The Anatomy of Death (30 page)

“Who knows what words of encouragement Miss Barndon-Brown used to get her here,” Pike said. “I’m afraid I cannot recollect the number of the flat. I had hoped I might see an officer from Special Branch here, but if so, he’s very well disguised or hidden.”

Dody noticed a man slumped in the doorway and
instinctively moved towards him to see if he needed assistance. Pike pulled her back and nudged the man with his boot. “Hey, you! Wake up!”

“Bugger off, I need me kip.”

“Police! Show some respect.”

It was as if Pike had lit a fire under the man. His eyes jerked open and he pulled himself into a leaning position against the wall. “Wot, wot? Ya want me ta move on, Officer? In this wevver?”

“I want you to answer my questions, that’s what I want. I’m looking for a woman.”

“Ain’t we all, mate, ain’t we all.”

Pike tilted his head to Dody. “She’s well dressed, a little shorter than this lady.”

The drunk blearily focused on Dody. “Yeah, I seen ’er I fink.”

“How long ago?”

A scratch of the head, a burp. “I dunno.”

Pike cursed under his breath. “Think, man. You saw her tonight, but when? Was it dark, did she wake you up?”

“Stepped over me, she did, not too long ago, I reckon. Oi! Yer no copper, where’s ya uniform?”

The frustrating discourse was brought to a merciful conclusion when the O’Neill brothers burst through the front door and into the porch. For a moment both parties stopped what they were doing and stared. The men sized each other up.

Pike spoke. “We’re looking for Florence McCleland,” he said coldly to Derwent. “We were told she’d come to see you here.”

Derwent ignored Pike and gave Dody a low bow. “Good evening, Dr. McCleland.”

“Answer the chief inspector’s question, please, Mr. O’Neill,” Dody said.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Derwent,” Patrick broke in. “There’s no time for playing around.” He turned to Dody. “She stormed out of here not long ago after having a disagreement with my brother. She’s out there alone. We’ve just come out to look for her.”

Pike took a step closer to Derwent. “A disagreement?”

Dody placed her hand on his arm and silently urged him to hold back. This was not the time to settle scores, not when her sister was alone on the streets, possibly this minute being stalked by an unbalanced killer.

Derwent let go a weary sigh. “I think she might have been off to find my brother at the pub—but failed on that count, as you can see. He has just come home and, obviously, did not see her. We thought we’d try and find her together.”

Pike frowned under the porch light, as if he wanted to believe what the brothers were saying. Dody prayed that Pike would put aside his pride. Two able-bodied men would be a useful addition to their search party.

“Four people will be better than two,” he said finally to the brothers. “We will search together.”

His part in the discussion over, the drunk slipped back down the wall like a melting pat of butter.

I
t would have been quicker to walk, Florence mused as her gaze ran the length of the nag’s bumpy backbone, but at least she felt safe with the Polish cartman, whom the publican had called Sleveski. The man’s English was broken, his manner taciturn, though he did brighten briefly when the publican suggested she offer him tuppence for a lift to the station.

At last the station sign came into view. Sleveski pulled up near the underground steps and with a grunt thrust out his hand. Working her way around the broken bottle in her reticule, Florence prised out his fare and shot him a smile, but he turned his head away. Men usually succumbed to Florence’s charm, and this was her second snub of the evening. Still, the Whitechapel experience had been a worthwhile, character-building exercise; one can’t have it one’s own way all the time. She had braved and she had overcome. As Poppa would say: the hotter the fire, the stronger the steel, et cetera,
et cetera. Soon she would be home and recounting her adventures to Olivia.

In her exuberance she jumped from the cart, only to catch her skirt and petticoats on a jutting nail to the sound of ripping fabric. Lord. Now she looked no better than half the women in that awful pub: dirty face, hair and hat crusted with dung, petticoats like shredded rags. She smiled to herself as she made her way to the station steps, the clip-clop of Sleveski’s cart swallowed by the noises of the street. Imagine if Dody were to see her now.

She almost stumbled into the chain barring the station entrance. The station was closed. “Damn and blast it!” she swore, her newly raised spirits crashing. She’d had enough character-building experiences for one night. This was the second time in one week her adventures had left her stranded in the middle of the night with no way of reaching home. But this was considerably further from Bloomsbury than the golf course. She pulled up the collar of her coat and clamped her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

Florence spun in a slow circle, trying to see past the fog and the surrounding buildings, searching for the looming silhouette of the Tower by the river where Mark Lane Station was located. She could see nothing, but in the near distance she heard a foghorn. The river wasn’t too far away.

She struck out along the wide pavement of the main road, allowing her senses to guide her. Streetlamps were few and far between. There was still the chance of a cab, though in her heart she knew it was unlikely. No cabbie in his right mind would be looking for a fare here, especially not on such a miserable night. A few motorcars passed and she tried to signal for them to stop, but they travelled at such speed she doubted she
was even seen. A distant clock chimed eleven. Any omnibuses would be stopping for the night now.

It began to drizzle and she opened her umbrella and forced her heavy legs to keep on moving. A drooping hat feather tickled her face. She ripped it from her hat and threw it to the ground.

After a few minutes she became aware of a group of men following not far behind. One of them whistled and called out to her to stop. Another begged for a kiss. More motorcars sped by. Just as she was contemplating throwing herself in front of one to force it to stop, she became aware of a low rumble, a jangling harness, the creak of leather, and the grind of heavy wheels. At last something slower was crawling up on the other side of the road—a brewer’s dray if its bulky silhouette was anything to go by.

She crossed the road, but the horse-drawn vehicle proved speedier than she had estimated and she had to jog to keep up with it. She called out to the driver to stop, but he acted as if he had not seen or heard her, his head nodding over the reins. She discarded her umbrella and ran alongside the wagon as fast as she could, past factory walls rising like cliffs from the pavement. She was screaming out to the driver to stop, the first tears of the evening running down her face. Fear and exertion snatched at her breath and turned it into choking gasps. The group of men might cross the road at any moment, do unmentionable things to her under the driver’s very nose, and still he wouldn’t notice. Or would choose not to.

Then came a narrow break between the factory walls. Giving up on the wagon, she slipped into the alleyway, praying it would be a shortcut to the river.

She found herself in a narrow maze of twisting alleys, dark
tunnels, and tiny cobbled streets, the dwellings on each side almost meeting above her head in places. Her breath rasped as she ran, dodging barrels outside ramshackle lantern-lit shops and decrepit public houses, and homeless men huddled around braziers. Every now and then she stumbled into small, crooked courtyards where she stopped to catch her breath, the air rank with the smell of human waste. And each time she stopped, above the gasping of her breath, she thought she detected the ring of hobnailed boots behind her.

After the third time, she knew the footsteps weren’t imagined. Fear gripped her heart. There was nothing character building about rape.

At last she broke free from the alleyways and found herself in the open grey light of the riverside. The Tower rose majestically ahead, and just around the bend on its waterside she could see the tangled forest of masts and cranes of St. Katharine docks.

Florence drew in great draughts of stinking river air—no odour ever seemed sweeter—and pushed her exhausted limbs along the embankment wall between the Tower and the river, heading for the comforting hum of traffic from Tower Bridge.

The tide was out, leaving small, clinker-built vessels stranded on the reeking mud flats. Larger ships were moored in the central river pool, dirty brown water slapping against their hulls before curdling its way on to the sea. There were no people about the place, but lights glowed on some of the ships and there were noises from the docks: the clank of chain and winch, the thump of heavy loads. Respectable noises made by hardworking men. No danger here of the catcalls and innuendos from the predators she had left behind.

Or had she left them behind?

Again she heard the clack of hobnail boots. She had no energy left; she had no choice but to turn and face her attacker. When she reached the handrail at the top of Queen’s Steps leading down to the river, she sensed someone behind her. She whirled around, then grabbed the rail to stop herself sinking to the cobbles in relief. A policeman stepped out from the murky gloom.

T
he publican called time and Dody found herself jostled on all sides as people spilled from the public house and into the street.

Outside the White Hart, Pike finally managed to flag a hansom, waving his warrant card at the reluctant driver. Dody would have preferred a motor taxi but she knew they had to take what they could get. It was a tight fit. She was crammed into the cab between Pike and Derwent while Patrick hung on behind the driver, an unenviable position leaving him exposed to the chill wind and drizzle.

Pike thumped his cane against the roof and they were off, thundering down the Whitechapel High Street as fast as the overburdened horse could take them. The publican had arranged for Florence to be taken to Aldgate Station—they had at least managed to find out that much. For a few exhilarating seconds Dody rejoiced at the thought that her sister was probably at this very moment sitting safely on the tube—until Pike looked at his watch and broke the news that it was eleven o’clock and the station had been closed for more than an hour.

Dody felt numb. Even though the London she knew was only a few miles to the west, it was a world away from this den of poverty and vice, where gangs of cutthroats ruled the
streets at night and homeless children and prostitutes slept in churchyards by day.

“We should try Mark Lane,” Derwent O’Neill said. “I told her it stayed open later.”

“How could you have let her go out alone? What kind of man are you?” Dody cried.

“She insisted she’d walk alone. I’m sorry I didn’t insist more.”

“We’ll find her, Dody,” Pike said. “We might still catch her on the High Street—unless she managed to flag a cab or omnibus, in which case she may be turning her key in your front door at this very minute.” His words rang empty. Dody could tell by his grim face that he did not believe them.

The hansom slewed around the water pump in the square and stopped in front of the station steps. There was no sign of Florence. Patrick jumped down from the cab and stamped his legs. “Come on, Derwent,” he said between chattering teeth. “It’s time we swapped places. I’m frozen stiff, man.”

“Ah, it’s good for you, brings out the roses in your cheeks,” said Derwent.

Pike leant over Dody and opened the door. “Out,” he said, prodding Derwent with his cane. He turned to Dody. “I propose we head to lower Thames Street and then the river.”

She nodded glumly, unable to speak anymore.

T
his must be a trick of the light, Florence thought, blinking her eyes. She could not believe what they were seeing. She had left Olivia only a few hours before, exhausted and recuperating from her ordeal at the prison. “Olivia, is that you?”

Olivia removed the beehive helmet and stepped under the sallow glow of a streetlamp. “Hello, Flo. I hardly recognised you, either. You’re a mess. Where’s your hat?”

Florence absently touched her tangled hair. “My hat? It must have blown off in the alley. Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Olivia. I was being chased, you see. I’ve had the most awful time …” She broke off, trying to make sense of her muddled thoughts. “But why on earth are you dressed like that?”

“Oh, you’d be amazed what one can get away with when one is dressed like a bobby. Unlike you, I can walk the streets of Whitechapel quite unmolested.”

“You dress this way so you can walk here freely?” Florence seized and ran with the absurd notion. “To see what life is like for the women of the streets? What an amazing idea, why did you never tell me? I would have come with you.”

“No, Flo, that isn’t what I meant.”

Florence forced an uneasy laugh. “You’ve been to your soup kitchen then?”
Keep her talking. Let her think you are a naïve fool
, Florence thought desperately. “But you should be resting…I wouldn’t have thought you were well enough.”

“No, Flo. No soup kitchen.”

Olivia pulled the truncheon from her belt and turned it over in her hands.

“What do you need that thing for?” Florence asked, indicating the truncheon with a stiff wave, sensing there was no going back, that Olivia had seen through her ploy.

“It’s very useful, Flo, believe me.”

“Look, it’s awfully cold, come with me to the bridge for a cab. We can talk about this over cocoa once we get home.” Florence’s teeth were chattering, but not only from the cold. There was something in Olivia’s eyes, a fixed and feverish look, so utterly unlike her friend. And then she remembered; she had seen it before, briefly, in the street outside the WSPU breakfast. Olivia had worn that same expression when she’d attacked the man who had been harassing Daisy. Olivia had scratched his face like a wildcat. She would do anything for Daisy.

“Besides, if I had let you return it, you would have discovered it was not the one you and Dody had borrowed. Did you tell your sister about finding it in my wardrobe?”