by Meg Keneally
‘Well, I can tell you – as I already have, of course – that Crotty was one of the unlicensed publicans who got the grog from Church.’
‘Yes. But as you pointed out last time we met, that man’s death does not seem to have stopped the flow of the stuff into the shebeens of the town.’
‘Nor has it. You recall, of course, Socrates McAllister.’
Despite his uncle’s low opinion of him, Lethbridge said, Socrates was not without a certain entrepreneurial spirit. While he would never come close to Philip McAllister’s acumen, he was nevertheless alert for opportunities to profit. One of these, according to Lethbridge, was sly grog.
‘The unlicensed publicans – they can’t really ask for fair dealing because they’re not fair dealing themselves,’ said Lethbridge. ‘So they have to pay whatever their suppliers demand. Especially when they are outside the law, and their supplier has the power to sit in judgement on them.’
‘Can you be sure Socrates was selling rum to unlicensed publicans? How did you come by the knowledge?’ said Monsarrat.
Stephen Lethbridge smiled. It was a genuine, wide smile, but there was a set to it that told Monsarrat there were lines which could not be crossed.
‘We agreed I would respect your need for discretion, Mr Monsarrat,’ he said. ‘Equally, I think it only fair to agree that my sources should remain obscure. I will say that drinkers get hungry, and sometimes so do publicans, and everyone enjoys a chat after a cup of wine or two.’
‘Of course. I meant no offence.’
‘Oh, none taken. However, now we know where the barriers are, I think it would behoove us both to stay within them.’
‘Very well. So Socrates was dealing in sly grog.’
‘Yes, and making a reasonable sum at it as well. Of course, he was only able to do so while he had no competition.’
‘And the competition came from Robert Church?’
‘It seems so. In any case, a number of Socrates’ customers began to complain about the amounts they were being charged. Socrates’ usual response was to say that if they didn’t like the price, they couldn’t have the product. But for the first time some of them responded by saying, very well then, we’ll have none of yours.’
‘And you’re certain it was Church who was providing the competition?’
‘Oh yes. I wasn’t at first. Crotty and his wife were a bit tight-lipped initially. But then they began to suspect that the rum was being watered. And they were vocal about that, I can tell you. To their detriment, of course.’
‘So why didn’t they just go back to Socrates?’
‘Well, Socrates put his rates up, you see. To compensate for the downturn. Most couldn’t afford them, so they decided to stay with Church.’
‘And since Church’s death?’
‘Interestingly, my understanding is that most of them – the ones who want to continue trading – went back to Socrates. Tail between legs, paying more than before.’
Monsarrat recalled Crotty’s comment – that his supply problems were now taken care of.
‘Mr Lethbridge, there is one question I need to ask you, one of the greatest import. As far as you’re aware, did Socrates McAllister know the identity of the man who was undercutting him? Did he know it was Robert Church?’
‘Oh yes, most definitely. He made sure he found out, you see.’
‘And how did he do that?’
‘Well … I’d talk to Crotty if I were you.’
‘Unfortunately I’m not in a position to do so. For various reasons, it’s best I don’t visit his establishment again.’
‘And nor do you need to – he’ll be in town today. Comes in every Thursday to run his errands – one of which is paying McAllister, of course. And afterwards he’s not above visiting the Caledonia Inn. As my pies are all sold, Mr Monsarrat, I’d be more than happy to accompany you there, if it suits you.’
The Caledonia Inn was a far more congenial establishment than Crotty’s pub. Cups that looked clean; chairs and tables, unupholstered but free of dust. And at one of these tables, as Stephen Lethbridge predicted, sat Michael Crotty.
Lethbridge approached him from behind, clapping him on the shoulder as he walked up so that Crotty turned with a start, already halfway out of his seat with a balled fist before he saw who it was.
‘I’m not hungry,’ he said, sitting back down.
‘Just as well, my friend, as I’ve no pies left. Them at the crossroads site ate them all.’
Interesting, thought Monsarrat, that use of ‘them’. He would have bet his ticket of leave that Stephen Lethbridge knew the correct usage, was pitching his speech to his audience. In London or Exeter it might have made him trust the man less, but not here. Verbal disguise was a survival skill he couldn’t blame the man for adopting.
‘Actually,’ said Lethbridge, ‘I was just conversing with a customer of yours. We saw you, thought we’d say hello.’
Crotty looked at Monsarrat for the first time. ‘Yes, Mr …’ he said, his eyes widening slightly.
Monsarrat began to cast around for a fabricated name, but Lethbridge said, ‘Hugh Monsarrat, Government House, no less. An important man.’
Crotty stared at Monsarrat. ‘And what would such an important man be doing in my establishment? I took your word, sir, when you said you were a clerk.’
He would have to be more careful around Lethbridge in future, Monsarrat thought. For all the man’s skills, discretion was clearly not amongst them.
‘So I am, I assure you,’ he said. A lie in spirit, maybe, but certainly not one in fact. He was a clerk, and he had come into some money. Crotty need not know that it was the major’s gift rather than a lucky win.
‘I’m concerned to think that someone from the governor’s cabal is sniffing around my little establishment,’ Crotty said.
‘Tell me, do you have other more illustrious people sniffing around? Anyone expressing an interest in where you get your grog and what you pay?’
‘My business attracts attention from the right people, I’ll say that. They can tell a smart man even if he’s not dressed like an undertaker. They are persuasive. And they can actually drink. I don’t suppose you’d care to get one for yourself, and me while you’re at it?’
‘No, thank you. I don’t … That is, I don’t feel like …’
Crotty snorted. ‘I could tell you have no stomach for it,’ he said. ‘When you left you looked like you were being driven by a gale. After just three cups, albeit three of the new stuff.’
‘Ah, yes, the new stuff,’ said Lethbridge. ‘I’m given to understand that the fare at your place has improved significantly of late.’
‘What would you know of that? You never touch it.’
‘Ah, drinkers talk, you see, when they’re buying pies. Even when the rum they’ve just had has been watered.’
Crotty stood, banged his fist on the table. ‘I don’t water my rum! My grog comes from the same batch as what they serve here.’
‘I know,’ said Lethbridge. ‘I told you, people are saying it’s improved a lot.’
‘And so it has.’
‘Suppliers, though. I make my pies myself, the only way I can make sure they haven’t been messed around with. Can you trust your new man to do the same?’
‘None of your concern, Lethbridge. It’s well known you can’t keep yourself to yourself,’ he said, before turning to Monsarrat. ‘If you are of any importance – and even if you manage to stay on your rung when the new man comes – I can assure you, my supplier would eclipse you. And he goes to great lengths to look after his customers.’
Chapter 17
Hannah didn’t know what she was going to say to Lizzie when they met. But she didn’t anticipate any problems getting into the same room as the poor woman.
In this, she was mistaken.
It had now been two days since she’d first asked Rebecca if she could visit Lizzie again. Each time she repeated her request, though, Rebecca had another task in mind.
There was the reading and writing, of course. Then the sewing, helping with the leather-working so that the poor wretches could have shoes for a change, checking in on the mothers and babies in the lying-in hospital – Rebecca had made no attempt to take young Eve or any of the other babies again, at least not in Hannah’s presence.
Then Rebecca said she simply didn’t know whether Lizzie was up to another visit from someone who spoke in the cadence of people Lizzie saw as killers.
‘I must confess, I’ve never seen her react like that,’ Rebecca said. ‘The way you speak – yes, I know it’s not your fault – but it seems to call forward something quite dark in her. A little frightening. She was calling me some nonsense name, as you recall, and accusing you of all sorts of terrible deeds for which you couldn’t possibly have been responsible. Maybe best to let her regain her equilibrium before we try again.’
If Lizzie had not regained her equilibrium at this point, Hannah thought, she never would, and she was doubtful about the benefits of leaving the girl sitting in a room by herself, staring at the walls and chewing over the unfortunate fate of her husband, whoever he was.
‘The rebels were dreadful, you know,’ said Rebecca. ‘They dragged some of the captured yeomen onto a bridge once, and shot them where they stood – terrible barbarity. She talks about that sort of thing from time to time. One of the yeomen could’ve been her husband.’
Hannah’s grief at her own losses at the hands of those yeomen was dull, crusted over, but it was still there, and had heard an answer in the anguish of the madwoman, in whose mind those events had occurred yesterday. Hannah wanted to spare Lizzie, if she could, some of the worst of the pain. Today, however, was another day she would not get the chance. Rebecca had drawn her aside yesterday, conspiratorially, in the corner of the drying ground. Robert Church no longer occupied the dead house, she told Hannah. He had been buried in St John’s, the Protestant cemetery.
‘I wonder if anyone went?’ Hannah asked.
‘Oh, a few,’ said Rebecca. ‘Those on the Female Factory management committee attended – obliged to do so, of course. Henrietta wasn’t there. God knows where she was, but I doubt she shed a single tear for him. Apart from the official mourners, no, there were very few.’
But one of them, thought Hannah, had been Rebecca. At least, she spoke as though she had been there, although Hannah couldn’t begin to imagine why.
‘I have a very special task for you tomorrow, my dear,’ Rebecca said now. ‘You are to help Mrs Church pack.’
‘She’s going away, so?’
‘Yes, permanently. A new superintendent has been appointed, you see. A steady man, by all accounts. And a matron, too, but she will take some time to arrive – she’s been at the Female Factory in Van Diemen’s Land. It’s to be hoped their kindness matches their efficiency.’
Hannah had been wondering how long Henrietta Church would confine herself to the half-light of the superintendent’s quarters, pretending when she had visitors to be lost in grief, while in reality lost in rum.
‘Of course, I’ll be delighted to help her.’
‘Excellent. Do be careful, though. She has an awful temper when sober. One hears stories … Oh, and mind she doesn’t take any of the crockery or cutlery, or furniture. That belongs to the government. It’s her personal effects only she’s allowed to take with her.’
‘Where is she to go?’
‘Hannah, I worry about a great many things in regard to a great many women, but on that point, I must tell you, I am completely indifferent.’
It wasn’t the first time Hannah had noted a lack of sympathy from the usually tender-hearted Rebecca towards the superintendent’s wife. ‘I don’t know why you persist in getting her to give up the drink, trying to get her to eat,’ she’d said to Hannah a few days previously. ‘If she wants to drink herself to death, why not let her?’
So this morning Hannah knocked gently on the door of the superintendent’s quarters, heard a mumbled invocation and entered. Henrietta was sitting at the table, a cup in front of her which Hannah knew did not contain water.
Brusqueness, efficiency, activity – they’d helped her through a great many situations in the past. As long as you kept moving, it meant you weren’t dead. ‘Right, so,’ she said to Henrietta, clapping her hands and pretending not to notice the smell. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea for us to get us through the packing. You’ll let me know, of course, whether you’ve a trunk or some other means of conveying your possessions, and what you’d like placed in there.’
She didn’t wait for a reply, which was just as well as there was none. Henrietta watched closely as Hannah darted around tidying the kitchen, but the woman was mute.
Hannah put a cup of tea in front of Henrietta and deftly removed that other one at the same time. Empty, of course. She washed it, put it away.
‘Get that down your throat,’ she said, ‘and we’ll get to work.’
‘Not much work to do, really,’ said Henrietta. ‘I have few possessions.’
‘Ah, but a woman still has to wear clothes, missus. How are you to get another position without them? Where are they to be found?’
‘If you insist on packing, you may find some clothing underneath the couch,’ said Henrietta, with a weariness that indicated she didn’t particularly care whether Hannah found anything or not.
In the dusty recesses under the couch Hannah did indeed come upon an apron, balled-up and stiff, and a grey skirt which had been treated likewise. Again, there were those marks, those striations. Gorges cut in the floor’s geography. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, Hannah thought. Last chance, anyway. She extracted the abused garments and threw a question over her shoulder, as casually as she could. ‘Mrs Church, what made these marks in the floor? Is there some sort of insect infestation? I know some of them can play havoc with wood.’
‘No, it wasn’t an insect,’ said Henrietta. ‘It was me.’
‘You? I see.’
‘No, actually, you don’t. I know it’s not common practice to carve lines into the floor of your residence with an awl.’
‘Well, that’s true enough,’ said Hannah. ‘So why did you?’
‘Better than carving in flesh.’
‘Your flesh? I’m sorry, Mrs Church, but I couldn’t help notice … When I was tending to you the other day, when you were sleeping … The scars on your arms.’
‘None of your business, and how dare you examine me when I am not conscious nor in any fit state to object.’
Hannah sat down opposite Mrs Church, reached out and tried to take her hand, but it was snatched back as though Hannah’s own fingers were burning.
‘Of course,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s your concern and none of mine, so I’ll not mention it again. Unless you feel it might do you good to discuss it? With someone who will give you an assurance they won’t speak of it outside this room?’
‘It would do me no good at all. Nor do I trust you to keep silent. If there was anything to keep silent on. The Irish are dreadful indiscreet, it’s well known. Now, make sure you find the key to the tea caddy as you’re packing. I’d hate for some of those leaves to be filched.’
Hannah felt oddly sad that afternoon when the trap arrived for Henrietta and her baggage. The woman was rude and a drunk, and Hannah’s attempts to pour tea down her had been rebuffed. There was still the slim possibility that she was a murderer – Hannah had not ruled it out. True, it would make more sense for her to have avenged herself in the privacy of the superintendent’s residence. But Henrietta could have slain Church in the yard to draw suspicion away from herself – or rum might have carried her there and made her heedless of consequences. Still, Hannah thought it unlikely. And when the trap pulled away, she felt a rush of torpor, as though she herself had been at the rum.
Henrietta’s departure left Hannah without a focus – a situation she never enjoyed. Looking after people, whether they wanted you to or not, was an excellent means of fending off memories of ruin, and wo
rries about a boy who was now a man somewhere in the expanse behind the mountains.
Chapter 18
That Sunday was one of the most disturbing Monsarrat had ever experienced. Unexpectedly, the Reverend Bulmer played only a small part in the upheaval. He was still utterly focused on Stephen Lethbridge and his evil doctrine on universal suffrage and the Rights of Man, concepts that threatened to undermine society and lead to rampant immorality, rioting and other ills. Lethbridge sat there and allowed himself to be drenched in a torrent of Bulmer’s bile, condemned as a bringer of false hope, a violator of God’s order, a silver-tongued disciple of Satan, an unnatural man who wished to overturn the natural order. After the service he looked around, nodded and smiled at anyone who met his eye, seemingly unperturbed by the onslaught. All in a day’s work for a silver-tongued servant of the devil, Monsarrat supposed.
Monsarrat, actually, was relieved, and guilty for feeling so. If Lethbridge could accept Bulmer’s hatred with such equanimity, even wear it as a badge of honour, did that not say something about Monsarrat’s own moral constitution?
But after the service the day took an alarming turn. Monsarrat was attending church by himself, of course. His arrangement with Sophia was at an end, and he’d decided not to offer to accompany her regardless. A clean break was painful but probably necessary, and he congratulated himself on his judgement as he strolled to the church that morning.
Until after the service he saw Sophia with her hand on an arm in a red sleeve, belonging to a red coat, in turn declaring its wearer a soldier.
Perhaps it was the intensity of Monsarrat’s stare at this man – astonished that Sophia had found his replacement so quickly – that made Lethbridge walk to his side and place a hand on his shoulder. ‘Difficult, I know, dear fellow, but that poor man will soon feel his hair smouldering if you continue staring at him like that.’
‘Ah, Mr Lethbridge,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Yes, rude of me.’
Lethbridge nodded and smiled sympathetically. He knows, thought Monsarrat, about Sophia and me. God rot the man, he collects information as easily as I collect enemies. And this thought made Lethbridge’s next remark even more disturbing.
