Phantom of Blood Alley (7 page)

‘Good boy, Kaiser,’ I said proudly as he trotted to heel. I patted his head. ‘Good lad.’

I stopped off at Arnold’s the local butcher’s and purchased a pennyworth of offal, with a lamb bone thrown in for free, then bought a couple of glazed earthenware dishes from Eastwick’s next door. Back at number 3 Caged Lark Lane at last, I led Kaiser through the archway to the back yard behind. It was large and airy, turfed behind a whitewashed fence and criss-crossed with clothes lines where the occupants of Caged Lark Lane dried their laundry. In the corner, by a stand of sunflowers, was the kennel where Disraeli, old Sergeant-Major Miller’s pet terrier, had once lived.

‘Your new home, Kaiser,’ I told him.

It was a snug fit, but Kaiser seemed to take to it immediately, sniffing about before flopping down inside the kennel, his head and
shoulders outside. I unstrapped the muzzle and ruffled the fur on his head, before turning to unpack my purchases.

Kaiser watched me expectantly, his head cocked to one side. I unwrapped the newspaper package and dropped the glistening innards into one of the dishes. Then I dunked the other dish in the water butt, and set both of them down before him. Kaiser climbed from the kennel, sniffed the food, then hesitated.

‘Eat, lad,’ I said. Tail wagging, he buried his long scarred snout in the bloody scraps and began wolfing them down. I dropped the bone beside him. ‘The second course,’ I said. ‘I’m going out for a bit. Be a good boy.’

I walked to the police station in Hibernian Yard. Given the local constabulary’s attitude to highstacking, I thought it best. I arrived half an hour later, climbed the steps to the two black entrance doors and went in. The clock on the wall opposite showed two o’clock.

‘I’m here with regard to the death of Laurence Oliphant,’ I told the sergeant at the desk. ‘My name’s Barnaby Grimes. Inspector Clackett asked me to make a statement.’

‘Did he now?’ the portly sergeant said, scratching behind his ear with his pen. ‘Then you’d better take a seat,’ he added, nodding to a row of dark varnished benches that lined the green tiled walls of the vast, dingy entrance hall. ‘Someone will be along presently.’

I took a seat and looked about me. The benches were full of the usual suspects. There were petty pickpocket dandies wearing decorated waistcoats and expressions of injured innocence, and protesting chorus girls in gaudy dresses and too much make-up. River-toughs from the docks and gang members from Gatling Quays eyed each other mistrustfully, while black-gowned lawyers and slick-haired clerks of the court strode purposefully past, clutching armfuls of yellowing documents tied up with red
ribbons. I took off my coalstack hat, folded it up and settled down to wait.

Four hours later, I was still waiting. People had come and gone, striding through the hall in ones and twos, and disappearing into the various rooms which led off it. Once a large family of eight circus entertainers, including several shame-faced clowns escorted by two constables, had been ushered into the hall at the end. But no one came for me. Even when I reintroduced myself to the new sergeant on duty at the desk, and had been assured that someone would soon be with me, no one came.

Only when, at six o’clock, having decided to leave, I climbed to my feet and headed for the door, did someone call my name. I turned to see Inspector Clackett standing with his hands on his hips, looking at me.

‘You’re the tick-tock lad, aren’t you?’ he said dismissively. I nodded. ‘Follow me.’

The interview took place in a small,
windowless room that I took to be his office. There was a roll-top desk overflowing with paperwork in one corner and two high-back chairs on either side of a low baize-covered table. The walls were decorated from floor to ceiling with plaster death masks of convicted murderers, giving the gloomy chamber an intensely sinister atmosphere.

Inspector Clackett pulled up a chair and sat down, gesturing for me to sit down in the chair opposite.

‘Don’t mind them,’ he said with an unpleasant smile, as he noticed me eyeing the ghostly faces around us. ‘They’re my testimonials, Mr Grimes. Because you see’ – his deep-set eyes narrowed – ‘Clackett always gets his man. Or, in this case, woman.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Now, what can you tell me about the murder of Laurence Oliphant, Mr Grimes?’

As he picked up a quill and a sheet of paper, I told him all about how Clarissa Oliphant and my paths had first crossed; about the assignment she had given me, as well as the fee she had paid, and I detailed my initial findings. It soon became apparent, however, that Inspector Clackett was most interested in the events that had taken place at 12 Aspen Row the previous evening. With his hooked nose thrust forward, he probed my memory, encouraging me to recall everything that I’d overheard. And, though I didn’t intend to, with every word I uttered, I fear I made Clarissa Oliphant seem more guilty.

Inspector Clackett pulled up a chair and sat down …

‘You say she was controlling,’ he pressed.

‘I said
Laurence
accused her of controlling him,’ I countered.

The inspector nodded. ‘Accused her of snooping and prying into his affairs. Claimed she treated him like a wayward child. And yet,’ he went on, ‘she refused to lend him money – money she has through an inheritance,’ he added, spitting out the word as though it was something distasteful, ‘left to her by the late Lord Riverhythe …

‘A strongbox full of gold sovereigns, Laurence said,’ I told him.

‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘sovereigns she refused to lend to her brother, which apparently prompted him to steal an item of some value, to wit a …’ He paused, licked his finger and flicked through the pages of his notebook. ‘A Dalmatian duelling sabre.’ He looked up. ‘The murder weapon.’

I swallowed. ‘As I said, Inspector, I’d seen it hanging above the mantelpiece. Laurence must have taken it down …’

‘Yet you did not see him leaving with it,’ the inspector said. ‘Nor have you any knowledge of what Miss Oliphant did following your departure at …’ He paused again. ‘At eight forty-five.’

‘No, but—’

He raised his hand to silence me. ‘Furthermore,’ he continued, ‘when you visited her at eight o’clock this morning, you claimed that Miss Oliphant looked as if she had not slept
all night.’ He shook his head, his fleshy jowls quivering. ‘It doesn’t look good for Miss Oliphant, does it?’ he said.

It certainly didn’t, and I clearly wasn’t helping the redoubtable duelling governess either. Inspector Clackett sat back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head and a self-satisfied expression on his face.

‘Read the statement through, Mr Grimes,’ he said. ‘Then sign it.’

Written down, my words seemed even more damning of Clarissa Oliphant, yet they were a true enough representation of what I’d said. Regretfully, I signed my name.

‘What happens now?’ I asked.

‘Now?’ said Inspector Clackett, leaning forward. ‘You’re free to go, Mr Grimes. Your presence will, of course, be required in court at a future date, of which you’ll be informed in due course.’

‘And Miss Oliphant?’ I asked.

‘Miss Oliphant?’ the inspector repeated.
‘Miss Oliphant will be charged with the murder of her brother, Laurence Oliphant, and stand trial. Until then, she will be an inmate of Whitegate Model Prison.’

I
knew of Whitegate Model Prison by reputation. It was a new prison, built to a revolutionary design based on the beliefs of Jeremy Hobholt, one of the great thinkers of the age. Unlike the old prisons like Gallowgates and Highheath, with their crowded communal cells, this model prison was a so-called panoptican.

It was octagonal in shape, three storeys in height and with a central viewing platform from which the warders could observe the inmates. But the most revolutionary aspect of Whitegate was that these inmates were kept in solitary confinement, in individual cells,
and forbidden to talk at all times. Even in the exercise yard, they were made to wear hoods so the inmates could not fraternize with, or even see, their fellow prisoners.

Hobholt firmly believed that this allowed each prisoner to reflect on their crimes and aided their reformation. That, however, was not what I’d heard. Rumour abounded of inmates of Whitegate being driven mad by the rigidly enforced isolation and silence of the place, and being transferred to the lunatic asylum at Watermeadows Lane.

Clarissa Oliphant, I knew, would find it hard being locked up there. Visiting times for those awaiting trial were strictly limited and there was no way I would be allowed to see her, the inspector had informed me, until Monday morning at the earliest. In the meantime, though, there was someone I needed to visit.

Clarissa’s parlourmaid, Tilly.

I imagined that the poor girl would be desperate with worry at the disappearance of
her mistress, and I set off for Aspen Row at once. Ducking down the first alley I came to, I shinned up a conveniently placed drainpipe and onto the tiled rooftops. Night had fallen, cold and foggy, while I’d been stuck inside the police station. My rather threadbare jacket did little to keep me warm, and I was missing my poacher’s waistcoat. Fifteen minutes later, however, having dashed across the rooftops at breakneck speed, I reached my destination with sweat beading my forehead.

I raised my cane and was about to rap on the door, when I heard the sounds of muffled sobbing coming from inside.

‘Tilly?’ I said, knocking firmly and shouting through the letter box. ‘Tilly, it’s me, Barnaby. Let me in.’

‘Barnaby,’ I heard her say. ‘Thank goodness.’

Footsteps came running across the hallway, followed by the sound of bolts and a chain being released. The door flew open, and Tilly threw herself at me.

‘It’s all right,’ I told her, hugging her tightly. You’re safe now. Tell me what happened.’

She pulled away and looked up at me, her blue eyes red-rimmed, and her pretty cheeks stained with tears. She pushed her hair away from her face.

‘I … I was so frightened, Barnaby, and it got later and later, and the mistress didn’t come back,’ she fretted, the words stumbling over each other. ‘And she still isn’t here, and she’s never out this late. And then I heard sounds upstairs, and I thought she was back and had slipped in without my noticing, but when I looked, there was no one there, and …’

I squeezed her hands. ‘You’ve been very brave, Tilly,’ I told her, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.’

I stepped inside, closing the door behind me, and led her through to the cosy kitchen, with its copper pots and blazing range. I sat her down in the rocking chair and told her
what had happened. Tilly gasped and buried her face in her hands.

‘Mr Oliphant, dead,’ she whispered. ‘And the mistress accused of his murder! Oh, what is a poor maid-of-all-work to do, Barnaby?’ Tilly sobbed.

Just then, there came the soft creaking of a loose floorboard from upstairs. Tilly looked up, her eyes wide with terror.

‘There it is again,’ she said. ‘I told you, Barnaby.’ She swallowed. ‘I didn’t imagine it.’

‘Leave this to me,’ I told her. ‘You stay here.’

I drew my sword, left the kitchen and crept up the carpeted stairs as quietly as I could. Peering inside from the landing, I could see that what I took to be the door to Clarissa Oliphant’s bedroom was open. Drawers had been pulled out, cupboard doors hung open and various items lay strewn across the floor. The room had clearly been searched, and pretty thoroughly by the look of it.