“I must say, Inspector Bowman, I envy you your view,” he remarked as he removed his damp hat and placed it on Bowman’s desk.
“It’s not much of a view at the moment,” answered Bowman. “Not with this fog. How is life at Bow Street?”
Bowman rather liked Sergeant Williams. He had had the pleasure of his company many times before during the course of various investigations and he relished his plain speaking and dry, mordant wit. He could think of no finer man to have on his side in a tough spot.
“It’s enough to keep a man busy,” Williams replied. “Of course, we don’t live in such luxury there.” There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. Bowman was happy to accept the jibe. He motioned the bluff Welshman to join him at his desk and the two men sat.
“What can I do for you, Sergeant Williams?”
Williams shifted in his seat and leaned forward to the inspector. “I have some information for you,” he began. “If it proves of use, I would ask you to consider a proposition.”
Bowman leaned back in his chair and let his eyes wander to the ceiling. He sighed. He’d had quite enough of deals and propositions for one day but perhaps he would give the sergeant the benefit of the doubt for now. His eyes fell back to Williams. “Go on,” he said, tentatively.
“It concerns your lady in the lake,” smiled Williams, his eyes shining, mischievously.
Bowman winced at the analogy, the truth was about as far from the sergeant’s romantic allusion as it was possible to get. “Oh yes?”
Sergeant Williams had reached into an inside pocket and pulled out his familiar pipe and tobacco pouch. Pulling at the shreds with his portly fingers, Williams filled the bowl with tobacco as he talked. “We’ve been trying something new over at Bow Street. Inspector Treacher calls it “infiltration”. He has, for the past three weeks or so, lived the life of a vagrant in a criminal cell. We’ve been hoping to gather evidence on a certain Jabez Kane and his gang master, Jeb Hardacre.” He pulled a matchbook from another pocket and paused to light his pipe. “This morning, Inspector Treacher captured a vagrant, one Isambard Fogg, and brought him to the cells for questioning. We think he pointed the finger at Jabez Kane with regard to your woman in the Thames.”
“Jabez Kane,” mused Bowman, his hands clasped together in front of him. “I’m not familiar with the name.”
“That’s no surprise, inspector,” said Williams between puffs. “He’s slippery. We suspect him of a dozen crimes but we’ve got nothing on him. Hence Inspector Treacher’s drastic actions.”
Inspector Bowman rose again, as much to get out of the direct path of Williams’ choking pipe smoke as anything else. Walking once more to the window, he turned to face the room, leaning on the sill. “And your proposition?”
Williams gestured with his pipe. “We strike at this man’s lair. Tonight. As well as Kane himself, we know the leader of the outfit to be a pimp and a thief and suspect him of a murder or two to boot.” Williams’ Welsh accent was all the stronger now as he spoke in low, conspiratorial tones. “It’s a close call, and we’re not sure if we can trust the words of a fellow criminal, but Treacher thinks we’ve got enough to warrant it.”
As he absently parted his wide moustache with a thumb and finger, Bowman thought this through. If this Isambard Fogg really had identified the man responsible for the head in the river, this was too good an opportunity to miss. It would steal a march on Jack Watkins, too. How useful it would be to have the case sewn up before The Evening Standard could get involved. However, something troubled him. Was the word of a criminal really to be trusted? Before he gave the matter any more thought, Bowman thought it might be prudent to speak personally with the man in the cells at Bow Street. “Is this man Fogg still in your cells?”
By way of reply, Williams pulled a pocket watch from his cape. “He is for now,” he said, glancing at the watch face. “And shall be for the next quarter of an hour.”
Bowman’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re letting him go?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” A smile played over Williams’ wide face. “He’s dead. And he’s to be collected at five o’the clock by the coroner.” Williams shook his heavy head in mock exasperation. “Death in custody, you see.”
Bowman sighed in response.
“The commissioner has given me the authority to take Constable Evan from ‘H’ division, two inspectors from the Yard and Treacher,” Williams continued, pushing his chair away from the desk to stand up. Stamping the feeling back into his still cold feet, he walked to the map on Bowman’s wall and pointed with the stem of his pipe. “We’re to meet under the clock at Waterloo Station at seven o’the clock and proceed from there to Southwark where Hardacre has his lodgings.” He tapped his pipe at the exact location of Hardacre’s den.
Bowman turned to look at the encroaching fog from the window. The street below was lost in a swirling, impenetrable mist, the light from the lamps now only visible as a sickly yellow smudge. It wasn’t the perfect night to effect an ambush. “Well,” he said, “You can count on Sergeant Graves if you want him.”
“Thank you,” said Williams, reaching for his hat on the desk. “I shall find him on the way out.”
“And I’ll have Inspector Crouch meet you at Bow Street in an hour,” continued Bowman as Williams turned to leave the room. “He’s a capable man, fearless too. You might need him.”
Williams had reached the door by now, and paused with his hand on the handle. “That won’t be necessary,” he said with meaning.
Bowman looked up, “Oh?”
“No,” said the sergeant as he opened the door to step through. “The commissioner suggested you might come along yourself.”
With that, Sergeant Williams walked from the room, pausing only to shut the door behind him.
IX
The Ambush
The fog was thickest where the land was low. The streets of Primrose Hill lay at the bottom of a bowl into which the fog seemed to pour like a viscous soup. Despite the half moon spectacles balanced upon her nose, Patricia Bessom could barely see five yards ahead of her as she made her way over the railway line back to her modest lodgings on Chalk Farm Road. She was a middle-aged frump of a woman, but she had a kindly face that lit up with a smile when she chose to show it. A large, wide-brimmed hat was pinned to her greying, curly hair. A voluminous coat added to her considerable bulk as she shuffled carefully through the streets. She was governess to two children of a wealthy family on the hill. She had chosen not to live in. The master of the house was of sufficient funds and valued Mrs Bessom’s qualities so highly, that he was happy to pay for her rent in a small set of rooms just fifteen minutes” walk away in order to secure her services. The arrangement suited Mrs Bessom perfectly. She loved all children, and her current charges were exceptionally well behaved, but she relished the opportunity to come home each night and have her own few things about her.
As she rounded the corner to her house, Mrs Bessom was pleased to see a familiar figure emerge beneath a halo of lamplight. Martin Quigley was an engaging Irish youth half her age who ran a paper stall. Instinctively a matronly figure, Mrs Bessom had come to regard Quigley, with his engaging smile and easy good looks, as the son she had never had. She always looked forward to their early evening encounters.
“Good evening, Martin,” she offered as she neared his stand. It was no more than a wooden box piled high with bundles of newspapers tied with string. Quigley was happy for the diversion. The evening had been quiet. In the cold and the fog, people generally hurried home, their heads buried deep in their scarves. They had no inclination to converse, let alone to stop and buy an evening paper. The large piles of newspapers by Quigley’s side stood testament to his lack of custom.
“Ah, Mrs Bessom, good evening to you.” Swinging his cap from his head, he bowed low as if he were in conversation with the Queen herself. Mrs Bessom blushed at the gesture.
“Oh, get away with you now,” she laughed. “A woman could get ideas
above her station at such behaviour.”
Quigley held a rolled up newspaper out to her, the tips of his fingers poking through his threadbare gloves. “Will you take a Standard?”
“I will, thank you Martin,” giggled Mrs Bessom as she reached for her purse. “And a pearl of that fine Irish wisdom to see me safely home, if you’d be so kind as to oblige me.”
Quigley rubbed his handsome jaw with his hand and thought, his lively eyes sparkling in the lamplight. “How’s this for you? Never be fooled by a kiss, and never be kissed by a fool.” To Mrs Bessom’s surprise and evident delight, Quigley clutched at her glove as she passed over her change and kissed her playfully on the back of her hand.
“Well, it seems I have been!” she laughed. “Oh, to be young again!” She withdrew her hand slowly, perhaps more slowly than was seemly. “Martin Quigley, you’re a tonic on these winter days, you really are.”
“Happy New Year, Mrs Bessom.” Quigley passed her newspaper and took her change, dropping the coins into a leather pouch around his waist. His eyes narrowed as Mrs Bessom walked away, the fog enveloping her like a shroud as her footsteps echoed off the smart townhouses by the road. Jamming the stub of a cigarette in his mouth, Martin Quigley’s cheery expression fell as if he had removed a mask. He swore beneath his breath at the cold and knelt to cut through the string on another bundle of unsold newspapers with an old, rusty blade.
The grand clock suspended from the vaulted roof of Waterloo’s Central Platform chimed seven. As the roosting pigeons took wing in fright, the crack of their wings echoed into the vast space below. Beneath the clock, on two benches arranged to face each other over an open stretch of flagstones worn smooth under a million boots, sat a disparate group of Scotland Yarders. At Sergeant Williams’ command, they had each of them assumed disguises, some perhaps more successful than others in their ability to deceive. On the bench directly beneath the ornate clock sat Inspector Bowman. He looked ill at ease in an old knee length coat and a pair of grimy hobnail boots. His face was smeared with soot and his hair and moustache were greased flat against his head and face. Not entirely convinced by the wisdom of the enterprise, Bowman shifted uncertainly on his seat. As the clock struck the first of its seven chimes, Sergeant Graves walked over to the bench to join him. He wore a shapeless, black, felt hat that fell over his eyes. An unlit clay pipe was clenched between his teeth. His eyes met Bowman’s as he gave a nod of acknowledgement and unfolded a grubby newspaper from under his arm. On the bench opposite, sat Treacher and Williams. Inspector Treacher was shelling nuts from a bag and had a full, fake beard attached to his chin. A dishevelled hat and neckerchief gave him the air of a rather bohemian artist, and his eyes darted from left to right as a great throng of bustling commuters made their way between the two benches, on their way to catch their trains. A tattered knapsack hung on his back. At Treacher’s side sat Sergeant Williams, his beard full of sawdust and a patch over one eye. He wore a baggy pair of workman’s overalls under a great ex-army coat. Incongruously - and almost comically - a hook extended from his left coat sleeve in place of his hand. Behind them both stood a younger man. He looked no more than twenty five years old and had a fresh open face, on which his feelings could be easily read. He was obviously uncomfortable, due both to the strange company in which he found himself, and the expectation of the ordeal ahead. He wore a station porter’s uniform that Sergeant Williams had requisitioned for him from a rather disgruntled London and South Western Railway employee.
“That’s Constable Evan,” breathed Sergeant Graves into Bowman’s ear. “He’s been afforded the post of lookout. He’s a bit green and we wouldn’t want to see him hurt.”
Bowman cast his eyes over the young man and could tell that he was anxious. “Then he’s the luckiest man among us. This could get very messy indeed.”
“Williams seems to have thought of everything,” continued Graves. “These disguises should buy us some time if we’re spotted.”
As Graves finished, the clock above them ceased its tolling for the hour. In a predetermined sequence, the men on the benches rose to their feet. With no more than a cursory glance to young Constable Evan, Sergeant Williams ambled through the crowd to the main exit on Waterloo Road. Picking his way through the throng, Evan endeavoured to keep the sergeant in his sights as he followed at a discreet distance, then darted to the left towards a different exit. This would ensure that, as they all emerged onto the street outside, Evan would be a hundred yards or so ahead of the group. Inspector Treacher made for an exit on the station’s north side, affecting, noticed Bowman, an exaggerated nonchalance as he skirted round the mass of commuters. He looked to Sergeant Graves who, with no more than a nod, started out for yet another exit near the Cyprus Station. Bowman rose to his feet and straightened his coat about him. To his mind, the little group had looked ridiculous, but he had to admit as he looked about him, that they looked far from out of place among the detritus of London society that seethed around him. Walking just a few paces apart, Bowman and Graves barely turned a head as they left the station and slipped out into the night.
The one thing Sergeant Williams hadn’t taken into account, was the fog. In the time that the motley group had gathered beneath the clock and waited for the hour to chime, it had taken hold of the city streets and smothered them of life and light. As the small party walked gingerly through the streets, it became apparent that keeping each other in plain sight was going to prove impossible.
“Blimey,” ventured Graves as Bowman caught up to him. “This came down quickly. Just about puts the kibosh on things, I’d say.”
Bowman had to agree. With a shake of his head, he reflected how the all-enveloping fog had made their disguises redundant. And he suddenly felt all the more ridiculous.
“We can barely see the other side of the street,” continued Graves, peering through the mist to the opposite pavement where he hoped Williams and Treacher were keeping pace with them.
Bowman trained his eyes directly in front of him, and could just make out a ghostly figure, crowned with the peak of a porter’s hat. “I can just see Constable Evan,” he said.
“Can you make out his hands?” enquired Graves, his usually cheerful face knotted into an expression of intense concentration.
“Yes,” replied Bowman. “Just about. They’re in his pockets by his side.”
“Watch him carefully, Bowman. If he takes his hands from his pockets, there’s trouble.”
This was a prearranged signal agreed with Sergeant Williams before the enterprise began, though Bowman thought the sight of Constable Evan running back towards them would have been a more obvious and probably more likely sign that all was not well.
As they rounded the corner from The Cut onto Blackfriars Road heading north, Inspector Bowman suddenly felt an impact at his shoulder. Almost blind in the fog, he gave a cry as he swung round, reaching out instinctively for something to prevent his falling to the grimy pavement. He was greeted by a loud, high pitched shriek which left his ears ringing, and immediately brought his colleagues to his side. Looking down, Bowman could see that he had hold of a mop of curly, red hair. Beneath that, a pair of blue eyes stared up at him from a dirty, soot-smeared face.
“Hey! Get your filthy hands off me!”
As the urchin started to kick at Bowman’s shins, Sergeant Graves took hold of him by the lapels of his threadbare coat and shook him to be quiet.
“Get off me! I wasn’t meaning no harm!”
For a small boy he could make a lot of noise, thought Bowman. Too much noise. He looked around as best he could, trying to see if anyone else had noticed the commotion, but it was impossible to make out anything in such conditions.
“Just ran into you, like,” continued the ruffian. “Couldn’t see you, could I?”
“Quiet lad,” hissed Bowman, worried now that the whole operation was in jeopardy. He placed a hand over the boy’s mouth in an effort to quieten him, but even then he continued to shout.
“O
w!” squirmed the boy. “Come on mister, let me go! You’re hurting.”
Bowman thought on balance it was better to let him go. He couldn’t risk drawing any more attention to himself and his colleagues. As he released his hold, the boy paused to spit at Bowman’s feet before running off to be consumed by the fog, his footsteps echoing off the filthy tenement walls around them.
Graves plunged his hands deep into the pockets of his coat as he watched him go. “The whole of Southwark will probably hear of us in the next five minutes,” he said, shaking his head.
Inspector Treacher was at his side by now, looking anxiously around him for any signs of further unexpected activity. “Well,” he began, “We’re in too far now. What do you think, Sergeant Williams?”
As one, the men swung round to face the sergeant to find his gaze was directed into the fog behind them.
“I think,” he said, stroking at his beard in an anxious gesture, “We’ve lost Constable Evan.”
As the other men turned to follow his gaze, they peered into the curtain of impenetrable fog for any sign of their young lookout. Constable Evan was, indeed, nowhere to be seen.
Patricia Bessom hummed absently to herself as she rounded the corner into Chalk Farm Road and made her way carefully through the fog to the smart townhouse at the end. She had been lucky enough to secure herself two rooms on the first floor of this well maintained building, helped no doubt by an excellent reference from her employer which had endeared him to Mrs Bessom all the more. She felt safe on the first floor, too. In more clement weather, the bay window in her front room gave her an almost panoramic view of the street below. Today, it was all she could do to see the path just three steps ahead of her. Reaching the end of her ditty, Mrs Bessom allowed herself a little giggle as she pushed at the gate to her gravelled path. Locating her keys in a pocket, she picked a piece of loose holly from the wreath which still hung on her front door, pushed it open and stepped inside.
The Head in the Ice Page 7
