After the police had gone, for five seconds there was silence.
Then everyone started talking at once.
A man climbed on to a chair and appealed for quiet, but no one was listening. A small group had gathered around the stricken fellow on the floor, arguing about how best to treat him, while others were making for the exit. Some preferred standing and yelling.
The one person neither moving nor speaking was Mr Whitford, who was scribbling in his notepad. He looked up and around the room, and I had the impression he was writing down the names of the people there.
‘We should leave,’ Rosie hissed at me, tugging at my arm. ‘No good will come of staying.’
I was too shocked about the photograph to move or respond.
Whitford came over, making as if to doff his hat to Rosie before realising he was holding it in his hand.
‘Mrs Stanhope, I presume?’
She reddened. ‘Mrs Flowers, actually.’
‘Ah, I see. I’m Whitford, and you’ll be able to read about all this excitement in the Daily Chronicle tomorrow.’ He held up his notebook. ‘The battle of Rose Street; how a criminal was apprehended.’
‘You’re sure he’s guilty then?’ she asked.
‘Of trespassing and planning to set fire to Sir Reginald Thackery’s blasted mill, with apologies for my language? Yes, he’s certainly guilty of that. It’s been coming for the last three years, ever since they took this place, stirring up trouble with their speeches and posters and all. It was only a question of time before they went a stage further.’
‘What about Miss Hannigan’s murder?’
He shrugged. ‘Good question. My son, Harry, who works with me on the newspaper, he found out that she and Cowdery had an understanding, so to speak. They both lived in this lushery, so it wasn’t hard for them to carry on.’
Rosie gave him one of her looks. ‘Does that make him a suspect?’
‘Maybe she gave him cause to be jealous.’
Rosie smiled with a sweetness like lemonade, so sharp it makes you wince. ‘Will you be printing innuendo, Mr Whitford?’
His ears went pink. ‘No, of course not. We’ll probably never know who did for her. The police don’t care about some dead woman who no one’s ever heard of, they care about getting this place shut down. You saw the gang Hooper brought with him. That costs money and takes planning. They don’t do that unless someone’s paying the bills.’
He was about to leave, but at that moment Erica Cowdery appeared at his side, her face white and her jaw clenched.
‘You’re the journalist, aren’t you?’ she said, making it sound like an accusation.
‘I’m sorry about your brother. A terrible thing. Unexpected, I’m sure.’
‘I wouldn’t say so,’ she replied. ‘They just needed an excuse. You should write about it in that newspaper of yours. The police interrupted a wake, of all things, waving their little truncheons. Mr Gladstone’s so perturbed by fear of a revolution, like the French have had, that he’ll go to any lengths to crush it before it starts, even at the expense of justice and decency. That’s the real story, Mr Whitford, and I’m sure you’re the man to write it.’
He appeared quite flattered and immediately started writing scratchily in his notebook. ‘And yet Mr Cowdery continued to antagonise them. Brave man.’
She narrowed her eyes a little, seeming unsure whether he was mocking her brother.
‘Stupid, if you want my opinion. He put the whole movement at risk. I spend my spare time, what little I have of it, making flags, brewing tea, delivering pamphlets, speaking in freezing town halls and collecting farthings in buckets.’ She gave the men still left in the room a cold look. ‘Real work that needs to be done. Not getting arrested in a … whatever that was. They go on and on about the rights of man and forget that half of us aren’t men. Anyway, I suppose I shall have to go and find a lawyer for Edwin.’ She gathered herself and gave me a weary nod. ‘Goodbye, Mr Stanhope. I hope we meet again soon, in happier circumstances.’
Outside, Rosie and I navigated between the ragged blankets and empty beer bottles of the passageway sleepers, who hadn’t yet returned from their day’s begging.
I was still shaking from seeing the photograph. I’d forgotten how I had looked back then; not just the frills and bows, but how I stood, how I smiled, how I held my hands, never sure what to do with them. God, I was good at appearing to be what I was not. Everyone was misled by my physical form. They never guessed I was a boy.
‘Rosie, that photograph isn’t … it’s not me. I mean, it’s how I was, but not by choice. Do you understand?’
‘You think I don’t know that?’
I felt foolish. Of course she knew. She had seen me at my weakest.
‘John told me he had proof of who I was, and it must be that photograph. It was my father’s.’
And yet my father was in no state to give him anything. Jane must have handed over the photograph. I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other explanation. My sister held me in so much contempt, she had betrayed me.
‘Do you think John Thackery might be the killer?’ asked Rosie as we reached Greek Street. ‘You said he knew Miss Hannigan well. I still don’t know why you won’t tell the police that he and Duport are the same man.’
I thought back to John’s tearful face in the churchyard at St Anne’s.
‘He cared about Dora Hannigan. I can’t imagine him hurting her. She was the one who introduced him to the club. I got the feeling he idolised her a little bit.’
Rosie didn’t immediately reply. I could tell she was turning things over in her mind. ‘Some men care about a person so much, they come to think they own them,’ she said, eventually. ‘If he found out she was Sir Reginald’s mistress, he might feel she’d let him down. Forsaken him. That might be a motive to kill her, never mind that it was no business of his and he’d be leaving two children alone in the world.’
‘Perhaps. He’s a zealot by nature, and that might lead him to a drastic act, though the same could be said about Edwin Cowdery, and perhaps Erica too.’
‘She doesn’t have much time for her brother, does she? Though she likes you well enough. What about Mr Peregrine Black?’ She spoke his name with a theatrical flourish. ‘Singer, painter and impresario.’
‘Not the name he was born with, I imagine.’
‘No more than yours, Leo Stanhope.’
‘Or yours, Mrs Flowers.’
She laughed, and kicked a shallow puddle of water at me, and then squeaked when I made to do the same back at her.
‘Enough!’ she protested. ‘Who else might it be?’
‘Sir Reginald is certainly capable. I’m sure he’s the children’s father. Maybe he wanted to silence her, if she was blackmailing him.’
‘But over what?’ said Rosie. ‘It would have to be something that would damage him, wouldn’t it? Something that would cost him dearly. And what about the other son?’
‘Peter? He’s a free spirit, but very young, only fifteen or so. I’m not sure he even knew Dora Hannigan.’
‘You like him, though, don’t you? When you like someone, it’s hard to believe them capable of killing another person.’
I pulled my hat lower over my forehead and didn’t reply. She herself had killed, twice, once knowingly and once not. And yet I liked her.
For a while we walked on in silence, until we reached the corner of Old Compton Street, where I would go right, and she left.
‘Rosie, I want to ask you a question.’
She looked up at me, her head tipped quizzically to one side. ‘What is it?’
‘With your children, how do you manage without Jack?’
She snorted. ‘Are you serious? Without Jack? God, you men. You think nothing can happen without your masculine authority.’
‘It’s not that. I was wondering how it is, to be both parents at once.’
If it were possible, she looked even more scornful. ‘It’s all I’ve ever done! Jack was as much use as mouldy yeast, and a sight less attractive. You’re asking the wrong person. Alfie Smith could tell you, I imagine.’
Alfie had looked after Constance on his own for half of her life, despite being a man. Indeed, he seemed weakest in the more obviously paternal area; she was largely impervious to his efforts at discipline.
Rosie looked me straight in the eyes and, even under such a cloudy sky, hers were a bright apple-green. ‘You’re not thinking of taking care of those children yourself, are you?’
‘I haven’t made up my mind.’
I was surprised to hear the words emerge from my mouth. It was as if a hitherto unknown part of me had spoken.
‘Leo …’ She paused, rethinking what she had been going to say. ‘Are you sure about this? They’re a big responsibility, you know, kids. It’s like bits of your soul detaching themselves and walking around on their own. You’ll not get a minute ever again without being consumed by fear. And they’re not cheap. There’s clothes and food and God knows what else, and they break things all the time. And the boys smell. The girls too, but not so bad. And they never shut up, and when they do you worry they’re sick.’
‘Thank you for your understanding.’
‘Schoolbooks too, don’t forget those.’ She was ticking off the list on her fingers. ‘And pencils. It’s like a river of money streaming out of your purse. And the cooking is endless. It never stops. And you’ll need another room, under the circumstances. Would you truly leave Alfie’s place?’
I didn’t tell her that he’d already given me notice to leave.
‘Do you think I can’t manage?’
‘Of course you can!’ she insisted, with a little too much conviction. ‘You’re very … resourceful, I’m sure. It’s just that … don’t do this because you’re sad. Or lonely.’
‘I’m not lonely. Why does everyone keep saying I am?’
‘Aye, well, that is a question, isn’t it? Your young friend Constance said you never do anything or go anywhere. “Moping” was the word she used.’
‘Well, she’s wrong,’ I said firmly. ‘I go to work; I play chess with Jacob; I do lots of things. I went with Alfie to see his old army friends.’
‘That’s good,’ she said, though I could tell she was unconvinced. ‘Because children don’t salve your wounds, Leo, they rip the stitches out of them.’
I clenched my fingers together so tightly I thought my joints would crack.
‘Why should I be any less capable than anyone else? Is it because of …’ I lowered my voice, but by this time I was properly angry. ‘Of what I am?’
She folded her arms. ‘If what you are is a man, then most likely, yes. Look around you. How many men do you see caring for their own children, let alone someone else’s?’
My rage burned quickly through my better judgement. ‘If that’s the case, Rosie,’ I said, through gritted teeth, ‘why are you helping me with this? Who’s looking after your children while you’re here with me?’
She gasped as if she’d been struck, and for a moment I thought she would fly at me. Instead, she took a step away and composed herself, speaking with fierce precision.
‘So that’s it, is it? I’m to be here when you need me, like last year when it was your Maria and my Jack, but otherwise I should hurry back to my stove and my children with nary a complaint. And when they’re all grown up, what should I do then? Bake one final pie and fall down dead, because that’s all I’m good for?’
‘Rosie, I …’
‘You do what you want. You’ll be doing it on your own from now on.’