Keeper of Pleas E-Book

Annelie Wendeberg

• Herausgeber: Annelie Wendeberg
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Keeper of Pleas
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 395

Beschreibung

On December 10, 1880, Coroner Sévère makes a gruesome discovery: nine newborns, buried in flowerpots, and hidden in plain sight in Whitechapel. A mortician receives the bodies and vanishes. Clues for the two seemingly unconnected cases are scarce. When police and coroner learn that the missing mortician might have spent his last moments at the bosom of the infamous prostitute Miss Mary, a series of events is nudged into motion. Lies are unearthed, rumours spread. Yet, the killer remains a faceless phantom. His secret seems buried forever. Until the night Sévère requests Miss Mary’s services…
This 2018 edition features three new chapters plus several new scenes, and revisions to scenes that were too graphic for some readers.

Leseprobe

KEEPER OF PLEAS

KEEPER OF PLEAS BOOK 1

ANNELIE WENDEBERG

The office of the coroner originated in the 12th century England and was referred to as “custos placitorum coronae” - keeper of the pleas of the Crown.

* * *

Copyright 2016 by Annelie Wendeberg

eBook Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Cover design: Nuno Moreira.

Editing: Tom Welch

ISBN: 978-91-989005-2-1

CONTENTS

Annelie’s Bookstore

Bookish Shenanigans

Prelude

Apple Trees

Brothel

The Missing Mortician

First Act

The Anatomy of the Heart

Blood, Sweat, & Bollocks

Saplings

Sleeping Draught

Strengths & Weaknesses

Second Act

Asylum

Inquest

Proposition

The Fourth Condition

A Partnership Begins

The Morning After

Final Act

Neighbourhood

The Silent Victim

Cocoon

Trials & Errors

Spider Silk

Annelie’s Bookstore

Bookish Shenanigans

Anna Kronberg Mysteries

Arlington & McCurley Mysteries

The 1/2986 Series

On the use of British English in this book

Acknowledgements

ANNELIE’S BOOKSTORE

BookBub

PRELUDE

IN WHICH NINE BODIES ARE FOUND AND ONE GOES MISSING

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon

Language

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to

Hear?

Khwāja Shamsu ud-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Shīrāzī

APPLE TREES

If you ignore the faint smell of death that clings to Alexander Easy no matter how well he washes or how fresh his clothes are, you will arrive at the conclusion that there is nothing special about the man. Perhaps you might think his waist is a little too thick, his breath a little too short, and his upper lip a tad too hairy. To you, he might even look and sound like a walrus, more so when he chases the omnibus, which happens rather often.

But dare raise a mocking eyebrow and turn away now, and you’ll miss a drama of great proportions. Mr Easy’s last moments on Earth are approaching swiftly. The prelude of his death will be announced in a heartbeat by none other than a young man with a flowerpot.

* * *

Alexander Easy entered the mortuary of St George-in-the-East sharply at nine o’clock in the morning of Friday, December 10, 1880. One embalmment and two hours, sixteen minutes later, a policeman rumbled through the door, sputtering ‘Bollocks!’ under his breath as a handful of soil spilt from the large clay pot in his arms.

The young man placed the pot on the floor, brushed the dirt off his lapel, and lifted his hat in greeting. ‘Mr Easy, sir. Peter Culler’s my name. I’m constable of the Metropolitan Police, Division H, and I have a…ah…delivery.’

Constable Culler wearily regarded the three bodies on the tables before him. He gulped in an attempt to keep his meagre breakfast down and waved a hand through the stench of decomposition and Thames muck. The cold air stirred lazily, refusing to cease the assault on Culler’s nose.

‘A delivery?’ Mr Easy straightened, gently patting the knee of the distended corpse he was working on.

Constable Culler’s gaze slid from the mortician’s hands to the corpse’s grotesquely swollen testicles. Pale fluid dribbled from the blackened penis.

Culler’s face grew hot and prickly. The nape of his neck felt as though a hundred spiders were building a nest beneath his skin. He told himself to stop looking. However, the repugnant harboured a sickening fascination for many a man, no matter how much the stomach protested.

Mr Easy wiped his hands on a handkerchief and, for modesty’s sake, deftly placed it over the dead man’s privates. Then he ran a finger up along the body’s middle line, stopped at where the balloon-like abdomen met the ribcage and the skin’s colour spectrum of black, green, and purple had turned a little paler. With a click of his tongue, Alexander Easy pushed the sharp end of a long, hollow lancet through the dead flesh. A hiss issued from the lancet’s upper end, which Mr Easy swiftly lit with a match. Woompf, it said.

The stink, if at all possible, grew stronger. Constable Culler felt his stomach heave. He blinked. Everything below his chin seemed strangely disconnected from his brain.

Mr Easy, hearing his visitor’s faint gurgle, looked up. Rather puzzled by the constable’s chalky face and wide-open eyes, he arrived at the conclusion that an explanation might be called for.

‘That’s only gas. It’s surprising, given the low temperatures, isn’t it? As if the guts had a wee furnace inside that keeps them warm enough to produce gas. Now, there’s no need to sway like a pendulum, young man. You’ve seen a floater before, haven’t you?’

At that, Peter Culler’s legs did what needed doing: they propelled him backwards through the antechamber and, finally, the doorway. He doubled over and the porridge he’d had a few hours earlier neatly hit the frozen ground. The roar of nausea in Culler’s ears rendered him deaf to the mortician’s cry: ‘But my dear man, this is a trifle! You should see them in the summer heat. Sometimes, they burst before we can prick them.’

With his hands pressed to his lower back, Culler gulped the comparatively fresh air, and, after having had enough of it, lit a cigarette and leant back against the mortuary’s icy brick wall.

The December wind combed his hair with dank stinks from the docks. He recalled his hat then, which still sat on the one unoccupied table inside the mortuary. He sucked at his smoke with abandon, and chased away any theories as to what might have been on that table before his hat had touched it. Or which smell and consistency it might have had. The door behind him opened without the faintest creak; it was as new as the mortuary it hinged to.

Alexander Easy stepped out onto the walkway. The oak above him sprinkled flecks of molten snow onto his shoulders.

‘So?’ Easy demanded.

Constable Culler flicked his cigarette toward the mule cart that stood nearby, and cleared his throat. ‘Inspector Walken and Coroner Sévère sent me. They need these ex…examined.’

The mule snorted, shook its head, and aimed a kick at the shafts but missed by an inch. The cartwheels creaked on the cobblestones and crows in the oak tree cocked their heads, perhaps expecting bits of food or, at the very least, entertainment.

‘Coroner Sévère. Hum.’ Easy scratched the folds of his chin.

‘Sounds French, doesn’t it? Thought so myself before the inspector told me all about the man. British gentleman through and through. Well-bred, he said. His name is a bit unfortunate, though. “Gavriel”, his mother named him. Jewish, I think she was. His father, I heard the inspector say the other day, was a⁠—’

Easy interrupted. ‘Will there be an inquest? Here?’

Culler nodded and spat on the ground.

Easy wondered how a jury could possibly fit into his small viewing room, whether he should call for the charwoman to sweep the floors and polish the windows, and if the gentlemen would require a brazier.

The two men approached the vehicle, the one in uniform with some hesitation, and the one in death-stink with some puzzlement. Six large clay pots stood on the cart, a scrawny sapling sticking out of each of them.

‘Flowerpots?’ Mr Easy asked, and twirled his mighty moustache.

‘Erhm…’ Peter Culler missed his hat — specifically, the well-fingered rim. Without it, his hands felt out of place. ‘The coroner says it’s sus…susspishuss. Suspicus. Somewhat.’

‘Suspicious flowerpots?’

The constable tried to hide his reddened cheeks in the upturned collar of his coat, and Mr Easy tried to hide his impatience by squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

When the policeman pointed at a pot that was in obvious disarray — a crack running up its side, the sapling lopsided, soil spilt — Mr Easy noticed a pale something sticking out of it.

‘Could that be…a bone?’

‘Yes, from a baby. The housekeeper found a skull as she dug in the…’ he flapped his hand at the cracked pot. ‘Then she called for us. Inspector Walken and the coroner questioned her. She said all these were purchased at Covent Garden. The coroner is sending a surgeon to ex…examine the…uh…pots. Today.’

‘Where is the skull?’

‘What skull?’

‘The skull you just mentioned! The one the housekeeper found. Whichever housekeeper that is.’

‘Oh,’ said Culler, and eyed the inside of the cart. ‘Must have lost it on the way.’ He shrugged and sucked air through his teeth. His fingers plucked at the seam of his second-hand coat. He wanted to be done with this already. Dirty business, that’s what it was.

‘Well, my dear man, get on with it and bring in the pots, will you.’ Mr Easy huffed and gave the constable a hearty clap between the shoulder blades.

* * *

Coroner Gavriel Sévère stood on the small balcony, tapping his cane against his left boot. He barely registered the street below him, the bustle of pedestrians, shopkeepers and shoplifters, of cabs and omnibuses. In his mind, he arranged observations, evidence, and witness statements like bits of shattered porcelain. The little information he’d gained today and the empty spaces — all the missing pieces — drew his attention and shut off the world around him.

His olfactory sense alone tied him to reality, reminding him that he was not in his office, but out in the open. Whitechapel Road was peculiar in its spectrum of odours, for it lacked the suffocating pungency of fermenting mule manure, of human excrement and refuse. Instead, Sévère smelled coal fires, burnt butter, sizzling mutton and pork, fresh bread, and perfume. An occasional scent of warm horse droppings before they were whisked away. And there! A whiff of Belgian pastries.

His mouth began to water and his expression changed ever so lightly. An observant stranger may, or may not, have noticed that the man’s face had brightened a fraction. A friend would have been able to corroborate this observation, but Sévère had no friends. He felt no need for company.

With a small nod, the coroner set the tip of his cane onto the balcony tiles and drew a line through the black marks: one semi-circle of potting soil freshly sprinkled onto the floor, and seven dark rings from the water that had seeped through seven flowerpots during the previous months. A chaos of footprints trailed muck into the apartment, much to the chagrin of the housekeeper and her maid. Sévère looked up and breathed a cloud into the chill air. The evidence slowly dissolved with the slush.

The housekeeper saw him to the door, her hands clasped below the mass of her sagging bosom, the potting soil still blackening her fingernails.

‘The inquest will be held at Vestry Hall at eleven o’clock tomorrow,’ he said when he took his leave.

‘Cable Street?’ the housekeeper asked, her voice warbling.

‘The very one.’ He tipped his hat and strolled out of the house, turned right and melted into nonexistence.

Coroner Sévère was a man of average height and average looks. He was neither noticeably handsome nor particularly ugly. His face bore no marks — no scars that told of disease or battle, no moustache that indicated his social standing. Most people forgot his appearance the moment he walked away from them. Except, of course, when he wanted them to remember. His jury, and his suspects in particular, never forgot the man, no matter how much they wanted to. Strangely, what they recalled most clearly was not his slight limp — the one feature that could have made him stand out had he allowed it. It was his eyes they remembered. The majority of the murderers he’d sent to gaol would have sworn his irises were yellow, like the Devil’s, had one ever bothered to ask them.

It was all nonsense, of course.

Sévère considered these silly sentiments useful. Emotions in general aided his work, as long as they happened inside other people. To him, witnesses and perpetrators were an open book. Turning other people’s pages brought him amusement; he might have even called it happiness if he’d ever had the need to attain this particular state.

Whenever necessary, he let his suspects know what he thought of their mental capacities. He revealed the tricks they tried to play, tore apart the weave and weft of their fabricated alibis. Sévère was a master lie detector. He stood above the world and he liked it up there. His position as Coroner of Eastern Middlesex allowed him to lead a comfortable life. He kept an appropriate number of servants, owned a modern, well-appointed house, purchased only newly tailored clothing of quality silk and wool, and visited London’s best brothels at least once a week.

Sévère considered himself a made man with very few problems. However, the few problems he did have frequently drove him close to crossing the line between legal and illegal. He wondered, briefly, if that would happen this time — the crossing of the line, that is. After a mere three hours of investigation, this case certainly showed potential.

Sévère shook off the thought, entered the pastry shop, and left it a moment later with a small paper bag in his right hand. He walked along Whitechapel Road and turned into Leman Street. Without sparing Division H Headquarters a single glance, he extracted a pastry from the bag, finished it in three bites, and pulled out pastry number two.

He turned left onto Cable Street, stretched his shoulders, and tossed away the bag. He slipped his right hand into his coat pocket and modulated his limp so that the weakness of his left leg was barely noticeable. To the uninitiated, he appeared like any other gentleman on a walk. Easy to overlook.

His eyes scanned the street, the murky corners and doorways. Slum dwellers who didn’t know his face or couldn’t remember it, believed him to be a plainclothes detective with a pistol in his coat pocket. Surely, he was looking for someone.

Sévère moved through the worst section of Cable Street without anyone bothering him. Not even the greenest of pickpockets dared approach. Half of the men who littered the pavement melted away the moment they set eyes on him, only to reappear once he’d reached the corner of Denmark Street. Better safe than sorry.

A moment later, Sévère turned into the churchyard of St George-in-the-East. The thin layer of melting snow told him that both flowerpots and surgeon had arrived in time: tracks and hoof prints of the police’s mule cart and those of a hansom cab showed in the dirty-white mush. Sévère followed the crumbs of black potting soil from Cable Street to the red brick building of the mortuary.

‘Hello, Mr Easy,’ he called from the antechamber, kicking the slush off his boots. ‘Thank you for coming, Dr Baxter.’

The coroner kept his coat, scarf, and gloves on, for the brick walls seemed to suck all the warmth from his body. It was worse than the breeze outside.

‘Coroner.’ The doctor held out his hand, noticed the dirt covering it, and dropped it. ‘Ahem,’ he said and turned back to the evidence. ‘Nine bodies. All carried to term, I should think.’

Eight miniature skulls were lined up on the table. Some were gaping at their crowns like petals of a wilting tulip, others looked more like an eggshell smashed into symmetrical pieces. The tiny jaws were toothless. Below each skull, small bones were arranged in patterns resembling flat, incomplete skeletons. The ninth skeleton was headless.

‘The constable lost a skull on the way. He tried to retrieve it, but someone must have taken it,’ the doctor said rather cheerfully.

Deep in his throat, Sévère produced a soft growl. Almost inaudible. Division H was a thorn in his side; it had been since he’d opened his solicitor’s practice. Most of the constables were sloppy, and Division H seemed to follow neither etiquette, logic, nor work ethics. Per regulations, witnesses and evidence belonged to the man who was first to arrive at the scene. In this particular case, it was the coroner. Yet, the 2nd class inspector who’d arrived more than thirty minutes later had determined that the head of the household, Mr Bunting, was to be taken into police custody at once. Division H inspectors chronically turned a blind eye in their own favour, and it was of no use informing the magistrates of this serious slip in protocol. Sévère would have to pay a visit to the Home Office and turn in an official complaint.

Whenever he found the time.

The usual case-solving-circus included that coroner, Division H, and the bunch of plainclothes detectives the magistrates called their own, were supposed to race each other. Whoever was the first to apprehend a suspect — whichever suspect — won.

When Sévère was a young man, he’d clung to the naïve view that police work was truly about finding a culprit and keeping London safe (or comparatively safe), and not about gaining influence and power over the inner workings of the city.

‘Can you say anything about the cause of death?’ he asked the doctor.

‘Well…’ was the reply. ‘There might be signs of violence.’ Dr Baxter picked up a few vertebrae, arranged the individual pieces on his palm, and pointed at what appeared to be scratch marks.

‘And?’

‘It is impossible to tell if these injuries were inflicted ante-, peri-, or postmortem. The skeletons are all clean. There’s no soft tissue to work with. Not one bit of flesh or skin left. I’m guessing the infants died five to ten years ago.’

Sévère took a step forward, leant his cane against the table and gingerly turned over the fragile bones. ‘How likely is it that someone collected nine stillbirths and buried them in flowerpots?’

‘The world is the strangest of places. However…’ The doctor held up a pencil, bent over the vertebrae in Sévère’s hand and pointed at a tiny discolouration. ‘Here we might have an indication for internal bleeding. Before the heart stopped beating, that is. Or it might be dirt. It’s impossible to tell. But this does smell of violence, doesn’t it? If I’m not entirely mistaken, these are all illegitimate children farmed out by their mothers soon after birth.’ The doctor shrugged. ‘An everyday occurrence. Ask the Thames Police Office. They are sick of infants floating in the river or lying on the banks.

Sévère felt an itch at the back of his head. Baby farmers wrapped their dead charges in paper or rags, or placed them into cardboard boxes. They threw these packages into dust yards, back alleys, and the Thames. Baby farmers cared little about how they rid themselves of their charges as long as the “getting rid of” couldn’t be connected to them.

His gaze touched on each small, planted grave, and each laid-out skeleton. There was accuracy, care. Baxter’s interpretation was simple and straightforward. But it did not fit.

‘I need a second opinion,’ Sévère said. ‘Mr Easy, would you be so kind as to send a message to the house surgeon of Guy’s Hospital?’

* * *

At four-thirty in the afternoon, Dr Johnston of Guy’s Hospital alighted from the cab in front of the mortuary. Per the note he’d received at noon, he was to wait for Coroner Sévère before he began his examination. This irritated him a little. Coroners were solicitors, their speciality was the law. Hence, they should keep their noses out of postmortems. But then, Dr Johnson respected every man who strove to increase his knowledge. Rumour had it that the newly-appointed coroner showed an unusual interest in all medical matters related to suspicious deaths. If the police were only half as curious as that man…

Dr Johnston was torn from his thoughts by the noise of shuffling feet. That, too, irritated him. The mortician had been fidgeting a lot these past minutes, his eyes firmly stuck to the infants’ laid-out remains.

‘Are you quite all right, Mr Easy?’ Dr Johnston asked without looking up.

‘Yes, thank you. I’m all right. Might have caught a cold, though. Or something.’

‘Hum,’ said Johnston. He tapped his fingers on the table, extracted his watch from his waistcoat pocket and grumbled, ‘I can’t wait forever.’

He rolled up his sleeves and began to methodically examine the flowerpots.

* * *

Rubbing his left elbow, Alexander Easy watched Johnston work. Easy’s arm had been aching for days. For how long precisely? he wondered, but couldn’t recall when it had begun. Perhaps I should see my physician. Yes, I just might. After Christmas, perhaps? Better yet, after New Year’s Eve. Less clients to attend to, once the annual wave of holiday suicides was over.

His attention meandered back to the remains of nine tiny humans. He couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away from them. And slowly, creepily, he felt something inside him begin to unfurl. There was a heaviness in his stomach and a clenching of his ribcage he couldn’t quite explain. Neither could he explain why these nine corpses disturbed him so. He was a mortician. He laid his hands on dead bodies every day.

* * *

‘My apologies, I’m late.’ Sévère stepped through the antechamber and into the viewing room. ‘Dr Johnston, thank you for coming. I know you are a busy man.’

‘Hum,’ said Johnston, sorting through potting soil with nimble fingers. He didn’t spare the coroner a glance or even a nod.

Sévère positioned himself at the mortician’s side, and both men watched Dr Johnston examine every crumb, every square inch of clay pot surface, every fibre of root, every twig, and every bone.

When, finally, Johnston pressed his hands onto the table and huffed, Easy and Sévère leant forward.

‘Well,’ Johnston said. ‘Complicated.’ He brushed the soil off his palms. ‘Let me begin with the facts: We have, as you’ve written in your message to me, nine small bodies in seven flowerpots that have been found on the only balcony of all of Whitechapel Road. One skeleton has recently been disturbed, allegedly by the housekeeper of the household with the balcony in question. The skull of that same skeleton went missing owing to the carelessness of a constable of Division H. This means we have eight bodies that have not been disturbed for one growing season. What might have happened to them before spring of this year is mostly based on conjecture.’

Sévère cleared his throat. ‘You believe they have been relocated?’

‘Most definitely. You see, here.’ Dr Johnston grabbed a sapling and ran his fingers along its roots. ‘The saplings were grafted three, perhaps four years ago. Judging from the development of the roots, they were replanted in spring this year. You may wish to have an expert confirm this. You can see that some of the roots have retained the shape of a smaller pot, while the newly-formed roots are stretching out through the entire space of the new, larger pot. A few of the roots are touching the neonates. Er…the newborns. Hence my conclusion is that the saplings were repotted in spring this year. You will notice that the original pots must have been too small to contain any of these bodies. Whoever repotted the trees, moved the bodies from somewhere to here.’ He waved at the pots.

‘Now, I can’t tell you much about the original burial ground of the neonates, but I can tell you where they have not been buried.’

‘Go on,’ Sévère said.

‘Let me breathe, lad, and I will pour out all that I am able to glean from the little you’ve given me.’ Johnston tut-tutted, one eyebrow raised at Sévère.

He took his time to indicate the surface of each skull and each eye socket while explaining, ‘Only a few of the fresh root filaments have grown into the cavities or cracks, which tells me something about how much time the bodies have spent in these particular pots. However…’ Johnston exhaled, sending a cloud of condensation into the cold air. ‘Next time, do me a favour and summon me before Baxter-the-Axter gets his hands on the evidence.’

‘I will. And I greatly appreciate your offer.’

‘But I must warn you, Sévère. Should you ever call me in for a trifle, I will establish a routine of first attending to all of my patients before I attend to your enquiries. Which might take me several days.’

‘Understood.’

‘Very well then.’ Johnston turned back to the table. ‘All the neonates are skeletonised…meaning all bones are pretty clean. Only here and there are small bits of ligament. Especially on these two.’ He indicated a pair of skeletons on the far left of the table.

‘You will notice that each skeleton appears a little darker than its left-hand neighbour. The bodies on the left are the freshest, the ones on the right have been buried the longest: not only does the dark brown colour of the bones indicate that they have spent an extended period of time underground, the bones also show a higher degree of degradation.’ He pointed to hands and feet that lacked fingers and toes.

‘In my opinion, the soil dissolved the small bones of the hands and feet. Look, here.’ Johnston picked up part of a pelvis and brushed his index finger over its brownish surface. ‘It’s rough. Slightly acidic soil is found in most of England and Scotland. Bones, especially those of neonates, will dissolve — slowly, but surely. However, you’d find the pelvises disarticulated either way, as the ossification centres haven’t fused yet. Er…the parts of the… Never mind. It simply means you’d find three separate bones for each innominate and five separate elements for the sacrum. If there is ligament remaining, it may hold the five separate centres that form the sacrum together — as you can see in two of the nine neonates, but the pelvises would still be found as three separate bones for each innominate.’

Sévère scribbled furiously in his notepad. ‘Don’t you think rats might have carried away the small limbs?’

‘Rodents will take what they can gnaw off, but there are very few scratch and bite marks on these bones. And here comes my first gift to you, Sévère: these neonates were not buried in London. They spent considerable time in a less populated area before they were taken on a journey together with the apple trees. The ones on the right, the darkest ones, must have been buried for a period of about ten years. Perhaps more. If they’d spent ten years in London soil, there would be nothing left for me to examine. The rat population is rather high in the city.’

Sévère huffed. ‘My list of suspects has just increased dramatically: most of England and Scotland, excluding large cities.’

The doctor tut-tutted. ‘Sévère, you must learn to be patient. Let the old surgeon give you one bit of information at a time, or else your brain might explode. Now, here comes my second gift to you: Someone has taken great care to protect the bodies. Someone might have loved these children.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Sévère found himself surprisingly undisturbed by the fact that Guy’s house surgeon had thrown aside etiquette and taken to calling him “lad” and “Sévère.” He wasn’t sure if this was an indication of disrespect, but decided to ponder the question later.

‘Mr Easy, are you quite all right?’ Johnston asked.

Sévère turned to the mortician who’d been quite invisible to him these past minutes. The man looked pasty.

Mr Easy blinked. ‘Uh. Yes. Thank you. I’m just…a little tired. It has been a long day.’

‘Indeed it has. Is. Anyway.’ Johnston turned his attention back to Sévère. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if these were all siblings. They were buried soon after their death and exhumed a few years later to be carefully buried again. Not a single one of the larger bones has gone missing. Except, of course, for the skull the good constable lost. The two pairs buried together might be twins: they show almost identical signs of ageing. But this is a tad too wild of a guess for my taste. These infants were cherished; I’m absolutely certain of it. There is, however, the unfortunate evidence of their violent deaths.’

He picked up a row of vertebrae from one of the freshest skeletons and pointed to three fine lines carved into the bone. ‘These are cuts. Their appearance indicates that the cutting was done around the time of death. Adjacent to these cuts, the discolouration differs from the darkening of the entire skeleton, the latter resulting from the soil it was buried in. By the way, I’ve found three different types of soil — you might want to consult an expert on these. But this discolouration, here, where the cuts are, is different. It’s blood.’

‘But…’ Sévère pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to summon his limited medical knowledge. ‘A surgeon once told me that when a body lies on its back, that’s where the blood pools. Couldn’t the same thing have happened with these children? That they were born dead, the cuts were inflicted after birth for whatever reason, and that they were placed on their backs allowing blood to stain the bones of the neck?’

‘How long does a birth typically take?’ Johnston asked with a patient smile, the same he applied to his students.

‘Several hours?’

‘How quickly does blood congeal?’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘Precisely. If what you have theorised were true, then all of these must have died in the birth canal only minutes before their throats were cut. Now, who cuts the throat of stillborns? Really, Sévère!’

‘Who in his right mind would do this to nine children?’ Mr Easy whispered, his voice a hoarse croak.

BROTHEL

Alexander Easy locked the door to the mortuary. His hand paused on the iron handle. He did not notice the icy cold creeping into his palm. His gaze travelled up to the patterned tiles that ran all around the small building, the same patterns that could be found on the gateposts of St George’s Gardens. Again, he tried to identify their meaning. Again, without success. He stretched his shoulders, rubbed his elbow, exhaled a cloud into the cold evening, and turned his back to his workplace one final time.

On Cable Street, he climbed aboard an omnibus and sat down next to a gentleman with thick glasses and a red necktie. He smelled of fish and wet dog.

At Commercial and Brushfield he alighted. His knees were aching. He walked thirty-nine paces and opened the door to his home. He climbed twelve steps to the first floor, the keys in his hands clinking, the stairs creaking a protest under his weight. His breath shortened the farther he ascended. When he unlocked the door to his rooms, the housekeeper — who’d kept an eye on the street for the past half hour — stepped out into the hallway to greet him.

‘Mr Easy, sir, nice to see you back. I expect you wish to take your supper now?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Dobbins. But…’

‘The water. Certainly. Certainly.’

This exchange had been identical for nearly six years.

Mr Easy washed and dressed in fresh clothes, then sat down to roast of mutton with Brussels sprouts and potatoes. It smelled delicious. He gazed at the meat and couldn’t muster the energy to stick a fork into it.

Sighing, he leant back and shut his tired eyes. Before he knew it, his head fell into his hands, and he wept until his shoulders trembled and his cuffs were soggy.

For nearly six years now, Mr Easy’s evenings had been quiet and uneventful. Tonight, though, he felt as if his chest might explode should he stare at Agnes’ empty armchair for a moment longer. So he did something entirely unexpected: Alexander Easy dashed the tears off his cheeks and left the house.

Mrs Dobbins couldn’t believe her ears when she heard Mr Easy’s boots descending the stairs, the door to the house opening and snapping shut, and boots clacking down the stone steps and onto the street.

For perhaps the hundredth time that day, she pushed aside the lace curtains. Just the smallest crack. Believing herself unseen, she and her cracked curtain were yet wonderfully conspicuous to all in her neighbourhood.

Her eyes followed Mr Easy, and she wondered if he’d finally gotten over his wife’s passing. Yes, that must be it. Surely, he’s courting a young woman.

‘Thank the Lord,’ she whispered, and in her mind’s eye, chubby children were already tramping up and down the stairwell. She frowned, told herself to be less nosey and more patient, and poured herself a gin.

* * *

He wasn’t quite sure where he was going. Outside, away, was all he could think. Those nine bodies… Someone had cherished them, the doctor had said. And yet, killed them. What man or woman could have done such a thing? Alexander’s belief in mankind had been rattled deeply. For ten, twelve years he and Agnes had tried to have children of their own. Five times she’d given birth to a dead girl, once to a dead boy. Then she had perished, slowly, steadily, unstoppably from under his loving hands like a cut-off lily.

A tear skidded down Alexander’s cheek as he stumbled blindly through the streets. Where was he, anyway? He looked up and found that he was drifting toward the mortuary. He dug through his mind and found that there was only one proper thing to do: bury the children in sacred soil. Lay them to rest. Yes, someone had to do it and he was just the right man. But something niggled at the back of his mind, telling him that he had to wait, they had to wait. The inquest was to take place the following day. The bodies were to be viewed by the coroner, both doctors, all witnesses, and the jury.

Alexander came to a sudden halt in an unlit street. With a shudder, he realised that this was no place to cross, or, God forbid, dawdle. He set off again, at a faster pace. His view swam as he thought of Agnes and her children, his children, theirs. And the nine he’d seen today. He stumbled and was close to stepping into something that looked suspiciously like a very flat rat.

He stopped again, knowing all too well that middle-aged, middle-class men — who couldn’t run when it came to it — had no business whatsoever in the slums of Whitechapel, and that he would likely get mugged if he didn’t leave at once. Or worse.

But he was tired. Tired of running and, he had to admit shamefully, tired of life.

He pressed his knuckles into his aching sides, looked up, and found a goddess gazing down upon him. There, right before him, printed on the tattered remains of a billboard was a woman of such beauty that Alexander believed it could only be the Holy Mother of Jesus herself.

“FIND BLISS IN MARY’S ARMS!” the bleached headline screamed.

Alexander sighed. Hope began to creep into his poor heart. Swiftly followed by panic. The address as to where this goddess could be found had been torn off.

* * *

The pane crackled as she turned the handle. She pulled open the window and the joints produced a squeak. The vibration dislodged ice from the pane. The crystals dropped onto the rug, melted and disappeared into the coarse wool. The winter wind sneaked through the gap in the heavy curtains, hardening her nipples and pulling her skin tight. Blood rushed to her cheeks.

She waited for the knock. It couldn’t be long now.

She didn’t push aside the curtains, didn’t lean out to search the street below. There was no need for it and it wasn’t how this game was played.

When the knock finally came, she closed her eyes and placed her hands softly on the wall on either side of the window.

The door opened and closed. Four steps. The rustle of a coat being shed and draped over a chair. The clink of a belt being unbuckled, and another clink — that of a gold coin being placed on the table.

Two more steps. Hands found her hips and pulled her back against a crotch. Large and soft hands. The hands of a man who’d never had to work hard in his life.

‘Oh, no!’ she breathed, making her voice a little higher, younger. ‘What are you doing to me, sir?’

The anticipated result arrived at once: an erection stirred, hardened, and pressed against her. He bent forward. The bristly tips of a moustache tickled her skin. Hot breath crept over her neck.

‘I will show you the pleasures of the bedroom,’ he hummed, excitement trembling in his voice.

‘But, sir, I am a maiden.’ This was far from the truth and they both knew it.

‘Tell me your age, dear.’

She produced another lie. In fact, most of the words Mary uttered were far from the truth. ‘I am but twelve years old. I beg you, sir, do not ruin me. What if my father finds out?’

This part of the game used to make her sick, but it had been a while.

When he’d finally finished, she turned to look at him, frowned and sucked in her lower lip. ‘I will not be able to sit for days, Mr Brazen.’ But at once, her face lit up. ‘But I am glad I was seduced by such an experienced and talented man.’

Mr Brazen’s moustache twitched. He tried to control his expression, but the blush that rose up his throat and past his perfectly starched and pressed collar betrayed just how much he believed her.

Without speaking, he buckled his belt, shrugged into his coat, and nodded toward the guinea on the coffee table.

‘Wednesday,’ he said as he took his leave.

‘Wednesday,’ she whispered and bit her tongue hard so that her eyes would begin to water and her face appeared as if she could barely survive the long days without him.

After Mr Brazen had left, Mary rolled her burning tongue around in her mouth, swallowed foul taste, and squatted over the chamber pot.

A soft knock announced Rose, a scrawny girl of eight, delivering a jug filled with steaming hot water. Unfazed by the woman’s nakedness — a frequent sight in this establishment — Rose waited until Mary had finished squeezing out the residues of her client, then she picked up the pot and said, ‘It’s meat pies tonight.’

‘Could you bring it up?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ With a wicked grin, Rose curtsied and left. A moment later, she delivered Mary’s supper. The girl was quick and serviceable. She would make a good whore in a few years.

Mary poured the hot water into her washbowl, brushed her teeth, and wiped her face, armpits, and crotch. She put on her nightgown and a robe, and climbed into her armchair to eat and read the papers. Her client was entirely forgotten until she stumbled over his name on page eleven: an article reporting on a new decree, ordered and signed by Chief Magistrate Linton Frost.

She tut-tutted and whispered. ‘Mr Brazen, you are such a bad boy.’

Mary knew that Mr Frost was a connoisseur of maidenheads. He paid five to twenty pounds sterling per maiden delivered to him. Sometimes, they needed to be held down. Other times, the seductress would put snuff into a girl’s beer to make her drowsy and pliable. When the girl awoke, she was in pain, ruined, and richer in experience as well as money. Although half of the latter was taken by the woman who had abducted her.

Mary assumed that she was the only experienced, if not to say, older, whore Mr Frost was visiting. But she couldn’t be sure. For a woman, she was not old, not by any measure. A man who didn’t know what she did for a living might well have asked permission to court her. She was sixteen now, a good, ripe age for being courted and married off. In a few years, she would be considered too old to find a good suitor.

Whatever others considered her to be, Mary thought of herself as an experienced businesswoman. Nothing more, nothing less. She’d been introduced to the trade at the tender age of nine. That was indeed a little illegal, although not by much. Seven years a whore. A long time to survive in this business.

Mary, though, did not merely survive. She’d made herself desired and efficient. Her success was owed in large part to her wits — a truly unusual condition, for the main requirement in this profession was the ability to bounce a lot and moan a lot, not to think a lot.

Now, there was nothing special about cheerful up-and-down movements. Most women managed those. After all, only very few men fancied doing it with a corpse, let alone would admit to it.

It wasn’t only what Mary did with her attractive orifices that allowed her to ask for a high fee. It was what she said, how she timed her sighs, the parting of her lips, the trembling of her thighs, and the words she whispered in feigned ecstasy. Men believed her. Absolutely.

She knew how to convince them how very big they were, or — if that would have been quite obviously wrong — how very right that nub of a prick was to stroke the most sensitive spot of her privates in just the right fashion. With a flick of her tongue and a flutter of her eyelids, she convinced them that she was their willing slave, not because of the money they paid, but because they were absolutely wonderful and the best thing that had ever happened to her. Oh, will you ravage me, please? her body asked them in the sweetest tones. And oh, they did. They did.

After losing her virginity during a painful transaction with a middle-aged man, it took her a few months to realise that no one was ever going to help her.

And then she’d calculated the amount of money she would need to set herself free.

It might appear laughable to dream about freedom when women, in general, were seen as property. Mary knew this. Hence the high fee. Rich women were free, all others had to prostitute themselves, one way or another. That’s how Mary saw the world: whores were paid, wives were kept. She had no wish at all to be a child-bearing, house-keeping version of herself.

What she wanted was freedom. Freedom as wild and independent as it was outrageous.

To Mary, being outrageous was an ideal.

* * *

A knock woke her. She groaned. Pale yellow light seeped through the window. It made her think of John, the lamplighter. The bawdy jokes he told her when he climbed up the ladder to light the lantern a mere three yards from her window.

‘You have a client,’ a deep male voice sounded from the other side of the door.

‘I’m not taking anyone else tonight.’

‘He asked for you and won’t be sent away. Make an exception, won’t you?’

‘One of those, eh?’ she called.

‘One of those.’

She pushed herself up. ‘Give me a few moments, Bobbie. And send Rose up with tea.’

‘Good girl. He’s in the parlour. The madam is filling him with wine.’

* * *

When Alexander was finally allowed to ascend the stairs, he stuffed his hands into his pockets so as not to wring them. He also didn’t want to touch the banister. His palms felt like slugs, wet and slimy, and he pressed them against the inside of his pockets in an attempt to keep them comparatively dry until he had shaken her hand. Was he even supposed to shake her hand?

He had to let go of his right pocket for a moment to rap his knuckles against the door. When he heard soft footfalls he almost tumbled back down the stairwell. His heart was hammering so hard, he could barely think. The ache in his left elbow distracted him, but it was forgotten when the door opened.

She was slender and long-limbed. Alexander wondered if he could encompass her waist with both his hands. The thought was lost when he noticed her proud, graceful stance, her long lashes, the dark brown irises that seemed to swallow all light and, with it, himself. He felt his face flush. He felt too fat, too old, too…widowed.

Before he could shrink back into the dark stairwell, the dark corridor, the entrance hall, the streets and anonymity, she held out her hand. In a gentlemanly reflex so deeply ingrained in Alexander’s nature, he softly took the offered hand into his own and blew a kiss onto her knuckles. ‘My lady,’ he whispered. ‘I am… I…’

‘Did the madam tell you about my fee?’ she asked politely.

‘Oh yes, here.’ His fist shot out clumsily, his fingers unfurled, revealing a small, sweaty gold coin glued to his palm.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she enquired gently.

Tea? Confused, Alexander stumbled through the doorframe. ‘Oh, yes. Please. If you’d be so kind. I’m most…’

Her smile tied his tongue. She led him to a coffee table and offered him the larger of the two armchairs. He sat, placed the guinea on the polished surface, folded his hands in his lap, and stared at his fingernails. They do need a trim, he thought and gnawed on his cheek.

Silently he watched her fill his cup, nodded when she asked, ‘Milk and sugar?’ and found himself unable to tear his eyes off her beautiful, long fingers, her unblemished skin, how she held the spoon, how she stirred his tea.

‘Am I so unbecoming?’ she whispered.

Alexander’s head snapped up. ‘Oh, no… I… Why would you think that? Um…my apologies.’ He pulled a hanky from his waistcoat pocket and dabbed at his brow. ‘It’s that I never before visited a lady of your…profession. I don’t know the customs. And I…I know I’m old and fat and you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met.’

The last sentence involuntarily burst from his lips together with a fleck of spittle, which landed unceremoniously on Alexander’s side of the table. He bent forward, wiped it off, and took a deep breath.

‘Isn’t kindness, and not a pretty face, the most beautiful to behold?’ She gifted him a smile of such sweetness that Alexander believed his heart might stop.

‘May I ask why you came to me, sir?’

He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off as her hand settled on his knee. ‘Let me rephrase,’ she said. ‘Tell me what I can do for you.’

He swallowed, but his throat was too dry. He took a sip of his tea, and said, ‘I am a widower of six years. I know it sounds…out of sorts, but I still miss my wife so much. My heart hurts. I used to hold her when we fell asleep together. But now…my arms are empty. My house is empty.’ He looked at his hands as if, only moments ago, his wife had vanished from his embrace.

‘May I know your name?’ Mary asked.

‘Alexander Easy.’

She rose. Her dress seemed to whisper secrets to him. She took a step forward, knelt and wrapped her hands around his. ‘Alexander, my dear, shall we go to bed?’

He shut his eyes and sighed, ‘Thank you.’

She unpinned her hair and turned her back to him so he might help her undress. He asked her to keep her chemise on. For now.