‘Borrow money. You’re the kind of man who will have wealthy friends.’
‘I’d never afford to pay a loan back,’ protested Beyton.
‘You won’t have to pay it back,’ said Peter, confidently, ‘because
you won’t lose it in the first place. When the exchange is made, I’ll be there to make sure that the kidnapper is caught. The money will be safe, Mrs Horner will be released and you, Mr Beyton, can go home to an ailing wife who will never know how false her husband really is.’ He gave a cold smile. ‘How does that sound, sir?’
Beyton cringed before him.
Moses Dagg was not impressed by the venue for the boxing match. It was a disused warehouse by the river with narrow gaps in the walls and even bigger ones in the roof. Sunlight and draughts came in from all directions. Dust hung in the air like a cloud. The ring in which Dagg was to fight was no more than a square of sawdust with four boards around it to hold back the crowd. When he kicked the sawdust in disgust, a bone surfaced with feathers attached to it.
‘There was a cock fight here last night,’ explained Fallon. ‘The sawdust soaks up the blood.’
Dagg inhaled. ‘It stinks in here.’
‘It’s no worse than some of the ships we’ve sailed in,’ said O’Gara, cheerily. ‘And it’s a lot better than our cells at Dartmoor.’ He turned to his cousin. ‘Tell us a bit more about the other man.’
‘Donkey Johnson is the champion here,’ said Fallon. ‘He’s never been beaten. In fact, I can’t ever remember seeing him knocked down. But then, he’s never had any real competition. He does now. Having watched the way that Moses licked Donal Kearney, he’ll have no trouble winning against Donkey.’
‘I want to fight a man,’ said Dagg, ‘not a frigging donkey.’
‘If I had a punch like yours, I’d take on a whole herd of donkeys.’
‘What about the stake money?’ asked O’Gara.
‘Forget about that.’
‘It’s a lot of cash to put up, Dermot.’
‘I raised it somehow,’ said Fallon, evasively. ‘Everyone will get their money back with interest when Moses wins the fight.’
‘We’ll need money to bet on him as well.’
‘Leave that to me, Tom. I know men of quality.’
‘Then they wouldn’t come here,’ said Dagg, wrinkling his nose. ‘This is a place for drunken riffraff and the lowest scum of the city.’
‘Their money is just as good as anything you’d get from the gentry.’
‘I still don’t like it here.’
‘What I’d really like to see,’ said O’Gara, grinning, ‘is another fight between Moses and Kearney.’
‘Donal Kearney is
mine
,’ declared Fallon. ‘When I have the chance, I’m going to do the whole tenement a favour and rip his ugly head off.’
‘Does anyone else know that he was the informer?’
‘The word will have got round by now, Tom. Kearney will be treated like a leper. I just hope they leave him alone until I can get
my
hands on him.’
He showed them around the warehouse and told them about some of the entertainment he’d seen there. It often ended in the death of an animal or in the serious injuries of a human being. The crowd would be drawn there by blood-lust. It was up to Dagg to supply their needs. The three men were just about to leave when someone appeared in the doorway to block their exit. He was a huge, hideous man in his thirties with a bald head, which was tattoed with battle scars. One of his eyes was higher than the other. Both of them gleamed with pleasure.
‘So this is the Black Assassin, is it?’ he sneered.
‘Yes,’ retorted Fallon, going up to him. ‘You’re finally going to
meet a man who can beat you, Donkey. Make your will before you step into the ring.’
Donkey Johnson’s laugh was an extended bray and the big teeth that had given him his nickname were exposed for all to see. Dagg was shorter by several inches and looked small beside the man he was about to fight. Dermot Fallon had misled him. Even for someone of Dagg’s ability, beating a man of such size and obvious strength would be an immense challenge. Whoever won the fight, blood would be spilt freely in the sawdust.
‘I
hate
Americans,’ said Johnson, nastily.
When the three of them walked past him, a mocking bray pursued them.
Anne Horner was more confused than ever. For the first time since she’d been abducted, she’d had a conversation of sorts with the woman. It had been very puzzling. Though Anne had been described as an asset, she could not understand why. She had no intrinsic value as a person. In fact, the hours of recrimination had left her feeling completely worthless. What did they intend to do with her? Why were they treating her so badly? How long would she be held?
New questions flooded into her mind. Having spent so much time with introspection, Anne turned her attention to other people. How would her sister be coping with the news of the abduction? What would her landlady do? When would the Home Office decide that she’d just vanished of her own accord and replace her, as if she’d never been there? What of her friends and acquaintances, people she saw in the normal course of a day? How soon would they forget to miss her? Was anyone actually
looking
for her? Was she important enough to merit a search?
Anne was then assailed by another question, one that she’d fought off for days because it was so distasteful. How would
he
react? Since he worked at the Home Office, he’d have been among the first to notice her absence. What had he done about it? Would he really care? Or would he be glad that she’d disappeared out of his life? Could it be that he was in some way responsible for it? Had he wanted her out of the way? Was he paying for her imprisonment? He’d made it clear that it might be better if she gave up her job at the Home Office. The money he’d given her was intended to be ample recompense for the wages she’d forfeit over a lengthy period. But Anne had refused to be paid off and moved out for his benefit. Apart from what had happened between her and David Beyton, she liked every aspect of her work and was determined to continue doing it. Had he decided to remove her by other means?
The question was unanswerable and, in any case, she was diverted by a sound she’d heard before without quite knowing what it was. She pricked her ears and got as close to the grating as the chain permitted. A minute later, she heard it again.
It was the same dull thud.
Once it had started, the persecution of Donal Kearney began to escalate. All sorts of things were left outside his door, including a blood-covered pig’s head. Neighbours refused to acknowledge him and even those to whom he was distantly related severed all links with him. In the middle of a seething mass of humanity, he and his family were outcasts. Because of his treachery, his wife and children suffered as well. It began with insults before moving on to blows. Kearney first of all tried to bully people into letting them alone but there were far too many enemies for intimidation to have any effect. As a last resort, he adopted a different approach, calling on
people in the hope of convincing them that he was being unjustly maligned. Most of the time, he had doors slammed in his face but one old man, Hector Lynch, at least allowed him to state his case before coming to a decision.
‘I’m here to explain things, Hector.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It wasn’t me, Hector,’ said Kearney, earnestly.
‘Then who
was
the rotten bugger?’
‘I don’t know. It could’ve been anybody. When the raid took place, I was miles away, doing my job.’
‘That’s not what people are saying.’
‘Don’t listen to them.’
‘They blame you.’
‘I wasn’t the informer.’
‘We don’t like the sight of a Runner at the best of times,’ said the old man, ‘and we won’t stand for an invasion by the bastards. Someone told them that those two men were here and all the fingers are pointing at you.’
‘Dermot Fallon was a friend. I’d never rat on him.’
‘That’s two lies for a start. Dermot was never your friend and you’d rat on your own grandmother if you’d a mind to. We know you too well, Donal. If you can’t beat someone in a fair fight, you’ll get your revenge another way, however dirty it has to be. That’s what you did with the black man.’
‘It’s not true!’ shouted Kearney. ‘How can I persuade you of that?’
‘Ask
them
.’
The chimney sweeper blinked. ‘Who?’
‘Ask the lads behind you.’
Kearney swung round to see four brawny young men standing
there with menacing expressions. One carried a cudgel but the other three relied on their fists. Before he could even start to reason with them, Kearney was under attack. Punches rained in from all directions and the cudgel delivered a series of hammer blows. Though he tried to fight back, Kearney was soon overpowered and beaten to the ground where he was kicked unmercifully until he was covered in blood and whimpering for mercy.
The man with the cudgel lifted it to strike again.
‘No,’ said the old man, intervening. ‘That’s enough. The person he has to answer to is Dermot Fallon. Let him stay alive until then.’
Jem Huckvale was delighted to be called back to the shooting gallery. Watching the house belonging to Jubal Nason had been tedious and unrewarding. The man had not emerged at any point and there’d been no visitors. All that Huckvale had to report was that he’d heard sounds of an argument from inside the house with the strident voice of a woman dominating the exchange.
‘Thank you for bringing me back, Peter,’ he said. ‘If I’d stayed there any longer, I’d have fallen asleep out of boredom.’
‘Paul told me he’d sent you there,’ said Peter, ‘but it served no purpose. To all intents and purposes, we may forget that Nason ever existed. Your sharp eyes are needed elsewhere, Jem.’
Huckvale grinned hopefully. ‘You have other work for me?’
‘I will have in due course. Meanwhile, go back to helping Gully.’
‘Anything is better than what I have been doing. Where’s Paul?’
‘He’s doing exactly what he did before,’ said Peter, ‘and that’s trying to find those men by trawling through Irish communities. Since they’re being led by Dermot Fallon, it’s more than likely that they’ll find refuge with some of his countrymen so Paul will have an opportunity to try out his Irish accent again.’
‘It worked,’ said Huckvale. ‘That’s how he tracked Fallon down the first time.
You
had to rely on evidence given by Nason to get you to that tenement behind Orchard Street but Paul sniffed his way there first.’
‘He has a knack of doing things like that, Jem. While he’s taking one route, I’ll be exploring others because I think we’re dealing with a shrewd man in Dermot Fallon. He might actually avoid Irish communities now,’ argued Peter, ‘because he fears that those are the very places that the Runners will start to look. I fancy that he’ll take the two Americans somewhere else altogether.’
‘How will you find them, Peter?’
‘As ever, it will be by a combination of luck and instinct.’
‘What about the search for that missing woman? Has that been forgotten?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Peter. ‘While you were away, I made some progress on that front. At least I now have some understanding of why she was abducted.’
‘And why was that?’
Peter was frugal with the details. Having assured David Beyton that he would act with discretion, he kept the man’s name and position out of the account he gave to Huckvale. He merely told him that Anne Horner was being held by people who were demanding a ransom for her release.
Huckvale was amazed. ‘But the woman is only a cleaner.’
‘She fulfils a vital function, Jem.’
‘I thought ransoms were only demanded for people of importance.’
‘Mrs Horner is clearly of great importance to someone.’
‘Will the money be paid?’
‘It would appear so,’ said Peter, enigmatically.
The sound of gunfire from above made Huckvale look upwards.
‘Gully is giving instruction to someone,’ he said. ‘He’s going to be angry with me because I didn’t have time to whiten the target.’
‘Tell him that Paul sent you off on an errand.’
‘I will. Oh, I meant to tell you that, on my way back here, I came past Paul’s house and that man outside has gone.’
Peter laughed. ‘I must have frightened him when I crept up behind him. He thought I was Paul and I didn’t disillusion him.’
‘That’s two of us who’ve been taken off a tedious duty. You have to give the fellow some credit, though,’ said Huckvale. ‘When you get pushed into the Thames for watching someone’s house, you’ve got a good reason to stay well away from it.’
Chevy Ruddock was delighted by the message to report to The Peacock. Any break in routine was welcome and he hoped he’d be assigned to other duties. When he got to the inn, however, he was kept waiting a long time because Micah Yeomans was deep in conversation with Alfred Hale and clearly didn’t wish to be disturbed. Ruddock hovered in their vicinity. When he was finally noticed, he came in for a rebuke.
‘I expected you earlier,’ complained Yeomans.
‘I’ve been here all of twenty minutes.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’
‘You and Mr Hale seemed to be busy.’
‘You should have made your presence felt, man.’
‘What do you have to report?’ asked Hale.
‘Very little,’ replied Ruddock. ‘I spent hours watching the house in the certain knowledge that Paul Skillen was inside it then he turned up behind me.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Who else could it have been, Mr Hale?’
‘It might have been his brother, Peter.’
‘But he gave me the impression that he was Paul Skillen.’
‘Then I’ll wager that he was playing tricks on you,’ said Yeomans, irritably. ‘You’re being taken off that particular duty, Ruddock.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It hasn’t exactly been a task at which you’ve shone, has it? The fact is that Paul Skillen somehow got to that tenement before we raided it. If you’d shadowed him properly, you could have followed him there then warned us.’
‘You told me that I was needed for the raid.’
‘Why didn’t you use your initiative?’ scolded Hale.