The Insanity of Murder (9 page)

Pike and Singh stepped from the Yard just as their intended bus eased itself into the Embankment traffic.

‘Quick, Singh,’ Pike said to his companion, pointing to the departing bus with his cane. Singh sprinted after the slow-moving vehicle and swung aboard, flashing his police pass at the disgruntled conductor. The vehicle stopped and motorcars honked. Pike lifted his hat to the driver to thank him for waiting. The conductor wound two tickets out of his machine and handed them to Singh.

The weather was mild so they climbed the steps and sat on the top deck. Pike, almost collapsing onto the bench street, accepted Singh’s offered cigarette and inhaled deeply, then took the ticket Singh handed him for the Chelsea Hospital stop. From there they would walk to Mr Francis Hislop’s salubrious Chelsea Manor Street address.

‘The Act has been passed, sir? Singh asked as the bus finally managed to nudge itself into the traffic.

Pike nodded as he blew out smoke. ‘Passed in the nick of time for Miss Florence McCleland. They might have failed with their forced-feeding attempt but they succeeded in knocking her out quite badly. She’s been sent home for her sister to look after.’

‘It was fortunate that she avoided the prison hospital. They say conditions there are worse than the cells.’

‘They were about to take her there when I arrived and put a stop to it. Had to wave a copy of the Act under their noses.’

Pike neglected to say how horrified he had been to see Florence’s emaciated form laid out on the cell bed with a female prison warden stooped over her, wiping the blood from her ashen face. Or how he had discreetly followed the ambulance in a taxicab to Bloomsbury in order to see Florence safely handed into Dody’s care. It had been a race to get back to the Yard to meet up with Singh, hence their almost missing the bus.

A little boy in polished boots and knee breeches stared from where he sat on the other side of the aisle, legs swinging. Pike frowned and shook his finger at the boy. The boy reacted by pulling his cloth cap over his eyes so he could still peep through at the turbaned foreigner who looked like he’d just survived ten rounds with Jack Johnson.

Oblivious, Singh began to hum a music hall ditty.

Pike smiled to himself. None of the sights he viewed were as amusing as those in the song but they proved to be a pleasant distraction from the last few harrowing hours. The late afternoon river traffic flowed with organised chaos, almost as busy as the road, he noticed. Just before they turned away from it, a steam ferry pulled up at one of the embankment wharves and disgorged a throng of dark-suited office workers from the other side of the river, making their way home to their respectable lower-middle-class dwellings in areas such as Holborne, West Hoxton and Portland Town.

The bus turned into The Mall, stately corridor to the Palace, and they found themselves looking down upon a squad of Household Cavalry giving their mounts their last exercise for the day. The horsemen wheeled onto the cantering track of St James’s Park and thundered off, spewing almost as much dust as the bus did greasy fumes. Pike met Singh’s eyes. The ex-cavalrymen both knew where each would prefer to be.

They skirted the Palace, drove through Belgravia then Lower Sloane Street, finally ending their journey at the Royal Chelsea Hospital where three scarlet-jacketed pensioners sat at the bus stop. The old men did not rise to board, but continued to sit as if passing the time. One was missing a leg, the other an arm, and the third —, if his vacant stare was anything to go by —, was probably blind.

‘There but for the grace of God,’ Singh muttered after they walked past, heading towards Christ Church Street.

They came to a two-storey detached house set back from the street road behind freshly painted pillared gates. As soon as they commenced their walk and started down the garden path, Pike sensed there was something not quite right about the place. The garden, evidently once opulent, was overgrown, the gaps in the expensive new paving stones beneath their feet already springing weeds. The fresh paintwork of the house suggested recent work, yet the front steps needed a good scrub. Spider webs hung like miniature hammocks above their heads on the front porch.

They were asked to wait on the doorstep by an untidy maid who disappeared to enquire if her master, Mr Francis Hislop, was at home. After a wait of several minutes, a man of late middle age greeted Pike with an expression of haughty indignation. His scowl lifted slightly when he examined Pike’s warrant card, obviously relieved to be dealing with a policeman of rank rather than a common bobby.

‘What’s this about then?’ the solicitor asked.

Pike reached into his pocket for the photograph, covering the mutilated mouth of the woman in the same way he had with the clerk at Bethlem.

‘Good God,’ Hislop exclaimed after barely a second glance.

‘Do you know this woman, sir?’ Pike asked.

Hislop ran his finger under the pointed tips of his collar. ‘What happened to her? Why are you covering up her mouth?’

‘Do you know this woman?’ Pike repeated with emphasis.

Ignoring Pike’s his question, Hislop stepped from the porch and strode a few paces down the garden path where he paused to look through the railings of the front fence. Pike followed his gaze. A nanny walked past with two small charges and a fluffy dog, a clatter of pigeons rising into the sky above their heads. A baker’s van had paused at a smaller house opposite. Other than that the street was still.

‘You’d better come in.’ Hislop turned his back to the street and addressed Pike. ‘Your lackey can wait outside.’

‘My constable has had a tiring day, Mr Hislop. I wonder if your cook might provide him with a cup of tea?’ Pike asked.

Hislop pulled an expression of distaste. ‘Oh, very well, follow the signs to the tradesman’s entrance down the steps. Tell Cook I sent you.’

Singh met Pike’s eye then made his way to the kitchen around the side of the house. He did not need to be told to find out as much as he could about Hislop from his servants.

Pike was invited no further in than the hall of the well-proportioned house. A chandelier shone above his head dripping with dulled crystal dangles. Hunting scenes hung haphazardly on the fresh paintwork. A wide bannister with intricate spindles twisted its way towards the upper storey. The runner on the stairs needed a good sweep.

‘Let me have another look at that photograph. Thank you. I can’t even see the blasted thing in this damned light.’ Hislop placed the photograph under the light of the chandelier and looked at the photograph in its entirety.

‘Good God, it
is
her.’ His shoulders dropped and his stern expression softened with apparent relief. ‘Yes, I do know her. Come, join me in my study,’ he ordered. ‘I need a drink.’

Celebration or commiseration, Pike wondered, perplexed. The man did not even seem shocked by the state of the woman’s mouth. He followed Hislop into a room off the hall with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all in need of a good wipe, and found himself guided by the arm towards a grandmother chair.

The place had an unusual smell about it, Pike thought, the unlikely combination of dust and money.

The greasy glass of Madeira was not offered, but more like pressed into Pike’s grip. Hislop helped himself to a drink and then occupied a large grandfather chair with scarlet upholstery. He sat forward, leaning towards Pike, legs splayed, smothering the small glass in his two large hands.

‘When did it happen?’ he demanded.

‘First, please tell me who she is, sir.’

‘My former wife, Cynthia.’

‘Her body was found last week in the public conveniences at Waterloo Station,’ he said.

‘By whom?’

Pike said nothing, took a sip from his glass and placed it on an inlaid side table. He relaxed back into his chair and crossed his legs, fixing Hislop with an impassive look intended to remind him who was asking the questions. The man was a bully, and Pike abhorred bullies.

‘I can’t tell you how much of a blessed relief that woman’s death is to me, Chief Inspector.’

That much was obvious, Pike thought to himself.

Hislop must have read his expression correctly, for he quickly backtracked. ‘The relief is not for my sake, of course, but for her own. She was a very disturbed woman, a sufferer of all kinds of mental agonies. The news in itself is sad, but a blessing. She is at peace now.’

‘Where did she reside after she left Bethlem Hospital?’ Pike asked.

‘She came home for a short while but proved impossible to deal with. When I could bear it no more I had her sent to a rest home in Surrey. That was where she was committed originally, when she first became ill, about ten years ago. She responded well to the treatment there.’

Pike tensed. ‘Can you give me the name of the institution, please?’

‘The Elysium Rest Home for Gentlewomen — the best I could afford.’ Hislop paused. ‘Wait a minute! Those asses are still sending me monthly bills! How long had she been missing, do you know, Sergeant?’

Buoyed by his discovery of the link between Lady Mary and Cynthia, Pike allowed the man’s meanness to wash over him. ‘It looked like she had been living on the street for some time. You may be assured to know that an investigation into the home is currently being discreetly undertaken.’

‘Good. I want my money back.’ Hislop became distracted, sliding his gaze towards the window, beyond the garden to the road. A taxi chugged up outside the house. Someone climbed out and paid the driver. A tangle of greenery obscured Pike’s view and he failed to make the visitor out.

‘When did you last see your wife, Mr Hislop?’ Pike asked as he heard a key turning in a lock and then the slam of the heavy front door.

‘I repeat — former wife. A couple of years ago perhaps.’

The study door flew open and a fair-haired, rouged young woman of about twenty-five years entered, breathing heavily — the daughter, Pike assumed. She wore a Liberty-print silk dress and a deep-crowned straw hat with a stuffed sea bird attached to its black ribbon. The increasing rarity of this kind of fine-plumed wild bird made Pike wonder when the fashion accessory would be banned in England as it was now in America.

Hiding his distaste, Pike climbed to his feet.

The woman’s gloved hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp of surprise. ‘I’m so sorry, Francis, I thought you were alone.’

‘It’s quite all right, Gloria. Gloria, this is Chief Inspector Pike, and this, Chief Inspector, is my wife, Mrs Gloria Hislop.’

‘There, there my darling, it’s all right now, you’ve been having a nightmare.’ Dody put the oil lamp on the bedside table and smoothed her sister’s silky dark hair. ‘You are in your own bed and you are at home. You are no longer in that dreadful prison.’

Dody’s mind flew back in time to when her sister, eight years her junior, was a child. On the rare occasion Dody was home for the school holidays, she had happily taken on mothering responsibilities when their own mother was attending literary salons or political meetings. As a child, Florence had been subject to night terrors, especially after reading the Grimm fairy tales before bed. Tickling her face thus had been the most effective way of getting her back to sleep. Now, Florence shook her head from side to side, avoiding Dody’s touch. The adult Florence was proving to be not as compliant as the child — and why should she be? Her nightmares were based on reality, not fairy stories.

As Dody regarded her sister’s wan face gazing up at her from the plumped pillows, a heavy ache grew at the base in her throat and tears threatened to spill. She sniffed them away and turned on the bedside light.

‘I’m sorry, Dody, I hope I didn’t wake you,’ Florence said, weakly. The paleness of her skin seemed to blend into the colour of her lacy nightgown.

Dody turned down the lamp wick to extinguish the flame and forced a smile, not wishing Florence to see how much her condition was upsetting her.

‘It’s only just past eleven o’clock. I was still awake, running some tests in my study,’ she said. ‘I heard you screaming and ran down immediately. Can I get you anything — hot milk, a sleeping draught?’ She checked the kidney dish on the bedside table, relieved to see it was empty. Florence had vomited on several occasions since returning home — it was a side effect of concussion. She hoped her rake-thin sister would soon be eating normally again.

‘No, thank you,’ Florence replied. ‘I’m all right now. I have little memory of the event, yet my mind seems set on filling the gaps while I’m asleep. Hence the nightmares, I suppose.’

Dody placed her fingers on her sister’s wrist and noted her galloping pulse. ‘You suffered a nasty knock on the head. It’s normal to have some amnesia. I’ve found out the name of the doctor who struck you, by the way. He will be investigated.’

‘And ranks will close. They always do.’

Dody could not argue with that. Only the most negligent of doctors seemed to appear before the medical board.

‘That doctor was looking forward to the prospect of violating me, I could tell. I think I now understand a little of what you went through last year with that pig of a man in Sussex,’ Florence said.

A cold shiver ran up Dody’s spine. ‘I’ll never forget that, either.’ She still had the occasional nightmare about the outrage, but would never admit it to Florence.

‘Pass me the hand mirror from my dressing table, please, Dody.’

She put the mirror in her sister’s outstretched hand. Florence looked into it and gingerly prodded the lump on her forehead. Then she opened her mouth and inspected her teeth.

‘Good, all there,’ she said. ‘Having my teeth knocked out was my greatest fear. Do people still use Waterloo Teeth, Dody?’

She smiled. ‘You’re probably too young to remember our yardman in Moscow. He had them and boasted about them at every opportunity. His uncle had prised them from the mouths of dead soldiers at Waterloo.’

Florence shuddered.

‘No, dear, false teeth have changed for the better since then,’ Dody reassured her. ‘One’s own are still preferable, however.’

‘I should count myself lucky then.’ Florence handed the mirror back to Dody. ‘And you said the force-feeding itself hadn’t even begun before I lost consciousness? Funny, I seem to remember it vividly.’

‘You must be getting it confused with the last time. No, on this occasion you were saved by the bell — in the form of Pike.’

Florence sighed wearily. ‘Dear Pike.’

‘As soon as he heard the news from Parliament he rushed to the prison and put a stop to the procedure. You were on the floor, out cold. It was he who arranged for you to be brought home.’

‘Parliament? I don’t understand.’

Dody hesitated, wondering if she should reveal the Act in its entirety as explained to her by Pike.

‘Did he tell you anything about my release?’ Florence added. ‘Or say exactly why I was allowed to come home? Surely I should have just been sent to the prison hospital?’

The Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Act had made headline news, but Florence was not to know that. Dody had hoped to keep the details away from her sister until she had regained her strength, fearing that knowledge of it might cause an anxiety-induced relapse.

‘If I don’t hear it from you, Dody, I’ll hear it from one of my colleagues,’ Florence reasoned.

She was right. And the facts would be exaggerated and then she would be even more furious.

‘Oh, all right then.’ Dody took a bolstering breath. ‘The Act was designed to bring an end to force-feeding. The politicians hope it will stop you suffragettes from becoming martyrs and the government looking like the villain.’

‘But the government
is
the villain!’

‘I agree. But instead of force-feeding you when you are on a hunger strike, the authorities will wait until you are ill and weak with hunger, like you are now, and then let you go home. Once you have recovered your strength, you will be sent back to prison to serve out the rest of your sentence.’

‘And if we refuse to eat again?’

‘The pattern will repeat itself. It’s the government’s way of preventing martyrdom.’

Florence balled the sheets in her hands. ‘But that’s just as bad as before! The government is … is … like a cat playing with a mouse!’

Dody shared her sister’s feeling of exasperation. ‘I think the men behind it believe they are doing the right thing.’

She remembered the look on Pike’s face as he explained the Act to her, like a sunny day suddenly overtaken by cloud as he gauged her reaction. The plan might well have been devised with the best of intentions, but Dody had been obliged to explain that playing with the women’s minds could do them more harm than playing with their bodies. After the disagreement, Pike had left the townhouse somewhat abruptly, unable to see her side of the argument — or had he? As she was explaining the consequences to him he certainly
seemed
to take her words in, but then he reacted as if she had insulted him personally! Was there something he wasn’t telling her? How involved with the Act had he actually been?

‘I’d like to consult a nerve doctor about your dreams, Florence. Will you agree to that?’ Dody asked, trying to push her disagreement with Pike to the back of her mind.

‘I don’t want to see another doctor,’ Florence said. ‘Why can’t you look after me?’

‘I am not experienced in the treatment of nervous conditions. Also, we are too close, I could not be objective. It will help greatly to have the opinion of another medical person.’

‘A woman, then, the doctor must be a woman. Only a woman would understand.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, darling. There are few women specialists in any of the medical disciplines, and I know of no female nerve doctors at all. I am not an autopsy surgeon by choice, remember?’ Indeed, she had not chosen autopsy surgery, more like it had chosen her.

Florence winced as if the act of thinking pained her. ‘You wanted to be a bone surgeon.’

‘I did.’ Dody picked up her sister’s limp hand and squeezed it. ‘But listen to me, Florence. The man I recommend, Doctor Lamb, is a truly wonderful doctor who, I’ve heard, has sympathies for the cause. He wears a purple, white and green tiepin, and his sister marches. You want to get back to normal again, don’t you? Enjoy your food, sleep soundly every night?’ Dody paused. ‘Get strong again so you can return to the fray?’

Florence gazed heavenward. ‘Return to the fray? I’d have thought that’s the last thing you’d have wanted me to do. I didn’t think you approved of our militant methods.’

‘I am as keen for female emancipation as any of you and sympathise with what drives you. But while I still face prejudice every day at the mortuary, I can tell you that things are not as bad as they used to be. I feel vindicated to be a mere suffragist — to rely on time, patience and peaceful negotiation to obtain meaningful emancipation. I’m afraid I will never condone the violent tactics of the suffragettes.

‘Oh, but here is some very good news,’ Dody added, adjusting Florence’s pillows so she could sit up. ‘The night watchman has regained consciousness and is expected to make a full recovery.’

Florence’s eyes closed briefly. ‘Thank goodness. I could never have lived with that man’s death on my conscience.’

Neither could I
, thought Dody. ‘I’m not sure if he has been interviewed about the bombing yet,’ she said.

‘The main thing is that he lives, for his and his family’s sake, but also for mine. Being imprisoned for wilful destruction and assault is nothing compared to being hanged for murder.’

Dody agreed, but still she worried about the effect of another incarceration on her sister. She might not be a nerve doctor, but she was all too aware of the physical havoc anxiety could wreak upon the human body.

‘What about the old dear who identified me in the line-up?’ Florence asked.

‘Poppa’s lawyer says she is an unreliable witness. If they only have her word to go on, he doesn’t think the prosecution will have much of a case.’ Dody paused. ‘Has there been a lesson in this, do you think? You’ve had a very lucky escape.’

Florence hung her head, suitably ashamed. ‘I am also well aware that my confession to you inflicted an almost unbearable burden. For that I am so sorry.’

‘I’m still glad you confided in me. At least things are not so bad now that we know the watchman lives.’ There was no point reminding Florence that she was not out of the woods yet.

‘My head hurts, Dody,’ Florence said, after a pause.

So does mine
, Dody thought, feeling the blood pound in her temples. Florence, Pike … how complicated human relationships could be, and how conflicting their associated emotions. How much easier it was to deal with the dead.

‘I’ll get you something for it.’ She rose from her place on the bed. When she returned with some Aspirin, she found her sister collapsed once more against her pillows. She thought she must have fallen asleep and was about to tiptoe from the room when her eyes flew open.

‘I think I would like to be seen by a nerve doctor after all, Dody. Even if he is male,’ Florence said in a weak voice. ‘I still feel ghastly. I don’t want to go on like this.’

Dody smiled softly. ‘As you wish.’

‘I would also like to thank Pike for bringing me home.’

‘He said he will call tomorrow afternoon. You can thank him then if you are awake. Sleep tight.’ She kissed her sister’s cheek and reached for the light by the bed.