The Blackheart. A new, almost Continental sort of criminal who ruthlessly seized control of the London underworld before anyone quite knew about it. All by means of infiltration and the curious organization of what amounted to a well-trained militia.
An incredible number of wanted thieves, pimps, bookmakers, traffickers, slumlords, and the reigning heads of existing criminal enterprises had also disappeared, often reappearing as bloated corpses in the Thames.
A silent, hidden war had raged in East London, and it was only when the rivers of blood ceased flowing that the police even heard about it. According to increasingly unreliable sources, the Blackheart replaced these missing criminals with agents abjectly loyal to himself. Those who remained in their previous positions suddenly became wealthier and more elusive to justice.
Had the mystifying, so-called Blackheart stayed on his side of London, it was likely he’d never been pursued by the woefully underfunded, overworked police force. But once he’d secured the position of absolute control over squalid thieves’ dens and gambling hells, the figure of a man emerged from the shadow and filth and blood of what was now known as the Underworld War.
And suddenly the Blackheart had a name. Dorian Blackwell. And that name became synonymous with an altogether different sort of carnage. The monetary kind. The police were still trying to tie together the seemingly random people Blackwell had elevated and/or broken with callous, precise efficiency. His battlefields were banks and boardrooms, with the swipe of a pen and a whisper of scandal that brought about the ruination of several of the London elite. To curb the rising terror gripping the city at all the upheaval, he smoothed some of the edges of apprehension by liberally giving to charities, especially those directed at children, sponsoring the careers of artists and performers, and stimulating the emerging middle-class economy with some very sound investments. He’d garnered somewhat of a Robin Hood-like reputation among the middle and lower classes.
He was rumored to be one of the wealthiest men in the empire. He had a Hyde Park house, numerous properties and other holdings, either invested or seized in hostile business deals, and a rather famous castle on the Isle of Mull, from which he garnered the rest of his name.
Ben More Castle it was called, a secluded place in the Highlands where he reportedly spent a great deal of his time.
Upon reaching the dank brick-and-dirt basement, Farah checked out the porthole window through the iron bars covering it, distressed to see that the mob seemed to have doubled. It wouldn’t take much longer for it to reach the Charing Cross circle. And what then?
She quickened her step, ignoring the calls and excited conversations of the dozen or so inspectors who loitered below stairs near the iron doors of the evidentiary, record, and supply rooms. All of their attention was centered on one point. The barred door of the first strong room, from which a series of curses and the unmistakable sounds of flesh connecting with flesh rang through the bars.
They were all talking about Blackwell. And not in favorable terms.
As an enigmatic public figure, all of the Blackheart of Ben More’s business dealings were generally legal, if often unethical, and still the police might have left him to his personal devices.
That was, until other mysterious disappearances had begun to terrorize the city. A few prison guards. A police sergeant. The Newgate commissioner. And, most recently, a justice of the Supreme Court, Lord Roland Phillip Cranmer III, one of the most powerful judiciaries in the entire realm.
If Farah knew anything, it was that nothing incited the police to action like violence against their own. She’d known, of course, that Sir Carlton Morley had been following Blackwell since Morley had been a new inspector, almost ten years now, and the men had become embroiled in a sort of cat-and-mouse game that was swiftly escalating.
The chief inspector had even brought Blackwell to charges a few times, but that was ages ago when he worked the Whitechapel precinct. Still, the Blackheart of Ben More seemed to be a particular obsession with her employer, and Farah wondered if this time he’d finally cornered his quarry. She sincerely hoped so. Her feelings for Carlton Morley had recently become much more opaque. Complicated, even.
The smell below stairs was a complex combination of pleasant and repellent. The inviting scents of paper, musk, and cool, hard-packed earth underscored the more pervasive odors of the stone and iron strong room and holding cells which, the farther one ventured, strengthened to overwhelming. Urine, body odor, and other filth that didn’t bear consideration assaulted her senses as it always did before she habitually compartmentalized it in order to do her job.
“I’m surprised Beauchamp let ye come down here, Mrs. Mackenzie.” Ewan McTavish, a short but burly Scotsman, and longtime inspector, tipped his cap at her as she paused at the door. They had a good rapport with each other, as it was known among the men of Scotland Yard that her late husband had, indeed, been Scottish. “It’s not every day we get someone as dangerous as the Blackheart of Ben More. He might forget to be respectful to ye.” A dangerous gleam entered McTavish’s blue eyes.
“I appreciate your concern, Mr. McTavish, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m fair certain I’ve heard it all.” Farah gave the handsome, copper-haired Scotsman a confident smile, and took her keys from the pocket of her skirts, unlocking the door to the interrogation room.
“We’ll be stationed right out here should ye be in danger or have need of anything,” McTavish said just a bit too loudly, perhaps for the benefit of those inside the room just as much as her own.