The Slum Reaper_Murder and corruption in Victorian London

by David Field

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be home,’ she said. ‘Only Esther said she had to go out on some business with your uncle and she wanted me to look after the children. But if you’re going to be home anyway…’

  ‘Even if Jack is home,’ Esther advised her with a grin as she walked down the hallway, ‘the children still need to be left in the care of a responsible adult. He’s only allowed one biscuit, by the way — oh, here comes the man who’s going to take me for a lightening spin around the East End.’

  ‘Thoughtful of you to hire a cab,’ Esther commented as she and Percy headed south down Aldersgate Street. ‘This must be quite important; either that, or you’re trying to butter me up for an unpleasant encounter.’

  ‘It is very important, in a way. We’re on our way to Bethnal Green Police Station, where you’ll be meeting a girl calling herself “Clara”. She’ll be very dirty and malodorous when they bring her up from the cells, but she’s committed no crime you need worry about and I want you to spend that money I gave you on getting her cleaned up and respectable looking. Then I want you to take her home with you — I’ll be waiting there to explain everything.’

  ‘I think you should know that Jack was fired today,’ Esther advised him gloomily, ‘so if you’re thinking that we can employ this girl in some sort of domestic role, then forget it, quite apart from the fact that we don’t have a spare room for a servant.’

  ‘Jack was only fired from Records,’ Percy assured her with a smile, ‘and unless Uncle Percy has lost his influence where it matters in the Yard, that was the best career move he ever made. As for the accommodation, I think you’ll find that will be taken care of as well.’

  ‘You love weaving your little mysteries, don’t you?’ Esther smiled despite herself. ‘Are you going to tell me anything more about this Clara girl?’

  ‘See what you can find out for yourself,’ Percy replied mysteriously. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll keep repeating it until someone listens and acts upon it — you’re a natural detective and as soon as the Yard starts recruiting females, I’m putting your name forward.’

  ‘You’re the world’s greatest flatterer too, when it suits your purpose,’ Esther grinned, ‘but I want it understood that I’m only doing this to help a poor East End girl just like I used to be. I consider myself so lucky to have met Jack and been afforded a decent life outside Spitalfields and if I can help to give the same change of fortune to another girl about the age I was then, I’ll simply be repaying my debt to God. Is that a tear in your eye, Uncle Percy?’

  ‘Nonsense, just some grit. We’re almost there, so take a deep breath.’

  Thirty minutes later Esther had been introduced to Clara, who took one look at Esther’s immaculate make-up and neatly coiled back hair and apologised for the state she was in.

  ‘I don’t always smell this disgustin’,’ she assured Esther, ‘an’ I bin livin’ in these clothes fer two weeks, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nothing to apologise for,’ Esther assured her, ‘and by supper time you won’t recognise yourself. First of all, we’re off to Poplar — ever been there?’

  ‘A couple o’ times, but why today?’

  ‘Well, don’t get all embarrassed, but there’s a public bathhouse there and once you’re all clean again we can see about your hair. Do you have a home to go back to briefly and any clothes in storage somewhere?’

  ‘My old boyfriend’s mother still ’as some o’ me clothes, but she’s in Shoreditch,’ Clara replied.

  ‘Well, we are going to be busy then, aren’t we?’ Esther replied breezily. ‘Let’s step outside and find a coach.’

  Two hours later, there was no recognising Clara as she smiled happily from under her newly sculpted hairdo, smelling faintly of the bath oil that she’d been handed by Esther on her way into the public bathhouse and wearing her favourite blue dress and black lace-up boots over a brand new set of undergarments that Esther had helped her to select in a local ladies’ outfitters shop in Shoreditch. Now they were heading back north towards Clerkenwell and Esther was hoping that Jack hadn’t got too much under Alice’s feet and that the children had not made him any gloomier with their behaviour.

  ‘That house in Shoreditch where you’d stored your clothes,’ Esther prompted her, ‘did you say it belonged to your former boyfriend’s mother?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Clara confirmed.

  ‘Was your former boyfriend there when you went inside?’ Esther probed further, having remained inside the hired coach while Clara had gone in.

  ‘No — ’e were murdered a few weeks since,’ Clara replied gloomily.

  Esther searched inside her handbag for the pencil and paper that she always kept there, wrote something down and slipped the note into her jacket pocket.

  ‘What yer writin’ down?’ Clara asked.

  Esther smiled reassuringly. ‘Nothing for you to worry about; just something to prove to that lovely Sergeant Enright that he was correct in his assessment of me.’

  ‘Where we ’eadin’?’

  ‘Clerkenwell — you’re coming home with me, to meet my lovely husband and children.’

  ‘I know two people in Clerkenwell now.’ Clara smiled and Esther was more confident about what she had written on the note.

  Back home, Jack had been reminded that playing with his son and daughter was a pleasant way of whiling away an afternoon and had seen first-hand why Esther preferred Alice as her babysitter. Percy had been back for several hours and had assured Jack that he would make a full confession to Esther regarding the number of biscuits he’d consumed, as well as reassuring him that his days with the Yard were by no means at an end.

  The children had already been washed and put to bed in their nightclothes when they all heard the sound of the key in the front door and Percy leapt to his feet and scuttled into the hallway, closing the kitchen door on his way out, leaving Jack and Alice still inside it with puzzled expressions. He advanced down the hall to where Esther was almost dragging a nervous looking Clara inside.

  ‘When she saw the house number on the wall, she didn’t want to come in,’ Esther grinned, ‘and I think I know why.’ She extracted the note from her jacket and handed it to Percy. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she gloated.

  Percy raised his eyes in surprise and hugged her around the shoulder.

  ‘You’ll definitely be my first recruit,’ he advised her warmly. ‘So intelligent and so beautiful. I just hope that Jack realises how lucky he is.’

  ‘You might want to remind him occasionally,’ Esther chuckled, then nodded towards the kitchen door. ‘Have you imprisoned them both in there?’

  Percy nodded and turned to speak to Clara.

  ‘Clara, my dear, in a few seconds you can revert to your real name, but both you and someone else are in for a big surprise. Just take my hand and come with me.’

  He led the reluctant girl down the hall and opened the kitchen door. Then with a big self-satisfied smirk he stood to one side and announced, ‘It’s a few months short of Christmas, but here’s an early present for Alice.’

  Alice stood up in shocked silence. Her jaw dropped and she burst into howls of tears as she raced forward and hugged their visitor. Barely coherent, the words came tumbling out in chokes and gasps.

  ‘Emily! Beautiful! God. Prayers. Emily! Love you! Going to pass out, I think.’

  Jack grabbed Alice’s arm and lowered her into a chair.

  ‘Is there one fer me?’ Emily gurgled as the tears ran down her face and Alice grabbed her arm and pulled her down on her knee as they both bawled like babies, their arms wrapped around each other.

  Esther smirked as she looked sideways at Percy. ‘There’s no grit in my kitchen, so think of some other excuse this time.’

  Once Alice and Emily had calmed down and were sat side by side holding hands, Emily looked up at Percy.

  ‘’Ow did yer know?’

  ‘Well, I knew pretty early on that you weren’t Clara Manders, because she was killed by
Maguire and his thugs. I didn’t know that until after I’d had you locked away for your own safety and then I began to ask myself who you really were. You seemed to know all about the kidnapping of the children and the body left in the rubble who everyone supposed had been you. But then I remembered that when you’d been brought up to see me in my office, you were walking with a limp.’

  ‘I told the Sergeant here that you walked with a limp and that’s how the body came to be formally identified as you,’ Alice explained.

  ‘That’s where I was guilty of carelessness,’ Percy admitted. ‘I was so anxious to prevent Alice having to identify a very unpleasant corpse that I settled for a second-hand identification and I relied on the fact that the girl whose body was found in the rubble in Short Street had probably walked with a limp because she’d suffered a broken ankle in the past.’

  ‘That were Clara Manders, o’ course,’ Emily explained. ‘The poor thing tried to climb onto the top of the church roof when she was nine, in order ter be closer ter God, and she slipped ter the ground.’

  ‘And I added to the confusion by only asking Alice if Emily had walked with a limp,’ Jack admitted, ‘without asking her to describe the limp more fully.’

  ‘I were born wi’ a slightly displaced ’ip.’ Emily smiled. ‘It’s troubled me all me life, but I never thought it’d lead to me bein’ taken fer a dead body.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s all sorted now,’ Alice beamed, ‘and you can come and live with me.’

  Emily’s face fell. ‘There’s summat else yer should know about me,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I think I may be pregnant.’

  Contrary to Emily’s expectations, Alice clapped her hands with joy.

  ‘Perfect! I didn’t think that God could bring me any more joy in one day, but to have a little bubby to look after all these years would be a gift from the heavens! Do please say you’ll come and live with me and have the baby under my roof!’

  More tears rolled down Emily’s face as she reached out and hugged Alice to her.

  ‘Dear Aunty Alice — yer such a wonderful person!’

  ‘Nonsense, girl,’ Alice replied, ‘it’s just that I need someone to look after. From being a lonely old widow living alone, I’ve suddenly got a niece and a baby that need me. You’ve no idea how much that means until you’ve experienced loneliness.’

  ‘Before any of this can happen,’ Percy reminded them, ‘I need to be satisfied that Emily’s committed no crimes that I’m obliged to report. I’m almost certain that she hasn’t, but let’s start with the kidnapping of the children. I take it you weren’t involved in the planning of that?’

  ‘Course not,’ Emily replied indignantly. ‘I were walkin’ them in the Park that day an’ a couple o’ blokes come from be’ind some bushes an’ said that they was takin’ the children an’ that I was ter come wiv ‘em. I were terrified, ’specially when they took us all in this wagon ter this big ’ouse somewhere in this posh neighbour’ood an’ that ’orrible Mangler appeared outa nowhere an’ told me ter get lost. That’s when I ran back ter Tommy.’

  ‘But you didn’t report what had happened?’ Percy asked.

  Emily shook her head. ‘I were too frightened, ’specially when Tommy told me that Mangler were the one who’d killed me Dad the previous year. ’E told me that ’e’d told the coppers about that an’ that Mangler were gonna be arrested an’ that then it’d be safe ter tell ’em where the children was bein’ kept. Then Tommy got murdered an’ Mangler showed up an’ told me that I’d be next, unless I give ’im me ’andbag an’ sent a message fer you ter meet me at that ’ouse where Mangler tried ter kill yer an’ I got arrested meself. I’m right sorry about that, by the way.’

  ‘No need to apologise,’ Percy assured her, ‘since you warned me with your eyes. Was that deliberate?’

  ‘I can’t remember, ter be honest wi’ yer, but I’m right glad yer ’ad that gun ’andy.’

  ‘I’d be dead now, if I hadn’t,’ Percy smiled reminiscently, ‘but that explains how your handbag came to be near Clara Manders’s body.’

  ‘Mangler did fer ’er the night before,’ Emily advised him. ‘I knew she were dead an’ that folks would think it were me, so when I got arrested I just pretended I was ’er.’

  ‘The baby you’re expecting is Tommy’s?’ Esther asked.

  Emily nodded tearfully. ‘Yeah, but ’e never knew, ’cos I weren’t sure then. But if it’s a boy I’ll call ’im Tommy.

  It fell silent, then Jack enquired, ‘Is anybody else feeling hungry?’

  ‘Don’t tell me that it’s my turn for the surprise of the decade and Jack’s about to offer to cook?’ Esther grinned. ‘Mind you, after all the biscuits he seems to have consumed, I’m surprised he’s got any room left for supper.’

  ‘It’s time for my confession,’ Percy volunteered, as Jack stared hard at him. ‘I ate four while you were in Bethnal Green, so Jack’s off the hook. As for supper, who fancies fish and chips?’

  ‘You were told to take two days off, then come back here and await further instructions,’ the Commissioner complained as Percy took a seat. ‘We sent men to your home, by the way, and your wife probably thinks that you’re with your fancy woman somewhere.’

  Percy grinned. ‘I’ll be fifty-four next year, so I think my wife knows better than to suspect me of sexual excitement. I was down at Newgate, arresting its Deputy Keeper.’

  ‘Well, now you’re here, I want to discuss something with you that’s directly related to that and concerns your immediate future.’

  ‘I don’t see myself having a career in the Prison Service,’ Jack smiled, ‘so how can I be of further assistance at the Yard?’

  ‘Well, it’s like this. Your uncovering of the corruption in the LCC and Newgate has given the Home Secretary food for thought. As you’ll know, if you read the newspapers, there’s a lot of political unrest in the nation at present and London’s the obvious focal point for it, given that we have Parliament House here. There’s that idiot woman Fawcett insisting that women should have a greater say in how the nation’s run and the Irish are constantly muttering about forming their own country, free of English rule. Then there are all those scandals that the Prince of Wales keeps getting himself into with that Marlborough House set and — well, you get my drift.’

  ‘Indeed, Commissioner, but until they commit criminal offences...’

  ‘That’s just the point, Sergeant — until they commit criminal offences. When they do the nation’s in uproar and we need some way of stepping in before it reaches that stage.’

  ‘Isn’t that what “spies” are for?’

  ‘If it involves a foreign power, certainly. But who do we have available if it’s only a domestic matter?’

  ‘I think I begin to understand what the Home Secretary has in mind.’ Percy smiled. ‘A branch of the Met with its own domestic spies.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be called that, obviously,’ the Commissioner corrected him. ‘It would be simply a special department within the Yard, named the “Political Branch”, or something similar and you seem to have demonstrated a talent for worming your way inside criminal activities that smack of corruption in public office.’

  ‘You want me to join this new branch?’ Percy enquired.

  ‘No, I want you to head it, with the rank of Inspector at this early stage. I can let you have a staff of three or four and within reason you can pick your own team. They have to be prepared to come off the street and sit at desks for longer than most of them are accustomed to and they have to have a nose for ferreting out potential scandals before they happen, by reading between the lines of routine reports.’

  ‘You’re placing a lot of trust in me,’ Percy pointed out, ‘and there are some in the Met who regard my methods as a bit — shall we say “unique”?’

  ‘Why do you think you came immediately to mind when Asquith came up with the idea? You know how to break rules, you have a talent for getting up official noses, and you don’t stand for any nonse
nse, even from me. So, what do you say?’

  Percy thought for a moment, then his face broke into another smile. ‘Beatrice will be pleased. She’s been going on at me for us to move out into Essex somewhere. And I can pick my own team?’

  ‘Within limits, as I said.’

  ‘Only it just so happens that I know someone with recent Records experience who won’t be best placed to go racing up and down streets for the immediate future.’

  ‘You have to let him get it occasionally, or else he’ll grow tired of the game,’ Alice explained to Jack and Lily as they sat playing ‘throw the ball over Bertie’s head’ in the children’s room.

  ‘Maybe you should take over,’ Jack suggested as he got up from his knees and sat on the chair beside Lily’s bed. Alice willingly replaced him and gave Lily a subtle nod every time that Bertie was allowed to catch the ball with an excited chortle.

  ‘How’s Emily settling in?’ he asked.

  Alice smiled. ‘Very well. We’re going shopping this afternoon and I’m going to spoil her rotten with new clothes for her wardrobe. Her late mother was my younger sister and there are times I swear it’s like being with her all over again. I can’t thank you enough for what you did.’

  ‘Thank Percy and Esther, not me,’ Jack replied modestly.

  ‘Have you any idea what you’re going to do for a living, now that you’re no longer a policeman?’ Alice asked tactfully.

  Jack sighed. ‘Absolutely no idea, I’m afraid. Policing’s all I ever wanted to do and I never bothered much with schooling beyond the basics. I never learned a trade either and all the job openings in London these days seem to involve building.’

  ‘I’m sure something will come up, you’ll see,’ Alice reassured him. ‘God has a way of repaying one kindness with another and if it were in my power to reward you with a new career, I’d be only too happy to oblige.’

  ‘There’s tea and uncle in the kitchen,’ Esther chirped as she poked her head round the door. ‘Best grab a biscuit before Percy scoffs the lot.’