The Strings of Murder (36 page)

I saw McGray falling onto the ground, his head but a few inches from the wagons’ wheels, and then the cloaked figure pinning him down, one of its long arms pressing McGray’s throat. I tried to make out the five eyes again but it was too dark.

McGray struggled fiercely, his four-fingered hand trying to push the gleaming knife away from him, but despite the roaring train I could hear him choking.

I let out a tearing shriek. There was nothing I could do to help!

The glass blade was descending slowly towards McGray’s face and he was not strong enough to stop it. I wanted to shoot but I could only do it blindly, and the bullet could easily ricochet on the train’s wheels and hit me or McGray.

The knife flashed under the train lights, unyielding, approaching McGray until I heard him howling in pain. I howled too; I was going to witness McGray’s death while standing but a few feet from him!

At that moment the last wagon passed us and I instantly shot. I missed by some distance, but it was enough to scare the beast away.

I saw its black form grabbing the bloody sack and running away. I kneeled by McGray and saw his neck bleeding with the mark of the thin blade.

He pushed me away. ‘I’m fine, ye go catch it!’

‘You need –’

‘
Fuck, catch it!
’

His roaring voice was like a push in the back and I simply ran and ran towards the tall, ancient buildings of the Old Town.

I saw the black cloak entering a narrow close whose ascending steps led to High Street. I shall never forget that frantic race; advancing with all my strength, cursing and panting. My knees burned as I ascended, the pain growing swiftly and steadily. Suddenly there was nothing
in front of me but stone steps that seemed to go on for ever. No sign of the beast! I had lost our murderer …

My legs burned like the fires of Hell, but then I saw a faint light at the end of the close. The sight gave me second wind, and as I climbed up and the pain grew, I let out a rising growl that ended up as the loudest scream I have ever unleashed.

Like a gust of air I reached the last step and stormed into the Royal Mile, looking desperately in all directions. We were so close to the City Chambers!

‘
What a bold bastard!
’ I cried out loud.

I finally saw it again as it flashed across my vision, running towards Holyrood, though at a much slower pace, in a clumsy loping gait.

‘I’ve got you now!’ I said, gathering what little strength I had left and resuming the chase. The creature, whatever it might be, was not an infallible demon; it was tired after the frantic race, its movements becoming erratic. That gave me hope.

But that moment taught me that I should never be too optimistic: as I cheered my success, my boots slipped on the iced flagstones and I fell backwards, the back of my head hitting the pavement. I did not even feel the impact; the world simply twirled around me and all my senses but my sight deserted me.

Then, a black figure appeared before me, obscuring the street lanterns and then the sky. For a second I thought I was looking at its multiple eyes … but I could not tell how many.

And that was the last thing I saw.

30

Blood.

The air reeked of it, as if a soaked sponge were being held in front of my nose. But there was no sponge … The stench came from my chest!
From my face!

‘
God!
’ I howled, sitting up in despair.

Then I had a vision of whiteness: white walls, white sheets and white bandages … but the smell of blood was no dream.

I panted for a moment, my head still spinning, and very slowly the world around me took shape. I was in Moray Place, lying on my bed in my nightclothes, with a tight bandage around my head. I felt my brain beating and all my joints ached. I pressed a hand on my pained forehead and in a blink all the events of the previous night came back to me. That stench of blood was simply the remnant of what that beast had thrown at my face.

The door opened and I was surprised to see Larry, the young chimneysweep, coming in with a breakfast tray. I nearly gasped when I saw how brutally bruised his left eye was.

‘Mornin’, master. Ye hungry?’

‘Good lord! What happened to your eye?’

Larry laid the tray on the bed. I saw that half his eyeball was bright red; a blood vessel in his eye had burst.

‘It was my dad. He got drunk with the money I begged yesterday …’

I felt a pang of guilt in my chest, thinking how detached I was from that poor boy’s world. How charitable I’d always felt, tossing shillings and farthings around, not knowing that perhaps they did more harm than good.

‘I see … McGray is letting you stay, I suppose?’

‘Aye.’

I was going to tousle the boy’s hair, but the poor soul was startled when he saw my hand rising. I shook my head indignantly.

‘Does your father know where you are?’

Larry looked away. ‘N-no, no, master, I left when he was sleeping. But please don’t send me back to him!’

I nearly laughed. ‘Send you back! Why, on the contrary.’

I pondered my situation. If my permanent lodgings in Edinburgh were indeed to be arranged soon, I would probably need a second servant to give Joan a hand – she’d always hated to set the fires and, quite frankly, she was not getting any younger.

‘If McGray already let you stay,’ I said, ‘I do not think he will mind me employing you. How would you like to become my footman? You would also have to help my maid with some domestic chores.’

Tears pooled in the boy’s eyes, and he turned swiftly to run towards the door. Just as I thought I’d offended him I heard his proud voice even through the walls: ‘
He says I can stay!
’

I also heard a loud ‘
shhhhhh
’, undoubtedly uttered by Joan. She’d surely thought that sending the boy to serve
my breakfast would touch my heart. A part of me felt somewhat manipulated, but the sight of the boy’s face would have shaken the toughest of men.

I then dug into the breakfast tray with particular gusto, suddenly realizing how hungry I was. As I chewed buttered toast my mind went back to the case and all the questions I urgently needed to ask – I did not even know how I’d ended up back in my own bed … or what had ultimately happened to that thing we’d chased.

Half an hour later Larry came back to pick up the tray. His wide smile now contrasted with his ugly bruise. ‘Ye need anything else, master?’

‘Oh, yes, fetch McGray. I need him to tell me what happened last night.’

‘Och, Master McGray left early. He got a summons from some grand man asking him to go to the City Chambers.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ I muttered. ‘Was the message from a man called Campbell?’

‘Erm … Aye, I think so.’

‘
Oh Lord!
’ I jumped out of the bed. ‘Did you hear anything of what happened last night?’

‘No, sir. But master McGray jumped up just like ye when he read the note … also when he saw the newspaper …’

‘
Oh Lord!
’ I shrieked again. ‘Did you know what was in the headlines?’

‘Nae, I cannae read, sir.’

‘I need Joan. Either she or George must have squeezed every last bit of information out of McGray. Joan!
Joan!
’

‘I’ve not seen her since I brought yer tray, sir.’

‘Typical. When one needs that bloody pair, they vanish!’

My only choice was to go to the City Chambers myself. I went through the room looking for clean clothes, and found a filthy bundle by the foot of my bed. It turned out to be the suit I’d worn the night before: bloody, soiled and torn beyond redemption.

‘Good grief! This is the fifth fine suit that has been ruined since the Mary Jane Kelly case!’

I would have to wear the infamous navy suit I’d worn to Lady Ardglass’s ball – creased and muddy as it was.

I looked at the mirror and found myself decidedly appalling: stubble, pale cheeks, messy hair sprouting from under the bandages, and dark bags under my eyes.

‘Elgie was right,’ I sighed. ‘This place is eating me alive.’

I told Larry to throw away the ruined suit and then made my way to the entrance. The house appeared to be deserted so I had to go to the cloakroom and grab my own overcoat. When I hastily opened the wardrobe my eyes almost ached from what I found.

George and Joan!

Locked in a tight embrace and kissing wildly!

Joan’s hair was an utter mess and one of her chubby legs was bare and stuck up in the air.

My voice came out weary rather than anything else: ‘
Ohhh!
Just when I though my eyes could behold nothing more gruesome!’

‘
But sir
–
!
’

‘I’ve no time for this, woman!’

I pushed George aside, grabbed the nearest coat and quickly shut the wardrobe again.

On my way to the City Chambers I saw a newspaper boy crying out the day’s headlines on Princes Street. I could not make out a word over the road’s bustle, so I simply tossed him a sixpence and snatched a copy from his hand without even slowing down my mount.

The enormous headline was like a drill poking into my eyes:

THE RIPPER IS IN LOTHIAN!!!!

I yelled, groaned and thrashed about, abandoning myself to the most enraged fit and receiving the dazed stares of everyone around me. I crumpled the filthy paper and hurled it in front of me, ensuring that Philippa’s hooves trampled on it. I thought that I could not possibly feel angrier, little knowing that the worst was about to come.

When I made it to the City Chambers I saw a gaggle of reporters crowding the courtyard. As soon as I dismounted, a man emerged from the crowd and approached me.

‘
Inspector Frey!
’ he babbled. ‘Was it you who discovered the desecrated grave? Did you really fall on the ice while chasing the Ripper?’

I felt like punching his nose and kicking his crotch, but that would only give him more scandal to publish.

‘Get out of my way, you rancid piece of dung!’ I said, elbowing the reporters aside as I made my way in.

McGray was not in the basement, but I found him waiting by the door to Campbell’s office. He was gripping a copy of the newspaper and I could tell that he’d been crumpling it for a while.

‘Och, there ye are! I thought ye’d be knocked out ’til next week! Ye all right, yer highness? Ye look awful.’

‘I know … but it is not from the fall. Believe me.’

He showed me the dreadful front page. ‘Och, so ye’ve read the papers, have ye? What d’ye think o’ this?’

‘Four exclamation marks are overexerting. Pray tell me what happened last night.’

‘The scandalmonger Joan didn’t tell ye?’

‘No. She was … otherwise engaged.’

‘Well, I laid there on the rails for a wee while before goin’ after ye, but I still lost yer track. Ye ran like the wind, Frey! When I didn’t see ye I thought I’d better go to the City Chambers to get reinforcements, but when I made it to the Royal Mile there was already a commotion there; some peelers found ye lying on this huge frozen puddle. I cannae believe ye didn’t see that on yer way!’

‘Oh, do excuse me! I was busy trying to catch that bloody thing that nearly slashed your jugular!’

‘Anyways, some peelers and me took ye to the house and I asked George to fetch a doctor for ye. Then we went back to Calton Hill and found poor Reed still lookin’ after the grave. He couldn’t avoid some children seeing the bloody mess, and when we were bringing the body here for a proper post-mortem, a damn bunch o’ reporters caught us.’

‘Damn it …’

‘I also had a few peelers looking around the area where we found ye. There was a trail o’ blood from where ye lay; they followed it for a couple o’ streets but then it just disappeared. Can ye guess where it ended?’

That was not difficult. ‘By a sewer?’

‘Indeedy. Another bloody sewer. I sent one o’ the laddies to fetch the blueprints and we were trying to plot a track ’til the small hours but we never found’ – his face darkened – ‘that
thing
.’

I drew a bit closer so that I could whisper as softly as possible. ‘Then you do not know yet what that …
thing
was, do you?’

McGray allowed himself a bitter smile. ‘Ye tell me. Ye saw it too.’

‘I do not know what I saw …’

‘Och, don’t gimme that crap, ye sissy sod! Ye saw the five eyes didn’t ye? When it kicked the lantern off yer hand? I had a better view when it was tryin’ to butcher me.’

I could not deny it. That image was imprinted in my memory. ‘I … I have never beheld anything like that.’

McGray sighed and lowered his eyes; he was looking at the void where his fourth finger should have been.

‘I have,’ he said, after a painful gulp. ‘Once.’

He said no more. I wanted to ask what he meant, but Campbell’s assistant came out of the office right then. ‘The superintendent is waiting for you.’

‘This is not going to be easy …’ McGray grunted.

More than ever, Campbell looked like an angry lion waiting for us in his lair: silent, drumming his fingers on the pristine newspaper that lay on his desk. We walked in, bowed, took our seats, and I believe it took him another full minute to finally utter his most despicable words: ‘I
must
congratulate you, gentlemen; both of you!’