The Jubilee Plot

by David Field

  ‘You’re a great help!’ Jack yelled as he ran from the office and headed for Fenchurch Street. Two hours later he was doing his best to explain to the children, who were home for dinner, and a very concerned grandmother, that Esther would be away in London with him for a little while, and that Constance and Nell would need to look after the children in their absence.

  ‘Typical of the irresponsibility of young people these days!’ Constance complained. ‘They bring children into the world, then expect other people to look after them. I have my responsibilities with the Ladies’ Guild and my weekly commitments at the bridge club to think about, remember? This is quite unacceptable.’

  ‘Please, Mother,’ Jack pleaded. ‘This is very important — you’ve no idea just how important, believe me.’

  ‘Very well,’ Constance agreed with visible reluctance, ‘but don’t think that you can call upon me every time the pair of you feel like gallivanting around in that wicked city. I’ve always maintained that if you’d pursued a proper career, instead of…’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mother,’ Jack cut her off before she launched into her usual recriminations. ‘I need to grab some more things, then head off back to London, so if you’ll excuse me…’

  ‘You haven’t had any dinner,’ Constance objected, as Jack kissed her gratefully on the cheek and raced from the kitchen with a parting shot of ‘I’m not hungry, honestly.’

  He was just slipping out of the scullery door with fresh clothes stuffed into an old portmanteau when Nell called out to him from the open kitchen door, then scuttled through the scullery to join him on the back step.

  ‘The missus is alright, isn’t she? Only it’s not like her to stay away from the children.’

  ‘She’s alright, Nell, trust me,’ Jack replied as he looked down into her wide blue eyes with a serious expression. ‘But just make sure that when you’re taking the children to school and back, or when they’re out playing, you have Billy with you as well.’

  With that he took off down the drive as fast as his legs could carry him.

  Esther had spent barely two hours in the empty room, alternating between staring out through the grime of the locked window, whose frame had been nailed down to prevent any possible escape down four floors, and pacing the floor while quietly cursing her own folly in ever setting foot in Wapping again. Then she heard the turning of the outside lock, the door opened, and there stood the last person on earth she had expected to see.

  ‘Is this your doing?’ she demanded. ‘Is this how you repay our hospitality?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Mary Carmody demanded. ‘Think yourself lucky it’s me who’s been put in charge of you, and not those oafs who locked you up in here, since they have no respect for a lady such as yourself.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Esther demanded with a defiance that she didn’t feel. ‘And can I at least visit the outside privy, assuming that this place has one?’

  ‘Of course. You can go now before we leave.’ Mary smiled obligingly.

  ‘And where are we going?’ Esther asked as she moved to the doorway.

  ‘A short journey, by coach,’ Mary told her. ‘Shall we go?’

  As she closed the door to the backyard privy behind her, Esther toasted her good fortune in having Mary in charge of her transfer, because the two ruffians who stood alongside her with knowing leers would surely have taken advantage of her, given any opportunity. As it was, they stood sullenly to the side as Esther rejoined Mary, and the little party made its way out into Pennington Street, where a coach sat waiting. Inside the coach, Esther was blindfolded, and the coach rumbled off slowly.

  She did her best to memorise the number of turns to the right and left as they weaved their way through busy thoroughfares, but soon gave up the daunting task and took to wondering what was to become of her, how the children would react when she didn’t come home, and what Jack would do to find her once he realised that something had happened to her. The coach eventually came to a halt, and the surrounding sounds of the street suggested that they were still somewhere in the city. The blindfold was not removed as she was assisted down the step and hustled along through a doorway, up two flights of stairs and down a corridor. Another door opened, and she was led through it to the sound and smell of a recently lit fire. Then the blindfold was taken off, and as she shook her head and blinked to clear her vision she saw a familiar male figure seated in an armchair.

  ‘Well, Abe,’ she said sarcastically, ‘I think I preferred it when you just pulled my hair.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The next few weeks were the most frustrating that Jack could ever remember. Percy had ordered an immediate police raid on the lodging house in Wapping where it was known that Lizzie Black lived with her children, but Lizzie could only advise them that she’d seen nothing of Esther since her visit the previous week, and they’d left it at that, since the other residents of the tenement, true to form, claimed to have seen and heard nothing. They could not even be sure that Esther had even got as far as there; all they knew was that somewhere in this massive city she was being held, presumably against her will, and in circumstances they could only speculate about.

  Every day Jack’s first thought on waking — not that he slept very much — was the one he forced himself into. That she was still alive, and not being brutalised. His equal concern was for her mental and emotional health. He knew that she was strong enough to withstand mere captivity, always assuming that she was not being physically abused, but she must be tortured with concerns regarding how the children would exist without her. She’d been farsighted enough to leave his mother in charge, but every weekend, as he hastened home to reassure them that they still had one remaining parent at least, he could see the strain on Constance, and dared not tell her the brutal truth as she constantly moaned and complained about Esther’s prolonged absence. The children seemed to accept the situation, although he could see in the looks that he occasionally caught from Nell that she at least could tell from his anguished face that something was seriously wrong.

  He would dearly have loved to remain at home, if only to spare his mother, but he was left in no doubt, on a daily basis, that he was expected to attend at Bow Street Police Station and appear to be working. After the second week he abandoned further work on his manpower chart, now firmly convinced that whatever was being planned — whatever he was an unwilling party to — would take place inside Buckingham Palace, and almost certainly at the State Banquet being planned for the evening of the Twenty-first of June.

  Percy was almost equally convinced, although he made a continued pretence of drawing up detailed duty rosters across six police stations. For one thing, if nothing transpired on the Twenty-first, his master plan would need to be activated on the Twenty-second, and for another it was necessary to keep Assistant Commissioner Doyle thinking that the Enrights were doing nothing to rock any revolutionary boats.

  The weekly meetings with Melville continued, but became increasingly acrimonious as the head of Special Branch refused to activate any programme for discovering Esther’s whereabouts and securing her release. ‘Whatever’s being planned,’ he reasoned, ‘we have the inside position on it thanks to your nephew’s bravery, and we can’t afford to do anything to block it while they still have time to plan something else.’ After their third consecutive weekly screaming match it was agreed that there would be no more meetings, since ‘the big day’ was now only two weeks away.

  Jack was still staying with Percy and Beattie through the week, and they agreed that she was to be told nothing. This was perhaps a wise policy, but it made it harder and harder to think up reasons why Jack was eating almost nothing after a lifetime of healthy appetite, and why Percy would jump down her throat if she made any suggestion that they cheer up. On weekday evenings Jack would wander down to the club and try not to get drunk on the cheaply priced drinks. He wisely stuck to beer, and only once came close to abandoning his assumed air of quiet confidence. That was when he turned aroun
d from his perch at the bar to find a crestfallen Mickey Black at his elbow.

  ‘I’m truly sorry, my friend,’ Mickey muttered, ‘but they threatened ter kill Lizzie an’ throw the kids inter one o’ them orphanages.’

  Jack took a deep breath, swallowed hard and forced a wan smile to his lips.

  ‘Don’t worry yourself about it, but for obvious reasons I can’t send anyone to find out if they carried out their threat.’

  Mickey slid away from the bar as Jack made a point of turning his back on him, downing his pint and loudly ordering another one.

  While Jack was turning into a mental wreck and losing weight at a rate he would never have thought possible, Esther was trying to come to terms with the fact that she’d become a prisoner at the hands of her own brother. At least she was being well treated, with regular meals, a bedroom of her own and laundry facilities. She was also allowed occasional shopping trips under the close guard of two surly looking guards, and by this means she managed to acquire fresh clothing when required. Her regular trips to the communal lavatory one floor down were chaperoned by Mary, who treated her with muted, slightly sullen, respect.

  The well-established suite of rooms had large windows, and from the room allocated to her Esther could just make out, in the far distance, the tall spire of Christ Church, Spitalfields. She knew it well from her childhood, and it had also been the place where she and Jack had walked regularly, hand in hand, on Sunday afternoons during their courtship almost ten years ago now. From the window in the sitting room, which pointed in the other direction, she could make out tall crane derricks and ships’ masts, and by her calculation she was somewhere in Aldgate, just south-west of Whitechapel, and up-river from where she had been seized in Wapping. But knowing where she had been taken brought her no closer to securing her freedom, and as the days passed she became more and more frustrated and anxious regarding the children she’d left back in Barking.

  She lost no time in complaining bitterly to Abe about the way he was treating her, and the suffering he was causing, not only to Jack, but also to his own nephews and nieces. Abe appeared unconcerned until Esther finally lost her temper and hurled a pepper pot across the supper table at him, hitting him squarely on the cheek.

  ‘You’re an utter bastard, Abraham Jacobs — a disgrace to our parents, who brought you up to better than this.’

  Mary made a grab for Esther’s arm, but Abe instructed her sharply to leave Esther alone.

  ‘She has every right to speak to me like that, and believe me, Esther, I’m not enjoying this.’

  ‘Then why are you doing it?’ she yelled back. ‘What on earth is going on?’

  ‘You’re here in order to ensure that Jack does as instructed,’ Abe replied calmly. ‘And if it’s any consolation, he clearly loves you so much that he’s prepared to abandon his duties, betray his oath of office and join in a conspiracy against the English throne.’

  ‘I can’t believe that of Jack for one moment,’ Esther protested. ‘His work is his life.’

  ‘And so are you, sister dear,’ Abe smiled back. ‘You should feel very special, and if nothing else comes of all this, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re the most important thing in your man’s life. Not every woman can say that.’

  ‘Not every woman’s being held prisoner indefinitely by her own brother!’ Esther retorted, and Abe smiled again.

  ‘It won’t be for ever. Today’s the fourteenth of June, and a week today it’ll all be over, and you’ll be free to go home.’

  ‘And Jack?’

  ‘That will depend on how he conducts himself.’

  On the morning of the Twenty-first of June the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations began with a triumphant procession from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace through the rapidly expanding western suburbs of her Empire’s capital. Tenements that were already beginning to crumble from shoddy and hasty workmanship, blackened by the soot of British industry, were ablaze with colour, as Union Jacks and other banners recently sold at exorbitant prices by opportunistic street traders were festooned from upstairs windows, factory balconies and shop awnings.

  As the regal procession approached Knightsbridge, a platoon of the Household Cavalry clattered out to meet it, and Her Majesty’s coach was flanked on both sides by men on glowingly groomed mounts, their cuirasses flashing gold in the midday sun, and their white feathered plumes waving in the breeze of their jogging passage down Grosvenor Place through cheering ecstatic crowds, then left into Buckingham Gate before wheeling majestically through the gates of Buckingham Palace.

  The deafening cheers and shouts of goodwill were faintly audible even through the closed windows of the almost empty Bow Street Police Station, whose uniformed officers were fanned out along the royal route, as Jack looked up from his desk to see Liam Brennan standing in the doorway holding up a police sergeant’s uniform on a hanger.

  ‘Time to dress for the party, Jack,’ he smiled.

  ‘I was wondering when you’d get around to telling me what role you expect me to play in whatever you have planned,’ Jack growled. ‘Is that by any chance the uniform that was stolen from Holborn last year?’

  ‘Never mind where it came from, it fits you,’ Liam advised him without breaking the smile. ‘Now get changed into it and come with me.’

  The police wagon trundled through the back-garden gate of Buckingham Palace once the tin soldier on the gate had read the letter authorising their passage, and Liam looked behind him as he lifted the rear canvas flap.

  ‘The rest should be close behind us,’ he commented, and Jack was curious.

  ‘What “rest”, exactly?’

  ‘The men you’ll be commanding during the banquet this evening. Every squad of police officers needs a sergeant to keep it under control.’

  ‘In connection with what, precisely, and will you now be releasing my wife?’

  ‘No idea what’s happening to your wife, but I can tell you what will happen to her if you don’t do what you’re told.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, enjoy the scenery. Not everyone gets to visit the kitchens of Buckingham Palace.’

  Esther knew only that she’d been told to prepare herself to leave her enforced accommodation late that afternoon. When she enquired why, Mary simply smirked and remarked sarcastically, ‘We assume that you don’t want to go and wave your little flag for your fat Queen, so where else would you like to be dropped off?’

  ‘Barking,’ Esther replied curtly. ‘And where’s Abe?’

  ‘He’s otherwise engaged, and Barking’s too far. Will you settle for Hackney?’

  ‘Uncle Percy’s, by any chance? But won’t he be on duty?’

  ‘Him and just about every other copper in London. But they’re wasting their time. Now, get your coat on — the coach’s downstairs waiting.’

  Inside the Palace kitchens it was heaving, steaming, yelling chaos as the chefs, cooks, kitchen hands and assorted underlings went about their appointed tasks, glowering accusingly at the small group of uniformed police officers cowering in one corner in an effort to avoid being burned, scalded or trodden on as dish after dish was loaded into the bain maries to keep them at an even temperature until they were needed. The chicken and asparagus salads were already loaded onto the trolleys that the esculiers would push into the Banqueting Chamber, and from which the gaudily-liveried waiters would collect the dishes that they would place on the tables.

  The men, notionally commanded by Jack, had been fed earlier that afternoon, and were now grouped in a corner, wondering what they were to be required to do next. Jack was unable to advise them, since he had been given no more information than they had and was about to go in search of further instructions when a red-faced chef appeared through the steam and peered into his face.

  ‘You Sergeant Enright?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Yer wanted in the cold larder — now.’

  ‘Be
g pardon?’

  ‘The cold larder — down there on the right — an’ keep yer ’ands off the merchandise.’

  Thoroughly at a loss, but grateful for what sounded like an opportunity to go somewhere cooler, Jack told his men to remain where they were, and picked his way carefully between the heavily laden metal benches until he stopped at the door labelled ‘Cold Larder’. As if aware of his presence, the door was pushed open from the inside, and Jack came face to face with his brother-in-law Abe, dressed in his full Grenadier Guards Mess Uniform.

  ‘What the…?’ was all he had time for before he was pulled roughly inside the larder and told to shut up by a man who looked the absolute opposite of the genial, if quiet, man who’d shared his Christmas fare in Barking. Then Abe produced a revolver.

  ‘Why shoot me in here, and spoil all this food?’ Jack joked nervously.

  ‘It’s for you, you idiot!’ Abe advised him sharply. ‘Hopefully you’ll be the only man in your contingent who’s armed.’

  ‘Armed for what?’

  Abe nodded towards the back of the door. ‘In a few minutes’ time you’ll be called into the Banquet Chamber to make an arrest. When you do, make sure above all else that your prisoner remains alive, since we need to confirm who commissioned him.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To assassinate one of the guests at the banquet.’

  ‘Not the Queen?’

  ‘Shut up and listen. I’ll be foiling the assassination attempt, then calling for a police squad to take him into custody. We believe that there’ll be an attempt on the assassin’s life by that shower of plebs under your command, and your most crucial job is to prevent that happening. Hence the revolver. Now go back out there, keep the weapon hidden, and await the call. By the way, Esther’s been released, and hopefully is now with your Aunt Beattie.’

  Jack thanked him, and did as instructed, keeping the weapon tucked inside his uniform jacket as he rejoined his men with a lighter heart and several fervent prayers of thanks. The pace quickened in the kitchen as several dozen sides of roast beef went under the carving knife, and dozens of steaming tureens of vegetables began to re-emerge from the bain maries.