The Draugr (Midnight Gunn Book 3) Read online

  10

  ST. THOMAS’

  JANUARY 11TH 1863

  Dealing with the night attendant proved easier than they anticipated; the fool of a man had fallen asleep on duty. He hardly flinched when Rowe broke open the lock and he and Gunn crept into the dimly lit hallway of the building. The overweight fellow was slumped in his chair, snoring blissfully. His ample body spilled over the trouser belt at his waist and jiggled with each snort from the man’s open mouth. Rowe approached him, his own wooden truncheon raised, and clobbered the man on the side of his head just hard enough to make sure he remained unconscious for a while.

  “There. That should keep him out of our hair, give you enough time to ’ave a proper look.”

  Midnight raised an eyebrow at the young sergeant, who shrugged one-shouldered back at him.

  The two men continued on, exploring the various corridors and reading the engraved plaques on each of the doors until they found the one they were looking for.

  “The woman will be in here, the kids in a different room.” According to Rowe, cadavers were stored in various ways, depending on the particular class and social standing of the victim. Even more macabre, Rowe revealed that the people of the city had developed a new pastime in recent months; the dead were sometimes placed in the waiting morgue. This was the area where the newly deceased were put on display for public view. The waiting morgue served a dual purpose; it satisfied the gawking public’s innate sense of morbid curiosity but also gave the corpse a reasonable amount of time to wake up. This was a relatively new practice, Rowe informed him, due to the fact that too many people were being buried alive.

  Having located the body of Miss Amelia Prescott, Rowe drew back the sheet of white linen to reveal a face that was on the verge of the later stages of putrefaction. The once delicate features looked swollen, and her skin held a distinct tinge of green with swatches of red, indicating that her blood had begun to decompose. The raised hump beneath the linen cloth barely disguised the bloated stomach, full of the gases caused by the decomposition process. There was evidence of some attempt at a post-mortem as a few stitches were visible near her décolletage.

  “I am not sure how much can be determined from this woman’s body,” Midnight admitted. “She may be way beyond my reach now. But I will try,” he added, seeing clear disappointment on the young sergeant’s face. “Would you mind leaving the room? I prefer to work in privacy, and it would also serve to keep a look out for the attendant, should he waken.” Midnight knew there was no chance of the latter in truth, but it served him well to not have Rowe witness what he was about to do. Even a hardened detective, such as Gredge, had trouble accepting Midnight’s darker abilities. Rowe would very likely soil himself.

  Once Rowe had extracted himself, all too gladly Midnight was pleased to see, he drew in a deep breath and prepared himself to entertain the shadows once more. With only one oil lamp burning in the room, it did not take long for the familiar sensation of a thousand needles pricking him all at once to envelope him, filling his body seemingly from the inside out and sending his senses into a heightened state of awareness.

  Focusing on the face that lay before him on the table, he gently placed a hand on Amelia Prescott’s forehead. The coldness of the touch, along with the spongy feel of her puffy skin, repelled him slightly, but he forced himself to concentrate. A tiny sliver of dark power penetrated her brain, searching the dead matter for any remnants of her final memories.

  Her body jerked, and her eyes opened, fixing him with a milky stare though he did not see it. His own eyes were closed in concentration as he scoured her mind. Usually, when he performed this dark deed on a fresh corpse, the deceased’s memories were fleeting but clear. However, since it had been two and a half weeks since Miss Prescott’s untimely demise, the condition of her organs had deteriorated enough to offer up only the merest of visions.

  Children running in circles, laughing.

  Singing.

  Stone steps.

  Trees.

  Although the images he received were blurred and the sounds muffled, Midnight recognised the scene: Berkeley Square on Christmas Eve. He pushed harder, funnelling more of his dark power into the rotting pulp that used to be her brain. The stench of the gases released by the victim’s decay courted his gag reflex, but he forced himself to look deeper for her last memory.

  Dimly lit street.

  Heels on cobbles… click, click.

  Eyes scanning the shadows.

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  A muffled reply. A male voice.

  “Oh. It’s you. Hello again.”

  More muffled speaking, blurred darkness, and flashes of recognition.

  A swish of a long coat, a hat.

  An all too familiar moustache.

  Fear.

  Confusion.

  Cold fingers.

  Midnight withdrew from Miss Prescott’s mind, but the sense of unease stayed with him, leaving his heart as cold as the fingers of death he had just felt in the vision. He could not determine for sure what he had witnessed, but he could not deny that this woman had, at least, seen and spoken to someone strongly resembling the inspector.

  A tentative knock at the door drew his attention back to the present.

  “Come in, Sergeant Rowe.”

  The door creaked open, and Rowe’s face appeared at the crack, almost as if he was reluctant to step fully into the room. “Anything?”

  “I can’t be sure. The body is too far into decay to glean very much,” he said, skirting the truth somewhat.

  “Right,” Rowe said, disappointed. “The kids next, then, eh? They’re more recent.”

  Once again, Rowe extricated himself from the scene, leaving Midnight alone to discover what he could. Peeling back the sheet, he felt his stomach lurch at the sight of the young girl laid out in front of him. For a brief moment, her petite features reminded him of his daughter, Polly, and his heart skipped a beat. Such a young life, cruelly cut short, as many were in the poorer parts of the city. With a tenderness only a parent could understand, Midnight removed the note of paper from under her little snub nose and read it aloud.

  “I am definitely dead.”

  The paper smelled like vinegar and something else he did not recognise. The gases emitted from the cadaver’s nose would make the message written in invisible ink appear, therefore, in theory, ensuring that the person would not be mistakenly buried alive. Considering the need for a waiting morgue, Midnight was dubious as to the accuracy of this practice.

  The girl remained clothed in the rags she had died in; she’d not been stripped and prepared for burial as had Miss Prescott. He wondered if the girl had been displayed in the public viewing room for the ‘gawkers,’ as Rowe had called them—a truly contemptible way to pass the time, in Midnight’s opinion. He could not understand the attraction of spending an afternoon drinking tea and eating cakes whilst waiting to see which one, if any, of the day’s corpses would suddenly awaken. Nothing was more abhorrent or disrespectful than to be paraded as a sort of freakish entertainment. These poor victims should be left in peace while they waited to be committed to their eternal rest.

  A little bit of dried foam crusted the girl’s chin. He removed his handkerchief and wiped it away. Replacing the kerchief back in his pocket, he placed his hand on the little forehead and probed gently at her memories. In complete contrast to the woman’s, these were vivid, loud, and alarmingly clear.

  Gredge smiling down at her.

  Gredge paying her and her brother coppers for a shoe shine and patting them both on the head.

  The scene changed to another time.

  Gredge standing in front of the little boy, reaching out a hand, and…

  Midnight once again felt the freezing touch of death on him. The little girl’s body jerked beneath him. He felt her fear and loss as she saw her brother fall lifeless to the floor seconds before she followed him, and the vision faded to nothing.

  The last image in Midnight’s head was that of his friend and respected colleague, Detective Inspector Arthur Gredge of Scotland Yard, smirking as he took the lives of the two innocent children.

  11

  MERITON

  JANUARY 12TH 1863

  “When will Shins come back, Papa?” Polly asked him for what must have been the hundredth time.

  “As soon as he is able,” Midnight replied. If he is able. He added in thought. Polly heaved a sigh. She desperately missed Widdershins, Midnight knew, and he could not bring himself to tell her what had taken place that night at the church. Indeed, he hardly liked to think on it for when he did so, the heavy burden of guilt reared its ugly head. It lay alongside the guilt he felt for Gredge in a companionable and constant herald of accusation, nestled firmly within his conscience. Midnight checked the time on his pocket watch. Rowe would be here at any moment. After the events at the mortuary the previous night, and the shock of Midnight’s discovery, they had both agreed to sleep on things before making any rash decisions about what to do next. Although he hadn’t managed an ounce of sleep himself, he felt alert and on edge just the same. He checked his watch once again.

  “You ain’t heard a word I said,” Polly said very matter-of-factly.

  Midnight looked up at her. “Hmm? Oh. I am sorry, little one. I am rather distracted this morning, and I am expecting company. Forgive me?”

  “S’pose so.” She shrugged but regarded him with suspicion.

  She was very perceptive for one so young, and he often found that he could not hide things from her for long. But this morning’s business was not something he ever wanted her to find out about.

  “It is time for your lessons, is it not, Miss Peeps?”

  Polly frowned, her lip curling.

  “You had bette
r run along now. Don’t keep Miss Carmichael waiting.”

  Polly turned around and walked sulkily away, brushing past Giles as she went.

  “Sir, Sergeant Rowe is here to see you. Should I show him into the parlour?”

  “No, not here. We shall talk in my study where we cannot be overheard. Thank you, Giles. I’ll take it from here.”

  ‘Very well, sir.” Giles nodded and went to find Mrs Phillips to order a tea tray for his lordship’s guest.

  Midnight followed him out into the hallway and found Rowe seated on the wooden settle by the front door. The sergeant rose when he spotted Midnight, and by the look of the lad, he hadn’t slept much either. The two men merely shook hands and acknowledged each other with a paltry nod. The usual greeting of ‘Good morning’ seemed wholly inappropriate given the circumstances in which they were meeting. Midnight could find nothing good about this day.

  “I cannot bring myself to believe it.” Rowe declared. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”

  “I understand how you feel. I am struggling with the concept myself,” Midnight admitted.

  A weighted silence fell upon them. Rowe starred at the ceiling and began fiddling with a button on his cuff whilst Midnight paced the rug in his study, deep in thought. It was the sergeant who broke the silence first.

  “I’m going to have to tell the superintendent something,” he said quietly, not looking at Midnight. “He’s had me following the boss for long enough now to be wanting a full report. How can I tell him about you? What do I say?”

  “You say nothing. You cannot. It will expose me and put my daughter in danger,” Midnight implored.

  “But we know he killed them. The boss, he killed those poor kids. What am I s’posed to do? I swore an oath to uphold the law, Lord Gunn.” The conflict the young sergeant felt was written all over his face, but Midnight could not risk anybody else knowing about his abilities. For, although Branford was aware that Gredge sometimes met with him during an investigation, Gredge had always maintained that he merely consulted Lord Gunn as an expert alienist—a relatively new practice that involved profiling the personalities of murders and criminals. No one in the force—aside from Gredge, who knew the most regarding his abilities, and Rowe, who knew just enough—was aware of the exact role he played in their investigations.

  “I understand your dilemma, Sergeant, truly, and you are a credit to Scotland Yard. However, I need to speak to Arthur face to face. I need to see the truth for myself before I let you take action against him.” It was not up for debate. Sergeant or not, Midnight would not allow any more threats to those he loved. They had all been through enough these last two years and if this investigation exposed Midnight, he would no doubt be persecuted, hunted like a monster, and then what would happen to Polly? “We will go to him now.” Midnight rose and called for Giles to ready his personal carriage.

  “What are you going to do when you see him?” Rowe asked.

  “Something that he will not like one little bit.”

  “Are you going to let us in, Arthur? It is rather cold out here,” Midnight said to the stunned man in the doorway of number thirteen Little Surrey Street.

  “What are you doing here?” Gredge directed his question at Sergeant Rowe, not looking at Midnight.

  “We need to talk to you, gov,” Rowe said.

  Gredge then flashed a look at Midnight. “And you? Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to help, Arthur.”

  Gredge started to turn away and close the door but Midnight grabbed hold of his wrist.

  “Please, Arthur. It is important.”

  The inspector sighed and let them both into his home. As he led them through to the front parlour, Midnight could not help but notice the state the little house was in. Despite the clear morning, the curtains above the window remained closed and no lamp burned, enshrouding the room in dank darkness. The fire in the range was unlit; not even a pile of kindling or cold ash filled the grate, indicating that there had been no fire to heat the house or to cook on for some time. Gredge was a mess, unshaven and unkempt. Midnight had never seen him look so unlike himself, and it worried him.

  He got straight to the point. “Arthur, I’m not one for dallying as you know. Rowe and I have discovered something, and we need to speak to you about it. I have been to the mortuary. I have seen inside the heads of the victims in the case you were working, and now, it is time to discover the truth, once and for all. I am doing this with or without your permission, so you can protest all you like, but I will not—cannot allow you to stop me. For all our sakes’.”

  Gredge’s eyes widened at this alarming declaration. “What the bleeding hell are you talking about, man? Doing what?”

  “You had better sit down, Arthur. I am going to look inside your head.”

  “Like Hell you are!” Gredge growled, backing away.

  Midnight and Rowe flanked him, preventing any chance of escape.

  “Why do you want to do that? I told you before, Gunn, you ain’t messing around in my bonce. Over my dead body!”

  “And it may well come to that, Arthur, if you don’t allow me in,” Midnight hissed.

  “Threats now, is it?” Gredge said. Horrified, he appealed to his junior. “And you, Sergeant, you gonna let him get away with this? Call yourself a copper? Pfft!”

  Rowe swallowed hard but said nothing, standing his ground.

  “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear,” Midnight said.

  Gredge rounded on him. “Oh no? I remember what happened to the last living person you attempted to mess with. She ended up dead!” Gredge spat. “And what are you talking about—‘nothing to hide’? What is it that you are looking for exactly?”

  “The truth,” Midnight replied. “When I looked into the minds of those people at the mortuary, I saw who killed them, Arthur. I saw whose eyes they looked into as they perished. Yours.”

  Arthur Gredge fell heavily back into his old armchair, defeated. His eyes brimming with tears, he shook his head in denial and whispered, “No. You are wrong. You have to be.” He looked up at the two men, suddenly unsure. “I… I am not a killer.”

  12

  MERITON

  JANUARY 14TH 1863

  A sort of melancholic sense of grief had settled over Meriton House. Everyone had been shocked and saddened at the news that Detective Inspector Arthur Gredge had walked willingly into Stone’s End Police Station on the afternoon of January twelfth and confessed to the murders of Miss Amelia Prescott and the two Barnes children, Vinnie and Violet.

  Midnight had spent the last days since then, alone in his basement room. He hadn’t eaten but had managed to consume an entire bottle of his favourite French brandy. It still did not seem real— Gredge a killer? The notion was preposterous and yet he had seen it in Gredge’s mind.

  He had never witnessed a murder from the killer’s point of view before, and it had felt distinctly odd to him, almost as if he were looking through frosted glass. Usually, when he ploughed through the memories of the recently dead, they were pretty clear, depending, of course, on the condition of the body and the extent of decay. But this was different.

  After many hours of brandy-induced contemplation, Midnight had come to the conclusion that Gredge’s memories were somehow obscured as, even though he had confessed—”After all,” Gredge had said, “how could your powers be wrong?”—the inspector maintained that he could not recall the events of the evenings in question. Midnight assumed his friend must have blotted the trauma from his mind or that whatever paranormal parasite was possessing him, as Midnight was convinced must be the case, had erased Gredge’s mind.

  The inspector was now locked up in a secure cell in Surrey County Gaol. He was being held in solitude until the date of his trial; it wouldn’t do to let a child-killing copper in amongst the general population. They would tear him apart.

  Midnight was indebted to Arthur for keeping his secret. Rowe had pointed out that Superintendent Branford was a spiritual man, a believer of sorts in the unexplained, and he would likely think Midnight’s powers as something born of the Devil himself. They had debated for some time as to how to present the evidence of Gredge’s guilt without exposing Midnight and his abilities. That is when Arthur had told them that he would confess. That was also when Midnight had made a silent vow to himself that he would get to the bottom of this extraordinary turn of events, if it was the last thing he ever did. For, although he had witnessed the terror and demise of those three innocent people, he had also sensed Arthur’s emotions when he’d touched him, and there was nothing of a killer’s soul in the man’s body. Ergo, he must be possessed or controlled by something, and if that were true, then Midnight was just as responsible for those deaths as anyone.