The Vorrh

come from the entire room. ‘The doctor has given you something. Now you must rest. I will bring you some more beef tea shortly.’
    The words made no sense, but soothed him back into slumber. A huge, brown cow stood next to the bed. It wobbled, balanced comically on train tracks made of meat jelly, as the doctor sat below it, pulling at its udders; streams of hissing tea jetting into his white enamel pail. He filled his syringe from the steaming fluid. It misted the glass tube of the instrument, filling the room with its moist, bovine vapour. The cow smiled through the fog with the most natural expression of quiet delight.
    * * *

    The rooms on the first floor had been squalid; now, their interior was simple and immaculate. The surrounding streets and alleyways teemed with the shiftless poor, the disposed and representatives of every tribe on earth, trying to scratch an existence outside the livid ghost of the old city wall. It was perfect. No one was known, and no one wanted to be. The seething carapace kept the clean, anonymous rooms shielded and safe.
    The flat was carefully divided. The bedroom and parlour were Josephine’s; a small kitchen joined them to the long, open room beyond. A huge window jutted out of its centre into a blind courtyard. It worked as a skylight, and made the room light and airy, even when it was full of gloomy machines and boxes. This was Muybridge’s studio and workshop; his darkroom was built-in at the far end.
    He had been there three times already, initially to meet Gull and one of his men, to be given the keys and instructions about the rooms, but also, more importantly, to be given a file on Josephine, as well as a small mirror and a hand-bell.
    The next visit had been to supervise the arrival, unpacking and assemblage of his equipment. Gull had been as good as his word and provided for everything; he had not baulked at the sets of expensive lenses or the intricate, hand-made brass gearing systems. Muybridge now had all he needed; the secret in the shadow and atmosphere, which somehow lived and thrived in his photographs, was within probing distance. The new zoopraxiscope would be a very different machine to its forebears.
    Muybridge’s third visit had focused on the most delicate element of the plan: the installation of Josephine. She had arrived in the middle of a spring downpour, with a companion and one of Gull’s servants. Muybridge had been irritated by the surgeon’s absence; surely such a crucial moment should be overseen by its instigator, especially in a case such as this? But it wasn’t to be. The servant had explained that the companion would be staying for a week or so, until Josephine ‘got to know the ropes of the place’. The servant introduced her to Muybridge and she curtsied, holding herself in a modest way, which he appreciated, but from a professional distance. He certainly had no intention of visiting the rooms while two females lived there, even if they did know their place.
    The servant showed him that the rooms were well stocked, with every possible comfort provided for. ‘You’ll be snug as bugs in a rug,’ the man said amiably. Muybridge gave him a withering stare, privately wondering if Gull recruited all of his staff from his list of ex-inmates. The impertinent fellow talked him through the basic details of the house, the most intriguing of which was a small, concealed compartment in the wall to the right of the kitchen door. Hanging inside was a thick, flat cosh made of leather. Its short but significant weight was achieved by the lead shot that filled its interior.
    ‘Just in case, sir – we all ‘ave ‘em.’
    ‘Is there a chance I’ll need to use it?’ asked the alarmed Muybridge, who was beginning to have serious doubts about the whole business.
    ‘No chance, sir. Some of ‘em cut up rough, but not Josie, she’s good as gold.’
    Nevertheless, the photographer resolved to always be careful. He would carry his trusty Colt pocket revolver with him at all times; who knew when it might be needed for protection, outside of the rooms or in?
    Their first sittings began a little awkwardly. He found her silence uncanny and her eyes unnerving. Whenever he arrived and quietly let himself in, he would find the rooms full of birdsong, as if dozens of bright and active creatures were whistling with great joy. This would stop abruptly, the moment she sensed his presence.
    She had been alone in the rooms for the last three weeks, and seemed