Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 42: What is Happiness? What is Hell?

Chapter 42: What is Happiness? What is Hell?

Tate Hill Pier teemed with activity, crowded with onlookers of every social class. Fine ladies in pale, lacy frocks protected themselves with similarly appointed parasols, accompanied by gentlemen in linen suits. Shopkeepers and blacksmiths mingled in the crowd, still wearing the aprons of their trade, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fishermen and beggars alike. Children ran everywhere, playing in the surf or thundering along the pier in endless, inexplicable games of chase.

The point of interest, of course, was the enormous, battered schooner that had pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff. The storm had apparently driven the massive cargo ship up against a sand heap, and there she rested now, beached like a dead whale, sails in shreds, rigging snapped and flapping in the wind.

As they neared, Will caught sight of the name on the side of the ship. DEMETER.

The onlookers were kept at bay by a police cordon of uniformed bobbies, and Will could see the hats of a few other officers and inspectors on the deck of the ship. Something covered in a sheet rested against the ship's wheel.

As Price, Zeller, Alana, and Will neared the ship, Will caught sight of someone rushing through the crowd toward them, away from the point of interest, on a collision course. The day was bright and sunny, and the clear light gleamed upon the person – a small-boned woman wearing an obnoxiously patterned blue-striped dress and a dramatic, wide-brimmed hat – gleaming along the long spirals of violently red hair.

Winifred Lounds.

"Shit," Zeller swore, forgetting, Will thought, that Alana was close by.

Freddie Lounds managed to elbow her way over to them, intercepting the four of them before they could reach the police line at the edge of the pier closest to the derelict. She had her signature pad of paper in hand, her pencil ready to take notes and sketch the lightning-fast, lifelike images that accompanied her newspaper articles. "Inspector Zeller! Inspector Price, and, as I live and breathe, Inspector Graham. Forgive me, it's just Mr. Graham, now, isn't it?"

"Step aside, Miss Lounds," Price commanded, as if that would deter her.

"What in the world could be on that ship? Something that would bring Will Graham out of retirement?" Freddie planted herself in front of them, refusing to get out of the way even as Zeller stepped closer. "There must have been a murder on board. Multiple murders?" Her canny eyes traveled from face to face in quick succession. "Multiple," she confirmed, as if they'd spoken aloud, making notes on her pad. "So, Mr. Graham, was real estate law so dull you just couldn't stay away from homicide?"

"Out of the way, or you will be moved," Zeller threatened. He whistled, and motioned to a couple of the bobbies working crowd control. They began to weave through the crush of people toward the reporter.

"It takes one to catch one, doesn't it, Mr. Graham? Do you have any words for Mary Kelley's family? Who do you plan to sacrifice to solve your case this time?" She was sketching him, her eyes barely glancing down at the page, yet somehow reproducing his face down to the sour frown he wore on his lips.

Will spoke without thinking, an instinctive reaction to his repulsion for the dogged, remorseless reporter that had ensured that everyone in London knew his face. "Miss Lounds," he growled. "It's not very smart to aggravate a man who spent most of his professional career thinking about killing people."

"Damn it, Will..." Price muttered, rubbing his forehead.

Will ignored him, staring her down. Lounds' pencil flew as she abandoned the drawing and instead wrote down his quote, word for word, a smirk curving up her admittedly pretty features, finishing the very moment before the bobbies caught her by the arms and escorted her back to the end of the pier.