Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [113]
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘He’s still out there. He hasn’t given up.’
‘Perhaps the Ripper’s taken a holiday?’
‘Or been distracted.’
‘Some say he’s a sea captain. He could be on a voyage.’
Geneviève thought hard, then shook her head. ‘No. He’s still here. I can sense it.’
‘You sound like Lees, the psychical fellow.’
‘It’s part of what I am,’ she explained. ‘The Prince Consort shape-shifts but I can sense things. It’s to do with our bloodlines. There’s a fog around everything but I can feel the Ripper out there somewhere. He’s not finished yet.’
‘This place annoys me,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out and see if we can do some good.’
As they stood, he helped arrange her cloak on her shoulders. Woodbridge’s son whistled and Geneviève, as accomplished a flirt as Penelope when the mood took her, smiled at him over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkled strangely.
They had been patrolling like policemen, interviewing anyone with the remotest connection to the victims or their circles. Beauregard knew more about Catharine Eddowes or Lulu Schön than about members of his own family. Poring over the scraps of their lives made them more real to him. No longer names in police reports, they now seemed almost friends. The press referred to the victims as ‘street-walkers of the lowest sort’ and the Police Gazette always depicted them as bloodthirsty harridans who invited their fate. But, talking with Geneviève or Sergeant Thick or Georgie Woodbridge, they came alive as women, shiftless and pathetic perhaps, but still feeling individuals, undeserving of the harsh treatment they had suffered and were still suffering.
Occasionally, he would whisper the name of ‘Liz Stride’ to himself. No one else – most especially not Geneviève – raised the matter, but he knew he had finished the Ripper’s work with her. He had put her out of her misery like a dog but perhaps a vampire would not wish to be so saved. The question of the age was: how much does a human being have to change before she is no longer human? Liz Stride? Penelope? Geneviève?
When not following one of the false leads that cropped up nightly in this case, they just wandered, hoping to come across a man with a big bag of knives and darkness in his heart. It was absurd, when he thought about it. But the routine had attractions. It kept him away from Caversham Street, where Penelope still struggled with unfamiliar ailments. He was still unsure of his obligations to her. Mrs Churchward had revealed unexpected backbone in nursing her new-born girl. Having lost a niece raised as a daughter, she was determined to do her best for her authentic offspring. Beauregard could not but feel that his involvement with the Churchward girls had not been remotely to their benefit.
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Geneviève said. He was almost used to her intrusions. ‘It’s Lord Godalming who should be horse-whipped with silver chains.’
Beauregard understood Godalming had turned Penelope, then left her to her own devices, whereupon she had blundered badly, exposing herself to the murderous sun and drinking tainted blood.
‘To me, your noble friend seems an utter swine.’
Beauregard had not seen Godalming, who was very close with the Prime Minister, since. When this matter was concluded, he would take up his grievance with Arthur Holmwood. Geneviève told him the responsible, decent course was for the father-in-darkness to stay with his get and help the new-born cope with her turning. This was an age-old etiquette but Godalming had not felt honour-bound by it.
They pushed through the ornately glassed doors. Beauregard shivered in the cold but Geneviève just breezed through the icy fog as if it were light spring sunshine. He had constantly to remind himself this sharp girl was not human. They were in Commercial Street, near Toynbee Hall.
‘I’d like to call