by Alex Reeve
‘Dora was quite a lady, wasn’t she?’ he said eventually, almost as if he was talking to himself. ‘She never thought of herself as special, but she was. Her death won’t go unnoticed, not while I have breath. I’ll make sure everyone knows about it.’
He nodded towards someone seated at the front, and I realised it was J. T. Whitford, the journalist from the Daily Chronicle. I whispered as much to Rosie, and she craned her neck to see.
‘I get the Daily Chronicle from time to time,’ she whispered. When I looked surprised, she added: ‘It’s good kindling.’
Cowdery hadn’t finished. ‘We’ll get our revenge, won’t we?’ He glared around the room, challenging us. ‘They won’t get away with it. When they’re least expecting to, they’ll pay for what they’ve done!’
I noticed his sister, Erica, standing to one side. Cowdery caught her eye and she gave him a stiff shake of her head. When he spoke again, it was more placidly, as if he hadn’t threatened death and destruction a moment before.
‘Dora was born in Donegal,’ he said. ‘She used to bend my ear for hours about the sea and the cliffs and the green fields stretching on for miles. Every time she sneezed she told me: “You know, Edwin, snot’s not black in Donegal.”’ He chuckled to himself, shaking his head at the memory.
‘Her old man was a cabinetmaker. Beautiful things, she said: chairs inlaid with gold and ivory and tables with marble tops. He used to make toys too, model trains and horses and the like. He did well at his work, educating his children and taking on more men, treating them fairly. He wanted to expand and took out a loan, but times got hard and he couldn’t pay it back. The bank put the family out of their house and on to the street, and Dora only eleven. At fourteen she came here. But she was always proud of her upbringing, so we’re going to follow the Irish style. Our friend Mr Klaus here will be providing the music.’ The fellow who’d been tuning a violin had been joined by two others, one holding a penny whistle and the other what looked like an oversized concertina. ‘Irish music played by Germans. Whatever next, eh?’
Most of the audience stood at this point and started carrying the chairs to the side of the room, stacking them against the walls.
‘We’re not going to dance, are we?’ I whispered to Rosie. ‘At a funeral? To a violin?’
I hadn’t danced since I was a child. We had spent hours pirouetting around the parlour while Mummy accompanied us on the piano and instructed us to lift our chins and point our toes. Oliver hated it, so I usually had to take the part of the man, bowing to Jane before we began and asking if she would do me the honour of this waltz. Sometimes I minded, sometimes I didn’t.
Rosie took my hand. ‘It’s a fiddle, Leo, not a violin. And this isn’t a funeral, it’s a wake. An Irish wake.’
The penny whistle started with a trilling, energetic tune, accompanied by the stamping feet of the other musicians, and then the violin joined in, climbing swiftly up and down the notes, cycling through tiny variations, gathering vigour and verve while the giant concertina kept the rhythm. And what a rhythm! You couldn’t help but dance.
Rosie showed me what to do, putting one of my hands in hers and the other on her waist. I could feel the music in my feet, in my chest, in my fingertips. I began slowly, wary of the soreness of my limbs and back, and kept kicking her ankles and treading on her toes. She stopped me and taught me how to do a sort of sideways canter and, before long, the stiffness had left me completely, and we were spinning around the room with the half a dozen or so other couples. It was chaos, but it didn’t matter. We kept bumping into each other and whirling away, laughing and apologising, first to one couple and then the next, dipping and stepping while the little band played and our feet pounded. For the next song, Rosie took both of my hands and we moved together, and apart, and from side to side, and the music gathered pace and we were off again, gyrating around the room until I was giddy and breathless.
As that tune ended, we applauded the band and each other, but we had no time to recover; the next one began, and we bounded away again, round and around, until the whole room was a whirr and I was nothing but my feet and the music and the warmth of Rosie’s hand in mine.
Never before had I danced that way. I forgot about my sister, my father and the death of Dora Hannigan. I forgot about everything. For those few minutes, I was happy.
It ended abruptly.
I was facing in the direction of the main door as it burst open. I stopped dancing, but most people hadn’t seen, and continued until the band fell silent.
A dozen or more policemen charged in, batons held high. I recognised Constable Pallett among them. He doffed his helmet politely to Rosie as he joined his colleagues in shoving us towards the edges of the room.
Last through the door was Detective Hooper, resembling as ever a heron with a distaste for the pond he was standing in. He pointed directly at Cowdery.
‘You’re under arrest,’ he said. ‘Trespassing and conspiring to commit arson. You and Duport were seen creeping around Sir Reginald’s mill. And we found your plan to burn it. Your time’s up.’
He seemed excited by his authority, enjoying that we were silent and scared. He had us where he wanted us.
Two of the constables grabbed Cowdery, and one of them punched him hard in the face and stomach. He doubled over and fell to his knees. The constable kicked him in the back and he collapsed forward, curling up and covering his mouth.
The crowd surged, starting to shout, and one fellow grabbed at the constable, pulling him away from Cowdery. The policeman swung round and punched him full in the face, and he must have been wearing something over his knuckles, a metal band inside his glove, because the man’s face was gashed and bloody as he dropped.
I put myself in front of Rosie, prepared to fight if one of them came near her, though they all looked twice my weight at least.
They hauled Cowdery to his feet and he spat on the floor; a bright, red splash.
‘Take him away,’ instructed Hooper.
The constables dragged him out between them, taking no great care of his limbs and head on the door jamb.
Hooper noticed me and strode over to where we were standing. His face was flushed pink.
‘Mr Stanhope, how interesting to see you here. Did your friend John Duport invite you?’
‘I haven’t seen him.’
‘Seems like no one has.’
He turned away from me and addressed the rest of the room, his voice booming as if he were a victorious general.
‘You mark my words.’ He swept his finger across their faces. ‘These are your last days in this bloody place. Go home and don’t come back. Count yourself lucky it isn’t you in manacles. Edwin Cowdery likes to think he’s leading a revolution, but he’ll be in the clink tonight with the pimps and the mollies. Won’t be so revolutionary after that, will he?’
His accent was shifting; he was sounding more and more like an East End boy with a sharp mind who’d grown up to be a copper and enjoyed hobnobbing with the wealthy and powerful. Under pressure, he was still that boy. His fists were twitching.
A constable approached him and handed him something. Hooper studied it and turned it over in his hand. He squinted towards me, taking in Rosie as well, apparently caught in two minds. Then he made his decision.
‘My men have searched Duport’s room,’ he said. ‘They found something of interest. Perhaps you can explain it.’
He handed me a photograph. Rosie peered at it too and I heard her intake of breath.
There were three people in the foreground. In the centre was my father, when he was still tall and straight-backed, his hair grey, but thick and strong. He was wearing the familiar expression that had always frightened me, as if everything I did and everything I was had been found wanting. On one side of him was John Thackery as a young man, shoulders proudly back, looking at the camera. And on the other side, half-turned as if distracted by something out of sight, was me.
I was wearing a pale dress with a frilly
neckline and a hat with a bow. What you couldn’t tell, unless you knew, was that the dress was covered in little holes where I had picked resentfully at the stitching with my nails.
I could clearly remember that morning. It was late summer in 1869, a couple of months before I left home. One of the ladies at the church had a cousin who was visiting from Hampshire, a Mrs St John, although it was oddly pronounced: Sinjun. She had a camera resembling a bellows with a binocular stuck on the front, and she asked people to pose in front of the thing. I had never seen photography done before and watched her with fascination. She noticed my interest and brought me behind the machine to show me how all the parts worked: the glass plate and the little knob that moved the bellows in and out. John Thackery suggested a picture with my father and me. In those days, I rarely looked at myself in a mirror, and even catching my reflection in a shop window made me pinch the skin between my thumb and forefinger. I should simply have said no, and probably Mrs Sinjun would have let me be, but I was craven, and so it was done.
I hadn’t seen that photograph in years, but I knew who it belonged to: it was from my father’s collection.
‘This is obviously John Duport when he was young,’ I managed to say, keeping my voice steady.
Hooper raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, but who are the other two, eh? The vicar and the girl?’
‘How would I know? It’s a very old photograph. What does this have to do with me, Detective?’
‘It’s Detective Inspector, as I believe I’ve mentioned before. You’re mixed up in this somehow, Mr Stanhope, I’m sure of it. Turn it over.’
On the back of the photograph, in handwriting I didn’t recognise, was written: This is Leo Stanhope.
19
After the police had gone, for five seconds there was silence.
Then everyone started talking at once.
A man climbed on to a chair and appealed for quiet, but no one was listening. A small group had gathered around the stricken fellow on the floor, arguing about how best to treat him, while others were making for the exit. Some preferred standing and yelling.
The one person neither moving nor speaking was Mr Whitford, who was scribbling in his notepad. He looked up and around the room, and I had the impression he was writing down the names of the people there.
‘We should leave,’ Rosie hissed at me, tugging at my arm. ‘No good will come of staying.’
I was too shocked about the photograph to move or respond.
Whitford came over, making as if to doff his hat to Rosie before realising he was holding it in his hand.
‘Mrs Stanhope, I presume?’
She reddened. ‘Mrs Flowers, actually.’
‘Ah, I see. I’m Whitford, and you’ll be able to read about all this excitement in the Daily Chronicle tomorrow.’ He held up his notebook. ‘The battle of Rose Street; how a criminal was apprehended.’
‘You’re sure he’s guilty then?’ she asked.
‘Of trespassing and planning to set fire to Sir Reginald Thackery’s blasted mill, with apologies for my language? Yes, he’s certainly guilty of that. It’s been coming for the last three years, ever since they took this place, stirring up trouble with their speeches and posters and all. It was only a question of time before they went a stage further.’
‘What about Miss Hannigan’s murder?’
He shrugged. ‘Good question. My son, Harry, who works with me on the newspaper, he found out that she and Cowdery had an understanding, so to speak. They both lived in this lushery, so it wasn’t hard for them to carry on.’
Rosie gave him one of her looks. ‘Does that make him a suspect?’
‘Maybe she gave him cause to be jealous.’
Rosie smiled with a sweetness like lemonade, so sharp it makes you wince. ‘Will you be printing innuendo, Mr Whitford?’
His ears went pink. ‘No, of course not. We’ll probably never know who did for her. The police don’t care about some dead woman who no one’s ever heard of, they care about getting this place shut down. You saw the gang Hooper brought with him. That costs money and takes planning. They don’t do that unless someone’s paying the bills.’
He was about to leave, but at that moment Erica Cowdery appeared at his side, her face white and her jaw clenched.
‘You’re the journalist, aren’t you?’ she said, making it sound like an accusation.
‘I’m sorry about your brother. A terrible thing. Unexpected, I’m sure.’
‘I wouldn’t say so,’ she replied. ‘They just needed an excuse. You should write about it in that newspaper of yours. The police interrupted a wake, of all things, waving their little truncheons. Mr Gladstone’s so perturbed by fear of a revolution, like the French have had, that he’ll go to any lengths to crush it before it starts, even at the expense of justice and decency. That’s the real story, Mr Whitford, and I’m sure you’re the man to write it.’
He appeared quite flattered and immediately started writing scratchily in his notebook. ‘And yet Mr Cowdery continued to antagonise them. Brave man.’
She narrowed her eyes a little, seeming unsure whether he was mocking her brother.
‘Stupid, if you want my opinion. He put the whole movement at risk. I spend my spare time, what little I have of it, making flags, brewing tea, delivering pamphlets, speaking in freezing town halls and collecting farthings in buckets.’ She gave the men still left in the room a cold look. ‘Real work that needs to be done. Not getting arrested in a … whatever that was. They go on and on about the rights of man and forget that half of us aren’t men. Anyway, I suppose I shall have to go and find a lawyer for Edwin.’ She gathered herself and gave me a weary nod. ‘Goodbye, Mr Stanhope. I hope we meet again soon, in happier circumstances.’
Outside, Rosie and I navigated between the ragged blankets and empty beer bottles of the passageway sleepers, who hadn’t yet returned from their day’s begging.
I was still shaking from seeing the photograph. I’d forgotten how I had looked back then; not just the frills and bows, but how I stood, how I smiled, how I held my hands, never sure what to do with them. God, I was good at appearing to be what I was not. Everyone was misled by my physical form. They never guessed I was a boy.
‘Rosie, that photograph isn’t … it’s not me. I mean, it’s how I was, but not by choice. Do you understand?’
‘You think I don’t know that?’
I felt foolish. Of course she knew. She had seen me at my weakest.
‘John told me he had proof of who I was, and it must be that photograph. It was my father’s.’
And yet my father was in no state to give him anything. Jane must have handed over the photograph. I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other explanation. My sister held me in so much contempt, she had betrayed me.
‘Do you think John Thackery might be the killer?’ asked Rosie as we reached Greek Street. ‘You said he knew Miss Hannigan well. I still don’t know why you won’t tell the police that he and Duport are the same man.’
I thought back to John’s tearful face in the churchyard at St Anne’s.
‘He cared about Dora Hannigan. I can’t imagine him hurting her. She was the one who introduced him to the club. I got the feeling he idolised her a little bit.’
Rosie didn’t immediately reply. I could tell she was turning things over in her mind. ‘Some men care about a person so much, they come to think they own them,’ she said, eventually. ‘If he found out she was Sir Reginald’s mistress, he might feel she’d let him down. Forsaken him. That might be a motive to kill her, never mind that it was no business of his and he’d be leaving two children alone in the world.’
‘Perhaps. He’s a zealot by nature, and that might lead him to a drastic act, though the same could be said about Edwin Cowdery, and perhaps Erica too.’
‘She doesn’t have much time for her brother, does she? Though she likes you well enough. What about Mr Peregrine Black?’ She spoke his name with a theatrical flourish. ‘Singer, painter and imp
resario.’
‘Not the name he was born with, I imagine.’
‘No more than yours, Leo Stanhope.’
‘Or yours, Mrs Flowers.’
She laughed, and kicked a shallow puddle of water at me, and then squeaked when I made to do the same back at her.
‘Enough!’ she protested. ‘Who else might it be?’
‘Sir Reginald is certainly capable. I’m sure he’s the children’s father. Maybe he wanted to silence her, if she was blackmailing him.’
‘But over what?’ said Rosie. ‘It would have to be something that would damage him, wouldn’t it? Something that would cost him dearly. And what about the other son?’
‘Peter? He’s a free spirit, but very young, only fifteen or so. I’m not sure he even knew Dora Hannigan.’
‘You like him, though, don’t you? When you like someone, it’s hard to believe them capable of killing another person.’
I pulled my hat lower over my forehead and didn’t reply. She herself had killed, twice, once knowingly and once not. And yet I liked her.
For a while we walked on in silence, until we reached the corner of Old Compton Street, where I would go right, and she left.
‘Rosie, I want to ask you a question.’
She looked up at me, her head tipped quizzically to one side. ‘What is it?’
‘With your children, how do you manage without Jack?’
She snorted. ‘Are you serious? Without Jack? God, you men. You think nothing can happen without your masculine authority.’
‘It’s not that. I was wondering how it is, to be both parents at once.’
If it were possible, she looked even more scornful. ‘It’s all I’ve ever done! Jack was as much use as mouldy yeast, and a sight less attractive. You’re asking the wrong person. Alfie Smith could tell you, I imagine.’
Alfie had looked after Constance on his own for half of her life, despite being a man. Indeed, he seemed weakest in the more obviously paternal area; she was largely impervious to his efforts at discipline.
