Unseemly Science (4 page)

That immigrants bring disea
se,
crime
and immorality
is a truth so universal
ly accepted as to require
no proof.

From Revolution

Secularism was the Republic’s answer to religion. And the Secular Hall was a church in all but name. A flight of low steps led to its magnificent central doorway where a bust of Jesus looked down alongside likenesses of Plato, Socrates and Voltaire. On Sundays the faithful gathered there to hear sermons on temperance, honesty and the rewards of tolerance. Small congregations, to be sure. Stripped of the irrational, there seemed less to draw a crowd.

On other days, community groups could hire out the space.

I had timed my trip to arrive as the meeting began. But stepping along the squeaky floor and through the wooden doors, I found the meeting hall almost empty. A family
was
sitting on one of the rearmost pews. Two young men were huddled in conversation near the front. And at the side three women, who might have been a mother and two daughters, were arranging glasses and bottles of cordial.

All turned as I entered. For a moment I thought it must be the wrong day. Then I looked more closely. There was a glint of red garnet from the end of the mother’s hat pin and one of the young men had turn-ups at the end of his trouser legs.

An older woman strode towards me from the side of the hall. “What are you looking for?” She asked, with an easy rudeness that I instantly warmed to.

“The meeting should start at two,” I said.

“If I needed them to be here at two, I’d have told them it started at one.” She ran her eyes over me from hat to boots, assessing. “You must have been in the Republic a long time. Punctuality’s still a dirty word for most of us.”

She held out her hand, which I took. “Tulip,” she said. A solidly Royalist name.

“Elizabeth,” I replied. “You’re the organiser?”

“Officially? No.”

It seemed I had found a kindred spirit. “I fled the Kingdom five years ago,” I said.

She cast me a dubious look. “You’d have been a child. You came alone?”

I nodded. “And here I am.”

“And wish to stay,” she said. “I assume we share that same goal.”

In truth I wished to return. But that was a long and complicated story. Not one to share with a stranger, though it seemed we shared much else.

People arrived in ones and twos after that. Most had assimilated to some degree. But taken as a group there could have been no mistaking them. However hard an exile tries to blend in, there is always something to give him away. Even the way a man swings his arms as he walks can place him on one side of the border or the other.

I saw nods of recognition between some of the newcomers. Handshakes and shifty glances. Conversations were hushed – the habit of wanting to be invisible, hard to drop. The man from the labourer’s cottage in Syston was one of the last to enter. It was he who had told me of the meeting. But now he seemed keen to keep his distance and slunk off to the other side of the hall.

At a quarter to three, when it seemed the meeting was at last about to begin, the doors banged open. The murmur of whispered conversations fell to silence as Yan Romero made his entrance. From our first meeting, I knew he was a performer, someone who liked to shock. But his appearance still took my breath away. He wore moss green wale cord trousers, a mustard waistcoat and a pale pink top hat of outrageous height. The outfit would have turned the heads of London dandies.

We were hiding in the Republic. He could come and go as he pleased. We tried to avoid second looks in the street. He had dressed to make an omnibus crash. Everyone stared. Mouths hung slack. No display of power could have more perfectly shaken this particular audience. He was doing what we could not.

“Afternoon,” he said, speaking into the sudden quiet.

He flourished a handkerchief, blew his nose loudly and marched towards the lectern. Tulip intercepted him with a handshake then turned to address the room.

“I call this meeting of the Association of Kingdom Exiles to order. If you would all take your seats we can–…”

But Yan Romero had already climbed the pulpit. “You all know why we’re here,” he said. “So let’s cut to the chase. Then you can all get drunk. Or whatever it is you people do.”

Gone was the effete charm he had used to insinuate himself onto my boat. Here was a different man – more debt collector than lawyer. Even the accent had changed. Sing-song trills replaced by a steely edge. I felt myself shudder. I knew not to trust a man who could change his face to suit the day. But with that opening sentence, I and the rest of the hotchpotch audience, wished to be as free as him. And as rude.

“I’m supposed to be addressing clients only. Half of you haven’t paid. Thought you could sneak in? Forget it! When the treaty gets signed – and it will – you’ll be hauled back over the border to face whatever it is you ran from. I won’t lift a pinkie to help – unless you’re a paid-up client.”

The silence that followed his statement was awful. It was Tulip who managed to break it. “How do we know you’ll be able to help? You give some guarantee?”

“What are you?” he demanded. “Whores and fraudsters. Killers and runaways. Half of you’ll be hanged within the year. That’s the only guarantee. Save your money if you want. Give it to Clarence Hobb before he puts the rope round your neck.

“I’m going for a drink now. I’ll be in the Three Cranes. If anyone wants to commission me, bring your money and I’ll put your name on the list of the saved.”

That was it. He marched out. I felt the air waft as he passed close to me. A breath of rose-scented perfume. The door slammed and he was gone.

I waited for Tulip to speak again, but she seemed paralysed.

The squeaking of shoes made me turn. The family who had been sitting on the rearmost pew were heading for the door, shamefaced.

“There are other lawyers,” said Tulip. “If we band together…”

But more were on the move, heading for the Three Cranes. Better the lawyer you know.

A man
will eat until full
. But no amount of gold will ever be enough. And no amount of love.

The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

Our letters must have crossed
en route
. My approach had been to write of pleasant things – to dilute the bitter taste of our parting argument. Such evasion was not in Julia’s nature.

Dear Elizabeth.

I have not heard from you since arriving in Derby. I fear that when w
e parted on Ned Ludd Day
, it was under a cloud of feeling quite alien to our friendship. The thought of it has been gnawing at me. Please write and say all is as before.

Julia.

She had been sixteen when we first met. Then, I thought her directness a remnant of childhood. Two years later it had, if anything, grown stronger. Speaking one’s mind was held to be a virtue in men but a vice in women. It caused friction in Julia’s family. It alienated would-be suitors.

The single exception was her lawyer friend from London, who seemed enchanted by her boldness. Nothing could better have proved his suitability for her – in my eyes at least. My own situation made romance impossible, but I hoped Julia would achieve it and one day find happiness in marriage.

Knowing she would by now have received my letter, I put off writing a reply to hers. Romero’s alarming threats had been consuming most of my energy. I needed something other than that to put on paper. The detection of the bacon thief suggested a suitable diversion.

If I arrived at the coal boat dressed as a man, some of the family might be fooled. But I was to see Mary, the coal boatman’s wife. And she had the kind of eye that saw to the truth of things, especially in daylight. She usually wore practical clothes, so I chose an outfit that would not look out of place in her company – a grey cotton walking skirt and a full sleeved jacket of the same colour.

The coal boatman’s sons did not hide their disapproval when I arrived.

“Where is he then?” asked the younger one. “Your brother, I mean.”

“Business keeps him away,” I said.

“But that’s no good,” said the older one.

They were standing on the heaped coal in the hold of the boat, black smudged and frowning.

“I’ll see whatever he would have seen,” I told them.

“But you’re a woman!”

“True.”

“A woman can’t–...”

His complaint was cut short by the slamming back of the hatch and a swish of skirts and knitted shawl as Mary jumped onto the steering platform.

“Billy! Josh! Mind your manners!”

“We was just saying–...”

“What were you just saying, Billy? What were you just saying? A woman can’t do what?”

The older boy seemed about to answer, but seeing her expression, snapped his mouth closed again. Wisely, I thought. Then they were both clambering away over coal and tarpaulin, across to the boat moored alongside.

“And don’t think you’ll be eating before all them sacks are filled!”

She winked at me. “Boys! But they’ll learn. If I can find strong wives for to teach them. Now Lizzy, I’ve a pot on the boil. Won’t you come in?”

There were six of them in the family. Husband, wife, two sons, two daughters. And two boats – the larger, a barge for the fetching of coal from Nottinghamshire or Coalville, whichever was cheaper at the time. The smaller craft was an ancient wood-hulled narrowboat from the time when locks were only seven foot wide. This they used for delivery runs, selling to houses and businesses that flanked the canals. The girls and parents slept in the cabin of the barge. The boys in the narrowboat.

“I’m a disappointment,” I said to Mary. “They were hoping to see my brother, Edwin.”

“Didn’t think he’d come,” she said. “Keeps himself to himself, that one.”

“Your husband told me something was knocked over. And food stolen before that.”

She pointed to a painted metal jug on the cabin roof – roses and castle design. Though wide at the base, it would not have taken much to shift it.

“A person did it you think?”

“What else?” she said. “A ghost?”

“Mrs Simmonds’s cat perhaps?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe it was.” Then she led me up onto the steering platform where the cabin roof overhung a small cupboard with walls of finely perforated metal. She selected a small key from the loop on her waistband and turned it in the lock. The cupboard door swung outwards. Inside was a shelf made of the same perforated metal sheet. On it rested a parcel of butcher’s paper with hock bones sticking out at the side.

“Soup tonight?” I asked.

“Soup every night, when we can afford,” she said.

“Why are you showing me your pie safe?” I asked.

“So you see how clever was this cat that you say did the thieving. That’s where the bacon was stolen from.”

I sat on the cot in the crowded cabin, watching Mary laying a lace-edged tablecloth. On this she arranged her best china, wiping invisible dust from each piece before placing it. The teaspoons and sugar tongs were silver.

I had examined the pie safe. The lock was crude. I could have picked it one handed and I claim to be no expert. But whoever had taken the bacon, one thing was now certain – it had not been the cat.

Mary took down the Measham teapot from its display shelf, the brown glaze dotted with white daisies.

“You had a disturbed night,” I said.

She made a “Hmph” sound.

“Your husband and son patrolling the wharf.”

“They’re fools, the two of them,” she said.

“You didn’t hear anything yourself?”

“Oh, I heard, yes. I heard. And if there’s a thief, then he heard too – them crashing about like a football game. What did they think they’d find out there? And then they went and woke you too, Lizzy. Men! But your brother’s not like that, is he?. Doesn’t go off like a dog after a rabbit, without thought or plan?”

“Edwin’s much the same as me,” I said.

She examined me then, as if searching for some tiny mark. I found myself looking away.

“It’s a shame he couldn’t come today,” she said, handing me a cup of tea. “There’s no biscuits. Sorry.”

I sipped. She had made it strong and milky. It seemed clear to me that a thief who kept returning to the same place could not live far away. But there was delicacy needed in suggesting it. Mary might not take it well if she thought I was accusing one of her neighbours.

“If my brother was here,” I said, “he’d be wanting to know if the thief came from outside the wharf.”

She shook her head. “Who’d trouble for such scraps? It’s one of us for sure.”

I felt relieved to hear her say it. “You’d have made a good detective,” I said. “If women were allowed such work,. I believe you’d find the thief yourself.”

“It’s not the finding that’s the problem,” she said. “It’s what happens after. I’m not saying there aren’t people on the wharf who’d lift or dip pockets. Not every boatman has a clean nose. But what good comes of knowing it for sure? The men give chase. But what if they’d caught him and it’d been one of the Biggins boys? How would we live with them after that? Or what if it was old man Harboro? Some things is best not knowing. That’s how feuds start, that is.”

“Do you not want to know?”

“If it could be just me doing the knowing, that’d be grand. I could whisper in an ear and it wouldn’t happen no more. But I’d rather not know if the men had to know too.”

“Why do you think he only stole from you?” I asked.

“Not just us. The Carters lost a block of cheese two weeks back. And Mrs Biggins had a jugged eel took.”

“So it’s probably not the Biggins boys after all,” I reasoned.

“She could have just said it to put me off the scent. And then there’s Alice, the washwoman, she lost a pair of pig’s ears. And there’s Mrs Simmonds too...”

I started losing track of the list of names and stolen items. “It might be simpler to tell me who hasn’t had anything taken,” I said. “Then, if everyone was telling the truth, we’d have narrowed the search.”

“Ah, well,” she said, embarrassed. “That’s the thing. Everyone’s had something nicked. Everyone except you of course. And your brother.”

Afterwards, I could not let go of Mary’s words. It hadn’t occurred to me before to ask why her husband and son ended up outside my boat that night, when they did not know which way the thief had run. Now it seemed that Mary might be warning me what others on the wharf were whispering. Or perhaps she was thinking it herself. I kept coming back to what she had said about stopping the thefts with a whisper in an ear. Was it my ear she meant? Had that been the whisper? And worse, I wondered whether I would have been a suspect at all had it not been for the Kingdom flag stuck inside the glass of my porthole window.

A second letter was waiting for me when I arrived back at my own boat. Mrs Simmonds must have slipped it through the crack at the edge of the hatch.

Dear Elizabeth
.
Your message had arrived when I returned from posting mine. I should have known not to fret over a few cross words. Indeed, if you were here, you would see how wrongly you judged Mrs
Raike
. She has made great strides to promote the freedom to choose one’s own path in life
–
an ideal we both hold dear.

I am in a dormitory with three other girls.
One helps to prepare food for
the
benefit of the deserving poor.
A second ministers to those wretched creatures who cannot gain access to the city’s overflowing asylum. Indeed there are many such living in derelict buildings hereabouts. Little more than wild beasts they seem. She is very brave. The third
teaches letters and reading in the prison.

For myself,
I ha
ve this day met
a lawyer
who has knowledge of the
ice farmers
and their grievance
.
He has
provided
me with
volumes of law books such as I have not seen before. They are quite different in character from the Intelligence Gatherer’s Guide to Legal Process.
The words are harder to understand and I need make frequent use of the dictionary, but the ideas make plain enough sense.

Ice is being stolen by one unknown. But as to who is responsible for carrying the financial loss, this I cannot understand. Is it the farmers themselves or
the boatmen who carry the cargo or the ice factory in Derby, where it is processed and stored?
I can find no case in the law books that matches the particulars of this one.

Mrs
Raike
has set great priority on the resolution of the
case. She was
disappointed that you and your brother could not be here to help. You know I am also.

Your friend,
Julia

At first, all I could feel was irritation that she insisted on blaming me for the argument. But on reading the letter again my annoyance softened. By the third reading, I had grown curious. If I replied directly, I could catch the evening postal collection.

The ice theft sounded petty. More a dispute over payment than a deliberate crime. The most singular question was why Mrs Raike had made it such a priority. But that, I could not ask without testing Julia’s friendship once more.

Dear Julia. No one will accept financial r
esponsibility until it is proven
where the ice is being lost. Lawyers will look for the answer in books. Each will find differently, depending on the side they represent. Is it simply melting?

If you want truth, travel to the high peaks where the ice farmers live. Let them show you how they work. Ask questions. Observe. You know my methods.