by Alex Reeve
I was left gasping, my heart dancing in my chest, but she curled up and immediately went back to sleep. Aiden lay down next to her and closed his eyes too, apparently content to resume his dreams as if nothing of note had occurred.
I, on the other hand, lay awake for two further hours at least, gazing up at the blackness, startling every time one of them moved.
I wasn’t sure how pleased Alfie would be that I had chosen to accommodate the children overnight, so in the morning I told them to wait in my room.
My clothes were still damp. I had another pair of trousers, fortunately, but only one jacket, so I took it downstairs and arranged it in front of the stove. Constance was pottering about boiling porridge, and the homely aroma of drying wool and mulling oats almost made me forget the events of the previous day.
‘A letter came for you,’ she said, and handed me a crisp white envelope with LEO STANHOPE and my address written on the front.
I knew Jane’s handwriting as well as my own. Indeed, it was she who had taught me to write, even before I went to school, sitting patiently at our kitchen table while I inscribed each shape on the paper. She delighted in my progression from single letters to whole words and then sentences, and had kissed my cheek and clapped her hands when I completed the entirety of the Lord’s Prayer without a single mistake. And yet, I had never before seen my proper name written in her hand.
The last time I had met her, more than a year before, she’d told me she missed her sister, Lottie, every day, but never wanted to see me at her door again. I was certain the only reason she was writing now was to tell me about our father. He must either have died or be close to it.
‘Thank you, Constance,’ I said, and tossed the letter unopened on to the fire.
I either had a family or I didn’t. There could be no halfway point.
An hour later, I set out with the orphans, leading the way south towards the Metropolitan Police Station. People were wrapped up in their coats and scarves, hurrying to get to work, exactly as I would normally be doing. On Archer Street, where the houses had front yards, a barefoot lad of about Aiden’s age emerged from under a tarp sheet tied between a metal fence and the window frames. The two boys eyed each other as we passed.
We had reached the edge of Trafalgar Square when Aiden stopped. Ciara stopped too, half hiding behind her brother. A man pushing a handcart full of plucked chickens swore as he manoeuvred around us.
Aiden turned his dark eyes on me. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘I’m taking you to the police.’
‘Why?’
‘They’ll want to know what happened. And they’ll decide what to do with you.’
He took Ciara’s hand. ‘Thank you for the food, Mr Stanhope.’
I stepped towards him, realising too late what he was about to do.
He spun and darted away, pulling his sister after him. One moment they were there, and the next they were gone.
6
I took a couple of seconds to respond, too shocked to move, and perhaps, just briefly, feeling I should let them go. But still, I set off after them. They weren’t my responsibility, but they were my something; something I didn’t yet know the name of.
Aiden sprinted across the street, dragging Ciara behind him, and I galloped in pursuit, overtaking pedestrians on their way to work and costermongers setting up for the day, vaulting over a tray of chestnuts. Aiden didn’t seem to know where he was going, and dashed along Orange Street, which was almost deserted, glancing back over his shoulder. Seeing me, he accelerated, and would have escaped completely, but for Ciara. In his haste, he pulled her too hard and she tripped on a kerb, sprawling on to her hands and knees. He hoisted her to her feet, but she had grazed her palms and was too shocked to move.
I caught up with them, gasping for breath, my lungs burning. I wasn’t used to physical exertion and wanted nothing more of it.
‘Are you hurt, Ciara?’
Her teeth were gritted and her face was pale, but she wasn’t crying. She opened her hands, and they were speckled red and brown with blood and dirt. They looked sore, but not seriously harmed.
I turned to Aiden. ‘Why did you run?’
He glared at me with such ferocity I had to take a step backwards. His fists were clenched, and he was shaking as though he might rush at me.
Just as quickly, it passed. He licked his lips and stood up straight.
‘You were taking us to the police.’
He made it sound as though I had threatened to feed them to wild dogs.
‘You have to trust me,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll make sure you’re treated properly. I promise.’
I felt uncomfortable making such a guarantee, but it was the only way I could persuade them to come with me. I couldn’t pick them up and carry them.
He looked up and down the road, fixing his gaze on two soldiers walking side by side towards the barracks.
‘Mummy said you were an honest man.’
‘I am.’
On impulse, I stuck out my hand for him to shake, which was something I normally avoided, conscious of the shortness of my fingers, and my knuckles like knots in pieces of string. After a pause that seemed like minutes, he took my hand and looked me in the eye, and I had a glimpse of him as the man he might become: stubborn, staunch and perhaps a little severe.
‘What will the police ask us?’
I closed my eyes, wishing I had not delayed telling them about their mother. If they didn’t already know she was dead, I would be giving them that news here, now, on this pavement. I should’ve dealt with it back at the pharmacy, but there hadn’t been enough time.
Was that true? I pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger, angry at myself for not being honest: there had been enough time, but I had been too scared. I didn’t want to see their grief, answer their questions and give them comfort. I didn’t want to feel anything.
Now they would suffer for my cowardice.
‘Do you know about your mother?’ I asked them, as gently as I could.
Ciara pulled away, her body tensing, her eyes fixed on Aiden. He straightened his shoulders, trying to be brave.
‘She’s dead,’ he said.
I wondered what reserves of spirit a person must possess to put it so simply. If he and his mother’s positions were reversed, and she had lost him, she would never recover. I had seen a woman bloody her hands from beating them on the floor of the children’s ward in her woe. How hard it must be to love someone so utterly, knowing they will never love you as much in return.
‘The police will ask you about her,’ I said, speaking slowly. ‘You must tell them the truth.’
He shivered and picked at his fingers. ‘I didn’t see what happened.’
I was relieved. At least he would be spared that ordeal. ‘Then you should tell them so.’
‘Ciara did, though.’
I looked down at her, seeing only her black, curly hair, tied with one of Constance’s ribbons. This child had watched her mother being murdered. No wonder she was behaving so differently. The Ciara I’d first met, the bumptious little girl who had climbed on to the dentist’s chair and fiddled with the mechanism, was buried far away inside her, perhaps for ever.
‘Did she see who it was?’ I asked quietly.
Aiden bit his lip. I was sure he was going to say ‘John Duport’, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all for a while, but then gathered himself and leaned towards me.
‘She’s a silly girl.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘She makes things up. She always has.’
‘What did she see?’
‘Remember, you promised.’
‘I know. Tell me.’
He took a deep breath. ‘She said it was a lion who killed Mummy.’ I stared at him and he shrugged. ‘I told you she makes things up.’
The Metropolitan Police headquarters on Whitehall was an imposing building I knew well, having been required to convey reports on murder victims from time to tim
e in my previous position. Criminals were delivered round the back in Great Scotland Yard, so the main entrance was mostly used by aggrieved citizens and unwilling witnesses, scurrying in and out hoping no one would see them.
We stopped at the base of the steps and I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves. Having given John a false alibi, it was foolish of me to venture anywhere near this place, but what was the alternative? I couldn’t abandon the children to survive on their own, and I couldn’t hide them for ever. Sooner or later, they would end up here.
‘Go inside and tell the desk sergeant who you are,’ I instructed Aiden. ‘Ask for Detective Hooper, all right? Say it after me: Hooper.’
‘Hooper,’ he repeated, humouring me.
I could imagine the conversation they would have, Hooper looking down his nose and recording their answers in his notebook like a venerable secretary taking dictation. It was an unpleasant thought.
‘It would be best if you don’t mention my name,’ I said. ‘Say that you slept in a doorway and now here you are.’
Neither child moved.
‘Go on,’ I insisted, making shooing motions with my hands as if encouraging a recalcitrant donkey.
Still, they wouldn’t go in. I had no choice but to take Ciara’s hand and lead the two of them up to the door. A constable was coming out, and I recognised him from the club on Rose Street.
‘Mr … Stanhope, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Have you come to see Detective Inspector Hooper?’
He appeared too old to still be a constable, in his late thirties at least, and broad around the belly.
‘No …’ I fumbled in my brain for what to say. ‘These are the children of the deceased. They’ve been found.’
‘Excellent!’ He ruffled Aiden’s hair, which didn’t appear to please the boy. ‘You’d better come with me, Mr Stanhope.’
‘I don’t have time now. I have to get to work.’
Down in Westminster, Big Ben was tolling for eight o’clock.
He scratched his head underneath his helmet. ‘Your choice. We can come to your address later, if you like?’
He knew that wouldn’t be the option I would prefer.
‘Let’s get it over with then,’ I said, and followed him inside.
We waited for twenty minutes in the hallway outside Hooper’s office. I considered leaving, but that would look suspicious. Best to appear candid for now and escape as soon as I could.
Aiden was restless and fidgety, while Ciara was sitting still, lost in her own thoughts. Her hair was fighting its way out from the ribbon, though I had brushed the tangles out earlier that morning, surprised at how easily the knack returned.
She shouldn’t be here, I thought. She should be on her way to school with a kiss goodbye from her mother.
‘Ciara,’ I said, in my most gentle voice. ‘Aiden told me you saw a …’ I felt idiotic, but the words had to be spoken. ‘He told me you saw a lion in the courtyard at the club. Is that true?’
She nodded.
‘A real, actual lion? A big lion?’
She nodded again, her eyes angled downwards.
Of course, it was absurd; a lion could not possibly have killed Dora Hannigan, least of all with a sword. There were no lions roaming around Soho attacking people. If there were, squads of soldiers would be out hunting them with guns, and ordinary people would be barring their doors and windows. Good grief, it would be the only topic the newspapers would cover for weeks!
And yet, she didn’t seem to be trying to deceive me. I wondered if the lion was a fantasy she had created, a way of coping with a memory she couldn’t face. If so, I would gladly have extracted it from her brain and placed it into my own. Unlike me, she didn’t deserve the agony of witnessing a mother’s death.
‘Did your mummy fight with the lion?’ I asked her.
She shook her head. ‘She talked to it.’
Those were the first words she had spoken to me since her mother was killed.
‘What did she say?’
She pulled a don’t-know face. ‘I couldn’t hear. I was looking out of the window. It was night-time.’
‘Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’
The door opened, and Hooper’s head appeared. He beckoned us inside.
It was quite the nicest office I’d ever been in, with scenic, if bland, pictures, wood-panelled walls and a view, between other buildings, of the river. I took it as an indication of the high esteem in which he was held. The last detective I’d met had an office in the clammy basement with pipes running along the ceiling, clonking and hammering like the bowels of a great beast.
‘Good morning, Mr Stanhope,’ said Hooper. ‘And these must be …?’
‘Aiden and Ciara Hannigan,’ I said. ‘They’re the children of the deceased.’
‘I see.’ He bent down to speak to them at eye level. ‘We’ve been worried about you two. I’m very glad you’re here.’
He indicated an armchair, and they squashed into it. Ciara picked at the stitching and swung her feet from side to side.
‘Where did you find them, Mr Stanhope?’
‘In the doorway of my lodging.’
I was keeping my voice steady; just a normal person, doing my duty.
‘How very convenient.’ Hooper adjusted his spectacles. ‘You do keep popping up, don’t you?’
‘They had my address. You already know that.’
I had decided it was best to be honest where I could, hoping that Hooper would accept these easy truths like the bright, fresh apples at the top of the crate, never noticing the shrivelled, wormy fruit beneath.
He gazed down at Aiden with what seemed like genuine sympathy. ‘You’ve been staying at the …’ he grimaced at having to say the name ‘… the Social and Democratic Club on Rose Street. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s very busy there, I’m sure.’ He was trying to put the boy at ease. I could have told him it wouldn’t work. ‘Lots of people coming and going. And all those foreigners too, speaking languages you don’t understand. Must’ve been awful. Do you know why your mother chose to live in a place like that?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know what she thought about things? Did she ever talk to you about wanting a revolution, for example?’
‘No.’ The boy’s expression hadn’t changed. As with me, he was answering with the fewest possible words, pausing before each one like a novice chess player leaving his hand on a piece to check for any potential threat before letting go.
Hooper switched his attention to Ciara. ‘Did your mother ever get cross? Not with you, I mean, with people in industry or government. Respectable, decent people. Was she ever angry about them?’
Ciara didn’t understand, and scrunched up her nose as if there was a bad smell.
‘She’s hardly spoken since she lost her mother,’ I said. ‘I think she may have a mental derangement of some kind.’
He pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘That’s unfortunate.’ He turned back to Aiden. ‘Did you see what happened, young man?’
Aiden glanced at me and shook his head.
‘What will happen to them now?’ I asked.
‘They’ll go to Mrs Downes on Endell Street. It’s what we call the “halfway house”, where all the strays are sent before they’re put somewhere permanent.’
Aiden clenched his teeth and edged closer to his sister. Until now, I had believed that Ciara was the one most affected, but perhaps he had been equally damaged. Perhaps it was less obvious with him because he had to look after her as well as himself.
‘They’re not strays,’ I said coldly. ‘They’re victims of a tragedy.’
Hooper shrugged as though the distinction was unimportant. ‘It’s not for long,’ he said. ‘A family member will come for them soon, most likely.’
‘And if not?’
‘They’ll be sent to an orphanage, where they’ll sleep in the warm and get two square meals a day. They’re the lucky ones, if you want my opinion.’
Lucky seemed a contemptuous word to use, under the circumstances. Their mother was gone, and their fate would be decided by people for whom they were nothing more than names on a list, to be allocated by rote.
Something inside me twisted and bent into a new shape.
‘Do you have children of your own?’ I asked him.
He had returned behind his desk and was arranging his pencils in rows. ‘Jack, Robert, Emma and little Jimmy. He’s almost a year old now, and he has a temper, I can tell you. Takes after his mother.’
‘And if you and your wife died, is that the future you’d want for them?’
He stretched back in his chair. ‘My brother would take ’em, and I’d take his brats correspondingly, if the situation warranted it. We’re a family, and that’s what has to be done. I hope these two will be as fortunate. I’m not without pity for their plight, Mr Stanhope, but I can’t give back to them what’s been lost.’
‘No, but you can find out what happened.’
I had spoken too sharply. Hooper narrowed his eyes at me, working his mouth as if one of his teeth had become loose in its mount.
‘Do you know anything about a plot, Mr Stanhope?’
‘What plot?’
I didn’t want to tell him that J. T. Whitford had already mentioned it to me.
‘Ah, well, that’s the question, isn’t it?’
He raised his eyebrows and stayed silent, presumably hoping I would fill the void with incriminating information, but he didn’t know me. I was an expert at duplicity; one part of me constantly watching the other, checking every gesture and tone of voice for mistakes.
‘Do you know a man called Thackery?’ he asked, eventually.
I felt as though my heart might fall out of my chest. Was my lie discovered after all? I had no choice but to brazen it out.
‘No.’
‘Sir Reginald Thackery. He’s an influential chap, which is why they’re all hot and bothered upstairs.’ He pointed at the ceiling, indicating, I assumed, his superiors. ‘This whole thing’s getting a lot of attention I’d rather be without, quite frankly. He owns a mill by the docks, making cloth. A big place it is too, I gather. A thousand men working across three shifts. We found plans at that club to commit arson upon that very mill. Burn the whole thing to the ground. Never mind that Sir Reginald spent his own money to buy it and invested further in machinery and so forth.’
