The Darkest Walk of Crime

by Malcolm Archibald

  “I am sorry, Jennifer. But could you not leave? Go somewhere else?”

  “Where would you have me go?” She spread her arms to indicate her helplessness. “A woman apart from her husband has few rights, James. You know that. As you know that the law allows a man to discipline his wife; he was breaking no law.”

  “Indeed he was,” Mendick said quickly. “He was breaking the law, and could have been jailed for what he did.”

  “But he told me . . .”

  “Lies. He told you lies.”

  “But he was a policeman, and he said it was legal . . .” Jennifer looked up, her face twisted and tear-stained, horrified at this new example of her husband’s cruelty.

  “It is not legal to hit your wife,” Mendick assured her gently. He wanted to hold her but knew that she would not accept his sympathy, nor his embrace, however kindly meant.

  “Oh God.” She ducked her head, her voice quavering, “It’s too late now. He’s gone, and you’re taking me to London to start a new life where nobody knows me.”

  Mendick nodded. “That’s the sensible thing to do.” He tried to sound calm and reasonable, but he felt like shouting at the terrible injustice of life. “We’ll drive down to London together, tell Scotland Yard all we know, and then you can build a better life for yourself.”

  “I won’t be telling Scotland Yard anything,” Jennifer told him. Her smile was bitter. “Do you really think I care if the Chartists take over the country?”

  “Probably not,” Mendick said, “but whether they succeed or not, their attempt will bring misery to thousands of people just like you.”

  Jennifer looked at him, her eyes narrow. “Then let them suffer!” She spat out the words. “Where were they when I needed help?” She glared at him, conveying her hurt through wild eyes, until she began to cry again, this time with great, heaving sobs that left her drained and exhausted.

  Mendick said nothing, sharing her hurt. He had seen many emotional women in the police cells, the only difference was that he had not cared a button for any of them, and he was beginning to care for Jennifer. He waited for her to calm down.

  “I have no intention of talking with Inspector Field or any other inspector. I only want to get as far from Manchester as possible, and you provided me with the means.” Jennifer looked up again. “So now do you despise me? Now are you going to hit me?”

  Mendick shook his head. “No,” he said quietly, “and when you have stopped trying to make me dislike you, we can speak again. Until then, I think you had better get some rest, we have another long day tomorrow.” He hesitated for a moment. “I will sleep with most of my clothes on, but if you feel more comfortable, you can remove some or all of yours. I promise to respect your privacy.”

  He looked directly into her eyes, seeing the pain behind the defiance, the fear underlying the aggression. “I told you before that you have nothing to fear from me, Jennifer, and I repeat that statement.” He lowered his voice and spoke very slowly, “You have nothing to fear from me, Jennifer, now or in the future. What your husband did was terrible, and I sympathise with you, but I have no reason to despise you.”

  When he awoke, Jennifer was lying under the top cover, with her hatpin clutched firmly in her hand. She was still sobbing, but he could do nothing to ease her pain. He listened to her for some time, and only when she stopped did he gently remove the pin from her fist in case she rolled onto it and injured herself. She did not stir, so he rearranged the covers to make her more comfortable and looked down on her lying there.

  “Sleep tight,” he said quietly, and for a moment he saw Emma watching from the corner of his mind.

  *

  “It’s over two hundred miles between Manchester and London,” Mendick said as he cracked his whip. “And it might be best to avoid the main roads, so settle down for a long ride.”

  The horse jolted forward, its hooves kicking up gravel from the drive as he left the inn and steered onto the road. The coach lights glinted in the darkness of pre-dawn, flickering over the roadside trees and occasionally reflecting the yellow eyes of watchful sheep. Looking further afield, he saw pinpricks of light where the inhabitants of lonely cottages were wakening.

  “We have travelled about forty miles, so by my reckoning we have two or even three more days of travel ahead of us.”

  Jennifer nodded. Puffy-eyed from lack of sleep, she had insisted on joining him on the driving step that morning. Saying nothing, she sat at his side, wrapped up in her coat and with a thick coach blanket on top. Only when the brougham jolted over a series of deep ruts, spraying mud on either side of the road did she break her silence, and then to speak very softly.

  “He hated me, James,” she said quietly. “He hated me for failing to give him a son, and he proved it by making me feel worthless in every way.” She looked away again, fighting her tears. “Everything I did, he mocked; everything I said was wrong. ‘You’re useless, Jennifer,’ he said. ‘You can’t make a child and you can’t do anything. You’re useless.’”

  “Aye?” Mendick guided the horse around a bend, with the lanterns only a meagre guide in the darkness and the horse’s hooves slipping on mud. “Well, we both know he was wrong, then.”

  “I have to prove him wrong, James; I have to prove that I am not useless.”

  Although she used his name, Mendick knew that she was speaking to herself, justifying her actions, assuaging her guilt for leaving her home.

  “He failed to stop the Chartists, James, so I must succeed.” She looked at him, her face strained. “So maybe I will speak to your Inspector Field after all.”

  “That could be helpful,” Mendick said quietly. “And as you have come to that decision, I think it is time to put things right between us.”

  “There’s nothing to put right,” Jennifer said, suddenly guarded again, as if suspecting he would demand some piece of what remained of her fragile self-respect. “And there is no us. We are travelling together; I have the money, and you drive the carriage. When we reach London, we do what we have to do and part, never to see each other again.”

  “Agreed,” Mendick said. “But until then? Are we going to sit at rigid attention, with you mistrusting everything I say and do and with me expecting you to plunge that great dagger of a hatpin into me at any second?” Mendick tried to smile, but Jennifer looked away.

  “Do you blame me?” Her voice was sharp again. “If my own husband hated me, why should you be any different?”

  “I have no reason to hate you. Indeed, I have every reason not to; you helped me when I needed help, and when you did not have to.”

  Jennifer said nothing but stared into the surrounding blackness. Somewhere far away there was an orange glow from a factory fire, its light a focal point for her attention. An owl screeched hauntingly, quickly echoed by its mate, and Jennifer shivered on the seat.

  Mendick pressed home what he thought might be his advantage. “And no, I do not blame you, but I think you blame yourself.”

  Jennifer stiffened at once. “My life is nothing to do with you, and I would thank you not to pry.”

  Sighing, Mendick laid the whip across the flank of the horse so it bucked forward, jerking the brougham behind it.

  “And there’s no need to take out your black temper on the horse, Mr Mendick!”

  He cracked the whip again, hunched into Ogden’s coat and glared gloomily ahead. Here he was, driving down the length of England in a stolen coach, with the future of the nation in his hands, and rather than plan for the best way to deliver his message, he was arguing with an embittered widow.

  “We’ll have to hurry,” he explained needlessly. “The Chartists’ meeting is planned for the twelfth of next month.”

  “That’s two weeks away yet.” Jennifer’s reminder was sharp.

  “It’s not much time to organise defence against the Chartist hordes.”

  “Hordes!” Her tone was scathing. “Hordes of unemployed men who only want a decent wage for their families and some s
ort of representation in the running of the country.” The coach slammed into a hole in the road, jostling Jennifer against him, but she quickly pushed herself away. “Not the most dangerous enemy for the government, I would think.”

  “Thousands of angry and stubborn men, some of them trained and armed, highly organised and led by unscrupulous and ambitious murderers.” Mendick put another interpretation on the Chartists. “As you know very well.”

  “And who is to blame for that? You helped train them,” Jennifer quickly altered her angle of attack.

  “Perhaps so, but we still have to warn the government.” He steered around a series of half-hidden potholes. “And that means reaching London as quickly as possible.”

  “If you want to be quick, then you had better be careful,” Jennifer said acidly, “for there’s a fire ahead.”

  With all Mendick’s concentration on the driving, he had not seen the droplets of light. Now he saw them, a score, a hundred, a thousand tiny flames merging together to form a single mass about a mile ahead and to the right.

  “What in God’s name is that?”

  “How should I know?” Jennifer sounded irritated. “But we’ll soon find out. Drive on.”

  Instinctively slowing down, he saw more of the lights, some in untidy groups, and others in regular columns, all gathering at a central point, spreading over the countryside in an impressive incandescent display.

  “James.” Jennifer pointed to their left where more flickering flames bounced toward them.

  “They’re torches,” he said, “dozens and dozens of people carrying torches.”

  “Oh, my eye.” Jennifer craned over him to look. “Oh, my eye, whatever next?”

  A group hurried beside the carriage, panting men marching side by side with their hands aloft and torches sputtering in the air. Mendick looked downward, about to ask what was happening, until he saw the face of the nearest man.

  Eccles was leading his volunteers, his swarthy face set, body moving lithely and relaxed as he had been taught, and with his musket carried at the trail. At his back were Preston and Duffy, each with a torch and musket, and the others followed in the regular infantry march in which he had trained them so well.

  “Sweet God in heaven, Jennifer, they’re Chartists. It’s a gathering of the Physical Force Chartists.”

  Jennifer pressed to his side, momentarily forgetting her reluctance to be close to a man as she watched the assembled hordes. “But why here?”

  “Why not?” Mendick shrugged. “It’s away from any centre of population. They must have taken the train to the nearest station and assembled on this moorland.” He swore, lifting the reins. “Jesus, Jennifer, if they recognise us, they’ll kill us dead.”

  “Keep your head down then, James, and drive like the wind.” Jennifer spoke quietly, as if the Chartists could hear her above the drumming of the horses’ hooves, the growling of the wheels and the steady tramp of their own marching feet. “There must be hundreds of them.”

  About to whip up, Mendick realised he had delayed a fraction too long. The road ahead had filled with marching men, some carrying muskets, others pikes or stout staves or agricultural tools, bill hooks, scythes, even a pitchfork – anything they imagined might make a useful weapon.

  “It’s like something from the Middle Ages,” Jennifer said quietly. “The peasants gathering against the lords.”

  “Aye, except that it’s today, and they’re gathering against us, and people like us.” Mendick tried to push forward, listening to the slow snarl of the wheels as the brougham lost speed among the myriads of marching men.

  The Chartists were congregating on a patch of rising moorland to the right of the road, group after group forming together until the torches formed an array that stretched far into the dark. Mendick eased to a halt as a column crossed in front of him then cracked his whip so the horse increased speed to a moderate crawl.

  “Hey!” Somebody held up his torch so the light illuminated the coach. “Is that not Josiah’s coach?”

  More torches were raised aloft and somebody set up a cheer, which hesitated and died as Eccles hurried up.

  “That’s not Mr Armstrong! That’s the Sergeant!”

  The news spread, passing from man to man and group to group. “That’s the fellow in the poster! Over there! It’s James Mendick, an enemy of the Charter!”

  “Whip up, James!” Rather than revealing fear, Jennifer sounded excited as she grabbed hold of his arm. “I don’t think we should be here!”

  Cracking the whip, Mendick pushed the coach through the crowd, watching the bravest men stand in front of the horse only to leap away when it became obvious that he was not going to deviate from his course. Men cursed or yelled and some threw their torches, the flames flickering in the air as the missiles rose, curved and descended rapidly toward the coach. One landed on the coach seat, and Jennifer snatched it up and threw it back.

  “Come on, James! Use the whip!”

  Glancing at her, Mendick nodded and stood up to spiral the eight-foot lash in the air before he swept it down on the Chartists surrounding the coach. He caught one man a resounding cut across the shoulders, heard him yell and slashed again, sideways, aiming at faces and bodies indiscriminately as he allowed the horse to trot uncontrolled along the road.

  “Take the reins, Jennifer!”

  Shifting his stance, he hefted the whip like a weapon, trying to ignore the barrage of missiles now hurtling towards him. He knew how difficult it was to face a speeding horse or stop a rolling coach, but should any of these stones or torches hit him, he would fall among the Chartists, who would kick him to pieces. He winced as a stone bounced off his arm and swore as he saw his hat topple from his head to be crushed to a shapeless mass by the rear wheels of the coach.

  “You’ll pay for that,” he promised and swung the lash, grinning as it cracked across the back of a man’s knees and brought him yelling to the ground.

  “James! Clear a space in front!”

  In a line two deep across the road, a dozen Chartists were frantically loading their muskets. Mendick watched and shook his head. Even the best regiments in the army could not load and fire in less than fifteen seconds, and these Chartists had nothing like their level of experience. However good they had been in training, he doubted they would stand against a rapidly advancing brougham.

  The Chartists worked in unison, spitting the lead ball down the long barrel and ramming it in place.

  “Come on, James!”

  Folding his whip, he eased himself down from the seat onto the footboard and looked forward where the horse was moving at a spanking pace, its head tossing to and fro as Jennifer sawed at the reins.

  The Chartists hefted their muskets, slamming them against their right shoulder.

  “James!” Jennifer screamed, and Mendick balanced on the coachman’s step and eased onto the wooden thill, the shaft to which the horse was attached.

  The Chartists aimed, twelve muskets pointing at the advancing coach. Each muzzle was three quarters of an inch in diameter but appeared as wide as a six-pounder cannon when the Chartists cocked and aimed.

  Taking a deep breath, Mendick rose again, balanced for a second then jumped onto the back of the horse. He landed with a painful thump and grabbed the horse’s mane for support. He saw the Chartists altering their aim until every musket was pointing directly at him as he shouted and swung the whip.

  “That’s the way!” Jennifer yelled, snapping the reins. “That’s the way, James!”

  Mendick heard the order to fire, but before a single finger squeezed the trigger, the frantic horse had scattered the Chartist ranks. Only three men stood their ground, one falling beneath the horse’s hooves and another yelling as the whip sliced across his forehead. The third fired, but the ball zoomed harmlessly skyward.

  “James!” Jennifer screamed. “I can’t keep control!”

  The brougham was rocking from side to side, the horse pulling desperately right and left as Jennifer fought
the reins.

  “Hold on!” Mendick backed from the horse and reached the driver’s seat, hauling himself over to Jennifer’s side. Dropping the whip, he grabbed hold of the reins.

  “James! Watch out!”

  A fresh group of Chartists had appeared in front, raising crude weapons and shouting threats.

  “Oh, sweet Lord!” Mendick ducked, and a fist-sized stone missed his head by an inch.

  “My turn.” Jennifer lifted the whip. She balanced for a second; half rose, then straightened up and flicked out the lash. “Get out of the way! Move you blackguards!” Suddenly she was screaming, unleashing her fury at the Chartists, slashing at legs and bodies and arms.

  “You!” Pulling back her arm, she unleashed a vicious blow that cracked across the buttocks of a tall Chartist, making him caper and yell.

  “That’s for Nathaniel! Now, get out of my way!” Her whip knocked a second man off his feet, opened a gaping cut in another’s face, and then they were through, and the road stretched clear before them.

  Jennifer collapsed back on the seat, allowing the whip to fall from her fingers. She began to sob, dragging the back of her sleeve across her eyes and shaking her head.

  “Well, Jennifer, you certainly were not useless there!” Mendick tried to jolly her along, but when he realised she was shaking with reaction, he reached across and touched her lightly on the arm. “You’re a spunky little yahoo, Jennifer, a regular trump.”

  She lifted her head. “Bar that, James. Anyway, you didn’t do too badly yourself.” For a moment they grinned at each other in complete accord, then they came to a tight bend that took all Mendick’s skill to negotiate.

  “Thank God this is a brougham,” he said. “It’s got the best turning circle of any coach ever made.”

  Jennifer’s laugh rose wildly as the coach balanced at a precariously angle. “We showed them, didn’t we, James? Did you see that man jump when I caught him right across his . . . unmentionables? Delicious! We showed them!”

  “We certainly did.” Mendick eased the speed a little, and they crashed back onto all four wheels. “My volunteers did well though, didn’t they? They stood their ground until the last moment.” He grinned across to her. “Those were some of my boys, you know. I trained them myself.”