'Did they turn up later?'
'Not sure, sir.'
'Well, check then, Inspector!' Pendragon snapped, waving him away. 'Get the ICU sister… Agnes Davies… now!'
'It's Daniels, guv,' Turner said, and regretted it when Pendragon spun round on him.
'Sir, may I make a suggestion?' Sergeant Thatcher said, quickly defusing the situation. 'How about I talk to the staff in the main reception area downstairs? See if they spotted anything unusual this morning around nine.'
'Yes, it's worth a try, Sergeant. And while you're about it, talk to any of the patients who were up and about or at least compos mentis around here this morning, to see if any of them saw anything out of the ordinary. And, you, Turner…' Pendragon went on '… can get all the CCTV tapes from the hospital. There must be cameras in some of the corridors, and there'll be plenty of them outside the building. Get the recordings back to the station and go through them, second by second, between nine and ten this morning.'
Pendragon turned and saw Towers approaching them. Beside him walked a tall, slender woman in dark blue uniform. Resting in the crook of her left arm was a clipboard. She could have been anywhere between forty and fifty-five, Pendragon decided. She had dark eyes, slightly sunken. She looked ill or else extremely tired.
'Sister Daniels,' Inspector Towers said.
The woman nodded brusquely to Pendragon. 'I understand you wanted to know about the specialist.' She had a deep, almost masculine voice and it sounded as tired as she looked.
'Yes, please.'
'He was due here at nine. Still hasn't appeared,' she said, a hint of contempt in her voice.
'I see. Do you have a name?'
She glanced at the clipboard. 'Yes, Dr Hickle. He was Gary Townsend's specialist. But I imagine it's pretty academic now anyway.'
Chapter 49
Whitechapel, 6 October 1888 'This bleedin' sack just gets 'eavier and 'eavier,' Eddie Morestone moaned. 'And stop fucking wrigglin' around, ya bastards!' he snapped, hoisting the sack a few inches above the slurry running along the floor. At thirty-two, Eddie was already an old man. The life of a tosher was a hard one, but he had come from a desperate family. His father and two uncles had been mudlarks whose work had involved finding anything of value they could in the sewage-filled banks of the Thames. At times their job had required them to pull a bloated dead body on to a barge or the sand banks, and to strip the poor soul of anything the waters had not aleady claimed: gold teeth, rings, crucifixes… anything that would fetch a profit. Eddie had worked on the river for two years but he hated the water and when a friend had suggested they go into partnership together as toshers, trawling through the East End sewers for rats that could be sold for baiting dogs in the gambling dens, he'd jumped at the chance.
The friend, Jimmy Grafter, had died five years ago, a victim of cholera – 'the downside to the job' Eddie would joke darkly to anyone who would talk to him; anyone that is who could bear his stink. After Jimmy was taken, Eddie got himself a new partner, Quick Tom, a kid of twelve at the time who still deserved his nickname. He was already carrying the partnership, and Eddie's days down the sewers were numbered; they both knew it.
'Tom, slow down a sec, will ya?' he called into the darkness ahead.
'I wanna get 'ome,' the boy snapped back, keeping up the pace. He had his own sack of restless rodents to drag along. Then, out of pity, he stopped to let Eddie catch up. Sighing, he waited for the older man to slosh his way level, panting as he advanced. Tom was holding their only source of illumination, a small lamp poised just in front of his nose. It cast sinister shadows across his pox-scarred face.
'Cheers, son,' Eddie wheezed.
It was then that they heard the scraping sound.
''Ello,' Tom said, a grin appearing through the filth coating his face. 'Sounds like a big'un.'
'It's comin' from over there.' Eddie gave a brief nod towards a point further along the tunnel to their left.
They crept forward lightly. 'What the…?' Tom exclaimed then.
'What is it?'
'It's a bloke!'
What?' Eddie sidled up and dropped his sack at his feet, ignoring the way it undulated with the movement of the angry rats inside it. 'Well, fuck me!'
Tom bent down beside the crumpled figure. 'He's been tied up, the poor sod.'
'Is he alive?'
'Dunno.'
Eddie crouched down and noticed the knife and a soggy box containing smears of something that looked like chocolate beside an opened bottle of wine. 'Somefink strange 'appened 'ere,' he noted. 'What're the knife and the bottle about?' Before Tom could reply, Eddie turned away and lifted the man's drooping head. Archibald Thomson's face was pale and a thick rope of dried vomit ran from his mouth, down his neck and across his shirt.
'He's breathin',' Tom said, and turned to Eddie with a glint in his eye. 'You finkin' what I'm finkin'?'
Eddie leaned forward and shook the man then tried to force open his eyes. Archibald shuddered.
'He's a gent,' Tom observed, studying the wretched figure's clothes. 'Check 'is pockets, Ed.'
Eddie thrust his hand inside Archibald's jacket and fished out a wallet. 'Weren't robbed then.'
'Nah. Anyfink in it?'
Eddie pulled out a handful of crumpled notes. 'Must be at least five pounds 'ere.'
Tom whistled. 'Nice one,' he said, pulling out a fob watch. 'Gold bleedin' chain and all.' He winked at Eddie. 'Come on. Let's grab the stuff and go. And don't forget the knife,' he added, nodding towards it where it lay a few feet away. 'Could be worth a bit.'
''Ang on.'
Tom looked at him, screwing up his eyes and tilting his head.
'Fink, Tommy, fink! Don't ya reckon there might be a reward out for this bloke? He's obviously a gent, and must be worth a bob or two. Someone should be very grateful we found 'im alive.'
Tom gave the older man a doubtful look.
Eddie could almost see the kid's mind ticking over. 'Well?'
'All right,' he said after a long pause. 'But we'll take the money on 'im. No one need be any the wiser, eh?'
Chapter 50
Brick Lane, Stepney, Thursday 29 January, 2.05p.m. 'Jack, this is the first breakthrough we've had.'
Pendragon listened to Superintendent Hughes's enthusiastic tone dispassionately. He was on his mobile hands-free in the car, heading back to the station.
'You don't seem very upbeat about it,' she commented.
'Well, I'm not. If Hickle is as clever as everyone thinks he is, he'll be a long way from here by now. He has almost three hours lead on us. He and his accomplice must have everything well planned.'
'Okay, we can't get into a time machine. But I've already got top-level support on this. I'll put road blocks in place. Close the ports. Get ID to the airport authorities. I'll even shut down the airports if I have to!'
Five minutes later, Jack was pulling the car into one of the bays outside the station, and forty-five seconds after that he was in Hughes's office.
'A team are due to arrive at Hickle's flat any moment now,' the superintendent said. 'I'm sure he won't be there but we have a warrant to search the place, see what nasty secrets the man's hiding.'
'They won't find anything.'
'Probably not.'
'What about Chrissy Chapman's place?'
'Grant and Vickers are on their way.'
'What do we do?'
'We wait.' Pendragon forced himself to deal with the pile of paperwork that had been steadily building up all week, but he was finding it almost impossible to focus. Then the first of a succession of calls came in. It was from the team at Hickle's flat. The doctor was not there, and as predicted the flat had revealed nothing incriminating at all.