“Davidson saw your men coming and ran for it,” Templeton said, pointing down one of the bigger tunnels on the other side of the chamber.
Tanner reached out a hand to a passing man in uniform, his eyes were adjusting to the diminished light and he saw it was P.C. Jones. The man looked dazed but unhurt, he was whipping his head from side to side, as if to understand what was happening.
“Jones, it’s me, Tanner,” he said turning the constable toward him and looking him in the eye. His elbow still roared, but the limpness in his arm was giving way to a dull ache.
“Tanner! We thought you were dead, man.” Jones was shouting, he put a smoke blackened finger into his ear and wiggled it, trying to clear his hearing.
“It takes a lot to kill me, Jones. Are you alright?” he pointed to his own ear, signalling his meaning.
“Just ringing, I’ll be fine,” he said, still too loudly.
One of Davidson’s men ran past them, blood running from his nose and a heavy cut across his forehead. As Tanner watched he stumbled and fell, driving the crown of his head into the wall of the chamber. He lay still, crumpled in a comical heap.
“Our man has run for it, can you handle things here?” Templeton asked, turning Jones toward him so that the man could see him speak.
“Go! I have this under control,” Jones shouted once more. Tanner wasn’t sure control was the word for a situation like this, but he shook Jones’ hand and followed Templeton out of the chamber.
As he entered the tunnel, Tanner turned back to Jones and shouted, “Evans is dead! He’s over there,” he pointed across the fire to a where a charred and broken body lay among the detritus. He added, “I’m sorry!”
The tunnel was low and they ran with their backs bent, the circular walls were within arm’s reach on both sides. Templeton produced the light-box once more and this time is omitted a brighter, white light that showed them the few feet in front of them.
“Can you see which way he went?” Tanner asked as they ran.
“A man leaves a trace behind him, the stronger their emotions, the easier they are to follow. I can see him.”
Tanner ran holding his elbow in his hand, barely keeping up with his partner who walked in long strides but seemed to be covering the ground at an impossible pace. They turned left at the far end of the tunnel, then right at the next. As they ran, they passed numerous side passages. Some were no bigger than a man’s arm, with dirty water dripping from them, while others were bigger than the one in which they ran, their bottoms open and flow of water running along them.
Once, they came to a chamber that was almost the same size as the one in which they had seen Davidson’s story. Templeton waited for a moment, eye’s closed as he sensed which way their quarry had run. Before he said, “This way,” and they continued.
“Are we gaining on him?” Tanner asked. He was still feeling the effects of the explosion and his elbow was sending spikes of pain up his arm to his shoulder. Besides that, running bent over was making his legs feel heavier by the step.
“We were, but he is pulling away from us again. I think we may be near one of the entrances,” as he said it, Templeton came to a halt so quickly that Tanner nearly ran into the back of him. In front of them was a metal ladder that led, out of sight, up a narrow vertical passage. “Up here.”
They climbed the ladder, it wasn’t long and came to a stop at a circular metal cover. Templeton pushed it and slid - the first light of morning formed a crescent, then a full circle above them. They climbed out of the sewers and found themselves in a builders yard. The materials and machinery that surrounded them was obviously used to dig the tunnel out of which they had just climbed.
“This way,” Templeton said, after a moment’s contemplation. There was a large wooden fence which both men vaulted. Tanner felt his elbow scream with pain as he pulled himself to the top but as he landed on the other side he felt a little relief, as if stretching the joint had somehow released something that had been trapped.
They had emerged in Wavertree, close to the Bluecoats School, smoke was heavy in the air and more than one fire could be seen from where they stood. The whole area was battle ground and had been all night, people still ran back and forth, either toward or from fights or fires.
“There!” Tanner shouted, pointing to a two-wheeled trap that was pulling away from the side of the road. A man lay on his side in the mud. He shouted at Davidson who had evidently pulled him from the cart which was now speeding off in the direction of the river.
There was a Hansom cab, standing driverless a little further up the road and the two men raced along the street toward it. The horse was busily eating hay from a nose bag as they approached, looking about for the missing owner.
“Who owns this cab?” Tanner shouted but his was one of many voices on the street, despite the earliness of the hour. Nobody answered, he looked to Templeton, “Ever driven one of these?”
“My dear boy, you are about to see something special,” the older man said, with a wicked grin on his face. In spite of its rarity or maybe because of it, Templeton’s smile never failed to fill Tanner with amusement and embolden him. There was steel in that smile that told anyone who saw it that its owner was in control of any situation.
Templeton pulled the feedbag from the horse, to its obvious chagrin, then followed Tanner up onto the driver’s seat. He took the reins and gigged the cab into motion.
Davidson was well ahead, and the streets were crowded with people and other carriages. Tanner stood up to keep the trap in sight, shouting to people to get out of the way as he did. Templeton navigated the slower pedestrians with ease however, and despite the speed, Tanner began to enjoy himself.
“Where did you learn to do this?” he asked. He was answered with the same grin and shrug of the shoulders he received every time he asked Templeton a question about his past. It occurred to him that the answer might not be a secret, but too complicated to be given while racing down a busy street at break-neck speed.
Davidson turned left. Tanner was going to tell Templeton but realised his partner already knew as the cab swerved across the street and then back toward the turning, giving them the maximum amount of room.
A woman crossed in front of them, her eyes on a shop which had smoke bellowing out of the top floor window. She was oblivious of her danger as Templeton jigged to the right, and the left wheel passed within a hand’s width of the back of her head. Tanner shot a glance behind them as they raced away and saw that she didn’t even seem to have noticed.
Tanner looked at Templeton, but the man’s concentration was all on the road in front of them. Ahead, Davidson was forced to turn right, back toward the river as a large cart, carrying something flat under a tarpaulin pulled out of a side street and blocked his way. The horse pulling his trap protested- screaming and almost losing its footing on the packed mud of the road, before righting itself.
With the advantage of more time to adjust his line, Templeton took the corner with more speed and soon the cab was gaining on the trap.
People scattered left and right. A large crowd outside a warehouse that was spewing smoke into the morning sky was slow to react and Davidson sent a man spinning into the dirt, clipping him with the hub of his wheel. Tanner felt himself hold his breath as the hansom seemed to barrel straight through the middle of them all, but a backward glance showed nobody else had been hurt.
“He’s heading to the docks,” Templeton shouted over the noise of wheels on cobblestones.
“Can we catch him before he gets there?” Tanner asked, but he already knew the answer. They had been gaining on him steadily since they took the Hansom cab, but not fast enough that they would make up the distance that was left between them.
Up ahead, Davidson threw something on to the road behind him. Tanner couldn’t see what it was, it was too small. As Templeton reached the spot a few seconds later however, there was a small explosion and a flash of bright, white light. The horse reared slightly in fright and tr
ied to turn away from the flash, it took all of Templeton’s prodigious skill to keep it under control.
“What the hell was that?” Tanner asked, clinging on to the edge of the cab to save from being thrown to the ground. A second and third flash came soon after, not as close as the first but near enough that Tanner felt his heart thundering in his chest. He looked at the horse, wondering that it hadn’t simply quit, or gone wild with fear. He looked at Templeton and saw, to his astonishment, that the man had his eyes closed. He was sat calmly and straight-backed, muttering something under his breath and steering at the same time.
Tanner couldn’t hear what he was whispering, but he felt sure the words were directed toward the horse in front of them. Ahead, Davidson threw down another of the flash-bangs then turned left and started directly toward the Albert Dock. Tanner wanted to shout out, to warn his partner what was happening but, still with his eyes closed, Templeton adjusted his line and took the turn with ease.
The river and the ships upon her loomed ahead of them. Warehouses full of exotic goods waiting to be loaded onto ships or carts as they entered or left the country. The streets were busier here than anywhere else in Liverpool. The owners of the buildings seemed to have gathered gangs to protect their assets. Donkey jacketed men stood warming their hands on braziers, and the buildings behind them looked relatively untouched compared to the rest of the town.
Davidson weaved his way past one such group and drew his trap up at the side of the street. A side door to a warehouse sat slightly ajar, as if awaiting his arrival. He jumped down, long braided hair flying up around him, and disappeared through the entrance.
Templeton’s eyes came open at last, giving Tanner a measure of relief. His nerves, already frayed by the break-neck speed at which they had travelled through the streets, were ready to snap at the unnatural way this partner was driving.
“There is a boat waiting for him,” he said.
“Boat? What do you mean?” Tanner asked, catching a glimpse of the ships that were anchored on the Mersey as they passed between two tall buildings. His heart began to sink, if Davidson had a ship waiting, there was no chance of them catching him. Templeton drew the cab up behind the trap and the two men dropped to the cobbles.
People were wandering the street around them, some smoke blackened, others injured from the night of violence and fires. One man had his hand to his head and blood leaking though his fingers, he looked at Tanner with vague, blank eyes. A woman sat with her back to the wall of the warehouse, her dress ripped down one side and a black bruise rising from her left eye. Tears were cutting clean streaks on her dirty cheeks.
The door that Davidson had used was unlocked, the two men slipped inside and found themselves in a maze of stacked crates and goods. Tanner allowed Templeton to guide them through to the far side of the warehouse, where a large open door, big enough to allow the passage of boats, lay open. A small boat, with twelve men at the oars was pulling away from the dock. Davidson was standing and looking back at them as he pulled out into the safety of open water. He did not wave or shout to them, he simply locked eyes with Tanner and nodded.
“Over there,” Templeton said, pointing to a cutter that lay at anchor not far from the dock. They looked on in dismay as the sails began to unfurl, ready to catch the wind. The crew of the boat rowed hard toward their destination.
Tanner looked about the water, hoping for a miracle and found one. Laying at the estuary, bow to the open sea, was a Vanguard class ship of the line. His father, knowing Tanner would never be a sailor, had still spent enough time pointing out various ships that he could identify them without a moment’s thought.
He ran to the edge of the water, looking for a boat that they might take to get to the Vanguard. Anything, a two oar rowing boat, even a raft that he might transport across the water by the power of a wish. Finally, his eyes settled on a small fishing boat from which four men were unloading crab pots onto the muddy banks a short run away.
They set off at a sprint, watching Davidson’s boat eating up the distance to the waiting cutter. Mud began to suck at Tanners feet, making running an impossibility, he shouted to the fishermen.
“We need to get to that ship!”
Two of the four men continued to unload the pots while the other two stopped to see who was shouting. Tanner repeated his demand, pointing toward the vanguard. One of the men wiped sweat from his brow with his arm and shouted back.
“We aren’t a ferry! It’s been a long night, you’ll have to find someone else, sorry.”
“The man who started all this,” Tanner pointed toward the Town, and the smoke that still rose lazily into the air, “is about to escape on that ship. I’m a police officer, I need to stop him.” He pointed toward the clipper, the man followed his finger but seemed singularly unimpressed.
“Like I said, It’s been a long night,” the man said, making Tanner want to break his nose. Templeton stepped between the two men and produced four white five pound notes. He held them up in front of the fisherman whose eyes grew large.
“If you get us to that ship,” he pointed to the vanguard, “before that clipper leaves the river, these are yours.”
The four men were running toward the oars without another word being spoken between them. The mud did not seem to have the same soporific quality on their feet as it did Tanner’s, and so he was the last man in the boat.
He looked across to the clipper, and saw Davidson was no more than a hundred yards from the ship. He looked out at the vanguard and was sure they wouldn’t make it. At best it would be close.
Chapter Thirty One
The fishermen pulled at their oars, blowing out hard fought breathes as the bow rose and dipped in the water. The Vanguard sat sleepily in the estuary, dwarfing the other ships on the river. As Tanner watched it, a familiar hollow feeling began to develop in his stomach. The slow rocking motion of the small boat, the rise and fall of the sky and water, the smell of the salty air that carried off the sea and down the river. He felt his gorge rise in his throat and fought to keep himself from vomiting.
“Pass me that lamp,” Templeton said. He was facing forward in the boat, and was pointing behind Tanner to the hurricane lamp that hung from a hook at the bow. Tanner turned to look where his partner was pointing, but the motion of moving his head was enough for him to lose his battle with his protesting stomach.
A hot flood of bitter vomit escaped him, rushing to mix with the water of the Mersey and was gone. His head spun as he heaved with the power of the convulsion, the world turning from bright white, to red and back to natural colour once more. He fought to catch his breath, trying to control a series of quick inhales that seemed like they may never let him breathe out again. Finally the whole experience faded into a sense of deep relief.
He reached behind him and unhooked the lamp, passing it to Templeton. He wiped the bitter bile off his lips and felt a flush of blood reach up and heat his cheeks.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never had sea legs,” he said, finally getting his breath back under control. His throat and mouth were full of a sour, acidic taste, and he spat over the side.
Templeton smiled, “Not at all dear man, it happens to the best of us,” he motioned to Tanner with an upturned hand, “obviously.”
Realising that Templeton had just managed to pay him a compliment, even in the most compromising of situations, put a smile back on Tanner’s face. He watched as Templeton produced a small silver tin from his inside pocket. Opening it, he pulled out a brown headed Lucifer Match and hiding it from the wind inside his cupped palm, he struck it with his nail.
With the lamp lit he placed it on the side of the boat and removed his top hat. He then began to signal the vanguard by raising and lowering his hat in front of the lamp, all the while looking to the ship for a reply.
Tanner turned to the clipper, seeing Davidson climbing a rope ladder and disappearing over the side rail. The ship was already in motion by the time he stood on the deck and looked out toward Tann
er’s boat. If the clipper made open water the vanguard would be pushed to catch it, built as it was for speed. Out gunned and outmanned, Davidson’s ship would be helpless in a fight, but it could outstrip the naval vessel on any sea.
“There!” Templeton said, displaying a rare show of excitement. Tanner turned, his head much clearer after his previous sickness. On board the vanguard, a single light was flashing in reply to Templeton’s signal. Tanner thought the lookout must have had the eyes of a hawk in order to see the single light from the rowboat.
Templeton worked his hat back and forth in front of the lamp, his hand a blur. Tanner had heard of the new system used to send telegrams, and knew the navy had adopted it in order to send complicated messages from ship to ship but had never seen it in use. He watched the message transmitted back from the vanguard, then waited while Templeton replied once more.
“What are they saying?” he asked, as the older man concentrated on the series of flashes that came back to the boat. As the signal came, a number of the sails on the vanguard began to unfurl, and more than one of the gun ports opened on the side.
“As far as I can tell, they have instructions to stop all ships leaving the river, because of all this,” he waved his hand toward the burning town. “I’ve told them we need to apprehend someone on board but I think they are more interested in their previous orders.”
“As long as they stop them, I don’t care why they do it,” Tanner said, turning back toward the clipper. The ship was now the fastest vessel on the river, far outstripping the usual sedate speeds of the larger vessels. Tanner looked at the line it was taking and realised that it was changing course, heading toward their rowboat.
“We seem to be in trouble,” Templeton said, voicing Tanners concerns at almost the same moment that they occurred to the detective. Deep in his stomach a new wave of the hollow, sick feeling was beginning to make itself felt, he fought to keep it from his mind.
Mersey Dark Page 26
