For once Annie went out of her way to be polite to him — probably the result of the dressing down she had received from Dody, he thought. According to Dody, the maid had been tearful and then furious over Hensman’s deception, and promised never to see him again. Well, they would have to wait and see about that. Pike suspected the sergeant would now desist from exposing Pike’s relationship with Dody in case his unprofessional conduct with the maid was revealed. Like Samson losing his strength when he lost his hair, Hensman minus his moustache had lost much of his menace. Similarly, Pike surmised, the superintendent’s poor health meant leaks to the higher-ups would most likely be stoppered too. The activities of his inferior officers would doubtless be the last thing on Shepherd’s mind in his present state of ill-health.
Pike smiled to himself as he stepped out into the street – things were looking up. His luck continued when his efforts at hailing a taxicab met with immediate success. After giving the cabbie Mr Blackman’s Kensington address, he sank back into the upholstered seat.
Kensington was a mostly salubrious area, but number 82D hardly denoted the luxurious mansion that Eva’s story had implied. Pike had compared the version he had been given by Eva with what Florence had been told and both stories matched. Mr Blackman must already have squandered the fortune left to him by Eva’s father. His father-in-law’s influence can’t have amounted to much either. According to Pike’s intelligence, Mr Blackman had never made it into Parliament, instead maintaining his long-standing position as clerk in a modest law firm. Mr Blackman’s heinous plans seemed to have backfired on him.
The townhouse in which Blackman resided had been converted into flats. Blackman’s flat was on the lower ground floor, accessed by steep stone steps with iron railings. Pike negotiated his way around a rusting bicycle half blocking the front door to what had once been the tradesman’s entrance. His hand grasped the knocker and the door swung open on its own accord. Strange that a door so close to the street would be left unlocked at this hour of the evening. Pike frowned.
A thread of suspicion tugged at his gut.
‘Police! Anybody home?’ he called as he stepped over the threshold and onto a well-swept oilcloth floor. Electricity had not reached the bowels of this residence. Gaslights spluttered from brackets on the walls of the small, simply furnished sitting-cum-dining room. Warily, Pike moved through the room, taking in the worn but polished furniture. A photographic portrait of a younger Eva Blackman rested on a sideboard near the dining table. He picked it up. It was a strange keepsake for a man so apparently keen to keep his wife locked away. She had been a beauty, Pike reflected, as he gazed at the image staring at him from the silver frame. Blackman must have kept it to boost his flagging pride, as one might hang on to a sports trophy. This was mine once.
Through a curtained arch off the dining area, Pike found a small kitchen. A teapot and a used cup and saucer stood on the scrubbed table. Pike put his palm to the pot — warm.
He poked his head out of the back door and called out again. Dry washing flapped about on the line. The privy door hung unevenly off its frame advertising its vacancy.
Pike headed towards a narrow staircase, the first step creaking under his weight.
And then he heard it — a low moan.
It must have come from the upstairs bedroom. This time he did not call out, instead he trod the staircase on the tips of his toes making as little noise as possible. The flat was two up and two down. At the top of the staircase, leading from a small landing, he had the choice of two doors, both closed.
Another low moan.
He could smell it now — blood. Gripping his cane in his left hand, he turned the handle of the door to his right and pushed.
‘Oh my God, help me, help me!’ A man lay on the floor next to the bed. He was curled in a foetal position, hands pressed to his stomach, eyes filled with panic and pain. Never had Pike seen so much blood associated with one living person. Blood streaked the walls, stained the white bed-sheets and pooled around the body of the man on the floor.
Pike flung off his bowler and dropped to his knees beside him. ‘Bevan Blackman?’ he asked as he tore off his own jacket.
‘Yes, help me,’ he gasped. ‘I don’t want to die.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ Pike lied. ‘Help is on its way. Pull your hands away so I can staunch the bleeding with my jacket.’
‘Don’t. Touch. Me!’ the man screamed. Pike noticed the gleam of an intestine pushing its way through the man’s spread fingers.
Even if he could succeed in staunching the man’s bleeding, Blackman didn’t stand a chance. No man deserved this.
‘Who did this to you?’ Pike asked, dreading the answer as it began to coalesce in his mind.
‘She did. Eva. Mad.’
A cold patch grew in Pike’s stomach. ‘Did you provoke her?’
‘No, never — I loved her. She changed. After she lost our baby. I was …’
A draft tickled the back of Pike’s neck.
‘Oh, God! Don’t let her touch me!’ Blackman shrieked.
Pike was on his feet in an instant. A blade flashed, he dodged it and caught hold of Eva’s wrist.
‘Let me at him, let me at him!’ she cried, holding the dripping knife, her sleeve drenched in blood, her perfect features splattered with the stuff. ‘He can’t be killed, the demon. I knew it, he’s alive again!’
‘Calm down, Mrs Blackman,’ Pike soothed. ‘Just let me have the knife now.’ He twisted her knife hand behind her back and was about to snatch it from her grasp when she kicked out at him. He stepped back to avoid the blow and slipped on the bloodied floor, his legs flying out from under him. As he fell, he threw his arms around her body and pulled her down with him. The last thing he remembered was thrashing on the floor as if wrestling with a tigress, both slashing and screaming and fighting for their lives.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dody found Singh in Pike’s office at the Yard, getting ready to leave for the evening. She enquired as to Pike’s whereabouts, mindful to control the panic in her voice.
Singh frowned as he slipped some papers into the desk drawer, giving Dody pause to wonder why Pike was not occupying Shepherd’s office upstairs. Perhaps the stairs were too much for his knee.
‘He was visiting Mrs Blackman at the Royal Hotel, Doctor. And then I believe he hoped to talk to Mr Bevan Blackman in Kensington.’
‘Would you mind using your telephone to call the hotel, please, Constable?’ Dody asked calmly.
Singh did as she asked. He spoke to the receptionist for a moment and then replaced the receiver in its cradle. ‘He was there, Doctor, but he left after failing to meet with Mrs Blackman.’
Dody lost her tenuous grip on her control. Panic sped her voice. ‘Then we have to go to Mr Blackman’s and warn him. Eva is deranged. She’s manipulated all of us. She’s going to kill her husband, and if, if …’ The rest of her words failed her.
‘If the acting superintendent is there, he is in danger too,’ Singh finished. I’ll get some men together, ma’am.’
‘There’s no time for that, Singh. Find out Mr Blackman’s address and we will both go — now!’
Singh nodded. ‘I know it,’ he said as he pulled Pike’s pistol from the top drawer.
Oh why hadn’t Pike had the foresight to take it with him? Dody thought, clenching her fists. Because they’d all been blinded by the woman, that was why. As far as they were aware it was only Mr Blackman had ever been the guilty party.
The rush hour was over, but Dody had never known a taxi journey take so long. They skirted Hyde Park and scattered a group of students filing out of the School of Music. As they rounded the bend into Kensington High Street, Dody was unsure if all four wheels touched the ground.
Number 82D was found without much trouble. Singh paid the taxi driver generously to wait for them on the kerb. Without pausing for Singh, Dody charged down the stone steps and through the front door. In the sitting room her ears were assaulted by a
demonic screaming from upstairs that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Singh pushed her aside and mounted the stairs two at a time, Dody close upon his heels.
She gagged at the unmistakable reek of abdominal blood in the landing, then stumbled into the back of Singh. He was frozen in the bedroom doorway, paralysed by the charnel house tableau before him.
Eva knelt on the floor plunging a knife into a corpse so brutally mutilated that it was impossible to tell who it was. So preoccupied was she with her hacking and slicing, the woman was unaware of their arrival, muttering incoherently to herself as she worked at dismembering the body.
And then Dody saw the hat.
Pike’s bowler hat rested beside the body.
The events that followed took but seconds to play out but lasted a lifetime in Dody’s head. Pike was dead, butchered by the woman with the knife, a woman whose insanity had outsmarted them all. So much had been left unsaid, so many feelings not acted upon. They still had had so many more miles to travel, so many possibilities open to them. Marriage. Children. Oh, why had she not accepted his proposal when it had been offered? What job was worth a sacrifice of this magnitude? The path she should have chosen would never have led to this dingy flat, this place of blood, of hideous murder. What if she had given up her career for him? Was being a woman of the house so very wrong? Of course not. How arrogant she’d been to think it was. Her world was collapsing and she was as powerless in it as she had ever been — power was nothing but an illusion, after all.
She swayed on her feet, reached out to the doorframe to steady herself. ‘Matthew,’ she gasped.
Dody’s voice must have restored Singh to his senses. He trod carefully through the congealing blood and pressed the barrel of the pistol to the back of Eva’s head. The deranged woman glanced up as calmly if she’d been interrupted preparing dinner. ‘Oh, good evening, Dody. And Mr Singh, how do you do, sir?’
‘Drop the knife, please, madam,’ Singh said, as if from a thousand miles away.
Eva did as she was told. With calm acceptance she allowed Singh to grasp her from behind and snap his handcuffs around her slippery wrists.
Dody could hold herself back no longer. Maybe, an illogical inner voice pleaded with her rational self, just maybe — he is not dead?
She crouched besides the corpse and examined what remained of the face. A fringe of pale hair protruded from a helmet of sticky dark blood, staring brown eyes, a toothy overbite.
She turned away, leaned against the bed and retched. This was not the face of her lover. With her hands on her heart, she rose on limbs that felt like wet cardboard.
‘Where’s Pike?’ she asked almost choking on her words.
‘Mr Pike?’ Eva looked around the room like one in a daze. ‘He was here just a minute ago.’
Dody put the side of her hand into her mouth and bit down until she tasted blood. Oh God, where was he?
‘Dody, is that you?’ Pike’s voice came from the other side of the bed.
Thank God! She rushed over and helped him to his feet. He rubbed his head with his left hand. His blood-stained right arm hung loose at his side.
‘She must have knocked me out.’
Dody pulled his body to hers and held him tight, her throat constricted by thick sobs.
‘How are you, Chief Inspector?’ Eva said calmly from the floor where Singh had forced her to sit. Had she any idea what she had done? Dody wondered.
‘We failed this man, Dody,’ Pike said weakly, pointing to the body on the floor. ‘She manipulated all of us and we failed to see what was under our very noses.’
A tragedy. A mess. And how would Florence react when she was given this news? Out of all of them, she had been the most manipulated by Eva. Florence would be mortified.
Mustering the last of her strength, Dody undid Pike’s tie and bound the ugly gash that ran the length of his arm as best as she could. The blood was venous, not arterial, thank God.
She slipped Pike’s good arm over her shoulder. ‘Will you be all right Constable Singh? I need to take the chief inspector to hospital,’ she said, relieved to hear her voice recovering some of its former strength.
‘Of course ma’am,’ Singh said. ‘Do you plan on giving me any trouble, Mrs Blackman?’
‘Why should I? I’ve done what I planned to do. I have killed that Satan’s spawn and prevented him from hurting any more women. I will forever be a meek little lamb. Do with me what you must, Constable. I expect I will be sent to Broadmoor. I wonder if the food there will be as good as it was at the Elysium? I would like to see Florence and Mary again. I miss them already. Please ensure they are permitted to visit me there.’
There was no point in trying to reason with the insane.
After assuring Singh that they would send for more police, Dody eased Pike onto the upstairs landing. Here he stopped, and drew a sharp breath.
‘Are you all right, Matthew? Can you make it down the stairs?’ she asked, searching his pallid face.
Pike nodded. He turned towards her. ‘Just hold me for a moment, Dody. Hold me.’
She caressed his cheek with the back of her hand then held her beloved tightly. His injury wasn’t life-threatening, he was alive. For a few heart-piercing moments in that room she was certain she’d lost him.
Then as she relived her fear, her heart and mind became united with an immediate clarity of purpose. It surprised her so much it took her breath away. Suddenly, she knew what had to happen next.
‘Matthew,’ she whispered into his ear.
‘Hmm?’
‘Will you marry me?’
Silence. His weight grew unbearably heavy. She was forced to lower him to the ground. She checked his pulse — weak but steady — and then raced down the stairs to engage the help of the cabbie.
Had Matthew heard her before he fainted? she wondered as she tapped on the taxi’s window, waking the slumbering driver.
Dody swallowed. She supposed she would just have to wait and see.
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to the usual suspects: Patricia O’Neill and Carole Sutton. Trish, I couldn’t have done this without your invaluable scientific knowledge and reluctantly admit that any mistakes are my own. Carole, we call you Jenny Wren, but you do in fact have the eyes of an eagle when it comes to proof reading. Thanks also for the information from Angela Savage about the ‘Jujitsu Suffragettes,’ which got this novel’s ball rolling.
Amanda O’Connell you have been a brick, thank you for coming to my rescue even though you were the one who was literally at sea for much of the editing.
And of course I would not have got anywhere at all without the unflinching support of Anna Valdinger, editor Dianne Blacklock, the gang at HarperCollins, Sydney, and to my agent Sheila Drummond — thank you one and all!
About the Author
Felicity Young was born in Germany, educated in the UK and settled in WA. She lives on a small farm with her family, has trained as a nurse, studied music, reared orphan kangaroos and is a volunteer firefighter. The world of the Dr Dody McCleland mysteries is based on her grandmother’s old memoirs.
Also by Felicity Young
Other titles in the Dr Dody McCleland series
BUY NOW
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Coming Soon:
The Cam Fraser Mysteries
Copyright
Impulse
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First published in Australia in 2015
This edition published in 2015
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Copyright © Felicity Young 2015
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The Insanity of Murder Page 23
