Page 78 of The Business of Blood
I was not a great appreciator of wine, but what I held was unlike any vintage I’d ever tasted. Both dryandsweet. Earthy and velvety. It left syrupy rivers clinging to the edges of my glass as well as on my tongue.
An appreciative breath slid over the temperate warmth of the alcohol in my throat as some of the ache in my stomach relented. I sipped at first, but before I realized what I’d done, my glass was empty, and the Hammer signaled for more.
He regarded me with a tender sort of delight as he swirled the liquid in his glass close to the lone tealight on the table, waiting patiently for my second pour. “This wine is of vines older than the whole of the British empire. Or that of France, Italy, or Spain. Older than your churches. Than your Gods. From the times of the Romans and the Israelites.”
I nodded my fascination around another gulp, doing my best not to correct him. According to we Irish, no gods on Earth were as old and abiding as ours. We clung to them with such tenacity, the Holy Roman Church had to canonize a few of them before we relented to the invading Christian faith.
“The best wines are not from the west, as you Europeans like to claim,” he continued, unaware of my unspoken argument.
He waited for me to engage with him, and so I did. “Wine is a different warmth than whisky, I’ll give you that.”
His short breath threatened to become a laugh before he sobered, regarding me over the rim of his glass. “What were you doing in town today, Fiona?”
I attempted my next swallow twice before I finally succeeded. I had no wits left in me for lies, and so I gave him the truth. “I was on my way to Scotland Yard.”
“To give them the turquoise beads?” He took a sip, hiding his reaction.
I kept the beads in a jewelry box at home. I stared at them all the time, making decisions then unmaking them. “To consult on a different murder, entirely. You remember I work for Scotland Yard as well as you? That connection has benefited us both.”
“Yes, I am aware.” After a wry, dismissive gesture, he reached for more bread, tearing it and dipping it into the dish of oil. “Is this a Ripper matter? Or does it have something to do with the latest murder in Whitechapel?”
He ate like he spoke, like he walked, like he gestured. Both decisively and gracefully, with lithe, exotic mannerisms. It transfixed me for a speechless moment before I remembered his queries demanded prompt answers. “Both, I think.”
I had the distinct notion that he was more than mildly curious but didn’t want to appear so. “They are connected, then?”
“That is yet to be determined. Did you know the woman who was killed in Whitechapel yesterday, Katherine Riley?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never met the woman.”
“Like you’d never met Frank Sawyer?”
Abruptly, he thrust the breadbasket toward me, and I was ashamed to admit, I flinched.
“I insist you eat more.” He annunciated every word with lethal precision. “The wine is stronger than you realize.”
I obeyed, telling myself it was because I wanted to and not because I was afraid. The bread and oil were quite,quitegood. However, I did feel a change of subject was in order.
“Do you know what all that hullabaloo was about in front of parliament? It seemed every organization in the empire turned out, ready to go to battle. I don’t remember reading in the papers about a vote on anything particularly inflammatory today.”
“Thathullaballoo, as you call it, was about me.”
I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious.”
A few muscles in his face twitched. “Several of the prominent gangs feel as though I require too much regulation and have acquired too much power. They decided to stage a unified uprising against me by hiding behind the colors and causes of organizations better than themselves.”
“What do you mean?” Rapt, I lifted my glass to aid the waiter when he materialized to pour me more wine.
“Do you realize, Fiona, that over the last five years—with the extreme exception of the Ripper—there have been less violent murders of women and children in London than in a century?”
I had not realized that. I’d been so focused on Jack that such statistics evaded my notice. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“There has always been a king of the London Underworld, and I am the best this city has seen in decades.” His hazel eyes glowed with a copper light, like two ingots heated in some inner forge. “I support the unions, who would keep children from factories. Who force industries to maintain a safe working environment for those in their employ. I retain more prostitutes than the East End Butchers, the High Rip Gang, the Red Blighters, and all the puny mobs of angry, unemployed youths who are a cancer on this city. Combined. Women line up to work for me because they are protected by my men, not used by them. In my brothels, they are not beaten, they are not starving, they do not die in the streets. I invest in many successful endeavors and charge less interest to enterprising entrepreneurs than the banks. Yes, I break the law, but I do so with a clean conscience.”
That gave me more to think about than I was capable of processing at the moment. “What about…what about the bodies you give me?”
He shrugged a shoulder with very Gallic indifference. “Men. Only men.”
“Yes. But dead men, all the same.”
