“I don’t need you.”
“Yes you do, or I’ll blow it wide open,” Tellman threatened. “I don’t care about making a story, you’re welcome to that, but I want the truth for other reasons, and I’ll get it, whether I make your story or ruin it.”
“Then come away from the shop,” Remus urged, glancing over his shoulder and back again at Tellman. “We can’t afford to wait around here and be noticed.” He turned as he spoke and started off towards the Mile End Road again.
The air smelled like thunder, damp and heavy.
Tellman hurried after him. “Explain it to me,” he ordered. “And no lies. I know a great deal. I just haven’t worked out how it all connects up … not yet.”
Remus walked a few paces without answering.
“Who is Annie Crook?” Tellman asked, matching him step for step. “And more important, where is she now?”
Remus deliberately ignored the first question. “I don’t know where she is,” he answered without looking at him. Then, before Tellman could become angry, he added, “Bedlam, by now, I should think. She was declared insane and put away. I don’t know whether she’s still alive. There’s no proper record of her at Guy’s, but I know she went there and was kept there for months.”
“And who was her lover?” Tellman went on. In the distance thunder rumbled over the rooftops and a few heavy spots of rain fell.
Remus stopped dead, so abruptly Tellman was a couple of steps beyond him before he stopped too.
Remus’s eyes were wide; he started to laugh, a high, sharp, hysterical sound. Several people turned in the street to look at him.
“Stop it!” Tellman wanted to slap him, but it would have drawn even more attention to them. “Be quiet!”
Remus gulped and controlled himself with an effort. “You don’t know a damn thing, do you? You’re just guessing. Go away. I don’t need you.”
“Yes, you do,” Tellman contradicted him with certainty. “You haven’t got all the answers yet, and you can’t get them, or you would have. But you know enough to be frightened. What else do you need? Maybe I can help. I’m police; I can ask questions you can’t.”
“Police!” Remus gave a guffaw of laughter, full of anger and derision. “Police? Abberline was police—and Warren! As high as you like … commissioner, even.”
“I know who they are,” Tellman retorted sharply.
“Of course you do,” Remus agreed, nodding his head, his eyes glittering. The rain was heavier, and warm. “But do you know what they did? Because if you do, the next thing I know I’ll be in one of these alleys with my throat cut as well.” He took a step back as he said it, almost as if he thought Tellman might make a sudden lunge for him.
“Are you saying Abberline and Warren were involved?” Tellman demanded.
Remus’s contempt was withering. “Of course they were! How else do you think it was all covered up?”
It was absurd. “That’s ridiculous!” Tellman said aloud, ignoring the rain, which was now soaking them both. “Why would someone like Abberline want to cover up murder? He’d have made a name for himself that would have gone down in history if he’d solved that case. The man who caught the Whitechapel murderer could have called his own price.”
“There are some things bigger even than that,” Remus said darkly, but the tension and the excitement were back in his face again, and his eyes were bright and wild. The water was running down his face, plastering his hair to his head. Over the rooftops the thunder rumbled again. “This is bigger than fame, Tellman, or money, believe me. If I’m right, and I can prove it, it will change England forever.”
“Rubbish!” Tellman denied it savagely. He wanted it to be false.
Remus turned away.
Tellman grabbed his arm again, bringing him up short. “Why would Abberline conceal the worst crimes that have ever happened in London? He is a decent man.”
“Loyalty.” Remus said the word hoarsely. “There are loyalties deeper than life or death, loyalties deep as hell itself.” He put his hand to his throat. “Some things a man … some men … will sell their own souls for. Abberline is one, Warren’s another, and the coachman Netley—”
“What Netley?” Tellman asked. “You mean Nickley?”
“No, his name’s Netley. When he said Nickley at the Westminster Hospital, he was lying.”
“What’s he got to do with them? He drove the coach around Whitechapel. He knew who Jack was, and why he did what he did.”
“Of course he did … he still does. And I daresay he’ll go to the grave telling no one.”
“Why did he try to kill the child—twice?”
Remus smiled, his lips drawn wide over his teeth. “As I said before, you know nothing.”
Tellman was desperate. The thought of Pitt’s being thrown out of office in Bow Street because he had stuck to the truth infuriated him. Charlotte was left alone, worried and frightened, and Gracie was determined to help, no matter what the danger or the cost. The thought of the whole monstrous injustice of it all was intolerable.
“I know where to find a lot of senior policemen,” he said very quietly. “Not just Abberline, or Commissioner Warren, but a fair few more as well, all the way up, if I have to. Those two might be retired, but others aren’t.”
Remus was ashen white, his eyes wild. “You … wouldn’t! You’d set them on me, knowing what they did?
