A fickle spring was upon Greater London. The morning sun dashed in and out of hiding, until it finally succumbed to a thick wall of clouds. The sky darkened.
Sleet nipped at Olivia’s cheeks and she unfurled her umbrella hastily. Tapioca snow whirled on the pavement. The budding vegetation was shaken by angry squalls. Shivering, Olivia hurried past MacDoughall’s Plant Nursery and pushed open a wooden garden gate with a neatly carven sign that read:
Rupert Hunt
Redhill Apiary
The whitewashed stone house hadn’t been sold yet, a circumstance that made a search of the premises less bothersome. She pulled a skeleton key from her coat pocket and pushed it into the lock. The key was courtesy of Mrs Hopegood, who, after having heard the verdict, appeared to have shrunk to half her original height.
Olivia stepped into the hallway and shut the door. Darkness closed in on her. She should have brought matches.
Gradually, her eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light and she saw a pale, white strip a few steps ahead — a crack under a door. She set one foot in front of the other, careful so as not to run into something and knock it over.
She pushed at the door. Sharp white daylight cut through a gap between thick curtains, and blinded her for a moment. The air was stale. She coughed and came to a sudden halt as a thought hit her: what if this Sir Peter Berk was one of her former clients? And if not him, then some other man she and Sévère would happen to meet, sooner or later? No man in his right mind would mention in front of his own wife that he’d lain with a whore. But what man wouldn’t try to blackmail her? Let me take you in the broom closet, else I’ll tell your husband who you really are. Oh, he knows already? Even better. You’ll serve me every night, else I’ll ruin his reputation.
She grabbed the door frame for support. What was she to do? Had Sévère spent even a single thought on the consequences? He must have. But they’d never discussed it, never agreed on tactics. Had he evaded the topic when she’d asked him about it at Pagani’s?
Olivia lifted her gaze. Behind the window, the sky cleared and sunlight hit the lawn. She wondered who’d cut it since Hunt’s departure. MacDoughall, perhaps?
Briefly, her thoughts drifted to Chief Magistrate Frost. He was a man who would not take prisoners. What will I do when I meet him? Chills rippled down her arms. You won’t get to me, you bastard. I will strike first.
She stepped through the door into the parlour.
The house echoed her steps. Not a cupboard, a picture frame, a lamp left. It was only the pale patches on the wallpaper and skid marks on the floorboards that told of former inhabitants. The outline of a headboard in the room where Mr and Mrs Hunt must have slept, a smaller outline in a smaller room that faced the garden. Was this what Charlotte Hunt had seen, day in day out? The line of apple and pear trees, the walkway with shrubs on either side. A small, overgrown pond.
Olivia opened the window. The forsythias were in full bloom. A gust tore petals off a wild plum tree; it looked as though the tree wept snow. MacDoughall’s plant nursery was to her left, a pasture to her right, a farm building nestled against a group of larch trees farther off. She scanned the lawn that lay inconspicuous before her. Nothing indicated burial sites. Sévère had sent her here to locate the original graves of the infants, hoping she’d find clues as to why Rupert Hunt would plead guilty to a crime he had not committed.
She wondered if Sévère’s instincts were fooling him. Surely, he didn’t want her to spend days digging up Hunt’s premises? She wondered if Rupert Hunt had been a rapist and murderer before his mind grew muddled and soft with age. Wasn’t it common for old men to be entirely different from their younger selves? An arrogant wife-beater could turn into the most charming grandfather once strength of body and mind left him. They simply forgot who they were. Or they realised what it meant to be weak.
For a short moment, she wondered if it was justified to hang an old Rupert Hunt who seemed so different from his middle-aged version: a man who had repeatedly forced his own daughter, and then killed their babies.
Or had he?
Olivia turned on her heel and scanned the empty room. There was nothing of interest. She took two steps and lay down on the dusty floor where the bed must have been. She looked up at the ceiling.
The room was silent. As silent as Charlotte Hunt. Olivia was undecided as to how to approach the problem of the silent victim. She’d left the folder with the case notes on the parlour floor. It was of no use to open it yet again. The most curious fact hadn’t been written down.
‘If Miss Hunt is unable to read and write, what use does she have for book and ink bottle?’ Sévère had asked earlier this morning.
‘What indeed,’ she muttered as she sat up. Something creaked under the pressure of her left palm. She lifted her hand and noticed two floorboards that were shorter than the others. Someone had cut a board in half, as though to repair damage.
‘Dammit,’ she growled. Sévère still hadn’t returned her knife. She’d forgotten to ask him about it.
She rose and left the room.
She found MacDoughall in his garden, moving piles of twigs.
‘Good day to you, Mr MacDoughall,’ she called across the picket fence.
He straightened up and blinked against the light. ‘Mrs Jenkins?’
‘It’s Mrs Sévère now. We got married two days ago. Isn’t it a bit late for pruning?’
He narrowed his eyes at her. His gaze slid to her stomach and up at her face again. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, and tapped his foot against the twig pile. ‘Pomaceous trees are customarily cut between January and March.’
‘Ah,’ Olivia said. ‘I was wondering if you could lend me a knife. I forgot to bring my own.’
‘A knife? What for? And why are you here? Mr Hunt confessed, didn’t he?’
‘Indeed he did. But a few things need clarifying.’ She waited until MacDoughall had approached the fence and was standing a short distance from her. ‘We need to know if there are more than the nine victims, and where they were buried before he put them into flowerpots and took them to London. You wouldn’t know, would you?’
MacDoughall’s throat seemed to swell. His carotid artery visibly throbbed. ‘I do not.’ He flipped a pruning knife in his hand and held it out to her, handle first. ‘Be careful. It’s sharp.’
‘Thank you. I might ask you for a shovel later, if you don’t mind.’ She turned toward the house and walked away.
‘What do you need the knife for?’ he called after her.
She looked back. The sun caught on MacDoughall’s face. ‘To move a floorboard. There seems to be a secret compartment.’
A sharp nod and he turned away.
The mysterious compartment was, after all, rather un-mysterious. It was simply a damaged floorboard that had been cut to replace half of it. Olivia sat down heavily. She looked up at the ceiling, and said, ‘What would I do?’
She stood and began pacing the room. ‘I give birth. There’s blood. I attend to myself. I need to protect my child. What do I do?’ Her gaze drifted to the window. ‘I would ask for help.’
She inhaled deeply. ‘Slow down,’ she told herself.
How much blood was in a newborn? One pint, perhaps? Where did it all go?
There was no mattress, no blanket or rug she could examine. Only the floor, the wallpaper, the window, the door. She knelt, put her nose close to the polished wood, and inhaled. Dust. She sneezed.
She picked up the knife once more and ran it along the edges of the repaired floor board, worked a long splinter out and inspected its rim. Nothing but dirt.
She looked at the pale patch that indicated where the headboard of the bed had covered the wallpaper. She sat right where the bed had stood. That’s not where the blood would be, would it? Soaking its way through the mattress? No.
But why would the board beneath the bed be broken, and not the ones closer to the door where everyone walked in and out?
She couldn’t find an explanation.
She chose other floorboards on either side of where the bed must have stood, and ran the tip of the sharp knife along the edges. She couldn’t lift the boards, for they’d been nailed down fast. But she managed to extract slender pieces of wood from the edges. A side of one piece was covered with a dark-brown substance. She scraped it off. It looked almost black on the shiny metal blade. Wouldn’t the floorboard itself be stained, if blood had spilt on it?
She went back to where the bed must have covered the floor and repeated the procedure on several boards there. The knife came away with a greyish substance. Dirt, rubbed into the cracks as one scours the floor?
Again, she sat down, thinking. If it had happened here, what would have been done with the blood-soaked blankets and rags? Where would I put them?
I would burn them. Or bury down.
Again she looked toward the window.
‘Mr MacDoughall?’ she called across the yard.
He looked up and leant on his rake.
‘May I ask you something?’
He pushed up his hat and cleared his throat. ‘I can’t give you no shovel, Misses. How would I know the coroner sent you? For all I know you’re with child.’ He looked her up and down and added, ‘Mrs Sévère.’
‘Thank you for your concern, Mr MacDoughall,’ Olivia said brightly, and extracted a piece of paper from her jacket. She unfolded it, and held it out for him to read:
_________________________
London and Southwark
and Liberty of the Duchy
of Lancaster in Middlesex
and Surrey.
By virtue of my office and in the name of our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, my wife and assistant Maria Olivia Sévère, née Kovalchuk, shall be given full charge and responsibility on behalf of said Lady the Queen to investigate the death of nine infants, and for her doing so this shall be her warrant.
Given under my hand and seal this 12th day of March in the year of our Lord 1881.
Gavriel Sévère
Solicitor at Law
Coroner of our said Lady the Queen
for the City of London and the County of Eastern Middlesex
and the Liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster.
_________________________
‘Hum,’ said Mr MacDoughall and spat on the grass. ‘I already told the coroner everything.’
She smiled warmly. ‘You have answered his questions sufficiently, thank you. However, new questions have arisen and I was rather hoping you could help us once more. Did you grow up in this house?’ She nodded toward his home.
‘Why is that interesting to the coroner?’
‘A mere formality.’ She knew the answer. Sévère had checked the registry.
‘I was born here, as was my father.’
‘How old are you?’ This she also knew.
‘Twenty-seven. No, twenty-eight. Is that important?’
‘Oh, not so very much. You and Charlotte Hunt grew up together. Can you tell me anything about her?’
MacDoughall dropped his gaze, and grunted something Olivia didn’t catch. ‘Excuse me?’ she said.
He lifted his head, looked at Hunt’s house, and said, ‘We didn’t grow up together.’
‘Are you telling me you know nothing of Charlotte?’
‘She didn’t speak.’
Olivia nodded slowly. ‘I see. Well, Mr MacDoughall, here is your pruning knife. I thank you for lending it to me. It has been most helpful. I can see that you don’t wish to answer my questions. You have seen, read, and understood the warrant. I will now take you into custody, and transfer you to our offices in London. You may pack a few things and inform your wife, but I must ask you—’
He held up both hands. The rake handle dropped to the ground. ‘You cannot!’
‘I very well can, Mr MacDoughall. And please be assured that I will. Unless, of course, you decide to answer my questions truthfully, here and now.’
He set his jaw, turned a shade of purple, then jerked down his chin once.
‘Thank you. Did you grow up with Charlotte Hunt?’
‘We were friends, if you mean that. I knew her well.’
‘How would you describe her family?’
‘The mother was distant and sickly. I rarely saw her, never talked to her much. The father, Rupert Hunt, I liked him. I never expected him to…’ MacDoughall turned his face away. ‘…to do such a thing.’
‘Did you ever notice that she was with child?’
‘Mrs Hunt? No, she was old. Older than her husband, I believe.’
‘I was referring to Charlotte.’
He sucked in air, his ribcage expanded. He let out a groan. ‘I suspected it once or twice.’
‘And then?’
‘Nothing ever came of it, so I believed…I believed I was mistaken.’
‘Hum.’ Olivia pushed her hands into the pockets of her coat. She toed a clump of dirt aside and mashed it with her heel. ‘The seven apple trees were yours?’
He looked up, pale. ‘No. She…she knew how to graft. She and I learnt plant craft from my father and grandfather. She mostly watched. She had nothing else to do.’
‘Did you ever see the Hunts burn blankets or rugs or other items one normally doesn’t burn, or did you see them bury a small package or two?’
He shook his head violently. ‘No. Never.’
‘I am trying to understand how he did it. Rupert Hunt. How did he hide nine bodies, how did he hide all those bloody sheets? How could Charlotte have been with child seven times and no one saw it, and why did she never ask for help?’
Her eyes were sharply on him, analysing every twitch and every change of colour, every breath.
‘She is a big woman. I imagine it was rather hard to see it, when she was heavy with child.’
‘Did she have a nurse? When she was a child?’
Startled by the sudden change of topic, MacDoughall blinked stupidly. After a short moment, he recovered. ‘Ah. No. It’s not common here. Employing a nurse, that is.’
‘Did she play with other children?’
‘When she was young? Yes. She was quite normal. Except that she was mute.’
‘Interesting,’ Olivia said. ‘She is in an asylum now. Her father told the staff that she’s an idiot.’
MacDoughall jerked back as though he’d been punched in the face. ‘No! Impossible. Why would he say that about his own daughter?’
‘I don’t know. He fathered her nine children.’
MacDoughall spat again. He shook his head, then nodded. ‘That must be it.’
‘Must be what?’
‘He was done with her. He dumped her. Poor Charlotte.’
‘Yes. Poor Charlotte. I will visit her today. Would you like me to say hello?’
For a moment, Olivia saw shock in the man’s face.
‘Better not upset her.’
‘Very well. Have a nice day, Mr MacDoughall.’
When Olivia shut the garden gate, MacDoughall called after her, ‘Don’t tell Charlotte you talked to me.’
She found an inn and ate a quick lunch, then took the South Eastern Railway to Tunbridge and up to Sevenoaks. She was certain the asylum staff would not be delighted when they learnt she was the assistant of Coroner Sévère, the man who had caused a fit of hysteria in one of their patients.
She thought about the book and the ink bottle and the curious statement Sister Grace had given, and she wondered if the asylum staff could be trusted at all.
❧
The maid delivered a telegram together with his four o’clock tea. Sévère took a sip of the hot and aromatic brew, and only a moment later, snorted it right back out. Through his nose. He coughed and sputtered, wiped his face with a hanky, and read the telegram once more:
Committed myself to Sevenoaks Asylum. Back in 2 days. O.