Arrowood and the Meeting House Murders

by Mick Finlay

  Soon after, I said my goodbyes, promising to return the next morning for the procession.

  ‘I’ll take you out,’ said Ettie, pulling on a shawl and collecting the keys from the mantel. She led me down the passage, into the cold pudding shop. The only light in there was a dim glow coming through the window from the streetlamp. She cursed as she barked her shin on a bench.

  ‘Why didn’t you want her to know you’d been offered the scholarship too?’ I asked.

  ‘I turned it down. They offered it to her instead.’

  ‘But you want to be a doctor. You’re perfect for it.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not. I realized that more than anything I want to work for the mission.’

  ‘For Hebden?’

  ‘Oh, Norman, he’s not such a bad man as you think. I don’t judge you for lying with a woman, so why do you judge him?’

  ‘He’s supposed to have higher morals.’

  ‘He’s just a man. But that’s not why I want to work for the mission. I have a calling. I believe the Lord wants me there.’

  A thin bloke rushed past the window. Two others chased him.

  ‘Did you do it because Isabel lost Leo?’

  ‘Of course not. I didn’t know they’d choose her instead.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ She turned to the door and unlocked it. ‘William told me you’ve met a woman. A friend of Rita’s?’

  ‘I’ve seen her a few times.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said, gripping my forearm. ‘You seem so lost sometimes.’

  I looked into her handsome, grey eyes, feeling comforted and challenged at the same time. I wished she wouldn’t do that.

  Thoughts were spinning in my head as I walked home, and when I crossed Blackfriars Road onto Southwark Street a great wave of tiredness came over me. It was half an hour before midnight. Here and there people slept in shop doorways under piles of sacks, pretending not to hear the laughter and shouts of the folk staggering home from the pubs. Up ahead, a copper on his beat was approaching from London Bridge, taking particular care to prod each sleeping pile with his truncheon and telling them to move on.

  ‘Give it a rest, will you, mate?’ I said as he got near. ‘It’s Christmas. They’ll only lie down somewhere else.’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ he growled. ‘Unless you want a night in the cells yourself.’ He was Irish, and I could see from the way he shuddered that he was sickening with something.

  ‘Merry Christmas, mate,’ I said, passing him. He’d probably be here doing just the same tomorrow night.

  The lights were still on in the Pelican, and even from fifty yards off I could hear the sound of singing inside. I thought about Molly, about my cold, empty room.

  I put my hand on the door. Inside, the same woman from before was singing Black Mary’s song again: ‘Only a violet I plucked, when but a boy…’

  The pub fell silent.

  I turned and went home.

  At nine o’clock next morning, I was at Scotland Yard. It was quiet. I wore my dark suit. The desk sarge wished me Happy Christmas and rang up for Napper.

  ‘Thought you’d be here, sir,’ I said when he appeared.

  ‘It’s my bloody superintendent. Wanted some of us in this morning, the rest in the afternoon. At least I get half a day holiday, I suppose.’

  I held out the packet of chocolates I’d bought for Molly a couple of days back. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  He looked at them like I’d brought him a bomb. ‘Eh?’ he said at last. ‘For me?’

  ‘From Mr Arrowood and me. For putting up with us. You’re a decent copper.’

  ‘Well… Well, thank you.’

  It seemed to make his muscles tense. He glanced at the sarge, then back at me. ‘You want a quick brandy across the road?’

  The pub was almost empty. When we were sat down with a drink, he said: ‘Craft told us everything. Mabaso found him the same way you did. He followed the Africans’ trail from the Quaker House to Charing Cross, and learned from the sweepers they’d got into Craft’s cab. Craft told him they were hiding in Gresham Hall, just as he told you. Mabaso knew they were there a few days before he told us.’

  ‘Enough time to take Mrs Fowler.’

  ‘That’s right. Craft helped him collect Mrs Fowler’s body and take it to Gresham Hall the night before we discovered it. Seems he’s a dab hand at picking locks. Been in stir three times for burglary, has our Mr Craft.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘We encouraged him. He knows he’ll dodge the murder charge.’

  ‘Did he get paid well?’

  Napper’s eyes were on a young lady selling winkles from table to table. When she turned her head, her gave her a nod.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell us. I doubt he was in it for the good of Africa, though.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘That’s how Mabaso got around without being seen. Craft hid him too, when he disappeared.’ He hoiked up his britches. ‘Oh, and Nick did go missing two days after Sylvia, just as your guvnor said he would. Seems like he was right about a few things, after all.’

  I nodded. I wanted to ask him about me shooting Mabaso but at the same time didn’t want to make him think about it too much.

  ‘We’re due the reward. I’d like to take it to Mr Arrowood today.’

  ‘As a Christmas present?’

  ‘If you like.’

  He shifted on the bench. ‘It’ll take a few days.’

  ‘You going to do anything about those three women Capaldi had prisoner?’ I asked, standing and buttoning my coat.

  He shrugged. ‘What can I do? We don’t know who they are or where they’ve gone.’

  ‘You could raid his cat-house.’

  ‘I’ll ask the superintendent.’

  ‘Promise?’

  He nodded. ‘He’s off with his blooming family. Insists on us working while he stuffs himself with turkey and pudding.’

  At half ten, I was back at Coin Street. The hearse was parked outside the pudding shop, Leo’s tiny coffin already lying there. The Puddings were in their dark overcoats, Mrs Pudding holding Mercy tight to her breast. I waited by the black horses until the guvnor appeared with Flossie. They stood by the second carriage as Isabel stepped out of the shop with Ettie holding her arm. Arrowood touched her shoulder as she passed, and she gave him a weak, trembling smile. The two women climbed aboard, followed by Mrs Pudding and Flossie. The undertakers whipped on the horses, and the guvnor, Mr Pudding, Little Albert and me walked behind. It was Christmas morning, 1896. We’d never see the Africans again, but within a year the British would be at war with the Boer. It was Christmas morning, and we were going to bury a child.

  Historical notes

  The Arrowood books are narrated by Norman Barnett, a white man born in the slums of Bermondsey. As such, the story is filtered through his perceptions and understandings. For much of the background detail regarding the situation of black people in Britain in the 1890s, I relied on two books in particular: David Olusoga’s Black and British: A Forgotten History, and Peter Fryer’s Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain.

  Multicultural London in the 1890s

  The largest immigrant groups in London at this time were Eastern European Jews and the Irish, both of whom formed communities in the East End. As a result of the British Empire and London’s status as a major port, there were also people from many other parts of the world living and working in the city, including those from continental Europe, China, South Asia, Africa and North America. Black people had lived in London since the Roman Empire in the third century AD. In the Victorian period, black migrants from Africa, America and the West Indies came as sailors, soldiers, medical and law students, missionaries and entertainers, among others, and worked in a wide range of jobs in the city. Although scattered throughout London, there was a small black population near the docks in Canning Town. Before slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833 and in the United States in 18
65, black visitors from America also came as anti-slavery campaigners and fugitive slaves. Slave narratives, such as those by Moses Roper and Frederick Douglass (which PC Mabaso reads in the story), were very popular at this time.

  Zulus in London

  The four primary African characters (Thembeka, Senzo, Musa and S’bu) were inspired by the true story of five men from Natal (Somanquasane, Inconda, Maquasa, Istri and Inaquala), who appeared in Westminster Police Court in 1879. They had been arrested for refusing to appear at the London Aquarium for the showman, Mr Farini, with whom they had a contract. As in the novel, Farini had been keeping them prisoner, refusing to allow them out in case it affected the ticket prices. Their court appearance was reported and discussed in many newspapers, including the Illustrated Police News where I first came across it. As in this novel, a translator from the Aborigines’ Protection Society aided them, and the magistrate dismissed the case.

  The Princess Nobantu character is inspired by a real woman who arrived in London in 1880. The Zulu Princess Amazulu stayed at the York Hotel in Waterloo with a ‘suite’ of two women and four men. She was the subject of great interest in the press, and travelled to Brighton to give daily receptions at the Aquarium. The article Arrowood reads out to Barnett is an amalgamation of two articles from the Edinburgh Evening News and the Globe, published in January, 1880.

  Conditions in Natal

  Much of my understanding of the people of, and situation in, Natal is based on Michael Mahoney’s book The Other Zulus: the Spread of Zulu Ethnicity in Colonial South Africa. Natal contained a number of chiefdoms, including Zulu, Qwabe, Thembu and Chunu. In 1837, the Boer invaded and set up a republic called Natalia, which was then taken over and set up as a British colony called Natal. This led to an influx of British settlers. By 1879, the colonial authorities had taken 80 per cent of the land for the government and white settlers. Africans, left with only 20 per cent of their original land, were confined to ‘reserves’ set out for ‘natives’. The best farming land, and all the lucrative diamond and gold mines in the area, were given over to the settlers. As a result, the traditional homesteads could no longer support the native population, and young men and women were forced to leave home to look for wage labour as servants or in the mines and docks. This situation was made worse by a five-year drought that began in 1888, and a rinderpest epidemic in 1896 which decimated cattle herds.

  Natal had significant powers of self-government, although just about the only people allowed to vote were white. A range of ‘native laws’ were passed which only applied to the black population. The Masters and Servants Law of 1850 made it a criminal offence for an African to break a contract and leave a job they didn’t want without their employer’s permission, while later pass laws in some areas made it an offence to refuse work when it was offered. The pass system meant Africans could only get permission to live in a town if they had employment, while the compound system meant mineworkers were required to live in compounds on the company’s land, where they were always under the oversight of their employers. The 1891 Native Law Code outlawed both adultery and sex between unmarried women and men, and made it illegal for a woman to leave the homestead without the permission of a male guardian. As a result of these laws, 30 per cent of black workers in the Rand faced police prosecution in some years, whilst in 1905 it was estimated that about 40 per cent of Africans in Durban had been arrested.

  South Africa employed black police officers to enforce laws directed at the black population. These police officers were unpopular and had a reputation for brutality. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, colonial authorities and the settler population were increasingly worried about an uprising against the whites, and, in 1897, they began to develop a network of African spies (Native Intelligence Officers) to collect information on the black population, focusing particularly on political sentiment, leadership and possible plots against the government.

  The Ninevites

  A real bandit gang who operated from caves and disused mines in the hills outside Johannesburg from the 1890s onwards. I’ve relied heavily on Charles van Onselen’s writing on this topic. Their leader was ‘Nongoloza’ Mathebula (aka Jan Note), and at one time their membership reached almost one thousand. The gang was organized on military lines and had its own legal system. They lived off a variety of crimes, including robbing African workers of their wages, seizing wage carts on their way to mining compounds, stopping coaches and robbing passengers, and burglary. They were also known for getting back at bosses who had cheated or abused their workers. Members of this gang were mostly migrant workers from Zululand and Natal who had come to the Rand in search of wage labour. Life as a black labourer in South Africa was hard due to low wages and the native laws described above that led to large numbers of black men being imprisoned. The Ninevite gang offered an alternative, and had members amongst the black police, the compound guards and the prison system, where they set up widespread prisoner networks. These were the origin of the infamous ‘Numbers’ gangs still found in South African prisons.

  British perceptions of Africans

  Despite the success of the anti-slavery campaigns, racism was a feature of life in Britain in the Victorian period, and black people were often subject to abuse when out on the street. Negative stereotypes were perpetuated by the popular blackface minstrel shows, and are easily found in newspapers of the time as well as in the works of popular writers such as Conan Doyle, Trollope and Dickens.

  Generally, white people were considered superior, a view that was promoted in the ‘racial sciences’ of the day by writers such as Robert Knox, James Hunt, Arthur Gobineau, Thomas Carlyle and members of the London Anthropological Society. These pernicious ideas can be found woven into the writings of Victorian criminal anthropologists such as Havelock Ellis, who is referred to in the novel. Social Darwinists and many anthropologists argued that the fact that the British Empire had taken over the land of African countries was proof that white British people were superior. These so-called ‘scientific’ reports have since been proved biased and based on completely inadequate evidence. Although these ideas were dominant at the time, we should remember that there were always ordinary white people in London who welcomed black people and rejected these racist ideas. There were also writers such as Robert Dunn and John Stuart Mill who criticized the methods and conclusions of the race scientists. There were also significant black writers and campaigners who lived in or visited England during the Victorian period and argued for equal rights, black pride and self-government in Africa. Some of those involved in the Pan-African movement included Edward Blyden, James Africanus Beale Horton, Celestine Edwards and Sylvester Williams.

  In 1879, Rorke’s Drift and subsequent Anglo-Zulu battles gave the impression that the Zulus were a warrior race, and this was promoted in the fiction of the day. The article quoted in the book, Might As Well Be Zulus, containing the quote from the Earl of Derby, was published in 1880 in the Shields Daily News (and reported by many other papers).

  British Empire

  In the 1890s, the empire covered India, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), Hong Kong, Malta and parts of Africa. As a result of the ‘Scramble for Africa’ by European nations, by 1900, a third of Africans were British subjects. In Britain, there was a good deal of popular support for, and pride in, the empire, and newspapers regularly ran reports from the colonies and detailed the military campaigns. However, there was much debate about day-to-day actions and policies of the British army, corporations and government in the colonies, examples being the arguments for and against the slave trade, and the actions of the British authorities in the 1865 Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica. Aside from the opposition to empire from huge numbers of colonized peoples who fought the British, there was also some general opposition within Britain, for example from the philosopher Richard Congreve, the Chartist Ernest Thomas, and the travel-writer Wilfrid Blunt, as well as in the pages of the Bee-Hive journal and the Daily News.

/>   Ethnic exhibitions and freak shows

  Freak shows and exhibits of non-white people could be extremely lucrative in the Victorian period. ‘Ethnic exhibitions’ or ‘human zoos’ were staged throughout the nineteenth century, often in small theatres and halls, in which customers could watch people from non-white cultures perform in reconstructions of native villages, where they would engage in cooking and other cultural practices, and perform songs and dances. In the 1890s, larger exhibitions were held in London at Alexandra Palace, Crystal Palace and Earls Court, including the ‘Empire of India Exhibition’ and the ‘East African Village and Great Display by the Natives of Somaliland’ in 1895, and ‘Savage South Africa’ in 1899. In the latter, two hundred Africans, including fifty Zulus, were brought over to act out the Matabele War and pretend to live in a specially constructed ‘kraal’. Lions, tigers and elephants were also transported for the exhibition. While these exhibitions attracted large numbers of visitors, there was also some opposition. The Aborigines’ Protection Society campaigned against the South Africa show for exploiting Africans.

  The descriptions of Capaldi’s Wonders in the story owes much to John Woolf’s book The Wonders, which describes the business and lives of freak show performers in great detail, as well as Matthew Sweet’s Inventing the Victorians. Woolf argues that while in earlier periods these sorts of shows were often exploitative and cruel, particularly those associated with fairgrounds, in the late Victorian period there were better opportunities for freak show performers to make a decent living, and the more famous of them became rich and were feted in the European courts. Chang and Eng, who were conjoined twins, did indeed take control of their own shows, and made a lot of money. Sylvie is inspired by Julia Pastrana, a famous performer who had hypertrichosis, which caused excessive hair growth, and gingival hyperplasia, which affected her teeth and lips. She exhibited in the mid-nineteenth century under many names, including ‘Baboon Lady’, ‘Apewoman’ and ‘Nondescript’.