Shadow of the Hangman (15 page)

It was well into the evening before he returned home. Ready to feign surprise at the news of the raid, Kearney walked into the court and waited for someone to tell him what had happened. But everyone turned their backs on him. Dozens of people were milling around but, the moment he appeared, they fell silent and
moved away from him. Even the children shunned him.

‘What’s going on?’ he shouted.

But there was no reply. Instead of going through his usual routine and washing off the worst of the soot at the pump, he ran up the stairs then stopped in sheer disgust outside his door. Nailed to the timber was a dead rat. Grabbing hold of it, he flung it away and opened the door. His whole family were there, huddled in a corner. His wife, a pale, thin, nervous woman with her waif-like prettiness obliterated by a mask of fear, rushed across to him.

‘Thank God you’ve come!’ she exclaimed.

‘What’s happened?’

‘We were raided by the police.’

‘Were you?’ he said, pretending to be shocked. ‘Why?’

‘They came for the two men staying with Dermot Fallon.’

‘They’re criminals, Maureen. They
should
be arrested. So should Fallon.’

‘But they weren’t there, Donal.’

He shuddered. ‘What did you say?’

‘They escaped before the raid.’

‘They can’t have done,’ he said with rising alarm. ‘When I left earlier on, they were all still here. I checked.’

‘People are saying it was you,’ she warned.

‘That’s a lie.’

‘Nobody will talk to us. Nobody will play with the children.’

‘I did nothing, Meg, I swear it.’

‘You did say you’d get even with that black man.’

‘Don’t you dare tell that to anybody!’ he yelled, shaking her hard.

‘You’re hurting me, Donal.’

He shoved her away. ‘You’re to keep your mouth shut. Is that clear?’ He glared at the children. ‘And the same goes for you.’

All four of them nodded. Meg went to stand protectively between them and their father. Fear of her husband had long since displaced the love she’d first felt but she still had a bruised loyalty. Whatever he’d done, she would stand by him.

‘I’ll tell them,’ he decided. ‘I’ll tell them the truth.’

Going to the window, he flung it open. Down below was the usual commotion amplified by the sound of children’s squeals, shouts and laughter. Kearney’s voice reverberated around the court.

‘It wasn’t me!’ he yelled. ‘As God’s my witness, it wasn’t me!’

He was met by an accusatory silence.

It was not until the following morning that Micah Yeomans was able to deliver his report to the Home Secretary. Since he and Alfred Hale were his bodyguards, they picked Sidmouth up from his house and set off with him in the carriage. Yeomans broke the bad tidings that the raid had been a failure.

‘This is old news, Mr Yeomans,’ said the Home Secretary. ‘I heard it first from Peter Skillen who had the courtesy to call on me last evening. It’s something that you might also have done.’

‘I had no wish to disturb you, my lord.’

‘When my safety is at stake, you can disturb me all you wish.’

‘It was not our fault, my lord,’ said Hale. ‘Our informer let us down.’

‘Yes,’ added Yeomans, ‘the fellow lives in the same tenement and has actually seen the escaped prisoners. It seems that they’ve been walking abroad brazenly as if they’re above the law.’

‘Nobody is above the law,’ said Sidmouth, crisply, ‘and that includes me.’

‘The raid itself went well.’

‘It’s true,’ said Hale, eager to win some praise. ‘Micah deployed
his men like a general in the field. We always get resistance in places like that but we swooped on them before they knew what was happening. I think we deserve recognition for that.’

‘I recognise it willingly, Mr Hale,’ said Sidmouth, dryly, ‘but I don’t feel that celebration is in order. The facts are damning. You raided a tenement in search of people who were not there. That was bound to cause unnecessary upset. You claim that you caught the residents unawares, yet I’m told that that’s simply untrue. They were not only expecting you, they fought back.’

‘There was some minor trouble, my lord, that’s all.’

‘We had control of the situation from start to finish,’ said Yeomans.

‘Then why were some of your men beaten back?’ asked Sidmouth. ‘Why did one of them have to be carried away because he was hit by a flagon hurled from an upper window? You forget that I have an alternative version of events, gentlemen. Peter and Paul Skillen were first inside the tenement. Both had the sense to dress in rougher garb so that they wouldn’t look out of place whereas you and your men were instantly seen for what you are by the residents.’

‘Don’t believe everything that the Skillen brothers tell you, my lord.’

‘They always try to portray us in a poor light,’ complained Hale.

‘We had sound intelligence and they did not.’

‘Then how come they managed to get into the building before you?’ asked Sidmouth. The Runners traded an uneasy glance. ‘There are some things you do very well, Yeomans, and there are some things best left to others. This is a case in point. I assigned Peter and Paul Skillen the task of finding those men because they have a gift for tracking down missing people. You and Hale were charged with ensuring my safety. In future, you will concentrate all your energies on that.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Yeomans, sourly.

‘Yes, my lord,’ repeated Hale.

‘When we reach the Home Office, I want the pair of you to come in with me. It’s not long before we have the celebrations for our victory at Waterloo. With your help, I want to review the arrangements. If these men are still at liberty,’ said Sidmouth, ‘then I may well need you beside me throughout the event.’

‘We’ll catch them well before that,’ argued Yeomans.

‘You tried and failed, Mr Yeomans.’

‘And so did the Skillen brothers.’

‘They didn’t boast about an early arrest in the way that you did. Nor did they claim to have inside knowledge of the tenement in question. Yet they got there before you and witnessed what you must admit was your
dégringolade
.’

Hale was baffled. ‘What does that mean, my lord?’

‘It means that you had a bad fall.’

‘Give us the chance to vindicate our reputation,’ said Yeomans.

‘You’ll do that by keeping me alive and well. Leave the pursuit and capture of O’Gara and Dagg to the Skillen brothers. They’ll succeed in the end.’

They drove on in silence until they reached the Home Office. The Runners got out first to check that nobody was about then helped Sidmouth to alight from the carriage. As they walked towards the building, Yeomans got in a sly dig at his rivals.

‘If the Skillen brothers are such experts at finding missing persons,’ he asked, ‘why do they still have no idea of the whereabouts of Mrs Horner?’

Everything had changed. When she was first abducted, Anne Horner was encouraged to believe that, for the convenience of her
captors, she was being held for a limited amount of time before release. Her status was now very much that of a prisoner in need of punishment. Because of her failed attempt at escape, she had been bound, gagged and left in excruciating discomfort. Her bonds were only removed when she agreed that she would not try to raise the alarm again. In place of the ropes, however, she was now chained by one leg to an iron ring in the wall. Freedom to move about the cellar was a privilege taken away from her. The meals were fewer in number and less appetising. Wine had disappeared altogether. All that she was given to drink was cloudy water.

Why was she being held? Hour by hour, the question hammered into her brain like a peg into a hole. Anne had no illusions about her station in society. In social terms, she was a person of no consequence, a faceless member of the lower classes who was doomed to spend the rest of the life there. Yet there had been an unexpected glimpse of a different world. It was so unexpected that she still couldn’t believe that it had actually happened. Was her kidnapping in some way related to that? It was an idea that she’d fought off for days but it was now strengthening its hold. If it was true, then it was a very painful truth. Anne was no stray captive, after all. It could well be that what was happening to her was entirely her own fault. All of a sudden, she had a new companion – remorse.

The sense of guilt was overwhelming. She had coped with it before by putting it at the back of her mind and by losing herself in her work. Anne had also been more regular in her attendance at church, popping in at odd times to kneel and to pray for forgiveness. How could they possibly
know
? How could this strange, silent man and his female companion be aware of something so intensely private? It was almost as if the pair of them had watched her relieving herself in the bucket. Nothing could be hidden from them. It was
frightening. Feeling the need for fresh air, Anne tried to move across to the grating but she’d forgotten that she was chained and she yelped as the iron bit into her ankle. Wanting to cry, she wondered instead if she deserved the ordeal she was suffering. That made the pain even more searing.

Chevy Ruddock was back on duty outside Paul Skillen’s house. On the previous day, he’d been one of the many men rounded up for the raid on the tenement behind Orchard Street. In prospect, it had been an exciting operation. Thanks to help from an informer, they would be capturing dangerous criminals who represented a threat to the Home Secretary. It was something about which he could boast to his wife. In retrospect, however, it had been an unmitigated disaster. Having returned home in wet clothing before, he’d been compelled to do so again because someone had emptied a chamber pot over him before pelting him with stones. Ruddock could not present himself as a hero this time. He had to admit that the raid had failed.

Keeping someone like Paul Skillen under surveillance was akin to catching a wild boar. His movements were sudden and unpredictable. Ruddock had been tricked by him once and was determined that it would never happen again. He had, therefore, changed his vantage point so that he could remain concealed behind a tree. Completely invisible from the house, he was able to see the front door clearly and watch the comings and goings. There had been no sighting of Paul Skillen but Ruddock, relying on instinct, was certain that he was still inside the house. It occurred to him that he should have been allowed to stay there the previous day and thereby be in a position to follow the man to the area designated for the raid. He might have found out how Skillen had got there first.
He would certainly have been able to alert Yeomans to the fact that one of the brothers was ahead of him and that would have made the raid pointless. If the fugitives had indeed been there, they’d have been arrested before the Runners got anywhere near the court.

Surveillance was tiring. It was not long before he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other and wishing that he’d used the privy before leaving home. When the door of the house finally opened, Ruddock tensed but it was only a servant who came out. He was resigning himself to another stint of elongated boredom when something broke the monotony. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned to see Paul Skillen standing behind him with a smile.

‘I thought you were inside the house,’ he said, gaping.

‘You must have missed me leaving,’ said the other, pleasantly. ‘Next time I’m about to have a stroll, I’ll send a servant out with a message for you.’

Ruddock’s confidence was rudely shattered once again.

Bernard Grocott was still enjoying a considerable measure of appreciation from his colleagues for finding and employing Ruth Levitt. She’d been such an effective replacement for Anne Horner that many of them were starting to forget the woman who’d cleaned their offices so well for years. On his way to a meeting with Sidmouth, the undersecretary collected another plaudit.

‘When it comes to choosing the right person,’ said a clerk, ‘you have a gift.’

‘Thank you,’ said Grocott.

‘It’s a pity you can’t choose the cabinet.’

They shared a mischievous cackle before Grocott knocked on the door in front of him. Bidden to enter, he walked in to find Sidmouth pacing the room.

‘Am I interrupting you, my lord?’ he asked.

‘No, no, come on in, Grocott. I find that locomotion stimulates thought on occasion and I have rather a lot to think about just now. Chief among my present preoccupations is Captain Shortland.’

‘He seemed to depart from here in a huff.’

‘That was because he couldn’t persuade me to lend my weight to his cause at the joint commission. I told him that impartiality was vital. He came here expecting congratulations and left feeling slighted.’

‘He misjudged you badly.’

‘I, too, am capable of misjudgement,’ admitted Sidmouth. ‘When Yeomans told me that he had information that was bound to lead to the capture of O’Gara and Dagg, I took him at his word. Foolishly, I assured the captain that the prisoner, who, in his opinion, had engendered this so-called mutiny at Dartmoor, would soon be behind bars. I misjudged Yeomans.’

‘There are distinct limits to his competence.’

‘I realise that now.’

‘Nobody can deny his former triumphs, mind you, but they are tending to recede into the near-distant past.’

‘Protection is his forte. I always feel safe when he and Hale are beside me. With these prisoners still at large,’ said Sidmouth, ‘I need the Runners at hand whenever I travel. Then, of course, there are the celebrations to consider …’

‘These men will surely have been recaptured by then,’ said Grocott.

‘One hopes so. London, however, offers any fugitive a million or more hiding places. It will be like searching for a needle in a bottle of hay.’

‘That’s a feat beyond the Runners.’

‘It’s precisely why I’ve engaged the Skillen brothers. They are true conjurers. Yeomans and his men are diligent foot soldiers but they lack imagination. If you wish for someone with magic in their fingers, look no further than Peter and Paul Skillen.’