Heartless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 3): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  I took the seat the sergeant had just vacated and reached over and clasped my cousin’s frail hand in my own. Her fingers trembled.

  “I am tired,” she said. “I think I should retire.”

  “You’ve only been up an hour or two, sweeting,” I said. “The best part of the day is to come. Mrs Hardwick is baking again.”

  “I’m not hungry, Anna.” She snatched her hand out of mine and attempted to stand unaided.

  I rushed to help her. Wilhelmina pushed me away.

  “Mina?” I said.

  Her eyes met mine. A different look of accusation met my gaze.

  “Do you not tire of this, Anna?” she asked. “Do you not grow weary of the death that haunts this place?”

  “There is no death haunting here, Mina,” I said. “I help people.”

  “By dissecting their deceased loved ones. A vulture, one would say.”

  I almost stepped back. “Where is this coming from?” I demanded.

  Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes filled with tears. She scratched at the crook in her elbow; at the phantom sensation of hypodermic needle punctures there.

  “I see blood, Anna,” she whispered. “I see it everywhere.”

  Her eyes took on a distant look. I knew what was coming. We were going to have one of Mina’s absent days. They frequented the house more often than death did. More often than my meagre number of patients did. More often than my whimsical thoughts of Inspector Kelly ever did, and that was quite something to say.

  “Oh, dearest,” I murmured, reaching for her arm. She let me lead her from the garden, no longer offering up resistance.

  “I must sleep,” she mumbled. “Will you help me to sleep, Anna?”

  Sleep for Mina was filled with nightmares. She tossed and turned and shouted out for no obvious reason, sweating through her bedsheets with alarming regularity. I’d weaned her off the cocaine. I’d thrown away the absinthe. But the opium had far longer claws than I did.

  I swallowed my guilt and heartache and anger and nodded my head.

  “Of course, sweeting,” I said. “Of course, I’ll help you.”

  I’d do everything in my power to save Mina.

  But who would save me from Eliza May?

  For Now, I Was On My Own

  Inspector Kelly

  Silence surrounded us, wrapping itself around our bodies and holding us still in its embrace. I flicked the reins, making the horse pick up speed; the sooner I was out of this thing, the better.

  “Miss Cassidy is improving,” Blackie said, staring out the side of the vehicle as we passed Custom House and made our way onto Queen Street.

  I grunted a reply but said nothing.

  “But a word out o’ place does cut like a knife, it does.”

  He sounded sad and worried, his fists clenched on his wide thighs, his gaze haunted. I let out a long breath of air and admitted in this, I could trust Blackie. His affection for Wilhelmina could not be an act.

  How much else was, I was not certain.

  “Dr Cassidy is doing her best by her cousin,” I said.

  “Dr Cassidy has a tendency to forget herself if you don’t mind me saying, sir.”

  I studied the man beside me. A man I had at one time considered a friend. He had followed me to London, at the risk of his position here in Auckland. He had stood beside me as I faced the ghosts of my past. I had thought him trustworthy. A faithful companion and constant in my life.

  I shifted on the buggy’s bench and flicked the reins again.

  “I do not mean to do down the good doctor,” Blackie went on. “But Miss Cassidy is not up to dick, and she should know it. Dead bodies are no good for the lass.”

  “And think you Dr Cassidy had a hand in this dead body?” His answer would tell much.

  Or continue the lie.

  “Of course not,” he scoffed. He sounded genuine. “But she don’t half like nattering about them.”

  An involuntary smile curved my lips. My scarlet suffragette was indeed unperturbed by such conversation. My smile dimmed as I remembered the look she had given me. The look that told me she’d wait.

  I had no right to ask her; nor had I done as much. But Anna is nothing if not observant, and I feared she could read me like a book.

  I pushed the thought away.

  “Tell me, Sergeant,” I said as the Auckland Police Station appeared at the top of the hill, “what did you find in the garden?”

  “Nothing, sir. Not a blind thing. If the meater had been there, I could not see it.”

  “There was no evidence of a break-in within the surgery either,” I murmured.

  “Someone thinks to lay this at Dr Cassidy’s feet?”

  “I fear so.”

  Blackie thought for a moment and then said, “It starts, does it not, sir?”

  Would that I could read his mind right then.

  “I believe so,” is all I said.

  I directed the curricle into the Police Station’s courtyard and handed off the reins to a stablehand. My leg ached as I climbed down from the vehicle, a reminder of what was coming and what had been. I ignored the throb and strode into the station, leaving Blackmore to log in at the front desk.

  My office was not empty. I had not thought I would escape the confrontation, but I had hoped I’d have a moment to gather my thoughts and prepare for the battle ahead.

  “Inspector!” Ian Chalmers, Superintendent of Auckland Police, boomed. “Where is the chit, then?”

  “Tending to her cousin and surgery, at a guess,” I replied steadily.

  Chalmers puffed up to his full height, which was not quite as tall as he would have liked. But his girth made up for the inadequacy in stature, and his overlarge mustachios drew the eye from any paucity to be had.

  “And why would you not detain a suspect as ordered, Kelly?”

  “Because the suspect in question is being defamed.”

  “Says who? You?” He scoffed, his face reddening. “Just what I expected from a rakehell.”

  If he expected me to argue, he would face disappointment instead. I may not have ruined Dr Cassidy in the full sense of the word, but my intentions were indeed shameful.

  I removed my coat and hung it on the stand, then crossed to my desk and sat down. My thigh thanked me.

  The closer she got, the more it ached.

  “Miss Wilhelmina Cassidy can vouch for Dr Cassidy’s whereabouts this morning,” I advised.

  “I hear the gal is not right in the head. Hardly a reliable witness.”

  “Nevertheless, Dr Cassidy has an alibi.”

  “And how exactly do you explain the presence of her dissecting tools at the murder scene?”

  I almost did it. I almost lied. But that would make me no better than Blackie. No better than my murderess wife. I swallowed the words and shot the superintendent a hard look.

  “I aim to discover just that,” I said.

  Chalmers leaned over the desk and scowled down at me.

  “You walk a fine line, Inspector. It is not unknown to me the relationship you have with the woman. Think you not that I keep a close eye on things in my city? I have eyes and ears all over this town, and should I receive word of any foul play on your part, you’ll be on the next steamer back to Old Blighty in a heartbeat.”

  He stood upright again and straightened his coat, adjusted his cravat.

  “Mark my words, Kelly; I have your number, and I am not afraid to call it out.”

  He turned and crossed the room, opened the door and then stopped. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “There’s a surprise for you in the surgery. And not the bit of skirt that keeps your cods so blue, so don’t get yourself overly excited.”

  He strolled out, leaving the door open, and a startled constable staring at me as he paused in his duties right outside.

  I ignored the bobby and cursed under my breath. Chalmers had a bee in his bonnet, and no amount of smoke was making the damned thing disappear.

  I read what few messages had
been left for me on my desk, unsurprised that none of it pertained to the murders. If Chalmers couldn’t browbeat me into submission, then he’d bury me under a multitude of minor demands. If I failed at even one, he’d shut the door on my back.

  Not for the first time, I wondered just what had transpired while I’d been gone. I couldn’t lay this latest disaster at Blackie’s fleet; he’d been away from these shores as long as I had. But someone had the superintendent’s ear and had been whispering all manner of derogatory things into it.

  My mind wandered to the letter I’d been handed at the boardinghouse in Temple Bar. No one knew of its existence, save Mrs Pugh. She’d handed the missive to me only after Anna and her cousin had boarded the hansom for Albert Docks. And Blackie had been dealing with the luggage at the time and hadn’t seen the exchange either.

  Not that I thought he wasn’t aware of it in some capacity.

  I scowled down at the well-worn wood and scuff marks on the desk’s edges. It had been my predecessor’s desk and possibly his predecessor’s before him. It was a solid piece of furniture and one I had spent many hours sitting at.

  But the answers did not lie there.

  If the letter was to be believed, then a snake had slithered into my pastures. And I had welcomed him with open arms.

  I shook my head and stood from my seat, allowing myself one limped step before I hid the injury. Cane in hand, I made my way toward the surgery at the rear of the station. Drummond’s surgery. Thomas’ before him. Many a night I had spent in there with Anna’s father. I rarely stepped foot in the damn place now, it seemed.

  But it was not John Drummond who greeted me. Barclay Yates leaned over the corpse of Anna’s heartless victim, his monocle in one hand, a pair of forceps similar to those Anna had used in the other. He was a stout man with auburn hair that more oft than not appeared orange. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, displaying muscled forearms covered in smears of blood. His leather physician’s apron was equally as spoiled. Several organs had been removed from the cadaver and lay on a tray to the side.

  The smell of death rolled out to greet me.

  As did the room’s second occupant’s voice.

  “Inspector Kelly. How nice of you to finally join us.”

  My eyes swept off Yates’ still stooped form and landed on a spectre from my former life in Whitechapel. I could not have been more surprised if Edmund Reid himself had appeared unannounced in my police station.

  But no, he had sent one of his lackeys.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked before I could control myself.

  “Following a trail,” the man replied, smirking.

  He reminded me of his superior officer. A sharp nose and pointed chin did nothing to distill the comparison. However, it was more William Elliott’s demeanour that set him in the same camp as Inspector Edmund Reid.

  The man had trained under my nemesis and taken on more than one or two of his opinions of me.

  “A trail that leads you to this person?” I nodded at the deceased’s form.

  Elliott rocked on his shoes, his hands loosely held before him, that perpetual smirk gracing his lips as he studied me.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Kelly? A simple solution to the pickle you’ve found yourself in.”

  “I do not see the horrific death of two people as a ‘pickle’, Sergeant.”

  “Inspector,” he corrected, grinning. “I’ve come up in the world since you left our shores last. And it’s not the man but the heart that concerns me, you see?”

  I saw no such thing. His presence had thrown me. Reid had recently assisted in the recovery of Wilhelmina Cassidy from the clutches of a vile woman who had undeniable connections to my wife. But his cooperation at the time had not been due to any friendship or camaraderie.

  He was my replacement at Leman Street.

  Did Reid aim to have his man replace me here in New Zealand also? Was he hunting me? I would not put it past him.

  And then a thought occurred. A not unwelcome one.

  I studied Elliott. His gruff demeanour. His strong stance. His thick hands and street-toughened knuckles. Could this man be the devil in disguise? Was it him and not Blackie?

  I would have welcomed an alternative target for my ire. But could I trust what my wife had told me in that letter?

  Could I trust either man now without being sure I had chosen the wrong confidant?

  I cleared my throat and shifted my weight to the good side.

  “Your arrival seems timely,” I offered.

  “A trail of dead bodies follows you, Kelly. I simply follow the blood.”

  “I am a police inspector, Elliott. ’Tis not unlikely that death would stalk me.”

  “But so intimately?”

  I scowled at the man. “Your point?”

  “She leaves breadcrumbs, Andrew. As if we are birds. She calls us to her and waits upon a higher perch. I sense a trap, and yet I cannot see it. Tell me I am wrong.”

  He was not wrong. And if he were part of Eliza May’s plans, he was a better actor than James Blackmore.

  Could I trust the man?

  I could certainly use him. My wife was here, of that I was certain. She threatened Anna’s safety, her freedom. I had spent years chasing the ghost and the ghost had finally found me. But even if Eliza May planned to end this tragedy on Auckland’s stage, she knew not the city the way I did.

  I’d been here for years. I knew the beat of its heart. I knew the twist to its character. I knew the lifeblood better than anyone.

  She would not win this.

  I looked at the man before me. Yates continued on with his dissection as if he didn’t have an audience and had not a care. Elliott waited patiently, that smirk a shadow on his lips that taunted.

  Could I trust the man?

  I made a decision. God help me if the decision was wrong.

  “She is here.”

  “Finally!” the man said, slapping his hands together. “What is her plan?”

  “I do not know, but I suspect it is my downfall and that of Dr Cassidy.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Your paramour.”

  “She is not my paramour. I will have you apologise for that.”

  “Easy, man. I am on your side. Your wife is hardly a fitting example of marital bliss, now is she?”

  Did he try too hard? Were his words chosen to soothe when in fact they should be a warning?

  I could not see the trees for the forest my wife had planted.

  “Gentlemen,” Dr Yates said. “As entertaining as this is, and I must say,” he added, standing upright and piercing me with a hard look, “it is worthy of the scandal sheets at the very least. We do have work to proceed with.”

  “Not up for a little tattle, then, Doctor?” Elliott asked.

  “I’ll be having no tattling in here,” Yates replied steadily. “This is a room of science, after all. Frivolous discussion can be held elsewhere.”

  Perhaps the man had been disturbed by our presence after all.

  “What have you found, Doctor?” I asked.

  “Neither man died of the puncture wounds to the artery.”

  “Dr Cassidy said as much,” I murmured.

  “Dr Cassidy is a fine surgeon,” Yates offered, raising himself in my opinion somewhat.

  “What else?” Elliott asked directly.

  “It happened quickly. To crack the ribs then spread them, before the carotid punctures bled the man out, would indicate a speed of action which is unimaginable.”

  “Then how do you explain it, Doctor?” I asked.

  “I cannot.” He looked at me, peering over his single eye-glass. “Perhaps, Dr Cassidy has a theory?”

  “She did not speak of such if she did,” I offered.

  “Then I, too, am at a loss.”

  “And you’re certain it was the chest wound that did them both in?” Elliott asked.

  “Very certain. There is little to no evidence of blood on the skin around the puncture marks, and
yet the artery was ruptured. A wound such as that should have bled profusely. It did not. And, I’m afraid, I have no explanation for such.”

  “Curious,” I whispered, a repeat of Anna’s words.

  Just what was Eliza May playing at?

  “Can you tell what tool was used?” I asked.

  “For the thorax or neck wounds?”

  “Both,” Elliott and I said together.

  “The carotid punctures were made with a sharp spike of some description. I’d estimate its length at one inch and its diameter at one-sixth of that. The interesting thing is the distance between the punctures. They are identical.”

  “Identical?” I asked.

  “Both victims have the same width between puncture marks. One and one-tenth of an inch apart. The murderer used an implement that produces both punctures simultaneously.”

  “Good God,” Elliott said. “It was designed to do such a thing?”

  “I cannot say for sure, but it is certainly being used in such a way now, it seems.”

  We all looked down at the nearest body. The two neatly rounded holes in the victim’s neck were ringed in puckered skin and a slight discolouration.

  “The chest,” I said.

  “Now, the thorax wound is quite something,” the doctor explained. “I have not seen the likes before. Nor do I wish to do so again, sirs. The sooner Dr Drummond returns, the better for me, I believe.”

  That was a shame. I could have worked with this man.

  “Here” the doctor went on, “I would hazard a guess, that the device used was made specifically for such an endeavour.”

  “The murderer planned this method of death?” Elliott pressed.

  “To crack the ribs, to spread them in such a quick fashion as to avoid the exsanguination of the victim via the arteries, was a precise undertaking, gentlemen. The device you’re looking for will be large, most likely heavy; requiring two hands and strong limbs to carry. It will include a blade that scores the flesh, and a vice that cracks the ribs, and then a manner in which it can open the thorax to enable the attacker clear access to the heart within. All this must be achieved in less than a few heartbeats.”