Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [72]
Geneviève looked a question at Beauregard.
‘Silver bullet,’ he explained, without pride.
‘Charles,’ Kate breathed, awed. Geneviève thought the girl might faint, but she didn’t.
Seward stood up, wiping the blood from his face. Lips pressed into a white line, he was shaking, barely repressing disgust.
‘Well, you’ve finished the Ripper’s business, and that’s a fact,’ Lestrade muttered.
‘I’m not complainin’,’ said the gash-chested Watkins.
Geneviève bent over the corpse and confirmed Liz Stride’s death. With a last convulsion, an arm – still part-wolfish – leaped out, and claws fastened in Seward’s trousers-cuff.
25
A WALK IN WHITECHAPEL
‘I think at the last she was lucid,’ he said. ‘She was trying to tell us something.’
‘What do you suggest?’ Geneviève replied. ‘The murderer’s name is... Sydney Trousers?’
Beauregard laughed. Not many of the un-dead bothered with humour.
‘Unlikely,’ he replied. ‘Mr Boot, perhaps.’
‘Or a boot-maker.’
‘I have impeccable cause to believe John Pizer out of consideration.’
The corpse had been carted off to the mortuary, where the medical and press vultures were hungrily awaiting. Kate Reed was at the Café de Paris, telephoning in her story, under strict instructions not to mention his name. Drawing attention to the Diogenes Club would be bad enough, but he was really concerned with Penelope. He could well imagine her comments if his part in the last minutes of Liz Stride were made public. This was a different part of the woods, a different part of the city, a different part of his life. Penelope did not live here; and would prefer not to know of its existence.
He walked the distance between Berner Street and Mitre Square. The vampire from Toynbee Hall tagged along, less bothered than Kate had been yesterday by the pale sun. In daylight, Geneviève Dieudonné was quite appealing. She dressed like a New Woman, tight jacket and simple dress, sensible flat-heeled boots, beret-like cap and waist-length cape. If Great Britain had an elected parliament in a year’s time, she would want the vote; and, he suspected, she would not be voting for Lord Ruthven.
They arrived at the site of the Eddowes murder. Mitre Square was an enclosed area by the Great Synagogue, accessible through two narrow passages. The entrances were roped off, the bloody patch guarded by a warm policeman. A few on-lookers loitered, intent on filling out a suspects file. An Orthodox Jew, ringlets dangling in front of his ears, beard down to his belly, was trying to get some of these undesirables to stop hanging about the doors of the Synagogue.
Beauregard lifted the rope and let Geneviève pass. He showed his card to the policeman, who saluted. Geneviève looked around the dreary square.
‘The Ripper must be a sprinter,’ she said.
Beauregard checked his half-hunter. ‘We bested his time by five minutes, but we knew where we were going. He may not have taken the shortest route, especially if his intent was to avoid the main roads. He was presumably just looking for a girl.’
‘And a private place.’
‘It’s not terribly private here.’
There were faces behind the windows in the court, looking down.
‘In Whitechapel, people are practised at not seeing things.’
Geneviève was prowling the tiny walled-in court, as if trying to get the feel of the place.
‘This is perfect, public but private. Ideal for the practice of alfresco harlotry.’
‘You’re unlike other vampires,’ he observed.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I should hope to be.’
‘Are you what they call an elder?’
She tapped her heart. ‘Sweet sixteeen in here, but I was born in 1416.’
Beauregard was puzzled. ‘Then you’re not...’
‘Not of the Prince Consort’s bloodline? Quite right. My father-in-darkness was Chandagnac, and his mother-in-darkness was Lady Melissa d’Acques, and...’
‘So all this –’ he waved his hand ‘– is nothing to do with you?’
‘Everything is to do with everyone, Mr Beauregard. Vlad