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The Angel Makers

Page 21

by Tessa Harris


  Pulling down the tailgate, he climbs on board. What’s this? Dried blood? he thinks. There’s far too much of it to have come from a bird, and he swears it wasn’t there when he parked up the cart yesterday.

  “Gilbert!” calls Mr. Greenland from inside the shop. “Where’s that brace of pheasants?”

  Gilbert looks up. The discovery of the cart had led to him forgetting he was meant to fetch the birds from the hanging shed. “Coming Mr. Greenland,” he replies. The errant trailer is soon removed from his thoughts.

  CONSTANCE

  I return to the corner of Woodstock Terrace. The woman with the baby carriage has arrived just in time to catch a girl—about my age, I’d say—waddling up to the house. The two of them talk a little at the foot of the steps; then the one that’s expecting is shown inside. Close to her time, she is, and I’m guessing she’ll birth there, then give up her baby for adoption. That’s the scheme of these things.

  A couple of hours later, there’s another woman, older this time. She hands over a bundle on the doorstep before she walks away sobbing so loud they could hear her at St. Paul’s. But it’s the old crone I need to catch. I need to see her leave the house with a baby in tow. If she does, I’ll follow her and try to nab her in the act of handing it over for money. Don’t ask me what I’ll do then. She might not be breaking the law, but then again, she might. I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to confront her. I’ll just have to pray that Miss Tindall will tell me what to do when the time comes—if it ever does.

  EMILY

  It’s the turn of Inspector McCullen to interrogate Adam Braithwaite. He prefers his interviewees to be malleable—that’s why he tasked Hawkins to soften him a little—but this blacksmith is proving reticent, to say the least. He’s as stubborn as a brewer’s dray horse when it decides its cart is too heavy to pull. Despite McCullen’s years of experience, his detainee will not shift.

  “And again, if you please.” There is exasperation in the Scotsman’s voice. “Account for your movements from ten o’clock on the evening of December nineteenth.” One of Braithwaite’s fellow artisans, a cooper, had vouched that he’d left him working in the yard at around ten o’clock that night. “What were you doing between just after ten o’clock and three in the morning when they found her?” repeats McCullen, thrusting his face close to his prisoner’s.

  Braithwaite remains sullen. A bruise is blooming on his right cheek. Detective Sergeant Leach was a little too enthusiastic earlier on today. He lost his temper when he received a discourteous riposte to one of his questions. The detective punched him in the jaw and the blow has left its mark.

  “I was catching up on orders until midnight, I tell ya,” he growls.

  “And nobody saw you.”

  “I can’t say.” He bites his lip, then adds: “I was home by half past twelve.”

  “Ah, yes. Home,” repeats Cullen. “Can you tell us where your wife is? We called on her, but were told she’s not been seen for a few days.”

  Braithwaite rolls his eyes. “She’s looking after her old aunt. Staying with her for a week or two, she is.”

  The inspector’s lips suddenly twitch into a rather cruel smile. “How very convenient,” he says.

  CONSTANCE

  Mr. B’s eating with us this evening. No doubt, he’ll be baiting Flo and me again; rubbing us the wrong way for his own amusement. I try to tell myself I mustn’t take him so serious; but as soon as I open the door, I can tell something’s up. Flo rushes over to me, waving a copy of the late edition of the newspaper.

  “They’ve got someone,” she says breathlessly. She thrusts the rag into my hand as I cross the threshold.

  “For Cath?” I ask.

  Ma’s hovering behind Flo. “Read it to us, will ya, love?” she pleads, all anxious.

  Not even bothering to take off my hat, I walk toward the light of the candle that burns on the mantelshelf. The glare pools over the front page and a headline that reads: MYLETT MURDER: BLACKSMITH ARRESTED. Then, underneath, in italics was written: Could he be Jack?

  I read the headline out loud, then look up. “Mr. Braithwaite,” I say with a frown.

  “Ain’t he the one you spoke to? The smithy that works in Clarke’s Yard?” asks Flo. I told her all about my visit and how I’d laid flowers on the spot where Cath was killed.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  She nods her head. “I knew it,” she says, slumping down into the nearby chair. “Didn’t I tell ya she was seeing someone there? Didn’t I say?”

  It’s true, she did, in the George just before Cath joined us that night. I wonder if Braithwaite was the suspect Sergeant Hawkins had in mind when he spoke to us after the inquest. But deep inside me, I know that something’s not right. It’s been too easy. There’s a niggling doubt in my head and a feeling in my heart that tells me there’s more to this situation than meets the eye.

  “Hold up. Here comes Mr. B,” says Ma, glancing out of the window.

  I know Ma’s hoping to celebrate, what with the capon and all. A lot’s happened in the last two days: not only have the coppers come to their senses, they think they’ve nabbed Cath’s killer, too.

  “’Evening, ladies. I expect you ’eard about the arrest,” greets Mr. B, all full of glee as soon as he crosses the threshold. “Looks like Old Bill’s finally nailed him what did for your friend, gals.”

  Flo sighs and manages a nod. “S’pose that’s somefink.” Me? I just stay quiet. It’s only when I’m in the kitchen, leaning over the big pan and looking at the bird being boiled, that it hits me. The capon’s legs are still trussed together and I notice that the twine that binds them is a four-thread cord. A muffled gasp escapes my lips.

  “You all right, Con?” asks Flo as she mashes the potatoes.

  “Scolded my finger, that’s all,” I lie. I wonder if Cath was strangled with twine from Greenland’s.

  CHAPTER 32

  Friday, January 11, 1889

  EMILY

  Meanwhile, in Commercial Street Police Station, Adam Braithwaite has spent the night in custody. Of course, he has slept very little, and not only because he has been deprived of a blanket. He is beginning to feel increasingly damned. His story about his whereabouts the night of Catherine’s murder is, he is forced to admit, rather nebulous, to say the least. There are as many holes in it as a chestnut seller’s brazier; and without an alibi, he knows the noose is as good as round his neck. It is therefore with trepidation that he hears the key turn in the outer door and sees Sergeant Hawkins stride toward his cell. The detective is not alone. As well as with a constable, he is accompanied this time by an attractive blond woman, in her late twenties, wearing a waspish expression.

  “Mr. Braithwaite,” calls the detective.

  The prisoner’s head is in his hands, but he raises it and his face instantaneously breaks into a smile. “Thank God you’re here.”

  He leaps up and rushes forward to embrace the woman, but Hawkins sidesteps and stands between them.

  “Adam, it’s all right,” she assures him, craning her neck over Hawkins’s shoulder.

  “Sit down,” the detective orders Braithwaite. He complies.

  “This man is your husband?” he asks the woman.

  “He is, and you’ve got no right to keep him behind bars,” she snarls like an angry lioness.

  Braithwaite is relieved. “Tell him, love. Tell him I were home by one.”

  “Course you were, but the coppers don’t need to take my word for it,” she sneers, looking pointedly at Hawkins. “Isn’t that right, Sergeant?”

  It’s true. Mick Donovan, making deliveries of poultry to homes in Poplar, came forward earlier to testify he saw Braithwaite leaving Clarke’s Yard shortly after midnight on the night in question. The detective nods.

  “The Irish lad you know from the George,” his wife informs him.

  “Does that mean . . . ?” Braithwaite searches Hawkins’s face.

  “You are free to go, Mr. Braithwaite,” the detective says
, and he directs a constable to open wide the grille to allow the prisoner’s release.

  Hawkins is inscrutable. As I watch the blacksmith leave, I see the detective’s frustration, but he has not given up. He simply needs more time to pry deeper. The sudden appearance of Mrs. Braithwaite to corroborate her husband’s whereabouts and the production of an alibi, who just happened to be driving a delivery cart when he spotted the suspect, is all very convenient. His instinct tells him Braithwaite knows a lot more than he is letting on. And now, of course, he must face the wrath of Inspector McCullen who is not yet privy to the news. He is effectively back to where he started.

  Detective Sergeant Hawkins is not the only man experiencing difficulties. In Poplar, Albert Cosgrove is preparing for the worst. News of the visit from the desperate couple inquiring about one of Mother’s charges has only just reached him via Philomena. The old matron had made her daughter swear she wouldn’t say anything about the unpleasant scene to her husband, but she’d accidentally let it slip over breakfast. Philomena had been up most of the night attending a breech birth. It was lucky the girl didn’t die, as well as her baby. The mother’s body would have been harder to explain away, even if it was Dr. Carey who’d attended. So, when Isabel had started bawling for her porridge, Philomena snapped at the child, telling her she’d enough with which to contend without having to put up with her daughter’s tantrums.

  “What do you mean by that, Philly?” Albert had asked, lowering his newspaper. Reading the look that his wife gave her mother, he recognized something was afoot. “It’s one of the babes, ain’t it? There’s trouble.”

  Mother, eating a plate of ham and eggs, had shaken her head. “’Tis nothing we can’t handle,” she’d mumbled, ejecting a gob of yolk as she spoke. “I’ll just lie low for a few days. ’Tis all.” But, of course, Albert could tell from his wife’s expression that perhaps the pair of them had bitten off more than they could chew. Philly was forced to come clean and tell her spouse that Bertie’s father just happened to be the son of their landlord and had threatened them with eviction.

  So now, Albert is well and truly riled. He’s pacing up and down the dining room’s floor, his hands clasped behind his back. Mother is still eating toast, seemingly unperturbed, and Philomena is jiggling Isabel on her knee, trying to get her to be quiet, and looking most agitated herself.

  “I feared it would come to this,” growls Albert, his whiskers seemingly drooping under the pressure of his woes.

  “He can’t turn us out. We’ve paid the rent regular,” Mother chimes in. She’s wearing a sour expression, as if she’s just sucked a lemon.

  Albert pivots on his heel and leans close to her, wagging his finger as he does so. “He can and he will, and we’ll have to do a runner again, just like in Stepney when you was spotted throwing that parcel in the river, you silly cow,” he berates. He turns his back on her, biting his knuckles, then switches back so suddenly that he makes the old woman jump. “That girl!” he cries.

  “What girl?” snarls Mother.

  “The flower seller. Remember?” He’s fixed on his wife.

  Philomena frowns. “The one at the end of the street yesterday?”

  His head seems to go into a spasm as he nods vigorously. “That’s the one. There was something about her. She was following us. I’m sure of it.”

  Mother coughs out a laugh. “Will ya listen to yourself, Albert?” she tells him, not bothered at all. “You’ll next be telling us the Devil Incarnate is after us.” She chuckles to herself.

  He’d like to wipe the smile off her face with the back of his hand. Instead, he punches his own palm. “You mark my words, Mother, you’ve done it too brown again. We’d best make plans to leave.”

  CONSTANCE

  I’m back by the junction of Woodstock Terrace and Poplar High Street, where I was yesterday, and I’ve just spotted Mother coming out of the house. I’ve already seen the haberdasher with the billycock leave like he did before, only there’s been no sign of his wife. But Mother’s the one I’m really after and she’s just shut the front door behind her. I’m on her case.

  With a plaid shawl around her shoulders and a black bonnet tied under her chin, she teeters down her front steps with a bundle in one arm and a carpetbag, with a handle, slung over the other. It’s a baby she’s carrying, all right. I can hear the poor mite bawling as she waddles along toward me. My eyes dip to the pavement as she crosses to the other side of the lane in the direction of the high street. I follow her to the junction, where she turns right. She’s headed for an omnibus stop, I’ll wager.

  I’m keeping my distance, a good few yards behind. I’m nervous. Being a spy don’t come natural to me. I feel all shifty and sly as I go by a row of barrows. There’s not many people about, but my eyes are swiveling on their stalks: up, down, left, and right. I keep having to remind myself I’m doing this for Miss Louisa.

  Mother’s still in my sights as I hurry along the street, and I’m passing a narrow alley, when suddenly I feel something heavy clamp my shoulder. I open my mouth to gasp, but no sound comes out. Suddenly I’m being dragged backward toward the darkness. My basket tumbles to the ground and the few blooms I have are spilled into the mud. I manage to let out a sort of squeal as I’m pulled back roughly, but any noise I make is muffled by a gloved hand over my mouth.

  It’s a moment before my eyes adjust to what little light there is in the alley, and I feel two hands grip both my arms and turn me round. I’m facing my attacker. His hands are off my mouth now so that if I’d a mind to scream, I could. But I don’t, because I recognize him. And, what’s more, he recognizes me.

  “You!” he cries. There’s shock and there’s anger in his voice, all melded into one. It’s the haberdasher from Number 9 I saw yesterday, the one from Whitechapel, the one with the baby’s ribbon. He’s come up so close that I can smell his stale breath.

  “What was you doing following that old woman?” He jerks his head toward the main road. “I saw you yesterday, too. Who you working for?” he hisses. When I don’t reply straightaway, he grabs hold of the lapels of my jacket and shakes me. “Well?”

  “No one,” I manage, but I’m so terrified that I can barely think right.

  “Who’s paying you to spy on us?” He tugs at my jacket again. “It’s that governess, ain’t it? She put you up to this.”

  “I . . . I’m a flower girl, sir,” I bleat, barely able to breathe.

  He lets go of me and I stand for a moment, frozen to the spot with fear. He hones in on me again, so that his angry face is so close to mine that we’re almost touching.

  “If I see you around here again, I’ll crush you like one of your flowers,” he says with a sneer, pointing to the slippery ground below. And he stamps on one of my winter roses with the heel of his boot and grinds it into the filth of the alley to make his point. “You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply. I take a couple of steps away from him before I bend low and manage to pick up my basket; then I turn and break into a trot back down the passage. The blood’s pounding in my ears, but still, over the thrumming sound in my head, I can hear him shout: “Tell her that her boy’s gone! She’ll never see him again!”

  His words cut like a knife; for a second, the stab of them makes me want to stop. Somehow I manage to carry on and in another moment I’m back on the high street, where the world goes about its business as usual. I need to make sense of what’s just happened, but I’m still so shocked. It’s like I’m in a vise and it’s hard to let the fear loose. Through a blur of tears, I glance to my right and I see the omnibus has just pulled up at the stop. Mother is boarding, but it’s no good me following her anymore. I’ve been unmasked and poor Miss Louisa has lost her little Bertie forever. I feel so wretched I almost want to step out in front of the horses that are pulling the omnibus. There’s no point carrying on.

  EMILY

  How I feel for my poor Constance! Weary and in despair, she starts to wend her way back along the high street in the
direction of Whitechapel. Her feet drag, and despite her basket being empty, it only adds to the weight she feels on her young shoulders. She is deep in thought, and, as so often happens when she is disconsolate, her mind turns to me. I can see her energy is ebbing away, and with it, her hope. I know I have to do something to inspire her in her fight, but before I can act, someone else does. So careless of her surroundings is she that she does not look where she is going. Nor does she have any idea that she is being watched. Her shoulder skims a passerby. Or rather his skims hers. I know his action is engineered.

  “Sorry,” blurts Constance, glancing round apologetically.

  “Will you look . . . ?” The man with the eye patch appears angry, but he is feigning his mood. He stops. “You’re . . .” He’s pointing at her, pretending he’s not quite able to place her.

  “Cath’s friend.” She’s recognized him now: the blacksmith at Clarke’s Yard. “But I thought—”

  “That I was in jail,” he butts in. “They released me.”

  She’s not sure how to react. “Good,” she replies halfheartedly, as if that is what she thinks she is expected to say. There’s something that she doesn’t trust about this man. She knows he is holding something back.

  “Good?” He works his jaw as he studies her uncertain expression, then after a moment says: “You think I killed her?”

  “No!” Her riposte comes a little too quickly to be convincing. “No,” she repeats, more gently.

  He shakes his head and shoots her an odd look that makes her feel guilty for suspecting him. “I can explain,” he tells her. “You got time for a drink?”

  CONSTANCE

  He suggests we go to the George. I’m not comfortable with it. I hardly know the bloke, but it’s clear he wants to get something off his chest. So I agree to a quick bevy and we return to the place where Cath spent her last evening on this earth. He buys me a lemonade and it’s a pint of ale for him. We sit in a quiet corner and he takes out his papers and tobacco from a tin in his pocket and rolls a cigarette.

 

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