Renegade (12 page)

I needed an umbrella. I focused on locating my umbrella in my closet so that I could leave. I was in no mood to listen to Ellen’s chatter.

“You have not heard yet, Miss?” she exclaimed in a sharp whisper as I pulled the umbrella out from behind a pair of boots.

“I have not yet been out of my room, Ellen.”

“Do not tell Lady Westfield that I’m talking to you about this. She has forbidden me from speaking of it—awful nonsense, she called it. But I thought you should know, since you’re goin’ out and all.”

“What is it, Ellen?” I sighed wearily.

“The word on the street is all about them two murders in Highgate Cemetery last night.”

“What?”

“Shhh! Remember, the missus threatened to sack me if I talk’d about it anymore in ’er house.”

“Tell me what happened,” I demanded in a whispered hiss.

“They were murdered. Eat’n! Their throats ripped out. Their insides chewed all up. Devoured.”

Now that Ellen had my full attention, she relished in the drama of her story.

“It was grave-robbers, resurrectionists, what were murdered, low sorts from what I’ve heard. Two men—they were found this mornin’, and the ’hol Highgate neighborhood is risen up, scar’d and angry.”

I felt nearly overwhelmed now, remembering the blood-smeared beings from the night before. Nonetheless, I tried to remain composed.

“It sounds, rather, as if a lion escaped from the zoological gardens.”

“No, it’s cannibals in London! And I, for one, am feared for my life.” Her eyes widened even further.

“Grandmother is correct, Ellen. You should not speak of such nonsense.”

Silencing Ellen as she began to protest, I told her to tell Grandmother that I would now be working at New Hospital instead of Whitechapel Hospital. I certainly did not feel like discussing anything with Grandmother. As I descended the stairs toward the front door, I heard the clatter of Grandmother’s knife and fork striking against her china plate. But I left without speaking a word to her. I resolved to send a note to Simon later today, letting him know about my decision.

Before going to New Hospital, I decided to ride through Swains Lane. After last night, and the news from Ellen, I was determined to visit Mariah’s grave site to see if it was undisturbed.

That was, if I could get past the curious crowds. It was no later than six o’clock in the morning, and in spite of the rain, a small but crushing group of journalists and others stood outside Highgate Cemetery. Constables were working hard to barricade the entrance.

There would be no possibility of penetrating through the pressing crowd, but I watched as a small group of medics arrived, stretchers and medical bags of supplies in hand. The bodies must not have been removed yet. I wondered if Dr. George Bagster Phillips, the mortuary surgeon, would be performing the autopsies on the bodies as he had done for the Ripper case.

Quickly throwing aside my umbrella and pulling my cloak’s hood up with purpose, I attached myself to the six medical workers who had just exited their carriages and were confronting the small crowd. I quickly told one of the nearby constables blocking the gate that I was from the mortuary; he looked at my black dress and pinafore, typical nurse’s attire, and nodded. I was, after all, a hospital worker, and under the circumstances, no one questioned me further.

The inside of the cemetery seemed almost as crowded as the outside. Constables seemed to be everywhere as I moved forward with the tiny cluster of medical workers.

We were ushered toward the tombs in the Egyptian Avenue section. They stood out from the foliage around them, giant, chalky. A small path split off from the main one; it was the path leading to Mariah’s grave. But at the point when I might have easily slipped unnoticed in that direction, I decided to press on with the main group, toward the spot where the bodies lay. I could not shun this opportunity to see firsthand what had happened the night before.

The first sign of violence in the scene was a bloodied handprint, rust-brown in the rain. The print stood midway up a looming, tall grave shaped like an angel. The granite being held a sword in one hand; the angel’s other arm was outstretched, the palm upward in an inviting gesture of protection and peace. It was as if the fleeing body-thief, in desperation or perhaps in panicked repentance for disturbing the dead, had appealed to the useless stone being.

Almost immediately after passing the blood-stained tombstone, I came upon the murder scene. A photographer was taking the crime photos—blinding all around him with great white flashes. Some of the medical workers stood by with the stretchers; others, and a few constables, held umbrellas over the bodies. Every single one of us covered our noses with handkerchiefs. The slaughterhouse odor, even in the rain, was overwhelming. Even with the cloth over my nose, I felt my stomach convulse a couple of times.

Dr. Phillips crouched over the two corpses to begin his initial medical examination. I listened, averting my eyes from the bodies—ragged wounds at their throats, open caverns in their stomachs.

“Two males—one early twenties, other late forties. Possible relatives,” I heard a familiar voice saying to the crouching Phillips.

Abberline! I pulled my hood further around my face. I did not want the Inspector to see me. He would know that I did not belong with these forensic workers. And I did not wish to speak to him, particularly given my experiences with him in the past.

But for the moment, at least, Abberline knelt near Phillips, all his attention consumed in the scene before him. His voice came out loud and gravely. “One source has already identified them as a father and son, Felix and Thaddeus Cruncher—though I would like to verify this further. We will make efforts to locate families later today. A cemetery worker discovered the pair at four thirty this morning.”

“The stage of rigor mortis shows me that they have been lying here all night,” Phillips said in dry assertion. “Death occurred sometime between eight o’clock and ten at night.”

I stepped a few feet away, worried that Abberline might decide to look up and see me. Furthermore, I needed the distance, as the smell suddenly seemed more pungent. The tiny flies swarmed even amid the rain, and their buzzing roared unrelenting in my ears.

I heard Abberline point out the “bite marks” on the throats and chests.

There was a long silence and I heard Phillips give a tremendous sniff. Without seeing his expression, I could not decide if the sound came from boredom or deep reflection.

“Have you located the kidneys, livers, and hearts of the victims, Abberline?” Phillips asked suddenly.

“No, we have not.”

“When I perform the autopsies, I’ll determine whether more organs are missing. All of these wounds appear to have been made by human teeth, nails, and hands. I see no evidence of any knife cuts.”

“So the attacker was human?” Abberline asked.

“Most certainly,” Phillips said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him, with a small pair of tweezers, place something in a small jar held by an assistant. Using a small cloth strip, he began swabbing at one of the wounds on the younger victim.

“Abberline,” Phillips said, peering closer into the wound, “at least two attackers were involved here. Do a thorough check of the nearby asylums for missing persons. I doubt that your men will locate the organs.”

A throat cleared. “Why is that?” Abberline asked.

“Because I am surmising that the organs have been consumed,” Phillips said, standing and wiping his hands upon a nearby rag. From the tone of his voice, he might as well have been answering a question about the type of tea brand he preferred.

“Guess we won’t have to worry about watchin’ out for them resurrection men around here no more,” one constable near me whispered to another.

Consumed.
I felt the strangest mixtures of emotion. Horror, at the thought that I had been in the cemetery possibly mere minutes after these murders occurred, overwhelmed me. That I had been pursued by the murderers, that they had somehow managed to take one of our children from the orphanage. It was an impossible but apparently real atrocity. What was this? Who were those bloodstained people who pursued me last night? Oddly, also I felt a bit of stark, dark amusement at how quickly Ellen had attained accurate information about the murders.

When I had seen and heard enough, I turned toward Mariah’s grave. I had to see it before I left. As I walked, I kept looking behind me to make certain that I was not being followed. I hoped that Abberline hadn’t seen me here; if he had, he would certainly want to speak to me.

Then, as I rounded a corner near Mariah’s grave, I was startled to see a man, in a very long coat, smoking a pipe as he leaned against a tombstone. He nodded politely at me, and I nodded back. I had never seen him before—I assumed he might work with Dr. Phillips, an assistant perhaps. He was probably somewhere in his forties, and he had a very distinct face—sunburned—and shocking ash-blond hair that was almost white. He watched me as I passed, and I heard him lightly hit his pipe against a nearby tomb to knock out the ash.

I continued on my way.

I found the place. The simple front of the granite marker seemed unmolested, reading only
Mariah Anne Crawford 1869–1889
.

But as I surveyed the surrounding dirt, I could not determine if the ground had been disturbed at all. Someone, probably a groundskeeper, had spread gravel all around the grave. And since Mariah had been dead only a few months, grass had not yet had much of an opportunity to cover the ground.

I knelt in front of the marker, the tiny white rocks crunching under my kneecaps. I felt an overwhelming, almost hot emotion surge through me as I recalled Mariah. I remembered the look in her eyes, panic and determination to survive, before she fell to her death. After such violence she deserved peace, and if my darkest suppositions were correct—that she was somehow the woman I had seen the night before with the child—she was clearly not at peace. She must be returned to the grave.

A lone morning moth landed onto my skirt.

I contemplated the philosophical concept of Ockham’s razor: that the most probable theory or explanation for something was also typically the simplest explanation. Of course, the Conclave and their history had not represented the simplest explanation behind the Whitechapel murders, and it had been the true one. But I struggled not to apply my outrageous suspicions—that it was re-animated corpses who were responsible—to this case. No, it seemed more likely to be some sort of cult, perhaps a cannibal blood-cult, or escaped lunatics as Phillips had suggested. Still, my other theory persisted like a clinging cobweb on my skin.

The moth flew away and I stood, leaving that place.

I made it out of the cemetery, pushing my way past the dwindling crowd at the front gates. It was already nine o’clock. I would have liked to have been at New Hospital by now. As I walked a few blocks from the graveyard, I saw that the sidewalks were already very busy, crowded with hurried people.

The moment I focused on locating a hansom cab, I heard a voice behind me.

“Miss Sharp.”

I felt my shoulders tense. I thought I had escaped him.

I turned to see Inspector Abberline looming above me. Bristling, I remembered how heavy-handed he had been with me during his Ripper investigation; in fact, I felt my insides burn as I thought of how he had practically blackmailed me in an attempt to find evidence against William or Simon.

Blast.
Every single carriage passing me was occupied.

“Certainly you have a few moments … ”

“I’m trying to go to work,” I said quickly.
Please God send me an available carriage.
The streets were always full of available carriages. Of course, this would be the one instance where I could not secure one immediately.

“I can take you in my own carriage to the hospital. You can save your fare.”

“No.”

Ahhh …
I spotted a hansom cab coming in my direction.

“Miss Sharp. I’ll get to the point. What were you doing just now at the murder scene?”

Bloody hell.
Someone else had reached the cab before I could, and I watched as the carriage turned the opposite direction from where I needed to go.