by Alex Reeve
Rosie whistled. ‘How the rich live.’
For a little while she was silent, but I could tell her thoughts were brewing. Eventually, she said ‘yes’, quite firmly, as if ending an argument we had never had.
‘What?’
‘We should go to the police anyway,’ she said.
‘I thought we agreed—’
‘Not about John. They must’ve been searching for the children since they were kidnapped. Constable Pallett will tell us if they’ve discovered anything useful.’
I grunted and pointed at my eyebrow. ‘It was a policeman who did this to me. They’ll do nothing to help us after that article in the Daily Chronicle. My guess is they’re not even looking. Why would they? Two missing children in all of London.’
‘I still think—’
‘No, we should go back to the pharmacy. Aiden is resourceful. If they manage to escape their captor, that’s where they’ll go.’
I imagined them sitting at the table in the back room, guzzling porridge. But another thought kept intruding, no matter how hard I tried to keep it out: their faces scrunched up with fear, somewhere in the dark.
If they were still alive.
When we arrived at the pharmacy, Constance was frying a turbot, suffusing the whole room with a rich, fishy tang. The table was laid for three: Alfie, Constance and Mrs Gower, who was sitting at the end, mashing parsnips with a fork.
‘Mrs Flowers!’ exclaimed Constance. ‘How lovely! Father, Mrs Gower, this is Mrs Flowers who I told you about. She has her own pie shop.’
Pleasantries were duly exchanged, though Rosie appeared unusually subdued. Perhaps she had noticed Alfie’s wink at me, or perhaps she found Mrs Gower’s serrated courtesy annoying.
‘Did you find those two kids?’ Alfie asked, eyeing the stitches on my forehead but choosing not to comment on them.
‘Not yet. I was hoping they might have come here.’
‘No, they haven’t,’ replied Constance. She had her back to me as she cooked, but I could hear the concern in her voice. ‘My God, I do hope they’re all right.’
Mrs Gower looked sternly at her stepdaughter-to-be. ‘What language! And you a girl of eleven.’
‘Twelve,’ Constance corrected her, as if it made any difference.
‘I owe you the week’s rent,’ I said to Alfie. ‘I promise I’ll pay before I leave. I’m sorry, it’s just that—’
He waved me aside. ‘I know you’re good for it. Tell us if there’s anything we can do to find those children, won’t you?’
‘Thank you.’
He pointed at the table. ‘There’s a letter for you, by the way. A boy came with it a few minutes ago.’
I ripped open the envelope.
It was brutally short.
Stop asking after the dead lady an looking for the orfans rite now or therell be trubble there lives are at stake Im watching you
I must have made a sound because Alfie and Constance both stood up, and Rosie’s face went white. I showed her the note, rereading it over her shoulder. The spelling and grammar were rotten, but the lettering was good: big, round and legible.
It reminded me of something.
I felt a sting of blood in my cheeks.
I was sure. Or almost sure. But I couldn’t check, not while Rosie was with me. I had to persuade her to leave. I hated lying to her, but the alternative was far, far worse.
I took back the note.
‘This is perfectly clear, Rosie,’ I said. ‘We need to stop looking for them, like it says.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want something bad to happen.’
She looked confused. ‘After all we’ve done, you’ll let it go, as easy as that? Don’t you think whoever sent this might be lying?’
‘Please, Rosie.’ I was firm. I needed her to accept my argument. ‘It’s too great a risk. Whoever it is has already committed two murders. Imagine if we continued investigating and the children were harmed. We wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves.’
‘I know but …’ She frowned at the piece of paper in my hand. ‘How will the kidnapper even know what we’re doing? We’ll be cautious from now on. Careful. No more …’
No more breaking into stables, she had been going to say, but she glanced at Alfie and stopped herself.
‘What would you do if they were your children?’ I asked her. ‘Please, you have to trust me. Go back to your shop and we’ll talk soon.’
‘They can spare me for another day or two.’
She was keeping her voice composed for the sake of the others, but I could tell she was annoyed.
‘I’ll come to your shop tomorrow or the next day. I promise.’
I ushered her towards the front door and almost pushed her out on to the pavement.
‘Leo—’
I shut the door and rushed upstairs to my room. In my top drawer, I found Ciara’s picture, with Aiden’s handwriting at the bottom: Ciaras mayd up liyon.
I compared it with the note I’d received from the kidnapper. The lettering matched.
They had both been written by Aiden.
25
Aiden had written that note. Aiden, who had consumed bowl after bowl of porridge at the table downstairs, who had juggled screwed-up pieces of paper in this very room, who had run off to fight the sons of the gentry at the zoo, who had thrown his grain at the monkeys because he was too afraid to let them eat from his hand. Aiden.
Again, my thoughts turned to chloral hydrate. I had an excuse, with my injury, to go downstairs and drink a teaspoonful, and allow the black water to close over my head. I could sink down and drift away.
But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Not before I knew why Aiden had written it.
He could have been acting under duress, I thought. I could picture him with a pen and paper, a knife held to his throat, his hands shaking as he wrote the words. If that was what had happened, I truly should stop my investigation.
I had to bite my fingers to keep from howling.
I lay down on my hard floor as the light faded. I didn’t want to use my bed, the one they had slept in. Their smell was lingering in the blankets. I could almost believe that if I lit a match, they would be there again, whole and real, breathing softly. I was so close to reaching for the matchbox, my hand twitched for it, ached for it. But I knew I was being ridiculous.
I forced myself to think.
Why would their captor force Aiden to write the note? Why not write it himself?
Perhaps their captor was unable to write. My mind drifted towards the footman; he didn’t strike me as an especially literate man.
But another possibility pinched at me more ferociously, burrowing into the skin on my arms and legs, into my face, until I stung all over.
Perhaps Aiden wrote the note because he chose to.
Perhaps he was trying to stop me from making enquiries because he didn’t want his mother’s killer found.
I couldn’t bear to consider it, and yet I couldn’t erase the scenario from my mind: confusion in the dark of the courtyard, a sudden sound, a gasp of fright and a turn, a glint of metal and a gush of blood, followed by an awful stillness.
Could Aiden have killed his own mother?
I could guess what came afterwards: the boy realising what he’d done and falling upon her, weeping, and someone hearing and coming, maybe more than one person, and burying her right there in the mud and guiding him away, telling him never, ever to tell a soul. Because he was ten years old and shouldn’t be held responsible.
But if that was the case, who had been in the carriage with the gun?
I no longer wanted to know the truth. I didn’t care about it. All I wanted to do was find the children and keep them safe.
I didn’t sleep. At dawn, I got dressed and was about to leave my room when Alfie called up to tell me Mrs Flowers was here again. As I stumbled down the stairs, I tried to work out what I would say to her.
She was sitting at the table in the back room, her face a pictur
e of determination. She pushed something towards me, which turned out to be a pie wrapped in paper.
‘Mutton,’ she said. ‘No charge, but it’s Wednesday’s, so it’s on your head if you’re ill. Now, tell me what’s happening. Why did you suddenly decide to stop looking for Aiden and Ciara last night?’
I breathed slowly and folded my arms. All I had to do was stick to my story. ‘I’m following the instructions in the note from the kidnapper. I don’t want any harm to come to them.’
She shook her head. ‘No, there’s something else. What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Nothing.’
She looked away, out of the window at the yard and the back fence. ‘I went to see Constable Pallett after I left here last night.’
‘What? Why?’
‘You wouldn’t listen to me, and I thought the police should know about that note. You may think it’s an excuse to stop looking for them, but I think it might be important.’
I walked around in small circles, unable to stay still. ‘What did Pallett say?’
‘Not much. You know how he is. But he did tell me one thing.’
She waited for me to ask.
‘All right, what was it?’
‘He said that Edwin Cowdery was released from jail yesterday morning.’
‘Released? Why? He hasn’t been tried yet, and they know he’s guilty of plotting arson.’
I couldn’t understand it. He was exactly the sort of man the police adored locking up: a socialist, an anarchist and a threat to civil society. Why would they let him out? He had no influence to exert or money to slip into the right pocket.
‘I know.’ She smoothed out her skirts. ‘It’s a mystery. It did get me thinking, though.’ She paused for a few seconds, still angry with me, making me wait. ‘I mean, if Sir Reginald’s not the children’s father, then who is?’
It was a good question, and I had missed it.
‘Not John Thackery,’ I said, thinking aloud through the alternatives. ‘Do you suppose it might be Edwin Cowdery?’
‘That was my conclusion too. He was sweet on her, if I’m any judge, which I am, and Mr Whitford said they had an “understanding”, which is a word for … well, one thing leads to another, and another thing leads to children, as often as not.’
Aiden did seem to share Edwin Cowdery’s temper.
That hideous thought clawed its way back into my mind, but I forced it down.
‘If Mr Cowdery is their father, he might’ve taken them,’ Rosie said slowly. ‘But he might not view it as kidnapping, do you see? He might view it as reclaiming them. And he could’ve killed their poor mother too.’
My mind was snagging on details. A single thrust of a sword didn’t feel like a crime of passion. ‘Is Mr Cowdery able to read and write?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. If he has them, then he must be able to. He wrote that note, didn’t he?’
I nodded, but my conclusion was the opposite. If Edwin was holding them, then he must be illiterate. Otherwise, why hadn’t he written the note himself?
I felt my palms itching. If Aiden had been coerced by Edwin, then he wasn’t guilty of anything, and he and Ciara were in great danger; perhaps in the hands of a murderer.
But how could I be sure?
‘Wait here,’ I told Rosie.
Upstairs, I put on my coat and hat, and studied Ciara’s picture of a lion: the mane like a ball of fluff, the claws long and fierce, the tail a single stroke of the pencil, disappearing off the paper. It was all I had of her, but it was also evidence. I folded it carefully and put it in my pocket.
When I came back down, Rosie was standing by the open door.
‘Finally!’ she announced. ‘You’ve come to your senses.’
‘The question is, where’s Edwin Cowdery?’
‘Constable Pallett said they have a watch on that club, and he’s not there, but …’ She pulled a piece of paper from her bag and held it up: the appeal for money Erica Cowdery had been distributing at the wake. ‘We could always ask his sister, couldn’t we?’
From the outside, the Home for Penitent Females was a pleasant-looking house with steps up to a single blue door. Even from the pavement we could hear a babble of voices and the rhythmic clanking of machinery.
Rosie read the sign. ‘Penitent?’
‘It’s another word for desperate.’
‘Then why don’t they say desperate?’
The door was opened by a young woman in a mob cap wearing a patch over one eye and squinting at us through the other.
‘We’re here to see Miss Cowdery.’
Inside, the sounds of whirring cogs and squeaking pedals were accompanied by lively voices and, to my surprise, laughter. I poked my head round one door and could barely see as far as the opposite wall, such was the thickness of the steam. Young women were sitting on stools in front of a trough of water in which they were laundering sheets, while others hauled them out and hung them on racks, although I couldn’t imagine how anything would ever get dry in the damp atmosphere.
One of the women met my eye and hastily ducked away. She was so thin and hunched I found it hard to believe she was still alive. She disappeared into the haze, the light of her cigarette marking her movements.
‘Mr Stanhope!’ Erica Cowdery came down the stairs like a mallard coming in to land among a flock of pigeons, scattering them in all directions. ‘What a pleasure to see you here. And Mrs Flowers too, of course.’ She took my hand and looked earnestly into my eyes. ‘What happened to you?’
‘An accident. We’ve come to ask you some questions about your brother. Does he know how to write?’
Miss Cowdery didn’t immediately answer, her attention drawn to the laundry room. ‘One minute. Ellen Rattle!’ She pointed accusingly at the skinny woman. ‘If you smoke, you’ll put holes in the sheets, won’t you?’
The woman sulkily dropped her cigarette on the floor and trod on it, pulling a face as soon as Miss Cowdery’s back was turned.
Miss Cowdery brushed her hands down her apron, regaining her composure. ‘They’re good girls, but they’ve had hard lives, mistreated by their masters and mistresses. Mostly masters, needless to say. They work here to earn a few pennies and keep a roof over their heads. Would you like to make a contribution to the cause? Sixpence, perhaps?’
I found a twopence and gave it to her. She shoved it into her apron pocket, making no attempt to hide her disappointment.
‘Can Edwin write?’ I asked again. ‘More than his name, I mean.’
She gave me a long look. ‘My brother and I aren’t idiots, Mr Stanhope. We went to school. We spend half our lives writing letters to raise funds or protest against government. How do you think this place has stayed open as long as it has?’ She cast her eyes around the hallway, at the patterned paper peeling off the walls, and the door to the laundry room, so badly warped it couldn’t possibly be made to close. ‘Though we’ll likely have to move soon, I’m told. Colonel Penton wants his land back. Lord knows, he’s got a lot and these girls have only a little, but he’ll take even that away.’
I didn’t have time for sympathy.
‘Is your brother the father of Dora Hannigan’s children?’
She seemed taken aback by my bluntness, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish before replying. ‘Well, yes, that’s my understanding, though he didn’t want me to know, nor anyone for that matter. I heard them talking once. She was very independent-minded and thought him too impulsive for marriage. He tried not to show it, but I think he still had hopes in that direction. A reconciliation, you might call it. They agreed on so many things, you see. It was her idea to start the strike at the factory, so he told me, because the best time to burn the place down is when it’s empty. No working men to get hurt, and no one around to douse the fire.’
‘And do you know where he is now?’ asked Rosie.
‘I don’t.’ Miss Cowdery’s face clouded, and she straightened her lace cap. ‘He was let out of prison yesterday, as per
haps you’re aware. I wanted him to come here with me, but he wouldn’t. Same as ever.’ She smiled, but it was rigid, the expression of one who has finally run out of patience and doesn’t care who knows it. ‘He prefers what he calls a direct approach, and what I call foolhardy and missing the real point. How does it help anyone to burn down a place where men work and earn a living to feed their families?’
‘Do you know why they let him out of jail?’ asked Rosie.
Miss Cowdery brightened a little. ‘It’s all because of that Mr Duport at the club. Strange as it may sound, it turns out he was rightly named Thackery and was Sir Reginald’s own adopted son! Can you believe it?’
I glanced at Rosie, but she was looking down, utter shock written across her face.
‘Well,’ continued Miss Cowdery, oblivious, ‘our solicitor made the argument that Sir Reginald had likely engineered the whole thing from the start. He said Duport, or Thackery I should say, had been inserted into the club by his father to spy on us and report our goings-on.’
‘That can’t be true,’ I said. ‘Sir Reginald hated his son.’
‘That’s what Detective Inspector Hooper said as well,’ replied Miss Cowdery, enjoying her story. ‘But it opened up the possibility that Duport had encouraged Edwin to plan the arson with the specific intention of entrapping him. An element of doubt was cast on their case. Hooper wasn’t best pleased, I can tell you. He said it shows how far we’ve slipped, giving credence to an anarchist over a man of honour and decency. Those were his exact words.’
She produced a fan from her bag and began swishing it to and fro. The hallway was already sweltering, and the movement of the air made it worse.
‘Forgive me, Miss Cowdery,’ I said gently, ‘but you don’t seem happy that your brother has been freed.’
I looked at Rosie, who was much better at navigating this sort of thing than me. But she didn’t seem to be listening.
‘It’s not that,’ Miss Cowdery replied, a little too hastily. ‘In his own way, Edwin loved Dora. We Cowderys are passionate people. Romantics at heart. When he came out of jail yesterday, he was most upset. He had trusted Mr Duport, you see, and to find out he was a Thackery all along … well, it was the last straw.’
