You Buy Bones (16 page)

Husher only smiled his crooked-path smile, his head moving from side to side (he never could quite get the British method of shaking his head). “It is a wet day, Mr. Lestrade. The honey likes the wet. I must respect my customers, for today they will buy more water than they will on a dry day.”

“Is that so? Can't you just put it all into casks on a dry day?”

“We could, but who wants to buy honey sight-unseen?”

“Ah. True. “I'll take a pound-cask of your wildflower.”

“Not your usual chestnut honey?”

“It isn't for me.” His landlady would be plotting and scheming with her spring menus, and she had never quite forgiven him for 1) hating most forms of sweets and 2) liking sour treacle and bitter chestnut honey. A bribe was necessary once in a while.

He'd sheltered just in time. Smeared-up yellow-grey clouds cleared their throats and began the evening's main performance with a sour rain that only emphasised the general dirtiness of the city. The little detective cupped his hands around his lucifer
[35]
and trained a wary eye on the atmospheric ceiling looming over the battered rooftops. His strong, hot breath mixed white vapour with the barely-thicker white of his tobacco. Soft lumps of rotting black snow fell from high roof-tops and burst at his feet, dislodged by the rain.

The little detective felt about as dirty as the clouds above him. Only once in his life and once in Roger's life had they ever dealt with a
personal
case. Such things were not encouraged, and every sensible detective worked very hard to avoid that situation.

In his case, the end result was telling the truth and watching his own brother swing for murder as his last brother went to the madhouse. For that success, his family disowned him.

Between the two men there were some bedrock differences.

Lestrade did not question his father's judgement. It was as simple as that.

For Roger's case, the end result was admitting he couldn't find his sister's killer. For that failure, his surviving family had disowned him (The Northern pride was too stiff to take back words said in haste). Lestrade definitely, positively, and wholly questioned, criticised and disapproved that judgement. He would contemn
[36]
it for the rest of his life because the ostracism had been superfluous against the self-blame Bradstreet held for himself.

“Here you are, Mr. Lestrade.” The old man passed over a tiny wooden cask, clean and dry and wrapped well in clean linen sacking. “Be sure to come again. I am selling as much of the cherry-blossom honey as quickly as I can pour it. The spring coughs are troublesome.”

“I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Husher.”

“You must be careful. Horseradish syrup and mallow-milk will keep you from getting the city in your lungs.” Like many immigrants, Mr. Husher mentally lumped all of the ills of the city under the name of London.

Bradstreet's youngest had died coughing; pertussis passed on from someone in the outside world. Lestrade tried not to think about it... or say something sharp to the old man who meant well.

He waited a bit for the coming lull in the rain. He blew a smoke ring, mostly to see how it would behave in the heavy air. It floated awkwardly, like a bicycle tyre needing a patch, across the street until a passing cab splashed it back into vapours. A man lumbered by, either too drunk to walk right or crippled. In a veil of rising dank mist Lestrade noted and approved of a passing PC lifting his glove to the old derelict in salute. In the city of millions he was surprised to feel a stab of isolation.

Lestrade's isolation was permanent. Nothing would bring back his brothers. For Roger the conditions had been as neat as they were cruel:
Find her murderers
. Find her murderers and all would be forgiven. Lestrade bowed to the inevitability of Roger's desire to make peace with a family that didn't deserve him, but he did hope that they would be kind to the children.

Being exiled had freed Lestrade from the day-to-day worry about his work affecting his parents. In the self-doubting hours before dawn, he sometimes wondered if it also freed them from worrying about him. Lestrade knew anger. Much of his job was spent cleaning it up. Anger was fired in origins as murky and dirty as a London fog... but its flame was bright and clean.

He onlyhoped the flame would not consume Bradstreet.

The Elegant Barley:

Getting a certain Arthur Holyrood out of his beloved work for a simple meal - even on the excuse of a private talk - was never easy. Lestrade saved up the tiny bits and favours owed before he turned his in those slips; he also kept an eye out to the schedule. This close to wages, Holyrood might be up for a free supper plate in the interests of clearing his chips.

His offer was duly accepted. They met at in a discreet corner of
The Elegant Barley
.

Lestrade had known Holyrood for years; he'd been a casualty PC since a skirmish with the Hooligan Gang,
[37]
but luckily his injuries had not completely disabled him like so many others. A good memory, honest warmth and a love of work had created
his post as a specially trained doorman
[38]
at the Yard's officially titled “Prisoners Property Room” better known as “back room”, “Black Room”, “Hall of Horrors”, “Collections Room”, or “Black Museum.” It was not the post for the squeamish or the superstitious, for he was neither. He was simply a man missing the full use of his left foot and neck.

Whilst appointed officers kept up the work and dealt with the public and the proper release of objects for court and investigation, Holyrood's humble task with humbler pay was to ensure the facility was kept neat and clean, the books in place and the files in alphabetical order and the objects of murder in proper order and respectfully shown. His reduced livelihood gave him enough to live in the old inglenook of a stone tenant building, and once a week he paid for the foodstuffs put into the community pot. At night he hired himself out to write letters for the illiterate. With tips and gratuities he had no reason to leave his posts.

Lestrade liked the man and admired his pluck, which was large enough to choke a peacock, but there was something about him the little professional found terrifying. He did not think his own will and faith was enough to keep going should his lots be cast so low. At times his enjoyment of Holyrood's company was spoiled by this remainder, but Lestrade's stubborn thinking caused him no end of grief when he didn't have a case to puzzle. Holyrood was a man who found satisfaction in his work, no matter the work.

This small, lean, quiet man with thoughtful gaze and shabby clothes tended the Museum's objects of murder intended or accidental: A horseshoe cast off by a nag had killed its owner and rested by a knife that had fatally stabbed a cook by a slip against the chopping-block. A stone a man had tripped upon to his death (the court couldn't decide if the stone had been deliberately placed by an angry heir) tucked in a box against a child-sized bludgeon crafted by an enterprising street harlot. There were
hundreds
such objects and they only represented a part of the real number - which Lestrade was certain was innumerable.

These silent things harkened back to days when all acts of death were punishable by death, but who could prosecute a dumb, inanimate object that had taken a life? It had no place amongst decent people, for a thing that had human blood might grow thirsty for more. It needed to be destroyed or put away - but it couldn't be left out or even re-used. Metal used for murder could be melted down and re-forged into a completely new implement, but the taint, the echo of death would still be there, waiting for the chance to make more crimes.

It was a sad fact for all policemen, collectors and museum curators that the mute, rusted, dust-collecting items fascinated the public. When any object had a story attached to it... someone was willing to own it. The darker the story the stronger the pull, and people stole what they wanted when they couldn't get it honestly.

It takes a mind that is half-catalogue to keep track of such things. Holyrood had thrown himself into the world of macabre acts with his usual enthusiasm and never looked back.

Lestrade lowered his newspaper (society; barely fit to wrap a fish) and waved as the stiff-jointed man in sombre slate blue stepped unevenly to the table. (He no longer ‘belonged' to the Force, but dressed like a plainclothes out of camaraderie). Holyrood grinned around a neat hedge of square beard and equally boxy eyebrows, so light they were transparent in the lamps.

“Good to see you, Lestrade.” Holyrood accepted the offer of smoked smelts. “I never get enough of those,” he confided.

“I can't blame you. They're perfect.” Lestrade neatly separated a small fish from its spine and anointed the tender meat with sauce. When he was alone he chewed bones and all, but that appeared to be a behavioural anomaly among Londoners. “I hope my note made sense to you.”

Holyrood shrugged. “Your question ain't so odd. Seems as long as there are objects, someone'll want'em.”

“And here I was worried you might think me fanciful.”

“You? Fanciful? I daren't.” Holyrood did not laugh at the notion, but Lestrade flushed anyway. “Ah, well, as t'your note, we have to keep a special eye out on any
human
relic,” Holyrood made a face, clearly distasteful of the topic but not enough to stop his meal. “Standin' orders from the highest authorities. ‘Twuz made clear that anyone who works in that portion o' the building has to be ‘alert and forsworn to act if they see too much... interest,'” he coughed lightly behind his hand, “in sech.”

“Always?”

“Permanent status.”

“My word, I hadn't known.”

The crippled man tipped forward, his forearms making a decent fulcrum for his spinal level. “We don't often talk about it,” his voice dropped low. “Not that it bothers
us
, but it does bother the Them Upstairs a great deal! They're terrified England'll see a Lacenaire come upon us.”

“Lacenaire...” Lestrade repeated without blinking. “That flash faker?” At Holyrood's warning glance he dropped his own voice. “I'm sorry,” he apologised. “But you've shocked me, man! What does the worst criminal in France have to do with
England
?”

Holyrood made a low
heh-heh
of wry amusement. “I take it you're familiar with the facts of the case?”

“Who damned well
doesn't
?”

“Truthfully? Quite a lot! And the Home Office would like to keep it that way.”

Lestrade studied his friend, but the man looked serious and it wouldn't be his idea of a joke...
He has a reason to say this
, the little professional reminded himself.

“Well.” He tapped his fingertips upon the table-plank. “He was executed before I was born. But I remember the old fellows talking about it. He was well-educated, good family, more chances at success than any of
us
would ever imagine... but meant nothing to him, and he turned to petty crime and the petty crimes turned to a double murder. Honestly, when you look at the particulars, he
must
have been the least competent criminal on the Continent! It's clear he had no head at all for law-breaking.” He made a ‘bah!' gesture with his free hand, the other firmly attached to his drink.

“And yet for all his stupidity - which appears to be unmatched - he was a first-rate writer on his own behalf. He became a genuine celebrity; an artist.”

“I remember his portrait was painted as he waited for the guillotine.” Lestrade scowled in distaste. “Shocking, how people revered a killer.”

“We can't pretend to know why or how the public became so smitten o'him, Lestrade.
But the fact is they did
. And under a normal case I'm sure the Home Office would just say, ‘That's the French for you.'”

“That wasn't a normal case!” Lestrade had a bad feeling he knew where his friend was headed. “Englishmen were caught up in him as well. They wrote about him, made up poems and bits in the papers... made a bust of his likeness...”

“And when he was executed, they sold his blue coat to a grabby-handed collector. They cut off his killing hand, and preserved it like a piece of art, and they took his skull, defleshed it, made engravings of it, and made a phrenology map of his plaster head, trying to find the precise location where the evil slept in his brain.” Holyrood had no explanation for what humans did. “The man is still a celebrity. The first and most eager voices on his behalf were those anxious to study him in death.”

Lestrade shuddered.

“So there we are. A pretty problem.”

“More like a horrid mess.”

“That too.”

“Still, human remains...” Lestrade scowled. “I'd say the closest we've gotten to sensationalising that sort of horror is... Carney Ambisinister. Which happens to be most of the reason why we're both here.”

“Now,
that
was before my post,” Holyrood confessed. “Just before, actually. I heard plenty about it.”

“There was plenty to talk about!” This was not a compliment.

“And you knew him before he was caught.”

“I hate to say it, but yes.”

“Is it true how he got his name?”

“Very. No one knew what made his right hand twist around, but it did give him the impression of having two left hands instead of one.” There had also been a livid white scar along the wrist, moon-shaped and full of its own legends.

“Did the carnivale really drive him mad?”

“Who knows? As a part of the show, the man was decent enough... at least until something happened into his mind and he took a knife to half his fellow workers one night as they slept.” Lestrade shrugged helplessly. “No one ever learned the whys, and he went to the noose not telling.” He looked down. “There really was no warning. He was a man who said hello at every chance. He was a good enough fellow... on the outside.”