Season of Darkness

by Cora Harrison

  And I’ll be there, too,’ I put in. After all I was the one who had got the vital information out of Pauline and I didn’t see why I should be left out at this stage.

  ‘We’ll get you a cab,’ said Dickens without replying to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and made his way to the door, then looked back and I followed the direction of his eyes. Inspector Field, slowly and deliberately, was opening the drawer of his desk. He extracted a pair of handcuffs from it, and placed them inside his trouser pockets. A small pocket pistol followed it and Dickens gave a satisfied nod. Seizing me by the arm, he pulled the door shut behind us.

  ‘Wilkie, my very dear friend,’ he said with unaccustomed earnestness, ‘I don’t really want you to come with us into the American’s house. You can get out of the cab there, but then I have a much more important mission for you. I want you to go to number five, get hold of Sesina, put her in a cab and bring her to my place, to Tavistock House. Stay with her there. Wilkie. Don’t let her leave until I come.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you went,’ I said rather sulkily. ‘She’s more likely to do what you say.’

  He gave a grimace. ‘No, my friend, you’re the one with the flair with women. What was it that Eliza Chambers said, wrote to me the other day? “I was sitting beside dear Mr Collins and that alone is enough to ensure having a brilliant time of it. One always feels so well-looked-after by him.” All my lady friends are the same. I have to promise them that you will be there before they condescend to come and dine with me.’

  I gave in. It was rather flattering to think of being used as an attraction to one of my friend’s celebrated dinner parties and even more flattering to imagine the literary world of London discussing me, even if it was only about my merits as a dinner partner.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The body on the ground was cold, stone cold, but not that long dead, thought Sesina. There was no smell of decay, nothing other than the normal stink of unwashed body and unwashed rags. Sesina got to her feet and then paused. The light was better here, but it was still a long way down to the riverside. The mob was coming on at a fast rate. There was no certainty that she could outrun them, reach the end of the tunnel before them. And, of course, there was no knowing whether anyone down there on the riverside might come to her rescue. Perhaps they might join in with the howling, shouting crowd, each of them striving to earn the ten-shilling price placed on her head. Too much to hope for that any police might be sauntering around. Too fond of their own comforts and their own skins. Plenty of them up on the Strand, of course.

  Rapidly Sesina snatched the white apron out from beneath her dress. She slipped the strap over the dead woman’s head, forced herself to feel below the dead body and to fasten the waist strings. And then she pulled the cap from the apron pocket and placed it on the head. The starched whiteness would act like a beacon to the light from the torches. The noise was getting louder. They were almost upon her. She had no more time to set the scene. Chances were that most of them were drunk on cheap gin. She dragged the body right out to the centre of the archway and arranged it there. Jenny, she said to herself. That’s who it is. Poor old Jenny. A prostitute that lived rough in the Adelphi Arches, begged for food from time to time when customers were not forthcoming.

  Dead now.

  Strangled, probably, but Sesina did not have the time to look properly. The important thing was to have a body. She moved away rapidly, but glanced over her shoulder as the shouts came nearer. Even in the dim light, the arranged figure was immediately noticeable as the body of a girl. The white apron and cap showed up really well. And then she went and huddled into the little hollow where Jenny had spent her last minutes or hours of life.

  A second later the torches flared against the dripping walls of the arches. The strong smell of bitumen emanated from the pieces of wood broken from roadmen’s cabins. A whoop of delight; they had seen the body. Fierce voices, hasty curses, arguments, sounds of blows. And then a sudden silence. Lasted a few seconds until the chorus of disappointed voices.

  ‘Shite; she’s dead!’

  ‘Hell’s bells.’

  ‘I was the first that see’d her, sir.’

  ‘Might be just shamming, sir.’

  ‘Stop kicking her, you fool. Don’t you know a dead body when you see one?’

  ‘OK, men. She’s dead. Dead, fair and square. Here’s some coins for you.’

  Sesina closed her eyes in thankfulness. He was going to accept that she was dead. The light was too poor to see a face and he had been fooled by her quick wits. A little thrill of excitement ran through her. What a story she would have to tell. She forced herself to stay rigidly still, although a cramp was beginning in her left leg. There was a loose stone jutting out from a broken edge of the archway. Someone should check on them arches, she said to herself, bring the whole lot down if they collapse. She distracted herself from her cramp by going through the streets above: Adam Street, John Street, James Street and then there was York Buildings and Robert Street: they’d all collapse and, of course, the terrace itself with its eleven houses. She tried to imagine Mrs Dawson’s face as she felt the building collapse and that made her feel a little better. A suppressed giggle seemed to warm her. One thing anyway. Mrs Dawson’d never escape. Too fat!

  The mob of men had disappeared from her sight. He had flung the handful of coins back into the darkness of the tunnel which they had come down and the men were after them instantly. Sesina could hear them. Wild animal howls, fierce fights, and struggles for possession of one of the torches. Soon they would all be drifting back to their fire, to the bottles of gin that they had managed to steal or whatever they had roasting above the flames. Rats, cats, even dogs; these men would eat anything if they were hungry enough. They’d be disappointed though. Would have expected more from the man in pursuit of a girl. Even after the first word that he spoke, that American accent would have told them that he probably had pots of money.

  And he, of course, was clever enough to know that. He’d guess these men might be dangerous. Now that he had a dead body, instead of a living girl, well he just walked off, smart as you please, away in the opposite direction, out towards the river and then, she hoped, back into his home. For a second she saw him, outlined against the light coming in through the arch at the end of the tunnel and then he was gone, turned back towards Hungerford Stairs.

  Sesina drew in a long breath of relief. He had been nicely fooled. But he had the sense to know that these men were dangerous. They knew that he had money and they would be off after him. He’d do well to keep away from that mob. He had done the right thing when he had walked hastily towards the end of the tunnel. By now he would have emerged on to the foreshore of the Thames and would be among fishermen, coal barges, and those who scanned every square foot of sand and low water for anything that might keep the life in them for another day.

  Sesina gave him five minutes, forced herself to count the numbers from one to three hundred and sixty, just like that poor girl at Urania Cottage, the one that Mrs Morson persuaded to count up to a hundred every time that she was in a passion. And then she struggled to her feet and edged her way along the side of the tunnel. Blinking slightly as the light, even on this foggy day, became stronger against her eyes, she stepped warily out from the shelter of the tunnel and scanned the foreshore.

  No! He was still there! He had fooled her! He had known she wouldn’t have trusted herself to go back among that throng of wild men that he had summoned up. There he was, waiting patiently, leaning his back against one of the iron mooring posts and surveying the scene as if he were about to begin a painting.

  He saw her instantly though. She felt a sensation as though his eyes were boring like gimlets through her. Now she would be at his mercy. She would be stupid to think that any of those people on the rivershore would interfere to protect her. One look around at the skeleton-like figures, at the hopeless faces, at the dead eyes, one look told her that. Even now they were edging away. Distancing themselves f
rom the richly dressed gentlemen who was looking intently at the dishevelled maidservant who had emerged from the tunnel.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Wilkie Collins, Basil:

  The awful thrill of a suspicion which I hardly knew yet for what it really was, began to creep over me – to creep like a dead-cold touch crawling through and through me to the heart.

  Inspector Field was very silent in the cab, silent and worried, wearing the air of a man busy concocting an explanation for his seniors. Dickens did not interrupt him, but gazed through the cab window with a casual curiosity as though the busy scene on Trafalgar Square was new to him.

  I was not deceived though. He had thrust his hands into his pockets, but protruding from the top of each of the side pockets of his loose-fitting trousers was a set of white knuckles. Dickens was on edge with worry and apprehension of what might be going on while the cabby guided his horse through the heavy traffic on Trafalgar Square and came to a temporary full stop at the entrance to the Strand. Inspector Field, also, bore a sombre look and above our heads the driver whistled a merry tune as if to fill the gap in our conversation. I, too, began to feel apprehensive. Sesina, who had been merely a useful finder of clues, might now be another victim. Inspector Field had his handcuffs and his gun. Sesina had nothing, but her own quick wits and indomitable courage.

  And so, when the cab drew up in front of number eleven and while Dickens was fishing loose change from his trouser pockets, I slipped out and strolled nonchalantly along the pavement, looking over the iron railing from time to time and surveying the full tide washing up on the river beach in front of the Adelphi Arches. Some boys and girls were standing in the river, sacks in hands, some of them with a few coal pieces in them. They were curiously still, I thought, looking at them; not bending and dipping as they would usually, and for a moment I felt a slight uneasiness. They were looking further down the river, down towards the Savoy Steps. I could see nothing but hastened my footsteps, almost ran the last part, crossing the now empty road in a couple of seconds. I pounded on the doorknocker of number five. No answer. I knocked again. And again, feeling almost like breaking the fanciful glass panes. And then the door opened eventually and Mrs Dawson stood there, looking rather sulky.

  ‘Oh, Mr Collins,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry that you were kept waiting. Can’t think what happened to that girl. Oh, here comes Mr Dickens and another friend, getting out of a cab. Look, just behind you, Mr Collins.’

  ‘Not at home; not a sign of him,’ said Dickens at my ear. ‘Let’s at least make sure of the girl. Good afternoon, Mrs Dawson. Might we have a word with your housemaid, Sesina, please? This is Inspector Field.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  For a moment Sesina almost gave up. There was no escaping this man. She looked around the foreshore. Every face there looked away from her, backs were turned. No one was going to interfere between a servant and a well-dressed gentleman. Sesina stared longingly up at the terrace of eleven houses, the magnificent Adelphi Terrace, all the houses built on to each other, looking like one enormous mansion. She then looked along the upper road running past the front doors and then at the lower road, running past the entrances of the tunnels that led to basement entrances of each of the houses. If only she could climb up there, and get to the back door before he grabbed her. She thought of the fat Mrs Dawson, of the lodgers: the lawyer, the schoolmaster and the two newspaper lads. Surely he wouldn’t try anything on once she got back inside the front door. She would take great care that she was not alone with him for a second, not ever again. It was no good, though, he would get her before she could ever climb up to that level.

  And then she saw something, something that gave her hope.

  At the end of the lower road, there was a standpipe and a two-tiered granite trough from which horses could drink at the upper level and dogs at the lower level. Bob, the butcher, had stopped his cart there and allowed his horse to drink from this free supply of water. Sesina did not hesitate.

  ‘Bob,’ she screamed. ‘Bob, I’m down here. Help me up, Bob!’

  He’d do it. She knew that. Had been sweet on her for ever so long. In a moment he had dropped the horse’s bridle and sauntered over to the edge of the railing and looked down at her with a grin on his repulsive face. She went as near as she could and began to scale the unstable sandbank.

  ‘Well, well, look at that. Can’t wait, can you?’ There was a sneer in his voice and a fat smile on his stupid mouth. She didn’t care though. He had taken a rope from the back of the cart and now he dangled it enticingly over.

  ‘What would you give for the rope? Save your shoes, wouldn’t it? Otherwise you’d be all mud when you gets back. What’d’ye give for a leg up, then, Sesina?’

  She gave a hasty glance over her shoulder. He was still there. The murderer was still watching her. Wouldn’t come any nearer, though, while a hulking great brute like Bob was leaning over the parapet and talking to her. She’d keep him talking for a minute.

  ‘Well, I’d shake you by the hand,’ she yelled out.

  ‘And a kiss or two.’

  He was sure of himself now. Still, there was lots of coming and going on that lower road, carts coming out of one tunnel and she could handle an idiot like Bob. She did not reply but pursed up her lips invitingly. That should do it.

  The next moment, the end of the rope dropped down, neatly hitting the ground beside her. He was grinning widely as he tied the other end to the iron railing. She raised her arms, took a strong grip on the rope and began to scramble up the steep bank of sand. Hand over hand, quite easy, really. She didn’t care. Let him kiss her. She could keep a fellow like that under control. And Bob had his deliveries to do. Couldn’t hang around pawing girls for too long. She looked once more over her shoulder. No sign of the man. Now where had he gone? A shade of worry passed over her. Had he gone up one of the tunnels and would she find him waiting for her when she got to the top. Half a crown from him would get rid of Bob. She climbed even faster, her calloused hands gripping the rope firmly and now she kept her eyes fixed on the railing above.

  She was up in a few minutes. Didn’t hesitate. Flung her arms around Bob, kissed him heartily. Take the advantage, don’t let him chase you. That got men worked up. Funny how Isabella’s words were always still in her ear. He was a bit taken aback, big bully and loudmouth as he was. Not as much of a ladies’ man as he pretended. She glued herself to his lips for another moment and then detached herself with a casual wave of the hand.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Bobby,’ she called over her shoulder and ran full pelt along the lower road. A cab was going along the upper road and she kept to the far pavement so that she was clearly visible by the driver perched up high, above its roof. She even gave him a little wave and knew that Bob had seen her do that. He wouldn’t follow her. Had been in trouble with the police last month. Wouldn’t want any bad reports going to his master again. She half-giggled to herself, weak with relief at her narrow escape. Her mind was filling up with ideas. Steal a few pages of the lawyer’s writing paper. Very good class of writing paper. Do a few references in her best hand. Pack her bags early in the morning, very early, before any rich gentleman would be out of bed. Just scarper. Get a room somewhere cheap. Soon get another job. Leave no trace. A bit sorry to leave poor little Becky, but Mrs Dawson wasn’t a bad old tallowketch; she’d keep the girl. Now she was through the arch and then beside the basement door to number five.

  The door in the lower basement opened readily to her key. It seemed like an age since she had been inside the dark, damp hallway. Almost impossible to think that it had probably been just an hour or two. She hoped that Becky had kept the fire in while she had been gone. She pushed open the kitchen door. A nice bit of heat wafted out. Filling her with thankfulness. She’d have a little sit down before writing her references and slipping out – by the front door, she decided. Much safer than those tunnels.

  And then, even before she could close the door, her breath was suddenly cut off. She was cl
utched in an iron grip. He was behind her, pressing her against him, the back of her neck pressed against his waistcoat buttons. Strong fingers pressing into her throat, nails digging into the skin. Dizzy, nauseous. Not a word spoken. He had sneaked through the hall door. She had forgotten about his key. This, she thought, is the end, the end of all my dreams. I’m dying. She squirmed, freed her nose from his arm. A strong smell. Goose fat. Becky! Get out! Save yourself. He’d strangle the child next. No possibility of …

  Panic swept through her … can’t breathe … heart thumping … strange sounds. She kicked at his legs, but it was useless. That man was immensely strong. She tried to move her head, tried to bite him, but her senses were ebbing, a mist in front of her eyes, the thudding of her heart had begun to slow down, to beat in her ears …

  And then bells, bells jangling in her ears … Church bells? No, they were just above her head. Heaven … Perhaps Mrs Morson was right about Heaven, though neither she nor Isabella had ever believed in that stuff.

  Bells, not church bells. Bells. Every bell in the house clanging loudly, ringing frantically. A sweeping brush, tearing at the wires, bells jumping and swaying; deafening clamour.