A Necessary Murder

by M. J. Tjia

  A dark man, his belly pushing out the front of his tunic, steps forward, blocks her view of the room. “How may I help you?”

  “Is your name Ghosh?” she asks, pushing back her veil.

  His brown eyes take in her face, her western attire, find their way back to her face. “Yes, that is me.”

  “I’m searching for my nephew,” she says. “His name is Jakub Chee.”

  “What ship did he come in on?”

  Amah stares at him. She can’t think. What did Miriam say? A word that reminded her of “caramel”, or “carnival”. “Coronation”? “I can’t recall. But it didn’t come in in the last few days. Maybe two, three, weeks ago? He’s been staying at the Strangers’ Home. They said he might have moved here. With a man called Sin Hok.”

  Ghosh’s chin lifts, his lips lengthen into an unhappy line. “Sin Hok?”

  She nods. “Yes.” Lowering her voice, she glances over her shoulder to make sure nobody else listens. “They say this Sin Hok is with a gang. A gang called something to do with the lotus.”

  Ghosh snorts through his wide nostrils. “He dreams!” He considers Amah for a moment more and then shrugs. “Follow me.”

  He leads her through the front room, which smells of sawdust and mould, to a partitioned area at the back. A Chinese man, hair as black as tar, moustache as bristly as a shoe brush, lies flat on his back, tied to the bed with metres and metres of rope. His face glistens and his perspiration has seeped into the mattress, leaving a silhouette of sweat that looks like his shadow. His eyes are closed, but he murmurs something, tosses his head.

  “Here is your fearsome Sin Hok,” says Ghosh.

  “What is wrong with him?” Amah feels her heart peak, her blood chill. Is Jakub somewhere, unconscious like this? Or did he do this to the man?

  “Too much bhang. Too much gin. Who knows.” Ghosh ushers her from Sin Hok’s bedside, leads her back to the front step. “Smashed up Kung’s shop. That’s why it’s shut up. Smashed up Kung too, actually. Lucky Sin Hok hadn’t found the knife by then.”

  “The knife?”

  “Yes. Came out onto the road, swinging it around, eyes red as the devil, shouting that he was going to murder someone. Took quite a few men to subdue him. Delirious, of course. Kung wouldn’t have him back, so we tied him up here. We just have to wait for him to come around.” He looks thoughtful as he pushes the door shut. “Of course, sometimes they never do.”

  Amah steps down onto the pavement, looking right and left. She doesn’t know where to go from here in her search for Jakub. She wanders towards Limehouse Causeway and, as she comes closer, the beggar slides on his bottom down three steps until he can almost touch her skirts as she passes.

  “Lady, look.” He holds out his hand, which is encased in fingerless gloves, the weave unravelling at the edges. “Precious. Luck.”

  She peers at the object that lies in his palm. It’s no bigger than a farthing, made from polished stone the colour of cypress bark. It takes her a few moments to see that the charm is in the shape of a fish.

  The beggar says something in a language she can’t understand, then repeats the word, “Luck.”

  Amah wants to back away from the beggar’s odour and his filthy fingernails that are as packed with dirt as a pipe is with tobacco. She wants to back away from the empty promise the charm offers. But she hesitates. Is she really in the position to refuse an amulet that promises good fortune?

  She takes out a shilling from her bag and offers it to the man, but he shakes his head, holds up two fingers. Amah shrugs, turns to continue on her way, but he catches hold of her sleeve. She yanks her arm back and glares at him. His eyes are tired, bleary as a dead snapper. His brown skin has a sallow tinge. Amah rummages in her purse again, takes out a few more pennies, leaving enough for her bus fare home. She holds the coins out to the man, who almost smiles, nods, drops the charm into her outstretched hand. He settles back onto the steps next to his dog, and Amah tucks the charm into her pocket, thinking of how she will hide it in one of Heloise’s bed pillows. That girl needs all the luck she can get to pass through this life.

  *

  As she trudges along, Amah wonders why the boy is punishing her like this. Has she not been punished enough in this world?

  She knows, though, that on that day long ago in Kuching she was fortunate. She survived. She can’t recall how they straggled back to the boat, this time with many of the Sarawak survivors with them, about ten British citizens in all.

  On the Dukano, the gentlemen took to sleeping in the saloon. She remembers Pidgeon being there, and that ugly Lovejoy, McBride with his loud voice. Amah’s not sure where the servants found to sleep then—maybe on the deck? There were only two British women left, her Mrs Preston and Mrs Pidgeon. The other one who was knocked over the head, she died, after lying in the sun for many hours. From her position behind the stables, Amah saw another kungsi man approach her. The white men bellowed at him from the window, but he just leant over her body, poured a little water in her mouth. He shook his head, like she was a mistake or something.

  Mr Preston died too. He held on for a few days, but there was no doctor on board, and the heat was unbearable. As Amah held Mrs Preston’s hand while she wept, she thought about how it was for the best. It would be just her and Amah now.

  CHAPTER 20

  Nurse Marie has been reading a boring old book to Cyril about the moral improvement of a spoilt little boy. I can see how this might be of benefit to Cyril, but damned if I’m going to sit through it too. I tuck him into bed and tell him of the book I’m reading, full of stories of exciting animals and exotic places, but I’m not very far into Darwin’s work before he complains that it’s boring.

  “Don’t be silly, Cyril,” I say. “It’s very interesting.” As I read that “the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply,” I feel a tweak of remorse. I’m not sure about McBride and Lovejoy, but certainly this statement can’t be true of poor Cyril’s sister.

  Earlier this evening, just after Mrs Lovejoy’s visit to her son, Nurse Marie had brought us up a tray of supper. I was pleasantly surprised, because this time she’d included a plate and cup for me, although now that I think about it, Cook probably arranged it that way.

  As Nurse Marie prepared some soup for Cyril, the boy, the tip of his tongue lodged between his lips with concentration, set my bowl and spoon next to his at the nursery table. He pulled another chair close and patted it. “This is for Meggie. She really likes soup. Much more than I do.”

  Although my heart ached for the little beast, the pain etched onto Nurse Marie’s face was frightening. She covered her eyes with her hand and fled the room.

  “Nursie Marie smells funny, Nursie,” said Cyril. He held a piece of bread up to me. “Butter?”

  I now smile at the little boy as he lies in bed, his cheeks flushed, his eyes drowsy. “Fair enough. Let me tell you another story then.”

  I share with him a tale Amah used to tell me. A story of a golden eel caught by a fisherman—a magic eel that promised the fisherman a lifetime of riches. The fisherman took the eel home and his wife mistakenly cooked it up for their supper. That very night they conceived a child. A girl, who caused all sorts of terrible catastrophes.

  When I was younger, I used to think of this tale often, wondering if my mother looked at me strangely, closely, as she told me that story. I wondered if she ate eel the night she conceived me.

  “Cook, Mrs Lovejoy said to ask you if you had anything spare I could throw over my shoulders to stay warm while I’m tending Cyril.” I’m lying. I don’t know any other way to broach the subject of the wrapper.

  “You mean a shawl or something?” She wipes a strand of hair out of her face with the back of her hand. She unties the apron from her waist. There are weary bags under her eyes.

  “Yes, something I can wrap myself in?”

  Cook takes a seat at the kitchen table, gestures for me to sit too. She pours us each a cup of tea. “All I can think of
is the spare blankets in the linen cupboard. I did have a very nice wrapper. Very handy. Made of a nice, crisp linen it was, just right to slip over my dress when the air has a chill to it in the early morning.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t take yours,” I say, sipping the tea, which has gone a little cool.

  “Couldn’t if you wanted to,” she says. “Missing, it is. Missing since… Well. Maybe old Mrs Warren did just lose it in the laundry, but she’s sure she didn’t—right indignant she was—and I have to say, she has always been reliable. But then, she has her daughter-in-law working with her now. Maybe she mislaid it.”

  “How long has it been gone?”

  Her eyes dart to the doorway to make sure nobody is listening, but I know there’s nobody around. The family retired a good half an hour ago and Nurse Marie has already locked herself into the housekeeper’s room. “Since the night Miss Margaret… You know,” she whispers, shaking her head. She takes a handkerchief tucked into her cuff and blots her mouth. “Horrible it was. Horrible. And poor little Ruth—she found the body.”

  “Oh dear, how terrible for her.”

  Cook nods, eyes wide. A ruddy flush clouds her cheeks. “Nearly swooned, she did. Lucky the nightsoil man was nearby. He caught her, he did, brought her up to the back door.”

  “So…” I pause. I want to bring the conversation back around to the wrapper. “So your wrapper has been missing since that night? I wonder why.”

  Cook leans in closer across the wide table and whispers again, “The police think the murderer wore it to save his own clothes from blood.” She shakes her head at me, eyes wide. “My wrapper. Used in such a devilish manner. I will never get over it.”

  “Don’t tell me the intruder crept into your bedroom in order to collect the wrapper,” I say, a shocked note to my voice. “How frightening.” I peer around, as though I’m searching for a prowler to jump out at us.

  “No, Nurse Louise, I’d left it on that hook over there.” She nods towards a row of five hooks by the kitchen door. An umbrella hangs on one, while an overcoat, faded to the shade of a mushroom, hangs on another.

  “So, really, anyone could have taken it?”

  She nods slowly.

  It’s my turn to whisper. “Do you have any ideas?”

  Cook clamps her handkerchief to her mouth and shakes her head. But her eyes tell me that she does.

  I’ll wait. She’ll tell me in her own time. She might become suspicious if I push her.

  Taking another sip of my tea, which is as good as flavoured milk by now, I say to her, “I haven’t seen Emily again. She hasn’t visited the nursery at all. I was going to ask her to join us for a walk tomorrow. What do you think?”

  “Ah. I don’t know about that one. I know Nurse Marie gave up on her all together.”

  “Always been trouble to the nanny, has she, Cook?”

  The cook frowns for a moment, squinting her eyes as she thinks back. “She’s always been a quiet thing. Well, the whole household was quiet back when the first Mrs Lovejoy was sickly. I will say this for the present Mrs Lovejoy—Nurse Kate as we knew her then—she brought some life back into the house. Ooh, she was so managing and forthright, it fair drove the housekeeper up the wall.” A small smile lifts her lips. “That’s right. Miss Emily adored Nurse Kate back then. You keeping up, Nurse? I’m talking about the present Mrs Lovejoy, when she was just the children’s nursemaid. Miss Emily followed her around everywhere.”

  “And Master Joshua?”

  “Oh, he’s always followed Miss Emily around. Still does.” Her mouth settles into an unhappy line. “I remember once I made a nice teacake for Mrs Lovejoy when she was ill, and Miss Emily came in and told me I shouldn’t spoil her mother, that she was just putting on airs. Got that from Nurse Kate she did. She was too young to even know that sort of language. Another time, when Mrs Lovejoy was being taken away to visit a special sanatorium, Miss Emily wouldn’t even kiss her goodbye. Broke her heart, it did. Miss Emily learnt that behaviour from the nurse, no doubt about it. And there was nothing the poor lady could do, because of course Nurse Kate had Mr Lovejoy on side too, by then.”

  “Are they still close? Emily and the new Mrs Lovejoy?”

  “Well.” She gives me a knowing look. “If you ask me, Miss Emily’s now old enough to realise the games Mrs Lovejoy played with them all. As soon as the first Mrs Lovejoy died, Nurse Kate employed a new nanny for the children and married their father. Mighty cold she is to the older children now, especially after the new two came along.”

  “Margaret and Cyril?”

  The cook nods. “It wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you. The parents fair doting on the younger two, while Miss Emily and Master Joshua went about their own business with hardly a spare shirt between themselves.”

  I think of the paintings on the walls upstairs, lovely homages to the youngest two. How there are no pictures of the older children, except for the group photograph. I feel an unexpected pang of sympathy. No wonder Emily and Joshua are so odd.

  The clock in the sitting room chimes the half-hour.

  I pick up my reticule from the kitchen chair next to me. “I might just visit the lavatory before I return to the nursery.”

  “Well, I’m for bed.” She picks up her apron and rummages in its pocket. “Here’s the key to the back door. When you’ve finished, just drop it in that jug there, on the kitchen stand. I’ll collect it in the morning. Don’t forget to lock the back door, mind. Especially after…” She pulls a face at me, then shuffles off to her room.

  A light fog hangs in the night air, muffling the lamp’s glow, and I waste a few matches lighting my cigarette. I’m hiding again behind the garden shed and the dog has joined me once more. He sits at my feet, panting, hoping for another caramel, no doubt.

  I pinch a stray bit of tobacco from my tongue and mull over what Cook has told me about Emily and her brother. Of how close the girl was to Mrs Lovejoy when she was her nanny. Of how their relationship has changed. I must find an excuse to talk with the girl, before Hatch’s time runs out.

  Once I’ve finished with my smoke, I step out from behind the shed and gaze up at the nursery window. I left the curtains closed this time, but was that a slight quiver of the curtains? A splinter of light?

  Like a breath against the back of my neck, I feel a shift in the air behind me. The shed door creaks open, the sound in tune with my tense muscles as I turn. A black figure, swathed in grey fog, steps from the shed.

  “That’s a dirty habit for a young woman.” His voice grates.

  “Sir, you startled me.” I hold the lamp up to his face and hope the dog will defend me if need be. But then I remember that the dog was of no assistance to either the master or Margaret. I grasp the shape of my pistol in my silk bag. “What are you doing here?”

  He’s hatless and has an unusually large head, and his long nose is so crooked it looks like a knob of ginger above his bushy moustache and beard.

  “I’m Crossley, the gardener,” he says. “Who you be?” He lurches one step towards me and that’s when I see that he’s very drunk. His eyes have that unsteady look about them, his lips are wet and loose.

  “I’m Nurse Louise. The new nursemaid.”

  He leers, throwing his head back, but the movement pulls him off balance and he trips backward a few steps, lands against the brick wall of the shed. The dog pounces for him, in play or to threaten him, I’m not sure.

  “Agh, git away with you, Rufus,” he growls at the dog. Then he looks back at me. “Met the faithful mongrel, have you?”

  “I did. Last night.” I lift my lamp to see him better. “I didn’t realise you lived here?”

  “I don’t,” he said, rubbing his finger beneath his nose. “But sometimes I doss down here, when I’ve had a few too many ales at the inn. You want to join me?” His two front teeth are either missing or rotten black. I can’t tell in the gloom.

  “I’ll be fine sleeping in the house,” I assure him.

  I go to turn away b
ut am caught short by his next words.

  “You wouldn’t catch me sleeping in there with that lot. And don’t you go listening to their gossip about me,” he says. “Women! Always rabbiting away about something, they are.”

  “What gossip?”

  “Those women. That there scrawny cook and her mouse of a scullery maid. They’ll have you believe all sorts of things.”

  “Things like what?”

  He folds his arms and his words slur. “That I had something to do with the child’s murder, and her father’s murder. Found the master, I did.” He shakes his head.

  “After…?”

  “Yer. Head near sliced off, it were.” He nudges the dog with the toe of his boot. “He was there too, wasn’t yer, yer mangy mongrel? Sitting by the master’s body, supping on his blood, he was.”

  My eyes fall to the dog, resting at our feet. Definitely not such a loyal hound, after all. I look back up at the gardener. It’s a bit of a coincidence, him being so close by for each murder. I also remember Hatch saying something about it—something to do with the newspapers, and letters to the editor that accused the gardener and another fellow who found the bodies for the murders. However, Hatch did insist he’d cleared all the servants.

  I think it is time that I return to the house, nevertheless. I’d feel more assured if I had my pistol in hand, but then I’d have to put down the lamp, and at the moment I want to keep an eye on Crossley.

  “Who do you think killed the poor girl and her father, then?”

  He presses a finger to the side of his nose and taps it. “All’s I know is I wouldn’t be so eager to go back into that house, if I was you.”