The Kingdom of Bones (7 page)

NINE

S
ebastian traveled back with Turner-Smith in the superintendent’s own carriage. Once the ride was under way, he was eager to explain his suspicions and to share some of the conclusions that he’d half-thought through.

But Turner-Smith sat with his bad leg outstretched and his cane across his knees, looking out of the side window as the streets of the town unrolled past it, and said, “How is your mother these days, Sebastian? Is she well?”

The question was a surprise. Sebastian was not sure how to respond, so he simply answered, “She is, sir,” and then “I was not aware that you knew her.”

“We’ve never actually met,” Turner-Smith said. “But she wrote to me upon your promotion.”

“She did?”

Turner-Smith looked at him then, half amused as if he already knew the answers to anything he might ask, and all of his pleasure was in seeing the younger man’s reaction.

“She disapproves of your choice of profession and holds me personally responsible for your safety.”

“I apologize,” Sebastian said. “I did not know of any letter.”

“Don’t apologize,” Turner-Smith said. “You and she never spoke of the matter?”

“We rarely speak at all.”

The town’s main police office stood next to the magistrates’ courts, with a secure passageway linking the two buildings so that prisoners could be walked straight from the jail cells and into the dock. There were public rooms at the front, with offices at the back and the cells below. Its rooms were spare, bare, and high-ceilinged. Despite the presence of gas flares and the most modern cast-iron radiators, those who worked there complained that the small-windowed cells were the only warm rooms in the entire building.

There was a stable yard on the side, hidden from the street behind a high stone wall and archway. It was from the yard that Sebastian Becker and Superintendent Turner-Smith entered and made their way down the central corridor toward the Detective Department’s rooms.

Word of Turner-Smith’s arrival had preceded them. A uniformed man stood ready to open the door, and the office beyond it was tidy and square. Detectives stood to attention by their desks. The police cat and its new kittens had been swept into a cupboard and would stay confined there for the length of the superintendent’s visit.

“Be about your business,” Turner-Smith told them as he followed Sebastian. “This is not an inspection.”

He lowered himself into a chair with a sound of relief as Sebastian opened a drawer and took out a package. The seal on the package was broken, and it bore no address other than the words
To the Police for their Kind Attention.

“This was left by persons unknown,” Sebastian said, opening it up and laying its contents on the table before his superior.

“When?”

“Some time yesterday morning. The desk sergeant found the package in the public waiting room, but he did not see who’d left it. There is no letter or message. In my opinion, the writing resembles that of a child.”

“Or an illiterate.”

“It’s hard to say. The spelling is correct. But the hand is not a practiced one.”

The contents were three sheets of a heavy, cheap paper with a distinct smell of the glue pot. Each bore pasted-on cuttings from a number of different newspapers.

“Perhaps the writing has been disguised,” Turner-Smith said, leaning forward with both hands on the head of his walking stick. He peered closely at the sheets without attempting to touch them.

“They are theatrical notices,” Sayers said.

“So I see.”

“All for the
Purple Diamond
company. All from different newspapers in different towns and cities on the tour.”

“And not a good notice among them, by the looks of it,” Turner-Smith said. It was not necessary to read the reviews in full to get the flavor of their content; certain negative words caught the eye and told the story. He added, with growing interest, “Each notice appears to have been paired with a crime report from the same pages.”

Sebastian said, “Look at the dates.”

Turner-Smith looked at them. “They’re not the same.”

“But there is a consistency. The notices are all from first nights. Which means that each mutilation murder probably coincides with the end of a run. Three days, four days, perhaps even a week later. It varies.”

“And?”

Sebastian said, “The
Purple Diamond
company closed at the Lyric last night. They’ve already packed up and left town for their next engagement.”

“Leaving human remains for us to find today.”

“So the pattern holds.”

“If it
is
a pattern. I’m sure I could throw together a list of dead paupers and foundlings for any set of dates and places you could mention.”

“Yes, sir. But all dismembered? Flayed? Eviscerated?”

“I am not disagreeing with you. I think you are probably right. This has the look of insider work, Sebastian. Someone in the company is signaling their suspicions.”

“I suspected that, sir, but I could not be sure.”

“Where are the
good
notices, Inspector Becker? Show me a tour that could survive on notices like these. The good ones are in somebody’s press book. These are the leftovers that no performer would care to remember.”

“Of course, sir. Now I understand.”

“You’re turning out to be not a bad little detective, though. I credit you for it, Becker.”

“I credit my teacher.”

Turner-Smith considered the pages for a moment longer. Then with the aid of his stick, he rose to his feet.

“I shall act upon this,” he said. “Where is the company now?”

Sebastian had already made inquiry of the Lyric’s management, and had confirmed the information by telegraph.

“In Lancashire,” he said. “At the Prince of Wales Theatre in Salford.”

“I’ll spare you Salford,” Turner-Smith said with a smile, “and I shall pursue this myself. But do not worry. I’ll ensure you get full credit for your insight here.”

“I do not doubt it. Take care up there, sir.”

Turner-Smith raised his walking stick and, holding it horizontally between them, gave it a twist and pulled so that the shaft separated into two halves. The action revealed part of the sword blade that lay hidden within it.

“Have no fears for me,” Turner-Smith said. “I know Liverpool Street of old.”

TEN

T
he Prince of Wales Theatre ran a variety bill, and
The Purple Diamond
had been brought in to provide the second half of it. The first part of the program included Felix’s troupe of Siberian Wolf Hounds, Nelly Farrell, the Glittering Star of Erin, Medley the Mimic, and “musical wonders” The Avolo Boys. They were short of a second-spot comedian, so Gulliford had seized the chance to resurrect his old act and the baggy suit he performed it in. To his dismay, the suit was no longer quite so baggy as it once had been. But he went over well at the first matinee, so the management engaged him to double up his jobs for the rest of the run.

Friday night brought the best house of the week. Doors opened at six and the entertainment began at six-thirty. There was little for Sayers to do once the play was settled into a new venue, but he would always stand ready to give a correcting hand to any problem that might arise. Sometimes, when everything was running smoothly backstage, he would go around to the rear of the auditorium and watch the show for a while.

As Bram Stoker had so astutely remembered, Sayers had been a performer once. When injury had cut short his sporting career, he had taken to the stage in a sketch dramatizing the events surrounding his most famous bout. Although he was hardly a born actor, he was at least up to the challenge of representing his own history. He’d been a popular fighter, and now found enough success on the Halls to square his debts and discover a new living.

Having managed his own troupe, he now managed others. While he sometimes felt a pang of envy for those to whom the limelight seemed a natural home, he knew that his dramatic talent had already been exploited to its limit.

Sayers stood at the back of the house and watched as Nelly Farrell sang of how one black sheep shall never spoil the flock. She was a strong-featured, short-haired, can-belto performer of Irish comic songs, and Louise Porter’s opposite in almost every way.

He listened to a couple of her verses, and then turned and wandered through into the bar where a smaller crowd, drinks in hand, watched the stage through the auditorium pillars.

Sayers felt restless this evening. He often did, when everything was in order and there was little left to occupy him. Without the usual mass of practical detail to engage his thoughts, they tended to turn inward and there, they found uncomfortable issues to fasten upon.

Like, this present occupation of his—how long would it last? Old boxers seemed to fall into two classes: those who’d succeeded and sank their prize money into some enterprise like a small hotel or a beerhouse, and those eternal contenders who stayed too long in the ring, looking forward to success that never came.

As far as Sayers could see, he’d fit into neither category. Nor into any other that he could imagine.

“Tom?” he heard, and turned his head. A woman had called his name from behind the bar counter and was looking at him. Her face was instantly familiar, but for a moment he struggled to place it exactly.

“Lily?” he said, moving over to the counter. “Lily Collins?”

“Lily Haynes, now,” she said, and held up a hand to show him a well-worn wedding band that looked as if it had passed through a generation or two, if not a pawnshop or three. “How are you, Tom?”

“Lucky old Albert,” Tom said. “I’m doing fine.”

Lily Collins. It had been five or six years since he’d last seen her. They both leaned on the bar so that they could converse without too much disturbance of those facing the stage. And then whenever the bar crowd joined in a chorus, they had to pause because it became too difficult to be heard.

Lily had toured with Sayers’ first company, playing in
A Fight to the Finish
as Hester Chambers, the jilted country-girl sweetheart of Tom’s opponent. She’d entered the theater as a dancer, and back then she’d been slight and slim and could pass for a girl of seventeen despite her dozen or more years in the profession. Albert Haynes was a tumbler in a three-man act, and whenever their engagements coincided, it was obvious to everyone that they were a destined pair. She’d grown more matronly since then. But her eyes still held their sparkle.

“So you’re off the road now?” Tom said.

“Albert got the flu,” she said. “It left him deaf in one ear. He could never balance proper after that. He’s all right in himself. But he used to stand on one hand, and now I have to watch him on the stairs.”

After a pause for a roaring chorus, she told him of how they’d married and put their savings into a pub on Langworthy Road. Albert ran it, and Lily brought in some extra money by working here three nights a week.

“Come and see us,” she said. “Any time. Don’t worry if we’re busy. We’ll always make time for you, Tom.”

“I will.”

“Don’t just say it.”

“I truly will.”

She was looking at him strangely. Not so much at him, as into him. Sayers had always found Lily Collins to be one of those women of intuitive honesty, with an uncanny sense of it in others. They make valued friends. But a woman who can always spot when a man’s deceiving himself makes for a discomforting companion.

“How are you really, Tom?” she said. “Are you happy? Tell me you are.”

He laid aside all pretense.

“I believe,” he said, “that in time I will be.”

“Well,” Lily said, raising her voice to compete with the final chorus from the Glittering Star of Erin, “That’s probably all any of us can ask for. Knowing what will make you happy and feeling you’re on the way to it. Everything else is memories.”

The end of Nelly Farrell’s act brought a surge of customers to the bar, and with quick good-byes and equally quick promises Lily had to abandon Sayers and return to her work.

When Medley the Mimic came bouncing on and started with his imitations, Sayers slipped out to the foyer and made his way backstage. By the time he got there, Medley was off again and the Avolo Boys were out trying to repair the damage.

“Bloody Salford ’eathens,” cursed Medley as he pushed his way past Sayers, raw egg dripping from his jacket. “If it don’t sing or fall on its arse, they don’t want to know.”

Sayers checked to see that the
Purple Diamond
stage crew would be ready for an early call, and then made his way back to the green room to give the same warning to the cast.

Most were ready anyway. As he might have guessed, the only one not present was James Caspar.

The dressing rooms were at the side of the building, with high windows overlooking the alley that divided the theater from the public house next door. Sayers climbed the stairs, almost hoping not to find Caspar there. If he wasn’t, then Whitlock would either have to cancel the performance or send on a substitute, book in hand. It would be a disaster for the company and the most serious professional lapse imaginable; yet there was something in Sayers that weighed one night’s pain against Caspar’s permanent departure.

His father had taken on the work of reclaiming him for God, but died with it barely begun. I swore to him that I would continue the work until its end. I pledged my own soul to the task.

Sayers did not believe one word of it. There had to be some more credible explanation for the hold that Caspar had on the boss. Whatever it was, Sayers would welcome any reason that might cause the “task” to be abandoned.

Reaching the top of the dressing-room stairs, he hesitated. The door to Caspar’s room was open, and the man was not alone. Sayers could see him reflected in the dressing-room mirror. It was a cheap, old glass and Caspar’s image was like that in a dirty window. He was in costume, but his stiff collar was sprung open. Sayers heard him snap his fingers and say, in an imperious manner, “Stud.”

“Yes, sir.” It was the voice of Arthur, the callboy. Sayers’ view was momentarily blocked as Arthur moved across with a stud to fasten the collar.

He heard Caspar say, “Where’s my press book?”

“Still working on it, sir,” Arthur said. The business with the collar seemed to be a struggle.

After a few moments Caspar said, “You’re a slow little weasel, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Slow of hand, slow of wits. I think I’ll ask Edmund to dismiss you. Would you like that?”

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir,’” Caspar mimicked. “Get out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arthur came out of the dressing room like a boy with a reprieve from the dentist’s chair, and almost ran into Sayers at the top of the stairs. Sayers must have seemed to appear out of nowhere because Arthur leaped back, startled like a buck at a gunshot.

“Beginners, please, Arthur,” Sayers said.

“Yes, Mister Sayers,” the boy said, and looked faintly stricken at the thought of having to turn around and go back into the presence he’d just escaped.

“Be on with you,” Sayers said. “I’ll give Mister Caspar the call.”

“There’s no need,” said James Caspar from the dressing-room doorway. Arthur shot off down the stairs. Caspar primped his wing collar, tugged down his white waistcoat, and shot his cuffs. He looked as sharp as a barber’s razor.

“It seems that your services are hardly required at all, Mister Sayers,” he said, and moved forward. Sayers had to step aside to let him by.

A dozen rejoinders occurred to him as he followed Caspar down toward the stage, but the moment to use any of them had already passed.

The Prince of Wales had its own pit orchestra, so the company’s musical director foreswore the piano and picked up the baton for their overture and effects.
The Purple Diamond
overture was a bespoke piece for the play and had not a lick of original music in it, being a mishmash of classic themes and familiar tunes. And a very successful mishmash it was; not a note in it that wasn’t tried and tested and free of all copyright fees. It tweaked the mood of every audience. If you like this kind of thing, it seemed to say, then here comes the kind of thing you’ll like.

For each member of the acting company, it was an unconscious metronome guiding them to their places and preparing their minds for the performance. Hearing it backstage, they drifted to their entrances like theater ghosts. The curtain would rise on the Low Comedian as the butler, who had a belowstairs monologue to set up the story. Then on came Louise, and the lovers’ plot would be got under way. Whitlock would enter then, as the detective in disguise. He usually got a vocal greeting from the audience, but on this run Sayers had sensed the boss’s irritation that his reception was matched by the one given to the Low Comedian at the play’s beginning, the reason being that they recognized him from his first-half turn as baggy-trousered comedian Billy Danson. But the boss could see that it was to the benefit of the play’s overall effect, so he’d made no changes.

As Louise stood in the wings and waited for her cue, James Caspar seemed to float out of the darkness to appear behind her. She did not see his approach; rather, she suddenly sensed his presence. It startled her. Caspar’s first cue was a good ten minutes away, and he was to enter from the opposite side of the stage.

He leaned close, so that he might speak and not be heard from beyond the wings.

“I’m sorry if I surprised you,” he said. His breath brushed her ear. Louise felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

“Mister Caspar,” she whispered back. “There is nothing to apologize for.”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?”

“Your song tonight. Would you sing it for me?”

She did not know how to respond. He seemed to sense her confusion, and did not press for a reply.

By the time that she had gathered herself, Caspar had turned away and faded back into the shadows.

In the bar at the back of the auditorium, Police Superintendent Clive Turner-Smith stood among a group of strangers and watched the curtain rise on
The Purple Diamond.
He’d arrived at the theater too late to see the Low Comedian’s first-half spot, so he was mystified by the cheers that greeted the sight of a butler in an apron, busy polishing the silverware in a country-house kitchen. Having little interest in the play itself, he scanned the audience. Common folk all, out for nothing more than a good evening’s entertainment. One or two types he’d be inclined to keep an eye on, had this been his own patch.

As the butler launched off into one of those
Oh mercy me,
talking-to-myself but really talking to the audience monologues, Turner-Smith became aware of a touch at his sleeve. He looked and saw that a shaven-headed, skull-faced man had appeared by his side and was holding out the same note that he’d sent backstage some ten minutes earlier. It had been opened, and a return message had been scribbled on it.

Turner-Smith took it, read the scribble, and then folded the note and tucked it into an inside pocket.

He said, “I’ll be waiting in the saloon bar next door. Tell no one else about this. Do you understand?”

The man remained silent, but inclined his head in assent.

Turner-Smith left the auditorium and crossed the foyer, emerging onto the street by the theater box office. He’d arrived in Manchester little more than an hour earlier. He’d told no one of his arrival, but immediately took a cab across the river and into Salford. He’d made the same journey twenty years before when, as a provost marshal, he’d been in pursuit of a deserter who’d killed a sergeant in barracks and run for home. He could remember a four-roomed terraced house full of children and having to face down the deserter’s mother, a woman more formidable than many a man in his regiment. She’d denied seeing her son when, in truth, he was hiding in the privy in a neighbor’s backyard. The boy had fled as Turner-Smith’s men began to search, and drowned himself later that afternoon. The river Irwell divided the borough from the city; a drowning would bring out the two sets of police with boat hooks, one squad of men on each bank, ready to shove the body toward the opposite shore for their neighbor force to deal with.

Liverpool Street was a wide thoroughfare, with broad stone pavements and tram rails set into the cobbles. Ahead of him, a girl of around eleven was pushing along an old pram loaded with firewood. More children could be seen outside the commercial hotel next door. They sat on the steps, they sat on the kerbstones with their feet in the road. Younger ones played in the care of their older siblings, all waiting for parents who were spending the evening in the public bar.