Summon Up the Blood (22 page)

Inchball did not accept the invitation. Indeed, he had no intention of making himself comfortable in this house. But the business with the drawer intrigued him. ‘A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss. I’m spitting feathers here. Thirsty work pounding the streets of London on the trail of a killer.’

His reluctant host frowned suspiciously. ‘I don’t employ staff here. For a number of reasons. In the first place, I believe in equality between the classes. In the second . . . well, suffice it to say that I have had some unhappy experiences with servants.’

‘But you do possess a teapot?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Excellent.’ Inchball crossed to the far end of the room, his boots resounding on the bare boards. ‘Don’t mind me. I shall read the newspaper while I wait.’

‘But they are all old.’ A note of alarm sounded in the protest.

Inchball picked up an edition of the
Daily Clarion
from four years earlier. He opened it and peered with one eye through an elongated gap where a column of type had once been. ‘I don’t mind that. Three sugars, there’s a good chap.’ Inchball winked through the vertical slot in the paper.

A
s soon as he was alone, Inchball dropped the paper on the table and opened the drawer in the escritoire. It contained a thick scrapbook. Inchball pulled the drawer out to its full extent, so that he was able to lift the cover. As he flipped through the pages, it became quickly apparent that the general theme of the scrap collection was ‘Crime’. There were accounts of bodies found, of premises burgled, of city frauds and criminal gangs, of rapes and assaults, common and indecent, crimes of passion, of poverty, greed and desperation; together with narratives of the subsequent arrests made, of the trials, the imprisonments and occasional executions. As far as Inchball could tell, in this necessarily cursory review, there seemed to be a preponderance of stories about guardsmen arrested in Hyde Park. A number of photographs pasted in had a certain familiar uniformity to them. They were head and shoulder shots showing the subject either from the front or in profile. The pose was always formal to the point of rigidity.

Sometimes, of course, the crimes lacked any sequels of justice and punishment, as the perpetrators were never caught.

The theme was only loosely held to. In amongst the editorials and accounts were advertisements, notices and reviews for plays, books, lectures, artistic exhibitions, music hall performances, and moving picture shows. Only some of these could be said to have any clear connection with crime.

The scrapbook began in 1888. The first case for which articles had been collated – the case that seemed to have triggered the collection – was that of the Whitechapel murderer commonly known as Jack the Ripper.

A large portion of the scrapbook was given over to the various trials of Oscar Wilde. The section began with a short clipping pasted beneath the heading
HOW THE WORLD WAGS
. The clipping itself was brief:

The Marquess of Queensberry was on Saturday last charged at Marlborough Street with libelling Mr Oscar Wilde by leaving for him at a club a visiting card on which were words imputing serious misconduct. The defendant was remanded on bail.

He thumbed the pages, turning the scrapbook on its side to consider the front page of the
Illustrated Police News
for Saturday, May 4, 1895, which had been pasted in whole. It showed an artist’s impression of
THE CLOSING SCENE AT THE OLD BAILEY
in the final trial of Oscar Wilde. There were contrasting sketches of Wilde at the height of his success on a lecture tour in America and now as a prisoner in Bow Street.

A little further on, the torn-out page from a book was pasted in. Beneath the heading DE PROFUNDIS, Inchball read:

. . .
SUFFERING is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.

Inchball quickly flicked the pages to the last entry: an advertisement for a talk. The title of the lecture,
Killing the Dead
, drew Inchball’s attention but made little sense to him. Before he was able to read more, he heard footsteps in the hall.

He pushed the drawer closed and turned as the other man came back into the room. The bone-china cup rattled in its saucer.

‘Thank you. That’s most kind. You don’t know how much I need that. Just put it on the table for me, will you? That’s a good feller.’

The other man gave a surly look but complied. The saucer was swilling with a beige reservoir of tea. Inchball smacked his lips and looked longingly at the cup. It had not been his intention to drink it. In fact, the thought of letting something that a queer had prepared pass his lips filled him with a visceral revulsion. He had merely wanted him out of the room.

But now he found that the mere presence of the cup induced a thirst that he could not resist.

The tea was weak and sugary and the strong smell of pomegranates in the room seemed to overpower its flavour. Inchball took a second, deeper quaff. As he placed the cup down, he noticed an astringent aftertaste.

‘Now then, let us get back to the matter in hand. When did you last see James Neville?’

‘About a week . . . ago? Perhaps more.’ His tone was distracted, uncertain.

‘Can you not be more precise than that, sir? It may turn out to be important.’

The other man frowned as he tried to recollect. But he seemed more intent on watching Inchball closely. ‘It was a Saturday, I think. Because I went to the British Museum. I often go to the British Museum on Saturday afternoon. I am interested in antiquities, you see. I take a particular interest in the Classical Greek period.’

‘I expect you do, sir.’

‘Jimmy sometimes went there too. But it was not there that I saw him that day. It was at the house before I left.’

‘A Saturday, very good, sir. Which Saturday would that be? Last Saturday?’

‘No. I didn’t go to the British Museum last Saturday. It was the Saturday before.’

Inchball counted on his fingers. ‘That would be the fourteenth?’

‘If you say so. I don’t have a calendar in front of me.’

‘So the fourteenth of March was the last day you saw James Neville alive?’

Inchball’s blunt statement struck a fresh blow. The other man let out a sob and held on to the back of a chair. ‘Are you sure it was Jimmy? There can be no mistake?’

Inchball screwed up his face in dismay. ‘Blimey, I nearly forgot. That business with the doorbell clean put it out of my mind. That and the pomegranates.’ He reached inside his jacket. ‘I was supposed to show you this.’

Neville’s landlord clamped a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes.

Inchball took another mouthful of tea, swilling it round his teeth noisily before gulping it down. ‘That the feller?’

‘Poor Jimmy.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

‘I warned him.’

‘You warned him, you say? What about?’

‘To be careful. But Jimmy knew better. He wouldn’t listen. He didn’t need anyone. It was Jimmy against the world. I told him . . . that there is strength in fellowship, in brotherhood . . .’

‘Brotherhood?’ Inchball raised an eyebrow.

‘I don’t expect you to understand.’

Inchball saw the other man’s expression change from one of anguish to distaste in the sweep of a glance. ‘Are you saying that you believed Jimmy was in some kind of danger?’

‘Of course! We are all in danger.’

‘
We
? What do you mean by we?’

‘You know what I mean. Men like Jimmy.’

‘Men like Jimmy and
you
, you mean? Queers, you mean?’

‘What do you expect me to say to that? I will not incriminate myself.’

‘You needn’t worry about that. I’ve been instructed to leave you alone about
that
. Now then, why did you think you was all in danger?’

‘Jimmy and I, we are members of a brotherhood. Jimmy wouldn’t acknowledge it, denied it in fact, but it doesn’t make any difference. He was still a member. You do not
choose
to be a member of this brotherhood. You are born to it. He was born to it.’

‘What
brotherhood
is this, sir?’ Inchball couldn’t quite believe it was the brotherhood he had in mind.

‘I’ve said too much already.’

‘Do you want us to find out who killed your friend?’

‘If only it were as simple as that. Jimmy is dead. It’s too late for him. I must think of the countless others who are still alive.’

‘Very well,’ said Inchball, snapping shut his notepad. He drained his teacup in a series of greedy swallows. ‘Can’t say I didn’t try. If you don’t wish to help me, I can’t force you.’

The other man allowed a bitter smile of vindication to shape his lips. ‘
You’re
not interested in helping us. You’re just going through the motions. We have always had our enemies. Those who wish us harm. Who wish us dead, even. We must look to ourselves for protection, drawing our strength from the love that draws us together, as did the Sacred Band of Thebes in former times. We can expect no protection from the authorities. Indeed, it would not surprise me if it turned out that this crime had been perpetrated by an agent of the law.’

‘What a load of rot. Agents of the law do not go around killing people. Not even queers.’

‘Of course you would not admit it. You may not even know it. There are agencies within the police of which even the police are not aware.’

‘But we ain’t got no reason to!’ objected Inchball forcibly.

‘I can think of many reasons. The murder has brought you here, has it not? Asking your questions. Worming your way into my confidence.’

‘Let me tell you, I have no desire to worm my way into anything of yours. I am here because I have a job to do. And the quicker I can get it done and get out of here, the better.’ Inchball put a hand to his face, to rub away a sudden weariness. Despite what he had just said, he pulled out a chair and took a seat. The earlier effort of pounding the streets was at last making itself felt in his legs. ‘And another thing I can tell you, though I probably shouldn’t. It was very likely one of your own kind what killed your friend. How do I know that? Buggery. The doctor said your friend Jimmy’s arse was in a very sorry state. Do you seriously expect me to believe that a policeman would do such a thing?’

‘I will not disabuse you.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

‘But does it not occur to you that the same individual may be both a policeman and a sod?’

‘Good God! How dare you say such a thing? It’s bad enough having to come here and take statements off you buggers. It’s more than my job’s worth to take your insults too.’ Inchball was conscious of the impulse to rise to his feet in rage. But however much he tried to do so, he was unable to wrench himself out of the seat. The weight of exhaustion that he had earlier felt in his legs was spreading up through his torso.

‘Believe me, it was not meant as an insult.’

‘I’ve a good mind to box your ears.’ But no matter how much he might desire to put his threat into action, Inchball found that his arms resisted any attempt on his part to move them. He excused himself by adding: ‘Though I fear you would enjoy it too much.’

‘From childhood, we are taught that the only possible physical contact between males is expressed through violence, or at the very least through the rough and tumble of the sports field. I have often thought it ironic that the Marquess of Queensberry was a great patron of boxing. In boxing, you see, the unacknowledged male-to-male attraction is sublimated and turned into aggression. The natural desire to possess another man sexually is perverted into an unnatural desire to beat him to a pulp.’

Inchball tried to speak. But he found he did not know where to begin voicing his objections to the speech he had just heard. He formed the intention of saying:
‘You have your natural and your unnatural all mixed up.’
But the words that came out from his mouth did not sound quite right, even to him.

The weight that had spread from his legs to his torso was now squatting on his tongue. He felt it pulling his head down.

The last thing he heard before he hit his head on the table was: ‘But do you not think it strange that Queensberry had not one but two sons who were Uranians?’

Q
uinn stood at the window in Sir Edward Henry’s office. The view faced east, towards the cluster of cranes and scaffolding that squatted like an infestation of giant angular spiders on the opposite bank of the Thames. This was the site of the new County Hall building, which as yet existed mostly as a network of girders, and stacks of glistening stone ready to be put in place. There seemed to be no work going on today. Indeed, the project grew in fits and starts, with extended periods of apparent inactivity followed by bursts of frenzied construction.

A little like the progress of an investigation
, it occurred to Quinn.

The river was low. A barge was beached at the bottom of the embankment wall, beneath the suspended arm of a crane. To Quinn’s imagination, it seemed as though the crane was groping for the barge, which was hiding out of view and out of reach. But then he dismissed the idea as fanciful. His sense of metaphor had taken over from his grasp of reality.

He turned as he heard the door to the office open. Sir Edward came in with three men, one of whom was Bittlestone.

‘Ah, here we are,’ said Sir Edward. ‘May I introduce you gentlemen to Inspector Quinn? Quinn, this is Mr Lennox, owner of the
Daily Clarion
.’

‘Good day to you, Inspector.’ The short, middle-aged man offering Quinn his hand spoke with a soft Irish accent. ‘So, this is the famous Quick-fire Quinn! What a pleasure to meet you.’

‘I –’

‘The less said about that, the better,’ cut in Sir Edward. ‘And this is Mr Finch, the editor.’

White-haired and wily-eyed, every bit the Fleet Street old hand, Finch avoided Quinn’s gaze as he nodded a curt greeting. ‘Inspector.’ His evasive eye glanced about the room, looking for titbits.