The Pierced Heart: A Novel (24 page)

“I am rather inclined to agree with them,” says Rowlandson heavily.

“But here, sir, in London, he can move unseen among the crowds and have his pick of desperate and half-starving whores. And if the rumour now runs rife that a vampire is to blame, then so much the better. For the very last person we will then suspect is a man such as he—an industrialist and a scientist, and a member of the nobility.”

“That’s exactly what ’e said to me,” says Sam quickly. “When I questioned him about the murders—”

“Good God, man, you actually
questioned
him?”

“He talked about cut-froats and whores, sir. Only I never told ’im who the victims were. There was no way ’e could ’ave known the girls were tarts. That’s when I knew somefing was wrong.”

“But anyone might have made the same assumption, Wheeler. The vast majority of the women killed in this city are those who work on its streets.”

“With respect, sir,” intervenes Charles, “they’re also the least likely to be missed. That’s why we still don’t know who the first three were. That’s
why he chose them
. That’s
why he came
.”

There is a silence. The young constable standing behind Charles seems scarcely to be breathing.

“And the marks on the necks,” says Rowlandson eventually. “The blood-letting—does your theory explain that?”

“I can only guess that he wishes to weaken them, perhaps to render them unable to defend themselves,” replies Charles. “Other than that, I do not know.”

“And you’re suggesting that this Baron Von Reisenberg broke in here last night to mutilate this woman? Despite the enormous risk that he would be seen and caught?”

Charles shrugs. “I cannot think of any other explanation.”

Rowlandson looks from one to the other. And then decides. “Take two sturdy men with you, and bring him in for questioning. And
discreetly
. And in the meantime I will deal with our Mr O’Riordan. I want the name of that
‘unimpeachable source’
of his, and I fully intend to get it.”

The courtyard at the Albany is thronged with people when the horses pull up, and for one terrible moment Charles thinks that the news has gone before them—that a vengeful mob is gathered here already. But as they step down from the carriage it’s obvious that this is a gathering of quite a different social order. There are white-clothed tables bearing pitchers of punch and champagne, and a number of the bachelor residents are accompanied by daintily dressed young women in silk dresses and summer bonnets. The enclaves of the Albany are rarely sullied by the presence of the police, and especially not when
en fête
, and Sam is forced in consequence to leave one of the constables outside to appease the indignation of a red-faced gentleman with mutton-chop whiskers who is clearly the host of these proceedings.

Inside, the corridors and staircases are deserted, and when they come to a halt in front of the Baron’s door they hear only silence.

“
Police! Open up!
” cries Sam, knocking on the door. And then, when there is no reply, he nods to the constable accompanying them. “Go on then, break it down.”

The apartment is empty, Charles can see that at once, but he follows Sam and the constable as they search, first the sitting-room and then the bedroom, but all is neat, all is normal. There is nothing amiss, nothing out of place. Apart from one thing. Heaped on the bedspread is a satin cloth of deep red.

“I reckon ’e’s definitely ’ad tarts in ’ere,” says Sam, eyeing several darker patches on the silk. “But if ’e did kill ’em, it don’t look like this was where ’e did it.”

Charles goes to the desk on the far side of the bedroom, but the surface is clear and clean, apart from a deep scratch where something heavy has been clumsily moved. The drawers are empty, too, at least at first sight. Though when he pulls one out he feels it catch, and bends to find a sheet of paper caught in the back. But when he eases it out it proves to be nothing but scientific annotations, covered with sketchy diagrams and tiny hand-scribbled notes of letters and numbers, but none of it in any pattern Charles can recognise.

“What’s that?” asks Sam.

“I’m not sure—it’s all in German. Looks like some sort of optical diagram—this here is a prism with the lines showing light refracting through it.” He turns the paper. “And this might be a concave mirror, with some sort of wiring attached to it—”

For a moment, as he says it, there is a half memory of a half thought, but as quickly as it comes it is gone, and he cannot grasp it again. A moment later he shakes his head and turns again to look slowly round the room. And that’s when he notices it. Where the slanting sunlight from the window zigzags across the panelling there is a slight misalignment. It’s only the tiniest imperfection of line, but it’s enough. He moves quickly to the wall and slides his hand along the edge of the wood. Sam comes up behind him, and then the two of them hear a soft click as a door swings open. But the cupboard—for it’s hardly more than that—is bare. Sam sighs and turns away, but Charles is suddenly on his knees, pressing his finger against a dank stain on the floor. A dank stain that comes away red.

“Blood?” says Sam, leaning over his shoulder.

Charles nods. He gets to his feet and starts feeling along the back of the cupboard.

“It’s another door,” he says quickly. “But I can’t get it open—we’ll have to go round the other way.”

Less than a minute later they’re standing in the vestibule of the adjoining apartment. The stench of shit and rotting food in the shuttered, airless space has the young constable gagging in his handkerchief,
and as Charles recognises what else it is he can smell, he feels the bile rise in his own throat and he throws open one of the doors and rushes to the nearest window and opens it wide. He takes huge gulping breaths, feeling the breeze on his face and hearing the sound of girls laughing in the courtyard below. Laughing in the sunshine. And then he turns back slowly to face the room, knowing what it is he will see.

There is blood everywhere.

Pools of it spilt across the wooden boards in trails of footprints and dark smears. Hand marks of it running along the walls, and next door, in the bedroom, a bare mattress so drenched with it that the floor below is saturated. And when they open the water-closet even Sam has to cover his mouth. The bare bed explains itself now. The closet is heaped with blood-stained bed-linen, torn into strips and wrapped into wads, the cloth sodden black-red and stinking.

“Jesus Christ, Chas,” says Sam behind him, coughing, “what the bloody ’ell ’appened ’ere?”

Charles stares at the spewing water-closet. “I think someone’s been kept in these rooms. Locked here like a prisoner. And for a long time.”

“So this is where ’e does it? ’E keeps ’em caged up in ’ere for God knows ’ow long, an’ then ’e kills ’em and cuts the bodies up? No wonder it looks like a bloody abattoir.”

Charles looks round. “This blood is new—some of it isn’t even dry. Whatever happened in here, it was only a few days ago.”

Sam stares at him, his face white. “Jesus, not Rose’s little girl—”

Charles turns and goes back into the sitting-room and stands there looking at the pattern of the blood-stains. The faint trail leading to the hidden door, the deeper, darker trail from the front door to the bedroom
and from there to the water-closet, the footprints smeared here and there, and the marks of fingers along the walls, as if feeling their way in the dark.

“No,” he says at last, “it was a woman who was kept here, not a child. The marks on the wall are too high to be a child’s. I think the bleeding started on the bed and carried on for several days, during which time she moved about these rooms, sometimes on her hands and knees. And she ended up there, in the water-closet. The blood is heaviest and newest there.”

“So what exactly are you sayin’?”

Charles hesitates, realising for the first time that whoever this woman was, she must have been in this very room, terrified and bleeding and only yards away, when Sam stood face-to-face with the Baron not twelve hours before. And he wonders then if the same thought has crossed Sam’s mind, too.

“I think she had a miscarriage, Sam. I think she lost her child.”

The constable turns and stumbles out of the room, and they hear him being horribly sick in the corridor outside.

Sam shakes his head sadly. “Poor bastard! His wife just lost a baby. It were the third time, too.” There’s a pause, then, “Could she still be alive, this woman? I mean if we’re sayin’ none of this blood were from Rose—”

“I don’t think so—it’s too new. And in any case the doctor at the morgue would have seen at once if she’d recently been pregnant.”

“In that case where is she—the woman who was ’ere? Is she dead, too?”

Charles sighs. “I don’t know, Sam. I just don’t know.”

Sam watches as his friend starts to pace around the room. Charles thinks best when he’s walking, even in such a small place as this; even in such a scene of horror as this. Was only one girl kept here, he wonders,
or were they all imprisoned before they died? How did Rose come to be discovered dead in Shepherd’s Market, but without any of the tell-tale disfigurements inflicted on the other girls? Did she manage to escape the Baron, only to be hunted down on the street and killed there? Was that why her body was intact when they found her? And if another girl was indeed kept in this place all these weeks, why was she allowed to remain alive so long? And then Charles remembers those other waxworks in the Baron’s castle—those girls with their legs spread and their unborn babies unpeeled to the air, and it’s his turn to stumble outside with his hand over his mouth.

He’s still wiping his face when the other constable comes labouring up the stairs, sweating and out of breath. He looks at Charles and then at Sam, standing in the doorway.

“I was just speaking to the steward, sir, a Mr Nicolas Williams his name is. He says the tenant of these rooms left suddenly this morning, just before dawn. He says there was a long wooden box strapped to the carriage roof. Like a coffin, he thought. Only then he remembered there’d been a delivery a few weeks back from a maker of medical apparatus. Apparently one of the delivery men said it was one of those tables surgeons use. For dissection, sir.”

Sam shoots a glance at Charles. “Does this Williams know where the man was goin’?”

“No, sir, but something the man let drop made Williams think he was heading for the Channel—he asked about steamers from Folkestone.”

“And was there anyone wiv ’im? A woman? A kid?”

“He thought there might have been a woman in the carriage—the man did come here with a woman, apparently. A young woman. Williams was a bit reluctant to admit it, seeing as women aren’t supposed to be on the premises. Not in the apartments at any rate. I got the impression this man had paid Williams well over the odds to keep it quiet.”

“What did she look like?”

“It was dark when they arrived and she had a veil over her face. And no-one’s seen her since.”

“And there was no sign of the kid? A little girl?”

The constable shakes his head. “Sorry, sir. But I did find this in the refuse receptacles around the back,” he says, holding out his hand. “This being a bachelor establishment, I thought it might be significant.”

Sam takes one look at what he’s clutching and swears under his breath.

It’s a child’s rag doll.

Back at Vine Street the temperature is soaring and tempers are fraying. One of the officers at the door has the beginnings of a black eye, and some of the crowd have cobbled together makeshift banners and placards. It’s clear to Charles at once that the mob is much more angry and much less middle-class than it had been even an hour before. There are rough-shod men shouting, and the police are being jostled and abused. It has all the makings of a riot.

According to the desk sergeant, Rowlandson is still upstairs, “and absolutely not to be disturbed, not even by you, and certainly not by any of this lot.”

He cocks his head in the direction of the people crowded in the corner. It’s the area that normally does makeshift service as a waiting room, but the two or three worn and spindle-less chairs are hopelessly inadequate for the numbers now herded there. Some huddle together and others press against the constable deputed to keep a clear path through from the door, but if the mood outside is irate, the atmosphere inside is anxious, and afraid.