Spirits in Spitalfields

Detective Declan Flanahan looked up from his desk with the kind of wary surprise that suggested Bernie Abrams was the last person he'd expected to see walking into Five Corners Station on a Wednesday morning.

"Mr. Abrams." He set down his pen, his scarred face settling into something that might have been a smile if the scar didn't pull it crooked. "Didn't expect to see you again so soon. The photographs from Dead Man's Hole were excellent, by the way. Captain Morris was impressed."

"Good to hear." Bernie stood in the doorway of the cramped office, hat in hand, trying not to stare at the chaos of papers covering every available surface. "I was wondering if I could ask you a favor. Professional curiosity, you might say."

Flanahan gestured to the chair across from his desk—the only surface not buried in case files. "Go on."

"You mentioned the other two victims. The ones before Dead Man's Hole." Bernie stepped into the office, closing the door behind her. The station was busy this morning—constables coming and going, the smell of strong tea and stronger tobacco, voices echoing off the tiled walls. "I'm thinking about the photography. How to document these scenes properly. I wondered if you could tell me the exact locations where the first two were found."

Flanahan leaned back in his chair, studying Bernie with those too-blue eyes. "Why?"

It was a fair question. Bernie had prepared for it.

"Consistency," Violet said. "If you're going to keep hiring me for these cases—and you said you would, if there's another one—I want to understand the pattern. See if there's anything in the locations themselves that might photograph better, show more detail. I'm new to crime scene work. Want to do it right."

Not entirely a lie. She did want to do it right. She just wanted to do it right for reasons Flanahan couldn't know about.

The detective's jaw worked for a moment. He pulled a steaming mug of tea closer, took a sip, then sighed and pulled a file from the mountain of papers on his desk. "First victim was found in Spitalfields. Corner of Dorset Street and White's Row, in the doorway of an abandoned cooperage. Discovered six weeks ago." He flipped a page. "Second victim was on Commercial Road, in the alley behind the Greenfield Tavern. Four weeks ago."

Bernie pulled out a small notebook—one of Poppa's old ones, the leather cover worn soft with use—and wrote down the locations in Bernie's careful, masculine script. "And the victims' names?"

"First was Mary Hutchins, forty-two, laundress. Second was Annie Chapman, nineteen, flower seller." Flanahan's voice went flat when he said their names, and something dark flickered across his expression—grief, Violet thought, mixed with the kind of frustrated determination she'd seen in good coppers before. "Third victim from Dead Man's Hole was identified yesterday. Jane Stride, twenty-eight, seamstress. All worked in Whitechapel, all lived alone or in lodging houses, all killed elsewhere and positioned where they were found."

"Positioned." Bernie looked up from her notes. "You're certain they weren't killed where they were discovered?"

"Aye. No blood at the scenes, and the Coroner says they'd been dead at least a day before placement. Killer's keeping them somewhere, doing his work, then displaying them." Flanahan's hands clenched around his mug, knuckles going white. "Like he wants them found. Wants people to see what he's done."

Beautiful. He said he'd make me beautiful forever.

"Have you considered theater connections?" Bernie asked carefully.

Flanahan's eyebrows rose. "Theater?"

"The staging. The presentation. The careful positioning." Bernie gestured with the notebook. "It's theatrical. Someone with an understanding of composition, of how to arrange a scene for maximum impact."

"Interesting thought." Flanahan pulled the file closer, his scarred fingers tapping against the worn paper. "Though I'm not sure how that helps us. Half of Whitechapel's got some connection to theater—actors, stagehands, costume makers, musicians."

"True enough." Bernie tucked the notebook into her coat pocket. "Just a thought. Professional perspective and all."

"Well, if your professional perspective leads anywhere useful, you'll let me know?" Flanahan's tone was light, but there was steel underneath—the kind of quiet authority that came from someone who'd earned their rank the hard way. "I'll take help from any quarter at this point. Even photographers with interesting ideas about staging."

"Of course, Detective." Bernie moved toward the door, then paused. "One more thing. The Grand Guignol Theatre—you know it?"

Flanahan's expression soured. "Horror shows from France. Why?"

"Just wondered if you'd looked into them. Given the theatrical nature of the crimes."

"I've got three dozen theaters in Whitechapel alone, Mr. Abrams. Unless you've got specific reason to suspect the Grand Guignol, I can't justify the manpower to investigate them all." He paused, studying Bernie with an intensity that made Violet's skin prickle. "Do you have specific reason?"

Violet thought about Moreau's cold hands and colder smile. About surgical tools that might be props. About a production showing a woman surgically dismantled in the name of beauty.

But she had no proof. Just instinct and the memory of a spirit's confused whisper.

"Just a hunch," Bernie said. "Professional curiosity."

"Right." Flanahan didn't sound convinced, but he didn't press. Instead, he stood and walked Bernie to the door—a gesture of respect that made Violet's throat tighten unexpectedly. "Friday, then. I'll be attending the Grand Guignol's opening night myself. Captain Morris wants someone to keep an eye on the theaters; make sure there's no trouble. If you're photographing the production, perhaps we'll see each other there."

Bernie's stomach dropped. "You're attending?"

"Orders from above. Someone's got to show police presence in the district." Flanahan's smile was grim but genuine. "Try not to blind me with your flash powder."

"I'll do my best, Detective."

Outside Five Corners Station, Bernie walked three blocks before ducking into an alley and leaning against the brick wall to breathe.

Flanahan would be at the theater on Friday. Would see Bernie photographing Moreau's production. Would be there when—if—Violet needed to... what? Accuse Moreau? Confront him? She didn't even know what she was planning yet.

First things first. Find the locations where the first two victims died. Talk to their spirits if they lingered. Get proof that Moreau was involved.

Then figure out what to do about Friday.

Dorset Street in Spitalfields had a reputation even in Whitechapel—the worst street in London, they called it, a narrow lane of lodging houses and decay where violence was common as rain. The abandoned cooperage sat on the corner like a rotting tooth, its windows broken, door hanging crooked on rusted hinges.

Bernie—alone now, Artie reluctantly having agreed to wait at the studio in case clients arrived—pushed open the door and stepped into shadows thick as wool.

The smell hit first: mildew, rat droppings, the sour-sweet scent of rot. The cooperage had been abandoned for years, the barrel-making equipment left to rust, wooden staves scattered across the floor like broken bones.

This was where Mary Hutchins had been found. Flanahan had said she was positioned sitting against the far wall, eyes removed, body carefully arranged. Six weeks ago, now, the scene was still vivid in Violet's mind from his description.

"Mary Hutchins," Violet called softly, dropping Bernie's voice back to her natural register. No point maintaining the disguise for the dead. "Mary, if you're here, I need to speak with you."

Silence. The creak of settling wood. The skitter of rats in the walls.

Then, slowly, a form began to materialize near the back wall. Translucent as watercolor, barely visible even in the dim light filtering through broken windows. A woman, middle-aged, wearing a laundress's simple dress. Where her eyes should have been, there was only darkness—not empty sockets, but a kind of void that made Violet's stomach turn.

"You can see me," the spirit whispered. Her voice sounded like wind through broken glass.

"I can." Violet moved closer, carefully avoiding the scattered debris.

Six weeks. Mary's spirit was still here after six weeks. Most spirits faded within days, Poppa had gone almost immediately, Mrs. Chen had lingered barely long enough for her funeral. But violent deaths were different. Mama had told Poppa that, back when she was still alive. Murder victims could haunt a location for weeks, sometimes months, the trauma binding them to the world far longer than natural passing ever did. It was one of the few things about the gift that Poppa had been able to pass on to Violet.

Still, six weeks was a long time. Whatever had been done to Mary Hutchins had chained her here with extraordinary force.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you, Mary," Violet said gently. "I'm trying to find who did this. To stop him from hurting anyone else.

"The spirit's form wavered, fragments of her drifting apart and reforming like smoke in a draft. "Can't... can't remember clearly. It's all dark now. Everything's dark."

"I know. Your eyes—" Violet swallowed hard. "Can you tell me anything about the person who took them? Where did you meet him? What did he look like?"

"Dark." The spirit's voice was fading already, losing coherence. "So dark. He said... said he'd make me... but I can't..."

"Mary, please. Try to remember. Was it at a theater? Did he tell you he was a doctor?"

The spirit screamed—a sound like tearing fabric, like breaking glass—and Violet felt pain explode behind her eyes. Bright and sharp, the world tilting sideways as blood began to run hot from her nose.

She pressed her hand to her face, felt the slickness of blood between her fingers. Too hard. She'd pushed too hard, tried to force the connection when the spirit was already too fragmented, too traumatized.

"I'm sorry," Violet gasped. "Mary, I'm sorry. You don't have to—"

But the spirit was already dissolving, breaking apart into wisps of nothing that faded into the cooperage's shadows. Gone. Lost. Unable to help because Violet had demanded too much from someone who'd already given everything.

Violet sat down hard on the filthy floor, tilting her head back to stop the nosebleed, and let herself feel the full weight of failure.

Mary Hutchins couldn't tell her anything. The trauma of what had been done to her—the removal of her eyes, the violation of her body—had shattered whatever coherence her spirit might have had. She was lost in darkness, literal and metaphorical, unable to see or remember clearly enough to identify her killer.

Which meant Violet needed the second victim. Annie Chapman, the flower seller. Younger, perhaps less traumatized, perhaps able to—

The headache hit like a hammer, making Violet's vision swim. She pressed her palms against her eyes and counted breaths until the pain receded to something manageable.

Madame Helena had warned her. Pushing too hard with the gift came with a price. Nosebleeds were just the beginning. Keep going, force more connections than her body could handle, and she'd—

What? Collapse? Die? Violet didn't know. But she knew she couldn't afford to find out. Not yet. Not when there were still answers to find.

She stuffed her handkerchief against her nose, waited for the bleeding to slow, then stood on shaking legs and made her way back out into Spitalfields' gray light after she had documented the scene with her camera.

Commercial Road was busier than Spitalfields, more respectable, though the alley behind the Greenfield Tavern was just as squalid as any in Whitechapel. Artie waited at the alley's mouth now, having closed the studio despite Violet’s protests when she went home to change her stained dress, while Bernie made her way past stinking refuse and broken bottles to the spot where Annie Chapman's body had been found.

No blood stain here. The rain had washed it away, or the alley's stones had drunk it down. But Violet knew the spot anyway—she could feel it, that peculiar cold that marked where violence had occurred.

"Annie Chapman," she called softly, fighting down the throb of lingering headache. "Annie, if you're here, I need to speak with you."

The spirit appeared more quickly this time, as though she'd been waiting. Young—so young, barely older than Violet herself—with dark curls and a flower seller’s-stained fingers. Her tongue was missing, the cavity of her mouth a darkness that shifted and moved when she tried to speak.

But no sound came out. Just a wet, frustrated noise that made Violet's stomach turn.

Knowing about the injury and seeing it were different things. The desperate movements of Annie's mouth, the frustration radiating from her translucent form—this was worse than any police description could convey.

"Annie," Violet said gently. "I know you can't speak. But I'm here. Show me what you can."

The spirit nodded frantically, her translucent hands gesturing, trying to communicate through movement what she couldn't say with words.

Violet pulled out her notebook, offered it with a pencil. "Can you write?"

The spirit's hands passed through the paper. She couldn't touch it, couldn't hold anything, couldn't make herself understood through any means but gesture and desperate pantomime.

"I'm sorry," Violet whispered. "I'm so sorry."

The spirit's face crumpled with frustration. She pointed to her mouth, then made a gesture like drinking, then pointed to her missing tongue. The same story as Mary Hutchins, then—drugged, operated on, told she was being made beautiful.

"The Grand Guignol Theatre?" Violet asked. "Was that where you met him?"

A frantic nod.

"Tall man? Dark hair going gray? French?"

Another nod.

"He said he was a doctor?"

Yes. Yes. The spirit was crying now, translucent tears that didn't fall so much as fade into nothing.

"I'll stop him," Violet said, her voice hoarse. "I promise you, Annie. I'll make sure he can't do this to anyone else."

The spirit reached toward Violet with phantom hands, trying to touch her face, trying to communicate something more. But the gesture was already fading, the spirit losing coherence as her distress scattered whatever held her together.

"Rest," Violet said gently. "You don't have to stay anymore. It's alright to go."

Annie Chapman's spirit flickered once, twice, and then dissolved like sugar in water.

Violet stood alone in the alley, the notebook still open in her hands, and felt the weight of two more names added to the list of debts she owed.

The headache pulsed behind her eyes—duller than before, but persistent. A warning. She'd communicated with two spirits in one day, pushed for information from one who couldn't give it, and her body was letting her know the limits of her gift.

She wouldn't be able to do this again soon. Not without consequences.

Pushing past the pain, Violet unshouldered her camera and began work. The work would help.

By the time Bernie returned to the studio, full dark had fallen and the gas lamps along Carter Square were being lit by the lamplighter's long pole. Artie had gone ahead to start the tea, and Violet could see lamplight in the studio's windows, warm and welcoming. Inside, Artie had tea waiting—strong and hot, the good kind hidden in the flour tin—and Madame Helena sat at the worktable, her tarot cards spread in an elaborate pattern that made Violet's head hurt to look at.

"Child," Madame Helena said without looking up. "You've been speaking with the dead again. I can see it on you like a shadow."

Violet—no longer Bernie, the disguise abandoned the moment she'd locked the door—sank into the chair across from Madame Helena and accepted the tea Artie pressed into her hands. "Annie Chapman. The second victim. She confirmed it was Moreau."

"The theater director?" Artie's eyes went wide. "You're certain?"

"As certain as I can be. Both met him at the Grand Guignol. Both were told he was a doctor. Both were drugged and operated on while conscious." Violet's hands shook slightly around the teacup. "He told them he was making them beautiful. Creating a collection."

Madame Helena turned over another card—the Tower, struck by lightning, and people falling from its heights. "Disaster," she murmured. "Revelation through destruction. The cards have been screaming this pattern for days, darling. Something terrible is building."

"Friday," Violet said. "The opening night performance. Flanahan will be there. Moreau expects me to photograph the production. I think..." She paused, trying to put her instinct into words. "I think Moreau suspects me. Or suspects Bernie. He was testing me, asking questions about death photography, about how I see murder victims. Like he wanted to know if I understood what he's doing."

"And do you?" Madame Helena's dark eyes fixed on Violet with uncomfortable intensity.

"He thinks he's an artist. That he's creating something beautiful by taking pieces from different women and preserving them. A collection of perfect parts." Violet set down the teacup before she could drop it. "He's mad, but he's not stupid. If I go back there Friday, if he realizes I know—"

"Then you don't go," Artie interrupted. "Simple as that. You stay away, tell Flanahan your suspicions, let the police handle it."

"With what evidence?" Violet gestured helplessly. "Two spirits that only I can see told me things that only I can hear. Flanahan would think me mad. Or worse, think I'm the killer trying to frame someone else."

"But you're exhausted," Artie said, his voice taking on an edge of worry. "That's why I closed up and came with you to Commercial Road—your nose was bleeding when you came back from Spitalfields, your dress was stained. I knew you'd push yourself again with the second spirit. You pushed too hard today, didn't you?"

Violet touched the bridge of her nose, where dried blood still crusted. She'd cleaned most of it away, but Artie knew her too well. "Mary's spirit was too fragmented. I couldn't get anything useful from her. I tried to force it, and..."

"And you hurt yourself." Madame Helena's voice was sharp. "Your gift has limits, child. Physical limits. You cannot push past them without consequences."

"I know that now." Violet's head still throbbed, a dull reminder. "But I got what I needed from Annie. Enough to confirm Moreau's involvement. I just need proof the police can use."

"The cards say you must go," Madame Helena said quietly. She touched the Tower card, her fingers trembling slightly. "But you won't go alone. The pattern shows protection. Alliance. Someone standing beside you when the tower falls."

"Flanahan," Violet said. "He'll be there. And if I can get proof during the performance, something concrete that he can see—"

"That's a terrible plan," Artie said flatly. "That's the worst plan I've ever heard. You're going to walk into a murderer's theater, photograph his mad play about cutting women apart, and somehow expose him with a police detective watching? While pretending to be a man? While keeping your gift secret? And you're already exhausted from using it?"

When he put it that way, it did sound rather terrible.

"Do you have a better idea?" Violet asked.

Artie opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head. "No. But I don't like this, Violet. I don't like any of it."

"I don't like it either." Violet stood, moved to the window, looked out at Carter Square. Somewhere out there, Moreau was in his theater, preparing for Friday's performance. Somewhere, he might be choosing his next victim. "But what choice do we have? How many more women die while we wait for better evidence that might never come?"

Madame Helena gathered her cards with practiced movements, shuffling them back into the deck. "The dead are speaking to you for a reason, child. Your gift isn't just for comfort—it's for justice. But justice is a blade that cuts both ways. You must be very careful it doesn't cut you."

"I'm always careful," Violet said.

"Liar," Madame Helena replied, but her voice was fond. "You're your mother's daughter—brave and foolish and determined to fix what's broken even if it breaks you in the process."

Violet turned from the window. "Did you know Momma well? You never speak of her."

"I knew her." Madame Helena's expression went distant. "Leah Abrams was a force of nature. She could see the dead more clearly than anyone I've ever met, and it consumed her. She couldn't stop trying to help them, couldn't turn away from their pain. It's what made her extraordinary. It's also what killed her."

"The cholera—"

"Wasn't cholera." Madame Helena's voice was flat. "But that's a conversation for another night. For now, you need rest. You need food. And you need to prepare yourself for Friday."

Violet wanted to press, wanted to demand answers about Momma, about what Madame Helena meant. But exhaustion was pulling at her bones, and the thought of food made her realize she hadn't eaten since morning.

"Right, then," she said. "Rest. Food. Friday."

"And protection," Madame Helena added. She pulled something from her pocket—a small charm on a leather cord, what looked like an old coin stamped with unfamiliar symbols. "Wear this under your shirt. Under Bernie's shirt. It won't stop a knife, but it might turn away bad luck."

"I talk to ghosts but I'm skeptical of charms," Violet said with a tired smile as she accepted it. "I know that makes no sense."

"The gift and the craft are different things, child," Helena said. "But both have their place."

Violet slipped the cord over her head, tucking the charm beneath her collar where it rested cool against her skin.

Even if it was just metal and leather and hope.

Hope was worth something, after all.

Even if it was all they had.