Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

Jocasta took a handful of coins from her pocket and laid them on the table by her side. Sam hesitated a moment then snatched them up.

Jocasta spoke without looking at him. “Two doors down. Samson’s pie shop.” He nodded and was gone without a word. Molloy leaned back against the settle and drew a little circle in the air with the bitten end of his pipe.

“Begin, Mrs. Bligh.”

Jocasta hissed between her teeth, and Molloy smiled at it. Then she looked down at the table, wet her lips and opened them. “This girl came to see me on Friday gone, name of Kate Mitchell. .”

Stephen was quiet when they climbed back into the coach, but seemed content.

After they had gone a little way Harriet asked: “Are you glad to have seen your papa, my pet?”

He nodded and touched the rigging of his model with one hand. “He is still very strong, isn’t he, Mama?”

“Yes. He is.”

“And he liked the ship?”

“Very much, I think.”

“Then I shall bring it again, next time we come.” With that he looked out of the window at the passing hedgerow, and seemed to have no further need for conversation.

Harriet thought of her discussion with Trevelyan in the hallway and tried to will patience and quiet into her blood, then picked up the last of the letters from Isabella to Fitzraven. It was only now she noticed that this one had been franked in London, and the date was only some two weeks ago. What, she wondered, would Isabella need to communicate in a letter, given she must at this time have been seeing Fitzraven almost every day at His Majesty’s? It was short and its tone was so unlike the last that Harriet’s heart squeezed a little with the echo of Isabella’s disappointment in the man who had sired her. Then her pulse skipped forward, and she found she was holding the paper hard enough to crease it.

“Oh, Isabella! Why did you not think to tell us, child?”

“What is it, Mama?”

Harriet looked up a little guiltily. “Sorry, Stephen. I did not intend to speak aloud. Something in this letter has upset me.”

He frowned. “It is not about spies, is it, Mama?”

“I fear it might be, Stephen. It might be a little bit about spies. .”

Fitzraven,

I had hoped that we might become friends, but I see no natural affection for me in your manner or actions. I hold Mr. Bywater in great esteem, but I feel no necessity on commenting further on my friendship with that gentleman to you. I do not believe you have earned any right to be consulted as you suggest about who I should consider as a husband. I would not trifle with his affections by encouraging other men. And even if my heart were completely free I would not use my “charms,” as you refer to them, to extract gossip or rumor military or civilian. You mistake my profession.

I see the people you are with and I urge you with my last duty as a daughter to cease any contact with them. Until you can assure me the activities you hinted at have ceased entirely, or were no more than figments of your imagination, your strange need to demand respect through pretended or surreptitiously gathered knowledge, rather than earn it by the manners and behavior of a gentleman, I would ask we meet as mere acquaintances. Morgan has orders not to admit you to my presence.

Isabella

“Why did she not say?” Harriet murmured.

Stephen was looking at his mother with concern. “Mama! Are there spies coming? I am to protect you from spies!”

She smiled at him and folded the letter. “And you do a very fine job of it, sir. Continue to patrol Berkeley Square Gardens with Lord Sussex and I think we shall all do very well.” Then she added, as she looked out of the window, “My mind is playing tricks on me. I noticed some smell as we left Dr. Trevelyan’s. .”

Her son sat up looking very pleased. “Paint, Mama. The nice maid Clara was telling me about it while you were talking so long to the doctor. There was a man in painting and plastering, and now Clara must keep the windows open even though the weather is cold to drive off the smell. Even though it has been two weeks since he came.”

Harriet thought back some weeks to a visit to James. Dr. Trevelyan had been apologizing about the works in his house, though Harriet herself had been hardly fit to notice.

“You are a very fine young man, Stephen.”

The little boy shrugged and turned to look out of the window, but Harriet could see the happy flush in his cheeks. She thought about the strange tang in the air her mind had gathered and puzzled on even before she had consciously noticed it. It was not just paint, it was the fresh plaster and wood varnish too. She thought for a long moment before the picture of a room, recently seen and sharing some fragment of that odd combination of odors appeared before her eyes. The picture was of the study of Lord Carmichael. The window open in November she had noticed was to release the hanging taint in the air.

Jocasta came to a stop and Molloy continued chewing down on his scrag end of boiled meat for so long, she thought he was never going to come to speaking at all. Sam sat close to Jocasta.

“You know there was murder done at His Majesty’s last night?” Molloy said at last, gave a loud belch and fitted his pipe back into his mouth.

She nodded. “A lass, and her lover slashed his wrists is what I’ve heard.”

Molloy folded his arms together and looked mean at her.

“So it is said-and Christ, how London loves it! I saw three women out on their morning ride with yellow roses in their hair, and two fellas all lace and lavender with red ribbons on their wrists. Stupid fuckers. If they knew how a body felt they’d be less likely to make a romance of it.”

Jocasta shrugged. “Let them do as they will. You’re just fractious you aren’t the man selling flowers this morning. You say it’s all bound up?”

“This little troop of loveliness you’ve thrown a rock at, Mrs. Bligh, have killed two lads and a woman. Why should killing more trouble them?”

“Maybe.”

Molloy paid some attention to his pipe till he was hidden in billows and dances of smoke. “You are a singular woman, Mrs. Bligh, and noted for walking alone. Given I know that, and you know that, will you be guided by me?”

She put her elbows on the table. “That’s dependent which way you are shoving, Molloy.”

“Good enough. Ripley’s right. You need a navy man, but one that’s worth trusting. There’s a few on the river that used to serve. We’ll go and have a chat. And we’re going to let news of the killings spread. No one takes a liking to men that pick off kiddies for sport. Maybe it’ll all come apart easy. But it’s good to have some angry friends at hand if the knot tightens the other way.” He switched his attention to Sam and pointed his pipe at him. “And you, fella, are going up to those kilns.”

Sam found reason to pick up Boyo and hold him. The dog licked his face. “Why so, Mr. Molloy?” He threw a nervous glance Jocasta’s way, and she caught and held it.

“Because, boy,” Molloy continued, “I reckon if you spend some time up there you’re going to find someone that saw something on Sunday when Blondie got herself killed. If your mistress weren’t so used to looking to cards or her own wise self for answers, she’d have thought of that before now.”

Sam opened his mouth, then shut it up.

“The lad can come with us, Molloy,” Jocasta said.

“You scared?” Molloy kept his eyes on Sam.

“Course he’s afraid. He had two of his mates picked off.”

Molloy ignored Jocasta and leaned toward Sam across the table. “When does Tonton Macoute hunt, boy?”

“Night, sir.”