Death Makes No Distinction

by Lucienne Boyce

  “I am sure that with your usual perspicacity, you will fathom his character,” Sheridan answered.

  The Prince gave a self-deprecatory titter before sharing his insight. “I think he loved Louise Parmeter more than he was willing to admit.”

  “He had a funny way of showing it,” Dan said.

  “Foster!” Townsend reproved. His promising officer was putting himself too far forward.

  “No, no, Towney, I like to hear him speak,” said George. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of the cruel gifts he sent her. Mourning gloves, a black hatband, a silver coffin plate engraved ‘Here lies—’” Dan broke off, ended in confusion, “Your Royal Highness.”

  “A whore?” the Prince finished for him. “Something to the same effect. I thought Hawkhurst was more subtle than that. I wonder if it was Bredon’s idea? It’s no matter.” He stood up, signalling that the audience was over. “It’s enough for me that the memoirs are in my possession and that the murderer will hang. You will see my treasurer on your way out.”

  Townsend bowed. “Thank you, Your Royal Highness.”

  Dan also bowed and thanked the Prince. He gave a last look out of the window. Noticing his interest, the Prince came to stand beside him.

  “What do you think, Foster? Will it do?”

  Sir William took advantage of the Prince’s distraction to corner Sheridan. “You will notice, I think, that Act Three is a highly original way of introducing the themes of love and honour. Lord Aramand’s passion for the charming captive who he is determined to cherish in spite of his father’s vengeful fiat is quite a new situation.”

  “It was old when Dryden used it,” Sheridan muttered. “But, as I say, Sir William, I have not had time to read the play. Perhaps we could defer our discussion until I have?”

  Sir William edged closer to Sheridan. “The character of Jacarantha is handled with great delicacy.”

  Dan, recollecting that the Prince was waiting for an answer, took his attention away from the eager playwright.

  “I am no judge of such things, sir.”

  “But you think everyone will have a clear view of the ring?”

  “The ring?” Dan looked at the stand again. He had been told that the bout was to take place before a few select friends.

  “For your fight next week.” George frowned. “You had not forgotten?”

  “No, I had not forgotten.”

  “Good… Sherry.”

  Sheridan escaped from Sir William to join the Prince. Dan and Townsend followed the chief magistrate out of the room, Townsend stepping on Dan’s heels. He plucked at Dan’s sleeve. His voice grated in Dan’s ear.

  “I hope you don’t get too mashed up next week, Foster.”

  Dan pulled away and strode off, leaving Townsend smirking after him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Dan climbed the stairs to Pickering’s apartments. He heard voices and hesitated, wondering if Pickering had forgotten his invitation. Dan had received his note at Bow Street earlier in the day. Pickering had asked him to join him for a celebratory drink, and Dan had replied that he would call in on his way home.

  While he was in two minds about whether or not to knock, the door shot open and Pickering appeared in the doorway.

  “Thought I heard footsteps. Come on in, Foster.”

  “You have company. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Of course I have company. They’re here for you.”

  Dan took off his hat, looked round at the welcoming faces. Louise Parmeter’s former butler, Parkes, was resplendent in an embroidered waistcoat, black breeches and black silk stockings. His appearance was bound to impress any gentleman seeking a purveyor of high-quality groceries. He sat next to Miss Evans, his attentiveness to her suggesting that she meant more to him than the capable helpmeet he had described to Dan at the start of the investigation.

  Mrs Watson’s face was as red as ever, thanks more to the hot water in her gin than the heat of the laundry. Miss Julia’s dress seemed to have been chosen to advertise their skills, so beribboned, crimped and ruffled was it. Even Sarah Dean greeted Dan with a warm smile, abandoning her haughty manner. The stable boy, Jacko, sat on the floor, gobbling a plate of food, and paused only long enough to wave a friendly chop.

  “What will you have?” asked Pickering. “Not wine, or gin, I know. I have soda water, or ginger beer I got in for the boy.”

  “Ginger beer, thanks.”

  Parkes pulled up a chair for him and he sat down. Pickering refilled glasses all round and they drank a toast to “Principal Officer Foster” which ended in cheers. They followed this with a solemn toast to the memory of Miss Parmeter, another to the success of Parkes and the future Mrs Parkes, one to Miss Dean’s appointment as lady’s maid to the Duchess of Gornall, one from Pickering to the end of slavery. Then Pickering threw in an appreciation of Mrs Watson’s laundry, with long life and happiness to the simpering Miss Julia. There was another toast for “Principal Officer Foster” and then, overflowing with goodwill, they begged Dan to tell them how he had discovered Bredon was the murderer.

  “I never liked the man,” Parkes said when Dan had done. “Very mean with his tips.”

  “And to think,” Mrs Watson said, “that my poor girl here was trampled underfoot by the murderous villain still reeking with Miss Parmeter’s blood!”

  This brought gasps of astonishment and they all turned to her, eager for an explanation. Dan let her get on with it, embellishments and all. Miss Julia would always be known as the girl who stopped a murderer in full flight, whether or not he pointed out the incident had happened two days before the crime.

  Pickering, having seen to his guests’ glasses, flopped down in the seat next to Dan. He winked.

  “Two burglaries in two weeks. Sounds to me like you missed your true calling.”

  Dan grinned. “How else was I to get into Hawkhurst’s house? And if I was you, I’d show a bit more gratitude.”

  Pickering laughed. “I am grateful, Foster, as you well know. And glad that you kept going. If you hadn’t, it might be me at the end of the rope. Mind you, I almost miss Patrolman Grimes.”

  Dan smiled. “How are your plans for buying your own stable coming along?”

  “Good, good. I’ve found the place I want, off Tottenham Court Road. Just arguing the price with the owner. Truth to tell, it’s worth what he’s asking, but I’m not telling him that.” He cast a sly glance at Dan. “You must come and see me whenever you fancy a gallop around the Park.”

  “Not for me, thanks,” Dan said. “Not a great one for horses.”

  “I could tell. But really, Foster, how do you get along without being able to ride?”

  “I get other people to do it for me.”

  Pickering laughed again. “Well, if you ever change your mind and want to learn, come to me. I’ll have you racing at Epsom before you know it.”

  Dan put down his glass. “I doubt that. And now I must be getting along.”

  He shook hands all round, wished everyone well, and went out into the night in a chorus of goodnights and God blesses. The Parmeter case was over, and well over. But he still did not know who his enemy was, or what had become of him.

  He descended carefully into the lane and hurried towards the lights of Berkeley Square. He was near the middle of the square when a shadowy figure stepped out from behind one of the plane trees.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Dan’s hand flew to his pistol, fell to his side when he saw it was a young woman. She clutched a shawl around her shoulders, making up for the lack of cover from her low-cut dress. Her cheeks were spotted with rouge and her lips painted red, a garish contrast with her grey complexion.

  “Hallo, darlin’.”

  “Not for me,” Dan said.

  She smiled. “I weren’t offering, but now you mention
it.”

  “Move along, else you’ll find yourself in the nearest watch house.”

  She recognised the hollowness of the threat, laughed up at him. “We ain’t got time anyway. Dark Peg’s waitin’ fer yer at the Beak.”

  “Dark Peg? What does she want?”

  “She don’t tell me ’er doin’s. All she says was, it’s about the business you spoke on.”

  *

  Dan walked into the heat, smell and racket of the Old Blind Beak’s Head. The sound of a fiddler playing a maniacal jig cut above the babble of voices. In the middle of the room half a dozen couples stamped drunkenly to the music. A few people scowled at him and one or two bold souls muttered threats, but no one dared to challenge him as he made for Dark Peg’s table.

  She drained her glass of gin, stood up and beckoned with a pudgy finger. He followed her to a door at the back of the room and up a flight of stairs to the foul chambers where the working girls made her profits. He could still hear the sounds from the bar, catch eddies of movement through the gaps in the floorboards.

  She led him into one of the rooms. It contained a bed covered with a set of dirty sheets, a table with a candle on it, and a ragged mat beside it. A wash stand stood in the corner supplied with a jug of water and a grubby towel. A couple of lewd prints had been nailed to the wall.

  A thin girl aged about eighteen sat on the bed. She was not painted like the woman who had spoken to him in Berkeley Square and her dress was more modest, though the neckerchief across her bosom was not so demure that her profession was not obvious enough. One side of her face was blue-black, and there was a red gash on the corner of her mouth. She rose when Peg came in, dropped something like a curtsey.

  “This is Hetty,” Peg said. She nodded at the girl. “Go on.”

  Hetty pulled off her neckerchief, began to unlace her bodice.

  “I’ve not come here for that,” Dan said, but Peg put her finger to her lips.

  “Wait.”

  The girl took off her bodice, unlaced the ties at the neck of her shift and lowered the fabric, exposing her breasts. Wincing, she lifted her arm, displayed the bruises along the side of her prominent ribs. It was nasty, but girls rarely reported such injuries. Peg would have her own bullies to deal with rough customers.

  Dan glanced at the older woman. Stone-faced, she signalled that he should keep his attention on the girl. Hetty shuffled in a circle, revealed her back covered in bruises. Peg took the candle from the table, held it close to the battered, broken skin.

  “Look.”

  Dan leaned forward, followed Peg’s finger as it sketched a blurred shape between the shoulder blades. A boot mark, and at the toe a red V-shaped weal. He recognised the wound. He took out his pocket book and extracted the sketch he had made of the marks on the dead woman at the Feathers in Holborn.

  “That’s the one?” Peg asked.

  “It is,” he said. To Hetty, “Cover yourself up. Who did this to you?”

  She hitched up her shift and glanced at Peg, who said, “Tell him.”

  “I met him last night on Holborn Hill. We went back to his room at the Thatched House on Field Lane.”

  Field Lane was off Holborn Hill, north of Fleet Market. Fleet Ditch ran – or more usually stagnated – behind it. It was part of the network of rookeries around Chick Lane. It was a convenient lair for a rapist and murderer.

  “Did he give a name?”

  “No.”

  “What does he look like?”

  The girl’s eyes gleamed. “He’s got a bleeding great cut on his head.”

  “You gave him that?”

  “With a bottle.”

  “What else, apart from the cut?”

  “He looks like someone sat on the side of his head and squashed it all together. His teeth’re all crooked, crammed into his gob, and his top lip slobbers out over them. A tall gangrel cove, all hands and feet. Thick wrists. Dressed smart, had a watch in his fob. I don’t think he’d come by it honest, either.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The Thatched House is a flash house, and he seemed well known there.”

  “Did you try to take the watch? Is that why he hit you?”

  “I never. He slapped me a couple of times when we was doing the business and after I said he should pay more because of it. He knocked me down, ripped the dress off me back, started kicking me. I crawled to the table, grabbed the bottle, lammed him and ran. I knew there had to be a back way out. You know.”

  Of course; a rookery landlord would make sure there was an escape route for his customers.

  “Which room was he in?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Which room upstairs?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Peg shifted her feet, folded her arms. The girl said hastily, “At the back. Don’t remember which one. The bottom panel of the door was all splintered and rotten along the edge.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Can’t think of nothing else.”

  “Sounds useful, yes?” said Peg.

  “Very,” Dan agreed. The girl’s eyes widened as he handed Peg a bank note. He doubted she would see any of it, took some coins from his pocket and handed them to her.

  He eyed Peg sternly. “Earned in her own right, Peg. No sharing.”

  Peg, grinning happily at the note, nodded. “Understood, Mr Foster.”

  “Make sure it is. Ladies.” He put on his hat and left them.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It had started to rain. Icy water gurgled along gutters, poured from eaves. People splashed through the mucky pools that had collected in the cobbled street. Dan welcomed the filthy weather; it was good cover for someone who did not want to be seen or heard. He stood in the doorway of a narrow, dark house, the cracked canopy over the step providing some shelter from the downpour.

  People passed in and out of the doors of the crowded lodging houses, many of them working girls with blind-drunk clients, a few working boys. Most of the shops were little more than stalls set up outside the houses and hardly ever ceased trading. Tripe shops, pawnbrokers, beer houses; an old iron shop whose owner was known as a receiver of stolen lead and ironmongery, but who had so far avoided prosecution; a house where a mother and her daughter were suspected of making and selling false money.

  Dan had no time for any of that tonight. The Thatched House opposite him was an old two-storey building with a steep gabled roof that may or may not have been thatched at one time. Through the thick latticed windows, he watched a blur of brightly dressed figures moving around inside. People came and went: footpads, highwaymen, and their doxies, swaggering about in their misgotten finery. There was a light over the door which gave a good view of their faces. After half an hour, it illumined thin, wedge-shaped features atop a skinny, slouching figure which could only belong to the man who had beaten Peg’s girl, Hetty.

  Dan followed Hetty’s hint and went round to the back of the tavern through George Alley. There was a cramped path where the rain lay dark and deep between the dank walls of the houses in Union Court which backed on to Field Street. He walked along until he found a nondescript door half-hidden behind piles of wooden crates. It had no handle on the outside, but it took only a few minutes’ work with a knife to release the latch and let himself inside.

  He was in a long, dark passage, lined on one side with empty barrels. At the end, a door half-glazed with coloured smoke-stained glass led into the bar. To the side of this a flight of uncarpeted stairs ran to the upper rooms. He slipped past the bar, put his hand on the creaky banister and tiptoed upstairs.

  He came out on a landing facing a row of doors, all closed, the rooms within dark. All except for one at the end where a light shone through a large, jagged gap along the edge of the bottom panel. Shadows flickered back and forth.

  Dan crept up to the door,
put his ear to the board and listened to someone dragging something heavy along the floor. There was the click of a key, the squeak of hinges. Dan crouched and peered in through the gap, saw the profile of a man kneeling by the bed in front of a box such as servants use to store their belongings. He was wrapping up some small object, placing it inside the chest. A candle burned on the table near the bed, the flame glinting on the barrel of a pistol beside it.

  Dan straightened up, rammed the door open with his shoulder. The man’s startled face turned towards him. There was an ugly red slash across his forehead. His hand flew towards the pistol, but Dan was across the room before his groping fingers found a hold on the weapon. He hauled him up by his lapels.

  “Bow Street Officer. You’re under arrest.”

  “Fuck you!”

  The loose, long-limbed body was tough and wiry, the large hands Hetty had described accustomed to fisticuffs. In their struggle, they knocked the table over, sent gun and candle flying. In the sudden darkness, Dan felt his adversary squirm out of his grip, sensed rather than saw him lunge for something that lay on the bed. A hard object swung into the side of Dan’s head. He staggered back, blinded by the explosions behind his eyes. He made a wild grab after his adversary as he sprang past him, but a shove sent him spinning to his knees. The man flung open the door and disappeared down the stairs.

  Dan clutched the side of the bed and dragged himself to his feet. He raised his hand to his head, felt the blood sticky on his fingers. He had been hit with some sort of bludgeon, which had probably just been used in the theft of the plunder the man had been adding to his stash.

  He listened for a moment. The carousing downstairs continued unabated. The thief had preferred escape and abandoning his chest of stolen goods to seeking the company’s help – and letting them know he had led a Runner to their bolthole. Dan groped for his hat and ran out after him.

  Dan was just in time to see him dodge out of the top of the alley into another half-hidden track. He twisted, turned, doubled back, but every time he looked over his shoulder, Dan was still there, and gaining on him. He did not know he was dealing with someone who was used to finding his way around London’s rookeries.