The Devil in the Dock Read online

  The Devil in the Dock

  Richard James

  ©Richard James 2019

  Richard James has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2019

  This edition published in 2020 by Sharpe Books.

  For Toby.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  End Note.

  SPRING, 1892

  “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

  Oscar Wilde

  Prologue

  It had been eleven months since he’d killed his wife. At first her words were faint, indistinct. She stood in silhouette at the window, the low morning light at her back. If he squinted, as one who looks into the sun, he could just make out the contours of her face. Slowly, she solidified before him. At first her hair revealed itself, tumbling over her shoulders as it had on their first meeting. Looking down to the floor, Bowman could see she was wearing her favourite yellow dress, which he felt flattered her skin favourably. She stood, hands on hips, with a quizzical expression on her face. Her eyes were alive with a playful insinuation. She held her chin in just the way Bowman remembered it. He was beyond any doubt that his wife stood before him.

  He lay, delirious, upon the threadbare chaise longue in the parlour, Nero’s portrait gazing imperiously down from the wall behind him. Dust motes danced in the air. Somewhere, a lazy fly banged against a window. Having eschewed the marital bed as was now his custom, he had finally fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning. He had passed a few fitful hours in what could only just be described as sleep, to be woken by the first touch of the sun upon his face. His neck and shoulders were stiff. Shifting himself upon his unforgiving cushions, he had turned his face to the window. It had come as no surprise at all to see her standing there.

  “Anna”.

  Her name was a balm. The sound of it soothed him. He felt the beginnings of a smile play about his lips. She was moving towards him now, her hand outstretched. A dip of her head gave him to understand that he should stand. Swinging his legs from the chaise longue, Bowman stood but a few feet in front of her. Now her face was clear. Her eyes danced as she pulled him towards her. Bowman could smell her perfume, feel the warmth of her body against him.

  “Anna.”

  And now they were dancing. The parlour had dissolved around them to be replaced by a grand ballroom decked with bunting and flowers. A banner hung from a makeshift stage where a band of musicians struck up a waltz. They were whirling about the room, almost reckless. Bowman recognised the space, knew the moment. This was their first dance.

  “Father approves,” Anna purred as Bowman led her about the floor. She was a graceful dancer and forgiving, too. Bowman struggled to master his leaden feet and, more than once, had to effect emergency manoeuvres to avoid the other couples.

  Bowman looked about him, seeking the gentleman in question. There he sat, at a table near the band. His wife busied herself beside him as he looked out across the dance floor. The only movement was an absent-minded drumming of his fingers on the table in time to the music. His face was granite.

  “Of what?”

  “Of you,” she laughed.

  “Are you sure?” Bowman asked. “He’s inscrutable.”

  “Only to those who do not understand him.” Anna shook her head. Her hair had been curled for the evening, and her ringlets danced about her shoulders. “He finds you charming. As do I.”

  Bowman felt himself flush, the button at his collar pinching at his neck. Daringly, he allowed himself a smile. “And I find you captivating, Miss Mortimer.”

  Anna laughed in spite of Bowman’s earnest gaze, or perhaps because of it. His moustache twitched in agitation.

  “I do not think I would mind at all if you should call me Anna.”

  At this, they seemed to lift in to the air. Bowman caught his breath as they waltzed up and around the room. The air became their dance floor as the hall became a blur. Somewhere, improbably, he could hear marriage vows.

  “Do you remember how you felt on our wedding day?” she was asking.

  Bowman swallowed hard to contain his emotions. Tears pricked at his eyes as he recalled. “Of course,” he whispered.

  Her voice was clear as a bell. “Tell me.”

  One word came to his mind. “Afraid.”

  He looked around his parlour, as if to anchor himself in reality. All signs of the ballroom had gone. There lay the book he had been reading, there his glass.

  “Silly,” she purred, smoothing his frown with a finger. “Are you still afraid?”

  Bowman opened his mouth to respond but before he could even form a word, he was somewhere else again.

  The water lapped at the bank to his right. The low sun gave the grass a coat of gold and the trees were heavy with blossom. They were in Hampstead Heath. Beside him was the viaduct pond, like a mirror to the sky, the water still and implacable. The viaduct itself stood like a beast, basking in the sun. It had stood for over forty years, intended to be an entrance to an ornate villa. Bowman admired the industry that had produced such a redundant piece of work, for the villa was never built. A thwarted vision, thought Bowman. A squeeze of his hand reminded him of her presence and he turned to her, blinking in the sun.

  “I have been thinking,” he began. “In the whole of London, I should like to live here.”

  “Hampstead?”

  “Let me see what I can find. I can think of no finer place for us to make our home.”

  They stopped beneath an ancient oak and kissed, and Bowman was full of the future. In truth, he had already found a set of rooms not twenty minutes away.

  “Are you sure your father won’t miss me?” he teased.

  “He yearns to be free of you!” she laughed. She pulled him to her. “And I yearn to have you to myself.”

  As they kissed, they whirled and rose amongst the trees. The Heath spread out before them like a blanket, its kinks and wefts the paths and beds. As Bowman looked down and to his left, he could see the house he had visited not two days previously. It would be perfect, he knew.

  And it was. Now they were in the parlour, Anna dressing for the day in coat and bonnet.

  “Must you go?” she was imploring. “I had hoped you might accompany me to the refuge.”

  “I am called for, Anna.”

  “By whom?”

  “Williams has need of men to put an end to a case. He has this past fortnight been close to bringing an end to a case of slavery. A troupe of hawkers in Whitechapel has been abducting children, sending them north to the industrial cities for fodder. Well-to-do children sometimes, not just urchins.”

  “Ah,” Anna breathed, smoothing Bowman’s habitual frown with a gloved finger. “So now the toffs are angry and the case must be solved.” There was a look of gentle reproach in her eyes but Bowman forgave her easily, as he forgave her all things. He knew he was being teased.

  “It is good work, Anna. Children will be saved.”

  Anna dipped her head. “Then, who am I to stand in your way, Detective
Inspector George Bowman?” She pronounced his name slowly, deliberately and quietly. In the spaces between each word, she rose up on her toes to plant the softest of kisses on his lips.

  “Well, I shall be in Whitechapel too.” Bowman could hear the hooves. She was moving to the door now. “Perhaps, when you have saved the world from blight, you might pass by the Women’s Refuge to walk me home?”

  Now came the rattle of the carriage. Some moments ago, Bowman had loosed the shot. It had cut through the canopy and found a home in the driver’s chest. He sat slumped at the reins, the brougham thundering over the cobbles, teetering dangerously at the corner with Hanbury Street. Anna turned to look, a flash of confusion clouding her face. The horses were upon her.

  “No, sir!” Sergeant Graves held him tight about the shoulders, “It’s too late!”

  Bowman knew the distance between them was too great, that he could not save his wife. All at once, she was beneath the hooves and then beneath the wheels and then the carriage was gone. Bowman lifted a gloved hand to his cheek. Her blood was on his face.

  A sharp breath caught in his throat and woke him. Rising from the chaise longue, Bowman made his way to the mantle. There, beside her picture was a printed calendar. Tracing the days with his fingers, he could not imagine how he’d survived so long without her.

  I

  Hunted

  Harry Pope was easy quarry. No matter how fast he ran, he knew the hound would catch him. Even amongst the slums and gin palaces of Drury Lane, there was one thing it could always follow. His scent. He stared wildly about him as he turned off White Hart Yard. Pope was a physically able man, some six feet tall with a long stride. His strength and speed had equipped him well in the boxing ring but he feared they would not save him now. Spittle flew from his mouth as he struggled to breathe. He must have run some three miles from Shad Thames, tracing the river along Clink Street and Bankside to cross at Waterloo Bridge. It was there that he had heard the dog. By the time he had spanned all nine of the bridge’s arches, Pope knew it was upon him.

  He veered right onto The Strand, darting through Angel Court in a desperate attempt to gain advantage. His legs felt as if they were on fire, his lungs fit to burst. All around him was chaos. The hustle of the day had begun in earnest. Pope tripped over prostitutes and vagrants as he fled down Drury Lane, kicking up dirt and excrement from the gutter with his heels. The crowds pressed against him so that Pope could barely see his way. Traders and hawkers mingled with the hoi polloi. Looking over his shoulder as he ran, he felt a glancing blow to his chest. Casting a glance down he saw he had floored an old, toothless woman who had rolled into the road. She swore after him as he ran, raising a fist at his retreating back. His only hope, Pope reasoned, was to find help. Running recklessly to the middle of the road, he waved down a hansom cab as it rattled out of Russell Court. The horse came to a halt with a bad tempered whinny, rising on its hind legs to show its disapproval. Pope ran to the cab and leaned in to address its passengers, an elderly lady and a rather upright-looking man in a top hat.

  “Help,” he gasped. “Please help me.”

  The man leaned over to shoo him away, holding a protective arm across his companion. Pope looked savage. His thick, black hair was plastered to his face with sweat, his cheeks burning a ferocious red, his eyes staring with a manic intent.

  “Joseph, what does he want?”

  “Nothing, Mother,” the man replied. “And nothing is what he’ll get.”

  Reports of robberies under just such circumstances had placed the man on his guard, and he planted a fist squarely on Pope’s jaw. Instinctively twisting his head to lessen the force of the blow, Pope fought the urge to respond with a left upper cut.

  “Be off with you,” shouted the driver from his perch. The whip snapped just inches from Pope’s face. The horse gave another whinny of impatience.

  “Please, I need – ” Pope’s plea was in vain. The cab clattered away as he fell to his knees in exhaustion. Following the hansom with his bloodshot eyes, he could see the man offering comfort to his mother as it rounded the corner onto Blackmoor Street, scattering a mob of urchins in its path.

  Feeling a presence at his shoulder, Pope turned to see a young woman with a parasol and a large bag holding out her hand.

  “You all right, dearie?” she cooed. “In a spot of bother?”

  Pope shrugged her off. He could hear the hound. His only hope was to head for the crowds outside The Theatre Royal. Slipping in the dirt, Pope mustered all his strength for a final burst of speed. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs, he rounded the corner into Russell Street and then he saw them. Their distinctive helmets and smart blue coats marked them out amongst the throng of theatregoers, shoppers and prostitutes. Peelers. The three police constables were in attendance at a jeweller’s store, one with a notebook in hand, the other two standing absentmindedly at the door. Pope slowed his pace. The one thing he couldn’t do was alert them to his predicament. Ducking under the portico on Catherine Street, Pope hid himself from their view behind the pillars, slowly skirting his way round the theatre’s entrance. A pantheon of great actors gazed down from tattered posters on the walls. A banner proclaiming the appearance of Dan Leno, ‘The Great Irish Comic Vocalist and Clog Champion’, hung limp from a window, its loose end trailing in the dirt below. Passing into Brydges Street, Pope pleaded desperately with passers by. A gruff man in an ostentatious hat and coat attempted to palm him off with a ha’penny from his pocket. A baker’s boy offered nothing more than a mouthful of curses for his pains. Pope stumbled on, his breathing erratic. He cut a desperate figure as he loped painfully into an alley behind The Theatre Royal. Vinegar Yard was famous as a home to dissolutes. The tenements that rose around it offered lodgings to actors and other vagabonds who could part with a penny. As Pope stumbled along its length he passed a couple pressed against the wall sweating in their exertions. In the throes of a drunken lust, they barely noticed Pope as he limped past. Holding onto the wall for balance, he staggered to a stop and fell to his knees again, defeated. He opened his mouth to cry for help but no sound came. His throat was dry, his chest heaving. As he fell to his back, gasping for breath, he succumbed to his delirium.

  He could hear the claws skidding at the ground as the dog tore into Vinegar Yard. The sight of a large hound careening into the yard, its eyes blazing with a primal appetite, was enough to rouse the couple from their lustful stupor. Sporting a look that was almost comical, they tucked themselves away and staggered from the alley to the wide street beyond. Pope barely had the energy to focus on his grisly assailant. It fell upon him, snarling and frothing in its frenzy. Its teeth ripped at his soft flesh, its claws shredding his clothes. It tore at him until he was just a heap of bloodied rags, its yelps and cries echoing off the high walls around them.

  A whistle pierced the air. The dog stopped at the signal, ears pricked in recognition, and ran panting to the alley’s end, blood foaming at its jaws. There it stopped, cowering at the feet of a hooded figure, its hand held out by way of a command.

  “Good boy,” the figure growled. “You good boy.”

  Taking a last look up Vinegar Yard to see that Pope was still, the silhouette bent to scratch the dog by the ears. “Let’s go back by the butchers. You’ve earned yourself a chop or two.”

  At the sound of another whistle, the dog turned from the alley and walked back into Catherine Street. As the denizens of Drury Lane went about their business both lawful and unlawful, the hooded figure melted into the crowd, its canine companion trotting obediently at its side.

  Bowman was trying hard to resist clearing his throat. The commissioner’s office sat at the very top of Scotland Yard. It was mostly given over to shelves of books and piles of paper heaped haphazardly on desks and bureaux around the room. Bowman knew that, even though this new Scotland Yard building had only been completed for some eighteen months, there were already concerns that space was running out. The previous commissioner, James Monro, had exp
ressed concerns in his annual report detailing the issues as he saw them. The Metropolitan Police Force, in short, was over-stretched. From the sum total of over fourteen thousand officers, many were engaged in station duties or on secondment to various government departments. Still more were employed at sites of national sensitivity such as docks or military stations. Yet others still were on leave or absent for reasons of health. And all this, Monro had complained, while crime in the metropolis was on the rise. Recent episodes of social unrest had been a drain on police resources. The commissioner was afraid it had been at the cost of solving crime. Little wonder, thought Bowman as he gazed around the room, there was so much paperwork to be seen.

  It had been a period of turmoil for the Force. Three commissioners had come and gone within the space of two years. The present incumbent of the office stood before the inspector now, a distinguished looking military man with the unfortunate distinction of having only one arm. In lieu of it, his sleeve was pinned to the breast of his frock coat in the manner of a badge of office. A haze of white hair framed his gentle features, a luxuriant moustache bristling at his upper lip.

  “We must present a professional face to the world, Inspector Bowman,” Sir Edward Bradford was opining from behind his desk. “It is only by the conducting of our duty from a position of respect that we can be truly effective.” His voice had a gentle timbre, in keeping with his generally benevolent nature.

  “Yes, sir,” Bowman swallowed.

  “We need stability,” the commissioner continued. “Now more than ever.” Turning to the window to gaze out over the London skyline, he smoothed his hair with his hand. “Our very livelihoods depend upon the existence of crime.”

  Bowman nodded, sagely. It had always struck him as a supreme irony that the very building in which they now sat had been faced with granite quarried by prisoners in the wilds of Dartmoor.