Sanguine Solutions

by Jess Faraday

  SANGUINE SOLUTIONS

  SIMON PEARCE MYSTERIES VOLUME 3

  By Jess Faraday

  Sanguine Solutions

  Simon Pearce Mysteries Volume 3

  By Jess Faraday

  Copyright © 2020 by Jess Faraday

  Published by: Blind Eye Books 1141 Grant Street Bellingham, WA. 98225

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Nicole Kimberling

  Proofreading by Dianne Thies

  Cover design by Dawn Kimberling

  First Edition March 2020

  For my family.

  THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE

  July 1887

  London

  Some men go through lovers like cheap handkerchiefs. I’d always known I wasn’t that sort. And yet, how long should it take to banish someone from your thoughts? I’d returned from Scotland several months ago, and yet every time I closed my eyes I saw Cal’s accusing expression. His recriminations rung in my ears in silent moments. It was excessive, I realized. And it was making me short-tempered.

  “Simon…wait….” My trainee Fitz panted as he tried to catch up to me. The night was humid, the air wet and laden with filth.

  “We can’t be late,” I said.

  We were on special assignment. The night before, a young woman had been attacked in her bedroom in the upper-middle class neighborhood of Marylebone. It was a queer business, and Scotland Yard wanted to put an end to it before the newspapers turned it into a spectacle. To that end, we had stationed a pair of guards at the family’s front door around the clock. Fitz and I were the midnight watch.

  “If by ‘late’ you mean less than ten minutes early…Simon, slow down.”

  I did stop, annoyed. Since returning to London I’d thrown myself into work like a man possessed. Some men drink. For me, work is the tonic. It’s cheaper than alcohol, doesn’t dull the senses like opium, and has the benefit of making one’s superior officers sit up and take notice.

  “When’s the last time you slept a full day?” Fitz asked, as I began to walk again.

  “This morning.”

  “Liar.”

  I stopped and turned to face him.

  “You’re right. We should probably save our energy. After all, we may have to catch a vampire. And you’re the liar if you’re about to tell me you’re not enjoying the new privileges that my labors have earned us.”

  He blinked. Seldom did I speak so sharply to anyone, much less a mate. And we were mates, though at times I wondered what he’d think if he knew I’d spent my time up north violating the indecency laws with gleeful abandon.

  From his first day, Fitz had borne the brunt of my ongoing feud with the station inspector, Crowther, uncomplainingly patrolling the worst beats in London at my side—and I appreciated that. For that reason alone, I didn’t mind him riding my coattails to better things, as some men might have. When I’d returned from Scotland, determined to drive the memory of my failed…romance for lack of a better word, from my thoughts through the virtues of hard work, things had begun to change. I’d taken everything Crowther had given, spun his dross into gold, and come back for more. The most degrading assignments in the worst neighborhoods, the pettiest of petty crimes, the coldest of cold trails that even the victims had forgotten—sorted, finished, solved. And it was bearing fruit. That night, because of my tireless efforts, my trainee and I were guarding virgins in the lace curtain and aspidistra district instead of scraping drunks off of pub floors in Whitechapel.

  I was happy to bring Fitz with me, but I would not tolerate his nagging.

  “Sorry,” he said. I began to walk again. We strode through the tidy streets together for a few silent moments. Then he said, “You really think it was a vampire?”

  “Fuck’s sake, no.” He blinked. I sighed and added, “Of course some people really do think that. As the gullible might, when faced with the victim’s statement. I suppose.”

  The fourteen-year-old had reported waking to find an intruder in her bedroom. He was dressed all in black, and wore a cape. She awoke to feel him laying fangs to her wrist with a view to exsanguinate. The girl screamed and hit him with a lamp. When her parents burst into the room, by all accounts, the attacker flourished his cape and vanished through an open window.

  “Though only the most feeble-minded cretin would leave a bedroom window open at night in this cesspool of a city,” I added. “So I do wonder at that part of the girl’s story.”

  Fitz looked at me and shook his head. “What’s crawled up your arse and died? You’ve been a right bastard since you came back from Scotland. If you wanted to stay there, you should have.”

  “Not my choice, but point taken.” I wasn’t being fair, and we both knew it. “Sorry.”

  Fitz narrowed his eyes. “Tell me her name again?”

  I shrugged. “Charlotte Wakefield.”

  “Not her, you plonker. The wee bonnie lassie up in Edinburgh who broke your heart and turned you into such a miserable git.” I laughed. He’d become bold in my absence, for better work worse.

  “Her name,” I began.

  “Yes?”

  “Is ‘Mind Your Own Damn Business.’” I started walking again, pulling at the itchy uniform plastering itself uncomfortably to my body. Behind me, Fitz sighed as he picked up his pace once again.

  His name was Callum Webster, and the fact that I wasn’t there in Scotland with him was my fault. The fact that he hadn’t responded to my apology? That was his. So we were even. And it was done. My mind understood this. As for my heart, well, the message was taking a bit longer to sink in.

  “Typical,” he said, shaking his head with mock self-pity. “Here I thought we was friends. And me with my birthday coming up and all.”

  Fitz, like me, was alone in the world, as far as family went. But he was also the life and soul of the section house. Every last one of the men would line up to buy him a drink. A night down the pub in his honor would be a grand time—if I could pull my head out of my arse long enough to make it happen.

  “I’ll put something together,” I said. “I promise.”

  He grinned. “Thanks, Simon. I knew I could count on you. Even if you are a plonker.” He strode beside me, now, keeping pace with my quick steps. “So, I know you don’t believe in vampires, but don’t you think there’s a chance it might be something supernatural?”

  I snorted. “Please.”

  He tutted, shaking his head again, as if saddened by my lack of faith. “There’s more in Heaven and Earth than in your science books, Simon Pearce. And I’ll tell you something else. There’s not much wrong with a man that a good screw can’t put right.”

  I stared. It definitely wasn’t an offer, but he did have an unnerving ability to see straight to the heart of a matter.

  We reached Marylebone with five minutes to spare. The even pavements were swept clean. Neat rows of red and brown brick terraced houses lined the streets. Hours before, servants had pulled lace curtains across the clean, arched windows and extinguished the lights. In the glow of the well maintained street lamps, those rounded windows looked like contented babies, fed well and tucked in for the night. As we passed by, I peered into the tradesmen’s staircases that led down from the sidewalk to each house’s kitchen door. No movement caught my eye. Nothing seethed in the shadows. Not even a stray cat disturbed the stillness.

  The Wakefield house was part of a long, four-story block of red brick homes. I raised a hand to greet the pair of constables we were there to relieve.

  “Anything to report?” I asked, as we approached.

  “Not a sausage,” one of them said. I believe his name was
Bailey.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Fitz and I took up our posts in front of the Wakefield house and watched Bailey and his partner disappear down the street.

  “So,” Fitz said. “Vampire watch begins.”

  His tone was light, but his tense shoulders gave him away. For all they’d partnered him with a cynic, Fitz did believe in ghosts, and probably vampires as well.

  He let out a long breath. Then he tapped his toes on the pavement.

  “Reading anything interesting?” he asked after a moment.

  “I’ve been working my way through a monograph.”

  “Don’t tell me: by Dr. Bell.”

  I smiled. He knew me well.

  Dr. E. Bell was a physician with an interest in forensic medicine. Several of the monographs I’d read had been reconstructions of famous crimes with subsequent medical analysis. But the latest one had taken a peculiar turn.

  “It’s about werewolves,” I said.

  Fitz’s eyes went wide. “Blimey! You mean they’re actually real? Walking around London, like?”

  “Not as exciting as that, I’m afraid. History is filled with examples of people who believed, with all their hearts, that they sometimes turned into wolves or other animals.”

  Fitz frowned. “So it’s a kind of madness, then.”

  “That’s what Dr. Bell seems to think.”

  “Hmph. Not very exciting.”

  What was exciting, however, was what I had recently learned about the author. The first initial, ‘E,’ stood for Elizabeth. On top of that, Dr. Elizabeth Bell was the niece of Dr. Joseph Bell, who lectured at the medical school in Edinburgh and sometimes consulted with the police. To hear Cal tell it, Edinburgh was the only place for a physician to be. I wondered why she’d left.

  Fitz shrugged. “Though I s’pose madness can be exciting if you’re not seeing it every day like we do.”

  “I suppose.”

  Nottingham Street was well lit. Evenly spaced rows of gas lamps flanked the street, creating pools of warm light at intervals up and down the pavement. It was a quiet night in a quiet neighborhood, and the whisper of those same street lamps was the only sound.

  Suddenly, a young woman’s scream ripped through the darkness. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. One glance at Fitz’s wide eyes and gaping mouth told me he was thinking the same thing.

  “Wait here,” I said. The scream had come from somewhere ahead of us—one of the houses down the row.

  “But—”

  “Someone needs to protect Miss Wakefield.”

  As I pelted toward the continuing cries, the windows lit up one by one before me. I found the place quickly, one street down and around the corner.

  “Police!” I shouted, banging my fist on the door. “Open this door!”

  The screams abruptly stopped. A moment later, a plump woman in a thick, coarse nightgown cracked the door. Her heavy, lined face suggested she was around sixty years of age. The mob cap that concealed a head of steely curls marked her as a servant. She looked frightened—an expression that only deepened when her eyes took in my uniform.

  “Open the door, madam.”

  She stepped back, not inviting me in, I noticed, but not preventing me from entering on my own accord, either.

  “Who the devil is it, Mrs. Avery?” a man’s voice called from upstairs.

  “It’s the police, sir.”

  Muted cursing came from upstairs, then the sound of a slamming door. Then a tall, broad-shouldered middle-aged man started down the staircase. As he drew closer, I recognized him with a start.

  “Chief Superintendent Masterson,” I said, straightening.

  The newly appointed chief superintendent was built like a boxer. He had a boxer’s battered nose, as well. Even in his dressing gown, he still struck an imposing figure, though the effect was mitigated somewhat by his harried expression.

  “What’s your name, Constable?” he snapped.

  “Pearce, sir.”

  “At ease, Pearce. There’s nothing here—” he began, but another scream tore through the air. The Chief Superintendent glanced back up the staircase, then turned back to me. “My daughter is unwell.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” I said. “Have you sent for a doctor?”

  “Not that kind of—she’s unbalanced. She doesn’t usually carry on like this. But sometimes….” He sighed again, suddenly looking exhausted. “Do you understand, Constable?”

  Imbalance of the psyche was common, of course. But what I didn’t understand was why Mrs. Avery had been reluctant to allow me through the front door.

  “We all have bad days, sir,” I said at last. “Would you like any assistance?”

  “No.” He scoffed. “She’s only hysterical. It started when she was twelve. She’s fourteen, now, just like the Wakefield girl. That business has had the entire neighborhood on edge, as you can imagine. We tried to keep the news from her, but somehow she heard about it, and it’s set her right off. My wife has finally managed to console her.”

  It made sense. At the same time, instinct was telling me that there was more to the situation. A frightened servant, screams in the night—not to mention an attack on a young woman of the same age, very nearby, just the night before—chief superintendent or no, the situation required further investigation.

  I decided to come back tomorrow when the women of the house would be alone and could speak for themselves.

  The three subsequent hours passed without event and Fitz and I found ourselves back at the section house by three-thirty. I tried to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t switch off. It can be a problem sometimes. The problem that night was the stinking mess I’d made of things in Scotland. Not only with Cal, though that was bad enough. Chief Inspector Steward had offered to bump me up to detective inspector if I stayed on, though I’d not yet made sergeant, nor detective at any level. Such a chance doesn’t come twice, if it ever comes at all. But I’d walked away because I couldn’t stomach the embarrassment of staying in Edinburgh after falling out so spectacularly with a man I’d known for such a short time.

  And how exactly had that happened? One minute we were on the verge of reconciling after our first argument, and the next, I was hurling unfounded jealous accusations. Had I been a religious man, I could have claimed demon possession. But I wasn’t, so I had to accept that I was simply inept. Perhaps even emotionally unstable. I didn’t know which was worse. Either way, sleep continued to elude me, and somewhere around four-thirty, I dressed, found my coat, then went out to put Fitz’s theory to the test.

  One of the benefits of patrolling the most vicious parts of London is that one learns quickly the best places to satisfy his worst needs. St. Sebastian’s Churchyard had once been a reliable place to find an anonymous hand or hole when the requirement arose. Hopefully it would be that night as well.

  I arrived to find the front gate of the churchyard locked. I slipped around the back, through a carefully maintained gap in the fence. It was a clear, cold night, marred neither by moonlight nor by the choking fog that steals through the streets from time to time. I didn’t have to wander amid the headstones for long before a young man stepped out from the shadows. Our eyes met, evaluated, then met again. His lips quirked invitingly, but I looked away.

  Too young. Too pretty. Too clean.

  Worse than that, his square jaw and the flap of blond fringe across his brow reminded me of Cal. I walked on.

  The problem wasn’t simply that things hadn’t worked out. Nor was it the fact that it had been my fault. Mostly. The problem was that our weeks together had shown me that one could do so much better than tawdry encounters in East End churchyards. And that’s what I’d ruined. What I’d dashed to pieces with my own clumsy hands.

  And if I couldn’t have better, then I’d have the worst. It wasn’t long before I found it. He was older than I was, perhaps close to forty. He had distrustful, dark-ringed eyes and a weary expression. Dirt marked the creases of his face and neck. Up
close it appeared he’d slept even less than I had. There was no attempt at flirtation. He needed money; I needed release. We struck our bargain without a word.

  I took him in the shadows, where the corner of a tomb met the church wall. I suspected I hadn’t been the first he’d knelt before that night, and, with daylight still a couple of hours away, might not be the last. As we completed our grim transaction, I began to suspect that this wasn’t even his natural inclination. What drove a man to this point? He didn’t smell of opium or drink. Gambling? Or simply bad luck? It wasn’t my business, and it wasn’t caring that made me wonder, so I kept my speculations to myself.

  When it was over, I slipped him a few coins, and we left in opposite directions, very likely equally dissatisfied with the exchange.

  I returned to the section house in a state of unprecedented bile. My first thought was to wake Fitz and tell him how utterly full of shit he was. A screw had made things worse, not better. But a red fog was gathering at the edges of my mind—the same fog that had come on so suddenly during my argument with Cal, and had caused me to say unspeakable things. I took a deep breath and pushed it back. Fitz didn’t deserve my anger.

  I needed sleep. There was a bottle of gin in the chest under my bed for just such an occasion. I’d finish it if I had to. I hated gin. My night would be perfected.

  “Oi, Pearce,” a voice called as I passed the common room. The best thing about the section house, or perhaps the worst, was that there was always someone about. In this case, it was Martin, who worked six to six. I stopped in the doorway. “Letter for you in the evening post.” He nodded toward the pigeonholes against the back wall.

  “Cheers,” I said as he went back to last night’s newspaper.

  “It’s from Scotland.”

  My spirits rose slightly. My friend Jimmy Drummond and I had exchanged a few letters since I’d left Edinburgh. He was always good for a laugh or a juicy bit of gossip.

  “You get a lot of letters from Scotland,” Martin continued. “You a Scotsman now?”

  I reached for the letter. When I saw the return address, I nearly dropped it. It wasn’t from Drummond.