In Pale Battalions (27 page)

“What do you want?” An adult voice, from behind me. I swung round. At the foot of the stairs stood a burly figure in a flat cap and working clothes, his apron smeared with grease and wood shavings.

“I was looking for the occupant of the room over number seven.”

“That’s the room. But there ain’t no occupant.”

I walked down the stairs towards him. “Are you the owner?”

He squared his shoulders. “You could say. Who’re you looking for?”

“As I said—the occupant.”

“The room’s empty.”

“Has it been empty for long?”

“Mind your own business. I’ve already ’ad the police sniffing round ’ere. Now you.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Same as you. Nobody lives there. It’s been empty for months.”

“Since 13th June, perhaps?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Do you know a man called Mompesson?”

“Never ’eard of ’im.”

“It’s hard to believe a room would stay empty for months in a place like this.”

His lip curled. “Believe what you like.”

I decided to try one method the police couldn’t have used. I took a sovereign from my pocket. “All I want is some information. Who was the last person to live up there?”

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He looked at the coin in my palm. “Double it and I’ll give you something.”

“What?”

“A name. That’s all.”

“The name of the occupant?”

“Not exactly.”

I had no choice. “Very well.” I handed him the sovereign and took out another.

“Dan Fletcher: friend o’ mine. ’Is sister keeps the Mermaid in Nile Street.”

“Thank you.” I gave him the other coin and walked away.

Another name was all I needed—another clue to follow. Besides, the name of the pub struck a chord. The Mermaid. As I made my way out of the yard, I trawled my memory of “Squalor Amidst Plenty,” Miriam Powerstock’s posthumous plea for action. That’s where I’d heard it before. “The police raid on the Mermaid Inn meeting of 26th November 1904, justified on the grounds of supposed seditious links with Royal Naval personnel, has done much to undermine local confidence in the good faith of the authorities . . .” Behind the flapping sheet strung across the alley, the boy from the yard was waiting for me. “ ’Ello, mister. Joss tell y’ much?”

“About what?”

“The bloke from the top room. Y’ know.”

“A little.” I made to move on.

“It weren’t Dan Fletcher. I know ’im.”

I turned back and stooped to his level. “Then who was it?”

“Wot’s it worth?”

“Half a crown for his name.”

He drew the ragged cuff of his shirt across his nose. “Dunno ’is name.”

“What do you know?”

“More’n Joss told you.”

“Tell me.”

“ ’E weren’t like Dan Fletcher. ’E were more like you. Moved in a few months back. Didn’t see much of ’im. Went out at night. Ain’t seen ’im since last Thursday.”

I gave him the half-crown. He turned towards an open doorway in the wall of the alley. “What did you mean . . . like me?”

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He stopped and thought, just for a moment. “Like you look.

Like a soldier.” Then he was gone.

Nile Street was only a short step away, but it took me long enough to find it through the maze of alleys. The Mermaid Inn stood on a corner, a green-tiled alehouse with smoked-glass windows, the words BRICKWOOD & CO.’S BRILLIANT ALES blazoned over a central door giving onto a dim, cavernous interior. It was not yet noon and still quiet inside, one or two mournful figures gazing into cloudy glasses while a broadly built, aproned woman stood behind the bar, polishing it. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, not as dirty, not as hostile. Not then, anyway.

The woman was stern-faced, with grey hair tied back. Once, she might have been good-looking. Now, her vitality had turned to gauntness. I ordered a whisky, then broached the subject.

“I’m looking for Dan Fletcher.”

She put my drink down in front of me. “Who wants him?”

“My name’s Franklin. He doesn’t know me.”

“Then why are you looking for him?”

“It’s about the room in Copenhagen Yard.”

She stopped polishing the bar. “Wait here. I’ll see if he’s in.”

She disappeared from view and left me to look around at the low, tobacco-stained ceilings, the bare tables and alcoves, the pinched, absent looks of the solitary drinkers. One was a woman, with matted hair and a tight dress: I avoided her eye.

The landlady came back, by a door from the passage to my side of the bar. “Come through,” she said. I followed her into the passage. “It’s at the far end.”

I walked ahead while she returned to the bar. The door at the end of the passage stood ajar. I knocked and went in.

The room was not what I’d expected. Small and lit only by one window looking onto an enclosed yard, it was nevertheless spot-lessly tidy, carpeted in some fashion, with a couple of fraying armchairs, a bureau by the window and several well-stocked bookcases.

A budgerigar in a cage hung in one corner and there were red geraniums in a window-box. The place had a wholesome, homely air.

In one of the armchairs, a square-shouldered, lean-faced man 182

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with thinning grey hair and much of his sister’s gauntness sat smoking a pipe and reading a book, a strangely restless, muscular figure at odds with his quiet back-room surroundings. He didn’t get up when I walked in, just closed his book and sucked on his pipe.

“Franklin—my sister tells me.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know you.” His tone was guarded but neutral, a touch more cultured than the man at the woodyard. “What do you want of me?”

“I gather you can tell me who lives in the room above number 7, Copenhagen Yard.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I asked around.”

“Are you from the police?”

“No.”

“Then why do you want to know?”

“Have you heard of the murder recently at Meongate, near Droxford? A man named Mompesson.”

“I read of it.”

“Did you know the man?”

“No. Did you?” He had a direct, straight-eyed defiance about him: he was not to be rattled.

I walked over to the window to be out of his flinty gaze.

“Slightly. Amongst his possessions was a note recording the address in Copenhagen Yard. And a date: 13th June.”

He frowned. “I can’t help you, Mr. Franklin.”

“But you do know who lives there?”

“I didn’t say so.”

“Yet when I mentioned the address to your sister, she brought me to you straight away.”

He smiled. “She was trying to be helpful. That’s all.”

I glanced at the yard beyond the window—narrow, whitewashed walls, empty barrels in one corner, a scent of geranium through the open sash. “It’s tenuous, Mr. Fletcher, I agree. But there’s something wrong here, I know. The police have given it up, but . . .” “You haven’t?”

“I can’t. I’m in too deeply.” My gaze shifted to the bureau, its

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flap open on an orderly array of books and papers, a well-used blotter, ink in a stand. Almost more of a study than a pub back-room, I remember thinking. “I have a dead friend, you see, whom I owe a debt.”

“This man Mompesson?”

“No. Another man. A friend from the Army.” There was a gold pocket-watch acting as paperweight for some letters in the bureau.

I followed its coiled chain with my eye, snaking round the edge of the blotter . . . to a photograph, a sepia miniature in a silver, oval frame. “He lived at Meongate, you see. His name was . . .” The photograph was of a lady, dark-haired, in a high-necked lace blouse, whose face I’d seen before, in Lord Powerstock’s own study, in a portrait of his own wedding. I lifted the picture from its place and stared at it in disbelief.

I hadn’t heard Fletcher move, but, suddenly, he was beside me, snatching the picture from my hand. He stood awkwardly, putting most of his weight on a stick, but in his level stare there was no hint of weakness.

“His name was Hallows. That photograph . . . is of his mother.”

“It may be.”

“It is. She worked in this area before her death. She even wrote about this pub. The police broke up a meeting here twelve years ago. And you keep her picture in your bureau.”

“You know a great deal, Mr. Franklin.”

He was wrong. I still didn’t know enough. “You knew Lady Powerstock, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He replaced her picture in the bureau and reached past me to raise the lid. “What of it?”

“And Mompesson?”

“I’ve never heard of him. I was acquainted with Lady Powerstock. She was a fine woman. But she’s been dead for eleven years. I have no connection with her family.”

“Did you know the late Captain Hallows—her son?”

“No.”

“Or his wife—Leonora?”

“No.”

“Now missing.”

“What?”

“She left Meongate early yesterday morning and has not been 184

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seen since. She’s been somewhat distressed since the murder—and the subsequent suicide. I’m worried about her.”

He turned and limped back towards his chair. “I told you, Mr.

Franklin. I can’t help you.”

I followed him. “Have you seen her? Has she been here?”

I couldn’t decipher the expression on his face as he looked at me. “What business would she have with me? There’s no reason for her to have been here.”

“I think there is. I think the reason is connected with the photograph of Lady Powerstock you keep by you. The sort of photograph that might be kept by . . . an admirer, let’s say.”

He turned then to confront me. I could tell by his simmering look and tensed muscles that he was angry, but still composed.

“Tread carefully, young man. Since you claim to be looking for a lady who’s missing, I’ll attribute your insolence to concern on her behalf. But I shan’t have Miriam Powerstock spoken of disrespectfully. By Heaven I shan’t.” I could see that I’d hit the mark. “Don’t let this limp fool you. I started work on ships when I was fourteen.

It makes a man strong—strong enough to break your arm if I want to.” He reached out and seized my left forearm with crushing force.

I winced. “See what I mean?” Then he released me.

“I’ve no wish to speak of anyone disrespectfully,” I said after a moment. “Mrs. Hallows is missing from home. I’m bound to do all I can to find her.”

“Suppose she had been here. Suppose I could tell you she was well. Would that satisfy you?”

“If you know where she is . . .”

“Exactly. It wouldn’t satisfy you, would it?” He moved back towards the bureau. “There’d never be an end of questions. About me, about Miriam, about all the things people like you just can’t leave alone.” He turned the key in the bureau lock. “So the answer to your question is no. I don’t know Mrs. Hallows. I’ve never seen her.” “I’m not sure I can believe you, Mr. Fletcher.”

He looked out into the narrow yard beyond his window. “Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?”

“If you know anything, it’s your duty to tell me.”

He turned to face me. “Don’t talk to me about duty. You’re too

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young and I’m too old. I know my duty—and it isn’t to help you.”

He paused. “You carry your shoulder stiffly. Is that a war wound?”

“As it happens, yes.”

“Then you should know better than to lecture me about duty.

Doesn’t what’s happening in France sicken you?”

“How would you know what’s happening in France?”

“I read the newspapers. But, unlike most people, I read between the lines. If you’re involved in this war, you have my pity—but not my respect.”

“You’re a hard man, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Life’s made me like that. I thought once I could help others, that together we could win a better life, some of the privileges people like you enjoy. But that was before this.” He slapped his stiff right leg.

“And before Miriam Powerstock died?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Whatever you think of me, you must understand that I’m only trying to help Mrs. Hallows. It’s vital that I find her.”

“Why?”

“You may as well know. She’s expecting a child. With her husband dead, I’m not sure she’s responsible for her actions.” It wasn’t true. I may have doubted Leonora’s word, but never her level-headedness. If Fletcher had met her, he would know that.

He was clever enough not to challenge the point. He nodded slowly, as if absorbing the implications of what I’d said. “That certainly explains your concern, Mr. Franklin. The family doubts pa-ternity, I suppose.” Then he seemed to think again. “Unless . . .” “Unless what?”

“Captain Hallows has been dead longer than his wife’s been pregnant. Is that it?”

“Now it’s my turn to say that’s none of your business.”

He limped back towards me, musing as he did so. “Your tone confirms it.”

“Perhaps you can at least understand now why I must find her, before she does anything . . . irresponsible. She shouldn’t be left to wander . . . in an area like this.”

“This area is my home, Mr. Franklin. Be careful how you speak of it.”

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“Surely you can see . . .”

“What I can see is a pampered young man meddling in things he doesn’t understand. Unlike Lord Powerstock, I’m not a man of property: I live under my sister’s roof, on sufferance. But my past is one possession I don’t intend to give up, certainly not at your say-so.

I know nothing of your friends. I want to know nothing of them. I met the first Lady Powerstock when she worked in this area—a long time ago. But that’s all.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s all you’re getting. And now I think it’s time you left.”

I could see further argument was useless. Fletcher looked then as I always now think of him: bleak and unshakeable, like some outcrop of rock on a windswept moor. Despite my concern for Leonora, I felt his secret drawing me past his implacable hostility. A resentful old dockyardman with mind and body twisted by an un-fortunate past? Even then, I could see there was more to him than that. He was too subtle, too lucidly intelligent, for the image to fit.