Ripped (13 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The Mortuary

T
h
e Bow Street mortuary
was situated in the basement of a narrow building three blocks away from the Bow Street Police Station. There were two corpses in the back courtyard awaiting burial.

When Major Brown took in the sight of the cadavers in the courtyard, he wondered if it had been wise to bring Toby along after all. The two corpses, laid out on concrete slabs, had been a bluish-purple color only yesterday, but were now so covered in lime dust they looked chalk-white, like a pair of apparitions. Twin coffins, made of splintered pine, lay stacked one atop the other in a sea of stiff mud beneath the overhang of the mortuary roof.

Major Gideon Brown had given his word to his fiancée, Lady Beatrix, that he would mentor Toby, and by God he was glad to do so. The boy was a decent, hardworking lad determined to become a police officer, and if he passed his end-year examinations with honors, Gideon would pave the way for him to become a constable, then a sergeant, and so on up the ranks. Toby reminded Gideon of himself at that age. They both had Cockney antecedents, both were from the East End, and both were considered outsiders in “good” society. And by virtue of merit—
not bloody
social
rank—
both could, as the former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli maintained, rise to the top despite humble beginnings.

Now, as Major Brown, Toby, and Constable Jarvis moved past the ghost-white cadavers, they instinctively held their breath. Dead bodies were usually preserved in ice, but by summer's end ice was in short supply, and lime dust had to suffice.

Gagging from the odor of decomposing flesh and the acrid smell of lime, Major Brown took out a key attached to his gold watch chain, jiggled it in the door lock, and hurriedly swung open the rear door to the morgue. Toby and Constable Jarvis crowded in close behind. When the door slammed shut, effectively blocking out the stench, Major Brown tugged a lantern from a wooden peg set close into the wall and adjusted its flame. The oil lamp threw uncertain light into the gloom ahead, and a minute later they were hastening down a set of damp stone steps.

Ducking through a narrow doorway, they moved into a vast, stone-block room with bars on the only two windows at street height, just above eye level. The glass panes were grimy with soot, and what little ventilation the room afforded came from a crack at the top of the right-hand window.

In the dim light, the mortuary looked to Toby like a medieval torture chamber: cramped, spare, with sharp-looking instruments skirting the walls. In the center of the floor stood three trestle tables topped with stone slabs. Laid out on the one nearest the half-open window was the body of a dead girl, fully clothed.

A police officer standing in the far corner scrambled to brighten the room. He lit the largest of the oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. The elongated flame sputtered and jumped, emitting grey smoke that swirled upward into the still air, making the room look larger than it was.

Glancing from Major Brown's rigid face to Constable Jarvis's thin, twitching one, Toby watched Major Brown stride toward the dead girl, his black boots crunching across the gravel floor.

“Where's Police Surgeon Dr. Llewellyn?” Major Brown barked at the officer fiddling with a second lantern.

The man swung around so fast, splinters of light slashed across the girl's body. “Dunno, sir.” The officer lifted dull eyes first to the dead girl, then to Major Brown.

“He ought to be here,” Brown fumed. “Go fetch him at once. No! I shall need you, Sergeant . . . McKenzie, is it?”

“Yes, sir. McKenzie, sir.” The lantern light silhouetted McKenzie's wide girth against the back wall, making it rise and shrink and rise again in zigzag patterns.

“Right then, Sergeant McKenzie. Send Officer Webster to fetch Dr. Llewellyn. Where is Webster?”

“Gone 'ome, sir.”

Major Brown swung around to Jarvis. “Police Constable, bring Llewellyn here at once. I don't care if you have to drag him out of bed in his nightshirt. Do it now!”

Jarvis, a tall, thin man whose angular shoulders stuck up from his navy-blue uniform, scrambled across the room and ducked back out through the narrow doorway.

Toby watched as the veins in Major Brown's temples began to bulge. Major Brown had a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. He was known for giving his all to every endeavor and expecting the same from subordinates. So it was not by luck, Toby knew, that Major Gideon Brown had risen quickly in the ranks to become the youngest assistant deputy CID of Scotland Yard.

“All right, Sergeant McKenzie.” Major Brown's voice was deceptively neutral. “Who is she? What do we know about her?”

“Don't know nuffin',” admitted McKenzie, a heavy-jowled, broad-nosed man, whose skin was faintly plum-colored.

Major Brown drew in a sharp breath. “Read me your report, Sergeant.”

“Report, sir?”

“Surely Dr. Llewellyn didn't release the body without giving you a detailed report?”

“Ahhh . . . no, sir. He's got a good memory, sir. He'll be here in the morning. I'm sure he'll make out his report then. Or dictate it to me.”

“There are rules, protocols, and procedures, Sergeant McKenzie.” Major Brown's face looked hard and contemptuous. “And as it appears none have been followed,” he said, stripping off his white theater gloves, “it is therefore up to us. Hand me that leather apron and put one on yourself.”

“But,
sir!
I never . . . that is to say, I just take notes. I'm handy at note taking, s'why I was assigned—”

“Well, then, you are now assigned to assist me, Sergeant McKenzie. This girl's body has not been examined and we can't wait for that mongrel dog, Llewellyn, to grace us with his presence. If rigor mortis sets in we won't learn anything this poor girl has to tell us, will we?”

“Tell us? What do you mean? It won't tell us nuffin', sir. It's dead as a doornail. Beggin' yer pardon, sir.”

“Toby.” Major Brown turned. “Grab that notepad over there and take down exactly what I tell you.”

Toby scooped up a pad and pencil from a copper-lined shelf next to a coal stove in the corner.

“ 'oo's he?” McKenzie pointed a plump finger at Toby.

“He's the lad who will assist us with note taking until Dr. Llewellyn arrives. In the meantime, look lively, Sergeant. What exactly
do
we know about this girl?”

McKenzie fumbled through a bundle of papers. “We knows the corpse was lying on its back with its legs straight out, near the gutter in Buck's Row.”

“Sergeant McKenzie, forthwith you will call the deceased either by her name, which we don't know, or by her gender, which we do.”

“Sir?”

“She. This is a female cadaver, correct?”

“Yes, sir. I thinks so, sir. Wait a bit! Could be one of them pretty boys what dresses up as—but, no, says here, it's a girl 'bout twenty years of age.”

“The girl, whom we shall call Polly Jones, as we do not know her name, was found lying on her back with her legs straight out near a gutter in Buck's Row. Was the location of the body closer to Bakers Row or Brady Street? Northeast corner or northwest?”

“Don't rightly know, sir. I wasn't there, now, was I? Sergeant Folly and Police Constable Merriman was there.”

“And where
are
Sergeant Folly and Constable Merriman?”

“Gone 'ome, sir.”

“Why is that, Sergeant McKenzie?” Major Brown's voice was low and even, but Toby could hear an undercurrent of simmering rage.

“On account of Dr. Llewellyn says that the remains of the chi . . . er, the deceased, was not worth bothering over, seeing as she was probably just some Whitechapel whore. Can't say's I disagree, sir. No cause for keeping good men from their warm beds just because a worthless strumpet decides to go an 'ave herself chived. She'll still be 'ere in the morning, sir. Little Miss Polly ain't going nowhere.”

“I see. Thank you, Sergeant McKenzie.” Again, Toby noted that Major Brown's voice was deceptively calm, but if Toby had to wager, he'd guess that Sergeant McKenzie, along with Police Surgeon Dr. Llewellyn, would both be out of a job in the morning.

“So? We have no accounting of where in the street the body lay, only that her legs were straight and she was found lying on her back? Do we know who found her, Sergeant?”

“H'm. T'is here somewhere, sir,” McKenzie wheezed, leafing through his papers. “A market porter lad . . . by the name of . . .”

Toby glanced over McKenzie's shoulder, scanning the pages. “Would that be Georgie Cross?” Toby asked, reading an underlined name. Toby knew Georgie Cross. They'd attended Charity Grammar School together.

“That's 'im! The very one! Georgie Cross.”

“Did anyone get Mr. Cross's address, Sergeant?”

“Don't need his address, sir. We knows where 'e works as a market porter.”

“I see. Yes. That
is
helpful,” Brown said, but the irony in his voice seemed lost on McKenzie, who continued.

“Remember, sir, what I told you? It's only a Whitechapel whore. Hundreds same as her. We can't be runnin' round bothering ourselves with the likes of whores, now can we? It would be—”

“
What
, Sergeant McKenzie?”

“Beneaff our dignity, sir. That's what Dr. Llewellyn tells us. We take extra special care wiff them what matters, and not wiff them what don't.”

“I see. I do indeed.” It was the first time Major Brown did not address Sergeant McKenzie by his name or rank. Toby wondered if the poor man would even last until tomorrow. He had an idea Major Brown would dismiss him before the night was through. Luckily, Sergeant McKenzie seemed blissfully unaware he was tottering on the brink.

“Toby? Ready, lad? Let's begin.” Major Brown reached for a measuring rod dangling from a metal hook. “Please take note: Polly Jones is five feet two, dark-brown hair, unblemished complexion. There are two teeth missing from her lower left jaw. Her throat has been cut from ear to ear. She is wearing a brownish—or is that a reddish?—colored ulster with seven large brass buttons, and underneath the ulster is a yellow linsey-woolsey dress, two flannel petticoats, one of which has the embroidered initials “M. N.” She has on black woolen stockings and brown leather boots. There is a comb and a looking glass in Miss Jones's pocket. I'm going to lift the petticoats to determine . . .
Good Lord
!
” Major Brown dropped the girl's skirts and took a step backward, almost stumbling.

“What is it?” Toby glanced up, pencil poised in midair.

“Sir?” McKenzie puffed out his blue-veined cheeks.

Major Gideon Brown swallowed hard and instantly made a show of composing himself. “I think . . . perhaps . . . it would be judicious for us to wait for Police Surgeon Llewellyn after all.” He took several deep breaths. “In my regiment in India I assisted in several field autopsies, but I've never seen anything . . .” His voice sounded strange and hoarse. “No need to come any closer, lad.” His green eyes contemplated Toby. “Just take down what I say. And steel yourself not to look.”

Brown continued in a low, grim voice: “The unidentified female, whom we are calling Polly Jones, and whom I believe to be between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, has been . . . disemboweled.” He mopped his brow with his sleeve. “Polly Jones is wearing a pair of close-ribbed brown stays which are, in part, holding in her entrails.” He swiveled around.

“McKenzie, the cutting shears, if you please. Sergeant McKenzie!”

McKenzie was taking in great hulking gasps of air. The color had drained from his face and he looked ready to faint.

Toby stepped to the wall, unhooked the cutting shears, and handed them to Major Brown who with great precision proceeded to cut away the girl's clothing. When he was done, he took out his pocket watch and counted the minutes until Police Surgeon Llewellyn arrived.

Two hours later the dingy mortuary with its low ceiling and dank smelling air was filled to overflowing with police officers. Dr. Ralph Llewellyn, after being severely reprimanded by Major Brown, was just finishing up the last of the autopsy.

“In the lower left part of the abdomen there is a gash that runs in a jagged line almost as far as the diaphragm,” he dictated to Sergeant McKenzie, who was hastily scribbling it down in Toby's notepad. “The perforation exposes both her large and small intestines, and the lower quadrant of the stomach.”

Toby stood in the shadows trying to ignore the stiffening tension behind his eyelids and in his joints. Street lamps still burned outside, but already Toby could hear the faint stirrings of the city, the clatter of milk carts rumbling past. He could smell dawn in the air.

Toby knew he should feel sickened at the sight of the poor dead girl, but he felt only numb as if her death weren't real. He'd felt this same reaction before. Once when his grandmother had passed away—though he wasn't allowed to call her “Grandmother” or claim kinship. She'd been laid out in the parlor of Twyford Manor, and it had been an afterthought on the Duke's part, letting Toby view the remains of the Marchioness of Drumville. And then there was Elsie, his baby sister, whom he'd found dead in her cradle from an infected rat bite on a morning similar to this one. A morning full of promise, with dawn mist in the air and the clatter of milk carts rumbling down the street.