ONCE BITTEN

JOAN LAURER

Simmons got away.

            But he left behind something that confirmed Bitten might be on the right track. 

            In the alley outside what Constable Wilk found, was a discarded human skin.  All in one piece, and Dr Loup confirmed that the skin had belonged to Daniel Simmons.

            A few days later, the house where Brittney Ellebracht lived had been put up for sale. Purchased quietly by the crown, thoroughly redecorated inside and out, and then mothballed.  A not-dissimilar property from Her Majesty’s Estates were released for sale in a comparable price band, and title passed without the place ever being offered for public tender.  Such is the way of things in the depths.

            The killer, it transpired, had little love for London’s warmer months.  His public handiwork dried up completely.  By now, the SID was well known across half of the city’s police stations as a potential dumping ground for nastier murders.

            There remained plenty of work to keep Dr Loup in patients.  As summer began DI Bitten began to hope that perhaps the lunatic had turned his attention elsewhere. So, naturally, he became distressed to received a package from the post office that turned out to contain a woman’s ear, packed in salt.

            The days that the ear had taken to make its way down from Liverpool had not treated it kindly.  Even so, Dr Loup, seemed to be still able to discern the presence of a stylized heart, cut with sharp strokes into the back of the lobe.  Certain tell-tale markers in the quality of the flesh indicated that the ear had spent a period of time frozen.

            Bitten and his core team went up north for a few fruitless weeks, but the person the ear had been struck from never became identified.

            As September ground towards its inevitable demise,  Trevor Marshall went unlamented to the gallows and Constable Wilk finally completed his detailed search into the people listed in the ledgers of Stratton & Son.  No clear suspects were identified, but a good deal of blatantly irrelevant names were ruled out, leaving just a few hundred that might, potentially, be worth further investigation at some point.

            With nine months and four corpses under his belt, Bitten kept on feeling deeply frustrated, but the truth proved to be he had made progress.  It could be said with confidence, that the Ripper could not be human and more than likely developed a skill for discarding his skin and possibly turning into a wolf.  The crown was not at all unhappy and made sure the Inspector knew it, but lack of results are always dispiriting.

            When the call came to attend a murder at the Institute, the SID responded with professionalism, but perhaps also a touch of weary resignation.

            The Institute was one of a class of establishments thought of in the city as an open secret.  Positioned somewhere between restaurant, brothel, musical revue, and club premises, it presented a discreet front to the world.  There were no ornate signs or large, well-lit entrances, just a door.

            It didn’t present itself as a family home exactly.  More like a quiet business where a bored clerk waited for one overdue client to pick up some paperwork.

            A little after midday Detective Inspector Bitten arrived at the Institute.  The sun shone slightly, and a thin cloud scudded across the sky, and the cool wind occasionally made itself unpleasant. 

A florid, heavy-set constable of middle years leant against the wall next to the door, whistling tunelessly to himself.  He watched the newcomers approach, finally levering himself into a free-standing position as they came to within touching distance.

“You’ll be the SID, is it?”

He asked.

“Derek Franklin.”

“I am Detective Inspector Bitten, Constable Franklin.”

The man nodded instantly.

“That you are, sir.”

“Constable?”

“Yes, sir?”

Bitten shook his head.  “Please show Dr Loup to the murder site.”

The man nodded.

“As you will, sir.”

He looked past Wilk to the doctor and nodded.

“This way, Doctor.”

Bag clutched in one hand, Loup briskly followed the constable through the door and into the building. As they passed out of sight, Bitten faintly heard the constable say something, and the doctor’s voice rose in sharp reply.  Stifling a sigh, the Inspector turned to Wilk.

“I thought we’d examine the exterior of the building, Constable.”

Wilk nodded.

“Think this is it this time, sir?”

“I certainly hope not.  But the good doctor will let us know, I’m quite sure.  What do we know about the victim?”

He started wandering towards the driveway that led down the driveway that led down side of the building, examining the path and the structure for any signs of evidence.

The young officer pulled out some notes and glanced down at them.

“Joan Laurer, from Slough.  Twenty-four.  She’d been working here for three years, two years on the streets before that. She did some singing and dancing between clients, and she proved to be quite popular.  Her home address is fairly close nearby.  Spitalfields. One arrest for lewd and drunken behaviour, five years ago. Nothing came of it. No family listed.  According to the manager here, she used to be something of a genuine seamstress in her spare time.  Made of her own clothes, as well as a few for some of the other girls at the Institute.  Other than that, she didn’t make much of an impression on him either way.  A solid earner is apparently how he put it.”

They walked down the side of the building, passing a closed door marked, ‘Goods’. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

“Quite the epitaph.  Charming fellow, no doubt.  What’s his name?”

“Peter Hedges.”

“And does Mr Hedges have an alibi?”

“Apparently, he’s been in the salon all evening, greeting guests and taking care of small bits of paperwork.  A bartender and two servers were with him the whole time.  He declined to identify any third parties.”

They came round the back of the building, where a large, empty yard spread out, surrounded by discreetly high fencing.

“I can imagine.  Hello, what’s this?”

One of the larger windows looking out onto the yard had no glass.

Bitten crossed over to it, his feet scuffing on the hard paving.  The window looked to be about two feet by four, like several others along the rear of the building.  The only bits of glass evident were small crumbs and shards embedded int the frame, glittering dimly. 

None of it protruded more than a sixteenth of an inch past the edge of the wood.  The room inside appeared to be dingy, but had a great deal of storage, with lots of metal racks of shelving laden with boxes and crates.

He turned to Wilk.

“A fellow could fit through here for sure.  What do you think, Wilk?  Our lad break in here?”

“Unlikely, sir.”

Wilk said shaking his head.

“Quite right.”

Bitten said, with a brief smile.

“And why’s that?”

“No glass on the ground anywhere, so it’s been tidied, and the frame has been made safe.  That’s time wasted if you’re sneaking in, and only an i***t cleans up a crime.  There’s goods in there but the hole ain’t been replaced or boarded yet, so I reckon it happened this morning, sir.”

ii

Bitten and Wilk were looking thoughtfully at the broken window when Constable Franklin ambled round the side of the building.

            “Ah, there you are, sir.”

            He said.

            “You’re doctor’s a rum old bird, eh, sir?”

            Despite his whole-hearted agreement, Bitten merely looked at the policeman.

            “Did you need something, Constable?”

            “In a sense, sir.  In a sense.  Doctor Loup asked me to inform you that, in his words, ‘My patient appears to be unusually delicate, and appears to have been tied up for quite some hours prior to death.  Whilst I am going to ascertain the truth with certainty, it appears as if our friend has returned from his holidays.’”

            The constable mimicked the doctor’s sepulchral tones with a disturbing degree of accuracy.

            Bitten’s heart sank, and he felt Wilk stiffen beside him.

            “I see. Please inform him that we will join him shortly.”

            “As you will, sir.”

            Franklin said.  He turned round and strolled off again.

            Silence stretched for a long moment.

            “Very well.”

            Bitten said at last.

            “Let’s go to it, lad.”

            Inside the front door, they encountered another police constable, a tall, a thin man with hair like a bottlebrush and a prominent Adam’s apple.  The man stood in a stretch of attractive hallway that contained a pair of doorways, a flight of stairs up to the first floor, and a smaller passageway leading deeper into the building.  He snapped to attention at the sight of the Inspector.

            “Constable Lewis Kelly, sir.”

            “Constable.”

            Bitten said pleasantly.

            “Sir, Constable Franklin said I must inform you that there’s a fellow who’s waiting in the salon to speak to you.  He say he might have seen the killer.”

            “Excellent.  And where is the salon?”

            “It’s down this way, through the rear passage.”

            Bitten nodded.

            “Lead on.”

            “Of course, sir.”

            The passage at the back of the hall appeared close and intimate, with thick carpeting and walls papered in a rich red.  Soft lights ran along its length, and there and there stenciled images of lovely young women had been drawn onto the walls with a warm orange paint.  It only ran twenty feet or so before opening up into another hallway similar to the one at the entrance.

            Like its sibling, this had cream walls and an airy feel.  To the right, it ran out to what had to be the side door they’d seen earlier.  The floor to that side polished wood, and the corridor clear of any detritus.  Several heavy doors ran along its length, each marked: ‘STAFF ONLY’.

            Another door, straight ahead of them, looked to lead out onto the yard.  It appeared to have been painted over.  The carpet followed round to the left, where several other doors were evident, these looking more ornate.

            “There seems to be little formality to the arrangements in here.”

            Bitten observed.

            “Yes, sir.”

            Constable Kelly nodded.

            “What I understand, sir, is that those who are welcome here already know where they want to go.  The salon and the dining room are down this way.”

            Kelly paused before continuing.

            “The ballroom is upstairs, and the various bedding rooms are off that.  It’s all very coy, sir.  You could come in here for a plate of steak and potatoes and never see a thing untoward.  They ain’t fooling no one, but I suppose it makes the punters feel a little better not to see the blokes with coshes right there on the front door.”

            Bitten nodded thoughtfully.

            “I dare say it does.”

            The man bobbed his head and led them on to the second of the doors on the right, which opened out into a large room that would not have been out of place in a high-end pub.  Oak and wrought-iron tables surrounded by comfortably cushioned chairs took up the majority of the space in the room, with long padded couches running along three of the walls.

            Bay-styled windows in two walls looked out into little illuminated dioramas, staged to give an appearance of an external view without any sacrifice to discretion.  Pumps for a wide variety of ales and ciders ran along the top of the polished mahogany bar, and stained-glass panels depicting well-rendered naked women ran above it.

            Bottles of spirits of all kinds were stacked behind the bar, in front of a well-polished mirror.  A man sat at one of the tables, wearing shabby work clothing.  He looked to be about twenty, with dark hair and heavy cheekbones.  Constable Kelly nodded towards him.

            “This is John Green, Inspector.”

            “Thank you, Constable.  If you’d be so good as to wait outside?”

            “Of course, sir.”

             The man touched the edge of his hat and exited.

            Green shuffled nervously as Bitten took a seat across the table from him.

            “Good morning, Mr Green.”

            Bitten said.

            “I gather you might have seen something.”

            “Tha’s right, sir.”

            The man had a thick country burr to his voice.

            “An’ I figured you’m best know it, sir.”

            Bitten did his best to smile in encouragement.

            “Rodney Harris, sir.  He’m on security last night, sir.  I work stores, see?  I’ll be out back, fetching an’ carrying, and keeping the boss in all t’ bottles and barrels he’m need.  It’s never more’n just me out back there.  I’m plenty for ‘un.  So, I was in store one and I heard summat. A thud, back from t’near hall.  Every now an’ again, there’s some gentle-folk as gets a bit turned ‘round and needs steering.  Well, I sticks my head out t’doorway, and what do I see but Roddy boy creeping out t’back, all mousy, hands full of sommat what looks t’be bloody rags.  Don’t see much use, that door.  Not many as got keys, but Roddy do.  So, I says to myself, Johnny me lovely, why is Roddy creeping out there, rather than swaggerin’ past me and my store room like usual to get to the door what’s already open, and nearer the bins beside? I din’t much like none of the answers to that ‘un, so I waited careful, an’ a couple of minutes later, he creeps back in, looking right sheepish.  When the hue and cry went up late last night, it all did seem worse n’ worse to me, so I knew I had to be here to raise the word.  He’m a shifty one, that Roddy Harris.  I’ve said it all along.”

            Bitten sighed.

            “Lying to the police is a serious thing, lad.  You’ll get in very bad trouble if you insist on keep this up.”

            “I don’t know what you mean?”

            “That door is painted over and so could not have been used.  In your haste to concoct a reason for us to suspect Rodney Harris, you’ve forgotten the door is sealed shut.”

            The blood drained from Green’s face.

            “Why would you lie like that?”

            Green’s shoulders slumped in embarrassment.

            “I’m sorry, sir.  Please forgive me.”

            “Why did you do it?”

            “I don’t like the way that Harris bullies the girls, sir.”

III

Leaving the unhappy porter to consider the wisdom of his actions, Bitten and Wilk had Constable Kelly show them upstairs.

            They were shown into a large open ballroom, tall enough that the Inspector considered the possibility of two floors of the building having been converted into one open space.  The walls were softly off-white, with fittings coloured in a rosy gold to suggest both elegance and warmth.  There were several small circular stages raised from the floor with seats around them, as well as one larger one that ran the entire length of one wall.

            Windows in three of the walls made it clear that the room took up a good portion of the floor.  These were discreetly veiled and curtained, to ensure that no neighbouring buildings provided a view in on the proceedings.

            The floor delicate parquetry, highly burnished and probably quite treacherous if one walked without due care.  A bar had been positioned opposite the long stage, but considerably smaller than the one in the salon, and appeared to run heavily in the direction of gin, Scotch, and champagne.

            Several people were inside the room, including Constable Franklin, who chatted casually to a slender, somewhat rat-faced man in an expensive suit, off to one side a brawny man in a shirt and tie, sitting with a clearly petrified young woman.

            Bitten made his way over to Franklin.  The pair watched him coming, and the rat faced man glanced expectantly at the Constable, who just beamed at him.

            “Please excuse us, Constable.”

            Bitten said, before turning to the second man.

            “I am Detective Inspector Bitten of the SID.  If you’ll forgive a guess, I’m assuming you are the manager of the Institute?”

            The fellow nodded and held out a hand.

            “Peter Hedges.  It’s my pleasure, Detective Inspector.”

            Bitten turned to Franklin.

            “Please excuse us.”

            “Always, sir.”

            The man said.

            “Not my place to judge.”

            He didn’t move.

            “Return to your position at the front door.”

            Bitten said, his words crisp.

            “Right, you have it, sir.”

            Fending off a heavy sigh, Bitten turned back to the manager.

            “I have looked at the preliminary comments you made to officers last night, Mr. Hedges.  Is there anything else you can tell me about the victim.”

            “Joan Laurer, turned out to be a good employee, sir.  There is nothing to add.  I am aware that such an assessment seems hard-hearted, but you have to understand that I employ a great deal of very personable and attractive young women, and many of them are so steeped in tragedy as to make even a hardened policeman weep.”

            He paused.

            “No offence intended.”

            “None taken.”

            Bitten assured him.

            “It shouldn’t be like that.  The work they engage in should not, by all rights, be toxic.  Despite the protestations of the church, there is nothing inherently shameful or vile in unwedded, or indeed, negotiated, congress between men and women.  But our society sees it as something demonic, and as such many of the men who are drawn to such a service carry that taint within them. It is men who make this job so dangerous and soul-flaying, Inspector.  I try to ensure that danger is minimized, and in that I failed Miss Laurer most egregiously.  But even minimized, the truth remains that this work is undesirable, and so the women who come to it often have no other choices open to them.  Hence the emotional wounding they often bear.  For my own sanity.  I have, absolutely have, to remain aloof.  I tried otherwise, at first, and nearly drove myself mad.  So, I console myself with attempting to provide safer systems than the street, and I do not apologize for remaining distant.”

            Bitten nodded thoughtfully.

            “I do understand, sir.  Let me ask, instead, if you were aware of anything untoward over the last few days.”

            “I have wracked my brain this morning, Detective Inspector.  I have nothing.  I deliberately attempt to keep the experience for out guests as discreet as possible.  Rodney Harris over there happened to be yesterday’s protector, and Miss Fox, accompany him, was Miss Laurer’s friend and occasional, er, co-worker.  Harris works one p.m. to one a.m., and his role is not to be gentle.  He is consequently viewed with a degree of necessary trepidation, which I very much regret, but I guarantee that he is never, ever physically egregious. His task for me demonstrated the error of that policy at length to his predecessor.  I may be running a business for my employer, but I will not make my staff’s lives worse.”

            Bitten thanked the manager for his candour, and he and Wilk went over to the other side.

            Up close, Harris looked to be a bruiser of the sort, the East End was crawling with, and Miss Fox a wilting young rose with eyes like saucers.  The Inspector introduced himself, and asked Harris to detail the events of the previous evening.

            “So, seems to me you need an idea of where I am in the great scheme, Inspector.”

            Harris said.

            “I’m outta sight, best to stay outta mind, yeah? I got me a small room at the start of the corridor, and I stay in it.  Gotta commode an’ all.  Barry downstairs sends up foods and mugs o’ tea.  If the girls needs me, they scream.  Simple.  All the doors is ‘ung slightly different, on purpose, and they make their own squeaks and rattles.  So, despite the carpet, I know when a doors opens, and when it closes, and who the manager ‘as assigned it to that night, and I keep a tight little ledger of ‘ow long each girl is on the job.”

            Next to him, Miss Fox shuddered a little.

            He patted her hand gently.

            “Keeps ‘em ‘onest, the little darlings.  If there’s more than one girl going to a room, each lovely ‘as ‘er own knock, and as they go past to the room they’re visitin’, they knock my door. I ‘as a porthole to glance out of and now and again I does, so they know best to be true about it.”

            “I…see.”

            Bitten said.

            “At ‘alf past seven, Joan’s door opened.  For the first time, I guarantee it.  At eight fifteen, Reagan ‘ere knocked on my door.”

            “I smelled it.”

            The girl whispered.

            “Red death, all bright an’ ‘orrid.”

            Harris glanced at her.

            “Right.  So, she said.  So, I goes over there, and…well.  Ruin.  Worse thing I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a bit and a ‘alf. Those rooms ain’t big, Inspector.  There’s a bed, and a loveseat, and a little table for drinks, and then a touch-up stand, and a nailed-off window, and a rack for changes of clothes to be ‘ung on and sweet Fanny Adams else.  There’s nowhere to ‘ide, so what I want to know is, where did the ‘orrible bastard get to?”

            Bitten frowned unhappily.

            “I have an idea about that!”

            “Do you, sir?”

            Harris pressed genuinely interested.

            “If there is nowhere to hide and the door only opened once, then that had to be when the killer left.  Dr Loup had confirmed that the girl had been tied up for an extended period of time prior to death.”

            “I see, sir.”

            Bitten later ascertained that the girl and her murderer had been in the room since eleven a.m., when staff presence in the Institute started to ramp up before the lunchtime session.  The time of death seemed to be through to be no sooner than an hour or two before her discovery, leaving her in her murderer’s company for eight hours or so.

            But no one mentioned a large dog.