‘Are you sure this is him?’
‘Sure as I can be. You will be too. When you see him, when you hear his voice.’
‘How did you track him?’
Mackenzie smiled again and laid a finger beside his nose. ‘I followed the trail. Dynamite and silver are hard to come by. There are only a few sources worth mentioning. I played the Irish card, asking around the mick pubs. It’s certain his bully-boys were recruited from the Fenians. When it comes to mopping up, I’ve most of their names. I had a description of the Sergeant within two days. Then I found a few hard facts, details scattered on the ground like crumbs.’
The light dimmed and Kostaki shrank back deeper into the alley, pulling Mackenzie with him.
‘You’ll see now,’ the Scotsman said. ‘You’ll see him.’
An ill-fitting door was pulled inwards and a vampire emerged from the building. It was the man Kostaki had seen in the park. There was no mistaking the upright bearing. And the eyes. He wore old clothes and a battered peaked cap, but his posture and flaring moustache suggested the British army. The vampire looked around him, staring for a long second into the alley. Then he consulted a pocket watch. Briskly, the Sergeant marched off.
Mackenzie breathed again.
When they could no longer hear the vampire’s bootfalls, Kostaki said. ‘It was him.’
‘I never had any doubt.’
‘Then why did you summon me?’
‘Because I can trust you as no other. We have an understanding, you and I.’
Kostaki knew what Mackenzie meant.
‘We must follow this Sergeant, find his confederates, root out and destroy his whole conspiracy.’
‘That is where our situation becomes complicated. Men like Sir Charles Warren or your General Iorga detest surprises. They prefer a culprit to be someone they suspected. Often, they’ll refuse to credit evidence simply because it contradicts a half-formed notion they’ve made the mistake of espousing. Sir Charles wants the dynamiter to be one of Jago’s crusaders, not a vampire.’
‘There have been vampire traitors before.’
‘But not, I think, like our Sergeant. I am only beginning to make out the extent of his activities. He is the tool of greater forces. Perhaps greater forces than a simple policeman and a soldier can hope to best.’
They emerged from the alley and stood by the Sergeant’s building. Without discussion, they understood that they would now break in and search the murderer’s rooms.
While Mackenzie looked both ways, Kostaki splintered the door-lock with a firm grip. In the Old Jago, this would not be unusual or suspicious behaviour. A sailor, pockets pulled out and empty, zigzagged past, eyes rolling from gin or opium.
They slipped into the lodging house, and climbed three flights of narrow, precipitous stairs. Eyes looked at them through holes in doors, but no one intervened. They came to the room where the light had been. Kostaki broke another lock – somewhat stouter than he would have expected in this pit – and they were inside.
Mackenzie lit a stub of candle. The room was tidy, almost military in its precision. There was a cot, sheet tighter than a wrestler’s stomach muscles. On a desk, writing materials were laid out square as if for an inspection.
‘I have cause to believe our fox not only the destroyer of Ezzelin von Klatka,’ Mackenzie declared, ‘but also the would-be assassin who put a bullet into John Jago.’
‘That makes little sense.’
‘To a soldier, maybe not. But to a copper, it’s the oldest game in town. You stir up both sides, set them at each other like dogs. Then sit back and watch the fireworks.’
Mackenzie was going through papers on the desk. There was a fresh bottle of red ink and a neat pot of pens beside the blotter.
‘Are we dealing with an anarchist faction?’
‘Quite the opposite, I should think. Sergeants do not make good anarchists. They have no imagination. Sergeants always serve. You can carve an Empire with Sergeants behind you.’
‘He is following orders, then.’
‘Of course. This whole business has the whiff of the
Kostaki had an intuition. ‘You admire this man? Or at least, admire his cause?’
‘These nights, that would be a very unwise opinion to harbour.’
‘Nevertheless...’
Mackenzie smiled. ‘It would be hypocritical of me to mourn for von Klatka, or even to express sympathy for John Jago.’
‘What if it had not been von Klatka, what if it had been...’
‘You? Then, things might have seemed different. But only seemed. The Sergeant would make no distinction between you and your comrade. That is where I part company from his masters’ thinking.’
Kostaki thought for a moment. ‘I may lose my leg,’ he said.
‘I am sorry for that.’
‘What do you intend to do about the Sergeant? Will you let him continue to serve his unknown cause?’
‘I told you I was a copper before I was warm. When I have a case Warren can’t ignore, I’ll lay it before him.’
‘Thank you, Scotsman.’
‘For what?’
‘For your trust.’
There were a great many pages of loose paper, covered with a cypher or shorthand that resembled hieroglyphic script.
‘Hello,’ Mackenzie said, ‘what have we here?’ He held up a pencilled draft of a letter. It was in plain English. ‘Lestrade will be sick with envy,’ Mackenzie said. ‘And Fred Abberline. Kostaki, look...’
Kostaki glanced at the paper. ‘
44
ON THE WATERFRONT
The body had washed up on Cuckold’s Point, at the curve of Limehouse Reach. It had taken three men to drag it out of the sucking mud and deposit it on the nearest wharf. Before Genevieve and Morrison arrived, someone took the trouble to lay the corpse out into a semblance of dignity, untangling the limbs and arranging the water- and dirt-clogged clothes. A length of sailcloth was draped over the dead man to protect the sensibilities of dock-workers and waterfront idlers who happened by.
He had already been identified by an inscription in his watch and, surprisingly, a cheque made out to his name. Nevertheless, they were formally to confirm the corpse’s identity. As the constable lifted the sailcloth, several on-lookers made exaggerated sounds of disgust. Morrison flinched and turned away. Druitt’s face had been eaten by the fish, exposing empty eye-sockets and a devil’s-grin of bare teeth, but she knew him by his hairline and chin.
‘It’s him,’ she said.
The constable dropped the cloth and thanked them. Morrison seconded her statement. A wagon was ready to receive the body.
‘I think he had family in Bournemouth,’ Morrison told the policeman. The constable took a dutiful note.
The Colonel had kept his word. Druitt’s pockets were stuffed with stones; no suicide note had been manufactured, but the inference was inescapable. Another unpunished murderer was at liberty: the police would mount no campaign against him, there would be no special investigators from the Diogenes Club. What was so extraordinary about the Ripper? Within fifty yards of the river, there would be a dozen as cruel, as profligate. The Whitechapel Murderer was presumably a madman; Moran and his kind had not even that excuse. Their murders were simply stock-in-trade.
