Summon Up the Blood (24 page)

‘Yes, that’s right. That’s what happened.’

‘What about the Met Pets?’

‘Well, I cannot swear there are no coppers with large families and fecund wives,’ went on Lennox. ‘But I find it hard to believe that they are . . . what was the word you used, Finch? Disgruntled? Isn’t that enough to tell you he was spinning you a yarn?’

‘You’ve certainly kissed the Blarney Stone, Mr Lennox,’ said Sir Edward. The flicker of a smile rippled across his mask of severity. ‘But we are not playing games here.’

‘Fair point.’

Sir Edward turned to Finch. ‘Do you retract your confession? And withdraw the allegations you made against unnamed officers?’

‘I do.’

‘This places me in a very difficult position. Clearly you are incapable of plain-dealing. Therefore you have forfeited any claim to favoured treatment that Mr Bittlestone’s assistance earned you. We will prepare a statement about the bodies which we will release simultaneously to all the London newspapers. You will be held here, incommunicado, until the statement is ready, then you may take a copy away with you. For now, we will not press charges concerning the matter of corrupting police officers. However, if any new evidence comes to light suggesting that anyone employed by the
Clarion
has ever been involved in such activities, then clearly it behoves us to come down with the full force of the law on that individual. And, I might add, on anyone else who is guilty of conspiring with him in committing the offence. That would include, for example, an editor who encouraged such practices and a proprietor who provided the funds for them.’

Lennox could not hide his dismay. It was evident that all the charm, all the professional Irishness, that he had invested in winning Sir Edward over had been wasted. And Harry Lennox was clearly not a man who liked to see his investments come to nothing. He scowled at his editor.

‘Now,’ continued Sir Edward, ‘you will wait here while Inspector Quinn and I retire to another room to prepare the statement. I shall ask Miss Latterly to furnish you with some refreshments while you wait. And I shall have a constable wait with you to ensure that you . . . have everything you need.’

Quinn found Sir Edward impressively calm when they sat down together in a small windowless room across the corridor. The only comment he allowed himself on the recent wrangling was: ‘
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners
. One Corinthians, fifteen, twenty-three.’

The sealed-off room, with its single bare electric light bulb hanging on twisted wires from a cracked ceiling, was designed to focus the mind. There was no view of the river, no conduit for their thoughts to flow along. Away from the thing they were forced to consider.

Three more dead.

‘Are the victims exsanguinated?’ asked Quinn.

‘We don’t know yet. The post-mortem examinations have not been completed. The bodies are being held at Golden Lane. You may want to go over there and speak to the surgeon yourself.’

Quinn did not acknowledge Sir Edward’s suggestion. To inspect one corpse might be considered an unappealing duty; the prospect of confronting three together was surely beyond the call. ‘How do we know they are victims of the same killer?’

‘The throats were cut in the same way. The positioning of the bodies was similar. They were dressed and clean. Spotless.’

‘Was . . . anything . . . found on them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cigarette cases?’

‘Yes.’

‘Inscribed?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘Same message?
To be entirely free
?’

‘No. The wording of each is different. I made a note of it.’ Sir Edward passed Quinn a sheet on which was written:

Seek entrance to the House of Pain!

D.P.

Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

D.P.

Suffering is one very long moment.

D.P.

‘May I keep this?’

‘Of course.’

Quinn folded the sheet away. He sensed Sir Edward watching him expectantly. But Quinn was not ready to consider the messages yet. He bore the words to his heart, as if they were secret missives from a lover to be read alone later. Sir Edward seemed to sense his need for privacy. He did not push the matter. ‘You will receive photographs of the cigarette cases themselves as soon as they are ready.’

‘The ages of the victims,’ began Quinn abruptly. ‘What did you say? Sixteen to twenty-five?’

‘Approximately. We cannot know for sure until we are able to identify them.’

‘Bittlestone is probably right, isn’t he? They are likely to be renters.’

‘What I said to him is perfectly true. We don’t know that. We may never know that. We cannot assume that it is relevant. Concentrate on the facts, Quinn. I am surprised I have to remind you of this.’

‘Where were the bodies found?’

‘That’s better. They were all in the City Police District. Which makes managing the release of news even more difficult. We can barely control our own
disgruntled coppers
, let alone those of another force.’ Sir Edward gave Finch’s phrase a sardonic emphasis.

‘What about the case? Don’t they want to take it over? After all, the majority of the bodies now have been found on their turf.’

‘The call I took was from Sir William, whom I had already fully briefed about the first murder. Whitechapel is, after all, adjoining the City district, so it was likely that we would need their cooperation at some point. He acknowledges – with demonstrable relief, I might add – that you have started work on this, and should therefore be allowed to carry on leading it. He is perfectly prepared to make men and whatever other resources we need available to us. Fortunately, I took the precaution when setting up your department of getting my counterpart in the City on board. I presented Special Crimes as a resource both forces could draw on. Sir William even contributes to your budget, don’t you know. Indeed, I think I may have persuaded him that the whole thing was his idea.’

‘That was very clever of you, sir.’

‘As for the precise locations of the bodies, well, see what you make of this, Quinn. The first was found at the south end of the Minories, just inside the City District. It had been positioned to face the Tower of London. The second was found on Threadneedle Street, facing the Bank of England. The third was found . . .’

‘Outside Saint Paul’s Cathedral,’ said Quinn. The flatness of his voice belied the wild, destabilizing emotion that was overwhelming him. At last he was beginning to think like the killer. It marked a crucial progression in the conduct of a case, but it was also a move away from his precarious sense of self towards something he could never wholly control. He knew this from experience.

‘Good heavens! How did you know?’

‘Moving east to west, as the killer seems to be, it was the next major monument.’

‘But these are more than mere monuments, Quinn.’

Quinn nodded slowly, as he considered the significance of the locations. ‘They are institutions. And more than that, even. They are symbols of our nationhood. The killer is mocking the foundations of our state.’

Sir Edward pointed an arm accusingly towards one of the walls of the featureless room. ‘And what will
they
make of that?’ Whether he meant the three newspapermen, or the world at large, Quinn was not sure.

The detective tried to recover his train of thought. He had never used Sir Edward as a foil for his theories before. Being a career civil servant and not a policeman, the commissioner lacked the investigative discipline of a trained officer. ‘Or perhaps it is more complex than mockery. Let us think back to where the first victim was found. Jimmy Neville. Body found in the London Docks, beneath a Dewar Whisky sign.’

‘That doesn’t fit in with these other ones,’ said Sir Edward, glumly, clasping his hands together with an air of defeat.

‘At first sight, no. The Dewar sign is no great monument, that’s for sure. But it does symbolize something.’

‘The demon drink?’

‘Or perhaps it is more to do with our nation’s dependence on commerce. The situation may signify more than the sign, if I may put it like that. The fact that it is in the Docklands, where the cargo ships of the Empire arrive to be unloaded. Did you not once remind me of the vital importance of the Thames to the capital? The food and materials we need to survive flow in through it. It is our lifeblood. The first crime poisons it, as these other crimes tarnish those great institutions.’

‘If this gets out . . . Why, it is the very worst that we feared!’

‘We cannot prevent it from getting out, Sir Edward. I hate to say it, but that man Finch is right. Some disgruntled copper somewhere
will
let it slip. Whether he gets paid for it or not is immaterial. We must take the initiative.’

Sir Edward seemed to collapse physically as he accepted the truth of what Quinn was saying. He was the picture of a man not so much bowing to as buckling under the inevitable. ‘Yes, of course. There is no avoiding it. Indeed, one thing I have not told you is that Sir William is preparing a press statement of his own. His right, I suppose, as the three bodies were found in the City. That rather forces the issue, if it hadn’t been forced already. We shall of course compare notes before releasing a jointly signed communiqué.’

‘Couldn’t this all take rather a long time?’

‘If you’re worried about those three scoundrels in there, let them stew. I shall keep them as long as I need to.’

‘In truth, I was thinking more about the progress of the case.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. Leave the statement to me. I only really wanted an excuse to brief you in private. You must do whatever you need to do.’

‘Then you should know that I wish to take Bittlestone to the mortuary to see if he recognizes any of the latest victims.’

‘But to do so would be tacitly to acknowledge that there is something in what he said.’

‘Sir Edward, I simply cannot proceed in this case if I must be constantly guarding a falsehood. It is as if you are tying one hand behind my back and putting me in to box.’

‘What? Oh. Yes, I see. It’s difficult for us all, Quinn. I’m under pressure too, you know. I can’t simply give you carte blanche, because it is not mine to give.’

‘There are three more dead, Sir Edward.
Three more dead!
Go to the man who has the ear of the Home Secretary and whisper that into it.’

‘He doesn’t carry the ear around with him, you know, Quinn.’

‘They must see that we have to catch this killer. If we do not, it will be worse for them.’

Sir Edward gave a shudder, which seemed to set off a new twinge of pain. ‘I shall see what I can do. I suppose if Mr Bittlestone is all you say he is, there is a chance he will have crossed paths with one or other of the dead men – if they are indeed renters as you suspect. Surely there can only be a very small number of these degenerates in the capital?’

‘I cannot say, Sir Edward.’

‘What? Eh? Well, at any rate, it seems that there are four fewer now.’ Sir Edward rose to his feet and cast his gaze frantically about the room, as if he were looking for a means of escape.

T
he city went by in a blur.

Macadam was where he liked to be: in the driving seat. Quinn was thankful for the good, calm fixity of his sergeant’s concentration as he drove. He was the embodiment of stolidity. His movements measured and reassuring. On such men was Britain built. Salt of the earth, it went without saying. Dependable and loyal: the two necessary traits of a great subordinate. The killer might be able to tarnish the emblems of Empire, but as long as there were men like Macadam, as long as their spirit was strong and uncorrupted, then there was hope.

Next to Quinn, in the rear of the car, Bittlestone took out a fat yellow cigarette from a silver case and put it to his lips. Misreading Quinn’s look, he proffered the cigarettes. Quinn declined wordlessly and watched as Bittlestone lit up.

At the time of its construction, nearly forty years ago now, the mortuary in Golden Lane was one of the largest and best equipped in the capital. Held to be a veritable ‘palace of the dead’ by critics and proponents alike, it had provided the model for the wave of modern mortuaries that were to follow, including the one at Poplar which Quinn had visited at the beginning of the week. As at Poplar, it was located behind a coroner’s court, another imposing red brick building with neo-Gothic detailing.

Inside, the apartments were on a grand scale, as if those who had built it had been expecting a glut of death.

Had they foreseen this moment?
wondered Quinn.

The post-mortem room was large enough to house three dissecting tables, on each of which lay a cadaver.

Quinn and Bittlestone removed their bowlers simultaneously, with the same hurried motion. It was almost as if some invisible force emanating from the dead had pulled the hats from their heads and they had only just caught them in time.

The pallor was the first thing that hit him, the same inescapable pallor that had overwhelmed him before. The harsh electric lights and gleaming white tiles magnified the unnatural incandescence of the skin.

The bodies were still clothed, so the pallor was concentrated in the face and hands. It seemed all the more intense for that. At the same time, Quinn had a sense of it as something that had leaked out from under the clothes. He knew that there was more of it concealed from view, like an undiscovered cancer.

Quinn held back and allowed Bittlestone to make the first approach. The journalist walked slowly from one to the other, pausing each time for his gaze to linger over the full length of their bodies.

Bittlestone’s expression was uncertain as he came back towards Quinn, preoccupied rather than pained.

‘Well?’

‘I recognize two of the boys. I believe their names are Vincent and Eric. They are the ones on the first two tables.’

‘Surnames?’

‘Vincent I only knew by his Christian name. Eric, I think, is Eric Sealey. I believe he worked in the Telegraph Office. Perhaps Vincent did too. You might begin your enquiries there.’