The Harvest Man Read online

  ALSO BY ALEX GRECIAN

  The Yard

  The Black Country

  The Devil’s Workshop

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  A Penguin Random House imprint

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2015 by Alex Grecian

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Grecian, Alex.

  The harvest man : a novel of Scotland Yard’s murder squad / Alex Grecian.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-63640-4

  I. Title.

  PR6107.R426H37 2015 2014049858

  823'.92—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Roxane,

  who always has my back.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Alex Grecian

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  NIGHT

  DAY ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  NIGHT

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  DAY TWO

  MORNING

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  NIGHT

  FINAL DAY

  MORNING

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  EPILOGUE

  ONE YEAR LATER

  When children are playing alone on the green,

  In comes the playmate that never was seen.

  When children are happy and lonely and good,

  The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.

  Nobody heard him, and nobody saw,

  His is a picture you never could draw,

  But he’s sure to be present, abroad or at home,

  When children are happy and playing alone.

  He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass,

  He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;

  Whene’er you are happy and cannot tell why,

  The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!

  He loves to be little, he hates to be big,

  ’Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;

  ’Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin

  That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

  ’Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,

  Bids you go to sleep and not trouble your head;

  For wherever they’re lying, in cupboard or shelf,

  ’Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!

  —ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, “THE UNSEEN PLAYMATE,” A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)

  NIGHT

  Mother and Father were sharing a bed. The Harvest Man hesitated in the open bedroom door, staring down at his bare feet, his face flushing scarlet beneath the plague mask. Mother and Father had always slept in separate rooms. He was certain of it. But perhaps their habits had changed over time. That made perfect sense. If they had remained the same, he felt sure he would have found them long ago.

  Mother stirred in her sleep and the Harvest Man finally moved. He wasn’t ready for her to wake up. He uncorked a bottle of ether and placed a folded face cloth over the rim, tipped the bottle up, and held it until cold liquid soaked through to his fingers. He set the open bottle on the floor next to the doorjamb, where he knew the liquid would silently turn to gas.

  Everything always changing, things disappearing without a trace.

  He moved forward in slow motion, keeping his head and shoulders straight up and down, only bending at the knees. He made no sound. Mother stirred again, rolled onto her back, and the Harvest Man moved around the foot of the bed to her side. He preferred to deal with Father first. Father was bigger and stronger and, if he woke early, he always caused trouble. But Father was snoring and Mother was moving, on the verge of waking. Better to tend to her.

  He knelt by the bed and gazed at Mother’s sleeping face. The room was dark, but the window was open and the moon shone bright. He could see well enough even through his thick lenses. Mother was pretty. He thought she had always been pretty, but she didn’t look like he remembered. It took him a moment to categorize the differences. Fortunately, he had a very good memory for faces. Mother’s nose was slightly larger now, and was turned up at the tip. Her eyes were spaced closer together and her lips were thinner. She had lost a little weight, and her forehead was wider, her hair a different color, her neck longer, her cheekbones more prominent. He shook his head and the heavy beak at the front of his mask moved back and forth. Why did they always make so much work for him? They shouldn’t change so very much. It always made him cross.

  Mother opened her eyes and they were not the same color as he remembered. He hesitated, confused, but when she opened her mouth he clapped the ether-soaked cloth over it, held it tight to her face. She struggled for a moment, then relaxed, and her arm fell limp over the side of the bed. He picked up her hand and placed it on her chest.

  Around on the other side of the bed, Father shifted his position, and so the Harvest Man leaned far across Mother’s limp body, stretched out his arm, the moist cloth pinched between the ends of his two longest fingers, and shared the ether fumes with Father. When both parents were insensible, he left that room and explored the house. He had been in a hurry earlier and had bolted for the attic without taking his customary tour.

&nb
sp; There were two children, both boys, sleeping in a small bed tucked under the staircase. He pushed the plague mask up to the top of his head so he could see them better, enjoying the feel of fresh air on his cheeks and chin. He rubbed his ear. Sometimes it still itched where the top of it had been pulled away. The mask’s goggles rested against the back of his head and the long pointed beak stood straight up like the face of a baby bird straining for food. The Harvest Man stood and watched the children’s chests move gently up and down. He gazed without affection at the nearest boy’s chapped lips, which were parted, the upper lip deeply grooved and dark pink. The boy’s eyelids fluttered. The Harvest Man placed his drying facecloth between the children, trusting that the remaining essence of ether would keep them from waking.

  He climbed up the stairs above the sleeping boys and retrieved his boots and knife and a coiled length of stout rope from the attic. He sat on the top step and pulled the boots on. He tugged the plague mask back down into place and adjusted it so that it wouldn’t slip from his face while he worked.

  He decided to ignore the boys. He didn’t know them. They might be his brothers, but he couldn’t remember their faces and so it would do no good to remove their masks. He would ask Mother and Father about the other children when they woke later. Then they could determine together what was to be done. As a family.

  But first things first. Before they could be a family again, he would have to remove Mother’s and Father’s masks to reveal their true features. He smiled, excited, and stood, picked up the curved knife and the rope and trotted down the stairs, no longer concerned about making noise. He couldn’t wait to see his parents’ faces again.

  How happy they would be that he had finally found them.

  DAY ONE

  From breakfast on through all the day

  At home among my friends I stay,

  But every night I go abroad

  Afar into the land of Nod.

  All by myself I have to go,

  With none to tell me what to do—

  All alone beside the streams

  And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

  The strangest things are there for me,

  Both things to eat and things to see,

  And many frightening sights abroad

  Till morning in the land of Nod.

  Try as I like to find the way,

  I never can get back by day,

  Nor can remember plain and clear

  The curious music that I hear.

  —ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, “THE LAND OF NOD,” A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)

  1

  In the late spring of 1890, number 184 Regent’s Park Road was a flurry of activity. Upon receiving news of the arrival of twin grandchildren, Mr and Mrs Leland Carlyle ordered their luggage to be packed for an immediate holiday in London and took up residence across the park from their daughter’s home in Primrose Hill. Mrs Carlyle visited Claire Day early each morning and stayed on past tea most evenings. She found the household in a state of disarray (or, as she put it to her son-in-law, a state of near vacancy) and determined that her first order of business was to hire a staff. Fiona Kingsley, the young lady who had stayed at number 184 to look after Claire during the pregnancy, was sent back to her father’s home. Within three days, a new governess had been acquired, along with a cook, a scullery maid, and a head of housekeeping by the name of Miss Harris. Mrs Carlyle also arranged for three boys from the local reformatory to help clean the house once a week between seven thirty and nine in the morning.

  Overnight the household became too large to be sustained on the salary of a policeman, and Detective Inspector Walter Day began to feel vaguely anxious. The two babies woke at odd hours, and Day, who was a light sleeper, rose with them and tried to stay out of the way as the governess tended to them. He did not remember the governess’s name, nor did he know the names of the cook and scullery maid. Nobody had bothered to introduce him to Claire’s staff and he felt certain he was going to have to let them all go once his in-laws departed. He made no effort to get to know them.

  Violence had recently been visited upon the Day home in the form of a double murder, and reasonable precautions had been taken against future ugliness of the sort. A retired inspector by the name of McKraken had volunteered to stand guard on the house. He kept to himself, but his presence added to the general quality of congestion at number 184.

  Some sensation had returned to Day’s right leg and he got around with a degree of confidence using a cane. The commissioner of police, Sir Edward Bradford, had assigned Day a number of tasks designed to supplement the efforts of the rest of the Murder Squad and, clearly, to keep him sitting at a desk for the bulk of his shifts. Day had petitioned Sir Edward for a meeting on several occasions, hoping to convince the commissioner to give him more challenging work, but he had been ignored. Everyone at the Yard was bustling about, working to catch a murderer known only as the Harvest Man, and boxing up all nonessential items for transport to the new headquarters that was being built for them—had, in fact, been nearly finished—on the Victoria Embankment. Nobody was sitting still except for Day; change was everywhere. The flow of life, he felt, had plucked him off his feet and deposited him on some deserted beach.

  Feeling useless both at home and at the Yard, Day began to spend much of his time at the Chalk Farm Tavern above the canal. That is where Nevil Hammersmith found him at teatime on the first Tuesday of May. Day was at a table in the back, talking with a trio of young solicitors. He had lost track of the amount of ale they’d had and he doubted the other men would make it back to their office in Camden Town. When he saw Hammersmith at the tavern door, he stood and moved stiffly around the table. Hammersmith saw him and made his way across the room, through a maze of mismatched tables and chairs. They greeted each other warmly and Day introduced him to Haun, Moore, and Peck, the solicitors. After shaking hands all round, those three men politely gathered their glasses and retired to the counter near the front of the pub, surrendering the table to the inspector and his friend.

  “I’m headed to Bridewell right now,” Hammersmith said. “I assume you’ve heard the news?”

  “I’m sure I haven’t. Nobody tells me anything anymore.”

  Hammersmith blinked and pulled out a chair. “You look rough,” he said.

  “Do I? And how have you been, Nevil? Breathing well enough?”

  “I’ve been careful,” Hammersmith said. He had been promoted from constable to sergeant after helping Day catch a child murderer, but then almost immediately dismissed from the Yard. In the brief course of his duties he had been poisoned on two occasions, bludgeoned, nearly frozen to death, and stabbed in the chest with a pair of scissors. It had all been too much for the commissioner of police to bear. “I don’t move as quickly as I once did.”

  “Nor do I,” Day said.

  “How’s the leg?”

  “Better than it was. Will you have a pint?”

  “Tea for me.”

  “Good. And then you must tell me your news.”

  Day called over the proprietor and ordered a pot of Imperial and brown bread. The man nodded and hurried away. Hammersmith watched him go, then leaned forward across the table. “Never mind the news. That can wait. I want to know, are you with me?”

  “With you?”

  “Now I’m sufficiently mobile,” Hammersmith said, “I’m going to find him.”

  He didn’t have to explain. Day knew who he was talking about and he unconsciously rubbed his leg. The scars there were ugly and they ached, and he had been told he would never walk properly again. The most dangerous man in London had held Day captive in a devil’s workshop deep beneath the city, had tortured and taunted him. Day had barely escaped with his life.

  Hammersmith had come even closer to an early death. His chest was a battleground of dried black stitchwork. Both men knew that Jack the Ripper was st
ill at large, still roamed the streets, and had not finished his deadly work.

  “Come with me now,” Hammersmith said. “Together we can catch him.”

  He leaned back as the tavern’s proprietor reappeared with a wooden tray. The jittery little man set a teapot in the center of the table and ringed it with two cups and saucers, a plate of brown and white bread, lemons, a jug of milk, and tiny pots filled with sugar, jam, and thick white butter.

  “Thank you,” Day said. “And a shot of whiskey?”

  The man nodded and took the now empty tray back to his counter, out of earshot. Day and Hammersmith busied themselves with the tea for a moment. Day poured in a spot of milk and swirled the dark tea in after it. He spooned in sugar and stirred slowly back and forth, watching the murky liquid fold over on itself, ripple outward, and lap gently against the side of the cup. He set the spoon down and sipped, his eyes averted from Hammersmith’s face. When he lowered the cup at last, he wiped his lips and sighed.

  “It’s my leg,” Day said. “I’d be useless to you.”

  “Hardly useless. You’re the brains of our little outfit, you know. We can catch him, you and I. You figure his game and I’ll ferret him out.”

  “Sir Edward’s been giving me busywork.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “You know I’ll do it without you. But I’d rather have you with me.”

  “I have two babies, Nevil.”

  Hammersmith said nothing.

  “And if I do go with you? If he catches me again . . .” Day shivered, remembering long hours underground, a scalpel, a laughing madman. “If he kills me this time, Claire and the babies will have nothing. They’ll be put out in the street.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Day filled his cup again and sipped. Claire’s parents would jump at the chance to have her back home with them. Her father no doubt already had a proper match in mind for her. She’d be remarried within a year and the twins would be raised by some other man. They would take that stranger’s name and call him Father. Day set his cup down and opened his mouth to respond, but there were no words. The pub’s proprietor arrived just in time with the whiskey. Day took the shot, swallowed it, and handed back the empty glass.