Contents

Chapter 1 What the River Revealed

Chapter 2 Suffer Little Children

Chapter 3 A Casual Informer

Chapter 4 Kensington Road

Chapter 5 The Sting

Chapter 6 Beginnings

Chapter 7 From Angel to Angel Maker

Chapter 8 The Brixton Baby Farmer

Chapter 9 The Lunatic Pauper Palace

Chapter 10 Totterdown

Chapter 11 The Totterdown Baby Farm

Chapter 12 Polly and the Post-mortem

Chapter 13 Criminal Intent

Chapter 14 Silent Servitude

Chapter 15 Polly and the Ballad-Monger

Chapter 16 Mother Returns

Chapter 17 The Fishponds House of Confinement

Chapter 18 The Governess’s Baby

Chapter 19 Mother and the Boarding House

Chapter 20 Polly and the Piano

Chapter 21 Mother and the Sharp-Pointed Knife

Chapter 22 Lunacy

Chapter 23 “Once more there were funerals”

Chapter 24 Arthur

Chapter 25 Liquor and Laudanum

Chapter 26 “Frenzied Objects”

Chapter 27 Melancholy Days

Chapter 28 “They broke my spirit”

Chapter 29 Money Troubles

Chapter 30 The Family Divided

Chapter 31 Queenie Baker

Chapter 32 Granny Smith

Chapter 33 One Step Ahead of the Law

Chapter 34 A Family Business

Chapter 35 A Healthy Place in the Country

Chapter 36 Like Mother Like Daughter

Chapter 37 A Case at Willesden

Chapter 38 Granny’s Misgivings

Chapter 39 The Barmaid’s Daughter

Chapter 40 The Undertaker’s Wife

Chapter 41 The Carpet Bag

Chapter 42 Good Friday

Chapter 43 Dyer on Remand

Chapter 44 The Arrest of Arthur Palmer

Chapter 45 Bodies and Bricks

Chapter 46 Mrs Dyer Confesses

Chapter 47 A Murderess Identified

Chapter 48 An Interview with Palmer

Chapter 49 Further Developments at Reading

Chapter 50 Trial by Newspaper

Chapter 51 A Body in the Reeds

Chapter 52 Polly and the Actress

Chapter 53 A Damning Testimony

Chapter 54 Holloway

Chapter 55 The Old Bailey

Chapter 56 Newgate

Chapter 57 The End

Chapter 58 The Auction

Chapter 59 Legal Repercussions

Chapter 60 A Brown Paper Parcel

Acknowledgements

Index