The Sin Eater(83)

There were a couple of earlier articles, which gave more details about the victims. Michael read them carefully. Four out of the five victims seemed to have had an appointment with the killer – an appointment they had written in their diaries, circling the dates elaborately in red. And the markings in each case resembled the outline of a chess piece.

A chess piece. Lights were exploding in Michael’s mind and he dropped the article and half fell down the stairs, snatching up the Filofax from the kitchen table. Yes, it was a chess piece Nell had drawn on today’s page, all right. But she had said she might get the single figure valued today if she had time, so probably the little silhouette was a kind of aide memoire. And the Mesmer Murders had been over a hundred years ago.

But there are times when logic flees, and something else drives the mind and dictates the actions. For Michael this was one of those times. He did not try to reason that those long-ago people and long-dead tragedies could not affect the present. He only knew that Nell was missing, that she had marked her diary in exactly the same way as those other murdered people, and that he had to find her as fast as possible.

The only clue he had was Canning Town, where four of the five victims had been found, near an old sewer outlet by the docks. Canning Town was where Romilly Rourke had had a room – Benedict had described how Declan and Colm had gone there to find her, but they had been too late because she had been dying from a botched abortion.

Michael went down the stairs at top speed, and out into the street to flag down a taxi.





TWENTY-FOUR


The afternoon was darkening when Michael reached Canning Town.

‘Bit off my regular beat,’ said the taxi driver when Michael asked for Bidder Lane or Clock Street. ‘We can ask when we get there, though.’

But there was no Bidder Lane to be found, at least not in this part of London, and no Clock Street.

‘You sure you got the address right?’ said the taxi driver.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Michael. ‘And I’ve never been to this part of London, either. They’re just two places I’ve been told about. Thanks for trying, though. I think I’ll be better on foot from here. I can ask local people if they know those streets, or go into a shop or a pub.’

The area, generally, was a piecemeal industrial estate, with pubs at intervals and scatterings of shops. There were gasworks and gasometers as well, and modern tower blocks jutting up into the skyline. And yet, here and there were glimpses of that older London – the London that Declan and Colm must have known. Michael could not see the river, but a dank wet smell hung everywhere, and he could hear the muffled hoots of barges. Surely Nell was not out here. But this was where that long-ago murderer had killed his victims, and Nell’s diary had been marked with the same curious symbol as those victims.

I’ve got to find her, thought Michael, still in the grip of the inexplicable compulsion.

Grey mist clung to the buildings, turning them into ghost outlines. Mist of any kind played tricks with your eyes, so that you began to imagine silent figures watching you from its depths. It played tricks with your hearing as well, creating curious resonances. Several times Michael thought he heard the clatter of wheels as if someone was pushing a barrow or a large cart along, and when he paused at the intersection of two streets music reached him – jangling piano music that seemed to have no relation to today’s thudding car stereos.

He had lost all sense of direction, but this appeared to be one of the older – and certainly poorer – parts of the area. There were no longer any industrial units or steel-fronted shops; instead was a street of small terraced houses with grimy facades. There was no traffic, but a few people were around, although when Michael tried to approach a woman to ask for directions she ducked her head away and scurried away from him. Two men, shabbily dressed and smelling of alcohol, came down the street, but they were walking so erratically and laughing so raucously that Michael gave them a wide berth.

A church clock, somewhere on his left, chimed three o’clock, although the mist was so thick it felt more like the middle of the night. There was a pub on the corner though, and light streamed from the windows. Probably it had been where the music had come from. He would go in and ask for directions to Bidder Lane.

As he neared the pub he saw a gap between the houses – a kind of natural alley that looked as if it led down to the quay. Michael hesitated, wondering whether to investigate and, as he did so, he saw darkly silhouetted against the river fog the shape of a man half carrying what looked like a female figure.

For the second time that day he did not stop to reason. He went after the figures at once. The man was too far away for him to see any details, except that he was wearing a long dark coat, but there was something familiar about the way the woman’s hair fell to one side. Was it Nell? Michael followed, trying to decide what to do, chary of putting Nell (if it was she) into danger. Ought he to call the police? But what if it was not Nell, and there was some perfectly innocent explanation?

Ahead was a flight of stone steps; in this light they looked slimy and coils of rope and scatterings of debris lay on them. The man went down these steps and Michael, following at a cautious distance, saw they led down to the quay.

The mist was thicker here, so much so that this was almost turning into the classic walk through fog, beloved of film makers and writers of horror. He and Nell would laugh about it later; they would conjure up old black and white films and gothic novels: Fu Manchu spreading his sinister spider webs through Limehouse; Dr Jekyll metamorphosing into Mr Hyde . . . Assorted murderers stalking the shadows . . . Assorted murderers. Including a real one who had mesmerized his victims into meeting him out here?