The Yard (24 page)

“No, sir. In fact, he expressly asked me to stand down.”

“But you disagreed.”

“I did.”

“I see. Do you believe yourself to be a detective?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why did you disregard Mr Tiffany’s wishes?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Yes, you do. Go on. Tell me.”

Sir Edward’s expression didn’t change, but there was something in his eyes that made Hammersmith decide to trust him.

“The body … It was a child, sir.”

He had no idea how to explain it better than that. It was enough for Hammersmith.

To his surprise, Sir Edward nodded.

“If Tiffany decided not to pursue the matter, then it’s not the business of the Yard to investigate the case. Anything you do, you’ll do on your own time. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hammersmith was amazed. Sir Edward was giving him tacit permission to go after the boy’s killer, while at the same time disavowing official responsibility.

“While you’re on your shift, you will confine your duties to those assigned you by Sergeant Kett.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And don’t pay any more visits to Charles Shaw. He’s not someone I care to see again before I’ve had my morning tea.”

Hammersmith almost smiled, but kept a straight face.

“You’re dismissed, Constable.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He rose and bowed slightly before turning to the door. Sir Edward cleared his throat as Hammersmith touched the doorknob.

“Hammersmith.”

“Sir?”

“Get yourself a new shirt. That one’s much too small for you.”

S
omething touched Colin Pringle’s leg. He woke confused and it took him several moments to figure out where he was. The tailor’s shop was dim and cold. A shy clique of dressmaker’s dummies, draped with dark fabric samples, huddled against the opposite wall. Pringle felt movement against his leg again and he jerked forward, alarmed. He looked down at the floor.

A fluffy white cat rubbed against him and then sat back, waiting to be stroked. Pringle sneezed. He wondered why a tailor would keep a long-haired cat. He imagined it would shed all over the suits and dresses created here. But Pringle had never noticed white hairs on his own suits, so the tailor must have brushed them well before giving them over. Pringle pushed the cat out of the way with his foot and stood up, stretching. The cat returned, purring, and he sidestepped it.

He looked around for a clock, but couldn’t see one. He didn’t think he’d been asleep long, but he decided he couldn’t wait any longer. He was late and Sergeant Kett was sure to reprimand him. Pringle was searching the table in the middle of the room for a piece of paper and pencil so he could leave a note when he heard carriage wheels roll to a stop outside.

A deep voice said something that Pringle couldn’t make out and footsteps approached the shop across the hard-packed dirt sidewalk. Pringle suddenly realized the tailor would think he was trespassing. He looked around, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. He hadn’t really done anything wrong. And he was a police officer, after all.

The door opened a couple of inches as if someone was testing it, and the deep voice he’d heard a moment before said, “Damn it, unlocked.” Pringle sat back down in the chair so as not to present a threat. He didn’t want to frighten anyone.

The tailor opened the door wider and stuck his head inside, looking around, but apparently didn’t see Pringle in the shadows. The door closed again and Pringle heard the bolt turn. He was being locked in!

Pringle ran to the big plate-glass window by the door and pounded on it. He could see the tailor getting into a hansom cab at the curb. There was someone else in the cab. The tailor stopped and turned his head, listening. Pringle slapped his open hand against the glass and the tailor turned to look directly at him. He squinted at Pringle and drew back, alarmed. Pringle smiled and spread his hands out at his sides. He shrugged.

The tailor jumped back out of the cab, reaching into his pocket. He produced a large iron key and approached the door again. The bolt turned and Pringle pulled the door open from inside.

“What’s going on here?” the tailor said.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Cinderhouse. I came in here looking for you and I suppose I fell asleep.”

“Looking for me? Why?”

“You were working on a new uniform for me. Surely you remember.”

“Oh, of course, Constable Pringle. I apologize. I had a … a family emergency this morning and wasn’t able to open the shop. Is there any way I can ask you to return tomorrow? Or even later this afternoon?”

“Well, you can see the state of my current uniform.”

“Yes. Unfortunately I’m just on my way somewhere and couldn’t possibly—”

“Then perhaps just a quick steam and press?”

“But I…” The tailor sighed. “Very well, sir. Give me a moment, would you?”

Pringle smiled and Cinderhouse went outside. He spoke to the driver of the cab and handed him a coin. The driver nodded. Pringle moved to the open door and leaned against the jamb, waiting. A small boy emerged from the darkness of the cab and looked at Pringle. The boy was dirty and half-naked, like some wild animal, and his face was red, as if he’d been crying. But when he spotted Pringle his eyes swept up and down the constable’s uniform and his expression changed. He opened his mouth wide as if
to shout, but the tailor had turned away from the coachman and now he clamped his hand over the boy’s mouth before he could make a sound.

Pringle narrowed his eyes and moved away from the jamb. He had no idea what was going on, but there was something about the expression on the boy’s face that alarmed him.

The tailor yelped and pulled his hand away from the boy’s face. It was clear that the boy had bitten him. He shouted before Cinderhouse could get his hand over his mouth again.

“Help!”

Pringle moved toward them, but the tailor held his free hand up, smiling.

“He’s playing a game with you, Constable. My son’s a mischievous child.”

“Let me talk to him directly, please.”

“Of course, of course. But let’s go inside where we won’t draw a crowd. Someone might misunderstand.”

Pringle nodded, but he kept his eyes on the boy. He didn’t look like a mischievous child; he looked like he was in trouble.

Cinderhouse kept his hand over the boy’s mouth and reached out to pick him up with his other arm. He looked up and down the street, then yanked the boy out of the cab and bustled him past Pringle and into the store. Pringle followed. The tailor set the boy down in the same chair Pringle had slept in, then hurried back past Pringle to shut the door.

The boy leapt from the chair and ran to Pringle. He wrapped his arms around Pringle’s leg. He was small and frail and his thin pajama trousers were soaking wet.

“What’s your name, son?” Pringle said.

“Fenn, sir. Please help me.”

“Well, Fenn, what seems to be the—”

Something slammed against Pringle’s back and the impact forced the air out of him. He felt a mild burning sensation somewhere in his back, and there were little echoes of it tingling in his toes and fingers, the way an itch sometimes appears to be in several places at once. He shook his head and smiled at the boy, but Fenn was backing away, a horrified look on his face.

Pringle moved his head. He was trying to nod, but the gesture was loose,
as if his head wasn’t properly attached to his body. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, and he felt confused. His mouth was dry.

He turned around and something hit him in the chest. Again, there was a burning sensation, but it wasn’t as strong as the one in his back had been. He shut his eyes and opened them again as he was punched in the stomach. He doubled over and noticed that his shirt was completely ruined. Someone had got blood all over it.

He looked up at the tailor in time to see Cinderhouse’s hand descend again. The tailor’s hat came off as he moved into the thrust. Sunlight through the window gleamed on Cinderhouse’s bare scalp. Then there was a glint of silver as the tailor punched him in the throat, and Pringle’s legs finally went out from under him. He tried to hold up his arms to ward off another blow, but they didn’t respond and Cinderhouse’s fist fell on him again.

“I won’t let you take him from me!”

The tailor was screaming, but the ebbing tide of blood was still in Pringle’s ears and he couldn’t hear, he could only read Cinderhouse’s lips as if from a great distance. Cinderhouse, still silently screaming, dropped to his knees over Pringle and thrust down at him again and again, and Pringle noticed that the silvery thing in his hand was a pair of shears. He tried to smile at the bald man to let him know that he finally understood the situation. He was being stabbed to death. Then he frowned. It should hurt more.

From the corner of his eye he could see a pool of blood expanding across the floor and realized that it was his own. Somehow the thought of all that blood rushing out of his body was worse than the nearly absent pain of the wounds themselves, and Pringle turned his head just in time to avoid soiling his clothing as he vomited on Cinderhouse’s shoes.

Cinderhouse stopped stabbing him and Pringle tried to rise, but his body wouldn’t obey.

A moment later the tailor returned, holding a spool of black thread and the largest needle Pringle had ever seen. He felt a distant pressure in his lower lip, and then Cinderhouse drew the thread up past his eyes and down, and there was more pressure in his upper lip as the tailor went on sewing Pringle’s lips shut. He tried again to move and felt Cinderhouse’s hand on
his chest, holding him down. The breath went out of him, but it sounded far away, like wind in the trees. He wanted to tell the tailor to stop pushing on him, that it didn’t matter, that he couldn’t move anyway, but the only sound he made was a low gurgle, and the thread came back up through his lips, drawing them tightly shut.

The tailor leaned in and whispered in Pringle’s ear. “I’m terribly sorry about this, Mr Pringle. You were always one of my better customers, and I hate to lose your business. But I can’t let you take my son away from me again. And I can’t let you tell anyone about him. You shouldn’t have seen him. You shouldn’t have come here and put your eyes on him.”

The deadly scissors
snicker-snack
ed and the needle came back past Pringle’s eyes with the short thread dangling loose. The tailor pulled it out and expertly rethreaded the needle. Pringle ran his tongue over the insides of his lips. They were sealed shut. The needle dug into his eyelid and the tailor was back at work, closing Pringle’s right eye. Pringle rolled his eyes to the other side so that he wouldn’t have to watch, and saw the fluffy white cat padding around the pools of blood on the floor. The cat rubbed against Pringle’s ear.

Pringle wondered how much of his murder had been witnessed by the boy. A child shouldn’t have to see such a thing. He hoped Fenn had turned away before the worst of it.

The needle began its work on his left eye and, as darkness closed in, Pringle’s last sight was of a small drop of bright red blood nested deep in the white cat’s fur.

He sighed. The air dribbled out of him and he didn’t draw another breath.

H
ammersmith found himself once more in the East End and once more across the street from the Shaws’ brownstone. He hadn’t set out for the East End, hadn’t given Charles Shaw or his wife any conscious thought, but here he was. The brownstone looked different in the daylight than it had the previous night. Golden bricks shimmered in the sun, and the tree-lined street spoke of generations, of children playing on sidewalks and of families supping in quiet splendor.

Never mind the brothels and the seedy saloons just steps away.

He watched the house for long minutes before crossing the street and pulling the bell. He had no idea what he might say to Charles Shaw, but at the last minute he decided he would apologize for his behavior. He recognized that he had overplayed his hand with Shaw and had consequently embarrassed both himself and Sir Edward.

When Penelope Shaw opened the door, she said, “I was just thinking about you.”

She took a step back and raised a hand to her mouth.

“You’ve been hurt,” she said. “What’s happened.”

Hammersmith removed his hat.

“I’m just fine, ma’am. Small accident, is all. Is your husband home?”

“Please come in.”

She walked away from him through the foyer and he had no choice but to follow. Her hair was done up in a loose ball on her head, and she wore a long green gown that swayed against the floor with each shift of her hips. She turned to him in the archway that led to the great room. A wisp of hair, escaped from the chignon, curled down over her throat. She took his hat from him and hung it on a hook. When her hand brushed against his,
Hammersmith noticed that his own fingernails were filthy. He put his hands in his pockets.

“Would you like something?”

“I’m fine, thank you. I’ll just wait for your husband, if that’s all right.”

“You may have to wait for some time.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He isn’t here today.”

“But you said…”

He realized that she hadn’t told him her husband was at home, only asked him to come in.

“I’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I should be going. Please tell Dr Shaw when he arrives home that I—”

“Please sit,” Penelope said. “I’ll bring you something to drink.”

“I don’t need anything, thank you. I came to apologize for the way I acted last night.”

“I don’t recall being offended by you at all.”

“You’re too kind.”

“No one is
too
kind, Mr Hammersmith. Everyone wants something. When we get it, we’re kind; when we don’t … well, when we don’t, we’re simply surviving.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“You want to apologize to Charles. I know Charles would want you to stay. And I would like some company. You could make us all happy at once by accepting a cup of tea.”

“You don’t mind if I wait?”

“I insist upon it.”

“A cup of tea would be lovely, then. Thank you.”