The Street Philosopher (31 page)

The clap-board admissions hut was painted an unpromising shade of light blue, and covered with tawdry posters advertising the attractions of the gardens beyond, from stunning fireworks displays to evenings of Highland dancing. A battered old crone manned the turnstile, grumbling wordlessly at those who passed her. The Tomahawk slapped his sixpence on the plate with a grin, and pushed through into the Belle Vue. It was already seven o’clock. Things had to be got underway.

Reading the
Evening Star
in his cubicle at the Model, Cracknell had gained the distinct sense that Kitson was deliberately trying to aggravate him–to force a confrontation.
A disagreeable side-effect of our Exhibition,
one recent passage had read,
is the sudden rush to Manchester of so many faded
celebrities–the spent, forgotten figures of yesteryear. They strut
through the galleries at Old Trafford and stroll around the town
like so many dull, dusty peacocks, stripped long ago of their best
feathers. Their only goal is to be noticed by someone, anyone; it is
their great hope, their ardent prayer, their single cherished aspiration.
All people of sense and discernment, however, are utterly
repelled by the reek of desperation that hangs about them. Their
day has passed, their moment has fled–they are no longer of any
special worth. Why are these poor wraiths the only ones to whom
this perception is denied?

Cracknell had not known whether to laugh with derision or pity at this feeble abuse. Well, Thomas, he’d thought,
casting down the paper with some violence, your wish for a further encounter will soon be granted.

Free of Cregg, Cracknell was really soaring. Once again, he was discovering that he worked best alone. Finding out about this assignation in the Belle Vue, for instance, had been simplicity itself. Among other things, the past month’s surveillance had yielded the tavern in which Norton’s coachman took his refreshment whilst his master was busy in the Exchange. Wandering in casually, the Tomahawk had engaged the fellow in conversation and bought him a jar or two of ale. He’d proved talkative indeed, as men who sit with horses all day often did; before long Cracknell had extracted a full programme of the Norton family’s social engagements for the next fortnight, including the excursion to the pleasure garden that same evening. It was the talk of the servants’ parlour, the coachman had imparted with a beery snigger. They were saying that Mrs James had finally realised she was mortal like everyone else, and had to hunt herself down a new husband before it was too late. Cracknell had laughed heartily, certain that he had learned the location of the widow Jemima’s next meeting with the street philosopher.

The plan should be kept fairly fluid at this stage, he decided. One of the wonderful things about being a lone operator was the flexibility; minute-by-minute adjustments could be made with ease. First of all, he would locate Kitson and the widow. Twelves and his band of black-suited fools were sure to be nearby. It was then just a matter of working out how best to direct events. A couple of things had to happen. Mrs James had to be told the full extent of her father’s crimes–the wicked foundations on which his recent fortune had been constructed. And Twelves had to catch the three of them together, Kitson, Mrs James and the Tomahawk, deep in a conspiratorial-seeming conversation. As a result, Norton would be completely convinced that his daughter was betraying him; and when he came to confront her over it, he would discover that she knew exactly what kind of a man he really was. This was not adequate punishment for Charles Norton, not by a long distance, but it was a damn good start.

It was with mixed feelings, however, that Cracknell walked into the Belle Vue. He had never been a particular admirer of pleasure gardens. They had a prevailing air of safety, of enclosure, from which his very soul recoiled. The Chateau des Fleurs in Paris and the Crermorne in Chelsea both bored him witless. His expectation was that the Manchester version would be an inferior, decidedly grimy copy of these–like every other thing in the damned town.

First sight of the place seemed to confirm this. Tree-lined promenades encircled expansive flowerbeds and gently sloping lawns, dotted with refreshment huts of all descriptions, iron-and-glass greenhouses and aviaries, crude rockeries, pale plasterwork statues and poorly trimmed topiary. At the centre of the gardens was a long oblong lake with a single-jet fountain at either end. Everywhere were gangs of locals, pitched out on the grass with lavish picnics, engaged in noisy games of quoits and small-cricket, gaping and poking at creatures in cages, and splashing around the grey lake in brightly painted rowing boats. The majority were comparatively genteel, in dress if not demeanour; members of Manchester’s commercial class, Cracknell concluded, the families of shop-owners, warehouse managers and the like. He had a keen distaste for such people. In his experience, they lacked the attractions of both the bloated, reckless rich and the pleasure-hungry poor, and tended to place prudish barriers of morality and piety in the path of real fun.

He started off into the gardens, swinging his cane, heading down through drifting fronds of willow towards the lake->>#QC::Hyphen#<<< side. Yellowed bird mess caked the stones beneath his shoes. The splashing of the fountains mingled with the piercing shrieks of children, racing wildly across the lawns. On the other side of the lake, a score of musicians were leaving a large oriental-style pavilion and filing across the open-air dancing boards before it. As Cracknell watched, they took their places on a raised orchestra stand, frosted with ornamental metalwork. Rich single notes and rapid flurried scales drifted across the Belle Vue as they prepared to play, slowly drawing an audience from the surrounding verdure.

‘Now where would they be?’ he wondered aloud, touching
a flame to the end of a cigarette. ‘Where are you, Thomas, you faint-hearted goose?’

Cracknell knew that it was unlikely that Kitson and his lady of the furnaces would be lingering anywhere too public. Keeping his eyes peeled all the while, the Tomahawk thus embarked on a whistle-stop tour of the Belle Vue’s zoological exhibits. He studied shabby, disgruntled eagles crouched on boulder-piles with chains fastened around their ankles, like so many feathery convicts. He stopped briefly at a paddock containing some decidedly obstreperous llamas, chortling to himself as they spat at some overcurious children. He spent ten minutes in the monkey house, watching the dolorous beasts within swing listlessly from one side of their gloomy cage to the other. Kitson, however, was nowhere to be seen. Abandoning the animal enclosures, he took a stroll through a couple of the larger greenhouses. Forced to remove his top hat in the sweltering climate, he gazed blankly at a few tubs of leafy, sprouting things, surveyed the decidedly Kitson-less crowd, and made for the exit.

The sun, now starting to set, was largely obscured behind the miasma of smoke and dirt that rose continuously from the city beyond the Belle Vue’s walls. The shadows of the gardens had grown so long that they had begun to join, reaching out to one another across paths and lawns as if conspiring to end the day. A team of gas-men was hard at work across the lake, igniting the spherical glass lamps that were mounted on fluted iron pillars around the dancing boards. The orchestra stand was already lit up like a vast Chinese lantern, its reflection shimmering brightly on the water. Several dozen couples moved gently around the boards before it, to the parping strains of a popular tune Cracknell could not identify.

Seeing that evening was setting in, he steamed away towards the rear wall of the gardens, his cigarette puffing like a miniature funnel. Only one more corner of the grounds had to be explored before he could devote his attention to the pavilion and the dancing boards. It had yet to receive the attentions of the gas-men, and was growing a little murky,
but there was still ample light by which to see and safely perambulate–and spot those who needed to be spotted. This last remaining area was dominated by a sizeable maze, fashioned from thick privet a good deal taller than Cracknell himself. A fingerpost informed him that at its centre lay the hermit’s cave. Sounds of celebration were drifting over from the lake, but all before him seemed still and silent. Flicking away his cigarette, he entered.

It took him but a couple of minutes to fathom the layout of the maze. ‘Hardly Daedalian,’ he murmured with sly satisfaction. ‘No match for the Tomahawk.’

Taking care to stay quiet, he was about to reach the cave at its heart when he heard voices close by, in the outer paths of the maze itself. His first thought was that it must be gas-men, come to light a lamp or two above the hedges. But then they drew closer, and he realised that they were nothing of the sort.

‘Honestly, Freddie,’ said one, ‘you can be such a flat sister at times. These boys are extremely keen to meet you. They’re from Bailey’s place. Porters from the look of them, but well dressed–and rather muscular, I must say. And thoroughly capable and inventive chaps, by all accounts.’

‘By their own account, you mean,’ said his companion ill-temperedly. ‘You will have to excuse me, Bill, if the thought of squiring some counter-jumpers you’ve found lurking in the blasted hermit’s cave at the blasted Belle Vue Gardens does not have me pissing my britches with glee. Our entire future, if you remember, is cast in deathly shadow.’

A devious grin spread across Cracknell’s face. It was none other than William Norton, accompanied by his close friend and partner in unnatural vice, Alfred Keane. During his time in the Cottonopolis, Cracknell had heard a good deal about this pair’s doings. They were more famous than they realised among Manchester’s lower orders. He withdrew to a dead end, and settled down to listen.

‘That may or may not be the case,’ Bill replied, ‘but if it is, if your very worst predictions should come to pass–God forbid–then should we not be doing this sort of thing as often as we can? Whilst we still have the liberty?’

‘Ugh, so relentlessly
optimistic
!’ Keane groaned. ‘God ain’t forbidding anything, William, don’t you see that yet?’

‘You take my point, though, Freddie?’ Bill insisted. ‘
Carpe
diem
and all that?’

They were moving past him. Cracknell fell in a safe distance behind. Over the top of the hedges, in the direction of their voices, a blue and a black top hat could be seen in the gathering darkness, bobbing slowly away towards the cave.

‘This debate is entirely pointless,’ Keane declared coldly. ‘I am here, am I not? Does that not indicate a sufficient measure of willingness, despite what I might say?’ He sighed in a long-suffering manner. ‘Will your sister not suspect, though–her or that string-bean beau of hers?’

Bill laughed disbelievingly. ‘By my soul, is that envy in your voice, Freddie? Are you actually
jealous
of the favour our Mr Kitson has found with the delectable Jemima James?’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ snapped Keane, so harshly that it made the denial a little unconvincing. ‘Your sister may keep whatever company she chooses. I care not a fig.’

‘Very well,’ Bill answered slyly. ‘I must say, though, that I can understand her interest. There’s something about him–not immediately apparent, perhaps, but it’s there. A kindness, one might call it, about the eyes…’

‘But they will not suspect?’ interrupted Keane tetchily. ‘About our unexplained departure and long absence? That Kitson fellow is on the
Star
, if you recall–a damned
street
philosopher
.’

‘Oh come, Freddie,’ Bill chuckled. ‘We left them by the pavilion, with a bottle of Moët and a good view of the boards. They won’t even notice that we’ve gone.’ The pair had reached the middle of the maze. ‘Now, cease your fretting. Our new friends are just ahead.’

Their footsteps retreated into the distance. The Tomahawk felt like breaking into a jig. This was a singular piece of luck. A solid, hard-hitting scheme for the evening had dropped into his lap all but fully formed. Before leaving for the pavilion, however, he crept towards the centre of the maze, sticking to its darkest corners. Beyond the system of
hedges was a small courtyard. The blue top hat, recently discarded, rolled around on its cracked stone slabs. Rising up behind was a low artificial hill, into which had been dug a shallow cave. As he peered inside, Cracknell’s wily smirk grew wider.

The conductor, clad in immaculate dinner dress, towered over the blazing hub of the dancing boards. Facing the dancers from his place on the orchestra stand, he waved his baton in a sequence of extravagant flourishes, as if marshalling them as well as the musicians. With one commanding sweep, he dismissed those gentlefolk in need of rest or refreshment; and with another, he summoned a fresh contingent from their tables, arranging them neatly upon the floor. The orchestra behind him struck up another waltz. A handful of working people, recently arrived from the mills, their faces washed of grime at the Hyde Road pump, stood at the edge of the boards as if considering joining the dance. An imperious glare from the conductor made them promptly decide that they could use some more ale first, and perhaps a slice of pie.

Surrounding the dancing boards and the pavilion were over a hundred circular tables, each with a small candle flickering in its centre. Waiters glided expertly between them, taking orders and delivering trays laden with bottles and plates. A mixed clientele sat at these tables, but all were alive with chatter, and engaged in careful scrutiny of those around them. Well-to-do parents fed their dazed offspring iced biscuits and Eccles cakes whilst they waited for the fireworks to start, smiling cheerfully but alert for the approach of any manner of miscreant. Parties of top-hatted men laughed uproariously, calling for more champagne, constantly on the lookout for
female companionship of any character. Swells and jades, resplendent in borrowed finery, sipped cadged drinks and scanned for marks. And the factory operatives, massing on the lawns in between the dancing boards and the Belle Vue’s outer wall, watched the waltz as if it was the gardens’ most spectacular exhibit, whistling and whooping at their favourite couples. Scorning the waiters, these parties sent their younger members on missions for bottles of beer, unwrapped parcels of provisions, and settled down to enjoy their evening.

Thomas Kitson and Jemima James went over to a table at the fringes of the crowd, away from the noise of the dancing. Kitson’s eyes were raking through the merriment all around them, trying to locate black-suited men.

Mrs James had written to him two days after the company visit. The letter had stated her continued confidence in their friendship, in simple, forceful language–words he had read many times over in his attic on Princess Street–and it had requested this meeting. This had surprised him. He had assumed that the best course for them to follow after the clash in Saloon F was to wait until after the Queen’s visit, and Cracknell’s departure from Manchester, before cautiously renewing their correspondence. The risk to them both at this time was surely great, yet he could not refuse her; and he had known that there must be a very good reason for her to make this reckless proposition.

She appeared not to have slept properly for some time, and was animated with anxiety. As soon as they sat, she began to talk; her voice, usually so elegant and even, slipped on her words like shoes rushing in panic over wet cobblestones. Her eyes remained fixed on the rust-spotted table-top.

‘Mr Kitson, when we stood before Raphael’s
Pilate
in the Exhibition, I was struck by a sense that I knew the painting somehow. In the–the furore that followed I had no opportunity to consider this further, but once I was at home it began to trouble me, very deeply.’ She paused for a single second. ‘I managed to recall where I had seen it before.’

A waiter set the bottle of champagne Bill Norton had
ordered in the centre of the table, and placed a glass before each of them. Kitson leant forward a little, studying Mrs James closely. She seemed near to tears..

‘It was in the March of 1855. My father had just returned from the Crimea and informed me of my husband’s death. Anthony was a gifted man, a–a brilliant man. His loss was difficult indeed for me to bear. We had only been married a year.’ She swallowed, and took a deep breath. ‘I was deep in grief, and could not rest. My doctor gave me a sleeping draught, a strong concoction of his own devising. I slept soundly, and felt asleep even whilst I was awake. I was in my father’s old house in Lower Broughton–they would not let me stay in my marital house alone. Very early one morning, I came downstairs. Dear God, I had forgotten this entirely before that day in the Exhibition. I’m not sure that I knew exactly where I was.’ Mrs James raised a hand to her face, pressing her fingertips against her brow. She closed her eyes. ‘It was there, in the drawing room. That panel.’

Kitson stared at her. ‘The
Pilate
? Are you sure?’

She frowned. ‘Almost. It is difficult … I remember standing transfixed; and crouching on the floor, after a while. It seemed so unreal. I was found by the chambermaid and put back to bed with another dose of my sleeping draught. Some days later, I mentioned it to my father. He was dismissive, saying that it was just something he had picked up in Italy on his return journey with the intention of making a profit on a quick resale. I was a little taken aback that he had made such a detour whilst bearing news of my husband’s death, but otherwise thought no more of it. The painting itself had already gone.’ She lowered her hand and looked up at him. ‘This is the connection, though, is it not? This is why Cracknell so despises my father?’

Kitson sat back heavily in his chair and glanced out at the looping line of bright orange dots that ran around the edge of the lake. So this was how the panel had been removed from the Crimea. Some kind of a pact had been made between Norton and Boyce. Kitson had devoted much of the previous week to hunting down Cracknell, in order to discover both what he knew and what he was planning, but without
success. Now his former senior’s antipathy towards Charles Norton had been at least partly explained.

He turned back to Mrs James. Despite the declarations of her letter, there was an uncomfortable tension building between them. She clearly could not help thinking that he had been concealing things from her. Kitson saw that only the truth would dispel this mistrust. So, as the waltz over on the dancing boards became a polka and then a foxtrot, he told of how he had come to be in the Crimea under Cracknell’s leadership; and how the events on the morning of Inkerman had brought them to the villa that held the
Pilate
.

‘It was from this secluded place that Boyce’s men stole it,’ he concluded. ‘And afterwards, it seemed to vanish completely.’

Mrs James was growing more upset. ‘My father’s contracts,’ she broke in. ‘The spikes for the Crimean railway, and the first few batches of buckles. He obtained them through Brigadier Boyce, didn’t he? In exchange for shipping his plunder back to Britain?’

‘It seems likely.’ Kitson hesitated, momentarily unsure of how much to reveal, but quickly deciding that she deserved to know everything. He looked at her steadily and spoke as gently as he could. ‘There is more, I’m afraid. Men were killed–murdered at Boyce’s behest to cover up his looting. Cracknell and I tried to draw the army’s attention to this. We were not heeded.’

She stared back at him in absolute horror. ‘But–but my father does not know of these killings, surely? Why would Boyce have told him of them?’

Kitson did not answer. It was his guess that Norton had either been aware of the murders from the start and been prepared to overlook them for his own benefit, or had been informed as soon as he was committed to the arrangement, in order to make him an accessory and thus ensure both his silence and his further cooperation.

Mrs James sat stunned, gazing blankly at the bottle of champagne that stood untouched before them. ‘So Richard Cracknell is actually in the right,’ she murmured. ‘His provocations are wholly justified.’

A great disturbance erupted over by the side of the dancing boards as a table was thrown over and a good deal of glass broken. There were angry shouts and a high-pitched scream; the orchestra faltered, and then shuddered to a halt. All dancing stopped, and many of those at the far-flung tables rose from their seats, craning their necks and standing on their chairs to try to see what was causing the commotion.

Kitson got up. A bloody fight was underway; he could see someone lying on the floor, clutching at his neck, and several others locked in a pitched battle. His assistance was needed. He looked at Mrs James. She remained lost in her troubled reflections.

‘I will return,’ he said to her. ‘As soon as I can.’

She nodded absently; and he started towards the boards, shouldering his way through the gaping crowds.

Although contending with his bad leg, which was now throbbing something rotten, Cregg still managed to stagger out in front, throwing aside a couple of tables and leading Stewart off into one of the gardens’ largest unlit areas. They sustained their weaving pace for a few hundred yards, and then collapsed into a rhododendron bush.

‘What did ye have to go and do that for, eh?’ panted Stewart from amongst the leaves. ‘I was enjoying meself, so I was!’

‘Cunt was botherin’ me,’ growled Cregg. ‘Did you not see wot ’e did to me leg? Did you not, Stewart?’

‘That’s our Dan,’ his companion sniggered. ‘A reg’lar blessing t’ the people of Manchester. A friend t’ all, aren’t ye, Dan?’ He laughed on, until Cregg signalled a wish for silence by punching him in the stomach.

After his rejection on Mosley Street, Cregg had drunk himself under for the best part of a week. He had emerged with a solid determination to destroy both Boyce and the bastard Cracknell, who had brought him this far only to abandon him. His liquor-crazed imagination assured him that by watching the
Courier
man as he went about his business, he could easily learn of the details of this precious scheme. It could then be cunningly adjusted so that it both did for
Boyce and blew up in the cocksure correspondent’s face–leaving Cregg, the victor, to walk away wearing his satisfaction like a golden crown.

But the bottle impeded Cregg’s efforts even to follow Cracknell, let alone outwit him. Catching sight of the newspaper man that afternoon, therefore, as he hailed a cab on Oxford Street, had been something of a turn-up–even more so because Stewart had clearly heard him instruct the driver to take him to the Belle Vue. Once there, however, after walking out to Ardwick and scrambling over a quiet stretch of wall, they had been completely unable to find him. They wandered around the grounds and greenhouses for a gloomy half-hour. Then Stewart, whose purse was somehow full again, suggested that they take refreshment over by the dancing boards. Some cotton-spinner had jostled Cregg, knocking his bad leg, and refused to meet his eye when apologising–and now they were hiding in a rhododendron bush. Bleedin’ typical, thought Cregg as he crouched in the damp soil. Lost bleedin’ everything but me knack for drawing trouble.

Pulling the brim of his cap low over his eyes, he peered out in the direction from which they had fled. A mob of working people, headed by a crusher with his stick at the ready, was advancing towards them, fanning out through the darkened gardens and muttering in a distinctly menacing manner.

‘Stewart!’ His companion had dozed off. ‘Stewart, come on!’

Cregg didn’t wait, but clambered out of the bush and charged off into the night. Someone spotted him, and the cry went up. Stewart, yelling in confusion, rolled from the rhododendron on to the surrounding lawn. He tried to get to his feet, but liquor overwhelmed him and he fell over backwards. Cregg, reaching a stand of trees, looked back. The mob was on Stewart, kicking viciously in the righteous belief that they had got their man. The policeman attempted to restrain them, but his shouts, and even blows from his stick, were being completely ignored. Cregg smiled grimly and headed for the gate.

* * *

Kitson finished binding the neck of a fallen factory operative. He felt oddly calm, and entirely lucid. After requesting dressings from the onlookers, he had been supplied with a dainty muslin shawl by the operative’s weeping sweetheart; blood was already starting to blot through the pale blue fabric. The man shifted, trying to lift his arm, his eyes rolling in panic. Kitson instructed him to be still.

Nothing was happening to him. No awful visions were descending–no dismal delusions taking hold. Glancing up at the dense circle of faces craning in above, which displayed a mixture of concern, horror and morbid fascination, he listened hard, yet could detect no sounds besides the excited chattering of the crowd. Blinking, he returned his attention to the injured man. The operative’s heavy, fearful features, his downy beard, all remained resolutely the same, secure from transformation. The circumstances were very like those in Tamper’s Yard, where he had unwittingly saved Wray–on the day he had met Mrs James. A wounded man was stretched out before him. Blood coated his hands and was smeared liberally across the boards on which he knelt. Yet this time his perceptions were entirely unaltered.

Kitson stood, shards of glass crunching beneath his boots. Two policemen had arrived at the scene from the direction of Hyde Road; the constables were pushing apart the remaining combatants and helping those with more minor injuries to their feet. Wiping his hands on his jacket, Kitson informed them that the operative, although gravely injured, was out of immediate danger. It was clear enough what had transpired: someone had smashed a beer bottle over the victim’s head, and then driven the broken end into his neck. One of the constables began canvassing witnesses for a description of the assailant. He was huge, some said, a giant with tattooed forearms like a sailor. Nay, he was little, countered others, weasly and dirty, a runt of a man. He only had one eye; he had no thumbs; he had a cudgel, or was it a dagger? His hair was uncommonly long; it was short; he wore a top-hat, a pill-box, a bowler. The only thing that united this profusion of accounts was the enthusiasm with which they were delivered.

Then one voice, loud and certain, rose over the clamour. ‘’E were a southerner–London type. A cripple. His chum, the paddy, called ’im Cregg.’

Kitson recognised the name straight away. Furthermore, he remembered where he had heard it–in the siege-works around Sebastopol. And this Cregg was described as a cripple, like Wray’s attacker and the arsonist of the 25th Manchesters. A palpable sense of threat closed around him–Cregg’s appearance in Manchester could not be a coincidence. He turned towards the table where he had left Mrs James. She had gone.