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  Honour & Obey

  A Victorian Crime Thriller

  Carol Hedges

  Little G Books

  Copyright © 2015 by Carol Hedges

  Cover Artwork and Design by RoseWolf Design

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  This edition by Little G Books (July 2017)

  For Avalyn Grace

  About the Author

  Carol Hedges is the successful British author of 16 books for teenagers and adults. Her writing has received much critical acclaim, and her novel Jigsaw was shortlisted for the Angus Book Award and longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

  Carol was born in Hertfordshire, and after university, where she gained a BA (Hons.) in English Literature & Archaeology, she trained as a children’s librarian. She worked for the London Borough of Camden for many years subsequently re-training as a secondary school teacher when her daughter was born.

  Carol still lives and writes in Hertfordshire. She is a local activist and green campaigner, and the proud owner of a customised 1988 pink 2CV.

  Diamonds & Dust was her first adult novel. Honour & Obey is the sequel.

  The Victorian Detectives series

  Diamonds & Dust

  Honour & Obey

  Death & Dominion

  Rack & Ruin

  Wonders & Wickedness

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks Gina Dickerson, of RoseWolf Design for another superb cover, and to my two patient editors.

  My biggest thanks however, go to my readers. There was never going to be a second book but the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Diamonds & Dust and the incessant requests for a sequel could not be ignored. This is the result and the author can only hope it lives up to your expectations!

  In particular I should like to single out the following: Lynn (3), Michael, Jon, Peter, Terry, Val, Ros, Anne and Ali and so many others too numerous to mention. This book would not have been written without your encouragement.

  Finally, I acknowledge my debt to all those amazing Victorian novelists for lighting the path through the fog with their genius. Unworthily, but optimistically, I follow in their footsteps.

  Honour & Obey

  A Victorian Crime Thriller

  “In the beginning was the deed.”

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  London, 1861. An evening in early spring, and it is raining. But this is not the sweet spring rain beloved of romantic writers. This is rain on a mission. Relentless rain that falls with a steady patience as if it has got all night. Rain with the volume turned up.

  Rain corrugates windows. Rain drums off roof tiles, the water falling in torrents from leaky gutters. Rain whips the surface of the muck-encrusted streets into thick brown soup. Rain coats ancient brick buildings in a slimy sheen of wet. Rain glugs and gurgles into drains and culverts.

  Stand awhile in the shelter of this doorway and listen. The noise of the pelting rain is almost drowned out by the great cacophonous cauldron of sound swirling around you. Horse-drawn omnibuses clip and clop, and slide on their steel wheels. Arguments break out amongst the shapeless huddled crowds hurrying to and fro. At the corner, a ragged soaked drunk raises his voice in discordant song. Church bells ring the quarter-hour in disunited chimes. A dog howls. It is an evening not to venture abroad, you might think. But you would be wrong.

  In the building opposite, a door suddenly opens and a young woman appears. The building is old, brick-banded, and run-down in appearance. The paint is peeling and several of the lower windowpanes are cracked, and streaky with rain. It bears the hallmarks of a lodging house, where rooms can be rented cheaply and the landlord lives elsewhere.

  The young woman wears a neat but shabby dress, a shawl and an uninteresting bonnet. She carries a wrapped bundle under one arm. Her complexion is pale and pinched, bespeaking a lack of regular nourishing meals. She glances up at the sky, grimaces, then sets off determinedly. Her name is Violet Manning and she is a dressmaker.

  You will meet her again, very soon. But not as you see her now.

  And the rain keeps on falling. It falls upon a semi-detached villa on the outskirts of New Camden Town. The villa is owned by Mrs Lucinda Witchard, widow of the late Nathaniel Whitchard, owner of a piano factory. In its time. the house has known the laughter of children, the bustle of family life. Now it is a boarding house for professional gentlemen, overseen by Mrs Witchard (widow), who has a false front of black curls, a false set of yellow teeth and a false smile.

  At Mrs Witchard’s, for a moderate outlay of cash, the professional gentleman can avail himself of a bed, use of ablution facilities and privy, together with breakfast and an evening meal. Mrs Witchard’s cooking is in a class of its own. Her cabbage is always boiled for exactly one hour. She makes pastry you could tile roofs with, and her gravy possesses a thick, glutinous quality rarely seen outwith the river embankment at low tide.

  Mrs Witchard’s lodgers have just finished their evening meal of scrag-end of unidentified animal served with soggy potatoes. Now she is busy clearing away the plates, helped by the undersized maid of all work.

  “Knives and forks in the basket, girl,” she snaps. “Then scrape them plates into the pig bucket.”

  The maid comes from the local Foundling Hospital. She has a name, but Mrs Witchard prefers to call her “girl.” It saves time. She drops the cutlery into the basket and eyes the plates hungrily. Several of the lodgers have left unappetising scraps of food.

  “Hurry up, girl,” Mrs Witchard commands. “I ’aven’t got all day.”

  The Foundling scrapes the plates into the rusty iron bucket. Her stomach rumbles. Footsteps sound in the hallway. Mrs Witchard darts to the door. One of the lodgers, the new young man who only arrived recently, has just descended the stairs and is heading for the front door.

  “Going out, are you, Mr Err ...?”

  Mr Err is indeed going out. He has on a long dark overcoat and his hat is pulled low over his face. He makes no reply, merely opens the front door and disappears into the pouring rain.

  “Manners!” mutters Mrs Witchard.

  She goes back to clearing the plates, and persecuting the Foundling.

  Evening lengthens. Lamplighters begin their rounds. Shop windows are also lit, displaying their rich contents to the rain-soaked passers-by. The magic light of a million gas-lamps draw the flâneurs – both men and women – like moths to its flickering flame. For there are particular pleasures to be had at night, when the streets become a glittering gallery of images and goods.

  Sometime later Mrs Witchard’s lodger will return, will let himself in with his key and will quietly climb the stairs to his room. Sometime later the brightly lit shops will shutter-up, and the streets will empty out. Sometime later, Violet Manning will be brutally murdered, and her body will be dumped in an alleyway.

  ****

  The early morning fog is thick as heavy velvet curtains as Detective Sergeant Jack Cully, accompanied by two police officers, hurries across London. He is heading towards the elegant shopping area of Regent Street – or, more specifically, one of the many slum alleys behind Regent Street – where an ‘incident’ has been reported.

  The detective division of the Metropolitan Police was formed in June 1842. Based in Great Scotland Yard, it was created to investigate and co-ordinate murder hunts, and other serious crimes that cross the city boundaries. Vilified by the press, and implicitly distrusted by members of the public, the division has nevertheless built up an exemplary record in solving crimes and catching criminals.
What Jack Cully is about to encounter, however, is going to challenge even the finest deductive abilities of this elite force.

  Cully reaches his destination and pushes through the inevitable crowd of nosy onlookers who always materialise magically out of nowhere whenever there is anything grisly to gawp at. Guarding the entrance to a narrow, piss-stinking alleyway is a police constable, arms folded, a grim set to his mouth. He eyes Cully and the two accompanying officers, recognising them as members of the detective division.

  “The body’s just back there, sir,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder.

  Cully steps past him into the alleyway.

  The young woman is sprawled against a brick wall. Her dress has been partly pulled up, revealing the milky blue-white skin of her calves and a pair of battered boots. Her throat has been slashed with a long, razor-like cut from one side of her neck to the other, and her head has been beaten in with some heavy object. Brain tissue has oozed out, matting her fair hair in thick clots. Feeling suddenly un-tethered from reality, Cully stares down at the bloodied skull, squashed and bruised like overripe red fruit, and feels the bile rising in his throat.

  One of the accompanying officers is sick.

  “Meaningless violence,” the other murmurs, shaking his head in disbelief.

  But, Cully thinks grimly, there is no such thing as meaningless violence. All violence has meaning – for the perpetrator, if no one else. He gets out his notebook and begins to go through the meticulous police rituals that always accompany the discovery of a person found dead.

  First of all, he notes down the relation of the body to the surrounding objects (in this case a bonnet and a parcel). Then he notes the position and attitude of the body, after which he makes further notes concerning the place where the body has been found and the surface upon which the body is lying. Finally, he writes a detailed description of the woman’s clothes.

  Having thus completed his preliminary investigation, Cully closes his notebook and steps up to the constable guarding the crime scene.

  “Has she been ...?”

  The constable shrugs.

  “She doesn’t look like a ...”

  The constable shakes his head.

  “Dressmaker,” he says laconically.

  “Aren’t they all?”

  Cully has lost count of the number of whores he has arrested who’ve given their stated profession as dressmaker.

  “This one actually was.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Callouses on her thumb and sides of the first two fingers, sir. Dead give-away.”

  Cully winces at the ironically apposite phrase.

  “And there’s a bundle of sewn shirt sleeves and collars.”

  Cully writes this down.

  “Have you arranged for ...”

  The constable nods. “Should be here any second, sir.”

  “The finder?”

  “At the Marylebone police station. Giving a statement.”

  Cully makes a further note. He checks his watch, and writes some more. Then he studies the surrounding area carefully, before he returns to the young woman’s mangled corpse once again. He spends some time staring down at it. Finally, he glares at the crowd milling at the entrance to the alleyway, their faces alight, their eyes agape.

  “For God’s sake cover her face, man,” he hisses to one of his constables, as he thrusts the notebook back into his coat pocket and prepares to head back to Scotland Yard.

  ****

  Sisters Lobelia and Hyacinth Clout wake in their Islington town house. Ears straining, they lie on their backs in their respective bedrooms at the top of the house, like two carved stone effigies on two tombs.

  Silence.

  Absolute silence.

  No imperious little bell summons one of them to the close, stuffy bedroom with its drawn curtains and dim light where Mama lies, dying (as she has lived) with contempt and loathing for the world in general.

  For Mama is dead.

  Only in dreams do they once more view the massive, saggy, bedridden body heaving itself upright, once more see the expression of disapproval, once more hear the rasping voice that could, with just a couple of words, instantly cut the ground from under them, reduce them once again to snivelling, cringing children.

  For Mama is dead.

  Only in nightmares do they find themselves stumbling along endless corridors, spilling barley-water, tripping over Turkey carpets, rushing, rushing, but never quite reaching the door to the sickroom where she, the invalid, waits impatiently for them.

  No longer.

  For Mama is dead.

  And with her has died all the guilt, and the shame, and the constant reminders of that bright summer day, so long, long ago, when three children went out to play, but only two returned home.

  ****

  Detective Inspector Leo Stride has returned from a few days’ unwelcome holiday spent in the dark dour northern house of his wife’s family. Now he sits in his office, staring with disbelief at his desk, which was empty when he left, but is now completely swamped in paperwork.

  Stride feels his heart sink. So much paperwork to read. So much paperwork to ignore. So much paperwork to pretend he hasn’t received, so he won’t have to do anything about it. A knock at the door heralds a temporary relief. Jack Cully enters, his expression sober. Stride glances up.

  “Trouble?”

  Cully nods.

  “A murder.”

  Stride rolls his eyes.

  “Man or woman?”

  Cully grimaces, recalling the poor bashed-in head and the helplessly sprawled body.

  “Young woman.”

  “Where?”

  “Alleyway off Carnaby Street. She was a dressmaker.”

  “Ah. One of them.”

  “No – this one really was a dressmaker. She had a bag of shirt collars and cuffs. It looks as if she was on her way to deliver them. I thought I might go around a few of the big stores in Regent Street. Could be someone’s missing their order and might know who she is.”

  Stride nods.

  “Good idea. I’d like to come with you but ...” he gestures despairingly at the overflowing desk.

  “That’s quite alright, I understand. The chances are I won’t discover anything, but I thought it was worth a try.” Cully glances down at Stride’s desk but tactfully forbears to comment.

  “Anything is worth a try at this stage,” Stride agrees.

  He picks up a folder from the top of the pile, and gloomily flicks it open with a sigh.

  ****

  The rain has faded from the streets like a bad memory as Cully leaves Scotland Yard. He whistles up a cab and gives the driver his destination. All the way there, Cully tries to see the pattern. To understand the question that precedes how: Why?

  By the time Cully arrives at the opulent shopping paradise that is Regent Street, the sun is glittering off shop fronts and bouncing off the plate-glass windows. He prepares to work his way from store to store. It is a long street and there are many stores, so it looks as if he is going to have to work like a dog. But fate unexpectedly throws him a bone in the form of Marshall & Snellgrove, the fourth shop he comes to.

  Entering the shiny atrium, Cully approaches one of the counters, explains his mission to an assistant who, after a whispered consultation with another assistant higher up the retail food chain, instructs him to ‘wait there while Mrs Crevice is sent for.’

  Cully waits. While he waits, he watches the customers. There is something about the expressions on their faces – a snatching quality to their eyes. Cully has never got the hang of this new phenomenon called shopping, and the past few hours has reinforced his opinion.

  He can think of nothing he’d like to do less than stroll around a big department store staring at things he does not need. Buying necessities like food or drink is one thing. Gawping at luxuries is another bucket of fish altogether.

  Eventually the floor manager reappears, followed by a thin, angular, middle-a
ged woman dressed in high-necked shop black. Her face wears a sourly disapproving expression.

  “This is Mrs Crevice. She is the superintendent in charge of the sewing-room staff,” he tells Cully.

  Mrs Crevice’s thin lips pleat in on themselves. Her eyes, black pinpricks in an angular, pointy-chinned face, measure him up silently.

  Cully clears his throat and repeats the sad tale of the previous night. Mrs Crevice hears him out in snooty silence. Then she asks snippily,

  “How many collars and cuffs?”

  “Two dozen.”

  “Sewn or unsewn?”

  “I believe they are sewn.”

  “Violet Manning,” Mrs Crevice says.

  Her mouth scissors itself closed.

  Cully stares at her.

  “A piece-worker. Recently taken on. They were supposed to be delivered last night. Where are they now?”

  “On their way to Scotland Yard with the body of the young woman.”

  Mrs Crevice’s sharp nose quivers.

  “I should like them returned as soon as possible, please. They are the property of this store. It is the start of the Season, and there are orders to be fulfilled.”

  Once again, Cully marvels at the inhumanity of his fellow man. Or in this case, woman. Not a flicker of pity or concern for the poor murdered girl has crossed the hard-faced woman’s features.

  “I will arrange it,” he says. “Meanwhile I should like to speak to your dressmakers, if I may. Perhaps one of them might be able to give me some more information about the young woman, as she was in your employ.”

  Mrs Crevice considers his request.

  “You will have to be brief. They have a lot of work to do.”