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Esme left Bridget to try on the clothes she had given her and went to the pantry in search of something to eat. Her rendezvous with the odious Doctor Sampson was looming, and while she was dreading every minute she would have to spend in his lecherous company, she knew she had to do it. Not just in the hope he would put in a good word for her and prevent Miss Wilson putting her ashore in New York, but because Bridget needed her too. It was a vital part of her plan to remove the suspicion of murder from around the American socialite’s neck, a part she was fortuitously placed to carry out with only a slight risk of discovery.
Carefully avoiding going too close to Miss Wilson’s office, she entered the pantry servicing the second class saloon where she found a tray of cold meats left over from the buffet style luncheon. Hastily stuffing some white chicken meat into her mouth, she eased open the door into the saloon itself. Miss Wilson was inspecting the cutlery on the far side of the room so, not wishing to be caught by the Old Dragon, Esme eased the door closed again and slipped out through the busy galley. She picked up a silver salver laid out for one of the first class passengers to dine in their room and walked confidently out behind two other chambermaids. She couldn’t risk one of the stewards questioning her about why, at such a busy time, she was leaving the kitchen empty-handed.
The two chambermaids, who were some years older than Esme and had obviously worked the liners for several years, were whispering conspiratorially about a discovery of a third dead body. One of them, a plain looking woman who spoke with a Welsh lilt to her words, said the victim’s face looked like chewed meat and his body had a strange black rash as if it were rotting from the inside. She also said two bodies, quite dead the night before, were missing and they carried the same strange rash.
Esme strained to listen as she followed them from the ship’s galley out into the first class corridor. Her thoughts were of the strange body she had seen on the waste ground the night before they left Southampton. That man, a foreign sailor she believed, also had a strange rash, and she thought him dead, decomposing even, and yet inexplicably, his body disappeared in just a few minutes. The memories sent a shiver down her spine and a swirling pit of uneasiness gripped her stomach. Whatever this rash was, whatever caused it was, if you believed the gossip, involved in the death of four people.
Esme’s mind raced. The dark, twisted images of what she’d seen on that muddy patch of waste ground, mixed with snippets of the chambermaids’ conversation and a cold fear gripped her heart. Her thoughts turned to Charlotte. Was there something horrifyingly loose in the shadowy alleys and passageways of the docks? Was there someone, or something, spreading its foul disease or, worse still, if that were possible, chewing the flesh from the faces of its victims?
Esme felt helpless. The despair rolled over her like the powerful Atlantic waves that crashed against the Titanic’s giant hull, each one dragging her deeper. Her chest tightened, her breath coming in short gasps as tears of hopeless frustration ran down her face, soaking the starched collar of her uniform. Stumbling into a service stairwell, she left the two women to continue their mindless gossiping while she wiped her face with her sleeve and took several large, deep breaths.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
She kept repeating the words like a mantra until her breathing returned to normal. This was not the time to panic; she could do nothing to help Charlotte anyway. She needed to focus on ensuring Bridget escaped punishment for killing her husband, seemingly in cold blood. No jury in the land would understand her reasons while sitting in the emotive atmosphere of a courtroom.
The pressure was beginning to get to Esme, a pressure that had been slowly, but steadily, building since her stupid decision to fuck with the Old Dragon on her first day. She remembered that brief moment of power when she became aware of how much Miss Wilson despised her for her youth and looks; it seemed a distant memory now. Only Bridget had shown her any genuine kindness. Even Doc Sampson’s offer of help came with a terrible price most women would never consider. But then, most women weren’t in her predicament. Leaving the silver salver on a table pushed against the wallpapered wall, she headed down to C Deck and her inauspicious fraternization with the detestable Doctor Sampson.
Wilbur Jenkins was, since his earliest memory, a keen swimmer. He excelled at college, just failing by a fingernail, and no doubt an Ivy League education, to represent the U.S. at the 1908 Olympics. He was travelling home after spending the spring as a guest of the American ambassador in Rome. He had gone to college with the ambassador’s son, also a member of the college swim team, with whom he had shared a room, and during their last year a bed. The decision to return to America was hard. Europe seemed so much more liberal in its attitude, but his parents insisted, even lining up a job on Wall Street at his father’s firm. His mother even had a suitable young woman in mind for him to meet. By this, he knew she really meant to marry, despite her knowing about his sexuality since literally catching him and their gardener with their trousers down. She had, to her credit, promptly left the room and never spoken of the matter either to him or, he had to assume, his father, but he always noticed a distant sadness in her eyes after that. The gardener left their employ the next day to take up a position in Baltimore, and Wilbur never saw him again.
The decision to swim so close to dinner looked to have proved a good one. The changing rooms were empty. Wilbur quickly changed into his woollen swimming costume and walked through to the poolside where he left his towel on the peg provided. At the far end of the darkened pool, he noticed a man in rough looking work clothes kneeling over the pale, bloated body of a half-naked man who lay on his back beside the water’s edge. The fully clothed man, to Wilbur’s well-practiced eye, looked muscular and athletic. Wilbur, who had always had a soft spot for the rougher, menial type, watched with growing excitement as the man, his head bent low over the other man’s crotch, continued bobbing up and down. There was a soft, gentle moan and the other man’s head rolled over to look straight at Wilbur who gasped, aware his incidental voyeuristic act had been discovered.
The athletic man’s frantic movement stopped, and he quickly began to stand. The fat, bloated man didn’t move, just stared, almost invitingly, in Wilbur’s direction, as his companion strode confidently along the poolside towards the intruder.
Wilbur smiled, his college lover all but forgotten. This was more than he could have hoped for. The stranger rounded the corner of the pool, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his long stride swiftly closing the distance between them.
Excitedly, Wilbur glanced round contemplating a retreat into the safer surroundings of the changing room’s darkened cubicles, aware discovery would lead to a devastating scandal. He knew many gentlemen in both New York and Boston society who preferred the forbidden intimacy offered by another man. Indeed, some were quite open about their preferences, at least within their close circle of friends. But to be caught in flagrante delicto with a man of such obvious working class origins would be unforgivable.
The heavyset man was nearly on him. Wilbur abandoned the idea of the safe, dark changing rooms in exchange for spontaneous, raw passion. He also felt he owed the half-naked gentleman a chance to watch him enjoy the delights of the muscular labourer. It was only fair and maybe a prelude to them getting together later. Besides, if events heated up they could always move to a cubicle for the more intimate moment of their union. He felt his arousal pushing urgently against his bathing suit as his new lover reached out, drawing him urgently into his strong arms. The light fleetingly caught the handsome stranger’s face. The tattooed lines on his neck and face caused Wilbur’s heart to skip a beat. This was a fantasy come true, not since the gardener of his inexperienced youth had he experienced the illicit pleasure of a lover from the wrong side of town.
Following that single skipped beat, Wilbur’s heart only beat twice more before Hoggie’s mighty hands ripped his head from his shoulders in one violent twist. He would feed from Wilbur’s severed neck later, but now he returned to his already disembowelled meal with a soft, satisfied groan, dipping his face into the open cavity to pull at the delicious intestines within.
