The Sin Eater (36 page)

He had confronted him that night in the Holly Lodge bedroom, to which they had returned because they had nowhere else to go.

‘Cerise won't be missed for a while,' he said to Colm. ‘There's time for us to get away. There's time for you to tell me the truth about all this.'

‘I killed them,' said Colm. ‘But I couldn't help it. It was as if another person came sliding under my skin, clawing its way along my hands and fingers and deep into my brain . . . God, would that be what the monks called possession?'

‘I don't know. But if you are possessed,' said Declan, ‘we can make a good guess where it came from.'

‘The chess piece,' said Colm, light showing in his eyes for the first time for several hours. ‘Jesus God, it's the bloody chess piece Sheehan gave us, isn't it?'

‘Let's keep an open mind. You hated them all because of Romilly. The police might see that as good reason for you to kill them.'

‘I see that. What do we do?' He sounded so frightened and so vulnerable and he looked at Declan with such trust, Declan knew he could not abandon him. He began to outline his plan, which was quite simply for them to leave Holly Lodge now, at once, and head for Liverpool and a boat for America. If they could disappear anywhere, surely they could do so in America. He had got as far as saying they should see how much money they had, when there was a loud hammering on the street door.

‘Police,' said Colm, and turned white.

‘Even if it is, they can't possibly have any proof,' began Declan.

‘They can if they've found Flossie's will,' said Colm.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Last time I was with her we got a bit drunk,' said Colm. ‘And she was – uh – very grateful to me. So I said – as a half joke – that it'd be nice to have a material form of her gratitude.'

‘Such as?' But Declan already knew.

‘She wrote it out there and then, and that girl who scrubs the kitchen came in to add her mark as a witness,' said Colm. ‘All proper legal phrasing – Floss's husband was an accountant or something, and she knew how it should be worded. Declan, she's left me this house. And in the police's eyes, that'd give me a whopping great motive for killing her.'

‘She left you this whole house?' said Declan, incredulously.

‘She was drunk,' said Colm, impatiently. ‘I was drunk, as well. Jesus Christ, wouldn't any man have to be drunk to get into bed with that one! But it was a joke – I never thought she'd take it seriously.' Downstairs they could hear the door being flung open, and several pairs of heavy feet trampling through the house. Colm flinched. ‘Get me out of this,' he said. ‘Declan, please . . .'

Declan dived for the window, wrenching it open. They were on the top floor and it was a sheer drop from the window to the ground. But there was a drainpipe, and if Colm would risk trying to get down it, there might be a chance . . .

But there was no time for any chances to be taken or any risks to be made. The bedroom door was flung open and three police officers came into the room, including the large and stolid Constable Oliphant who had questioned them earlier. He looked at them with bovine recognition, and it was the inspector who spoke the feared words. ‘Colm Rourke, I'm arresting you for the murder of Mrs Florence Totteridge and on suspicion of four other counts of murder . . .'

As they took Colm from the room, he turned a white, desperate face to Declan, and although he did not speak, Declan knew the same thought was in their minds. Somehow, no matter the cost, Colm had to be extricated from this. Because if not, they would hang him.

At first though, he could not see how it could be done. Colm was being held in a police cell; the newspapers were having a fine old time, telling the citizens of London – and, for all Declan knew, the rest of the country as well – how the terrible Mesmer Murderer had been caught. The five murders were described in considerable detail. Declan forced himself to read everything in case he could find something that would lead to Colm being released. Perhaps he would find mention of Colm having done something when he had been indisputably somewhere else. Remembering those eagerly devoured episodes of Sherlock Holmes' exploits, Declan scoured the newspaper reports, trying to find a chink in the police's evidence.

The killings were set out in distressing and chronological detail, although none of them mentioned Colm by name – Declan supposed there would be some legal reason for this; perhaps they were not allowed to name the killer prior to the trial. But the victims seemed to be fair game.

Harold Bullfinch had been the first. He had told his landlady he had a business appointment, but his body had later been found knifed to death on river steps near the old Bidder Lane sewer outlet. Declan was wretchedly aware, as the police must be, that Bullfinch was the abortionist responsible for Romilly's death.

He expected Flossie Totteridge to be listed as the second victim, but it seemed that Mr Arnold Trumbull, a highly respected gentleman who managed a printing company in Islington and was a lay-preacher at his church, had been next.

Trumbull, thought Declan in horror. The little plucked fowl in a waistcoat. The man whose sister gave most of their money to homes for the indigent, and fed her hapless brother on pig's head and boiled cabbage. The man who had been responsible for Romilly's fateful pregnancy.
So you killed him as well, did you, Colm?
he thought, feeling sick.

Colm would hang on only half of this evidence. The judge and the jury would see it as a killing frenzy out of revenge for Romilly.

After Arnold Trumbull had come Flossie Totteridge. The name was not given; the papers merely described her as a widow who took in lodgers. She had been found with her throat cut in her own sitting room in North London. The police would not know Flossie had seen Colm and Declan with Bullfinch's bloodstained wallet, but they would see it as another piece of Romilly's story, because Flossie had turned Romilly out of the house for getting pregnant, when she might have helped her.

There was yet another unexpected victim. It was the little man with the walrus moustache who had been at Holly Lodge with Cerise on the afternoon of Flossie's death. Cerise had called him Arthur. He was described as a tea importer, living and working in Canonbury. Colm must have traced him, and killed him for fear of what Cerise might have told him – and for fear of what the man himself might have seen or suspected of Flossie's death.

Cerise was the fifth of Colm's victims. She had tried to blackmail him, thought Declan. And she, too, could have helped Romilly.

He sat for a very long time, his mind flooded with sickening images, dreadful doubt hammering like spikes against his brain. Had Colm spoken the truth when he described something clawing its way into his brain and forcing him to kill? Or had he killed of his own free will out of revenge for Romilly's death?

He was allowed to see Colm once, and entering Newgate Gaol was a terrible experience. It was like stepping neck-deep into a well of black despair and Declan had to resist the compulsion to turn around and run away. The meeting took place in a dreadfully bleak room, with Colm behind bars and two officers present. It was impossible to say very much, so Declan just said, ‘I'll do everything I can to help you,' and Colm, white and sunken-eyed and distraught, merely nodded.

Walking back to the small lodgings which were all he had managed to afford after leaving Holly Lodge, Declan thought: but what can I do?
What?

Two days after the visit he suddenly saw how he might get Colm away. The newspapers were still reporting on the Mesmer Murders, and Declan read how Colm was to be taken to stand trial at the Old Bailey Courthouse in three days' time. The paper would tell its readers the details of the first day of the trial that same evening.

Three days, thought Declan. They'll take him from that prison – Newgate – in a closed carriage.

The beginnings of a plan began to unfold.

I
t was a simple plan – Declan tried to remember that the most successful plans were the simple ones.

On the morning of the trial, he made his way to Newgate Gaol very early. He had spent a sleepless night – he had, in fact, slept very little since Colm was arrested. A small crowd was massing to watch the excitement of a murderer being brought out, and Declan stood with them, hating them because they were relishing Colm's situation.

As eight o'clock struck from St Paul's, a kind of jeering cheer went up, and Declan saw the gates open and a closed carriage come out, drawn by two horses.

‘Black Maria's here,' shouted several people, and cries of delight went through the crowd. Several people threw their hats in the air, and women nudged one another with a kind of lascivious glee, and asked was it true he was a fine, handsome young man?

Declan was relieved to see the horses drawing the closed-in carriage; he had been unsure whether the police might use a motorized vehicle, which would have made his plan impossible. His plan was frighteningly flimsy, but, if it worked, Colm would be free. If it did not, Colm would hang and probably Declan with him.

The crowd surged forward, eager to get a glimpse of the notorious Mesmer Murder. The driver urged the horses through them; the horses occasionally shied and showed the whites of their eyes, but Declan thought they were accustomed to crowds and not very much disturbed by them. As the carriage drew closer, judging his moment, he leapt forward and grabbed the bridle of the nearer horse, jerking it away from its companion. The second horse reared up at once, and the carriage slewed round, the wheels scraping and bouncing erratically. The driver leapt from his seat to calm the now-plunging and whinnying horses, and as the crowd backed away, the carriage rocked dangerously. There were shouts from inside, and the driver, trying to get the frightened horses under control, shouted, ‘Get 'im out! It'll overturn – get 'im out!'

The door was opened, and two men emerged, holding Colm between them. Declan, watching his chance, saw that one of them was bruised and dazed-looking, and guessed the man had been flung against the carriage's sides as it swayed. It was now or never. He darted forward, willing Colm to respond, praying there was enough confusion to get him clear, agonizing in case Colm was handcuffed or in chains.

All his prayers were answered. There were no fetters of any kind, and Colm's eyes lit up as soon as he saw Declan. He swung a blow at the dazed officer, knocking him from his feet, then he leapt forward, and Declan grabbed his arm. Together they ran, scarcely noticing where they went, not really caring. Narrow streets, cobbled alleys, huddles of shops, barrows with fruit, vendors with chestnuts and flowers and jellied eels . . . Pounding feet came after them, with cries to stop.

‘Don't stop,' gasped Colm. ‘Not for anything, or I'm a dead man.'

At some stage Colm tore off the shameful prison garb so that he was wearing plain trousers and a singlet. It looked no more odd than some of the barrow boys and fruit sellers who had stripped off jackets the better to carry their heavy wares.

At first Declan thought they would never shake off their pursuers, but suddenly, in the way London has of springing its surprises, they went across a square and down an alley, and found themselves in a completely different district, near a small park. And they could no longer hear the sounds of pursuit.

‘Have we done it?' demanded Colm, white-faced, his eyes blazing. ‘Have we got away?'

‘I think so. Let's just walk normally, so as not to attract attention.'

‘Where are we, d'you think?'

‘I don't know, but it doesn't matter,' said Declan. ‘Because we're going to get out of London. We may have to walk most of the way, but we walked in, and we can walk out.'

‘They'll be looking for me though,' said Colm. ‘For both of us. Have we money?'

‘Some.' Declan had brought the remains of the money from Bullfinch's wallet. He hated doing it, but he could not see any other way.

‘Enough to get to Liverpool and the ferry?'

Declan paused and looked at him. ‘Are we going home? I mean – back to Kilglenn?'

Colm sat down on a little low wall overlooking a patch of green. ‘We are,' he said. ‘But you don't have to come with me. And if I can get there I can hide out in the shack. No one will know I'm there if I'm careful.'

‘But . . . why? Colm, all the world's at our disposal! I thought we'd cross to America – they say there's plenty of work to be had—'

‘We thought there was plenty of work to be had here,' said Colm bitterly. ‘And yes, we'll go to America afterwards. But there's something I have to do first.'

‘What?' But Declan already knew.

Colm said, ‘I have to get that accursed chess figure back to the watchtower.'

‘Because the other pieces are there,' said Declan after a moment.

‘Yes. I know they're cinders under the burned-out tower,' said Colm, before Declan could go on. ‘And I don't understand it, not really. But I think it's got to be done.'

Declan said, ‘But I didn't bring the chess piece. I brought all the things I thought we'd need, so we wouldn't have to go back, but I left the chess piece at Holly Lodge.'

‘Then,' said Colm, ‘we'll have to go back and get it.'

They argued for hours, sitting in the unknown park with London's life teeming all around them. At midday Declan bought food from a passing street vendor.

‘You have no idea how good that tastes after Newgate fare,' said Colm, eating hungrily.

‘Is it really bread and water they give you?'

‘It tasted like it.' He finished the food and stood up. ‘I'm going back to Holly Lodge,' he said. ‘I'll find my way somehow. I'll meet you here as soon as I can.'

‘I'll go,' said Declan. ‘You daren't be seen.'