Thirty-Six

What a mess. What a bloody mess. Inspector Kipper tried to make sense of the night’s events. Sergeant Adams was alive - that was the main thing. He would spend a long time recuperating in hospital but he would recover. Whether he would come back to work or not was yet to be determined. Knowing Adams, Kipper reflected, wild horses wouldn’t keep him away from Bow Street nick.

Perhaps it was a good thing that the macabre Doctor Hoo was out of commission and Sergeant Adams would have to go without new parts. Kipper shivered; the world’s not ready for that kind of medicine.

“Lovely to see you, sir!” Adams tried to sit up in bed when Kipper came in. “Them’s nice blooms.”

Kipper placed the bunch of flowers on a bedside table. “You’re looking better than last time I saw you.”

“Bless you, sir. Did you catch him?”

Kipper reddened. “Not exactly. But don’t you worry about that. You just worry about getting back on your pins.”

Adams nodded at a chair in the corner of the room. Kipper brought it to his bedside and perched on it. “I’d make you a cuppa but I ain’t best disposed to at the minute, sir.”

“That’s all right.”

The pair sat in companionable silence. Kipper wondered whether he should tell the sergeant how relieved he was, how worried he had been. But, he found he didn’t have to utter a word. Adams, as ever, seemed to know what the inspector was going to say before Kipper knew himself.

“I’ve been thinking, sir,” Adams looked away. “Get a lot of time to do that, lying here. Thinking about things. Life is short, sir, and mine was very nearly all the shorter. So I’m sorry but I ain’t coming back to work, sir. Not as a copper.”

Kipper’s jaw dropped. “Don’t be so - I mean, I shall - the force will miss you, man.”

“You’re very kind, sir. But I’m going to try a new career, ain’t I? I’ve been thinking about it ever since I first put on women’s clothes.”

Kipper was aghast. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be a dollymop!”

Adams chuckled, so much his injuries pinched him. “No, sir, Lord above, no sir. Soon as I’ve got me strength back, I’m orf down the music hall, sir. See if I can’t get me a job as a female impersonator. Sort of like Dan Leno, sir. Them magicians - who still want paying for that engagement, sir - they said they’ll help me out. Sorry to leave you to muddle along without me. You look like you don’t know what to say, sir.”

“No, no,” Kipper reached for his former sergeant’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “What I want to say, Ben, is you don’t have to be sorry.”

***

“Back again, love?” cackled the flower-seller on the Portobello Road. “Twice in one day, I am honoured.”

Kipper grunted and paid for his second bunch of flowers. The first was standing gaily in a vase beside Adams’s hospital bed. This second he would take home...

Bigby had taken control. Again, perhaps that was a good thing. “Beighton killed one woman; this much we know,” he’d said, pacing outside the shaft and puffing on his pipe. “He knew we were on to him, so he has absconded. Left the country, I shouldn’t wonder. He won’t trouble the streets of London again.”

“A cover-up?” Kipper had been surprised.

“Literally,” said Bigby. He signalled to his men who set about filling in the shaft.

“I don’t like it,” said Kipper with a petulant expression.

“You would rather report the truth, old man? They’ll whisk you orf to Bedlam as soon as look at you.”

Bigby had been right. Kipper could see that and was willing to live with it. And if it should all go belly-up, Bigby as the presiding officer would cop the shit storm. Not that any of it should ever come to light. The railway people were abandoning their proposed extension; too expensive. Too much negative publicity about toads, he shouldn’t be surprised.

One thing he had insisted on before the dirt went raining down on the remains of Edward, Lord Beighton: the removal of Doctor Hoo from the underground tomb. The world might not be ready for his brand of medicine but one day it might. Kipper had the doctor transported to a secret location, the details of which he kept sealed in the safe at Bow Street.

While all this was going on, that Deacus fellow had legged it. Can’t say I blame him, Kipper thought. Best off out of it. Don’t know where he’s gone and I don’t want to. Going to try to put all this business behind me and get back to nicking pickpockets and chasing burglars. Oh, for the easy life!

He turned the key in the front door and pushed his way through to the communal hallway. Like a tiger in the undergrowth, landlady Mrs Plum sprang from behind an aspidistra.

“There you are, Inspector!” she displayed unerring mental acuity. “Nice to have you home. Spot of dinner suit you? It’ll be ready in ten. Oh, ain’t they lovely blooms?” She clasped her string of pearls in surprise. “For me, are they? Oh, Inspector Kipper! You shouldn’t have!”

“I didn’t,” said Kipper, heading up the stairs. “No dinner for me, thank you, Mrs Plum. I have other arrangements.”

Mrs Plum’s eyes widened and she actually staggered backwards. “What’s this?” she gasped. “Don’t tell me you’ve been and gone and found yourself a lady friend?”

But Kipper said nothing. He bounded up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, whistling to himself and holding the bunch of flowers like the Olympic torch.

He knocked the door to his own room before going in. “Only me,” he said. He shut the door behind him and held out the flowers.

Coppélia turned from the window and smiled.