Page 10 of The Business of Blood
“The church will cover it, of course, on behalf of poor Mrs. Sawyer.” Aidan was at my side at once, his hand reclaiming its perch on my shoulder. “Come, Fiona. Let us leave the inspectors to their work.” He clutched Agnes Sawyer’s garments in his other hand as he attempted to steer me in the direction of the door.
Aberline sent him a grateful smile as Croft’s hard mouth inverted the gesture.
“At least let me take the basin to the coroner’s cart for you,” I suggested, doing my best to hide precisely how keen I was to do so. If I could get that bit outside, perhaps Aidan could help me examine it for any pertinent clues. “It’ll improve the smell.”
“Not a chance—” Croft began.
“I’d be obliged,” Aberline said simultaneously.
“But won’t you need to inspect—?”
“I’m feeling a might peaky, Croft.” Aberline patted his belly. “Anything you want to show me in that basin, you can report with the Queen’s own English.”
I did my best not to look smug as I motioned for Hao Long to help me heft the tub. Perhaps I didn’t exactly smotheralltriumph from sparkling in my eyes, but let’s call it a decent effort and move right along.
The coroner’s cart was teamed by horses a bit too fresh for ghastly cargo with a propensity to slosh, but it wasn’t my business to notice. They kept the antsy animals in line with a rough hand, too distracted by their task to pay us much mind as we perched the basin on the backboard.
“Aidan,” I said excitedly, shooing Hao Long away to make room at my side. “Hurry and help me look through this. You can tell me if anything is missing.”
“Dear God, why would you want to do that?” he asked, horrified.
“Because.” My whisper escaped as a hiss. “The Ripper usuallytooksomething, didn’t he? An ear, a womb, a bladder, a kidney, or what have you. If I’m not to hear what the detectives have to say, then maybe I can find something helpful in the evidence left behind.” I poked my pilfered fork toward the contents of the basin, then gave the street a furtive glance, ensuring our privacy.
It was just before two in the morning, a time when the denizens of the night who plied their various seedy trades in the district began to seek refuge from the misery of thematins. To them, the insufficient gas lamps of Whitechapel only created more opportune shadows. But once dawn licked the stones with grey, the respectable and industrious citizens would emerge, and they didn’t take kindly to seeing the illicit revenants of the dark. Most factory workers wouldn’t rouse until five, so now was the time when the streets were nigh empty, and the shadows were full and long.
In fact, one shifted with a serpentine grace over by the Miller’s Court arch, and I thought I got an impression of a top hat and a dark overcoat.
Stunned, I dropped the fork.
I grimaced with distaste as I retrieved it from where it slid between a kidney and the wall of the basin.
When I looked up again, the shadow had disappeared.
If it had ever been there to begin with.
So what if there had been a man in a top hat? I admonished myself. Such a sighting wasn’t exactly a rarity, and the depictions in the papers of the gentleman Ripper with his top hat and smart mustache had no basis in reality or even hearsay. They were just the speculations of rabid journalists.
Still, I couldn’t shake the sense that a killer stood nearby. That he watched me conduct my gruesome investigation. That he appreciated the sight of blood on my hands.
This place was driving me looney.
“I don’t like this,” Aidan lamented.
“Oh, come now,” I goaded. “You don’t expect me to believe that you’ve gone all squeamish, do you?”
“Of course, not. But, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Fiona, that’s all that’s left of a parishioner of mine in there. A man brutally murdered, possibly tortured, and his poor wife—widow— may be within earshot.”
I used to like to watch emotion turn his dark eyes grey. But couldn’t bring myself to look at them now.
“What if those weremybits in that basin?” he asked. “Would you just poke about at them with a dirty fork and get on with it?”
“No.” My voice sounded churlish and ashamed all at once, and only served to fuel my ire. Had this been Aidan, I’d be nothing but a puddle on the ground. His death didn’t bear consideration. Not even in the hypothetical.
Even though he wasn’tmine…he was all I had left.
“What if we could help find the killer?” I challenged. “You know the Sawyers better than anyone in there, and Whitechapel is your home, isn’t it? What ifhe’sback, Aidan? What if this killing is the first of many?”
“I want justice done, same as you, for the Sawyers and for Mary.” The genuine tenderness in his voice strung my nerves tight as a piano wire, and I hunched against it lest it breach my composure. “Two of Scotland Yard’s finest inspectors are on the case. If Jack the Ripper has returned, then Whitechapel isn’t safe. And if he hasn’t, then this is some…perverse imitation of what he’s done. One that’s not likely to be an isolated event.”
