An Unkindness of Ravens

by S. E. Smith

  “Poulter was supposed to visit you,” Gold supplied helpfully.

  Nanny nodded gleefully: “I got a telegram from her - out of the blue. Said she had business in town. Said she was staying with Flo. You remember Flo, don’t you Mordy?”

  A wealth of meaning existed in that phrase, and a wealth of discomfort appeared in the old man’s corresponding smile.

  “One of your girls,” Nanny needled for Emily’s benefit. “Till she married the butcher on Milton Street, sometime after ‘88 and went respectable. Didn’t want anything to do with us after her marriage, like we were a bad smell.”

  Gold nodded slowly, and his expression narrowed further. Recognising it as one of intense concentration, Emily decided Nanny might be about to impart something of importance; something that would banish the black dog of boredom which haunted her heels since Christmas.

  “Go on, Nanny,” Gold said finally, “did she say exactly when she’d meet you?”

  “Yes. Thursday morning. And it’s now Saturday. That’s not like Lil.”

  “She didn’t turn up,” Gold offered between sips of cocoa. “What of it? She’s a flighty piece who got waylaid by a handsome face. She’ll remember rightly enough. Go back and I bet she’ll be moaning about you keeping her waiting.”

  “Shut up Mordy and listen!” Obviously nettled by his response, Nanny put down her mug, picked up her needles and stabbed them viciously into a ball of wool. “Lil held down a well-paid job - out Tooting way. Then it all went wrong and, to get away from the scandal, she left London. You remember what happened in ‘76? Because if you don’t, I can say more.”

  “Enough Nanny!” Gold didn’t need to raise his voice. The sharpness of his tone and the speed of delivery told Emily all she needed. He was hiding something. Probably something to do with her. “I remember,” he continued with equal brusqueness. “I’m sorry I interrupted.”

  Of course, when Gold used that tone of voice, nothing and no one could gainsay him. So, against her better judgement, Emily changed the subject. “Did Lil ever come down to town?”

  Nanny shrugged but before she could say anything, Gold cut across the old lady: “Lil was outside The Grapes.”

  The two women stared at him in disbelief.

  “Spent the evening, looking at the books with the duty manager.” Gold reached over and picked up a toffee from his private stash. “I was on my way home. Spoke to her as a matter of fact. Not that she recognised me.” Gold unwrapped his toffee and continued, “Well if I’m being honest, I dipped a toe calling her by name. It’s been what ... twenty-five years?”

  “You know damn well it has.”

  “I still think she’s forgotten. I mean the Lil I remember – unlike her sister Flo – could knock ‘em back with the best of them. And she was on her way into the pub.”

  The old lady made an undignified noise, somewhere between a snort and a raspberry. “she’d have drunk to get over the fear of God you’d have filled her with, just from recognising her!”

  “Nanny’s right. You put the fear of God into most people,” Emily said in a flippant tone, only to be rounded on by the old lady and her uncle.

  “Mind your manners, young lady,” they snapped. “You’re not with the earl now.”

  Instead of being kowtowed, Emily laughed. “La sir! You fink I got my flippancy from ‘im?”

  “Behave, bubbeleh!” Gold turned to Nanny. “Why do you think I put the fear of God into Lilian Poulter? Last time I had any dealings with her family, I was just a humble businessman.”

  Nanny sucked at her teeth and gave him her most withering glance. “She lived next door to a murdered man; a murdered man who ...” Gold lifted his hand.

  “There’s no proof Bravo worked for me, Nanny.” Gold didn’t raise his voice. “Be careful, Nanni moya sem’ya. Do not presume too much on our friendship.” He smiled through narrowed lips, and then – as if they all imagined his anger – became his usual amused self. “Besides, Lil certainly didn’t seem to fear me. Probably more confused than anything - like she should know me but didn’t. Like I was in the last place she expected me to be.”

  “Mordecai Adonais Gold!” Clearly irritated beyond reason, Nanny used the tone she kept for recalcitrant patients. “Stop treating me like one of your lackeys.”

  A hand rose for the third time to stop her. “If you’re worried, go to Flo’s. But I bet you’ll find this is some ghastly mistake. Your Lil got drunk. Forgot the time. Picked up a punter.”

  “One of these days moya sem’ya, your inability to look beyond the next shilling will be your downfall.” Point made Nanny held up her hand. “Now shush your prattle, Mordy, and listen. I didn’t come to be told the obvious!” she snapped. “I didn’t need you to tell me to go ‘round to Flo’s. I went there of me own choice.”

  Gold shrugged. “What did the old tart have to say for herself? Did she tell you not to be such a bloody fool?”

  Emily saw grief cross the old lady’s face and decided to step in. “Uncle, stop tormenting Nanny and listen before she slips something in your drink! Don’t you think you’re ill enough?”

  Gold sobered. “Sorry, Miryam,” he said, using Nanny’s little-used given name, to show his intentions were peaceful. “What did Lil’s sister have to say for herself?”

  “Not a lot. Someone had put the barrel of a gun up to her throat and blown her brains out.”

  In the time Gold took to pour Nanny something stronger than a cup of cocoa, Emily made three calls. The first to Doctor McGregor; asking if he could recommend a man who could be of assistance. The second to The Grapes. The third to the downstairs office. “Put your coat on Niall, we’re going out.”

  Emily took off her sleeve guards and wandered over to kiss her uncle on the cheek. “I think Nanny needs my help more than you do. Besides, Nanny’s right, you’re not sleeping. You’re too busy worrying whether I’ve made a mistake to get any rest.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “With me gone, you can check my arithmetic and deal with the few businesses that haven’t ... No, don’t get up ... I’ll see you later.”

  Gold refused to smile as Emily collected her carpetbag full of investigative bits and bobs. Instead, he mouthed a thank you in the direction of Nanny, who was too busy pouring the rest of her drink into a hip flask to reply immediately.

  “I didn’t do it for her. Or you.” Tears shone in the corners of the old lady’s eyes. “Flo was a good friend when Father died. Stood up for me when others wouldn’t ... I want the bastard caught. And you and I both know the police won’t trouble themselves with this. This ain’t the work of Jack the Ripper. Just common murder done in an uncommon way.” The old lady packed away her knitting, adjusted her shawls and looked expectantly at Emily. “Well, child, are you coming?”

  Raising her hands skyward, Emily followed the old lady out of the house.

  Constable Barker’s Report.

  Creeping up on Lamb was one of those things you never think you’re going to do. But when the earl gives you that big sad smile of his, and puts an order in a way that makes you think you’re his best friend, you tell yourself what the hell, and hang the consequences!

  The photograph Lamb pushed into me hands didn’t jog any memories. No one knew who the women were, and no one remembered much about Langley or his brother either. It was as if they didn’t want to remember. I didn’t blame them. Murder has that effect on people.

  Made me forgetful too, because while I could have got the information out of Lamb straight away, I didn’t get around to it for a couple of days. My excuse? Too busy running around for CC, and then too busy being shouted at for finding nothing. Still, knowing the earl couldn’t wait forever, I girded my loins, so to speak, and gave the photograph back.

  “Lovely women, the one on the end, don’t you think, Sarge?”

  Fortunately, Lamb didn’t look up. I’m rubbish at investigating people I know; tend to blush like a schoolgirl caught where she shouldn’t.

  “Mary was inde
ed lovely, laddie. Shame what happened.”

  “What happened Sarge?” My blush got worse especially once I clocked Lamb’s all too guilty expression.

  “Bugger!” He rubbed his arm vigorously as he spoke, then sighed. “Well lad, as you rumbled me, I better go and tell Sir Charles I remembered their names ... Unless you want the glory?”

  Boundary Estate, Shoreditch.

  On the edge of the world’s first council estate sat the poverty of those too impoverished to move into the red-brick buildings. But to Emily’s surprise rather than stopping at the run down rookery, they continued past the deprivation and, into the tenement flats of Boundary; with their well-scrubbed staircases, and French boulevard style spaces. And as always, the place brought back memories.

  Emily smiled grimly. Nine years old, when her uncle sent her on her first foray into Old Nichol. A rabbit warren of little streets and hovels. A true rookery, full of filth and squalor, whose rents kept little old ladies in the counties in gin and tea, whilst their tenants died of unnamed diseases.

  “A little favour, bubbeleh. He’ll be very grateful ...” the old man said as he pushed her out into the streets, her knife her only companion.

  Even after all these years, after all the changes, Emily saw herself standing in the church graveyard. Keeping an eye out for the man with the big beard. Uncle aimed high, telling her the dividends were always worth the risk.

  They were - for all of them. Little lonely Emily made a friend. One who didn’t treat her with fear; or use her like some once did. For all his rank, he didn’t just pretend she was his equal. She was his equal, and sometimes more than a match.

  With a laugh, Emily shook herself out of the past and, hurrying to catch up with Nanny, entered one of the worst preserved crime scenes she ever had the misfortune to visit.

  Some well-meaning soul had attempted to tidy things before dispatching the old girl’s body to the morgue. Signs of a mop on the floor and a half-hearted attempt to clean the wall. Still, there was enough blood remaining for Emily not only to make out a splatter pattern but also make a reasonably detailed sketch. Task completed, she returned to her bag to collect her jeweller’s glass and tweezers and went back to the wall.

  Nanny hovered at the door. Niall stayed outside. He had large feet - well - foot; and because he was ungainly of gait, tended to get in the way. Nanny - for all her ability to deal with a girl in trouble - had a strange level of squeamishness which prevented her from joining the medical profession. Though she bound her breasts and tried life as a male until Mordy pointed out that pretending only made things worse.

  Emily had no such qualms. Entering briskly, she knelt at the chair and looked up at the wall. “Looks like suicide,” she stated without looking at the old woman. “As the earl would say: behold the blood arcs in a telltale pattern.”

  Ignoring Nanny’s intake of breath, Emily leaned in to examine one of the holes in the wall ... then, like a sparrow after ants, used her tweezers to remove the pellet.

  “If it is murder,” she continued conversationally, “they made a bloody amazing job of getting the angle of the gun right.”

  “Shame the weapon’s not here. A question for Constable Dennison, or the coroner Doctor McGregor’ll have found by now.”

  . “I did look...” Nanny said, “But nothing.”

  Bugged by the old lady’s assertion it was murder, Emily’s reply was waspish. “Apart from the lack of a weapon, what makes it murder?”

  “Flo and Lil were Cath’lics!”

  Emily’s face remained blank.

  “Suicide’s a mortal sin, child.”

  “And that’s important?”

  A huff met this. “Considering the education Mordy insisted on giving you, there are times I think he left you woefully innocent.” Nanny tutted. “Life’s tough enough for anyone on this planet. So, you seek relief where you can. The bottle, sex, white smoke, religion. For Flo, since she went respectable, religion was her opiate. She wouldn’t do anything to put eternity at risk. Not with all the confessing she did on the road to salvation.”

  Emily tilted her head and after putting down a star-shaped piece of origami, that she’d picked up from its place on the mantle, headed in the direction of the stairs. “Nothing in here. Back in a mo.”

  The bedroom told her all she needed to know about Flo and her sister. The old ladies topped and tailed. At the bedstead end – where Flo slept – a well-thumbed bible sat on what could laughingly be called a bedside table; a rosary hung on said bedstead, and a palm cross was stuck in the dresser mirror.

  Flo’s wardrobe was full of well-mended clothes and shoes that had been re-soled and healed until the leather could take no more. Emily assumed her to be the frugal type, more intent on eternity than living in the now - until she looked at the contents of the dressing table.

  The top was littered with jewellery and perfumes. The hairbrush and mirror were dainty, showy pieces, while the comb was made of tortoiseshell.

  Nodding in satisfaction, Emily deftly opened the drawers. Delicate handkerchiefs, stored in a sachet of pink crêpe silk, indicated a time long gone when money and living was easy.

  Her unmentionables – like her clothes – were well-mended. But in a bottom drawer, wrapped in tissue paper were bygones of her earlier craft. Parisian silk still gently scented with a vaguely familiar oriental smell. A man’s handkerchief lay with them. White, and carefully folded, it seemed a crime to disturb it. But this was murder, and Emily needed to have all the facts to hand if she was to deal with the matter to Nanny’s satisfaction. Opening it with two fingers, her suspicions were confirmed. A small black crow embroidered in the corner.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Hankie safely stowed in her pocket, Emily knelt and looked at the scuffed lino. As she did so, she noticed a corner of a suitcase hiding under the bed.

  Curiosity aroused, Emily stood, crossed to her carpetbag, grabbed her picks, knelt again, and got to work.

  The suitcase took seconds to open, the search less to complete. Clothes, a diary, and a new pair of boots. Interesting. Flo was a curious creature, and Lil kept her secrets by locking them away and by storing them just out of reach.

  With the exception of the diary, Emily repacked the case before putting it under the bed and giving the room another cursory glance.

  Lil’s side of the room was bare. No dressing set; no perfumes of any kind. Did she borrow from the sister? Emily doubted it. Flo was fond of overpowering ‘look at me’ scents. There were no such corresponding smells from the clothes in the suitcase. In fact, no feminine scents at all. So, Lil didn’t borrow. Lil didn’t wear. Lil didn’t want attention. Which in itself made her worthy of some.

  A quick flick through the diary, as she transferred it from her pocket to the carpetbag, revealed Lil to be a woman reinvented. At the beginning - some twenty years ago, Lil’s handwriting was rough and ready. Then a gap, until the respectable Lillian emerged.

  Emily went on to examine the boots. New. Made in the East End, by a little man who worked in a basement shop in Whitechapel. They were hardy creations, full of comfort and durability. But other shoemakers existed, and a woman like Lilian would surely have shopped locally. But she hadn’t, and therein lay more questions.

  Nanny watched with interest as, on her return to the parlour, Emily went straight to the table and began systematically sifting through the papers she found on it. Envelopes were picked up, interrogated and discarded. Letters were read and reread. But judging by her increasing frown, the younger woman didn’t find what she looked for.

  Unsure what to do, Nanny hovered, until realising she’d been forgotten: “If you don’t need me, child, I’ll be outside.” And she scarpered before Emily got the chance to change her mind.

  However, barely had the old girl got comfortable, no sooner had her needles begun to get on Niall’s nerves, than Emily appeared at the door, waving a piece of paper in triumph. “Got it!” she told them as soon as she had sat the other side of her
uncle’s chief minder.

  “You’re correct, not only didn’t she forget, but she also intended to lay what she called ‘ghosts’ to rest. And visit a grave in City Cemetery.”

  “Wonder why she didn’t?” Nanny’s needles clipped in time to her speech.

  “There was a £5 note in the diary, folded between the cover and the first page. Cleverly hidden.”

  “Anything of use in the pages?”

  “Not really.” For some reason, Emily didn’t want to let on that Nanny’s Lil no longer existed. “Time, I think, to visit Jethro. You coming with me?”

  After consulting her pocket watch, the old lady shook her head. “Can’t child. Got Suzy’s youngest calling round in a couple of hours. Got herself in a bit of bother and doesn’t want to marry the father.”

  Emily nodded and smiled at Niall, whose book lay forgotten in his hand as a commotion at the end of the street made him watchful.

  “Give her my love Nanny and tell her if Mr Parker cuts up rough and throws her out, to find me.”

  “Will do.” Shawls arranged to her satisfaction, Nanny gave Emily a respectful bow and set off at a sprightly pace, into the bustling throng and in the direction of the tube station.

  “Hope to be as nimble on me pins when I reach her age,” Niall quipped as he folded the corner of his page over and slipped the book into a voluminous pocket.

  Emily grinned back at him. “Be a bit difficult, given that leg’s wooden.”

  Niall laughed. “Yeah that ole’ alligator done for me.”

  “One day you’ll tell me the truth about how you lost your foot,” Emily chuckled at the old lie.

  “I told Mr Gold. ‘e said I didn’t need to tell anyone else.” And that was the end of that.

  The Grapes, Limehouse.

  Standing unnoticed for a moment at the door to the pub, Emily couldn’t help but compare Jethro to her uncle. Both men were kings of their domains but whereas Gold never let the mask of command slip, the moment Jethro spied her in the doorway, he became the servant. Grinning broadly, he rushed over to greet her.