The Devil's Ribbon (23 page)
‘You would be welcome to read it, Adolphus. And after last night’s effort, I’ve been promised a four-page feature in
The Lancet
for the October edition.’
Hatton smiled, which gave all the encouragement needed.
Buchanan continued, grateful for the attention. ‘It covers all my most groundbreaking moments, from the very early days, as a young man sleeves rolled up and investigating typhus along the coast, to my latest and most important crusade, which as you know is the smallpox inoculation programme for workhouse children.’
Hatton thought it wise to be indulgent. ‘Well, that’s wonderful, Dr Buchanan. It really is. I shall read it when I find a moment.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the physician, with a smile. ‘But enough of me. How can I help you, Professor?’
‘Well, sir,’ said Hatton, stuffing the speech into his surgical bag, and trying to ignore the quacking. ‘With all that has happened, I failed to hand in everything we had on the cholera victims.’ Hatton handed Buchanan a thick file which was mainly diagrams, graphs, and a few of Patrice’s drawings. Buchanan put it on his desk in a tray marked ‘Pending’ and continued to cough.
‘Well, I won’t be able to give it my full attention until next week at the earliest, as the American typhus doctors need taking care of before they return home which, as the director of St Bart’s, is a duty which falls to’ – he pulled a face, not unlike a duck himself – ‘yours truly, but I’m sure the work is, as usual, excellent.’
Buchanan looked grey around the gills but continued, ‘Mr William Farr is a good friend to this hospital and will be most grateful with your findings, as I am. Although I fear sometimes I don’t say it enough, but believe me, Professor, pathology is an important part of this great institution’s future, as is the science of forensics. Sometimes I think you feel a little left out of things here at St Bart’s, such is our focus on keeping people living. Am I right, Hatton?’
Hatton could see the director was sick, so he simply said, ‘So, my budget won’t be cut then, as I heard?’
‘Not at all, Hatton.’
‘Well, in that case, sir, we are all quite happy in the morgue.’
Dr Buchanan sipped his coffee, pushing the biscuit plate towards the Professor and gesturing at the pathologist to dig in.
‘Please, I insist. I’ve no appetite today and, talking of biscuits, is there any news yet concerning the death of poor Mr Hecker? A terrible tragedy. Inspector Grey put me in the picture and reiterated the important role medical jurisprudence would play in determining this case when it comes to court, along with these other Fenian atrocities, though you found no ribbon at the blast, I fear.’
Hatton shook his head, though he was sure the blast and murders were connected.
‘But I hear a ribbon was found in that rent collector’s mouth, though this is all old news, I know. I am sixty and not on the cusp of things, as I used to be.’
Hatton reddened, but quickly realised that all had been forgotten about the illicit retrieval of the ribbon from The Yard, as Dr Buchanan continued, ‘And on this particular point, there’s to be some sort of
announcement today, and if it’s agreeable with you, Professor, I might catch up with Jeremiah Grey, who I understand has discharged himself and is planning a press conference.’
Hatton was taken by surprise. ‘He said nothing to me about any press conference, and I’ve only just left him.’
‘Well, this is what I’ve heard. I won’t get drawn on details of forensics, of course, but I think it’s important for us to be there. We are, after all, an intrinsic part of the Criminal Investigation Department’s work. I understand that The Yard is ready to announce a breakthrough in the case. I don’t wish to step on your toes, Professor …’
‘Of course, Dr Buchanan. I’m happy to let you speak,’ Hatton lied, biting down on a biscuit, which was a square-shaped thing, full of dried fruit, not wholly pleasant.
‘They’re better if you dunk them, Adolphus. They’re quite the fashion on the Continent and named after that dreadful man, Giuseppe Garibaldi. So, was there anything else you needed to talk to me about?’
Hatton shook his head, thinking to himself, ‘A
breakthrough
?’ Grey hadn’t mention any of this, but he was quite determined that he would find out. Perhaps it was just the prayer book they’d found, and a possible link to this O’Brian fellow. But surely, given what Disraeli had said, Grey wouldn’t announce anything to a crowd of hacks, unless he had hard evidence.
‘Are you quite sure you want to go to Whitehall? Perhaps I should go with you, Dr Buchanan?’
‘Well, that would be kind, for I’m not feeling myself. They were serving salmon last night at the symposium dinner and it’s not a dish to serve up in this temperature. You must excuse me …’ And suddenly
the poor man ran out of the office, his hand over his mouth, before returning a few moments later, sweating and greyer than ever.
He smiled a little weakly. ‘There is clearly something on your mind. Do not mind the duck. Speak freely.’
‘Well, there is one thing. Have we had any surgical instruments go missing, say over the last month or so?’
Dr Buchanan opened the hospital ledger book, put some glasses on. ‘Just the usual things. Plenty gets pocketed. You know what physicians are like, also the nurses and as for the porters? Let me see.’ Buchanan flicked through the pages. ‘Last month alone, for example, six bottles of opium, ten rolls of crepe, eighteen rolls of flypaper,’ the director stopped, looked at the list again. ‘My God, eighteen rolls. Well, it must be the weather, oh, and sixteen syringes. As I say, nothing unusual.’ Dr Buchanan shut the book. ‘Would you be a good fellow and call me a carriage? The press briefing is in an hour, Professor.’
Hatton did as he was told, helping Buchanan to the front entrance of St Bart’s and into a coach, and as he did, the hospital director seemed quite cheery and said that he felt a little better. Hatton said nothing, for he felt the reverse seemed true and, seeing the pallid face in front of him, decided that he couldn’t let the man travel alone.
‘Let me come with you, Dr Buchanan. I can be on hand to answer any technical questions, and if I may say so, you look like you need a younger man to lean on, sir.’
The hospital director slumped back in the carriage, the relief palpable. ‘You’re right, Professor. I don’t feel too well.’
When they arrived at Whitehall, it was three o’clock and the Scotland Yard library was fit to bursting, the press conference in full swing.
‘Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you all for coming.’ Inspector Grey had a piece of paper that he was flapping, as he continued. ‘I have brought you here today, gentlemen, to reassure the country that we shall not rest until each and every Irish savage involved in this campaign of terror is brought to justice. On this paper, I have a list of suspects which, at this point, cannot be revealed.’
The scribblers rose to their feet in applause, at the same time trying to jot down the Inspector’s words, adding a few embellishments of their own, such as ‘fearless’, ‘lionesque’, ‘Top Taffy’.
‘Five minutes only’ was the note in exaggerated handwriting slipped from Mr Tescalini to Buchanan, who was up next, but upon seeing the note and the sea of journalists, he croaked into Hatton’s ear, ‘I’m sorry, Professor. I’m too ill,’ before swiftly rushing out of the room, towards the water closet.
‘So may I introduce, err, well, it was to be Dr Buchanan of St Bart’s,’ said the Inspector, ‘but it seems we have the man himself. May I introduce you all to London’s most eminent medical jurisprudence expert, Professor Adolphus Hatton.’
Hatton found himself immediately answering questions about the Fenian atrocities, the murders and the Irish woman who had been taken to St Bart’s, her innocence or otherwise. Hatton answered all of the points, and as the proceedings drew to a close, looked over at Inspector Grey, who was hastily folding up the note, which he’d just claimed listed a number of suspects. From where he stood, however, Hatton could see quite clearly that the sheet of paper was blank.
‘Are you going to share the names of your suspects with me, Inspector?’
The inspector smiled, taking Hatton aside. ‘Ah,’ he murmured so that only Hatton could hear him. ‘Caught me out, already? Nothing escapes you, does it? The piece of paper,’ he whispered, ‘is a necessary piece of theatre to keep these hacks happy so I can get on with my work, unimpaired with the demands of Fleet Street. Keep the wolves at bay for a bit, for I have my political masters champing at the bit as well, now they know I’m up and about. No peace for the wicked, eh? But where on earth is Dr Buchanan?’
A loud groan emitted from the corridor.
‘He’s ill and I should go to him at once,’ said Hatton. ‘But before I go, this works committee in Ardara?’
‘What of it?’
‘Three of our victims were part of it. You have contacts in Westminster? Disraeli? Lord Stanley? The commissioner?’
Grey nodded. ‘Your point, Professor?’
‘My point being, wouldn’t they know who else was on it, even though it was ten years ago? My fear is the Fenians might be picking the committee members off one by one, and now they’ve the blast out the way, this could be the next stop. There must be a file on the famine relief effort in Donegal somewhere? Tell us what happened, precisely? And if there were other men involved, where are they now? What were the committee’s successes or, more important, its failures?’
‘What are you driving at Hatton?’
Hatton’s mind was racing. ‘I’m a scientist and I recognise facts. And it’s an unpleasant fact that at least two men made a profit from doing so-called good works during the famine. Hecker exported corn
in and out of Ireland, gave people a safe passage to America, bought cheap land, and made money. Pomeroy came back to London and established a whole career upon his good works. We don’t know about this Mahoney man, but was he involved in something? He just had to be. And as for McCarthy, all I hear was how good he was, but there’s no smoke without fire. He ran the damn thing and nobody recorded a single detail? I simply don’t believe it.’
‘That’s supposition, Hatton, not fact …’
Hatton leant forward, a sharp light in his eyes. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’
Grey gestured at his pocket for a cigarillo and match. ‘I believe you are. Let’s try and speak to this priest. But I need to get agreement first from the “powers that be” before I storm into the rookeries, because as you very well know, the Union is fragile …’
Another groan interrupted, louder this time, of an old man in terrible pain. Hatton took one more glance at Grey, then rushed outside to see Dr Buchanan, who hadn’t made it to the washroom, but lay amidst a pool of vomit.
‘It was the salmon. I have been poisoned by those damn typhus doctors. This is a most violent food poisoning. Please, Adolphus, help me …’ The doctor retched again as Hatton grabbed a bucket and, that done, bundled the physician out of The Yard and into a waiting carriage.
At Number 9, Seamore Place, Hatton hammered on the door until a butler came. Dr Buchanan was barely able to walk, never mind speak, as Hatton helped the man upstairs, catching sight of his own reflection in an arrangement of sparkling mirrors that had been positioned along the second-floor corridor. Hatton looked lost, bereft, haunted as he
wrestled Dr Buchanan into his four-poster bed. Buchanan was feverish, as Hatton yelled, knowing time was of the essence, ‘Cool compresses, bedpans, emetics. For pity’s sake, hurry.’
‘Don’t leave me,’ Buchanan sobbed.
Hatton squeezed the old man’s hand, and smelt the rankness of his breath. ‘You’re running a fever, Dr Buchanan, but we’ll get it down, I promise you …’ Hatton took Buchanan’s palm and stroked it gently, whispering, ‘Shhh now. Please, sir. Shut your eyes. Rest a little. I won’t leave you. You have my word …’
A year had passed since he’d held another old man’s hand. Not among such decor, it was true, because when his father died there had been no sumptuous wallpaper or pendant chandelier, no liveried servants, no gilt and mirrors. They had kept the curtains shut because the glare had hurt his father’s eyes. All of it crept back, a bitter memory. The sourness of the air, the ticking clock, which, when the time came, didn’t stop as life had, but carried on with its incessant
ticktock
as if nothing that had gone, had mattered. As if life was of no consequence at all. Hatton shut his eyes, dog tired, so desperately tired; a deeper resonating chime came from somewhere down the hall as Hatton watched the world around him flicker.
Who are you? What the devil do you want?
A man, his mouth rammed to the brim with green silk ribbons, was walking towards him in a darkening room, saying nothing, and Hatton wanted to run away, wanted to hide, but he couldn’t.
‘No!’
‘Help me … for pity’s sake!’
No scream, no noise coming out to save him, and sensing far
below, in another room, another country, another world away, people were stuffing seven courses of chocolate cake, and drinking toasts to gluttony.
Huzzah!
But they weren’t coming to help, as he felt a rip in his chest and looked down to see his own heart – an exquisitely presented pumping machine, which was glistening,
A
to
P
in calligraphy.
‘
Help me …
’
‘Professor Hatton.’ A servant was peering in his face, as the clock chimed seven. ‘You were having a nightmare. I’ve brought you some coffee and the morning paper. You’ve performed a miracle, Professor Hatton. Your patient is up before you. Aren’t you, Dr Buchanan, sir?’
Leaving Dr Buchanan to fully recover, Hatton had gone straight to the morgue, only to find two Specials waiting to deliver him promptly to where he stood now – inside the library of Scotland Yard. The inspector was on the chaise longue, his stocking feet stretched out before him. With some effort, Grey hurled a rolled-up newspaper across the room, which Hatton caught with the hand of an ace cricketer.
‘Well, they didn’t wait long before the next outrage. They must have heard I was up and about and timed it for that – to goad me – but don’t worry, I’m on a mission now. I’ll get them.’
‘What outrage?’
‘It’s a summary, rather than the actual document, but if you run
your finger down to the end you will see that several of our most senior politicians are cited as privy to this policy.’
‘Policy?’ asked Hatton, ruffling open the Irish newspaper.
Grey pulled himself up to a seated position. ‘Ten years ago some of our most senior politicians used the famine as a way of clearing tenants off the land. I’ve heard this scurrilous argument before but here it is naming names, quoting great chunks of a confidential document, and reproducing minutes of a private conversation with the then prime minister, Lord Russell himself. Thus proving the government knowingly and deliberately prolonged the famine.’ The inspector wiped his face with a silk kerchief.
‘Since the blast, English Protestants have been marching in the towns of Londonderry, Liverpool, Glasgow, and this article is intended to incite them. It’ll be in the second edition of
The Times
by two o’clock today and the
Daily Post
tomorrow. Need I say more? Murder, terrorism, and now, propaganda. Perhaps they
are
being helped by some European types, because Disraeli certainly thinks so. He had me in his office at six o’clock this morning. My ears are still ringing. But as I pointed out to our Honourable Member for Maidstone, this time they haven’t been so clever.’ Grey gestured with his hand to his assistant. ‘Mr Tescalini? Be so kind as to fetch Mr Amersham of Her Majesty’s Home Office.’
Tescalini left the room and then immediately brought back a middle-aged man wearing the black frock coat, high stiff collar, and waxy, never-seen-the-sun pallor of a government clerk.
‘Please, Mr Amersham, sit down and explain to us how this sensitive document might have fallen into enemy hands?’ Grey had moved towards the window and stood with his back to the room.
Mr Amersham spoke quickly. ‘Foolishly, I bestowed the contract on a family firm in Clapham. The file quoted in this morning’s issue of
The Nation
… I have the details here … File Number Seventy-eight … was definitely among the documents which went to Tooley and Sons. In my defence, they are bookbinders to Her Majesty the Queen. I had no reason not to trust them. I read the scurrilous article first thing this morning and, well, I can only say I feel horribly responsible, Inspector.’
‘No one is blaming you, sir, and in some ways this reckless act has done us a favour. This is the first proper breakthrough we’ve had in three weeks. Of course, the commissioner is spitting blood, Whitehall, too, but if it means we’ve hard evidence of sedition then it might be worth a little earache. And this bindery’s in Clapham, you say? But isn’t Tooley an Irish name? Is there, in fact, an O’ in it?’
Amersham rubbed his hands together nervously. ‘Mr Tooley came highly recommended, but I have no doubt as to the source of these articles. File Number Seventy-eight was most definitely in the pile we gave to him.’
Hatton shifted on his feet, desperate to ask and interjected with, ‘May I?’
‘Be my guest,’ said Grey, still looking out at St James’s Park.
Hatton turned to Mr Amersham. ‘The victims of the ribbon murders knew each other, and we think they’re in some way connected to the blast. It seems the men killed were all involved in the emergency works programme in a place called Ardara, Donegal. I’m presuming, as a long-standing member of the Home Office, you would have played your part during the famine? The names of the dead are Tobias Hecker, as you know …’
‘And Gabriel McCarthy, yes, yes … I know this …’
‘And another – a gombeen man, name of Gregory Mahoney? He came from the same place, did odd jobs for Mr Hecker, and was, by all accounts, an outcast, a moneylender, a swindler, hated by others in the community. Rumour has it he was even excommunicated by his own priest. What could he have possibly done that could have been so terrible?’
‘Well,’ said Mr Amersham, ‘you’ve answered your own question, Professor. He must have committed a mortal sin.’
‘Mortal, being what? Murder?’
‘Not necessarily. There are many sins considered far worse by the Catholic Church. For example, fornication, abortion, masturbation …’
‘They cut off his testicles, Mr Amersham.’
‘Seems a high price.’
‘Yes, but we’re going off the point. What happened in Ardara, sir?’
Amersham put his head in his hands. ‘After the blight, tenants had nothing to eat or sell. Unscrupulous landowners decided to raise the rent, driving unwanted people off the land, you see. The people begged for help. The government did its best and embarked on a series of food for work programmes. As far as I know, Gabriel McCarthy was one of the good men, kept the rents low, did what he could – so why choose him as a Fenian whipping boy? There were many others they could have chosen who were far worse. Unless there was some other reason, something he was involved in …’
Grey turned around from looking out of the window. ‘Go on …’
‘I’m not a policeman, but I can tell you this. The idea to force, what the Irish called the tumbling, driving tenants off their land, was used as a last resort. Not to prolong the famine, as this article suggests, but to end it. By driving people off bad land, it meant they were given
no choice – they had to leave poverty behind and start a better life in America. They were offered cheap cabins on the clippers, land when they reached the New World. There was a certain logic to it.’
Hatton was aghast. ‘Forcing people from their homes? Devastating families? The roofs were torn down, cottages burnt, women and children fleeing for their lives, the land sold for a pittance to people like Mr Hecker …’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Mr Amersham, a sudden hardness in his eyes. ‘But it was chaos and we were there to do a job. Save lives, any way we could. Work committees were set up all over Ireland, building roads, digging ditches, running soup kitchens – that sort of thing – but as to your victims, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of men took part in the effort to ease the famine. Chemists came from London to try and solve the blight, chefs to help with the nutrition, mill owners to grind the grain we exported to the Irish at a pittance, shipowners, men of the cloth, Quakers …’
‘But there were no millstones in Ireland, they didn’t even know how to cook it, and the West was neglected, wasn’t it? Did the corn even reach that far?’
Amersham looked at the creases on his hands. ‘It’s true many couldn’t be reached. There’s a place called Skibbereen that I can never forget no matter how I try …’
‘You were there?’
Mr Amersham grew pale. ‘Yes, I was there, Professor Hatton. So perhaps these men should kill me, whoever they are. Half of Whitehall’s guilty of murder, if that’s what they think. But there’s not a single night that I don’t remember …’
The room fell silent, just a light breeze snaking through a half-opened window, but mainly silence, an ominous silence as he said –
‘I was part of a works committee for Kerry. Had never been to Ireland before, couldn’t speak the language, and to my shame I’ve never been back. But in my first week, we came upon a farm, less than a mile from the town of Skibbereen, where a man still lived, but too weak to rise from his bed, laid next to his dead wife, his three dead children, and a dead babe being eaten by a cat. This is a fact. We shot dogs to keep them from the piled-up bodies, we dealt with lists and lists of people we knew to be starving, but these parishioners had been hunted from the land, lived in burnt-out ruins, bog holes halfway up mountains – scalpeens, they called them – literally holes in the turf. Thousands were racked with the bloody flux and Ireland was an apocalypse. To allow them to leave, to help these people escape, was that a crime, gentlemen?’
‘Enough said,’ said Grey, looking at his pocket watch. ‘It’s time we went to Clapham. Professor Hatton? Mr Tescalini, you, too, sir.’
No swirling or lassoing this time, but instead, the Italian was quickly at the Inspector’s side and, using his finger and thumb, tweaked the gold watch back into the detective’s fob pocket for him. Grey patted his pocket. ‘It’s new and unpatriotically Swiss. But nevertheless, Mr Tescalini has kindly had my initials engraved upon the back, haven’t you, friend?’
Mr Tescalini smiled, an expression not entirely suited to him, and said, ‘
Si. È il nostro piccolo motto, Tempus Fugit
.’
‘Indeed it does, and for the time being, that priest will have to wait,’ said the Inspector. ‘Clapham first.’
In the carriage, Inspector Grey said, ‘By the way, look at this …’ It was a recipe card. ‘Thank heavens for the penny farthing because only yesterday a lead took Mr Tescalini to a baker’s shop in a village
in Kent, near the River Thames.’ The card was entitled,
The Je Ne Sais Quoi of French Cooking
. ‘According to the chef’s editor, this hasn’t been published yet. It’s an unfinished manuscript, which means Pomeroy was likely working on it the very day he disappeared. He’s been gone three weeks now, but do you think he could still be alive? If the killers have abandoned him somewhere or imprisoned him, how long does it take if a man’s been tortured? Tormented? Starved?’
How long is a piece of string, thought Hatton. Because a tortured man could live forever, but denied food, water, hope? ‘It would depend as much upon the strength of his mind as that of his body. Without food, for the average man, perhaps six to eight weeks. Without water, in these temperatures? A man could sweat to death. Seven days, at the most.’
‘Well we can’t give up hope, Hatton. I think Kent is the place and I want him found – dead or alive. I’ve Specials hunting all over the county, but so far nothing apart from this.’ He flapped the card. ‘But it’s my bet, those hops we found at the flour mill weren’t dropped by a bird, after all. Could they have been stuck on a coat and brushed off in the grasses as the killer made his escape?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘I tried to reach you last night at Gower Street to discuss this possible clue, because it could be important, couldn’t it? But where were you last night, Hatton? It’s not like you to be away from the morgue.’
‘I was indisposed, Inspector. Dr Buchanan was taken very ill during the press conference, but he’s better now, thank heavens.’
‘Glad to hear it, and your other patient? How fares the pretty one?’
‘I didn’t see Mrs McCarthy last night, if that’s who you mean.’
The inspector became grave and leant forward in the carriage as
it hurtled across the river. ‘I can see the pain etched on your face, Professor, but let me give you a piece of advice, because the same thing happened to me once during a case. She was a lovely girl from Barry. A professional wrestler by day, with such thighs as could crush a man. But at night, well, she was a different thing altogether. A little rouge, a lace petticoat, a ruby dress, an ostrich fan, a little show of ankle, a shimmy, and she was a pearl. A ravishing pearl. But my desire led me to a dark and dangerous place. An evil place and even to talk of it now, it fills me with nothing but shame.’
‘And your point is what exactly, Inspector?’ asked Hatton, at the same time not able to quite join up the image of a girl, a professional wrestler, and the docksides of Barry, although he knew they were a strange lot in Wales.
‘Beauty blinds a man and Mrs McCarthy’s charms are obvious. But let me tell you that she’s not to be trusted. Keep her close, make a friend of her, but don’t fall in love with her, Professor, because, to put it succinctly, she’s a suspect.’
Hatton’s face burned.
‘A suspect? I hardly think so. She couldn’t have moved that millstone or severed a man with a spade. And the idea that I’m in love with her is utter nonsense. It’s a purely professional arrangement.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, yes, Inspector, really, and I can tell you, she’s no killer.’
‘Maybe not, but she’s definitely a liar.’
Takes one to know one, I suppose,
thought Hatton, but he simply pulled a face and said, ‘How so, Inspector?’
‘Do you recall my conversation with Mrs McCarthy, when you asked if anyone had been weeding the garden and she said she supposed so because the garden was full of daisies? Daisies? I ask you! Daisies are well over by July, especially in this heat. And the morning she discovered her husband’s body, she presented him so calmly. She was pale, yes, and in tears, but women so often are, and do you know, she asked for both of us to be involved in the case? From the outset, she claimed she suspected foul play. Quite a leap for the mind of a twenty-year-old woman, wouldn’t you say?’