City of Light (City of Mystery) (13 page)

“I’m surprised the
Queen hasn’t already contacted you,” Tom said.

“She has,” Trevor
finally admitted.

“So this is why the
forensics unit has been put on a case that doesn’t involve murder?” Tom asked
irritably. “It all makes sense now.  We’ve been enlisted to ensure that no
evidence arises to connect the Queen’s grandson with a male brothel.”

“Remember yourself,”
Trevor said sharply, thinking that Tom was always the first of them to suspect an
ulterior design in any act of patronage.  The Bainbridges weren’t titled, but
their money was old, and aristocrats rarely seemed to hold any illusions about the
aristocracy.  In the brief time they had all worked together, Tom was proving
himself prone to abrupt swings in mood, sometimes jovial and sometimes snappish,
just as he was this morning.  The rich could literally afford to be heedless
with their words, Trevor knew.  They could freely express the sort of opinions that
the working class must swallow.  But it was still a bit shocking to hear Tom so
directly challenge the motives of the Queen.

“No one ever
suggested we would work exclusively on murder cases,” Emma said.  “Forensics
has a role to play in the investigation of many types of crimes, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” Tom
said.  “But our ranks are so thin and our resources so limited I would imagine
we would only be called into the most heinous cases, not to investigate predictable
depravities like those taking place on Cleveland Street.”

“Predictable
depravities?” Emma said sharply.  “You consider this a minor case, simply
because we have yet to stumble upon a body?  Think of those boys, what the
future holds for them.  Is not the ruination of a life as big a crime as the
termination of one?”

“I don’t wish to
argue the truth of your observations,” said Tom. “Only to point out that we’ve been
given this assignment for one reason alone.  Not to protect young boys from
ruination but to protect the royal family from yet another scandal.” 

“Her Majesty
doubtless has many reasons for taking note of our efforts,” Trevor said,
consciously striving to bring a bit of gravitas to his voice.  Tom might be the
best educated and most privileged among them, but Trevor could not allow a boy
of twenty to assert himself as the leader of the group.  “Naturally she wishes
to contain the criminal element in England and, just as naturally, she wishes
to encourage cooperation among the law agencies across the continent.  Considering
that Her Majesty’s own children and grandchildren reside in every capital in
Europe, this can scarcely be viewed as surprising.  Besides, we must not forget
that she herself has been the intended target of crime in the past, and that
her station in the world all but guarantees she is the focus of any number of
lunatic obsessions rising from untold corners of the globe.  The Queen has
reasons to support our work that extend far beyond the antics of Eddy.”

Two heads quickly
nodded and, a second later, Tom’s reluctantly joined them.  Looking around the
circle, it occurred to Trevor that none of the others had been alive on that
terrible morning when the young Victoria, fresh to the throne, had been attacked
while riding in her coach.  The gunman, thank God, had proven spectacularly
inept, but the Queen’s beloved husband Albert had been injured in the scuffle,
guaranteeing that her memory of the incident would never fade, no matter how
many years might subsequently pass.  Nor would they remember the worldwide
paranoia which had followed the assassination of the American president Abraham
Lincoln, another event which Trevor knew preyed heavily on Victoria’s mind. The
unique vulnerability of those in power distressed the Queen, and who could
blame her?  In a time of political unrest – which, Trevor supposed, could be
any isolated year in history – the murder of a single individual could change
the course of history.  A chance to reshuffle the deck and bring new cards into
play. 

Yes, the heads of state
were perpetual targets for the disgruntled, and no one headed a greater state
than Victoria.  Trevor was one of the few people who could claim to know the
full depth of the Queen’s obsessions, and that not all of the darkness swirling
around her was merely mourning for her long-departed husband.  Victoria’s fears
had not only defined her reign but her entire era.  Her personal morbidity –
well-founded or not - had infected her people and from there traveled to every civilized
corner of Europe.

“We shall follow the
trail of the Cleveland Street arrests wherever it may lead us,” Trevor said. “Even
if it pulls us into the very stables of Buckingham Palace.  Is that
understood?  Our first loyalty is to the truth, and this surpasses all other
loyalties, even those to friends or family or our own government.”

“Shall we take an
oath?” Tom asked sardonically.  Judging by the curl of his upper lip, he was
still evidently not wholly convinced.  “Shall we bleed?”

“Before it’s over, perhaps
we all shall,” Davy said, and his eyes met Tom’s for the briefest instant. 

“I suppose you have
photographs,” Trevor broke in hastily. “Which verify the story of this
unfortunate boy?”

“Unfortunately, I
do,” Tom said with a sigh, and, just as Trevor had hoped, their attention was promptly
diverted.

Paris

9:20 AM

There were those who
claimed that the morgue was the most beautiful building in Paris. 

That was an
exaggeration, of course, at least to Rayley’s way of thinking, but there was no
denying that the structure had a certain bizarre type of charm, probably due to
the fact that its opulence seemed to mock its very function.  He had noted the
building many times on his Sunday walks, and had originally mistaken it for an
embassy, or perhaps a museum.

A note had been
waiting on his desk when he’d arrived at the station this morning. Since Carle
had been nowhere to be found, Rayley used his small phrasebook to translate. Rubois,
it seemed, wished to confer with him on a matter of great importance. He wished
for Rayley to meet him at the morgue.

Well, this was
news.  Thanks to the satisfactory conclusion of the Martin murder and the fact
he now was heading up the Graham drowning case, Rayley’s status among the
French officer must be genuinely changing for the better.  He was moving from a
bothersome adjunct, as out of place as a bed in a kitchen, to someone whose
presence was actually desired.  Despite his weariness from another restless
night, Rayley had found himself hurrying down the avenue leading to the morgue,
his feet almost on the verge of a run.  And as he approached the grand
entrance, with the heavy brass doors and deep crimson awnings, he found Rubois already
waiting for him, having a smoke behind a potted tree while Carle hovered to the
side.

Carle pulled open
the door, his slight frame bowing as he used the totality of his weight to hold
it ajar for Rubois and Rayley to enter.   They walked through the broad lobby
single-file, their feet ringing on the tiles.  Five bodies were on display,
Rayley noted with a sideways glance, each propped up in front of its own
window, tilted at such a pronounced slant that it seemed the deceased was surely
about to push away from their beds and stand.  Their eyes were propped open,
presumably because their color might aid in identification, and the corpses were
dressed in whatever clothing they had worn into death, thus  offering another
hint as to who they might have been and what station they might have held while
they had dwelt among the living.

Rayley would never
accept this bizarre practice of displaying the unclaimed dead.  When an
unidentified dead body turned up at Scotland Yard, the British police would run
a description of it in the papers and hope some relative or friend might step
forth to claim the remains.  But that was admittedly a flawed system as well,
since the newspaper descriptions tended to be vague, the deceased all looking
somewhat alike.  Not to mention that the class of people most likely to misplace
a dead relative was also the class least likely to read the daily papers, or
indeed anything at all.  

So Rayley
reluctantly admitted to himself there was something both pragmatic and democratic
about lining up the bodies for public viewing.  The French rarely had to send
an unclaimed body to an unmarked grave, a routine procedure at Scotland Yard.  Rayley
privately suspected that some of the bodies were claimed by people who had
never met the person in life, and who now intended to repurpose their remains
for heaven knows what sort of reason. Tom Bainbridge had often bemoaned the
dearth of cadavers at Cambridge; presumably the French medical schools were
better stocked.

At least that’s what
Rayley told himself, since the alternative was even more unsavory to consider. 

Rayley’s glance in
the direction of the corpses was swift but, due to his finely honed
observational skills, he could not help but notice certain things.  One woman
was on display along with four men.  This quota was typical, men tending to
stray farther from their homes and families and to take on more dangerous lines
of work.  The woman was dark in complexion, possibly Arabian of some sort, with
her downturned mouth half-opened. Rayley had the brief but uneasy sense she was
sneering at him.

The hour was early,
but a handful of onlookers had already assembled, corpse-viewing being one of
the most popular free pastimes in Paris.  Two men stood snickering and knocking
shoulders in front of the dark woman, their amusement of a sort Rayley would
prefer not to contemplate.  A plump matron was lifting a small boy to the
window to get a better look at one of the men.  Another female, her head and
shoulders wrapped in a grand swath of indigo blue silk, was all but pressed
against the glass in her eagerness to observe the slackened face of a young boy
who was dressed in a manner that indicated he may have spent some time at sea. 
On a Sunday afternoon – or a day when a young woman was displayed, or, better
yet, a child – the crowd would be three times as large.  It was a productive
practice, but also a profoundly undignified one, seeming to simultaneously
lower the humanity of both the corpse and the onlookers. 

Small wonder that
they don’t sell balloons and cherry ices, Rayley thought irritably.  An accordionist
would add a festive touch.  Pony rides for the children.  Make a proper fair of
it.

Rubois turned from
the broad lobby down a side hall, with Rayley following and Carle falling
behind.  This part of the building was forbidden to the general public, but the
bored guard at the mouth of the hall did not ask for any identification and
none was offered.  They made one turn, then another.  Thanks to the French love
of vast architectural expanses of marble, their morgue was even colder than the
oaken British equivalent at Scotland Yard, although admittedly not so dark.  The
footfalls of the three men grew progressively louder as they walked, still single
file, through the maze of hallways, coming at last to one of the small private
viewing chambers.  They entered and stood facing each other in the center of
the empty room.      

“The detective thinks
there is something you need to know,” Carle blurted out, although Rubois had
said nothing.  Evidently a discussion had taken place earlier, before Rayley
arrived.  “There’s another one.”

“Another what?”

“Another body.”

Rayley frowned.  They
were in a morgue.  Bodies were everywhere.  “Another Englishman?”

Carle hesitated,
just long enough to make Rayley wonder if he was struggling between his instructions
to translate from Rubois precisely and his desire to add a few details of his
own.  “A body pulled from the Seine on April 12, very near the spot where they
found Graham.  No obvious cause of death so it was considered to be a
suicide…”  With a glance at Rubois, who was standing stonily beside the door,
Carle let his voice trail off.

“I see,” said
Rayley, although he was quite sure that he didn’t.  Rubois had invited him here
of his own volition so why the deuce were they being so mysterious?  “You
deemed this person a suicide, but now that Graham has shown up in the same
manner at the same place you’re thinking maybe the first was drugged with
chloroform too, is that it?”

Carle nodded slowly. 
So slowly that the gesture confirmed to Rayley he was only getting part of the
story.  And probably not the good part.

“Do you have blood
samples?”

Carle translated the
question for Rubois, who simply shook his head.  He was a mournful looking man
under the best of circumstances, with tightly pursed lips and dark circles
under his eyes, probably more the result of genetics than exhaustion.  But
today, regretfully shaking his head to answer the question, he looked as if he
was on the verge of either giving or receiving very bad news.   

But Rayley wasn’t
surprised at his answer. There was no reason to have drawn blood from a victim
deemed to be a suicide, and, given the amount of time that had passed, he could
only assume that the body had already been embalmed.  All right then, so the
police may have let potential evidence slip through their hands.  Quite understandable
under the circumstances, and it certainly didn’t explain all this secrecy. 

“Do you have any
idea who the man was?” Rayley said.  “He was displayed at the morgue, I
presume?”

This simple question
brought such a pained expression to Carle’s face that Rayley found himself
speaking with uncharacteristic sharpness.  “Why are you both acting so
strangely? Who was this fellow anyway?  Or was it a woman?”

Rubois said
something and Carle nodded. “He says you should examine the body yourself,
Sir.”

Rayley nodded, his
bewilderment now complete.  An invitation to meet Rubois at the morgue had
undoubtedly been an invitation to examine a body, but he had assumed it was a
body freshly discovered, not one this long out of the Seine.  If they believed
it was a suicide and not the result of foul play, a transient who had evidently
been put on display but gone unclaimed, then why would they bother to keep it so
long in the morgue?  Even the French, who had made both an art and a science
out of body identification, had to admit defeat and bury unclaimed corpses
eventually. 

Rubois was speaking
again, his voice fast and low, little more than a whisper.  Men tended to drop
their voices in morgues, Rayley had noticed, just as they did in courtrooms and
churches.  But in this vast catacomb, where the marble made each sound echo
like an accusation, the whispering made sense.     

“He says he’s sorry
to have been so obscure, Sir,” Carle finally said.  “But yes, that’s why
Lieutenant Rubois asked you to meet him today.   He wishes for you to view the
body.”

“Ask him why he kept
it,” Rayley said, now whispering himself.  “If no one knew who the person was
and there was nothing unusual in the death, ask him why he kept the body.”

“But there was
something unusual, Sir,” Carle said.  “Please, wait here.”

With that, both Rubois
and Carle fairly scurried from the room and Rayley looked around for a chair. 
He found one in the corner, dropped down, and dug in his pocket for a
handkerchief to press to his mouth and nose if necessary.  Even if they had
attempted to embalm it, examining a body that had been taken from the Seine so
long ago would not be a pleasant task.

Isabel pushed the
blue scarf back from her head and moved away from the others, the muttering men
and the fat woman with her sticky-nosed, demanding children.  What were the
odds that she and Rayley would appear here at the morgue exact same moment?  Their
fates were surely linked and she had known this somehow from the first time she
had seen him.  At the café on that beautiful Sunday.  Armand, of course, had
known the man’s every habit – for example, that he dined at this particular
café almost every Sunday luncheon.  She had been seated directly in the sight
line of the detective and he had indeed noticed her, of course he had, just as Armand
and Isabel had both known that he would.  Sketching him had been her idea.  Seduction
on a more discreet level, a tickle instead of a grab.  The sort of thing that
never would have occurred to Armand.

It had worked.  The
next time she had seen her, at the party for the Tower, he had been clay
beneath her palms.  Yielding, malleable.  Willing to ascend the tower, although
it was quite clear he didn’t want to.  Willing to climb even higher, on a
half-constructed staircase, for the love of God, just for the chance of a few
minutes alone with her.

But today Rayley had
passed without recognizing her, had passed with merely a dismissive glance in
the direction of the crowd.  Even with the head scarf it was surprising, and
Isabel was both gratified and dismayed that she had been able to blend so
effectively.

She leaned forward
and looked at the young man one more time.  His head was lolled to one side and
his face was bloated, the fluid beneath his skin stretching his features,
blurring his individuality, erasing the small details that make one human face
different from another.  But even with the distortion, she was certain this boy
was not Henry.   It was foolish for her to come here every morning, but paranoia
is a powerful force, washing over the rational mind like waves breaking over a
rampart.  Ever since Patrick Graham had been killed she had been unable to
control her fear.

She looked at the
boy again.  No, not Henry.  Certainly not.   She had been foolish to think it
for even a second, to linger here tormenting herself so long.  Henry had been
handsome.

She caught herself. 
Henry was handsome.  That was the proper way to say it.

Because Henry was
still alive.

There was no reason
to think he wouldn’t be, or that any real harm would come to any of them. 
Armand liked to snarl and threaten, he liked watching people jump.  But that
didn’t make him a killer. At least not a killer of his own kind.  

So they say Henry
has run to Paris, Isabel thought, turning away from the window and the boy
displayed inside.  What of it?  Paris was a big city.  There were a thousand
places for a person to hide.  A thousand corners to round, a thousand alleys to
run down, a thousand attics in which to take refuge. She was being quite
ridiculous.

When Carle and Rubois
returned, they had a mortuary assistant with them, a rather small man who was
struggling to push a very large gurney.  With a flutter of ceremony, he pulled
back the white sheet and, somewhat to Rayley’s surprise, revealed the blue-gray
face of a young woman.  Decomposition was minimal.  She had obviously been not
only embalmed but kept in ice, as evidenced by the fact a few shards were still
flecked around her throat and collarbones, glittering like a diamond necklace.  A
stack of clothing, some red shiny garment and a gray skirt, petticoats and the
such, was neatly folded at her feet and someone, Rayley noted, had taken the
time to not only brush but to arrange her hair.  Most likely this was all done before
she had been put on display in the morgue.  Surprising she wouldn’t have been
claimed.   Pretty young girls usually went first.  Dozens of self-proclaimed
brothers always seemed to be emerging from every corner of the city, each of
them wailing that yes, this was the body of their poor dead little sister. 
Blanche her name was.  Or perhaps Marie.

Rubois barked out a
few phrases and the assistant hastily disappeared.  A few more and Carle too
slipped out the door.  Rayley and the French policeman remained in the room
alone.  Apparently whatever was about to transpire between them would not
require words.

Rubois slowly pulled
the rest of the sheet from the body.  The girl was draped, decorously so, in
the same sort of muslin strips the British sometimes used to wrap a body.  Rayley
steeled himself.  He did not like to view women.  He did not like to view the
young.  She looks like a statue, he thought, in that distant part of his mind
which always seemed to step forward in distressing occasions.  That queer gray color
of her skin heightens the effect, whether it’s from the river or the ice or the
fact her blood had been drained for the embalming.  A damn shame they hadn’t
saved a vial, but then again…

Rubois was unfurling
the strips, revealing the girl to Rayley’s gaze in sections.  She was thin,
with a hollowed collarbone and virtually no breasts.  Rayley’s heart lurched a
little at the frailty of her frame, the pronounced outline of her ribs beneath
the waxy skin.  She’d been on the streets for a while, he thought sadly.  No
telling when she’d had her last full meal, her last night’s sleep in a proper
bed.  As Rubois continued down her torso, systematically unrolling the cloth,
Rayley stepped forward and bent low to more closely example the skin around the
girl’s mouth and neck.   But he saw no scrapes or bruises in the manner Graham
had sustained, nothing to suggest a struggle or that she had been forcibly
drugged at all. 

Rayley wondered if
the French had it wrong, for he could find no immediate connection between the
two bodies.  Perhaps it was just by chance than this poor child had washed up
in the same bend of the river as Graham.  Graham had surely been killed because
he knew something, had seen something, because he had been investigating a
matter that a powerful person did not want brought to light.  And it was very
hard to believe that this wisp of a girl could have been involved in any
similar sort of international intrigue. 

The last shards of
ice were melting, leaving small puddles of water around her throat and chest,
and a few drops of water on her face.  A more sentimental man might have said
that it looked as if she was weeping.  Rayley let his eyes flicker down the
length of the table.  She was pretty, pretty indeed, and most emphatically
dead, but beyond that he could detect nothing unusual about the girl.

Nothing, that is,
except for the fact she had a penis.

CHAPTER NINE

London

11:50   AM

“Hammond has a
wife?”   Trevor could not say exactly why he was so surprised.  The most
depraved of criminals were often quite successful at maintaining their ordinary
lives.  They held jobs, married woman, fathered children, took their tea in
parlors and their beer in pubs.   Walked the streets looking precisely like any
other man.

“According to
reports, she lives in Manchester, Sir,” Davy said.  “And the Superintendent’s
report suggests that makes it the most likely place for Hammond to flee.”

“So likely that he’s
probably gone anywhere else,” Trevor said, waving aside the folder Davy was
attempting to hand him.  “Nonetheless, we have to follow it up, so I’ll need a
train schedule and -“

“Here, Sir,” Davy
said, handing him an envelope.  “Next one leaves at noon.  And I’ve booked two
seats, Sir.”

“Your mother won’t
expect you home for dinner?”

Davy ignored the
tease. “For you and Miss Emma, Sir.  Didn’t you always say that women talked to
women?”

“Yes, yes, I
certainly have said those very words.  So send a message to Mayfair, Davy and
tell them that - ”

“Already have, Sir. 
Miss Emma’s on her way.”

1:20 PM

“That must be his
mother,” Trevor said skeptically.  They had arrived in Manchester on the one
o’clock train and followed the stationmaster’s directions to the address of a
home registered in the name of Charles Hammond.  There they had found a
grim-faced woman – Trevor’s guess would be at least fifty years of age - out in
the side yard, struggling to pin a bed sheet to a clothesline.  Hammond had
been described as around thirty and a bit of a dandy.

“Possibly,” Emma
said. “But she may not be as old as you think.  The women of Manchester lead
rather hard lives, I would imagine.  Or perhaps Hammond married a woman older
than himself.  It’s been known to happen.”  She lifted an arm into the air in a
gesture of greeting and called out “Excuse me, ma’am, but might we enter your
gate?  We’ve come from London to talk to you.”

The woman walked toward
them, a frown on her face, but when Trevor moved to pull his badge from his
pocket, she motioned them in without taking a closer look.  She’s not surprised
that we’re here, thought Trevor. The coppers have come to this door before.

She walked into the
side entrance of her house, leaving the door ajar behind her and, after a
minute of awkwardness, Emma and Trevor followed her inside.  She did not
introduce herself or offer tea, merely sank into a rocking chair and stared at
them.

“I suppose you know
we’re here about Charles Hammond,” Emma began, sitting down opposite her while
Trevor leaned against a wall.  “What is the nature of your relationship to
him?”

The question seemed
to amuse her.  “I can only assume that the answer you’re seeking is that
Charles and I are married.”

Trevor was
surprised, not just by this confirmation that the supposedly dapper Hammond was
matrimonially yoked to the woman before him, but also by her careful diction
and phrasing.  No matter what type of marriage existed between them – and
Trevor strongly suspected it was based more on a business arrangement than
burning passion – Hammond must have contacted his wife and warned her of the
trouble.  When the local authorities had come, they had undoubtedly underscored
the fact that Scotland Yard had taken an interest in the case, hoping to
intimidate the woman into telling them everything she knew, but more likely
just preparing her for the eventuality of this present interview.  The woman’s
eyes strayed toward the mantle, and Trevor’s followed.  The man in the picture
propped there must be Hammond himself.

“When was the last
time you saw your husband?”  Emma asked calmly.   She had never led a witness
interview before, but Trevor was gratified to hear that her voice hit precisely
the proper tone, somewhere between a conversation and an interrogation.