A Fatal Likeness by Lynn Shepherd Read Free Book Online

shoulder.
    The windows of Buckingham Street, by contrast, unveil no intimacy, but Charles has scarcely opened the door when he is set upon by Abel, who has clearly been watching for his return and seizes Charles’ arm excitedly. “I think I found it, Mr Charles—the file—the one ye were looking for.”
    Charles takes off his coat and heaps it on the hall table as Billy emerges at the top of the kitchen stairs. “Excellent work, Abel. I’ll come up with you straightaway. And hang this up, will you, Billy?”
    As the two of them make their way up to the office, Billy picks up the coat and wipes the damp from the polished wood with his sleeve. Then he stands for a moment, his face in shadow, watching the two figures slowly ascend the stairs and round the corner out of sight.
    The file is lying open on the desk, the oil lamp brought beside it. The writing is the poised and assertive hand of Maddox in his prime, but that’s not the first thing Charles notices. Because unlike all the other case-books ranged on shelves in this office, this one has had a section removed. And not just one or two leaves either—thirty pages or more are gone near the end of the book, and even Maddox’s account of the Ratcliffe Highway murders—perhaps the most notorious crime of the nineteenth century—merited only half as many as are missing here .
    “It’s the file for 1816, Mr Charles,” says Abel breathlessly as Charles goes over to the book and draws the lamp closer. “I knew it mustae been when I were away. I’d a remembered it else.”
    Charles barely registers the old man’s relief that his memory has not betrayed him, so intently is he scanning the page before him. The paper is discoloured and the lines immediately after the missing section have been heavily inked through, but immediately below them Charles can make out the name William Godwin, Esquire, and underneath
    For services rendered, the amount of 30/-
    And then—rare indeed in these books, as Charles well knows—a single word, added in different ink at a later date:
    Unpaid.
    Charles looks up. “Does that mean anything to you, Abel?”
    Abel looks blank. “Nay, Mr Charles, I cannae say that it do. And I’ve never known the boss to cut pages from his files either, that I can tell ’ee. Allus took pride in having everythin’ noted and all the details in order.”
    Charles nods, disquieted. Maddox was always punctilious to a fault as to what he revealed publicly of his clients’ affairs, but made it a point of honour neither to prevaricate nor falsify in the privacy of his own records. Charles has read reports in those files that would, even now, change our view of many of his most celebrated contemporaries—cases involving prime ministers, captains of industry, peers of the realm. And yet all this material Maddox has allowed to remain intact, so why make such an extraordinary exception in this particular case? What was it about the work Maddox did for Godwin that made it so imperative to eradicate all trace of it?
    “And he never let anyone see these books,” continues Abel. “Except you, a’course. He allus intended ye would have ’em one day.”
    Which is not, in the circumstances, an especially comforting thought. Charles looks again at where the pages have been cut out and runs his thumb down the paper. The edges are soft: Whatever it was that Maddox removed, he had clearly done it some time ago. Charles opens the book out and holds the page against the light, but the scored-through lines are still obscured.
    “I tried that me’sen,” says Abel with a sigh. “I couldnae make out any of it.”
    Charles puts the book down and gets to his feet. “There may be a way,” he says as he goes to the door and calls for Billy. “It’s a risk, with paper this old, but it might work.”
    Five minutes later the boy is back down from his errand to the attic, carrying a wooden box, closed with a lock. It looks for all the world like a doctor’s case, and when