Louise, the ghosts of Margaret, Mary and Helen. So many strong women. So many deserving women.
And I was not to be amongst them.
We were close. So close. The end was in sight. But I would not climb that final hurdle with my fellow suffragettes. I would not be at their sides. I had battles of my own to wage.
I walked out into the cool night and stood for a long time on the steps of the hall. I could hear gay music playing in a dance hall off to the right. Laughter and shouts off to the left at a public tavern. A dog barked in the distance. Stars shone brightly. A curricle strolled past, the bay shaking its head and whinnying.
I could hardly breathe. Tears stung my face. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do, where to go, how to proceed. I’d fought so hard for this for so long now; it was almost all I knew. I had no idea now how to behave.
I reached up a shaking hand and swiped angrily at the frozen tears on my cheeks, then gripped my parasol tightly, lifted my chin and began to walk. I had no real destination in mind, and part of me thought I’d end up at the police surgery. I’d have it out with Drummond, and one of us would emerge the victor, and the other would cease to exist; finally.
And although I had fled to the police station on many a long night after my mother’s death, it was to the arms of my father and the familiarity of his surgery that I fled. The station had been a second home because of Papa, but that had ceased to be a reality when he had been murdered.
I found myself in Albert Park, starring at the cast iron dolphins in the fountain where Helen had lain. The water had been stained red on that occasion, whereas in the dim light of the park’s lamps now, it looked clear.
My heart ached.
Mina needed me; I should have gone straight home and tended to my cousin; taken over the watch from Mrs Hardwick. And yet my feet had brought me here to the place where Helen had fought and lost.
Dear Father, I prayed silently. Let me have the strength to fight this. Let me not go the way of Mary and Margaret and Helen, and I fear Wilhelmina will one day. Let me fight and win for them; Please, God, let me fight and win.
A horse snorted on the other side of the fountain. The darkness of the eve set in and I shivered. Before I could see the rider and his mount, I pulled my cloak tightly around me and walked away. But rather than exit the park, I walked deeper into it.
I could not put into words what pulled me to his doorstep, but I knew I could no further fight it and win than I could fight Mrs Yates this evening; than I could fight society any other day.
I was tired. Exhausted. I was beaten and bruised. Everything ached.
A solitary lamp beckoned on the stoop of the old police barracks. The hulking shapes of its brothers and sisters sat beside and behind it, but this one barracks building sent out a welcoming glow that drew me closer and closer when I was certain the inspector was trying to scare people away.
Why he still chose to live here, I didn’t know. But he was home, and that’s all that mattered.
I knocked on the brass plaque that gave this building a name, clutching my parasol to me. I was not aware of how I looked or what Andrew would face when he opened the door to me. I did not care. I was hollow and empty. I was a shell that was a moment away from cracking.
Just as Mrs Yates had predicted, but in such a different way.
The door opened, and he stood there for a long moment, staring down at me. He said nothing. I said nothing. And then with a swift glance over my shoulder, he held the door open wider in invitation, and I walked in.
To anyone watching, it would have looked like a late-night liaison.
Perhaps, to Andrew, it did too, but he did not turn me away.
I crossed the large space to the fire and warmed my frozen fingers. I could smell the stew he’d had for supper. I could see the steam rising from his tea where it sat forgotten now beside the reading chair. His bed lay in the darkened portion of the room, which was perhaps for the better. But hanging on the wall beside the fire were his clippings and notes and photographs of the Jack the Ripper case.
I would have thought he would have taken them down by now. The investigation had been solved. We knew who Jack was now, as we knew who his bastard daughter had been.
But that was not all that we knew of Jack the Ripper. We also knew that Andrew’s wife, Eliza May, was somehow tied up in that horrendous series of crimes. So, the wall, in a way, made sense.
Andrew was trying to outsmart his wife.
I crossed to the board and studied the new additions. The autopsy from Dr Yates was there; I gave it a quick perusal, but it did not have anything new to say. I moved on to the letter he’d received from his wife, which had lured him to London and into her web again. Two of the letters I had received were beside it as well, one of them written by Emily Tempest and not Eliza May. I noted the court transcript from Emily’s trial. The newspaper clippings denouncing Lord Londonderry. The medical reports of the orphan mine slaves.
It was all there. Every single piece of evidence that had been brought to light during Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror and Emily Tempest’s hour of ignominious glory. And now, as I returned my attention to the autopsy Yates had performed, it had come our way.
A pressed flower was pinned to the corner of the board. Nightshade. Eliza May’s motif along with a hand-drawn image of a nightingale.
What motif would she use in New Zealand? The kiwi? The kaka? A kowhai petal?
I stiffened my spine and turned to face him.
Andrew stood several feet away, waiting.
“What has happened?” he asked.
I sucked in a breath of air and was mortified to feel a tear slip down my face.
“Anna,” he murmured and took the necessary steps to reach me. “Darling,” he whispered into my hair. “You’re home. You’re safe.”
Told You It’d Be Fun
Anna
Home is Andrew Kelly, I realised. Home was not necessarily a place. The Auckland Police Station had felt like a home to me, but only so long as my father had worked there. The house on Franklin Street was a home, but only because of my cousin Mina and perhaps Mrs Hardwick. Take them away from the equation, and it was more a place of work. My father’s surgery which had become mine upon his death.
But standing here, in the arms of the man I loved, in the sparseness of the old army barracks, I felt well and truly home.
I held him back. He gripped me tighter; murmured soft words into my hair. I could not hear them. He spoke too low for meaning to be discerned, but the tone of his voice was a welcomed blanket. His touch comforted in ways I had not thought possible. His hand stroked my hair. His heat washed my frame.
I loved this man. And he lo
ved me.
Life could be a cruel mistress. Because he was still not truly mine. It would have been so easy to give in to what we felt. To take that final step and surrender. But that was not Andrew Kelly, and I did not want that woman to be me.
I savoured his nearness for a moment longer, and then I stepped away.
Andrew’s hands hovered for a second between us, and then he fisted them, and finally lowered them. He stood before me a man torn in two. For a brief moment in time, I contemplated what it was I was doing to him.
This was why he’d stayed away.
We could not be friends, Andrew and I. We were beyond friendship. But by maintaining a relationship with him, any sort of relationship with him, I was hurting him. Destroying him. Piece by piece, I was tearing this man apart.
Auckland had been my home for longer than it had been his. But my father was dead, and Mina was ill, I was no longer wanted at the WCTU, perhaps it was time…
“What has happened?” Andrew asked, repeating his earlier question.
I took a breath and pushed all superfluous emotions and thoughts away. I would see this case to fruition, I would see his wife in gaol, and then when a conclusion of sorts had been reached, I’d pack our belongings, and take Mina and myself far away.
“My apologies,” I murmured. “I received a shock this evening and I…was not of sound mind in coming here.”
“Anna.”
“It appears news of my implication in the murders has spread and I am to step down from my part in the movement.”
“The suffrage movement?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Anna.”
I turned away and studied the board.
“What have you discovered?” I asked.
He said nothing for a drawn-out moment, and then he stepped up to my side, maintaining a suitable distance between us, and lifted the autopsy report from the board.
“Yates did a thorough job of the post-mortem,” he said. “We’re looking for an implement specifically designed to crack the ribs, spread them, and allow access to the heart within its chamber in a matter of seconds. He suspects it will be quite large and therefore difficult to hide. We’re looking into blacksmiths in the city. Someone made it for her.”
Heartless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 3): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series Page 4