Devoured (29 page)

‘Stop it …’ Flora was screaming. ‘Stop it, Violet. Stop it. Please for pity’s sake. Violet, leave the gentleman. Cook, come quickly …’ Hatton was pushing her away, peeling off her hands, struggling.

‘Anything, sir, please don’t send me back to her … .’

‘She’s asleep. I’ve given her something. She’s my lamb. Leave her be.’

Flora had gone to help prepare some broth. Adams was in the hallway writing notes, whilst Hatton looked down at himself, embarrassed and ashamed. Broderig loitered by a chair, shaking his head but contributing nothing because what was there to say? Hatton knew it would be better if he asked the questions. To cover it up with the usual of time, place, and weapon. Only these were not the questions. He put his face in his hands and tried to recover himself. ‘Ask something, damn you,’ he muttered under his breath. He stuttered out the obvious. The cook answered, ‘Yes, sir. I found her three years ago in Mayfair. We had a position for a scullery maid at the time. I took her in. Lady Bessingham left all of that to me. She had no reference, but I could tell she was a good girl. She reached out to me. She had strong wrists. Good for rolling pastry.’

‘Can I see those wrists, Cook?’ Hatton asked.

The cook turned her back on Hatton. ‘No, sir. You cannot.’

Hatton pleaded with her, ‘Mayfair, you say? It could be very important, couldn’t it, Inspector? Is there something you’re not telling us?’ Hatton moved towards the edge of the bed, where the girl lay, half asleep.

Broderig stepped further into the room, saying more abruptly, ‘Speak now very plainly and tell the truth, woman. Answer the Professor and be specific. He asked where in Mayfair, exactly? And tell us more on her wrists. They’ll be no more secrets here.’

The cook recoiled from Mr Broderig, her voice becoming a whisper. ‘She was slumped against the railings in Monreith Square, sir. I was visiting my sister who has a position in one of the town houses. But why do you ask about her wrists?’

Adams didn’t look up from his notes but the cook wanted no part of it, whatever this Mr Broderig demanded, so she pulled the bedclothes up, then ushered them out, closing the door behind her.

‘So, Inspector Adams,’ Broderig said, where they all stood now in the hallway. ‘Did you hear what she said? Monreith Square, where the rich and powerful live. But no one’s above the law. Here’s your chance, Inspector.’

Hatton nodded. ‘And I saw her wrists clearly, Inspector. Cuts and slashes from long ago. And as for that crooked little back of hers? From a beating, I shouldn’t wonder. She’s afraid and she’s definitely hiding something. It’s as Mr Broderig suggests. Something happened to her in Monreith Square.’

Adams shook his head and said, ‘There’s nothing more to be got from Violet. And I’ve no more time to waste here.’ He shut his notebook. ‘I need a carriage to London and to find this mantuamaker. Professor Hatton, are you ready?’ Hatton nodded, picking up his surgical bag, but Broderig pushed ahead of the Inspector, blocking his path, saying, ‘But Cook said Monreith Square. And the girl’s wrists were slashed, Inspector. So after you’ve found this mantuamaker, you’ll head straight there, of course?’

Adams shook his head in disbelief at Broderig’s effrontery. ‘Good grief but are we all detectives now? Perhaps, instead of driving myself to an early grave, I should take early retirement?’

‘I’m only concerned for the girl,’ said Broderig.

‘Well my concern is for these dead botanicals, as yours should be. The girls must wait. I need to find this dressmaker before she murders another. So, if you would excuse me, Mr Broderig …’

Hatton watched as Adams pushed past the younger man, who stepped back and almost fell against the wall, running his hands through his hair before saying, ‘Of course, you’re right. It’s most impertinent of me. You know your job. I’m sorry for my outburst. It’s quite unlike me. It’s all this death, Inspector.’

Hatton sympathised. He felt this anger, too, but at thirty-three he had learnt to contain it.

Broderig continued, more calmly, ‘Do you know, I think I’ll join you, gentlemen. I need to get back to the city, myself. My specimens are due in tomorrow. Is that alright, Inspector?’

Adams shrugged. ‘If you want,’ was all he said. ‘My work on this case is practically finished. We’ll pick her up, this Madame What’s Her Face. She’s clearly on the make, working for someone. I’ll squeeze it out of her. Not sure how she did it though, especially the men, because it would take nerves of steel to kill like that, but she’ll hang for it nevertheless, and then I can draw a line under this sorry affair.’

‘Draw a line under it?’ Broderig sighed.

‘Yes, Mr Broderig. She’ll hang and the press will have what they want. The Commissioner will leave me alone and there will be peace in the world.’ He smiled, and lit another penny smoke. ‘Case closed. Gentlemen, our carriage awaits …’

London loomed upon the horizon. Hatton kept quiet on the journey back, still reeling from what the girl had done, and also thinking about what it meant. Her wrists were like the other girls. And this Madame Martineau was a seamstress. But the angel was different. She had died by drowning and been dragged from the river, placed in a box which led them to Dodds. He rubbed his eyes. Or was the girl a miasma, a ghost? Nothing made sense any more, but even in his tiredness everything seemed connected. Violet had worked for Madame Martineau. That’s why she let her into the house.

Hatton preferred to let the others do the talking. Adams puffed away, answering Broderig’s questions. They talked a little of who he worked for, apart from The Yard, and Adams was not unforthcoming. ‘We all do it,’ he said, matter-of-fact. ‘It’s no secret, and my superiors even have a list of my clients. Why, I even did a bit of work for your own father, Mr Broderig, not so long ago when he had an unpopular bill going through. London’s a dangerous city. This isn’t Sarawak!’

‘And do you think the rich are a special case then, Inspector? When it comes to the law? Would you, for example, investigate someone you’ve worked for? I suppose what I’m asking is where do you draw the line between justice and order?’

Adams laughed and shook his head at the young man’s naivety and youthful passion.

‘The rich are a special case. The rich need security, Mr Broderig.’

Hatton listened as the conversation continued. How Broderig thought that The Yard was more concerned with the rich than the poor. And that in his view, it was only the weak that suffered and that without vigilance they would be crushed by the wicked. Beaten, tortured, and then dumped in alleyways like the little girls, who were completely innocent, he said. And Hatton listened as Adams answered Mr Broderig that it was in the nature of girls from the streets to behave like Violet. And that they weren’t so innocent. That they survived by what they offered, and adapted to the streets. ‘Evolve if you like,’ said Adams, and that he was not unsympathetic to their predicament, just pragmatic.

NINETEEN

 

 

 

The scaffolding that shot up the sides of the sweatshop looked unwieldy, as if it would crack across the joints at any minute.

‘Mind out there, gentlemen, look out below!’ A heap of debris came crashing down. Hatton looked up in horror, immobilised by fear, but as the deadly load hurtled towards the ground, an arm pulled him into the building’s porch way and out of danger.

‘Damn labourers. They don’t care what they’re doing. Nearly crushed us to death.’ Adams was angry but Hatton was simply relieved to have been pushed aside, once again into a corner, but this time the corner was one he welcomed with open arms. Hatton thanked him for it.

‘Step in, Hatton. And light a match here. I can barely see my feet. How can anyone work in this half-light?’

They’d dropped Broderig near Whitehall, and were now in a tight little corridor. Hatton put his hands on either side of the walls to steady himself and stepped cautiously forward. He could no longer hear the workmen, who must still be above them, wheeling their precarious loads across rickety planks, but he could hear something – a whirring noise ahead of them – and see something, too – a thin shard of light.

‘Strike another light, Professor. I think this is the place.’

The first room was stuffed to bursting with fabrics and the air littered with fairy dust which settled on Hatton’s hands, and for a moment he was transfixed by its beauty. ‘Sequins,’ said the Inspector. ‘Cost a pretty penny these fripperies do. But terrible for the lungs of those who cut and thread this stuff.’

Ahead of the fabric room, the girls were silent and barely seemed to notice the entry of the two men. One girl with jet-black hair was at a machine, which worked at ten times the speed of her neighbours. The others stitched by hand.

‘Good afternoon, ladies.’ Adams doffed his hat, the proper gentleman. ‘Is Madame Martineau here?’

An auburn-haired girl answered in a piping little voice. ‘Madame’s not ’ere. You gentlemen after her, then?’ A girlish snigger. ‘She only left a while ago.’

‘And your name is?’

‘My name, sir?’ the girl shot Adams such a look of artfulness, she suddenly aged from a child of twelve to a knowing woman. ‘My name is, hmmmm, what shall I be today then, girls?’ The girls around her giggled nervously.

‘Come, don’t play with us. Your name child, if you please?’

‘My name is Daisy so’s you ask? What’s it to you?’ she winked at her friends and then picked up a pair of scissors to guard herself.

‘Well now, Daisy. You won’t be needing any scissors, so put them down. I don’t want to alarm any of you girls but I’m a policeman, that’s right, a regular bobby peeler.’ Adams doffed his hat again. ‘And if you mess with me, you’ll be charged with obstructing the law. Do you know what that means? It means trouble, girls, with a capital
T.
Now then, I think I have made myself plain. Do you, Daisy, or any of the others, know where your mistress has gone? I need to speak to her urgently.’

But rather than laying the scissors down as she’d been asked, Daisy held them out like a knife.

‘Says who? Madame Martineau wouldn’t appreciate no snitching. We’ve got strict orders to finish six gowns by daybreak tomorrow and it’s heavy work. Why, Elsie ’ere’ – Daisy put her arm round her freckled neighbour – ‘has a whole mourning outfit of silks to sort out, and if we don’t finishes when Madame wants us to, we’ll cop it. So’s you best not be bothering us with your questions, whoever you are.’

Inspector Adams didn’t respond as Hatton expected him to, with a quick grab and a de-arming of her scissors. Instead, he laughed, genuinely amused by her effrontery. ‘Dear, oh dear. What a performance, Daisy. You’re in the wrong business, my girl. I’ll let your pa know he’s got a regular Penny Gaff star. Now then, jesting apart, I’ll say it again. Put the damn scissors down, shut your trap, and listen to me. Madame Martineau is in serious trouble. I’m investigating the murder of one of Madame’s customers, and if I get one more word of gutter-snipe backchat, I’ll have you down The Yard so quick your teeth will chatter. So, where’s your mistress gone?’

Daisy looked like she was about to bolt, but another caught her arm and patted it. ‘Sit down, Daisy, for gawd sake. Daisy don’t mean no ’arm and she ain’t got no pa. None of us do. She’s just a little perturbed what with being shut up in ’ere all the time, ain’t you, Daisy? I know where Madame’s gone, Inspector. Once the orders are in and she’s counted all her money and the like, she heads over to the Isle of Dogs. She runs another venture there. Printing and the like, though I can’t read. But Madame can. She’s a right clever one. We don’t know any more. But if we don’t get the dresses done, we’ll more than cop it.’ One of the girls at the other table started to cry.

‘Oh for gawd sake, Kitty. Shut up with your bloody sniffling. Give her a hanky, Margaret.’

Hatton look around at the girls. There were perhaps nine or ten of them. Stick thin and raggedy. But in many ways, they were the lucky ones. Lucky to be in work, learning a skill which might one day lead them out of The Borough if they kept their heads down and didn’t cross their mistress.

‘So, the Isle of Dogs then, Professor?’ Adams pressed Hatton.

But Hatton was distracted by one of the girls. The tawny one named Kitty at the sewing machine. An Irish name, but she was far from it.

‘Come here, please, Kitty. I want to show the Inspector something. Don’t be shy. I’m a doctor. Look, I even have a doctor’s bag. Bet you haven’t seen anything as wonderful as that? Look at the brass buckle. Doesn’t it shine? Come now, child, I just want to look at your arms for a second. I’ll get you a buckle for you just like it, if you let me look.’

Kitty was terrified. ‘Go on, Kitty, roll up your sleeves,’ said the bold one. ‘He won’t harm you none. Show him your arms. It’s the machine. We are always having accidents with it, ain’t we?’ The dark girl stepped forward, the other still speaking. ‘They’re only curious. And it’s a right lovely buckle, ain’t it? And these are proper gentlemen, Kitty, not like Madame Martineau’s sort.’