A sudden, fearful death (60 page)

He could no longer pretend to be
going for a sister. The abortionist would expect the woman herself; it was not
something which could be done at one removed. The only case where she might
accept a man making the inquiries would be if the woman were too young to come
in person until the last moment—or too important to risk being seen unnecessarily.
Yes—that was an excellent idea! He would say he was inquiring for a
lady—someone who would not commit herself until she knew it was safe.

He hailed a cab, gave the driver
directions to the White-chapel Road, and sat back, rehearsing what he would
say.

It was a long journey. The horse
was tired and the cabby sullen. They seemed to stop every few yards and the air
was loud with the shouts of other frustrated drivers. Peddlers and costers
called their wares, the driver of a dray misjudged a corner and knocked over a
stall, and (here was a brief and vicious fight, ending with bloody noses and a
lot of blasphemous language. A drunken coachman ran straight over a junction at
something close to a gallop, and several other horses either shied or bolted.
Monk's own hansom had gone a full block before the driver managed to bring it
under control again.

Monk alighted onto the Whitechapel
Road, paid the driver, who by now was in an unspeakable temper, then began
walking toward the address he had been given at the milliner's shop.

At first he thought he had made a
mistake. It was a butcher's. There were pies and strings of sausages in the
window. If he were right, someone had a macabre sense of humor—or none at all.

Three thin children in dirty
clothes stood on the pavement watching him. They were all white-faced. One,
about ten or eleven years old, had broken front teeth. A dog with mange in its
fur crept around the corner and went in the doorway.

After a moment's hesitation Monk
went in after it.

Inside was hot and dim, little
light getting through the grimy windows—the smoke of countless factory chimneys
and domestic fires had grayed them over the months, and the summer
thunderstorms had done nothing to help. The air was heavy and smelled stale and
rancid. A large fly buzzed lazily and settled on the counter. The young woman
apparently awaiting customers picked up an old newspaper and slammed it down,
killing the fly instantly.

"Gotcher!" she said with
satisfaction. "What can I do for yer?" she asked Monk cheerfully.
"We got fresh mutton, rabbit pie, pigs' trotters, calves'-foot jellies,
brawn, best in the East End, and tripes, sheeps' brains, pigs' liver, and
sausages o' course! What yer want then?"

"Sausages look good," he
lied. "But what I really want is to see Mrs. Anderson. Is this the right
address?"

"That depends," she said
guardedly. "There are lots of Mrs. Andersons. What did yer want 'er
for?"

"She was recommended to me by
a lady who sells hats...."

"Was she now." She looked
him up and down. "I can't think what for."

"For a lady of my acquaintance
who would rather not be seen in this neighborhood until it is absolutely
necessary."

"So she sent you, did
she?" She smiled with a mixture of satisfaction, amusement, and contempt.
"Well, maybe Mrs. Anderson'll see you an' maybe not. I'll ask 'er."
And she turned and walked slowly toward the back of the room and through a
paint-peeled door.

Monk waited. Another fly came in
and buzzed lazily around, settling on the blood-spotted counter.

The woman came back and wordlessly
held the door open. Monk accepted the invitation and went through. The room
beyond was a large kitchen opening onto a yard with coal scuttles, bins
overflowing with rubbish, several broken boxes, and a cracked sink full of
rainwater. A tomcat slunk across the yard, his body low like a leopard's, a
dead rat in his mouth.

Inside the kitchen was chaotic.
Bloodstained linen filled one of the two stone sinks by the wall to the right,
and the thick, warm smell of blood hung in the air. To the left was a wooden
dresser with plates, bowls, knives, scissors, and skewers heaped haphazardly on
it. Several bottles of gin lay around, some open, some still sealed.

In the center of the room was a
wooden table, dark with repeated soaking of blood. Dried blood made black lines
in the cracks and there were splashes of it on the floor. A girl with an ashen
face sat in a rocking chair, hugging herself and weeping.

Two dogs lay by the dead ashes of
the fire. One scratched itself, grunting with each movement of its leg.

Mrs. Anderson was a large woman
with sleeves rolled up to show immense forearms. Her fingernails were chipped
and dark with immovable dirt.

" 'Allo," she said
cheerfully, pushing her fair gold hair out of her eyes. She cannot have been
more than thirty-five at the most. "Need a spot of 'elp do yer, dearie?
Well there ain't nothin' I can do for yer, now is there? She'll 'ave to come in
'ere 'erself, sooner or later. 'Ow far gorn is she?"

Monk felt a wave of anger so
violent it actually nauseated him. He was forced to breathe deeply for several
seconds to regain his composure. With a flood of memory so vivid the sounds
and smells returned to him, the thick sweetness of blood, the sounds of a girl
whimpering in pain and terror, rats' feet scuttering across a stained floor. He
had been in back-street abortionists like this before, God knew how many times,
or whether in connection with some woman bled to death, poisoned by septicemia,
or simply the knowledge of the crime and the extortionate money.

And yet he also knew of the
white-faced women, exhausted by bearing child after child, unable to feed
them, selling them as babies for a few shillings to pay for food for the rest.

He wanted to smash something, hurl
it to pieces and hear the splintering and cracking as it shattered, but after
the instant satisfaction everything else would be the same. If he could weep
perhaps he could ease the weight which was choking inside him.

"Well?" the woman said
wearily. "Are yer gonna tell me or not? I can't do nothing for 'er if yer
just stand there like an idiot! 'Ow far gorn is she? Or doncher know?"

"Four months," Monk
blurted.

The woman shook her head.
"Left it a bit, ain't yer? Still ... I spec' I can do summink. Gets
dangerous, but I s'pose 'avin it'd be worse."

The girl in the chair whimpered
softly, bright blood seeping into the blanket around her and dripping through
its thin folds onto the floor. Monk pulled his wits together. He was here for a
purpose. Indulgence in his own emotions would solve nothing and not help
convict Herbert Stanhope.

"Here?" he asked,
although he knew the answer.

"No—out in the street,"
she said sarcastically. "Of course 'ere, yer fool! Where d'yer think? I
don't go to people's houses. Tf yer want summink fancy yer'll 'ave to see if
yer can bribe some surgeon—although I dunno where yer'll find one. It's an
'anging crime, or it used ter be. Now it's just jail—and ruin."

"You don't seem worried,"
he retorted.

"I'm safe enough," she
said with dry humor. "Them as comes ter me is desperate, or they wouldn't
be 'ere. And I don't charge too much. The fact they're 'ere makes 'em as guilty
as me. Anyway, it's a public service as I give—'oo 'round here is gonna turn me
in?" She gestured to indicate the whole street and its environs. "Even
the rozzers don't bother me if I keep discreet, like. An' I do. So you mind 'ow
yer go. I wouldn't wancher ter 'ave an accident...." Her face was still
smiling, but her eyes were hard, and the threat was unmistakable.

"How do I find one of these
surgeons that do abortions?" he asked, watching her intently. "The
lady I'm asking for can afford to pay."

"Not sure as I'd tell yer if I
knew—which I don't. Ladies as can pay that sort 'ave their own ways o' findin'
'em."

"I see." He believed her.
He had no reason except instinct, but for once, even with thought, he had
confidence in his own judgment. This sickening rage was familiar, and the
helplessness. He could see in his mind confused and bitter widowers, frightened
at being faced suddenly with looking after a dozen children by themselves, not
knowing, not understanding what had happened or why. Their wives had faced the
growing burden of incessant childbeanng without speaking of it. They had gone
to the abortionist secretly and alone. They had bled to death without even
sharing the reason; it was private, shameful, women's business. The husband
had never stretched his imagination beyond his own physical pleasures. Children
were a natural thing— and what women were made for. Now he was bereaved,
frightened, angry, and totally bemused.

And Monk could see just as clearly
young girls, not yet sixteen, ashen-faced, sick with fear of the abortionist
and her instruments, her gin bottle, and the shame of it, just like the girl in
the chair now; and yet knowing even this was still better than the ruin of
becoming a fallen woman. And what waited for a bastard child of a destitute
mother? Death was better—death before birth, in some filthy back kitchen with a
woman who smiled at you, was gentle according to her abilities, took all the
money you could scrape together, and kept her mouth shut He wished so fiercely
it hurt him that he could do something for this child here now, weeping quietly
and bleeding. But what was there?

"I'll try to find a
surgeon," Monk said with ironic honesty.

"Please yerself," the
woman answered, apparently without rancor. "But yer lady friend won't
thank yer if yer spread it all over the city among 'er fine friends. Keepin' it
quiet is wot it's all for, in'it?"

"I'll be discreet," Monk
answered, suddenly longing to be outside this place. It seemed to him as if the
very walls were as soaked with pain as the linens and the table were with
blood. Even the Whitechapel Road with its grime and poverty would be better
than this. It choked him and felt thick in his nostrils and he could taste it
at the back of his throat. "Thank you." It was a ridiculous thing to
say to her; it was merely a way of closing the encounter. He turned on his heel
and flung the door open, strode through the butcher's shop and outside into
the street, taking in long gasps of air. Leaden with the smells of smoke and
drains as it was, it was still infinitely better than that abominable kitchen.

He would go on looking, but first
he must get out of Whitechapel altogether. There was no point in looking
to" the back-street abortionists, thank God. Stanhope would never have
trusted his business to them: they would betray him as quickly as thought—-he
took some of their best paying customers. He would be a fool to lay his Me in
their hands. The opportunities to blackmail for half his profit were too rich
to pass up—half or more! He would have to look higher in society, if he could
think of a way.

There was no time for subtlety.
Maybe there was only a day, two at the most.

Callandra! She might know
something, and there was no better person to ask. It would mean telling her
that Sir Herbert was guilty, and how they knew, but there was no time or
opportunity to ask Rathbone's permission. He had told Monk because Monk was his
employee in this case, and bound by the same rules of confidentiality.
Callandra was not. But that was a nicety Monk did not give a damn about. Sir
Herbert could complain from the gallows steps!

It was late when Monk delivered his
news, after six in the evening.

Callandra was horrified when the
full impact struck her of what he had said. He had left with what little advice
she could give, his face pale and set in an expression which frightened her.
Now she was alone in her comfortable room lit by the fading sun, with a dark
weight of knowledge. A week ago it would have made her heart sing, simply with
the sheer certainty that Kristian was not guilty of Prudence's death. Now all
she could think of was that Sir Herbert would almost certainly walk free—and
more oppressive yet, of the pain that hung over Lady Stanhope, a new grief
which she must face. Whether she would ever know that Sir Herbert was guilty of
murder, Callandra could only guess, probably not. But she must be told that her
eldest son had been the father of Victoria's aborted child. The act of incest
was not often a sole event. Her other daughters stood in danger of the same
crippling trag-edy.

There was no way to ease the
telling, nothing Callandra could think of or imagine which would make it
bearable. And there was no point in sitting here in her soft chair amid the
bowls of flowers and the books and cushions, the cats asleep in the sun and the
dog looking at her hopefully with one eye, in case she should decide to walk.

She rose and went to the hall,
calling for the butler and the footman. She would take the carriage to Lady
Stanhope's house now. It was an uncivil time for calling, and it was unlikely
Lady Stanhope was receiving visitors in the circumstances anyway, but she was
prepared to force the issue if that was necessary. She was wearing a very
simple afternoon dress, fashionable two years ago, and it did not occur to her
to change.

She rode in the carriage deep in
thought, and was startled to be told she had arrived. She instructed the
coachman to wait, alighted without assistance, and went straight to the front
door. It was handsome, discreet, speaking of a great deal of money. She noted
it absently, aware with bitterness that Sir Herbert would keep all this, probably
even with his reputation little damaged. It gave her no satisfaction that his
personal life would be scarred forever. All her thoughts were filled with the
pain she was about to inflict upon his wife.