Corpse & Crown Read online

  Twist shrugged. “If the goods are fresh enough, they’ll buy them piecemeal.”

  Dodger didn’t bother to hide his disgust. “Christ, what happened to you? She was Nancy’s friend. You remember friendship, don’t you?”

  Twist looked stung, then gave a bitter smile. “Better than you, I expect.”

  Twist and Dodger had been best mates, back when they were kids. Looking at Twist now, with lank, greasy strands of hair falling over his hollowed-out face, Dodger could barely recognize him. Yet a few years ago, Twist had been fair-haired and fine-featured, with a look of stoic melancholy that made passersby open their hearts and their purses. They had made quite the team, back in the day. While Twist stood on a street corner, looking like a forlorn angel and speaking to punters in a perfect imitation of a posh accent, Dodger would pick their pockets. Then puberty arrived, reshuffling the deck and changing the game. Dodger gained a little muscle but continued to look much as he had always done. Oliver, on the other hand, was transformed from appealing orphan to sullen, gangling, pimple-faced gawk.

  When his abandoned orphan story no longer elicited any sympathy, Twist began to suffer from a host of imaginary ailments. One week, he was medicating a dry cough with Bayer’s heroin syrup. Next time you saw him, he was drinking so much Stickney and Poor’s paregoric that he saw ghosts in every doorway. Twist was at his most dangerous, though, when he was on Maltine’s coca lozenges. You never knew what Twist was liable to do when he’d been sucking lozenges. He started believing his own stories—his mother had been a gentleman’s daughter, every friend he’d ever known had either tricked him or abused him. Sometimes Dodger was the exception, but other times he was the worst betrayer of all.

  Dodger wondered what nostrums Twist was taking today.

  “Tell you what,” said Twist. “How about I give you a cut? Seeing as how you and Lettie were friends and all.” He gave the word friend a sarcastic emphasis.

  Nancy made a disgusted face. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you have any morals at all?”

  “You’re one to talk,” said Twist. “I’d rather get my hands dirty on the dead then let the living touch me however they please.”

  Nancy spat on the ground. “Who d’you think you’re fooling? Everyone knows you’ll do anything for anyone when the need is on you.”

  For a moment, Dodger feared she had gone too far. A muscle twitched on the side of Twist’s jaw, and Dodger tensed, ready to jump in if he needed to, but not wanting to move too soon and provoke an attack.

  To his relief, Twist just gave a brittle laugh. “Have it your way, Nance. But one day, you’re going to change your mind. Some punter’s going to be pawing at you in the back of the pub, and you’ll say, ‘Know what? Twist had the right idea, after all.’” He tipped his hat to her. “When you come to your senses, I won’t even ask for an apology. We are old friends, after all. And old friends have to look out for one another.”

  She flipped him the bird as Twist moved down the path away from them, out of sight.

  “Nance? You all right?”

  She didn’t turn around. “Yeah, course I am. It’s just—He’s going to come back here, isn’t he? The moment we’re gone, he’ll dig Lettie up and sell her for parts. And even if he don’t—someone else will.” Her shoulders began to shake.

  Dodger hesitated a moment, then, very slowly, reached out and put his arms around her, holding her loosely so she could break away if this wasn’t what she wanted. She put her head down on his shoulder, and he tried not to think about how she was letting him hold her, because that was wrong and selfish and he ought not be savoring this.

  Then he looked up and saw that he and Nancy were no longer alone. “Hello, Bill,” he said, as Nancy wrenched herself out of his arms.

  Bill heaved the heavy sack off his shoulders and onto the ground, his pale blue eyes flicking back and forth between them. “What’s all this, then?”

  Dodger stiffened. Bill’s voice was quiet, his expression neutral, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t erupt into violence. Whether or not Bill wanted her for himself, he was not fond of others messing with Nancy. Bullseye, Bill’s dog, gave a low whine and thumped her tail twice on the ground.

  “Don’t fret your eyelids,” said Dodger as Nancy stepped away from him. “Nancy was just feeling a bit low about her friend there.” He indicated the grave.

  “Twist was here,” added Nancy. “After some fresh bodies to dig up. He was going to pull poor Lettie out of the ground and sell her to them witch doctors.” Her face crumpled.

  Bill hesitated, then opened his arms to her. She collapsed against him, and his eyes met Dodger’s over her back for a moment. Dodger turned away, trying to hide his disapproval. Nancy and Bill’s on-again, off-again romance was as predictable as sunrise. They would be all over each other tonight, and Nancy would be walking on air for the next day. Then, by the end of the week, she would crash down again when she realized that nothing had really changed between her and Bill.

  Dodger grabbed his handkerchief full of mushrooms and slipped out the cemetery gate. He could hand over the day’s takings and get his cut another time. He knew what it was like to lose a friend—and to know that it could just as easily have been you. They might never know what had killed Lettie—an infection, an accident, a violent customer. It didn’t really matter. Life was dangerous in the East End.

  Let Nancy find whatever comfort she could in Bill’s embrace. Dodger would head over to the crowds at Covent Garden and take some foolish risks until he felt like himself again.

  5

  Pulling open the door to the laundry, Aggie was blasted by a gust of humid air and hot linen. A young woman with a shiny red burn mark on her cheek was stirring a steaming vat of sheets. “Come to see Jenny?”

  Aggie and the young laundress had become friendly over the past few weeks. After nearly a month of listening to middle class girls complaining about how exhausted they were from making a few beds, it was a relief to spend a few minutes with a girl who hadn’t grown up with a maid and a cook.

  “I’d love to see Jen,” Aggie said now, “but the truth is, I’ve been told off for wearing a stained apron.”

  Clara wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. “There’s none ready, but I can iron you a fresh pinny when I’m done here. Jenny’s out back, if you want to see her.”

  “I’ll be in your debt.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” said Clara as Aggie walked toward the back of the room.

  A middle-aged woman with frizzy hair cursed as she attempted to feed the clean, wet cottons and linens through a mangle. “Hold up with the crank, Irma, something’s caught and it’s going to rip!” There were so many ways for a working woman to get burned and bruised and broken in the course of a day. Whenever some man started talking about how women were the weaker sex, Aggie thought about all the women she knew who worked in factories until the moment they went into labor.

  Letting herself out the back door, Aggie paused, grateful for the rush of cool air. The sky was gray and overcast, threatening rain, and a very slender young woman was reeling in the laundry line, plucking clothespins out of sheets and uniforms and dumping them into a basket.

  Aggie watched, feeling a bit guilty. Back home, she had dreaded Mondays because of the washing. No torture in hell could be as bad as having to do laundry, day in and day out. “Hello, Jenny. How are you?”

  The young laundress turned. Small and thin, Jenny had dark shadows under her eyes and looked far too young and delicate to be doing a grown woman’s work. “Keeping out of trouble, more or less. How ’bout you? Anyone get the vapors after changing a bedpan?”

  “Not today.”

  Jen shook her head. “It might be worth coming down with some ailment, just to have some society girl carry out my waste water.” Jenny mimed carrying a full chamber pot as far from her nose as was possible, and
Aggie laughed.

  “You think you’re joking, but that’s how some of them do it.”

  Jen plucked off two more clothespins and pulled a pillowcase from the line. “Suppose we have to admire them rich girls, actually trying to do something useful. Say, Ags...that herbal tea you brewed up for me last month. You haven’t got any more you could make up for us?”

  Aggie’s stomach sank, but she kept her expression and voice as neutral as she could. If she sounded too sympathetic, Jenny would just see it as pity. “Sorry, Jenny, I don’t. But if it was going to bring on your courses, it would’ve worked by now.”

  Jenny nodded, but Aggie was pretty sure she hadn’t really heard her. Even though there was nothing she could do or say, Aggie felt as though she were abandoning the other girl.

  It’s not my fault, she reminded herself. Jenny was too far along for pennyroyal—or lurk-in-the-ditch, as they called it back home. The herb tasted like spearmint’s poison sister and could keep insects away from your kitchen. A tiny amount could bring on your courses and give you the chance to go to London even after you’d done a really stupid thing with a boy because he made you feel good and you’d let yourself forget how dangerous pleasure could be.

  Aggie had learned her lesson after losing her good sense in Byram’s arms last semester. Never again would she let some boy get close enough to make her lose all common sense.

  Jenny took a sheet down from the clothesline. “There’s a doctor what says he can help me, only he charges an arm and a leg.” She gave a wan imitation of a smile. “I suppose I shouldn’t say that, seeing as how some doctors ’round here would want to be paid in arms and legs.”

  Aggie took one end of the sheet and helped Jenny fold it. “Is this a real doctor? Because a lot of them just say they are.”

  Jenny shrugged. “How would I know? He wears a white coat. Anyways, it’s just a thought.” She pulled a clothespin off a pillowcase and slipped it into the cloth bag tucked into her apron.

  “Don’t put your trust in white coats.”

  “Maybe you’re right. One of the other girls says all I need to do is drink a few tablespoons of turpentine.”

  Aggie shook her head. “That might work. It might also kill you.” She thought of the woman in the receiving room, quietly bleeding while her children raced around her.

  “It might be worth it. My dad’s gone, so everyone’s depending on me. What are we supposed to do with a baby?” Jenny reached for another clothespin. “Never mind. Not your problem.”

  A drop of rain fell on Aggie’s forehead, quickly followed by another. It wasn’t her problem, but it could have been. Most of the other probationer nurses hadn’t even kissed a boy, and none of them had allowed someone to put his hands all over them. They had never counted down the days till their monthly with trepidation.

  “I’m sorry, Jenny.”

  “Yeah, we’re all sorry.” Jenny folded the pillowcase and placed it on the top of the pile of clean laundry in the basket. “Come on, grab a handle and let’s get inside before it rains.”

  * * *

  It was after nine when Aggie fetched her cape from the nurses’ changing room and walked out into the gray London evening. The other probationer nurses had already left, but she had stayed late to spend a few minutes visiting Justine Makepiece’s room. Aggie considered Justine a friend rather than a patient, and if she hadn’t been so tired, she would have remained longer. As it happened, Aggie didn’t make it two steps down the corridor when she was roped into helping the ward nurses bathe a recalcitrant patient. The patient, a stout dockworker, had arrived in a state of acute inebriation. Soused as a herring, he refused to be bathed and prepped for surgery on his gangrenous left leg.

  “Heartless drabs,” he shouted, insisting that the nurses were attempting to rob him of his clothes. Aggie, who was used to dealing with unruly drunks, had managed to persuade the fellow that he was actually in a very nice fancy house and that a bath was required before any other services could be procured. By the time he was clean, he had sobered up enough to remember that he was going to have to choose between his leg and his life. Miserable and contrite, he had settled down for the night with profuse apologies to Aggie and the other nurses, and she had left without letting him know that she had sore ribs from hauling him in and out of the tub.

  Tying her bonnet around her chin, she thanked the night porter as he unlocked the hospital gates to let her out.

  “You be careful out there,” said the man, who had wire-rimmed glasses, a walrus moustache and wore his navy-and-red uniform as though he were a high-ranking officer. “Not the best time for a nice girl to be out walking unescorted.”

  “I’ll be all right,” she assured him. “It’s not far, and I’m not exactly defenseless.” She pointed to the umbrella she carried. “In the right hands, this can be a deadly weapon.” She also had a scalpel in her pocket, but didn’t feel the need to mention that.

  “If you say so, miss. But bad things happen ’round here. They say the cobblestones like their portion of blood on the regular.”

  She laughed. “They’ll have to look elsewhere, then. I grew up in the north on tales of boggarts and redcaps and Lob Lie-by-the-fire, and old wives’ tales don’t bother me.”

  “There’s other sorts of bloodthirsty wights that roam these streets. If you’d care to wait a bit, I would be only too happy to escort you home.”

  I just bet you would, you dirty old man. “Thank you,” she said, “but I need to be getting back before I collapse.”

  “As you like.” There was a rattle and clank as the porter locked the gate behind her and she set off, careful not to slip on the rain-slick cobblestones. From the outside, the Royal Victoria was a blunt, blocky, three-story building built like a fortress by a robber baron in the previous century. Supposedly, the knight had been some sort of bluebeard, disposing of wives when they became inconvenient and sealing their bones into various spare rooms. But then, the East End was filled with bloodcurdling stories. If all of them were true, there would hardly be a person left alive below Whitechapel Road.

  There was a creak of hinges, and Aggie turned to see a side door opening onto an alley filled with rubbish. A white-coated figure stepped out, and Aggie caught a glimpse of a familiar pale face with protruding eyes and a receding ginger hairline. Henry Clerval. She knew the moment he spotted her, because he instantly ducked back inside.

  What was Henry Clerval doing here? Whatever it was, he clearly didn’t care for witnesses observing his comings and goings. Shivering in the light mist, Aggie drew her cloak more closely around her as she rounded the corner onto Philpott Street. The scuffling sound of footsteps behind her made her stomach clench, and she glanced nervously over her shoulder: two fog-shrouded figures were following her.

  “Hey, Aggie! Wait up!”

  A moment later, Nicholas Byram and William Frankenstein were standing beside her. Illuminated by the wavering yellow glow of a streetlamp, Aggie’s erstwhile beau and Victor’s younger brother looked like an allegorical painting: darkly handsome demon flanked by fair-haired, boyish angel. Pity I always fall for the devils. Waiting until they caught up, she said, “You two are out late.”

  “Some idiot plucked out his stitches,” said Byram. “Said they were itching.” By unspoken agreement, they all resumed walking at the same time, moving carefully over the patches where no gaslight illuminated the slick, uneven paving stones.

  “Why did you have to stay?” She directed the question to Will, but Byram replied.

  “According to Professor Grimbald, it was all our fault for not thinking to put a salve on the wound to reduce the itching.”

  “But it turned out for the best,” said Will. “The porter told us that if we hurried, we could escort the pretty redheaded nurse.”

  “He’s a worrier, that one. But I’m a big girl, thoroughly capable of solitary walking.” She kept her eyes on W
ill and away from Byram’s handsome, sulky face. It had been over eight weeks since they had last been alone together, and she wished she were less aware of that fact. It certainly didn’t seem to bother him.

  “You’re not in Henley anymore,” said Will. “I know you never used to think twice about walking home after dark, but this is the East End.”

  “It’s only two blocks. How much harm am I likely to run into in two blocks?”

  “Ah,” said Byram, “but that’s two blocks of notorious rookeries, where gangs of thieves roam like feral dogs and gin-soaked gentlemen consider any female abroad after dark fair game for their pleasure.”

  “Speaking of feral dogs, I thought I saw Henry Clerval lurking in a doorway. He hasn’t come back to school, has he?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Will. “And I think my brother would have said something if his old friend suddenly reappeared.” Will gave the words old friend a full injection of irony. His brother’s oldest friend had let his competitive spirit get the better of him and had decided that the best way to get out from under Victor’s shadow was to murder him and make it look like an accident.

  Luckily, he had not succeeded.

  “Isn’t Henry dead?” Byram’s heel made a scuffing sound on the pavement, a sign he was tired. “I always assumed Victor got his revenge on the tiresome googly-eyed git.”

  “Very funny,” said Will.

  “I wasn’t joking. The world is better off without homicidal gingers running around offing people.”

  “Oi,” said Aggie. “Watch the ginger comments.”

  “Your hair is auburn,” said Will.

  “You haven’t seen me in summer.”

  Byram quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you turn orange in the warmer months. Well, I suppose I can just avoid you from May until October.”

  My hair color didn’t seem to bother you when you were kissing my face off last December, she thought sourly. Not wanting Byram to pick up on her annoyance, she quickened her pace and asked Will a question about chemistry, which was not the best subject for either of them. Unlike Will, she refused to slow her pace to accommodate Byram’s bum foot, but he was managing to keep up. Well, of course he was—Byram’s pride would allow nothing less.