Tom All-Alone's (18 page)

Blood.

Appalling, inconceivable quantities of it. Charles stands there, almost stupefied. The room is like a slaughterhouse, and it's only much later that he will realize exactly what it is that's
strewn about his feet in such raw glutinous slabs. For the moment, all he can see is what's on the bed.
What
, not
who
, for identity – personality – self – have been brutally obliterated. It's Lizzie, but he only knows that because he knows the little rose tattoo still visible on her right shoulder. She's turned towards him but does not face him – cannot face him because someone has taken a knife to her skin and hewn her pretty features away, leaving only a sodden coagulating mass of flesh. The policeman in Charles computes – almost automatically – that this must have been some time after the killer hacked her throat through with such ferocity that he can see her spinal bones; the man in him has the tiniest moment of relief that she was spared that, at least. Though whether she was still alive when her breasts were sliced off and her torso ripped open from neck to thigh is far less clear. Coils of gut and offal are dragged across the tangled bedding, and her legs gape open in a gruesome parody of birth, or sex. Charles is hit suddenly by a memory – an image of himself on that bed – of Lizzie in not so very different a pose – and he staggers, reaches for the wall to stop himself sinking and spews acid vomit all over the floor.

A moment later he hears a sound in the court outside and Sarah's voice calling to him. He forces himself out of the room into the open air and shuts the door.

‘Find a constable,' he gasps hoarsely, wiping his face with the back of his hand, then – louder – ‘
quickly!
'

As soon as she's gone, Charles drops slowly to the ground and sits there, his back to the door, his mind and heart in tumult. It's only when he hears the sound of feet coming back down the passage-way – five minutes later? ten? – that he opens his eyes and looks up. Sarah stands there, looking down at him, and beside her – amazingly – is the round red face of Sam Wheeler, who seems as astonished to see Charles as Charles is
relieved to see him. He tries to get up, only to see a cloud of prickling stars and slide back down. He feels Sam's hand on his shoulder. ‘Take it easy, old mate. Looks like you've had a shock.'

‘It's in there,' says Charles weakly. ‘
She's
in there.'

He doesn't see Sam's concerned look back at him, as he pauses on the threshold before pushing open the door. The next thing he remembers is Sam crouched down next to him, talking softly in his ear.

‘The doctor's on his way and I've sent one of my lads for reinforcements. But before they get here, I need you to tell me what happened. We need to get this straight. Just between you and me – you follow? So I know what to say.'

Charles is starting to stammer something incoherent when he realizes there's a strange tone to Sam's voice. He looks up at him. ‘Christ, Sam, you don't think I had anything to do with this?'

Sam should look shamefaced, but doesn't. ‘Well you found 'er, didn't you? Remember what Inspector Field always says – he who 'appens on it 'appen done it. And I mean – look at you.'

Charles glances down and realizes, for the first time, that there's blood on his hands, which means there's probably some on his face too. It must have come from the door, or the wall, because he can't remember touching anything else. He looks up to Sam. ‘I've been here half an hour – no more. Ask the girl, she'll tell you. And you know as well as I do that this must have happened hours ago – probably some time last night. Get your lads to start questioning the neighbours.'

Sam doesn't seem to be listening. ‘But you knew 'er, didn't you – that woman in there – it's that Lizzie Miller, ain't it? Hard to tell under all that blood, but I thought she was lodgin' round 'ere last I 'eard.'

‘Yes it's her, and yes I knew her. I was bringing that girl here to see if she could cadge a bed for a few days. That's all.'

‘So 'ow come you 'ad a key? That's what the girl said.'

‘I didn't
have
the key, I just knew where she kept the spare. I've only been here once or twice – three times at the most.'

‘So when did you last see her – Lizzie?'

Charles hesitates, aware that the truth sits a little awkwardly with what he's just said, but that lying is probably worse. ‘A few days ago. And no,' he continues quickly, seeing Sam's face, ‘it wasn't here, and it wasn't for that. I met her in Haymarket. She had some information for me.'

Sam frowns. ‘What sort of information?'

‘I can't say. It's to do with a case.'

‘Come on, Chas! You wouldn't take that for an answer if you was in my shoes! Here you are, up to your elbows in blood and gore and nothin' but a twelve-year-old whore to back you up. I need more than that – you know I do.'

‘Jesus, Sam – do you seriously think that if I'd been responsible for that – that –
butchery
– in there, I'd have walked away with just a few piffling splashes on my damn hands? The man who did that must have been absolutely saturated with blood by the time he'd finished with her.'

Sam is shaking his head. ‘There's no proof you didn't kill 'er hours ago. You could have burned what you were wearin' by now and come back 'ere all washed and brushed with a witness in tow, just to throw us off the scent.'

They stare at each other and there's a moment when Sam wonders if his old colleague is about to hit him, but then Charles shakes his head and sighs ‘In that case, you'd better get your bracelets out and take me in. But in the meantime you can send a constable to Buckingham Street, where Abel Stornaway will happily confirm I was nowhere near this place last night.'

Sam opens his mouth to say something, but we'll never know what it was, because they're interrupted at that moment by the
arrival of the doctor – a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair and spectacles, carrying a large black bag. He is surprisingly composed in the face of the savagery inside, and betrays nothing more than a certain pallor about the jowls when he re-emerges to inform them – somewhat superfluously – that all life is extinct.

‘The victim has been dead a good few hours, I should say. Difficult to tell exactly which of the blows killed her, but I suspect it was the incision to the carotid artery.' He wipes his hands on a large white handkerchief. ‘As I'm sure you are aware, there are remnants of viscera all over the room. Someone will have to gather them up and ensure they accompany the corpse to the mortuary. I will forward my own report to Inspector Field in due course. Good morning to you.'

As soon as he's gone, Charles gets to his feet, brushes down his coat and holds out his wrists. Whereupon Sarah starts shouting, ‘Leave 'im alone – he didn't do it – 'e was wiv me!'

It takes two constables to constrain her, and she's only finally persuaded to calm down when Charles warns her she risks joining him in the cells if she doesn't. Another half-hour later and we find her in a back room of the Bow Street
station-house
, giving a statement to one of Sam's fellow constables and, by the look of her, rather enjoying the attention. Charles, by contrast, is neither in an interview room nor the cells but sitting, thanks to Sam, in an arm-chair by the fire in the front office. All the same, he hasn't yet been allowed to dispense with the cuffs, and in any other circumstances that fact alone would have seen him pacing and raging like an infuriated animal. But he has no energy left for exasperation. To all appearances he is – unusually for him – doing absolutely nothing, beyond gazing idly at the yellowing police notices pinned to the walls.

£100 Reward –
Wanted
for
Murder

Dead Body Found

Missing Child

He stares at the words, reads them again, consciously and deliberately, but however hard he tries – however earnestly he tells himself Lizzie was in all likelihood long dead before she was disfigured – he cannot take his mind's eye from that room – cannot change the hacked flesh on the bed for the Lizzie he knew – the Lizzie he cared about as much as he's ever cared about anyone, and who needed someone in her life to do that, for all her hard-boiled confidence and self-sufficiency. All the while two police officers are calmly filling in forms at the front desk (though they do eye him surreptitiously every now and again), and other than the occasional muffled thumps and shouts from the cells below, the station is as quiet as he has ever known it.

Wheeler is not back until nearly five, whereupon he slumps into the chair opposite Charles' and runs a hand through his wiry red hair.

‘Bloody 'ell, Chas, I ain't never seen nothin' like that before, and I 'ope I never do again. She weren't just disembowelled, you know – 'alf 'er insides were missin' and the rest was all over the floor, includin' the fish and potatoes she'd 'ad for dinner. Quite put me off me lunch, that did. What in God's name 'ad the poor bitch done to deserve that?'

‘Did you talk to Abel?'

Wheeler nods. ‘Confirmed you was at home all night. As did that boy of yours. Billy, was it? Seems 'e had cause to look in on you in the early hours, though 'e was pretty vague as to why.'

Charles nods, his face grim; he has his own theories as to what – or who – Billy was expecting to find.

‘Did you question Lizzie's neighbours?'

Wheeler nods again, and pulls his ring of keys from his pocket to release Charles' cuffs.

‘No one saw 'er between eight and eleven last night, but one person thought they spotted 'er in the pub after that. She was obviously 'avin' a good night – she kept half the courtyard awake when she got back 'ome, singin'.' He shakes his head. ‘Poor little cow. Never 'ad much to sing about at the best of times.'

‘So when was the last time anyone saw her alive?'

‘Chap called Bert 'Itchins saw 'er on Oxford Street around two. She tried to cadge money off 'im, but 'e told 'er she'd cleaned 'im out after three days in Brighton, so she homed in on another mark. Luckily for us they stopped for a bit of a fondle under a gas-lamp and 'Itchins got a good look at 'im. Youngish bloke with a pale face, hat pulled down over his eyes, and a long dark coat. Quite well-spoken but no toff, 'Itchins says.'

Charles rubs his wrists where the cuffs have scratched his skin.

‘There was one weird thing, though,' continues Wheeler, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘When we looked through the room we found the fire was so 'ot last night the spout of the kettle had 'alf melted off. Some of 'er clothes 'ad been burnt too. Does that make any sense to you? Do you remember it being particularly 'ot in there?'

Charles shakes his head, all the while wondering how he could have missed that – the door was locked, the curtains drawn – after what had gone on in that room, surely a wave of stinking heat should have assailed him the moment he opened the door, but he can't remember that at all – can remember nothing but what he
saw
, as if his body could only deal with so much, and all his other senses had shut down.

‘Your case don't involve a bloke in a long dark coat, by any wondrous chance?' asks Wheeler, looking at him sideways, his face thoughtful.

Charles forces himself to concentrate. ‘No,' he says eventually. ‘I'm sorry, Sam. The man I'm investigating is much older and most definitely a toff. But if I come across anything, I'll let you know. Can I go now?'

Wheeler sighs. ‘On your way. And try to stay out of trouble this time.'

Charles nods, but when he's half-way to the door, Sam calls after him, ‘You know what the bosses are like round 'ere – they don't like coincidences.'

Charles stops and looks back at him. Coincidence? It hadn't even occurred to him that Lizzie's death might be anything but a coincidence.

But what if he's wrong?

T
he Graham Arms has ceilings as low as the company it keeps. Even at a time when pubs make little effort to be appealing, this one seems extraordinarily unconcerned to offer the potential customer anything other than the sport he's come for: drinking is most definitely second-best to spectacle here. Charles eyes the blackened spirits tubs with distaste and opts for the beer, which proves to be only marginally more palatable. It's nearly nine now and the parlour is filling up; so much so that the proprietor is moving people along the bar and calling regularly to ‘Place your orders, gentlemen, before the entertainment begins.' Charles looks about the room, compiling his mental inventory, just as he always does. There's an old white bull-dog with swollen pink eyes sleeping on one of the chairs before the fire, and on the opposite side, a wiry brown terrier with a patch over one eye and a tendency to growl whenever anyone but its owner gets too close. Above the bar there's a cluster of leashes hanging on hooks, with pride of place going to a silver collar, which a notice proclaims will be awarded to the winner of a major rat-match in a few days' time. Rather more disconcertingly, the parlour walls are hung with stuffed champions in cases, labelled with lists of their most infamous kills. A number of aficionados are inspecting these specimens with some interest, and Charles' first thought is that
it's like some gross lampoon of the Mammalia Saloon, but another minute's reflection suggests that perhaps it's is not so very different, after all. Two of the spectators are talking at the bar just along from Charles, one obviously a regular, with a bright red and green ‘King's-man' neckerchief knotted about his throat, the other a stout balding gentleman in black, with a double chin and a perspiring forehead. The sort of man you cannot imagine at twenty – or with a full head of hair. The only thing he seems to be drinking is lemonade, and he's making lengthy and detailed annotations in a large black notebook. Charles thinks – suddenly – that he's seen him before. And in fact he has – at the
Morning Chronicle
. Mayhew, that's his name. Henry Mayhew.

‘Now that
there
is a dog,' says the man with the neckerchief, pointing to a stuffed grey terrier posed with a large black rat in its mouth. ‘It was as good as any in England, though it's so small. I've seen 'er kill a dozen rats almost as big as 'erself, though they killed 'er at last.'

‘So how was that?' asks the bald gentleman eagerly, pencil at the ready.

The man sucks his teeth. ‘Sewer-rats like that are dreadful for giving dogs canker in the mouth, and she wore 'erself out with continually killing 'em, though we always rinsed 'er mouth out well with peppermint and water while she were at work. When rats bite they're poisonous, and an ulcer is formed, which we 'ave to lance; that's what killed 'er.'

Charles loses interest and turns away. The room is now filling up, and it's as fine a cross-section of lowish London life as you could hope to encounter – costermongers, soldiers, tradesmen, servants – as well as here and there a couple of foreign gentlemen looking, it must be said, a little apprehensive, and no doubt wondering what they've let themselves in for. The
four-legged company is almost as diverse – and as numerous. Some dogs are twitching on laps, some stand with their back legs quivering and tails bent between their legs, and others (the more aggressive, these) are tied for precaution's sake to the legs of chairs, growling through gritted teeth. The favourites among them are being examined for form as minutely as racehorses, their limbs palpated and their teeth examined, and on the far side of the room there's a man boasting loudly that his dog once killed ‘five hundred rats in five minutes and a half – I kid you not'.

Charles has been watching all this while for Milloy, and is surprised to find the small commotion at the street door is down to his arrival. He's as far now from the liveried little man of Curzon Street as it's possible to get, draped in a great-coat with a fur collar, with a cane in one hand and a pair of white gloves in the other. His hair – what there is of it – is smooth upon his head, and wiped down every other minute with a large silk handkerchief. From the quality of his reception he is clearly not merely a regular, but extremely well-respected in this neck of London. Waiters snap to it and a glass of milk punch appears on a tray at his elbow before he's three paces into the room.

‘Now, Jem, when is this match coming off?' he asks impatiently and despite the quick assurance that they're at that very moment getting ready, Milloy starts threatening to leave at once if he's kept waiting much longer. This seems a mite unreasonable, but it produces a flurry behind the bar and another milk punch, so perhaps it has the desired effect. Milloy proceeds to process around the room, looking at each animal in its turn, and exchanging a word here and there with the owners, who spread their dogs' legs and bare their teeth so he can see them at most advantage. The gilt clock over the bar then strikes nine and the proprietor calls for order, announcing
that the pit above is open for business. Everyone rises at once, and the crowd parts to allow Milloy to be first up the stairs. Wondering distractedly how a footman has established himself in such an exalted position – and how much money it must take to sustain it – Charles takes his place in the line of punters streaming up the wooden staircase. The line pauses at the top and Charles retrieves a shilling from his pocket and places it in the proprietor's clanking canvas bag.

The room that opens in front of him has a small circular arena in the centre, built from planks of whitewashed board, and brightly lit by an array of gas lamps. There are chairs ranged round it in rows, and a recess on one side that's clearly reserved for special guests; it's no surprise, therefore, to see Milloy taking his seat there. The audience rush for the front row, and those who don't make it clamber on the tables at the back to get a better view. The air is filled with speckles of sawdust, and the whining of the dogs straining on their owner's laps. The proprietor brings out a rusty cage seething with huge black rats, and the noise rises to an unbearable cacophony of howling and barking. Milloy is in the arena at once to inspect the game, and one of the dog-fanciers takes the opportunity to try to sell him a spotted terrier he claims is a ‘very pretty performer, you mark my words'. Milloy calls for a dozen rats, and makes to drag them out of the cage himself, despite a stern warning from the proprietor.

‘One of my lads was bitten bad by one of these blighters only yesterday and took so bad we had to send him home. Doctor said bits of its teeth was embedded in the boy's thumb. Had to pull the bits out with pliers – you should have heard him scream. Never knew he had such lungs on him.'

Milloy laughs, but he takes a rather nervous step backward all the same. By now the rats are swarming across the floor –
one makes to run up Milloy's leg and he shakes it free to the loud laughter of the crowd. The spotted terrier is growing more and more frenzied, and Milloy climbs out of the arena and gives the signal for the dog to be loosed. The rats run in all directions, and the spectators start banging the sides of the pit in unison, shouting, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!'

Some rats fight back, tearing the dog's muzzle with their teeth, others scramble frantically for chinks of escape in the smooth white boards, but all end eventually with their backs broken or their heads wrenched off. The dead are swept unceremoniously into a heap in the corner and another fifty loosed in their place, which the man next to Charles says are all sewer and water-ditch rats, and certainly stink like it. They cluster and cringe and run blindly about as the impatient audience awaits the next dog. People start cat-calling and banging on the tables until the proprietor's young son appears with a bull-terrier that's already frothing at the mouth with excitement, and straining so far forward that its studded collar is almost choking it. The proprietor calls for a stop-watch and the dog is finally dropped into the pit.

‘Rat-killing's
his
game and no mistake! Where'd you get him?' shouts one of the men in the front row.

The landlord grins. ‘I'd back him to kill against anybody's dog at eight and a half or nine.'

The watch is stopped after four more raucous minutes and the boy catches up the writhing dog, its eyes bulging and its tongue bloody. The proprietor calls for more drink, and as the waiter takes the orders, Charles takes the opportunity to slip down to the front and reaches across to touch Milloy on the arm.

‘Milloy? Remember me?'

The milk punch seems to be having an effect. Milloy looks at him a mite blearily for a moment and then slaps him on the back.

‘Maddox, isn't it? Good to see you, my friend! Are you here for the ratting?'

‘No. I'm here for you. To finish our conversation.'

‘Pity. Sport of gents, this, my lad. And you can win a pretty penny at it too. Take my word for it.'

Charles can well believe it; no doubt it explains both Milloy's flamboyant appearance and the impression he gives of not being unduly concerned to be no longer in paid work. It might also account for the handful of money he now takes from his pocket, in preparation for the next bout.

‘It won't take long,' says Charles quickly, seeing the proprietor making his way across with another cage of rats. ‘I just wanted to ask if you've remembered anything more about those anonymous letters sent to Sir Julius Cremorne?'

Milloy is already counting out coins. ‘Can't remember what I said – remind me.'

‘That there were three of them. That they came through the post. And that the writing was rough.'

All of this information has, of course, been in Charles' possession since that very first encounter with Tulkinghorn in Lincoln's Inn Fields; what he's after now is something else – something he
doesn't
already know.

Milloy finally looks up. ‘Ah – now I recall. Though I am sure my memory would serve me better if—'

He smiles broadly and glances, ostentatiously if rather unnecessarily, at the stack of coins in his palm. Charles doesn't need to be nudged twice. He holds a sovereign over Milloy's hand, then pauses and looks him in the eye before letting it drop. ‘This had better be good.'

‘Oh it is – it is. I have no doubt of your complete satisfaction.'

Milloy catches the eye of one of the men in the front row and puts ten shillings – well over half his weekly wage in Curzon
Street – on the next dog. Then he turns back to Charles and starts to speak. His voice is low, quick, and suddenly not at all slurred.

‘There is one salient fact that seems to be eluding you. The last one wasn't a letter. It was a
package
.'

Charles stares at him, then puts a hand into his coat pocket and pulls out the envelopes Tulkinghorn gave him.
That's
what the cloth on the kitchen table had reminded him of. He can't remember ever registering it consciously, but in the glare of the gas lamps overhead he can see the same pattern on one of the envelopes – a network of creases so faint that someone must have used a hot iron to flatten it out. But it's still there, and now he knows what it means. There was something inside that envelope – something neither the lawyer nor his client wants him to know about. Something, therefore, of desperate significance.

He looks up at Milloy. ‘Do you know what it was?'

Milloy shakes his head. The next round is about to begin and he has to raise his voice to make himself heard. ‘All I can tell you is that Sir Julius went as white as death when he opened it. Gave orders there and then that any more like it were to be put into his hands, and his alone. The butler told me afterwards it looked for all the world like he'd seen a ghost.'

Out on the street the fog is starting to come down, but even that's a relief after the reeking atmosphere inside. As the mist gathers, the buildings are starting to soften into looming abstractions, mere blocks of shadow without facet or feature. Charles stands for a moment, breathing in the night, then starts down towards the City Road. The street is almost empty of people, with here and there only a sleeping drunk, or a loud one. So there is no one to see the slight figure in the long dark
coat emerge from a doorway behind Charles and slip an arm about his neck. No one to catch the glimmer of a blade in the yellowish light. No one to see Charles stagger to his knees, and fall forward, gasping, into the mud. And no one, I can assure you, anywhere near close enough to see the man stoop down over the body at his feet, and bring his face close and low against his victim's ear.

‘Whatever you're playing at, it's over. Do you hear me?'

Charles feels his wrist grasped, and winces as his arm is wrenched behind his back.

‘This is by way of a warning. Next time, I won't be so subtle.'

The blade is warm against the skin, the cut white cold, like an electric shock.

And then the heat.

The darkness.