The Devil's Mask (21 page)

The wind had risen again. I crossed Queen Square with the plane trees flashing the silvery undersides of their leaves above me, and those the gale had already torn free spinning about my feet. A vaulted cathedral sky ran with towering and prophetic clouds, their edges beginning to pulse sunset purple. Down at the harbour, still jumpy with the combined effect of strong coffee and Edie Dyer, I took stock. The wind was dragging its teeth across the broken surface of the water, jagged and brown. Even this breeze wasn't enough to dispel the stench of bedsores turned green.

Gulls, more gulls, lashed past slantwise. Black-tipped, grey wingbacks, and yet, seen from beneath, streaks of brilliant white.

I could see no alternative, so cut back through town to Stratton Street and hammered on Justice Wheeler's door. There was a glint in his eye when he saw it was me. It suggested that he'd been expecting my visit, looking forward to it even. He ushered me into an office with bare floorboards and whitewashed walls, in which a vast and empty desk confronted four spindly chairs. They looked guilty, rickety with admonishment.

Wheeler made a great show of arranging himself behind that desk and inviting me to sit down as he planted his elbows on the expanse before him. No paper, no inkstand, no quills.
He'd never done a stroke of paperwork in his life, I realised, and I did not know whether to fear that fact or draw strength from it.

‘I've come about Joseph Blue.'

‘Yes,' he said, cracking his meaty fingers.

‘You must release him. He has done nothing wrong.'

‘Hasn't he?' The corners of Wheeler's lips betrayed his impulse to smile.

‘No, he has not. I've explained to you how he discovered Captain Addison's body with me. My word must count for something. As you know I am an officer of the court, here in Bristol. You must heed that!'

He nodded, and somehow his nod managed to convey the exact opposite of agreement. ‘Yes, yes, your word is important. That's why I paid attention to it. You suggested there might be something untoward about Captain Addison's death and I took note of your suspicion. There
was
something rum about it. As there was with the other one, that fellow Doctor Whatsisname, in Bath. And between us, Justice Pearce and myself, we have identified and contained the culprit.'

‘You're not listening. Blue didn't do it. He's as innocent of these crimes as you and me.'

The moment I said this I regretted the opportunity it gave Wheeler to raise an eyebrow and inspect his knuckles. He said nothing for a long while. I'd made his point for him: press the issue and he'd drag me into the fray, too. I looked around the room. There was no filing cabinet. A bookcase in the corner had slumped sideways into obtuse angles, its shelves grey with dust.

‘Please,' I said levelly. ‘There was a note. Purportedly from
Addison, declaring his suicidal intent. I took it from his coat pocket at the scene.'

‘You meddled with the evidence? You're admitting it?'

‘Yes. I thought the note more necessary for our purposes than yours. It purports to be from Addison, his final words.'

‘You're saying it
was
suicide now?'

‘No, no, no. It's complicated. Here.' I took the two pieces of paper from my pocket – the one I'd found on Addison and the one announcing Carthy's abduction – and spread them on the empty desk. ‘My master, Adam Carthy, has been taken for a hostage by the very people who killed Addison. You see? The same hand. Both events have to do with the same case. Whoever attempted to frame Addison for his own murder also stole Mr Carthy away. Blue was with me at Addison's precisely when my master went missing. He's not responsible for either wrong. He cannot be.'

I watched the man's face intently. He glanced at the papers spread out before him, but only fleetingly. His gaze slid sideways away from the evidence as if he were repelled by what he saw. No, not repelled, intimidated. He huffed and stood up and backed away from his desk.

‘I'll have these ditties scrutinised,' he said. ‘But they add nothing. Anyone could have written them. The sailor; your absconding employer; even you! They make no difference to the facts as I see them.'

My mouth tasted brackish. ‘Of course they make a difference,' I said as levelly as I could.

But Wheeler just grinned. ‘No, they don't. For you see, Mr Blue has confessed.'

‘What?'

‘To the murders of his fellow shipmates.' The Justice could not prevent his voice from rising in triumph. ‘He has claimed the deeds as his own!'

‘That's ridiculous. Impossible.'

‘I too serve the court, Mr Bright.' Wheeler ran his fingers across the grain of his jowls, pausing for effect. ‘Does my word not also deserve respect?'

‘Listen. The deaths of Addison and Waring have not occurred in isolation. They are part of something larger, I'm sure of it. The other bodies, recently reported, of the women – found in Clifton, on mudflats in the gorge, and at Brandon Hill – were also connected with the ship.'

‘You know this how? Where's your evidence?'

‘They're all black for a start …'

Wheeler shook his head slowly, savouring his
incredulousness
. ‘Two of them were,' he pronounced. ‘Who's to say about the first?'

‘Manacles,' I said. ‘The report mentioned that the first woman was chained foot to foot.'

‘There's no accounting for perversion.'

‘She was trafficked here on the
Belsize
. I know it! The children in Long Ashton said the second woman had been branded. She had the Company's initials burnt into her leg!'

Now the Justice began pacing the width of the room.

‘This has been your game, eh. Tampering with evidence. Spurious private investigations! Well, you've been pissing into a headwind, my boy. Ivan Brook was caught red-handed. The second woman threw herself to her death. And the third froze
or starved or a combination of both. I don't much mind. Whores, no-hopers, vagabonds. Nothing to do with our eminent ship's surgeon and the sea captain.'

‘But the
Belsize
is exactly the connection. The ship!'

Wheeler walked from left to right and back again. He paused by the sagging bookshelves and turned on his metal-tipped heel and stumped back to the other wall, on which there hung a notice board and a length of varnished wood spiked with hooks. The notice board was empty. The hooks were hung with keys. He looked like an actor buying time so as to remember his lines. I had a premonition that he had been speaking words written by another hand, and now found himself having to ad lib. But when he raised his eyes to mine again there was no lack of conviction in them.

‘If these last two women, the ones we know to be Negroes, did have to do with this ship, the one Doctor Waring and Captain Addison arrived on, both those estimable men being now dead, at Mr Blue's hand, and him being a sailor on the ship as well, and a blackamoor to boot, then I'm thinking that
if
their deaths, by which I mean the deaths of these poor women, were in any way untoward, or suspicious, or the result of foul play, then I've probably got the culprit already, as likely as not, walled up next door, wouldn't you say?'

He uncoiled this little speech like a string of Turkish Delight. There was work in the untangling of it, but he derived much satisfaction from the results.

I gripped my head in my hands. ‘No, no, no.'

‘
He confessed!
'

‘There's been some mistake. I was there. You are wrong.'

‘
Wrong
now, am I? “
I did it
,” a man says, and I've somehow got the wrong end of the stick.'

‘This has to do with the ship's owners. Its backers. There were
slaves
on board, don't you see? The ship traded them in the Indies, and brought some back here …'

I fancied I saw the man stiffen at the word
slaves
, but the glitter in his eye was undiminished.

‘And you believe that having gone to all that trouble to bring so valuable – not to mention risky – a cargo to our port, these owners are now summarily killing them.'

‘I –'

He rode straight over me. ‘You come from a trading family yourself, if I'm not mistaken, Mr Bright. So you above most should see that what you're saying is absurd! Your Bristol merchant would sooner … trade his better half, or first born, perhaps … than sell goods at a loss, much less destroy them entirely.'

‘There's a different sort of ruthlessness at work here. They've overreached themselves. The decision – to keep slaving – must have been cooked up two years ago. There were those who said they'd flout the new law then, and they've done it, only now they're scared of the consequences. The public mood has shifted. Punishment for these crimes is real. They're trying to cover the thing up now, and it seems they have the power to do so. First they get to the Dock Company, who suddenly lose interest in chasing their unpaid duties, and then, then they've got to …'

The Justice had stopped walking. He planted his feet, straightened his back, and stuck his fleshy chin out at me. ‘Go on man, say it, I dare you,' he said softly.

But accusing him outright would serve no purpose, so I jinked sideways as convincingly as I could. ‘They have got to Joseph Blue. I'm not sure how, but it's the only satisfactory explanation. If he's saying he's guilty it's at someone else's bidding.'

Wheeler lowered his chin; the udder swell beneath it bulged. ‘If anyone's
got to
anyone in this matter, you might want to pause to consider whether they've done so in your favour. Cry “corruption” and the new broom might sweep you back into the fray. You don't want that. Not with you being so thick with the black during his murdering days. It's hard enough to hold you apart as it is, despite the incentive.'

The rickety seat creaked beneath me as I leaned forward upon it. ‘The sailor was only present at the scene of these crimes because of me,' I said. ‘The victims aside, it's him and Adam Carthy I'm concerned about. Not myself.'

Wheeler allowed himself a smile. ‘Very worthy. But short-sighted, I'm sure.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It's the younger Alexander daughter you've got in your sights, isn't it?'

I felt my hands balling beside my thighs, and I leaned yet further forward on the chair, ready to roll up out of it and take the man by the throat.

‘What of it?'

‘Well.' Wheeler pared some dirt out from under a thumbnail and flicked it to the floor. ‘Heston Alexander is a reasonable man, but I'd vouch he doesn't want himself tainted by these horrible events, even through a potential son-in-law.'

As evenly as I could, I said, ‘Blue is innocent of these murders. If you won't reopen the case, I shall do so my—'

‘Oh … damnation! Give it up. He's
confessed
. If you won't believe me, come next door and you shall hear it from the man himself!'

Wheeler took his keys from their rack on the wall with the self-satisfaction of an orchard keeper picking the year's first apple. He jangled them cheerfully and beckoned me to follow him down the hall. We emerged through an unlocked door at the rear of the house into a cramped courtyard. Above us the sky was the blue-purple of a new bruise; night would soon fall. Three sides of the courtyard held gridiron doors, behind which stood cramped cells. Like the harbour, the courtyard managed to be both open to the weather and infused with a feral smell.

‘Here we are,' said Wheeler. Away from his desk the man was in his element. He selected a key from the bunch and unlocked the nearest door. I flinched upon seeing Blue. The Justice had taken his coat, leaving him in a hutch half open to the elements, its floor a shit-stained mess. He was holding himself awkwardly, as if to protect his midriff from a blow. We regarded one another. He took a breath and said emphatically, ‘Both men deserved their fate.'

‘I'll have you out of here.'

‘But he's admitted it. You just heard him,' crowed Wheeler.

‘He's admitted nothing.'

Blue shrugged. ‘The Captain and Doctor Waring were evil men. It was my duty. I meted out what both –'

‘Enough!' I cut in.

Wheeler laughed. ‘No use shutting the door now, Mr Bright. The savage is out. He has shot his civilised bolt!'

My eyes growing accustomed to the half-light, I saw that Blue's mouth was swollen and split, and that the hand he was cradling to his chest appeared broken, its fingers twisted.

‘What have they done to you?' I asked, but I knew already. The sailor's thumb would have been screwed from its socket to evince this false confession. ‘Evidence got this way will not stand up,' I said.

Wheeler snorted beside me. ‘Is that it? Your best retort?'

‘Nobody will believe he means what he's saying.'

Again the snort. ‘He's standing before you, confessing, and he'll do the same before the magistrate. He's seen the light, haven't you my friend?'

‘I've heard no confession; he has merely –'

‘Then you're deaf as well as blind.'

Wheeler's smirk sat in the middle of his face like a
knife-cut
in a dough-ball. The man's complacency was infuriating. I took a half step backwards and surveyed the courtyard. Only one of the other three stalls stood occupied: an open mouth hung behind the grate to my left, and thick, workingman's fingers curled through its bars: Ivan Brook, no doubt. My own hands itched to make fists of themselves.

‘You should tell him of the developments,' the Justice went on, nodding from me to Blue. ‘The other murders, you know, of his black sisters in town. There might be some more confessing to be done yet!'

I chose my words carefully. ‘Leaving aside Addison and Waring, whose deaths Mr Blue here had nothing to do with, I must concede I was mistaken as regards the suspicious
nature of those other cases, involving the women. You have sound explanations for those deaths, as you say. Mr Blue need not be weighed down further with unfounded accusations.'

‘That's more like it. No sense in complicating things.' The Justice smiled. ‘The paupers are squared away.'

A thought came to me. I said, ‘You have had the bodies buried already, I expect?'

‘Eh? Certainly! The stench in this town works well enough without our leaving dirty corpses laying around to add to it.'

‘Who paid for the burials?'

‘The Venturers, I believe, coughed up to have the unfortunates planted at arm's length. It's not as if the women's nearest and dearest were queuing up for the honour, and the powers that be never miss an opportunity to curry the town's favour on the cheap. A plot costs less than a pint of beer out at Horfield.' Wheeler's smirk split further. ‘The name suits the purpose well enough, don't you think?'

Blue was wavering: I feared his legs would buckle entirely, and reached to steady him, but the Justice stepped between us and pushed Blue away, saying, ‘No hand-holding, unless you want to do it behind the bars!'

I willed Blue to stand up for himself. Together we could overpower this man. But as he slumped to the floor it appeared he had given up. Wheeler scraped the door back into its socket and locked it with a pathetic flourish, before ushering me away.