The Devil's Mask (19 page)

I'm not sure what hour of the night it was when they returned, but it had long been dark, and the blackness and deathly quiet and fading shock had conspired to produce in me the stupor of a waking doze. I sprang up at the metal on metal grating of the lock, only to discover that my legs had cramped beneath me.

Justice Pearce's face, dark as offal, swam before me, and he was grinning and nodding, mock-jolly again.

‘Progress!' he said. ‘A question here, a bit of chat there, the good luck of a witness or two, willing to talk.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Don't look so frightened. It's not you the finger is pointing towards, for now.' The Justice puffed out his cheeks, turned to Blue, and went on matter-of-factly, ‘Though I'm sorry to say things are looking less promising for you.'

Blue glowered at him.

‘I'm afraid a man of your … countenance, well, he stands out. Makes it a sight harder to get away with things, I imagine.'

‘We discovered this crime together,' I said as evenly as I could. ‘And then we reported it to you.'

‘So you say.'

‘What are you insinuating?'

‘How well do you know this Negro?' Pearce asked equably.

I looked at Blue. His eyes were cast low, his arms hung
heavy at his sides. The flickering lamplight caught the backs of his hands as they curled and uncurled, raising veins. I looked back at Pearce and said, ‘Well enough.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure about that,' smiled Pearce. ‘But then, who is to say?' He grew mock-thoughtful. ‘Even those closest to us are full of surprises. It's impossible to know for sure what makes another man tick.' He rounded on me, grin in place. ‘But in this particular case there's no need to plumb the profundities. It's enough to point out that you have no idea what this man here was doing between half past twelve and one o'clock today.'

‘We arrived at the Doctor's house together.'

‘So you say.'

‘I say so because it is so. Do you doubt my word?'

‘I'll be happy to doubt your word as and when I see fit, but for now there's no need. It doesn't matter. What matters is the word of one … Mrs Gregory, who says she saw a man fitting his description' (he nodded at Blue) ‘outside the house in question long before the two of you turned up on your errand. Her word is important, as is that of Mr James Cowper, who says the same.'

Blue's eyes were still fixed on his boots. I took a deep breath to remonstrate further, but it was as if I had sucked in a lungful of water, not air. Who was to know that this accusation about the sailor's whereabouts wasn't true? Not me. I could come up with nothing sensible to say, just so much spluttering.

‘And then there's the further complication', Justice Pearce went on, ‘of the unfortunate episode back in Bristol. You failed to mention it, but … a night's hard riding, the
opportunity
to catch up with my colleague and good friend, your
own Justice Wheeler, and we turned that nasty business up, too. To be first on the scene of one violent death in a week is unfortunate, but two …'

Pearce, his cheeks puffed taut, breathed out through tight lips in wonderment. There was something about the man, his taunting way. I'd never seen a face at once so benign and yet so inviting to punch.

‘And the connections, once probed, have just grown stronger!' he marvelled. ‘I'll be honest in admitting I don't quite understand your own involvement in this matter, Mr Bright,
yet
, but your friend here has been cooped up in a leaky ship for nigh on two years with
both
victims! Taking orders from one, and at the other's ministering mercy. If I can't find a malicious motive, a reason to exact horrible revenge and so forth, in all of that time at sea, well I don't deserve this rewarding job, do I?'

The Justice cracked a knuckle, then another, complacent as a man popping drumsticks from a roasted chicken.

‘The long and the short of it is that we need to take this fellow', he cocked his thumb at Blue, ‘for questioning.'

Behind him, the man with the beard yawned. Framed by the black mass of his bristles, the inside of his mouth appeared a shocking blood-red. He huffed hard enough to flex the thick stave he was leaning upon, grinding its end into the packed dust of the floor.

‘Inigo.' Blue's voice was low as a priest's. ‘You need to –'

‘Mr Bright needs to wait here patiently until we find a reason to let him go,' Pearce said gently, motioning at the beard to take hold of Blue.

‘The ship, Inigo,' Blue continued in a murmur. ‘The
cargo.' The bearded guard, stave across his chest, had advanced towards the sailor, who showed his palms peaceably as, eyes on me, he allowed himself to be backed from the room. ‘The cargo,' Blue repeated. ‘That's the root of this.' He paused in the doorway. ‘And not just on the outward leg. There was a
grudge
in the hold coming home, too.'

Being incarcerated alone was much worse than my time locked up with Blue. The waking sleep I'd managed when he'd been alongside me did not return after Pearce took him away. Now the darkness was of such an intensity that it made my eyes ache, so I sat in the corner and kept them shut and listened for the church bells, hoping their occasional chiming would pull me through the night. But there was scant comfort to be had there: even straining, I could barely make out the bells' distant clamour; some shift in the atmosphere outside had robbed them of their last resonance, so that their striking was that of a muffled pianoforte key tapped at a great distance.

Why hadn't Blue remonstrated with the Justice? He'd said nothing to defend himself. Where had he been when we split up to locate the Doctor? Did I imagine the disturbance upstairs on our joint arrival? Had he planted the seed of it as we stood on the stoop? Why hadn't he told me of the
Belsize
's dirty slaving secret upon our discovering Addison? If there'd been a crime against
his kind
did it not make sense, as Justice Pearce had unknowingly suggested, that Blue himself may have sought to right the wrong he'd unwittingly helped perpetrate?

No, no, no. I would not fall prey to the inevitable prejudice against the man. We'd spilt blood together. I'm a good enough judge of character, and the sailor was no murderer. His
composure, the very set of his spine, told me enough to know that …

I was staring blindly at the coal-smoke darkness again, and my eyes were stinging. There was a clue in all this blackness. The illegal transportation of Negroes, the polished onyx of Blue's knuckles, and … and … the blackamoor-woman's corpse, the purported suicide discovered by young Kitty and her enterprising brother. But there was something else as well. I reached for it tentatively, a tongue probing the memory of a toothache, and found it, a gap between rotten molars. The first corpse, the one discovered by the workman, Ivan Brook.
Charred
, the report in Felix Farley had read. It was alleged he'd burnt his victim beyond identification. A burned corpse: black.

Dawn does not break. Like scum pushed into the river's gullet by the incoming tide, oily with advancing wavelets, it creeps up gradually. My panic was likewise incremental; by the time my hand cast a shadow on the wall I was sick with it, fearful for my very life. In this day and age, no matter what stock you come from, custody is a limbo from which prisoners are wont to … disappear.

Even so, the first thing I felt, later that morning, on hearing my father's voice echoing in the hallway, could best be described as amazed anxiety rather than relief. What was he doing here? I hauled myself from the floor, shook the woodenness from my limbs, dusted myself down. I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, but there was no hint of anger in his tone. If anything, it sounded like levity. After a pause, the lock's innards rolled over themselves again and Justice Pearce stood in the doorway. He beamed at me. What
was left of his hair he had greased with pomade this morning, and he smelled of bacon.

‘Well, Mr Bright, I can't say I was expecting cavalry of this sort to ride to your rescue, you admitting to lawyering pretensions and so on, but there we have it. Argumentation I could have withstood, but Papa has come with the best sort of help. Altogether more persuasive! He's put up the surety we require to let you go free for the time being. Lucky you, your father is a generous man.'

He led me through to the front of the house. The place appeared much less austere, comfortable almost, in reverse. Potted geraniums stood on a windowsill in the hallway, and I saw a pair of curtains held back with ribbons. An image of Lilly's hair, burnished with sunlight, flashed before me, immediately followed by the thought of Mary's naked waist solid between my hands, and the resulting shudder of guilt rendered me still less prepared to stand before my father.

But there he was, leaning on his stick, his back to the doorway he must have known I would come through. He turned upon hearing us, finished picking at a tooth with his free hand, inspected whatever it was he had freed from it, then wiped his fingers upon his breeches and summoned a smile.

‘What's wrong with drunk and disorderly, Inigo? A bit of boisterousness. Some breaching of the peace. I'd prepared myself long ago to retrieve one of you – though if forced to guess, I'd have plumped for John – from a night in the cells!'

‘Is Sebastian with you?'

‘But this, this, is altogether less seemly. I don't doubt but there's a perfectly sensible explanation for your involvement.'
Here he shot Pearce a look from eyes sunk deep beneath the rock-face of his brow. ‘And yet it still won't do. You shouldn't have allowed yourself to become mixed up in business of this nature at all. As I was explaining to the Justice here, one would have expected a member of your profession to be altogether more … circumspect.'

He marvelled at me. His journey had raised the weather in his cheeks. It was as if he had returned from a day's hunting to find me – still a boy – caught by in the act of stealing a rock-cake.

‘Sebastian was indisposed. Fortunately for you, he passed on your … request for help.'

‘I did not want to trouble you.'

‘No, no. I don't doubt it.'

‘But my friend.' (The word had a juvenile overtone – yet neither
accomplice
nor
colleague
would do instead.) ‘Joseph Blue. Also wrongly – mistakenly accused. Justice Pearce has explained our mutual involvement, yes? You've persuaded him to release Mr Blue, too?'

My father picked his teeth again while Pearce tugged at his lapels, puffed up with more punchable self-satisfaction.

‘Give a starving man a loaf and you expect a “thank you,” Inigo. Not: “I want two.”'

‘The fact is, Mr Bright,' Pearce told me pleasantly, ‘I've already got shot of the Negro. He's on his way back to Bristol, headed for the embrace of your own Justice Wheeler. Our murder here has convinced him to take a closer look at Mr Blue's last encounter with his dead Captain. Anderson, was it?' Here, he tapped his nose. ‘My counsel would be to put a bit of clear water between yourself and that black. I don't
know where you found him, but he's in a world of trouble now and', he glanced at my father, ‘I'd hate his guilt to rub off on you, by association.'

‘Is this some form of joke?' I began, and the heat rising in my chest broke from me in a snort of laughter. But as I opened my mouth to continue, my father cut me off in the voice he uses for commanding the dogs. ‘Enough!' Instantly, he snapped back into feigned good humour. ‘Let us be on our way before the good Justice here suffers a change of heart.'

The two of them exchanged a nodding smile. They even had the same metal-heeled walk: a gunshot tattoo accompanied our progress across the flagstone hall.

My father had brought his own carriage. It stood spattered to the door handles with grey mud. Never mind the horses, Webb, at the reins, looked exhausted; they'd obviously set off early and ridden hard. Even so, the coachman managed to wink at me as I climbed into my seat. I'd overdone a night out, he seemed to think, warranting a sort of patronising respect rather than admonishment.

We wound out of Bath's prissy heart and picked up the Bristol road. To begin with, I was too angry to speak. But I was also exhausted, and the rutted road shook the heat from me by increments, leaving me hollowed out. It had been raining overnight. The ploughed landscape we rattled through was cut with black waves. They smelled of wet canvas and rotting timbers … and … it was everywhere, the damned ship, even the inevitable screech of gulls slashing low over the furrows reminded me of the horrible thing.

‘You know what the
Belsize
was trading, don't you?'

My father had been feigning sleep. Now he opened his eyes. ‘What's that?'

‘You know what your ship carried to the Indies?'

‘
My
ship?'

‘The
Belsize
.'

‘We haven't owned ships for ten years, Inigo. You know that. We take a stake in voyages, we invest.'

‘It amounts to the same thing. You knew what you were taking a stake in.'

‘The same thing? There's a world of difference between owning your own fleet and backing individual ships. Responsibility, for one. And authority over proceedings. Manning the ship, etcetera.'

‘The ship carried slaves.'

‘And then there's the share on return an investor can expect. Less risk than an owner, but less profit, as you understand.'

‘Somebody is killing people to keep the secret. Those who knew. The ship's surgeon. Its captain.'

My father blinked at me incredulously. ‘Killing people? Because of a … trade infringement? That sounds far-fetched.'

‘But that's what this is about. Murder. You saved me from being accused of it outright myself, though it seems the sailor Blue now stands charged alone in my stead.'

‘Slaves, you say? On the
Belsize
?' Again he shook his head.

‘You expect me to believe you didn't know?'

‘Indeed I did not know! If I'd suspected such a plan was afoot I'd have objected to it on any number of grounds. You'll recall our firm was one of the first out of the trade. It's no longer profitable. Liverpool has had the edge on us in that respect for donkey's years.'

‘And yet you invested in it.'

‘Inigo. I can't blame you. The nature of our business is still clearly … opaque to you. So let me spell it out. My share in the Western Trading Company venture is slim. It is but one of Bright & Co.'s concerns. And we're only involved as a means of
minimising
our exposure to risk. The WTC takes stakes in trading vessels. It had but a proportionate say in the
running of that ship. If what you are saying is true – and let's for a moment assume that it is – then the brute fact that I was unaware of it remains unaltered. I'm as astonished – as
exercised
indeed – as the next man to hear of this.'

More furrows jolted past, compressed beneath empty sky.

‘Mr Carthy has gone,' I stated.

‘Gone where?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Well, I'm sure he'll pitch up again soon enough.' My father ran his thumbnail between his two front teeth.

‘He has been abducted. There was a note.'

He picked at his teeth again and narrowed his eyes in puzzlement. ‘A note from whom?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You're sure it isn't some sort of a hoax? You know how fond that man is of a practical joke.'

I watched him carefully and did not reply.

‘It's his method, isn't it? To launch you into deep water and watch your progress from the safety of the shore.'

Again I said nothing, but my silence spoke loudly enough.

‘Abducted, you say. Goodness.'

The coach hit a vicious rut and we were both jerked from our seats. My father hit his elbow upon the woodwork. He rubbed at the hurt after we had gathered ourselves up and something about the gesture made him look frail and fallible all of a sudden. He had been up all night. He had journeyed to Bath and done whatever it took to ensure my freedom. I had not offered him a word of thanks.

The irrationality of my indisposition towards him struck me full in the face then. What had he ever done to deserve it?
Despite the difficulty of losing my mother, he had raised me, creating a new family for us both, and allowing me alone to do as I please. John and Sebastian were circumscribed by their duty to the business, yet when I'd objected to becoming involved, Father had paid Carthy to take me on. When I'd announced my marriage plans, he'd offered to help with the wedding. I was still welcome at his table, in line to inherit a share of his wealth, and as soon as he'd heard I was in trouble, he'd dropped everything to rescue me. I'd cooked up my consternation at his involvement with the Western Trading Company out of what? Figures on a balance sheet. Yet he'd been the investor conscientious enough to rectify shortfalls in the Company's payments of duties. Even if he had known of the slaving, it meant little: there had been nothing illegal about it until recently; he had been raised on the trade; I could hardly blame him for failing to blanch at the news that he had been an unwitting partner in so novel a crime. And, in any event, I had seen nothing – either on the file or in his face – to suggest that he did know anything was afoot with the
Belsize
.

In fact, Blue aside, the only person who expressed concerns about the ship was Carthy, and he'd been altogether
unforthcoming
about what exactly his concerns were. Somebody had got wind of our work for the Dock Company, and that
somebody
evidently objected to our involvement, but beyond that I knew nothing of the details. Like the screech and grind of the carriage – its axles were in need of grease – it was all just so much noise.

‘Might Mr Carthy's absence have to do with the recent news story? Bullivant's complaint and so forth.'

I shook my head, and yet … could I be sure? The handwriting on the notes had appeared similar, but … the carriage bucked and slewed again, jostling the two of us together, and beyond the certainty of that collision, shoulder to shoulder with my father, at once bruising and reassuringly solid, I knew nothing in that instant,
nothing
.

I swallowed. My Adam's apple worked thick in my throat. I turned away.

‘Son,' said my father. Perhaps the physical contact broke down a barrier within him, too; I'm not sure. But as I watched the hedgerow jag past I felt his hand upon my shoulder again. It slid round to squeeze the back of my neck, and he bent his face towards the side of my head so that I could feel his breath, warm upon my cheek.

‘You need a haircut.'