For a moment she had provided him with a glimpse of a different life, an ease that was impossible in his present circumstances. He thought of Oxford, the dimming of the day, of holding her hand at the end of the play. A dream, and now the dream was over and he must concentrate on his real life, on his work, rather than trying to find a way to redeem himself in her eyes.
The dog bounced along beside him on the pavement as he followed the river. Pierrot, a silly name, but the dog had been without one until the moment Gwendolen had asked what it was called, and it was the first thing that had come to mind. It had simply been “the dog” until then, which was how he still thought of it.
The dog had not received the welcome he had hoped for. Lottie had developed a tremendous antipathy to it since he brought it home just over a week ago, apparently under the impression that he was trying to replace Manon in her affections. He had been trying to give her something to love, so he supposed she was right. The dog was now banned from Ealing when he was absent.
Frobisher couldn’t think what else to do with it and there seemed to be no rule that prevented you from bringing your dog to work in Bow Street, presumably because it had never crossed anyone’s mind that a rule was needed. “A dog?” the desk sergeant had queried mildly when Frobisher came in this morning, the dog tucked beneath one arm to keep it from excitement at these novel surroundings.
“Yes, a dog, Sergeant,” Frobisher said, without elaboration. In the docks in the north, the railway police trained Alsatians for protection. Frobisher was attracted by the idea of patrolling the streets of London with a dog by his side. Obviously not this dog. It had long since been stripped of its Pierrot costume, but it was still a small dog, inclined to perform tricks without warning.
Another body had been harvested from the Thames, he was told, and awaited him in the Dead Man’s Hole. There had been no other information and Frobisher, fearing another mermaid had been netted, had taken it upon himself to investigate.
When he arrived at Tower Bridge, the morgue attendant was on the small stone platform on which the drowned were landed. Frobisher began to descend the wet, slippery steps—there had been a particularly high tide and the swollen river was in flood. “Only just managed to catch him,” the morgue attendant laughed, drawing on the cigarette that seemed to be permanently attached to his lower lip. “He was going past like a clipper. Haven’t moved him down into the morgue yet,” he added. His long grappling pole was still in his hand, as if he were ready to grab the next unfortunate as they sailed past.
“Him? Not a girl, then?”
“A girl? No, some bloke in fancy dress.”
Oh, dear God, not another bloody Pierrot, Frobisher thought. “A Pierrot?” he asked, still picking his way down the steps. The dog pricked up its ears. It surely hadn’t learnt its name already?
“A Pierrot?” the attendant said as Frobisher reached him in the wake of the dog. “No—see for yourself, guv.”
The dog sniffed the air, excited by the stench of river water and death. Frobisher held it back from investigating the body that was flopped, limp as a lifeless fish, on the stone.
Not a fish, nor a mermaid. Not a girl either. Not a Pierrot. A matador.
“Well, that’s a first,” Frobisher said.
* * *
—
On his return to Bow Street, he was informed that there was a woman waiting for him. “Put her in your office, sir,” the desk sergeant said. “She was having a bit of a turn.”
“Does the woman have a name?”
“Mrs. Taylor.”
Frobisher left the dog in the desk sergeant’s willing custody. He liked dogs, he said. Frobisher wondered if the desk sergeant would be willing to take the dog on permanently and was surprised by the little pang in his heart at the thought of giving him up.
Opening the door to his office, Frobisher looked in cautiously—a woman “having a bit of a turn” could be interpreted any number of ways. In this case it meant a weary-looking one who seemed wedded to the handkerchief with which she was dabbing quiet tears away.
He ducked back out and said to the desk sergeant, “Make Mrs. Taylor a cup of tea, will you, Sergeant?” The sergeant sighed at being reduced to the role of tea-boy. “Quick as you can,” Frobisher added, with no sympathy. “Is Maddox in?”
“No, sir.”
* * *
—
A pot of tea was duly delivered, no cup provided for himself, Frobisher noticed.
Mrs. Taylor was from Colchester, she said, and her daughter, Minnie—Wilhelmina—had run away from home three weeks ago. Mrs. Taylor had remarried recently, and “my Harold” and Minnie did not get along. Frobisher thought of Manon. Would he have got along with her if she had lived?, he wondered. Mrs. Taylor was sure that Minnie had been seduced by the bright lights of London. Minnie would be fifteen next month and wanted to be “on the stage.”