The Vice Society (11 page)

‘No. Be off with you unless you are ordering food. I am busy.’

Mrs Colliver turned her back on him and walked towards the kitchen. Mr Williamson fought the urge to strike the woman insensible with a nearby coffee pot.

There were certain clues here if only he could track them down – and if people would only speak to him. Unfortunately, Holywell-street did have the reputation of harbouring a recalcitrant sort. He turned to the nearest table where two cabmen were enthusiastically interacting with their beef and vegetables. Very likely they ate here at the same time each evening.

‘Gentlemen – may I ask you a brief question or two? Were either of you on duty on the night of the late incident at this address?’

The cabman with a shining beard of gravy took in Mr Williamson’s smart attire, the lack of numbers or other official insignia, and the non-police-issue stovepipe hat. This man who had interrupted his feeding had the vague air of policeman, but was clearly not one.

‘—— off,’ opined the cabman without malice, returning his attention to the plate as if his interlocutor had simply vanished from sight.

Indignation burned Mr Williamson’s face and he found his hand moving instinctively to his hip, where he no longer kept a truncheon. He looked about the place to see who had observed the interchange and observed its inhabitants studiously avoiding his gaze. Clearly, they took him for some powerless official, or, worse, an eccentric. He knew well enough that every man has his place, his time and his uniform. And to them, he was a nobody.

Mrs Colliver was approaching once again, this time with a constable behind her. ‘This is the man. He came in here asking me questions. Now he is bothering my customers. He says he is not a penny-a-liner or a policeman.’

The constable made to speak, but stopped short when he saw who the ‘nuisance’ was. There were not many constables in the city who did not know of Mr Williamson, either by appearance or reputation.

Mr Williamson did not speak. He merely nodded to the constable and accompanied him without struggle or fuss into the cold of the street, where a persistent drizzle had polished the cobbles to glistening dirt.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ said the policeman after the door had closed behind them.

‘You are doing your job. You need not apologize to me.’

‘Is it the Sampson case you were asking about?’

‘Yes. Can you tell me anything of it?’

‘I cannot.’

‘O, come now, Constable. I know how you fellows talk. I was a beat policeman myself for many years. You must know all the facts.’

‘It is not that. I am not permitted to speak of it.’

‘Yes, I understand that. It is common to keep certain details from the populace, but—’

‘No, sir – I am not permitted to speak with you in particular.’

‘What? That cannot be. On whose orders?’

‘Inspector Newsome, sir. He made it clear some months ago that we are not to talk to George Williamson about any case touching upon the Metropolitan Police. He said that you are no longer a policeman and must not be privy to our affairs.’

Mr Williamson could not respond for a moment as commingled emotions of anger, incredulity and humiliation raged beneath his impassive exterior. It was fear, however, that was the dominant sensation – fear that this impassable impediment might forever prevent him from the solution he had sought for so long.

‘I am sorry I cannot help you, sir,’ offered the constable.

‘Hmm. Hmm. I understand . . .’

‘I do know that Constable Cullen is working on the case with the inspector.’

‘Constable John Cullen of Division L?’

‘Yes, sir. Only he has moved to Division A now. He might become a detective.’

‘Hmm. Indeed he might. Thank you for your kindness, Constable.’

‘Please do not let anyone know I spoke to you, sir!’ he shouted to Mr Williamson’s departing back.

But the ex-detective sergeant was no longer listening as he strode on towards the Strand and headed west, undistracted by the clattering chaos of traffic, the steaming ordure of the horses, the yells of hawkers and omnibus drivers, and the ever-churning crowd. On these immense thoroughfares, he was just another passing face exhaling steam, just another hat and coat, just another ephemeral existence flowing through the city that would outlive them all.

He walked with purpose towards Charing Cross, the rhythm of his feet on the streets a soothing influence upon his mind. By the time he passed the swirling torrents of carriages around Trafalgar-square, his thoughts had ordered themselves once again and he was following another, far quieter and more ordered route through his own reasoning. Night might have fallen upon the city, but the inner illumination of his thoughts was bright.

The name. The name seemed theatrical to Mr Williamson. If not the actual identity of a performer, it could well be that of a character. But how to say it? ‘Purse phone’? ‘Percy phone’? He did not want to mispronounce it and find ridicule or, worse, a lack of recognition. So he had written the word on a page of his notebook and would show it when he reached his destination.

That destination was the Haymarket Theatre, and more particularly the private rooms of its manager Mr Buckle. If there was such a performer, or such a role as Persephone, Mr Buckle would surely know of it – provided Mr Williamson could find him in a temperate state.

He may not be known to the public at large, but there can be few writers who have not heard of Mr Buckle. Any aspiring comedian, tragedian or melodramatist with ambitions of seeing his words in the mouths of actors had first to aim his text beneath the eyes of this theatre manager. Never mind that he preferred to work only with a select list of accredited playwrights – there was always the slimmest, most fantastical, chance that a striking scene might take his fancy and bring the unknown literary starveling to fame and fortune.

Indeed, his study within the secret unseen warrens of the theatre was a graveyard of discarded, disgraced and disreputable manuscripts. Upon his desk, upon the floor around it, upon a sagging leather chair was a veritable snowfall of sheets: here a lady compromised by her decision; there a young man facing a choice that might ruin or make him; here a scene of bloody murder heard from the wings; there an imitation of Master Shakespeare that might well have been titled ‘Hamlet’s Return’. And there, ignominiously buried beneath a tower of other rejected imaginings, was one of my own: a poignant tale of a writer making his way in the city.

‘Ah, Mr Williamson!’ said Mr Buckle upon opening the door. ‘Come in, come in. What brings you to my rooms?’

Mr Williamson reflected that his host was a man who seemed always hurriedly midway between his origin and his end, his hat askew, his clothes half-fastened and his attention momentary. This evening, he was relatively cogent, clutching a woefully unamusing comedy he had already paid thirty pounds for.

‘I am pursuing an investigation, Mr Buckle, and I hoped to utilize your expertise.’

‘But I have heard you are no longer with the Force. Is that right?’

‘You hear everything, Mr Buckle.’

‘The benefit of having half of London through the doors each night – or rather less than half these days. The cold weather perhaps; it is keeping them away. Our current production does not help matters, either. Have you seen it?’

‘I do not go to the theatre.’

‘Quite right. A loathsome business. So what prompted you to leave the Force? Did you finally have your stomach-full of crime?’

‘It concerned elements beyond my control. This investigation is purely a personal matter.’

‘Personal, eh? A juicy story, I’ll bet. If I know George Williamson, it will be something dangerous. Murder is it?’

‘Very likely.’

‘How can I help? Will you be wanting to arrange another covert observation of my auditorium? That was an exciting episode, was it not?’

‘Hmm. Not this time, Mr Buckle. It is only information I require. I remember that you once boasted to me that you knew every actor who had performed in the city over the last twenty years.’

‘It sounds like something I might say. And quite true into the bargain. Won’t you take a seat? I can clear away some of this scribacious manure and we can have a civil exchange.’

‘Alas, I do not have time. Have you seen this name before? It could be an actor or a character.’

Mr Buckle stopped collecting the scripts from his chair and took the notebook, his memory flicking through a library of plays, scripts, shows, rehearsals, auditions and sundry narratives.

‘No. It means nothing to me, Mr W.’

‘Are you sure? You have never heard it?’

‘I have not. It could be one of those foreign performers one sees at Vauxhall or at the minor theatres once in a decade. You know the sort: they come here from America or the Orient and do a show with serpents or fire or some such. I know nothing of that sort. They are not professionals. Where did you hear of this one?’

‘It is something I am looking into. I thought it might be a performer, though I have reason to believe it is not a foreigner.’

‘Well, you could ask at the other theatres or at the theatrical coffee houses, but if I don’t know the person I dare say nobody will. I know every actor who has performed in this city—’

‘For the last twenty years. Hmm. Well, would you mind asking your theatrical fellows about this name if you have the opportunity?’

‘Of course. Of course. And do visit again! Are you sure I cannot interest you in tickets to the current drama?’

Mr Williamson closed the door behind him, reflecting grimly that Mr Buckle had likely already forgotten both the name and the request to ask about it. As he exited the theatre, he saw that the streets had become more populous. He pulled his coat collar up against the chill and stood beneath a gas-lamp as people moved around him.

In London, there are those who walk and those who stand. There are those who stride with purpose and those who dawdle. A man of the streets – a man like Mr Williamson – knows these rhythms and reads them as Mr Buckle reads a new script: searching for the subtext, the heroes, the villains and the next incident. One might know a man almost by his pace alone: the worker hurrying home, the idler waiting for the theatres to open, the thief waiting for his next victim, the mendicant with no destination but the grave.

Or the prostitute looking for her next payment. In Hay-market, even those with the sharpest eye would find difficulty telling the magdalene from the respectable women, for their dress is often of equal quality. Only the pace is different. The street girl walks with a meandering air, stopping to brush mud from her boot so that her ankles show, or tilting her face up to the gaslight so that her beauty may be better admired from across the street. She seems to be purposeful enough in her direction, and indeed she is, but that destination is vice. When she perceives that she is observed, or when another falls into the same pace, recognition occurs. Sometimes it is accidental, as when a lady is unduly and scandalously propositioned while waiting for a carriage, but for the main part the messages are correctly read.

‘Aren’t you a handsome one?’

Thus was Mr Williamson interrupted in his cogitations by the girl at his elbow: a whore.

‘Be gone, girl. I am not looking,’ he replied with pursed lips of distaste.

‘I perceive you
are
, sir. Perhaps you don’t know what you want?’

He turned to look at her face. She was a pretty girl of about eighteen, her large eyes dark beneath the light and a black woollen shawl making her skin seem paler. An investigator he may have been, but her smile and her untarnished beauty were weapons against even his ossified heart. ‘Be gone, I tell you. I am not interested.’

Her teasing smile remained undiminished. ‘Tell me what you’re looking for, sir. I may be able to help.’

He was about to take a sterner line with her when an idea occurred to him. Did not many of these girls know each other and recommend each other when a customer’s tastes extended to something different? For a small share of the charge, they might pass business among their sisterhood. It was a wild supposition, but the girl might at least have heard of the mysterious letter writer as one of her own trade. He took out his notebook and showed her the name. ‘I am looking for this woman. Do you know her?’

The girl cocked her head to see the name in the gaslight, brushing against Mr Williamson so that he was forced to smell the cheap but affecting perfume rising from her naked throat. ‘Perhaps I do know her. Could you tell me more about her?’

‘She is older than you – perhaps as old as thirty. She will be educated and most likely has gentleman customers, some of them very powerful. She is probably interested in the newspapers and can read and write well.’

‘What might she look like? Have you had relations with her before, sir?’

‘Hmm. Hmm. I . . . She is refined, intelligent . . .’

‘The colour of her hair? Her eyes?’

‘I do not know. I know only her name and some other details.’

‘I see.’ The girl gave a knowing smile. ‘So what would you
imagine
her to look like, this woman you seek?’

‘Er . . . She is likely attractive. A slim frame. Her eyes are green or blue. I . . . don’t know. I cannot say. Do you know the name or not?’