Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (15 page)

“The rozzer gave me a tanner,” he protested.

“Lying shite-hawk,” said Bent. “You’ll be happy with that, or I’ll put your dad on the front page of the
Argus
.”

“Ain’t got a dad,” snorted the boy again, turning to go.

“That figures, little bastard,” muttered Bent. He said, “Flash Harry might be good for a couple of pennies. Tell him to come quick, as well. Tell him there’s going to be money in this for him. Tell him Jack the fucking Ripper’s struck again.”

Dressed in a gray suit fitting neither the fashion of the day nor Bent’s sluggardly frame for the best part of ten years, he stood at the door to his house on the Rents and inhaled deeply. “Ah, London,” he said. “You fucking stink.”

The Fulwood Rents was located in the heart of the East End, close enough to the Royal London Hospital that Bent could hear the screams of the afflicted when the wind was blowing in the right direction. It was also staggering distance from the Blind Beggar, where Bent liked to take his gin, and Raven Row, where he liked to play hide the sausage. He looked up. There was doubtless a blue July sky up there, somewhere, beyond the pall of low-lying smog punctured only by the occasional emergence of a dirigible, but he doubted he’d see it today. But who needed fresh air? Aloysius Bent had London, the only oxygen he required.

The brat had lied; the walk was more like twenty minutes, although Bent had stopped to relieve himself against a dustbin on Whitechapel Road. He found the crime scene quickly enough, though, an alleyway snaking between a tripe shop and a florist on Lomas Street. Flash Harry was already there, setting up his tripod and filling his pan with flash powder. Bent patted the freelance photographer on the shoulder as he hunkered beneath the black cloak to fire off a shot of the scene, then went to find his contact.

“Albert.” He nodded when he’d located the constable, and passed him an envelope, which the policeman secreted away in his tunic. “What we got?”

The constable looked around and said, “We’ll have to be quick; Lestrade’s on his way down.”

“You’re sure it’s a Ripper?” said Bent.

Albert nodded and pulled back the sheet. The girl stared glassy-eyed, her white face streaked with blood. The top of her head, just below the hairline, had been perfectly sliced off and the cap of her skull lifted like a bottle top. It sat abandoned by her exposed, graying brain. Bent belched and tasted gin. He felt queasy again.

As Harry set up his camera, Bent turned to Albert. “What do we know?”

“Local girl, twenty- five.”

“Whore?”

Albert nodded. “Party by the name of Frances Coles. Worked the streets in Whitechapel, Bow, and sometimes Shoreditch. Born to a respectable family by all accounts, before she fell into drink and prostitution. She was behind them bins. Four days, we reckon.”

Bent held his nose. “That’ll be why she stinks so much.” He looked at the girl. “Quite pretty, if you scrubbed her up.” He chuckled. “And put the top of her head back on, of course. Oh, cover her up, Albert, she’s quite giving me a fit of the vapors.”

“Then I suggest you go and get some fresh air, Mr. Bent, preferably as far away from my crime scene as you can waddle.”

Bent sighed and turned to face the short, ferret-faced man with a sallow complexion whose eyes shone like a rat’s. “Hello, Lestrade,” he said.

The detective scowled. “It’s Inspector Lestrade to you, Bent. Now hop it. I’ve got a crime to solve.”

“Already done it for you,” said Bent as Harry’s camera flashed with a white cloud of exploding powder. “Jack the Ripper, innit? Now all you’ve got to do is find the bugger.”

Without warning, he felt his stomach convulse and he vomited a hot soup on the shoes of the stunned Inspector.

“Oh look,” said Bent, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and staring at the lumps of spicy sausage still visible in the steaming heap pooling around the policeman’s shoes. “I forgot I’d had a bit of spicy sausage last night.”

The offices of the
Illustrated London Argus
were on the second floor of the enormous marble edifice of the London Newspaper and Magazine Publishing Company, squatting regally in the center of Fleet Street. Flags of all nations flew from its portico-heavy facade, and a doorman in green livery stood sentry as staff, customers, and clients streamed through the revolving doors..

“All right, Jug Ears,” said Bent.

“Didn’t you get the memorandum?” the doorman said, scowling.

Bent shrugged, feeling in the pockets of his jacket for the half a pasty he was sure he’d squirreled away there yesterday. The doorman went on, “You’re not allowed to use the main entrance. You have to use the delivery door.”

Bent snorted. “Union won’t stand for that.
Argus
staff forced into the alley like barrow boys?”

“Not all staff.” The doorman smirked. “Just you. Mr. Wright said you are not presenting the kind of front-line image expected of the London Newspaper and Magazine Publishing Company.”

“Did he now?” said Bent, farting loudly and finally locating his pasty. “Well, I’ll have to have a word with Mr. fucking Wright, won’t I?”

He was pink faced and wheezing by the time he pushed open the double doors into the gloomy newsroom, passing the ranks of copy- takers and secretaries.

“Fear not,” he boomed. “Aloysius Bent is here to save the day with another cracking front-page story.”

The earnest, stiff-collared and waxed-mustached gentlemen of the arts and culture section frowned at him as he lumbered past, heading toward the long desk of the City Editor, Gordon Bingley, who was squinting at a sheet of copy beneath the pool of light emitted by the gold and green banker’s lamp perched behind his typewriter. He looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Mr. Bent. So pleased to have you with us at last.”

“Straight out on the job, Bingley old chap,” said Bent, stuffing the last of his pasty into his mouth. “Clear the front of the afternoon edition. We’ve got another Ripper murder.”

“Then you should get typing, Mr. Bent,” said Bingley, allowing him a small smile.

Bent nodded and headed for his desk, which shone like a beacon of mess and chaos among the ordered ranks of his colleagues. Bingley turned his chair around and hollered, “Hold the front page!”

Bent grinned broadly. He loved it when Bingley did that.

When he’d filed his story Bent felt he was due a treat, which was probably going to take the form of a drink in the Punch Tavern, provided he could take advantage of Bingley’s agreeable mood and beg two shillings off him.

First, though, he had his board to update. The wall by Bent’s desk was dotted with photographs and scrawled notes, and to this array he added the print Flash Harry had dropped on his desk, the portrait of poor old Frances Coles.

Sixteen prostitutes with their heads sliced off. When it all first kicked off with Mary Ann Nichols in August 1888, Bent had wanted to dub the killer Jack the Slicer, on account of that’s what he did—slice the tops of their heads off. But Wright had insisted on Ripper, and the name stuck. Sixteen, not counting Bent’s ace in the hole—the woman no one else had ever drawn a Ripper link to. He’d tried to get his theories into print, but Wright wouldn’t go for it without some firmer evidence. Annie Crook had died two summers ago, two months before Nichols. Witnesses said her body had been dumped by the Thames with the top of her head gone. Only trouble was, the body disappeared soon after: probably rats, possibly worse. The police refused to consider Annie Crook as a victim of Jack the Ripper, because they had no corpse, and therefore no proof. And, at the end of the day, she was just some lowly shopgirl about whom no one gave a flea’s fart. There’d been talk of a commotion in her flat, of comings and goings in the dead of night. Every instinct Bent had told him there was a story there, a connection between Annie Crook and Jack the Ripper. Crook had sat for Walter Sickert, a painter on Cleveland Street. Bent had tried to get to him several times, and a year ago had managed to get a foot in his door. Sickert had the look of a haunted man about him, and he told Bent not to meddle in things that could turn very, very bad. Which, of course, was like a red rag to a bull.

Bent wandered over to the news desk and picked up a paper from some coastal town in Yorkshire. He glanced at the front page, then began to read with interest. He said to Belvoir, the deputy news editor, “Some Russian schooner found abandoned on a beach. And a bloke with his throat ripped out. And a fishing boat with no crew. All in one little shithole.”

Belvoir shrugged. “We’ll have stringers up north to deal with that.”

Bent spied Bingley at the far end of the newsroom, through the Venetian blinds leading into Wright’s office. Norman Wright, the editor of the
Argus
, had a broom handle so far up his arse he could brush his chair when he sat down. Bent hauled himself out of his chair and trundled down to the office, hoping to buttonhole Bingley when he came out. As he neared the office the door opened and a third man, led by a frowning Bingley, emerged. He was tall and thin, wearing an immaculate black frock-coat and carrying a topper and cane in his long hands. He had the eyes and nose of a hawk, and he regarded Bent with interest. From behind him, Wright bobbed his stern face over their shoulders.

“Ah, Mr. Bent,” he said. “Most judicious you should be skulking around outside my office. I should like a word.”

Bent gave Bingley a quizzical waggle of his eyebrows, but the City Editor looked away and escorted the visitor to the staircase. Bent shrugged. Wright probably wanted to grudgingly thank him for the Ripper story. He brightened. Maybe he could scrounge two shillings off him as well.

“You’re what?” said Bent, standing before the broad, tidy desk while Wright, ramrod- stiff, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing out the wide window at the bustle of Fleet Street below.

“You are neither deaf nor, despite appearances to the contrary, stupid, Mr. Bent,” said Wright. “You heard and understood. I am relieving you of your duties vis à vis any further Jack the Ripper stories.”

“Have you seen the front page of the late edition?” asked Bent. “Where do you think that story came from, Wright? Did you think the fucking ink fairies left it under Bingley’s pillow?”

“I shall not deny you have done good work, Bent,” said Wright calmly. “But it is time for you to explore fresh ideas. New avenues. Different stories.”

Bent waggled a finger at him. “I know what this is about. This is because I threw up on Inspector Lestrade’s shoes this morning, isn’t it? I wasn’t drunk, you know. I think I had some dodgy jellied eels on Cleveland Street yesterday.”

Wright frowned. “Why where you in Cleveland Street?”

“Ongoing inquiries,” muttered Bent.

“Not ongoing inquiries into your spurious idea that the Crook girl is somehow wrapped up in the Jack the Ripper murders, by any chance? She was a shopgirl who died. A whole two years ago. Do you know how many people die in London each year, Mr. Bent? Do you know how desperate and uncaring life is among the lower classes?”

Bent shrugged. “Pretty much. I’m one of ’em.” Wright wrinkled his nose. “That you are, Mr. Bent. Smarten yourself up. And if you want a job to come to at all in this building in the future, your attitude will have to improve, also.”

Bent glared at him. “You’re threatening to give me the elbow?”

“If you do not desist with your wild theories, Mr. Bent, then yes. You are wasting your own time and that of this newspaper.”

Bent screwed up his eyes and glanced back toward the door. “Who was that geezer? The one with the funny eyes and big nose?”

“Not your concern, Mr. Bent.”

Bent tapped his lips thoughtfully, looking at the portrait of Queen Victoria hanging on the wall behind Wright’s desk. “You’ve been got at, ain’t you? Told to lay off the Annie Crook line. He stank of Secret Service. I’m right, ain’t I? This goes right to the bloody top, doesn’t it?”

Wright turned back to his window. “You are free to go, Mr. Bent. I look forward to seeing what new and exciting stories you dig up for the readers of the
Argus
.”

Bent opened his mouth to let loose a stream of invective, then thought better of it. He paused at the door to Wright’s office. “Uh, I don’t suppose you could lend me two shillings until payday, could you?”

10
London