Down a Dark River, page 23
The knocking halted as I sat up to an aching head, a sour taste in my mouth, and a queasy stomach. Belinda was right about one thing. I felt rotten. With a groan, I held my throbbing head between my palms.
The knocking started up again.
For God’s sake. If Harry had forgotten his key, it was going to just about kill me to be civil.
I pushed myself to standing, eyed my wrinkled clothes, descended the stairs, and opened the door.
It was Timmy, one of the messenger boys from the Yard. His face was red, and a shine of sweat coated his forehead. “Mr. Stiles sent me,” he gasped. “Said to tell you there’s been a fourth.”
“A fourth,” I repeated stupidly.
He rounded his back, rested his hands on his knees. “Another lady in a boat.”
Darkness seemed to close in on me from the left and right. “But—but it’s Saturday.” Or was it? How long had I slept? “Isn’t it?”
He looked at me uncertainly. “Aye, it’s Saturday. But—er, Mr. Stiles wants you to come back with me to Wapping, straightaway.”
“Did Stiles mention if she’s alive or dead?”
“Oh, she’s dead.” He spoke with the certainty of having seen for himself.
My heart dropped like a stone into a well. Even given the pathetic state of my brain, the blame was easy to trace. I’d revealed the pattern to Forsyte, who’d leaked it to the press, and the killer hastened his next murder by three days.
I beckoned Timmy inside. “Then I have time to change.”
* * *
By my quick count, nine reporters crowded the vestibule where a sergeant vainly tried to keep order. Tom Flynn was one. John Fishel another. I stood outside the room, beyond Vincent’s line of sight. But I could hear everything that was said.
There were no identifying marks and no jewelry. Charlie Dower was sketching, although I was beginning to feel that knowing her identity wouldn’t help us understand why she’d been chosen.
Then someone muttered, “Her wrists are cut bad.”
The image of bloody flesh formed in my mind, and with it came a wave of heat followed by a cold sweat. I bolted toward the door, barely reaching the alley before what little I had in my stomach came out of me. My left hand clung to the rough brick, and I remained where I was, doubled over, my eyes tearing from the effort, waiting to see if there was more.
A steady hand on my back made look up to find Tom Flynn. I half expected him to mock me. But his expression was sober and concerned. “When’s the last time you ate?”
I didn’t reply.
“Come on.” He led me to a pub two streets away and pushed open the door, waving me toward a table in the corner. I sat, still tasting the bile in the back of my throat. He returned with two steaming mugs and a plate of food, and he sipped and watched as I alternated bites of potato with hot coffee.
I sensed his questions accumulating, but he waited until I set down my fork before he asked, “Why weren’t you in the room?”
I gave him a wary look.
He waved a hand. “None of this is going to end up in the Falcon.”
“Vincent isn’t pleased with me at the moment.”
“Why not?”
“You’re worried about me?” It came out more churlishly than I intended, and I forced a grin to smooth it over.
He rubbed his hand over his mouth and didn’t reply. Just watched me with those green eyes of his.
I sighed. Tom was discreet. Decent. He didn’t deserve me being surly. Especially since I’d waited too long to talk to him, and another paper had broken the story. I owed him. “Vincent told me yesterday I have all the finesse of a rabid bear barreling through a forest.” I saw Tom’s lips twitch. “Because I did something stupid. I told the third victim’s father there were two others, to convince him to let me talk to his daughter. He told the press.”
His gaze sharpened. “The Times only said the Yard had been covering up murders of well-to-do young women in London. Were the previous two found on the river as well? In boats?”
I nodded. “It’s one man.”
Tom mulled that over. “Curious how the victim’s father leaked only enough to discredit the Yard. Didn’t mention the boat.”
That was odd. Then again, in his irate state, he might not have taken in that piece of information or regarded it as important.
“His name’s Forsyte,” I said. “A doctor, retired. There’s something dodgy about him.”
He grunted. “I could inquire, discreetly.”
I shook my head. “If Vincent got wind of it, he’d guess you were asking on my behalf and … well, he’d toss me for good.”
“What if this man kills again?” Tom saw me flinch. “I could do some searching in our archives. Vincent would never know.”
Belinda’s rebuke about me not accepting help came to my ear as clearly as if she were standing in the room.
I managed a smile. “Give me a day or two, Tom. And then I may ask you to look. All right?”
He turned his mug in slow circles. As I drained mine, he said, “I understand barreling through the woods. I do it myself. But sometimes you need to make like an owl.”
“Make like an owl,” I echoed.
A rueful grin appeared and then faded. “I had an editor—brilliant man, died last year—who gave me that advice.” He circled his head with his finger. “Owls can turn their heads all the way round, did you know? And they listen when the forest gets quiet.”
“So if I stop tearing around and just perch somewhere, the answer’ll come?” I said it lightly but smiled to show that I knew he meant well.
He set his elbows on the table and rubbed at his truncated finger. “Couldn’t promise it. But for me, the final piece usually comes from someone I stopped to talk to instead of rushing past.”
“You’ve made your point.” We were silent for a minute before I added, awkwardly, “By the way, thanks for your piece. You didn’t mention Mrs. Munro was alive.”
One shoulder rose and fell. “You asked me not to.”
My indebtedness weighed heavily on me. “I feel rotten not telling you more, all right? But I will, soon as I can.”
“Yah.” He tipped his mug toward me to show there were no hard feelings. “Well, you buy my coffee next time.”
* * *
After I left Tom, I stood on Blackfriars Bridge for hours, watching the river clench and release like a muscle, until the afternoon glow faded and the haze held the golden pinpricks of light from the gas lamps along the Victoria Embankment. At last, I turned toward home. Newsboys were already shouting the headlines, printed in the bold letters that were usually reserved for railway disasters or assassination attempts on the queen. I sought a copy of the Beacon, knowing it would be the worst. The urchin who sold them was bellowing, “Murders! Murders! Read it now!”
I thrust a coin at him and stood in the middle of the pavement, tilting the front page toward a gas lamp. As usual with Fishel, there was no byline.
LONDON LADIES MURDERED, SCOTLAND YARD SHIRKING, NEW DIRECTOR FLAILING
In recent weeks there have been up to a dozen attacks on ladies in London, and Scotland Yard is once again cloaking its ineptitude!
I forced myself to read on. Naturally, Fishel made it sound as if every woman in London was in danger, that we at the Yard had made no progress despite giving priority to wealthy victims, that we were deceiving the public, and Director Vincent’s leadership was foundering. To round it off, he retold the story of the Yard detectives’ trial from last fall, as if the public might not remember.
I dropped the paper into a dustbin, and my feet found their way to Belinda’s street.
* * *
Saturday was the night she was usually at home to her friends. She had invited me, repeatedly, to attend as one of the many, but I’d always refused. I wouldn’t have been comfortable, and I knew that Thursdays were ours alone and safeguarded. That was what had mattered.
As I stood and watched from under a tree across the street, one carriage after another drew up to her door. Well-dressed people climbed the steps as the drivers pulled away, and her butler Robert invited them inside. The melody from a quartet of strings wafted out each time the door opened.
The selfish part of me wished she were unhappy enough about our quarrel to cancel her soiree. But there was a better part of me that admired her for keeping to her usual plans. She valued steadiness in character, manner, and habits, and she had told me enough about her mother that I understood why.
The last carriage deposited its passengers, and the door closed behind them.
In a wash of regret, I closed my eyes and let myself remember how it felt to bury my face in her hair, to feel so deeply entwined that the very words I used meant something different when spoken in her presence. And indeed, there might be times when I wanted to fight with her or rescue her, but that’s not all there was.
On my way home, I did not stop in at any of the dozens of pubs I passed. Perhaps it was getting through my thick skull that it was time I did some things differently.
I put the key in the door and opened it. Just as on Tuesday night, Harry was sitting by the fire. But he was alone, and this time there were several newspapers on the table.
Harry looked at me, his dark eyes wide and worried. “Do you know who she is yet?”
I shook my head. “They’ve circulated portraits. They’ll probably learn tomorrow.”
“And she was dead?” he asked softly.
I sank into a chair. “Yes.”
Worry lined his young face. “Are you getting close?”
I sighed. “Not really. We’ve no idea how these four women are connected—if they are. It doesn’t seem to be about money or love.”
“If it isn’t passion or greed, Dr. Everett says it’s fear or revenge,” said Harry.
“But fear of what? Revenge against who?” I asked reasonably. “I can’t see why he’d be afraid of these women. And what could the four of them, individually or together, have done to him?”
We were silent until the fire began to burn low.
Finally, I admitted, “I’m so tired, I can’t think about it.”
“I thought I might as well sleep here,” Harry said with manufactured nonchalance. “Mrs. Beckford isn’t saying anything new.”
Harry’s attempt at camouflaging his concern for me caught at my heart. He wanted to show he was my ally without making me feel I owed him for it. Damn, I thought. I must make it a delight for people trying to help me.
“That’s good of you,” I said. “I’d appreciate the company.”
A flash of surprise appeared in his eyes, and he gave a shy, close-mouthed smile. “Good night, then,” he said and headed off to his room.
Though I was tired, I remained by the fire, thinking. James had said Harry and I were alike, in that neither wanted to be considered a burden. Something about Harry’s kindness tonight reached deep inside me and drew me back in time.
The first few days after my mother vanished, I ran the streets, searching for her desperately. Later, as despondency and fear overwhelmed me, I took daily refuge in one of the hundreds of wretched nooks and crannies in Whitechapel, where I crouched motionless for hours, often until dusk, when someone found me. Out of kindness, my mother’s friends fed and sheltered me for weeks, or even months, perhaps. I don’t recall. Until one night when Mrs. Tell, with three children and a babe of her own, fed me supper, same as she had before, but this time I saw the way her mouth tightened minutely as I reached for a second piece of bread, and I snatched my empty hand back as if I’d been burned.
That night after all of us were in bed, I listened to her hands thumping the dough for tomorrow’s bread onto the kneading board. And I realized, suddenly, that my mother had no doubt worked after I went to sleep, trying to keep me from seeing the truth, that in Whitechapel there wasn’t nearly enough sleep and food and safety and work to go around. I was overcome by hot waves of mortification and shame that I’d been a useless burden on mothers like Mrs. Tell for so long. How could I have been so stupid and selfish?
That night I lay in the bed next to Charlie, staring at the ceiling, resolved to discover how other boys did it, how I might earn a shilling or two to pay my fair way. The next morning, I watched as Mrs. Tell divided a crust of bread into five bits. I watched as she chewed hers for a long time, not wanting to swallow it because then it would be gone. And when I left the Tells’ rooms in the morning, I decided that would be my contribution: I’d bring home some bread. But a nice loaf, big enough that each of us could have a thick slice, would cost at least half a shilling. What could I do? I went to a dozen different shops, asking if I could run errands or sweep up or do most anything, and the owners all shook their heads. And then I came to the bakery. From across the way, I watched people arrive and depart, pale golden loaves of bread poking out of sacks. I saw a boy attempt to draw a loaf out of a woman’s bag, only to have his ears boxed. That’s a warning to me, I thought. A small crowd of people entered the shop ten minutes before closing—enough people to form a distraction, and I followed them in and, brazen as could be, took one of a dozen loaves from a basket, slipped it under my shirt, and walked out. It was still warm from the oven, and when I finally arrived at the Tells’ with my offering, I was greeted with cries of surprise and excitement from Charlie, Betty, Danny, and even the baby, and a grateful “Thank ye’,” from Mrs. Tell. “How’d you come by it?”
I’d prepared my lie: “Toted some potatoes for a costermonger with a bad back.”
She eyed me sharply, but that night before I climbed in with Charlie, she pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. “You’re a good lad, Mickey.”
I understood she wasn’t only thanking me for the bread. She was thanking me for doing what I could to pay back her generosity. From then on, I knew that being weak won me a measure of tolerance, but eventually it ran out. The virtues that brought lasting appreciation were strength and certainty, decisiveness verging on brashness, and self-reliance.
Those traits had served me well until now. But given that my approach to the case had thus far yielded no good result, perhaps, as Belinda said, remembering what it was to be powerless and desperate might help me understand the man I was trying to find. The fire was down to ash when at last I rose from my chair. Upstairs, I nudged the door open to look in at Harry, sleeping, and felt a wave of tenderness, and something like sadness, too, at the way he had curled his long legs up to fit the length of the bed.
CHAPTER 37
Sunday’s church bells woke me at seven, and I would’ve sworn I was lying awake, but I must have fallen back into a doze, for suddenly there was Harry, leaning over me, his hand shaking my shoulder.
“Mr. Corravan, wake up.” His eyes were sober, his thin cheeks flushed as if he’d been running. I smelled the dampness of his woolen coat; he’d already gone out somewhere.
I sat bolt upright. “Is there another dead woman?”
“No, no,” he said hurriedly.
My heart dropped back down to somewhere near its usual location, and I squinted toward the window. Rain blurred the houses opposite. It could have been any hour of day.
“Dr. Everett wants you to come to the hospital,” Harry said.
“Is he all right?”
His eyes met mine. “He’s fine. He just told me to fetch you. I couldn’t be sure, but I think he had someone in his office.”
I grunted. “What time is it?”
“Half past ten.”
I pushed myself to standing and picked up my clothes from the hooks. “Give me a minute.”
Harry left the room, and I dressed and then dunked a flannel into the basin and ran it over my face. I examined myself in the mirror. For the first time in several days, my eyes didn’t look red-rimmed. I entered the front room and put on my coat.
“Might want your umbrella,” Harry suggested tentatively, his hand on the wooden handle.
Despite everything, a wry laugh broke out.
The pinched, hurt look that came over his face stopped me in my tracks, and I hastened to correct the misunderstanding.
“I’m not laughing at you, Harry. Honestly, I’m not.” I held out my hand for the wooden handle. “Stiles says the exact same thing to me. Tries to keep me from catching my death.”
“Oh, I see.” His expression eased to a grin of acceptance that faded shortly afterward. “I’m not sure he’s taking his own advice, though.”
“Why do you say that?” I shut the door behind us.
“It’s just that he’s been looking poorly. Last night at the hospital he insisted he wasn’t ill, but he was coughing and looked feverish to me.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I replied. “He’s a sturdy sort.”
We opened our umbrellas against the drizzle and walked in silence to the next street. As we paused at the corner, waiting for a carriage to pass, Harry spoke up: “Were you and Mrs. Gale arguing about me the other night?”
I turned. “What?”
He tipped his umbrella back, and his face looked resolute. “The night we went for dinner. I could tell you’d been quarreling. Was it about me?”
It took me a moment to remember—because that quarrel with Belinda wasn’t the one uppermost in my mind. “No, Harry. It was something else.”
“Oh.” The flat monosyllable held disbelief.
“She wanted me to tell her about this case, and …” My voice dwindled.
“You didn’t want to tell her?” His tone was curious.
“No. Not because I don’t trust her,” I added. “I just tend to keep things to myself until I have at least an idea of a solution.” A dozen steps on, I added, “As she recently pointed out, I don’t like admitting my failures, even to her.”
He gave me a measuring look.
“It had nothing to do with you,” I assured him.
“All right.”
We walked on, while I mulled over the fact that misunderstandings occur all the time, and I probably don’t know half of them. At least Harry had the decency to ask.
