Best was choking. He could taste blood in his mouth and someone was trying to smother him. When he managed to push the hands away a strong, sweet smell clung to his nostrils. Above him hovered a spindly old lady, anxiously bunching a large handkerchief which she was ready to reapply.
Beyond her, North Woolwich’s lone constable tried to restrain a still-rabid Murphy. Warding off the smelling-salts impregnated handkerchief, Best struggled to a sitting position, spat out some blood and felt around his mouth with his fingers and tongue. His jaw was painful but, thank goodness, his teeth appeared to be intact.
‘Don’t worry, sir,’ the young constable assured him importantly. ‘This man will be charged. I saw the attack with my very own eyes.’
Several pairs of hands helped Best to his feet, then supported him once upright. He noticed that Murphy was sagging and his face was crumbling. Not from fear of him, he was sure, but from grief. Dreadful, moaning sobs emerged from his throat; sobs of a man so unused to crying that he hadn’t learned how, nor been able to practise any form of restraint.
‘No,’ Best told the constable firmly. ‘I don’t want him charged.’ He was careful not to shake his head as he spoke. It was thumping out its objections to any hint of movement. ‘As you can see, officer, the man is grief-stricken.’ He reached over, grasped Murphy’s arm and squeezed it. ‘He mistakenly thought I’d taken his sweetheart and then let her drown. You can’t blame him.’
The PC loosened his now redundant grip. Murphy sagged. Best put his arm around him. ‘I’ll look after him now, Constable. He won’t attack me again. Thank you for your trouble.’
His meeting with Murphy, though painful, turned out to be fruitful. The man had found and identified Martha’s body. It had been back in Woolwich Dockyard, now the assembling point for all those found on the south side of the river. Best had missed it because her body had been one of a newly arrived batch washed ashore downriver at Erith.
Having had his worst fears confirmed, Murphy had been on his way back to North Woolwich railway station when he had seen Best; alive, unhurt and seemingly without a care in the world. Best, the man whom he suspected of trying to steal his sweetheart. With his good looks he had probably succeeded, then callously let her drown.
Given the circumstances, all of this was a ridiculously large assumption, but then Murphy was obviously not the brightest of men and he’d lost his love. Maybe his first, Best realized, given the man’s lack of obvious charms. He’d been like a wounded lion searching for someone to maul. Anyone.
Best was not inherently dishonest but did feel that, in many respects, arbitrary truth-telling was an over-rated pastime. He quickly disabused Murphy of his suspicions, explaining that he had only ever glimpsed Martha from the garden of 9 John Street, but had certainly never spoken to her. Consequently, when he had seen her on board the Princess Alice (which was taking him down to see an aunt in Sheerness) he had passed the time of day with her – out of courtesy. It would have seemed rude to ignore her. But they had spoken only very briefly.
Apart from the Sheerness aunt, that was essentially true, thought Best. Anyone who might be able to say otherwise, who may even have witnessed Martha’s tears, Best’s comforting of her and the confessional aftermath was probably dead. If not, they almost certainly had more pressing things on their minds.
In the end, Best had made a friend out of the sad and lonely Murphy. He doubted whether the poor, simple fellow had many of those, either. It had been an easy task for someone with Best’s charm to win Murphy around but he was genuinely sorry for him as well. He even considered saying that Martha had spoken of him lovingly, but pulled himself up when he realized that that might not sit well with the claimed briefness and formality of their encounter.
Maybe later he’d be able to ‘recall’ some chance remark that didn’t seem too unlikely. Maybe the friendship would prove useful should the baby-farming investigations continue. Not that he was confident of that happening now. But, just in case, when he’d put Murphy back on his train he’d asked him to tell Mrs O’Connor to keep his room vacant until further notice.
As Best tramped along the bleak Essex shore towards Beckton Gasworks he could see the continuing activity at the collision site more closely. Out in the middle of the river a wide and ragged ring of small boats circled the spot. The flotsam, of course, had been cleared, but these boats were using a forest of long wooden poles to probe the wreck for bodies. The bright autumnal sun caused them to be thrown into silhouette against the grey-brown water, giving the scene the look of an oriental print which showed fishermen hard at work.
Bustling back and forth among the small craft the Thames Conservancy launch, The Heron, gathered up the latest recovered bodies before speeding off towards Woolwich Dockyard. Now and then, in the midst of all the sinister dark shapes of probing poles, boats and men, he glimpsed the rail of the Princess Alice’s paddle box peeping out of the water as though taunting him.
Despite the poignancy of this scene and his throbbing jaw, Best had began to feel a little more cheerful. At least part of his self-appointed task had been accomplished, even if not by him. Martha had been found. Now, only Joseph’s mother and grandfather needed to be traced.
He wasn’t at all sure he was being sensible in persevering with this end – the child’s other relatives would probably have it in hand. Maybe they had traced them already. But he went on, nonetheless. Thinking clearly seemed to have become so much more difficult. He felt as if he’d been thrown into a whirlpool and was struggling to escape.
He still couldn’t get over the suddenness of this terrible catastrophe. One minute there had been music, dancing and laughter. Children had played, then fallen asleep in their mother’s arms after a wonderful day out. Then – without warning – the crushing impact. They were all in the water, thrashing about, screaming and drowning. In two or three minutes most of them had disappeared, as had the Princess Alice. It was just unbelievable. He had been there. He had seen it. But he still couldn’t accept it had happened.
Had he really done all he could to help? That question kept nagging him. Yet again, he went over his actions, replaying them and changing them to what he might have done. His jaw began throbbing harder, his mouth felt sore and his eye was starting to close. He nearly lost his footing on the muddy path and crashed into the weeping man trudging along ahead of him. The cheerfulness had gone. He felt wretched.
If only he hadn’t seen Martha slip out of the house the day before yesterday. Was it really only that long since he had raced down those stairs and out into the street, desperate not to lose sight of her? It seemed an eternity.
If only Cheadle hadn’t stuck him there in the first place to play the invalid painter, be friendly with but not give himself away to Mrs O’Connor and her other gentlemen guests and watch poor Nella struggling to run up the garden. Dead babies, Martha, Joseph, filthy water, screams, disbelief, anguish and tears. There seemed no end to it all. Maybe he should leave now.
*
Best took a deep breath, placed his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and began to inspect the line of bodies on the floor of a Beckton Gasworks storage room. They were resting on boards tilted at an angle, allowing the heads and upper parts of the bodies to be viewed without having to bend over or get too close.
All the faces were blackening and bloated. All eight were female.
‘They seem to be ladies of a respectable class,’ murmured a chubby, overfed clergyman piously searching for members of his flock.
‘Can’t make much difference whether they were or not,’ snapped Best with uncharacteristic sarcasm. ‘Nor whether they were saints or sinners.’
The clergyman raised his eyebrows, inclined his head in a forgiving manner and murmured, ‘It will in Heaven, my boy. It will in Heaven.’
Best stopped himself punching the sanctimonious cleric on the nose by dragging his attentions back to the first body, that of a stout, dark-haired lady whose ample, black alpaca-clad bosom was liberally garnished with jet. Unlike the bodies at Woolwich, most of those at Beckton Gasworks and Barking still wore their jewellery, some made more secure with safety pins to prevent loss and deter theft. Sadly, there had been some of that reported.
Next, lay a heartbreakingly tiny, fair and slight young woman of about twenty. Damp curls still clung to her forehead, her snug, black lace jacket was trimmed with black satin ribbon and, like almost all the other bodies both male and female, she wore side-spring boots. They were highly fashionable, wasn’t he wearing them himself? He would imagine they were particularly difficult to kick off in the water – with that elastic gripping the ankles. Would button boots be any better? Probably not. Perhaps the only footwear easy to slip off were low shoes. He sighed.
This really was very silly and pointless, he decided – pressing on without thinking things out properly. It really was time he went back to London. He’d spent nearly all his money so didn’t have much choice anyway.
There were only two bodies left and he knew that neither of them could be that of Joseph’s mother. One of them wore black and the other pale brown while she, he had recalled, had been wearing a deep green ensemble. Just as he was dismissing them and turning away something familiar registered on the edge of his field of vision. He stopped and looked again.
It was a cheap tin brooch with a pale-blue enamel inset, worn at the throat of the pale brown dress. Embossed on the enamel was a crest, flags, a crown and a date: that of Queen Victoria’s coronation – 1838. A common enough object – so why did it seem particularly and recently familiar? He struggled to grasp the memory. Oh yes, now it was becoming clearer. He had been shown one with pathetic pride and had felt obliged to pretend wonder.
Best frowned. But by whom? He shrugged. Who could say – it might come to him later. Certainly not by Helen nor one of his young relatives nor … He began to turn away again then froze and closed his eyes, remembering the moment. Oh no. It couldn’t be. Please. It just couldn’t be.
He forced himself to turn back and examine the body carefully. The face proved too distorted for him to identify positively but nonetheless he felt sure. Quite, quite, sure. The heavy stomach was gone but the row of safety pins down the side of the dress remained and the tear in the side of her left boot which had caused her to stumble even more as she ran back up the garden.
Nella. It was Nella. That poor child.
Oh, God. How much more of this could he take?