A Fatal Likeness

by Lynn Shepherd

  Charles stares at him a moment, dumbfounded, but then remembers. The Medwin memoir.

  “No,” he says, following Bond into the shop. “It’s not that. I’m after something else this time. A biography of William Godwin.”

  Outside, the sky is bright with winter sun; inside, the shop looms dark with shelves from floor to ceiling. Motes float slowly in air heavy with the must of old books and dry paper. Bond straightens a pile of copies of the Illustrated London News that does not need straightening, and then circles round to his accustomed place behind the counter. His assistant is halfway up the library steps at the back of the shop, eddying a duster along the tops of the volumes. He’s worked here for as long as Charles can remember, and has hardly changed a day in all that time, having seemingly descended into a prematurely desiccated old age long before Charles was even born. There is a deep disfigured hollow where one eye should have been, and the other wanders somewhat alarmingly, which may explain why Mr Bond prefers him to remain, as now, in the shadows. But he would not be without him: Sefton knows Bond’s hoarded stock better even than his master, and will take but a moment to place a coarse and sinewy finger on any volume a customer may require.

  “A biography of William Godwin,” Bond says now. “I am not sure I can help you.”

  “In that case,” replies Charles, somewhat curtly, “I’m sure I can find another shop—”

  Bond holds up a hand. “You mistake me, Mr Maddox. I doubt my ability to assist you purely because I do not believe such a volume exists. I can offer you a very nice edition of An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, scarcely used, and a slightly foxed but otherwise serviceable copy of Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature, but as to a memoir—”

  He spreads his hands, at a loss, and theatrically so. Charles strikes the counter in frustration, sending dust into the air and a flicker of alarm across the proprietor’s face.

  “It is surprising, I grant you,” says Bond in a placatory tone, “given the undoubted status of the subject. I believe his daughter once planned to write just such a memoir, but as far as I am aware it has not yet appeared.”

  Charles is about to turn away when Bond calls him back.

  “After you left yesterday it was brought to my attention that we are in possession of one piece of Shelleyiana that might interest you.”

  Charles frowns—Shelleyiana?—but he’s intrigued all the same, and watches as Bond dips down behind the counter and reappears with a small book in his hand. It is undeniably a beautiful object—the leather a rich polished caramel, and the spine stamped in gold with a line of fleurs-de-lys.

  Bond places it reverentially on the counter, opens it to the title page, then turns it to face Charles. The illustration is of a naked sleeping girl, her legs and lower torso enveloped in dark clouds, and hovering over her, a spirit holding a wand wreathed with leaves. And above the picture the title words

  QUEEN MAB

  BY

  PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

  “A pirate edition, printed in 1829 by John Brooks of Oxford Street.” Bond smoothes a hand over the paper and lowers his voice as if in the presence of a holy relic. “Exquisite, quite exquisite. And especially interesting for the collector in that it contains the dedication included in the original edition, but which the poet himself tried later to suppress. I believe he even went so far as to cut it from the copies of the poem he gave to his friends.”

  Charles looks at him, then at the book, then reaches out to turn the page.

  TO HARRIET *

  Whose is the love that gleaming through the world

  Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?

  Whose is the warm and partial praise,

  Virtue’s most sweet reward?

  Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul

  Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?

  Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,

  And loved mankind the more?

  HARRIET! on thine:—thou wert my purer mind;

  Thou wert the inspiration of my song;

  Thine are these early wilding flowers,

  Though garlanded by me.

  Then press into thy breast this pledge of love.

  And know, though time may change and years may roll,

  Each flow’ret gathered in my heart

  It consecrates to thine.

  There is no such dedication in the edition of the poem Charles has back at Buckingham Street. He raises his eyes again to Bond. “Who is this woman—do you know?”

  Bond leans a little towards him. “The poet’s wife,” he says confidentially.

  Charles frowns. “But his wife’s name was Mary.”

  Bond smiles the knowing smile of the better-informed. “Mr Maddox is speaking, I believe, of his second wife. The poet made his first foray into the marriage state with a Miss Harriet Westbrook. The same young woman who is referred to here.”

  Charles’ heart lurches a beat. “And what happened to her?”

  Again Bond spreads his white-gloved hands. “That, I fear, I cannot tell you.”

  There is a cough then, dry and circumspect, from the back of the shop. Sefton has descended silently from his steps and now beckons to his employer, shuffling all the while from one foot to the other. With a glance at Charles begging his indulgence, Bond retreats towards his assistant. Charles watches Bond confer briefly with the old man, and a moment later he comes forward again to Charles. “Mr Sefton has—as always—an admirable memory. He recalls there was a Chancery case involving Mr Shelley which caused something of a stir—he was challenged by his father-in-law, Mr Westbrook, for the custody of his children. A case it seems he eventually lost. One can only infer that the young woman herself had died some time before.”

  Charles nods thoughtfully. “When was this?”

  “Thirty years ago or more. I am afraid Mr Sefton could not be precise.”

  “But it could have been as early as 1816?”

  Bond frowns slightly. “I suppose so, but why that year in particular—”

  But Charles has already left the shop.

  Now what, thinks Charles, as he strides back down Bedford Street, could possibly have induced any court in this kingdom to deprive an Englishman of the custody of his own legitimate children? A man, moreover, of wealth and family. What sin—what atrocious crime—could the poet have committed to have merited such cruel and unusual treatment? That is the question, but for a man of Charles’ resourcefulness the answer may not be so very far away. No farther, indeed, than 136 the Strand, and the establishment of Messrs W H Smith & Son (a name you perhaps recognise). The reading room here may not be as imposing as the one Charles customarily uses at the British Museum, but the newspaper archives are extremely well stocked, and the room warm on a cold day, as the popularity of the seats nearest the fire attest. Charles makes his way to the racks of newspapers. He decides to start with the daily Court of Chancery reports for December 1816, and work forwards. And if he finds nothing, work backwards. But it’s nowhere near as complicated as that, as it turns out. Within an hour he has found three references to the case in The Morning Chronicle, the most interesting being one dated August 26, 1817, which recounts that during the previous day’s proceedings Sir Samuel Romilly, counsel for Mr Westbrook, had declared that his client objected to Shelley’s guardianship of the children on two grounds. First, his dangerous and improper opinions on the subjects of religion and marriage. And second (and here Charles grips the paper a little tighter) the fact that Shelley had openly co-habited with another woman while his first wife was still alive.

  Charles copies down the paragraph, then spends a fruitless half hour tracking farther back for an announcement of Harriet Westbrook’s death, but there is nothing. Which is strange, and perhaps suggestive. But if the dead elude him, the living may be easier to find. So he puts the newspapers back and turns to the 1818 poll books for Westminster, where he finds one John Westbrook Esquire, resident in Chapel Street, in the parish of St George, Hanove
r Square. And if Charles needs any further proof that he has found his man, Westbrook is listed as having cast his vote for the selfsame Sir Samuel Romilly who argued his case in court. Charles does a quick mental calculation—Westbrook would be at least as old as Maddox now, if not older, so it’s with little expectation of success that he pulls the current London Post Office Directory from the shelf. And sure enough, there are no Westbrooks now in Chapel Street, so no possibility of questioning the family, even assuming they would agree to see him. There are directories for the rest of the country, of course, but Charles doesn’t even know if John Westbrook had a son, and other daughters might well have married and changed their name. He’d be looking for hat-pins in a haystack half the size of England. He heaves the book back onto the shelf; basic police work has got him thus far, but there’s little more he can hope to find here now. Moreover it’s gone noon, and the reading room is starting to empty. He puts his notebook in his coat and makes his way back out to the Strand. But instead of turning left for Buckingham Street, and the comforts of a well-raked fire and Molly’s steak pudding, he heads north. North to Bow Street, and the police station-house.

  It was once Charles’ daily destination, this tall elegant building on the fringes of some of the most dangerous districts in the whole city. Three years he was based here, learning his trade, learning his London, and becoming—until he was dismissed for insubordination—a detective worthy enough to succeed even Maddox’s exceptional example. And he still cannot quite suppress a little flutter of apprehension as he makes his way up the steps, even though his quarrel with Inspector Bucket seems finally to have been laid to rest, and the tentative beginning of a friendship has taken its place. The front office is empty now but for two drunken old men sitting slumped on the floor, and a small boy of five or six who is telling anyone who will listen that if they can show him Fleet Lane he can find his way home. The constable behind the desk seems too distracted by the howls and screeches echoing up from the cells below to take much notice of the boy, and Charles crouches down a moment to give the lad directions before taking a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to the officer. The man looks sceptical at first, but then reads the name on the note. “I’ll see he gets it, sir.”

  “Tell him I’ll be in the White Hart.”

  The pub is crowded, but then again, a pub this close to Covent Garden will always be crowded on market day. A nod to the landlord (another old acquaintance from his days in the Met) earns Charles a cramped but private booth at the back, and two glasses of beer, clanked down on the wooden table by a wearied waitress who scarcely looks at him. Charles orders pies and baked marrow, and settles back to wait. The patrons of this establishment are hardly what one might call select, indeed it was once the haunt of highwaymen, and one of the staging posts from Newgate prison to the Tyburn tree (a possible origin, incidentally, of the phrase on the wagon, since condemned men were allowed off the cart for their last draught, but the hangman had to stay in situ, and sober). On our particular December afternoon the bar is thronged by as many women as men, most smoking clay pipes, and all of them in various stages of drink-induced discontent. Charles observes quietly, and without interference, as the noise rises, and the disputes with it, until he spots the carrot head of his old colleague at the door, and stands to gesture to him. Sam Wheeler makes his way through a crowd that clearly knows his trade, for a path opens before him and the din dims a little until he has passed. There is no open animosity—no overt insult—but the wariness on their faces says rozzer louder than even Wheeler’s tall hat, stock, and uniform great-coat.

  There’s a seat empty opposite Charles, but it doesn’t surprise him that Sam elects to edge round the table to squeeze onto the bench by his side. No policeman with an ounce of nous would sit with his back to a pub full of rowdy costers, and Sam is way more wily than that.

  Sam picks up his beer, then reaches in his pocket and puts Charles’ note on the table in front of him.

  “Well, I’ve looked, like you asked,” he says, wiping his mouth of froth, “but I ain’t turned up nothin’. There weren’t no police files back then, a’course, but we do ’ave some of the Runners’ records and there’s nothin’ mentionin’ the death of either a ’arriet Shelley or a ’arriet Westbrook. Not for 1816, and not for a year afore that neither.”

  “And no unidentified victims matching her age?”

  Sam looks sceptical. “You really think a bloke like Shelley could have done away wiv ’is wife and managed to stash the body somehow? Poet weren’t ’e? And a bleedin’ nob to boot? Come off it, Chas, how likely is that?”

  “All the same—were there any young women whose bodies were never claimed?”

  Sam sighs. “Not as far as I could see. Though I didn’t ’ave much time. I do ’ave work to do, yer know.”

  Charles makes a rueful moue, which his friend knows is about as close to an apology as he’s likely to get.

  “That writin’ you found that talked about a murder,” Sam continues, taking another swig of beer. “You sure it was the Godwin job it were referrin’ to?”

  Charles starts to fiddle with the paper on the table, in part to hide his irritation. “It was immediately above Godwin’s name in my uncle’s case-book. It had to refer to that investigation—what else could it be? And it’s not just that. I’m convinced that’s why the Shelleys hired me in the first place—I’ve asked around and there’s no trace of those ‘enquiries’ they claimed to have made about me. No—they didn’t choose me because I’m good at what I do—they chose me because of who I am. Because there’s something Maddox knows. And whatever it is, it was in those missing pages.”

  Sam shrugs. “Don’t mean it ’as to be an actual murder though, do it? I mean, people like that, they gets very hot and bovvered when the likes of us starts rummagin’ about in their private affairs. That newspaper story you found about Shelley co-’abitin’ wiv another woman—that ain’t the sort’a thing they’d want diggin’ up. Not now.”

  “And certainly not,” says Charles dryly, “if they’ve been doing everything in their power to ensure it remains safely buried.”

  “But even if they ’ave, it don’t prove this ’arriet was murdered. She coulda died in any one of an ’undred ways. Small-pox, typhoid, childbirth—”

  “She was living apart from her husband.”

  There is a silence. Charles glances up and sees Sam looking at his bandaged hand. “Look,” he says, pulling his hand away under the table, “I know what you’re saying but I just don’t believe it’s as simple as that. And more to the point, neither did Maddox.”

  Sam eyes him carefully. “He’s still not well, then.”

  Charles shakes his head. “But you know as well as I do that he would never have written those words if he wasn’t absolutely sure of what he was saying. Even if he didn’t have the proof necessary to make such an accusation in public.”

  Sam nods; even in 1850 Maddox is remembered in the Metropolitan Police, and Sam needs no reminding of either his achievements, or his much-merited reputation.

  The waitress comes towards the table with their two plates under tin lids, and clatters them down. There is a delicious smell of meat and gravy, and the two of them fall on the food like men half starved.

  “I was thinkin’,” says Sam a minute later, his mouth full of pie, “those words of your uncle’s—he obviously weren’t the only person as thought there’d been a murder. Someone ’ad obviously spoken to ’im about it and ’e didn’t believe ’em—or at least not to start wiv.”

  Charles raises an eyebrow. “I had just about managed to get that far, Sam,” he says.

  “No, what I mean is, ’as it occurred to you that that person might be the same one the Shelleys want you to spy on? I reckon this other person’s showed ’em papers of ’is own—papers they ’ad no idea existed, and that’s what’s set the cat among the pigeons all of a sudden. I’m prepared to bet them Shelleys ’ad never even ’eard the name Maddox before that.”


  Charles is staring at him now—staring like a man who has just had a revelation. As indeed he has.

  “That’s brilliant, Sam—brilliant. I’ve been wondering what the sudden urgency is in all this—why the Shelleys didn’t try to track my uncle down years ago if they were so worried about what he might say—but if they’ve only just discovered he was involved that would explain everything. That has to be the answer—has to be.”

  Sam grins. “Glad to be of use.”

  Charles picks up his fork, then lays it down again. “One more favour, Sam. Can you have another look at the Runners’ files for 1816? Not for Harriet this time, but for my uncle—see if there’s any mention of his name—any suggestion of what he might have been doing back then.”

  Sam wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “Right you are. Now then, what do you say to pudding?”

  THREE

  A Wanderer

  BACK AT BUCKINGHAM STREET, time scarcely seems to have passed at all. It is as if the house is becalmed in a perpetual present tense: Molly is cooking, Billy is filling the coal scuttles, Abel is sitting at Maddox’s side, and the old man himself is straying still, like a day-appearing dream, through the dim wildernesses of his closed and darkened mind. Charles heads up to the office, where he goes again through the case files for the years before 1816 for any possible clue he might have overlooked. But there’s nothing. Nothing, oddly, apart from another section mysteriously missing from late 1814, but there are no scored-through words there, either before or after the excised pages, and therefore no clue, now, as to what they once contained.

  Charles is putting the book back on the shelf when he registers the sound of the door-bell downstairs, but assumes it’s the butcher’s boy until he looks up to see Billy standing at the office door.

  “Female to see you, Mr Charles.”

  Charles sighs. The lad is good with Maddox, and strong enough to lift him, which Abel clearly can no longer do, but the price to be paid in almost-insubordination is inching higher by the day.

  “What sort of word is that, Billy?”