Shadow of the Hangman (3 page)

The thunderous applause that greeted the curtain call went on
for an age. Male spectators unaccompanied by wives or mistresses flocked to the stage door, ready to offer Hannah all kinds of blandishments. Because she kept them waiting, the expectation built until it almost reached bursting point. Then she appeared. Framed in the doorway, she distributed a broad smile among her admirers and lapped up their praise while pretending not to hear their competing propositions.

A man’s voice suddenly rose above the hubbub.

‘Stand aside, gentlemen! Miss Granville wishes to depart.’

The crowd swung round in surprise to see an elegant figure standing behind them with his hat raised in greeting. Feeling deprived and disappointed, the suitors moved reluctantly aside so that Hannah could sweep past them and receive a kiss from the newcomer. There was a collective gasp of envy.

Paul Skillen enjoyed his moment to the full before giving a dismissive wave to the throng. Then he offered his arm to the actress and spirited her off into the night.

‘Why didn’t we head straight for Plymouth?’ complained Moses Dagg.

‘That would’ve been dangerous.’

‘It’s so much closer, Tom.’

‘Yes, but it’s also the first place they’d have gone. Soldiers on horseback can move much faster than we can on foot. They’ll have warned all the ports to be on the lookout for us. That’s why we had to find somewhere else.’

‘I’m fed up with hiding for most of the time.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have been born with a black face,’ said O’Gara, jocularly. ‘It makes you stand out, Moses, so it’s better if we move at night. Unlike me, you can’t dive black into a pool and come out white.’ He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘After all those months cooped up, that swim we had was wonderful.’

Dagg nodded enthusiastically. ‘We haven’t had a treat like that for ages.’

‘It helped to wash off the prison stink.’

Making their escape from Devon proved more difficult than they’d imagined. Dartmoor had deliberately been built in a remote
part of moorland. The soil and the climate were unsuitable for growing crops so no extensive agriculture had developed there. Ice cold in the winter, it was also enveloped in thick blankets of fog that bewildered anyone foolish enough to travel across the bare landscape. The fugitives had the advantage of warmer weather and clearer skies but so did the mounted patrols sent out after them. Much of their days had therefore been spent concealed in various hiding places. When their food ran out, they were careful to take very little from the occasional farm. Had they stolen large quantities, the theft would have been noticed and reported. Hunger would have given their location away to those engaged in the manhunt and O’Gara knew that, if recaptured, he could expect no quarter from Captain Shortland. A reunion with the governor had to be avoided at all costs.

‘When do we make our move, Tom?’ asked Dagg.

‘We’ll wait another hour or so until they’ll all have gone to bed.’

‘It’s dark enough now.’

‘I’m taking no chances.’

‘How long will it take us to get to London?’

‘That depends on the weather,’ said O’Gara. ‘We’ll hug the coast for safety.’

‘It’ll be good to be back at sea again.’

‘That’s where we belong, Moses.’

‘I’d hate to be locked up again. We were like caged animals.’

‘We’ll be safe in London. They’ll never find us there.’

They were crouched behind a hedge at the margin of a field. Having worked their way south-west, they’d found a hamlet on the coast. It was little more than a straggle of whitewashed cottages along a pebbled beach. Fewer than thirty souls lived there. When the fugitives first saw it in daylight, the sight of a couple of small
boats lifted their spirits. If they could steal one, they could at last shake off the constant pursuit. While they bided their time, they took note of the tides and the jagged rocks they’d need to negotiate once afloat. A long, frustrating day had eventually yielded itself up to darkening shadows. The hamlet had gradually lost colour and definition.

Tom O’Gara was acting on instinct. When he felt that the time was ripe, he slapped his friend on the shoulder and they set off into the gloom. As they got closer to the shore, they found the aroma of the sea invigorating. A bracing wind tugged at their clothing. When it was harnessed, it could speed them away from the county. They crept warily past the little houses, reassured that no light showed in any of the windows. Reaching the boats, they dragged one of them slowly and carefully towards the water, thrilled when they felt the sea lapping at their ankles. They heaved on until the vessel began to float.

‘We’ve done it, Moses,’ said O’Gara, joyfully.

‘They’ll never catch us now.’

‘Goodbye, Captain Shortland, you murderous bastard.’

‘All aboard, Tom.’

With the boat now bobbing as each new wave rolled in, they climbed into it and felt the familiar sensation of the sea beneath them. They were just in time. Out of the darkness, a large, angry dog suddenly appeared, baring its teeth and barking furiously. Running into the water until the sand disappeared beneath its paws, it began to swim frantically towards them, as if intent on tearing them both apart. The animal gave them the impetus to hoist the sail at speed and catch the first full gust of wind. Before the dog could get within yards of it, the boat was being powered out to sea beyond its reach, as if pushed by a huge invisible hand. The last thing they
heard were the plaintive howls of the dog and the outraged yells of the people who’d been roused by the barking and run out of their cottages to see what was happening. The shouting continued but the sailors ignored it. When the protests eventually faded away, they were replaced by the whistle of the wind, the flapping of the sail and the jib, the creak of the timber and the sound of the waves splashing against the hull.

They sailed on towards London.

Micah Yeomans handed over the money then raised his tankard in celebration.

‘We’ve got them,’ he said before taking a long swig of ale.

‘I’ll drink to that, Micah.’

Simon Medlow lifted his own tankard to his lips. The two men were seated in a quiet corner of the inn. They were beaming with pleasure.

‘The trap has been baited,’ said Medlow.

‘You did well.’

‘It was costly. I had to give a large deposit to Ackford. It was the only way to convince him that I was in earnest.’

‘You’ve had ample recompense, Simon. There’ll be more money when we finally catch the pair of them trespassing in Mayfair.’

‘They’ll argue that Hobday engaged them to look after the house but he’s a hundred miles away. When he gets back, he’ll depose that he’s never seen or heard of the Skillen brothers before.’

‘Meanwhile,’ said Yeomans, ‘the other Everett Hobday has gone back to being Simon Medlow and will have disappeared from sight altogether.’ He took another sip of ale. ‘I hope you asked for both of them.’

‘I did, Micah. You’ll nab Peter
and
Paul Skillen.’

‘I’ve waited ages to put salt on their tails.’

‘How many men will you bring?’

‘I’ll bring plenty,’ said Yeomans. ‘I know how slippery they can be.’

The Bow Street Runner was still sorely wounded by the way that the brothers had arrested Ned Greet and claimed the reward for his capture. Determined to strike back at them, he’d hatched a plot. Yeomans had been charged with the task of looking after Hobday’s property in Upper Brook Street while the man and his servants were away in the country. He’d arranged for an old acquaintance, Simon Medlow, to impersonate Hobday and lure the Skillen brothers to the house. At a given signal during the night, Yeomans and his men would let themselves into the property and arrest Peter and Paul for trespass and attempted burglary. Medlow had been the ideal person to employ. He was a confidence trickster who owed the Runner a favour because the latter had turned a blind eye to his activities in the past. Medlow was not the only criminal with whom Yeomans had a mutually beneficial arrangement. In return for immunity from arrest, a number of them paid him a regular fee. Those who refused to do so had enjoyed no such indulgence from him and his colleagues. They were hunted down relentlessly until they were caught.

‘Gully Ackford is a wily character,’ said Yeomans. ‘Only someone like you could have pulled the wool over his eyes.’

‘He’ll be implicated as well, of course.’

‘That’s the beauty of it. Ackford will have to appear in court and admit that he was taken in by the bogus Mr Hobday. It will be a humiliation for him. When word gets out that he and his detectives were so easily taken in, people will not be so keen to engage their
services and the Runners will be cocks-of-the-walk again.’

‘It’s a clever ruse, Micah.’

Yeomans smirked. ‘I swore that I’d get my revenge.’

Esther Ricks was a short, dark-haired, roly-poly woman in a plain dress that failed to conceal her spreading contours. She lived in a small terraced house off Oxford Street. When he called there that morning, Peter Skillen put her age at around forty and could see that she must have been an attractive woman when younger and slimmer. As soon as she heard that he’d been asked to investigate the disappearance of her sister, she was so pathetically grateful that she clutched his arm.

‘Oh, do please find her, sir. Anne is very precious to me.’

‘I’m sure that she is, Mrs Ricks.’

‘We lost both of our parents and have no other family beyond each other. When Anne’s husband died, we pressed her to come and live with us but she’s very independent. She preferred to rent a room elsewhere. Anne said that she didn’t want to impose on us. The truth of it is that she’d have felt too confined here.’

‘Describe her for me,’ said Peter, easing her gently away.

Given the invitation, Esther seized it with both hands, talking lovingly and at length about her younger sister. What emerged was a portrait of a hard-working woman in her thirties, turned out by the landlord on the death of her husband and forced to fend for herself. Though the menial job at the Home Office did not pay well, it gave Anne Horner an enormous sense of pride to be working, albeit in a lowly capacity, for the government. Dedicated to her role, she had never missed a day or been anything other than thorough in her duties. To the outsider, hers might seem a strange and very limited existence but it was – her sister argued – the one she chose and liked.

‘That’s why it’s so
unusual
, Mr Skillen,’ she said. ‘Only something very serious could keep my sister away.’

‘You say that she was in excellent health.’

‘Yes, Anne was hardly ever ill. As a child, I was the family invalid, always catching some disease or other. Besides,’ she went on, ‘if she’d been sick or injured, she’d have sent word to the Home Office that she was unable to get there. Instead of that, she simply didn’t report for work.’

‘Did she have any special friends she may have visited?’

‘No, no,’ replied Esther, ‘Anne kept herself to herself. She’s always been a very private person.’

‘What about enemies?’ asked Peter.

‘Anne didn’t have any, Mr Skillen.’

‘How can you be so certain?’

‘She would have told me.’

‘Yet, according to you, the pair of you met infrequently. Your sister had a life that was quite separate from yours and it might contain all sorts of things and people about which you know little.’

‘If she’d fallen out with someone,’ Esther insisted, ‘I’d have sensed it. If you’re very close to someone, you don’t need to see them every day to know how they’re faring.’

‘That’s true,’ conceded Peter, thinking of his brother.

‘Anne just doesn’t make enemies. She’s such a friendly person.’

‘Someone may have taken advantage of that friendliness.’

‘Heaven forbid!’

Peter did his best to reassure her that her sister would be found but she remained in a state of quivering apprehension. While touched that the Home Office had procured the services of a detective to search for its humblest employee, Esther had persuaded herself that a terrible fate had befallen her sister. Something else worried her.

‘If you do find Anne alive and well …’

‘I’m confident of doing so, Mrs Ricks,’ he told her.

‘Will they take her job away from her?’

‘Why on earth should they do that?’

‘She’s let them down, Mr Skillen.’

‘That may be through no fault of hers. Mrs Horner will have been impeded in some way. The Home Office will surely take that into account.’

‘How long will it take you to find her?’

‘I can’t put an exact time on it,’ he said, cautiously. ‘What I can promise is that I’ll give the search for your sister the priority it deserves.’

Esther was simultaneously relieved and disturbed.

‘What will happen until Anne returns?’ she asked.

‘I daresay that they’ll have a temporary replacement.’

Bernard Grocott felt the absence of the necessary woman more than anyone at the Home Office. Most of his colleagues were apostles of order; punctilious men who left their desks impressively tidy at the end of the day. Grocott, on the other hand, always left papers scattered about or cupboards open, confident that the former would be stacked neatly and the latter firmly shut by the time he got there the following morning. Confidential documents were invariably locked away in drawers. It was routine paperwork that cluttered his office and made him utterly reliant on Anne Horner. Since her disappearance, his desk had been a complete mess that waited to accuse him at the start of each day. Finding someone to take over her duties was thus of prime importance to him, so he was delighted when a woman was recommended by an acquaintance.

‘Have you done this kind of work before?’

‘Yes, I have, sir.’

‘And you know what’s involved?’

‘It was explained to me in full, sir.’

‘When can you start?’

‘Don’t you wish to see my references, sir?’ she asked, waving a sheaf of letters at him. ‘I’ve had a lot of experience.’

‘Someone has already spoken up on your behalf and his word is good enough for me. All that we have to decide is when you can take up your duties and what kind of remuneration you expect.’

‘As to the first question, sir, I can start at once if you wish.’

Grocott let out an involuntary cry of joy. ‘That’s wonderful!’

‘As to the second question, sir, I’ll take the same wage as … the other woman. I’m sure it will be fair payment. I’m just glad to help you out, sir.’ She looked across at his untidy desktop. ‘I can see that I’m needed.’

‘I am hopelessly inclined towards chaos,’ he confessed.

The undersecretary could not believe his luck. He had expected to have some difficulty finding a new cleaner but he had soon stumbled on one serendipitously. While confiding his problem to a group of friends at his club, he was given the name of a possible candidate and interviewed the woman in question the next day. Ruth Levitt was older, plainer and altogether more submissive than Anne Horner. Significantly, she was eager to step into the breach. Grocott was not only delighted to engage her, he knew that he could expect congratulations from his colleagues. Viscount Sidmouth, in particular, would be pleased. In solving a thorny problem, Grocott would earn the Home Secretary’s gratitude and admiration. They were factors that might one day ensure the undersecretary’s promotion.