Shadowseer: London (Shadowseer, Book One)

CHAPTER ONE

Inspector Sebastian Pinsley stood on St George’s Field as his hansom carriage left, trying to think of an excuse to avoid going into the building that stood across from him. There were some places that no sane man wanted to set foot in.

Even a little way from the Thames, the stink of it caught his nostrils; although with the city as it was at the moment, it was hard to tell the difference. Barges sat motionless in the distance, though even this early in the morning there were vendors out in the broad square, flanked by buildings. Pinsley observed them as he observed the rest of the world, making sure that he understood what each thing was about before moving on to the next.

He reached into his waistcoat and checked his pocket-watch: five in the morning, far too early to be about. It was certainly too early to be heading into the square-built, high-windowed building that sat before him: Bedlam.

Technically, it was the Bethlem Royal Hospital for the insane, but no one Pinsley knew used that name. It was always Bedlam. It was a name that would conjure fear in anyone, given its history, and Pinsley felt a faint trickle of that fear now. The so-called hospital had once been a byword for the worst of madhouses. They said it had improved since they’d torn down the old building in ’15, but still, the mere sight of the place made him shudder. It took Pinsley a moment to realize what it was about the building that threatened him so much: a place like this was the antithesis of the rationality and order he tried to bring to the world. His aunt had ended her days in a place like this. Although it was a small thing compared to some of the losses in his life, the thought of it was still nearly too much.

Inspector Pinsley tightened his dark great coat around the slenderness of his frame, and removed his top hat in preparation to make his entrance. He was unshaven today, so that stubble showed between the spaces of his dark mutton chops, making him seem a little older than his forty-five years. He resolved to return home, or at least to his club, if he could before he made his way to the station. An inspector should set an example for his men.

He strode to the door with the crisp gait that came from military habit, rapped twice upon the knocker, and waited in stillness, the better to hide his nerves at approaching this place. The man who opened the door was portly and dressed in the simple clothes of one of the keepers who would work under the warden. The hallway behind him was dusty with lack of care, wood paneled and stone floored. A portrait of Queen Victoria sat above a desk there, as if its presence would lend the place a grandeur that the rest did not.

“Pinsley,” the inspector said. “I take it I am expected?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “Please, follow me.”

“A moment please,” Pinsley said, forestalling the man’s march into the building with a raised hand. A wise man gained what information he could before he rushed onto the field of battle, and with an investigation that was doubly true. “Some questions first. There has been no one in or out of the building?”

“Not other than the boy the warden sent to notify you,” the keeper said. “It wouldn’t be usual in any case. Visitors are in the afternoons.”

When they paid a penny for the dubious thrill of staring at the mad. Pinsley bit back his disgust at that and nodded, filing the information away. No visitors meant no likelihood of anyone outside the building. He’d seen the blocky exterior: it was a fortress in all but name.

“The deceased is…”

“A young woman by the name of Greene, sir,” the keeper said. “Please, we can’t have the doors open too long, even with them all confined to their rooms. Security is important here.”

In his head, Inspector Pinsley stopped the silent count that had been going on since their conversation began, trying to judge if the man had left the door open for so long because it was an inspector calling, or simply because he was lax in his duties. A careful study of the man’s face and hands revealed them to be surprisingly clean, while his hair was well trimmed, and his work clothes had only the normal level of dirt. A man who took that level of care in those details was likely to be careful in other things, too, so possibly it was just Pinsley’s presence that had made him lax about the door.

“We have a visitors’ book, sir,” the keeper said. “In fact, you should sign it. The warden is quite strict about that. No one in or out without signing to show that they’ve been.”

“Trying to avoid another parliamentary enquiry?” Pinsley said. It was possibly a little sharp, but at this time of the morning, it was hard not to be sharp. It wasn’t as if Pinsley slept well, in any case.

The keeper winced at that. “I wouldn’t know, sir. You have to sign.”

Pinsley stepped into the place, and the cold of it was somehow even greater than it had been outside, in spite of it being February. It was darker than he would have liked inside the asylum, the windows not providing enough light to truly illuminate the place and the gas lights not lit since it was nominally morning. There were shouts and cries in the distance, off down half a dozen corridors. Only one stood quiet.

The keeper gestured to a visitors’ book bound in leather. Pinsley opened it to the current day, the 2

nd

of February, and took a moment to scan through the names there before he signed his own. There had been few enough visitors the day before, all in the afternoon, and none scheduled to visit the deceased, according to the notes on the purpose of their visit. For his own, he wrote simply “the investigation of a death” and left it at that.

“This way, Inspector,” the keeper said, gesturing to the quiet corridor. Pinsley didn’t wait for him, but marched ahead through the building. It didn’t matter that this place frightened him; a man faced his fears of the unknown, and shone the light of reason into the dark.

“Sir, wait for me,” the man said, but by the time he caught up, Pinsley had reached an iron gate set into one of the hallways. He tried it, and found it locked. The keeper fumbled for his keys and unlocked it for him with speed.

“This gate is normally kept locked?” Pinsley said.

“Yes, sir.”

Pinsley believed him. The keeper had handled the keys with a speed that said he did it as routine, every time he passed. He locked the gate behind them with as much speed. The space beyond had a series of rooms leading off it, each presumably housing an occupant, each fastened tightly as Pinsley checked them.

There were portal windows at eye level on some of the rooms, the way there might have been for prisoners in a more ordinary jail. Pinsley paused at one, then another, forcing himself to look. The figures on this wing were all women. The first Pinsley looked in on was curled up on a cot. The second was back against one of the walls, banging her head slowly against it. The third… Pinsley had to resist the urge to leap back as he found pale eyes staring straight at him.

Fear rose in him, not sudden, not something to be fought the way it had been back in the days before he’d been a police inspector, back in the Crimea. Not the way it had been when he’d seen his beloved Catherine lying dead at the hands of a madman, either. This fear was an older thing, built on memories from his childhood. In that instant, it wasn’t Inspector Pinsley walking along the corridor, but young Sebastian. How old had he been when he’d last seen his aunt, when she’d been sitting by herself, singing one nursery rhyme over, and over, and…

No, he wouldn’t think of that. He was a rational man, a man who worked with the mind. To save himself from being buried in memories, he focused on the present, using what he could see of the women he passed to guess at their former lives: governess, seamstress, wife. Everything, from the way someone stood to the callouses on their hands, had a story to tell, and if Pinsley concentrated on it enough, he didn’t have to think about the past.

Even doing that, the walk seemed to take forever. Each step was an effort, seeming to echo around the building. It took Pinsley a moment to file away the silence as a piece of a puzzle, because nowhere else in this place was quiet. If Pinsley had been a less rational man, he would have thought that something was holding the people here to silence. Instead, he reminded himself that it was just death, and the fear of it, that was producing such an effect.

Pinsley was only too grateful when they finally reached the room they sought. It was the only one with the door open, and the warden of the building was waiting.

“Warden Buckle, this is Inspector Pinsley,” the keeper said.

“An inspector?” the warden said, sounding a little surprised. “He isn’t dressed as one.”

He was a somewhat shorter man than Pinsley, balding and dressed in a formal frock coat and waistcoat buttoned with large brass buttons. His cravat was rather looser than Pinsley’s own scarf, but Pinsley could understand that concession to comfort, given the scene within. It was enough that Pinsley had to take a gasping breath to be able to stomach it.

The room was a relatively simple, white-walled place, forming a square perhaps ten feet on a side. There were two beds within it, covered in grey blankets, and a wash stand to one side. All of it had blood on it. Pinsley had seen worse than this in the war, but that was no consolation now. He had to remind himself that he was there to observe, to understand, and the best way to do that was to shut sympathy away so that he could look this over coldly.

The body of a woman lay on the floor, partially covered by a sheet, which had done nothing to stop the flow of blood. Her hair and face were matted with it, until it was hard to make out many of the details. Pinsley didn’t want to look, because for a moment, all he could see was Catherine lying there… no. He would not think of that, not now.

Even so, it was several seconds before he could make himself look at the details of the dead woman’s appearance. Her clothes were expensive, or had been once, perhaps a season or two ago. Her hands bore the signs of a struggle, and there were parallel cuts on her arms.

Another woman crouched, huddled in the corner, her hands over her face as if they might block out the scene. There was blood on her hands, in her hair, on the walls around her. She had a bruise swelling around her left eye. She was dark haired and simply dressed, wringing a bonnet between her hands like a rag. She seemed to shake with every step anyone took around her, and was muttering something to herself under her breath.

“The shadows… the shadows…”

“As you can see, Inspector,” Warden Buckle said. “It is a relatively simple matter. Elsie here got hold of a knife and decided to strike out at her roommate…”

“Tabitha Greene,” the keeper supplied. The warden gave him a look that told Pinsley everything he needed to know about the way the man ran things here. He’d seen men like this in Crimea, determined not to be corrected by a subordinate, whatever the cost.

“As I say,” the warden said. “It is a simple matter. Hardly worth troubling you with, given that the only place Elsie might end up for this is… well,

here

.”

He made it sound as if murders were common there. Perhaps they were; Pinsley resolved to check, because such a thing could not be allowed to stand.

“Still, I have some questions,” he said. “Was the knife found?”

Warden Buckle looked a little uncomfortable at that. “Well… no.”

“You checked thoroughly?” Pinsley said. “It is not in one of the other cells?”

“There would be no way to get it there, sir,” the keeper said.

“Check anyway, please,” Inspector Pinsley said. He took a moment to check the body. He had seen the cuts a knife could cause, and a sword, and a dozen other weapons. These looked like none of those, because they were strangely parallel, the way wounds from claws might have been.

Inspector Pinsley frowned at that. He didn’t have enough information yet to make sense of it, and that troubled him. Not understanding might be the first step along the path to reason, but it could also lead to dangerous, intolerable unreason. Especially here.

He went to the young woman who had been left crouching in the corner. “And why was this young woman left here with the body?”

“There was nowhere else to put her,” Warden Buckle said. “Besides, it seems right that she is made to confront what she’s done. If she weren’t

here

, she’d hang for this.”

She still might; that would be a matter for a judge. Typically, the law demanded a life for a life. Looking at this young woman, Pinsley wasn’t sure he could be sanguine about the harshness of that. Pinsley crouched beside her.

“The shadows…” she whispered.

“Look at me, please.”

The young woman didn’t do it at first, but Pinsley peeled her hands away from her face.

“I don’t want to look!” she cried out. “I don’t want to look at it!”

“You don’t want to look at what you did?” Pinsley asked.

“I didn’t do this!” she wailed. “I didn’t. Damn you for saying it. Damn you!”

Warden Buckle took a step towards her as if he might strike her. Pinsley stopped him with a look.

“A blow is a well-known way to stop hysterics,” Buckle insisted.

“A blow such as the one you have already struck her?” Pinsley asked. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the reddening around your knuckles, sir.”

“I… how dare you?” the warden asked.

Pinsley ignored him, returning his attention to the young woman. “It’s Elsie, isn’t it?”

She nodded in between choking sobs.

“Can you tell me what happened here?”

“Any fool can tell you that!” the warden asked.

“I didn’t do it!” Elsie repeated. “I didn’t. I didn’t! It was… there were shadows, strange shadows, and… and… no, I didn’t do it!”

“Inspector,” the warden said. “I think that is quite enough. The girl is clearly deranged. She was found inside a locked room along with the body. Everything here was locked up tight overnight. There is no way it could have been anyone else.”

Pinsley knew that had to be true. He was a man of logic, of science. The man of intellect applied reason until only one answer remained, and here, that answer seemed obvious.

It was just… why was the knife not there?

Why did the cuts on the body look far more like the claws of some wild beast?

Why did he find himself believing this girl when she told him that she hadn’t done it?

And what did she mean when she talked about the shadows being strange?