Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Chapter 27

27

The next morning…

Sweeney

I awaken to Nellie shaking me by the shoulders.

“Get up!” she hisses. We have a problem.”

“What?” I ask, rubbing my face with my palm. “Is it late?”

“Late enough , you lazy bastard, but that’s not my main concern.” She lowers her voice. “A copper. Downstairs, waiting to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Fuck me to tears, Sweeney. There are a hundred reasons for the law to call in on us! I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say, but it’s you he wants.” She leans in to pull the pillow from behind my head. “So shift it!”

I snatch her throat in my hand and pin her to the mattress. “Enough. Don’t start with the fish-wife shit with me, Nellie, or I’ll get nasty.”

Her voice is hoarse in my grip. “Get off me. You’re so dramatic sometimes, you know that?”

I roll out of bed and dress quickly, following Nellie downstairs. I’m relieved to see a constable in uniform rather than a detective or senior lawman—it suggests it may be a routine call.

“My lady here tells me you’d like a word, officer,” I say, gesturing at the lounge door. “Come and sit. What’s the trouble?”

The man shakes my hand. “I’m Hawkins. I appreciate your help with a matter of some import, Mr. Todd. Do you know Lord Francis Wetherby?”

I shake my head as we sit on the couch. “Personally? Not at all. I have met him, certainly, just last night.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Hawkins eyes me, annoyed that I didn’t tell an immediately disprovable lie. “You attended The Regent’s Ball as the guest of the Beadle Higgins, correct?”

“As you say. I left when instructed at around nine.”

“That’s consistent with what I’ve heard. Did you speak to Lady Beatrix Wetherby last night? Or any other time?”

Not for long. Meeting Nellie was her big mistake.

“No. What happened?”

“Lady Wetherby was murdered,” Hawkins says. “She was found naked in the garden. It’s clearly a sex crime of some kind, but Lord Wetherby refuses to allow the pathologist to examine her. He’s been most obstructive, in fact. Told me I should stop asking him questions and come to arrest you for threatening him.”

Ah. Right . I knew this was coming—kid gloves are needed. I don’t need to lie for once, so this should be easy.

I sigh deeply. “Officer, I hoped to keep this to myself. Wetherby came by here a few days ago and tried to coerce Mrs. Lovett into working as a prostitute in return for keeping her shop afloat.”

Hawkins frowns. “And you took offense?”

“I did indeed. Wouldn’t you?” I take to my feet, pacing the floor. “Mrs. L is my fiancée. I was most incensed, and I will admit to harsh words. But I made no threats.”

“He has a cut on his neck.”

“Hard to imagine lower hanging fruit. I’m a barber. I gave him a shave and a haircut at the party last night; ask anyone there. If I nicked him, I’ll apologize, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to answer these paranoid accusations!”

Hawkins stares at me, trying to get a measure. Then he stands, brushing imaginary dust from his uniform.

“I’ll be honest, Mr. Todd; it doesn’t look good for Wetherby. His wife was known to be of loose morals, and he has some salacious rumors attached to him. Talk of selling poorhouse kids, using a clergyman to move them along, things of that nature.”

He sniffs. “The Beadle wasted little time telling me his suspicions of his erstwhile friend. Whether His Lordship killed his wife or not, it seems clear he’s mixed up in it somehow. But you know how it is with these upper-class types; they close ranks. It’s not worth my wage to get in their way. They can keep their nasty business to themselves, and I’ll stick to burglars and pickpockets.”

“Ah yes, the honest people of the street,” I say.

Hawkins laughs. “I’m happy to draw a line through your name, sir. Wetherby is floundering, trying to deflect attention from himself, but his former friends are lining up to fuck him over. Ain’t it ironic?”

“Nothing to do with me, mate. I just work here.”

He laughs. “I’ll take my leave, Mr. Todd. Thanks for your help.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Nellie rolls pastry like an over-wound automaton, her hands working forward and back too fast over the counter.

The door closes behind the policeman, and with the click comes a barrage of panicked babble, her words crashing into one another.

“What did he want?” She hurls herself to my side, clutching my arm. “Did they find Marianne? Were you seen with Beatrix? Was I ? Oh God!”

I pat her hand. “It’s alright, pet. It was about Beatrix, sort of, but not in the way you’re worried about. Our dear friend Lord Wetherby does not know my identity after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Wetherby had identified me as Currer Brook and stated such, that copper would have been far happier to believe I’d threatened him. He’d also be a damn sight more interested in me as a fit for Beatrix’s killer, even in the absence of a motive.”

“I see.” Nellie relaxes her grip. “So what did you tell him?”

“In short, Wetherby is a fantasist, and I am an innocent bystander, trying to make a living and protect my woman.”

She fans herself. “That’s so dashing. I’m still unclear on what’s happening, though.”

“The Beadle has turned on Wetherby. The officer mentioned something interesting about Wetherby and his trade in workhouse kiddies. If I put it together with what the Beadle told me , it’s clear Wetherby has his fingers in even dirtier pies than yours and has done for some years. He deserves to die for that, let alone trying to muddy the water by playing the victim.”

Nellie looks pensive. “Charitably, Mr. T, it has to be said; the bastard didn’t actually kill his wife or, by carelessness, allow his nefarious deeds to direct the act. What does old Plod think?”

“The law doesn’t care,” I say. “They are content to let high society judge its own. I suspect there have been many gladhands over the years, enough for police and judges to pay lip service to an investigation, close it, and let the truth bubble up via another route.”

I catch her eyes in time to see her pupils dilate. Something has unsettled her more than any policeman’s visit; she’s watching me like I’m an adder.

“Tell me about the workhouse kids,” she says. “Did he give details?”

I shrug. “I was in no position to press for more. If you remember, pet, that's what I aimed to do last night before you decided to go off your head.”

I turn to face her, suddenly remembering what I intended to do today.

“On a related note—tell me you processed our subject last night before you came to fuck up my plans? I see a good amount of perfectly serviceable meat here, so I assume you got part way there, but am I going to find Uriah’s stupid face staring out of the mincer?”

Nellie seems pleased I’ve changed the subject. “You must think I’m an idiot. Come see what I did, Mr. Smartarse, and tell me whether I’m a genius.”

In the bakehouse, the boiling pot is cooling. Nellie picks up her wooden spoon and smacks the pot smartly, making something inside rattle. She lifts the lid so I can see.

A skull, smooth and white, shiny from the heat. Little pieces of meat float in the greasy remnants of water, but otherwise, it’s a surprisingly clean affair. It’s warm but not hot to the touch, and I fish it out, my thumbs through the eye sockets.

Our man Uriah clearly got into a few fights in his time; I note a nicked brow-bone, probably from a knife, and a dent in the left side from something blunt. I guess he brought out the best in people.

“Good method,” I say. “I’m impressed. How many pots could you have boiling at once?”

Nellie looks at the oven. “As many as eight in here, plus four on the stove. If you’re intent on murdering a jury’s worth at a time, that is.”

She pulls the bolt on the heavy cellar door and shows me a covered tin sheltering beneath a tarp in her tiny yard.

“It’s cooked up with aspic and herbs, jellying up in there. We can sell it in slices. Brawn, you know.”

“Head cheese.” I kiss her cheek. “You clever, clever girl. Talk about saving face!”

I follow her around the bakehouse as she shows me her toys.

Look, Sweeney. Here’s where I grind the meat. See, here’s my vice and pliers for pulling gold teeth beside the hands-and-feet bucket.

A locked box for jewelry, a dry pile for the burnable clothing, and a place for the wet stuff. The fire will burn day and night, but needs must. All of it up the chimney. Didn’t I do well?

My sweet treacle is glowing, my commitment to her lighting her from within like a glow-worm. It grates on me.

I have lost Johanna—the idea, the thought, the hope of her—and Nellie could not be happier about it.

I am desperate to kill someone, no longer caring why or who. Who cares what Wetherby got up to?

My daughter died an infant, ignorant of the remorseless vagaries of what her life could have been. Maybe the note was from the merciful Beadle, keen to keep my naive eyes off his business.

What a shock it must have been to discover the naked and very dead Beatrix, rolled like a dead hog under the pristine hedgerow boundary of a fancy hotel.

The city’s corrupt elites are rarely confronted with their filth, so it’s no wonder that Lord Wetherby, architect of so much misery, is basking in reflected ignominy. He brought savagery to the front door instead of keeping it in the streets where it belongs.

Nellie always tells me to quiet myself, to hush. She has a point; I go barreling in, and unexpected shit happens. On the other hand, if she didn’t barrel in beside me, I’d get different results, so?—

“Mr. T.” Nellie stands before me, hands on her hips. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Honestly? No. I was thinking.”

“I’m gonna bake all day,” she says. “Put out a batch now, get the word out. I’ll shut up shop until dinnertime, and then we’ll throw open the doors and have a bit of a bash, as it were.”

She points at the ceiling. “I got enough off yesterday’s leavings, but you’ll need to get cracking. The first one without a wedding ring needs popping off sharpish if I’m to keep my schedule.”

“Aren’t you the slave driver?” I grab her waist and spin her in my arms. “You’re too happy, Nellie. Far too fucking happy by far. What have you got to say to me?”

Even in the warm glow of the oven, I see her pale. There’s a hunted look to her, but not the one I see often when we’re playing out our horrid games. It’s the affect of one simmering deep inside, holding something that doesn’t want to be held.

She wanted this, dammit.

It was Nellie who knew Johanna was not the key to anything other than my suffering. She drew me away, and the fates put the wind at her back, guiding a letter to my hands that took away all my doubt.

Or did it ? Hawkins mentioned a priest. If I sit tight long enough, the Beadle may come, and I will make him tell me what he knows. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I will close the loop in my mind forever.

But Johanna is dead. I no longer want this to be a lie because Nellie was right all along; the alternate possibilities are too horrendous to contemplate. Still, the expression on her face—what does it mean?”

“What have you got to say?” I whisper again. “Come on, Nellie. The words you’re holding back are choking you. There’s nothing you can hide from me, not now.”

She wraps her arms around my neck, her fingertips snaking over my nape as she digs them into my scalp. Her kiss is too hot, and I taste salt on her lips.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into my mouth. “I’m sorry about Johanna. I wanted to bring her home and be her mother. I know it’s insane, but I had a place for her too.”

My heart rushes, assailed by unfamiliar images of an alternative existence, a life stolen. Veronica, Nellie, and Johanna, jumbled in my memory like the pile of bones in the corner.

But Veronica is missing; her face is lost to me, and only her name echoes, ever fading. All I see is Nellie, my ring on her finger, babe in arms, her skin bright and unscarred.

How different it could have been.

“Thank you,” I say. “Seeing as you’re waiting on me, I’ll away to my parlor and see to business.”

Nellie smiles, her lips brushing my ear. “You know I’m always one step ahead, love.”