Whitechapel Gods Read online

  Chestle nodded and donned his felt bowler hat.

  He moved to leave, and Bailey stopped him with a polite hand on the arm.

  “Be ready. The battle may begin anytime now.”

  “You need merely call on me. I…believe I will pray tonight.”

  They shook hands firmly, and the doctor departed.

  Bailey stood a long minute with the door open, staring out. His gaze was drawn upwards, past the rotting rooftops of the neighbourhood, past the gleaming Cathedral Tower, where those most loyal to the baron lived with the luxuries of health and security. He felt his jaw tighten as his eyes came to rest on the top of the looming iron mountain barely visible through the blackened air: the Stack, home to the gods and to the man who had betrayed his country and his kin to serve them.

  Yes, things would happen quickly, one way or the other. If all went well, the means to reclaim Whitechapel might be in Bailey’s hands by dawn. If all did not go well, he and all the agents of the crown might soon be lying in oily graves.

  Aaron had gone tonight to steal a weapon.

  He was two hours overdue.

  “You know what the real problem is, Ollie?”

  Fighting his irritation, Oliver pulled his eyes off the street and glanced over his shoulder. Tommy crouched behind him in the filthy alley, a madcap grin flowering on his rectangular face.

  Then Tommy stabbed himself in the heart with a knife. “People don’t properly die in this town,” he said with a smirk. Oil welled up around the blade, staining his shirt.

  Oliver scowled. “We’re on mission, Tom.”

  “I never tire of the look on your face, Chief,” Tom said, and yanked the knife out with a flourish. He licked it clean. “Tastes like honey and brown sugar.”

  “Vile,” Oliver said, turning back to the street. “Absolutely vile.”

  “I swear it isn’t so. You want a taste?”

  “I need your attention on the mission, Tom,” Oliver said, eyes darting about the street.

  “Always the responsible leader, eh?” said Tommy. “A regular John Bull, if you’re a cove.”

  Oliver couldn’t help but smirk. “And yet I still thump you at Heckler’s card game.”

  “Ah, but you do it so seriously…”

  “Quiet.”

  A crowd poured out of the pub three buildings down towards Aldgate Common: a group of middle-aged men fancied up in bowler hats and suits, carrying canes they couldn’t possibly need and all of them three sheets to the wind. Traitors. Collaborators. The baron’s business partners and secular employees, selling out their fellows for a few shillings and the privileges of good food and running water.

  Oliver’s eyes jumped from face to face, until they settled on a handlebar moustache to rival the worst American aristocrat.

  Oliver stiffened. “That’s him. Get ready.”

  With a grunt and no small manner of squealing from his joints, Tommy lifted himself to his full height. He always seemed to be fighting his weight; he lurched like a rhinoceros trying to stand on its hind legs.

  Tom took a few clanking steps forward. Oliver glanced back, teeth clenched and a grimace on his face.

  “I doubt anyone will notice the difference,” said Tommy. He gestured vaguely upward at the ceiling, where, beyond the steel crossbeams and braces that supported the next floor, some unseen factory or mechanism chunked and chugged away. The noise echoed everywhere through the concourse.

  Oliver grunted, but couldn’t argue.

  Tommy noisily hunkered down behind him, peering over Oliver’s shoulder at their comrade across the street.

  An instant before, Missy had been another invisible passerby, clad in drab grey and camouflaged against the soot-stained streets and thick air, but her pale skin popped to life as she stepped into the lamplight. With one subtle manipulation of her arms, her short coat fell open at the shoulders, revealing a blouse slightly too large for her frame. It hung just low enough to reveal a scintillating hint of neck, while looking for all the world like an innocent mistake of the wardrobe; a fault of the shirt, somehow.

  Tommy whistled behind him. “Good Lord, she is a peach.”

  Her lips came together, pursed in a perfect, pinched look of utter disdain, a shock of red in a world of greys and gaslight.

  She’s a professional.

  Missy cast one glance towards their hiding place, her lips cracking into the barest hint of a smile. She adjusted the silk ribbons on her hat and smoothed her skirt, fingered her sandy hair where wisps of it crept down over her ears. Then the distant look returned and she whirled pointedly towards her quarry.

  She’s even working us, Oliver marveled.

  “Get ready,” he whispered over his shoulder.

  Tommy shifted uncomfortably. “But I want to watch.”

  “Do your moving before they get here,” Oliver snapped.

  “Fine.” Tommy creaked as he rose, then clanked with every step as he retreated to a doorjamb that barely contained his shoulders.

  Oliver’s eyes followed Missy’s approach to the crowd. She walked as if she had somewhere very important to be. The men all halted and doffed their hats to her as she passed. She gave them each the barest nod of acknowledgement, fixing each, Oliver knew, though he couldn’t see it, with her lingering gaze, punctuated by a twitch of the eyebrow, an ever-subtle quickening of the breath. Some stepped forward to introduce themselves even as she dismissed them with a blink and shifted to the next. This left a gaggle of befuddled men in her wake, all looking terribly unmanned.

  Oliver held his breath.

  Missy slowed as she passed the man with the handlebar moustache, a falter in her step, then a pause, the same interested look.

  The target stepped up like a dog to a strip of bacon.

  The noise of the factory above prevented any eavesdropping from this distance, but Oliver knew how it went. The man was extending his hand, offering to walk her home because it was frightfully improper for a lovely lady like herself to be wandering these streets without a gentleman escort; not the kind of place a lady would be safe, no sir. And yes, she would quite fancy an escort. Oh! Did she use the word fancy? Quite improper. A slip of the tongue.

  Inside a minute she had the gentleman hanging on her arm. The rest strode off, engaging in excited conversation over the grand fortune of their comrade and puffing themselves all around as if they’d had some hand in it.

  “Next time, I want to be the lookout,” Tommy said. Oliver could almost picture him stamping his foot like a boy of five.

  Oliver glanced back. “When you put some grease on those joints of yours, I may consider it.”

  Tommy’s face contorted in a deep frown. “A right miser, you are. A hoarder.”

  “The lion’s share, Tommy. Perks of being a regular John Bull.” He turned back to the street.

  To find it empty.

  He cast his eyes back and forth. The street was entirely vacant but for the remainder of the pub goers vanishing into the smog, and the wanderings of one stray dog.

  “Something up, mate?” Tommy asked.

  The fizzling of the gaslight and the constant smog obscured most of the street. Oliver stuck his head around the corner, risking detection, and peered into those shadows along the near side of the street, where Missy was supposed to bring the fox. Nothing. Her white neck, at least, should be visible.

  “We’ve lost her, then?” Tommy said.

  “She’s run off.” He squinted hard to see into the alleys she would have passed walking that way.

  “Maybe she wants a quick peck before we do our thing,” Tommy suggested.

  Oliver felt himself flash angry. “Not when we’re on business, surely.”

  “She might do it just to get your goat, Chief,” said Tommy.

  “At the least, she would signal us before getting out of sight,” Oliver said.

  “One would think.”

  Oliver scanned the buildings lining the street, apartments stretching the entire five storeys to the roof
of the concourse. Some even went higher, tangling themselves in the braces of the next level: five storeys of twinkling lights and their attendant residents, any one of which could bring the cloaks crashing down on them.

  There was nowhere to hide once they left the alley. The lampposts shed dim and inconsistent light, but such was their frequency and the genius of their placement that there was no route down the sidewalk that would not risk detection. They could not pass for locals anyway, with Oliver’s shabby clothes and Tommy’s angular bulk sure to arouse suspicion.

  “She may have ducked off too early,” Oliver thought aloud. “Do you see a way around to the next alley?”

  “Didn’t notice one,” said Tommy. “Unless you’re game to see where this door goes.”

  Oliver retreated from the street into the alley’s darkness. He found Tommy leaning easily on the door frame, arms crossed. The man’s shoulders stuck out like knife-points under his coat. His iron hand glinted in the half-light as he tapped his fingers on the door.

  Oliver looked past him. The alley ended at the rear wall of another apartment, which provided no entrance but a blackened window. The manhole they’d come up through led to such a maze that he balked at the time required to navigate it, especially if Missy was in trouble.

  “Can you do it quietly?” Oliver asked.

  Tommy grinned toothily and put a finger to his lips. Oliver gave him a nod.

  The big man placed his iron hand flat against the door at the approximate height where a locking bolt would sit, then leaned in with his shoulder and hip. One sharp push later, the bolt clattered to the floor on the inside and the door swung open on squealing hinges.

  Oliver grimaced. Tommy just shrugged.

  From the slip of light bleeding into the room, Oliver surmised it to be a storage room or pantry, of sufficient size to service the whole building. He set a cautious foot upon the floor within and tested it with increasing weight. The boards did not squeak. He entered and pattered swiftly across. Tommy followed, placing each step with great deliberation to avoid clanking, with moderate success.

  Oliver felt his way to a door, then scuffed his foot to guide Tommy over to him. In absolute silence Oliver tried the latch, only to find it locked.

  In the dark, no less. He knelt, drew a set of lock picks from his vest pocket and set to work. Probably did duck for a peck, damnable woman.

  In thirty heartbeats the lock ticked. Oliver replaced his lock picks and tried the latch. This time it opened smoothly.

  Oliver pulled the door open an inch and peeked through. Beyond stood a spiral staircase with a thick oak banister that circled up to the higher floors. A candle flashed upon the stairs: a watchman.

  Oliver slid back from the door. He heard the watchman take a few hesitant steps down to the main floor.

  Oliver shrank back against a shelf, wrapping himself in shadow and the scent of cabbage. A few more steps sounded from beyond. Oliver heard the door handle jiggle.

  The door shrieked again as it swung open. A candle poked into the room, followed by an extended hand holding a billy. Oliver realised with horror that he could clearly see the shine of his own boots in the candlelight.

  A pointy nose appeared, followed by a set of shrewd eyes flicking their gaze about the edges of the candlelight. Oliver balled his fists and tensed for a quick leap.

  The eyes turned his way. Just as they began to widen, and the billy to rise, a monstrous shadow a full head taller than the watchman materialised behind him.

  Tommy popped the man sharply across the back of his head. Oliver darted forth and caught the man as he collapsed. Burning wax splattered across his hand as he wrested the candle away. The billy clattered to the floor.

  They set him down comfortably, then wasted no time crossing into the hall beyond. They found a series of dormant pumps and machines in the room across the hall. Oliver led Tommy through to a door on the far wall. The bolt slid clear easily and the door opened in silence.

  They found themselves on a narrow side street devoid of residents and streetlights. Directly across, a lamplight flickered in the window of a countinghouse. Through the diagonal crosshatch of the glass, Oliver could see a familiar statuesque figure.

  He dashed across the street and silently pulled the door open. He stepped through and Missy nearly put a knife through his eye.

  Oliver clamped his fingers on Missy’s wrist before she could finish her thrust. “For Jesus’ sake! Michelle, it’s us!”

  She wrenched her hand away. “Well, had you announced yourselves like gentlemen, I might have been more accommodating, but that is a fair amount to expect from you.”

  Tommy followed through the doorway, chuckling. “No claim to be gentlemen, miss.”

  Missy’s petite upturned nose wrinkled. “You did at one time claim to be part of a team, did you not?” She shook the knife at them. “Was it your intention to leave me to my frail, feminine self or were you simply dawdling?”

  “We were in the next alley, Michelle,” Oliver said, hands still raised in defence, “where you were supposed to bring in the fox.”

  She folded up the knife and shoved it into her handbag. “And I suppose it would have been far too much trouble to cover two alleys.”

  “There should have been no need,” Oliver said. He noted ominous blots of colour around Missy’s fingernails. “Are you all right?”

  Missy wiped her hands off on her skirt, leaving dark smears behind. “All right? There’s a plumb joke.”

  Oliver’s chest tightened as he spotted a clock hanging on the wall behind her.

  “You wanted his documents,” Missy continued, “and he was lecherous enough to divulge their location. Do not begrudge a girl a little initiative.”

  Oliver saw something dark pass over Missy’s eyes, saw her jaw tighten. Tommy let out a low, buzzing whistle that knotted up Oliver’s insides.

  Dare I? “What is it, Tom?”

  “A stinking pile of shit trouble, Chief.”

  With clenched teeth, Oliver turned his head. The little office held two desks of black mahogany and a tidy bookshelf of ledgers and records below the wall clock. Their target lay sprawled in a sea of scattered papers against the far wall. Dark stains peppered his coat across the chest and stomach, and he was perfectly still.

  Oliver shut his eyes and rubbed them, trying to erase what he’d just seen.

  “Thoroughly done” was Tommy’s comment. Oliver opened his eyes again to see Missy fold her arms tight against her abdomen and stick her nose in the air.

  “He overstepped the bounds of propriety,” she said.

  Oliver stood aghast, looking back and forth between Missy and the dead man. Missy stared coolly at the corpse, eyes sunken and dark.

  Oliver shook his finger at her. “I’ve gone five years without this, Michelle. This was all you could think to—” He stopped himself, swallowing his reprimand for a more appropriate time.

  “We’ll have words,” he warned.

  Missy scowled at him. “I hardly think words are our most pressing concern, Mr. Sumner.”

  “Right.” Oliver snatched the dead man’s hat and hung it over the face of the wall clock. If Grandfather Clock had been looking through it, his gold cloaks would already be on the way. He shared an earnest look with Tom, then spoke to Missy.

  “Where are his documents?”

  Missy gestured stiffly at a small steel safe in the corner.

  “Tom.”

  The big man raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Oliver pointed to the safe. “We can’t make less of a spectacle than we have, I think.”

  Tom shrugged, then bent down and hammered the safe door in with a quick blow of his iron knuckles. He pried it out and tossed it on a desk.

  Oliver reached in and retrieved a sheaf of papers bound with string. He flipped through it.

  “This is it,” he said. “Back we go.”

  They slipped across the street and back through the machine room in the apartment, Oliver in the lead and
Tommy in the rear. The hall and stair beyond were vacant. Oliver led the way across, feeling ahead of him in what was almost complete darkness. Through vague touches, the pantry door revealed itself. Oliver grasped the handle and lifted the door slightly before opening it, which served to dull the noise to a whimper. He waved the others forward and entered the room.

  He saw a flash of movement in the shadows and ducked low. Boxes and tins from the shelf behind rained down on him as the watchman’s next blow swept high. A warm body came in close against him, and he tilted his shoulder and ploughed into it. He caught his foot on a tin and stumbled, but not before propelling his assailant away. He lost track of the other man in the crash of more falling tins.

  Oliver scrambled back to his feet and tried to raise his hand in front of his face. Something moved in front of him, hidden by the darkness. He heard a few clanks, then a few wet crunches.

  Tommy’s voice drifted out of the dark. “Let’s get on.”

  Suddenly thankful for the dark, Oliver led the way to the door and out into the alley. Missy was next out the door, stepping down from the stoop, the picture of poise and ladyship. Tommy shambled after, wiping his iron hand with a white handkerchief. Oliver picked up a pry bar from where he’d hidden it and levered the sewer hole open. Instead of escaping, Missy produced a cloth sack from beneath her skirt and handed it to Tommy, who accepted it without comment.

  Oliver stepped onto the first rung of the ladder within the manhole. The stench of sewage and grease floated up to greet him.

  Missy peeled off her tweed short coat and stuffed it in the bag.

  Oliver waited a moment to be acknowledged, but Missy remained oblivious. She added her hat to the bag, then began on her skirt.

  “Surely you can do that once we get to safety.”

  “I will not,” said Missy, jaw and neck tight as cords, “allow my good clothing to traverse your vile sewer exit unprotected.”

  “Aldgate has telephones,” Oliver stressed. “If anyone in the building heard us, they’ll be bringing the cloaks right down on us.”