Chapter 12
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1888
Three more days… she whispered. Whitechapel’s history would take a turn for the macabre on the 30th. Two more women would be dead, killed within an hour and a mere ten-minute walk of each other. Her mind flitted to the wounded doctor. Why had Alastair been roaming the streets in the middle of the night? He didn’t appear the type to get his jollies in a back alley. Then again, why did she care? None of this was her concern. She just needed to do her job and let history take care of itself.
After wading through page after page of news reports with headlines such as A Fire of an Exciting Nature, she found an article that stole all her hope.
An Unknown Found
Police are requesting the public’s assistance in the identification of a young man recovered from the Thames, Monday last, near King James’s Stairs, Shadwell. The deceased appears to be approximately twenty-five years in age with light-brown hair and eyes. In life, he would have stood five-foot nine, and was of slight build. A distinguishing feature may aid in his identification: a fine, four-inch scar situated behind the right ear. A partially consumed bottle of laudanum was discovered in the pocket of his jacket, and the coroner surmised that he took the opiate to ease his anxieties before casting himself into the river. A final note and numerous, weighty stones were discovered in the pockets of the dead man’s garments. As reported in yesterday’s edition, an inquest was held and a verdict of Suicide returned. The body is available for viewing at the parish mortuary at St. George’s-in-the-East, Cable-street.
Chris. Cynda lovingly brushed her hand over the paper, fingers staining dark from the ink. Considering the scar a badge of honor, he’d refused to have it removed, though most of their contemporaries thought any blemish unacceptable. How many people can say they survived an Ottoman Turk’s blade? he’d joked.
Not very many, she whispered. Chris had been pulled from the Thames the night she’d arrived in Whitechapel.
Even before she entered the room to view the body, the pocket watch announced her lover’s presence.
Oh, God, no.
Christopher Stone rested on a rough wood table, a grayed sheet tucked around his narrow hips. His pale skin was marred by dirty cuts and he stank of the river. She could imagine what he’d say about that. Fortunately, Chris was beyond caring.
From his perch near the door, the mortuary attendant watched her with disinterested eyes. Ya know ’im? he asked in a gravelly voice, a curl of smoke coming from his mouth.
Yes.
A huff of approval. Put his partic’lars on that piece of paper over there, he ordered, pointing toward a table. Cor’ner will need it for the death certif’cat.
Cynda gently pushed a clump of mud-caked hair off her lover’s face. Cold skin numbed her fingers. What was the…cause of death?
Too much water, the man said. He chuckled thickly at his black joke.
She glared at him, resisting the temptation to take his smoldering cigar and stuff it up his red-veined nose. He saw her expression. Sew-ee-cide, that’s what the cor’ner says.
What about his clothes? she asked, eyes lowering to her lover’s body. Chris was bruised and battered, no doubt from the time in the water, rolling over and over, smashing into… She swallowed hard as her stomach careened.
Clothes is over there. He pointed to a sodden pile on the floor.
If the cor’ner says it all done proper, where ya want the body sent? he asked, like she’d just purchased a fish at the market.
Cynda gave him a piercing look. 2057, you ass. Think you can manage that? Put his clothes in something so I can take them with me.
With a bored shrug, the man collected the pile of wet garments and hiked out the door, a choking trail of cheap cigar smoke in his wake.
Cynda bent over the body, studying the exposed flesh. A red welt encircled both his wrists. Exposing his ankles, she found no marks. Hearing the heavy tread of the morgue attendant, she returned the sheet to its former position.
He stuffed a wrapped parcel into her hand. As he did, he made sure to squeeze her breast. Tempting as it was to deck him, she let it pass. If she nailed the jerk, he’d take his wrath out on Chris’
body. Right now, her lover had no way to protect himself.
I’ll send someone for him, she said, retreating out of groping range.
The attendant gave her a leering smile. Or ya could come back for ’im yerself.
She shook her head. If I do, you’ll have to learn how to hold your cigar with your toes.
It took another half-hour before all the partic’lars were complete, including an uncomfortable discussion with the coroner.
The man launched a barrage of questions: What was the name of the deceased, his age, address and profession? Had he spoken of ending his life? Where had he purchased the laudanum? Who was the next of kin?
Cynda had bluffed her way through, fabricating answers as the coroner made notes for the death certificate. Then the alleged suicide note was produced: penciled letters on a wrinkled sheet of paper.
DEATH BECKONS AND I OBEY.
More questions: Was the deceased in the habit of writing in block letters?
She gripped the note tightly. Yes, when he was upset, she lied. She memorized the words, searing them into her brain.
That’s all I need, the coroner said. I am sorry for your loss, miss.
Not as much as I am.
Sitting in the mortuary’s courtyard, Cynda unwrapped the parcel and sorted through her lover’s clothes: a suitcoat, trousers, shirt, but no boots. Even his lucky piece of turquoise was gone, the one he’d carried for years. More important to TIC, his time interface was missing.
No surprise. If it had been in Chris’ possession at the moment of death, his body wouldn’t be here; it would be auto-returned to 2057, courtesy of the Dead Man Switch, as the Rovers called it. It did little to help the dead Rover, but it kept history reasonably tidy.
The bottle of laudanum was tucked inside a coat pocket, half empty, the chemist’s label distorted by its time in the water.
Holding it upright, she struggled to read the writing.
Os…? she speculated. It was nearly impossible to judge what with the water’s effect on the ink. She dug deeper into his clothes, wrinkling her nose at the stench of raw sewage and dead fish. In an inside coat pocket, adhered to the lining, she found a piece of paper. Written in pencil, the word was barely legible.
Drogo?
She tucked the paper into her own pocket, folded the clothes and repackaged them in the damp paper. TIC owed her lover a proper set of funeral clothes. She’d be sure he got them.