Anno Dracula (23 page)

‘Mademoiselle Dieudonné, meet Long Liz Stride.’

The new-born was tall and thin, rouge smeared on her cheeks, hair
a tatty black. Under an open jacket, she wore a cotton shift, dyed red in a splash from neckline to waist. Her throat was opened to the bone, cut from ear to ear like a clown’s smile. She was gurgling, her cut pipes trying to mesh.

‘Jackie Boy didn’t have enough time with her,’ Lestrade explained. ‘Saved it all up for Cathy Eddowes. Warm bastard.’

Liz Stride tried to yell, but couldn’t call up air from her lungs into her throat. A draught whispered through her wound. Her teeth were gone but for sharp incisors. Her limbs convulsed like galvanised frogs’ legs. Two of the coppers had to hold her down.

‘Hold her, Watkins,’ Lestrade said. ‘Hold her head still.’

One of the constables tried to get a hold on Liz Stride’s head, but she shook it violently, ripping apart her wound even as it tried to mend.

‘She won’t last,’ Geneviève told him. ‘She’s too far gone.’

An older or stronger vampire might have survived – Geneviève had herself lived through worse – but Liz Stride was a new-born and had been turned too late in life. She’d been dying for years, poisoning herself with rough gin.

‘She doesn’t have to last, she just has to give a statement.’

‘Inspector, I don’t know that she
can
talk. I believe her vocal cords have been severed.’

Lestrade’s rat-eyes glittered. Liz Stride was his first chance at the Ripper, and he did not want to let her go.

‘I think her mind’s lost too, poor thing,’ Geneviève said. There was nothing in the red eyes to suggest intelligence. The human part of the new-born had been burned away.

The door pushed in and people crowded through. Lestrade turned to shout ‘Out!’ at them but swallowed his command.

‘Mr Beauregard, sir,’ he said.

The well-dressed man Geneviève had seen at Lulu Schön’s inquest came into the room, with Dr Seward in his wake. There were more people – nurses, attendants – in the corridor. Amworth slipped in and stood against the wall. Geneviève would want her to look at the new-born.

‘Inspector,’ Beauregard said. ‘May I...’

‘Always a pleasure to help the Diogenes Club,’ said Lestrade, tone suggesting it was rather more of a pleasure to pour caustic soda into one’s own eyes.

Beauregard nodded a greeting to the new-born girl, acknowledging her with her name, ‘Kate’. She stood out of his way, eyes lowered. If she wasn’t in love with Beauregard, Geneviève would be very surprised. He slid between the constables with an elegant movement, polite but forceful. He flicked his cloak over his shoulders, to give his arms freedom of movement.

‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Can nothing be done for this poor wretch?’

Geneviève was strangely impressed. Beauregard was the first person who had said anything to suggest he thought Liz Stride was worth doing something for, rather than a person something ought to be done about.

‘It’s too late,’ Geneviève explained. ‘She’s trying to renew herself, but her injuries are too great, her reserves of strength too meagre...’

The torn flesh around Liz Stride’s open throat swarmed, but failed to knit. Her convulsions were more regular now.

‘Dr Seward?’ Beauregard said, asking for a second opinon.

The director approached the bucking, thrashing woman. Geneviève had not noticed his return, but assumed the news must have dragged him back to the Hall. She saw again that he had a distaste – almost
always held tightly in check – for vampires.

‘Geneviève is right, I’m afraid. Poor creature. I have silver salts upstairs. We could ease her passing. It would be the kindest course.’

‘Not until she gives us answers,’ Lestrade interrupted.

‘Heaven’s sake, man,’ Beauregard countered. ‘She’s a human being, not a clue.’

‘The next will be a human being too, sir. Maybe we can save the next. The next ones.’

Seward touched Liz Stride’s forehead and looked into her eyes, which were red marbles. He shook his head. In an instant, the wounded new-born was possessed of a surge of strength. She threw off Constable Watkins and lunged for the director, jaws open wide. Geneviève pushed Seward out of the way and ducked to avoid Liz Stride’s slashing talons.

‘She’s changing,’ Kate shouted.

Liz Stride reared up, backbone curving, limbs drawing in. A wolfish snout grew out of her face, and swathes of hair ran over her exposed skin.

Seward crab-walked backwards to the wall. Lestrade called his men out of danger. Beauregard was reaching under his cloak for something. Kate had a knuckle in her mouth.

Liz Stride was trying to become a wolf or a dog. As Mrs Amworth said, it was a hard trick. It took immense concentration and a strong sense of one’s own self. Not the resources available to a gin-soaked mind, or to a new-born in mortal pain.

‘Hellfire,’ Watkins said.

Liz Stride’s lower jaw stuck out like an alligator’s, too large to fix properly to her skull. Her right leg and arm shrivelled while her left side bloated, slabs of muscle forming around the bone. Her bloody
clothes tore. The wound in her throat mended over and reformed, new yellow teeth shining at the edges of the cut. A taloned foot lashed out and tore into Watkins’s uniformed chest. The half-creature yelped screeches out of its neck-hole. She leaped, pushing through policemen, and landed in a clump, scrabbling across the floor, one powerfully-razored hand reaching for Seward.

‘Aside,’ Beauregard ordered.

The man from the Diogenes Club held a revolver. He thumb-cocked and took careful aim. Liz Stride turned, and looked up at the barrel.

‘That’s useless,’ Amworth protested.

Liz Stride sprung into the air. Beauregard pulled the trigger. His shot took her in the heart and slammed her back against the wall. She fell, lifeless, on to Seward, body gradually reverting to what it had been.

Geneviève looked a question at Beauregard.

‘Silver bullet,’ he explained, without pride.

‘Charles,’ Kate breathed, awed. Geneviève thought the girl might faint, but she didn’t.

Seward stood up, wiping the blood from his face. Lips pressed into a white line, he was shaking, barely repressing disgust.

‘Well, you’ve finished the Ripper’s business, and that’s a fact,’ Lestrade muttered.

‘I’m not complainin’,’ said the gash-chested Watkins.

Geneviève bent over the corpse and confirmed Liz Stride’s death. With a last convulsion, an arm – still part-wolfish – leaped out, and claws fastened in Seward’s trousers-cuff.

‘I
think at the last she was lucid,’ he said. ‘She was trying to tell us something.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Geneviève replied. ‘The murderer’s name is... Sydney Trousers?’

Beauregard laughed. Not many of the un-dead bothered with humour.

‘Unlikely,’ he replied. ‘Mr Boot, perhaps.’

‘Or a boot-maker.’

‘I have impeccable cause to believe John Pizer out of consideration.’

The corpse had been carted off to the mortuary, where the medical and press vultures were hungrily awaiting. Kate Reed was at the Café de Paris, telephoning in her story, under strict instructions not to mention his name. Drawing attention to the Diogenes Club would be bad enough, but he was really concerned with Penelope. He could well imagine her comments if his part in the last minutes of Liz Stride were made public. This was a different part of the woods, a different part of the city, a different part of his life. Penelope did not live here; and would prefer not to know of its existence.

He walked the distance between Berner Street and Mitre Square. The vampire from Toynbee Hall tagged along, less bothered than Kate had been yesterday by the pale sun. In daylight, Geneviève Dieudonné was quite appealing. She dressed like a New Woman, tight jacket and simple dress, sensible flat-heeled boots, beret-like cap and waist-length cape. If Great Britain had an elected parliament in a year’s time, she would want the vote; and, he suspected, she would not be voting for Lord Ruthven.

They arrived at the site of the Eddowes murder. Mitre Square was an enclosed area by the Great Synagogue, accessible through two narrow passages. The entrances were roped off, the bloody patch guarded by a warm policeman. A few on-lookers loitered, intent on filling out a suspects file. An Orthodox Jew, ringlets dangling in front of his ears, beard down to his belly, was trying to get some of these undesirables to stop hanging about the doors of the Synagogue.

Beauregard lifted the rope and let Geneviève pass. He showed his card to the policeman, who saluted. Geneviève looked around the dreary square.

‘The Ripper must be a sprinter,’ she said.

Beauregard checked his half-hunter. ‘We bested his time by five minutes, but we knew where we were going. He may not have taken the shortest route, especially if his intent was to avoid the main roads. He was presumably just looking for a girl.’

‘And a private place.’

‘It’s not terribly private here.’

There were faces behind the windows in the court, looking down.

‘In Whitechapel, people are practised at not seeing things.’

Geneviève was prowling the tiny walled-in court, as if trying to get the feel of the place.

‘This is perfect, public but private. Ideal for the practice of alfresco harlotry.’

‘You’re unlike other vampires,’ he observed.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I should hope to be.’

‘Are you what they call an elder?’

She tapped her heart. ‘Sweet sixteeen in here, but I was born in 1416.’

Beauregard was puzzled. ‘Then you’re not...’

‘Not of the Prince Consort’s bloodline? Quite right. My father-in-darkness was Chandagnac, and his mother-in-darkness was Lady Melissa d’Acques, and...’

‘So all this –’ he waved his hand ‘– is nothing to do with you?’

‘Everything is to do with everyone, Mr Beauregard. Vlad Tepes is a sick monster and his get spread his sickness. That poor woman this morning is what you can expect of his bloodline.’

‘You work as a physician?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve picked up many professions over the years. I’ve been a whore, a soldier, a singer, a geographer, a criminal. Whatever has seemed best. Now, doctoring seems best. My father, my true father, was a doctor, and I his apprentice. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake aren’t the first women ever to practise medicine, you know.’

‘Things have changed greatly since the fifteenth century.’

‘So I understand. I read something about it in
The Lancet
. I wouldn’t consider leeches, except in special cases.’

Beauregard found himself liking this ancient girl. Geneviève was unlike any of the women, warm or un-dead, he knew. Whether by choice or from necessity, women seemed to stand to one side, watching, passing comment, never acting. He thought of Florence
Stoker, pretending to understand the clever people she entertained, turning petulant whenever anything was not done for her. And Penelope elevated an attitude of non-involvement to a sanctified cause, insisting that messy details be kept from her poor head. Even Kate Reed, new and new-born, contented herself with jotting down notes on life as an alternative to living it. Geneviève Dieudonné was not a spectator. She reminded him a little of Pamela. Pamela had always wanted,
demanded
, to be involved.

‘Is this affair political?’

Beauregard thought carefully before answering. He did not know how much he should tell her.

‘I’ve made enquiries about the Diogenes Club,’ she explained. ‘You’re some species of government office, are you not?’

‘I serve the Crown.’

‘Why your interest in this matter?’

Geneviève stood over the splash where Catharine Eddowes had died. The policeman looked the other way. A vampire had been at him to judge from the red marks streaking up from his collar almost to his ear.

‘The Queen herself has expressed concern. If she decrees we try to catch a murderer, then...’

‘The Ripper might be an anarchist of some stripe,’ she mused. ‘Or a die-hard vampire hater.’

‘The latter is certain.’

‘Why is everyone so sure the Ripper is warm?’ Geneviève asked.

‘The victims were all vampires.’

‘So are a lot of people. The victims were also all women, all prostitutes, all near-destitutes. There could be any number of connecting factors. The Ripper always goes for the throat; that’s a
nosferatu
trick.’

The policeman was getting fidgety. Geneviève disturbed him. Beauregard suspected she had that effect on not a few.

He countered her theory. ‘As far as we can tell from the autopsies, the dead women were not bitten, not bled. Besides, as vampires, their blood would not interest another vampire.’

‘That’s not entirely true, Mr Beauregard. We become what we are by drinking the blood of another vampire. It is uncommon but we do tap each other. Sometimes it is a way of establishing dominance within a group, a petty tyrant demanding a tithe from his followers. Sometimes vampire blood can be a curative for those with debased bloodlines. And sometimes, of course, mutual bleeding can be simply a sexual act, like any other...’