Murder (30 page)

The
Lloyds Weekly Newspaper
December 10, 1899

Late on Friday night Detective-Inspector Scott of the V division, Metropolitan Police, succeeded in effecting the arrest of the “Hewetsons” against whom a coroner’s jury delivered a verdict of “Wilful murder” a fortnight since. The accused, who were apprehended in the neighbourhood of South Hackney, admitted their identity. The woman, who gave her age as 24 years, stated that her name was Ada Hewetson and her companion gave the name of Chard Williams, and his age as 41. They had quite recently parted with their household effects, and at the time of their arrest were, it is said, on their way to Liverpool
.

The
Standard
December 11, 1899

At the South-Western Police-court on Saturday, William Chard Williams (alias Hewetson), aged 41, described as a clerk, living at 26, Gainsborough-road, Hackney Wick, and Ada Chard Williams, aged 24, his wife, were brought before Mr. Garrett charged with the wilful murder of Selina Ellen Jones, aged 21 months, the daughter of Florence Jones, a single woman, living at 73, Gee-street, St. Luke’s, whose body was found in the Thames off Church Dock, Battersea, on September 27. It will be remembered that the evidence at the inquest tended to show that the woman Williams, or Hewetson, accepted the care of the child for £5, and took it to a house in Hammersmith. She and her husband suddenly disappeared, and nothing more was
heard of the child till its body was found in the river. The medical testimony of Dr. F. C. Kempster, police surgeon for Battersea, was that death was caused by injuries inflicted on the child before the body was thrown into the water, the skull having been battered in, and the head enveloped in a sack. The jury returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against the couple and for some days Detective Inspector Scott, Detective Sergeant Winzan and Detective Joseph Gough have been searching for them
.

The
Morning Post
Saturday, December 30, 1899

William Chard Williams, aged 41, a clerk and his wife Ada Williams, aged 24, having recovered from their attack of influenza, which prevented them from being brought before the court a week ago, were yesterday placed in the dock at the South-Western Police court to further answer the charge of being concerned in the murder of Selina Ellen Jones, aged 21 months, the daughter of Florence Jones …

… the bodies of three children having been found in the Thames, and as in each case they were tied up in a peculiar manner – string similarly knotted having been found in the possession of the prisoners – the Treasury will charge the accused with causing the death in each instance
.

In the case of the child Jones the police evidence is to the effect that it was for some time placed out to nurse, and well cared for. Then, in consequence of an advertisement the mother met Ada Williams and arranged for the child’s adoption. Ada Williams gave an address at Hammersmith, and there the child was delivered up and £3 of the premium paid. The balance was to be paid later and an arrangement was made for the mother to see the child during the following week. On her calling at the house she learned that the accused had only engaged the room for a few hours …

… On September 27
^th
the body of the child was found in the river. Death was due to suffocation, and the head bore marks of violence.

… The woman, in a letter addressed to the police, admitted having carried on a system of baby-farming, and explained that the children which she had received she caused to be readopted at a less premium. The accused were remanded.

‘This man was James’ tutor?’ Henry Moore said, as he studied the newspaper articles I had spread over my desk. Despite my aversion for company, I had called on him. I felt I had to. In many ways, this felt like the old days, the two of us poring over information, but in truth, the old days were long gone. Moore had retired from the Metropolitan Police the previous month to move to the railways and I had retired from my position as surgeon at Westminster a week before. Nothing was like the old days, least of all me. But I needed to know the truth of it, and Moore was the only man who could find out more for me beyond the tittle-tattle of reporters.

I had seen the first article only by accident, while I was in the cellar in a laudanum haze and using the paper to wrap a torso, just like the first one in Whitehall had been. I remembered how appalled I had been when it had been discovered, and I could not help but wonder now if my horror at the time was perhaps a subconscious knowledge that I would myself come to be such a monster; was it that which had given me that terrible dread? It was hard to tell. It was all such a long time ago. A lifetime ago.

As my bloodied hands had folded the paper around the meaty flesh in the dim glow of lamplight, the name had snagged my attention. The two words – Chard Williams – hooked in my mind, even through the drug-induced haze, and I had frozen
momentarily, then peeled the damp paper carefully away and read it with my heart knocking grotesquely in my chest.

Since then I had devoured the papers for news of the case. It could not be true, I told myself; it must be a mistake. I should ignore it. But as always, my curious mind was ever my downfall, and despite the awfulness of my cellar, I sent a message to Moore, asking him to find out what he could for me.

‘Are they guilty?’ I asked. My mouth was dry, but I did not try to hide my fear: as far as Moore – or anyone else – knew, I was concerned only for Juliana and her poor dead son.

‘Definitely,’ Moore said. ‘The strange knots have given them away. They found the same knots in Ada Chard Williams’ house as on the bodies. They moved from Barnes in October, not long after the first two babies were pulled out of the river there. Baby-farming was her business, but rather than selling the babies on to wealthy couples as she promised, she often just took the money from their natural mothers and then killed them and put them in the river. Like that Reading devil did.’ He paused, then said quietly, ‘Damned if I know how many victims she really had.’

The world spun beneath me. I needed laudanum. I need opium. I needed an escape from myself as the true horror sank in.

‘Will you write and tell Juliana?’ Moore asked, steady as ever.

For a moment I loathed him for his normality.

‘I am not sure,’ I said after a moment. ‘She would want to know, but I fear it might not be good for her. She would blame herself for anything young James might have witnessed there, and for bringing them into her home – although I doubt very much he was exposed to anything.’

Dead girls in the river
. That was what James had said to me when the nightmares woke him night after night.
Dead girls in the river
. My hands trembled and I balled them into fists at my sides to hide the shaking.

‘I think she should know,’ Moore said. ‘Perhaps you could write to her husband?’

‘Perhaps I shall,’ I said, trying to sound normal. The world shimmered, its edges too hard and bright. I had dragged Moore over to my house but now I just wanted him gone.

‘Thank you for finding out for me,’ I said, walking over to the study door, ‘especially when you are so busy with your new line of work occupying you now.’

He followed me out and we headed downstairs. As he gripped my shoulder and told me to enjoy my retirement, I thought of the bloody scene beneath our feet, not yet cleaned out and scoured. I remembered Andrews’ face when I turned to see him in that desolate street, and later, once my consciousness had returned after our fight, the lolling of his head and tongue as I staggered out into his garden to find him and fight him once more, instead finding him dead already and hearing the terrible slow creak of the rope tied around the branch …

If Moore knew any of that he would probably strangle me with his bare hands himself,
Upir
or no
Upir
. I doubted the beast would hold any sway over a man like Henry Moore, always steadfast, always grounded in reality. For a moment I was tempted to tell him everything and have done with it once and for all, but my lips and tongue would not comply and instead I bade him a warm farewell and accepted his invitation to join him for dinner very soon.

It was only when the door had closed behind him that I let the shudder that had been building run through me. I
could barely move. My legs felt ready to collapse under me, overwhelmed as I was with the terrible weight of my guilt. What had I done? Oh dear Lord,
what had I done?

The pieces fell into place in my mind. James had not changed until he started going to Chard Williams’ house for his lessons. Until then, he had simply been a quiet, sickly child with whom I could not bond because of my aversion to his father – no, I must be honest, with myself at least; my
guilt
over his father.

He had grown quieter after that, and he had started playing constantly with knots – I vividly recalled him showing me the fisherman’s knot that he must have learned there. And that Christmas day he had barely spoken a word, just played with the rope instead. What had his young mind been trying to make sense of? Babies who had been there and then vanished? Or worse yet: had he seen Ada Chard Williams at her ‘work’?

I remembered their concern when James fell ill and then became sicker at my hand. They had wanted to speak to him – they had been so insistent. What had they wanted? To say something? To see what he knew? Or perhaps they had intended to hasten his end themselves, to prevent him from accusing them of anything should he recover. James had been a quiet, docile boy, the very sort of child who always saw something or heard something he should not. So what had happened in that house to disturb him so?

My legs gave way and I sank to the ground, my back pressing into the door behind me as if I could somehow grind the
Upir
to extinction. I wanted to die where I sat, sobbing into my hands, a broken fool. I was a monster. A
murderer
.

I had been blinded by my own madness. I had disliked poor little James from the moment he had struggled into this world –
but how could this sickly child who had nearly killed his mother during his birth and who looked like his father have brought such insanity into my life? I had wished he had never existed for he was a reminder of a past I longed to forget and that had coloured everything in my relationship with him.

The scales had fallen from my eyes and I could no longer hide from the horror of the truth. James had loved me in his quiet way, and I had pushed him away. Then when he was afraid, it was me he had turned to – he had been trying to tell me about the Chard Williams.
I saw something
, he had said when I woke him from his nightmares, but I had shut him up, allowing my own guilt to distort the truth. How could I possibly think James could ever be a threat to me? How could I think he might have a part of my own monster inside him? Of course he did not; he was just a child. A terrified child, and the son of the woman I loved.

And I had murdered him.

I had given him a slow, painful death that had left him screaming for his mother. This little boy had only wanted my help, for his Uncle Thomas to listen: the uncle he loved, although I did not deserve it.

For the first time since the
Upir
had claimed me, I saw myself for what I really was: a cold killer. Damned. For all my arrogance in casting judgement on those I had murdered, chopped up and fed to the river, none had deserved to die – and if they had, it should have been by the hangman’s noose, not by my hand.

I hauled myself to my feet and stared into the mirror on the wall. I did not recognise the haggard man who looked back at me. I did not know who lived behind the familiar eyes; all I saw was a child-murderer. A madman. A monster. The priest
had said the
Upir
would drive the host mad, but I had been too full of my own self-importance to pay attention. I should have thrown myself into the river as soon as I left Kosminski at Leavesden, while it was still weak.

Now I was too late; it would allow me no such end. My shoulders ached with the weight of it, and always there was the small black space at the edge of my vision where I could almost see it but not quite.

I needed brandy. I needed laudanum. I needed opium. I needed to forget. For all the women I had killed, it would be James who would haunt my waking hours for the rest of my life. I had murdered him, the child who had been the closest to a son that I would ever have. I had broken Juliana’s heart and I had destroyed myself.

*

The next morning, my clothes dishevelled after a night in the seediest den I could find, I took a train to Leavesden. My feverish opium dreams had been full of the child’s pale face and accusatory eyes, and in my head I could still hear his weak screams of agony. When I finally staggered out onto the street I saw him everywhere, on every busy corner, a small blond boy staring at me as I passed. He was
not real
. He was
dead
. I knew that in my heart, for it was I who had killed him, but still I shuddered and gasped at each sighting until I knew I could not go on this way. I had to give it back. I had to go to Leavesden and persuade Kosminski that this was the only way.

They would not let me in.

Even if I had appeared sane, rational and well-dressed rather than over-excited, filthy and stinking, it was obvious the polite refusal would have been the same. Aaron Kosminski was having no visitors at present, nor for the foreseeable future.
Visitors were not good for his emotional state. I wondered as I stood and begged in vain what the attendants made of my emotional state; even through my haze of fear and guilt I could see their pity and concern.

In the end, I had no choice but to return to the grime and stench of London. Worse, I could feel the fever coming upon me, as if the shock of the previous day’s revelations was making the
Upir
excitable and hungry.