Page 52 of Razors & Ruin

“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, thehopeof 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.

Shewantedthis, dammit.

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