Instruments of Darkness (44 page)
Read Instruments of Darkness Online
Authors: Imogen Robertson
Tags: #Historical fiction, #Crime Fiction
‘I hear you are to sail tomorrow. I am sorry to hear your father is unwell.’
Hugh said nothing.
‘So you may even be Lord Thornleigh? Even now?’ Wicksteed could hold his hands still, but his eyes still glittered.
‘I have a brother.’
Wicksteed looked out at the ship as he said, ‘Not one anyone can lay their hands on, I hear.’ Hugh did not reply. ‘Lord Thornleigh - there’s a title! Lord Thornleigh might be able to do whatever he wants in life, don’t you think? But then, perhaps even his son has always been free to do what he likes. Or think he can.’
Hugh felt his stomach tighten as he thought of those final moments with Shapin. He tried not to ask himself what Wicksteed might have seen. His silence seemed to encourage the man into further speech.
‘But we must have friends in order to be able to act as we like, you know, Captain. To keep our secrets. To keep the family honour intact. To maintain our influence.’
Hugh reached into his pocket and pulled out a bill he had kept folded there since the Commander had agreed he should leave. He cleared his throat and stood up straight.
‘I don’t quite understand you, Wicksteed. But I have this for you. In recognition of your services to the regiment.’
He put the note in Wicksteed’s hands. The man unfolded it and stared. Hugh waited to be thanked, then watched in surprise as he saw Wicksteed begin to shake. Bright spots of colour stood out in his cheeks.
‘Five pounds! How much love do you think that buys, Captain, in these days?’ Hugh was shaken enough to step back. Wicksteed followed him, hissing into his face, ‘Is my loyalty worth only five pounds to you? With what I know? I know about the girl, I know your father is a murderer, and I know you are the same. Five pounds!’
He twisted the note between his fingers and threw it onto the ground between them. Spittle collected at the corners of his mouth.
‘I’m not some fool! I can write. I have written. I can write again. Everything I know I can tell, and then what member of polite society would dare to speak to you? Your family’s story could start a revolution anywhere on earth. Will your victims’ friends feed you and tend you?’
The last question was shouted into his face and in Hugh’s eyes Wicksteed’s face suddenly became a canvas on which some demon had painted and repainted the face of everyone he had ever wronged: every man he had ever killed, every woman he had disappointed, every tenant and child of his estate, and Hawkshaw, Shapin, Cartwright’s boy. He staggered back, his mouth open.
‘Just you wait, Thornleigh. I’ll come for you. I’ll tear your heart out and eat it in front of you, and then make you thank me for it.’
Wicksteed turned on his heel and walked away. Hugh bent down and picked up the crumpled note, smoothing it flat with trembling fingers before folding it again into his pocket.
PART VI
VI.1
Wednesday, 7 June 1780, Sutton Street, near Soho Square, London
G
RAVES TUMBLED BACK in from the street.
RAVES TUMBLED BACK in from the street.
‘Not a carriage or a chair to be had.’ He saw that Clode was on his knees, fastening a cloak round Jonathan’s neck. The young man looked up. ‘How far away is it?’ he asked.
Graves ran a hand through his hair. ‘Three, four miles perhaps. It depends if we go through the streets or into the fields.’
Miss Chase was tying a bundle together over her arm, tightening the knot as she spoke.
‘Streets. We may be seen, but we’ll be better able to hide. Susan, are you ready?’
The little girl was pale, but steady enough on her feet. She nodded.
Miss Chase took her by the shoulders. ‘Whatever happens, you must never let go of my hand, do you understand?’
She nodded again.
Graves touched Clode on the elbow and pulled him to one side. ‘Are you armed?’
The young man shook his head. ‘All I have is a pen-knife.’
‘Go into the kitchen and get a couple of good knives. The servants will lock the house after us and take refuge with the neighbours.’ Graves put a hand on the other man’s shoulder, gripped hard. ‘Come on, we have waited too long as it is.’
The little party stumbled out into the dark. The black of the sky was stained orange in places by the various fires. People hurried past them, bundles of shadow and fear, their faces gleaming with sweat where the trembling lights of torches caught them, like passers-by in the tricks of Caravaggio. Graves urged them on. The familiar streets, the uneven way beneath their feet as known to them as their own hands seemed to have been caught and transformed with the powers of nightmare. Jonathan had tripped before they got past their first neighbour’s front door; Graves turned to see him being lifted into Clode’s arms. He hung around the young man’s neck, struggling to find comfort, his hands clasped under Clode’s dark hair.
Graves looked about him. There were too many faces - he could not tell friend from fiend in this dark. He ploughed forward, aware of Miss Chase and Susan in step behind him, Clode at the rear, one hand supporting Jonathan, the other tucked ready in his waistcoat. Graves could tell he had his fingers on the handle of a carving knife, for his own hand was folded round its twin.
They turned down through Soho. Every Square seemed alight with hungry flame and drunken laughter. A man staggered backwards almost into his arms; he stank of brandy and soot. Graves shoved him aside.
There was a scream to his right. He spun round to see a young woman, her hair loose and wild, a baby in her arms, screaming up at the roof of a shabby building opposite which flexed and billowed with orange flame.
‘Oh God! Where am I to go! Where am I to go?’ she screamed as two men, their blue cockades still visible in the glow, poured out of the house. One pushed her hard in the chest, so she sprawled on the pavement.
‘Back to Rome, whore!’ he said, then turned to laugh with his companion. The woman folded her arms around the baby in her lap and rocked from side to side.
Susan ripped her hand from Miss Chase’s grip and ran to the woman’s side. She pushed her little purse into her hands.
‘Take this! Find somewhere safe.’
The woman looked up and crossed herself, sobbing as she spoke.
‘Bless you, miss! But have you a place?’
‘Yes, in Earl’s Court. But we should all leave here.’
‘Susan, for the love of God, get up!’ shouted Miss Chase.
The woman nodded. ‘I shall,’ she vowed. ‘I’ll never come back here again.’
Miss Chase dragged the girl up. ‘Susan, now! Do not let go of me again!’
Susan trotted beside her to where the two men were waiting, watching the crowd.
‘She had a baby, Miss Chase!’ she panted.
Graves was looking around into the darkness.
‘Very well, Susan,’ he said. ‘Now come on.’ He saw Clode start. ‘What?’
‘Nothing - I don’t know. Let’s move.’
Crowther pushed open the door to his home a little after midnight, lit the candle he found waiting for him and carried it into the study. His own letter was waiting for him. He read, holding the page by its edge as if he was nervous the poison might leak out over his fingers, then laid it gently down on the table-top. Drawing fresh paper towards him he began to write, recording his observations of each body as he would if studying them for his own interest, or laying them out for his colleagues to ponder over. Then, sharpening his pen once more, he began to write down each thing they knew about the inhabitants and history of Thornleigh Hall, tried to watch his words grow like a spider’s web, turn the points of contact between people and events into a mesh, a form. He knew what he believed, that Wicksteed was the centre of it, but all he seemed to do was glower in the middle of it and refuse to be touched by the strands that swung around him. Just the bottle, and the scrap of embroidery, each so explainable, grazed him, but Patience was gone.
Crowther looked up and his eye rested on the dried black hand that stood, fingers pointing casually downward, on the top of his preparation cabinet. It was black with resin, but the veins and arteries which had fed it in life, the muscles that had given it motion, were highlighted in blue and yellow wax. If those muscles contracted, the fist would clench. He stretched his own hands for a moment, then began to read again what he had written. Where did he have to press, what motion make so that the spider would leap up in a fury, dance, and hang himself on his own threads.
The streets were quieter here, and giving way to fields along the King’s New Road to Kensington. Daniel had lost feeling in the arm that supported Jonathan’s weight; he mechanically followed the shapes in front of him and counted his steps. He thought of Mrs Westerman and Miss Trench at Caveley. He wondered what they would think, seeing him now, carrying the heir to all that wealth and pomp in his arms, covered in soot and dirty from the road. He hoped they would think well of him. He missed a step and landed hard. The jolt shook Jonathan out of the doze he had drifted in for the last half-hour. He stirred against Clode’s neck, adjusted his grip. Clode had grown up without younger siblings, so this sensation of a child’s arms clasped in such complete trust around his shoulders was new to him. He began to envy men with children of their own. Jonathan mumbled something to him.
‘What is it, Jon? I did not hear you.’
‘I said have you seen Thornleigh?’
Clode smiled in the darkness. ‘I have. I’ve not been inside, though.’
‘Are there horses?’
‘Lots.’
The small boy sighed contentedly, then suddenly his body stiffened and he cried out, ‘There!’
Clode spun round, pulling the knife free from his waistcoat. He heard Graves running back towards them. Jonathan scrambled down to the ground, but kept at his side under the shelter of Clode’s free arm.
‘What was it, Jonathan?’
‘I saw him, I’m sure! That end of the street where the lamp is.’
The noise of the riots was muffled and distant; when a shutter caught in the breeze and knocked against its frame the noise was like a rifle shot. Graves lifted his hand to his mouth.
‘Show yourself if you dare!’ he cried.
The lamp continued to swing slightly, but nothing else in the street moved.
Graves leaned towards Clode and whispered, ‘Go ahead with the others. I’ll wait here to see we are not followed and come after.’
Daniel did not take his eyes from the patch of street in front of him but shook his head.
‘No. You know these roads best and besides, we should not split the guard. If we are being followed and he slips past you, I do not like the odds of Miss Chase and I against this man and his friend.’
Graves hesitated. Miss Chase stepped up to them, put her free hand lightly on his arm.
‘He is right, Graves. And let us go by the busier routes. This is too isolated a place.’
Her touch acted on Graves like a charm. He nodded. Clode lifted Jonathan into his arms again, and smiled at him.
‘You are our lookout, my boy. Keep your eyes open and sing out if you see anything more.’
The boy looked a little white, and tightened his grip, but nodded.
In the distance they heard one of the great bells beginning to peal the hour. Graves put his knife back into his waistcoat and turned towards Knight’s Bridge.
‘One o’clock. Come then, and let us hurry.’
VI.2
H
ARRIET HEARD THE clock in the hall mark out one with a brassy chime. It had been foolish to try and sleep; her mind had just chased itself in circles for an hour. She swung her legs to the floor and picked up her dressing-gown with a sigh. Harriet had never known sleeplessness at sea. Whatever her worries or griefs, the motion of the ship had always let her rest. She would still wake now expecting to hear the speaking strain of the timbers around her, the movement of the air.
ARRIET HEARD THE clock in the hall mark out one with a brassy chime. It had been foolish to try and sleep; her mind had just chased itself in circles for an hour. She swung her legs to the floor and picked up her dressing-gown with a sigh. Harriet had never known sleeplessness at sea. Whatever her worries or griefs, the motion of the ship had always let her rest. She would still wake now expecting to hear the speaking strain of the timbers around her, the movement of the air.
Crossing the room, she lit the candle on her dressing-table and sat in front of the mirror as the wick caught and the flame steadied, and stared at herself a moment. She looked well in the candlelight. Her friends had told her that a life on the sea would age and blemish her skin, but she had, as yet, hardly any suggestion of lines about the eyes and mouth; she only began to look old when her sister sat by her. Rachel looked almost dewy with youth, as if she were still forming, budding.
Harriet turned the little key in the drawer below the mirror and pulled out the last of her husband’s letters. It had arrived almost two months ago, and she could not yet begin to expect another. She smoothed down the pages and smiled at his familiar writing. She let her fingertips rest on the paper, and it seemed to her it was almost like touching his hand. The letter began with frustrations and bargaining to re-equip in Gibraltar, the problems that inevitably followed the victories there. He had found a man on his crew who, although a drinker and inclined to be a fighter too when drunk, had formed an alliance with the daughter of the quartermaster and proved a hard bargainer for the ship. Of the ship herself, the turn of speed the new copper sheathing gave her, he could not say enough. The last lines were a swift farewell. Some of his friends were heading back to the Channel Fleet while he left for the Leeward Isles, and the opportunity to send back mail was not to be missed.
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