The Darkest Walk of Crime (11 page)

“After all, Peter, we’re both
fellow Chartists.” Mendick felt Peter’s paw slide around his like a huge iron
glove.

“Fellow Chartists,” Peter said,
gently shaking hands and repeating the phrase he obviously liked, “Fellow
Chartists.”

Mendick smiled tautly; he had
hoped to slip away during the night and find Sergeant Ogden, but his own
weakness had spoiled that idea. He should have attended to his duty and left
Peter exactly where he was. Now he would have to manoeuvre his way around the
giant.

Once inside the cottage, Peter
closed the door.

“In case the night gets in,” he
said and grinned. “We’ll be like brothers, Mr Mendick. Fellow Chartists.” 
Sitting on one of the two chairs beside the deal table, he produced a pack of
cards. “We’ll play for the bed,” he said. “Loser gets the floor.”

Glancing at the wooden
floorboards with their scattering of straw, Mendick grunted. He had slept on
worse, but he had never enjoyed suffering for its own sake. However, when Peter
began a clumsy shuffle of the cards, sweating with the effort, and Mendick saw
the breadth of his forearms, he looked again at the bed, wondered which
unfortunate had last infested it and decided that it would be no hardship to
lose. He would prefer a few hours of discomfort to a collection of broken
bones, and anyway, he had no intention of spending the night indoors.

 “Is there anything to drink in
the house?”

In a lightning change of mood,
Peter frowned at him.

“A lush, are you? The last
soldier-boy was a lush too.” He shook his massive head disapprovingly. “Tell
you what, let’s share the bed and play for the blue ruin. There’s nothing better
than a flash of lightning at this time of night.”

“You have the bed,” Mendick
decided. “I just want a bottle of Old Tom.”

Peter ruffled the cards. “You’ll
have to win it, first.” His laugh was loud and unpleasant. “Come on
soldier-boy; let’s see how good you are.”

Gliding to a corner of the
dresser, Peter produced a large bottle of gin and placed it carefully in front
of him, where it tempted Mendick with its memories.

“Twenty-one.”

It was probably the simplest
card game of all, and one that Mendick had played from Calcutta to Canton, but
it was best not to let Peter know that. He avoided looking at the gin.

“What are the rules?”

“Don’t you know?” Peter
emphasised his superiority with a laugh. “It’s all right, I’ll teach you.”
Removing the cork from the bottle with his teeth, he took a preliminary swig
while Mendick watched, fighting his desire. “The winner of each hand gets a
drink.” He leaned over the table, grinning hideously, “but the loser gets
nothing.”

Mendick nodded and played
deliberately poorly for the next half hour, while Peter enjoyed a winning
streak that saw him empty a quarter of the bottle and grow increasingly
raucous.

“You’re useless,” he crowed as
Mendick called for another card when he had a hand of nineteen, and, “Beat
again!” when Mendick put down thirteen to his seventeen.

After an hour Peter’s speech was
slurred and the level of gin had lowered significantly, so Mendick slammed down
his cards.

“You can’t be this good,” he
said. “You must know exactly what I’m doing!

“What?” Peter looked up, his
eyes hazed by gin. “How can I know that?”

“By cheating.” Mendick pressed
his advantage. “You must be looking at my cards.”

“I’m not.” Peter sounded hurt by
the accusation. He shook a confused head. “You just can’t play good.”

“I know what game I can play,”
Mendick said. “I’ll fight you, by God!” He rose from the chair and lifted his
fists in the approved prize-fighting manner, hoping that Peter would take the
bait and hoping even more that the gin had slowed the his reactions as much as
his speech.

“I would kill you.” Peter
sounded amazed that anyone would willingly choose to fight him. “You’re wrong,
Mr Mendick. I wouldn’t cheat you; we’re fellow Chartists, and you let me out of
the Black Hole. I’m just better at cards than you; have a drink and forget
about it.” He pushed the bottle across the table and spread his hands in a
gesture of reconciliation.

Mendick hit him. It was a
beautiful punch, straight to the point of the jaw, but Peter merely shook his
head.

“What did you do that for? Now
we will
have
to fight,” he said, and Mendick wondered if he had made a
major mistake. He was experienced in barrack room turn-ups and in the formal
affairs for which Her Majesty had paid him, but Peter was a different
proposition entirely. The prize-fighter was a good five inches taller and
broader than him and was trained and knowledgeable in his brutal art.

The first punch hissed past
Mendick’s head with a sound like a passing cannonball, the second numbed his
upper arm and the third smashed against his chest and knocked him against the
door. He lay there, stunned from the force of the blow as Peter loomed over
him, gesturing for him to rise, but instead Mendick yanked open the door and
fled.

“Hey, come back, Mr Mendick!
Please! If you run away Mr Armstrong will put me in the black hole! Please!
I’ll let you win!”

Mendick ran into the welcoming
night, trying not to listen to Peter bellowing in his wake as he jinked into
the trees that sheltered Chartertown. He winced, rubbing his chest and arm
where the prize-fighter’s fists had caught him; if Peter had that sort of power
when half drunk, he would be unbeatable sober.

Within a few minutes he was
struggling through brittle briars and stumbling over a half-tumbled wall as he
climbed the small knoll where he had stopped only that morning. Looking back,
he saw only darkness, but when he reached the summit he nodded his
satisfaction. The countryside spread out before him like a black sea
interspersed with the twinkling lights of cottages and villages and with one vast
array of lights a few miles to the south. That could only be Manchester, and
ignoring the confusion of paths Mendick struck directly across country, hoping
he could find his way to Ogden’s house.

He had memorised the address Smith
had shown him and had spent the train journey north perusing a map of the
Manchester area, but Armstrong's carriage had driven for a good hour beyond the
town, which Mendick estimated would be around six miles. He would have to find
the city first and then work out where Ogden lived. Mendick hurried, using the
infantryman’s quick marching pace and hoping that he was moving in the right
direction as he repeated the instructions he had been given.

Sergeant Ogden lives in White
Rose Lane in the northern outskirts of Manchester. He is in a cottage within a
walled garden with a single brick shed
.

The urban build-up began
gradually, a cottage here, a cluster there, and Mendick moved rapidly,
searching for names and landmarks, thankful that his night vision had always
been good. Pushing through a belt of trees, he slipped over a gate in a
hawthorn hedge and stopped at a tall stone wall. The name was painted white on
a square piece of wood:
White Rose Lane
. Mendick sighed his relief.

It was a village of well-kept
cottages with gardens front and back. Fruit trees told of a rural past, and
geese honked a warning behind closed doors.

There were two buildings
standing side by side, but whilst one looked neglected, the other had a crisply
painted front door and an immaculate garden, just what Mendick would expect
from the orderly mind of a police sergeant. Taking a deep breath, he tapped on
the door and flinched when even that small sound set a dog barking.

A heavy chain stopped the door
from opening more than an inch, and a whiskered face peered at him
inquisitively.

“Sergeant Ogden?”

The whiskered face nodded
suspiciously. “Yes?” The long barrel of a shotgun thrust through the gap
between door and wall.

“I am Detective James Mendick
from Scotland Yard.”

There was a second’s silence
before the man spoke.

“Scotland Yard! Creation! Come
on in, man!” The shotgun withdrew, the chain dropped, and Ogden threw open the
door. He looked about thirty, a few years younger than Mendick had expected,
but already a paunch pushed at his long nightshirt. Despite the shotgun he
looked more surprised than aggressive.

“What a time of night to come!”

“Who is it? Nathaniel, who is
it?” A woman’s voice floated from the upstairs room. “Shall I set the dog on
him, Nathaniel?”

“No you shall not, Jennifer;
it’s a gentleman from Scotland Yard.” Sergeant Ogden smiled to Mendick. “That’s
my wife. You’ll have to forgive her; she can be a bit emotional sometimes.”

Mrs Ogden appeared with a candle
in her left hand and a border terrier on a lead in her right.

“Scotland Yard?” She was
slender, with her hair in papers and her worn nightdress flapping over bare
feet. “Well, shall we bring him in and feed him, Nathaniel?” She smiled
uncertainly, hauling back the terrier which seemed more interested in sniffing
at Mendick’s boots than in any sort of household defence.

“Come in, man, and welcome.”
Ogden opened the door wider and stepped back to allow Mendick access.

“Scotland Yard in my house?” Mrs
Ogden glanced at her husband as if for approval. “That’s a rare honour, a rare
honour indeed, sir, and you are most welcome to stay the night.”

“I thank you for the invitation,
Ma’am.” Mendick felt himself bowing, happy to be among people with whom he
could relax. “But I am afraid I do not have the time. I must spend a few
minutes with your good husband and then return to my duties at once.”

“Duties!” Mrs Ogden shook her
head understandingly. “Of course, men must always perform their duties.” She
glanced at her husband and smiled, slightly timidly. “Nathaniel is just the
same. You will stay for a jug of ale, though, and maybe some bread and cheese?”

Suddenly Mendick realised he was
hungry. He nodded.

“The bread would be most
welcome, Mrs Ogden, but I must decline the ale; perhaps a cup of tea, if you
will be so kind?”

While Mrs Ogden busied herself
in the kitchen, Ogden unhooked a lantern from behind the door and ushered
Mendick into the back garden, where a brick-built shed stood immaculately to
attention. The interior smelled of fresh soil and stored vegetables, with a
slightly musty odour that Mendick could not identify.

“We’ll get some peace out here,”
Ogden said, “and I have a number of items that you might find useful.” Twirling
a large finger through his whiskers, he sat heavily on a wooden stool. “I’m
glad you came along, Detective Mendick, although I’m not at all sure what you
can do alone.”

“Call me James.” Mendick had
already formed a liking for this couple. “And I am not sure either. There are a
lot of angry people up here.”

Ogden nodded. “Can you blame
them? The times are hard, cruel hard. Of course the people are restless, with
unemployment so high and all this talk of Chartism and Radicals overturning the
government.” He shook his shaggy head so that his whiskers vibrated around
plump cheeks. “Creation! There are even Chartists within the police up here. I
don’t know who it is safe to talk to.” He looked up, his eyes suddenly stern.
“Don’t trust the police, James, whatever you do. Man, but it’s good to meet a
loyal man in these times of troubles. You have no idea how good.”

“I feel the same way,” Mendick
agreed.

“Creation,” Ogden repeated,
“things were looking better with the good harvest last year, then came this wet
summer and . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t know what will happen now. Have you
seen the country? There’s starvation in the streets and that will lead to a
bloody revolution, mark my words.”

Mendick nodded. Although the
trade and markets of London protected him from the realities of rural life, a
country childhood had taught him the importance of the weather. While a good
harvest created comparative comfort, a bad summer inevitably brought hunger and
deprivation.

“Well, Sergeant Ogden, let’s
hope we can do something to save the country from that. We both remember the
turmoil back in ‘42.” He forced a grin. “If we can let Scotland Yard know
exactly what’s happening up here, we should be able to nip this sedition in the
bud.” He thought of the bitter eyes of the men in Manchester, the hostility of
Armstrong and the determination of the volunteers, and doubted his own words.
“So what do you have for me, then?”

“Quite a lot.” Ogden began to
rummage inside a heavy chest. “A Mr Smith sent them up by the railway, with a
note telling us they were for you.” Straightening, he produced a
multi-barrelled pistol. “This is one of Harrison’s pepperpot revolvers. You
see? It has six short steel barrels and a self-cocking hammer, so that all you
have to do is pull the trigger and the cylinder rotates, giving you six shots
one after the other.”

“I see.” Mendick placed his hand
around the black chequered grip, testing the weight of the revolver. “Six shots
without reloading, eh?” He narrowed his eyes, marvelling at the prospect. “It’s
horrific: six men’s lives in my hand; where will it all end?”

“It will fit inside this,” Ogden
handed him a leather holster, “which you can wear under your shirt. Just be
careful you’re not caught.”

Remembering the force of Peter’s
punch, Mendick nodded; although percussion caps had reduced the chances of a
misfire, he would hate to face the prize-fighter with only a single- shot
pistol. This multi-barrelled weapon might just save his life.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised.

“And there is this too.” Ogden
handed over a long, needle-bladed knife. “It’s called a stiletto, and they use
it in Italy, I believe.”

Mendick weighed the knife. “It’s
an assassin’s tool, made for murder.”

“Aye, but it might be handy in a
tight corner,” Ogden told him seriously. “I always carry one in case of
emergencies; maybe you should do the same.”