by Alex Grecian
The Black Country
( The Murder Squad - 2 )
Alex Grecian
Alex Grecian
The Black Country
Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Steals naughty children from their homes,
Takes them to his dirty den,
And they are never seen again.
— Black Country children’s rhyme
PROLOGUE
It was an unusual egg. Not at all like other eggs Hilde had seen. It was slightly larger than a robin’s egg, white with a thin spiderweb of red, visible under a paper-thin layer of snow. A bit of dirty pink twine curled out from under the egg, and Hilde reached out, nudged it with her fingernail. The egg turned, rolling over in its nest of straw and feathers and bits of old string. Hilde could see now that the worm-thread was embedded in mud on one side of the egg and on the other side of the egg was a large colored dot, slate blue, darker than a robin’s egg ought to be.
She adjusted her position in the tree, resting her behind against a big branch to free her hands. She looked down at the ground, but there was nobody to see what she was doing or to tell her no. Carefully she reached into the nest and plucked out the unusual egg. It was slippery, not as firm as the eggs she had handled in the past, and its surface gave a little under the pressure of her fingertips.
She held it up to the pale sun, turning it this way and that. It glistened, a dappled branch pattern playing over its surface. She brought it closer to her face. The blue dot in the center ringed a smaller black spot and reminded her of something, but it was out of context and it took her a long moment to place it.
And then she did and it was an eye, and the eye was looking at her.
Hilde reeled back and dropped the eyeball. It tumbled down through the branches below, bouncing once, then twice, off the trunk, and disappeared into a pile of soft snow-covered underbrush. Her foot came loose from its perch on the branch and she felt herself slip. Her weight fetched up against a smaller branch to the side, but it didn’t hold her. She felt the adrenaline rush too late as she grabbed for the nest and it came loose in her hand. Her dress snagged and tore, and all of her sixty-three pounds caromed off the branch and slammed back into the tree trunk.
Still holding the useless bird’s nest, Hilde fell to the ground, screaming all the way.
1
THE VILLAGE OF BLACKHAMPTON,
THE MIDLANDS, MARCH 1890
Inspector Walter Day stepped off the train and directly into a dirty grey snowbank that covered his ankles. He was a solid block of a man with dark hair swept straight back from his face, and he smiled at the fat flakes that eddied in the train’s exhaust. The ride from London had been longer than expected, and he was tired and thirsty and nervous, but he took a moment to breathe in the fresh air. He set his suitcase down and raised his face to the sky, stuck out his tongue, and tasted the cold wet pinpricks of melting snow.
“Ow bist?”
Day turned to see a stout man in a blue uniform striding toward him. The man’s cheeks were red and raw, and ice glinted in his thick handlebar mustache.
“I’m sorry?” Day said.
“You the inspector, then?”
“I am. And you’d be Constable Grimes?”
“I am,” Grimes said. He put his hand out before he had reached Day and hurried to make up the distance, his arm held out like a lance between them. “Welcome to Blackhampton, sir. Quite excited to be workin’ with the Yard. Been a dream of mine.”
Day was flattered. This distant sheltered village still respected the detectives of Scotland Yard, saw them as a force for good. London was a different matter. Jack the Ripper had ravaged London and left his nasty mark on a city that had since become cynical and scornful of its police. Scotland Yard was in the process of rebuilding, but it was a daunting task. Day had only been with the Yard for six months, much of that on the new Murder Squad, twelve men tasked with hunting murderers like Saucy Jack. The commissioner, Sir Edward Bradford, had told Day he could spare him for only two days, so two days it was. He hoped it would be enough.
“We’ll try not to let you down.” Day took a few steps in Grimes’s direction and shook the constable’s hand.
“Let’s get your luggage,” Grimes said, “and I’ve got the carriage here to take you straight round to the inn. Cozy place, I think you’ll find. They do it up good there.”
“Thank you. I’ve just got the one bag here. But we’re waiting for my sergeant.”
“Sergeant? Was told to expect a detective and a doctor.”
“The doctor will be along tomorrow. He had pressing business in London.”
“So we’ve got an extra man, do we?”
“It seems you do.”
“Well, we’ll find room for him.”
Day wondered whether there was a territorial issue. One detective might be of assistance to the constable. But two men from the Yard might seem like a threat. The local law was already outnumbered.
“I’m sure we’ll depend on you completely,” Day said.
“No worries there.”
“Dash it all!” Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith’s voice preceded him, muffled by the noise of the train’s engine. “It’s cold.” Hammersmith hove into view carrying a small canvas bag. He stepped down from the train and shook his head at Day. The sergeant was tall, and rapier thin, and his unkempt hair hung over his eyes. His coat was unbuttoned, and a large wet spot decorated the front of his shirt.
“I’m sure that doesn’t help with the cold,” Day said. “The wet, I mean. Makes it colder yet when the breeze hits you.”
Hammersmith looked down at himself. “I don’t think it’s helped the shirt, either.”
“Did we spill?” Constable Grimes said.
“Train lurched,” Hammersmith said. “When it entered the station.”
“Perhaps the innkeeper will be able to get that tea stain out,” Day said.
“What say we get you out of this wind and somewhere warm?” Grimes said. “Got any other luggage, Sergeant?”
“Just this.”
“I admire a gentleman who travels light.”
Before Day could pick up his suitcase, Grimes grabbed it and led the way past the depot through shifting snowdrifts. Hammersmith was left to carry his own bag. He raised an eyebrow at Day, who shrugged. The constable’s notion of their pecking order was clear enough. Day put a hand on Hammersmith’s arm and let Grimes walk ahead so that they wouldn’t be heard.
“What is it?” Day said.
“What do you mean?”
“Something’s troubling you. I can tell.”
“This snow is half ash from the furnaces,” Hammersmith said. “It’s grey.”
“Only half grey,” Day said. “Still white beneath the surface. There’s good to be found in everything.”
“That’s fine talk for a detective of the Murder Squad.”
Day smiled and looked past the station to the snowy field and, far beyond it, the pit mounds, the huge tanks of steaming wastewater, the tiny engine houses, and the iced-over stream that wound past them all. Here and there the snow made way for long furrows of mud and hopeful clusters of green spring grass. He pulled his coat tighter around his body. He waited, and Hammersmith finally nodded and pointed past the evidence of a thriving coal village. A dark line of trees stretched across the horizon.
“A forest,” Hammersmith said. “Coal mines. Furnaces. The water. We only have two days to find three missing people in all this. It’s impossible. There are too many places to look.”
“We’ll find them. If they’re dead, we’ll find bodies. If they’re alive. .”
“If they’re alive, they’ll be moving about and we might never find them.”
�
��We’re not the Hiding Squad, after all,” Day said. “We weren’t sent for because anyone thinks they’re alive. And if murder’s been done, two days ought to be enough time to prove it.”
“If they’re not found when we have to go back, you could always leave me here.”
“I’m not going to leave you anywhere. The squad hasn’t enough men as it is and we have cases piling up at the Yard. I’m frankly surprised Sir Edward sent us here at all.”
Constable Grimes waved to them from the running board of a carriage parked at the station house. “You men comin’?”
Day and Hammersmith trotted across the springy boards of the platform floor and down the steps to the waiting carriage. The driver stuck his mouth in the crook of his elbow and emitted a series of short barking coughs. He shook his head as if dazed by the effort, then smiled and waved at them.
“That’s Freddy,” Grimes said. “He drives the carriage, but you’ll see him tendin’ to most everythin’ else needs doin’ round here.”
“You fellas need an errand, you look ol’ Freddy up and I’ll run it,” Freddy said. He appeared to be barely out of his teens, red-haired and freckled, with a gap between his two front teeth. Even sitting, his right leg was noticeably shorter than his left and rested on a block of wood that was affixed to the floor in front of the driver’s seat, but the boy’s grin seemed genuine and infectious. Day smiled back and nodded.
Something drew Freddy’s eye, and he pointed to the sky behind the inspector. “Look there,” he said. “Magpie.”
Day turned to see a small bird with a black head and a white belly flutter up past the far side of the depot. It banked and wheeled back on its own flight path, then straightened out and flew on.
“Bad sign, that,” Grimes said.
“Wait,” Freddy said. “Look.”
Three more magpies erupted in a flurry of beating wings and joined the first. They glided overhead and away toward the distant woods.
“Four,” Grimes said.
“Is that significant?” Day said.
“Maybe. Maybe not. One is for sorrow, of course. So it’s good to see the other three.”
“One bird brings ill fortune?”
“Ah, you know. One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Old rhyme. Not sure I give it much credence, but there’s some round here what does.”
“Four for a birth, eh?” Hammersmith said. He smiled at Day.
“None round here’s expecting, far as I know,” Grimes said.
“My own wife is due to give birth soon enough,” Day said. “Back in London.”
“Congratulations to you,” Grimes said. “Could be that’s what the birds was tryin’ to tell us.”
The three police clambered into the carriage. They heard a “haw” from Freddy, and the wagon rolled smoothly forward.
2
T he American waited inside the train’s rear passenger car until the two policemen were gone. He gave the porter a sixpence coin and stepped out onto the platform. The cold air on his cheeks felt invigorating after the closeness of his forward compartment. He took in the grey landscape with his grey eyes and checked the pocket of his grey leather duster to be sure the folding knife was still there. He smiled when his fingers touched the cold metal handle. The American’s smile was lopsided and horrifying. Even with his lips closed, a puckered hole from his left ear to the corner of his mouth exposed sharp yellow teeth behind the flesh of his cheek.
A sign swinging from the station’s awning welcomed the American to Blackhampton. He was in the right place. It was possible he’d bought old information, possible the soldier had moved on from Blackhampton, but this place felt right. He could almost smell his quarry. He’d never been so close. The American sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his duster.
He swung his knapsack and rifle case over his shoulder and walked away from the empty station, following the fresh wagon tracks in the snow.
3
Day and Hammersmith sat together facing Grimes, who had taken the backward-facing bench, leaving the better seats for the visiting policemen to see out through the windows on either side. Hammersmith hunched forward on the seat and cleared his throat.
“Tell us about the missing family,” he said.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather settle in first?” Grimes said. “You’ve had a long trip.”
“There’s a child missing, no?” Hammersmith said.
“Every hour we delay diminishes our chance of finding the boy and his parents,” Day said, “if they’re alive.”
Grimes shook his head. “Been gone for days. I’m afraid it’s bodies we’re looking for.” He looked away from them at the shifting scenery outside, but not before Day saw the sadness in the constable’s red-rimmed eyes. Day remembered his own time as a village constable, the responsibility he’d felt for his people. He sympathized with Grimes. “We’ll stop at the inn,” Grimes said. “There are people who want to meet you, want to help. I’ll introduce you round, let you get a feel for the way things work here. Might be questions you want to ask, though I’m sure I’ve asked ’em already.”
“We were told you’d found some evidence,” Day said.
“’Twas little Hilde Rose found it.”
“You’ve talked to her.”
“I have, sir.”
“Wonderful. Good work. Of course, we’ll want to talk to her, too.”
“I suppose you will,” Grimes said. “If her father’ll let you within a mile of the girl.”
“He’s protective?”
“He’s set in his ways.”
“How long after the disappearance was the eyeball found?”
“Well, you see, I’m not at all sure about that. It might have been the very next day, but it might have been as much as three days. Hard to pinpoint when they went missing. The weather’s made school a bit of an off-and-on thing round here, and the children weren’t missed right away.”
“Children? I thought it was just one child.”
“Oh, it is, but he has three siblings.”
“And they’ve been accounted for?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how long do they think their brother’s been missing?”
“Not to mention their parents,” Hammersmith said. “Didn’t they miss their parents right away?”
“I’m sure they did, but they have conflicting stories, and they’re not all able to tell time very well. The oldest kids say they thought their father had taken an extra shift at the mine. He’s a night guard.”
“And their mother?”
“Is not truly their mother. She’s the second Mrs Price. Was their nanny before the first Mrs Price run off. No love lost there. They say they simply didn’t notice whether she was around or not.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Be that as it may, sir, it’s what they’re tellin’ me.”
“Are they staying with someone?”
“The housekeeper’s got them under control for the moment. I suppose we’ll have to find a new place for ’em if their parents don’t turn up soon.”
“Any other staff currently at the Price home?”
“None. We’re not a posh estate here.”
“Of course.”
The three lapsed into an uneasy silence, and Day watched the scenery roll by outside the carriage. As they drew closer to Blackhampton proper, the train tracks, which crisscrossed the countryside and jounced the carriage as it eased over them, thinned out and were replaced by high ridges covered with a thin rind of snow. Hammersmith pointed past Day out the window.
“Slag,” he said. “What remains after the smelting process.”
“Where?” Day said.
“The hills. The villagers pile the slag about, and after a few winters it becomes fresh soil. Good for gardening. Vegetables, potatoes, that sort of thing.”
Day smiled. Tiny rivulets of melt-off curled through the maze of slag mounds, bordered by stone footpaths. Children, bundled
in coats and mittens and boots, ran about, jumping over the water, throwing snowballs, and shaping small round snowpeople.
“What kind of bush is that?” Day said. He pointed to a large woody thicket that seemed familiar.
“Not a bush,” Grimes said. “That’s a tree. Or the top of one, at least.” He indicated a strange-looking house several yards behind the bush. “It’s all sinking.”
Day craned his neck to see the house as it disappeared from view around a bend in the road. It was a single story with a sloping red roof and lined all about with small windows. There was no door on either side of the house that Day could see.
“Do they enter by the back door?”
“Doors are underground now,” Grimes said. “That place was two stories tall once. House and tree was above a seam what’s been mined already, so everything tends to sink down into the tunnel. People livin’ in it-that’d be the Baggses, mother, father, five children, and the lady’s sister-they go in and out through a window.”
“So even though that looks like a bush. .”
“It’s an oak tree. It’ll be dead by spring, its roots down past the dirt layer.”
“Will it keep sinking?”
“Aye, until it falls the rest of the way through.”
“Then they shouldn’t be living in that house, should they? Won’t it collapse beneath them?”
“It’s their house, innit? Their choice, I suppose. Frankly, it’s a common problem round here.”
“But why would you tunnel under your own homes?”
“You’ve got it turned round in the case of that house. Been mining this area for generations. Some of the shafts under here are hundreds of feet deep, and some’re just below the surface. Nobody knows where they all are anymore, but we’ve got to live and work, don’t we?”
“You’ve built on top of the tunnels.”
“Sometimes. Built where we could build. No real way to avoid the mines.”
