Children of the Tide. Jon Redfern
“It was I who found her,” he explained, describing his discovery of the body during his morning round. Tracing the footsteps of sooty coal dust that led from the parlour into the corridor, Endersby remarked on their shape and state of preservation.
“Master,” Endersby then said. “Will you allow me to speak to any of the children? Those who are calm enough to tell me stories?” The master hesitated. He appeared so distracted it was as if the inspector’s words had been uttered in a foreign tongue. A woman appeared and asked the master to come upstairs, so Endersby decided he could no longer wait for permission. He would have to act before pertinent evidence was destroyed. The girls of the only open ward, the one next to the parlour where the body lay, were restless and agitated as he questioned them — some claiming to have heard a man whispering in the night, one certain it was her dead father come to rescue her. He asked if any one of their rank was missing. On asking once again about the intruder, most heads shook.
“He surely stinks,” one child said, her voice hoarse from shouting.
“Did you see him?” Endersby asked, hoping for a description.
“No, sir,” came the reply. “My head was under my pillow.”
All the girls said they had hidden their faces. Dark figures are the bane of childhood, thought Endersby as he thanked the crowd. Here in Shoe Lane there were fewer than twenty females, the oldest perhaps eleven years, skeletal reminders of the injustice of the metropolis. Endersby clenched his fists. These shadows of children had become targets of a roving killer.
A round, squat woman appeared in a white bonnet. “A most horrible deed; I am struck to the marrow with fear.” The matron curtsied.
“The found child, Matron. I wish to see her, if I may.”
Endersby followed her out the front portal while she explained that the child was being tended in the kitchen at the back of the House of Correction. Sudden spring rain fell lightly. As Endersby adjusted his broad-brimmed hat and his suede gloves, his mind took on the task of preparing questions. Up to this point, no one had mentioned the child’s name. He tapped the matron on her shoulder to ask but, as he reached out, she sprinted ahead through the kitchen door and announced the presence of a detective policeman.
An older woman stood up and turned to Endersby. “I am Matron Bickerstaff. We thank you, Detective, for your attention this morning.” Without further hesitation, this matron clapped her hands. A door leading to a second chamber opened to show a large fireplace with a roaring fire. Beside it was positioned a large copper tub. Through the doorway, Endersby watched as two women took hold of a child and led her before the hearth. A dripping bed sheet was held up before the flames. Matron Bickerstaff entered the room, undressed the shaking child and wrapped the now steaming bed sheet around the child’s skeletal body. Endersby stood amazed at this spectacle of charity. Once the child was dried, she sat in a chair by the fire where she was joined by Endersby and Matron Bickerstaff. “I am Inspector Owen Endersby of the Metropolitan Detective Police. Allow me, Matron, to speak with the child.”
The girl held her arms tight to her sides. Endersby sensed the child might be too exhausted, too shaken, to speak freely. Children in workhouses, he knew, were so often brutalized that they cowered into silence. Feeling her discomfort, Endersby dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out the tin of his wife’s candied chestnuts. “Would you care for one, Miss?” he said, politely offering the tin as if the girl were a woman of his social rank. He flipped open the top. The child’s eyes widened. “These confections were made by my wife. They are very sugary. My favourites.” Without hesitation, the child took one, bit into it, and then took another in her other hand. Endersby offered one to Matron Bickerstaff who chose a large glistening chestnut the size of a sovereign coin. She then cautioned the child to speak honestly to all the questions the inspector might ask.
“Good morning, child,” Inspector Endersby began, chewing.
The child bowed her head: “Good morning, sir.”
“Have you ever stepped out of Shoe Lane before, on your own, where you found yourself in the street?”
The girl raised her eyes toward the matron who in turn lifted her eyebrows.
“Once before, sir. Only once with Annie, sir.”
“And what did you and Annie find on your outing in the street?”
The child’s face brightened.
“A hurdy-gurdy man, sir,” she said, her voice bursting forth from her sunken little chest. “’Twas the only time, sir,” she whispered. Endersby leaned forward: “Did you see a hurdy-gurdy man last night, then?”
The child shivered a little and said, “No, sir.”
“Then tell me, young one …”
“My name be Catherine, sir,” the girl proclaimed with sudden pride. “My dead mammy gives me that name. And not Cath-er-INE, but Cath-er-IN!”
“Indeed,” replied Endersby, his gaze taking on a more serious aspect. Young Catherine had blue eyes, her blonde hair was cut short. “Then, Miss Catherine, tell me how you got out of your bed and onto the street last night?”
“I didn’t ‘got,’ sir. I was taken.” The matron quickly looked toward Inspector Endersby. “Taken?”
“A ghost, sir.”
“Astonishing, Miss Catherine. You have acquaintance with ghosts?”
“Oh, no sir. But one. He came in last night. I knows about ghosts ’cause me and Annie always tells the stories.”
“Did you see him, Miss Catherine? What did he look like?”
“I hears him. He tiptoes up and down. He has a stink like a ghost — all dead smell.”
“Catherine,” the Matron interrupted. “The plain truth.”
The girl bowed her head. The inspector waited, but she seemed hesitant now to continue. Endersby took out his handkerchief, folded it in half and handed it to the sullen child. She took it but did not look at it. “If he were here now, Miss Catherine,” Endersby whispered, “put my handkerchief over your nose. He must smell if you say he did.”
Catherine slapped the handkerchief to her face. She pulled it off quickly and smiled. “He did so stinks, sir.” The inspector then learned how Miss Catherine was whispered to in the dark — just her name.
“He called you Catherine?” Endersby asked, to make sure. The girl bowed her head. “Sweet, he calls me, too,” she said. “Catherine,” the inspector asked, leaning in close as if he were about to share a secret. “Did your ghost tell you his name?” The girl blinked. She blushed: “Knuckle Toe.” The sound of these two words were broken by her embarrassed laughter. Endersby said: “Knuckle Toe?” The child responded with a quick nod. Endersby reminded himself that both Catherines had been wakened in the dark. What they heard was so unfamiliar they perhaps confused dream and reality.
“You are very helpful, Catherine.” Endersby then asked if she’d seen the man’s face.
“Wot a terrible face he has. A big worm runs across it.”
“Show me, Miss Catherine. Draw out with your finger,” said Endersby, intrigued.
The girl puckered her face in disgust and then reluctantly drew a line across her right cheek, over her nose and up under her left eye.
“Did the man say anything else to you? Did he give you anything?”
“No, sir. He said me name again. ‘Catherine, Catherine,’ over and over like he forgets it.”
“Did he take you anywhere?”
“In the courtyard. Then he runs off, like he’s a scaredy scaredy.”
The inspector opened his candy tin and offered another to Catherine. “One fer Annie, too?” she asked.
“Most certainly.”
Moments