The Butcher's Block

by Lucienne Boyce

  A row of covered wagons had drawn up outside the Magistrates’ Office ready to convey the prisoners to Newgate. They were guarded by the militia, though the populace had so far shown no sympathy for the arrested radicals. If the United Patriots had not been involved in body snatching it might have been a different story. As it was, people stood around gaping with curiosity and swapping outlandish theories about the captured revolutionaries: they’d been rounded up after a battle at the gates of St James’s Palace; they’d been taken off a French ship that had sailed up the Thames to Westminster; they’d been discovered performing Druidical rites in a cellar in Rotherhithe, stabbing an effigy of the King and casting spells against his life.

  The corridor was so crowded Dan had difficulty opening the door. Inside prisoners huddled together, some already processed and waiting to go to Newgate, others still to be called into the courtroom for a preliminary examination by Sir William Addington and Sir Richard Ford. Dan saw Ellis in the main office and struggled over to him.

  “Is Metcalf still here? I need to question him.”

  “Yes, he was in the last group taken before the magistrates. They should be coming out any moment now.”

  The clank of chain, tramp of feet, and cries of “Make way, there!” from the direction of the courtroom confirmed Ellis’s prediction. Dan moved to intercept the prisoners’ escort and request that Metcalf be released to him for questioning. He was a couple of feet away from the door when the tramping became a scuffle, the cries exclamations of alarm, the clank the clash of drawn cutlass.

  “Look out there!” someone yelled.

  The warning was immediately followed by a gunshot. Then there was silence. It lasted only a few seconds, time enough for Dan to push his way into the corridor.

  The door on the courtyard was already filling with clerks and ushers who had rushed from the court room to see what had happened. The prisoners who had just been committed to gaol huddled against the wall, struggling to distance themselves from the catastrophe, though spattered with gore. A dark figure lay on the ground. It was surrounded by four guards, gazing down at the pool of red creeping across the filthy floorboards. Jones stood by uttering strange cries of distress.

  And no wonder. The man on the floor had had his head blown off.

  Dan grabbed the patrolman’s arm and shook him out of his stupor. “What’s happened here?”

  Jones, unable to tear his gaze away from the body, answered, “He g…grabbed my p…pistol. I couldn’t stop him. He shot himself.”

  Dan looked down at the corpse. In spite of the ravaged face, he recognised him. It was Metcalf.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dan shrugged on his shirt as the doctor Sir William Addington had summoned to his office signalled that his examination was over.

  “Don’t think I’ve ever seen a man in such good condition,” the doctor said. “Stomach like a plank. And that’s what saved you from any serious damage as far as I can see. You’re severely contused, as you don’t need me to tell you. You need to rest and take it easy for a few days. But apart from that, you’ll do.”

  “Excellent!” said Sir William. “Send me your bill.”

  The doctor snapped shut his bag, picked up his hat and coat and left.

  It was late Friday morning, and peace and order had been restored to Bow Street. The Patriots were safely locked away and Sir Richard Ford had gone back to the Home Office to start building his case against them, after complaining at length about the deaths of the two key figures. Broomhall’s body, or what was left of it, had been found lying face down on the threshold of the locked room in the warehouse. He had come round, crawled to the door, tried to get out…Dan pushed images of the man’s last moments out of his mind.

  Eight bodies had been found in the yard. Six of them were the shrouded corpses Dan had seen the resurrectionists load onto their carts. Of these, one had been caught in the fire; three had been so mauled about by the crowd they were unrecognisable; and the other two had been buried in a pauper’s grave as no one had come forward to claim them.

  The remaining bodies were those of Lucas and Smith, whom Dan had seen fall into the hands of the mob. That left Nipps, who had used him as a punch bag, and Trinder, who had intended to cut his throat, unaccounted for.

  “You’ve earned your reward, Foster,” Sir William said. “And I shall take great pleasure in making sure that Sir Richard pays it.”

  “I don’t know so much,” Dan answered. “Both my suspects are dead and I still don’t know for certain who killed Kean.”

  “I would have thought Metcalf’s suicide was a fair indicator of his guilt.”

  “Maybe. I would much prefer to know.”

  “I think there’s no doubt that it was one or other of them. And as they have both been served as they merit, we can be satisfied with the outcome of the case. And now, you should take the doctor’s advice and go home and get some rest.”

  It was nearly mid-day when Dan left the office. He was halfway along Bow Street when church bells started to ring. From the east and west, north and south, the air reverberated with the sound. In every church in Southwark and beyond, the ringers woke the impressive notes of the great bells.

  Men, women and children, already excited by the previous night’s events, abandoned shop, workroom, tavern and house and rushed into the street. The news flew from mouth to mouth: the guns had gone off at Tower Hill, signalling that Admiral Duncan had defeated the Dutch fleet at Camperdown. With his ally smashed, Frenchie was in no doubt about who ruled the waves! For years the British had feared invasion; it would never happen now. Strangers hugged strangers, men and women seized one another and danced, children cheered, and the drink flowed.

  So, Dan thought, everything could go on as it was before. There would be no invasion, no revolution, no change in the ministry, no aristocrats’ heads on spikes. Children would still live on the streets, and fat magistrates would continue to hang them. Hard to see sometimes why people cheered.

  Only the alternative was worse: imagine being governed by men like Broomhall. All the same, perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to see what drew men, good men, to causes like his. Men like Kean for example. What had happened to make him betray the King and Country he had served all his adult life, first as a soldier, then a law officer? It was not money troubles, as Dan knew from his search of Kean’s bureau, which had turned up only settled and receipted bills. Perhaps he could find an answer if he could discover something of Kean’s state of mind in the weeks before he died.

  Dan pushed his way through the carousing couples in Long Acre and turned into a courtyard full of excited neighbours calling the news of Duncan’s victory to one another. A frowsy woman opened Mrs Kean’s door to him. Her name, he remembered, was Mrs Martin. The room was full of packing cases, books and knick-knacks wrapped in paper, and much of the furniture had already gone. Dan glanced over to where the bureau had stood. The tomahawks had been taken from the wall.

  Mrs Kean stood by a chair covered in a pile of bed linens, folding them up and putting them into a box with sprigs of dried lavender.

  “Officer Foster, isn’t it?” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you any refreshment.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, taking off his hat.

  “Back to my father’s farm in Kent. Here, Mrs Martin, would you like this coverlet? I’ve already packed one.”

  “You really don’t want it? Well, if you’re sure, dearie.” Mrs Martin added it to the pile of gifts she had already accumulated.

  Mrs Kean looked around helplessly then moved to clear the chair.

  “I’m fine standing,” Dan said. “I just came to tell you that the men responsible for your husband’s death were killed last night when we tried to arrest them.” There was no need to inflict the details on her.

  Her hand flew up to her mouth and she tottered. Dan caught her, swept th
e linen off the chair and lowered her into it. He fanned her with his hat.

  “Is there any brandy in the house?” he asked Mrs Martin.

  Mrs Martin, who stood flapping her hand in front of her face and gasping, “La! La!”, calmed herself long enough to remember that she had seen a half-full bottle somewhere and went unerringly to the basket where it was stowed. She unwrapped a couple of glasses, poured out the spirit and held them out to Dan. Dan refused the one for himself and, while Mrs Martin happily guzzled it, held the other to Mrs Kean’s lips. She took a sip, coughed and pushed it away.

  “Thank you. It’s just the surprise…I hadn’t heard anything from Sir William.”

  “He’ll be writing to you officially,” Dan said. “But I wanted you to know as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you.” A thought struck her. “Was it you that arrested them?”

  “I was there, yes.”

  “I’d rather they had hanged, but I’m glad they paid for what they did.”

  “La! La!” said Mrs Martin, just to remind them she was still there, and poured herself another measure of brandy.

  “Do you know why they killed him?” Mrs Kean asked.

  “They were planning to assassinate the King and his ministers. Your husband infiltrated their gang and found out what they were up to.”

  Mrs Kean straightened her back proudly. “So he died defending his sovereign?”

  With the real purpose of his visit yet to be achieved, Dan was reluctant to reveal the truth. He “hummed” non-committally.

  “When are you leaving?” he asked.

  “My father is coming for me in two days.”

  “You should get Sir William’s official letter before then, but I’ll take a note of your new address just in case there’s any delay.”

  She gave it to him and he wrote it in his notebook.

  “He told me about you,” she added. “He said you were a fighting man, one of the best he’d ever seen.”

  “That was generous of him. And he was a good police officer. Never gave up on a case.”

  She smiled. “Yes, he sometimes made it something of a crusade.”

  “I remember you told me he talked to you about his work.”

  “Yes.”

  “But then he stopped. Do you remember when that was?”

  “Why, is it important?”

  “I’m just trying to get some dates clear in my mind. For the trials. Kean hadn’t had time to write up his notes.” If he had ever intended to.

  Mrs Martin quietly sloshed another brandy into her glass. Mrs Kean’s brow puckered, thinking.

  “It was the start of August, just after the Hobbs case. You know it?”

  “I can’t say that I do,” Dan lied. He wanted Mrs Kean to keep talking.

  “Esther Hobbs. She was raped and murdered. She was only a child. George saw the body. He said it reminded him of something he had seen when he was in the Army, he would never tell me what it was. He started having nightmares and drinking too much. Then he hardly slept; he worked all day and night on the investigation. They charged a young man for it, but he got off. George said it was because the judge knew the young man’s father. He was so angry, as much with himself as anything. He said he should have made a stronger case, one no one could ignore, not even a corrupt judge.”

  Every officer had a case like that, Dan thought, the one that got under your skin; the one where justice failed; the one you remembered to your dying day. And now he thought he understood what had turned Kean into a traitor. One horrific case too many; one slapdash trial too many; one hasty judge too many. Kean had given years of honest service to the job before he had cracked under the strain. He had looked square at the rottenness at the heart of the system, and he had decided that only sweeping the whole lot away would make any difference.

  At least that was how Dan imagined it. He would never know for certain what had been in Kean’s mind when he went to Broomhall with information that would help him start a revolution. Now Dan had to decide what to do about it. He could hand in the plan with Kean’s handwriting on it. It would destroy the dead man’s reputation, and the good work he had done would be forgotten. His widow would lose the solace of thinking her husband had died a hero. She would also lose any reward monies owing to him from the service.

  Dan could do that, but he had seen the girl’s body too.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Home for Dan was the rooms in Newport Street which he had taken over from Walter when he returned to Barcombe. He had only been back to Russell Street to collect a few things, and neither Caroline nor Eleanor had spoken to him. Their mother had stood in front of the kitchen door like a benevolent guard dog, but a determined one. He could have put his foot down, reminded the women that this was his house, Caroline was his wife, that the rights of ownership were all his. But what would have been the point? He did not want to live in the sight of the women he had hurt.

  It was a temporary arrangement, but he had no idea what might be a more permanent one. And there had hardly been much time to think about it. He wondered what Caroline and Eleanor would think of him when they read the news that the United Patriots’ plot to overthrow the Government had been crushed. Would Eleanor remember the day they had talked about it, her concern for the danger he was in? Would Caroline forget her jealous rage if only for a moment, and feel even the slightest bit of pride in him for the part he had played?

  He could have gone home, played the conquering hero. Being a hero was easier than being a husband. He should never have married Caroline, never have admitted his feelings for Eleanor, never lain with Anna Halling, never have had Davy…No. He refused to regret that. He had no idea why or how it had happened; it was the strangest falling in love he had ever known. In only a week the child had wrapped himself around his heart, bound him tight with love. How did they do that with their wailing and puling and kicking and laughing and gurgling? He had no idea. All he knew was that where Davy was, home was.

  Yet he did not want to go there just yet. For one thing, he would never sleep with the uproar of the Camperdown celebrations going on. For another, he had promised Rosie that he would hire a servant to look after her. He set off for Southwark to search for Nick.

  It was dark by the time he found the boy, scavenging for scraps around the shuttered stalls in St George Market. It did not take long to strike their bargain: Nick would get his food and lodging in return for helping Rosie about the house.

  “There’s a place for Ann too, if she wants to come,” Dan said.

  Nick wiped his sleeve across his nose. “Her and the others’ve gone. Said I brung the Runners on ’em.” The boy sniffed again. “Shan’t miss ’em.”

  To save the boy’s dignity, Dan took the declaration at face value. He took Nick to the gymnasium. Noah had experience of dealing with a verminous, filthy child. Between them they shaved the boy’s head and burned his clothes, along with the lice that had made their home in them. Then Noah marched the boy round to the baths for a long soak and scrub while Dan dug out some of his old clothes.

  Paul had gone out to join the street party and there was no one in the gymnasium. It was quiet save for the occasional cheers and shouts that drifted in. Dan sat down by the fire. He reached into his pocket and drew out Broomhall’s plan with Kean’s notes on it. He looked at it for a moment, then slowly tore it in pieces and fed the fragments into the flames.

  When it was all gone he sat back in the chair. By the time Noah and Nick returned he was fast asleep. Noah threw a blanket over him and sent Nick to spend the night in Dan’s bed.

  Dan let himself into the house in Newport Street one Monday evening towards the end of October after spending the day in the office writing up reports and putting in a good word with Sir William Addington for Patrolman Jones. It was the first opportunity Sir William had had to consider how to deal with the young man,
who had been suspended from duty pending his decision. Dan agreed that Jones was not the brightest spark, but pointed out that he was eager to do his duty and with time would improve. In the end the magistrate agreed to give him another chance: he had three months to prove himself capable, and any more mistakes in that time would see him out of the service.

  The landlady was in the hall before Dan had taken two steps towards the staircase.

  “Oh, Mr Foster, something dreadful! As I was coming back from doing my shopping this afternoon, I came upon two low fellows conferring outside the area railings. I am sure the villains are planning to break in and rob us.”

  Yesterday it had been beggars sitting on the doorstep and creating a nuisance; the day before she had had him checking the locks on the downstairs windows.

  “They were probably just two men meeting in the street.”

  “Oh, no, they were up to no good. I could tell from the way they talked.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I couldn’t understand it. It was a vile, gypsy language such as rogues speak.”

  “Arey sneaks touting the case, eh?”

  “Why, that’s exactly what I heard them say! I daresay you must have to know their manner of speaking in your line of work.”

  Dan, who had been brought up by thieves, said, “I’ve picked up a bit here and there. But, Mrs Hampton, I can’t arrest men for talking.”

  “But they were conspiring, Mr Foster, conspiring. Shouldn’t you put a constable outside the house?”

  “It’s too desperate a case for that, Mrs Hampton. What I need from you is a detailed description of the men that I can take into Bow Street tomorrow.”

  “One of them had wicked, bulging eyes –”

  “It would be better if you could write it out. Then I can get it copied and mobilise the force to go out looking for them. Do you think you could do that for me, Mrs Hampton?”