Absence of Mercy

by S. M. Goodwin

  Outside on the street he inhaled deeply, replacing the stench of the room he’d just left with coal smoke, horse manure, and the harsh bite of lye from a nearby renderer.

  He hailed a hackney. “Four Whitehall Place.”

  Alone in the carriage, his thoughts grew less controlled. It had been almost two years since his father last interfered in his life: when he’d forbidden Jasper from accepting a position with the Detective Department.

  They’d hardly spoken since, but every time Jasper’s name appeared in the newspaper, he expected an angry visit from the older man.

  He stared out the filthy carriage window and recalled the last conversation he’d had with his elder brother.

  “Father is an old man, Jaz,” Crispin said when Jasper confessed he’d not be going to Kersey Park for Easter this year. “His heart has been giving him trouble lately. You should make your peace with him.”

  His brother, a year his senior, had never understood Jasper’s antagonistic relationship with their father. Crispin was their father’s pride and joy, and for good reason, as far as Jasper was concerned. He loved his brother fiercely and didn’t envy him either their father’s affection or his position as heir. Crispin was universally beloved and would make a far better caretaker for all the people who lived on their family estates than their father ever had.

  It wasn’t that their father had gambled away the family fortune or dragged their name through the mud—the latter something he’d accused Jasper of doing. It was that he was a cold, rigid man who had the fear and respect of his dependents, but never their love.

  “We’re ’ere, gov,” the driver said through the narrow vent, interrupting his thoughts.

  Jasper glanced out the window and saw that they’d stopped while he was gathering wool. He climbed out and paid the driver, staring unseeingly at the battered carriage as it rumbled off down the street. Whatever Sir George had called him here to say, Jasper doubted he’d like it.

  He was tempted to ignore the summons and go back to the station. What was the worst that could happen? He couldn’t believe the department would discharge him. It wasn’t only his practical skills that they valued; there was also the fact that Jasper could gain access to places every other member of the force—Commissioner Mayne included—could only dream about. He was their special weapon: a policeman with connections to most of the ruling families in England.

  Another hackney slowed beside him. “Need a ride, sir?” the driver asked.

  Jasper shook his head and turned away. Whatever was waiting for him, he might as well face it.

  * * *

  Jasper didn’t recognize the young man seated at the desk outside the home secretary’s office, but it was clear the man knew who Jasper was.

  He leapt to his feet, twin spots of color on cheeks that looked too young to require a razor. “Major Lord Lightner—” His color deepened even more. “Er, Detective Inspector, that is, sir—what an honor.” Admiration shone like a beacon from the youngster’s eyes.

  Jasper had become resigned to such responses since his return from the war, but that did not mean he enjoyed them. Exaggerated tales of his brigade’s heroism and their disastrous charge had been waiting for him when he was invalided back home from the Crimea in early ’55. Rather than fading into obscurity, the suicidal engagement had gained mythic stature, thanks to that bloody Tennyson poem.

  “Th-Thank you,” Jasper said. “And you are?”

  “Oh yes—sorry, sir. Hedley Selwood.” He bowed deeply. “I believe you knew my brother at Eton.”

  Jasper skimmed the surface of his memory, careful to avoid the cracks and fissures that led to a boundless void.

  Selwood, Selwood, Selwood …

  Astonishingly, a fat, shiny-cheeked face materialized in his mind’s eye: Richard Selwood, the Earl of Ingleton’s heir.

  “Dickie Selwood,” Jasper said. His pleasure at remembering the man was overpowered by a sharp pang that his memory didn’t work as well when it came to recalling far more important matters. But his mind had a will of its own, and sometimes it yielded up the most trivial things without any effort. Things like Dickie Selwood.

  “How is Dickie these d-days?” Jasper asked out of courtesy rather than interest.

  “He is Ingleton now, sir.”

  “Ah. I’d not heard of your father’s d-death. I’m sorry for your l-l-loss.”

  “Thank you, sir. It has been almost three years now, and Dickie is a regular old man these days—married and with children already.”

  “Give him my regards.”

  “Absolutely, sir.” Selwood kept nodding, clearly loath to end the conversation. Jasper knew he was working himself up to broaching Balaclava.

  “I understood the home s-secretary wished to see me r-rather urgently.”

  The boy snapped to. “Oh yes, yes, of course, sir. Right this way.” He led Jasper to the massive doors to Sir George’s cavernous office and flung one open. “Detective Inspector Lightner to see you,” he bellowed, with enough pomp to please a royal duke.

  The home secretary was on his feet and smiling. “Ah, Jasper, welcome. How good of you to come so quickly.”

  As if Jasper had had any say in the matter.

  “A p-p-pleasure to see you again, Sir George.”

  “Come in, come in—do have a seat.” He cut Selwood a brief glance. “See that we are not disturbed.”

  “Yes, Home Secretary.” The door closed behind the young man without a sound.

  “I hope I’ve not pulled you off anything important, Jasper.”

  “Nothing that can’t wait, sir.” No, the Bickles were not in any hurry.

  Sir George’s eyes slid from Jasper to one of the hooded dome chairs that faced his desk. “You see who’s come for a visit?”

  Jasper was not surprised when the Duke of Kersey’s face emerged from the shadows of the chair’s deep hood.

  He met His Grace’s cold, pale-blue eyes and gave a soft, unamused snort of laughter.

  “Hallo, F-Father. What a p-p-pleasure.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Jasper left the warm comfort of the pub, his head muzzy from too much whiskey. He generally avoided hard spirits, as they exacerbated his head injury and often brought on debilitating migraines. He preferred opium to alcohol and morphine to either of those, but those seductive substances came with headaches all their own—a costly lesson he’d learned from personal experience.

  Besides, a decent dram of Irish whiskey was far easier to come by, and some days it was worth the headache. Today was one of those days.

  It was full dark, and the weather had turned nasty while he’d been in the pub. He considered hailing a hackney but decided the heavy, freezing rain matched his foul mood to perfection. He pulled his coat collar up around his ears and hunched against the bone-chilling wind. A long walk would help to clear his head, which he should do before allowing Paisley to see him in this condition.

  Sometimes Jasper thought employing a valet was more work than having a wife—especially a servant as observant, intelligent, and opinionated as Paisley. The man would’ve worried himself into a state by now, envisioning Jasper wandering around the city lost or in a daze—even though he hadn’t suffered such an incident in well over a year.

  Jasper didn’t like distressing Paisley, but tonight it couldn’t be helped. After the half hour he’d spent with his father and the home secretary and then his wretched conversations with the Bickles’ neighbors, Jasper hadn’t been fit company for man nor beast.

  As difficult as it was to credit, his visit to the Bickles’ cramped, dirty, and desperate lodgings had been even worse than his time with the duke.

  Jasper had expected to learn nothing of any significance about the Bickles from their neighbors, but what he hadn’t expected was the utter eradication of the couple’s existence. Not only had all physical trace of them been cleared away, but a family of four had already been installed in their dismal room, looking as if they’d lived there for ages. The image of
them eating their grim evening meal had burned itself into his mind.

  Don’t worry, Jasper, you’ll forget about them—just like you’ve forgotten everything else in your life.

  This snide observation had a ring of truth but was not, strictly speaking, accurate.

  His prior life was not entirely lost to him; he retained skills like riding a horse and loading a pistol and even a good deal of his medical training. But his memory of people and events preceding October 25, 1854—both big and small—was often fragmented or nonexistent.

  The duke had accused him of possessing a convenient memory rather than suffering any ill effects from the shrapnel that had pierced his skull. Perhaps His Grace was correct—at least to some degree—because Jasper remembered some things very clearly indeed.

  Like the day he learned he’d never again have to stand in front of his father’s massive desk, enduring the duke’s cold, scathing stare and justifying his very existence to collect his meager allowance.

  Yes, Jasper could remember the day he’d learned of his Aunt Sarah’s bequest, but he had no memory of the woman whose generosity meant he’d never again be dependent on his father.

  Forgetting specific events didn’t bother him as much as forgetting people. And the person he most regretted forgetting was himself and the kind of man he’d been before his brain was scrambled. Although he doubted that he was materially different when it came to his tastes and characteristics, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d once had some sort of plan for his life.

  He must have possessed drive or ambition to have studied medicine. Or perhaps that was wrong—perhaps he’d merely done so to spite and embarrass his father?

  What had happened—if anything—to cause him to leave England and spend his last two years of schooling in Paris? And why had he abandoned his medical training a mere six months before completion to join the army?

  Jasper had never kept a journal, nor had he confided his reasons to his friends—not even his brother. It was probable that the memories were lost forever and he’d never know the answers.

  He stopped at a busy street, keeping well away from the splashing wheels and muck-filled road as he waited for a chance to cross. His mind drifted back—as it had done all evening—to the meeting in the home secretary’s office.

  “I b-beg your pardon, sir, but you w-wish me to do what?”

  “New York City has created a new police department modeled on ours and has asked for our assistance. You’re the perfect person to aid them.”

  “But I know n-nothing about structuring p-police departments.”

  “They don’t want you to help with the creation of the force. They want your expertise training their investigators—the same as you are doing here. They haven’t asked for just anybody, Jasper—they want you.”

  Jasper had been tempted to yell bollocks but had tried a more measured response first. “If I m-may be so bold, Sir George, how would they even have h-heard of me?”

  “Come now, I think we both know your methods, as well as your zeal, are rather distinctive.”

  As distinctive as the odor of horseshit in this room.

  The secretary continued. “The board is very impressed, just as we were, with the time you spent with the former chief of Sûreté nationale, Eugène Vidocq, both before and after the war. They view you—quite rightly—as his natural successor in the new science of criminal investigation.”

  “I’m honored to be p-put on the level of Mr. Vidocq, but I’m afraid s-s-somebody has overestimated my abilities, sir.”

  The duke gave a loud, scornful snort, his first contribution to the conversation. “Vidocq is a thief, forger, and worse.”

  Jasper could not argue with his father; the founder of the Sûreté had spent almost as much time running from the law as he had enforcing it.

  “True, Your G-Grace, but he also happens to be one of the finest m-minds on the subject of criminal b-behavior.”

  “Because he is a bloody criminal.”

  Again, that was undoubtedly true. But Eugene Vidocq was so much more.

  Jasper had first met the man when he was a student in Paris. He still recalled his first meeting with Eugène, when the older man had come to the college of medicine with the body of a convict.

  Thanks to Jasper’s head injury, the case itself was lost to him, but he remembered the clever and charismatic Frenchman.

  After the war he’d gone back to Paris, half-obsessed to reconnect with a man who claimed to retain every memory he’d ever made. Did Vidocq employ some system or technique to store and retrieve memories? If he did, perhaps he could teach it to others. Perhaps Jasper could use it to recover his own memories?

  While the old policeman hadn’t possessed any magical memory tricks—just a phenomenal memory—he had taught Jasper more about criminal investigation in six months than many policemen learned in decades.

  Of course, consulting with Vidocq about his memory hadn’t been the only reason for his trip to France. Unbeknownst to anyone aside from the home secretary and a few others, his trip to Paris in mid-’55 had been Jasper’s first detective assignment.

  The duke pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. “Is your cracked brain wandering again?”

  Jasper met his father’s furious gaze. “Why are you here, Your G-Grace?”

  Sir George replied before the duke could open his mouth. “Your father is on the Police Service Committee, and they’ve—”

  “There is a position for you—assistant superintendent commissioner,” the duke said. “And you will bloody well take it.”

  “I don’t believe I’m f-familiar with that position, Your G-Grace.”

  “You know damned well you’ll be the first.” He looked away from Jasper as if the sight pained him, which it probably did.

  “Why d-do I think this is a titular p-position?”

  The duke’s head whipped around. “Because it is, you fool.” His eyes narrowed, frustration joining fury. “If you refuse to take a seat in Commons, and if you refuse to use your utterly undeserved windfall to benefit your family’s estates, and if you refuse to take an acceptable wife and see to the breeding of her—something your brother shows no signs of doing—then the least you can do is not shame your family on a weekly basis.” He took a folded rectangle of newsprint from his lap and hurled it at Jasper. “Here you are yet again with one of your goddamned sticks.”

  It was a front-page article about a theft ring the police had recently broken. As the lead detective, Jasper had been present at the arrest—an arrest that had involved a good deal of violence. The newspaper had delighted in laying out details of the fight, complete with a creditable drawing of him wielding one of his rather famous—or infamous, depending on whom you asked—walking sticks.

  Jasper gave the duke a cool look. “What of it?”

  The duke’s eyes bulged, but before he could answer, the home secretary again stepped into the breach.

  “It’s true the new position is largely symbolic … now—but that could change over time. More importantly, it would remove you from the dangerous and unsavory elements you’re exposed to in your current duties.”

  Jasper didn’t bother reminding Sir George that he’d used those very same dangerous and unsavory elements to lure Jasper into working for him in the first place.

  “Either I take this p-position or go to N-N-New York?”

  Sir George hesitated, cut a glance at the duke, and then nodded.

  “Would you t-tell me more about the p-position in New York, sir?”

  His father made a noise like an enraged gander. “Are you bloody mad?”

  Jasper thought that was probably a rhetorical question.

  “I cannot believe for an instant that you’d consider such idiocy,” the duke said, his voice choked with rage.

  Jasper almost smiled. So, his father had overplayed his hand. He’d believed the situation he’d engineered for his embarrassing son left him with only two choices: quit the force or take the tedious
sinecure he’d created.

  “Jasper!” his father yelled, when Jasper failed to answer. His voice was so loud it rattled the crystal decanters on a nearby console table.

  “Please, Sir George,” Jasper said with quiet firmness, “I would like to hear m-more about New Y-York.”

  After a long, tension-filled silence, the home secretary said, “This will be much in the same vein as the conferring that took place between our department and Vidocq back in the thirties when we sent men to Paris to—”

  “Even you cannot be so foolish as to consider this, Jasper,” the duke said. “There is nothing but Irishmen and savages in charge of the entire damned country. Ha! I say in charge—it’s bloody chaos over there. They’d like nothing more than to get a naïve Englishman with your connections in their clutches. These men will eat somebody like you alive. You’ll come crawling—”

  “How long a stay d-did they have in m-mind, Sir G-George?”

  The duke stormed out after that, leaving Jasper to ascertain the details without his father’s histrionics.

  The home secretary made Jasper’s choices clear: he could take the new position or he could go to America. What he could not do was continue to embarrass his family in his current position. Whatever hold the duke had over Sir George, it must be powerful, because the man was adamant.

  “What h-happens after a year?” Jasper asked, when Sir George told him the length of the assignment.

  The older man had not been able to look him in the eyes. “Let’s leave that discussion until you return.”

  So, Jasper was left with a simple decision: submit to his father’s will and take a position that would be no better than a figurehead, or abandon the life he’d made for himself here—such as it was—and travel thousands of miles into the unknown.

  He tried to view the subject objectively. Why did he cling so desperately to this job? Merely to have something to occupy his time?

  He pondered that question as he moved through the frozen rain that was now beating hard on his hat, the patter an insistent tattoo that sped his thoughts as well as his steps.