The Devil's Ribbon (20 page)
‘Tell me about your brother-in-law,’ demanded Hatton, his voice changed as well. Rock hard and jagged edged, which demanded the truth and no more nonsense from either of these women. ‘And where the devil is he anyway? And this, the eve before his brother’s funeral. It’s highly unusual. Shouldn’t he be praying? Dealing with his dead brother’s business, at the very least?’
She slunk against the wall and seemed to grow smaller, as she
whispered, ‘I feared he might have gone to Limehouse today and got himself in trouble. I confess, he keeps bad company, but he’s no murderer, if that’s what you’re thinking. You see this?’ She touched her glittering brooch. ‘My husband was a busy man and I would have spent my days all alone if it wasn’t for Damien. He helped me buy this little thing just a few days ago. How many men would take their sister-in-law shopping, willingly? He arranged the carriage to Regent Street, followed by my favourite, cake and tea at one of the coffeehouses. You do believe me, don’t you? He’s young, fiery, but a good man, a devout Catholic. You must believe me …’
Hatton hung his head, said he must be going, not sure what he thought of these McCarthy people any more. He bid the widow good evening and gave his condolences. She went to speak but he shook his head at her.
No more, nothing more between us, nothing at all, not till this business is finished with
.
She seemed to understand, to read his mind, a private language between them. Bolstered a little by that, he turned his back, saying he would be back tomorrow with the Inspector. And thinking to himself, he was beguiled by her, yes, but not so much he didn’t notice that there were orange petals floating in the lily pond. Marigolds? Celadine? Despite his botanical training, he wasn’t sure about the flowers, not entirely, but he was sure of this. White Lodge was where the murders had begun. And that this brother-in-law kept bad company, but
where
, and more important
who
? Damien McCarthy had openly denied it, but did he know the gombeen man? Was he lying? Jealous? Trying to raise money? Killing off anyone who suspected him of … what? Murder? Double-dealing? Sedition? All of it?
And Sorcha had given herself away on another matter. What sort of husband would let his brother take his wife shopping? Hatton recalled the widow’s words when they first met. She’d said that she had bid her husband good night at eight o’clock, that he was a good man, so much older than she and that he
never disturbed her
. That she
bid him
good night. She
bid
him? Not kissed him? This marriage was barely a marriage at all, he thought. She slept alone.
Breathless, his heart pounding, Damien McCarthy arrived back at the house, raced upstairs, and burst through the door to find Sorcha at her dressing table framed like a picture against a bay window, watching the light melt from an incandescent sky. She spun around but not before he lashed her with Gaelic, then said, ‘Yes, you heard me right. Gabriel will be buried at dawn. And I need you to pack. No questions. Just for once, Sorcha, do as you’re told. There’s a ship sailing tomorrow.’
‘I’m not coming with you, Damien.’
‘You’ll do as I say. Don’t you understand that your life’s not your own and neither is mine. The house, the estate, I’ve inherited everything and a sorry bag of problems it’s turning out to be. I can’t explain everything now, but when we’re back in Ireland, we can talk for as long as you like, forever if you want. That’s up to you.’
‘What choice do I have?’
‘You’ve no money of your own, have you? So how would you live without me? Gabriel’s left you nothing and a ship sails at noon tomorrow for Dublin, so say your farewells if you must, and then, we’re gone.’
So much for
saoirse
, she thought, but after he’d gone, she put her fingers to the tips of her lips, thinking,
Now wait a minute
. She slipped
down the corridor to hear voices downstairs. Damien speaking to Florrie in hushed tones, as she found the key to her husband’s room where she’d left it on the top of the lintel, and with trembling hands turned the lock, thinking,
Don’t make a noise, please, don’t make any sound at all
. The door eased open, silent as death. She shut it behind her, her heart missing a beat, and for a second, listened. Nobody was coming. She sunk to her knees, then flattened herself and slipped under a tester bed. It was dark underneath, but with a gentle pat of her hands, she found the loose plank, lifted it.
Courage is flight, she thought. In her hands a wooden box, and opening the lid, dusty memories – a lucky farthing, a blackbird’s feather, a hand-drawn map for pirate’s treasure, and added to over the years, other little things which her husband had squirrelled away. Sorcha smiled to herself to see a lock of her own black hair. She rummaged until she found what she was looking for. A cheque, for the princely sum of one hundred pounds, signed by Inspector Jeremiah Grey.
She put it to her nose and breathed it in, but it didn’t smell of the blood of Irishmen. It smelt like the end, and the beginning of something. She shot back to her room and, opening the drawer of her dressing table, gazed at an eternity ring, a diamond necklace, a ruby pin for her hair. All still in their box with the labels on –
Dawsons, Purveyor of Fine Jewells and Clocks, The Burlington Arcade
. She made a little calculation before popping them into the jet bag with the gold clasp, adding the cheque and snapping it shut.
Hatton had risen at dawn and arrived at University College a good fifteen minutes early, eager to get on. But it was gone nine o’clock when Roumande finally jumped out of a four-wheel growler on the corner of Fitzroy Street, his hat pushed over his eyes, unshaven, saying, ‘I’m not late, am I?’
Hatton smiled, quickly checking that he had all the right samples in his medical bag. ‘Not much, Albert, and from the look of you, it was a good supper, last night?’
‘Excellent.’ Roumande patted his domelike stomach. ‘But I need to watch my wife’s cooking because, I’m telling you, these breeches barely fit me any more, but yes, much fun was had at Fleur de Lys. Patrice is a very entertaining fellow. He did likenesses of all of us. Look, here’s mine.’
Roumande put his hand in his frock coat pocket, the one with the
patches on, and pulled out a small sheet of paper. ‘Southern born but Parisian trained, eh? Hence that slightly refined accent which we all like to tease him for, but he rustled this one up in less than five minutes. Said when his family’s farm failed, he left Marseilles and headed for Paris and made a little rhino, sketching ships on the Montmartre pavers, courting couples, rich men in top hats, courtesans. Pretty much anyone who’d pay to see what he could do. Look …’
The anatomical detail was incredible. The likeness was a miniature masterpiece of threaded veins, a large Roman nose, the broad face textured with creases, and if the eyes were the window to the soul, Patrice had caught Roumande exactly, because these eyes had spontaneity but at the same time, a permanent, almost geological intensity. These eyes spoke of intelligence and fairness.
And on that note, they reached a door with a brass plaque announcing
Dr Andrew Meadows, BSc, MSc, PhD, Research Fellow, Material Physics and Chemistry, University College,
which swung open of its own accord, as a voice yelled, ‘Shut the door, damn you. Is that you, Professor Hatton? Well, put your hands over your head, whoever you are, count to three and … duckkkkkkk …’
The explosion was more of a pink puff. The friends dived in different directions, Hatton thinking, ‘Mad Meadows’, as they used to call him back in Edinburgh, never changed a jot. Roumande, meanwhile, was on the far side of the laboratory brushing himself down and in a gentle voice saying, ‘Come along now, boys. Calm yourselves. Settle down now.’ Roumande was looking through the bars of a cage and thinking to himself that animals should be petted and loved before they were locked in the dark, to be cut up in the name of science. But Dr Meadows,
being a chemist, had no such views, keeping his laboratory stuffed with doleful-looking puppies, tabby cats, white mice, and, for some inexplicable reason, a couple of scruffy-looking badgers.
‘So,’ said Dr Meadows, smelling strongly of sulphur and slightly frayed around the edges. ‘What can I do for you gentlemen? A chemical puzzle, your apprentice said? That you were planning to bring me a test tube of unidentified glitter? Well?’
Hatton opened his medical bag.
On the table was a portable stove and next to that, an alembic used for separating gas from essential elements. Dr Meadows lit the stove and the two friends watched the silver gas rise and smoke into vapours. ‘I can trap it with this,’ said Meadows, producing a kind of triangular test tube with a stopper, but not before dipping a piece of litmus paper into the right bulb containing the chemical fug, which he then took over to a huge Zeiss microscope, even bigger than the one they had at the morgue.
‘Well, well, well …’ said Dr Meadows. ‘Very interesting.’ The litmus had turned a sapphire blue. ‘One of the chemicals is exactly what you thought it was.’
‘Silver nitrate, Andrew?’
Meadows nodded. ‘An element used for … hmm … all sorts of things – mirrors, leafing, candlestick making, and, watered down, an excellent healing material for sores and open wounds. And photography, of course. Helps get a clearer image, I’m told. The other gas is from nitric acid, used for all sorts, but as a farmer’s son, Adolphus, you should know of course, that landowners add it to …’
‘Manure?’ offered Roumande.
Meadows nodded, displaying a full set of white pearly dentures and
inexplicably pink gums, which were clearly not his own. ‘On the nose, monsieur. No flies on you. Nitric acid makes an excellent fertiliser. Very good for roses, but it’s also used for making gelatine, and widely applied during the process of leather production. There’s also some hydrochloric acid present, and this makes me both nervous and, I admit, a little excited.’
Hatton stepped closer to the elaborate experiment. ‘It’s all highly flammable then, as I suspected?’
Meadows pursed his lips, looked more closely at the litmus paper. ‘Add a few more things and it’s highly explosive. And in the right, or I should say, wrong conditions, this little package could go off any moment, but you need to add a little charcoal and, possibly, some pyroxylin. Oh yes, and a timing mechanism, if you’re not going to blow your own heads off. Where in hell’s name did you get it from?’
Hatton explained.
‘And these murders are connected to Ireland?’ Meadows walked over to a shelf and taking a periodical handed it to Roumande. ‘You should read this, monsieur. It’s an article by another foreigner. A man called Mr Marx, a German, big beard, rather a sour-looking fellow who I occasionally bump into when I work in the museum in Bloomsbury. He says they’re all at it, you know. Well, your lot did it all a while ago.’
‘Our lot did what?’ said Roumande thinking he might take one of those poor little puppies home. He’d ask him in a minute. He’d ask for the smallest, with the saddest eyes.
‘Romanians, Serbians, Ukrainians, Austro Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks. Revolution, monsieur. Public disorder, anarchy using a strategy of organised riots, secret meetings, assignations, handbills, you name it. Oh, and public places are de rigueur among the anarchists at the moment …’
‘De rigueur, for what?’ said Hatton.
Meadows thumped the table. ‘Bomb blasts, gentlemen. Right in the centre of European cities, preferably near to gathering politicians, popular restaurants, opera houses, or, even better, the moneyed and the bewildered.’
‘The bewildered? Can you be more specific, Andrew? You see, we don’t have much time. Today is Drogheda and the Inspector on the case has spoken of some kind of crescendo, which is likely to happen any minute now. And if you’re right about this glitter, and the Fenians have a bomb, we need to find it. But think, Andrew, where the devil would they plant it? London’s full of eateries, penny gaff shows, and what do you mean by the bewildered?’
Meadows laughed. ‘Thus speaks the confirmed bachelor, but monsieur,’ he said, turning to Roumande, ‘I see you wear a wedding ring, so I’ll ask you a simple question, if I may? What does your wife like to do above all else in the world?’
Roumande scratched his chin. ‘She likes to visit the markets of Spitalfields, of course. Meet other women there for idle chat. Perhaps buy some fruit, a posy for her hair …’
‘Exactly. The gentler sex love nothing better than going from place to place for no particular reason at all, other than the pursuit of silk, hankies, gossip, haber-bleeding-dasheries. Shopping, Adolphus, shopping …’
Hatton looked at his pocket watch. The shops opened in less than half an hour.
At Scotland Yard, the two men raced to the detective’s room, one with a puppy under his arm wagging its tail furiously, only to be instantly sent on to another room up a winding, mahogany stairwell. Hatton
knocked, catching sight of a distorted image of himself reflected back in a highly polished plate which had the word
Library
etched upon it.
‘
Si, si. Entrare
…’
Mr Tescalini was sitting on the edge of a chaise longue with his legs splayed, surrounded by books. The huge room had a wonderful view of St James’s Park, dappled in sunlight. Tescalini grunted, putting his copy of
Volume Three: Procedures for Interrogating Suspects, Metropolitan Police Force, 1857
out of the way.
‘Where’s your boss?’
‘
Per favore, ripeti?
’
‘Your boss?’
‘
Per favore?
’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake. What’s the matter? You normally understand us, even if you can’t speak …’
Roumande, being a little more patient, interjected, ‘Let me try, Professor,’ and taking a pen, drew a rather bad impression of a foppish-looking detective with a pencil-thin moustache, to which Mr Tescalini slapped the middle of his forehead.
‘
È uscito a fare la spesa
.’
The two men then spoke rapidly in half French, half Italian accompanied by what looked like a particularly exuberant game of charades, which seemed to involve the puppy and a number of clocks, which were peppered around the library.
‘A watchmaker in Regent Street, is that right? To get his timer fixed?’
‘
Si, si
.’
Enough said.
The puppy left behind, the two men ran across the grass of St James’s, past the curving lake and basking pelicans till they reached the Eastern Gate of Green Park. Up ahead, a shopper’s paradise of Piccadilly Circus, Regent’s Street, Mayfair, The Burlington Arcade. ‘Does Grey know something already? Perhaps that’s why he’s come here and it’s nothing to do with his watch. If you were a bomber, of all the places in London, where would you choose, Albert?’
Roumande looked around frantically for a clue, any kind of clue, as Hatton seemed hamstrung for a second, not knowing which way to go, surrounded by costers yelling, hawkers selling, dogs pissing up lamp posts, paper boys screaming in the super-heated air, ‘Fifteen dead. Death toll rising in Limehouse … read all about it … read all about it …’ and suddenly looking up, to see – ahead of him – a massive sign above a dome of glittering glass that must have been what, fifteen feet across:
London’s Finest Shopping at the Burlington Arcade: No whistling, no singing, no playing of musical instruments, no running, no carrying of large parcels, no opening of umbrellas, and strictly no entry for baby’s prams
.
Something told Hatton, deep in his gut, that this could be the place, and that if Damien McCarthy was involved, wouldn’t he have to be here somewhere? But Hatton knew he’d be at his brother’s funeral, four miles away on Highgate Hill.
‘Mind where you go, damn you,’ he said crossly as two men – banking types – rushed past, practically knocking him sideways, and then, recovering his balance, Hatton said, ‘You go around the back, Albert. The other entrance is just up here.’ The two friends shook hands, split up, ran. Then Hatton remembered what the widow had
said to him last night in the garden. Damien McCarthy had brought her here, just days ago.
Hatton ran into the Burlington Arcade thinking left or right? But then he spotted it. A watch shop with a huge queue outside. He could hear his own footsteps as he started to run towards it.
‘Oi you, in the derby? Yes you, sir. Stop, I say. No running in here—’
But Hatton kept going, pushing through the crowds, past a small boy, a fine lady in Indian silk, a gaggle of girls admiring a window display of hats, and he could see towards the back of the Arcade, in a watch shop called Dawson’s – like a miracle – the Inspector through the glass, mouthing something to a horologist.
Inspector Grey was gesticulating wildly, blocking his view, but Hatton could just catch sight, behind the Inspector, of another he knew – an iridescent hand, tipped with black lace, and beside her on a counter, a little jet bag which was open, with a myriad of precious jewels spilling out.
Had they arranged this? Were they meeting each other here, and if so,
why
? The inspector seemed to be leaning towards her, having some kind of argument. Was it an argument? Was she simply speaking? Or weeping? Was Grey, in fact, comforting her? Hatton couldn’t tell, breathless and pressing his face against the window. No time to hesitate. He pushed through the crowd. ‘Get out of my way!’ as the pinging began with a window display of one clock chasing another clock – a terrible reverberating sound. It was almost ten o’clock, as the widow turned around, a smile on her face. ‘Adolphus? What are you doing here?’
The inspector was holding up a watch chain. ‘Damn good job, Mr Dawson. Ten and six, did you say?’ Then he turned and said, ‘Hatton? What the devil?’
Boom, boom, boom went the grandfather clock behind Hatton. One thought in his head.
Get them out. Get them out – right now.
Hatton grabbed the Inspector, who was nearest, first and pushed him through the door, yelling at the heaving crowd to run, and was about to turn around and grab Sorcha, to pull her away from the shop, his fingers just reaching hers, the look on her face, a smile morphing into fear, fingertips, so close, so near.
A vortex of molten air, as he felt himself being pulled back by a whirling sound, a incredible roar, the sky suddenly upside down, Hatton flying through white light against another noise, so low it shook the bowels of the earth, and then muffled screams, blackness, glass shattering. Hatton crashed to the ground, his heart pumping a thousand beats a minute, thinking,
Sorcha, please God, no.
He crawled, dragging himself to see – two feet away – Grey, lying in a pool of blood, charred flesh, brittle bone.