Death Takes a Lover Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  1. Hammerock House

  2. Gracie Brickenborough

  3. The Discontented Ward

  4. The Foul-mouthed Cook

  5. The Cold Lady

  6. The Demon of Temptation

  7. Bella's Game

  8. How Death Took a Lover

  Epilogue

  DS Billings Victorian Mysteries

  Gay Noir Series

  The Deluded - sample chapter

  Death Takes a Lover

  Olivier Bosman

  Copyright © 2014 Olivier Bosman

  All rights reserved.

  www.olivierbosman.com

  Prologue

  “The police brought her here to the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum on the third of January, 1888.”

  The doctor was rushing down the hospital corridor as he spoke, reading from a file of medical notes he held in his hand and not looking where he was going. Detective Sergeant Billings was tagging along behind, struggling to keep up. He was distracted by the sights and sounds around him. This was a large and cold building. High windows on the wall let in some light, but allowed no view of the outside world. The occasional sounds of laughter, sobs and screams emanated from the ward and echoed throughout the whitewashed corridor, sending chills down his spine.

  “When she arrived, Gracie was withdrawn and uncommunicative,” the doctor continued, “but she was docile and cooperative. Since then she has become more active and she has developed some perturbing habits.”

  “What do you mean by perturbing habits,” Billings was asking when suddenly the doctor tripped over something on the floor.

  “What the devil!” He glanced away from his notes and saw one of his patients lying face down in the corridor with his arms pressed against his sides. “Mr Twain! What are you doing there?” he demanded brusquely.

  The patient did not respond but continued to look helplessly before him. He reminded Billings of a fish on dry land, desperately gasping for breath.

  “Get up, Mr Twain!” said the doctor, prodding the man with the toe of one boot.

  “Perhaps he’s feeling unwell,” Billings offered.

  “No, he does this all the time. He heard us talking and is trying to attract your sympathy. Isn’t that right, Mr Twain?” The doctor crouched down before the patient and looked him in the eye. “You like attracting the attention of visitors, don’t you? Well, you won’t get it! Now, on your feet at once or we’ll strap you to a chair.”

  Mr Twain continued to ignore him.

  The doctor straightened up and looked around him, frowning.

  “Matron!” he called. “Where is the blessed woman? Matron!”

  A stout figure in rusty black skirts answered the summons. She was followed by two young nurses, wearing dirty white aprons and small white caps.

  “Why is Mr Twain lying on the floor?” the doctor asked.

  “I’m sorry, sir. He must have wandered out of the ward while we weren’t looking.”

  “You should strap him into his chair if you can’t control him. I nearly broke my neck tripping over him!”

  Not a word of sympathy or concern for the patient, Billings noted.

  “We will be more severe with him, sir. We shall take him back to the ward forthwith.”

  The matron clapped her hands at the nurses who proceeded to lift the man off the floor. Billings watched as the man slipped and slithered from between the nurses’ hands while they tried to land him. It wasn’t until one of the nurses delivered a blow to the man’s head - like anglers dispatching their catch - that the man finally gave in and allowed himself to be dragged back into the ward.

  “This is Detective Sergeant Billings,” the doctor said, ignoring the spectacle. “He’s come to interview Gracie.”

  “Gracie?” the matron retorted. “Well, he won’t get much sense out of her.”

  “I have told him so, but it’s his duty to try. Isn’t that right, Detective Sergeant Billings?”

  “It is,” Billings agreed. He was still watching Mr Twain being escorted to the ward, like an escaped eel being lured back to the net.

  “Her cell is in the next ward,” the matron said. “Follow me.” And she led the two gentlemen further down the corridor.

  *

  Gracie was sitting cross-legged on her bed when the cell door opened. She was fifty-two, with a round, chubby face and bright, hazel eyes which looked childlike and bewildered. Her shoulder-length hair was scraped back and tied behind her head with a short length of twine. She was clasping something in her hands and holding it to her breast when the door opened. She gaped open-mouthed at the three visitors standing in the doorway, studying her.

  “Gracie, this is Detective Sergeant Billings from Scotland Yard,” the doctor said. “He would like to ask you a few questions.”

  Billings approached the cell and looked around him. It was a small, narrow chamber, with white washed brick walls and a small barred window, too high for the patient to look through. There was a bed, a chair and a shelf on the wall which was meant for the patient’s personal belongings, but which in this cell was empty. There was a peculiar smell in the air and Billings had to make an effort not to breathe in while he spoke.

  “Hello, Gracie,” he said, smiling at the patient.

  She didn’t respond but continued to gape at him.

  “I am investigating the incident at Hammerock House.”

  He stopped to see if the mention of the place had any effect on her. It did not.

  “You know Hammerock House, don’t you? Where the Thorntons live… Mrs Thornton and Roger, her son.”

  Again he paused, expecting her to respond to that name. “Roger Thornton,” he repeated, articulating the words carefully. But Gracie still did not react. She simply continued to stare at him, wide-eyed as a baby. Or a calf in a pen, newly separated from its mother.

  “It’s no use, Mr Billings,” the doctor interrupted. “Gracie won’t talk.”

  “Is she mute?” he asked.

  “No, she’s not. She talks all the time when she’s alone. But she won’t talk to others.”

  “What does she talk about?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to understand. She mumbles… I say, there’s an odd smell in here.” The doctor sniffed the air and screwed up his face. “When was the last time this cell was cleaned?” he asked the matron.

  “The cells are cleaned daily, sir,” she replied, also sniffing the air, then suddenly turned her gaze towards Gracie’s hands.

  “What are you holding there?”

  Gracie flinched at the woman’s sharp tone of voice and clasped her hands tighter to her breast.

  “What’s that you’ve got?”

  Billings looked at the clasped hands and saw a brown substance oozing from between her fingers.

  “Show me what you’re holding, Gracie,” the other woman continued.

  Gracie shook her head and put her arms behind her as the matron bore down on her.

  “Now, now, I don’t want to take it away from you. I just want to see what you have…”

  The matron pounced on Gracie then, grabbing her hands, tried to pull them apart. The patient struggled, but the nurse was stronger and managed to separate Gracie’s hands, causing a vile object to drop on to her lap.

  The nurse, the doctor and Billings all staggered back in disgust.

  “For heaven’s sake, Matron, not again!” the doctor exclaimed as he screwed up his face.

  The matron grabbed the end of her apron and, wrapping her hand in it, brushed the objectionable article away from the patient’s lap and on to the floor. Gracie instinctively reached out to catch it, but the mat
ron pushed her back.

  “You are a disgusting creature, Gracie Brickenborough!” she said, slapping her patient’s face. Gracie yelped and cowered away, holding her soiled hands to her face to protect herself.

  “I say, steady on,” said Billings, watching with concern.

  “No, Mr Billings, she must learn. Human excrement is not a plaything! It is a filthy and disgusting substance and she cannot behave like this.”

  “We really can’t have such degeneracy here, Matron,” the doctor said, still frowning with disgust. “Didn’t you give her an enema this morning?”

  “She should have had one, sir. I shall check with the duty nurse.”

  “See to it that you do. In the meantime get the nurses to clean her up and have this cell scrubbed with carbolic. Then strap Gracie to a chair. We have to break her of this filthy habit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I do apologise, Detective Sergeant Billings.” The doctor put his hand on Billings’ shoulder and guided him out of the cell. “I understand it is your duty to question our patient, but as you can see an interview is out of the question. I’m sorry you’ve had to come all the way from London just for this.”

  “Not just for this,” he replied.

  Billings glanced back into the cell. Gracie was wiping her streaming eyes with her sleeve as she watched the scowling matron cover the offending article with her apron and whisk away a bedpan. “I shall be making my way to Grosmont tomorrow.”

  “What for?”

  “To interview the other members of the Thornton household.”

  “So you have reopened the whole case?”

  “It was never closed.”

  “But you don’t really believe Gracie could have done it, do you?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Oh, come, come, man. You’ve seen her for yourself. A poor creature such as that? A fifty-two-year old imbecile? It’s preposterous, Mr Billings!”

  “Nothing is so preposterous as to be ruled out of account in my investigations, doctor. I’ve been in the business of solving crimes long enough to know that.”

  1. Hammerock House

  It was early April. Nature was beginning to stir and tinge with green the rest of England, but on the North Yorkshire Moors it was still very much winter. A single horse trudged slowly through the bleak, treeless landscape, pulling an open dog cart down a frost-covered track. Billings sat on the bench seat beside the driver. A bitterly cold wind blew in from the east and stung his face. He put up his collar, pulled his hat down over his forehead and sank into his coat, like a tortoise retreating into its shell.

  “Too cold for thee, is’t, officer?” asked a groom called Yeardley, sitting next to him, the reins collected loosely in one hand.

  Billings smiled politely but didn't answer. He wondered how the other man managed to remain so unaffected by the conditions. He was wearing a torn straw hat and a waistcoat, no greatcoat, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing his strong, white arms to the wind. The only signs of discomfort were the broken blue and red capillaries on his cheeks and nose.

  “I don't suppose th’art used to riding on open carts in London,” the groom continued. “It's all broughams and hansom cabs down there, I wager.”

  “That's right,” Billings mumbled in response. He wasn't much in the mood for conversation. It had been a long journey from Wakefield to Grosmont and all he longed for was the morphine in his satchel, which would bring peace to his shivering, pain-wracked body. But that would have to wait. No morphine before sundown. That was his rule, and he was determined to stick to it.

  “Well, it's a different country up here,” Yeardley persisted. “There's nowhere to hide from the elements. On t’moors God hovers over us like a circling buzzard. He sees everything we do.”

  Billings turned his head slightly to survey the inhospitable moorland. Why had he been chosen to review this case, a city boy who'd never been this far north in his life. Was it because he was the only bachelor in the Yard? Was this how they punished officers who chose to remain unattached?

  As the cart reached the top of a slope, Billings caught his first glimpse of Hammerock House. It was a grandiose new mansion built in the baronial style. Its brash granite turrets and swaggering expanse of crenellations looked completely out of place in this wilderness, though it was only one of several such mansions to have been built on the moors since the opening of the local ironworks. It was a desolate, forbidding place and Billings shuddered inwardly at the thought of having to spend the night there.

  As the cart neared the carriage sweep at the top of the drive, an elderly man in a wing collar and black suit stepped out of the house to meet them. He stood straight-backed on the stairs leading up to the studded double doors, surveying their approach. Billings concluded that this was the butler.

  “Good afternoon,” the man called out.

  Yeardley nodded back a greeting and halted his horse. The butler approached the cart.

  “You must be Inspector Billings.”

  “Actually, it's Detective Sergeant,” he replied.

  “Detective Sergeant, is it? I'd have thought they'd send an inspector at least.”

  “They sent the best person for the job,” Billings replied tersely.

  He picked up his satchel from beneath his legs and started clambering out of the cart.

  “Take care, sir,” said the butler as he extended one white-gloved hand. “The cart is higher than you might think.”

  Billings brushed aside his offer of assistance.

  “I can manage,” he said, but as he lowered his cramped and frozen legs they gave way and he slid to his knees on the icy gravel.

  Yeardley guffawed. The butler frowned at him in reproof.

  “I’m all right, I’m all right,” said Billings as he got back up and dusted himself off, raging inside.

  “I told you the cart was high,” said the butler, straight-faced.

  “Them London folks don't want to be told nowt by no one!” Yeardley chipped in, still laughing.

  “All right, you can go to the stables now,” the butler responded, frowning at the groom’s impertinence.

  “Will Madam be needing me again tomorrow?”

  “I don't know. We'll send for you if we do.”

  Yeardley touched his fingers to the side of his forehead in acknowledgement then hauled on the reins to turn the horse towards the stableyard.

  “You must be fatigued by your journey, sir,” the butler said to Billings. “I have a fire lit in your room. Please step this way.”

  *

  From the entrance hall with its armorial stained glass an elaborate carved staircase led to the upper floors of the house. A scarlet Turkey runner was secured to the centre of the oak treads by brass rods ornamented with arrow heads that looked sharp enough to draw blood. A medieval-style slit window on the landing let in some light through its leaded panes, but the wood-panelled walls and oak floorboards made the house feel gloomy even in daylight hours.

  Billings headed straight for the stairs and was about to climb them when the butler cleared his throat and stopped him.

  “Your room is this way, sir,” he said, pointing towards the west wing.

  The detective followed him through a heavy oak door. Gone were the wood-panelled walls and polished floorboards, to be replaced here by cracked plaster and scrubbed pine.

  They’re putting me up in a servant's room, he thought. Well, of course they were. It was a deliberate snub. An attempt to put him in his place. How could he have been so presumptuous as to think he'd be allowed to sleep in the family wing?

  “How long will you be staying with us, sir?” the butler asked.

  “A couple of days, I expect. I shall leave as soon as I have taken everyone's statement.”

  “It does strike me as odd that they should send someone all the way from London just for that. Particularly as we have already spoken to the police from York.”

  “The case needs to be investigated by ex
perts, Mr... um...”

  “Wilcox is the name.”

  “The Constabulary in Yorkshire does not have a Criminal Investigations Department. That's why the Metropolitan Force sent me.”

  “Of course. This will be your room, Mr Billings.”

  The butler stopped at the end of the corridor and opened the door to a plain little chamber furnished only with a bed, table and armchair.

  “It used to be the servants’ withdrawing room, but has now been turned into a guest bedroom,” he said diplomatically. “I lit the fire just before you arrived. It will soon be warm in here. May I take your coat, sir?”

  Billings put his satchel on the ground and started taking off his greatcoat. His hands trembled as he did so and the butler observed it.

  “You are shaking.”

  Damn it! thought Billings. It had been twelve hours since his last morphine dose and he was in desperate need of another hit.

  “It's nothing, Mr Wilcox,” he replied, and quickly clenched his fists behind his back.

  “Come and stand closer by the fire, sir.”

  “No, really, I am perfectly warm. I was expecting to be met by Mrs Thornton.”

  “Madam is unwell. She hasn't been in good health since this whole affair began, but she will try and come down to meet you later today, if her condition permits.”

  “How many people are there in the household?”

  “There's only four of us now. Mrs Thornton, Miss Whitfield, Martha Pringle the cook and myself.”

  “And where are they presently?”

  “Mrs Thornton is in her room, as I said. Martha is in the kitchen, and as for Bella Whitfield…”

  “I’m here.”

  A woman’s voice came from the corridor outside. Billings turned round and was taken aback by the sight of a pretty young lady standing in the doorway.

  “I was attending to Mrs Thornton when I saw Yeardley come up the driveway,” she explained. “You must be Inspector Billings.”

  She offered him a limp hand, which he shook delicately.

  “Detective Sergeant,” he corrected her.