He stepped forward. For one moment she thought he would grab her and choke out her last breath but he stopped just short of her and clenched his fist. The bones cracked but he kept them tight by his side.
‘We had an agreement,’ he forced out.
Still smiling, she crossed her arms under her bosom. ‘Now, now. Nothing’s going to happen to those little sweet darlings as long as you make it back here with my money and without a regiment of nabbers on your tail. Your boat’s loaded so you’d better be off.’
He stared at her and if looks could kill she’d be facing her maker at that very moment. She watched as Patrick battled to keep his temper in check and then he jabbed his finger at her.
‘One hair.’
One of the men behind him sneered. Patrick drew back his fist and smacked it into his nose. The thug fell like a rag doll and lay motionless, blood pouring from his nose. Ma’s eyes rested on Patrick’s powerful frame as he thrust his way past Harry and his men.
Bastard lying Mick though he was, Patrick Nolan had a brain as sharp as a razor, the nerve of the devil and could handle himself better than most of her own men. If she were honest, all things taken into account he was a rare one, and worth three of her men any day of the week.
Some of her gang started after him but Ma held up her hand. She didn’t want Patrick dead in a pub fight. He had to live to rue the day he’d tried get one over on Ma Tugman.
Patrick couldn’t remember getting to the Mermaid, nor how he’d managed to manoeuvre it out of its berth. He supposed he did it automatically because when the furies cleared from his mind he was already midstream and heading west. He did remember growling at the Chinese shovelling coal on the jetty, but his uncharacteristic temper got his barge loaded in double quick time so, despite losing an hour, he would still be able to dodge though the tall ships just before noon.
Although the brisk, late summer wind blowing the salty smell of the sea up river cleared his head, the image of Mickey’s satchel and Annie’s bright ribbons under Ma Tugman’s dirty hand remained.
And, although he was almost insane with worry, there were two things he was thankful for: one, that he’d managed not to show that he knew anything about the police at the docks; and two, that he had managed to hold his temper against every inch of him wanting to grab hold of the dirty old trollop and squeeze the life out of her. But he knew he had to stay calm and focused - everything depended on it. As his temper cooled, he cursed Plant roundly for blundering about on the docks.
For the love of Mary, hadn’t he explained his plan clearly enough? What more could he have done to make the sergeant understand? When Ma’s men brought the goods to the Mermaid the superintendent was supposed to order his men to follow them back to their secret warehouses and catch them red-handed with their stolen goods. The idea was that the police act with stealth, not march up and down with pipe and drum, as seemed to have happen. Patrick had even made Plant write the details of the plan in his pocketbook to make sure he had it straight, but still he got it all arse about face.
He would deal with Plant later - the what or why didn’t concern Patrick now. All he was intent on was getting the tobacco off his boat and getting Ma her money. If by the end of the day he had Annie and Mickey back and Josie waiting for him at home, nothing else mattered.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Just getting them home in one piece today wouldn’t keep them safe tomorrow unless Ma was removed permanently. He had started on this course and had to see it though to the end.
By the time he had the green tranquillity of Temple Garden on his starboard side, Patrick’s brain had begun working again and he began to formulate more plans. Although Sergeant Plant had been eager to act as a go-between, Patrick decided that tomorrow he would talk to Superintendent Jackson himself.
St Margaret’s church at Westminster was just chiming three when he guided the Mermaid between the busy passenger steamers crammed with shoppers heading for Fulham. Leaving Westminster Palace behind him, Patrick trimmed the Mermaid for the last half mile of their journey to the horse ferry by Market Street, where Ma’s accomplice would be waiting. It wouldn’t take more than a half an hour or so to offload the bales stowed under the front of the hold. With a swift passage to Vauxhall, he would be back to the Boatman before the sun met the horizon.
Pulling out to the centre of the river for an instant before swinging back, Patrick steered the Mermaid towards the jetty and nudged it between two ferries loading coaches and passengers bound for the south side of the river and the coast roads.
Tying up, Patrick climbed up to the quayside and looked around. Iggy pulled out his pipe and laid himself down, his head resting on a coil of rope until Patrick gave the orders to cast off again. It wasn’t unusual for them to stop off on the way to the final destination. River men always earned an extra few shillings by taking small items for individuals as they passed along.
The road to the ferry was packed with people, animals and carts waiting to make it across to the other bank of the Thames. The driver of the Portsmouth Mail Coach argued loudly with a waggoner trying to jump the queue, while a small herd of cattle heading for a slaughterhouse lowed as they nosed nervously around.
Over the heads of the throng, Patrick spotted three policemen making their way down the quayside towards him. As with Wapping, the police officers at Queen Anne’s Gate kept an eye on the riverside that ran though their division.
They seemed unhurried but as Patrick watched their steady progress towards him a coil of unease lodged in his gut.
As the cattle were poked and prodded onto the ferry Patrick leant back and studied the men heading his way. They had the same look as the Wapping officers: tall, bewhiskered and plodding along at the regulation two miles an hour.
The one leading the way studied the names of the craft moored up as they passed along. Sweat broke out between Patrick’s shoulder blades. What if the old harpy had double-crossed him and betrayed him to the police?
His heart was thundering now. If they discovered Ma’s stash on board it would take too long to explain about his links to Superintendent Jackson, and if he didn’t get back with Ma’s money God only knew what she would do to the children. He couldn’t take that chance.
Don’t be stupid, he told himself. She might hate him for Charlie but she needed the watermen to move her stuff too much to set him up for a couple of pounds of tobacco. He’d get a month inside, the streets would be in uproar and she’d be worse off than she was now.
Patrick glanced around again. Where was Ma’s contact? he wondered, trying to ignore his jumpy guts.
He sat on a stack of crates waiting to be loaded and rested, trying to look as casual as possible. The officer a few steps in front of his colleagues stopped alongside Patrick and looked him over.
‘Your boat?’ he asked, nodding at the Mermaid bobbing in its mooring.
‘Aye,’ Patrick replied.
The constable gave him a dubious look. ‘You don’t mind if I take a little look around, do you?” he said.
‘Not at all,’ Patrick replied, as the blood pounding in his ears nearly deafened him.
The two policemen on the dockside came and stood at his shoulder while the stout officer jumped down onto deck surprisingly lightly for someone his size.
The policeman marched to the fore and peered around. Ma’s stash was almost directly under the crates Patrick was sitting on and he had to force himself to keep calm. The tobacco was well hidden under the coal and there was a good chance that if they weren’t looking for it they wouldn’t find it.
Whilst maintaining his outwardly relaxed appearance, Patrick prayed the officer would have enough of scuffing his polished boots and go on his way. His prayer seemed to be answered when the policemen on the ship marched back to the stern. Patrick tried not to look too relieved. They were obviously just having a look-see, nothing more.
But at the stern the officer stopped and studied the rope cabinet, then flipped back the lid. Turning slowly
, he looked back at Patrick and the corners of his mouth rose under his moustache.
He reached in and the clink of metal on metal sounded as he pulled out a massive silver platter with a crest stamped in the centre. ‘Beats hauling coal, eh?’
Patrick froze with icy horror, which swamped him and robbed him of speech, as the officer raised up a tankard and punch bowl out of the rope store. Strong hands grabbed him and he saw the pipe fall from Iggy’s mouth.
Holding the plate high, the policeman twisted it in the afternoon sun. A blinding beam of narrow light bounced off over the ship.
‘Is it the Pettit silver?’ asked one of the officers.
‘It is - and just where we were told it would be,’ the policemen on the ship replied.
Told!
Fury and fear collided together in Patrick’s head as images of Annie, Mickey and Josie flashed into his mind.
No, it wouldn’t be worth her while to set him up for a pound of tobacco, but it would for a load of stolen silver that would send him to Botany Bay for seven years. He’d walked right into it. What now threatened Patrick’s sanity wasn’t the prospect of a trip to the other side of the world but the knowledge that Ma had his children and that Josie, without his protection, was totally at her mercy.
Josie stared at the back of the fire and stirred the stew in the pot. She’d taken out a few extra pennies from the money Bobby had sent in her clothes, walked up to Watney Street market and bought some scrag end of lamb to make a special supper.
She been awake half the night trying to reassure herself that Patrick’s plan was secure and that, by this evening, Ma Tugman and her gang would be in custody. Somehow though she couldn’t quite manage it. With a heavy heart she had watched Patrick dress silently at dawn to go down to the Mermaid.
They had made love last night, but afterwards, as Patrick slept, she lay staring at him and chewed over the fact that he had alerted Sergeant Plant to Ma’s consignment rather than Superintendent Jackson.
It was stupid of course. Plant had been vocal enough about the criminal nature of the Tugmans when he’d sent Harry about his business, but something about the way that Harry had smiled at him gave her a nagging doubt that wouldn’t go away. There was something else that wouldn’t go away either.
She was certain now that she was with child. The joy of carrying Patrick’s baby would have been complete were it not tinged with the sadness of being estranged from her family. She had posted the letter to Scotland seven weeks ago and had been expecting a letter back from her mother if only to upbraid her - but now it was clear to Josie that her mother was so shocked and angry that she couldn’t bear even to reply.
Bobby had managed to send a scribbled note which brought a lump to her throat with the news that Mrs Munroe had threatened to dismiss Miss Byrd for encouraging the children to laugh too much when they should be concentrating on their studies; that on Sundays the children couldn’t play outside, sing or read anything but their Bibles, and that Jack had started to wake in the night, screaming. Josie ached to see them, but if her parents had turned their backs on her who knew how long it would be before she could. George was leaving for school soon and the younger children might not even recognise her in a few months.
The potatoes in the pot boiled over and hissed on the grate. Sighing, Josie moved the pot off the heat.
The front door slammed. The children were back from school. But instead of Annie and Mickey, Billy and Georgie Conner stood in the door way.
‘Er . . . er . . . we’ve come to see if Mickey is sick like, Mrs Nolan,’ Billy the taller of the two boys asked as he screwed his school cap into a ball.
‘Sick?’
‘Yes, Missis, on account that he wasn’t at school,’ Georgie added, sniffing a line of clear snot back up his left nostril.
‘Was Annie at school today?’ Josie asked, fear welling up in her.
Billy and Georgie shook their heads.
All the nagging doubts about Sergeant Plant and Ma’s duplicity came screaming back to her. There had been no mention of a police raid when she’d stood in the butcher’s that morning. Surely, if Patrick’s plan had gone as it should, Ma’s downfall would have been on everyone’s lips, but she’d heard not a word.
Maybe, it was so quietly done that no one knew and Patrick was still at the police station helping, she told herself, but it didn’t ring true. Someone would have seen something.
Josie took in a deep breath. She had to stay calm and in control of her wits. She wouldn’t do any one any good if she allowed panic and fear to take over.
‘Thank you boys,’ she said, picking up her bonnet and setting it on her head.
The boys shuffled out, followed by Josie. They ambled off, kicking a stone as they went, and Josie looked around.
Perhaps the children had bunked off and had been playing in the streets all day, she thought, but she knew it wasn’t so - and she knew she had to get help to find them.
Her first thought was to dash to Mattie’s where Sarah and Kate were, but four women - one of them heavily pregnant at that - couldn’t search the wharves and docks alone. It was too dangerous. To find Annie and Mickey, and quick, she needed more help.
Without a second thought she turned and headed down to The Highway. She crossed over Old Gravel Lane to Wapping High Street.
Since the fight at the Town of Ramsgate, the wooden frame and the small panes of the front windows had been replaced and the paintwork redone. Through the bulls-eye glass she could see the drinkers in the packed bar.
Only trollops wandered into a public house alone, but without breaking her step Josie put her hand to the brass plate and pushed open the door. Every inch of the bar was crammed with men in their work clothes. Some wore drab jackets with patched elbows and worn, misshapen trousers, others dark canvas reefer jackets over lighter, baggy bell-bottoms. Most had stud boots but all had a drink in their hands. A thick veil of tobacco smoke stung Josie’s eyes and irritated her nose as she glanced around, looking for Gus.
Thank goodness, she thought, spotting him at the far end of the bar chatting to the young woman serving. Ignoring the astonished looks on the drinkers’ faces, she shoved her way through.
‘Gus!’ she called as she got near to him.
He looked around. ‘Josie?’ he said in a disbelieving tone.
‘Annie and Mickey didn’t go to school today.’
A smile, very like Patrick’s, spread across Gus’s face. ‘Well there, they probably thought to have a day with their mates instead of being cooped up in a classroom.’ He winked at the barmaid, who giggled. He looked back at Josie. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be home when they’re hungry.’
She shook her head and drew him away from the bar. ‘It’s not like that.’
She briefly told him Patrick’s plan and Gus’s jaunty smile vanished. ‘I need your help,’ she shouted above the hubbub.
The noise continued as if she hadn’t spoken. Gus picked up a tankard and banged it on the counter. The hubbub ceased.
Josie took a deep breath then spoke. ‘I’m Patrick Nolan’s—’
‘Little dearie,’ someone shouted. There were a couple of sniggers, but others shushed them quiet.
‘Watch your mouth, Eddy,’ Gus bellowed across her head, ‘or my brother’ll watch it for you.’
There was silence again.
Josie cheeks burnt but she continued. ‘You know about Patrick’s stand against Ma Tugman and what he did to Charlie.’
‘Good man himself,’ shouted someone at the back.
‘Today he set up a trap to put an end to her for good but I think she’s got wind of it and snatched his children,’ she said.
One of the older men with a dirty cloth cap low over his brow left his drink and sidled over to her.
‘Now there, Missus. Don’t you fret yourself none,’ he said. ‘Pat’s kids are better than most, but they can still find trouble if they look for it. I wouldn’t wonder that while you’re here getting yourself riled up they’re
sitting at home wondering where you are.’
Another man, this one with a coal-blackened face, grinned at her. ‘There, luv. My nippers are always going missing.’
There were murmurs of agreement and the hum of conversation resumed.
‘But the Mermaid’s not back yet,’ Josie shouted above the noise.
‘He’s probably got caught upstream at London Bridge,’ another drinker told her. ‘It happened to me last week. Sat there for hours, I did, waiting for a space to squeeze through.’
A Glimpse at Happiness Page 30
