London, November 1890

Chapter 1

"Benjamin Bain Murder Trial Begins Tomorrow"

The headline blares at me from the newspaper on my lap as I ride in the underground train that speeds through the tunnels beneath London. I hold the paper up to the light and brush soot off the printed words and pictures.

My husband, Thomas Barrett, seated beside me, says, "You shouldn't read that, Sarah." He raises his voice over the racket of the train's iron wheels. "It'll only make you feel worse."

"I know." But I can't resist. The largest picture is an illustration of a girl lying on a kitchen floor, arms flung wide, her skirts hiked up to her knees, her face swollen, and an expression of terror in her protuberant eyes. She's the artist's rendition of fourteen-year-old Ellen Casey, raped and strangled to death in 1866. In the doorway stands the shadowy figure of her killer. His back turned toward his victim, his face invisible, he's intended to portray Benjamin Bain.

My father.

My father, the person I loved most in the world for the first decade of my life, until he disappeared; whom I believed was dead for the next twenty-two years, until I discovered that he was alive and wanted for Ellen Casey's murder. I found him after a harrowing search, and now, only four months after our joyous reunion, the law threatens to tear us apart.

"The jury will read articles like this and believe he's guilty," I say, angry at the press for sensationalizing the story every day since my father was arrested three weeks ago. The paper I'm reading is the Daily World, at which I'm employed as a crime scene photographer and reporter, though I'm currently on a leave of absence. I'd hoped the fact that I work there and that I've risked my life in the line of duty numerous times would gain me the favor of no coverage of the trial in its pages. But the Daily World is a commercial enterprise that can't ignore the biggest crime story of the season.

The article summarizes the basic elements of the story. In 1866, my father was a professional photographer who operated a studio out of his home. He took pictures of Ellen Casey the day she went missing, and he was the last person known to see her alive. The next day her dead body was found at a road construction site. Soon after being questioned by the police, my father disappeared—a fact constantly trumpeted as proof of his guilt. No other suspects were ever identified, but there's far more to the story than the press and the public know.

"How is he supposed to get a fair trial?" I ask.

"Not everyone believes everything that's in the newspapers," Barrett assures me. "And the jury will be instructed to disregard what they've read or heard, and to make up their own minds based on the evidence presented in court."

He's a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, and he's testified in court many times. I've never attended a trial, but I know my father is at a huge disadvantage.

"So many trials end up with guilty verdicts, and there's no evidence that he's innocent." Furthermore, I know there are other damning circumstances aplenty.

"The defense doesn't need to prove he's innocent. The prosecution needs to prove he's guilty. That's how the legal system works."

"I wish that when I see him today, I could bring him the news that I found a witness who'll testify that he's not the sort of man who would violate and kill a young girl."

My father, in prison awaiting his trial, gave me a list of twenty people he remembered from the old days, to ask if they would serve as his character witnesses. Half of them are dead. This morning Barrett and I looked up a man named Theodore Aldrich, an old friend from Clerkenwell, where my family had lived. We'd located Mr. Aldrich, a retired mechanic, at his daughter's home in Hammersmith, but he'd said he was sorry; he couldn't vouch for Benjamin Bain's good character. Other former friends, neighbors, and acquaintances also don't want to get involved. One man said, "I hope the bastard hangs." Another had physically threatened me; hence, Barrett's insistence on accompanying me this time.

Barrett clasps my hand. "Don't give up hope. I bet your father will be acquitted, and you'll be sorry you wasted time worrying."

I'm thankful for his moral support and his loyalty. Not all policemen would stand by wives whose kin are charged with heinous crimes. I smile at him. He's darkly handsome in a tough fashion, his keen gray eyes crystal clear. My heartbeat quickens, my usual response to him. Even though we've been lovers for more than a year, and married a month, I still can't believe that he's my husband. The circumstances under which we met were so inauspicious, and I daresay we've faced more serious troubles than most couples. Every day I thank heaven for my good luck; every day I fear it won't last.

"Besides, you've solved lots of problems that seemed impossible," Barrett says.

As a crime investigator for the Daily World, a private detective on my own, and an ordinary citizen, I've solved five major cases. One was Jack the Ripper. Barrett and I are among the few people who know his identity. It's a secret that I hold close, that haunts my life.

I unfold the newspaper. Below the article about the upcoming trial are two photographs. One shows police constables surrounding my father. The caption reads Benjamin Bain taken to Newgate Prison after his arrest. My father is in handcuffs, his heavy figure slumped, his head ducked so that only his disheveled white hair is visible. The caption below the other reads Daughters believe him innocent. The photo shows myself and my half-sister, Sally Albert, waiting in line to visit our father in jail. With our ash-blonde hair, angular features, and deep-set eyes, we look alike even though I'm thirty-three, she's ten years younger, and we were born to different mothers. But her face is softer and prettier, her hair pinned in a loose knot and adorned with a flower-trimmed hat. My expression is angry under my coronet of braids. While Sally cringes from the camera, I'm raising my hand to strike the photographer.

I glance around the train and see people reading the Daily World. One is a gentleman seated across the aisle between his two sons, who are perhaps nine and ten years old. They exchange punches across him. He ignores them and his wife, who holds a wailing baby. He glances up and meets my gaze, and I quickly look away, glad that I've taken to wearing a hat with a veil that partially conceals my face. Because of my exploits, I was notorious even before the publicity about my father's arrest and trial started, and unwanted attention has grown to a distressing degree.

"Look on the bright side," Barrett says. "Juries don't like sending a man to the gallows unless the evidence against him is solid— which it isn't in your father's case."

I'm sitting on evidence that I hope will never come to light. Barrett doesn't know about it, and the jury may never hear it, but it's festering in my mind, corroding my own belief that my father isn't a rapist and murderer.

The train slows as it approaches St. Paul's station, which is near Newgate Prison. I gather up my pocketbook and satchel, as I'll be departing alone while Barrett continues on to Whitechapel. Our home is there, as is his station of the Metropolitan Police. This will be my last time with my father before the trial starts at ten am tomorrow, our last chance to prepare for the ordeal.

A sudden loud, squealing, grinding noise startles me. Outside the windows, sparks fly up, as if from fireworks ignited under the wheels. The train swerves, and amid violent jolting, veers sideways. It screeches to a halt in a series of loud crashes. Our carriage tips, and I feel collisions in front and in back of us. Barrett and I cry out as we hurtle forward into the empty seat opposite ours. Other passengers land in the aisles. The sound of glass shattering accompanies screams of terror.

The lights go out. Darkness engulfs us.

"Sarah!" Barrett cries. "Are you all right?"

My knees and elbows hurt where they struck the seat, but my hat cushioned my head. I'm shaken up but uninjured. "Yes. Are you?"

"Yes. What just happened?"

"I don't know—maybe the train hit something on the track."

Other passengers groan and exclaim, "Help!" and "Oh God." They call one another's names. Children cry. Flames leap outside the broken windows. Smoke billows up and invades the carriage, which is tilted at a precarious angle, as if the crash threw the whole world out of kilter.

"Fire!" a woman screams. "We're going to burn alive!"

"We have to get out of here." Barrett clambers to the door, on the upward-tilted side. He pounds and yanks at it until it opens, then helps the other passengers exit. I hold the baby while the father boosts his wife and other children out. After I hand the baby up to him, Barrett and I climb out of the carriage. The train is derailed, off the track; our carriage is smashed between the ones in front and those behind. Now that my initial fright has passed, I wish I had my camera; the Daily World will need pictures. My heart beats fast with exhilaration. Past experience has taught me that there's no thrill like surviving a brush with death, and although I fear danger, I'm also attracted to it, a quirk of my personality. Crawling from the wrecked train as though from a premature grave, I feel keenly, vibrantly alive.

In the cavernous tunnel, the high, arched ceiling is barely visible in the steam from the engine's boiler and the smoke from flames under the train. Sparks from the wheels must have set fire to the debris on the tracks. I breath hot, acrid air. Screams echo. The train resembles a gigantic, twisted, dead serpent. Carriages tangle around pillars and lie toppled on their sides. Passengers crawling out windows and doors sob and moan. Barrett hurries me toward the front of the train, where faint light emanates from the station.

"No, we have to rescue people," I say.

Whistles shrill and bright beams of lanterns in the distance cut through the smoke. Barrett says, "The police are here. You don't need to stay. I'll come back to help after I take you home."

His main concern is my safety, just one reason why I love him. But I survived while other passengers are injured and helpless; I can't abandon them. Coughing, eyes stinging and watering from the smoke, I hurry back to the adjacent carriage. Barrett follows me. The front is smashed, jammed against a barrier that separates the tracks. It's empty. The next cars are broken apart from the rest of the train. Some twenty feet down the tunnel, they stand upright, skewed across the tracks. People run and stagger away from them. Barrett and I enter the first carriage. Blood spatters broken glass on the floor. In the aisle, a woman dressed in dark clothes lies on her back. Her lace-up boots show under her disarranged skirts. My heart lurches.

"Ma'am?" I receive no answer. Barrett and I crouch near her. "Can you hear me?" I touch her cheek. Her soft skin is warm, but she doesn't respond.

Barrett lifts her gloved hand and clasps her wrist, seeking a pulse. His shoulders sag, and he bows his head. We're silent for a moment, distressed because we couldn't save her, grieved by what must be only one of many lives lost to the crash.

A lantern beam shines through the door. Squinting in the bright glare, I see the dark silhouette of the police constable who holds the lantern, his tall helmet atop his head. He says, "Hey, are you all right?"

"My wife and I are fine," Barrett says, "but this poor woman was killed."

The constable crosses himself. "That's a pity. Now come out of there before you suffocate."

Barrett and I don't move. We're staring at the woman, illuminated in the smoky lantern light. Above the collar of her brown wool coat, a thin, dark red line circles her throat.

"That's a ligature mark." Barrett touches her chin, turns her face upright. Framed by a brown felt hat and curls of rust-colored hair, her face is bloated, her wide brown eyes bulging, the whites laced with red veins. Her pink tongue protrudes between her teeth.

We look at each other, aghast. "The crash didn't kill her," I say. "She was strangled."

"Aww, Jesus," the constable says. "As if there wasn't enough trouble already."

I experience a familiar sensation of pity, horror, and nausea. Viewing dead bodies is a hazard of my profession; I've lost count of how many I've seen. The smoke is filling my lungs, making me wheeze, addling my thoughts.

"The murderer took advantage of the wreck and the confusion," Barrett says.

"There's no time to jabber about it. Nothing we can do for the poor lady," the constable says. "Come on—let's go."

"Officer, this is a crime scene," Barrett says. "We need to examine it."

"Yeah? Who says?"

Barrett is wearing ordinary clothes instead of his police uniform; it's his day off. He removes his badge from his pocket and shows it to the constable. "Detective Sergeant Barrett, Metropolitan Police, Whitechapel Division."

"You're out of your jurisdiction."

"Go rescue other people," Barrett says. "Leave your lantern."

His authoritative manner brooks no refusal. The constable reluctantly sets his lantern on the floor. Departing, he calls over his shoulder, "Make it quick, or you'll be two more casualties."

I miss my friends Mick O'Reilly and Lord Hugh Staunton, who work for the Daily World with me. We usually investigate crimes together, but Hugh is on leave because of an injury, and Mick is covering other crimes for the paper. Barrett and I cough and blink our streaming eyes as we study the scene. The carriage is littered with newspapers, umbrellas, and a tin of biscuits abandoned by fleeing passengers.

"I don't see a string or cord or anything that could have been used as the murder weapon," Barrett says.

I notice a brown leather handbag lying open under the seat near the woman. "This must be hers." Inside, I find only a crumpled handkerchief and a white business card. My eyes are so bleary, I can't read the print. I tuck the card in my own handbag. "Maybe the killer was a thief who stole her valuables."

"He's probably long gone by now." Barrett glances under the seat where I found the handbag. "What's this?" He pulls out a leather case with a strap, opens the clasps, and removes a box made of dark, polished wood, about four by five by eight inches. A metal key juts from the top. Barrett twists the key, and when nothing seems to happen, he pries at the edges of the box.

My breath catches, and as I cough, I exclaim, "No, don't!"

"Why not?"

"It's a camera." I point at the lens set in a circular hole on one end. "Opening it will ruin the photographs, if there are any inside."

"It's different from yours. I've never seen any like it."

"It's a new type, manufactured by the Kodak company in America. It uses a roll of film instead of a glass negative plate. The key is for winding the film. They don't sell Kodaks in England yet."

"It must be hers." Barrett glances at the woman, then around the carriage. "Nothing else of any value was left behind."

I shake my head to clear my smoke-dazed mind. "I wish I had my camera, so I could photograph the crime scene."

"Maybe the photographs in hers will give us some clues."

Through the windows, we see constables herding passengers down the tunnel. The smoke is thicker, noxious with the smell of hot metal and burnt grease. A male voice shouts through a megaphone, "Everyone, please proceed to the station at once!"

Barrett takes the camera and case as we reluctantly abandon the dead woman. I silently promise her that I will find her killer. Barrett reads the number on the carriage: "Three-oh-nine." Heading down the tunnel, he assists a man limping with an injured leg. I lend my arm to a woman whose face is a mess of cuts and blood. Other able-bodied people help scores of the crippled and maimed while conductors carry the bodies of the unconscious or dead. Firemen pump water from tanks onto the flames under the train. Vapor sizzles. The engine is crushed against a pillar, the tilted boiler still belching smoke and steam. The scene when we reach St. Paul's station resembles the carnage after a battle. Dozens of the injured lie on benches or on the floor, smeared with soot and blood, their groans piteous. Unscathed passengers stumble up the stairs to the street while ambulance crews and more police rush down to supply first aid and rescue those still trapped in the wreckage.

I halt amid the chaos, suddenly overwhelmed by our close call, by the knowledge that Barrett and I would have died but for the grace of God. The exhilaration of surviving the crash drains away, and I shiver violently, as though plunged into ice water.

"Sarah?" Barrett grasps my shoulders, peering into my face. His face is blackened with soot, somber with concern. "Are you all right?"

I nod. My mind scrambles to restore some semblance of my normal life. I take the dead woman's camera case from Barrett and say, "I don't know how to develop Kodak film, but I think I know someone who does."

"Forget about that for now. I'm taking you home."

I want nothing more than to crawl into bed with him and let sleep banish the horror of the disaster. Then I remember my appointment. "I have to go to Newgate Prison and see my father."

"I'll go with you." Barrett leads me around people lying on the floor, toward the stairs.

"No." I've kept my husband and my father apart, never introduced them to each other. I've told them I want to wait until the trial is over and my father is a free man. It's true, but I've another reason that's best kept to myself. Now I grasp at an excuse to go to Newgate alone. "You should look for people who were in the carriage with the murder victim. Maybe they saw the killer. If you wait, they'll be scattered all over the city."

Barrett frowns, torn between wanting to take care of me and to find witnesses before the killer's trail is cold.

"Go. I'll be fine," I reassure him.

"If you're sure . . ."

"Yes." All of a sudden, I remember our wedding and our promise to have and to hold each other until death do us part. Death almost parted us much sooner than we imagined. I pull him to me and press my mouth against his.

Usually, I avoid displays of intimacy in public, but at this moment I don't care who sees. If ever there was a time for a kiss, it's now. Barrett wraps his arms tight around me, his lips firm on mine. He tastes like smoke and the fever of excitement. The desire that flares between us reminds us that we're alive, together, and in love.

I have to tear myself away from him, and I hurry off without looking back.

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