by Tessa Harris
“Sir.” Tanner nods and picks up the package, holding it at arm’s length like it’s a ticking bomb.
I understand Sergeant Hawkins wants to wait till the door is shut firm before he speaks to me, but I can’t wait no more. “I can explain,” I tell him, even though I’ve no idea how. He nods his shiny brown head and looks earnest. Authority becomes him. He wears it well, like a Savile Row suit. He sits at the table, then picks up a pencil and plays with it in his fingers. He has gentleman’s hands. His fingernails are clean and short.
“Yes. I’m sure you can, Miss Piper,” he says calmly. He sounds like a doctor telling some poor sod they’ve only got a few weeks to live. The old Constance tells me I’m done for, but then something strange happens. As I watch his gesture, a shaft of light lances through the high window and hits me like a bolt of lightning. There’s a flash before my eyes and I suddenly make sense of all this: of the dead baby and why I’m here, answering to a detective in the Metropolitan Police force. And in that moment, I think I can explain. I’m no longer a suspect facing her inquisitor, but on equal terms. Silly, I know, but it’s almost as if I feel I’ve known Detective Sergeant Hawkins all my life. He leans back in his chair and an easy silence fills the gap between us, that and the gentle ticking of the fob watch that peeks from his waistcoat pocket. The seconds slow to a trickle and it’s all because of Miss Tindall. She has sent me here. It’s all her doing. I close my eyes and try and imagine her, listen to her voice. She’s there, all right. I can’t see her, but I feel her presence. It’s flooding into me, lighting up the dark corners of my mind, so that everything becomes quite clear. I close my eyes.
“Miss Piper,” I hear Sergeant Hawkins say in a soft, concerned tone. “Miss Piper, are you quite well?” But I blank him out and listen only for Miss Tindall.
A moment later, I reopen my eyes. “Yes, I am quite well, thank you,” I say. Yet it’s not my reply that causes him to raise his brows so much as the manner of its delivery. The fluster and bluster has gone from my demeanor. I am quite poised and my diction is crisp. I have become a lady once again. I may still be wearing the shabby garb of a flower seller, but I am the same as I was when we first met in the company of Miss Pauline, and I know exactly what I must do.
“You understand, Sergeant Hawkins, I had nothing to do with this baby’s death,” I say with such a certainty that my statement takes the detective back a little.
I’m worried I sound too pompous, but no. Quite the opposite. It seems the detective accepts my sudden change of fortune without question. He nods. “Of course, Miss Piper.”
“I am glad of it.”
“Yes. A misunderstanding, I’m sure.”
“Yes. A misunderstanding,” I echo. “A case of mistaken identity.” I can hardly believe what I’m saying. He keeps his eyes on me and nods. I feel my spine stiffen. I am emboldened. “So I am free to go?”
Sergeant Hawkins nods and I push away from the table to rise. As I do so, I feel more words land on my tongue from out of nowhere and fall from my lips. Before I leave, Miss Tindall is reminding me to ask about Cath. “I’m sure you must be busy, especially after the murder in Poplar,” I say.
He’s standing, too, but as he pushes his chair toward the table, his head jerks up. “Murder, Miss Piper? What makes you think we are dealing with a murder?”
“I read in the newspaper . . .”
He smiles, which I wasn’t expecting. “Surely, Miss Piper, you know you mustn’t believe everything you read in the press.” It’s like he’s disappointed in me for swallowing the spiel they print. “The officers who found the body say the woman died of natural causes,” he tells me.
That’s news to me, but I gulp it down because another question is hovering on my lips and I need to get rid of it. “Do you know the dead woman’s identity?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Only that she was an unfortunate.”
There’s that word again: “unfortunate.” All the unfortunate women in Whitechapel aren’t on the streets through bad luck alone. The Wheel of Fortune is spun by powerful gents. Miss Tindall told me that. Their women don’t have to sell their bodies to get by. It just suits men that street girls do. I feel the blood drain from my face as I think of Cath, but my look goes unnoticed because just then there’s a commotion outside. To my shock, I see Flo’s head bob up and down through the small grille in the studded door.
“Con! Con!” she yells.
All of a sudden, I’m a Whitechapel flower girl again.
Sergeant Hawkins looks at me and frowns. “You know this woman?”
I worry Flo’s put her foot in it again. “Yes. She’s my sister,” I hear myself say in my usual voice, and I know, for sure, that Miss Tindall’s spell is broken.
Sergeant Hawkins rises, stalks over to the door, and half opens it. Immediately Flo’s head squeezes through, looking beyond him to me.
“You all right, Con?” she calls before turning to scold the detective. “You got no right to ’old ’er ’ere. No right!” she cries, wagging her finger at poor Sergeant Hawkins. She bobs up again. “We’ll get you out o’ ’ere. Don’t you trouble yourself, gal!”
Even though I’ve no need of her help, it’s good to see Flo. I knew she wouldn’t leave me in the clink. She must’ve been watching from round the corner when the coppers cuffed me. Her dander’s up, and when that happens, she’s like a clucking hen. You don’t want to mess with her when she’s in that mood.
“You leave ’er alone. She ain’t done nuffink. With me all morning, she were,” insists Flo, now wedged firmly over the threshold of the poky room. “That old crone didn’t know what she was on about. Half a brain if you ask me,” she jabbers. “She’s innocent, I tell ya.”
“I know,” replies the sergeant.
“Innocent,” stresses Flo.
“Yes. I know Miss Constance is completely innocent of this terrible crime.”
Flo’s eyes open wide. “You do?”
“Yes. She is free to go.”
She claps her hands together. “Then what are you waitin’ for, my gal?” she asks me.
Sergeant Hawkins gives a shallow bow, trying to hide a smile.
“Good day to you both, ladies.”
Flo’s suddenly all coy. “Good day to you, er . . .”
“Hawkins. Detective Sergeant Hawkins,” he tells her.
Of course Flo’s no idea about rank in the police force. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Sergeant Batty, down at Limehouse,” she tells him cheekily.
I catch the detective’s amused expression. I’m glad he’s not taken it personal. “Good-bye, Miss Piper,” he says to me, then lowering his voice, he adds: “I shall keep you informed of any developments regarding the baby’s case.” We have understood each other. I am glad.
As we pass the counter on our way out, Flo spins round to PC Tanner. She can’t help herself. “Ashamed of yourself, you should be,” she scolds. It’s like she’s telling off a cheeky schoolboy and the constable seems all hangdog.
And me? I arrived here accused of killing a baby, but then Miss Tindall came to help me. She’s back. I wasn’t dreaming. Not only did she return, she showed me the way out of my difficulties. But she’s still not told me about this death in Poplar, and now I hear it might not be murder, after all.
As Sergeant Hawkins escorts me to the main door, a little way behind Flo, I turn before we reach the front steps.
“The dead woman, in Clarke’s Yard . . . ,” I say. I picture Cath, lying cold on the mortuary slab, and my expression betrays my fear.
“Tragic business,” he offers by way of sympathizing with my feelings. I think perhaps he detects there is more to my inquiry than meets the eye because he follows his commiserating with a suggestion. “Several people have been visiting the local hospital”—he pauses to think of a delicate way to frame his meaning—“to see if they can be of assistance.” He is trying to make it easier for me.
I nod. He pauses, then says: “Good day, Miss Piper.�
� He resumes in a more businesslike manner with a bow of his head.
“Good day, Sergeant,” I hear myself reply, just how Miss Tindall would, but there’s nothing “good” about this day in the East End. A baby has been strangled and another woman found dead on the streets.
As I descend the police station steps, my lips move in a prayer for the latest poor soul. “Please don’t let it be Cath,” I whisper.
CHAPTER 8
EMILY
A young woman by the name of Louisa Fortune gazes forlornly out of the train window. She is not alone in the compartment. Beside her sits an elderly woman in a large hat with purple feathers and opposite her a clergyman wearing a monocle and a stern expression. He peruses a copy of the Daily Telegraph.
Louisa catches sight of one of the headlines and suddenly strains her eyes to read. Today Jack the Ripper is Russian, according to a report from Vienna. The words leap out at her: His monomania was that fallen women could only be redeemed and go to heaven if they were murdered.
She feels the sharp point of a blade between her ribs. Is she so fallen from grace that death is her only hope of redemption? The thought riles her and she looks through the window, fidgeting with her hands, tugging at the fingers of her gloves, then smoothing them back again. There is a novel on her lap, but it remains firmly shut. After seeing the newspaper, she no longer has an appetite for reading.
I, however, can read her face as if it were an open book. It tells the story of despair and loss. Her eyes are glassy, and shadowed underneath, while her lips are flat and tight, as if she is trying to stifle the cry of the constant pain she feels inside. This pain has irked her ever since she gave up her son for adoption. She’d had him baptized, against the midwife’s advice. “Best leave that for me, dearie,” the old Irish minder had told her.
Nevertheless, she was determined that her son should have some memento of her, even if he was never told of her existence. So she’d bought a silver christening cup and engraved it with the boy’s initials. She’d called him Bertie for short and told herself that the gift would be a testament to her love for him, and if he had his own children, then she would like to think that he would pass on the set to his offspring. It is her greatest sorrow that she will never see that day. She loves him so much that she thought her heart would break when she handed him over, swaddled in his silken shawl, together with a five-pound note, to his minder, Mother Delaney. He’d cried when he’d left her arms, her warmth, and her scent. She had cried, too. Not in the Irishwoman’s sight, but alone, on a bench in a churchyard.
And now she is on her way to see her Bertie again for one last encounter. At least she can be sure that Mother Delaney is of good character. Or so she tells herself. She spent a total of three months in her home, prior to and after the birth, and has been assured that this kindly old woman will adopt the boy. And yet she is still having doubts, grave doubts. She is due to see Mother tomorrow, to hand over the final five pounds to secure Bertie’s adoption. This meeting was intended to satisfy her that her son is being properly cared for and thriving under the nursemaid’s supervision before he is lost to her forever. But now she is not so sure that she can bear to let him go.
As soon as the city of Oxford comes into view, however, her melancholy expression lifts. The dreaming spires prick her memory and she recalls happier times at Lady Margaret Hall and she thinks of me. We who are remembered fondly in this way never die. She lifts her fingers up to the grimy glass of the pane, as if trying to touch me. She’s recalling the day we first met in the college gardens: me, a stiff, priggish young woman, who’d never before left home; she, self-assured, well-traveled, and altogether more worldly.
Suddenly the locomotive lumbers to a halt, sending its steamy breath over the platform in great clouds.
“Oxford! Oxford!” calls the guard.
The clergyman rises, folds his newspaper, and leaves. The woman in the purple-plumed hat also disembarks, so that Louisa is left alone in the carriage. Heavy doors swing open, then shut. Suitcases bump and scrape along the platform. With her head propped against the window, she watches friends meet, wives greet husbands, mothers embrace sons as the whistle blows and the train chugs out of the station. She can control herself no longer. The dam bursts.
CONSTANCE
As we walk home, Flo’s full of herself. “I told ’im, I did,” she says as, for the third or fourth time, she replays what went on in the police station. I’d rather forget it all, but I can’t. I’m trying to make some sense of what happened: the dead baby and the nameless woman lying on a mortuary slab. Somehow I know Miss Tindall is trying to tell me something. She was there with me in that tiny room. I know she was, but I can’t work out what she wants of me. What with the clatter of hooves, the traffic’s din, hawkers calling and Flo squawking, I think my head will explode. Suddenly I stand stock-still and cover my ears with my hands.
“Con?” Flo frowns at me. She’s shocked. “What’s amiss, Con?”
I fix her with a look that only sisters can fathom and she knows straightaway.
“This is about Cath, ain’t it?”
I nod. “I need to know if it’s her, in the hospital.”
To my surprise, instead of getting on her high horse and telling me to pull myself together, she nods. “You’re right.”
A sigh escapes from my pent-up chest. I don’t need her approval, but it helps. I twitch a smile, then catch my arm in hers and together we set off toward the docks and toward the infirmary. We’re going to the mortuary.
CHAPTER 9
EMILY
The Poplar Hospital for Accidents stands just across the road from the imposing entrance gates to the East India Docks. As might be gleaned from its name, the staff there are more used to dealing with the crushed limbs of dockers than with the bodies of women found dead on the street. It’s dangerous work shifting cargo. A winch can fail; a capstan recoil; ropes can lash and burn. And you won’t find many of the gentler sex on the dockside. It’s men’s work, hard men’s work. Yet it is here that Catherine Mylett’s body is laid out in the mortuary, although, of course, no one yet knows that it is she, perhaps not even her killer. She is not really known in these parts, having lived until relatively recently in Whitechapel. So, for the past two days, people have been coming and going. Some have steeled themselves to look upon her bloodless face; a few have taken a voyeuristic pleasure in it, as if she were some exhibit at a freak show. Some have gasped at the sight, even though she appears quite peaceful. Many have shed tears, but none has been able to identify the young woman found in Clarke’s Yard. None until now.
CONSTANCE
When we arrive, I do the talking. I tell the deskman that we’re here to try and put a name to the woman they found in Clarke’s Yard. His eyes are so crossed I can’t even tell if he’s looking at me or not, but he doesn’t seem put out in the least. It’s like I’ve asked to buy a bag of sugar. He just slides a piece of paper in front of me.
“Can you write?” says he. I can’t tell from his look if he’s asking me or Flo.
“Yes. I’ll write for both of us.”
I think I surprise him. “Then leave your names and addresses here, will ya?” His spindly finger points at a blank space at the bottom of the paper. I see from the list, we’re two of many who’ve come along to see if they can “be of assistance,” as Detective Sergeant Hawkins put it.
A flat-faced nurse appears behind Flo from out of nowhere.
“Nurse Pringle’ll take you,” says the clerk, and on a nod, we fall in behind her and are led down the corridor, past a flaking sign that points to the mortuary.
It’s the smell that hits us first; sharp as tin cans, it is. The metallic, chemical tang stings our nostrils. I know it’s better than the stink of rotting corpse, but it still takes your breath away. There’s a bank of drawers ranged along the wall. I guess that’s where they keep the other dead bodies. At least we know she’s not been cut; her face’s not slashed like Catherine Eddowes’s or Mary Kelly’s
. I don’t think I could have looked at them. The thought of it turns my guts.
The box isn’t fancy. Just plain pine. I’m grateful I don’t recognize the copper on guard, but, more important, he don’t seem to recognize us. He just nods and we edge closer to the coffin. Flo clasps my hand. We both take a deep breath and together we lean over. A second, I tell myself. Half a second. That’s all it’ll take to know. I tighten my toes to keep my balance as I look on the face. Flo gasps and her head shoots away, and I feel my stomach clench as I see the familiar mask, eyes closed, which once was Cath. For the second time in the same day, my world becomes a blur.
EMILY
Meanwhile, across the city to the west, lugging a small valise, Louisa Fortune trundles toward a shabby hotel less than half a mile away from Paddington Station. She cannot afford to stay in the Great Western Royal Hotel. This is not a salubrious area; not an area she would have chosen to frequent back in the days before her fall from grace. The peeling facades of the buildings, the drunken shop signs, and the reeking, waist-high dung heap on the roadside conspire to unnerve her.
She has to remind herself that she is from a good family. This is not where she belongs. She has studied at Oxford. She has traveled a little: to France and Italy, to the usual palaces and museums. To me, she always appeared a little wild and exotic: the way she wore her red hair loose, not in a chignon, or how she eschewed stays under her petticoat. But in the end, she had been forced to face reality. Her allowance dried up and she had either to take up a post as a governess or face a loveless but respectable marriage arranged by her mother. She chose the former and immediately found herself in a twilight world, where she was neither equal nor inferior to her employers.
How has it come to this? you may ask. Two years ago, she landed herself a position in the household of a well-to-do family with a large estate in Essex. The father, a wealthy businessman with wide property interests in London, had been widowed for several years before he took his second wife, who was younger by at least thirty years. Not only was his new spouse beautiful, she knew she was, and with this knowledge came a haughtiness that succeeded in belittling any woman who threatened her superiority. This dominant position was further strengthened by the fact that she was also proving extremely fertile. The businessman’s first marriage had produced but one son, now an adult. Only eight years into his second, three girls and one boy had already appeared, and there was another on the way. This meant that Louisa Fortune’s services had been very much in demand; although unfortunately, as it turned out, the children did not keep her busy enough.
