The Last Days (24 page)

Eventually Pyke found his way to the main office, where the mill owner, John Arnold, was waiting for him. Pyke had arranged the meeting by correspondence, prior to his departure from Liverpool. In his introductory letter, he had claimed to be the son of a Lancastrian mill owner who was to embark on a fact-finding tour of linen and cotton mills in Ulster and who was particularly interested in those mills that had recently been adapted to the wet-spinning of flax.

Arnold was a younger man than Pyke had been expecting, no more than forty years of age. He cut an ungainly figure, with large jug-like ears and a thick wall of black hair which had been cut into the shape of a pudding bowl. On first impression, he seemed like the kind of man who had once been bullied, but then Pyke noticed his cold, symmetrical face, his wax-like skin and his studied gaze, and understood that this was a man who was comfortable with violence. Pyke took against him immediately and reluctantly consented to a tour of the factory during which Arnold wasted no opportunity to laud his own achievements and business acumen.

Throughout this drawn-out introduction to the intricacies of wet-spinning flax, Pyke had thought about getting straight to the point and asking Arnold whether he knew where Davy Magennis was hiding, but he managed to bite his tongue and limit himself to an apparently innocuous question about the employment of Roman Catholics in the mill.

For a moment, it was as though he had unbuttoned his fly and urinated on the floor. Arnold’s stare suggested incomprehension as well as revulsion.

‘Are you a card player, Mr Hawkes?’ This was the name Pyke had given himself.

Pyke shrugged.

‘Perhaps we could continue this conversation later, in more . . . relaxed surroundings.’ Arnold grinned, as though pleased with something he had said. ‘There’s a card game, takes place tomorrow night in a gentleman’s club called the Royal on the south side of Smithfield.’ He was about to dismiss Pyke but instead focused on his unprepossessing attire and started to frown. ‘It’s just a silly wee game, nothing fancy, you’ll understand, but, if I were you, I’d think about wearing an outfit that better suited your rank and station.’

Without another word, he left Pyke to ponder the implications of his parting remark.

 

Entering his room, Pyke was greeted by the sight of a young woman standing over the bedside table, carefully inspecting his gold fob-watch. More surprising, for Pyke, was the fact that she displayed no embarrassment at being caught. When she finally turned to acknowledge him, still holding the fob-watch, he saw that she was quite attractive: mid-twenties, with a firm, almost plump figure, thick coal-black hair that flowed down her back practically as far as her waist, and the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen. She wore a simple white cotton dress and plain black shoes.

‘Lookit,’ she said, holding up the watch. ‘Make no mistake, mister, you’ve been cheated.’ Her accent was softer than many he had heard, but it still had a vaguely unappealing twang.

‘And you were going to do me the favour of taking the watch away, I suppose?’

‘Why in the Lord’s name would I want a cheap old watch?’ She studied him warily for a moment. ‘Come to think of it, what are ye doing with a cheap old watch?’

‘Maybe I like cheap old watches,’ he said, amused now it was clear she wasn’t a threat.

‘What? Ye just playin’ at bein’ rich?’ She paused for a moment and looked him over. ‘That could be it, because ye don’t look too comfortable in your new clothes. And if ye were rich, ye wouldn’t be stayin’ in a boggin’ room like this.’ She looked around the room, shaking her head.

‘How do you know they’re new?’ He’d purchased shirt and jacket from a gentlemen’s outfitters on Castle Place.

She shrugged, as though the answer was obvious. ‘Why else would ye be scratchin’ yourself under the collar like you got the fleas?’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Cleaning the room, what does it look like?’ She raised her eyebrows and then nodded, as though coming to some kind of realisation. ‘I was thinkin’ ye travelled awful light for a gentl’man. No clothes to speak of, no servants. Still, ye hide your money well. Friend of mine, works in the new bank in Castle Place, happened to mention a fellow fitting your description changed up twenty pound the other day.’

‘Maybe I should go to the bank right now and have it out with your friend,’ Pyke said, still sizing her up.

‘And what would ye want to go and do a thing like that for? Getting poor hard-working folk into trouble,’ she said, finally putting the watch back on the dresser. ‘Now, back to what I was sayin’. Your money’s not in the room which means you’re carrying it around with ye.’ She smiled, disarmingly. ‘Am I right?’

‘If you were, would I tell you?’

‘Walkin’ the streets with a whole pile of money? Tell me one gentl’man who’d be stupid enough to do that.’ She laughed at her own joke. ‘Then again, tell me one gentl’man who’d willingly stay in a dump like this.’ Then she was offering him her hand. ‘Name’s Megan, nice to make your acquaintance.’

Pyke took it, surprised at the firmness of her shake, and said, ‘Francis Hawkes.’

‘So what brings ye to our fair town, Mr Hawkes? And don’t be tellin’ me you’re here to see the marchin’.’

‘I take it you don’t approve,’ he said, pointing at the red ribbon she wore on her cuff.

‘Ye mean this?’ She motioned at the ribbon and laughed.

‘What’s so amusing?’

‘You heard of this fella Pastorini?’ Pyke shook his head. Megan went on, ‘Ribbonmen reckoned your man’s prophesies said the Protestant faith would be destroyed under orders of the Lord Almighty on the twenty-first of November 1825.’

‘What happened?’

‘It rained.’

Pyke smiled. ‘Is that why you wear the ribbon?’

Megan shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m hopin’ he just messed up the date.’

‘Meanwhile it’s still raining,’ he said, brushing water from his coat.

‘So you’re not here for the marchin’,’ she said, cocking her head flirtatiously to one side.

Instinctively he decided to jettison part of his cover. ‘To everyone else, I’m the eldest son of Robert Hawkes, owner of the Hawkes cotton mill in Lancashire.’

She seemed amused by this. ‘And to me?’

‘I’m just someone looking for a way to meet John Arnold.’

‘Why didn’t ye say that sooner?’ she said, shaking her head mischievously.

This time, Pyke scrutinised her face carefully for signs of lying. ‘You know him?’

‘Of him.’ She shrugged, as though it wasn’t important. ‘I worked for a while in the big house in Ballynafeigh, the family’s grand new residence. I never cared for the place myself, ugly-looking building, pretendin’ to be something it ain’t. All its pretensions, mind, it didn’t have running water, so it were my job to fetch and carry water from a well. It’s how I came to get these manly-looking arms.’ She flexed her muscles, only half joking, for him to see.

‘Tell me about Arnold,’ Pyke said, becoming impatient.

‘What’s to tell?’

‘Well, for a start, what do you know about him?’

Megan held his gaze for a while. ‘Well, there are these meetings in front of the Custom House. Every Sunday, after church, folk head there, like they’re the best thing to happen in the whole week. Not the likes of me, you’ll understand, but other folk. Protestant folk. Gather there dressed in their Sunday best and watch with gleaming eyes as men less respectable than Cooke scalp and burn effigies of the Pope. Arnold, in particular, likes to put on a performance.’

‘A rabble-rouser and a businessman.’ Pyke waited for a moment. ‘As the latter, he seems canny enough.’

Megan looked away. ‘Aye, he’s a canny one, that’s for sure.’

‘Not to be underestimated?’

‘What’s your real business with him, Mr Hawkes?’ This time her expression seemed graver.

‘He’s invited me to a card game tomorrow night.’

Megan nodded, as though she was aware of such an event. ‘Aye, at the Royal.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Ye turn up lookin’ like that, they’ll eat you alive.’

Pyke assimilated this new information without giving anything away.

‘Arnold is a fella who started out life with next to nothing. He likes to surround himself with tough labourin’ types, to remind everyone else where he’s come from, he’s no pushover. He likes to hurt folk, too, or likes to watch as other folk do the hurtin’. There are those in the Royal who might take against a well-dressed Englishman.’ Megan shrugged. ‘Unless he’s a friend a’ ye, I’d say that Arnold is maybe countin’ on that fact.’

Pyke took out his wallet and removed a five-pound note. ‘You want to earn some money?’

‘Thought you’d never ask,’ she said, grinning.

‘From what you’ve just told me, I’ll need a pistol.’ He already had a knife but it might not be sufficient.

‘A pistol.’ Her expression became serious. ‘What ye plannin’ to do?’

‘It’s for my own protection.’

‘But ye know how to use one, I’d wager.’ She came a little closer, and looked up at him, playfully holding his stare.

‘I’d know which way to point it.’

She cocked her head to one side. ‘How would the son of a mill owner know that?’

‘Shooting workers who step out of line.’

That drew a giggle. ‘An’ what would ye do with me, if I were to step out of line?’ She was now close enough so that he could smell the tobacco on her clothes.

He started to sigh. ‘I just need a gun, Megan.’

‘So?’ She made no attempt to move away. ‘What about what I might need?’

FIFTEEN

O
utside smelled of rotting carcasses from the nearby tannery. Inside smelt of stale tobacco and turf. Pyke did not necessarily think the latter smell was any better than the former, but he was glad to get in from the driving rain.

As soon as he stepped into the taproom, Pyke became aware of the rancorous stares of those men - for they were, as he later realised, all men - who sat on wooden benches attached to the wall, clutching pots of black stout. To a man, they stopped whatever they had been doing and looked at him, silently assessing the threat that he posed. In the middle of the room, a man who had been playing the fiddle turned his instrument around and pointed it at Pyke’s head, as though it were a rifle. His teeth were bloody at their roots. Pyke reached into his coat pocket and ran the tip of his index finger across the sharp point of his knife. On the far wall, the wooden handles of an axe and a machete had been decoratively arranged to form a makeshift cross. Next to it was a lurid painting of King Billy riding a white horse.

The absence of women, and the resultant lack of sexual tension, made the violence even more palpable.

When he asked about the card game, there was no response. He repeated the question. Finally someone said, ‘Who wants ’a know?’ Before he could answer, another voice had said, ‘Where ye from, mister?’ Pyke told him Manchester. The same voice said, ‘That’s England, right?’ A ripple of noise spread throughout the room.

Standing in the doorway, Pyke was approached by a young man who looked as if his face had been mauled by a savage dog. He swayed slightly from side to side, as though drunk. Up close, his face was a thatch of coarse skin and scar tissue. Without much conviction, he took a lazy swing at Pyke’s chin and missed it by a good six inches, by which time Pyke had spun him around, twisted his arm, and was pressing the sharpened blade of his knife into the man’s neck. Calmly, he repeated his question about the card game and added that he had been invited by John Arnold. At once, an older man said, ‘You mighta said that earlier, steada stannin’ there with a face on ye.’

In the far doorway, Arnold appeared and carefully surveyed the scene. Pyke released the young man from his grip. For some reason, Arnold seemed disappointed. ‘I see you’ve met the welcoming party,’ he said, without any warmth.

Pyke pocketed his knife. Arnold met him in the centre of the room and held out his hand. Pyke made to shake it but Arnold withdrew it slightly and said, ‘The knife, if you don’t mind.’ Realising that he didn’t have any option, Pyke gave up the knife. Arnold smiled. ‘You come well armed for a businessman.’ Without hesitating, he whipped his arm down and sent the knife cartwheeling through the air until it lodged in the frame of the door, narrowly missing the head of a nonplussed drinker. The sound reverberated around the otherwise silent room. Arnold motioned for someone to search Pyke for further weapons, ‘just as a precaution’. Pyke acquiesced, if only because he had already lost his knife and Megan had not returned to the inn with the pistol he had requested. Stripped of his knife, he felt even more vulnerable. Arnold, though, seemed oblivious to his unease. Already out of the room, he said, ‘You’ll have to excuse our manners. I’m afraid we started without you.’

The card game was taking place in the cellar beneath the taproom. It was a stuffy, low-ceilinged room, and even though it was July, a turf fire smouldered in the grate. Above them, in the taproom itself, the fiddle-playing had started up and the resulting foot-stomping caused flecks of dust and plaster to rain down on the makeshift card table. On the floor was spread a generous layer of butcher’s-shop sawdust. As he introduced the other two players, Archie Tait, a former pugilist who owned a small whisky distillery, and Bill Campbell, who taught moral philosophy at the Academical Institution, Arnold himself took no notice of the disturbance. Lining the walls around the cramped room were a motley assortment of hangers-on: shipyard builders and brick-field labourers in working clothes, with dirty fingernails, drinking Dublin stout from chipped pots, staring with silent envy at the small pile of money gathered on the table.

As he sat down on a wooden chair, Pyke glanced up at the shaking ceiling and said, ‘Dancing without women.’ No one reciprocated his smile.

‘You’ll excuse our unfamiliarity with your more sophisticated tastes,’ Arnold said, pouring himself a fresh glass of whisky. ‘We’re hard-working folk, not necessarily inured to the effects of alcohol like the rest of Ireland. But you see, tomorrow is a holiday, a celebration to commemorate smashing the papists, and so we’re giving our moral diligence a rest for the night.’ With feigned sentiment, he held up his whisky glass. ‘A toast to King Billy.’ A murmur of approval rippled around the room, followed by a chink of ale pots. Pyke left his own glass on the table.