City of Shadows

Chapter 67

8 p.m., 8 November 1888, Whitechapel, London

Mary Kelly wiped muffin crumbs from her lips and smiled across the table at Faith. ‘I ain’t felt so ’appy in a long time.’

Faith had been gazing out at the street. The late-night market was closing up for business. By the amber glow of lamplight, costermongers, butchers, grocers packed their wares away as weary-looking stevedores returned home from the docks and warehouses along the Thames. A narrow street heaving with activity; a seething mass of grubby humanity seen through the sooty window of this small tea shop. Faith had logged, analysed and dismissed seventy-six faces in the last minute alone.

She levelled her impassive gaze on Mary. ‘Why are you happy, Mary?’

‘I have you.’

Faith had compiled a short list of non-specific, noncommittal yet reassuring responses that she could trot out in response to Mary’s endless chatter. She picked one at random.

‘Then I am happy too.’

‘I feel like there’s a hope. A way out of Whitechapel. A way out of this stinkin’ awful unfair city.’

‘Yes.’ Faith played a smile. ‘We have your plan.’

Mary checked the coins in her purse. The last few nights their petty crimes had paid off well. Mary had decided they could try their luck along the Strand. There were a number of members’ clubs along that busy road that disgorged drunken gentlemen into the streets in the early hours. Faith had played her part well, catching the eye and attention of a number of them with some suggestive and teasing come-ons while Mary had made quick work of dipping her hand into their coat pockets.

‘We’ve already got almost a whole pound! A few weeks like this, Faith love, and we might have enough for tickets to take us anywhere we want!’

‘The place that you called “Wales” sounds like a very nice place.’ Faith was vaguely aware that her AI was adopting some very sophisticated human behavioural traits. She was ‘playing along’. Acting a part. Lying. Faith had no intention of travelling off to a place called ‘Wales’, but maintaining the illusion that she was sold on that idea suited her well. Mary was a useful accomplice with useful local knowledge. More than that, between them they seemed to have developed an efficient way to accumulate money; something that was needed, of course, to purchase food.

Faith finished her lamb broth. Generously full of chunks of mutton and other useful proteins.

‘I think you an’ me’s earned a night off. What do you say?’

Faith was looking out of the soot-smudged window. ‘As you wish.’

‘We could go down me local, the Queen’s Head. How’s that sound?’

Faith turned to look at her reproachfully. ‘You intend to consume alcohol again?’

Mary shrugged. ‘It’s just a little celebration. We done so well, you an’ me. Just one drink ain’t gonna hurt, is it?’

‘Information: intoxication impairs performance and compromises judgement.’

Mary laughed. ‘Bleedin’ ’eck, Faith. Come on, just one little drink. Ain’t gonna kill me now, is it?’

12.27 A.m., 9 November 1888, whitechapel, London

The pub — The Queen’s Head — turned out to be another useful location for Faith to log faces. Her database of stored images was rapidly increasing in size. She’d spotted, logged, analysed and filed 17,217 faces in London so far. None of them, of course, were the people she was after. But it meant over seventeen thousand humans ruled out.

As she calmly surveyed the florid faces around her, through clouds of acrid pipe smoke, Mary was enjoying herself. One drink had turned into several drinks and she was now in the middle of a noisy muddle of men and women, leading them in singing along to an accordion player, all of them equally inebriated. The innkeeper winced at the racket as he collected the empty tankards. Keen to begin kicking out his patrons for the night.

Faith approved of Mary Kelly. There was an iron strength in the woman: not physically, of course, but in the way she could command the obedience and respect of others. The kind of person who, in another life, in other more favourable circumstances, might have achieved great things. Instead, all she would ever be was a ‘street woman’, a pauper, quite likely destined for an early grave. If she could feel any emotion for Mary, it would be fondness. Instead, the best she could manage was dispassionate approval.

She watched Mary sing tunelessly for a while, a foghorn voice that carried over the other tuneless voices, then turned back to the task at hand: observing the faces around her.

And it was then, as she glanced around once more to check for any new faces, that she caught sight of a dark-haired young man. Just a glimpse of a face on the far side of the public house. Her breath caught in her throat.

Liam O’Connor.

[Information: 85 % identity match]

She started to push her way through the fog of pipe smoke and heaving, sweaty bodies. Florid, bearded faces loomed closely at hers. Men with gap-toothed smiles leered at her as she squeezed her way frantically through.

For a moment she lost sight of the young man. Then re-established visual contact again a few seconds later. Closer now. She could see his face was slim, his nose prominent beneath two thick arched eyebrows.

[Information: 87 % identity match]

She began to feel adrenaline coursing through her body. Her mind determining the best strategy. To kill him right here in this pub? Or better to watch him discreetly and perhaps follow him when he left at the end of the evening in the hope he was going to lead her back to the others.

Closer now. She could see the young man was the same height and build.

[Information: 88 % identity match]

She needed to be closer; to not have clouds of pipe smoke obscuring her view; or red-faced, drunken fools staggering into her, breathing rancid fumes in her face. She could snap any one of these fools’ necks with the slightest flick of her wrist, and perhaps no one would notice in the press and surge of bodies. A man might collapse to the sawdust-covered floor of this pub and they would all assume he’d passed out from too much drink.

But it wasn’t worth the risk of alerting the attention of Liam O’Connor, now just a few yards away from her, laughing at something being said to him by someone else.

Faith reached to pull her bonnet down a little, hoping to disguise her face. Too late. She noticed his brown eyes flicker on to her. Resting on her… and then a smile for her benefit. No alarm. No flicker of recognition and panic.

No. Just a fuzzy-headed, drunken smile.

‘Hoy! All right?’ the young man called across to her. ‘Buy you a drink, love?’

[Information: not Liam O’Connor]

She ground her teeth. Turned on her heels and started to push and squirm her way through the crowd back to where she’d been standing moments ago. Only to discover Mary was no longer there with her newly made drunken friends.