“Well, I should have stayed. Had I known-”
“Better one of us should be fresh. There’s a joke in here somewhere about it being a bright new day or some such. Too tired to find it myself, so if you could work it out on your own, I’d be grateful.”
Day stared at the piles of paper that covered every inch of the workspace. Yesterday morning his desk had been pristine.
“Where did all this come from?” he said.
“I’ve been rounding up our colleagues as they arrive and commandeering their notes.”
“You? But I was going to-”
“And you should. By all means. Not stepping on your toes at all, old man. But we’re all so in and out, I was afraid we might miss a chance to talk to some of them if I didn’t seize these bulls by the horns, as it were.”
“And have you found anything?”
“Oh!”
“What is it?”
“I can’t believe it slipped my mind to tell you. First thing as you came in I wanted to tell you, but I let it go right by me.”
“Yes?”
Blacker beckoned and Day leaned over the desk, resting his hands on the papers there.
“He’s struck again,” Blacker said.
“What? Not another detective.”
“No, none of us this time. But another man with a beard was found dead last night. We only received word a few minutes ago.”
“A man with a beard?”
Day straightened back up, annoyed.
“Men with beards are killed every bloody day, Blacker. This is London, for God’s sake.”
“Well, that’s true enough. You’re beginning to sound like an old hand at this.”
“I’m sorry, but I thought you were going to tell me that we were being stalked and picked off, one by one.”
“The body that was found-”
“Yes?”
“His beard was trimmed and his throat was cut.”
“Just like Robinson.”
“Exactly like Robinson. Except that this bloke was found with his head in a toilet, not in a bathtub. But otherwise it’s the same, through and through.”
“Has Kingsley had a chance to look at it yet?”
“I rather doubt it. Sir Edward’s assigned this new murder to Waverly Brown, but I believe we can wrest it from his grip with very little effort. Little effort, right? Not bad. I haven’t lost my wits entirely.”
“I’m not convinced this means what you hope it does,” Day said.
“What do you mean? What do I hope?”
“If anything, this murder done up in exactly the same fashion as Robinson’s says to me that we have two completely different murderers. This one continues to kill, doing in bearded men right and left, while the man we’re after did the one killing. It’s something to do with Little specifically, not with any beard.”
“But surely you can’t ignore the bizarre features of the three murders when looked at together.”
“Little’s beard wasn’t shaved.”
“But Little didn’t have a beard for the killer to shave in the first place.”
“Exactly.”
“If he’d had a beard, it would have been shaved.”
“If he’d had a beard? It doesn’t matter what would have happened if he’d had a beard. He didn’t have a beard. There’s no beard and it’s not a clue that there’s no beard since there never was a beard.”
“Listen, we’re both tired. You’re getting upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m simply…”
Day sat down. He picked up a pile of papers from atop another pile of papers and tossed it back down.
“I’m at sixes and sevens. I feel as though I’ve missed out on a great deal of activity and conjecture because I went home.”
Blacker sighed. “I owe you an apology.”
“No, not at all.”
“But I do. Perhaps I should have waited for your arrival before launching inquiries within the ranks here.”
“No, you were right to set things in motion. I’m struggling to find a foothold here, and you’re already firmly established. I suppose there’s a touch of envy in me this morning. That’s all it is.”
“No need for envy. You’re off balance. Let me tell you a secret: That feeling never goes away. We’re in the dark here, utterly hated by the people we’re trying to help and blindly seeking things we’ll absolutely never find. It’s a miserable experience that I wouldn’t wish on my most intimate enemy.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because it’s the only game in town, old man. This is the best and only way to feel you’ve got the inside track. Because what you’ll eventually come to realize is that everyone out there is groping around in the dark, too, but in here we know it. Gives us a leg up.”
He winked at Day, and after a long moment, Day laughed.
28
I was outnumbered.”
“’Course you was. Otherwise you could’ve handled Big Pete, eh?”
“Well, he was rather fierce.”
“Fierce. That’s Big Pete.”
“Thank you for stepping in when you did.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Pete seemed to calm down as soon as you spoke up. I’m curious, why did he let us leave so easily?”
“Don’t fret about it.”
“He seemed a bit frightened, really.”
“I have a reputation, is all.”
“A reputation?”
“I’ve been known to do a bit of violence in my day.”
“Oh.”
“Best if you don’t know much about that, being as you’re a bluebottle.”
“Why help me at all?”
“Don’t know, really. Strikes me you might be a different sort than the bluebottles I run up against. You coulda pinched me at that posh house yesterday, but you didn’t. You cared about that chavy more’n you cared about lookin’ the big man and impressin’ me. S’pose that meant somethin’ to me.”
“I see.”
“I’ll let you go on about your business, now you’re not gettin’ yerself killed.”
“Wait. Are you looking for the chimney sweep? The one who left that boy?”
“I put out the word I’m lookin’ fer ’im. Somebody’ll point ’im out soon enough.”
“Don’t approach him yet. I want to be there.”
“Stay out of trouble, bluebottle. And getcher nose fixed up or it’ll heal crooked like mine.”
“Did you hear me?”
“No worries. I’ll find you again when our friend shows hisself.”
29
Walter Day took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He glanced to his left where Michael Blacker shifted from foot to foot. Neither spoke.
After a pregnant moment, Day heard shuffling footsteps behind the door and the metal-on-metal rasp of a chain being drawn. The door opened a crack and dull brown eyes peered out at them from a woman’s heavy grey face. Day thought of raisins pressed into a lump of clay. From somewhere in the flat behind her, a strange wailing sound drifted out to them, rising and falling, like an animal crying out in pain. It was accompanied by the more familiar din of a baby crying. The wailing noise would occasionally stop on an up note and then begin again.
“What is it?” the woman said. “Got some more dead you wanna tell me ’bout?”
Her lips barely parted when she spoke, her mouth an unmoving slit.
“Mrs Little?” Day said.
The woman nodded. “Yeah.”
“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs Little,” Blacker said.
“Yeah? Well, you lot done your duty by me. That one-arm bloke come an’ tole me last night, so I got nothin’ I need from you an’ yours.”
Day held his hands up in a gesture of peace and calm.
“We’d like to ask you some questions if we may, ma’am.”
The Widow Little turned from the door and it opened wider, but she held on to the edge of it, not letting them in yet. Ropes of loose skin and fat swung from the underside of her arm and slapped against the jamb.
“Gregory, I tole you already you better see to yer brother. That singin’s just made the baby worser. You see to him right now, you unnerstan’ me?”
“Yes, Mama.”
It was a boy’s voice, followed by the patter of small feet on wood. Mrs Little turned her attention back to the two detectives in the hall and pursed her lips as if trying to remember who they were.