‘Cut up and burned,’ Hellard said with a grimace, evidently realising that Jonas might have liked to see it.
‘Show me those barrels.’
Hellard led him across the street to the battery, a double arch of stone and brick cut into the base of the white cliffs. They walked through a long dimly lit room with a low-vaulted ceiling. On either side were six simple bunks. At the far end was a solid oak door which Hellard unlocked, revealing a short windowless room which reeked of damp.
When Jonas’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he saw the barrels, stacked neatly on the far wall. ‘Bring me a light.’
Hellard disappeared momentarily, returning with a burning tallow candle, passing it to Jonas, who passed it slowly across the barrels.
The ochre light caught on something, giving Jonas cause to still his hand. He knelt down on the floor, feeling a cold wetness seep into his breeches, as he held the flame closer to the barrel. Small faded lettering: ‘Delacroix, Boulogne.’ Jonas stood up, pushing the candle towards Hellard’s face. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
Hellard shook his head.
‘Where am I staying tonight?’ Jonas asked, blowing out the candle and plunging them into a darkness which signalled that his work here was over.
‘The Packet Boat Inn,’ Hellard answered, walking quickly out of the store room, locking it once Jonas had followed him out.
‘And I trust that the raison d’être for my visit has not been widely communicated?’
‘Not at all,’ Hellard confirmed.
Outside the battery, Jonas shook Hellard’s hand. ‘I shall be in touch in due course.’
Jonas entered the Packet Boat Inn via the rear entrance, keeping his top hat pulled down as he dashed up the stairs to his room. He locked the door, placed his trunk on the single bed and pulled it open.
Minutes later, he descended into the public bar, his hair dishevelled and wearing a grubby smock and pair of torn breeches. Despite the brightness of the day, the inside of the place was cool and dim. ‘Pint of ale,’ he ordered with a snarl. ‘And whatever me old friend here be a-wanting.’
The man beside him, wearing a white fisherman’s smock, was rolling a near-empty pint on the bar top, his head swilling in rhythm with the glass. He smacked his left hand to the bar to steady himself, as he squinted at Jonas. ‘Ale.’
The barmaid scowled but said nothing as she poured the drinks, banging the first down on the bar in front of the man. ‘God be looking on you kindly, today, Fred.’
The man, Fred, stepped forward with a light stumble, pushing closer to Jonas’s face. Fred widened his eyes again, seeming not to recognise Jonas. Above his dark beard, his burgundy cheeks and wide nose were lined with a myriad of burst blood vessels, Jonas noted.
The barmaid placed another ale on the bar. ‘Five pence.’
Jonas passed the money over. ‘How you been keeping yourself, Fred?’ Jonas asked, taking a large mouth of ale, allowing some to seep from the side of the glass down his smock. ‘A plentiful catch this morn?’
Fred nodded slowly and glanced at the fresh pint of ale.
Jonas smiled. ‘I be having a job for you,’ he said, pressing ten guineas into Fred’s hand.
‘Oh, and what be that, then?’ Fred asked.
‘Well,’ Jonas said, lowering his voice, ‘after what be a-happening on Sunday, we be in need of a new boat and more contraband.’ Jonas was trying his luck, assuming that Fred, like most fishermen in the area, was involved to some degree in the smuggling trade.
‘That right,’ Fred said, backing away and forcing the money back into Jonas’s hand.
Jonas did not flinch, did not show that he was slightly taken aback by the man’s refusal. Perhaps he had been wrong and this man had nothing to do with the trade. ‘It be a bit of a rush. Delacroix in Boulogne have got overstock,’ he said quietly, hoping that his nonsensical statement would be lost to the man’s inebriation. There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes, so Jonas pushed his luck further by leaning in to whisper in Fred’s ear, ‘Ransley be sending any number of boats over. We be paying extra…’
‘Twenty guineas,’ Fred responded.
Jonas smiled.
‘You be a-wanting Rummy’s yard, then,’ Fred had said on the voyage across the Channel.
‘That be right,’ Jonas had confirmed, not knowing who Rummy was. With the persuasion of twenty guineas, Fred had mustered a crew of eight fishermen and sailed Jonas over on the Anne-Marie.
‘Where be Rummy?’ Jonas said vaguely, searching the shoreline, as the rowing boat struck the shingle beach of Boulogne, as if knowing for whom he was searching, but just could not actually locate him.
‘There,’ one of the fishermen said, pointing out a thin man part-way up the beach, running a chisel into a plank of wood, while a pipe dangled through his matted ginger beard.
‘Rummy!’ Jonas called affably, striding up the beach towards him.
Rummy stopped and stared.
‘I be in need of a new boat. Last one got cut Sunday night,’ Jonas said, drawing close to the man’s scrutiny.
‘So I be a-hearing,’ Rummy said with a laugh. ‘Ransley be in need of another, then.’
‘Aye, that be right,’ Jonas said, receiving his first certain confirmation that the Aldington Gang were involved in Sunday’s smuggling run which had led to Morgan’s murder.
‘And who the bloody hell do you be?’ Rummy sneered, his toothless mouth swimming around the words. ‘Why b’aint he a-sending Sam?’
‘Sam took a musket ball on Sunday night,’ Jonas answered, quickly regretting the disprovable lie.
Rummy laughed wildly at this news, then said, ‘A boat be ready in three days.’
Jonas nodded, glanced back at the waiting boat of fishermen, then made his way up the beach in the direction of the distant town, hoping that he was headed somewhere close to the right direction.
After some time, and with the help of passing tradesmen, Jonas arrived at a vast warehouse with the sign Delacroix above a huge closed door, which was sufficiently wide for two carriages to pass through simultaneously. Jonas banged his fist on the door and waited.
Several seconds passed before he heard the clunk and scrape of what he assumed to be a heavy-duty lock on the other side. Eventually, a short man with a stout black moustache cracked the door open, just enough to peer out. ‘Que voulez-vous?’
‘Do you speak English?’ Jonas asked.
‘Oui, un peu,’ the man responded, his hard face unchanging.
‘I work with George Ransley and Sam. May I come inside?’ Jonas asked.
‘Non, certainement pas,’ the man said, slamming the door shut.
Jonas knocked again, much harder this time.
‘What do you want?’ the man answered.
‘Like I say, I work with George Ransley. I’ve come for more contraband.’
‘I don’t know who or what you are talking about. This door will close again and will not reopen to you. Au revoir.’ The door crashed shut in Jonas’s face once again.
Jonas grinned. It did not matter. Over the rude Frenchman’s shoulder, he had seen the enterprise taking place inside: hundreds, possibly thousands of barrels were being loaded into carts; he had unequivocally found the depot which supplied the Aldington Gang.
What he did not know yet, but was determined to find, was the identity of the man who had pulled the trigger on Richard Morgan.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
7th August 1826, Hythe, Kent
The eleven-mile walk from Dover to Hythe had lifted all but the negative residual effects from the four pints of ale which he had consumed: just a headache and a swelling feeling of nausea remained. He arrived hot, his smock sodden from the odorous sweat trickling down his sides. He was here to follow up a lead, garnered yesterday from the loose tongue of a disgruntled labourer who had been lost in liqueur.
Having made great strides in the first three days of his investigation, Jonas had found that the influence and reach
of the Aldington Gang was such that he had smoked out nobody willing to go beyond pointing a broad finger at the gang without naming specific individuals. According to several sources, there was a man who frequented the inn outside of which he was standing, who had bragged of being involved in last Sunday’s smuggling run.
Jonas pushed open the heavy door of the Bell Inn and stepped inside. He lumbered to the bar, only slightly exaggerating his exhaustion and ordered a pint of ale from the young barmaid. ‘I be a-looking for a man by the name of Edward Horne,’ Jonas muttered quietly to her.
‘That black-tan over there,’ she said, nodding her head to a man sitting alone beside the fireplace.
‘And what do he be drinking?’ Jonas asked.
‘Rum.’
‘Pint of that, then, if you please,’ Jonas ordered.
Jonas paid for the drinks and ambled over to Edward’s table. ‘Here you go. A gift.’
Edward’s glazed eyes, puffy and bloodshot, stared at him but he said nothing. He was young, possibly in his mid-twenties, with a labourer’s dry and sun-baked skin. He wore a short untidy beard that looked as though he had recently abandoned an attempt to cut it.
‘You be looking like Ransley had you out again last night,’ Jonas said with a light chuckle.
Edward blinked, then scowled, as if only just becoming aware that a stranger had sat down opposite him. He noticed the drink and took a giant gulp. ‘What do you be wanting?’ he asked, then belched.
‘Nothing more than the company of a fellow smuggler,’ Jonas said, raising his glass to Edward.
‘Certain-sure, I don’t be a-knowing your face,’ Edward said.
‘That be the drink mabbling your mind,’ Jonas said, dropping his voice down and leaning forward. ‘I be there on Sunday night. One of the tubmen. I be a-seeing, from a way off, like, what happened in front of the bathing machines…’
Edward nodded slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Jonas’s.
‘Three shots to the heart be what I heard,’ Jonas said, seeing the first signs of acceptance in the man’s face.
‘So I be understanding,’ Edward said.
‘Dropped like a stone,’ Jonas muttered, taking a long mouthful of drink.
Edward looked around, as if checking who was within earshot. ‘I were stood right there! Watched him fall to his death, I did.’
‘Hope he suffered,’ Jonas mumbled.
‘”Lord, look down upon me!”. Thems were his last mortal words,’ Edward said with a smirk.
Jonas laughed. ‘I be thinking the Lord got better things to do than be watching Richard Morgan breathe his last.’
‘”Lord, look down upon me!”,’ Edward repeated, holding his hands to the ceiling with a laugh.
When yesterday Jonas had visited the wounded sentinel, Pickett, he had learned almost nothing about the attack, the man’s injuries having severely impacted on his memory. One thing he did say, however, was that Morgan’s last words had been “Lord, look down upon me”, a fact his addled brain was keen on repeating.
Jonas smiled, wondering how to elicit from Edward the crucial information about who had fired the gun. Unless he was simply boastfully regurgitating something overheard from another smuggler, then he had been present at the time and would certainly know the identity of the murderer. ‘I suppose having shot a member of the Blockade Service, he be laying quite low, now.’
‘Bit of a ruckle for him, I should say,’ Edward agreed, his eyes glazing over once again, before returning to Jonas’s. ‘What be your name?’
He had been about to answer, with a false name, when he heard a familiar voice. His eyes darted through the open fireplace to the bar on the other side and saw her face. He quickly looked away, hoping that perhaps she had not recognised him.
‘Good afternoon,’ Ann said brightly, as she approached the table, her eyes flicking constantly between the two men.
Jonas nodded, without looking up. ‘Good afternoon.’
‘I must apologise,’ Ann began. ‘I’m not sure which name you be going by today?’ She edged around the table and Jonas could see then that she was carrying a small child. She angled herself to address Edward. ‘Is he Jonas today? Or William? Or…?’
Edward shrugged, glancing between them uncertainly.
‘I should be most careful, if I were you,’ Ann said to Edward. ‘This man here, he likes to dress up and pretend he ain’t himself. He likes extorting folk, then sailing off to God only knows where—so be warned.’
Jonas heard every word Ann had said and he had seen in Edward’s face the revelation of the murderer’s name slipping away, but what Jonas had been focussing on was the sleeping child in Ann’s arms. Having no children of his own, he was by no means an expert, but her baby looked to be around a year old, placing its conception to last summer. ‘Is that your child?’ he asked, meeting Ann’s fiery eyes for the first time.
For the briefest of seconds, Ann seemed taken aback. She looked down at the child then laughed. ‘Mine? No fear.’ Ann turned towards the bar and indicated the young barmaid who had served Jonas his drinks. ‘He’s hers. Illegitimate.’
‘Why do you have it, then?’ Jonas pushed, his feigned accent quivering back towards authentic.
‘Because she be working for me,’ Ann answered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘This inn—it’s mine,’ Ann said. The free smile and clear pride in these words made Jonas suspect all that she had said previously about the baby to have been lies. ‘Good day to you both.’ She started to walk away.
‘Ann, wait!’ Jonas called after her but he could see her through the fireplace enter the bar on the other side, then disappear. He jumped up and followed her, witnessing a hasty conversation between her and the barmaid, as Ann passed her the baby. It might have been a convincing display for some but for Jonas it held a certain air of rash pretence and subterfuge, which he had witnessed before among the criminal classes.
The barmaid moved into a room behind the bar with the baby. Ann turned to face him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Edward Horne doesn’t have a guinea to his name.’
‘I can’t tell you why I’m here,’ Jonas answered, walking the gap between honesty and dishonesty.
‘No,’ Ann agreed, ‘I don’t suppose you can.’
‘Is this place really yours, Ann?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it’s mine!’
‘And is the baby yours, too?’ he pressed.
‘No, it’s not mine and therefore not yours neither,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to leave, Jonas.’
Jonas nodded, turned and walked back around to where he had been sitting to find that Edward Horne—his best possibility of a witness—had gone. Jonas raced out to the street, looking frantically among the passers-by. Then, he spotted him, sloping off in the direction of Folkestone. He ran the short distance to catch him up, placing his hand on Edward’s shoulder as he reached him.
Edward spun around in defensive fear, which changed to a confused annoyance at seeing Jonas. ‘What do you be a-wanting from me?’
Jonas straightened up, paused a moment to catch his breath, then spoke in his own voice. ‘I’m a Principal Officer from Bow Street Magistrate’s Court.’
‘I bain’t not done nothing wrong,’ Edward pleaded.
‘I know that, but you do know who shot Richard Morgan,’ Jonas said. ‘There is a reward on offer—five hundred pounds—for information that leads to the conviction of the Aldington Gang.’ He could not tell whether Edward had been unaware of the reward before now, or if he suddenly realised that it might be accessible to him, but there was something which had caught in him. ‘Five hundred pounds,’ Jonas repeated. ‘You would never have to do another day’s work in your life.’
‘But… what if, say, the person who claims the reward, telling all about the gang… what if he actually been doing the same hisself?’
‘Smuggling, or murder?’ Jonas asked.
‘Smuggling,’ Edward clarified.
Jonas shrugged. ‘Turning King’s evidence would give him immunity.’
‘I don’t be a-knowing…’
‘Five hundred pounds. We can even help the person to disappear after the trial—a new life somewhere.’
Edward fiddled with his beard, his eyes darting around the ground, as if following the course of some indecisive creature. ‘I can’t be a-giving up all those names. They be friends, neighbours...’
‘Do you know the name of the man who killed Richard Morgan?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is he a friend or neighbour?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe, then, a portion of the reward could be yours if you just give up his name; a short testimony of what happened, Sunday night,’ Jonas said.
Edward looked up and sighed.
Chapter Thirty
Phil had a good feeling about this. No—much better than a good feeling—a fantastic feeling. He had learned his lesson from last time and had parked Katie’s car more than two miles away and trekked across the farmland, entering the rear garden of Braemar Cottage over a low fence. The outbuilding was right there, close to the back fence, and bigger than it had appeared on Google Maps. To Phil’s mind, it looked old enough to have been here in the 1820s: the bricks and roof tiles looked the same as on the cottage itself. There was a bloody good chance that this crappy little outhouse held the solution to all of his problems. As he stood in the cold darkness beside the building, he thought of all the things that he and Clara would be able to do. They could clear all their debts, get a new car, buy a house, have unlimited holidays—never work again! But they needed to be cautious. He had a vague memory of hearing about some bank robbers—or something similar, possibly stealing from the Royal Mint—who were only caught because of their sudden shift in lifestyle. It would have to be gradual, not too obvious.
There was no door fixed to the outbuilding, making Phil’s life a lot easier. He ducked down under the low sill and switched on the torch of his mobile phone. Logs. Tons of logs. Luckily for him, they were stacked neatly against the far wall, keeping the majority of the floor exposed. It was a wooden floor, good solid oak planks and he found, banging his heel, that it was hollow beneath.
The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7) Page 29
