Chapter 3
As he made his way down the hall, then the long staircase which lead to the belly of the station, he wondered over something he had said to Miss Poste. In his memory, it played over and over, a querulous sort of echo of that single word. Good. 'So not a shop girl? Good.' Why had he said it was good? Well, obviously, as every victim thus far had been a young woman working in a shop and he did not wish to see Miss Poste lying upon some cold slab in the basement. He didn't want to see anyone in such a position. Naturally. Perhaps it was not the word but how he'd said it. In his memory it sounded too relieved. Too familiar. The door to the morgue reached and he pushed all thoughts but those of work out of his head.
The room was unpleasant always. Cold and dank, the walls lined in jars of organs and charts of flayed bodies and such. The steel tables shone dully, the sheet covered ones on the fringes where the ice above them sent cold air sinking, the drains dripping constantly. It would make him mad to work here. A creak of wheels and Winston pushed in the roughly sewn tarp that he knew held the corpse of Miss Bishop.
"Ah, Jack. We were just getting ready to begin. Would you like to stay and watch?"
"No, Winston, I think I will simply wait for the final results of your testing." He looked over the man, always finding it strange how grey he was. His hair, his eyes, his clothing, even his skin seemed to hold a dusty sort of pallor. "The reason I came down so quickly is to inform you I've brought you a young lady, a Miss Poste. She is waiting upstairs in the front hall."
"Oooh" Winston smiled wide. "Well it's about time, Jack." A glint of teasing in his eye. Despite his rather morbid line of work and ghoulish coloring, he was actually the most lively person Jack knew.
"Yes." He drawled dryly, conveying in a single syllable his feelings about the implication. "The lady, in fact, intends to handle Miss Bishop's final arrangements. Someone from down here will need to speak with her, work with the release to whatever undertaker she has selected." He was not squeamish about dead bodies, but the sound of the body being cut out of her clothing was too much for his sense of decency. "I will leave you to your work and attend to my own." Turning to walk out.
"Pints and darts after work then?" Winston asked as he fetched his apron from the hook. A dismissive wave the only answer he ever got to that question. Jack was not the sort who indulged in such things. It wasn't because of unfriendliness, he simply didn't know how to turn his mind toward simple things and find pleasure in them. Stepping up to the woman, her body draped in folded sheets to leave most of her exposed without being disrespectful. "Poor girl." Those like her who had crossed his table so often were bound for a potter's field and an eternity unremembered. It was comforting this one had at least one person who cared for her. Drawing up the cloth of his mask, he began dictating to his assistant who wrote down what the doctor said as he went about cataloging the girl's injuries.
"Subject M489-15, identified positively as Miss Collette Bishop, is female, approximately five feet, four inches in height, one hundred ten pounds, Caucasian. Brown hair, brown eyes, no obvious distinguishing marks or scars. The subject was found deceased at six thirty PM, March fourth at Noble's Confectionery Emporium. The cause of death appears to be exsanguination due to deep tissue laceration, specifically the tearing of the neck and throat, transecting both the carotid and subclavian arteries as well as the jugular vein. The larnyx was sliced through as well as the trachea, indicating a very sharp instrument was used, but one too bulky to make a clean incision. There is no sign of struggle or defensive wounds on the victim. The wounds speak to the fact unconsciousness would have occured within a matter of moments, and death soon after."
He continued the investigation of the corpse, finding the same results as the previous victims. They were all between the ages of eighteen and twenty two, all worked in shops, all were dark-haired and between five and five and a half feet. They lived in different parts of the city, some had large caring families, some had no one at all. Their workplaces varied across the board from high-end dress shops to simple corner chemists. He removed his gloves and the blood soaked coat, his brow marked by a frown. It was so very senseless, and he wished above all else that he could shake the feeling it was only just beginning.
It was several hours before someone from the coroner's offices ascended to the waiting room to seek out Miss Poste. She was not difficult to find. The waiting room was hardly full, but Miss Poste was sitting alone by herself, a handkerchief touched now and then to the corner of her eyes, but to be honest, Winston would have read her face as frustrated rather than sad. "Miss Poste?" He spoke up to be heard over the murmur of the police station, and he offered a condolence-laden smile when her head swung round. He motioned her to follow and stepped away to lead her down the hall, then the long stairwell into the basement. He veered to the left and into his office rather than the door to the morgue proper. "Please, have a seat, Miss Poste." He motioned to a rather worn wooden chair across the desk from his own seat, turning with a creak of old gears to open a file cabinet an rummage for the proper paperwork.
She had followed in silence, ,her anger and sadness equal in measure. Twice she'd been witness to almost identical scenarios. Women, their faces still purple with bruises, pleading for the release of the men who'd done it to them. It made her feel sick and sad and ashamed of her gender and angry at the other. The cooler air and quiet of the lower level of the precinct made it easier to compose herself, and by the time she'd taken a seat, she was merely simmering instead of the roiling boil her emotions had been going at. While the man pulled papers from the files, she remained quiet until the drawer shut and he turned round to face her. "Forgive me, Sir. I do not wish to be morbid, but you are the man who … attended Miss Bishop when she was found? Was she...passed already?"
Winston nodded. "Yes, Miss. It was quick. She did not suffer long."
Theodora nodded, biting her lip. "Thank you, Sir. I thank you for being honest with me." A huff of resolution and she sniffled sitting up straighter. "To business then. I do not, I admit, know exactly how to proceed with such things. I am not wealthy, but I would like to see Miss Bishop have a decent burial with a stone and everything. "
"What funereal parlor will you be calling upon to collect the bod... Miss Bishop?"
"I … do not know. Who is both honorable and inexpensive?" A half-smile, apologetic for being so ill-informed.
"Do not fret, Miss Poste. I know just the chaps." He wrote down a name and held it out to her. "Now, perhaps you can help me with some of this paperwork?" He noted her nod and once she'd put the card into her bag, he began. "Did Miss Biship have any next of kin? Someone we should notify?"
"She has an elderly aunt, but it has been years since they corresponded and Miss Bishop implied always that the woman had washed her hands of her. I do not know her address or name."
"Address?" He began writing when she gave it, taking down all the information she could give and though it did not answer everything, it did fill in quite a few holes. When he finished, he looked up at her, truly looking at her for the first time. He could see she was unhappy, naturally, but she was not a wilting violet. She was quite a decent girl and were he not so old, he might have angled his cap in her direction. "Thank you, Miss Poste. Allow me to once again offer my most sincere condolences on your loss." Rising as he spoke.
"I thank you, Sir, for your kindness, and for being one of the few who will, at least for a while, remember her." She patted her bag. "And for helping me assure that she has the respectful treatment in death she always sought in life. "
She stood and offered out her hand. Before he could politely bow over it as a gentleman ought, she slid her palm across his own and claimed his hand in a firm but delicate grip, shaking it twice before relenting her hold, stepping back and walking out into the hall. He watched as she paused where the doors lead to the morgue, a moment taken there, before she lifted the hanky to her eye again and then, with purpose, climbed the stairs. He sank back into his chair, thinking she was a very strange sort of girl, but he could not help but hope she did well in her life. Once her footsteps had faded and silence reigned again, he returned to the paperwork that would need doing before the body could be released for burial. Thoughts of the body as a person had to be pushed from his mind. He was not a heartless man, but it was a heartless business and caring too deeply would not serve anyone at all. Justice demanded a stoic and emotionless truth be told, though each year it grew harder to detatch himself, and more difficult still to convince himself it was the right thing to do.
It was after six when he finally had all the paperwork and photographs gathered, all the evidence from his end logged, all the preparations to the body for transport by the undertakers completed. He gathered up his coat and hat and headed out to The Cotterpin for his weekly round of drinks and darts with the lads. He was two pints in and seven points down when he happened to look toward the door when it swung open. He choked a bit on his lager and set it down, covering his mouth with a hastily snatched hanky from his breast pocket. When he'd invited Jack, he'd not actually expected him to show up. He stood in the doorway, obviously uncomfortable, scanning the room until he spied Winston, then crossing the room with a glower that made the coroner rise from his seat,expecting to hear there had been another murder.
"Winston." Jack nodded, looking past him at the others from the precinct who likewise would have been less surprised to see an ostrich in lipstick walk through the door. He gave them a nod then snared Winston's sleeve in his fingers and drew him aside toward an empty table along the wall. "What happened this afternoon. With the girl?"
"Well... I performed the postmortem as I always do. Everything's in the report, Jack, you just have to..."
"Not her. Miss Po.. The … girl who came to pay for her funeral." He looked out over the room. "Did you talk to her? Were you able to offer any help?"
"Miss Poste was very helpful in getting names and addresses and next-of-kin. I sent her to the Clays. They're not going to take advantage."
"Good, good." He grit his teeth so the muscle in his jaw clenched. That word again! "I will go and look over the report then. Leave you to your evening, Winston. Thank you." He turned then and walked back through the sea of tables and out, leaving his friend behind without a look back.
Winston chuckled, sauntering back to his table and plucking up his abandoned lager. "Sorry for the interruption, Lads... next round's on me." He looked toward the scoreboard. "Who's up?" His grin unabated. It was something he'd never thought he'd see. Jack Ainsley was a human after all. Who'd have guessed.