Diamonds & Dust Read online

  Diamonds & Dust

  A Victorian Murder Mystery

  Carol Hedges

  Little G Books

  Copyright © 2013 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 Martyn, Hannah and Archie

  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 is her first adult novel.

  The Victorian Detectives series

  Diamonds & Dust

  Honour & Obey

  Death & Dominion

  Rack & Ruin

  Wonders & Wickedness

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks Gina Dickerson of RoseWolf Design, for the superb cover. To the following people, who always encourage and support me: Terry, Shelley, the two Sues, Richard, Ros, Barb, Rosie, Val, Jo, Anne, Brenda and Sheila, my editors, not forgetting numerous friends on Twitter and Facebook ... many thanks.

  Most of all, I owe a debt that is un-payable to all those wonderful Victorian authors whose work I have shamelessly plundered, paraphrased and pastiched. Without them, this book would never have been written. I thank them, albeit posthumously.

  Diamonds & Dust

  A Victorian Murder Mystery

  “I behold London: a Human awful wonder of God.”

  Wm.Blake, Albion

  London, 1860. Dream world of pain and pleasure, of fantasy and phantom. It is midnight, a full moon and a cold mist rising up from the river. Mist ghosts the masts of the sloops and Russian brigs waiting to unload their cargo. Mist curls itself possessively around sooty chimneys and rooftops. Mist gently fingers its way into fetid courts and alleyways, and the crammed tenements where myriad Londoners toss and turn in troubled sleep.

  Not everyone is sleeping, though, in this vast city of many million souls. Strange shapes of men and women drift through the misty streets like ghostly apparitions. They gather outside dim gaslit haunts. Street corners are beset by night prowlers. The devil slips a diamond ring on his taloned finger, sticks a pin in his shirt front and steps out to take the air.

  Look more closely. A solitary man is crossing Westminster Bridge. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wears a top hat, and an overcoat with wide lapels and a velvet collar. It is buttoned up against the chill night air.

  The man walks with purpose, as if on his way to an important rendezvous. A gas lamp throws its shifting radiance upon the upper planes of his face. The lower part of his face is covered by a knitted scarf, protection from the stinking miasma that rises from the oozing mud.

  Footsteps approach from behind him. Someone else is also crossing the bridge, moving with incredible speed. Darkness clings to a misty outline, pools around feet that step from shadow into light and back into shadow. The figure stretches out a black-gloved hand. Touches the man upon the left shoulder.

  He turns. Freezes. Then cowers back, uttering a low cry of horror and covering his face with his arms. There is the sound of blows being struck, the ripping of flesh, the thud of something heavy hitting the ground. Then silence.

  Running steps re-cross the bridge and echo into the distance. The man remains, lying motionless in the gutter, blood pooling beneath his head. A gas lamp flickers momentarily overhead, and goes out.

  ****

  Morning arrives, bringing smoggy clouds that envelop the city like a grey shroud. In a house in St John's Wood, a young woman descends the stairs and enters the morning room. Her name is Josephine King. She is eighteen years old and stands upon the threshold of life. Her whole future lies before her. And so, currently, does her breakfast.

  Filling her plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, she carries it to the dining table, where she sits down and unfolds a starched white linen napkin. As if on cue, a prim white-aproned maid knocks and enters, carrying a shiny silver coffee pot. Steam curls fragrantly from its spout.

  “Coffee, miss?” she inquires.

  “Yes please, Annie.”

  Josephine King begins eating her breakfast with relish. Breakfast at the Bertha Helstone Institute for Orphaned Clergy Daughters had consisted of a bowl of porridge and a mug of watered-down milk. At the Bertha Helstone Institute for Orphaned Clergy Daughters, feeding the soul was considered far more important than feeding the body.

  In winter, the milk had lumps of ice floating in it. The porridge was frequently burnt, but they were still expected to eat it. Now she bites into thickly-buttered toast, and recalls the many times she had lain awake in the cold dark dormitory, shivering under her thin blanket, and dreaming about hot roast potatoes and white bread.

  She’d probably still be there, learning plain sewing and passages from the Bible in preparation for life as a governess, or a lady's companion, had it not been for Uncle Herbert King. Wonderful Uncle Herbert King, who had run away from England to seek his fortune, and having found it, had come back and rescued her.

  Josephine finishes her breakfast and returns to her room. She can still scarcely believe that she actually possesses a whole room of her own. It is furnished in the most delightful fashion. There is a writing-desk, a dressing-table with a looking-glass, and a bright chintz-covered sofa.

  The walls are painted soft dove–grey, and the floor is spread with Indian matting in maize colour and red. Patterned chintz curtains frame the windows, and on the walls, there are crayon sketches of exotic foreign scenes.

  She opens the top drawer of her writing-desk and takes out a faded leather- covered book. It is her childhood diary, given to her by Mrs Sams, the woman she met on board the coach taking her to the Bertha Helstone Institute for Orphaned Clergy Daughters.

  She recalls Mrs Sams saying to her that a diary was exactly like a best friend. Back then, she had badly needed a best friend. She had lost both her beloved missionary parents to Indian cholera. Barely understanding the implications of what had happened, and only seven years old, she’d been thrust, alone and bewildered, into a world that did not know what to do with her. And did not very much care.

  Turning to the first page, she reads the familiar words:

  Arrived at my new school.

  So few words for such a momentous event that began with a slow, backside-numbing journey that seemed to go on forever, night and day blurring into one, until the coach ceased to rattle over stony town streets, entering instead a strange landscape of great black hills heaving up to the horizon, with dark woods and deep valleys.

  Once more, as if in a waking dream, she hears the wild wind rushing among the trees, sees herself set down from the carriage, her little tin trunk at her feet. She is utterly alone, standing in front of the iron gates of the austere grey building that housed the Bertha Helstone Institute for Orphaned Clergy Daughters.

  She turns the page.

  I HATE THIS PLACE

  is scrawled in big
capital letters.

  Followed by:

  Ran away. Had to learn chapter of Leviticus by HART as punishment.

  Ah yes. The punishments. They were very good at punishments at the Bertha Helstone Institute, she remembers. Learning passages of scripture was a favourite, closely followed by being slapped or beaten with a birch-twig rod.

  When she was older, the favoured method of punishment was the application of the backboard – a complicated wooden contraption with leather straps. Wearing it felt like being pressed between two tables.

  Over the years she was incarcerated, Josephine spent so much time strapped into a backboard that it has left her with a way of standing very upright, with her chin sticking out and a thousand-yards stare, so that when she first arrived at her uncle’s house, she had overheard Annie the parlour maid referring to her as a ‘hoity-toity, arrogant young miss’.

  She has contemplated throwing the diary away, but she won't, because it is a witness of important things that she needs to remember. She reads on for a while, then replaces it in the desk drawer. Later this morning she will meet her uncle at his office for a discussion about her future. She has already decided that the words governess and lady’s companion are not going to be part of that discussion.

  Josephine King sits back and thinks about her wonderful future. The house is very quiet. The only noise is that of the rooks in the trees outside her window. Suddenly the peace is shattered by the urgent ringing of the front doorbell. It goes on sounding throughout the house, as if made by some desperate hand. There is a pause. Then footsteps hurry up the stairs and Annie the maid knocks on her door.

  “You must come down at once, miss,” she says, her eyes wide. “There are two men from the detective police in the drawing room.”

  Josephine descends the stairs and enters the drawing room. The two men from the detective police are standing in front of the fireplace. One is middle-aged, with a greying moustache and pouchy, unslept eyes. The other, who is slightly younger, is clean-shaven but for a pair of side-whiskers.

  Both are staring silently at the hearthrug. They look up as she enters, and exchange a quick, significant glance. She feels her breath catch in her throat. Something bright blooms in her chest.

  “You are Miss Josephine King?” the older man asks.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I am Detective Inspector Leo Stride from Scotland Yard. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Jack Cully.”

  He gestures towards the sofa.

  “Perhaps you would like to sit down, Miss King?”

  Every fibre of her being is shrieking out that this man is not bringing glad tidings. She clasps her hands behind her back, and draws herself very upright.

  “I think I will remain standing, if you don’t mind.”

  “Very well.”

  The Detective Inspector draws a small notebook from his coat pocket.

  “I regret I am the bearer of bad news, Miss King,” he says.

  She digs her nails hard into the palms of her hands. It is a trick she taught herself while at the Bertha Helstone Institute. You concentrate upon the pain, thus blotting out everything else.

  The Detective Inspector opens the notebook and reads:

  “In the early hours of this morning, one of my night-officers discovered a male person lying in the gutter upon Westminster Bridge. Thinking at first that he was under the influence of strong drink, my officer attempted to revive him.

  “When he received no response, he proceeded to make a closer examination, and discovered that the man had suffered a brutal attack, which sadly had proved fatal. That man, I have to inform you, was Mr Herbert King.”

  Josephine knows she is listening, but the words aren’t making any sense. Then a spark ignites in her brain.

  “I think there must be a mistake, detective inspector. My uncle left for work early this morning, so the poor unfortunate man on the bridge couldn’t possibly be him.”

  He bats the suggestion away.

  “I have had a brief word with the staff. Your cook never saw Mr King leave the house. The maid says that she recalls him leaving the house last night, but she did not hear him return, and his bed has not been slept in all night.”

  “But she might have been mistaken. He could have got up very early,” she presses on, clutching at the suggestions as a drowning man might grasp a passing branch. “And then maybe he …”

  “Miss King,” Detective Inspector Stride cuts in firmly, “the man on the bridge was wearing an expensive suit from Moses and Son of Holborn. Also, a navy woollen overcoat. I visited the shop this morning, and Mr Moses confirmed that both items were ordered several months ago by Mr King, and delivered to this address last Thursday. He described his client as a tall man with broad shoulders. Mr Moses also furnished us with the measurements he took from your uncle before making the suit. The measurements tallied exactly with those of the man found on the bridge. I am sorry, but there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind as to his identity.”

  She feels the air around her beginning to freeze. Small ornaments upon the mantelpiece suddenly take on a strange intensity.

  “Why would anybody want to kill my uncle?”

  “It's too early to determine, although we are not discounting the possibility that robbery may have played a part in the initial motive. Did your uncle possess anything of value that he might have had about his person?”

  “He had a gold watch, and a gold signet ring.”

  The detective inspector makes a note.

  “Ah. Then it is as I suspected: the motive was robbery. There was nothing of value found upon the body. His wallet was also taken. He must have been picked clean by his attackers after he’d been struck down.”

  Words swim in her brain like fish under thick ice. She struggles to bring them to the surface.

  “Where is my uncle now?”

  “My officers have taken his body to the nearest police mortuary.”

  “I should like to see him.”

  Detective Inspector Stride shakes his head.

  “I would not advise it. Your uncle was the victim of a violent attack, Miss King. There are aspects of his death that you may, as a young woman, find shocking.”

  Briefly, she resurrects a mental picture of searing white heat, and a filth-encrusted bed upon which lies a gasping, terrifyingly blue-faced couple, barely recognisable as her beloved mother and father. They have cholera and are dying. She is seven years old. She reminds herself that death holds no shocks for her any more.

  “Nevertheless, I wish to see him.”

  He sighs resignedly.

  “Very well then. If you will permit us, we shall accompany you.”

  Outside, a dun-coloured veil hangs over the housetops, looking like a reflection of the mud-coloured streets below. Josephine is ushered into a waiting four-wheeler, and borne swiftly away.

  The police mortuary is a windowless white-tiled room in a basement. There are medical instruments laid out upon a counter. The air smells cold and unhappy. On a wooden table is something covered in a dark cloth.

  Josephine takes deep breaths to steady herself for the ordeal ahead. Overlap is the last thing she needs. No spilling of memory from one death to another.

  The police surgeon removes the cloth.

  For a split second, she is confused. The dead body lying upon the table has a shock of snow-white hair. Its head lies at an awkward angle, the throat a gaping grin of torn flesh. This is not Uncle Herbert, cannot be Uncle Herbert. Uncle Herbert has red hair, the same colour as her own. Clearly, this man is someone else. A terrible mistake has been made.

  Then she recognises the navy woollen topcoat, trousers and high-collared shirt. It is indeed her uncle’s body, but terribly altered. His hands are tightly clenched, as if his death struggle has been intense and agonising. His mouth gapes, his eyes are fixed and staring, his rigid face bears an expression of intense horror.

  The police surgeon steps forward.

  “There is evidence of
strangulation,” he says in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “The neck has been broken, and here, at the side of the skull, the bone has been driven in. There has been an attempt to tear out the throat. However, I do not think that these injuries, horrific and violent as they are, were what caused this man’s death.”

  He pauses.

  “What killed him was something else. Something so unusual that I don't think I have ever seen anything like it before.”

  He turns to face her.

  “Miss King, it is my belief, from a preliminary examination of his body, that your uncle, Mr Herbert King was killed by fear. The sort of fear that can make a heart suddenly stop beating. In my opinion, he was frightened to death.”

  ****

  Some time later, a cab rattles its way through the London streets. The lamps have been lit, giving out misty splotches of glimmering light. The yellow glare from shop windows streams into the steamy, vaporous air, throwing a shifting radiance upon the slimy pavements.

  Josephine sits in the rear of the cab, trying to stare a hole through the floor. She feels like a stranger in her own life. Faces pass by in an eerie and ghostlike procession, unaware that just a short distance away, someone’s world has been overturned. Memories come flooding back.

  She recalls the first time she met Uncle Herbert. She’d been sitting at the back of the sewing class, hemming sheets – she seemed to be always hemming sheets in those days – when the door had opened to admit a small, scared maid who had scuttled across the room and whispered something in the ear of Miss Daemon, the sewing teacher. Whereupon Miss Daemon had raised her eyes and stared hard through her pince-nez, before saying in a sepulchral tone: