The Connicle Curse Page 14

  I knew better than to push the point, so I followed along behind him and waited for his next outburst.

  “There has got to be some detrimental connection between Edmond Connicle and Arthur Hutton,” he seethed. “Maybe it has to do with that damn scullery maid. I don’t know. But we must figure it out.”

  “And Albert?” I blurted without thinking.

  “You’re not helping, Ethan!” Colin growled. I cringed as Inspector Varcoe hollered Colin’s name. “Come on,” he muttered crossly as he started back toward the crime scene, “before I change my mind about working with this bugger.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Inspector Varcoe’s coach rumbled and rattled along the cobblestones as we headed for the morgue. Colin had gone silent, but I continuously caught the inspector shifting his gaze to him and knew it would only be a matter of time before Varcoe felt compelled to say something. That he was bewildered was as irrefutable as the fact that Colin was frustrated. I wanted to caution Varcoe to keep quiet, but even as I had the thought he spoke up. “What are you making of all this?” he asked, trying to sound offhanded as he glanced back outside and pretended to be watching the black woods jostling past.

  “You have to release the Connicles’ scullery maid,” Colin answered in a calm, even tone.

  “Alexa,” I supplied for the both of them.

  “What?” Varcoe craned around and gawked at us. “What does releasing that woman have to do with anything?”

  “There could be value in having her followed,” Colin pointed out, keeping his own gaze fixed outside the carriage. “Find out if she makes contact with anyone outside of the house. Either the woman is peripherally involved or else someone desperately wants us to believe that she is. Perhaps she knows who that might be.”

  “Of course,” Varcoe dismissed as though, yet again, he had already had that very thought.

  Both men fell silent and remained so until we arrived at the morgue. It wasn’t actually until the three of us pushed our way through the double doors into the outer room, ripe with its stink of death, that our moody silence was abruptly broken.

  “I will not have those two . . . persons . . .” Denton Ross erupted, saying the word as though it were a euphemism for vermin, “. . . in my morgue when I have been rousted down here in the middle of the night. I was told this was an emergency,” he sneered. “Need I remind you that I deal with the dead? The dead! There are no emergencies when it comes to the dead because they’re already bloody damned well dead!” He stood there pink of face, his soft belly and flaccid chest heaving with the effort of his twaddle.

  “Mr. Ross.” The good inspector spoke in a clipped and searing tone. “You are an employee of the Commonwealth and will do whatever you are told by the Yard no matter what the bloody fig time of day it is. Are we clear?”

  Denton Ross jerked his head, clearly taken aback by the unexpected détente between Varcoe and us. It is impossible to say what sort of response Ross thought he would get, but it was certainly not the one he received.

  “Now you were told to have that African’s body ready to be viewed,” Varcoe went on, the only one of us who seemed perfectly content to bluster through this apparent new world order. “Have you done it?”

  Denton flicked a glance among the three of us, his distaste as evident as the stench assaulting my nose. “This way,” he answered in a tone as flat as my enthusiasm to proceed.

  We followed him through the inner doors and found not one, but two covered bodies reclining on nearby tables.

  “Who the hell else you got here?” Varcoe griped.

  “Edmond Connicle.” Denton stood halfway between the two bodies with his arms crossed, apparently trying to demonstrate his displeasure, though none of us cared a whit. “Your lackey said you wanted to see him again.”

  “And your report?” Varcoe barked.

  “Next to the body.”

  “Good.” Varcoe turned to Colin with a look of satisfaction. “There you are, Pendragon. Have at it.”

  Colin stood stock-still a moment, the incongruity of the situation not lost on him, before finally stepping forward and peeling back the sheet on the closer of the two bodies. The heavily bruised and abraded remains of Albert were slowly revealed. It was our first time seeing the injuries sustained across the entirety of his face, as well as his chest and legs. Seeing them made it clear that had he fallen from a tree he must surely have hit every branch and slid along the whole of the trunk on his way down.

  “Tell me about these wounds,” Colin said as he bent low over Albert’s chest. “Were they occluded with dirt and debris?”

  “It’s in the report,” Denton replied.

  “Don’t be a ruddy nob!” Varcoe roared before Colin could consider doing so himself. “Answer the blasted question or I’ll have your ass for obstruction.”

  Denton’s lips curled and his brow shriveled in on itself, making it look as though he were about to throw a tantrum. There might have been humor in his annoyance had the scene at hand not been so disturbing. “Yes . . .” he hissed.

  “Sorry for troubling you,” Colin mused.

  “Will the two of you please stop pissing about and get on with it!” Varcoe snapped. “It’s three bloody thirty in the morning. I’d like to get five minutes of sleep before this rancid night is over.”

  “Cause of death?” Colin asked.

  “He fell from a tree.” The answer was delivered as though to an imbecile.

  “What?!” Varcoe bellowed as Colin stabbed a hand into the air, silencing him without a word.

  “And these bruises and abrasions?” Colin asked with the patience of a sainted man, though I knew it was only a matter of minutes before that tolerance wore out.

  “He fell from a tree!”

  “Broken bones?”

  “A cracked rib . . . maybe two . . . I don’t remember.”

  “No cranial fracture?”

  “I think I know the difference between a cracked rib and a cracked skull.”

  Colin glanced toward him. “Very well. And what do you make of these marks on his right wrist?”

  “A minor abrasion,” he dismissed. “No telling what he and that slag of his got up to.”

  Colin ignored him as he headed toward the other body. “Does it not strike you as odd that it’s the same arm with the dislocated shoulder?”

  “For chrissakes, Denton.” Varcoe stalked over to Albert’s body. “Have you even looked at his buggered shoulder?”

  “It’s a perfectly common injury that—”

  “Don’t you dare!” Varcoe blasted over him. “If I get so much as a ruddy inkling that you’re impeding this investigation I will hang you by your bits off the Tower Bridge.”

  Denton’s face pursed. “These things are hard to say for certain—”

  “Constable . . . !” Varcoe hollered at the young bobby we’d left in the outer room. “Find this man’s bollocks and tie them up.”

  “Inspector . . .” Colin interrupted from his position bent low over Edmond Connicle’s charred remains. “You’ll want to see this.”

  Before the inspector could cross to the farther table Denton Ross was already there. He was careful not to approach Colin directly but rather sidled up across from him in an effort, I presumed, to stay out of his line of ire.

  “What is it?” Varcoe asked as he reached Colin’s side.

  “Have you stitched this man’s lips closed?” Colin flicked his eyes to Denton, his tone neither accusatory nor disapproving.

  “Why the hell would I bother when he’s so badly burnt?”

  “Because there are remnants of a stitch here.” Colin pointed his little finger toward the center of the lips. “May I borrow a tweezers?”

  “My tools?” Denton stared in disbelief. “It’s not enough that you—”

  “Now, Mr. Ross!” Varcoe fumed.

  Denton released an aggravated breath as he fetched a pair of tweezers that he dropped unceremoniously onto the table. Without a word Colin snatched
them up and began tugging at the tiny, single stitch binding the center of Edmond Connicle’s lips together. It took only a moment before it finally gave way with a slight jerk. “It’s a bit of wire,” Colin said as he held it up and turned it about in the flickering light. “Whoever did this intended for Mr. Connicle’s mouth to remain shut in spite of the immolation. Curious . . .” he muttered as he passed the tweezers and scrap of wire to Inspector Varcoe.

  We were all so enamored staring at Varcoe’s trophy that none of us realized what Colin was up to until we heard the crack of the mortised jaw. I struggled to keep my head from spinning as Colin quickly poked two fingers inside and then leaned over and took a careful look. He heaved an audible sigh as he stood back up, leveling his gaze on me. “Take a look, Ethan.”

  I would have been perfectly content not to take another step closer than my current proximity several feet away, but I knew Colin had made that statement with some purpose in mind. I gave as resolute a nod as I could muster and moved around beside him, the creosote smell of the burnt carcass stinging my nostrils. He flashed me an unseemly grin that I presumed was meant to assuage me, but it did little good. I have no stomach for this sort of thing and was certain everyone in the room knew it.

  “The charred ring that was on the left hand . . .” I heard Colin saying to someone behind me as I girded myself to peer inside the gaping mouth. “Were you ever able to confirm with someone at the Connicle house that it belonged to Edmond Connicle?”

  “Well, of course I did,” Denton Ross sneered back. “The housekeeper—”

  “Miss Potter?” Colin interrupted him.

  “Porter,” I corrected without a second’s thought.

  “She positively identified it,” Denton went on. “I released it to her for her mistress, if you must know.”

  I tried to ignore the acerbic tone of Denton’s voice as I sucked in a slim breath, determined not to swamp my senses with the fetid air, and finally leaned over. It took a moment for my eyes to focus inside the black gap and for my brain to process what was being relayed, but as soon as that happened everything clicked. Beyond the whisper of a hesitation I knew that this body, these curled, blackened remains, most certainly did not belong to Edmond Connicle.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was edging toward five, still predawn, and I was grateful to finally be back in bed. My body felt so heavy it was as if my blood had been displaced by molten lead, and my mind was little better, having been poisoned by the carnage I had just seen—three ruined corpses. Colin and I had come home and scrubbed at our hands and faces at the kitchen sink, the smells of putrefaction and chemicals refusing to give way easily. My harried mind became terrified that I would never lose the stench that clung to me. I ticked a glance at Colin to see if he feared the same and could tell by the steady crease of his forehead that his thoughts were traveling far afield. No matter what faced us next, I only wished for enough time to properly parse this night away.

  “This case mystifies me,” he said with a burdened sigh a short while later as we climbed into bed. “It seems so arbitrary. Haphazard. And yet there is clearly some purpose here. These are not the random killings of a madman. They are specific and purposeful, and yet . . .” His voice drifted off and I understood precisely what he meant. There seemed little logic to these killings, but there was always logic. Even a case as indiscriminate as the Ripper killings had been born out of both calculation and purpose.

  “You’ll figure it out,” I said, uncertain whether I was trying to convince him or me.

  He reached over and pulled me to him. “You always have such faith in me.”

  “What?” I lifted my head to peer at him through the darkness. “Is that self-doubt I hear?”

  He chuckled and bussed my forehead. “You know,” he said with a yawn, “one of us has to go out and tell Mrs. Connicle that’s not her husband’s body.”

  “Those teeth . . .” I curled my nose and set my head back on his chest. “I’ve never seen anything like them. They were worn down to nothing more than nubs.”

  “That they were.” Colin exhaled. “I used to see people like that in Bombay, their teeth filed nearly away from working reeds or bamboo into pulp by pulling it through their teeth over and over until they produced just the right texture and thickness to weave baskets or mats or the soles of sandals. As soon as I saw that single wire stitch I knew something was wrong. We were never meant to look in that cadaver’s mouth. Denton Ross’s carelessness nearly cost us a crucial bit of information.”

  “Varcoe was threatening a magisterial hearing against him.”

  “As well he should. In the meantime we shall see if Varcoe can figure out whose body that really is.” Colin heaved another sigh. “Though I doubt we’ll ever know. In India he would be a member of the shudra caste or perhaps even an untouchable. There will be no record.” He lifted my chin and looked at me, his eyes catching the moonlight from the window next to the bed. “Will you go see Mrs. Connicle tomorrow?”

  “Of course.” And now it was my turn to sigh.

  “Thank you, my love,” he said with a kiss. “You are so much better at that sort of thing than I am.”

  “I wish I thought that a compliment,” I muttered. “It’s just that Mrs. Connicle is so confounding. One moment as fragile as gossamer and the next, as when she was insisting she’d spotted her husband at Covington, almost feral.”

  “Well, now you understand why.”

  “All the same. I can see why she was placed in Needham Hills those years back. She’s unsound . . . brittle . . . and that can be devastating.”

  “And you know too much about such things.” He gently stroked the side of my face. “Let it be. We shall have further revelations tomorrow.” He kissed me again and settled back, and before I would have thought it possible the world drifted away from me to be replaced by a singular female voice filled with vitriol and rage as it seethed up out of the murky blackness.

  “The devil’s spawn!” she howled, her face shiny with perspiration as though she had just run up a flight of stairs. But it was her eyes, coal black and vacantly ferocious, as though she were registering everything and nothing. “You’re the devil’s bloody spawn!” she cried, and this time she spat on me.

  “Leave the boy alone, Amelia.” It was my father, his tone as calm and forgiving as always. I hated him for that. For not fearing her like I did.

  “He’s tainted!” she snapped back. “You can’t see it like I can.”

  “He’s just a boy, Amelia. Our boy. Let him be.”

  She stared at my father and I wondered what she saw when she looked at him, as there seemed to be no recognition rustling behind her eyes. Even so, after a moment she wrenched my arm and shoved me away from her, as you would to something foul and unclean. My shoulder twisted under the force of her repulse, but I would not let myself cry out, not even if she jerked it from its socket again.

  “Go on, Ethan . . .” my father admonished, and I was certain he regretted having me too. “Your mother is tired. Go to your room and fasten the bolt.” I knew what that meant, and when I heard the baby start to cry I did not need to be told again.

  The latch on my door clicked into place with the familiarity of a task done a thousand times, and as I was just short of ten, it felt every bit of my lifetime. The instant it was firmly seated I hurried across my room and slid under the bed as though the floor were slick with ice. I did not allow myself to stop skidding until my feet hit the corner my bed was wedged against, its solidity both welcoming and reassuring. And then I waited.

  It didn’t take long. It never took long. First came the rattling of the doorknob, and then, as if her inability to gain entry proved that I could not be there, she began to wander around and call my name. “Ethan. . . .” The ferocity of her voice waxed and waned with her proximity to my door. “Ethan! . . .”

  “Leave him be. . . .” my father pleaded, his tone unexpectedly worn.

  I cowered in that corner beneath my bed and feared
this would be the night he finally tired of protecting me and simply opened the door. But when I heard him coax her into their bedroom—telling her to bring the baby, that they would be fine, just the three of them—I was profoundly relieved.

  Without even realizing it, I discovered I was crying. I had no notion of it until I tasted salty wetness at the corners of my mouth. My brain scolded me for my cowardice, insisting that I should go to them, but my body would not move. Even after I heard the soft click of their door latching, the baby’s cries muffled by the distance, I still did not move.

  And after some unaccountable time, for I had no notion of whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours, I heard four pops and smelled that smell. Burnt powder. Gunpowder.

  I scrabbled out from beneath the bed as though I had been forcibly ejected. I could hear myself screeching and crying and felt the wetness at the front of my trousers as I fumbled with the lock on my door, my hands shaking so badly that it took several tries before I could get the bolt to slide back. The instant it did I flung the door so hard that it slammed against the wall and came hurtling back toward me, but I was already too far down the hallway and didn’t even notice when it crashed back into place.

  I was soiled and slick with tears when I reached my parents’ bedroom door, bellowing for them with a madness that defied sanity. No answer came. I knew there wouldn’t be. Without even thinking I reached for the doorknob and was surprised when it twisted freely. As the door yawed wide under the pressure of my hand, I found my family on the floor near the foot of the bed, my father wrapped around the baby and my mother tucked in tight behind him. It looked like they were sleeping nestled against one another except for the gaping bullet wounds and the revolver still clenched in the claw of my mother’s nearer hand. And as I felt my mind curdle and my stomach heave its revolt, I knew I should have been there with them. That’s what had been meant to be.