Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [73]
‘You work as a physician?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve picked up many professions over the years. I’ve been a whore, a soldier, a singer, a geographer, a criminal. Whatever has seemed best. Now, doctoring seems best. My father, my true father, was a doctor, and I his apprentice. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake aren’t the first women ever to practise medicine, you know.’
‘Things have changed greatly since the fifteenth century.’
‘So I understand. I read something about it in The Lancet. I wouldn’t consider leeches, except in special cases.’
Beauregard found himself liking this ancient girl. Geneviève was unlike any of the women, warm or un-dead, he knew. Whether by choice or from necessity, women seemed to stand to one side, watching, passing comment, never acting. He thought of Florence Stoker, pretending to understand the clever people she entertained, turning petulant whenever anything was not done for her. And Penelope elevated an attitude of non-involvement to a sanctified cause, insisting that messy details be kept from her poor head. Even Kate Reed, new and new-born, contented herself with jotting down notes on life as an alternative to living it. Geneviève Dieudonné was not a spectator. She reminded him a little of Pamela. Pamela had always wanted, demanded, to be involved.
‘Is this affair political?’
Beauregard thought carefully before answering. He did not know how much he should tell her.
‘I’ve made enquiries about the Diogenes Club,’ she explained. ‘You’re some species of government office, are you not?’
‘I serve the Crown.’
‘Why your interest in this matter?’
Geneviève stood over the splash where Catharine Eddowes had died. The policeman looked the other way. A vampire had been at him to judge from the red marks streaking up from his collar almost to his ear.
‘The Queen herself has expressed concern. If she decrees we try to catch a murderer, then...’
‘The Ripper might be an anarchist of some stripe,’ she mused. ‘Or a die-hard vampire hater.’
‘The latter is certain.’
‘Why is everyone so sure the Ripper is warm?’ Geneviève asked.
‘The victims were all vampires.’
‘So are a lot of people. The victims were also all women, all prostitutes, all near-destitutes. There could be any number of connecting factors. The Ripper always goes for the throat; that’s a nosferatu trick.’
The policeman was getting fidgety. Geneviève disturbed him. Beauregard suspected she had that effect on not a few.
He countered her theory. ‘As far as we can tell from the autopsies, the dead women were not bitten, not bled. Besides, as vampires, their blood would not interest another vampire.’
‘That’s not entirely true, Mr Beauregard. We become what we are by drinking the blood of another vampire. It is uncommon but we do tap each other. Sometimes it is a way of establishing dominance within a group, a petty tyrant demanding a tithe from his followers. Sometimes vampire blood can be a curative for those with debased bloodlines. And sometimes, of course, mutual bleeding can be simply a sexual act, like any other...’
Beauregard blushed at her forthrightness. The policeman was scarlet-faced, rubbing his angry wounds.
‘The bloodline of Vlad Tepes is polluted,’ she continued. ‘One would have to be addle-pated with disease to drink from such a well. But London is full of very sick vampires. The Ripper could as easily be of their number as be some warm grudge-holder.’
‘He could also be after the women’s blood because he himself wants to become un-dead. You’ve the fountain of youth flowing in your veins. If our Ripper is warm but sick, he might be desperate enough to seek such measures.’
‘There are easier ways of becoming a vampire. Of course, a lot of people distrust easy ways. Your suggestion has some merit. But why so many victims? One mother-in-darkness would suffice. And why murder? Any one of the women would have turned him for a shilling.’
They left the square and began drifting back towards