Devoured (31 page)
Poor old Ashby. Every step up the icy flight of London stone was painful. It was so bitterly cold, but buried deep in his pocket were voices begging not to be ravished, but for mercy.
And this old wretch of a man, like the loyal old dog he was, had done everything in his power to suppress it. Even pawned his dead mother’s ruby ring. Not a wedding ring. She’d been a servant girl up in some great house in Scotland, till they threw her out making all sorts of lewd accusations. She had raised him as best as she could. She wasn’t old when she passed away and Ashby had to fend for himself. But he had worked hard and even got a place at Ragged School where the schoolmaster, though he claimed to be a man of God, was quick with the rod. Ashby had learnt to listen intently, did as he was told, and never questioned any of it, knowing his station in life. Until this.
Of course, he wasn’t a fool. He’d lived in The Borough and wasn’t blind to the world. He saw the prostitutes and knew what they were. They often reared into him as he picked his way home. The desperate ones would shove a screaming baby in his face begging him to save the brat and offering him, ‘Anything you want, anyways you want, just say the word.’ Why didn’t the poor help themselves and stop having so many children?
And this is where these children ended up. Their voices buried in his pocket, and bought with a pawned ruby ring. Most likely, that blackmailing whore would pluck it from some jewellery shop for a third of its value. Perhaps she’d written some of these letters herself, thought Ashby. He couldn’t tell, but there was no denying the filth therein. And he knew the Duke’s handwriting and the monogrammed paper with the
M
for Monreith.
Madame Martineau had stepped out of a corner clutching them as he went about his business and whispered in his ear that if he didn’t cough up and protect his master, it would lead to calamity. And Ashby knew what calamity meant for him. The workhouse again. So he had given her the money and asked the Lord for mercy. But blackmailing never stops. Was it so mad to come here and try to reason with the Duke?
Ashby banged on the door. It made a terrible thud and this time a great cacophony of barking came. A livery servant opened the door. One dog yapped at Ashby and sniffed his leg. Another, the smallest, bared her teeth. The servant took the dogs away and ushered them into another place, along the hallway.
He would reason with the Duke. He wouldn’t creep away this time, as he had in Vauxhall Gardens.
‘Come at once,’ said another servant. He was polished, like the bronzes, and shiny, like the mirrors which hung from every bend and turn of the place. Ashby followed the servant up the great flight and into a marble-floored room. A fire was roaring in the grate. The Duke had his back turned and appeared to be watching the snow fall, white lace outside the enormous windows. And Ashby saw an old man, not so unlike himself. Same bent back, balding head, and widow’s hump. The Duke heard his step and spun around.
‘Where have you been for the last two days? Have you been ill, dammit? Why didn’t you send word? It is you, isn’t it, Ashby? You look different, somehow. Have you come with news about my speech? I received nothing but plaudits for the last one.’ Monreith sounded tired, the bark gone.
‘No, sir. I’ve come about something delicate.’ Ashby’s words came sure and steady like the snow outside and he had never been so bold before.
‘Something delicate, you say. Is it money, you hound? I pay you enough. I’ve a good mind to sack you for the time you’ve missed.’
‘No, sir. Although it has involved some of my money, what little I have. I was given some letters by a woman. A woman who says she knows you and lives not far from me, in The Borough.’ Ashby hung his head. He’d taken the letters out of his pocket and they now hung limp in his hand, flesh-coloured, smelling of the workhouse and still tied in a bright-blue ribbon.
The Duke of Monreith felt a shudder run down his spine.
‘What have you got there, Ashby?’
‘Enough to tell me what I wish I didn’t know.’
‘You read them then, you dog?’
‘Yes, I read them, but I wish I had never seen the foul and unnatural words. They took me on a journey and I followed you, sir. To Vauxhall Gardens.’
‘I see.’ Blood drained from the Duke’s face. ‘And now you have come to blackmail me, Ashby, is that it?’
Ashby felt the pain ebb away. For the first time, in this dim half light, he saw the real man.
‘I have come to ask you to stop. You still have time to beg God for forgiveness, to see a priest, to turn over a new leaf. The woman has us by the scruff of our necks and if she wants to she can wring them. By God, I know she can. Look, I still have her marks upon my arm.’
The Duke snarled, ‘You don’t know anything. Now give me those letters. If my name’s on them, they’re fakes. I’ll burn them in the grate. They’re nothing to do with me, Ashby.’
‘You forget that I’ve been a scribe for more than thirty years. I’ve learnt to sort out what’s true and what’s false. I think we both know they’re real. They’re written on your very own notepaper. Some of the letters are signed by you and others appear to be from children. Are there more, like this? Because if there are others, she will trap you.’
The Duke shook his head and said, ‘These girls are not children. They’re whores. Whores that like to fuck for money. They are traded on the market, Ashby. A market of commodities. They eat because of me. They drink because of me. I have given them money, pieces of jewellery, and love. Yes, love. Don’t look at me like that. I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life, now get out! Get out of my house!’
The Duke had taken a poker from the fire and was wheeling it around him. ‘Get out! Get out of my house …’ He kept repeating it, louder and louder, till Ashby thought his ears would split.
The liveried servants were now at the door.
‘Get him out of here.’
Ashby shook the servants off. ‘I can see my own way out,’ he said.
The Duke let the poker fall further to his side, the sweat now running in rivers from his face. ‘Yes. See yourself out.’
Monreith collapsed at his desk, wrenched opened a drawer, hurriedly wrote another note which he thrust at a servant. It had been a while since they’d called on this man’s service. Since they’d gone straight to the top. The servant knew the name and nodded. Inspector Adams of Scotland Yard. The famous policeman.
‘
Get out! Get out of my house
!’ The words still ringing in his ears, Ashby staggered down some spiral stairs into the basement of the house and stood in a half-lit corridor of doors, and behind each door, thought he heard what sounded like the whispering of children. How many had there been? Their intakes of breath. Their quivering lips. Their promises of ecstasy. He shook himself, pushing their words away, and turned the handle of a door, which creaked open revealing no girl shackled in manacles or pinned to the ground, no grinding animal, but only a tidy little store cupboard. There were brooms leaning against the wall, a smouldering grate. The voices stilled and he wondered what poor creature lived in this hovel. Ashby blinked in the rheumy light and sat on an old, neglected easy chair, the letters on his lap. He wouldn’t read them again. Above him a skylight and a moonless night. No stars, just a feathering of snow. The room was warm, almost womb-like. ‘I’ll just shut my eyes for a second,’ he said.
When the rumbling came across the yard, Monsieur Roumande was the first to hear it. He got up and walked over to the back door, but hesitated. It was late. He looked over at Hatton, who was splayed across the desk asleep, a half glass of porter unfinished by his side. Hatton had arrived covered in a layer of snow, having walked from the docks, and after telling Roumande all that he knew so far on the case, said he would take just forty winks to restore himself. That had been several hours ago, and Roumande had kept the fire well stoked and lain a tartan blanket over the Professor, which they kept for nights like this.
Roumande knew it wouldn’t be one of their collectors at this hour. They usually arrived at St Bart’s just before dawn, their carts laden down, having worked all night around the alleys in The Borough. The river was rich pickings, as well. Mud larks frozen solid, if they’d ventured too far across the ice, so that it was easy to chip them out, their cadavers held in readiness for the mortuary slab. But how many more months like this?
Roumande shuddered to think on it and, leaving the door for a second, moved over to the fire and threw another log on. He watched the smaller bits of wood ignite, exploding into a thousand embers. He waited for the knock to come again and when it did, looked at the body before him with genuine pity. He walked over to Hatton and shook him awake.
The Specials laid the body on a slab. Hatton put his apron on. Roumande went over to the instrument table and sharpened the knives. Neither spoke about ‘why’ or ‘where’. It was too late for that.
Roumande opened Hatton’s surgical box, each blade cleaned and sharpened, as if somehow they had known the tools would be needed very soon again. But they hadn’t seen this. The quill was jabbed in, the point perforating his trachea. A night porter heard the crash and found his body hurled down the stairs like rubbish.
‘His death would have been almost instant, Albert. Adams wouldn’t have suffered.’ Hatton took a knife and made a sharp incision, easing the quill out, which was absolutely shear, like an arrow.
Should he call the family now? Hatton thought about what Adams’s last thoughts must have been after he’d followed him to the molly boy whorehouse. But that was a secret now, taken to the grave. All over and done with, and it would stay that way. A reputation pierced. A scatter of broken promises left behind. None of it mattered any more. The lies to a wife; the promises to a lover. All of it gone. So this was death then, thought Hatton. Silent like the morgue.
‘Let’s not cut him any more. I can’t do it, Albert. It’s clear what has happened, here. He has died from asphyxiation and acute blood loss. I’ve no need for a microscope. It’s textbook stuff.’
Roumande put the blades away. He stepped back and picked up an autopsy form.
‘Your hand is always neater than mine. Just write the usual, Albert. Time. Weapon. Place of death. Age of victim. Overall conclusion. But none of this will matter.’ Hatton sighed. ‘I have had enough of this pointless dissection, for what have we achieved? What have we learnt that has made any difference?’
Roumande put the form down incomplete and spoke to his friend, the Professor. ‘Inspector Adams met his destiny, Adolphus. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it will come to us all. Whoever did this to him has left a message. The weapon? Does it say anything to you?’
Hatton shrugged and started to rifle the dead man’s pockets, lost in thought. ‘I thought it might be here. It’s Olinthus Babbage’s notebook. God knows if it’s still useful.’
The two men looked at the book. Roumande flicked through it. ‘The name of Dr Canning is here and the initials L.B., which we know stands for Lady Bessingham, and look Adolphus, here’s another name we must have missed before.’
Hatton took the notebook.
‘Is there something the matter, Adolphus?’
‘I’m not sure. Wait a minute.’ Hatton walked over to where they kept their microscope and pressed the notebook flat, so the entire page could be seen. ‘Have a look, Albert. Tell me what you see.’
The apparition was clear. The ink was different, and so was the hand which wrote it.
Roumande said, ‘This name had been added, Adolphus. And I know this name. I read about the case in a newspaper years ago. He was up on a charge for molesting a child but it was dropped. Long before you came to St Bart’s, Adolphus. But you know the rich. Nothing sticks. There was a bit of fuss at the time, but it all got swept under the carpet. The Duke of Monreith. There’s a square named after him in Mayfair.’
Hatton nodded, because it was all starting to make sense. The angel in the box. Property of D.W.R. Dodds. A child missing in the Fens. Violet. A dressmaker working for someone else. He asked Roumande to fetch a carriage.
