Painted Trust

by Elsa Holland

  “We’ll also need dates of his visits, anyone who spoke with him.”

  The scene reflected that of their first girl. New rub marks evidence of a rope or pulley used on the attic beam to hang the girl from to drain her blood. The hair and face were free of blood, and the same cut as before appeared on the feet, from where the blood had drained.

  Morrison bent down and smelled around the girl’s mouth and nose.

  “Chloroform.” As with the first girl, gold was painted on the incision points, neck, forearms, ankles, eyelids and lips, and this time on fingernails. Morrison looked down the body. The skinning looked more precise, more confident.

  “Looks like he’s improving, doesn’t it, kid?”

  The kid looked up from the notes and sketches he was making. “Most definitely.” He came closer to the body, his face so white Morrison thought he’d lose his stomach again.

  “Let’s roll her over,” the kid suggested.

  “What are you looking for?” the sergeant asked.

  They slowly moved her, hands on exposed, bone, organs and gut sac; an uncomfortable sensation.

  “Confirmation that she was fully skinned. There were gold feet impressions before. I am looking for any sign he painted himself again but this rectangle appears to be the only gold in the room, other than on her. Mind you, gold footprints on a gold floor could be difficult to spot.”

  “There are spots of gold paint all over the floor in one of the rooms below. Looks like he must have waited down there till he dried as there are no signs of it in any other rooms or the stairs,” the sergeant added.

  Under their girl was a small red silk cloth. Morrison gently lifted it. Burned into the wood, on top of the gold paint, were symbols in four columns, fifteen symbols in total.

  “Branding irons,” Morrison said.

  “Astrological symbols,” the pup interrupted, “Mars, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, Sagittarius . . .”

  Morrison looked up at the kid who was no doubt drawing the symbols. Morrison knew symbols, fucking loved symbols, he ate up that esoteric shit like it was the essence of longevity. Many more killers than people realized left a message in some sort of self-created code. Killers were great communicators if you knew how to read their signs. He’d excelled at it.

  “It’s a code,” the kid murmured.

  “No shit.”

  Morrison looked at the back of the girl. She’d been cut in some sort of pattern, like their first girl, and if Dr Vaughn was right, the cut was designed to preserve a pattern of tattoos. They’d agreed not to mention it outside of their reports—it was something that would capture the imagination of the press and make their life hell. It was also the one highly unique clue that would allow them a chance at tracking him. That is, if they could find out who tattooed these beautiful women and where these women belonged.

  CHAPTER 60

  After an hour with the girl, they walked down the stairs and prepared to view the old man’s body. The coroner would most likely tell them what they needed to know but a quick look was wise.

  “Sergeant.” a young bobby rushed in. “We broke the privy open; as you suspected, blood and fat were in the hole. But there’s more. Tenants say that Mr Bombay came out of the house naked, covered in gold paint. He washed the gold off in the courtyard as people came and went, told anyone who came by that it was an Indian ritual, that it ‘promoted good health and long life’.”

  Morrison stilled, letting it all sink in. The man was bold.

  The kid listened to the tenants’ descriptions of Mr Bombay and drew his likeness then gave it to the sergeant, keeping a carbon copy for themselves. There was nothing they could glean from the old man’s death, but the coroner might be able to identify whether the cut was left or right-handed.

  The train ride back to London was tense. As with the first girl, the kid had wanted to stay with the body and Morrison had refused him. He’d yelled at the kid that he couldn’t be guard dog on every case he worked, that he needed a thicker hide. The kid’s eyes had gone glassy.

  After enduring an hour of strained silence, Morrison dragged the kid to the dining car. “Come on”. He needed something to take the edge off, and something warm to remind him there were good things left in the world. And, strangely, he wanted the pup there.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Eat what you’re given.”

  “Why can’t I order what I want?”

  “You’d take too long.”

  The food came: grilled sole with chive and cream sauce, baked potatoes and wilted silverbeet. Not bad, even by the kid’s standards. He had a pint, the kid had water, and there was nothing the kid could complain about.

  “He’s not slinking round and hiding his identity,” Morrison started up. He needed to talk this out.

  “He is brazenly confident,” the pup said, tucking into his fish. Not hungry, my ass.

  Morrison leaned over the table. “Mr Bombay, the balls on him. He thinks those people in the tenements are thick as pig’s shit.”

  The kid looked around the dining carriage pointedly, and raised his eyebrows at him.

  Morrison rolled his eyes but took the hint. He leaned over the table again and lowered his voice. “He carried a basin of blood and a bucket of body fat out into the open and dumped it in a privy. This man is not just clever, he is acting with impunity. You know what really knocks me, kid?”

  The kid nodded. “That he washed his kill paint off in front of everyone.”

  “Doesn’t that fuck with your head? Who the fuck is he and how confident is he that he does something like that, wash his ritualistic paint off in the courtyard and pass it off as cultural eccentricity, and know it would work?”

  The kid put down his utensils and Morrison watched him closely as the kid lined up his thoughts and spoke. In that moment, the kid’s face was somehow ancient, his eyes holding a pain and knowing, which Morrison found himself wishing wasn’t there.

  “What if,” the kid said, “no matter what happens—if we find out who he is, where he lives, and apprehend him—he knows he will never be convicted? What if he knows he will never be charged and tried? What if he knows all of this with such certainty that he is free to do whatever he wants?”

  CHAPTER 61

  Vaughn walked out of the anatomy lab, the cold biting through his shirt, and looked up at the windows of the main house. Only two lights were left on, hers and Price’s. He walked back into the lab. His plans to prowl around the house could wait a little longer. It was better to make his approach when she was all sleepy, her resistance low. He wasn’t even close to getting to the Edith under all the secrets and plans. He may have tempted her enough to deviate briefly from her Africa plan, but the behaviors and attitudes that protected her and allowed her to deal with whatever it was she was dealing with were well set in place.

  He’d made progress today. Upon confronting her about her plan and cutting off her exit route, she had shown the first real feelings—other than those related to lust—since she had arrived, an eon ago, not a couple of weeks.

  The drawing of the optical nerves in front of him was dull company indeed. Before she came, he could spend hours lost in his drawings. Now she was a constant presence, haunting his every thought.

  Price had said that he and cook were concerned about Miss Appleby at dinner as she wasn’t herself. They thought that she had taken ill, or had she’d received bad news, such as a death in the family. They didn’t feel they knew her well enough to ask.

  That had given him hope. He would have let her stew tonight, but it seemed she had taken their exchange to heart. He would soon head up to her room and once again be the one to bridge the gap between them.

  Vaughn had a lot of strong feelings towards the man who did this to her. And it was a man who had made her this way, of that he had no doubt. A man that was as possessive of her as he was. What he could not understand was why he had not slept with her.

  Beyond those feelings of envy, jealousy and rage was the gut-d
eep fear that Edith’s tattoos gave her something in common with the skinned girl. How many beautiful, extensively tattooed women, could there be in Britain who worried that someone was following them and had bigger secrets than what was on her skin?

  She had come here, to him, for his medical degree—her ticket to oblivion. Now he needed to know why, because what he was starting to put together scared the hell out of him.

  An hour later he looked up at her window. The lights should be off and his Apple asleep, but they weren’t. Vaughn went back into the lab and turned off the lights.

  After shaving, washing and dressing in clean pants and shirt, he made his way to her door. The full set of house keys was in his pocket; her door would be locked so he’d need the key.

  Rather than knock, he quietly slipped the key into the door and opened it with the same stealth. A smile played on his face, imagining her scowl already.

  Vaughn slowly pushed the door open and saw her standing naked in a washing basin. The keys dropped from his hand as he leaped forward. She startled and turned as his hand came over hers, but she didn’t say a word. Her eyes were glassy.

  His chest clamped tight and bile rose, but he swallowed it down.

  “Give me the brush, Edith.”

  Her fingers were white at the knuckles. The smell of carbolic soap and disinfectant overpowered the room. Her eyes dipped down to their hands, his over hers as she clasped the unforgiving metal-bristled brush. Small bits of skin clogged up the bristles and pieces floated on the surface of the bloody water she stood in. He reached into himself for the Butcher, for the objective, rational professional, to keep his hands from shaking, his mind from closing down, his voice from howling.

  “Come on, Apple, let it go.”

  He pried her fingers loose and the brush fell to ground.

  Next to her sat a pan of water, white with carbolic soap, and a badger brush lay discarded on the floor. Her body was covered in red scratches from the badger brush, as if she had tried to remove her skin with it first. Small beads of blood pebbled over her arms, legs, stomach and breasts. She had been at this for hours. But that was not the worst.

  There was a patch on her forearm where she had started with the metal brush. And given his diligent, thorough girl she had done the job. The skin was literally scrubbed off, ripped in small lacerations by the bristles. The scrubbed patch was a few inches long and went the full way around the arm, not deep but raw, all surface skin removed. Little of the ink drawing remained in that place.

  God help him, if he hadn’t come, how much of the rest of her body would she have scoured? He pushed the thought aside quickly.

  “Just stay here, sweetheart. Don’t move.”

  She nodded groggily but bent and reached out again for the metal brush.

  Vaughn kicked the brush out of reach and gently drew her up again. “No, Edith, there will be no more of that.”

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  Vaughn swore and moved quickly to the bed while keeping an eye on her. He pulled the top sheet off and wrapped it around her.

  She flinched.

  “Edith, did you take any medication?” She shook her head, but her responses were off. Extended exposure to pain could generate its own desensitization, he’d seen it. She clumsily lifted her foot to step out of the basin.

  Vaughn steadied her. “Easy, sweetheart.”

  The blood was already coming through the white cotton. Damn it, he didn’t want to hurt her by lifting her, but she could hardly coordinate her movements.

  He wrapped his arms wrapped around her and picked her up gently, holding her tenderly to his chest. “That’s it, I have you.”

  There were dark circles under her eyes as she wrapped her arms around her chest.

  “Am I damaged? Do you think it’s enough?” Her eyes welled up and tears rolled down her cheeks. His heart was bellowing in his chest, roaring with the pain he couldn’t take away from her, screaming at the fact he still didn’t know for sure what the hell was going on, yet horrifically suspected.

  “I have you.” Her head was there on his shoulder, and he pushed his face into that thick black hair and breathed her in as she shook and shivered in his arms.

  “Maybe it needs a bit more.” She started to sob quietly. “Will you do it for me?”

  His gut clenched. He took the few steps to her bed and sat down with her cradled against him. He rocked them, kissed her head. Chanted, “It’s going to be alright.”

  Her head came up. There was a deep pain in her face, those determined looks, her braced shoulders and lifted chin all left behind. Her eyes looked into his, earnest dark pools of anguish that was soul deep.

  “You can’t save me, you know. But I can save you.”

  It felt like something was tearing inside him. Ripping open. “Give me a chance, sweetheart.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “If you put me under, I won’t feel it if you take some of the skin off.”

  Shame was a living thing inside him. All this time when he had seen her over-scrub her hands, check and double-check her damn buttons, it had not occurred to him that she would feel trapped in her painted skin, resent what she was.

  “I’m going to carry you to my room.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” But she didn’t move. Something had broken that focused, unyielding calm that she usually had.

  “No, I imagine you don’t.” He kissed her head again, then lifted her, walking slowly back to his room.

  He cared little for who might see them. This house had seen many horrors, its occupants insusceptible to them. Besides, though she did not know it, when they got through this she would be his Mrs Butcher.

  The room was warmed by the fire, ready for him to retire. Vaughn took her to the bed and pulled back the covers. Left her bundled in her own sheet and covered her with his bedding. She was shaking in earnest now.

  He sat next to her on the edge of the bed. Ran his hand over her forehead. There was no temperature, it would be shock.

  “Stay here, I will come back shortly.”

  He closed and locked his door.

  CHAPTER 62

  Vaughn went down to the surgery and collected antiseptic cream, bandages and some laudanum. The carbolic soap would have cleaned the skin and any subsequent breaks in it. But he would not abide any infections under his care, and the bandages would protect her. Once he treated her he needed her to sleep, needed to keep her sedated while she healed, hence the laudanum.

  The section she had scrubbed with the metal brush would heal and most likely scar. The design would be difficult to make out in that section. Ink goes deeper into the skin than one would expect; although the detail was gone the skin would retain some of the painted hue.

  Edith faced away from the door when he returned with the supplies. The bed dipped as he sat but she didn’t turn.

  “Come on, sweetheart, we need to do this.”

  “Just leave it.” Her voice was hollow.

  “You know that’s not going to happen. Best get it over with and then we can sleep.”

  She didn’t say anything but turned back to him. “You’re not going to do it, are you? You won’t help me remove the skin.”

  Vaughn pulled back the blankets then helped her to sit, unwrapping her from the sheet.

  “How about you tell me why that’s the only option. I am a reasonable man, believe it or not, and if you are right I will consider it.”

  She looked at him warily, but he saw the hope flicker dully in her eyes.

  “Come on, stand by the fire while I treat you and we’ll work on bringing me up to speed.”

  Her face wore that wonderful scowl and her inky black hair shone as she moved. When she turned, he saw that her back was clear. It was a spectacular cascade of florals and leaves. Each cheek of her bottom decorated with a cluster of peonies and a single black orchid that leaned asymmetrically in the foreground, its stem curling into the crease between those beautifully shaped globes.

  He
wished that this night was free of the horror and terror that swarmed around them. That she could be exactly who she was, what she was, standing by the fire, naked and grumpy, without the fear of what pursued her, without its mark upon her heart. A night alone, just the two of them, that would be a gift from the gods.

  Edith stood by the fireplace and he moved to the chair beside her, bringing his supplies with him. He had her stand between his legs then he slowly and softly rubbed the antiseptic cream on her legs, belly and arms. It was too soon to see what, if any, permanent damage had been done. Her arms and legs were the most scratched, she had only just started on her belly and breasts.

  There was not as much broken skin as he had feared. It was raw but not lower than the ink, no doubt the reason for the change to the metal brush.

  “Did you really think you could remove it?”

  “No. But if it was damaged, he may not want me or my skin.”

  A chill ran through him as the horrendous pieces started to line up between the woman he clearly loved and the latest forensic case.

  “Time to expand on the ‘he’.” Vaughn worked hard to keep calm.

  Edith gave a shaky sigh and their eyes met. Her barriers had not yet been resurrected.

  “He is the man who owns my skin. He is my Collector.”

  “He owns you?” He wanted to shout.

  “No, not me, my skin.”

  “I can’t see the distinction.” Vaughn focused on steadying his breathing.

  She paused, and he looked up. She was considering how much to share, and he willed her to take the leap and trust him.

  “In my world, there is.” She let that sit, as if testing the waters. He nodded encouragement as he continued to gently rub in the cream.

  “You can’t tell anyone . . .”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Edith, I’ve made the connection…”

  Her face screwed up and she cried. “I don’t even know which one of my friends it is.”

  “You have to trust me.”

  She looked at him then spoke. “In my world, people are made into living art and the art is sold.”