Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Other Books
Bullet Hole
Burglary
Birth
Whores
The Girl
Disappearance
Herbs
Garret
Anna
Sally
Ointments
Scotty
Scarred
Wrong Turn
Obstructions
Gone
Man in the Mirror
Newgate
Disease
Frankenstein
Baylis
Alf
Nate
Butcher
The Longest Knife
The Lion
Fat Annie
Rose
Dance
Sun
Helena
From Hell
Preview
Acknowledgements
The Lion’s Courtship
Annelie Wendeberg
Copyright 2014 by Annelie Wendeberg
Amazon Edition
For best image quality, turn off the sepia setting on your Kindle.
This is a work of fiction. Several characters, places, and names in this book are real, but long gone and have been used mostly fictitiously. The rest are products of the author’s imagination. 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 remission of the copyright owner.
Cover: Copyright 2014 by Annelie Wendeberg. The knife is a courtesy of the Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images (hunting trousse, public domain).
The title page image is from London City Suburbs as they are to-day. Illustrated by W. Luker from original drawings. Author: Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald. Published by Leadenhall Press, London, 1893. Credit: British Library, London. This image is in the public domain.
The image of the slumbering lion is from Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa, by Selous, Frederick Courteney. Publisher: R. Ward & Co., London. Credit: British Library, London, 1893. This image is in the public domain.
The scene break image is from Pacific Bank Handbook of California. Credit: British Library, London, 1888. This image is in the public domain.
Other books by this author:
The Devil’s Grin (Anna Kronberg Thriller #1)
The Fall (Anna Kronberg Thriller #2)
The Journey (Anna Kronberg Thriller #3)
Moriarty (Illustrated Anna Kronberg Trilogy)
Find out more at:
www.anneliewendeberg.com
Bullet Hole
The soul is always beautiful.
Walt Whitman
April 1885
The thief’s fingers slip over his lockpicks. Blood congeals at once, warm mud on gritty cast iron. The alley is as dark as a dog’s innards, for gas has been short these weeks.
His fingertips probe the keyhole once more, then he chooses a lockpick of a different shape. He feels himself weaken by the moment. Knees now trembling, his tongue so parched that his throat doesn’t permit a swallow. Blood loss is buzzing in his ears and the makeshift bandage cuts into his thigh, but fails to staunch the flow.
His last hope is on the other side of this goddamned door.
He presses his brow against the cracked wood. A cuss rolls up his throat. He calms his trembling hands and lets his tools sink back into the lock. Two clicks. His heart leaps.
Her ears pick up a noise. Shock propels her out of bed before her legs are fully awake. Someone is climbing the stairs. Someone large; someone who doesn’t sound like the drunkard of a landlord. And yet — could it be an overdose of gin that makes his stomps so weak and unsteady?
She wraps a robe around her nightgown and snatches a knife from the kitchen, her knuckles rock-hard from the tightness of her grip. She lights a candle and — with her heart pounding against her ribs — she presses a bare heel up against the door. As though she could block an intruder.
A fist hits wood. Twice.
‘Who’s there?’
‘’Ave been shot,’ a stranger grunts.
She moves her foot a little and cracks the door open, peeking out with one eye. Dim light pours through the narrow gap. At first, her gaze falls on his chest where the head of a person her size would have been, then travels farther up. Fear creeps in with each additional inch. There is blood on his forehead and temples — streaks from wiping away sweat. A shock of orange hair, eyes pale blue, his face ashen.
For reassurance, she grabs her knife tighter and presses its handle against her spine. The blade is long enough to be driven through a grown man’s chest, into his heart and lungs. Even a man that massive.
‘Pal o’ mine told me yer a nurse.’ His voice is a harsh groan. He blinks and sways, about to fall through the door.
Reflex-like, she steps aside and admits him. Heavy blood loss, shock. Her mind repeats her diagnosis while calculating the risk of getting hurt tonight.
She points him to a chair, reconsiders, then pulls it up to him. The door frame creaks as he holds onto it. He topples into the room and sits down with a huff. She slips the knife through the belt of her robe, reminding herself to keep her front facing the man at all times.
Blood leaks onto the floorboards. His right boot left dark prints. Thick droplets trail from door to chair.
‘Lean back,’ she commands, reaching toward him. Shame wipes away his paleness when she helps him get his trousers off. She tugs at them, huffs and shouts, ‘Lift your hindquarters, man!’ and yanks them down. They get stuck on his heels. A final tug and the bloody things fly out of sight, together with his boots. Sharp scissors slice off the drenched leg of his drawers, the cold metal barely touching his skin. She fetches a tourniquet from her doctor’s bag and strangles his thigh.
His trembling is about to tip him off the chair.
‘Bloody Christ!’ he groans as she pours a burning liquid over the wound.
‘Clean shot,’ she notes. ‘Went straight through. Major blood vessels seem to be intact.’ The pair of long pliers she holds in her hand are chucked back into the bag. His panicked expression disappears with them.
She takes a roll of bandages and wraps them around his trembling thigh. ‘Can you stand up?’ she asks.
He makes a face like a puppy about to be drowned. His eyes begin to roll, lids flutter. His head tips, then his shoulders.
She slaps his cheek. Once, twice. The sharp pain pulls him upright. She tugs at his arm and barks an order he doesn’t seem to understand, but he regains his senses, enough to stand on one leg, yet not enough to prevent him from slumping on her shoulder. They toddle a few steps. Then her mattress hits him in the face.
‘Holy show!’ he mutters and shuts his eyes.
His face is caressed by a soft pillow. The thief inhales the scent of freshly laundered linen, his breath sighing through his nostrils. As he turns his head, his stubble scrapes along the cotton. A down pillow? He never...
His eyes snap open. A cockroach is perched on a chair in front of him. ‘And who are you?’ he spits.
‘Barry,’ the little dirt bag answers with a grin, showing his four missing front teeth. His hands and face are of a greyish-brown hue from underuse of soap and water. His attire is a mosaic of patches. Only the knife — with a blade the length of his shin — is an uncommon feature for a street urchin.
The thief blinks. His brain feels a little sluggish. When he moves his legs, a jab of pain reminds him of the previous night. A woman had plugged a gunshot wound close to his privates. He had al
most puked on her floor. Or had he? A quick glance tells him the room is clean. Unusually clean. ‘Did you butcher the nurse with that thing?’ He gestures at the knife.
Barry rolls his eyes and squeaks, ‘She asked me to keep an eye on you.’
The boy is only six years old. At least that’s what he believes. He couldn’t tell what day or year it is, but he knows precisely that the thief could snap his neck without effort. To demonstrate the fearsomeness of his weapon and the fearlessness of himself, he taps the knife’s tip against his fingernails and extracts minuscule dirt sausages from underneath each one of them.
‘Why would she say that?’ the thief asks.
‘None of your business.’ The harsh dismissal sounds funny, coming from such a young throat.
The man pushes himself up and all blood drains from his face. Grunting, he makes it to the edge of the bed and plops both feet down on the floor.
Barry points his knife to the far side of the room. ‘She said you can go home if you make it all the way to your trousers without fainting.’ He speaks the last word as though he is a fine lady, or, at least, in an attempt to sound like one. Not that he ever saw a fine lady, or ever heard one speak, let alone has the ability to identify one should she cross his path, which — in itself — is quite impossible.
Squinting, the thief assesses the distance. His trousers are draped over a chair, the backrest peeks through the bullet hole. The blood is gone. She must have cleaned them last night. What an odd woman. His eyes search the floorboards again to make sure he had indeed not puked in this impeccable room. He can’t even find signs of his blood, let alone prints of his dirty boots.
He shrugs, pushes off the bed, and staggers forward. ‘Bloody Christ!’ he huffs and steadies himself on the wall. The room spins a little. He walks carefully, scraping one of his square palms along the cracking plaster.
At last he reaches the chair and can lower his buttocks. The wood gives a pitiful screech. With much effort, he inserts his throbbing leg into the trousers. The thick dressing hampers the progress. Sweat begins to itch on his forehead.
‘You look green,’ quips the boy.
The thief breathes heavily, buttons his fly, and stands up. ‘I will take that chair with me,’ he says.
Barry’s eyebrows go up, all the way until they are hiding underneath his cloth cap. He shakes his head and lifts the knife as a reminder.
‘I need it as a crutch. I’ll return it.’
The boy’s head is still wagging.
The man gets angry. His leg is aching badly and he isn’t sure how long he can remain upright.
The boy points with his knife. Bloody Christ, the thief thinks when he spots a makeshift crutch right next to the nurse’s bed. The usual variety of cuss words seems to fail him today. He touches his head to make sure he hasn’t been shot there, too.
Out on the street, the man’s stomach growls. He is so hungry, he could eat an entire cow, all with tail and horns and feet. A few pies will have to do, though. His tongue asks for a pint of ale, but his mind calculates the budget. Home-brewed tea it must be instead. That disastrous burglary last night has left him with nothing but a shilling, a hole in his thigh, and a rent needing to be paid.
Huffing, he leans against a wall when he remembers his lockpicks. They are still at the nurse’s place. Too exhausted to hunt for food, he pushes towards his quarters — a small room in a run-down house. Yet, not as decrepit as most of the neighbouring buildings.
The familiar creak of his door, the smell of cold tallow candle, his bed in the far corner — all irresistibly inviting to shed his tiredness with a good long sleep. But first, he needs to quench his thirst and, in three large gulps, he drains all the water left in the jug. With a slice of stale bread in his hand, he shuffles to his sleeping corner. The straw crackles as his healthy knee hits the mattress. He pulls in the injured leg, curls up, chews on the crust, and begins to snore not two minutes later.
A shot jerks him awake. Or was it a bang at the door? There, another one. ‘Who is it?’ he grumbles loud enough to be heard through the thin wood.
‘It is I,’ she answers.
He tries to recall her name. Had she not given it, last night? He struggles to get up, glad he’s still dressed, and hobbles to the door.
‘You forgot your lockpicks.’
Her short hair shocks him. Her black curls, tucked behind both ears, can barely hold on to that delicate ledge. Did he not look at her last night, or could he simply not remember?
Her chest is almost bosom-less. With her high cheekbones and her nose and eyebrows as sharp as a bird of prey’s, determination screams at him from every feature. He almost takes a step back. She’s barely half your size, goddammit! he scolds himself.
When she walks past him, his gaze follows her. Her shoulder blades move beneath the soft fabric of her dress and he thinks of folded wings too small for takeoff.
With his tools still in her hand, she points to his leg. ‘Surely Barry told you that I have to change the dressing once a day?’
Dumbstruck, he shakes his head. She slams her bag on his table and lifts an eyebrow.
Unspeaking, he shuts the door and walks to a chair. His leg is happy not to have to support his weight any longer.
‘Take your trousers off.’
He coughs. His cheeks blush orange, almost reaching the shade of his hair as he fumbles on the buttons and awkwardly follows her order.
‘You broke into my house,’ she says while unwrapping the bandages.
‘I’m Garret,’ he mumbles.
She pokes a finger into the reddened flesh around his gunshot wound. He suppresses a wince.
‘What the devil?’ he shouts as she bends down, her nose about to touch his thigh.
‘Smells clean. No infection. Good.’ She straightens up, smiles, and the thief is ready to pass out. She just had her face in my crotch! his mind screams. Almost.
The woman takes a bottle and a kerchief from her bag, spreads brown liquid around the wound and gently dabs at it. Clear fluid seeps out the hole, mingling with the brown. The thief, now pale, tries hard to think of his grandmother; her last days, toothless, hairless, hallucinating, and pooping large round balls like a horse’s. It doesn’t help. He sees the woman’s gaze flicker to the conspicuous bulge in his one-legged drawers when she dresses his wound.
She straightens up and smooths the front of her dress. Her jaws are working. With a voice as frigid as the sleet rapping against Garret’s window, she says, ‘If you don’t wash with soap every day, your wound will get infected and you’ll die. I cannot saw that leg off so close to the hip. Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to change bandages and disinfect the wound. Have a good day.’
The door slams shut.
Garret sits on his chair, trembling and unsure whether he can get his trousers back up without fainting.
The woman steps out of the doorway, wiping dark memories away, and shaking off her paleness. ‘Thank you for waiting, Barry,’ she says and pulls the shawl farther up her neck. The boy nods, gifts her a smile, says, ‘See ya, Anna,’ and then dashes off.
She hurries in the opposite direction, three blocks down a road, crowded by people, their refuse, and hotchpotch.
She stops at a corner, takes a good look around to make sure no one followed her, and then sneaks into an alley to disappear at the back door of the cobbler’s.
Burglary
The conifer pokes at Garret’s neck. He moves the twig aside and changes position, careful to remain invisible. The jemmy, the glass knife, a wood cutter, and a length of rope, all wrapped in strips of cloth, press against his stomach. His lockpicks were made by his own hands and this is where he keeps them while his gaze attaches to a villa thirty yards in front of him. One mightily splendid house if he’d compare it with the one he lives in. But he doesn’t. It would be a waste of time and energy. To him, this villa is not the home of someone. It’s a strongbox he will pry open and gut.
Despite the late hour, light seeps thro
ugh a pair of windows; all others are black holes in the ivy-covered stone walls. The gate had been locked just before dinner and the main entrance a few minutes past eleven o’clock when the servants were about to retire. A well-kept household, it appears, with the staff having finished their chores before midnight.
The two lit windows, Garret learned on his first night under the tree, belong to the bedroom of the lady of the house. Her husband, people say, took a bullet in his hindquarters during the Crimean War. There it remained, a few years, until his body gave in to recurring infections. The lover his wife had taken might or might not have sped up the husband’s disintegration. But disintegrate he did and now rots six feet underground, mucky London soil covering his brow.
The considerably younger replacement visits daily, often arriving at supper time, to climb out of the bedroom window around three o’clock in the morning. This man is an entirely different kind of thief. One no accomplished cracksman like Garret wants to be compared with. That man had taken a mistress rich enough to pay for whatever he fancied until the end of her days. Every time Mr Lover smoothed his clothes — crumpled from his latest climbing adventure — he patted a bulge in his waistcoat pocket and strolled off with a satisfied grin.
Garret knows that whatever is hidden in the folds of finest wool and silk will be turned into money when the opportunity presents itself.
Stomach yowling and wound throbbing, he shifts his weight ever so gently. The church bell calls four in the morning and the widow’s lover still hasn’t exited the house. The bedroom is dimly lit, but no movements can be seen.
He toys with his thoughts and his lockpicks, turning them over, feeling them from one side, then the other. He could do it tomorrow. But his hunger and overdue rent urge him forward.
The Lion's Courtship: An Anna Kronberg Mystery Page 1
