Kith and Kin by Jane A. Adams

Author:Jane A. Adams [Jane A. Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2018-08-12T16:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

It could, Henry wrote in his journal, be seen almost as a commonplace to find a prostitute dead, or for one to be assaulted. Such has been an occupational hazard probably for as long as prostitution has existed, but it is certainly so in the big cities, and London is no exception.

On the night we found Martha Howells dead, she was one of two prostitutes discovered murdered. Because they were not victims of the flood they are not listed among the fourteen dead, casualties of poverty and natural disaster. But they were victims nonetheless. The other, whose name I do not recall because I was not directly involved, had been bludgeoned and her earnings stolen. But Martha Howells had been stabbed once, with a weapon of unusual shape which has not yet been identified.

I happened to be with a group of constables close to the foreshore – or what had been the foreshore before the water came in. I have to say it was a terrifying event. Poor families crammed into basements were inundated within moments and the lucky ones were pulled out by neighbours or by police officers or by passers-by. Many were trapped on higher floors and were left for hours without help, or water or heat. They were the lucky ones, in some ways. I remember we spotted this woman – or rather, we spotted her body – and the first assumption was that she was another drowning victim. Her clothes were sodden and her hair had fallen forward on to her face. She was lying face down on the ground and it was only when we turned her, to check for signs of life, that we saw the blood on her chest and realized that the cause of death was not drowning.

The water was coming in rapidly and the constables with me were of more use helping with the evacuation, so we picked her up and carried her to higher ground. I can remember the roar as something gave way, I still can’t be sure what, but the water was suddenly all around, and had risen from ankle deep up to my knees. Had we arrived any later her body would have been washed away and none been any the wiser.

Henry paused, remembering. That had been an appalling night. Dark and freezing, and most of those on patrol had spent it sodden and miserable, doing what they could for those who had lost everything.

But what had Martha Howells to do with Max Peterson and Billy Crane? It was not so neat a wound as that which I saw on this second body, that of Max Peterson. It was as though the woman had been in motion, turning perhaps when the blow had been struck. The man, bound and possibly even held still, had not moved and therefore the weapon had gone in straight and clean and so it looked, at first, like a bullet wound. The internal shape of both is the same, I am sure of it.

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