City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (12 page)

If he was to attend the University,
to become a physician, it was up to him.  If he was to have a life, he must
author it himself. 

By the time spring came, the boy
could go ninety-four seconds between blinks.

CHAPTER TEN

September 30

12:36 AM

It was well after midnight, but
Leanna wasn’t sleepy.  She’d been wearing both her hair and her corsets looser
since she’d come to London, so she’d been able to undress herself without
Emma’s assistance and she now lay sprawled across the puffed pink bedspread in
her camisole and bloomers, with her hair tousled down around her shoulders.

Emma rapped twice on the door and,
not waiting for a response, entered.  She was exhausted herself and Leanna’s
languor was an irritating reminder that she still had plenty picking up from
the party.  Leanna rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows.  “It was a
wonderful evening, wasn’t it, Emma?”

“Seemed to be.”

“I’m just sorry John couldn’t stay to
the end.”

“Poor girl. Left with only one
adoring male and not a matched set.”  Emma signaled for Leanna to stand and
pulled the corset over her head, a little more roughly than usual.  “It was a
child who came for John, scared out of his wits because he thought his mother
was dying in childbed.  If you could have seen the gratitude that swept him
when John walked into that kitchen you wouldn’t be so sorry that you lost an
escort.”

Leanna sat down and began to unlace
her slippers, face flaming.  At home, it would have been inconceivable for a
maid to speak to her in such a tone, but things in London were not so clearly
delineated.  Gerry introduced Emma as her companion, surely one of the most conveniently
vague words in the English language, and Emma most often dined with the
family.  But not tonight, not on the more formal occasion of Leanna’s launch
into society.  Tonight she had served them, had fastened the innumerable hooks of
Leanna’s plum silk and then gone to button up her own black cotton, had watched
John and Trevor contend to pull out Leanna’s chair while she gulped down a few
bites in the kitchen with Gage, had carried plates and serving trays rather
than the responsibility of gay conversation.  No wonder that the girl sometimes
showed temper.

“Besides,” Emma went on, her voice
softening almost as if she had read Leanna’s thoughts, “it wasn’t as if Trevor
didn’t remain to dance attendance.”

“You like him, don’t you?” Leanna
asked, not raising her eyes.  “He comes here more often than you and Aunt Gerry
said.”

“He’s a fine man,” Emma said
shortly.  “Easy to talk to.”

“Exactly my thoughts, and I found him
quite fascinating.  In a different way from John, of course.  But Trevor speaks
to me…” Leanna paused, “As if I were a human being.”

“And how does John speak to you?”

“As if I were a lady.”

Emma shook out the plum gown.  “I
didn’t realize the two were mutually exclusive.”

Leanna watched Emma adjust her dress
on the hanger and thought back to the day they had bought it, how differently
the shopkeeper had treated the two girls.  He had approached her with – well,
she supposed the word was “respect” but it didn’t feel like respect, it had
felt like a refusal to speak directly to her at all.   But Emma he had treated
like an equal.  Men categorized women very quickly, that was clear, but what
was the basis of the sorting?

“You know,” Leanna said “John didn’t
recall meeting me on the train.”

“Um?”

“John.  He didn’t recall meeting me
in the train.”

“He was the man who paid your fare? 
How bizarre.”

“Apparently I failed to make much of
an impression.”

Emma shrugged.  “You were different
then.  I remember how you looked standing on the doorstep a few weeks ago. 
Lost, frightened, practically swimming that black mourning dress.  Tonight ….it’s
not so surprising he didn’t remember.   A woman isn’t like a man.  She can
change and become anything she wants to appear to be, based on her clothes and
her way of walking and talking.”

“Odd,” Leanna said.  “But you’re
right.  Men don’t look us in the eyes.  They take in the clothes and the
bearing and they adjust their behavior accordingly.”

“Trevor Welles looks women in the
eyes,” Emma said quietly.

“Yes,” said Leanna.  “He would be a
hard man to fool.”

“Now in my opinion, that is the odd
remark,” Emma said, turning to leave.

“Emma?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any sisters?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“How unfortunate for you,” said Emma,
closing the door behind her.

“Auugh,” sighed Leanna, rising from
the bed.  Of all the things she had struggled to understand since coming to
London, Emma might have been the hardest.   Leanna went to the dressing table
and began to brush her hair so hard that tears came to her eyes.

1:24 AM

At the entryway to the George Yard
stables, Trevor stood looking down at the lifeless form of a woman.  An hour
earlier a man had been trying to lead a workhorse into the courtyard when the
creature had shied and refused to enter.  He’d summoned a bobby making rounds
and the boy had quickly found the trouble: a white-stockinged leg sticking out
from a gate.  Trevor breathed a silent prayer of thanks that the bobby -
although young and obviously terrified - had exhibited enough presence of mind
to rope off the area and leave the body unmoved.  Now Eatwell and a few others
milled around, awaiting the arrival of Dr. Phillips and trying to keep the
throng of onlookers at bay.  Although the night was warm, Trevor trembled
violently.

“Isn’t typical, is it Sir?” he
ventured, as Eatwell paced by.

“What do you mean?” Eatwell asked
distractedly.

“Her throat is cut, left to right
like the others, but there aren’t any mutilations.”

“You sound disappointed,” Eatwell
said.  “Ah, Abrams, what do you make of this?”  Trevor looked up to see that
Rayley Abrams had joined their circle.  While the other detectives looked as if
they’d been summoned from their beds – as indeed he himself had been – Abrams
was as neatly groomed as ever.  He stared soberly down at the woman.

“Surprising that he’d change his
method, Sir.”

“I agree,” said Trevor.  “Just a few
days ago in the paper he bragged that he would –“   Trevor stopped, a sudden
revelation sweeping with nauseating certainty.  “He didn’t finish.”

“She’s finished plain enough,”
Eatwell said but Abrams looked at Trevor and gave a slow, almost imperceptible
nod.

“We need to scour the area, Sir,”
Trevor said, his heart beginning to pound.  “Something – probably the man with
the horse – interrupted the killer before he could leave his usual calling
cards.  And that would have made him furious.”

“Perhaps,” said Eatwell.  “But why
should we care if he’s furious?”

Because people kill when they’re
furious, you imbecile, Trevor thought.  Struggling to control his voice he
said, “Perhaps a patrol of the area is in order, Sir, or at least an alarm with
the whistles.  If Jack’s still about, we’ll flush him.”

“This many coppers in the area and you
think he’s still about?” Eatwell said.  “In my experience, killers flee once
the deed is done and this deed is most assuredly done.  Sir Warren himself is
on the way here and I want the whole contingent at the ready.”

“I believe that’s Phillips now, isn’t
it?” Abrams said quietly, directing Eatwell’s attention toward the street as a
carriage rattled up to the front of the stable.  The inspector turned to greet
its occupant. 

“See here,” Trevor said, using the
diversion to step back from the circle and whisper to the bobby who’d found the
body. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Davy Mabrey, Sir.”

“Look ‘round the area.”

The boy nodded and slipped off
without questions.  Trevor hung back, watching Phillips’ assistant all but lift
him from his carriage and lead him over to the body.  “Good God,” said the old
man. “Another one.”

“But she doesn’t fit the pattern…”
Trevor said. 

“No, by all appearances this one gave
him a bit of a fight,” Phillips said, crouching and gingerly turning over the
long, lean body of the prostitute. “Look, even now you can see bruises
forming…”

“Check her nails,” Trevor insisted. 
“Women fight with their fingernails.” Phillips ventured a grim smile.

“What are you, mad for fingernails?
Very well…”

Just then three sharp blasts of a
whistle pierced the night and the men clustered around the body all jumped.  Davy
Mabrey was running toward them, his face chalk-white and his breathing ragged. 
“Come, come, it’s just as you said, Sir.  There’s another and he – he had
plenty of time for this one, Sir.”

Trevor turned to the bobby and
shouted “Get back there, and keep the crowds away.  Keep the police away.” Davy
spun and ran into the darkness as if he were being chased by the devil himself.

“Don’t let them touch her,” Trevor cried
after the boy’s retreating form.  “Don’t let them move her.  For the love of the
Virgin, don’t let anyone near that body.”

2:22 AM

At his home in Brixton, a half-hour
on foot from the house of Geraldine Bainbridge and an equal half-hour from the
streets of Whitechapel, John Harrowman stood at his wash basin.  Slowly,
methodically, almost dreamily, he washed the last vestiges of blood from his
hands.  His favorite scalpel, the one he’d performed his very first surgery
with and the one which still felt most at home in his hand, lay disinfected on
a folded white towel and a bundle of bloodied clothes had been stuffed in his
hassock.  He’d been up for twenty hours, but John was not tired.  Instead, as
he scrubbed and the water blushed from pale pink to red, he was conscious that
he was humming, that he was happy.  He found a sense of exhilaration and power
in his work.  No matter how late the hour, he always returned from the streets
of the East End feeling right within himself.

Still humming, he turned from the
washstand and walked over to his window.  His working class neighborhood was
sleeping, and John’s thoughts drifted back to the girl, Leanna.  He had been absorbed
in his medical practice for years, perhaps too many, and meeting her had
reminded him there was another life out there, a life beyond the women of the
East End.  He caught a glimpse of himself in the window-glass and softly
cursed.  It had been a rough one; even his undershirt was splattered with dried
drops of blood, and he thought for a moment of removing it and adding it to the
pile of laundry.  But he crawled in his bed instead, letting out a deep sigh,
willing sleep to come and stop this strange pounding in his chest.  He hugged
his own arms, the memory of the night comforting him and in truth - for he was
a doctor to the core - even the faint smell of blood was a pleasure.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

2:22 AM

“There, Sir!” Davy held up his light
and pointed to a heap lying on some overturned garbage, then involuntarily
averted his face from the overwhelming, slightly metallic smell of freshly
spilled blood.  Trevor rushed by Davy and held up his light also, gasping as it
showed the extent of the carnage which lay at his feet.  Davy, who had seen far
enough already, dipped his own lamp and stepped back.

Trevor took Davy’s lantern from his
drooping hand and laid it on the ground beside the body, then placed his own on
the other side, allowing the flickering oil light to spill over what was left
of the woman’s face.  He pushed his palm firmly against his mouth, willing back
the wave of nausea which had quickly overtaken him, while poor Davy huddled
against one of the cold alley walls, fighting a losing battle with his own
stomach.

“Sorry, Sir,” he gasped, wiping away
tears with the back of his hand.  “Isn’t like me, Sir.”

“It’s alright, son,” Trevor muttered,
wondering if he would be joining the boy in another minute. “Pull yourself
together when you can and keep those people back in the street.”

Davy nodded, then squared his slight
shoulders and headed back toward the mouth of the alley.  The size of the crowd
moving toward him made him pause and almost turn back, but Detective Welles was
already on his knees beside the victim and Davy would rather have been ripped
to shreds than to once again appear weak before a superior.

Davy stretched out his arms and gave
several firm blasts of his whistle, but nonetheless people pushed forward.  Finally,
a few feet short of Welles, the crowd stopped and gasps circulated throughout
as each onlooker caught sight of the body.  There was a second of silence, then
a woman screamed, “Why ‘tis Cathy!  Catherine Eddowes!  And ‘e’s lopped off her
ears like ‘e said in the Times!”

“Damn it,” Trevor hissed over his
shoulder at Davy. “Get that woman out of here this instant!  All of you, go
home to where you belong.”  The crowd stood still, more from shock than
defiance, until, using his cape somewhat in the manner of a matador, Davy began
to shoo them out of the alley.   The rest of the officers had at long last
arrived and were standing uncertainly in the street.