As the carriage pulled up outside the headquarters, Constable Walnut stretched out his legs. “Well, it’s been a long night. I could do with a pint.”
There was a commotion and an officer ran up to us. “Sergeant, a body’s been found sir, near Tower Bridge.”
There, the barrel had been washed up against the shore, broken and stinking of something rotting. A small, pale arm hung out of it. A couple of policemen pulled the body of Daphne Withers out.
I’d seen a barrel just like it, in the clockmaker’s cellar.
III: July 1888
Mr Loveheart Visits Albert Chimes
It was terribly smelly in that part of London. I knocked on the shop door of the clockmaker and waited for him to answer. Rat a tat tat. The door creaked open and we stared at one another.
“Hello, Albert. I am John Loveheart, and you have been a very bad boy.”
He let me in, the silly fish – they always do. He lit an oil lamp and we stood in his little curious shop. His pale eyes watched me carefully. “Why are you here?”
“Well, I’m not shopping for clocks. I’m really not interested in extending my life unnaturally. My life is already far too unnatural. I am a little surprised that a wealthy alchemist like yourself would be living in a shit pit.”
He didn’t reply.
“But,” I continued, “I was curious to meet a man so prominent a part in my father’s life. You fuelled his addiction with your little time contraptions. He never had much time for me as a child.”
Mr Chimes replied, “So your daddy didn’t love you enough. Well maybe you weren’t very lovable. It’s late and I’m tired, what have you come here for?”
“And so you should be tired. I would be too if I were hundreds of years old. Why is it you people are obsessed with living so long on this Earth? Please tell me. I would love to know.”
“You wouldn’t understand. Now get out of my shop.”
“Oh you really are no fun at all. And that detective is so close to catching you. I suppose your little time machines don’t bode too well against the hangman.”
“I can disappear easily enough. I am seven hundred years old. I have killed thousands and thousands of...”
I pulled out my little silver pistol and shot him in the head. “Blah blah blah. You’re boring me.”
A black cat with jewel-like eyes watched me from the cabinet, yawning. I picked her up to take her home with me. I thought the ribbon round her neck was quite charming.
When I stepped into the street, a small boy was staring at me.
“Mr Loveheart?’ he said.
“Yes?” I replied, stroking the cat, “And you are?”
“Death.”
“Ah, I see.” I was intrigued.
“I have been watching you with interest, Mr Loveheart.”
“I suppose I am interesting. Is there anything I can help you with? Directions perhaps? Are you lost?”
“Are you an angel or a devil?” and his voice sent ripples of electricity through the night air.
“I haven’t decided yet.” And I wandered off down the grim little alley, whistling.
IV: October 1887
Grandfather’s Dying wish & Dr Cherrytree
I arrived at the asylum at exactly a quarter past two. A row of fat pigeons sat on the wall, overlooking my arrival, suspiciously. The gates were spiked iron, both gloomy and menacing, encircling the building like the tail of a great dragon, the paving stones underneath wet with a slime trail. The warden’s name was Fuggle and he had wooden teeth, something I hadn’t seen for quite a while. It amused me.
I introduced myself. “Doctor Edmund Cherrytree. I’ve come to see Ernest Merryworth.”
The warden looked me up and down. “Oh, the doctor. You’re doing a study. I remember your letter.”
“Yes, actually I am a psychoanalyst. I have come to examine his behaviour. I am writing a book on the criminally insane.”
Fuggle laughed, his wooden teeth slipping about. “You’ve come to the right place.” He escorted me down a deep, long, white corridor, jingling his keys by his side. “He’s been as good as gold, doctor, since he got the bad news.”
“Bad news?”
“He’s dying. Got a month or so left. Something wrong with his heart.” And Fuggle laughed.
“What’s so amusing?”
“His heart. Of course there’s something wrong with it. He’s a bad sort. You know what he did to his granddaughters.” Fuggle looked at me sideways and continued, “Killed two of them and stuffed the other one in a clock.”
“Man is capable of redemption, Mr Fuggle.”
Mr Fuggle taps his nose. “I’ve seen it all. The very worst of man. Angels can forgive him, Doctor Cherrytree. I won’t.”
We arrived outside the cell of Mr Merryworth. Mr Fuggle opened the door with a little key. Ernest sat by the window reading, and he turned towards me, so I could see the front cover of the book. It was about clock making.