The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (38 page)

‘I’ve got six men, sir: Mr Narraway, Stoker, yourself, sir, Hollingsworth and me. And Mr Delacruz, if he’s well enough?’

‘I am,’ Nazario said, rising to his feet, almost succeeding in masking a degree of pain. ‘I am easily well enough.’

‘Guns?’ Pitt asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ Brundage replied. ‘And Mr Teague is just back too, sir. He has eight men with him, and he didn’t say so, but they’re all armed. Can see it, sir. Man behaves different when he’s got a gun. And it makes a coat hang a little different too.’

‘Thank you.’ He stood up also. ‘Where is Teague?’

‘Just outside the door, sir. And I got us a wagon to go in. Looks like a furniture wagon.’

‘Thank you. Take Señor Delacruz and look after him, and send Teague in here.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Brundage offered Nazario his arm, but Nazario declined it, straightening himself up to walk out.

Brundage smiled and followed him, holding the door open as Teague came in, closing it again.

‘Ready?’ Teague asked, standing a couple of yards from Pitt and staring at him with odd clarity. Now there was no pretence any more, no affectation of alliance. Teague led Pitt along because he had not yet found any way to do this without him. Then an uglier thought came to Pitt’s mind.

Teague already knew exactly how he was going to emerge from this the hero, the man who rescued a woman whose beliefs he espoused, when Special Branch could not do it!

For an instant, staring at Teague’s handsome, chiselled face, Pitt doubted himself. It was his attitude that had driven Sofia to go to Inkerman Road because she did not feel safe at Angel Court. If that had not happened then perhaps Hall would not have dared take her. She would never have been beaten, tortured or now facing death, if they did not succeed in getting to her before Hall finally killed her.

Maybe it was already too late now!

‘Of course I’m ready,’ Pitt said with perfect calm. ‘I was waiting for you. We’d best go. I assume you have transport for your men? Food. I have for mine.’

Teague’s eyes widened slightly. ‘Do you have no intention of discussing some form of plan first? You have no idea where you’re even going, man! Let alone what to do when you get there.’

Pitt looked back at him innocently, also with slight surprise.

‘Is it so close we won’t have time to speak before we get there?’

In an instant Teague understood. Anger and appreciation flickered in his face for a second, and then were gone.

‘I’m not sure there is room for you in my vehicle,’ he said with a slow smile.

‘Not if there are nine of you,’ Pitt agreed, matching his smile exactly. ‘But there is room for you in mine. Come on!’

Teague was too skilled to show irritation. He fell in step with Pitt and they walked side by side down the corridor to the outside door away from the hall itself.

Stoker was waiting for them on the pavement. It was still just daylight. They were about four weeks from the shortest night of the year. The air was balmy and a little damp, the smell of the river discernible.

‘Mr Teague is coming with us,’ Pitt said loudly enough for all the assembled men to hear. ‘We’ll not travel too closely, so we don’t look like an invading army. Just delivery men, starting the day a little early, or maybe catching up on yesterday.’

‘Someone who can’t pay the rent doing a flit!’ Stoker said under his breath.

Pitt did not bother to answer, but it was not so rare an occurrence.

In the wagon Pitt made room for Teague to sit opposite him and as the back was latched he settled as comfortably as possible and invited Teague to give them all the information he had. He saw an expression of cold acknowledgement pass between Narraway and Teague.

‘It is an old factory backing on to the river,’ Teague began. ‘Not far by water, but you can’t approach it that way without giving them at least fifteen minutes’ warning, by the time you’ve landed and got up the steps, and that would have to be two at a time, at best. We have to go around the land side, which means going to the south first.’

‘Disused factory?’ Pitt asked, trying to recall which one that must be, but there were too many to take a guess.

‘Falling to bits,’ Teague replied. ‘Dangerous. Too dangerous for even the homeless to settle in. Bits of it falling off, rotting, rusting. Whole demon lots sinking into the mud.’

Pitt did not take his eyes off Teague’s face. He could imagine Stoker’s expression as he visualised the place. He was a seaman. Storms at sea did not frighten him, although he respected their power, but the slow, sucking, stinking mud of the river appalled him. Even though it was no more than an outline in the darkness.

‘We’d better send someone round by the water anyway,’ he said. ‘Whoever’s there might escape that way. We’d look damn stupid if they fled by boat and we couldn’t stop them.’

Teague nodded. ‘I’ll have two of my men get off earlier and take a boat, just to be safe.’

Pitt raised his eyebrows, not that Teague could see him either.

‘Can’t wait for you to send your men back to do that. We’ll send two of mine. They’re just as capable of borrowing a boat, and just as willing.’

Teague hesitated only a second. It gave Pitt control of the river escape, but it also greatly increased his numerical disadvantage inside the factory. Pitt knew that too, but he had no alternative.

‘Any idea how many men we are facing?’ he asked.

‘Not many,’ Teague replied. ‘Unless he knows we’re coming, which he might do, after tonight’s fiasco. They’ve no water to drink, no matter what anyone pays them.’

‘How do you get into them, sir?’ Stoker asked, with an unusual amount of deference in his voice. Pitt hoped it was assumed! It was a good question. He wished he could see Teague’s face in the shadows to read it.

There was a long moment’s silence, then Teague spoke.

‘Many questions, and then a stroke of good fortune,’ he replied, slowly, as if choosing his words with care. ‘I have friends, people who admired my career in cricket . . . supporters, you understand?’

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Stoker replied quickly.

‘One of them came forward,’ Teague went on more easily. ‘He had seen a woman resembling Sofia Delacruz. He said she seemed to be in some difficulty, quarrelling with the man who was with her. She wished to leave but he would not let her. My . . . supporter . . . tried to help, and was told that she was emotionally disturbed. She needed restraint, or she would hurt herself. He believed it at the time. Afterwards he was less sure.’

‘And you put the pieces together,’ Stoker concluded.

‘Precisely.’

‘I see.’ Stoker seemed satisfied.

Pitt was relieved. He could not afford to offend Teague now, on the brink of finding Sofia. But as they chattered through the deepening night he put other pieces of information together, fragments that made no complete picture. The omissions nagged in his mind.

They stopped at a wharf at Teague’s instruction, and Hollingsworth and Brundage got out.

Teague directed them towards the wreck of the factory, less than a hundred yards away. Nothing else was said.

Teague returned to his seat in the wagon and they moved forward the last short distance and stopped again in the deep shadow of the factory ruin.

Pitt got out, followed by Teague, Stoker, Narraway and Nazario. They nodded to each other, and Pitt led the way down the alley towards the wharf and the warehouse steps where Teague’s men were waiting.

The night was clear and there was a three-quarter moon. It gave more light than Pitt would have wished, but there was a bank of cloud coming in from the east, and in quarter of an hour the moon would be shrouded.

They moved along the wharf but remained in the shadows of the huge crane and several stacks of timber.

There was no one else in sight. There was no sound except the continual murmur of the river below them, the ripples of the water swishing around the huge supporting beams, the suck and slurp now and then as a wave broke against the stones along the shore. It was an ebb tide, just before the turn.

Moonlight made silver patterns on the surface. It was oily, broken here and there with driftwood and patches of spume. There was no sign of anyone on watch at the factory, no silhouette of anything like a human form.

Perhaps they were too late.

A ferry pulled away from the wharf where they had left Brundage and Hollingsworth, a hundred yards away. A boat was making its way out into the river, oars dipping silently in and out.

It was a moment of decision. They had no idea if Hall was ahead of them or behind. The question was really whether Hall knew that the man who had killed Nazario’s attacker was Castillo, or not. If not, he might be making one desperate last attempt to force Sofia to tell him where Castillo was.

If he knew that was Castillo, then they might already be too late.

Pitt turned to Teague. ‘Now,’ he said.

‘No, wait!’ Teague replied sharply. ‘If he comes from the far side, we need to get to him before he gets to her, or warns his men. I don’t know how many he has. Not many, but one would be enough to kill her before we can stop him.’

‘He could be in there now,’ Pitt pointed out. ‘Come on!’ He turned to signal his men forward, and Teague grasped him by the arm, bringing Pitt up abruptly.

‘I had men watching,’ Teague hissed. ‘He’s not here yet. He’ll come the land way. Wait for that cloud bank. It’s only a few minutes away. That’s probably what he’s waiting for. Come!’ He started forward, picking his step through the debris on the path towards the street.

Pitt followed, Narraway behind him. No one spoke until they were in the deserted yard facing the street. Teague motioned them to blend into the shadows.

‘Let him pass us,’ he whispered.

‘If he’s coming,’ Pitt answered.

‘Oh, he’s coming.’ Teague’s voice oozed certainty, and satisfaction. ‘He has to. If she’s still alive, and we find her before he gets here, she’ll identify him and he’s finished.’ He gave a little grunt. ‘He’ll hang by the neck until he’s dead.’

Although they were the familiar words spoken by every judge in the sentencing of a capital case, they still sent a chill of ice through Pitt’s blood. There was an inhuman lack of passion in them. Teague had said them with pleasure.

The cloud cover was already darkening the moon. Somewhere to the left of them, near the street, there was a very slight sound, wood against wood.

Teague froze, then turned slowly and peered towards the gate.

‘Quiet!’ he ordered.

Then Pitt heard it as well, a faint creak, the bump of metal on wood, and then silence for several seconds before the rattle of small stones as someone slithered a step before regaining their balance and moving on again soundlessly.

Pitt saw him first. A tall man moving awkwardly, almost feeling his way across the last few yards of open space before the huge wall of the building, and what was left of it. It was Barton Hall. Pitt knew him from his gait, the angle of his head and shoulders, then, as he turned, his face was in the hazy moonlight for an instant before the clouds drew together again. He looked like a man who has seen his own death: sunken-eyed, hollow-cheeked, all his pain inside him, moving as if his arms and legs were all but numb.

He fiddled with the latch of the door but it was broken and needed no turning, only the heave of a shoulder against it to force it open on broken hinges. He went in through the space, leaving it ajar.

Teague swung his arm, directing them all to follow him. He went through the door first with Pitt on his heels.

Inside, Pitt looked up. It was the entrance to the enormous factory, now fallen into a wreck of its past self and clearly no longer used. The whole roof was shattered, much of it fallen inside in a patchwork of debris, shattered glass, broken rafters and beams, some hanging at crazy angles. The walls were stained, windows broken, some so shattered there was nothing left but the empty frames. A crane had rusted so badly parts of it were hanging off the structure, dangling against the caved-in walls of a loading bay. Rusted machinery loomed ghostly in the yard, like skeletons locked in battle. It had its own wharf and the smell of rotting wood hung in the air along with the sickly odour of river mud.

‘Perfect place to keep someone prisoner,’ Pitt said softly. ‘They could scream themselves sick and nobody would care. Anyone who heard would think it was another piece of machinery breaking, or even a seabird crying. They come up river this far.’

‘For God’s sake, man, don’t just stand there!’ Teague said with desperation sharp in his tone. ‘We’ve got to take Hall before he gets to her!’

Hall was somewhere ahead of them, but they could no longer see him.

Pitt took a step forward.

Behind him Stoker and Narraway went out to the left, Nazario to the right. Slowly they all moved across the littered space, feeling their steps carefully. A fall over a piece of rolled wood, rubble or parts of broken machinery would not only alert Hall ahead of them, but would cause disabling injury if it were over glass shards, or wood with protruding nails.

They reached the entrance to the main work floor and Teague tried the first door. It gave beneath his weight, the wooden frame rotten. As Pitt stepped in behind Teague he could smell the decay in the air, the wood rot, mould, even the breath of tidal mud.

Ahead of them there was a noise: a single thump of wood against wood, but it was clean, not splintered, just one sound. It was a human step, not the unrecognised crumble of floor falling apart.

Teague froze, then looked up. He turned to Pitt and pointed to his left, then started to move to the right himself.

Pitt moved carefully, afraid of knocking into the remnants of machinery still in the place.

The cloud cleared again and moonlight shone through the open roof. Lengths of timber lay on the floor. One misplaced step could send you falling, landing hard.

Pitt stepped over a pile of chains and a crane hook. Teague was still ahead of him.

Hall was out of sight.

Rafters creaked and sagged above.

Somewhere to the left a rat scuttled across the floor, its claws scratching on the wood. The whole place seemed to be alive with tiny movements, men walking slowly, a step at a time, small animals of the night looking for food, beams settling, the water rising and seeping upwards to fill the thousand tiny channels until it covered the floor and the broken debris was concealed, a hidden trap.