The Devil's Ribbon (25 page)
Hatton ignored the fracas.
Nothing to do with me
, he thought, and went over to his desk and poured himself a glass of porter, which he knocked back because it pained him to think the word, less so say it. Despite the work the surgeons had done, he knew another’s beauty was … no, he couldn’t say the word the surgeons used. He couldn’t say ‘ruined’.
‘A penny for your thoughts, Adolphus?’
‘My thoughts?’ Hatton answered.
‘You seemed far away. Were you thinking on a romance of your own, perhaps?’
‘Nothing of the kind, I can assure you.’
Changing the subject as delicately as he could, Roumande asked, ‘How long do you think it will be before they force a confession?’
Hatton shrugged. ‘All I know is there’s nothing I can do for that boy, is there?’
‘No, Adolphus. A broken hand is not a pretty sight, but it will be nothing compared to what will happen to him if the boy is guilty of either murder or sedition.’
Hatton knew what murder meant.
Hanging. The hanging of a
twelve-year-old boy
. It didn’t bear thinking of. The law was an arse when it came to the punishment of children and the authorities disgusted him. But he kept this thought to himself, as he said, ‘Let’s finish off here,’ his eyes hot, stinging as he continued. ‘The evidence bags contain some rosary beads which Inspector Grey believes belonged to the first deceased. Another contains some ribbons, found in the bindery.’
‘Gabriel McCarthy’s rosary beads? But Professor, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
‘They’re significant to the case, Albert, but after almost three weeks, their forensic worth will be negligible. But I want to examine them carefully. There might just be something—’ He turned the viewing rods. ‘I can clearly see smudges of something, which appears to be … glue.’ Another twist. ‘Yes, glue. There’s plenty in a bindery, of course.’
Hatton knew no Latin prayers, nor did he want to, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t admire the polished mahogany. But the silver cross was tarnished and the figure of Christ seemed anguished to him. ‘There’s no mucus, no spittle, no poison or blood. There’s nothing that would prove this item was linked to the murder in a court of law. Perhaps the boy’s telling the truth and just found them as he said he had, but Sorcha said her husband rarely went to St Giles except …’
‘Except what, Adolphus?’
‘To pray … she said they sometimes went to pray at Father O’Brian’s church. So Gabriel McCarthy could, conceivably, have dropped them. We know he was a man under strain, overworked, took laudanum, and absentmindfulness is a curse of being middle aged and McCarthy was forty-five. On his way to senility.’
Roumande laughed. ‘Thank you very much, Adolphus, for I am
forty-five, but,’ the Frenchman displayed his chipped and yellowing enamel, ‘I still have my own teeth, monsieur
le Professeur
.’
‘
Touché
.’
‘My pleasure, but for a case like this, the jury will be under pressure to convict someone, anyone in fact who fits the bill, and the boy practically had it in his hands. The beads alone will convict him.’
‘But it’s shaky evidence and purely circumstantial. I could argue, if it comes to it, that the lack of any trace of poison or bodily fluids points to the boy’s innocence. But I’m clutching at straws. I’ll write up the conclusions anyway, as quickly as I can. After the case is finally closed, I have promised to give them back to Mrs McCarthy. She’s eager to see them and have them blessed again, before she has them put in the crypt with her dead husband. But perhaps I’ll show them to her anyway. The sight of her husband’s treasured beads might restore her a little and give her comfort that we will find the killer.’
Roumande was about to say that was an excellent idea but there was a tap, tap, tap at the door.
‘Can I interrupt you please, my dear Adolphus? It’s your miraculously cured and very grateful patient.’
Hatton rushed towards him and steered the elder man to a chair with ‘Good afternoon, Dr Buchanan, sir.’
‘Well, I just wanted to thank you for the work Patrice has done on all the pictures. And to show you the results, so far. He’s an excellent illustrator and delightful company. We’ve had some rare old jokes, he and I, about the dunking of those Garibaldi biscuits. It’s so nice to have a little youth about the place and someone to chat with. Oh, and by the way, Grey’s waiting for you in the Great Hall. I left him looking at our other paintings.
The Hogarths and the Reynoldses? Dear oh dear. I’m rambling a little …’
‘Not at all, Dr Buchanan, but let me get you something. A cup of tea, or a drop of porter, perhaps?’
‘No, no. I only dropped by to show you this.’
Dr Buchanan fumbled with a little leaflet and handed it to Hatton. ‘There’s another symposium tomorrow with countless guests arriving from the New World, again.’ He rubbed his belly. ‘But I will be most particular when it comes to dinner, I can tell you. So, Professor, can I leave you to deal with Scotland Yard?’
Out of the corner of his eyes Hatton could see Roumande on the far side of the mortuary, legs crossed, reading glasses on, and flicking through the pages of one of the botany books – the new one they’d got – the tome called
British, European and New World Flora
.
‘I’ll see to it directly, Dr Buchanan, and Godspeed to you, sir. A simple supper, an early night will soon see you firmly on your feet again, and more than able to deal with our American colleagues.’
‘They are mainly Canadian,’ answered Buchanan. ‘But they all sound the same don’t they? Brutalising our mother tongue with their sloppy vowels and swallowed adjectives? Still, they are keen on funding typhus work, so I must be charm itself and enunciate on their behalf.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘Perhaps, Professor, you might even be able to join us? For the dinner, I mean. They are nearly all cholera experts from the Nun’s Hospital in Montreal, and would enjoy a chat on the statistical data you’ve gathered. Mr Farr will also be there. You could sit next to him.’
Hatton couldn’t believe his luck. To sit next to Mr Farr, at dinner? He felt suddenly galvanised and so thanked Buchanan profusely and, taking the beads, quickly rushed to the ward to see Sorcha who was
half asleep, half awake. He laid his hand gently on hers, as her fingers responded, knowing it was him. Her eyes fluttered open and widened as she saw her husband’s beads.
‘Look, Sorcha. Look what we’ve found.’
She murmured something, as Hatton helped her sit up a little. She took the beads, shut her eyes, whispered what must have been a prayer, before clasping the beads tight to her breast. ‘How can I ever thank you? But where on earth did you find them, because I looked everywhere. Literally, everywhere.’
‘A boy had them, said he found them in St Giles …’
‘St Giles? He found them in St Giles? So they were dropped then, or discarded by someone. So the killer must live in the rookeries?’
Hatton tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her ear, kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘You’re tired, you must rest, and the beads are evidence, so I can’t let you keep them yet … I just wanted you to know that you will be able to bury them soon. It won’t be long now, I promise you.’
‘So you think you are closing the case? You have the killers in sight?’
He couldn’t promise her, so he just said, ‘We’re doing everything we possibly can, and for some reason, I feel, yes, we’re getting close.’
She smiled. ‘But can I keep them for a day, at least? They’re all I have left of my husband.’
Hatton shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Sorcha. If it was solely up to me, of course, but they’re police property and must be returned to the morgue immediately. We need to keep studying these beads, look and look again. That is the nature of forensics. The beads are unique and sometimes what isn’t obvious may suddenly—’
‘Speak to you, Adolphus? Like my dead husband’s voice, telling you
something.
Mortui vivos docent
? The dead will teach the living.’ She smiled, pressed the cross to her lips, and gave the beads back to him.
Grey was standing with his hands on his hips, looking up at an enormous Hogarth –
The Pool of Bethesda
– which hung in the spectacular entrance to the Great Hall of St Bart’s. Unimpressed by the lurid paint, the gilt baroque didacticism of this English Master, he simply pulled a face and turning said, ‘Professor Hatton. Where the devil have you been? I’ve been waiting for some full fifteen minutes in this place. So, have you made any progress on the evidence I gave you?’
‘I’m sorry, but the ribbons you found in the bindery are not the same. They are his mother’s perhaps, or have been dropped by one of the sewing women? And apart from a little binding glue, the beads are clean and, forensically speaking, found such a long time after the murder was committed as to be almost worthless.’
‘And what about this fingerprinting thing?’
‘Roumande has tried and tried again, but we need to be sure of the method before we can apply it in court. It’s tricky to get right and not yet accurate enough.’
‘Well, keep at it,’ said Grey. ‘I was just passing, on my way to make an arrest. The boy has croaked, but only about the bomb. Seems it was a gang thing, as I thought, but he’s adamant that the ribbon murders are nothing to do with them.’
‘
Them
, Inspector?’
‘Ribbonmen, of course. Three, to be precise – Father O’Brian, which we suspected, Damien McCarthy, whatever he says to the contrary, and a hack called John O’Rourke who lives somewhere in the rookeries.’
‘A man called O’Rourke? So, does he know Hecker? Gabriel McCarthy? Is he from Ardara, as well?’
‘Not sure, although I’ve since found out that O’Brian is from the far south. But if I could spare the details, right now, for I’m in desperate need of morphine. My arm is giving me terrible gyp. Have you any, Hatton?’
Hatton’s lip curled. ‘First of all, when can I see the boy?’
‘The prisoner, you mean? I feel he will be a considerable asset over the next few hours. But perhaps it’s his medical condition you’re asking about?’
Hatton lowered his voice and stepped forward, face-to-face with the Inspector. ‘I still can’t believe what I saw. I’ll make you pay for what you did to that child, whether he’s guilty or not.’
Grey’s face was stony. ‘You’re a fool, Hatton, but I put my country before the hand of a bomber. And I don’t have to justify myself to you because what are you, after all? One small step up from a butcher?’
‘I’d rather be a butcher than a torturer.’
‘Perhaps you would have preferred if I had gone up in the blast?’
‘No, Inspector. I believe in mercy.’
‘Mercy? Yes, well, it’s a noble idea,’ said Grey. ‘Well, perhaps the judge will show some when it comes to court. Send the boy to Australia instead of the gallows. Anyway, which way to get the morphine, did you say? And I need a new syringe. I appear to have lost mine. Fingersmith’s been in The Yard again. Nice silver case? You haven’t see it, have you, Hatton?’
But Hatton had already started to walk away, as he heard the Inspector shouting after him, ‘Very well. You win. You want to see the boy? He’s in the wagon outside waiting for the others to join him. So, are you coming, Hatton? Or are you just going to do what you usually do and sulk?’
Father O’Brian knew his time in London was drawing to a close. His bag was already packed, hidden under a half-tester bed and containing a few soiled shirts, a prayer book, a purple chasuble, a pouch of gunpowder. To his right, a note on a side table, inviting him to join a Mission in Newfoundland, where word was there’d been another cholera outbreak in some god-awful place called the Avalon Peninsula.
Canada
, he told himself,
will do for now
. He fumbled inside his pocket, checking he still had the ticket for his escape – a third-class berth on a clipper that was leaving from the Isle of Dogs tomorrow.
Taking his rosary beads, he left the house and went out into the church, where a thin line of light streamed in through a window, illuminating the nave in a pattern of burnt orange, pale blue, and hazy yellow. All was
quiet, empty, as the priest moved towards the altar and knelt in prayer, then briefly looked over his shoulder as he heard,
nearer and nearer
, the thundering of horses, men shouting, the blowing of whistles. No time to waste, he was off his knees and out. No bag grabbed, just into the rookeries, turning right, turning left, turning right. His face a pool of sweat as a woman pulled him into an alleyway and whispered, ‘This way, Father.’
Out the back of the reeking tenancy block, jumping over rubbish, dead cats, upturned dogs and moving south towards the river where a sympathetic boatman, loyal to the cause, was ready to take the priest away. The backup plan in case things went belly up, as they clearly had. A quick push of the skiff and they were off.
‘Put your back into it. Hurry up, man. My life’s at stake here.’
‘Keep your head down till we’re just past Limehouse, then another will take you to Folkestone and then to the open sea, Father. It’s all arranged. We’ve been waiting for you.’
‘Too obvious. Take me to the border of Kent and I’ll travel by foot from there. And in case Mr O’Rourke sends word, just tell him I’m heading north till the land runs out.’
‘Always your obedient servant, so I am, Father.’
The priest lay sweating under a thin layer of tarpaulin, listening to the river sounds. Far off, the harsh yell of a waterman. Above him, soaring gulls, squabbling over a scrap of something. Beneath the skiff, a river swell gently rocking him and then a great wash from side to side as the boat hit flotsam.
When the three men arrived at the Sacred Heart, the place was already empty. A vast echoing church, bereft of all life, except a white veil of light
streaming through an ornate window from the bustling world outside.
‘The priest’s flown, but we’ll nab the next one, I promise you that,’ said Grey after searching in the nave, the confessional box, the sacristy and coming out, brandishing a Crimean pistol and a torn handbill – ‘
Down with the British – Tiocfaidh ár lá
…’
‘So they were at the riot?’ said Hatton, from where he was crouched with Roumande.
‘Looks that way, doesn’t it? Likely, they were behind it,’ answered Grey, looking down the barrel of the gun.
But there was no silver nitrate anywhere in the church or the priest’s cottage, his potting shed, the privy – just an old stopwatch wrapped in a worn piece of calico which they found under a bed.
‘Are you taking prints, then?’ asked the Inspector.
Hatton looked up from underneath one of the benches, because it was his turn to try the method. But this technique required time, precision, tenaciousness, and Roumande nudged him to say the clock was ticking.
‘Just leave it. Come on,’ yelled Grey, taking a sharp right out of the church, then charging towards Monmouth Street, where the boy had said they’d find the journalist, pushing through the crowds with his good arm, the other two behind him, to reach the main throng of the Dials – a wilderness of alleyways. ‘A printer’s somewhere off Neal Street, the Tooley boy said. O’Rourke’s there most afternoons, apparently. He’d better be right or he’ll hang for that as well.’
The three men stopped, lost for a second, at the seven-point crossing of the Dials, where malodorous roads and threadbare people jostled with each other, but not more than a stone’s throw from the Sacred Heart, as Grey jabbed a kid-gloved finger. ‘Mark my words, I’ll have
every house in the rookeries flattened if necessary. Don’t worry, I’ll find that priest. Meanwhile, down here I think …’
The beginning of St Giles – the rookeries – a city within a city of herb sellers, organ grinders, crossing-sweepers, parrot dealers, leather makers, knife throwers, hawkers of stolen goods, diviners, soothsayers, table tappers, notorious quacks, Papists, paupers, beggars, and even the odd Italian opera singer, but mainly Irish and seeds of revolution in the air.
At the end of what appeared to be an alleyway was a broken-down tavern. Under a wormy lintel, pistols at the ready, the men looked about them to see through the blue fug of tobacco smoke, a metal-topped bar to the right, a pox-faced landlord spitting on a glass, a small room stuffed to the gills with Irish, growls of Gaelic in the air, and beyond this, to the back, along a small corridor, as promised, the deafening noise of a printing press.
No stopping now.
‘Police! Stand back. John O’Rourke … we know you’re here … give yourself up, man …’ Inspector Grey shouted above the roar, and without a gun to defend himself, O’Rourke, hearing his name, dived for the floor and tried to crawl underneath the printing machinery, but as he did, Hatton saw a massive boot come down. Somehow, some way, Tescalini had got here before them. But in the fray, O’Rourke wrenched himself free and, swooping past Hatton with a hard shove, made a dash for it.
‘Don’t let him get away. Shoot him in the back if necessary,’ yelled Grey.
Whistles blew, but O’Rourke was running as fast as he could away from ‘Stop that man!’ Hatton turned on his heels and raced after him and up ahead could see copious stalls overflowing with crates of oranges and apples, as O’Rourke leapt over the fruit.
‘Oi! What the devil!’
‘Mind my bananas, you fool.’
But the Inspector was clever – very – having herded the journalist towards a blind alley and – twelve hours from now, maybe less – death by hanging.
They’d left the prisoners in a meat wagon, Hatton having done what he could for the boy, checking the wound, smoothing his hair, saying, ‘Shhh. Settle down now …’ as the child begged, ‘You will come back, won’t you, sir? Or they’ll hang me, won’t they, sir?’ Hatton hung his head, feeling nothing but shame as he peeled the sobbing boy from his arms, with Roumande looking on, but knowing they could promise the boy nothing.
The image of the boy’s pale face pressed to the grille begging for mercy, and Mr Tescalini with the reins in his hand, primed for a full gallop to Newgate, cracking the whip. An image that stayed with Hatton now, in the porch of White Lodge, and Grey said, ‘It’s not pretty, granted, but I wanted to show you that my means have an end. Let’s not forget that I’m pursuing the men who probably cost Mrs McCarthy’s face, as well as my arm.’
Roumande turned away muttering a curse, as Hatton gazed for a second at the swifts as they curled overhead in aerial arches, flipping through the trails of cirrus which feathered the sky. The birds were scarcely visible but their cries hurtled over the rooftops, circled the hill and below Swain’s Lane, whistled over the Necropolis. Hatton felt Roumande’s hand on his arm. ‘We’ll write for clemency, and there are others, Adolphus, many who won’t let a twelve-year-old boy hang no matter what he has or hasn’t done. We’ll get a petition going. There’s Harriet Martineau, Mr Dickens, Mr Gladstone …’
They were nice words, thought Hatton, as he watched the circling
birds, but words were sometimes hard to visualise on a day like this, even harder to believe in.
Less than a minute and the Inspector was back again. ‘It seems another of our birds has flown the nest, gentlemen. Someone must have tipped him off, but Damien McCarthy can’t have gone far.’
Hatton turned to him with, ‘There was nobody in the house, then?’
‘The house is empty, but there are luggage bags in the hall, which points to flight and flight is guilt. According to that Tooley boy, there’s a tunnel that runs from the bottom of the garden, towards the east gate of the Necropolis, which Damien used to hide maps, bombmaking stuff.’
The three moved swiftly to the bottom of the garden, where the grasses were waist high and the air was filled with the whir of insects. The inspector strode through the parched garden talking to himself. ‘Spreading oak tree to the right, a dell of ash to the left, and then passing a bed of orange marigolds take fifteen paces forward, due north. One, two, three, four …’ Then he stamped his foot near a sod of grass which seemed slightly flatter than the rest. ‘This is the place. It’s just as the boy said it would be. There’ll be a shaft below with a rope ladder. The tunnel begins here.’
But as Hatton and Roumande stood at the opening of the shaft, there was something they could sense – something ethereal, something intangible but omnipresent – a life ebbing away or something dead already.
Peering down into a black bowel of a vertical shaft, Hatton pulled, but the rope, made of chord and plaited green silk, kept slipping out of his hands, giving him burn marks. Roumande helped but the weight at the end was swinging, heavy like a rock, hitting the shaft from side to side, sending pebbles, clods of earth flying. ‘Put your back into
it, gentlemen,’ came a terse voice from behind. Hatton kept pulling, Roumande, too, and emerging into the light came what they already knew – Damien McCarthy, his dead eyes swimming in blood, his face colourless, lifeless. Deep ligature marks on the neck, telling at once of the struggle before he was thrown down the shaft and hanged.
Hauling the body onto the grass, Hatton knelt down to see black blood around the mouth. The victim had bitten his tongue, but as Hatton peered closer, a salty taste in his mouth of dread, something telling – was it forgiveness, the last rites, a full stop, the end coming?
Roumande said, ‘It’s a cross. The sign of the cross, Adolphus. This one’s been anointed, too, but why?’
But this smear of oil was obvious and pressed upon it, for all the world to see, not a hint or a hue or a faint suggestion, but strands of orange petals, incandescent bursts of sunlight. Hatton put his ear to the man’s lips to hear, with shock, the quietest gasp.
‘Is he still alive?’ asked Roumande.
‘Only just, Albert,’ Hatton said as he pushed hard down on Damien’s chest to grab him back to life. ‘Breathe for pity’s sake, breathe.’ But it was wasted effort because Hatton knew already,
He’s as good as gone
, but then a twitch at the corner of his blood-smeared mouth and a sound of
Sssshhhhh
.
‘What’s he saying? Is he saying something? And what the devil’s he covered in?’
‘I can barely hear him, Inspector. He’s dying.’
Grey pushed forward, pulling Roumande out of the way. ‘Let me speak to him. What’s that?’ Inspector Grey was shaking the man. ‘What
are you saying,
Fffff
? F for Fenian? Or is it,
Shhhhh
? Are you saying a name? A place? What are you damn well saying?’
‘He’s gone, Inspector.’
‘Gone? My master’s gone?’
But this was a woman’s voice speaking, not the Inspector’s, and Hatton turned around to see the maid, Florrie, who’d stepped out of nowhere. ‘But what have they covered him in?’ she asked, her eyes wide.
Hatton took a pair of tweezers and peeled a little bright sunset from the dusky pallor of the dead man. ‘They’re petals. He’s been decorated.’
‘And there’s a bed of marigolds, here,’ said the Inspector.
Hatton shook his head, rubbing one of the petals between finger and thumb. ‘No, these are a much bolder colour.’ Hatton crouched down again by the body. ‘Whoever did this was mocking him because orange is a Protestant colour. It’s another religious symbol but telling us what?’
Florrie shook her head, biting her lip, as pale as death herself.
Grey said, ‘Have you something to tell us, Missy?’
Her hand back to her mouth to stifle a sob, she said, ‘I was at the top of the house when you came. I heard the knock and came to the front door only to see you. Yes, it must have been you, Inspector, disappearing into the garden. I hesitated for I wasn’t sure I’d seen you at all. The mind plays tricks in this heat. Only a little while ago, I could have sworn I saw someone else moving towards the Necropolis, while I was hanging out the washing. But in a blink, the figure was gone.’
‘When was this?’
‘Maybe ten minutes before you came. I swear the Necropolis is haunted and I had a mind that it was a spirit. I could feel something
drawing me towards it, which is why I hid at the top of the house. My mistress was always talking about how someone was watching her. Watching over me, she said. She was mad in the heat, all cooped up, dreaming, talking to herself, saying she was suffocating, pacing the rooms, so very agitated. I think she was homesick, and she was definitely lonesome with her husband always at work. That’s why the master encouraged her, you see.’
