Anno Dracula (45 page)

C
harles swore, fighting to keep his breath. Geneviève, no shock to spare for his surprising vocabulary, had to agree with him.

The greasy smell of dead blood hit her like a bullet in the belly. She had to hold the doorframe to keep from fainting. She had seen the leavings of murderers before; and blood-muddied battlefields, and plague holes, and torture chambers, and execution sites. 13 Miller’s Court was the worst of all.

Jack Seward knelt in the middle of a ruin barely recognisable as a human being. He was still working, apron and shirtsleeves dyed red. His silver scalpel flickered in the firelight.

Mary Kelly’s room was cramped: a bed, a chair, a fireplace, and barely enough floor to walk around them. Jack’s operation had spread the girl across the bed and the floor, and up the walls to the height of three feet. The cheap muslin curtains were speckled with halfpenny-sized dots. There was a mirror, its dusty glass marked with bloody splashes. In the grate, a bundle of clothes burned, casting a red light that seared into Geneviève’s night-sensitive eyes.

Jack was not overly concerned with their intrusion.

‘Nearly done,’ he said, easing out something from a pie-shaped
expanse that had been a face. ‘I have to be sure Lucy is dead. Van Helsing says her soul will not rest until she is truly dead.’

He was calm, not ranting. He performed his butchery with a surgeon’s precision. In his mind, there was purpose.

‘There,’ Jack said. ‘She is delivered. God is merciful.’

Charles had his pistol out and aimed. His hand was trembling. ‘Put down the knife and step away from her,’ he said.

Jack placed the knife on the bedspread and stood up, wiping his hands on an already-bloody patch of apron.

‘See, she is at peace,’ Jack said. ‘Sleep well, Lucy my love.’

Mary Jane Kelly was truly dead. Geneviève had no doubt about that.

‘It’s over,’ Jack said. ‘We’ve beaten him. We’ve defeated the Count. The contagion cannot spread.’

Geneviève had nothing to say. Her stomach was still a tight fist. Jack seemed to notice her for the first time.

‘Lucy,’ he said, alarmed. He was seeing someone else, somewhere else. ‘Lucy, it was all for you...’

He bent to pick up his silver scalpel and Charles shot him in the shoulder. He spun around, fingers grasping air, and slammed against the mantel. He pressed his gloved hand to the wall and sank downwards, knees protruding as he tried to make his body shrink. Jack was huddled, holding his wound. The shot had gone completely through and torn the murder out of him.

Geneviève snatched the scalpel away from the bed. Its silver blade made her itch, so she shifted to hold it by the enamelled grip. It was such a small thing to have done so much hurt.

‘We have to get him out of here,’ Charles said. ‘A mob would tear him apart.’

Geneviève hauled Jack upright and between them they managed him into the courtyard. His clothes were tacky from the drying gore.

It was nearing morning, and Geneviève was suddenly tired. The cold air did not dispel the throbbing in her head. The image of 13 Miller’s Court was imprinted in her mind like a photograph upon paper. She would never, she thought, lose it.

Jack was easy to manipulate. He would walk with them to a police station, or to Hell.

I
t had been dizzyingly hot inside Mary Jane Kelly’s room; the chill of the court was sobering. Once out of the charnel house, Beauregard realised that though the mystery was solved, he was faced with a quandary. The women were dead, Seward hopelessly mad. What justice would be served by turning him over to Lestrade? In whose interests was he to act now? Sir Charles Warren’s, by letting the police take credit for an arrest? The Prince Consort’s, by turning over another vanquished foe to the spikes outside the Palace?

‘He bit me,’ the Ripper said, remembering some trivial incident, ‘the madman bit me.’ Seward held out his gloved, swollen hand. Blood was pooled in the palm.

‘Vlad Tepes will make him immortal, just so he can torture him forever,’ Geneviève said.

Someone came out of the chandler’s shop and stood in the archway. Beauregard saw red eyes in the dark and made out the silhouette of a big man in a check ulster and a billycock hat. How much had this vampire witnessed? He stepped into the court.

‘Well done, sir. You’ve put an end to Jack the Ripper.’

It was Sergeant Dravot from the Diogenes Club.

‘All along, sir, there were two murderers, working together,’ said Dravot. ‘It should have been obvious.’

The world was spinning again, the cobbles beneath him falling away. Beauregard did not know where it would stop.

Dravot bent down and whipped a ragged blanket away from a human bundle that had been shoved into a corner. A dead white face stared up, lips drawn back in a last snarl.

‘It’s Godalming,’ Beauregard exclaimed.

‘Lord Godalming, sir,’ Dravot said. ‘He was in it with Dr Seward. They fell out last night.’

Beauregard could not make all the pieces fit. He knelt by the body. There was a large patch of black blood on his breast, soaking his shirt. In the patch was a ragged wound, over the heart.

‘How long have you known all this, Dravot?’

‘You caught the Rippers, sir. I’ve just been looking out for you. The cabal set me up as your guardian angel.’

Geneviève was standing apart from them, holding Jack Seward’s arm. Her face was shadowed.

‘And Jago? Was that you?’

Dravot shrugged. ‘Another matter, sir.’

Beauregard stood, pushing the cobbles with his cane, and brushed off his knees.

‘There’ll be a fearful scandal. Godalming was well-thought-of. He had a reputation as a coming man.’

‘His name will be entirely blackened, sir.’

‘And he was a vampire. That will cause a stir. The assumption was that the Ripper was warm.’

Dravot nodded.

‘I should think the cabal will be delighted,’ Beauregard continued.
‘This will embarrass a great many people. There will be repercussions. Careers will be smashed, reputations overturned. The Prime Minister will look foolish.’

Geneviève spoke bitterly. ‘It’s all very tidy, gentlemen. But what about Jack?’

Dravot and Beauregard looked at her. And at Seward. The Ripper was propped against the wall of the court. His face was wearily free of expression. Blood dribbled from his wound.

‘His mind is gone completely,’ Geneviève said. ‘Whatever glue held him together is dissolved.’

‘It would be best if Mr Beauregard did the honours.’

Geneviève looked at Dravot with something approaching loathing. Beauregard felt he had no choice. His actions had been directed by others. He was almost at the end of his duty. With a great weariness, he realised he had done little but leap hurdles on a course set out for him.

‘Hold him up,’ Beauregard said. ‘Against the wall.’

Geneviève’s hand was at Seward’s throat, her nails extending. ‘Charles,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to. If it must be done, I can...’

He shook his head. She could not spare him this. It had been the same with Elizabeth Stride. He had simply been merciful. ‘It’s alright, Geneviève,’ he said. ‘Just hold him.’

She knew what he was about and gave her consent. She took her hand from Seward’s throat. ‘Good-bye, Jack,’ she said. He gave no sign of understanding.

Beauregard drew his sword-cane. The rasp cut through the tiny night-sounds. Geneviève nodded and Beauregard slipped his blade through Seward’s heart. The point scraped brickwork. Beauregard withdrew the sword, and sheathed it. Seward, cleanly dead, crumpled.
He fell beside Godalming. Two monsters together.

‘Good work, sir,’ Dravot said. ‘You cornered the murderers and Dr Seward became frenzied. He destroyed his confederate and you bested him in single combat.’

Beauregard was irritated to be treated as if he were a schoolboy being tutored by his fellows in an excuse.

‘And what of me?’

Beauregard and Dravot both looked at Geneviève.

‘Am I a “loose end”? Like Jack, like Godalming? Like that poor girl in there?’ She nodded to Mary Jane Kelly’s doorway. ‘You let him butcher her, didn’t you?’

Dravot said nothing.

‘You or Jack killed Godalming. Then, knowing what he was, you stood back in the shadows and let him account for her. It was tidier that way. You didn’t even dirty your hands.’

Dravot deferred. Beauregard was sure the Sergeant had a revolver about him, loaded with silver bullets.

‘We came along at a convenient time,’ she continued. ‘To finish off the story.’ Geneviève held out Seward’s scalpel. ‘Do you want to use this? That would be neater.’

‘Geneviève,’ Beauregard said, ‘I don’t understand...’

‘No, you wouldn’t. Poor Charles. Between bloodsuckers like Godalming and this creature,’ meaning Dravot, ‘you’re a lost lamb. Just as Jack Seward was.’

Beauregard stared long at Geneviève before he turned to Dravot. If it came to it, he would protect her with his life. There were limits to his devotion to the plans of the Diogenes Club.

The Sergeant was gone. Beyond the archway, the fog was dispersing. It was nearly dawn. Geneviève came to him and he
embraced her. The world stopped tilting and turning. Together, they were the fixed point.

‘What happened here,’ she asked, ‘what truly happened?’

He did not yet know.

Together, bone-tired, they emerged from Miller’s Court. On the other side of Dorset Street, a pair of constables strolled, chatting together on their beat. Geneviève whistled, to get their attention. Her trilling was not a human sound. It pierced his eardrums like a needle. The coppers, truncheons out, trotted towards them.

‘You’ll be the hero,’ she whispered to him.

‘Why?’

‘You’ve no choice.’

The policemen were with them. They both looked terribly young. One was Collins, whom he remembered from his visit with Sergeant Thick. He recognised Beauregard and all but saluted.

‘There’s a dead woman in that court,’ he told them. ‘And a pair of murderers, also dead. Jack the Ripper is finished.’

Collins looked shocked. Then he grinned. ‘Is it over?’

‘It’s over,’ Beauregard said, uncertain but convincing.

The two constables dashed into Miller’s Court. After a moment, they rushed out again and began blowing their whistles. Soon the area would be thick with policemen, journalists, sensation-seekers. Beauregard and Geneviève would have to explain at length, more times than either could really bear.

In his mind, Beauregard saw Jack Seward on his knees in the ground-floor back room with the bloody thing that had been Mary Jane Kelly. Geneviève shuddered along with him. The memory was something they would share forever.

‘He was mad,’ she said ‘and not responsible.’

‘Then who,’ he asked, ‘was responsible?’

‘The thing who drove him mad.’

Beauregard looked up. The last moonlight shone down through thinning fog. He fancied he saw a bat, large and black, flit across the face of the moon.

N
etley applied the whip to the team. The imposing carriage had prowled through Whitechapel’s cramped streets as irritably as a panther in Hampton Court Maze, unable to move with its accustomed elegance and speed. In the wider thoroughfares of the city, it rolled at a rapid pace. The suspension was perfect, lulling her along without even the creak of wood and iron. Hostile eyes were drawn to the gilt coat of arms that stood out like a red-and-gold scar on the polished black door. Despite the luxurious interior, Geneviève found comfort impossible. With black leather upholstery and discreet brass lamps, the Royal Coach was too much like a hearse.

They proceeded down Fleet Street, past the boarded-up and burned-out offices of the nation’s great periodicals. There was no fog tonight, just a razored wind. There were still newspapers, but Ruthven had installed tame vampire editors. Even fervent loyalists were bored by bland endorsements of the latest laws or endless encomia to the Royal Family. Very rarely an item would be printed which, combined with certain private knowledge, might actually qualify as a piece of news, such as the recent note in
The Times
of the expulsion from the Bagatelle Club of Colonel Sebastian Moran, his hitherto uncanny
abilities at the whist table, which extended to somewhat unorthodox manipulations of the cards, now being severely impaired by his unexplained loss of both little fingers.