The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree: Stoker & Bash, #2

by Selina Kray

  But all children born had the same expectation. A walk down any street in London sobered one to how many were forgotten, neglected, abused, forced to work till their bones didn’t grow right, destined to starve from the second they took to their mother’s dried-up breast. Most orphan asylums turned away any child not lawfully begotten, which left fallen women with even fewer options.

  Still, these Daughters promised much, but what did they actually deliver? The Winterbourne boy, more fortunate than most, had a father willing to pay for his comfort. But where was he now? What had Sister Juliet and her apostles done with him once he’d lost his silver spoon? To say nothing of Mrs. Pankhurst, whom the Daughters were likely persuading to donate all her monies, jewels, and worldly goods as Tim and Sister Juliet conversed.

  Tim woke from his musings to the realization the tea had arrived. He muttered out his number of lumps, adjusting his strategy. The sizeable donation, more than a month’s salary, that Han had entrusted to him to bait her sat heavy in his inner pocket. A potent lure, but could he bring himself to give it over, even to secure himself a second interview? Could he stomach adding to the Daughters’ wealth when it might cost a child?

  After accepting a cup from Sister Juliet, he took a long sip of his tea. Tim wished some part, any part of this case held easy answers.

  “Who’s this you’ve brought us, Sister Nora?”

  The stout Daughter rushed over to greet them, already reaching for Callie and Miss Kala. She clasped them both by the hands, forming an impromptu circle. Hiero made note of the Daughters’ tactile natures, a maneuver most often deployed by swindlers. Especially effective among the British, who tended toward aloofness. A few maternal pinches and pats, and even the haughtiest man would surrender his wallet. Not that Hiero had any experience of that...

  “In’t you a pretty one,” the Daughter cooed to Miss Kala. “All that lovely hair. You’ll fit right in. And you!” Callie lurched forward as the Daughter tugged her in to, yes, pinch her cheek. “A princess! And, like one, needs fattening up. You’ll eat your fill here, m’lady, I promise you.”

  “Sister Emerald is our head cook and tends the growing part of the Garden,” Sister Nora explained.

  “Oh, don’t listen to her ‘Sister’ nonsense. Call me Merry.”

  Hiero didn’t miss Sister Nora’s pinched mouth as she made the introductions.

  “This place is so familiar,” Callie dreamily commented, wandering off to admire a dense square of cornstalks. “I feel Her in every leaf and branch budding on the vines...”

  Sister Merry chuckled. “Well, Sister Juliet’s got her prophecies and Sister Zanna her healing, but I say this is the Mother’s true work. You don’t get any closer to Eden than in tending Her garden.”

  “Where once She fell, She’ll grow anew...” Callie caressed one of the long, waxy leaves.

  “... and make a heaven on Earth.” Sister Nora completed the Rebecca Northcote quote.

  Sister Merry winked at them. “With a little help from Her most faithful.”

  Exasperated, Hiero sought to steer the conversation elsewhere. “Your commitment to service in the Mother’s name is admirable. Tell me, are all your novitiates put to work?”

  Sister Nora nodded. “Mother Rebecca held we are all equal before her eyes. Rich and poor, man and woman. Even those whose hearts are closed to her message will have a place in the garden when She returns.”

  “An afternoon scrubbing pans or mucking out the pigs usually does the trick,” Sister Merry seconded.

  “No strangers to hard work here.” Miss Kala leaned in to Sister Merry, fast friends. “My mistress gets so bored with mistressing she’ll shuck her skirt and clean the chimneys. She swoons over dusting to the point I’ve given up! Once I found her ironing shirts in the wee hours, and her husband not a week passed.”

  “Oh, the dear! Even while she’s in the pudding club?”

  Miss Kala opened her mouth to speak but slyly swallowed her reply. Stunned by the implications of this, the Daughters shared a look. Hiero could have applauded. For all her cheer and bluster, Miss Kala was a docksider through and through and knew how to sell a trick. As plainspoken interpreter of Callie’s high theatrics, she may very well prove to be their secret weapon.

  “Where has Mrs. Sandringham gone?” Hiero asked. The three women gasped at Callie’s disappearance.

  Unworried since he’d seen her slip down a row of corn—probably for some peace and quiet—Hiero snuck into the potting shed and stole a few fortifying sips from the flask hidden in his robes. A glance around revealed nothing of note. Boxes of gardening tools and bags of seeds warred for space. Hiero rested his flask beside a padlocked chest on the nearest shelf, then quickly snatched it back when he spied the skull and crossbones painted on its lid.

  The treacle-sweet smell of the enclosed space had him gagging. Awash with pride at his investigative skills, he scampered out... right into the chest of one of the giants Jack must have summoned down the Beanstalk. Or perhaps one of the Jills among the Daughters.

  “’ullo, Father.” The giant smiled, peering down at him through the clouds.

  Himself a tall man, Hiero had met few outside the odd carnival act who dwarfed him. He wondered at the giant’s presence here. Muscle? Guardian? Stud? Surely prim Sister Nora had something to say about such a powerful man living among them.

  “Good day, my son. And who might you be?”

  “Not your son.” A look of bewilderment wrinkled his bushy brows. “My dad’s dead.”

  That’s when Hiero noticed the scar slashing across his forehead. He took a step back, poorly stifling a shiver. For the second time that day, a shadow passed over his grave. Or, rather, the grave of the man he’d buried long ago.

  “Don’t mind our Amos, Father,” Sister Merry reassured him, hurrying to intervene. “Back to your saplings, Amos, and don’t bother the padre no more.” She shooed him off with a fond sigh. “My brother. Number thirteen of seventeen, and the devil’s never let him forget it. He’s had his troubles, but I’m keeping him on the righteous path.”

  “He lives here?”

  “With me, yes, in the farmhouse. Tends the other side of the garden, well away from everyone.” She kept her smile, but the light had gone from her eyes. “He’ll be no bother to your Mrs. Sandringham.”

  Hiero didn’t have to feign sympathy for this woman and the life she must have led before finding sanctuary here. A reminder to him that while the Daughters as a collective needed to be scorched, some members would need help rising from the ashes.

  “Our Lord’s mysteries are as infinite as our Mother’s compassion.”

  “Amen.” Her inner spark flickered back to life. “You’ll be wanting to follow Amos through the roses. He knows the safest path. They’ve gone to pray at the Tree of Wisdom.”

  Hiero hardly needed to ask which tree this was, but, as he bowed in farewell, he considered whether he should join them or do a bit of snooping. They had yet to locate Lillian, for one, and—

  A scream ripped through the air.

  Tim scrounged the recesses of his brain for yet another way to ask what happened to the babies not placed with adoptive families. If any truly are, he reminded himself. Sister Juliet had expounded on how they chose the fallen women they took in (an “aura of purity” Tim suspected was the sheen of a hefty donation), how they evaluated each babe for signs of being the Messiah (the “pull of the Mother” within her and a splash of holy water), and listed off a string of patrons any politician would envy. The only thing she’d managed to convince Tim of was the true epidemic of London was highborn men raping their household staff. Hardly a revelation.

  “Your wife,” Sister Juliet prompted.

  “Hmm?”

  “She did not accompany you today.”

  “Ah, no. Forgive me. She did not.” Time for some confabulation of his own. “I fear my Claire has become disheartened by the whole endeavor. This is not our first attempt at adoption. We sponsored a girl introduced to u
s through an acquaintance we thought trustworthy, only to have her disappear with the child—well, her child, to be fair—and her final allowance at the last moment. We’ve toured local orphan asylums, but these are...”

  “Sordid places.”

  “Yes. And one never knows the provenance...”

  She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Of course not.”

  “Claire has convinced herself she will be content to play aunt to our nieces and nephews. But I know her, and I know myself.” Hiero had suggested that last line. Its effect on Sister Juliet boosted Tim’s confidence. “When Lady Westlake took up our cause, it was the first time in months I’d allowed myself to hope.”

  “The Mother’s work in motion.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Tim inhaled a shuddery breath, only half performance. “But hearing you speak, I feel moved to offer more. So many children in need. So many Claire and I could help beyond the one or two adoptions.” He fixed her with his most ardent look, turning one of her cheats against her. “Tell me... where do you send the children now?”

  He saw her stiffen, force her smile to widen.

  “Mr. Kipling, I fear no answer will satisfy someone as devout as you.”

  “‘The one who speaks the truth from their heart utters no slander,’” he quoted. “How can I be of service to these children if I do not know their circumstances?”

  With a sigh, she twined her hands in her lap and shut her eyes. Tim had never had a suspect deflect by praying before. Part of him was tickled, excited to share the story with the team. After what felt like several eternities, Sister Juliet set her gaze on him, decided.

  A shriek that could flay the skin from his face echoed through the house.

  Chapter 6

  He lay in a nest of branches, under a blanket of petals and leaves. His shock of red hair stood out against the dark wood, a lick of flame that failed to spark the kindling. Cheeks sunk and limbs lank, neglect had stolen his cherubic plumpness. The cleft in his prominent chin had grown to a hollow. The tattered shift he’d been shrouded in looked no better than a piece of burlap, stained and coarse. Tim kept staring at his little blue lips, parted in a cry no one would ever hear.

  Winter born. Gone by spring.

  The Daughters encircled him from a respectable distance, praying and weeping. Hiero leaned against the trunk of the massive tree under which the babe had been laid to rest, cradled between two gnarled roots. His black eyes, whose twinkle Tim so often sought out for reassurance, were dull and vacant. Callie and Miss Kala held tight to each other, unable to mask their horror.

  He’d barely begun work on his case, and still he’d taken too long. Though it was impossible to say without further investigation how long the boy had been dead, or whose child he was, Tim’s heart knew this was Sir Hugh’s son. Just as he knew he would avenge his murder with the fiery justice of the Archangel Michael, whoever he proved to be.

  “Let me through!” One of the Daughters pushed through the novitiates gathered around the base of the small hill from which the tree sprouted. Her beaked nose and gray, wing-plaited hair gave her a falconlike quality. She flew up to join the other Daughters with, to Tim’s surprise, a medical bag in tow.

  She moved past the prayer circle, crouching before the body. Before Tim could intervene, Sister Juliet knelt beside her, barring her from opening her bag with a patient hand.

  “Zanna, don’t disturb him.”

  “He might be frozen from the cold. There might be a chance.”

  “He doesn’t have a chill!” a stout woman barked. One of the others fell to her knees, sobbing. “And no one is to touch him. I’ll have Amos fetch the constable.”

  “No,” Sister Juliet announced in that ethereal way of hers. “He’s with his Mother now. Let us sing him to his final rest and give him to the ground.” The other Daughters murmured in agreement, save Sister Zanna.

  “He needs to be examined,” she insisted.

  “He’s beyond earthly cares.” Sister Juliet stood on one of the roots to better be seen. “As the prophet said, ‘A child lost to the world is one gained by heaven.’ We’ve known our share of loss here. Whoever cared for this little one had it right when she brought him to the tree. Let him be buried, and so to his eternal rest.”

  His warrant card burning a hole in his pocket, Tim looked to Callie, who shrugged, and to Hiero, who shook his head. Unaccustomed to the shock of such an incident, their powers of deduction and persuasion had abandoned them. He thought of the boy, who’d been robbed of a better life by one of the wolves in holy white uniforms, and knew his mind.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” All eyes turned to him as he lifted his warrant card for all to see. Tim heard Hiero’s sigh of exasperation as he breached the Daughters’ circle. “My name is Detective Inspector Timothy Stoker of Scotland Yard, and I declare this a crime scene.”

  Panicked chatter erupted among the Daughters, silenced with a whistle by the stout one. They retreated down the hill to give Tim the stage. Sister Juliet glared at him with unbridled fury.

  “Serpent,” she hissed.

  “Save your harsh words for the one who did this,” Tim chided.

  Sister Nora hastened to intervene. “DI Stoker, what a blessing. One might almost see the Mother’s hand in it. You being here just as...” She shut her mouth to steady her quavering voice, then continued. “May I ask why you’ve come to us now?”

  “Investigating another matter. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.” He didn’t miss the whispers, a ghostly chorus behind him. He gestured Sisters Nora and Juliet to the side for a more private interview. “I understand you are not eager to draw this kind of attention to yourselves. Neither am I inclined to see my case overlooked for this dark business. Therefore I propose a truce.”

  Sister Juliet scoffed. “As the prophet said, ‘The righteousness of our cause shines brighter than all the world’s sorrows.’”

  “Need I remind you of the strange case of Margaret Waters? Given what I’ve seen so far of your practices, I wouldn’t be so quick to flaunt your reputation.”

  Sister Nora gasped. “Our mission is to serve the women who find shelter among us and the babes born here.”

  “Which I’m certain my investigation will bear out,” Tim reassured her. “If I’m given free rein to conduct it. In exchange, I swear the murderer or murderers alone will be brought to justice, and not one word will be spoken by me to my superiors or written in the press against your good works.”

  “M-murderer?” Sister Nora hugged her arms. “But surely...”

  “Someone meant for this babe to be found, whether as a message or a warning,” Tim said for all to hear, sending one of his own. He dropped his volume to add, “It serves our interests to keep this matter private. You would not, after all, wish for a child-murderer to walk free among you?”

  This sobered them.

  “No,” Sister Nora confirmed. “Especially not now...” She flicked her eyes to Callie, who had joined the Daughters’ new prayer circle.

  “Then we are agreed?”

  “For now.” Sister Juliet invaded his space, her icy blue eyes spearing him through. “But beware, serpent. The Mother won’t fall for your tricks a second time.”

  “I rather think she’ll be too preoccupied with yours to bother.” Tim met her intimidation with steel of his own. “No one leaves the premises until I’ve concluded preliminary interviews. And you’d best appoint me a chaperone. Being a serpent, I know all the tricks.”

  An all-too-familiar clearing of the throat set Tim’s nerves on edge. Before he could decide how to react, Hiero insinuated himself into their group.

  “Your pardon.” He performed a little bow. “But I could not help but overhear your deliberations. If Signore...”

  “Stoker,” Tim grunted.

  “If the inspector requires assistance in this matter, I would be most happy to oblige.”

  “Kind of you to offer, Father,” Tim said through gritted teeth
, “but I have my own man.”

  “I hope you aren’t considering leaving these two alone with any of the girls.” Sister Zanna rose from her crouching position by the body to object. “They’ve suffered the attentions of enough strange men, or have you forgotten our purpose here?”

  “She’s quite right, Father.” Sister Juliet turned her frigid smile on Hiero. “Our novitiates have sought sanctuary here from the world of men. They will be intimidated enough being questioned by DI Stoker, let alone...”

  “Under the seal of the confessional?” Hiero mirrored the gesture Sister Juliet had used when greeting Callie, but to such subtle effect Tim doubted she even noticed. “You forget, my child, that anything said to me in confidence cannot be repeated. And is immediately absolved, through the Mother’s grace. I have not been living here among you, so I am not party to the politics the way one of your Daughters might be if she were to chaperone. Whatever secrets are revealed will be for our ears alone.”

  To Tim’s surprise, Sister Nora hastened to agree.

  “This may be the best course of action for the innocent,” she counseled. “They will be on the premises—”

  “Skulking about,” Sister Zanna countered. “Wherever and whenever they choose.”

  “Their movements can be monitored.”

  “This is our sanctuary.”

  “And this is our time.” Sister Nora’s limpid brown eyes made their final appeal. “She is so near to us. We can’t have her arrival sullied by suspicion, false accusations...”

  “Or those who wish you harm,” Hiero darkly added. Tim stifled a groan. “If there is one among you who has committed such an act... I cannot allow Miss Sandringham to remain here while danger lurks, hidden but on the hunt.”

  Spooked, Sister Juliet turned to Tim.

  “You think someone wishes us harm? Has done this to...”