Portrait of Peril

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Who’s there?” he mutters in a rough Cockney voice. His thin body is padded with layers of clothes, the outermost a threadbare gray overcoat and tattered blue scarf. Dirty knees show through holes in his trousers, and his right shoe is a scuffed black lace-up. A bowler hat and scraggly gray whiskers conceal most of his face except for his bloodshot eyes.

  I introduce Mick and myself and explain that we’re newspaper reporters. “May we talk to you?”

  “About what?” The man is obviously a vagrant of the kind that live in London’s alleys and casual wards. Dried saliva crusts the corners of his mouth. He’s lying on a filthy gray blanket amid empty wine bottles and bundles of his possessions. He exudes the odors of liquor and stale urine.

  “The murder in the church on Thursday night,” I say. “Were you here then?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  Perhaps we have a witness at last. Mick says, “Did you see anything?”

  “Could be. What’s it worth to you?” The vagrant holds out a hand clad in a knitted red glove with the fingertips worn through to reveal the grime under his nails.

  This won’t be the first time I’ve paid for information. I open my satchel and remove a shilling that I drop in the vagrant’s palm.

  “Ta.” His grin shows gaps between rotted teeth, and he pockets the shilling.

  “What is your name, sir?” I say.

  “Andrew Coburn.”

  “What happened that night, Mr. Coburn?”

  “Well …” He’s taking his time, enjoying the attention. “I woke up when I heard someone at the door. I got up to look, and I seen a bloke go in the church.”

  “What did he look like?” Mick says.

  “My eyes ain’t too good. All I could tell was he had a lot of trunks and whatnot.”

  Charles Firth, with his photography equipment. “Then what?” I say.

  “I went back to sleep, until someone else went in.”

  It could have been the killer. I feel a shiver of anticipation. “Who was it?”

  “Uh … I don’t know,” Mr. Coburn says, suddenly nervous.

  “You’re lyin’,” Mick says. “Who was it?”

  “If he knew I ratted on him … I don’t want no trouble.”

  “We won’t tell anyone,” I say, although I may have to go back on my word.

  Mr. Coburn vacillates, then holds out his hand. I give him another shilling. He glances around, as if the person he’s afraid of might hear, then whispers, “It were Nat Quayle.”

  The name hasn’t come up during the investigation, and it’s unfamiliar to me. “Who is Nat Quayle?”

  “He lives at Bethnal Green Workhouse. Promise he won’t find out I set you on him?” Mr. Coburn’s reddened eyes beseech me. “He ain’t somebody you want to run afoul of.”

  After thanking Mr. Coburn for the information, Mick and I leave the church. We see, halfway down the block, reporters clustered around two constables and a gray-haired, moustached man in an overcoat and derby. It’s Inspector Reid, my enemy since we first met two years ago during the Ripper investigation.

  Mick tugs my arm. “Sarah, let’s get out of here.”

  I freeze as if I’m on the railroad tracks while a train thunders toward me and I can’t decide which way to jump. I crave a confrontation with Reid, even though it could land us in jail.

  “Have you any suspects in the murder?” the reporters ask Reid. “Do you think the killer is a ghost?”

  “It’s early days, fellows. I can’t comment at this time.”

  He must be involving himself in the Charles Firth murder because the publicity has turned it into a high-profile case. He’s sniffing around the scene for clues that could help him solve it and boost his reputation, at Barrett’s expense. My hatred for Reid is a poisonous yet intoxicating brew. As I drink in the sight of him, I remember the secret I’m hiding, never far from my thoughts, a permanent canker on my soul. I have nightmares about the gallows at Newgate Prison, a noose around my neck, and the trapdoor opening in the platform under my feet. The nightmare will become reality should Reid learn my secret.

  Reid turns his gaze in my direction. “Excuse me,” he says to the reporters. He and his constables stride around the corner. He doesn’t beckon me; he knows I’ll follow him, and I do. He’s up to something, and my curiosity and my attraction to danger won’t let me retreat.

  “You’re askin’ for it,” Mick says, but he comes with me.

  We catch up with Reid by the schoolyard. He’s standing alone, his constables waiting down the block. He’s thinner than when I last saw him a few months ago, as if anger is consuming him from the inside. The ends of his moustache are wet; I assume he’s been chewing on it.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Bain and Mr. O’Reilly. Or rather, Mrs. Barrett.” His tone is pleasant; he adds none of his usual sarcastic, insulting remarks. “Congratulations, by the way.”

  Mick and I exchange glances, alert for trouble. “Good afternoon, Inspector Reid,” I say, controlling my urge to poke the wolf. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry your wedding was spoiled by a dead body.” Reid’s sympathy sounds so genuine that I would believe it was if not for our history. “This must be a first for the Daily World—a new bride investigating a murder. Any clues yet?”

  As if he thinks I’m going to give him tips! “You’ll have to ask my husband. He’s the officer in charge of the police investigation.”

  Reid scowls briefly; he doesn’t like the reminder that Barrett was promoted to detective against his wishes. There’s also the matter of the Ripper case. He, more than all the other London police, takes personally their failure to catch the Ripper. He blames Barrett, my friends, and me for said failure, as well as other troubles, and he’s determined to get the better of us somehow, someday, preferably in the dirtiest way possible.

  “Suppose we make a deal,” Reid says. “You tell me everything you’ve learned about Charles Firth’s murder, and I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned during my search for Benjamin Bain.”

  The direction the conversation has taken is like a kick behind my knees when I’ve braced myself for a punch in the stomach. My heart begins to race, my mind to scramble. What has he learned? Fortunately, I’ve had much experience keeping a calm, straight face. “No, thank you. I’m not interested.”

  “Oh, come now,” Reid says with a jolly chuckle. “I know you’ve been searching high and low for your father.”

  Dismayed by the possibility that he’s traced my father by spying on me, I see no choice but to flat-out lie. “You’re mistaken.”

  Reid’s smile says he doesn’t believe me. “Haven’t gotten anywhere, have you? Not even with the help of your sister? Sally Albert, the Daily World’s fledgling writer?”

  He’s showing off his knowledge of my family, reminding me that he discovered Sally’s existence by having me followed. I’d led his henchmen straight to the house where Sally used to live and work. Since then, I’ve been more careful, but maybe in vain.

  “Looks like two heads aren’t enough. Don’t you want some more help?” Reid taps his finger against his head and raises his eyebrows expectantly.

  Does he know I’ve found my father? I desperately hope he’s just fishing and thinks that if he pesters me, I’ll let a clue slip. Catching a fugitive murder suspect who’s been on the run for twenty-four years would be a feather in his cap, and he knows that sending Benjamin Bain to the gallows would be the ultimate blow to me.

  “If you were as good a detective as you think you are, you’d have found my father already, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I say.

  Reid’s muddy brown eyes burn as if hot, molten lava roils behind them. The jovial crinkles around them are like cracks spreading in the earth as the pressure mounts toward an eruption. “Benjamin Bain must be pretty long in the tooth by now. You wouldn’t want him to kick the bucket before you can have your happy reunion. If we compare our notes, maybe we can flush him out.”

  Inside, I’m
shaking with anger. If Reid knows where my father is, then he’s needlessly tormenting me; if not, he’s trying to trick me into helping him solve Charles Firth’s murder and betray Barrett. “You can take your notes and—”

  “It’s time to go, Sarah,” interrupts Mick. He pulls me down the street.

  After we’ve gone several blocks, we stop, and I look around to make sure that Reid and his constables are nowhere in sight. “I have to warn my father.”

  “Sarah, no.” Mick grabs my shoulders to halt my rush toward the train station. “That’s just what Reid wants. I bet he’s got his flunkies watching you, and they’ll follow you straight to your dad.”

  I sigh and nod. Mick is right, and I’m grateful to lean on his judgment when my own is impaired.

  “Reid’s bluffing,” Mick says. “Best thing you can do for your dad is act like you don’t know where he is and just go about your business. So let’s find that Nat Quayle bloke.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Located half a mile from St. Peter’s, the Bethnal Green Workhouse is a shelter and place of employment for the able-bodied poor, who receive bed and board in exchange for their labor. Occupying several acres, the large compound of dingy brick buildings seems cloaked in its own desolate atmosphere of smoke from its many chimneys, steam from its boilers, and the sewage stench from Regent’s Canal at the end of the street. A reporter from the Daily World recently disguised himself as a pauper, went to live among the fifteen hundred inmates, and wrote lurid articles about his experiences. I’m interested to see whether the conditions there are as bad as he claimed.

  Inside the gate, the porter’s lodge stands before the long, three-story main block. Mick and I join the small crowd of people queued up at the lodge. They’re mostly men and a few women with children in tow. Their clothes are ragged, and the smell of their unwashed bodies is so strong that I want to cover my nose with my handkerchief. At the lodge entrance, a man wearing an overcoat and a bowler hat greets them. He’s of middle age, accompanied by two younger men dressed in identical gray jackets and trousers, striped cotton shirts, and cloth caps—the workhouse inmates’ uniform. They watch while the older man—apparently the porter—takes names, writes them in a ledger, and directs people to another building or rejects them. The rejected include a drunken woman and a crippled man on crutches. When Mick and I reach the front of the queue, I introduce us and tell the porter we’ve come to see Nat Quayle.

  “No visitors allowed.”

  One of the inmates steps forward. “I’ll take you to him.”

  Mick and I look at each other, thinking it strange that inmates can overrule the official gatekeeper. In a feeble effort to assert his authority, he says, “Leave your belongings here.”

  I’m reluctant to abandon our photography equipment to the care of the porter, but this may be our best chance to solve the murder. The inmate escorts Mick and me into the main building. In a wide passage, the din of many voices hits me at the same time as the smell—body odor, stale food, and mildew overlaid with bleach fumes that sting my eyes. Cold air wafting from iron grates in the stone floor and the moldy plaster ceiling brings insufficient relief. Open doors reveal large rooms whose windows are too high to see out of. In one, inmates are eating a meal at long tables while a chaplain at a podium reads aloud from a Bible. In another, they’re unraveling piles of rope with their fingers and an iron spike. This tedious work is known as picking oakum—dismantling old, frayed rope into fibers that can be reused. All these inmates are female, dressed in aprons over blue-and-white-striped dresses. A few women wait in line outside a chamber that must, judging from the strong odor of urine, be the latrine. The conditions are as harsh as described in the articles, surely intended to discourage anyone but the truly destitute to come here and live on the government dole.

  Often in my life when my purse was empty, I feared ending up in a workhouse myself.

  As our escort leads us down the passage, other men in workhouse uniforms fall into step behind us. I don’t see anyone who looks official. The inmates seem to have taken command here, which would explain why the porter allowed them to override his order.

  Mick perceives something wrong at the same moment I do. “Sarah, let’s go.”

  We turn toward the exit, but the men block our way. Mick grabs my hand, and we run in the opposite direction, around a corner, with a shouting mob in pursuit. We burst through a door, into a yard where men are pounding sledgehammers against boulders, breaking them into smaller rocks. The air is filled with suffocating dust, and I cough. Our pursuers are gaining on us, and their intentions can’t be good. Mick and I run in blind, frantic search of escape. The men fan out to surround us. Buildings enclose the yard; an archway beckons. We rush through it to another yard surrounded by more buildings. The door to one stands open. Mere steps ahead of our pursuers, we rush in.

  The room is as hot as summer, loud with clattering machinery. Amid clouds of caustic steam, women operate washing machines and mangles. We skid on spilled water on the stone floor.

  Mick yells as someone grabs him. Releasing my hand, he says, “Run, Sarah!”

  Male inmates hurl themselves on him, and he goes down. I pick up a mop and beat at them while he fights them. “Help!” I call to the women.

  They stare, openmouthed and immobile. Men wrest the mop from my hands, and as they seize me and lift me off the floor, I scream and flail. I gouge my fingernails into their hands; I kick their faces. But there are too many men, they’re too strong, and I can’t break free. Even as I sob helplessly, I’m more afraid for Mick than for myself.

  A male voice, rough and angry, authoritative, says, “Let her go!” The mob beneath me roils, and I’m dropped to the floor, where I crash onto my hands and knees.

  Mick hovers anxiously over me. “Sarah, are you all right?”

  “Yes.” I sob with relief because it seems we’re safe now. I’m trembling because I could have been raped and we both could have been killed. Mick is soaking wet; his clothes drip water on me as he helps me to my feet. I ask, “What happened to you?”

  “They tried to drown me in a washtub. Lucky thing he came along.” Mick points at our rescuer.

  The man, dressed in a gray smock, black trousers, and work boots, isn’t very tall, but his shoulders and chest are heavily muscled. A ring of keys dangles from his waist. Clean-shaven, with short blond hair beneath his cap, he has a square jaw and thick lips. His expression isn’t kindly, but I’m so glad to see someone official that I could kiss him. His sharp blue eyes, set in puffy lids, glare at the other men.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  A stout brute with a piggish face says, “We was just havin’ a little fun.” His companions stand around like disobedient, guilty schoolboys.

  “You don’t have fun unless I say you can.” My rescuer shoves the man toward the door and says to all the inmates, “Get back to work.” They slink off, and he says to me, “Your mouth’s bleeding.”

  I taste the blood on my lip where I must have bitten it during the attack.

  “That’s a nasty burn.” He points at the red, blistered skin on Mick’s wrist.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when some rotter throws lye on you,” Mick says.

  I see that he shares my distrust of our rescuer. The man, in his twenties, seems young to have so much authority over the inmates, and his interaction with them sounded inappropriate in some way. But he saved our lives, and I’m grateful.

  “I’ll take you to the infirmary, get you fixed up,” he says.

  He leads us out of the laundry. The women keep working as if nothing has happened. In the yard, I say, “Thank you, Mr.…”

  “Quayle.”

  Mick and I look at each other, startled. “You’re Nat Quayle?” I say.

  “Yeah.” He ushers us through the door of a wing attached to the main building. It’s a miniature hospital, with separate wards for men and women on opposite sides of the corridor. I see inmates lying in bed, u
nder piled blankets to keep warm. The air smells of medicines and disinfectant. I wonder what diseases they have—cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid?

  Nat Quayle unlocks a door and motions us into an examining room. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” I say.

  While I try to compose myself, Mick introduces us as reporters and tells Quayle, “We came here to talk to you about the murder at St. Pete’s church.”

  Quayle’s expression is flat and opaque as he absorbs the information. “Sit there.” He points to the examining table, then washes his hands at the basin. He apparently intends to treat our injuries himself.

  “You a doctor?” Mick says.

  “A nurse.” Quayle rummages in a cupboard and brings out gauze bandages, cotton balls, a bottle of alcohol, and medicine vials.

  He doesn’t look like the nurses I’ve seen, all women in white aprons and caps. I collect my wits enough to ask, “Where did you train?”

  “Here. I started out working in the boiler house. The doctor tried me out in here after another nurse left. I didn’t faint at the sight of blood. Been here ever since.”

  I belatedly notice that the shirt under his smock is blue-and-white-striped cotton: he’s an inmate. Mick says, “The bosses put you in charge?”

  Quayle’s eyes glint with amusement. “Not exactly.”

  I suppose that in the absence of enough officials to govern the workhouse, the inmates take matters upon themselves, and that Quayle, like a street gang leader, has risen to the top of the heap by dint of his forceful personality.

  “Let’s see that burn,” Quayle says.

  He cleans Mick’s wrist with a cotton ball dipped in alcohol. Mick grits his teeth. I watch Quayle apply salve to the burn and bandage it. He seems to know what he’s doing. When he turns to me, I let him pull down my lip to examine the wound. Up close, in bright light, his face is a patchwork of old scars, as if he’s been cut apart and sewn back together. He smells of soap, and his manner is professional, but I’m wary. Apparently, he rules the inmates, including those who led Mick and me into the trap.