The Butcher of Berner Street Read online

  The docker jumped down and waded through the crowd. He grabbed Coffey by the hair and dragged him back to the foot of the stage. Coffey tried to pull away, going so far as to hit his captor on the nose with his stump, but the fellow barely flinched.

  Ripley, who hadn’t moved or spoken during the excitement, lit another cigarette. ‘You haven’t answered my question, son.’ He sounded almost casual, but I could tell that his attention was fixed, like a cat feigning disinterest in a mouse before pouncing.

  ‘It weren’t me,’ Coffey bleated, sagging at the knees. His trousers were covered with sand from the floor, making him look more ridiculous than ever. ‘I know a bit of stitching, that’s all. I mend the fighters when they’ve been cut and keep a gill or two of laudanum on hand to dose ’em. But I never did this. How could I?’ He held up his empty sleeve and stared from side to side at his east London neighbours, who were gathering round to watch.

  Ripley eyed the man’s velvet jacket and silk cravat with distaste. ‘Maybe you had help.’

  Coffey shrugged off the docker and approached Drake’s widow, placing his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t look up. ‘Tell ’em, Elsie. Tell ’em I’d never do anything to Oswald. Never. We were best pals since we were nippers. Born and raised on Spicer Street. I wear these pretty clothes, but I’m much as you are underneath. But what about him, eh?’ To my surprise he pointed a shaking finger at me. A glint of hope was shining in his eyes, as if the mouse had found a gap in the wall. ‘We don’t know him, do we? He came in the other day asking questions, talking about crimes that might or might not have been committed.’ He raised his voice to address the whole room. ‘He knows how to do surgering and mixing medicines too. He told us he’d been an assistant to a surgeon, and it was true. He aided me with the tying off. If you want my opinion, it was him who did for Oswald.’

  Having said his piece, Coffey edged away towards the door, his expression solemn and his hat held reverently to his chest.

  The docker glared at me, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘You never told us your name.’ His voice was like a cartwheel rumbling over wooden paving.

  I went red in the face. I couldn’t help it.

  ‘Stanhope.’ My own voice was high-pitched and querulous, like a perambulator wheel missing some grease. ‘I’m a journalist with the Daily Chronicle.’

  He nodded, not in agreement or geniality, but in confirmation of his previous supposition. ‘You don’t belong here, Mr Stanhope.’

  Of course I don’t, I thought. I don’t belong anywhere.

  ‘Why would I wish harm on anyone? I’ve only been in this place once before.’

  ‘Ay, well, that’s the question, ain’t it?’ The brute took a step in my direction.

  Ripley inhaled his cigarette and blew smoke out through his nose. ‘Best not, my friend. Mr Stanhope here is a galling fellow to say the least and might be improved by a good hiding, but not at your hands. Folk who decide they’re better than the police at dealing justice always come to regret it.’

  The fellow paused, but the group behind him, ten or more men, had started to surge forward, jostling him along with them. They were breathing heavily, and I recognised the look in their eyes, that wolfish hunger, tensed for the lunge. One glance, one word, one twitch of my feet and they would be on me.

  ‘We should leave,’ I hissed at Rosie, thumbing towards the back door into the yard. I was on the brink of running. The balls of my feet were aching for it.

  She nodded and took a tiny step backwards.

  Pallett was attempting to swim through the crowd, but more men had come in and the space around the stage was tightly packed. He was grimacing as he looked up and caught my eye. He wouldn’t make it to us in time.

  ‘Stop that!’ The wrestler, Trafford, pushed between the men and stood beside us. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was bulky, his jacket straining at the seam. ‘You lot move away.’

  ‘Clear off, Bert,’ growled the docker. ‘We just have some questions for ’im, that’s all.’

  Trafford shook his head and cracked his knuckles. He was brave, but he was alone. I knew I should be standing shoulder to shoulder with him, so we could go down fighting together. But I was starting to shake. The best outcome I could foresee was being questioned with menaces, and the worst was the ultimate horror: discovery, exposure and whatever came next. Crowds who believed themselves to have been fooled tended to seek the most obvious means of retribution.

  Things would have gone ill had another man not entered the room, slamming the door with a thunderous crash. All heads turned.

  ‘What’s going on? Let me through.’

  His voice was calm and unhurried, but it cut through the hubbub like an oar through water. The effect was remarkable. The three men at the front exchanged looks and stepped aside, and the crowd behind them sagged like bellows deflating.

  ‘What on earth are you doing? Let me through, I say.’

  He was wearing the long black garb and collar of a clergyman, and from the authority of his manner I would have thought him a bishop, or at least a vicar. But he was much too young, my age or even younger; a curate at most.

  Ripley climbed down from the stage. ‘That bloke with the fancy rags has scarpered. And him a childhood friend of the deceased, too. This godforsaken city.’

  The young clergyman studied Ripley, his hat in his hand. ‘Godforsaken, sir? Nothing is ever that.’

  The two men couldn’t have been more different: Ripley, forty years of age or thereabouts, sallow-skinned, the remains of his breakfast smeared down his jacket; and this young man, spotless and clear-eyed, fair hair trimmed neatly, his stance as upright as a candlestick.

  ‘Iain Sutherland from the Church of the Martyrs.’

  Not a curate, after all. He was a Roman Catholic.

  ‘This is your parish, is it?’ asked Ripley.

  ‘I’m the deacon here, yes.’

  The young man put out a hand for Ripley and me to shake in turn, and I felt Rosie shift irritably beside me. She did so hate to be ignored.

  Ripley scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘These hooligans have a fondness for the deceased, it seems, and are inclined to take matters into their own hands. This place is like a tinderbox.’

  ‘Oswald Drake was a prominent man.’ Sutherland spoke with the manner of one declaring a truth the rest of us had only guessed at. ‘He lived a high life, it’s true, but everyone respected him. It’s very sad that he’s dead. This establishment has the potential to be a real success.’

  I noted he hadn’t yet looked at the corpse. Instead, his eyes were flicking between us, Drake’s widow and the crowd of men, who had taken a few steps back and were watching the exchange with the sheepish expressions of schoolchildren whose teacher has unexpectedly returned. Their moment of insurrection had been lost and there was no recapturing it.

  Ripley opened his cigarette case and offered one to each of us. Sutherland refused with a brisk shake of the head, but I took one. Ripley lit his own and mine, and the smoke filled my head like soft sleep after a long day.

  ‘Strange times,’ he said. ‘Criminals running amok. Back home, we’d have gathered up these lads and beaten the piss out of ’em, just to show ’em who’s boss.’

  I tried to remember where Ripley was from. Somewhere in the north, I was sure; Doncaster or Sheffield. My sister would have been able to tell in an instant, her parlour trick being to detect a person’s place of birth from their accent with remarkable accuracy, an inane facility that at once demonstrated both her vast intellect and her squandering of it.

  He nodded towards the corpse. ‘Seems Drake might’ve been poisoned and strung up to look like he was hanged. Know anyone who’d be inclined to do a thing like that?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  I sensed that Sutherland disliked being asked questions. Like all of his vocation, he enjoyed the eminence conferred on him by his vestments and was discomfited by Ripley’s casual insolence. I wondered how much of the young deacon’
s composure was real, a part of him as a man, and how much was mere performance. I’d seen my father behave with patience worthy of St Francis when among his congregation on a Sunday morning, and in the afternoon yell and bang his fist at the tiniest thing, a spillage of his tea in the saucer or a missing penny he could swear had been on his desk. He didn’t understand that his volatile temper was what had made my hand tremble and also why I’d needed the penny, saving up for my escape.

  Sutherland glanced back at Drake’s widow. Her face was lowered, dark hair hanging down and hands clasped daintily around her child.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said.

  He approached the widow and took her hand. She seemed consoled by the gesture.

  I felt a presence at my side and must confess that I jumped, still flustered from the earlier confrontation. But it was Trafford, the wrestler. He seemed shy of Ripley, half turning his back on the policeman and speaking quietly in my ear.

  ‘Who do you think did for Mr Drake, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I must thank you, Mr Trafford. You saved us. I’m sorry I didn’t stand with you.’

  ‘It’s not necessary, sir. You’re not built for such things, being a gentleman. I’ve been fighting since I was a kid. Mr Drake used to tell me I most likely punched the midwife on my way out the womb.’

  His talk of kids made me think of something. I looked around the hall. ‘The children who sleep in here. Where do they go during the day?’

  He shrugged, still not meeting my eye. ‘Could be anywhere, sir. They roam about the city. If they sees a gentleman with heavy pockets or a loose buckle on his briefcase they might follow ’im all the way to Westminster.’

  Ripley overheard our conversation and narrowed his eyes at Trafford. ‘You mean Mr Drake was training them for thievery?’

  It was hardly a surprise but still disappointing. I’d thought Drake was doing the children a kindness, but perhaps he was simply harbouring quick-fingered urchins to make himself a profit.

  Trafford shook his head vigorously. ‘Weren’t them who did this, sir. They loved Mr Drake like he was their father.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ asked Ripley.

  Trafford spoke to his own feet. ‘I was one of ’em once, sir. If it weren’t for ’im, I’d’ve ended up in the clink or worse. He made me lead an honest life. He said it was the only way, if I wanted to make a name for meself in the ring.’

  Looking at the man’s open, earnest face it was impossible to disbelieve him, and yet his trusting nature would make him easy to fool. We couldn’t be certain Drake hadn’t been a modern-day Fagin, sending children out to pick the pockets of the wealthy and careless.

  Pallett joined us, rather in the manner a tall ship joins the dock. ‘The local coppers are here,’ he announced.

  Sure enough, two young constables in ill-fitting uniforms had entered, carrying a stretcher between them. ‘We’ll be off in a few minutes,’ Pallett added. ‘Why don’t you and Mrs Flowers wait for us in the carriage? We’ll take you back.’

  Something was nagging at me. ‘Why are you and Ripley even here? This isn’t your neighbourhood.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Word was sent to us by Mr Whitford at your newspaper, sir. The elder Mr Whitford, I mean.’ Pallett seemed to know everybody. ‘A telegram was received alerting him to these events. He considered it a police matter and here we are.’ He brushed his hands down his jacket as if trying to remove the dust of east London. ‘There’s nothing else to be done now, at least for him.’

  He nodded towards the body. The two local constables were preparing to pick it up, one at the feet and the other trying to get purchase under the armpits.

  Ripley had his notebook in his hand. ‘Right. You mentioned a woman wrestler who disliked Drake. Where is she? What’s her address?’

  I scanned the room, but there was no sign of Irina Vostek. Most of the other wrestlers were huddling in a group near the door, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  It was Trafford who answered him. ‘I don’t think she ever said, sir. She just turned up a few weeks ago and asked if she could have a go. She was such a specimen, Mr Drake put her on the bill. But she kept herself to herself, never spoke to any of us much.’ He indicated the widow, now walking aimlessly around the room soothing her baby. ‘Aside from having a soft spot for Mr and Mrs Drake’s little boy.’

  ‘So, in other words,’ I said, glancing in Ripley’s direction. ‘We don’t know where Miss Vostek lives or how to find her.’

  4

  The Black Maria dropped us outside the pie shop. The driver offered to take me further, as far as the police headquarters on Whitehall, but I wanted to speak to Rosie out of the earshot of prying policemen. We stood together on the pavement, which was cold and almost deserted in the twilight, the only sounds coming from a robin above our heads adding a tune to the thrum of the printworks in the alley.

  ‘I spoke to the widow,’ Rosie said, fiddling with her gloves. ‘Only briefly. She’s very young. She seems devoted to her husband and I doubt she could poison anyone.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What is it?’ She looked up at me quizzically, attuned to the many timbres of my doubts.

  ‘Why did the killer poison him and hang him? One or the other would kill him, so why risk doing both?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Maybe he specifically wanted Mr Drake displayed that way. And can you imagine the problems trying to hang a living, breathing man? A man like that? Quite a battle, I’d imagine.’ She shuddered at the thought of it. ‘Overpowering him, putting a noose over his head. You’d as likely be the one killed as doing the killing. So, he poisoned him first to make it easier.’

  ‘Or she did.’

  ‘Do you really think it could be the Hungarian woman?’

  ‘Perhaps. You didn’t see her. She’s very strong, and she seems a bit of a mystery, wouldn’t you say?’

  Rosie gave a deep sigh. If she’d been male, she would’ve put her hands in her pockets. ‘That doesn’t mean anything. A woman in a masculine profession, she might have any number of reasons not to make friends. And even already dead, a full-grown man would be quite a burden.’

  She had a point. I’d been required to lift corpses on occasion when I was assisting Mr Hurst, the surgeon at the Westminster Hospital. A dead man was an awkward load even for two people, all floppy arms and lolling head. I’d been forced to grasp them in all sorts of ways and places, my face pressed up against their belly or backside, heaving and sweating to move them from a stretcher to the slab, or even pick them up them from the floor if a porter had been too impatient to wait.

  ‘I’m not even sure he was poisoned exactly, at least not fatally.’

  It had been bothering me since we left the gaff. I’d been turning over the scene in my mind, trying to make sense of it, imagining Drake sitting in his hut, perhaps working on the schedule for the coming week, unaware of his impending murder. A footstep sounds behind him and he feels a sharp pain in his neck. He turns and makes a grab for his attacker, already starting to feel the effects of the poison, an ache in his chest or a stiffening of his muscles. He staggers to his feet and, realising that he’s dying, what does he do? Surely, a man like Drake would expend the last ounce of his strength trying to get hold of his attacker to throttle him, hook out his eyes, rip at his skin, anything to get some measure of revenge.

  Why would the killer risk that?

  ‘Few fatal poisons act quickly enough,’ I said. ‘And those that do are hard to get hold of. I would guess that the intention was to render him insensible, rather than dead. Chloral or laudanum would do the trick. They work quickly and are hard to detect in a post-mortem examination.’ Even my former employer, Mr Hurst, would have been flummoxed. ‘Once benumbed, he would be much easier to manhandle.’

  Rosie pursed her lips. She knew my history with such stuff and strongly disapproved. In her opinion, no man had any business taking opiates when a woman could give birth to a seven-pound baby with
nothing more than chicken broth and gin to ease the pain.

  A lamp was lit in the upstairs window and I knew I’d lost her attention. She was thinking of her children, who would need kissing goodnight. I felt a pang of jealousy; of her, not them. The world was large, but she had her place in it, and that place was right here. The shop was humble, but she never doubted it was where she belonged.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, fixing my hat to signal I was about to leave. ‘The newspaper will want a couple of hundred words about Drake’s murder, so I’ll write what we know tomorrow. In a day or two it will all be forgotten.’

  I slept soundly that night and set out for my office on Fleet Street just after dawn the next day. I was looking forward to writing my article. My normal fare consisted of announcements about chemical compounds or newly discovered species of frog, so the murder of a wrestling mogul was glamorous indeed. It would have been of greater interest had it not occurred in Whitechapel, a place where the Chronicle’s mostly Westminster-based readers generally assumed massacres happened on an hourly basis, but even so there was every chance it would appear on a page number with a single digit.

  I was surprised to find Constance leaving the house at the same time. She was thirteen, the daughter of my landlord Alfie, and was rarely known to rise before it was time to cook her father’s breakfast.

  She had brought Huffam on his lead, scampering along beside her. He’d been my late father’s dog and I’d adopted him willingly, until Constance took me to one side and informed me that ‘the poor creature is less trained now than when you first got him’ and trumped my adoption with her own. Alfie and I were in complete, if unspoken, agreement with this policy, firstly because she was correct and secondly because it provided her with a dumb animal upon which to exercise her well-meaning tutelage, which was preferable to our having to endure it.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked her, as we strode along pace for pace. She took after Alfie, being tall and long-limbed, and shared his habit of marching everywhere as if late for an appointment. I preferred a gentle amble or, if finances permitted, to take a cab, but I enjoyed her company and didn’t want to appear lazy, so I hastened along at her speed.