Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [60]
‘Maybe he’s just stopped,’ Sergeant Thick had suggested. ‘They do sometimes. He could spend the rest of his life sniggering every time he passes a copper. Maybe he doesn’t get his jollies with the knife, maybe the thing is that he wants to have a secret all to himself.’
That had not sounded right to Beauregard. From the autopsies, he believed Silver Knife got his jollies cutting up vampire women. Although the victims were not conventionally violated, it was obvious the crimes were sexual in nature. Privately, Dr Phillips, the H Division Police Surgeon, theorised that the murderer might practice the sin of Onan at the site of his crimes. Little connected with this case was not utterly repulsive to decent sensibilities.
‘Mr Beauregard,’ a female voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Charles?’
A young person with a black bonnet and smoked glasses crossed the street to talk to him. Although it was not raining, she had up a black umbrella, shading her face. The wind caught and it tilted, swinging back the shadow.
‘Why, it’s Miss Reed,’ Beauregard exclaimed, surprised. ‘Kate?’
The girl smiled to be remembered.
‘What brings you to these unsavoury parts?’
‘Journalism, Charles. Remember, I scribble.’
‘Of course. Your essay on the consequences of the match-girl strike in Our Corner was exemplary. Radical, of course, but exceedingly fair.’
‘That is probably the first and only time the expression “exceedingly fair” will be used in connection with me, but I thank you for the compliment.’
‘You underrate yourself, Miss Reed.’
‘Perhaps,’ she mused, before proceeding to her current business. ‘I’m looking for Uncle Diarmid. Have you seen him?’
Beauregard knew Kate’s uncle was one of the head men at the Central News Agency. The police thought highly of him, rating him one of the few scrupulous pressmen on the crime circuit.
‘Not recently. Is he here? On a story?’
‘The story. Silver Knife.’
Kate was fidgety, holding close a mannish document folder which seemed to have some totemic value. Her umbrella was larger than she could easily manage.
‘There’s something different about you, Miss Reed. Have you perhaps changed the style of your hair?’
‘No, Mr Beauregard.’
‘Odd. I could have sworn...’
‘Maybe you haven’t seen me since I turned.’
It hit him at once that she was nosferatu. ‘I beg your pardon.’
She shrugged. ‘That’s all right. A lot of the girls are turning, you know. My – what do they call them? – father-in-darkness has many get. He is Mr Frank Harris, the editor.’
‘I have heard of him. He is a friend of Florence Stoker’s, isn’t he?’
‘He used to be, I think.’
Her patron, famous for championing people then breaking with them, was notoriously profligate with his affections. Kate was a direct young woman; Beauregard could see why she might appeal to Mr Frank Harris, the editor.
She must have some important mission to venture out by day, even heavily shrouded from the sun, so soon after turning.
‘There is a café nearby where the reporters gather. It’s not quite the place for an unaccompanied young lady, but...’
‘Then, Mr Beauregard, you must accompany me, for I have something Uncle Diarmid must see immediately. I hope you do not think me forward or presumptuous. I would not ask if it were not important.’
Kate Reed had always been pale and thin. The turn actually made her complexion seem healthier. Beauregard felt the force of her will, and was not inclined to resist.
‘Very well, Miss Reed. This way...’
‘Call me Kate. Charles.’
‘Of course. Kate.’
‘How is Penny? I have not seen her since...’
‘I’m rather afraid that neither have I. My guess is that she is in something of a pet.’
‘Not the first time.’
Beauregard frowned.
‘Oh, I am sorry, Charles. I didn’t mean to say that. I can be a fearful twit at times.’
She made him smile.
‘Here,’ he said.
The Café de Paris was on Commercial Street, near the police station. A pie-and-eels-and-pitchers-of-tea establishment, formerly catering to market porters and police constables, it was now full of men with curly moustaches and