2

IN FRONT OF US, the sea was smothered in a sulphurating fog. Vast grey shapes hovered within it, some darker, some lighter, some with sails hanging like paupers’ rags.

‘Where’s this bridge?’ I asked, as we crunched across the pebbles.

Peregrine pointed towards a jetty to our right, oil-black and skeletal, mounted above the stones on wooden posts. ‘Not a real bridge. Gosport’s more than a mile away. There’s a chain from one shore to the other and the ferry goes to and fro along it. Cargo mostly.’

‘You seem to know a lot about this town for someone who’s only been here a few weeks.’

His ample face twitched with irritation. ‘I have curiosity, that’s all. I like to know things.’

I too have curiosity, I thought. Peregrine had never told me where he came from or who his family were, nor anything about himself beyond the immediate and obvious. Even his name was surely a fabrication; Peregrine Black was like a character in a book by Mr Poe, sophisticated, idiosyncratic and dangerous. It was perfect for him as he was now, but what parent in their right mind would choose it for their newborn child?

Ahead of us, ghostly shadows formed into silhouettes of people, strutting about in a manner both authoritative and aimless, which could mean only one thing: policemen. Above them, seagulls were bickering and spiralling in the sky, dipping and veering away, greedy for whatever lay below.

‘We’re here!’ Peregrine called, in a voice so booming I was surprised no answering foghorn came from out of the murk. ‘I’ve brought the journalist!’

A figure came towards us, stooped and weary. He coalesced into a uniformed fellow, peering at us from under his helmet. I’d never seen a policeman so old. Despite the sagging of his skin, falling around his jowls like pastry dough, his moustache was coal-black, and his eyes were sharp.

He shook my hand. ‘Sergeant Dorling. You’re the important fellow down from London, are you?’

‘Yes.’ There seemed no other sensible answer. ‘My name’s Stanhope. I’m a journalist with the Daily Chronicle.’

He gave me a quick once-over, taking in my narrow-brimmed hat, my woollen jacket and my shiny Oxford shoes, size eight, and appeared satisfied. Apparently, I matched his idea of what a London journalist should look like. He couldn’t know that my feet were size five and Rosie had constructed leather insoles to prevent my shoes from falling off.

We followed him across the stones towards the jetty, the reek of the sea getting stronger. Though the sun could scarcely penetrate the fog, the heat was unbearable, made worse by the damp air. I wiped my forehead on my sleeve, leaving a dark stain in the wool.

Dorling seemed determined to ingratiate himself.

‘I met Sir Richard Mayne once, you know,’ he said conversationally, unaware that I had no idea who he was talking about. ‘He knew how to get things done. A great shame he’s gone. He wouldn’t have let the bloody Irish explode bombs in our capital. He’d string up every Paddy he could find first.’

Briefly, I was glad Rosie wasn’t with me. ‘I see.’

‘I’ve no time for this new chap, Henderson.’

Light dawned upon my slow-moving brain. Peregrine had told him that I knew powerful people. Henderson was in charge of the police force in London, and I supposed Mayne must have been his predecessor.

‘I haven’t spoken to Henderson,’ I replied, as if this omission was purely by chance and I was otherwise quite familiar with gentlemen of his rank.

He accepted this with a nod, his eyes resting briefly on my cheek. In certain lights, people noticed the sheen of it and probably wondered whether my malady was due to burning by fire or a defect of birth. The answer was fire. My defect of birth was otherwise.

On such a calm day, the waves were small, swishing and sighing against the stones, reminding me of little Sam’s snoring at night, tucked into the bed he shared with Robbie. Those everyday noises: the rattle of carriages in the street, the hooting of distant trains and Rosie’s singing in the kitchen; for a second, I wanted nothing more than to be back in our tiny home, where the smells were of ash in the grate and pies in the oven and ink in the books on the shelf.

A young constable stood aside as we approached, starting to doff his helmet before thinking better of the idea.

A curled figure was lying on the stones in the shade of the jetty, surrounded by policemen.

Peregrine stopped walking before I did. I heard him mutter, ‘Dear God,’ and the scrunch of his shoes on the shingle as he turned away.

The body was of a young woman. Her feet were bare, but she was otherwise fully clothed in a floral dress and light cotton jacket, one hand thrown above her head and the other tucked under her chin. She was resting on her hat as if someone had wanted her to be comfortable. Her eyes were closed, and her face was serene, pinkish-blue lips pushed out in a childish pout. In the curve where her jaw met her neck, a neat cut had been made, an inch wide. It was as efficient a killing as I had ever seen; no desperate slashing, no remorseful rending of her clothes, no fearful attempt to hide the body. She had been dispatched as neatly as a bobby calf.

One constable made a remark I couldn’t hear, and the others sniggered. I had the urge to push them away from her. I knew their humour was motivated by fear, but still, it should be saved for the pub later, when they could clink their glasses and drain their ales and numb themselves to the certainty that their own bodies would one day be as still and cold as hers.

I crouched down beside her. ‘What’s her name?’

Dorling sniffed, wiggling his moustache. ‘We don’t know. She’s not local.’

‘What makes you say that?’

He pulled a pen from his pocket and twitched back her sleeve with it. He was too squeamish to touch the dead. ‘See the tattoo?’ he said. ‘It’s foreign.’

I took her forearm, having no similar compunctions. It was oddly heavy and dense, more like a man’s. She had been remarkably muscular in life. I placed my own hand against hers, wondering, for a brief second, whether she might be like me, or my mirror image anyway, but her hand was small and her fingers slim. She wasn’t wearing a ring and there was no sign – no indent or paleness – to indicate she ever had. I felt her palms, and they were as hard as boiled pigskin and marked with circles like ringworm, though no infestation could have penetrated so tough a leather. I ran my finger around the circles, determining that they were callouses, rubbed down and remade so often that they no longer left any ridges on her flesh.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Dorling.

I supposed my actions must have looked rather intimate, though they weren’t intended that way. I felt an affinity for the dead. Had we been alone I would have spoken to her, helping her along her journey with gentler words than the last she’d probably heard.

‘She was strong. And she worked hard.’ I leaned down to sniff her hair and the collar of her dress. ‘No smell of ammonia. I doubt she was a maid or a laundress.’

‘A factory girl?’

‘Perhaps.’

But I didn’t think so. I’d visited factories that made pencils and lampshades and jute, and always it was the men who did the heavy labour, lifting, pulling and ratcheting. Women did the more dexterous tasks, no less difficult, their fingers darting into the machinery like sparrows’ beaks. But this woman had power in her shoulders and neck. Remembering the events of the previous year, I checked her knuckles, but she was no fighter. There were no healed cuts or bruises on her face. I examined her forearms, searching for other damage. Near her right shoulder, her skin was grazed, as if she’d fallen against a harsh surface. Her elbow joint felt strange too, bumpy and misaligned, as though it had mended badly after a break.

‘She’s led a hard life, but these aren’t defensive wounds. She was surprised by the attack.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Dorling, though I could see he wasn’t truly interested. He was looking out across the harbour at the ships.

‘She may have been ill-treated.’

And yet … was that right? Her hair was newly cut and styled. Her dress was pleasant and well sewn. She didn’t seem like someone who’d been held against her will.

Dorling was becoming impatient. ‘What of the writing?’

I straightened her arm. The tattoo was in dark blue ink and not recent; silky hairs had grown through it. I read the words out loud, slowly picking through the syllables, having no idea what language they were in. ‘Urodzona by latać.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know. Any ideas, Peregrine?’

He shook his head, standing a few yards away, covering his mouth and avoiding looking directly at the girl.

‘I’ll find out,’ I said.

Dorling clapped his hands together in a manner that might have appeared genial had his teeth not been clenched into a grimace.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Your newspaper will have resources in London we don’t have here. Translators and so forth.’

‘Exactly.’

I ducked my face, unable to keep from smiling. I was picturing the resources available to me at the office: my colleague Harry, whose knowledge of languages was limited to the few words of French he’d learned in an attempt to seduce a young governess who turned out to be Portuguese, and a copy-boy whose father had taught him some Arabic swear words. No, my resources in this matter had nothing to do with the Daily Chronicle. They were an irascible old Jewish man with a failing memory and his blind wife; the wisest two people I knew.

‘How does this compare with the last murder?’ I asked Dorling. ‘Tell me about the victim.’

He snorted. ‘One of those lads, taking money from perverts, selling themselves like women. What can they expect?’

I gave him a thin smile. ‘To live, I would have thought. Failing that, justice, at the least.’

He drew himself up. ‘You may think us primitive, Mr Stanhope, and lacking in your London proprieties. But I assure you, we are as ready to defeat crime as any police force on the south coast. Don’t confuse us with those buffoons in Bournemouth or Worthing. We’re already on the track of the killer and, I have no doubt, will soon apprehend him.’

‘Or her.’

He gave a knowing smirk. ‘Oh no, ladies don’t commit murders like this. They don’t have the constitution for it.’

‘I suppose their parasols get in the way.’

He narrowed his eyes, uncertain whether I was being sarcastic. ‘You have an unpleasant mind, Mr Stanhope. Very unpleasant.’

‘That’s true enough. Who’s your suspect?’

‘I can’t tell you that. Not yet. Don’t want to spook the fellow. But we’re on his trail, make no mistake about it.’

I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. He was so keen to demonstrate the competence of the local police force that he may have been constructing a story for my benefit, and in fact be completely clueless.

‘And the first victim’s name?’

‘Micky Long, though we don’t know if that was real. Probably wasn’t. They make up names. Aged nineteen, give or take. He was killed in this exact place, six days ago.’

‘In the same way, I gather. Does he have any next of kin? A mother?’

‘A younger brother, I believe, in the same game.’ The sergeant folded his arms. ‘You’re asking a lot of questions, Mr Stanhope.’

I chose not to meet his eye. ‘In the interests of our readers. I’m sure you’d rather I wrote about how the police were informative, rather than obstructive. Commissioner Henderson would be most concerned if—’

‘All right, Mr Stanhope, all right.’ He pursed his lips. ‘We assumed it was one of his deviant customers until … ’ He waved in the direction of the girl. ‘Until this. They were killed in a similar fashion. There was more blood with him, though of course it rained this morning, and it was dry last week. When the holidaymakers came down to the beach, there was quite a to-do, seeing him posed that way.’

‘Posed?’

He twitched again. ‘Yes, posed, much like this girl. It’s not a natural position for a murder victim, is it? Though I can’t see why you’d need such details. I can’t imagine the readership of the Daily Chronicle will be interested in the posthumous positioning of the body. Surely, they’re more interested in our hunt for the killer, knowing that the redoubtable boys of the Portsmouth police will be … ’

‘Was he exactly the same?’

It was Peregrine who answered, his voice, normally so powerful, quavering like a goat’s. ‘Yes, the same. His eyes had been pecked out by the gulls. It was awful.’

‘Was Micky Long from around here?’

‘Probably,’ said Dorling. ‘No one mentioned an accent or any tattoos. Born at the docks I should think, like most of ’em.’

He hadn’t consulted his notebook. I wondered whether anyone had bothered to find out for sure.

‘Did he have any other injuries? Grazes or broken bones?’

‘Cuts and bruises, I think. Nothing unusual, given his choice of occupation.’

I sighed, wondering whether an examination of Micky Long’s body at the mortuary might reveal something more useful than Dorling’s vague pronouncements. But it was a fleeting thought. I was here to write my article and then go home, and there was no time for distractions.

I contemplated the young woman again. It seemed that these two killings had many features in common – the slit throats and bodies left in the same place and posture – but also some differences. What connected a lad who earned his living on the street to a well-dressed, foreign young woman? The thought occurred to me that, rather than being a second killing by the same person, this might be a response to the first killing by someone else. I might be looking at an act of revenge.

I wished Rosie was here. She could summon insights I could not and had a knack for understanding people. To me, they were a language I would never wholly understand, but Rosie was fluent. I pictured her now, settled with a pot of tea, nattering with her sister about pregnancy and parenthood and perhaps, if her patience was already running thin, her experiences of childbirth. I had never met Viola, but I gathered, as much from what Rosie didn’t say as what she did, that the woman could be somewhat trying. But still, I wanted to meet my sister-in-law. Why was Rosie so keen to keep us apart? Our marriage was one of convenience, but I was her husband. Was I so ill-made that she was ashamed of me?

We were about to leave when a young constable arrived with a shirtless fellow in tow, his substantial belly barely hidden beneath a bib.

‘This gentleman owns a shop on the Pembroke Road,’ the officer said. ‘He saw a girl who fits the description.’ He indicated the victim. ‘Is this her?’

The poor fellow seemed close to tears, pulling off his cap and running his fingers through his hair. ‘Yes, I think so, sir. We’re next to the gardens and we sell souvenirs and the like, for the ladies. She bought a brooch for sixpence. Pretty thing, made of pewter. My wife makes ’em.’

I gently rolled the girl so we could see her jacket lapel and, sure enough, a rough-made brooch of Celtic design was pinned to it.

‘This one?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He turned away.

‘Was she on her own?’ I asked, and he nodded. ‘Did she seem relaxed? Happy?’

‘Certainly. Lovely smile, and not in a rush neither. I told her she should get a ring to match, but she wouldn’t. She said a ring would hurt her fingers.’

‘What did she mean by that?’

Dorling was listening to this exchange with growing irritation. ‘Constable, take this man to the station. We can interview him properly there.’ He turned and shook my hand, effectively dismissing me. ‘I hope what you write reflects well on the Portsmouth police force,’ he said. ‘We do what we can with the thin resources we have.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘And should you require more information towards a positive article, I’m always available.’

‘Thank you, but this is a brief trip and I’ll be returning to London tomorrow. The day after at the latest.’

‘Well, that’s a shame.’ He looked mightily relieved. ‘It’s not often we get gentlemen of the press down here from the capital.’

Peregrine and I crunched back to the road. He was unusually quiet, his hands thrust into his pockets and his face lowered. As we reached the giant metal gate, I stopped and faced him.

‘Did you know the lad? The one who was killed here first.’

There was a minute’s pause before he answered. It would hardly have been noticeable with anyone else, but Peregrine was rarely reticent. He loved to fill the air with words.

‘Only vaguely.’

‘How?’

He looked away and wiped his eyes. ‘It’s no matter. I have nothing of interest to offer, I assure you.’

‘He worked as a … a molly-lad? Is that the right word?’

Peregrine pulled a face. ‘It’s one of them. There are many, none of them kind. He worked mostly on the ships, I believe. Like I said, I hardly knew him.’

And yet, I thought, he had taken the trouble to write to me requesting that I come all the way to this dismal town to investigate the lad’s murder. I’d thought he simply missed my company, but now I wasn’t sure.

‘And did you know the girl?’

‘No.’

This time, he was telling the truth.

We turned the corner on to a larger street, which was surprisingly industrious, crammed with people. They were ignorant of the tragedy that had occurred only a few dozen yards away. Many were what one would expect in such a spot: dockers hauling sacks on barrows, seamen smoking and chatting as they wandered home, their lean faces black with oil, and the occasional woman, heading to the market for provisions. But in amongst them, a few gentlemen could be spotted in top hats or bowlers, portfolios gripped in their hands.

Peregrine noticed my curiosity. ‘They’re here to argue down their excises,’ he said, in a tone of disgust, as if describing maggots crawling on carrion. ‘The Customs House is back there.’

‘Does that mean there’s a telegraph office nearby? I’d like to send a telegram.’

As we headed north along the shoreline, I felt strangely precarious. To our left, the mudflats stretched out, merging with the harbour, veiled in fog and smoke. To our right, warehouses were crushed together like teeming carcases, interspersed with tiny shops as vivid as butterflies among the soot-stained walls and rotting wood paving. Most of them sold tobacco, but one was a barber with a queue of customers straggling along the pavement, another a tailor and yet another a dolly-shop, where a gambling man might leave his wife’s jewellery and hope to reclaim it the next day. I closed my left eye and could believe I was in the heart of a city, but when I closed my right, I felt as if I was on the brink of the sea and might be washed away at any minute.

The telegram office was small but seemed efficient. The clock behind the desk told us it was six-fifteen. I hoped Jacob would have time to send me a reply that evening.

‘What’s your address, Peregrine?’

I wrote out my form and handed it to the clerk. He read it back to me letter by letter.

‘Trnslt ths pls: Urodzona by latac. Rssn? Germn? Ydsh? Rply 19 Hudson Rd, Ptsmth.’

The clerk was about to send it when I stopped him. ‘Please add the following. “P to K4”.’

This last was a chess move: pawn to king four. Jacob had placed a set on his table at home, and I planned to do the same in Portsmouth, so we would be able to play a game remotely by telegram, keeping the two boards synchronised. However, my set was in the bag at Rosie’s sister’s house, along with my spare clothes; one more reason to curse our separation.

I paid the man and we left, Peregrine picking up the pace as we headed inland. We scurried like mice under the shade of another barracks, and onwards into a maze of streets, each lined with terraced houses as identical as the sausage rolls Rosie cut in her shop every morning.

‘I told Mrs Mackay you’ll be staying,’ announced Peregrine. ‘My landlady. Best you don’t talk to her about … well, anything. Just stay away from her.’

‘Why?’

He didn’t reply, but bellowed: ‘It’s us!’ as he pushed open the door, making me recoil briefly back on to the pavement.

Inside, the hallway had a faintly leathery smell and was decorated with wallpaper in bold black and gold stripes. A corridor led to a kitchen at the back, and I caught a glimpse of a dining table not unlike ours in London. I pinched the flesh at the crook of my elbow with my fingernails, almost breaking the skin. I was tiring of my own homesickness. I’d never been one to get attached to a place before and had lived in a dozen homes at least, some of them without the owner’s permission.

A stairway led upstairs, and I followed Peregrine, his bulk blocking out the light. At the top, a landing led to two bedrooms.

‘I’m paying for both,’ he declared, as though he’d hired twin yachts for us, with gaggles of servants.

In one of the rooms, I heard a stirring and a yawn, followed by the sound of feet on creaking floorboards. Peregrine’s face took on a stony look – not easy for one with such an abundance of flesh – and he attempted to usher me into the other. But he was too late. A young man emerged on to the landing, wearing only a pair of drawers. He was as skinny as a newborn eel, with a pale, hairless chest and a hungry face. His eyes were slow and full of sleep.

Peregrine glowered at him, though not without a degree of fondness. ‘I thought you were going to leave before I got back.’

The lad yawned without covering his mouth. ‘I fell asleep. It was comfy.’ He glanced at the hessian sack I was still clutching and thumbed towards Peregrine. ‘Watch out for this one. He has an actor’s temperament.’

Peregrine ushered the lad back into the bedroom. ‘Mr Stanhope is a friend visiting from London. Now get dressed and go.’

I confess, I was shocked. I thought of myself as a man of the world and was well aware of my friend’s liberal approach to matters of the heart and flesh, but this was a level of blatancy surprising even to me.

Peregrine frowned, correctly interpreting my expression.

‘We are who we are, Leo. You should know that better than anyone.’

‘What of Miranda?’

His wife had been left behind in Holborn with their child, whose name and gender I couldn’t recall, if indeed I had ever known. Peregrine rarely talked of them.

His mouth formed a hard line like the top bar of a closed gate. ‘Miranda and I are honest with each other. And it’s no business of yours.’

‘You’re right, of course. I apologise.’

He grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. One of his endearing qualities was how swiftly his tempers passed. They blew in and out like March winds.

‘It’s wonderful you’re here, Leo. I’ve been bored without a true friend to argue with. Now, I have to get ready for the theatre, but we’ll have a nightcap when I get back, yes?’

He closed his door, and I could hear low voices through the wall. The young man was teasing Peregrine.

I opted for discretion, ensconcing myself in my temporary bedroom. It was plain and unfurnished aside from a narrow bed, but was warm enough, and I was grateful to have it. The window looked out on to a pleasant garden and the houses behind, damp laundry hanging hopelessly from lines tied between the fences.

I pulled out my notebook and began writing my article. I was planning to send it to the newspaper office to be typed up by Miss Chive. As ever these days, I covered the simple facts in a sensible order, adding no colour or postulations of my own. I had no doubt the subeditors would enhance my bald text, perhaps creating a nickname for the killer such as the ‘Seaside Stabber’ or ‘South Coast Sweeney Todd’, but I would not. I’d made that mistake before.

The first paragraph was scarcely completed, detailing the exact dates and location of the murders, when I heard the visitor padding down the stairs and the front door opening and shutting. Not fifteen minutes later, Peregrine’s heavy footsteps followed.

I was glad of the peace and quiet, which lasted until I heard a loud knock at the front door. There was no sign of the landlady, so I went to answer it, meeting a messenger boy, who handed me a telegram with my name at the top. I felt a brief rush of excitement. I still found receiving a telegram thrilling; much more urgent than a letter and you never knew what they might contain.

It was a reply from Jacob. I read it out loud as I climbed the stairs, translating the cryptic strings of consonants into words. He started with the chess: Pawn to king’s knight five. I pictured the move in my head, our two pawns venturing forward, each unopposed, for now. Knights and bishops would soon emerge from the rear-guard to sweep them away.

The second part was more significant: Not Russian or German but a Slavic dialect. It means Born to Fly.

I took a moment to marvel at Jacob’s command of languages, gained of necessity as he and Lilya had fled across Europe, escaping from … well, if I was honest, I wasn’t certain what from. He never talked about it. He regularly harangued me about the failings of young people today, squinting pointedly through his overflowing eyebrows, or boasted about his long-ago exploits on the docks, or expounded endlessly, endlessly, endlessly about the intricacies of jewel settings, carat measurements and patination. But never about why they had left Nikolaev thirty or more years before. But he was Jewish, and I knew how Jews were treated in London, so I supposed I could imagine.

I pinched myself. I needed to concentrate.

What mattered was that I had gathered new information about the girl: she came from far away. I wondered whether she was newly arrived by boat in this city. If so, I might never discover who had killed her, or even what her name was.

And then, there was that tattoo. Born to Fly? What could it mean?