Chapter One

The night was dark and cold. A gentle mist was creeping through the streets like the fingers of misbegotten ghosts. The tall streetlamps down this side of the park had yet to be lit. Faint moonlight glinted off the wrought iron fence, illuminating the spiked tips like a legion of spears in the night. It lasted a moment, then the light vanished behind the clouds. The darkness was pervasive along the spooky old path. Brown leaves gathered in clumps near every available windbreak, as though huddling out of the cold.

No one heard the scream. It was muffled and cut abruptly short. The wind stirred and all the leaves danced. The sounds of their revelry drowned out any meek human noises. When their party subsided, a faint panting could be heard and the tiniest clink of glass on stone. No one was listening. The breeze started up the festivity again and the world continued to ignore whatever was happening in the shadow of the trees.

It was half an hour before the lamps were lit and anyone knew anything had happened at all.

* * *

 When dawn broke it was weak and watery and not enough to rouse Charles Shilling from his agitated sleep. That took the bang and rattle of the cell door as the bars were slid back. He startled, half falling from the bench he was sleeping on, and staggered to catch himself. One hand latched onto the slatted seat, holding him up before more than his shoes hit the floor. He eased himself back onto the bench with a groan, this time sitting upright.

“Rise and shine, Mister Shilling!” a voice called to him.

Charlie groaned again and rubbed his face like he could force life into it. His gloved fingers were cold. Everything was cold, dear God, so cold. He staggered to his feet, ruffling his hair, and grabbing the coat he had been using as a pillow. He shook it out from its rolled-up state and slung it on, shivering in the depths and wondering if he would, in fact, have been better served wearing it than sleeping on it last night. The question had been a topic of some contention between the two halves of his brain in the previous darker hours.

He looked up, bleary-eyed, to see two uniformed officers watching him from the doorway. He recognised them from last night. The brunette man and blonde woman who had arrested him. Constables, by the uniform. They looked about as happy as he did. He squinted at the tiny crack of barred window, glimpsing more of the morning than he could bear.

“It took you idiots all night to find someone who could verify me?” he grumbled, stumbling towards the doorway.

“No one verified you, Shilling,” brunette male constable said. “But orders made it down. Lord Pound wants to see you.”

“Eh, well, tell him I haven’t found anything yet because two idiots arrested me last night,” he retorted.

“You’ll have to tell him yourself, Mister Shilling,” blonde lady constable insisted.

Charlie stopped. The officers were not overly tall people, but neither was he, and they were standing very resolutely in his way. If things were about to get rough, he could probably take them, but he didn’t like fighting unless he absolutely had to. Besides, they had truncheons, and he had already had a very bad night. He was already in jail, and hitting police would not get him released in a hurry. Of course, it was starting to feel like not hitting police hadn’t gotten him released in a hurry either. These two, dense as they might have been, looked firm and awake. Charlie was neither.

“Now?!” Charlie groaned. “He wants to see me right now?!”

“We have been instructed to escort you to his residence,” blonde lady constable assured.

Charlie didn’t find it assuring at all. He poked his tongue around his mouth. It was dry and disgusting and tasted like soap lather. His face was cold and greasy, and his hair felt like it was mostly on end.

“Could I maybe have a cup of tea first…?” he inquired hopefully.

“Now, Shilling,” brunette gent constable insisted, firmly guiding Charlie from the cell.

 * * *

 The Pound household was aflutter with activity. The party wasn’t until tomorrow, but preparations were already beginning. Amelia Florin, adopted Pound and fairly-soon-to-be wedded Pound, flounced down the stairs to the dining room. It was a large, well-lit space in keeping with the rest of the mansion. The long, polished mahogany table shone, and the highbacked chairs were arranged precisely about it. She swooshed into the room in a flurry of dark burgundy skirts.

Lord Henry Pound was sitting at the head of the table, deep in his newspaper, his breakfast growing cold and forgotten. Beside him sat his grown son Harry, who was meticulously applying spreads to his toast. Harry looked up as she came in and threw her a winning smile, which she returned openly.

“Amy, stop flouncing,” Henry ordered without surfacing from his newspaper.

“Sorry, Daddy,” she apologised, falling into an even step as she approached the table.

“Oh, let her flounce, Dad,” Harry protested. “She graduates tomorrow, she’s allowed to be excited.”

“Unseemly for a doctor to flounce,” Henry huffed.

Harry looked up at her as she approached and mouthed ‘flounce away’. She chuckled, wandering to him at a measured pace. He motioned to her and she offered her hand. He kissed it. She brushed his chocolate brown fringe from his face and kissed the top of his hair. Henry folded his paper down to glare at them.

“At the dining table!” he exclaimed in exasperation.

“Would you rather we take it somewhere else?” Harry asked pointedly, ignoring Amy’s warning slap on his shoulder.

“Don’t be vulgar, boy,” Henry warned. “I raised you better than that.”

The Lord of the Manor lifted his prominent nose high, and his paper higher, hiding his face. Well, most of it. He had sideburns large enough to shame whole proud species of the animal kingdom, and even in the depths of the newspaper his whiskers marked his presence.

Amy pulled up a chair next to Harry as he carefully quartered his toast. The maid brought her tea and she settled down, declining the gestured offer to share in her fiancé’s toast.

The knock at the door came mere seconds later, and the butler appeared in the doorway.

“My Lord,” he began, “Constables Bond and Wilson are here to see you, along with Mister Shilling.”

“Thank you, Digby,” Henry sighed, folding away his paper. “Show them in.”

Digby bowed and left the room.

“Father, you’re not letting that wretched creature in the house, are you?” Harry exclaimed.

Amy saw a quarter of the front page as the paper was set on the table. She quickly filled in the blanks to complete the headline and her heart sank.

“Not again…” she sighed.

“Exactly, Amy,” Harry rested a hand on her arm in agreement. “Not at the breakfast table.”

“No, Harry,” Amy pointed at the paper. “There’s been another one. That makes… what? Fifteen in the last year?”

“And two just in the last week,” Shilling grumbled from the doorway.

Everyone looked to him. Digby stood stiffly in the doorway with Shilling at his shoulder. Charles was the same age as Harry, but Amy couldn’t imagine two people more different. Harry sat straight-backed and impeccably dressed in his chair, a look of utter disdain on his face. Shilling, on the other hand, all but ignored him. His straw-stack blonde hair was scruffy, his long tan coat was rumpled, and his suit looked like he’d slept in it — it didn’t look like it had been a good sleep. He only had eyes for the head of the table.

“You wanted to see me, Lord Pound?” he huffed.

“Hello Shilling,” Henry smiled at him. “I hear you got yourself in a spot of trouble last night.”

“It’s not my fault the police are morons,” Shilling grumbled.

“I wouldn’t call London’s Finest ‘morons’,” Harry sniped.

Shilling cocked his head to the side and regarded Harry with exhausted exasperation. His brows furrowed and his eyes squinted.

“Mister Shilling, you look awful,” Amy began, heading off further disagreement. “Would you care to take a seat?” She indicated across from her.

Shilling slouched into the room and sat down opposite Harry, on Henry’s other side.

“Can we get you anything?” Amy continued.

“Tea…?” he answered in a small, hopeful voice.

“Penny, could you please…?” Amy turned to the maid.

“Already on it, Miss,” Penny replied politely, setting tea in front of their guest and pouring it out. Shilling looked up at her with adoring eyes.

“Thank you, Miss. You’re an angel,” he told her gratefully.

Penny gave the dishevelled young man a shy smile. As she stepped back, Shilling drained his cup. It barely touched the sides. Penny came back and refilled the mug. She stayed nervously attentive this time, but Shilling was already regarding Lord Pound. Henry’s thick grey eyebrows were narrowed at the young man at his table.

“I hear you were caught red-handed last night,” Pound commented.

“Hardly!” Shilling protested. “There might have been a body, but I’m not exactly the type to stick my hands in the mess.”

“He doesn’t mean you had actual blood on your hands, lunatic,” Harry sighed. He glared across the table. “They think you’re the Jack of Hearts?”

“I was accused and charged last night,” Shilling admitted.

“And you’re not still locked up because…?” Harry demanded.

“Because I didn’t do it,” Shilling replied. “And I can’t believe it took them all night to verify that! I told them! Ask anyone! Detective Rupee is working the case, she knows I’m not the killer. I told them to contact my sisters, or Commissioner Farthing, or Captain Hedley, anyone from up in the northern precinct, even Madam Bronny!”

“It’s okay, Shilling,” Henry soothed. “No one thinks you did it.”

“Speak for yourself, father,” Harry commented. He folded his napkin over his plate and stood, tracing the tips of his fingers lovingly against Amy’s back. “Fortunately, I have pressing business away from the discussion of this gruesome ordeal.”

“You running away from me, Henry Junior?” Shilling raised an eyebrow.

“From you, Shilling? Never,” Harry retorted. “That’s a fight I could win with my eyes closed. But the law calls… you know, the right side of it.”

“With a tongue that sharp I’m surprised you’re not a better litigator,” Shilling quipped.

“Shilling!” Henry snapped.

“I’m serious,” Shilling insisted, deadpan. “I’ve seen some of his cases. I could prosecute more successfully than him and I don’t believe in incarceration.”

“Luckily for the world, Mister Shilling, it believes in you,” Harry finished. He kissed Amy’s cheek and strode from the room. She watched him go, hoping he wasn’t too flustered. He might have presented a cutting exterior, but she knew how easily things got under his skin.

Shilling, on the other hand, sat there in his rumpled coat sipping his tea like he was accused of murder most evenings.

“It is possible, Mister Shilling,” Amy began slowly, “that if you weren’t so rude to people, they wouldn’t arrest you and leave you in a cell all night, only to let the Commissioner know you’d been arrested in the morning.”

The young man’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed as he considered this.

“I was just being honest…” he explained.

“Yes, Shilling,” Henry sighed. “Your honesty is infamously brutal. Now, what have you found?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” Shilling admitted, sitting his cup carefully in its saucer. “Like I said, last night was frightfully bungled. When word went out that they’d found another body, I got the message before the police. So, naturally, I got to the scene before they did. I was able to investigate a bit, but it wasn’t long before I was in cuffs and they were trampling over everything.”

“The paper says it’s Jenny Kent.” Henry tapped it with a finger. “She’s another one of Bronny’s girls. That’s her seventh. Nearly half of these killings have been from her House.”

“That sounds about right,” Shilling nodded. “I know she’s scared. That’s why she’s hired me.”

“We’ve hired you, Shilling,” Henry insisted. “The city has hired you to help with this.”

“Begging your pardon, Lord Chief Justice, you didn’t hire me. You dragged me into your office one day and told me to solve it, after Bronny had already asked for my help because Farthing and his buffoons had let eight women die.”

“Don’t pretend you weren’t poking around before that, boy,” Henry warned. “I know you were snooping. I heard the enraged screams from the lead detective.”

Shilling pursed his lips again, contemplating his cup and silently tapping his fingers either side of the rim. He didn’t know Rupee well, but he did recall her screaming at him once.

“Eight women were dead, I was intrigued…” he admitted softly.

“But it’s not just that, is it?” Amy asked, joining the conversation and settling back with her tea. “They didn’t just die, gentlemen, they had their hearts brutally cut out. The Jack of Hearts has specifically targeted expensive, high-class consorts from notable families who will want him brought to justice.”

“Well, we don’t know that he’s actively targeting the ladies,” Henry sighed. “No one has mentioned anything untoward in their lives before the incidents.”

“I think we can be fairly confident, Lord Pound,” Shilling commented, still tapping his cup. “Our killer hasn’t targeted any of the men from the same establishments, only women, always after dark — and yet, we haven’t found ourselves with any dissected doctors or bakers or cleaners on our hands. Always escorts who took a job outside one of the High Houses and were supposedly returning from it.”

“Fine, good,” Henry encouraged. “So how is he picking them? Why is he picking them? Come on, Shilling! You said you’d sort this seven bodies ago! I cannot have another paper like this on my doorstep and another set of grieving parents demanding to know why the city isn’t safe for their little girl to get work experience!”

“If I had the answers, Henry, we wouldn’t be in this pickle,” Shilling grumbled, rubbing his face.

Amy raised an eyebrow at him, but he had his hands over his eyes and didn’t see. She was glad Harry wasn’t still here. He probably would have smacked Shilling for talking to his father like that.

“The deeply disturbing psychology behind a man killing these women is all very compelling,” Shilling sighed wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There are half a dozen decent theories, and I don’t have any faith in a single one.” He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes, and looked up at them. “I know my work on this hasn’t been good enough, but I swear I’m doing my best. There just isn’t enough evidence. Whoever is responsible for these deaths is a butcher with a knife, but a meticulous worker. They are targeting specific women, stealing their hearts, and I cannot work out what links the ladies aside from their work. It keeps coming back to that, and I have scraped the streets for motive — we’ve had over ninety suspects! None of them are butchering ladies.”

“Then whatever it is, is happening in an area you’re not looking,” Amy commented.

“I’m very aware, Miss Florin,” Shilling sighed. He paused abruptly and cocked his head to the side, regarding her. It was a very puppy-dog gesture.

“Charlie…?” Henry warned, also noting the look.

“Miss Florin? Are you still Miss Florin, or did you finish pursuing medicine?” Shilling inquired curiously.

Amy smiled at him over the rim of her mug.

“I’m surprised you even remember Daddy telling you about my exploits,” she said.

“I don’t forget things,” Shilling replied.

Amy’s smiled widened. She couldn’t help herself. She didn’t know Shilling well, but she knew him well enough to know he didn’t brag. The police didn’t like him because he came across as arrogant, but he had sway with the nobility because he was effective. His statements, although far from politely modest, were always true. Charles Shilling didn’t forget things. He was too brilliant for that.

“I did finish pursuing medicine,” she answered finally. “I graduate tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon, you will be looking at Doctor Florin.”

“Only if I see you tomorrow afternoon,” Shilling replied. “Congratulations on your accomplishment.”

“Thank you,” she preened.

“Are you moving into work?”

“Not immediately. I have options, but Harry and I haven’t set a date for our wedding yet, and that might take precedence,” she answered.

“Hm,” Shilling nodded. “Miss Florin, I don’t suppose I could trouble you for your aid in this investigation?”

“You what?” Henry coughed.

“I have been contemplating the need for an independent medical examiner,” Shilling elaborated. “Someone separate from the police, and you are currently independent of all hospitals. Also, I want a woman’s opinion on these murders.”

“You want a woman’s opinion?” Amy smiled, raising an eyebrow at him.

He nodded earnestly at her. “With the exception of one mortician who is either an imbecile or corrupt, all the doctors I’ve spoken to so far have been men, which I see as a complete lack of insight on behalf of the department, given that the victims have all been women. Last week I raised a theory that the killer might be a woman, and they nearly laughed me out of the office.” A small frown of confusion pouted his bottom lip ever so slightly. “Which doesn’t make any sense.”

“Statistically speaking the killer is more likely to be male,” Amy offered.

“Maybe,” Shilling sipped his tea. “But I’ve been over every man with ties to the High Houses in London and I’m coming up dry. Our killer is getting bolder — they know we’ve got nothing. I think it is at least worth investigating, and someone with medical training and an eye for things I won’t see would be extremely useful. Pound here can get us permission.” He nodded his head at Henry.

Amy looked at her surrogate father, who was already bristling with indignation.

“All right,” she replied quickly, taking the wind out of the Lord’s sails.

“All right?” Henry echoed. “Amy, are you sure?”

“Daddy, if there’s anything I can do to help stop these brutal killings, I should at least try,” she insisted. “I know I’m a junior doctor at best, but if Shilling thinks I can help, it would be deeply remiss not to even have a look.”

Shilling raised his eyebrows as high as they would go in Henry’s direction. The older man saw the look and sighed. He probably would have been more supportive of Amy’s decision if they hadn’t been sharing the table with Trouble and his articulate facial expressions. Charlie Shilling had crooked eyebrows and a crooked nose and a crooked smile that all seemed to ask, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ No one ever wanted to know the answer.

“Very well,” Henry conceded. “I shall draft a message to the morgue. Shilling, can we interest you in some breakfast before you start work?”

“No, thank you, Pound,” Shilling shook his head. “I was actually thinking I might briefly duck home. Miss Florin, I could meet you at the morgue at, say,” he checked the cracked and chipped watch in his pocket, “ten-thirty?”

“That would work perfectly,” Amy agreed. “I was supposed to meet the ladies at ten, so I can stop by fleetingly on my way instead of sending apologies.”

“Then I will meet you there,” Shilling replied, dismissing himself and standing from the table.

No one said anything as he left abruptly. Henry closed his eyes and shook his head gently, as though willing God to give him strength. The help all gave Shilling a wide berth and varied looks. Amy tried not to laugh. She couldn’t hide her grin, but she knew he wouldn’t have noticed. He never noticed the strange looks everyone gave him everywhere he went, and he would have no idea they all considered his departure abrupt. He had places to be and things to do and heavens only knew why everyone else dallied so slowly.

“I’m glad you find it so amusing…” Henry sighed.

“Oh, come now, Daddy,” Amy smiled. “He’s a harmless wee fruitcake.”

“No, he isn’t,” Henry warned. “But I know what you mean. Shilling means well, Amy. He means very well. Boy has the best of intentions, but he’s a few cards short of a full deck, and he moves through life like a hurricane. I know I don’t need to warn you not to get caught in his storm.”

“You don’t,” Amy assured, standing and coming around the table to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry, Daddy, I can handle Charles Shilling.”

“Excellent,” Henry grumbled. “I should give you my job then.”

Amy laughed at him. He kissed her cheek in return and gave her a pat on the shoulder before turning his troubled frown back to the newspaper. He left it folded up but tucked it under his arm as he departed the table and headed for his study.