The Angel Makers

by Tessa Harris

  A groan escapes the blacksmith’s lips. Undeterred, the inspector continues.

  “Mylett found out, and when he threatened to expose you, you murdered him. Isn’t that right?”

  On the pillow, Braithwaite’s head stirs. “Water!” he croaks.

  The nurse fills a cup and holds his head so that he can take a few sips. “You killed Catherine, didn’t you?” the detective asks sharply. “You spun all those lies to Miss Piper about how you cared for her, and yet you killed her. Why?”

  “I loved Cath.”

  Sergeant Hawkins arches his brow. “Is that why you fought over her? Is that why you assaulted Joseph Litvinoff?” he asks, recalling the blacksmith’s previous conviction for affray.

  Braithwaite swallows down a sob. “Yes.” He is becoming very agitated and the nurse feels it is time to draw a halt to the proceedings for the sake of her patient.

  “If you please, Sergeant . . .”

  She need say no more. Reluctantly Sergeant Hawkins concedes that his questioning might only serve to hasten Braithwaite’s decline.

  “I shall return tomorrow,” he tells the nurse. He only hopes his prisoner will survive the night.

  For Constance, the night holds its own demons. While Florence and her mother have retired to their respective beds, fully versed in all that has passed over the last two days, she lies wide awake. She has not slept in more than thirty-six hours; yet she has never felt more alive. She is on the alert because she senses I am close.

  You see, the time has come to reveal the truth to her. Adam Braithwaite’s life will shortly come to an end; but before it does, he will divulge what really happened that night. Constance will need to help him in his recollections and coax him through his account. It will then be up to her to piece together the shattered fragments of the sorry tale so that justice can be done.

  As I enter the room, she sits upright in bed. She knows I am here. A warmth spreads throughout her body; a fire burns in her eyes. It’s time to tell her what I saw when I was sent to Poplar the night Catherine Mylett was murdered. She needed to collect the pieces of the puzzle for herself before I could help her put them in order.

  “You are here,” she mouths in the darkness.

  She is listening, so I shall begin.

  CONSTANCE

  A moment ago, I felt warm, but now the room is so cold that I’m drawing my shawl around my shoulders. My feet, too, feel like ice. I look down at where the blanket should be and I see I’m no longer in bed, but out on the street.

  I look around me. The place is oddly familiar, but it brings no comfort. I’m fearful as I stand opposite the entrance to an alley. It’s dark and the only light comes from a lamppost opposite its mouth. All around are boarded-up houses, although on one side of the alley is a tobacconist’s and on the other an ironmonger’s. It’s then that I realize I’m standing across the road from Clarke’s Yard, in Poplar. I’m not alone, neither. Squinting into the shadows, I think I see someone else standing, shivering in the cold, hotching from one foot to the other. Hatless and hunched, I make out Cath Mylett and she’s waiting for someone.

  “Cath!” I cry. “Cath!” But she can’t hear me. I try and run to her, but my feet are clamped to the spot. No, she can’t hear me, but she can hear and see a wagon as it approaches. Wait up! There’s writing on the side of the trailer. It’s Greenland’s cart trundling by. I look up at the driver. It’s Mick Donovan. I gasp as I see him pulling up just past Cath. He cocks his head at her, then jumps down and lopes up to her. There’s a sort of swagger in his manner. When I hear what he says, I understand why. He thumbs his hat to the back of his head.

  “You couldn’t say no to a fine young Irish fella, now could ya?”

  “You was in the pub with Flo,” I hear her say. She’s wary of him.

  He strokes the whiskers that cling to his top lip. “So I was. You was looking at me, weren’t you now? Givin’ me the eye.” He winks at her.

  Cath’s used to dealing with his sort. Think they’ve got something we women lust after. He’ll want something for nothing. “Not tonight,” I hear her say. “On yer way.” She turns her head and tries to ignore him. But she can’t get rid of him that easy. It seems he won’t take “no” for an answer. He’s moving in on her. His hands are on her waist.

  “But you’re a fine figure of a woman, to be sure,” he tells her, and he bobs low to try and find her mouth, just as he did to me. I can feel the bristles from his pathetic moustache scrape against my skin and I want to scream to Cath, but my tongue is tied. She turns her head this way and that, trying to push him-back, but he presses her hard against the wall. But just as she’s buckling under his weight, a voice comes from nowhere.

  “Get away!” comes the cry. “Get away from her!”

  A man in a billycock hat suddenly appears and grabs Mick Donovan by the shoulder, turning him round to face him. “On yer way, if you know what’s good for you,” he snarls.

  “No!” Cath cries suddenly. It’s like she’s had a change of heart. “Stay. Stay if you want,” she tells Mick, reaching out for his arm.

  I’m confused. Why should she change her mind just like that? A second later, all is clear as the man in the billycock pulls out a short-bladed knife.

  “Get away, I say,” he hisses, the knife pointing at Mick’s neck. Glancing down, the Irishman sees the blade and a hand, wrapped in a bloody bandage, clamped on his shoulder. He’s no choice. He backs off, then runs to the cart and is out of sight in a moment, leaving Cath to face the man in the billycock alone.

  The blade is returned to his pocket with his bandaged hand. Up until then I’d thought this shadowy thug must be Will Mylett, Cath’s brother. She was due to meet him that night to hand over the money she’d blackmailed from the baby farmer. But now I know different.

  “Give me my money,” he says, looming over her small frame. “Give it back, here.” His right hand is outstretched, but Cath’s still pressed against the wall and she’s shaking her head.

  “No,” she says softly. He comes closer. “No!” she says, louder this time.

  “You’ll give me back my cash, you whore,” he scowls, but she darts away from the wall and starts to run down the alley. He lurches toward her and snags her by her collar. “You will give it back to me,” he growls as her hands fly up to her neck. She’s making a strange, gurgling sound, but the man’s grip only tightens. Suddenly he’s lifting her tiny body up from the ground so that her legs are flailing in the air.

  I can’t believe it. She’s kicking madly as he shakes her like a rag doll. “Give it to me!” he cries, over and over again—until, after what seems like ages, Cath stops kicking and her body goes limp.

  “Cath!” I scream, but no sound comes out, even though my cheeks are wet. Through my tears, I see the monster throw her small body to the ground and bend over her. He’s panting for breath as he looks down on her, crumpled against the wall. I’m not sure he knows what he’s just done. He crouches low to check for a pulse, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s just done, either. It’s like his anger was in charge of him and he didn’t know his own strength.

  I see him shaking his head as he looks on Cath’s lifeless body; then a second later, he’s rifling through her pockets to bring out a wad of notes. The pressure he put on Cath’s poor neck must’ve made his wounded hand seep again and fresh blood drips down his fingers. Peeping from Cath’s apron pocket is a hankie, so he filches it and wraps it round his hand to stem the flow.

  That’s why Miss Tindall has brought me here; to make sense of the knife and the bloody handkerchief dug up in the garden at Woodstock Terrace. Now I can see for myself what I should’ve worked out before: that Cath wasn’t murdered by her brother, or by Adam Braithwaite, but by the baby farmer’s son-in-law. The man who’s just ended her life is Albert Cosgrove. After he gave Cath the lucre, he must’ve gone looking for her, combing the streets to get his money back. When he found her, and she refused to hand it over, he lost his temper and throttl
ed her. Dr. Bond wasn’t wrong when he said she was choked by her own collar, but what he didn’t realize was that it was pulled tight by another’s hand. I’ve got to get help. Cath might still be alive. It might not be too late to save her.

  “Help! Help!” I scream.

  “Con. Con. Calm yourself.” Flo’s voice breaks through my vision. Suddenly I’m not at Clarke’s Yard, but in the bedroom, and Flo and Ma are standing over me. I glance at the window and see a cold dawn is breaking. I try and stand, but I’m stiff as starch. It’s then I see I’ve been lying on bare floorboards.

  I struggle to prop myself up. “What the . . . ?”

  “Come on, my gal,” says Flo. “You must’ve fallen out of bed. Found you there, I did.” She scoops her arm under mine and she helps me to my feet before I slump back down onto the bed.

  I shake the sleep from my head as Ma huddles me in my shawl.

  “You must’ve had one of your bad dreams,” she says, trying to comfort me. Only there’s no solace in her words, rather she reminds me of what I’ve just seen and what I have to do. I leap up from the bed and grab my clothes from the nearby chair.

  “What you fink you’re doin’, Con?” Flo shouts after me as I rush downstairs, pulling on my jacket as I go. “What’s up, Con? Con?”

  Ma’s words blew away the cobwebs in my mind. I can see clearly now. Miss Tindall has shown me what happened to Cath. I know exactly where I must go and exactly what I must do. I only hope I’m not too late.

  CHAPTER 45

  Friday, January 18, 1889

  EMILY

  Constance is not too late, even though Adam Braithwaite has certainly taken a turn for the worse overnight. Detective Sergeant Hawkins resumed his interrogation at his hospital bedside about half an hour ago, but has made little progress.

  “I swear I didn’t kill her.”

  The detective is a patient man, but he knows that his prisoner’s time on earth is finite and that the truth needs out before Braithwaite makes his exit. “Why won’t you admit it?”

  The blacksmith winces in pain. “I’m telling the truth.”

  “He is,” says Constance, blustering in, past PC Semple on the door. The officer follows close behind. “I’m sorry, sir,” he bleats apologetically.

  “Miss Piper. Come in, please. I’m glad you are here,” Hawkins greets her, shooting the ineffectual constable a scalding look.

  Constance seats herself by Hawkins at the bedside.

  “I thought it would be easy to obtain a confession from a man who knows he is about to die,” he tells her, heedless of his prisoner’s sensibilities. “But Mr. Braithwaite insists he is innocent.”

  “I didn’t kill Cath, I tell you. I swear,” he reiterates from his bed.

  Constance casts a compassionate eye over the man who lies before her in his death throes. “He’s right,” she says.

  “What?” The sergeant’s head whips round to face her.

  “He’s telling the truth. He didn’t kill Cath Mylett,” she confirms.

  Hawkins frowns. “I don’t understand.”

  “Then let me explain,” offers Constance, her gaze on Adam Braithwaite. It is time for her to relay all that she knows; all that she has discovered for herself and all I have shown her. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and addresses the blacksmith.

  “Little Evie was yours, wasn’t she?” she says. I am still with her, but she has managed to deduce these conclusions herself. I have merely shone light into the darker corners of her mind, where her suspicions have been loitering. She goes on: “But you couldn’t afford to keep her. So Cath was forced to turn to a baby farmer for help.”

  Braithwaite groans at the thought of Cath’s suffering, but Constance refuses to stop. “After Evie died and Cath got sick and had to go to the asylum, you settled for the next best thing.”

  Sergeant Hawkins, who has followed Constance’s thread up until now, looks puzzled. “What are you suggesting, Miss Piper?”

  She spits out her reply. “I’m suggesting that while Cath was out of her mind with grief, Adam Braithwaite here married Cath’s cousin.”

  Sergeant Hawkins knows what she’s saying makes sense. He nods to Tanner. “Bring Mrs. Braithwaite in, if you please.”

  Fanny is escorted into the room, looking pale and expressionless as she is shown to a seat on the opposite side of the bed. Constance glares at her. She first suspected her duplicity on her last visit to Pelham Street. She thought she was hiding her cousin Will. She’d not realized that Fanny had been leading a double life, until she’d seen the medical examiner’s report on the mutilated man she’d supposed was Adam Braithwaite.

  Constance keeps Fanny in her sights. “You said the body was your husband’s, when you knew it was Will Mylett’s. His face was so badly smashed up that no one could argue. You even planted a bloodied eye patch nearby so there’d be no doubt.” She shakes her head in disgust. “You played the grieving widow as well as you played the devoted niece!”

  Fanny does not respond, but simply hangs her head as Braithwaite’s fingers crawl across the blanket to reach for her hand. She looks at it, but refuses to take it.

  “You bastard. You lied to me,” she tells him through clenched teeth. She shakes her head, then starts to speak. “Cath introduced us, see.” She huffs a bitter laugh. “He was her ‘man,’ she said. But when she found out she was pregnant, he didn’t want nothing to do with her. That’s when we started courting. Within three months, we was wed.”

  Hawkins glances over at Constable Barrett to make sure he’s taking notes. Satisfied that he is, he asks: “Did you know that Catherine’s baby died at the hands of a baby farmer?”

  Fanny nods. “She told me. I visited her just after she went into the asylum. Mad, she was, but with good reason. She told me that this old woman was starving all the babies in her care and even killing some of ’em. She said she’d told Will about her and that when she felt better, he’d help her get her revenge.”

  “Get her revenge?” echoes Hawkins.

  Fanny nods. “Cath wanted to settle her score, so she asked Will to help her. Only thing was, the old witch got wind of trouble and moved.”

  The sergeant nods. “So that’s why Catherine waited so long to make her move. She’d lost track of the baby farmer’s whereabouts.”

  Constance, who has been listening to Fanny in silence, suddenly remembers the newspaper cutting she found among Cath’s belongings. “But when she saw an advertisement in the local newspaper, she knew the old woman was back in business in Poplar.”

  Fanny nods. “That’s when she and Will hatched the plan to get money from them.” She shakes her head. “You couldn’t blame her, after what she’d been through.”

  “Blackmail,” says Sergeant Hawkins, fixing Fanny with a glare. “And you knew about this plan?”

  “No,” Fanny snaps back. “Not then. Not till later, I swear.”

  “It’s true,” comes Braithwaite’s thin voice from the bed. “The first I knew of it was that night—the night she . . .” He stops himself short, choking on his own words. “She’d arranged to meet Will outside Clarke’s Yard at two o’clock. It was about eleven when she came to me in such a state as I’d not seen afore. Wild she were, and with blood on her hands and face. I cleaned her up and calmed her down. Gave her a couple of slugs of gin. She told me she’d lost it with this bloke where the minder lived. She’d gone at him with a knife, but he’d snatched it from her and cut his hand, quite bad. Then she showed me the money.” Braithwaite flinches as he tries to move.

  “How much?” asks Hawkins.

  “A lot.”

  “How much?” he asks again.

  “Thirty quid.”

  “Thirty pieces of silver, more like,” snarls Fanny.

  The sergeant shoots her a disapproving look. “Then what happened?”

  “I’d never seen that much money before. Nor had she. And it were there, in her hands. It were late and we’d both had a bit to drink.” He gulps down a sigh
. “I told her we could leave London behind. Together, just the two of us.”

  “Oh, for the love of . . . ! ” Fanny directs her searing gaze at her husband.

  “Go on,” urges Hawkins.

  “She wouldn’t have none of it. She turned on me. She said if I’d been a decent father, then little Evie would still be alive. That hurt.” Another tear breaks loose from the blacksmith’s eye. “That’s when we started to row—”

  “And that’s when you strangled her,” Hawkins butts in.

  Braithwaite’s face crumples. “No,” he wails. “It weren’t me. I never killed her. I swear. I just left her there, on the street.”

  Sergeant Hawkins is growing irascible. “I’ve told you before, Braithwaite, don’t play games. You killed Will Mylett, and you killed his sister.”

  “No,” snaps Constance. Hawkins’s head whips round again. “He’s telling the truth,” she says more calmly. “He didn’t kill Cath. This is what I wanted to tell you.” She’s fixing the sergeant with a determined look.

  “It were that bastard brother of hers,” mutters the blacksmith.

  Constance cuts in. “What makes you so sure? Did you see him attack her?”

  “No,” comes Braithwaite’s reply. “But it had to be him. She were meeting him, to give him the money. That’s why she stayed in the yard and I left for home.”

  Now it’s Hawkins’s turn. “But did you see Will Mylett that night?”

  Pain is etched on Adam Braithwaite’s face. The sweat is breaking out on his forehead. “No, I didn’t, but who . . . ?”

  It’s time for Constance to unburden herself. “There was someone else,” she says suddenly. She holds the key to this case and now is her time. She straightens her back.

  “That night, the night Cath was killed, Mick Donovan . . .”