Moriarty

Dead Man’s Walk has long since disappeared. It was one of those cemeteries built in the first part of the century when nobody understood how many people would live in London and therefore, inevitably, die there. All too quickly it had become oversubscribed with so many bodies crammed in next to one another that the tombstones and memorials, rather than providing the solace and remembrance that had been intended, had become a hideous spectacle, slanting at strange angles, leaning on each other, locked in an eternal struggle for space. For many years, a foul and putrid smell had hung over the place. The later graves were desperately shallow, unequal to the task, and it would not be uncommon to find rotting pieces of coffin wood or even shards of human bone poking through the soil. Inevitably, the cemetery had been abandoned. Other cemeteries had been sold off and some had become parks. But Dead Man’s Walk had been left behind, a long irregular space between a railway line and an old workhouse, with rusting gates at each end, a few mouldy trees and a sense that it belonged neither to this world nor to the next but existed in a dark, dismal province of its own.

The cab dropped us as the church bells were striking eight o’clock, the hollow chimes echoing in the dark. I saw at once that we were expected and my spirits sank. There were a dozen roughs waiting for us, so dirty and ragged that they could themselves have been summoned from the graves that surrounded them. They were dressed, for the most part, in close-fitting coatees, greasy corduroys and boots. Some of them were bareheaded, others wore billycocks and carried cudgels which they balanced on their shoulders or on the crooks of their arms. Torches had been lit, throwing red light across the gravestones as if they were determined to make the scene even more hellish. How long they had been there, I could not say, but it seemed incredible to me that we were simply going to deliver ourselves to them. I had to remind myself that there was no alternative, that we had made our choice.

Still, we lingered at the gate.

‘Where is my daughter?’ Jones called out.

‘You came alone?’ The speaker was a bearded man with long, tangled hair and a broken nose that threw uneven shadows across his face.

‘Yes. Where is she?’

There was a pause. A sudden breeze whispered through the cemetery and the flames bowed in recognition. Then a figure appeared, stepping out from behind a monument with a stone angel perched above. For a moment, I thought it might be Clarence Devereux but then I remembered that his condition would not allow him to show himself in this open space. It was Edgar Mortlake. I had last seen him plunging into the river and to my eyes he now seemed more dead than alive, moving slowly, as if the impact of the water had broken several of his bones. He was not alone. Beatrice Jones, pale and tearful, was holding his hand. Her hair was unbrushed and there were smuts on her face. Her dress was torn and soiled. But she looked unharmed.

‘We don’t give a damn about your dear little daughter!’ Mortlake shouted. ‘It’s you we want. You and your infernal friend.’

‘We’re here.’

‘Come closer. Come and join us! We have nothing to gain by keeping her. We have a carriage waiting to send her home. But if you do not do as I say, you will see something you might rather not.’ He had lifted his other hand, revealing a long-bladed knife, which glinted in the flames as it hung over the little girl. Mercifully, she could not see it. I had no doubt at all that he would use it if we did not obey his instructions. He would cut the girl’s throat where she stood. Jones and I exchanged a glance. Together, we moved forward.

At once we were surrounded, the hooligan boys moving behind us, cutting off any means of escape. Mortlake stepped towards us, still holding onto Beatrice. She had recognised her father but was too terrified to speak. ‘Take the girl back home.’ He handed her to one of the younger men, a curly-haired rogue with a smile and a stye in one eye. The two of them walked off together. ‘You see, Inspector Jones? I am true to my word.’

Jones waited until his daughter had left the cemetery. ‘You are a coward — a man who steals a child and uses her for his own evil ends. You are beneath contempt.’

‘And you are the cripple who killed my brother.’ Mortlake was very close to Jones now, his face inches away, staring at him with eyes on the edge of madness. ‘You will suffer for that, I assure you. But first there are some questions you must answer. And answer them you will!’