Two red roses, like a calling card left behind by the murderer.
“And he returned just yesterday. Quite unusual, I thought, as it was not the usual day of the month.”
“Returned? For what?”
“For another red rose,” she replied. “When my assistant commented on it, as it was unusual that someone would return for just one flower, he replied that it was for someone very special.”
A third rose? For someone special? His next victim?
I thanked Mrs. Stevens for the information, then quickly left the shop.
On the ride back to the Strand, I kept thinking about what I had learned.
A third rose—for the next victim?
Carney had been the one to pick up the bouquets each month, that I assumed were meant for the graves of Harris’s wife and daughter. But what did the roses have to do with it?
Red roses—symbolic for passion.
What did it mean? What was Carney’s part in all of this? Was he the murderer?
According to the information Brodie had learned from Mr. Brown, the man had been operating a shipping enterprise downriver, unknown to the port authorities but well known to those who operated smuggling operations and other illegal activities.
He had worked previously for Simon Harris, as manager of the warehouse at St. Katherine’s Dock, and then as a sort of caretaker, as it were, put in place to carry out certain tasks after Simon Harris died.
But for what reason?
We knew the ‘opportunity’in each of the murders as well as the ‘means,’the bodies left mostly untouched with a red rose left on each one, like a calling card, a message left at each body.
But what was the motive?
Was it as Brodie had surmised, that it was related to the tragic murder of Amelia Harris years before?
Why now? And who was doing it?
I signaled the driver with my umbrella to quicken the return across the city.
Brodie cursed. It was well past ten o’clock in the morning and the man still hadn’t shown.
He had reached the docks in good time and waited in the shelter of the adjacent warehouse where he could keep watch when Carney arrived.
Workers had eventually arrived, not the same as the ones he’d seen earlier, but a scraggly lot from the streets. It seemed the dockworkers had chosen not to return to work, as those meetings Effie had spoken of apparently continued.
The warehouse manager looked up as Brodie approached.
“If you lookin’ for work, there’s enough to go round,” the man told him. “I have a ship coming in today and I need to move all of this to make room. The bloody strike is costing me every day, and now a new cargo. But you look as if you can handle the work.”
Brodie explained that he wasn’t there for work, he was looking for Carney.
“The filthy bugger,” the man spat out. “He knew we had cargo comin’ in, but it’s like him to disappear when you need him. He was here before first light, said he had to take care of something downriver.” The man gestured across the loading bay of the warehouse.
“Took off out of here like it was somethin’ urgent, and he ain’t been back. If I wasn’t so hard-up for workers, I’d send him on his way for good. Now I have to get these men working meself to make room for that cargo that’s due in.”
Brodie thanked him for the information. He had an uneasy feeling about what the man told him. Something urgent downriver that had Carney at the dock before first light?
Instead of going to the high street to find a driver and return to the office, Brodie returned to site that had once belonged to Harris Imports.
He shook his head at the thought, from that instinct acquired on the streets. She would have laughed at the notion, considerin’ the number of times that he had teased her about her woman’s intuition, and that little voice. But it was there, and if he was honest with himself, she was right more often than not.
