“I had tea with Mrs Yates of Onehunga yesterday,” I said.
“A woman did not do this,” Elliott said.
“No,” I agreed, shaking my head. “Her husband’s brother was there.”
“Barclay Yates,” Andrew said. “Are you sure, Anna?”
I nodded. “We discussed…my position within the Police Force.”
“You do not have a position within the Police Force,” Elliott countered.
I scowled at the man and gave my attention to Andrew only. He may have thought the same as Elliott, but he would never have said as much to my face.
“Chief Davies’ name came up as Chief Constable of the Watch,” I told him.
“The officer responsible for seeing you from the premises,” Andrew surmised.
“Yes,” I murmured.
“Did Dr Yates seem overly taken with the Chief?” Andrew asked.
“Terribly so. He had every intention of sharing his misgivings with his dinner companions that night.” I could not bring myself to mention Drummond and his new wife.
“Who were his dinner companions?” Elliott asked, ruining any chance I had of prevaricating.
“Dr Drummond and his wife,” I said in as level a voice as I could manage.
“Could Drummond…?” Elliott began.
“No,” both Andrew and I said. I did not like the man, but he was no killer. John Drummond was a drunken bully. However, I thought rather glumly, the label of drunkard no longer fit. The man had taken lengths to improve his standing.
I considered for a moment if, in fact, he could have been the killer. My eyes met Andrew’s. I could see him debating the same thing.
We both said nothing, however. For now, Barclay Yates was as good a place to start as any.
“Yates is likely to be here,” he said, looking back toward the racecourse proper. He straightened himself up as if he’d come to a decision. “I’ll assess the scene and then find him for questioning.”
“I should like to assist you,” Elliott offered.
Andrew looked at me. “You have other responsibilities.”
“I am quite able to care for myself, sirs,” I offered.
“No, he is right,” Elliott said. “Dr Cassidy, perhaps a train back to Newmarket?”
“I am not leaving,” I argued. “I am the only physician here.”
“Aside from Yates,” Elliott muttered.
Andrew scowled at Elliott and then said, “I may have further need of Dr Cassidy’s assistance.”
“You only wish to thwart my suit,” Elliott snapped.
“A suit that is a ruse, sir,” Andrew snapped back. “Or had you forgotten?”
“Your continued presence when I am courting the doctor reminds me constantly.”
“You seem to need the reminder.”
“Gentlemen,” I said, stepping between them lest they resort to fisticuffs. “We are too public for this conversation. Have a care.”
Elliott straightened the sleeves of his jacket and stretched his neck. His movements seemed stiff and full of aggression. Andrew looked fit to throw a punch. I thought perhaps he’d land one. Elliott was far too disconcerted to have offered much of a challenge.
“I shall instruct the bobbies to search for the device, then,” Inspector Elliott finally offered.
“You do that,” Andrew growled, and then placed a hand on my back and directed me toward the side of the station building.
I allowed him this small concession, for his touch, even light as it was and through layers of clothing, was greatly received. I hungered for Andrew Kelly’s touch.
“You do not have to approach the body,” he murmured as we stepped out of sight of the onlookers.
“Nonsense,” I replied. “This is what I do.”
“And do so well,” he offered.
We came to rest a few feet away from where Chief Davies’ cadaver lay partly hidden. The scent of blood and the beginnings of decay were stronger as the day heated. From where we stood, we could not see the Chief’s face. Nor could the cavity in his chest be determined. But the puncture marks were on display.
“Not enough blood for exsanguination,” Andrew said.
“No. The removal of the heart killed him.”
“They mean something,” he said.
“The punctures?” I remembered the young men’s discussion on the Newmarket Platform. I did not wish to raise such a ridiculous notion, but every stone must be turned in a murder enquiry. “There is talk of vampires on the street,” I said.
Andrew turned to look down at me. He wore an expression I had not often witnessed when directed at me. One of bemusement and incredulity.
Well, I had not seen it for quite some time now at least.
“I know,” I said, agreeing with him. “It is nonsense. However, it does make one wonder if the murderer has read the penny dreadfuls.”
“Varney the Vampire?” Andrew enquired, his lips fighting a twitch. “I cannot see Dr Yates reading such.”
“Would the Bohemians have?” I asked.
“Rymer and Prest set those tales in many locations, perhaps Bohemia was one of them,” he acquiesced, but then he shook his head. “This all connects, I’ll grant you. But does it connect to Barclay Yates?”
“He is well travelled, according to Elizabeth. She made mention of European Counts. He may well have uncovered a vampire tale on his visits with them.”
“Mrs Yates told you this?”
“Indeed. She was apologising for Dr Yates’ unreasonable enthusiasm over tea.”
“Unreasonable enthusiasm,” Andrew repeated. He ran a hand over his mouth and jaw as if imminently exhausted. “Please tell me, Anna, he did not ask to court you too.”
I blinked up at the man.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
“It seems to me,” he said, stepping closer to Davies’ body, “that I turn my back for a mere moment and someone new swoops in to capture you in my absence.”
“I am not prey to be caught, sir!”
“No,” he said, bending down to study the Chief’s injuries. “You are a treasure to covet.”
“Like a dragon with its hoard of gold?” I demanded.
“Something equally as fantastical,” Andrew murmured and then crouched down.
It would have caused unimaginable pain in his thigh, not to mention the upset it would have caused to his recent injuries, but he managed the move without so much as a grimace or breath of sound. Focused as he was on the crime scene, I said nothing. For Andrew Kelly at work was a sight to behold and one I had every intention of enjoying.
“His fist connected,” Andrew said. “The skin is split and looks recent.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“You did not notice any other evidence that would account for the placement of injuries on the killer?”
“None I could determine in this light.”
“I’ll have lamps brought in.”
“I fear there is nothing more to see,” I offered.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I wonder if he knew his killer. Or was he called to this deserted corner by a sound?”
“A trap.”
“Indeed. The killer lured him here.”
“Directly from the station itself.”
“At a guess. I will have the constables enquire with the station master and any who may have been about at the time. Chief Davies would have arrived on the first train. I believe they run an early service on race days for those who need to be here for the horses and such.”
“The killer may have been on the train. Saw the Chief and then acted.”
“This was premeditated,” Andrew announced. “The device alone indicates thought required to hide it.”
“It was waiting in the alley already, perhaps?”
Andrew looked over his shoulder at me and arched a brow. “That would make the journey here easier,” he said. “But the killer’s escape?”
“It would have been dark.”
�
�He didn’t go by train.”
“On foot to the racecourse?”
“Too many people about, even if only stablehands and jockeys.”
“Three hours past,” I said as my mind tried to connect the clues before us. “He could have removed the device and returned. Even now, if Barclay Yates is at the racecourse with the family’s horses, he may still be our man.”
“Even now,” Andrew agreed and stood up.
I liked this. I liked this exchange of information and thought. Andrew had not always been as free with his assessment of a crime scene. He had not often discussed his conclusions lest I be encouraged further to interfere in a case. He had never accused me of such, but I knew his frustrations. His hands were tied. Drummond was the Chief Surgeon.
I had only ever been Thomas Cassidy’s daughter; a finely trained physician, but one who held no position within the Police Force.
I could get entirely too used to this collaboration. To working with the man so closely.
I frowned. “Where is Sergeant Blackmore?”
Andrew grimaced as if the thought of Blackie hurt him more than his injuries did.
“He has been reassigned,” he announced.
“Reassigned?” My thoughts immediately went to Mina. “Where to?”
“Onehunga, in point of fact. Perhaps a fortuitous decision. He can be our man on the ground at Yates’ homestead.”
“You sent him away,” I whispered.
“What was that?” he enquired as if he hadn’t heard me.
“You sent him away,” I accused.
“Anna,” he said. “The letter…”
“..is fabricated and this is exactly what she wants.”
“This,” he said, voice raised, hand outstretched behind him towards Chief Davies’ body, “is what she wants. Mayhem and distraction. Disorder and confusion. Death.”
“And is not the sergeant’s questionable honour a distraction? A means of creating mayhem and disorder? Without him, you are half of what you had once been.”
“Half a man?” he enquired, voice deathly quiet.
“You would think such of me?” I demanded. “Andrew. I am yours. Completely. I would never…”
He stepped forward and wrapped a hand around the side of my neck, his palm so large it cupped my cheek.
“Hush,” he murmured. “I am out of sorts. I apologise.”
“This,” I said, equally as softly, “is what she wants.”
He closed his eyes.
“How am I to combat her?” he whispered. “How am I to battle a ghost?”
“Find the murderer, and we shall find Eliza May.”
His eyes snapped open again, and he stared down into my face. A storm brewed in his gaze; such a dark blue; so turbulent.
"I wish death on my wife. What does that make me?”
“I wish the same,” I confessed. “And I am a doctor. Sworn to do no harm. What does that make me, Andrew Kelly?”
“My love,” he whispered. “My equal.”
“A fine pair we make.”
He attempted to smile, but there was little here to be happy with.
“It shall not come to that,” he declared. “We do our jobs, and the law does the rest.”
“The hangman’s noose,” I said.
“God willing.”
“Is not wishing it the same? Bringing about her downfall equally as condemning?”
He turned us to face Chief Davies.
“Four deaths,” he said. “Here only four. In London so many. Europe. Asia. The New World. I chased her across the world’s continents, Anna. I followed her trail, and it was thick with blood. If we do not end this, are we not failing? Should our guilt not be for that?”
And not this. Not wishing for her capture and hanging.
I nodded my head, unease an evermore constant companion.
“I do not like what she makes us,” I said.
He said nothing. His silence an agreement. The lack of words only a favour to my conscience.
Saying it aloud made it real. Eliza May was changing us. Would we even be the same people who had fallen in love when this was done, and the dust had settled?
I thought not. Already Andrew tested the limits of his morals. His touch as familiar as if we were indeed wed.
And I dreamed of Eliza May Kelly’s downfall. Of her death.
For once, I was pleased my father was no longer here. How disappointed he would be in me.
How disappointed I was in myself.
Where Was Eliza May Kelly?
Anna
The crowd swelled forward as the horses rounded the last bend of the track. Dust flew up behind them as the sound of their hooves thundered across the earth. The jockeys bent their heads, arms flapping like a frightened bird as they urged their mounts onward. A roar sounded out from the audience, growing evermore louder. A wave of sound and heat and excitement pushed against my temples. All eyes peered at the spectacle before them. No one watched as Andrew and I walked along the rear of the stands, and tried to spot a familiar face amongst the fervour.
My palms felt damp inside my gloves. Tendrils of hair stuck to the back of my neck. It was warm, and the air was thick, but that was not what had my heart thundering as quickly as the horses’ hooves did. At any moment I expected Andrew to sound the alarm; to spot his murderess wife; to bring about the confrontation I had been dreading for more than a year now.
But the longer we watched and searched for Dr Yates, and by extension Andrew’s wife, the less likely it was she would be here or even recognisable. I had not met the woman, only her ‘little pets’ and yet I had the feeling she was a chameleon; capable of such ruse and misdirection that she could be standing in front of me and all I would see is the fantasy she created.
She was like a ghost as Andrew had said. An evil spectre who played with human lives and discarded them just as capriciously. But we had no proof that she was actually behind these murders, other than a letter that spoke of mischief and mayhem in the Antipodes.
What fun I shall have in Auckland City, moving my chess pieces, placing them where they will benefit from my direction most surely.
Intent to be sure, but evidence of her hand in these crimes?
I thought not. And yet, we were all so sure these misdeeds were Eliza May Kelly’s. Inspector Elliott from Leman Street Station had even followed Andrew here with the sole purpose of closing the Ripper case once and for all. Another of Eliza May’s little mysteries.
And now, surrounded by the jubilant cries of an excitable crowd at the races, with four deaths accounted for on our streets, I could not be certain. The harder it was to find the woman, the harder it was to believe she had taken the time to come here to New Zealand.
My eyes scanned the crowd before me and then settled on the clutter at our feet. Strips of paper and ticket stubs adorned the ground, trampled into the dirt beneath the soles of too many boots. Newspapers and flyers, advertisements and posters. So much already forgotten and the race was only now coming to its fruition. Once the crowd dispersed, the stadium would be a mess.
My gaze landed on one fly-sheet in particular. The words were distorted for a second as my eyes adjusted. I bent down and picked the thin strip of paper up and peered at the printing upon it.
BELIEVE IN VAMPIRES.
Aucklanders who are sure they exist.
Instances told of where the living have been attacked and preyed upon by these representatives of an unseen world.
The last line caught my undivided attention, as the crowd swelled with anticipation and cheers of delight rang out all around me.
Authorised by Dr Barclay Yates of Onehunga.
My gloved fingers felt numb as they tightened on the newsprint paper. The crowd had quietened some, indicating the race was finally over. Andrew had said nothing at my side, surveying the throng with the sole purpose of locating his quarry. Whether that was Dr Yates or Andrew’s wife, I did not know.
I turned toward him as he turned toward me; word
s on his lips which he failed to utter upon one look at my face and the emotions that surely must have been written there for all to see. I handed him the fly-sheet. His eyes scanned the type, and his lips thinned.
“He has been here,” he said.
“Or one of his lackeys has,” I offered.
“You believe he has such?”
“He had the Bohemians.”
“Indeed. Come,” he said, pocketing the flyer and offering me his arm.
I slipped my hand into place and took my position at his side, wishing that the closeness we showed the world was not for propriety’s sake but for our own. I felt strung taut, a piece of twine near breaking. Eliza May was close, even if my subconscious told me this was all another of her ruses and when the murderer was found, Eliza May would be in the wind. No sign of her ever having been here as we chased our tails and the breadcrumbs she left for us to follow.
It was not until that moment that I realised how insidious the woman actually was.
We pushed through the maddening crowd, shoulders and elbows knocking, gentlemen tipping their hats, ladies twirling their parasols, and came out on the side of the stands nearest the stables. The smell of horse manure and freshly turned hay met our noses, the flash of colours swirled before our eyes as saddles were removed and horse blankets stowed. Shouts rang out. Congratulations and commiserations were given. The sweat and harsh breaths of the beasts sounded loud in my ears as we passed by them.
Michael Yates stood beside the jockey who had ridden their steed in the race. A stablehand was already tending to the horse, long brush strokes down its flank. Andrew stepped forward, garnering Mr Yates’ attention. The man in question patted the jockey on the shoulder, said something about “Next time” and turned to face us.
“Inspector Kelly,” he said, immediately recognising Andrew. He didn’t so much as spare me a glance, for which I was unusually thankful. I used the opportunity to assess the man. He was tall like his brother but lacked the breadth of shoulders that Barclay did. Far leaner and narrower of features, I hazarded a guess that Michael Yates had been atop a horse or two since birth.
Heartless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 3): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series Page 17