The Devil's Ribbon (17 page)

A sharp knock at the door interrupted.

Mr Tescalini was standing under the lintel, holding a scroll of paper and panting a little in the heat accompanied by words in rapid Italian, interspersed with something unintelligible about the back of a filing cabinet, but before he could finish with his broken English, the Inspector lurched forward, grabbed the scroll, and shot a look at Hatton. ‘I knew it. Here, what did I tell you, Hatton? Read it, and for good measure take note of the signatures at the bottom left-hand corner.’

The room melted to nothing, just a ticking of a wall clock, the scurry of mice, the odd drop of blood – drip, drip, drip like an overflowing bath – into a brand new tin bucket, as Hatton read:

Grey for once slapped his own thigh. ‘Bullseye! Hecker bought land from McCarthy and just look at the fucking price. Fifty damn guineas for a huge swathe of coastland. Maybe he’d plans to build there. A mill perhaps, or even a dock? Wish I’d known at the time because they practically gave it away, and see the name of the signatory witness?
Pomeroy
. But why was he there? And witness to a sale? He was just a chef, goddammit.’

Hatton paced the room, muddled thoughts in his head, suddenly translucent. ‘Chefs helped the government, didn’t they? You said so when we went to White Lodge.’

The inspector gave a sharp nod.

‘And Pomeroy cooked for Charles Trevelyan, who ran the overall emergency feeding programme?’

A purse of the lips this time. The inspector’s eyes became slits as he looked at Hatton, concentrating on every word said.

Hatton carried on, ‘We know Gabriel McCarthy was responsible for the tenants of Ardara, for their welfare during the famine. So it’s conceivable that Pomeroy, encouraged by Trevelyan, volunteered to go the worst-affected area. Or perhaps just went to a place he’d already heard of, because his friend, Mr Hecker, had interests out there. Maybe Pomeroy specifically requested to be stationed near a friend, so he didn’t feel too out of his depth. It would have been difficult work, shocking even, and he was a foreigner in a strange land, so that connection makes sense to me. Although I didn’t know the British ever reached Ardara and the West. I thought the Board of Works was in Dublin and thereabouts, and that the West had to fend for itself.’

‘The roads were terrible that far west, barely there at all, but I think
you could be right, you know, Hatton. Either way, one thing’s settled.’

‘They all knew each other,’ added Roumande. ‘Apart from the gombeen man, that is.’

‘But he lived there, didn’t he? He came from Ardara so he’s connected too,’ said Hatton, as he wandered over to his desk and took his favourite chisel blade out from a drawer, thinking Sorcha must have been, what in ’47? A young girl with a curious mind and a foreigner in that remote part of Ireland would have been a source of wonderment, surely? Or idle gossip, certainly. He would ask her what she knew and he would seek her out tonight. Alone.

‘Yes, they all knew each other, or as far as Mahoney’s concerned, knew this place, Ardara,’ continued Grey. ‘And there’s an outside chance that Pomeroy could still be alive. There’s no ransom note, as I’ve already said, but perhaps they’re just waiting for tomorrow, God help the man. It’s odd, though, if I’m right about Pomeroy, that they should take a Frenchman of all people, because your two nations are as thick as thieves, aren’t they, Roumande? What with the papist thing and your mutual hatred of the British? The French have always supported the Irish and their rebellious ways.’

Roumande smiled. ‘The Wexford Rebellion was sixty years ago, Inspector. And the English crushed both forces. France has enough on her hands these days without involving herself in Ireland any more. I think that’s a leap too far, Inspector.’

Grey’s whole body seemed to tighten, as he said, ‘Not for the likes of Benjamin Disraeli, that Jew, it isn’t. As a race, of course, they’re obsessed with conspiracy. He sees it in everything. You should hear Disraeli in the House and his boss, our prime minister, Lord Stanley – who’s just
the same. Since the Sepoy Mutiny in India, they’re both obsessed with the idea that there’s a secret organization trying to topple the British government and destroy its hold on the colonies.’

Roumande laughed out loud this time. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day …’

Grey’s voice was strained. ‘Is it? Is it really, monsieur? Well, now that Mr Hecker’s dead, these are the men I must answer to. My masters. The leader of the House, a paranoid Jew, and the PM, a blustering, pony-riding Tory. But one day things might be a little bit different, when I get my way, when I reach commissioner and …’ Grey seemed to lose his train of thought, as he looked away for a split second, but then he gathered himself. ‘But back to the facts, gentlemen. Customers the length and breadth of England bought Pomeroy’s recipe cards. We need to look beyond the city. Someone must have seen something.’

‘Don’t forget the hops we found, Inspector. They might offer us a clue. Narrow the search, a bit,’ offered Roumande.

‘You’re right, monsieur,’ said Grey who turned to Tescalini with, ‘Go to Greenwich, immediately. We found some hops beside the millstone and the hop fields of Kent lay south of the marshes. Find out if any of these men were seen anywhere in the area. And if they were, what they were bloody well doing there.
Veloce
!’

‘
Ma non posso camminare veloce alla mia età, ispettore. Mi farete venire un infarto
.’

‘But that’s precisely why I have bought you the Penny Farthing. To trim you down a little. To sort your fine figure of a figure out. What, still here? What are you waiting for, man?

‘So,’ said the Inspector, turning back to Hatton and Roumande.
‘Speaking of clues, back to the corpse. There is so little left of Mr Hecker, but can these lumps of gristle tell us something? Anything, Professor?’

Hatton looked at the main dissection slab and begged the Inspector and the Italian, who hadn’t yet left, to move a little to the right, so he could get on with the next stage of their work. Even without policemen under his feet, the mortuary was a cramped place at the best of times.

‘Perhaps
someone
can find me a little morphine, while you get on with your cutting,’ sighed Grey, who, having roused himself briefly, seemed utterly drained again.

Despite the need for the two men to work together for the sake of the case, Hatton hadn’t forgiven the man for his appalling behaviour at the factory, and if truth were known, he didn’t really care what the Inspector did or didn’t do. He could, for all Hatton cared, drown himself in laudanum. And to make the point, he told Grey, ‘Be my guest … help yourself,’ pointing over to a large, industrial-sized bottle, thinking, anything to ameliorate this dreadful man.

Hatton dug into what was left of Mr Hecker as the Inspector kept talking, between copious swigs. ‘But not a word about the ribbons to the press. It would simply help the Fenians. They’re raising money in America, getting organised, using sophisticated methods to break the Union and force repeal. Disraeli could be right. This could be the Sepoy Mutiny all over again, but this time not in India but Ireland – a mere spit away. Am I making myself clear?’

‘Crystal,’ said Hatton as he tried to concentrate on what was left of a liver, knowing Mr Hecker must surely have been drugged to get him onto the millstone, but also that an opiate like laudanum was practically tasteless. And just like the others, Mr Hecker had a visitor before his
demise. There had been two crystal glasses on Mr Hecker’s desk. The Zeiss would show up any grams of opium and Hatton could use his favoured method of separation – the Metzger Mirror. Roumande stood quietly next to the Professor, as he carried on dissecting.

‘So much blood, Albert,’ said Hatton, turning to his friend. ‘And yet not a single footstep near the mill or by the river? Whoever did this knows something of my work. The man wasn’t cracked on the back of the head and dumped straight into the water to disappear downstream, which would have been the obvious thing. Instead, he was put on display and, I feel sure, there’s something we’re not yet seeing.’

‘Very well, but what?’ asked the Inspector, knocking back the bottle of laudanum. ‘Perhaps forensics will tell us? Either way, may I ask when you’ve finished to bag up Mr Hecker, as best you can, and put him in one of your ebony caskets. The Yard will pay. It’s the very least we can do because he was’ – swig – ‘quite simply like his flour,
Britain at its Finest
.’

Hatton was cutting, not listening as the Inspector slurred, ‘Those fucking Tories at The Carlton might look down their noses at the likes of … but they’re … half … yes, half … the man … he was.’

The laudanum was taking effect, because the Inspector began to sway and sniff a little. ‘I had humble beginnings myself, you know. My mother was a washerwoman, my father was a lay preacher, near the docks in Barry. A slice of toke, a cube of lard, a singular currant, and nothing else, only prayer to keep us going.’ Swig. ‘He was a violent man … but it was only a scarf … my mother’s scarf … but it was the rouge what done it … a regular beating, he gave me, but I’ll hunt these killers down …’ He wrung his hands. ‘Make no mistake about it …’

Hatton was thinking he should have checked the bottle. The solution was clearly too strong. The inspector was suddenly overcome and buried his head in his hands, sobbing about ‘That brute of a man.’ Hatton sighed, picked up his dissection knife and started cutting muscle, separating sinew, but then put the knife back down again as the sobbing got louder.

‘It’s been a long day, Inspector,’ said Hatton.

‘Quite so, Professor,’ answered Grey, who immediately seemed to recover himself, and after peering briefly at the autopsy notes, jumped up and said he really must be going, that he had other business to attend to,
police business
. ‘It’s my belief they’ve got poor Monsieur Pomeroy prisoner somewhere, if he’s still alive, that is. And I have my own tried and tested ways of securing information. But do you mind if I take the bottle?’

Hatton shook his head, gesturing for the opium back. ‘You’ve had quite enough, already.’ And taking a wild guess where the Inspector was likely heading, high on laudanum. To a prison cell, most likely, which would probably hold Seamus O’Reilly, if he was still alive. But there was nothing else he could do for the factory steward, damned already.

The inspector gone, he washed himself down and dressed in a new white shirt and the cleanest of breeches, a bitter taste in his mouth. He sat on his chair by the unlit grate and thought of Sorcha. She seemed so afraid of something. And now another man was dead. Did the widow have reason to fear for her life? In the celadon drawing room she’d said that death stalked her, that death stalked all of them. But what was Hatton thinking? He had no hold on her.

‘Shall I finish up here for you, Adolphus?’ Roumande pulled up another chair beside him.

‘Finish up? I don’t see why not. And Hecker must have died last night and not this morning when the riot took place. A crime like this could only have been carried out under cover of darkness. That could be important when the case comes to trial, especially if Grey remains hell-bent on pinning the murders on anyone who seems to fit the bill, even if they’re innocent.’

‘What do you mean, Adolphus?’

‘I found that poor man, crawling along the lane from the factory gates. I did what I could to save his life, but what’s the point? If they’re holding him at The Yard by now, Inspector Grey will force a confession, evidence or not. But Hecker died last night. He was working late, perhaps? Or meeting someone? There were two glasses on his desk, do you remember?’

Roumande nodded yes, he remembered.

‘And O’Reilly and the others stormed the factory this morning, because they thought Mr Hecker was still alive. Otherwise, what was the point of a riot?’ Hatton paused and then said, ‘I should go after the Inspector, shouldn’t I?’

‘By your estimation,’ said Roumande, ‘this factory steward is entirely innocent of murder, and you know what they’re like at The Yard. The steward is Irish, an agitator, and once in a cell, he’s as good as hanged. One of us needs to go after the Inspector. We might save O’Reilly’s life.’

Hatton didn’t answer but rushed along the hospital corridors, but by the time he reached the wrought-iron gate the Inspector was already gone. He looked at his pocket watch. Time was pressing. The sun would be setting in three hours and the morgue would already be thick with shifting shadows, making dissection work more difficult, less exacting. He grabbed one of the hospital beadles and, giving him a crown, begged him to take a message to The Yard, quickly scribbling down that Mr
Hecker had almost certainly died last night and therefore, O’Reilly couldn’t be the killer. That the case continued and if the Inspector needed to speak with him, he’d be at the morgue for a little while longer. The beadle spat on the coin and shook Hatton’s hand, taking the note and saying, ‘Leave it to me, Professor. I won’t let you down.’

Hatton returned to the morgue, where Roumande and Patrice were busy on the other side of the room, taking it in turns to peer down the viewing columns of the Zeiss. ‘Back already?’ asked Roumande.

‘The inspector had already gone. I’ve sent a message with one of our more reliable beadles.’

‘Good,’ said Roumande. ‘Because we’ve got something to show you. While we were at the riot on dockside, I asked Patrice to take a closer look at the skin samples. See what he could see, and report back to me.’

Hatton crossed his arms, slightly disapproving. ‘With no supervision, Albert? Is that entirely wise?’

Roumande shrugged, nonplussed. ‘Learning and erudition, Professor. On the job, as it were? No better way for the lad to get to grips with things, and he’s come up trumps because, although there was nothing more telling on Mr McCarthy’s skin samples, it appears that the gombeen man had a smear.’ Roumande made the sign of the cross. ‘A smear of oil on his forehead.’