Mayhem (8 page)

‘There is also truth in that,’ Moore said. ‘Policemen are often politicians too. So what exactly is it you think I can do for you?’

‘It’s not what you can do for me,’ Waring winked. ‘It’s what I can do for you.’ He let out a sharp whistle and turned his head to the door. Various customers glanced down at the floor as something moved between them, causing the odd smile or curse in surprise.

The small terrier came and sat obediently at Waring’s feet. ‘Meet Smoker,’ Waring said. ‘If there’s
more of that woman hidden in Whitehall, he’ll find her.’

‘We’ve tried dogs,’ Moore said. ‘As you are no doubt very well aware, I’ve spent my day surrounded by the damned things.’

‘You haven’t tried this dog.’ The waiter hurried over and Waring paid for the drinks. He waited until the man had scurried away again before leaning forward and continuing, ‘If there’s something to be found, he’s the one that will do it.’

Moore stared at him. ‘You want me to let your dog search the Whitehall building?’

‘No,’ Waring shook his head and tipped his glass towards Moore. ‘I want you to let my dog
and
I search your premises. No find, no story. I give you my word.’

So there it was: the point of the meeting. But to let a reporter and a scruffy terrier into the crime scene? How would that play out back at Division? The bosses would hang him. He looked down at the eager-eyed hound; it appeared to be staring back at him, awaiting his answer. It was a confident eye, he had to give the dog that. How much harm could it do? He and Waring understood each other; the reporter would not make him look inept, no matter what the outcome. He drained his beer. He also knew he didn’t have a huge amount of choice. In their strange relationship of give-and-take it was he himself who owed the most recent debt of gratitude.

‘Tomorrow then,’ he said, and got to his feet. ‘Meet me at Division at half past eleven. I’ll take you over from there. And no audience.’ The dog, Smoker, thumped his tail against the dusty wooden floorboards.

‘Tomorrow then,’ Waring repeated, and also got to his feet. The dog looked up at its master and as the two men headed out into the cold night air, Smoker stayed close at Waring’s heels.

Moore headed to the main thoroughfare to try and find a hansom cab; unlike many of Whitechapel’s foetid alleyways, Commercial Street was well-lit and busy.

‘Do you want to share?’ he asked Waring, a polite gesture only. They might be many things, but friends they were not. Boundaries were respected.

‘No, thank you. Smoker prefers to walk, and I enjoy the sights.’

Moore nodded. That was the strange delusion to be found in all newsmen: they had a firm belief that the tragedies of the world belonged to others; their role was simply to report on those tragedies. Some found out otherwise, of course, and it had been one such event that had brought Waring and Moore together.

‘Take care,’ he said as a hansom pulled to the side and waited for him to climb on board. ‘The streets aren’t everyone’s friend.’

‘Ha!’ Waring laughed with good humour. ‘I doubt they are any man’s friend, but I’m not alone in my enjoyment of them. You’d be surprised who I’ve seen
wandering through them. The good doctor, for one. Even though he takes care to dress down and not be seen, I can always recognise a man by his gait.’

Moore half-smiled. Men were always drawn to the gutter at some point or another, and he knew the doctor. He would want to understand the killer who stalked Whitechapel, and that would mean treading in his footsteps. Had he not gone the path of medicine, Thomas Bond would have made a fine inspector.

*

It was only just after noon when Moore led Waring and Smoker down into the vault, and barely fifteen minutes later that he stood dumbfounded and speechless, all words lost to him. Jasper Waring was equally silent. No matter what promises the reporter had made, he surely couldn’t have expected such swift results.

‘Fetch Dr Bond,’ Moore muttered eventually, his teeth gritted. He didn’t raise his eyes from the dog’s find, but he heard feet scurry quickly away and up the steps back to daylight. The remaining group of officers were silent, each no doubt wishing that they were part of Commissioner Warren’s Force who were still searching Whitechapel room by room in the increasingly vain hope of turning up something that might lead them to Jack. Moore had half a mind to send them all there immediately, as they’d been pretty damned useless here at Whitehall.

When they’d arrived in the badly lit basement of the new building, they’d placed the dog near the spot
where the torso had been found. Despite the poor visibility, the terrier began digging at the ground almost immediately, barely more than a few inches from where the parcel had been placed. He was digging with such determination that Moore’s heart raced in anticipation. He had not been denied, either, for there at his feet was the dog’s find.

He held the lamp over it again: a human leg, severed below the knee, with the bare foot still attached.

‘I told you he was good,’ Waring said.

Moore ignored the reporter’s boast and glared up at the small gathering, those who had been unfortunate enough to accompany them. Even in the grainy light that was doing little to dispel the pitch-blackness of the claustrophobic vault, they would no doubt be able to see the rage burning in his eyes. He felt as if they were blazing like he were the Devil himself.

‘Why did we not find this?’ No one answered. ‘How many pissing days have we wasted scouring this building? For
what
? For us to be saved from our own incompetence by a newsman’s
ratting
dog?’

‘At least we have it now,’ Andrews said, the only man brave enough to speak out in the face of Henry Moore’s anger. ‘Better to find it this way than not at all.’

Andrews was right, of course, even if that did nothing to appease his own rabid frustration. He also knew that every man involved in the previous search would be just as embarrassed at their failure to make
the discovery. If the police couldn’t find body parts that were – literally – right under their noses, then how could they expect the public to have any faith in their ability to catch the more attention-seeking Jack? It was a farce, and he wanted no part of it.

He tried to unclench his tight jaw. What was done was done. Now there was only how to proceed.

‘We’ll come back this evening and continue,’ he said, gruffly. The dog, his job done, was now more intent on getting his master’s attention than digging further. ‘But we will conduct the search in secret, do you understand?’ He glanced at Waring. ‘That is as much for you as them. No news reporters drawing attention to us, and I want none of the workmen to know we’re here. Our killer might be among their number.’

‘The fog will hide us,’ Andrews said. ‘And I’ll keep the number here to a minimum.’

‘Good,’ Moore said. Not that they needed a minimum; all they needed, it appeared, was the bloody dog.

12

London. October, 1888

Dr Bond

I was not in the best of spirits on arrival back at the Scotland Yard worksite, but the strangeness of my own mood was only enhanced by the atmosphere I found there. It was eerie: when people spoke, it was only in hushed whispers, and through the thick night fog the few policemen Moore had with him moved like ghosts, here and there and gone as they let Charles and myself into the unformed building.

Candles lit our way back down to the vault and in that oppressive underground room those spread against the walls and in the corners seemed only to exacerbate the darkness of the shadows. I shivered, and not entirely from the cold.

‘This is the dog, then?’ I asked. It was a pointless question, but I felt the need to break the silence with something other than a whisper.

The small terrier was pacing a little, his tail down, and I wondered if he too felt that the air tonight was somehow unnatural. He looked up at us and whined, and then growled.

‘I don’t think he likes the dark,’ Moore said. ‘He’s not
as confident tonight.’ He leaned down and patted the creature’s head, a gesture I found surprising, having never taken Moore for an affectionate man. There was something essentially practical about him. He was by all accounts an excellent detective, but I doubted he was ever personally affected by the cases presented to him. Or perhaps that was too sweeping a judgement. If he were emotionally affected, then I felt he dealt with such reactions far better than some – myself included, of late.

The dog whined again, and Moore released him from his lead. ‘Let’s see what you can find this time,’ he said. ‘Bring me the head and you’ll be an inspector by morning.’

Moore’s gruffness was soothing in this strange environment which hinted constantly at things just out of sight. I couldn’t help but remember the strange vision I had had under the influence of the opium, where there had been something looming in the darkness. I shook it away, not only for the vision itself, but for the opium itch it brought with it.

‘Here he goes,’ Charles muttered as the dog wandered here and there, his nose to the ground, his short legs trembling slightly. Charles seemed unaffected by the almost supernatural atmosphere we stood in, and I wished I could be as sanguine as he, and shake off my own personal exhaustion and melancholy. The past week or more had been busy – we’d had the inquest for the torso which had been
rotting unnoticed so close to where I now stood, and then the wasted time of the boiled bones found on the railway tracks – at first they had looked like evidence of further gruesome murder, but once I had had time to examine them I was left in no doubt that they were clearly those of a bear. The reporters had been disappointed at that news, and I found myself wondering at the feverish excitement for blood that had filled the streets of the city this year.

The dog reached Charles’ feet and growled slightly, jumping back.

‘These feet are very much not what you’re looking for,’ Charles said, as he stepped back towards the wall to give the dog more space, and a flutter of a laugh passed around us all. At Mary’s insistence I had dined twice more that week with Charles and his family, and had been glad to find my friend in much better spirits. I found myself missing Juliana and her young man, who had gone to Bath for a few days; the young woman’s company was charming, and the exuberance of youth, much as a small part of me envied it, was good for the soul.

As it was, I had spent only three night of the past ten in the opium dens of Bluegate, where I satisfied both my urge for the drug and my need to search for the dark-coated stranger – though on no occasion did I see the man. After my recollection of him at the Rainham inquest, this left me frustrated.

Moore coughed suddenly, just one quiet expulsion,
but I jumped slightly. It was only a small movement, but enough to draw Inspector Andrews’ attention to me.

‘Are you all right, Doctor?’ he asked. ‘You look pale.’

Even in the gloom I could see him studying me with a mixture of concern and curiosity, and I forced a smile. ‘If I’m truly honest, I, like the dog, am no great fan of small spaces with no natural light.’

He returned my smile and the answer appeared to satisfy him, but his eyes still rested on me, and I wondered what he was thinking. Had my behaviour become unusual? Did my increasing itch for the poppy show?

‘He’s digging,’ Charles said, breaking the moment, and we all turned to look. It was true: the dog might have been unsettled, but he couldn’t fight his nature.

‘That’s where the leg was found,’ Andrews looked at Moore. ‘Perhaps there’s still a scent there.’

Moore said nothing. His gaze was intent on the terrier, who had lost all interest in everything except what secrets the ground might hold. The earth looked hard, only small pockets of dirt flying up with each scrabble of his claws, but he continued to dig, determined.

We stood in silence and watched, anticipation growing. This was not an animal who was simply confused by a scent; the dog was digging with purpose. My own heart thumped in my chest. There was more of
our mystery woman to be discovered here, I was sure of it. After several minutes of mounting tension, a flash of something other than darkness appeared in the light of the candle Moore was holding over the animal: fingers, bent as if clawing their way out of the ground.

‘He’s got something!’

Suddenly, where there had been stillness and silence, there was a flurry of activity. The dog was eager to retrieve his prize, but he was dragged away and back upstairs to where the newsman was waiting for him. Moore and Andrews crouched by the broken earth and excavated the rest of the limb: an arm, removed at the shoulder, just like the one pulled from the riverbank.

‘How much further down?’ Andrews asked after we had stared silently for a few moments.

‘Ten inches or so,’ Moore said.

I looked at the earth around me. It was hard, and trodden down. ‘Then it’s been there for quite some time.’

‘We need to confirm it matches the rest,’ Moore said. Charles stepped up.

‘I’ll take it back now. Get it done.’

‘Thank you,’ Moore said.

‘No need for you to come, Thomas,’ Charles said. ‘We all know what the outcome is likely to be. This won’t take both of us.’

He was right of course. We did all know that the matching of the limb to the body was likely to be a mere formality.

‘Get more men here,’ Moore growled. ‘I want to find the damned head.’

*

As it turned out, Smoker refused to hunt any more once more men arrived at the scene. Instead, he sat stubbornly beside his master. I wondered if perhaps he had found all the treasures the ground had to give up; I certainly didn’t think that the killer would have left the head here: a head was a clue, and whilst this man might be taunting the police with his choice of location for the body parts, I doubted very much whether he wanted to get caught just yet. After I had examined the ground from which the limb had been pulled, we headed back up to the dank night air, leaving the new body of men to continue scouring the ground once again. Andrews and I stood with Inspector Moore as he smoked.