The Slum Reaper_Murder and corruption in Victorian London

by David Field

  Listening to the additional saga of the missing twins, Jack nodded with resignation.

  ‘Now I see the need to check on all the unidentified bodies and unsolved murders, not to mention all those places where some charitably inclined kidnapper might have left the boys so that they would be found.’

  ‘They may be ruthless killers, remember?’

  ‘In which case I’ll be wasting my time.’

  ‘We still need to explore every possibility, although in my gut I get the feeling that it’ll lead us back to those murders in Bethnal Green. The coincidences are piling up like dirty dishes in the sink.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ Jack said, ‘Esther’s pushing for news about Emily and I suspect that she in turn’s being pushed by Alice. How much of all this do you want me to reveal — about the two little boys, I mean?’

  ‘Nothing yet, to Alice anyway, since it’ll only upset her even more. But I haven’t finished with you yet — have you still got that annual report thing from Gregory Properties?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Find out when Victor Bradley became a director, then check back with the LCC on when the contract for what I believe they’re now calling “The Boundary Estate” was awarded. Finally, use your initiative to discover whether Victor Bradley has a country property somewhere in Norfolk and if he’s been ill lately.’

  ‘And after tea?’ Jack joked.

  ‘After this tea,’ Percy replied as he stood up to leave. ‘I’d better show my face back in Bethnal Green and at least pretend that I’m on top of things.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘I don’t know which news is worse,’ Esther said as she dabbed her eyes with her kerchief, ‘the fact that Alice’s niece was murdered, or the fact that two lovely little angels have been kidnapped and possibly done away with. They’d be little younger than Bertie. Just imagine how we’d feel if it was him!’

  Jack placed a consoling hand on hers as they sat at the dining table having a cup of tea.

  ‘We have to tell Alice at some stage and Uncle Percy has a question he wants me to ask her,’ he said.

  Esther shuddered slightly.

  ‘I don’t think I want to be here when you have to tell her.’

  ‘Frankly, neither do I,’ Jack admitted, ‘but someone has to and she’s more your friend than mine.’

  ‘Let’s do it straight away, shall we? I couldn’t bear sitting here knowing that we’ve got that awful business still to do.’

  ‘OK, but don’t mention the twins. The news is bad enough as it is.’

  They finally agreed that Esther would invite Alice down for a cup of tea and that Jack would break the news. His heart in his mouth, he put on the bravest smile he could when Esther ushered Alice into the kitchen and he asked her to sit down.

  ‘You’ve got news of Emily, haven’t you?’ she said in a voice that was trembling slightly.

  ‘Can you tell me, first of all,’ Jack requested, ‘if Emily walked with a limp?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Alice confirmed. ‘She’s certainly had it for as long as I’ve known her, although I didn’t see much of her as a child. But you said “walked”, in the past tense. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Jack confirmed as Alice’s normally cheery face began to crumple in impending tears. ‘I’m not allowed to give you any more details, I’m afraid, except that she finished up in Bethnal Green. That’s where her body was found, earlier today.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ Alice observed through watering eyes, ‘because she always used to tell me that she never wanted to see even Shoreditch again and that’s a class above Bethnal Green. I’m sure she can’t have been living there when she — she — oh God, she was murdered, wasn’t she?’

  Jack nodded his head and Alice rose from the table, knocking a teacup over in the process. She rushed out of the kitchen to the front door, sobbing loudly. Esther made an attempt to follow her, but gave up and instead locked the front door and came back to join Jack at the table.

  ‘We had to tell her, of course, and I’m glad we got it over with, but she’ll probably cry for hours. I’ll go upstairs and look in on her after tea. It must be awful for her, losing someone close to her like that. Imagine how that poor mother must feel about her missing twins. I’d go off my head if it were Bertie, I know I would! What can we do to help?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I mean me as well. Presumably Uncle Percy’s doing everything he can already.’

  ‘Yes, and he’s got me making a thousand and one enquiries.’

  ‘Tell Uncle Percy that if there’s anything I can do, he only has to ask.’

  Jack smiled and gripped her hand.

  ‘Knowing Uncle Percy, you might regret making that offer, so I won’t pass it on just yet.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The station sergeant called out to Percy as he came back into Bethnal Green Police Station after another fruitless dinner hour in ‘The Feathers’, hoping to learn more about any connection between ‘Mangler’ Maguire and the recent spate of brutal deaths. Either nobody knew anything, or — and more likely — they did, but didn’t want to end their days under a pile of builder’s rubble with a face full of sledgehammer.

  ‘A young girl come in ’ere while yer was in the boozer as usual,’ the sergeant advised him with a disapproving sniff. ‘Didn’t want ter be seen too long in ’ere on account of ’er ’ealth, but said yer’d find ’er at this ’ere address sometime after five ternight. Said it’s ter do wi’ somebody called Emily Broome — ain’t that the name o’ the girl what was found dead the other mornin’?’

  ‘That’s her,’ Percy confirmed, ‘although I don’t think her identity’s been properly established yet. But let me see that note.’

  The sergeant handed Percy his scribbled note, but neither the name nor the address rang any bells with him.

  ‘This “Clara Manders” — is she known to police?’

  ‘Not ter me, but she seemed a nice lass — politely spoken, an’ quite well turned out, if a bit dusty. Unlikely that she’s got any form, I’d say.’

  ‘And the address — “Calvert Avenue”? May I assume that it’s somewhere in The Old Nichol that’s still standing?’

  ‘Slap bang in the middle. Even my constables go there in twos.’

  ‘Very well, have four of your best ready at five o’clock this evening, dressed in civvies but well supplied with billy clubs. I need to make a few arrangements before I go and meet Clara Manders.’

  Shortly before five fifteen that evening Percy weaved his way through the throng of street hawkers, wagons, prostitutes, grimy workmen on their way home and children up to no good, and banged on the door of number twenty-three Calvert Avenue. A stout middle aged lady came to the door and looked him up and down suspiciously.

  ‘Yeah?’ she demanded.

  ‘I was advised that I’d find Clara Manders here.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. You the copper she’s expectin’?’

  ‘That’s me. Is she here?’

  ‘Yer’ve ’ad a wasted journey if she ain’t. Come in — an’ wipe yer feet.’

  ‘On my way in, or my way out?’ Percy muttered, as he pushed past the woman and strode into the only room in the cramped hovel. In the corner stood a scared looking girl in her early twenties, with what had once been a fashionable head of hair, no doubt, but was now hanging down over her forehead in need of a good brushing. The clothes she was wearing were of good quality, but now threadbare and she was barefoot.

  ‘Miss Manders? I was told you wanted to speak to me about Emily Broome. Did you know her?’

  The girl nodded, as if afraid to confirm the fact out loud, then her eyes flickered involuntary over Percy’s right shoulder and instinct led him to leap sideways, just as a massive wooden club cut through the air to his side. If he hadn’t jumped, it would have been his head and Percy turned quickly to confront the black-bearded giant who’d been concealed behind the door.

&nbs
p; ‘Ah, Mr Maguire I presume — congratulations on your recent hanging,’ Percy remarked as he took another step backwards. Maguire walked towards him with the weapon raised and as he grinned he revealed the fact that his dentist was not regularly troubled with his custom.

  ‘Yer wasn’t ready fer this, was yer?’

  ‘It just so happens that I was,’ Percy replied calmly as he reached inside his jacket pocket and withdrew a revolver. ‘Between the eyes, or between the legs? It’s all the same to me, but I thought you might have a preference.’

  Maguire lunged forward before Percy could line the shot up and as the bullet shot harmlessly into the wall Maguire pushed Percy to the floor, then made a full body leap through the unglazed window, tangling himself in the makeshift blind as he fell out through the hole into the rear yard and scampered over a low wall into the distant laneway.

  As Percy picked himself up from the floor the girl made a run for it, straight into the arms of two plain-clothes constables who had been alerted by the shot and had made short work of breaking down the inadequate front door to the mean dwelling.

  ‘Take her in and book her for the attempted murder of a police officer,’ Percy instructed them as he dusted himself down. ‘And for good measure,’ he added, ‘invite your colleagues to do the same for the fat cow who let me in here, knowing what was waiting for me. I’ll join you at the station in a short while.’

  A quick snorter of whiskey in a nearby pub to calm his rattled nerves, then Percy made his way to the place where they’d taken their prizes for the evening. He grinned at the desk sergeant as he saw the fat woman being manhandled towards a cage to the side, which was the station’s temporary holding cell.

  ‘Where’s the girl?’ he asked.

  The sergeant grinned.

  ‘Already taken downstairs. Didn’t give us no trouble — not like ’er.’ He indicated with a jerk of the head towards the lady who was glaring at them both from inside the holding cage. ‘She kneed Preece in the unmentionables, so I give ’er a slap round the ‘ead, just so’s yer know if she makes a formal complaint.’

  ‘I suppose she’s the girl’s mother?’

  ‘I ain’t that posh cow’s mother.’

  Percy looked enquiringly at the desk sergeant, who supplied the answer.

  ‘Martha Crabbe.’

  ‘Well, Martha Crabbe,’ Percy advised her with a grin, ‘don’t make any immediate plans that involve your freedom. And by the look of you, they’ll only need a very short drop for you at Newgate when you go down on a capital charge. Then again, they tell me that the food in there is safe from the rats, because even they won’t eat it, so you’ll maybe lose quite a lot of that body weight. No extra charge. I’m going home to a nice steak and kidney supper, while you’ll be lucky to get bread and lard.’ He turned to the desk sergeant. ‘Make sure that she doesn’t get access to anything sharper than her tongue.’

  He was back at the front door before Martha Crabbe gave him one more parting challenge.

  ‘Yer won’t be ’angin’ either me or the girl if yer wants ter know what ’appened ter them babies!’

  ‘Later,’ Percy replied with a triumphant grin. ‘Right now I have an appointment with my supper.’

  While Percy had been making the acquaintance of Michael Maguire, Jack had been experiencing mixed fortunes. The morning after he’d been obliged to give Alice and Esther the bad news about Emily Broome he’d decided to purchase a newspaper to distract him from the noise and discomfort of his daily bus journey down to Whitehall, jostling and jerking through thoroughfares crowded with other horse drawn vehicles, pressed like a piece of canned meat against fellow travellers with inadequate access to a bath and with the all-pervading smell of horse dung to which the chaotic streets of the nation’s capital were subject on a twenty-four basis.

  Perusing the main news items on the front page, his eyes alighted on a banner headline that proudly announced the intention of the London County Council to introduce electric trams to replace the type of converted cattle wagon that Jack was currently rolling around in. Hoping that the first service might connect his home in Clerkenwell with the more salubrious and tourist filled areas such as Whitehall, he read further and learned that the announcement had been made to the gentlemen of the press the previous evening by none other than the Assistant Head of the Council with responsibility for urban planning, Victor Bradley. That was the completion of the first task set him by Uncle Percy, who he could now advise that the said Victor Bradley was not ‘indisposed’, but was at work and sufficiently well to be speaking to the newspapers.

  However, when he asked the clerk at the ‘sweetie counter’ to search for any crime reports during the past few months involving the discovery of infant corpses, he was met with a sullen stare and a disbelieving demand to repeat that request. When he did so, the clerk reminded him of what he knew already.

  ‘That’s gonna take forever.’

  ‘I know and I’m sorry,’ Jack replied in a small voice, ‘but it’s either that or I go through them myself and I have other tasks allocated to me.’

  ‘I’m glad that ’adn’t slipped yer mind,’ came a sarcastic response from behind a line of filing boxes, as the face of Sergeant Ballantyne hove into view.

  ‘Yer still be’ind wi’ all them Crime Summaries I gave yer, so what’s yer interest in dead babies?’

  ‘I’m searching the records at the request of Detective Sergeant Enright, who’s investigating a series of deaths in Bethnal Green.’

  ‘An’ would that be the same Detective Sergeant Enright what’s yer uncle, by any chance?’ Ballantyne demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack admitted weakly.

  ‘So ’ave you an’ ’im taken it upon yerselves ter open a rival police service, run as a family business?’

  ‘Of course not, Sergeant. It’s just that he happens to think that two infants may have been murdered, perhaps in Hampstead, and that their deaths are linked in some way to the deaths in Bethnal Green. And since I’m currently working in Records…’

  ‘Not fer much longer yer not, if yer don’t buck up yer ideas,’ Ballantyne warned him with a sneer. ‘Yer does the work what’s been allocated to yer first, understand? Else yer’ll be ’obblin’ the streets lookin’ fer other work. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  ‘Right then, bugger off back ter yer desk. Yer was late comin’ in and now yer at least an hour be’ind. Mebbe yer could work through yer dinner hour ter make up fer it.’

  Jack threw himself angrily behind his desk and Tim Kilmore looked sympathetically across at him from inside his metal cage.

  ‘Bad start to the day?’ he asked.

  Jack smiled back at him, reminded that he had nothing worth complaining about compared with Tim.

  ‘Sort of,’ he replied. ‘The Sergeant thinks I’m slacking and my uncle seems to regard me as his own personal records clerk.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky,’ Tim replied. ‘My uncle thinks I should be in the army. I tried to tell him that it’s war out there on the streets and he just sniffed. Then when I got this metal cage he asked if I was thinking of growing tomatoes in my spare time.’

  Jack chuckled and reached for the first Crime Summary on his mounting pile. An hour later a reference to a spate of recent thefts from gardens in outlying Highgate jogged something else in his memory of recent miracles demanded by Uncle Percy and he looked across at Tim.

  ‘Any idea how to find out if a named individual has a country estate in Norfolk?’

  Tim frowned.

  ‘It’s all a bit patchy, so far as I’ve been able to make out on the occasions when I’ve had to do it. I’ve no idea how they do things in Norfolk, but in Middlesex they’ve actually got a registration system, which — unhelpfully — doesn’t cover any area inside the Met. Your best bet is probably to send a wire to the nearest police station to where the estate is.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Jack grimaced, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Better try
one of the regional stations, then,’ Tim advised him. ‘Isn’t Norwich in Norfolk?’

  ‘No idea, but it’s a start,’ Jack conceded as he rose and limped back down to the Records counter, where his arrival coincided with the hasty departure of the desk clerk behind a stack of boxes.

  ‘I know you’re in there,’ Jack called out with a smile, ‘so you may as well come out now. You can’t stay there all day.’

  The clerk came back into view with a shamefaced grin.

  ‘I thought that this time you might want a list of the Queen’s dinners for the past six months.’

  ‘Nothing that bad. I need to send a wire to Norwich. I’ve written the message down for you, if you’d be so good.’

  Sergeant Ballantyne appeared as if from nowhere, took the note from the clerk and read it.

  ‘And why would the location of a country estate owned by a bloke called Bradley be of interest ter you? Thinkin’ of applyin’ fer a job as a gamekeeper, was yer? Or is this another private job fer yer uncle?’

  ‘I could explain if you insist, Sergeant,’ Jack replied cheekily, ‘but that would keep me from my desk for even longer. Here’s what I’ve got through already this morning.’

  He removed the bundle from under his arm and placed them on the counter. Ballantyne counted them quickly, then glowered back at Jack.

  ‘Only another fifty-seven ter go, then. Don’t even think about knockin’ off fer dinner till I sees ’em back ’ere.’

  With a deep sigh, Jack returned to his desk and made a big display of opening the pack of sandwiches Esther had sent him out with for the day and biting angrily into the first of the cheese ones as he resumed the attack on the Crime Summaries pile.

  By mid-afternoon he had another fifty completed and with considerable pride he took them back to the Records desk, where they were signed off by the desk clerk.

  ‘No luck with the dead infants yet,’ the clerk advised him. ‘I could do yer a dead baby in Regent’s Park Lake, but we already got the mother responsible an’ she’s due fer trial next month.’