The Black Country

“What is it?” Day said.

“What do you mean?”

“Something’s troubling you. I can tell.”

“This snow is half ash from the furnaces,” Hammersmith said. “It’s grey.”

“Only half grey,” Day said. “Still white beneath the surface. There’s good to be found in everything.”

“That’s fine talk for a detective of the Murder Squad.”

Day smiled and looked past the station to the snowy field and, far beyond it, the pit mounds, the huge tanks of steaming wastewater, the tiny engine houses, and the iced-over stream that wound past them all. Here and there the snow made way for long furrows of mud and hopeful clusters of green spring grass. He pulled his coat tighter around his body. He waited, and Hammersmith finally nodded and pointed past the evidence of a thriving coal village. A dark line of trees stretched across the horizon.

“A forest,” Hammersmith said. “Coal mines. Furnaces. The water. We only have two days to find three missing people in all this. It’s impossible. There are too many places to look.”

“We’ll find them. If they’re dead, we’ll find bodies. If they’re alive. .”

“If they’re alive, they’ll be moving about and we might never find them.”

“We’re not the Hiding Squad, after all,” Day said. “We weren’t sent for because anyone thinks they’re alive. And if murder’s been done, two days ought to be enough time to prove it.”

“If they’re not found when we have to go back, you could always leave me here.”

“I’m not going to leave you anywhere. The squad hasn’t enough men as it is and we have cases piling up at the Yard. I’m frankly surprised Sir Edward sent us here at all.”

Constable Grimes waved to them from the running board of a carriage parked at the station house. “You men comin’?”

Day and Hammersmith trotted across the springy boards of the platform floor and down the steps to the waiting carriage. The driver stuck his mouth in the crook of his elbow and emitted a series of short barking coughs. He shook his head as if dazed by the effort, then smiled and waved at them.

“That’s Freddy,” Grimes said. “He drives the carriage, but you’ll see him tendin’ to most everythin’ else needs doin’ round here.”

“You fellas need an errand, you look ol’ Freddy up and I’ll run it,” Freddy said. He appeared to be barely out of his teens, red-haired and freckled, with a gap between his two front teeth. Even sitting, his right leg was noticeably shorter than his left and rested on a block of wood that was affixed to the floor in front of the driver’s seat, but the boy’s grin seemed genuine and infectious. Day smiled back and nodded.

Something drew Freddy’s eye, and he pointed to the sky behind the inspector. “Look there,” he said. “Magpie.”

Day turned to see a small bird with a black head and a white belly flutter up past the far side of the depot. It banked and wheeled back on its own flight path, then straightened out and flew on.

“Bad sign, that,” Grimes said.

“Wait,” Freddy said. “Look.”

Three more magpies erupted in a flurry of beating wings and joined the first. They glided overhead and away toward the distant woods.

“Four,” Grimes said.

“Is that significant?” Day said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. One is for sorrow, of course. So it’s good to see the other three.”

“One bird brings ill fortune?”

“Ah, you know. One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Old rhyme. Not sure I give it much credence, but there’s some round here what does.”

“Four for a birth, eh?” Hammersmith said. He smiled at Day.

“None round here’s expecting, far as I know,” Grimes said.

“My own wife is due to give birth soon enough,” Day said. “Back in London.”

“Congratulations to you,” Grimes said. “Could be that’s what the birds was tryin’ to tell us.”

The three police clambered into the carriage. They heard a “haw” from Freddy, and the wagon rolled smoothly forward.

2

The American waited inside the train’s rear passenger car until the two policemen were gone. He gave the porter a sixpence coin and stepped out onto the platform. The cold air on his cheeks felt invigorating after the closeness of his forward compartment. He took in the grey landscape with his grey eyes and checked the pocket of his grey leather duster to be sure the folding knife was still there. He smiled when his fingers touched the cold metal handle. The American’s smile was lopsided and horrifying. Even with his lips closed, a puckered hole from his left ear to the corner of his mouth exposed sharp yellow teeth behind the flesh of his cheek.

A sign swinging from the station’s awning welcomed the American to Blackhampton. He was in the right place. It was possible he’d bought old information, possible the soldier had moved on from Blackhampton, but this place felt right. He could almost smell his quarry. He’d never been so close. The American sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his duster.

He swung his knapsack and rifle case over his shoulder and walked away from the empty station, following the fresh wagon tracks in the snow.

3

Day and Hammersmith sat together facing Grimes, who had taken the backward-facing bench, leaving the better seats for the visiting policemen to see out through the windows on either side. Hammersmith hunched forward on the seat and cleared his throat.

“Tell us about the missing family,” he said.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather settle in first?” Grimes said. “You’ve had a long trip.”

“There’s a child missing, no?” Hammersmith said.

“Every hour we delay diminishes our chance of finding the boy and his parents,” Day said, “if they’re alive.”

Grimes shook his head. “Been gone for days. I’m afraid it’s bodies we’re looking for.” He looked away from them at the shifting scenery outside, but not before Day saw the sadness in the constable’s red-rimmed eyes. Day remembered his own time as a village constable, the responsibility he’d felt for his people. He sympathized with Grimes. “We’ll stop at the inn,” Grimes said. “There are people who want to meet you, want to help. I’ll introduce you round, let you get a feel for the way things work here. Might be questions you want to ask, though I’m sure I’ve asked ’em already.”

“We were told you’d found some evidence,” Day said.

“’Twas little Hilde Rose found it.”

“You’ve talked to her.”

“I have, sir.”

“Wonderful. Good work. Of course, we’ll want to talk to her, too.”

“I suppose you will,” Grimes said. “If her father’ll let you within a mile of the girl.”

“He’s protective?”

“He’s set in his ways.”

“How long after the disappearance was the eyeball found?”

“Well, you see, I’m not at all sure about that. It might have been the very next day, but it might have been as much as three days. Hard to pinpoint when they went missing. The weather’s made school a bit of an off-and-