Rag & Bone

By JoAnne Soper-Cook

Rag & Bone #2 in the Inspector Raft Mystery Series

Scotland Yard Inspector Philemon Raft arrives on the scene of a deadly fire in Whitechapel, only to find a much more sinister force at work, destroying lives with swift abandon - and a lunatic may help Raft capture the master criminal known only as "The Master." But there's more to "The Master" than initially meets the eye: he has a connection with Raft that seems to preclude the constraints of space and time. As a Jack the Ripper copycat ravages Whitechapel once again, Raft and Freddie are in a race with destiny to stop him before he kills again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JoAnne Soper-Cook
• Release date: May 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005330132

JoAnne Soper-Cook

JoAnne Soper-Cook was born in Old Perlican, Newfoundland and grew up in Hant's Harbour. She published her first story at the age of 8 when her mother, impressed with the quality of a short story she'd written for a school project, sent it in to a local newspaper. Since then she has written novels, novellas, short stories, plays, speeches, radio scripts and some really, really bad poetry. She holds a B.A. (Honors) and an M.A. in English Literature from Memorial University and a B.Ed, also from Memorial. When she isn't writing she teaches Communications and Creative Writing at the College of the North Atlantic.

Book preview

Rag & Bone

By J. S. Cook

Copyright 2021 J. S. Cook

Smashwords Edition

Prologue

Can I have another one? Bram’s got another one. Why can’t I? The boy was small, perhaps nine years old, but thin and poorly nourished; it would be a miracle if he made it through another year. He clutched the remains of an oatcake in one grimy fist and brandished it at his older sister, who was sitting by the fire, mending. The interior of the house was oppressively dark even at midday; at evening, the lamplight barely penetrated a foot or two beyond its source. The floor beneath was slick with filth and ancient grime, and the detritus of their father’s trade—stacks of old newspapers, bundles of rags—was piled in the corners of the room.

Dickie, there aren’t any more. She looked up from her work. If Mother was home you wouldn’t get it anyway.

She appeared weak and thin, and her face—the few clean patches showing through a layer of dirt—was pale, and already she had achieved the round-shouldered posture habitual to women of her social class. She might have been thirteen or she might have been thirty.

Get ready for bed, and get Johnny ready as well. What if Mother comes and you ain’t in bed? She’ll have a right fit if she finds you’re still up at this hour. She held the tattered garment up to the light so she could see to bite off the thread. A basket full of freshly laundered clothes sat beside her; they had been washed in the only water available and hung to dry on lines strung between the topmost windows of adjacent buildings. The darker clothes fared rather well but the underthings and nightclothes, subjected as they were to the soot from innumerable coal fires, were a dirty grey and smelt like mice and scuttle-dust.

But I’m hungry! He collapsed onto the filthy floor in a heap and pretended to cry. There’s never nothing to eat! Why isn’t there anything to eat?

The girl rose from her seat, seized his collar and dragged

him up onto his feet. That’s enough of that. You’re to mind me when Mother’s not home.

She hauled him over to a cracked washbasin sitting in the middle of the table, which was itself set back against a wall that was shared with the adjoining flat next door. There were dozens upon dozens of families living in what amounted to a huge, ramshackle building erected over a watercourse that mainly consisted of filthy, stinking ditches, rife with refuse and with the putrefying corpses of dead animals, the water stained red from the tannery run-off a little further upstream. Washing lines were strung from every conceivable spot to receive laundry doomed to hang in the filthy air; in some places, shaky wooden stairs ran up from the water, disappearing into the black mouths of doors and windows. No matter the hour there was rarely any quiet: at any time, night or morning, someone was shouting or crying, and children of various ages ran wild in the streets.

I don’t want a wash! I had a wash already! He struggled with her, to no avail, as his sister’s hard hand plunged his whole head into the basin while, with the other, she rubbed a bar of strong lye soap over his face and neck. He struggled against her, kicking her in the legs, but she was older and stronger than he was. When at last she let him up his entire head and the front of his shirt was soaked with water.

Go on to bed. She tossed him a scrap of towel, grey and sour-smelling. Find Johnny and take him in with you, to keep you warm.

I’m never warm.

The boy scrubbed the soap’s harsh burning from his lips and eyes. It’s never warm in here. Why can’t we have coal? Missus up the stairs has got some coal. Why ever ain’t we got coal? At length he went grumbling into a back room, partitioned from the rest with an ancient piece of fustian, worn thin. The room contained two large beds and two smaller, and a wooden trestle bed which during daylight hours rested on its end against the wall. The mattresses were straw pallets, each overlain with a thin sheet; for pillows there were piles of old clothing, shaped into a likely bundle and laid underneath the head. A tiny boy was lying on his belly before the cold fireplace, playing soldiers with some scraps of wood and humming to himself. He was very dirty.

Come on, Johnny, we’ve to go to bed now.

The small boy shook his head. I want to go rag and bone with Dad, when he comes. There were open sores on his mouth, and ringworm had eaten away huge patches of his hair. I’m going to be a rag and bone man like me dad when I grows up.

Dickie patted the spot beside him. Come on. I’ll freeze here by myself. Get in with me and I’ll tell you a story.

What sort of a story?

A good story.

Johnny gathered up his soldiers and got in bed. When’s Dad coming? I want to go rag and bone with Dad.

Not yet, Dickie replied. He’ll be in Bermondsey yet. They’ve got loads of things in Bermondsey. He found a whole bicycle once! Just thrown away, it was. And once he was working up the Commercial Road and some missus gave him a loaf of bread. A whole loaf of bread!

That’s rubbish. Johnny dragged his sleeve across his nose. Who’d throw a whole bicycle away? What for? I’d never throw away a bicycle if I had one.

You haven’t got a bicycle. Dickie lay on his side and pulled the thin blanket over them both. Something was crawling in his drawers; he put a hand in and scratched himself vigorously. You’ve never even seen a bicycle.

Tell me about soldiers. Johnny curled into his brother’s back and closed his eyes. It’s cold in here, he said. Dickie, it’s ever so cold in here.

He ducked his head as something wet dripped down on him. It had been raining in the house like this for months, regardless of the time of year of weather. Their father said he’d have a look to it but he never got the time and once he was home he didn’t much care to go poking about. He was tired, walking from one

end of the city to the other, he said, dragging his cart behind him, calling up to the windows of all the houses for their rags and bones and little bits of this and that. All their blankets had spots of wet on them, and they were forever slipping and sliding around on the floorboards. It was a wonder they hadn’t all broken their necks.

Dickie tried to imagine summer, a warm season in some other place, and himself running in a great, open field with wildflowers and huge trees and a clean river running through the centre of it. The warmth poured down upon him, soaking into his bones and he lay down in it, breathed it in and let it heat him through and through. He was dimly aware of someone shouting, and of a curious loud sound that dinned against his ears but it was warm here. It was lovely and warm. He reached out his arms and one hand hit the candle in its stand. The bed was instantly ablaze, the thin sheet burning and the straw mattresses of all the other beds were burning, too, and someone was screaming as flames licked up the walls and raced across the ceiling to the other side.

The world was an inferno.

Chapter One

Inspector Philemon Raft blew in through the front door of New Scotland Yard, his umbrella held in front of him like a chivalric spear. To his immediate left was his plainclothes constable, Frederic Crook, also holding an umbrella although his had unfortunately turned inside-out. Freddie shook himself like a dog, sending water droplets everywhere; he took off his hat and dispersed several cups of London rain onto the floor. It was late September, and Londoners found themselves in the throes of the equinoctial gales: the entire city, it seemed, was being blown hither and yon at the whim of the weather.

Constable, not so close if you please. Raft produced a handkerchief and sponged moisture from his face. It is unconscionably wet for a Monday.

Of course, Sir. Freddie nodded towards a metal cage whose doors just then were open. Shall we get the lift?

Love to. They climbed in and ascended in silence, Raft mopping at his face while Freddie tried vainly to comb his hair back into its usual style. The lift stopped at the fifth floor with a bump.

You know, Constable, I do believe we blew all the way down the Embankment. Raft unlocked his office and let them both inside. The room was barely large enough to accommodate his desk and chair, a filing cabinet, and a small anteroom the approximate size of a butler’s pantry. It was here that Freddie Crook worked, whenever he wasn’t tearing around the city after Raft. I wish I’d some way of measuring...the sheer velocity of that wind is enough to tear one’s head off. He went to the window and looked down at the street; the rain was lashing sideways, bouncing off the pavements and forming ankle-deep puddles of misery.

You are very right. Freddie slung his coat at the hook. Tea? His hat followed, with unerring accuracy. "We’d best

drink up before Westminster floats away underneath us."

Raft sat down and reached for his cup. Splendid. I could stand something hot inside me just now.

Freddie raised an eyebrow and his habitual smirk grew in magnitude. Really?

Raft assumed a stern expression. Constable.

Sorry, Sir. Freddie tried his level best to smother the grin. I’ll get the tea, Sir.

While Freddie disappeared to boil the kettle Raft paged through the open cases on his desk. They were nothing more than he would expect to find on any night: assaults, public drunkenness, woman interfered with, destruction of property, cab robberies and the like. Raft was attached to H Division, which was responsible for the notorious Whitechapel District, the one part of London’s East End that nobody would ever forget, thanks to Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror two years previous. Most of the crimes that came across Raft’s desk were of the petty variety, repeat offences perpetrated by the same layabouts out of boredom or a desire to secure a warm bed for the night. It was irritating.

It irritated Raft more than usual today, but that wasn’t surprising; if he’d managed to get two hours’ worth of sleep the night before it was a miracle. For hours on end, while Freddie lay quietly sleeping beside him, Raft had been possessed of a curious and irritating wakefulness that refused to yield to any of the usual remedies. He had taken a hot bath and he had tried drinking warm milk; he had eaten whatever stale bread he could find about the premises and had checked—twice—to make sure his head was pointing north. When all of these failed he had gone to sit by the fire with the dullest book he could find but nothing worked. Near daylight, the children came to him, a boy and girl, perhaps six or seven years old, holding hands and gazing at him silently. At first he thought he was hallucinating, that his hunger for sleep had finally overridden his mental faculties.

Go away.

We want to tell someone. He hissed at them to go, but they refused. We want to tell someone. He pressed his hands to his eyes and willed them away and finally they went. He’d crawled into bed beside Freddie and fell at once into a sleep as profound as the grave—and dreamt of some far-off country with towering mountains and great, green meadows full of wildflowers, and a dark sea that lapped at a curiously familiar shore.

Here you are, sir. Piping hot. Freddie laid a mug down in front of him. Anything doing?

Destruction of property, cab robbery in Whitehall Terrace, woman interfered with on her way—hang on. Raft glanced over the report again, just to be sure. Fire.

Freddie glanced round him. Sorry?

Raft shook his head. Constable, there were four fires last night, all within an hour of each other.

Right. Freddie leant close. In Whitechapel? I’m not surprised.

All within yards of each other?

Freddie blinked. Has a whole neighbourhood gone up, then?

Raft got up abruptly and went to the map that was pinned to the wall of his office. "Hanbury Street...one building, a tenement...Miller’s Court, a building housing several families...

Goulston Street...George Yard. The hair on Raft’s scalp prickled in an unpleasant manner. None of the surrounding buildings were affected."

Wasn’t Hanbury where Dark Annie was killed? Freddie thought for a moment. The Ripper got her on Hanbury Street, didn’t he? Annie Chapman—Dark Annie, as she was known to her contemporaries—had been lured into the backyard of number 29 Hanbury Street and killed, her face beaten to a pulp and her throat ripped open with what must have been astonishing violence.

Every one of these locations is— Dear Boss, I am down on whores and I shan’t quit ripping them...

Where the Ripper killed one of his victims. Freddie’s tea suddenly tasted off. Sir, do you think...?

Raft briefly entertained the thought, then just as quickly dismissed it. I don’t think the Ripper was ever partial to arson.

Arson? Freddie laid his cup down. Are you sure?

No. Raft stepped away from the map. No, Constable, I am not sure at all. He turned an enquiring look on Freddie.

It’s pouring rain, the constable said. And windy as the mouth of Hell out there. I don’t see how you’re going to help anyone by wandering round Hanbury Street in a gale. He knew it was utterly pointless to protest; once Raft had got his teeth into something there was no stopping him. Alright, Freddie sighed, we might as well.

Raft beamed at him. You are a gem, Constable.

Oh, don’t I know it. Freddie pulled his wet coat on and reached for his sodden hat. You’ll miss me when I catch pneumonia and die.

The flames had been effectively extinguished by the fire brigade and there was nothing now left of the rookery except a collapsed and smoking ruin. Hanbury Street had little to recommend it. It ran east to west in a curiously zig-zagging direction off the Commercial Road. The buildings were old and dilapidated, and the windows of some had been broken out and boarded up with whatever had been lying about. A small chemist’s shop sat close by what had been a tenement, housing an unknown number of families, all of whom paid a nominal sum for the privilege of starving or freezing to death under its rotten rafters. On the other side was a barber and next to that, what appeared to be a seller of dry goods. If the other inhabitants of Hanbury Street had an opinion about the fire, they were keeping it to themselves. Apart from the twitching of net curtains at number 35, Raft hadn’t seen a living soul.

Watch where you’re stepping. He trod gingerly around puddles and skirted heaps of broken glass and burnt timbers. You never know what’s underneath.

Freddie bent and picked a child’s doll out of a burnt heap of cloth and wood that had once been a settee. The figure’s hair had burnt away but other than that it was mostly intact, although the face had cracked from the heat, lending it a bizarre, deformed expression.

Quite right, Sir. He laid the doll down and followed Raft towards what had been the back of the building. How many were there, Sir? Living in this place, I mean.

Estimates vary, especially considering that many of the people who lived here... Raft bent and plucked something out of the ashes: a slip of partially burnt paper. There could have been as few as thirty or as many as a hundred and thirty. I heard this used to be a tannery, but that was a long time ago. He turned the paper so Freddie could see it. What do you think?

Freddie read it aloud, Nox. He shrugged. It could be anything or it could be nothing, Sir.

Raft sniffed the scrap of paper. This doesn’t smell the same as the rest. He bent and scooped up a handful of ash, held it to his face and inhaled deeply. It doesn’t smell the same at all. Something tickled the back of his mind, some intuition that would not be dismissed. Why doesn’t it smell the same? He held the ashes out to Freddie. Take a gasp of that. What do you think?

Freddie inhaled carefully. Sweetish...like burnt sugar, perhaps. I don’t know.

Look at this, Freddie, Raft said, beckoning him near. The inspector was standing where a bedroom had once been. Scraps of some ancient, flowered wallpaper could still be seen clinging to the burnt boards underfoot. It must have burnt hot...incredibly hot. The houses on either side escaped. The bricks are barely singed.

I don’t understand. Freddie lifted one foot clear, tapped it against the shoe on his other foot, releasing a fine shower of ash. Does that mean something?

Raft crouched low, examining what would have been the building’s foundation. A fire doesn’t start from nothing. He straightened up and dusted ash from his hands. Perhaps someone lit a cigarette and let the match fall or maybe someone tipped over a candle in his sleep—

A roaring wall of flame, impossibly high, towering over him, over the bed and the room, the house and the city and someone had to get Johnny out, someone had to save Johnny…

Freddie was peering at him strangely. You alright, sir?

Raft nodded, perhaps too quickly. Just fine, constable. He drew an unsteady breath. I can find nothing that indicates how this fire might have started. Mind you, perhaps someone did drop a match or knock over a candle. The fire would have easily obliterated any such evidence and we would be no wiser. Or maybe... He bent to examine the foundation again. If something of the wall had survived I might be able to tell. He swept one foot back and forth through the debris, clearing a space. There—do you see that?

Freddie stepped around a heap of burnt cloth and crouched beside Raft. What am I looking for, sir?

If a fire starts at the floor, it burns upwards, right? Freddie supposed that would be so.

It does, Constable. A fire can only sustain itself by continuous consumption, so it will burn towards any unconsumed material. He waited for Freddie to make the obvious connection.

The foundation isn’t burnt. Freddie sifted through the ashes with a gloved hand. At least, it’s not been completely devoured, not like— He and Raft both raised their heads at the same moment.

The ceiling. Raft stood up. Constable, I think this fire might have started in the ceiling.

Freddie was clearly puzzled. "Wait a minute...if it started in

the ceiling...there has to be something to make it burn, besides air. Sure, these old houses are dry as tinder, but for it to burn so hot it had to be burning fast."

Which means it was helped along.

Bloody hell. The ashes...the sweet smell of the ashes.

Remind you of anything?

Yes, sir. Reminds me of last Christmas when we had supper with Mr. Hoare and Dr. Ponsonby and their landlady set the Christmas pudding alight...burnt sugar.

Raft was looking past his shoulder, gazing at something only he could see. You know how I get these hunches?

Yes, sir.

There’s something not quite right here. There’s something that just doesn’t fit. Constable, do you realise what the government has planned for this site? He didn’t wait for Freddie to answer. There’s to be a new block of flats erected here. It was only a matter of time until the people in these buildings got moved out, and the whole lot of it pulled down to make room for the new development. Yes, they intend to put in new flats, a park for the children, all the modern conveniences.

Perhaps it’s just my horrible mind but wouldn’t it be to the developer’s advantage to have this whole area levelled before the new construction started? Freddie touched an iron bed stead with one gloved hand; the metal was still warm. It would certainly save him some money and he wouldn’t need to be bothered with site preparation.

You have got a horrible mind, Raft said, grinning, but in this case I think your suspicions are justified. He tilted his head back and looked up at where the ceiling used to be; the roof had long since collapsed in on itself. Then there’s the smell.

Yes. Everyone says the fire is supposed to purify, but to my mind it just leaves a bloody awful stink behind.

That, and the sweet smell. Raft walked a slow circuit around the remains of the room, sniffing in so concentrated a manner that Freddie, unable to help himself, burst out laughing. What, Raft asked, is so damned funny, constable?

Sorry, sir. You look like a bloodhound.

Do you know, constable, in the future men will have found a way to train dogs to sniff out things like this, and finding the cause of a fire such as this one won’t be nearly as hard as it is for us nowadays. Raft found himself again by the building’s foundation. The strange smell was strongest here; he took out his penknife and carved away a small section of the wallpaper. I may be way off the mark but I’m going to bring this back to Pontius Doyle and see what he thinks.

Doyle is a doctor, sir, Freddie pointed out. Are you sure he can help you?

Hoare! Raft cried.

I beg your pardon. Freddie sniffed. I was bloody good enough for you last night, he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.

Jeremy Hoare, Raft corrected, this sort of thing is right down his alley. Him and Ponsonby are forever messing about with things they shouldn’t touch—not to mention his little forays into various cemeteries around London.

There’s something I don’t quite understand about Mr. Hoare, Freddie said. If he’s a solicitor, and if he’s as clever as everybody says, why is he messing about like he does?

This doorway. Raft gestured at what had once been the front entrance; it had burnt as fiercely as the rest of the house, but somehow the posts and lintels had survived. Pass me that ladder over there, would you?

It was lying on the floor and had probably been