“Death is not a thing to be feared, little fly.” Jack spoke to Cinderhouse, but he looked at the dog. “We are larvae, all of us, awaiting transformation. We must be patient and we must understand that all change is painful.”
“Just bash its head with something.”
Jack looked up at Cinderhouse again. They were sharing a precious moment with the dog, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Cinderhouse was unable to appreciate what was happening. The bald man was pacing about uselessly, looking for a rock to use. Jack decided to ignore him. He turned his attention to the dog just in time to see that pleading expression leave its eyes. Its paws twitched one last time and it went still. He watched as it ceased being a dog and became something else entirely. He stopped breathing and his lips parted in awe. He felt he might pass out. This was the ultimate communication with the universe, and it had been denied him for so long.
Someone ought to pay for that.
He touched the dog again, but it no longer held any interest for him. It was already going cold. The rain beat against its blank eyeballs.
Cinderhouse shoved something at him, breaking his field of vision. A wooden rod, perhaps thrown off by a passing carriage.
“Use this,” Cinderhouse said.
Jack stood and stepped toward the rail. “You use it,” he said.
He kept his back to the bald man and listened, but could hear nothing over the sound of the rain. It was entirely possible that Cinderhouse would hit Jack with the rod and gain his freedom. Jack wouldn’t blame him at all. He would use the rod if he were in the bald man’s shoes. Or any shoes.
“It’s already dead.”
Jack turned and smiled. He reached out his hand and took the rod from Cinderhouse.
“You missed it,” Jack said.
“Poor thing.”
“Maybe. But we’re all going to die, aren’t we? We can’t all expect pity.”
“It didn’t have to die like that.”
“But it did have to die like that. It had no choice.”
“Not after the bus hit it.”
“The bus was simply a part of the process. The mechanism of transformation. We are surrounded every day by such machines. We are such machines.”
Cinderhouse stepped up to the rail as a carriage rolled by. Its wheels sluiced water up over the curb, over their toes. Jack watched the rain bounce off Cinderhouse’s smooth scalp as traffic began to pick up on the bridge. It was still dark, but the rain had already begun to ease into a gentle sprinkle. No carriages stopped for them, nobody wondered about the two men and the dead dog. Everyone had a place to go. Jack knew that if he gave the bald man enough time, he would speak again. Until then, he was content to stand and listen to the soft patter of rain on the canal.
“It was mostly children for me,” Cinderhouse said. “The ones I killed. I mean, as you say, transformed. The ones I transformed.”
“Ah, that is not something I can appreciate. Not children.”
“But surely you…”
“Never a child. Children are already in the midst of transformation. They’re not yet ripe, are they?”
“Ripe?”
“Promise me you’ll leave the children be.”
“I… I’ll try.”
“You would not want to break a promise you make to me.”
“I won’t.”
“Was it only children?”
“No. I killed two policemen.”
Jack stopped looking at the canal. He had been just about to push Cinderhouse over the wall. “Policemen? You surprise me, little fly.”
“They were going to take a child away from me.”
“And so you lashed out, did you?”
“Yes.”
“But they caught you.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can’t very well kill one policeman without expecting to be caught, let alone two of them. They’re a bit overprotective of their own, aren’t they?”
“They beat me. Broke my nose.”
“But they did not kill you outright in return for what you had done.”
“No.”
“That was unkind of them.”
“Was it?”
“Do you know their names?”
“One of them was named Day. Detective Inspector Walter Day.”
“One of the ones you killed?”
“No. The one who caught me. One of them.”
“I meant the dead ones. The ones you killed. Surely you kept their names. Out of respect.”
“One was named Pringle. He was a customer of mine. Constable Pringle. I don’t remember his full name. I don’t know the other one’s name at all.”
“You do them a disservice. They shared their experience with you, allowed you to be a part of it. The least you can do is remember them.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“More’s the pity.”
Jack turned and walked along the footpath toward the city and Cinderhouse followed. Jack didn’t turn around when the bald man spoke again.
“His wife’s name was Claire.”
“Who?”
“The policeman who caught me. The one who sent me to Bridewell.”
“His wife’s name was Claire?”
“I visited her one time. At their house in Primrose Hill. It’s not very far from here, actually.”
“Ah, you remember that, do you? Their house? The woman?”
“Quite clearly. She was lovely.”
“My dear little fly, you sound as if you have unfinished business to attend to.”
“Do you think so?”
“I do,” Jack said. He licked his lips and tasted rain. “I really do.”
“What should I do?”
“Don’t worry, Peter. I’ll help you figure it out.”
He looked up at the dark sky as he walked and he let the rain hit his eyeballs the way it had drummed against the dog’s eyes. Finally he had to blink. He splashed along through the puddles underfoot, and he led his dear stupid little fly toward the city.
18
They crossed the field carefully. The rain had gone as quickly as it had come, and clouds scudded away across the sky, the only movement in sight. Day and Hammersmith shuttered their lanterns and, when their eyes had grown used to the starlight and moonlight, they crept through the grass, watching for movement against the blue horizon. Day drew his Colt Navy, but kept it held down at his side. There was a handful of loose tombstones scattered about, tumbled down by rain and snow and years, but there were no men hiding behind those stones. The three policemen were alone.
When they reached the road, they stopped and listened. Day held up his hand and motioned toward their right, where the road sloped up over a culvert. Hammersmith nodded and crossed the cobblestones silently. Under the cover of the trees on the other side, he went slowly uphill, watching the windows and doors of the houses that bordered the field. Day turned and walked along the road to his left, and March followed him.