The Parliament of Blood (10 page)

As he moved, Eddie's hand brushed against Remick. Just lightly, just a little. Just enough. ‘What have we got here, then?' Eddie wondered as he held up the things he'd so easily and gracefully lifted from Remick's pocket.

‘How did you …? Give that back!'

‘Ooh look – hanky.' Eddie waved the grubby handkerchief. ‘Bit snotty, but then that's one heck of a hooter you've got.' He tossed the handkerchief at Remick as the boy advanced.

‘What else?' Eddie wondered, sidestepping another punch. As well as the hanky, Eddie had pulled out a faded piece of paper. ‘What's this?'

‘Give that back.' Remick snatched at it – and missed.

‘Now now, easy does it, mate,' Eddie chided. He unfolded the paper.

And Remick hurled himself at Eddie with a shout of rage, grasping desperately for the paper.

Eddie held it away from the clutching fingers and tried to push Remick away. ‘Keep your hair on,' he shouted above Remick's angry cries. ‘It's just a letter.' He got only a glimpse before Remick managed to snatch it away. He saw only a few words, a signature. But it was enough. There was one word there that Eddie could read easily.

‘Miss your mummy, do you?' Eddie asked. ‘Keep her letter in your pocket all the time?'

Remick stared at him, lip quivering. ‘You …' He seemed to struggling to speak. ‘You shut up.'

‘Think she'd be proud of you?' Eddie said quietly. ‘Proud of the way you beat up the smaller kids? What about when you belt 'em – she proud of that?'

‘It's time for church.' Remick's voice was shaking, and so were the hands clenched at his sides. ‘Get along – all of you.'

‘See you, Eddie,' Jack said quietly. Mikey was already running. Eve glared at Remick for a moment, then followed.

Remick was still staring at Eddie. ‘If I see you round here again … If I see you
anywhere
again,' he said, ‘then I'll kill you.'

And there was something in the way he said it, something deep in John Remick's eyes that made Eddie shiver.

Sir William had listened patiently to Eddie's brief description of how Charlie had gone missing and turned up dead.

They were in the workroom at the end of the corridor that led past Sir William's and George's offices. The room was lined with cabinets and cupboards, and dominated by a heavy wooden table. Eddie hadn't been surprised to find Sir William at work, even though it was Sunday. He knew George was showing photographs to some old bloke in his own office a short distance away.

Sir William paused to dip what seemed to be a piece of
dirty glass into what appeared to be a dish of water. The water began to steam and bubble and Sir William watched intently.

‘He was a mudlark for a time,' Eddie said. ‘Up to his knees pulling bits of coal out of the river bank, was Charlie. Rags, shards of metal, copper nails too, he said, if they were repairing a big ship down the docks.'

Sir William lifted the glass that wasn't glass from the water that wasn't water. The liquid stopped steaming and bubbling at once. He carefully put down the fragment of glass and turned to look directly at Eddie. ‘Oh, Eddie,' he said. ‘I am afraid that death is a part of life. Especially for the young and the vulnerable. Fever, poverty, violence, bad luck. Whatever the cause, it is sad, but it happens.' He reached out and put his hand on Eddie's shoulder. ‘And I am sorry for your loss, I truly am.'

Eddie shook off Sir William's grip. ‘Weren't fever or plague or nothing,' he protested. He hadn't realised it until now, but: ‘It was my fault. I asked him to find that carriage and he did. And then he turns up down by the river, with the blood drained out of him like all the others.'

Sir William was shaking his head sadly. But as Eddie finished speaking, the old man was suddenly still and alert. ‘What did you say?' he demanded.

‘I said it's my fault.'

‘No, no, no. Drained of blood? Like all the others?'

‘That's what I said. But you're not interested, not in Charlie. He's just another poor kid who died of bad luck to you, isn't he?'

Sir William was staring intently at Eddie. ‘This may be very important,' he said seriously. ‘Tell me everything you know, right from the beginning.'

Bodies mysteriously drained of blood were exactly the sort of thing that Sir William Protheroe thought his department should be investigating. But the hearsay and gossip passed on by young Eddie was hardly reliable evidence and probably stemmed from unsubstantiated rumour.

Nonetheless, Sir William wrote a short note to the duty sergeant at Scotland Yard and asked Eddie to deliver it. Eddie was less than impressed, until swayed by the promise of a ha'penny.

Sir William expected to hear nothing for several days, perhaps even a week, and then a reply probably by third-class post denying any knowledge of such things. So when the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police himself turned up that same evening to tell Sir William that there was absolutely no truth whatsoever in these stories, he suddenly became much more interested.

‘So, forgive me Sir Harrison, but you came all the way here – on a Sunday no less – to tell me in person that these rumours are not worth my time?'

Sir Harrison Judd's eyes narrowed. ‘There have been some unexplained deaths recently,' he admitted. ‘But no more than usual.'

‘And some of these poor unfortunates have been drained of blood?'

‘One always expects some blood loss when there is murder involved.'

‘Not with poisoning,' Sir William pointed out. ‘But the murders were committed with a blade then?'

‘That is yet to be determined.'

‘And how many not-at-all unusual murders involving the loss of blood are we discussing, Sir Harrison?'

‘
I
am not discussing any,' the Commissioner said sharply. ‘If and when we need the help of your rather unorthodox methods, Sir William, we will ask for it.'

Sir William smiled. ‘And I shall of course be delighted to oblige. Just as soon as that time comes.' He stood up and reached across his desk to shake Sir Harrison's hand. ‘I appreciate you taking the time to come all this way not to ask for my help.'

‘Yes, well, that wasn't the only reason,' Sir Harrison admitted.

‘Oh?'

‘I also came to see a member of your staff. Mr George Archer.'

This was a surprise. ‘Really? And may I ask why?'

‘I would like him to identify a body. Someone he knows, or rather knew, quite well I understand.'

George visibly paled when asked to attend the mortuary. Sir Harrison would say no more, and Sir William told George to take as long as he needed – certainly he did not expect George to return to the Museum today.

‘I shall look after Mr Blake and make sure he gets back to the redoubtable Mrs Eggerton,' he assured George. ‘Now, off you go. And I pray this episode will not be too traumatic.'

The elderly Nathaniel Blake was wedged uncomfortably into George's desk chair, a blanket over his shoulders like a shawl, examining the photographs from the archive through a magnifying glass. He seemed happy to be left to his work, confessing that so far he had found nothing untoward about any of the photographs.

‘Let me know at once if you do,' Sir William said.

‘No idea, these young whippersnappers,' Blake rasped in reply. ‘No idea at all how to compose a picture. Bad as Fox Talbot himself. Might as well be photographing a window.' His grumbles lapsed into mutters.

Sir William returned to his own office, leaving the door to George's room half open so he could easily glance across the corridor and make sure Blake was all right.

‘No peace for the wicked, it seems,' he said to the tall figure that stood waiting for him.

‘Indeed not,' Lord Ruthven replied. ‘Forgive me, but I shall not disturb you for long.'

‘Your men came for the canopic chest,' Sir William assured him. ‘As you can see.' He described the scratches on the floorboards with the toe of his shoe – the scratches the men had made ineptly manhandling the heavy casket.

‘Indeed. I am told that it is now safe and sound at the Club, together with the sarcophagus. And four of the canopic jars.'

‘Then I trust you are satisfied.' Sir William held open the door, but Lord Ruthven made no effort to leave.

‘I will be,' he said. ‘Just as soon as I have the fifth jar.'

Sir William frowned. ‘The
fifth
jar? There is no fifth jar.'

‘Oh I assure you there is.'

‘No.' Sir William shook his head. ‘I opened the casket myself. Four jars only. As is usual I believe.'

‘But there is a fifth compartment in the chest.'

Sir Williams' eyes narrowed. ‘The chest that, from your words just now, I think you have not yet seen. So how can you possibly know there is space for a fifth jar?'

Lord Ruthven hesitated. ‘I – it was described to me.'

‘Well, I can assure you again there is no fifth jar. Or if there is, I have no idea where it might be.'

Lord Ruthven stared back at Sir William for several moments, his expression unreadable. ‘Then I am mistaken,' he said at last. ‘But should you happen to find a fifth jar or discover evidence of one, you will let me know?'

‘Of course. Good day to you.'

‘And to you.' Lord Ruthven walked briskly away, leaving Sir William alone with his thoughts in the doorway of his office.

Before he could arrange those thoughts into a shape, he was aware of a figure standing in the corridor, just outside George's office. Nathaniel Blake.

The blanket had slipped from one of Blake's shoulders so it hung across him vaguely like a toga. The man was staring down the corridor, past Sir William, slack-jawed.
The flesh of his neck wobbled where it bulged over the collar and Sir William realised that the man's whole body was trembling. Blake raised a hand, pointing down the corridor in the direction Lord Ruthven had just gone.

‘That man …' he said, voice hoarse and throaty.

‘Lord Ruthven, what of him?' Sir William walked quickly over to Blake, worried he might be about to have a seizure he was shaking so much.

‘That man,' Blake repeated. ‘That was
him
.'

‘I don't understand.' Sir William gently took Blake's elbow and led him back into George's office.

‘I told Archer about him. Came to see Fox Talbot, tried to stop his research. Over thirty years ago.'

‘Lord Ruthven? I suppose it's possible.'

Blake was clutching at Sir William's sleeve. ‘But – I photographed him. And then when we developed the plate, he wasn't there. Just didn't show up.'

Sir William let go of Blake, allowing the man to sink into the chair beside the desk. ‘You're sure?'

‘It's haunted me ever since. Of course I'm sure.'

Sir William could tell Blake was sincere, yet this was extraordinary. ‘Can you be certain it's the same man? I mean, after more than thirty years.'