Down a Dark River, page 24
“Mrs. Beckford is better, you know,” he broke into my thoughts. “She’s still not talking much, mostly just nods or shakes her head. But at night, she doesn’t thrash about. She sleeps like a normal person.”
“James told me you heard her say the name ‘Rachel.’”
He nodded. “Clear as anything. Before that, she said the same words three nights running. A table and a knife, a fire and a red stone. The way she said it made me think it was something she’d memorized, like a poem.” He frowned. “But it’s not in any poem I know. And it’s not in ‘The Lady of Shalott’ either. I looked.”
“What about Pierre?”
He looked puzzled.
“James said that she spoke his name, early on.”
His eyes lit with comprehension. “Oh, I don’t think it’s a man’s name. Pierre means ‘stone’ in French. She always says une rouge pierre. ‘A red stone.’”
“Ah.” I paused. “Speaking of the poem, Stiles told me Madeline once said something about ‘a lane,’ and he figured she meant one of the lanes near her house. But I was wondering if she might have said ‘Elaine.’ What do you think?”
He frowned. “Perhaps. But I’ve never heard her say it.”
“Hmph. Well, I’m glad she seems better.” We neared the hospital gates, greeted Owen, and entered the courtyard. “I could buy you dinner tonight, after you’re finished here.”
“Oh—you don’t have to.”
I sighed. “Harry, I’m sorry I haven’t been particularly welcoming.” He gave a wry sideways look, which I deserved. “But you arrived a day after this case began. Every week a woman dies, and I’m damn frustrated. But I’m not frustrated with you.” I rested a hand on the doorknob but waited to turn it. “Can you see that?”
He gave a few nods, a boy’s awkward attempt at grace. “Yes.” But a smile brought warmth to his eyes, and as I opened the door and we parted in the foyer, I felt a sense of relief. It might be the only thing I’d do right today, but at least I’d done one.
* * *
When I entered James’s office he was standing beside his desk, talking to a woman dressed in a maid’s gray dress and a drab bonnet. With the light coming in from outside, I saw them both in profile.
Only when they turned toward me did I realize the woman was Belinda in disguise.
I halted in mid-stride, stopped by twin waves of surprise and shame. It’s a wretched thing to face the woman you love after behaving like a drunken ass. But at least she was here. I felt as if I’d slipped my hand into a pocket and found an unexpected pound sterling.
“Good afternoon, Michael.” Belinda’s face was calm, her voice restrained.
James’s gaze flashed between us.
I avoided his questioning stare and asked Belinda, “What’s the matter?”
James handed me an envelope, and Belinda said, “It was under my door this morning.”
The envelope was cheap, the kind a shopkeeper might use to store receipts, and the front held only her name, in jagged letters, as if someone had drawn them with his off hand. I opened the flap and pulled out the single sheet of paper:
Mrs. Gale
Tell your inspector to stop looking into the murders of the ladys in the boats. If he don’t, you’ll come to harm, and I spect he loves you. I don’t want a do it, but I will, same as I done to the others. Jist tell him to wait. He’ll find out later what it’s about.
A painful tingling swept from the crown of my head down my arms and into my hands.
James said, “It must be the murderer. His tone seems earnest.”
But I barely heard him. I looked at Belinda, imagined this man doing to her what he’d done to the others and felt fear vining rapidly around my heart and constricting my lungs.
I heard her voice, as if from far away: “Michael. Stop it. Stop it! I’m fine.” My eyes refocused on her face. Though her expression was anxious, her voice was determinedly practical. “Nothing’s happened.”
“You need to get out of London,” I said.
“No,” she said. “But as I already told James, I’ll go to Catherine’s.”
I didn’t want her at her sister’s. “I want you out of London.”
Her chin tilted up stubbornly. “I have commitments here.”
James gave a cough. “We were just discussing how this man might’ve discovered your friendship.” He paused. “Once the newspaper named you as the inspector on the case, he’d be able to locate you easily enough.”
“But that doesn’t explain how he connected me with Belinda,” I objected.
James raised an eyebrow. “I assume he followed you to her house.”
Before I could say a word, she said, “Michael hasn’t been to visit me since Thursday before last.”
One of my knees suddenly buckled. “That’s not true,” I said hollowly. “I went to your house last night. Watched people go in.”
She appeared disconcerted, and I turned away to see James’s eyebrows forming two semicircles over his spectacles. “Who else knows about your—connection?”
“Hardly anyone,” Belinda replied. “A few of my most trusted friends.”
“And Harry,” I said slowly. “But I can’t imagine how this man would have found him.”
“Where is he now?” Belinda asked.
“Here at the hospital.” A shiver ran over me at the thought that Harry had spent last night with me. What if the murderer had been watching my flat? He’d know who Harry was—could follow him from my door—threaten him—
Suddenly my mind jumped to two nights before when Belinda had left. “Friday night,” I said. “You came to my house. What if he followed you home?”
Belinda caught her breath. “He wouldn’t even need to do that, Michael. You spoke my address several times to the driver.”
“But you’d notice someone hanging about,” James said to me.
Not in the state I was in. My eyes met Belinda’s, and she said, “The street was dark.”
I closed my eyes, and in my mind I watched her carriage pulling away, this monster shadowing her. I supposed I should be grateful he didn’t hurt her then and there, but all I felt was a growing rage so wild that I opened my eyes to get away from it.
Belinda was watching me, her expression soft.
“Please don’t go home,” I said quietly. “Not even to collect your things.”
“I’ll go straight to Catherine’s until this is over.”
“I’m sorry, Bel. I swear—”
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I’ll manage.”
There were a dozen things I would have said if we were alone.
“The one good thing to come of this,” Belinda said, “is you may have learned something important about this man.”
James assented. “His handwriting and education, unless he intended to deceive.”
“Or he must have an accomplice,” I replied, “to write the messages that lured the women away.”
“Well, yes,” Belinda allowed. “But I wonder if it isn’t really the women he wants to hurt at all.” Her eyes, large and thoughtful, shifted to James and back to me. “Perhaps he wants to hurt the men. Killing the women they love injures them worse, and for longer.”
The truth of it hit me like an uppercut to my chin.
James recovered more quickly, nodding as if it was an obvious truth. Which it was. Of course. Otherwise the murderer would’ve sent the threatening letter to me. If Belinda was the same as “the others,” and if the logic of the letter extended to the four women, at least three of them had men who loved them dearly.
Dear God, we’d been thinking about these murders all wrong.
“The connection isn’t among the women.” My voice sounded breathless and peculiar. “It’s among their husbands and fiancés.”
“What do the men have in common?” Belinda asked.
“Thurgood is an architect. One of Jane Dorstone’s former suitors is at university, and the other works at a bank here in the city.” I recalled each in turn. “Munro is a civil engineer, working on sanitation projects on the Thames, so there could be a connection to Thurgood, and to the river.”
“He’s not giving them a warning first,” Belinda interposed, nodding to the letter still in James’s hand. “The way he did for me.”
“But I’m not one of his original targets,” I said. “I’m only an incidental obstacle.”
James was studying the letter again. “It seems he anticipates you catching him, but later. The notion doesn’t seem to concern him.”
“He might have nothing to lose,” I said, recalling the barkeep’s description of the man’s cough. “I wonder if he’s dying.”
“That could explain why he altered his pattern from Monday night to Friday,” James said. “His time is running short.”
“Or perhaps he feels resigned because he has nothing, or no one, to live for,” said Belinda gently. “Perhaps he’s alone, and this plan is all he has left.”
My eyes met hers.
There was a knock at the door, and Harry poked his head in. “Mrs. Gale, there’s a sergeant here to collect you.”
“I sent for someone to escort her to her sister’s,” James said.
“A good idea,” I said. I wished I could take Belinda myself, but the less we were seen together, the better.
Belinda gathered up her umbrella.
I longed to say something to her—an apology for drawing her into danger and for my idiocy the other night—but she turned away and preceded Harry out the door without looking back. I swallowed my guilt and regret and general wretchedness and watched the door close behind them. And I swear at that moment, something inside me broke for good. If I had to change every damn assumption and habit and procedure I’d ever used in detection in order to solve this case, I would.
I could do without any of them sooner than I could do without her.
CHAPTER 38
I drew close to the Yard and heard the sounds of a gathered crowd. As I came through the stone arch, I saw a mob, much like the ones that had gathered the previous autumn. Men and women were shouting, shoving, raising their fists.
“You’ve buggered it again!”
“Some o’ ye probably murdered ’em y’selves!”
“What are ye hiding?”
“You’re liars, all o’ you!”
Stifling a groan, I edged my way around them to get inside. As I started up the steps, two men grabbed at me, but I squirmed away as Sergeant Wicks opened the door to let me in and dragged it closed, throwing the bolt. Inside, the atmosphere was grim. We could all still hear them. They began a chant I’d heard before: “Bungling ain’t so very hard, when you’re in sodding Scotland Yard!”
A scan of the room revealed everyone making a dogged show of going about their business as usual. Vincent’s door was propped open, as if to say he wasn’t locking himself away from the furor but was in it with us. I made my way straight toward his office, Belinda’s letter in hand. It was all I had to offer, and I hoped it was enough.
Stiles’s desk, unoccupied, reminded me of what Harry said about Stiles looking poorly. But I kept on and knocked at the doorframe.
Vincent looked up. His lips tightened, and his gray eyes were flat and unwelcoming.
On his desk lay two newspapers, one with a headline RAILWAY DISASTER SABOTAGE and the other MANCHESTER RAILWAY DISASTER.
I felt a prick of chagrin as I remembered that the river murders weren’t the only highly public cases Vincent was overseeing.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” I said, my voice subdued. “I know you told me not to come back until you called. I know—” My voice broke. “I push too hard sometimes, and I’ve not handled this well. But you need to know about this.” I offered him the envelope. “It’s a letter my … good friend Mrs. Belinda Gale received this morning.”
His eyebrows rose. “Mrs. Gale, the authoress?”
“Yes.”
He read the letter twice, then left it unfolded on the gleaming wood of his desk and looked up, a question in his eyes.
“I think we’ve been looking at this case the wrong way, sir,” I said. “It’s not the women who have something in common.”
It took a moment, but then understanding lit his eyes, and slowly he leaned back in his chair. “You think it’s the men. The men who love them.”
The tension in my spine ebbed as he seemed to accept the idea without a fight.
“I was thinking, sir,” I continued, “that we—that is, someone should talk once more to Anthony Thurgood, Rose Albert’s secret fiancé. She was the first, so I imagine he is the most important. If we find someone who wanted to injure him, then perhaps we can start making a connection to the others.”
He nodded slowly. “He’s an architect, so he and Munro are both engaged in civic projects. And the banker might be involved in financing them,” he said, as if my notes were right in front of him.
I did my best to conceal the surprise he’d have taken, rightly, as an insult.
He stood and went to the window, staring toward the river. “What do you know about McLoughlin?” He turned to meet my gaze. “I assume you haven’t spoken with him. But you recognized his name.”
“Yes, sir,” I admitted. “My family knows him, and while I don’t know all the particulars, they say he’s a good bloke and was wrongly convicted. The girl said he’d held her for three days, but after the trial it came out she’d been seen at some shops during that time.” Vincent’s eyes narrowed, and I added, “Could be they were mistaken. But he was convicted on her word alone.”
His brows lowered. “I read the transcript. He tried to hide that he’d worked on that wharf.”
“Being scared, he might’ve done that,” I said. “But I know someone who can help me find him.” I paused. “Whitechapel boy or not, sir, if there’s even a possibility he had something to do with this, I’ll bring him back with me.”
He nodded. “His address at trial was a boardinghouse in Brook Street. Number 16.”
I stifled my disappointment. I wanted to talk to Thurgood first. But I reminded myself I was lucky Vincent was even considering allowing me to do this.
“Perhaps Stiles could go speak with Mr. Thurgood,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “I sent Stiles home on Saturday night. He was ill.”
I felt a jab of dismay. Sent home and still not at work this morning? He must be even worse off than Harry said.
Vincent’s expression betrayed both regret and annoyance that he had little choice but to let me return. I wished desperately there was a way to make him feel better about it.
It was Belinda’s voice that rang in my ear: “Why can’t you be a little humble, stop acting as if you and you alone are saving the world?”
Awkwardly, I said, “Sir, would you like me to see Thurgood and the other men, or find Nate first? Or do something else?”
Vincent studied me for a moment. At last he said, “Go see Thurgood and the others first, Nate afterward. Tomorrow if you must. But report back to me tonight. All right?”
I nodded. “It might be late, sir.”
“I’ll be here.”
He picked up one of the papers, and I took it as a dismissal.
At the threshold, I heard his voice behind me. “Thank you for sharing the letter and explaining your thoughts.” His voice was still cool, but the words were civil.
“Yes, sir,” I replied and left.
His manner certainly hadn’t been encouraging, but I had a feeling that I’d at least provisionally halted my downward slide in his estimation.
CHAPTER 39
In Sackville Street, I found the building firm of Charles Barry and Robert Richardson Banks. I had to wait in the foyer for two hours until Anthony Thurgood returned from an appointment, and as he entered, the man looked pale and unhappy. He was unhappier still at seeing me, but he invited me to his office and answered my questions willingly enough. No, he had received no threats, written or spoken. No, he had never heard of Mrs. Munro’s husband Andrew or either of Jane’s suitors, Samuel Gordon and Robert Eddington.
“Are they suspects?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You’ve seen the papers? The other attacks?”
He nodded despondently. “By the same man?”
“We think so. Four so far.”
He dropped his head into his hands, rubbed the heels into his eyes.
I sat down, uninvited, in a chair near him. “But, Mr. Thurgood, the four women don’t have much in common. And we’re beginning to wonder if the connection might be among their husbands, fiancés, and suitors.”
He lifted his face from his hands, revealing an expression full of horror. “Oh, God! You think Rose died because of me?”
“We don’t know if it was personal,” I said hastily. “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt you, for any reason? Have you slighted someone, or do you owe anyone money, or does anyone owe you?”
“None of that.” He slumped in his chair, his elbow on the arm, and rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Oh, God, I don’t know.” He looked so wretched I wanted to turn his thoughts in a different direction.
“We’re also looking for a tie to the river. How long have you been with this firm?”
“Four years,” he said.
“What sort of buildings do they design?”
“All kinds.” He gestured toward some framed blueprints that hung on the wall. “The pump house in the Italian gardens in Hyde Park. Saint Stephen’s Church in South Dulwich. The forecourt of Burlington House in Piccadilly.”
“Anything by the river?” I asked.
“No.” Then he reconsidered. “Well, we’ve been contracted to renovate the Inner Temple. It doesn’t face the Thames, but it’s close by, east of Waterloo Bridge.”
I sat back. “How did that come about?”
“Three different building firms put in plans, and we won it last month. All the materials are being ordered, some from Wales, others from Italy. We’re to begin construction early next year.”
“Who were the other two firms?”
“Thomas Cubitt and Walter Angstrom.” He rubbed at his temple with his fingertips. “Angstrom was angry about losing because last year he renovated Gray’s Inn—one of the other three Inns of Court—but he just accepted two new commissions for Mayfair hotels, so he’s not suffering for work. And Cubitt always has more than he can manage.”
