Down a Dark River Read online

  DOWN A DARK RIVER

  AN INSPECTOR CORRAVAN MYSTERY

  Karen Odden

  To George, Julia, and Kyle, always

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I began this book nine years ago, in 2012, after reading a true story about a young woman who was treated with terrible unfairness in an American court of law. The injustice clawed at me, and when I first hesitantly proposed the idea for this mystery to my wonderful agent, Josh Getzler, of HG Literary, I warned him that this was different from my other books. Instead of a young, thoughtful woman amateur sleuth, it featured a prickly Scotland Yard inspector who was a former bare-knuckles boxer and dockworker from seedy Whitechapel. Josh replied, “Wonderful! I can’t wait to read it!” So I began writing.

  As with all my books, this one is steeped in Victorian tea and history. People often ask what parts of my book are true, so here is a brief account. (For a more complete answer, please visit my website.) First, yes, in 1877, four Scotland Yard inspectors were tried at the Old Bailey for corruption and taking bribes, with three convicted and sentenced to hard labor and prison. The public’s trust in the Yard was shredded, and the Departmental Commission on the State, Discipline, and Organisation of the Detective Force of the Metropolitan Police (the Victorians loved their long committee names) embarked upon a two-month investigation, after which the Yard was reorganized into the Criminal Investigation Department under a new supervisor, Frederick Adolphus “Dolly” Williamson, and a new director, C. E. Howard Vincent, in 1878. I have omitted Mr. Williamson from my novel and kept Mr. Vincent as the man more likely to challenge Michael Corravan. The real Mr. Vincent, like my fictional character, was a young man, well educated, the second son of a baronet, and a former Daily Telegraph correspondent, who had never served in police uniform. The conversations and conflicts between him and Corravan are, naturally, fabrications.

  People often think of Jack the Ripper as the first serial killer (the crimes were called “sequential murders”), but there were dozens all over Europe before 1888, including Gesche Margarethe Gottfried (1785–1831), who murdered fifteen people by arsenic poisoning in Germany; Martin Dumollard (1810–1862), a Frenchman guillotined after having been arrested and charged with the deaths of twelve women from 1855 to 1861; Hélène Jégado (1803–1852), a French domestic servant who murdered as many as thirty-six people with arsenic; and Mary Ann Cotton, a British dressmaker who poisoned more than twenty victims (most of them her own husbands and children) and was hanged in 1873.

  As suggested by Corravan’s interactions with Tom Flynn (of the fictional Falcon) and John Fishel (of the fictional Beacon), the Victorian police had a fraught relationship with the newspapers—so much so that in 1879, Howard Vincent felt obligated to write in his new handbook, A Police Code, “Police must not on any account give any information whatever to gentlemen connected with the press relative to matters within police knowledge, or relative to the duties to be performed or orders received, or communicate in any manner, either directly or indirectly, with editors, or reporters of newspapers, on any matter connected with the public service, without express and special authority.… The slightest deviation from this rule may completely frustrate the ends of justice.” As I’ve depicted in my novel, Reynolds’s News often presented the police in a negative light: “Scotland Yard persists in holding out every inducement to policemen to trump up charges in order to obtain the rewards that are given to those who procure the most convictions” (1880).

  I have included historical figures throughout, including the brothel owner Mary Jeffries and the vicious Jack “Bones” Brogan in Seven Dials. Annie Besant, whose notorious presence at Belinda’s evening soirees causes the burglary that brings Corravan and Belinda together, published a book on birth control, for which she and her coauthor stood trial in June 1877. The jeweler Marie-Étienne Nitot and the House of Chaumet, which he founded, are real. The adulteration of tea and other comestibles was a huge issue, addressed (not entirely successfully) in a series of laws passed 1860–75. And the double-jeopardy law was in place for eight hundred years, rescinded only in 2005.

  Elsewhere, I have taken liberties. While the River Police are based on Wapping Street, and Blackfriars Bridge links the north and south banks of the Thames, the church Our Lady of Perpetual Help is actually in Fulham, not Lambeth, and was not built until 1922, but I liked the name for a church that attempts to aid young women trapped in poverty. Seddon Hall is based on Holloway Sanatorium in Surrey, which was built between 1873 and 1885, so it would have still been under construction at the time of my novel (1878). As for gentlemen’s clubs, Pemberton, Clavell’s, and Adwaller are fictional, but the other clubs named are real, with many still in existence on Pall Mall. Hatton Garden is (still) the jewelry district, but I have invented many of the street names.

  For those interested in true history, I want to share some of the resources I consulted, which provided the historical basis for much of this novel. All errors are my own. These include Haia Shpayer-Makov’s essential and brilliant book The Ascent of the Detective: Police Sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England; Gilda O’Neill’s The Good Old Days: Crime, Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London, full of primary source material from the Times and other publications; Carolyn A. Conley, “Rape and Justice in Victorian England,” in Victorian Studies 29.4 (1986): 519–36; “The Medical Evidence of Crime,” Cornhill 7 (1863): 338–18; Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor; Peter Ackroyd, Thames: The Biography; Lara Maiklem, Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames; Charles Dickens, “Down with the Tide,” in Household Words, 1853; and Judith R. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London and Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State.

  My thanks to Nigel Taylor, of Advice and Records at the National Archives, for information on Old Bailey and court records, and to Susan Fenwick, Administrator to the Clerk, The Company of Watermen and Lightermen of the River Thames.

  My profound thanks to Jessica Renheim, Melissa Rechter, Madeline Rathle, Rebecca Nelson, and the entire team at Crooked Lane Books who fell for Michael Corravan and helped me complete this book. They have been a dream to work with—organized, generous, wonderful communicators, and true fans of historical mysteries. Thanks to Priyanka Krishnan, my first editor, who took a risk on a new author, and huge thanks to Josh and everyone at HG Literary for their unflagging support over the years.

  One of the (largely) unsung rewards of being an author is meeting people from all over the world who love books the way I do. My gratitude overflows toward all those who responded warmly to the publication of my previous books, A Lady in the Smoke, A Dangerous Duet, and A Trace of Deceit. These include innumerable readers, authors (mystery and otherwise), publishers, booksellers, book clubs, librarians, bloggers, bookstagrammers, reviewers, conference organizers and attendees, and members of professional groups including Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. A special thanks to Barbara Peters and her entire staff at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Old Town Scottsdale, which I think of as my literary home. Thanks also to Phillip Payne and KT Tierney at Anticus Gallery for their lovely, constant support. Gratitude to all the book club and group leaders who have graciously organized author events for me and those who helped make events a success, including Debbie Arn, Patty Bruno, Jules Catania, Peggy Chamberlain, Robin Chu, Donna Cleinman, Lisa Daliere, Bill Finley (of Tucson Festival of Books), Ann Florance, Denise Ganley, Hank Garner, Amanda Goosen, Nancy Guggedahl, Allison Hodgdon, Denise Kantner, Ruth Lebed, Christie Maroulis, Melissa Orlov, Phyllis Payne, Rebel Rice, Laura Schwartz, Lori Stipp, Mb Thomas, Ellen Trachtenberg (of Narberth Bookshop), and Dana Tribke (of Arizona State University). Thanks to all the bloggers who have welcomed
me, with special thanks to Dayna Linton, Melissa Macarewicz, and Cindy Spear for tirelessly championing my books. Thanks also to my fellow authors who have supported my work, especially Shannon Baker, Rhys Bowen, Donis Casey, Susan Elia MacNeal, Anne Perry, Rosemary Simpson, and Judith Starkston.

  As with all my books, this novel started as one thing and shifted shape, depending in great part upon feedback from my beta-readers and experts I consulted along the way. A special thanks to all who advised or read drafts of this book: Ann Marie Ackerman, Susanna Calkins, Kate Fink Cheeseman, Wendy Claus, Masie Cochran, Mame Cudd, Tami Dairiki, Julianne Douglas (Sister Witch #1), Andrew Fish, Mariah Fredericks (Sister Witch #2), Jane Garrett, Kristin Griffin, Claudia Gutwirth, Julie Larrea, Evan Leibner, Jennifer Lootens, Mimi Matthews, Kathy McAvoy, Nevine Melikian, Barry Milligan (who caught me mixing up wolves and rabbits, among other things), Anne Morgan (my title wizard), Stefanie Pintoff, Roger Ruggeri (with a special thanks for helping me name my protagonist), Nova Sun, Anita Weiss, and Anne Wilson. A special thanks to my web designer Amanda Stefansson for creating a beautiful website and helping me navigate it. Thank you to Bill Polito, my high school English teacher who told me years ago that I could write; my straight-talking newspaperman Tom Flynn is a tribute to him. A heartfelt thanks to my mother, Dottie Lootens, and my mother-in-law, Nancy Odden, for their loving support.

  Lastly, as always, my deepest gratitude to my husband, George; my daughter and always first reader, Julia; my son, Kyle; and my ageing beagle-muse, Rosy, who naps in my office chair. I could not do this without you. You are as steady under my skiff as the river tide to the sea.

  CHAPTER 1

  London

  April 1878

  Most of us Yard men would say that over time we develop an extra sense for danger close at hand. For me, the earliest glimmer of it appeared when I was still new to Lambeth division, wearing a scratchy blue coat with shoulders a few inches wider than my own, and I felt my way for the first time down a shadowed alley, truncheon in hand, braced for whatever skulked around the corner.

  After a dozen years of policing, I liked to believe my instinct had been honed to a keen blade. That I’d seen enough London crime not to be surprised by much. That I could sense the approach of something especially vicious by a prickling along my arms or a tightening below my ribs.

  But that Tuesday morning, I never saw it coming. A case with a murderer as hell-bent on destruction as the mythical three-headed monster Ellén Trechend roaring out of its cave. All I saw, at half past eight that rainy morning in early April, was young Inspector Stiles. He knocked and poked his head into my hole of an office, as he’d done dozens of times before.

  “Inspector Corravan.” His voice was subdued, and his brown eyes lacked their usual spark.

  I looked up from some notes I was making about a missing wife. I was two days behind on my diary, and in the wake of last year’s scandal, the new Yard director, Howard Vincent, was a stickler for keeping proper records in case anyone from the Parliamentary Review Commission wanted to see them at a moment’s notice. “What is it?”

  “The River Police found a dead woman downstream from Wapping. They just sent word, and Vincent wants us both to go.”

  The thought of a dead woman was unpleasant, certainly, but it was the other part of Stiles’s remark that surprised me into silence—because River men never asked for help from the Yard if they could avoid it. Not to mention that Blair had been the superintendent for fifteen years and knew more about the Thames than anyone. Why would he need us? And I could imagine the look he’d give when he saw that it was I who’d been dispatched. Besides, what was Director Vincent doing, sending us off to other divisions? Every one of us already had too many cases, including me—one of which was the missing Mrs. Beckford, which I might manage to resolve by the end of the day, so long as I didn’t get sidetracked. And I was keen to find her. Missing people claw at my nerves even worse than dead ones.

  I snorted my annoyance, and Stiles looked apologetic. “The chap said there’s something peculiar.”

  As I plucked my overcoat off the rack, Stiles took my old black umbrella out of the stand and offered it to me. That was Stiles, doing his best to keep me from catching my death, even when I barked at him. I grasped the handle and grunted my thanks.

  We walked toward Whitehall Place, our umbrellas braced against the rain, and I sent a sideways look at Stiles, who was tugging his hat more firmly onto his head. I was his senior by almost a decade, having served in uniform in Lambeth for nearly three years, the River Police for four, and here as a plainclothes detective at the Yard for five. When he came to the Yard eighteen months ago, Stiles had been an above-average policeman, with hands as quick as most boxers I’d fought, a willingness to learn, and an amiable manner that put witnesses at ease. But he’d been uncertain with me at first, a little nervous. And then the trial last autumn had been hell, with crowds outside the Yard every morning screaming how we were frauds and cheats, and we all deserved hanging or worse. I could tell it ate at Stiles, but we kept our heads down and resolved six cases in three months—an outcome I liked to think encouraged the Review Commission to let the Yard remain open for a while longer. So we’d been through enough together that now he was like a sturdy skiff, still bobbing in my wake but, to my secret satisfaction, not about to be easily overturned by anything.

  “Mr. Quartermain was in with the director first thing this morning,” Stiles said once we settled into a cab.

  Of all the members of the Review Commission, Quartermain was the most critical of the Yard. He believed all policework should be done by men in uniform—partly because the uniform deterred criminals and partly because our plain clothes provided what he called “corrupting opportunities.”

  “Hmph.”

  “I’ve heard he’s in favor of cutting us back further,” Stiles ventured.

  “He’s trying to make a name for himself at our expense,” I said sourly. “The public likes the sound of a clean sweep after a scandal.”

  “It feels rotten, though. It isn’t fair to keep tarring us all with the same brush.”

  I agreed; it was unjust. Only three inspectors—Druscovich, Meiklejohn, and Palmer—had been found guilty of helping criminals evade capture in exchange for substantial bribes, but the press was all too willing to blame the entire Yard. I had a feeling this was why Director Vincent had assigned me—one of the two remaining senior inspectors—the task of finding the missing Madeline Beckford. It wasn’t lost on him that Stephen Beckford was a respected gentleman from Mayfair and a partner in a significant shipping concern. Restoring his wife to him might make it into the newspapers, if there was still one willing to publish anything good about us.

  The rain had stopped, though the wind gusted, and we hurried from the cab into the River Police station, a brick building that loomed over the warehouses on either side. The clerk told us that Blair was on the dock, so we dropped our umbrellas in a stand and made our way out back. It was nearly nine o’clock in the morning, but the sun was invisible behind the clouds dragging their dark shadows across the Thames. The breeze buffeted us with the smells of fish and brine and spice. Blair stood at the very end of the wooden pier, his back to us, his coat flapping in the wind, his head turned to the left, downstream. As our boots thumped closer on the water-soaked boards, he peered over his shoulder. Catching my eye, he stiffened and turned away, planting his feet across the middle of the dock so neither of us could stand beside him.

  There was a time when Blair and I would have stood shoulder to shoulder on a case. A time when I craved Blair’s good opinion more than anyone’s—and for four years he’d given it to me, along with training and advice and introductions to people he thought I should know. But things happen, and when I asked for a transfer to the Yard, Blair took it badly. He sneered at me for my presumptuousness, ripped into me for my arrogance, and cursed me for being disloyal, while I held my tongue. I had my reasons for leaving Wapping, but they were best kept to myself. Onc
e at the Yard, I didn’t have much to do with Blair, but the past few years when we happened to be in the same room, Blair pointedly ignored me. So my insides felt like a reef knot pulled tight as Stiles and I walked the last few steps.

  “Superintendent,” I said.

  Blair gave a phlegmy sniff in reply, and behind his back, Stiles shot me a questioning glance, which I ignored.

  Beside Blair lay the simple canvas-and-poles stretcher we used to remove bodies from the river to the station. His eyes still focused downstream, he said, “They’re towing her in.”

  I had a sudden, absurd vision of the dead body being towed through the water behind one of the River Police boats. “The body?” I asked.

  “She was found in a lighter,” Blair replied.

  Ah. A lighter.

  Now I wondered if Blair had in fact requested me specifically. Before I was a policeman, I’d been a lighterman for hire, and, as a result, I was uncommonly familiar with the fleets of small boats used for carrying cargo from dock to ship and back.

  The three of us stood silently shivering in our coats. At last a gap appeared in the traffic, and the River Police boat emerged, its prow pushing through a web of scrap and refuse. It eased toward the dock, two men navigating against the current. On a towline lurched the lighter, a rough blanket covering what lay in the bottom.

  “Who found her?” I asked.

  “A riverman,” Blair replied. “About a quarter past six. By Limehouse Basin.”

  Just over two miles downstream, near the West India Docks.

  The boats drew close. One of the men was new to me, but with a feeling of relief, I recognized the other as Andrews. A good man, fifteen years older than I, smart and trustworthy. I tipped my hat so he could see my face, and his surprise was followed by a warm smile. “Hullo, Mickey,” he said, his eyes darting toward Blair to assess how he was taking my presence.