The Street Philosopher (29 page)

There was a burst of well-oiled laughter from the company; Pierce protested that he had only spoken in jest. Lieutenant Nunn gripped the delicate hexagonal stem of his wine glass, pinching it until his thumb was white.

Looking around at the smiling, obedient faces, Boyce’s eye snagged on his adjutant, sitting still and mute like a large, rather unambitious piece of statuary. As a parting shot, that insubordinate knave Maynard had contaminated this steadfast, dim-witted fellow with something of his own suspicious nature. Boyce had tried to reassure him, to steady him with routine, but to no avail. Although it was unlikely that he would ever deduce anything important, Nunn still knew a little too much for comfort. He remained a fighting soldier under Boyce’s direct command, however. Perilous assaults would doubtlessly be made in the coming months, as the Allies resumed their efforts to take Sebastopol. Perhaps, at an appropriate moment, Lieutenant Nunn should be given a special front-line assignment.

‘Excuse me, Colonel,’ piped up their Mancunian guest, ‘but I am right in thinking that your young wife is a nurse of some description?’

The plebeian fool was confused by my sarcasm when she came in, Boyce thought. ‘She brings food and clothing up from the harbour, Mr Norton, in the company of another lady, a respectable Scottish spinster. They are held in great regard throughout the camp–and even by Lord Raglan himself. Do not be confused by my… frivolous manner towards her. Madeleine does valuable work, and she won’t hear any talk of her returning home before the last sword is back in its scabbard.’

Boyce was determined that his wife should stay in the Crimea for as long as he was made to. He saw how she suffered, the daily hardships she endured, and it brought him a bitter satisfaction. She had wanted to be near her Irishman–well, she was near him. And may it bring them both all the damned happiness in the world.

Norton was clearly impressed. ‘An admirable lady indeed.’

The Colonel nodded in acknowledgement. He was well pleased with this fellow. After many anxious weeks, a solution might finally have been found.

On the evening of Inkerman, after having his injured shoulder seen to, Boyce had gone to inform his accomplices of the success of their plan–only to learn that both had been killed in the morning’s fighting whilst attempting to coordinate a British counter-barrage, driven from this world by a spray of Russian shell-splinters. He had been shocked, of course, and a little grieved to hear of the end of a pair of such fine fellows; but behind these muddled thoughts had sounded a clear note of triumph. It is mine, he had told himself, and mine alone.

Then that Irish pig had made his move. Boyce had been most angry with Wray. The Captain’s orders had been to kill the two Russians, to prevent them from ever revealing who had removed the Tsar’s treasure cache. However, Wray had somehow managed not only to shoot a British soldier as well, but also to be seen doing it by a pair of bloody
newspapermen
! They had nothing at all to substantiate their claims, thankfully, after Wray had quietly disposed of that second corporal whilst on night watch at the Left Attack. Major-General Codrington, a proper gentleman, had not stood for the Irishman’s offensive posturing, and the
Courier
rogues had been soundly humiliated.

It had been a heavily qualified victory. Afterwards, to be safe, Boyce was forced to send Wray from the Crimea. And the painting itself, a rare and genuine Raphael for which the wealthiest Dukes and Lords in England would give half of all they owned, became a grave problem. Wray had at least thought to pack the
Pilate
away in an empty supply crate before bringing it into the camp; and there it remained two and a half months later, in a dark, dry corner of the farmhouse’s apple cellar. But should the Major-General or any of his staff–or worse still, those scoundrels from the
Courier
–discover that he still had this masterpiece in his possession, the situation could become very black indeed.

Now, though, an escape route was surely opening. Boyce
had been monitoring the lists of civilians coming into Balaclava carefully, obtaining accounts of their proposed business on the peninsula from the harbourmaster. Charles Norton, a foundry man in the Crimea on behalf of another company, had stood out. This arrangement seemed to suggest that he was an inferior specimen, of the exact sort required; and sure enough, the fellow had just the right mix of greed and weakness. Norton was someone Boyce could work into a corner and keep there.

The Colonel stood, and suggested casually to his guest that they go outside to take the evening air before dinner was served. There was a moment of vaguely awkward silence as the Mancunian got to his feet and made his way over to the door; then the ever-vocal Pierce started off again, now lambasting the idleness of the Turks.

The yard at the back of the farmhouse was empty and extremely cold. Both men lit cigars. Norton’s hand trembled, and not from the temperature–he was apprehensive.

Boyce adopted a steely, business-like tone. ‘Here’s the meat of it, Norton. Wyndham, the Quartermaster-General, is an old friend of my family. I am prepared to mention to him that I know of a foundry man from Manchester who will undercut the existing contract for railway spikes by half a penny per dozen–a foundry man who can keep up a regular supply of rapidly produced, low-grade components. He will be open to such an idea, I guarantee it. This is within your capabilities, is it not?’

Norton tried unsuccessfully to mask his excitement at what was being proposed. ‘We are talking about a very big contract here, Colonel.’

Boyce puffed on his cigar. ‘Enough to free you from the likes of the Fairbairns for good, I’d say–to raise your concern to the first rank of Manchester business. The kind of opportunity that is gifted only to a few. You will have to act quickly, though. The Quartermaster-General is not a particularly patient man, and speed of production is paramount. Can you do it?’

Norton was silent for a moment, as if running calculations in his head. Then he nodded. ‘I can, sir.’

‘I will want an interest, of course–a silent partnership. If this contract is fulfilled satisfactorily, there will be others. The army needs a great many cast-iron items, Mr Norton.’

Norton nodded once more, lost in his dreams of a golden future. At this moment, the Colonel thought, he’ll agree to absolutely anything.

‘And there is something else I would need you to do for me.’ Boyce glanced across the yard towards the doors of the apple cellar. ‘Something rather delicate.’

‘
You are a killer
.’

Styles woke up, pulled abruptly from scrambled, blaring dreams of black caves and blood–of somebody talking urgently. He looked around in alarm for the person who had spoken. All was still and dark. The voice had sounded uncannily like his mother’s; but she had been dead now for almost six years.

He tried to sit up, but his leg would not be moved. His mouth was dry and his head throbbed, but his thoughts were oddly clear. Slowly, he remembered certain events from the day just passed–the struggle in the trench, the sniper’s shot, the impossibly long wait for assistance–but large sections remained lost to him. He could not say where he was, for instance, or how he had got there. The heavy blue murk was that of a tent in the middle of the night, yet he was enclosed in a narrow, dry-stone alcove. There was a smell of old boots and stale tobacco.

The close silence was broken by the sound of tent flaps being pushed hurriedly aside. Then he heard Cracknell’s voice, no more than ten yards from where he lay.

‘By Jove, it’s dark as hell in here,’ the senior correspondent grumbled. ‘Where’s my matches?’

There was a second’s pause. Styles could hear breathing. A match was struck, and warm light filled the space outside his alcove. There was a thick canvas curtain between him and this light; but a half-inch gap at the curtain’s side became
a bright line through which he could clearly observe what was happening beyond.

Cracknell and Mrs Boyce stood by a desk, both wrapped up tightly in their winter clothing, their breath forming clouds in front of them. The senior correspondent threw a small sack of biscuit and a yellow slab of Dutch cheese on to the desk. As soon as his hands were free, Mrs Boyce was on him, kissing him all over his grimy face, pressing herself hard against him. Cracknell pushed her back firmly.

‘Both were injured, you say?’ he demanded.

She nodded, reluctantly delaying her attentions. ‘Yes, both. We–we took them to the harbour. Mr Kitson is quite badly hurt, I think.’

‘Good Lord,’ Cracknell murmured in mild amazement, ‘I must have been standing within a hundred yards of the poor devils. Ah well, Balaclava is an easy place indeed in which to miss people, especially if you’re not looking for them. They’ll be sent home now, at least. Neither one of them was cut out for war correspondence.’

Mrs Boyce began to cry. ‘I was so frightened, Richard, that you might have been with them–might have been lying
dead
…’

He wrapped her up in the arms of his fur coat. ‘Come now, Maddy,’ he said, his manner softening, ‘I was perfectly safe. I was here, in fact, asleep in my tent, whilst those young fools were out playing soldiers. You should not run off from Miss Wade, though. You could have been in a serious pickle if that dragoon hadn’t found you and escorted you back up to the camps.’

She looked up at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. ‘You–you saw us?’

Cracknell chuckled condescendingly. ‘I did, on the outskirts of town. I was heading in the other way. I would’ve said something, Maddy, but I know the fellow. He’d have been over to tell your husband in a flash.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I had something to attend to.’

‘How could you
see me
, Richard, and not even—’

‘Madeleine, we must exercise a bit of care. Your husband is merely waiting for an excuse to strike at me. You know
this. And I am here now, am I not? We have this tent quite to ourselves.’

She was easily won round. They kissed for a long time. Styles heard their lips gently sucking together. Before long, he could see that the fronts of both their coats were open, the sides overlapping, their bodies meeting in the space in between, their hands pulling at the clothes beneath. Their breathing became yet heavier. Mrs Boyce giggled, and said something about the cold; a moment later, Cracknell ducked away, igniting a small charcoal stove on the floor. He went back to her immediately, and Styles noticed the edge of her skirts rise up under the bottom of her coat. They then moved towards another alcove, close to the desk, and sunk into it.

The illustrator, staying silent in the shadows, found that he could watch all of this without any sense of consternation, jealousy or anger. He felt strangely removed, as if he were not a thinking, feeling person but merely an object, an inanimate witness. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he took out his sketch-book and pencil.

‘Richard,’ she asked, from deep inside the alcove, ‘what do I mean to you?’

There was a short pause as Cracknell fiddled with an obscure fastening. ‘You mean more to me, my tender little Frenchie, than all the brandy in the world. Than all the cigars in the world.’

‘What of the other women–of the other women you have known?’

‘You are the finest by far. The most beautiful, the most exquisite–a rare treasure so precious that naught can equal it.’ There was a faint, almost indiscernible note of weariness in Cracknell’s voice as he said this. ‘You would be my choice of all the women in creation.’

Styles could now see Mrs Boyce, half-naked, reclined on Cracknell’s cot. Her shoulder, breast and thigh formed a rhythmic, curving pattern, which his pencil quickly traced out in the strip of candlelight that fell across the page of his sketch-book. Drawing her, even in this extraordinary, unseen state, seemed immediately familiar to him. It was as if his hand remembered the dozens of depictions it had made on the
decks of the
Arthur
so many months before, and created a rapid, faithful likeness of a well-loved subject. The high, wide cheekbones, the skin over them lightly flushed with arousal; the large, dark eyes misted with love; the full lips curling with gratified amusement at Cracknell’s sweeping declarations–all were captured in a flurry of economic strokes.

Cracknell, who was lying across from her, propped up on an elbow, was a very different prospect. His shoulder hid his face, and was round and pink like a side of bacon, heavily shaded with thick black hairs. Despite the privations of the campaign, something of a round belly could still be seen; and there, before Styles’ dispassionate gaze, his member sprang into view, suddenly released from his trousers. It was an angry, tumescent red, like a raw root, strangely incongruous with the rest of the man, as if a swollen appendage from a quite different creature had been unaccountably attached to his burly frame. The pencil worked away busily.

Slowly, Mrs Boyce reached over and took it in her hand. ‘What would you do, Richard, to be with me?’

‘I–I would give up all that I am,’ answered Cracknell with a slight tremor. ‘I would turn in my post at the
Courier
in an instant, I would sell everything but the clothes on my back, I would sail any distance. Without you, dearest Maddy, life is but ashes.’

This speech finished, his hands vanished under what remained of her skirts. She moaned his name, pulling him towards her. There was a brief struggle, and a couple of oaths, and then her petticoats came away, revealing her nakedness. Cracknell cast the garments aside, and moved in over her, their feet, both still in their boots, scrabbling and bumping together as they positioned themselves.

‘Will you ever leave me?’ she gasped.

‘Never.’

Styles turned over a page in his sketch-book and began another drawing.

Charles Norton made some enquiries, and then headed over briskly to a miserable-looking lodging house close to the quay. Once again, the stench of Balaclava was quite unbelievable; he put a handkerchief up to his face in a vain attempt to block it.

Someone called his name before he could enter. James was sitting on a wall at the side of the building. He was pale, his coat drawn tightly around him as he coughed into his hand. The lines at either side of his mouth were more pronounced, and the eyes behind his spectacles, although red with exhaustion, were strangely bright.

‘What are you doing out here, Anthony?’

James coughed again, phlegm rattling in his throat. ‘Believe me, Charles,’ he whispered, ‘it is preferable to being inside.’

Speaking quickly, Norton apologised for leaving him; and then, unable to contain his glee, said that he had brokered a deal the previous evening that would change everything for them. This awful war, Charles declared, was going to give them the chance they had prayed for. He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and waved them in his son-inlaw’s face–urgent telegrams that had to be wired back to Manchester as soon as possible.

James, however, was not impressed. ‘Who exactly have you been negotiating with, Charles?’

Norton shrugged defensively. ‘An officer of infantry, that
is all. A man with an interest in the railway that is being built outside town. A man who has—’

‘Colonel Nathaniel Boyce of the 99th Foot. That’s right, isn’t it?’

Norton didn’t deny it. He gave a brief account of the situation regarding the spikes, and Boyce’s long association with the Quartermaster-General–which would ensure the success of a bid from the Norton Foundry.

‘For someone of high birth, the Colonel has a rare appreciation of business matters.’ Norton paused carefully. ‘He has already obtained a crate of the spikes currently in use, in fact, for us to examine back at the Foundry, and perhaps utilise as models. His men will be bringing it down from the plateau later today, to be loaded aboard the
Mallory
.’

James shook his head. ‘So you have been neglecting the worthy task Mr Fairbairn assigned us to hatch alliances with corrupt soldiers–men prepared to exploit personal connections in order to bypass the normal conditions of contractual competition. Did it not occur to you, Charles, that abuses of privilege such as this might be a part of what has gone so terribly wrong out here?’

I am being judged once more, Norton thought, irritation souring his mood. ‘I will attend to our errand for Fairbairn in due course, Anthony. Do you not understand what is being proposed here? Do you not understand what is being laid before us?’

But James would not listen. ‘I have been speaking with people also, Charles. Yesterday afternoon I met Richard Cracknell, the Crimean correspondent from the
London
Courier
. He shared a number of disturbing confidences with me.’

Norton snorted, remembering the officers’ conversation in the farmhouse. ‘Ah yes, the Irishman from the
Courier
. I have heard all about
him
.’

His son-in-law coughed again, and removed his spectacles so that he could wipe his eyes. ‘No, Charles, I seriously doubt that you have. Mr Cracknell had come down to the harbour specifically to warn travellers such as ourselves about Boyce. He said that the Colonel has been trying to recruit
men from outside the military for several weeks, to serve his own crooked ends.’ He tried to put the spectacles back on his face, and only just managed it without poking himself in the eye. Norton realised that for all his vociferousness, James was desperately weak. ‘Your Colonel is guilty of heinous crimes indeed. At Inkerman, he led his regiment to an entirely avoidable disaster through his own incompetence: this is a matter of military record. But he has also engaged in looting, Charles, and has had men killed, his
own men
, to cover up his robberies.’ He started to cough. ‘There is–is a–a
painting
…’

James was prevented from talking any further by a severe cramp, which seized his midriff and bent him over almost double. His spectacles dropped from his nose, chinking against the stones below.

For a moment, Norton stood very still, absorbing what he had heard. James knew about the painting in the crate–knew more than he did, in fact, about the murderous means by which his new partner had supposedly obtained it. His estimation of the deal itself was startlingly accurate as well, tearing away the comfortable net of self-delusion Norton had spun around himself. The truth of Boyce’s venture could no longer be denied. It was corrupt–criminal, even.

He looked steadily at James’ shivering, shuddering back, and suddenly he knew that his son-in-law was dying; one night in the festering filth of Balaclava was all it had taken for disease to claim him. None of Anthony James’ immense ambition or ability would ever amount to anything. His daughter would be made a widow at twenty-eight. And he, Charles Norton, would take the opportunity Colonel Boyce had offered and make himself one of the foremost labour-lords of Manchester.

‘A painting? In this place?’ He furrowed his brow with good-humoured scepticism. ‘What utter nonsense. That Irishman is an unhinged troublemaker, nothing more.’ He became solicitous. ‘You are weary, Anthony; weary and, I fear, a little credulous. Have you had any sleep, or anything to eat? I’m afraid that you might have caught something here, my lad–you need to go to bed. Come, we will find
you a clean room. There must be one somewhere. On board one of these ships, if nowhere else.’ Norton crouched down and picked up the spectacles. They were smeared with black mud and the left lens was smashed. He gave them back to James, who now had a hand pressed blearily against his brow. ‘What would my Jemima say if I brought her husband home an invalid?’