I collapsed on top of him, knee digging into the soft center of his chest, knife at his throat, as I checked the alley to make certain we were alone.
His cap fell back, and I started as shoulder-length red hair tumbled out around a pretty face. A girl younger than me, disguised as a man, which explained the put-on deep voice. That was good – a girl I could scare off. A man I might have had to inflict some damage upon.
‘I know it isn’t safe,’ I hissed. ‘What do you think knives are for?’
I pressed the knife closer against her neck, watching the flesh wrinkle beneath it. Her eyes went wide.
‘I didn’t mean nothing!’ she said, voice substantially higher now. ‘Please, miss, I swear, I just wanted them buttons!’
I narrowed my eyes at her, digging my knee deeper until I felt a rib, and then gave an extra jab before climbing off her.
I jerked my chin toward the opposite street. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘And next time put some lampblack on your chin to look like a beard, and for god’s sakes wear gloves; your bare hands gave you away instantly.’
She scrambled to her feet, brushing the muck off her clothes, and stumbled away at a run. I sheathed the knife in the boot holster, then wiped a trembling hand over my face, breathing some life back into my cold hands.
I took off at a brisk walk, still shaken, the afternoon clouds overhead the only witness to the incident I couldn’t forget fast enough, until at last I saw the shining lights of Covent Garden.
4
The market was filled at all hours with a vast range of people, and I gladly plunged into the safety of their midst. Ladies in fine dresses shopped for Christmas presents, scullery maids swarmed past the wrinkle-faced vegetable women, tailors and seamstresses haggled in the textile quarter. My fine coat and boots caused no one to give me a second glance, until I slipped into the meat section of the market. Few fine young ladies could stomach these narrow passageways. Eels as long as my arm twitched on hooks above lambs’ glassy dead eyes, and stray cats licked up the salty blood pooling on the floor. By the time I reached Joyce’s Choice Meats, I was getting nothing but strange looks.
Jack Joyce, however, tipped his hat to me.
Joyce, an Irish ex-boxer who’d turned to the meat trade in his old age, cracked a broken-toothed grin as I approached. His previous profession had left him not only minus a few teeth but with a permanent squint eye that never seemed to be looking in the same direction as the other. A small black dog with a white spot on his chest and notable only in his ugliness, wagged his tail.
‘Hello, Joyce,’ I said, and then knelt to scratch the dog’s bony head. In general, I did my best to stay away from animals. They only reminded me of the dark experimentation Father had done. That was why I limited myself to plants. Roses couldn’t kill, or maim, or betray.
‘And hello to you too, boy.’ I picked up the dog, though he was heavy in my arms. ‘He’s put on a pound or two, I believe.’
‘Aye. Soon enough he’ll be fatter than a queen’s lapdog, if you keep buying him scraps. And just as lazy.’ Joyce took his knobby old hands away from his fire and dug around behind the counter until he came back with some chicken bones that he tossed to the dog.
Technically, the dog was mine. He’d started following me around town ever since I’d first come to Joyce’s Meats six months ago. It was the meat in my pocket he smelled, and the only way I could get him to keep from trailing at my heels was to pay Joyce to keep him well-fed on scraps, a task that despite his grumbling, I suspected, the old boxer rather enjoyed.
‘Let’s see,’ Joyce said, digging around beneath the counter. He came up with a package wrapped in butcher paper and tied with twine. ‘Here’s your order. Two pancreases, one liver. Couldn’t get my hands on the deer heart you wanted. I should have it next week.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said, slipping the package into my pocket. Just being here stirred the bones of my hands from their slumber, made them remember what Father had done to me. I flexed them, hoping to hold off the symptoms of another fit.
The dog finished his chicken bone and barked at Joyce, who stooped down on his bad knee and scratched the dog’s head. ‘When are you going to give this ugly fellow a name already?’ he asked.
I leaned against the counter, watching the dog thumping his tail. ‘He isn’t my dog.’
‘Don’t think he understands that.’
‘My guardian wouldn’t care much for a stray in his house. I fear I’m already uncivilized enough for him.’ I didn’t mention how the last dog I’d named, a puppy called Crusoe, had died under Father’s scalpel. The thought made my stiff hands ache more, and I pushed them into my coat pockets.
Joyce grinned. ‘Aw, you could use a companion. Keep him in a back garden. How about Romeo, eh? Romeo and Juliet, you were made for one another.’
‘I was made for a flea-ridden stray?’ I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Well, perhaps you’re right. Though in any case, Romeo doesn’t suit him. Who’s that boxer you’re always talking about? The underdog. That mutt’s an underdog, if I’ve ever seen one.’
‘Mike Sharkey,’ Joyce said. ‘Pride of Ireland. He beat that big Turkish bloke four to one. What do you say, fella? Are you a Sharkey?’
I watched Joyce pet him and scratch beneath his chin. Joyce had always been friendly with me, and never once asked what a well-dressed young woman wanted with so many animal organs.
‘Hope you’re taking care out there, miss, walking around town on your own, especially this late in the afternoon. It’ll be dark soon. You’ve heard about the murders, I wager?’
‘Which murders? This is London. There are a dozen murders every day.’
His eyes went serious beneath his brow. ‘Didn’t read the morning paper, did you?’ He rooted around in the stack of old newspapers he used to wrap cuts of meat and slapped one down on the table.
‘A MASS MURDERER IN THE MAKING?’ the headline read.
‘Three murders in the last two days,’ Joyce said. ‘Scotland Yard says they’re connected; the murderer leaves his mark at each crime scene. It’s all anyone’s been talking about. They’re calling him the Wolf of Whitechapel on account of how he claws up the bodies. One of them had a purse on him and a gold watch, but the murderer didn’t touch it. Wasn’t interested in anything but tearing that man apart like an animal.’
Like an animal.
The twist in my gut grew to a desperate squeeze, and I had to lean on the counter to catch my breath. Like an animal, that’s how Edward had killed his victims. Ripped their hearts out with six-inch claws.
My hand slid to my chest, pressing against the hard whalebone corset. On the island, I’d seen a woman with her jaw ripped off. Buzzing flies. A blood-stained tarpaulin. Mauled, like all the others.
To this day, even so long after his death, my heart wrenched to think that Edward had killed so many of the islanders. He had seemed such an innocent young man, and yet beneath his skin lurked a monster.
A
