by M. J. Trow
‘I am, yes, but …’
‘Oh,’ she said, flapping at him with a damp tea towel she wore over her shoulder like a stole, ‘Mr Tanner gets all sorts coming to see him. He was famous, so they say. When he was a policeman, I mean.’
A familiar voice sounded from a doorway in a corner which was still dark, despite the fact that Grand’s eyes were fully acclimatized now to the gloom. ‘I’m still a policeman, Molly,’ Tanner said. ‘Once a policeman, always a policeman. Is that Mr Grand I see?’
Grand stepped forward. ‘It is, Inspector Tanner. How are you?’
‘Just mister now, please. Just plain mister.’
‘What about once a policeman, always a policeman?’ Grand laughed.
‘Oh, that’s just for the visitors,’ Tanner explained, coming forward to shake Grand’s hand. ‘They like to think they’re brushing shoulders with a bit of genuine East End thuggery when they come to see me. Like to think they’re shaking the same hand that felt the collar of Muller the Railway Murderer, back in the day. But I’m a landlord now, am I not, Molly?’
She smiled up at him. ‘He is, Mr … Grand, is it? And the best landlord in Alresford.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Grand agreed politely.
‘Get along with you, Moll,’ Tanner said, slapping her backside in a casual manner. ‘She’s having a joke with us, Mr Grand. There is only the George in Alresford apart from my Swan, and nobody goes there unless they want to end up with a nice attack of the flux. It’s said they don’t wash the glasses there, just leave them out in the rain. Our Moll, here, she’s always polishing ours, to make sure they’re clean as a bosun’s whistle. Speaking of which, would you like to wet your whistle, Mr Grand? It’s a dry old day out there.’
Grand was delighted to find his old friend in such a good humour. He and Batchelor had worried for the man when they heard he had retired and that he was unwell. Try as they might, they couldn’t imagine him in any other setting than London. And yet, here he was, a landlord to his fingertips. ‘I would love a drink,’ Grand admitted. ‘The journey wasn’t long but it was hot.’ He amused Tanner, while Molly poured their beer, with the story of the shopping women of Alresford. The girl laughed. ‘You’ll be the talk of the town by nightfall,’ she told him, ‘if you aren’t already. Not much happens around here.’
‘You have custom, though?’ Grand asked, looking around. Although it was as clean as a new pin, there wasn’t a soul in the place.
‘Evenings, evenings are our busy time,’ Tanner said. ‘We even have people coming in their carriages, out from Winchester. It’s a pleasant drive and they can stroll along the river before they come for a bite to eat and a drink before setting off back home. It’s quite the thing, isn’t it, Moll?’
‘Mr Tanner has made this place lovely,’ the girl said. ‘It was a dirty hole before he took it over.’ She beamed at him and pushed the drinks across the bar. ‘I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ve got a pile of potatoes in the scullery I need to get ready.’ And dropping a bob and flashing a dimple, she was gone.
Tanner took a deep drink from his beer, holding it up to the light like a connoisseur. ‘She’s a good girl, is Moll,’ he said.
‘And quite a draw in her own right, I would imagine,’ Grand said, smiling.
‘We do get a lot of the young bloods in,’ Tanner agreed. ‘The younger masters from along at the school, they do like to see if they can catch a glimpse of her ankle. But I don’t think you’ve come all this way just to see what kind of a barmaid I’ve managed to find for myself, Mr Grand.’
‘As always, there’s no fooling you, Mr Tanner,’ Grand agreed. ‘James and I …’
‘How is Mr Batchelor? Well, I hope.’
‘James is well. He is currently … pursuing our enquiries.’
‘That was my next question, but now I don’t need to ask – your business is flourishing, I can see.’
‘It would flourish even more if it weren’t for one of your erstwhile colleagues.’
‘Not that idiot Field!’ Tanner said, almost spilling his drink. ‘I wondered when your paths would cross.’
‘We have met him, yes, but he isn’t the reason I’m here. While we’re on the subject, though, do tell me what you know about him. He does a lot of skulking in shrubberies and that seems to be about it.’
‘Charlie Field is an idiot, pure and simple. I expect he’s given you the chat about being a professional and how that makes all the difference.’
‘Umm … yes, he has, as a matter of fact. But then, so has—’
‘Take no notice. He’s had more official warnings than I’ve had hot dinners. Don’t tell him I said so, but he couldn’t catch a cold. Never could. But, he’s not the reason for your visit, you say.’
‘That’s right. Adolphus Williamson is our problem.’
‘Dolly?’ Tanner sucked the froth from his upper lip. ‘Ah, now there’s a real copper. Breathing down your neck, is he?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘That’ll be because of the file, I’m afraid.’
‘The file?’ Grand frowned.
‘There’s a file on you and Batchelor at the Yard. As there is on Field and Polliak; on every private detective agency. No doubt Dolly’s been rummaging through the shoe boxes and he’ll have come across you. Which reminds me …’ Tanner raised an eyebrow and nodded in the direction of Grand’s chest.
Grand sighed and opened his coat. No shoulder-holster. No gun.
Tanner laughed. ‘Glad you took my advice,’ he said. ‘We’ll make an Englishman of you yet.’
‘I was hoping,’ Grand said, ‘I could persuade you to rat on your former colleague and tell us how to get Williamson off our case.’
‘Lie through your teeth,’ Tanner shrugged. ‘It was always the bane of our lives at the Yard, but it works. If you’ve got a trasseno – er, that’s villain to you, Mr Grand – that’s hard as nails and sticks to his story, however implausible that story may be, there’s not much we can do about that.’
‘What about “falling down stairs”?’ Grand asked.
‘Beg pardon?’ Tanner was innocence itself.
‘I understand that quite a few … trassenos … fall downstairs in English police stations. Leaves them with nasty lacerations.’
‘Ah, well,’ Tanner smiled, winking. ‘It’s a fatal combination, isn’t it? Careless villains and badly designed buildings. What are you going to do?’
‘Williamson’s having us followed.’
‘Is he now?’ Tanner took another swig. ‘He’s got it in for you right enough. But there are two of you, aren’t there?’
‘There are,’ Grand agreed.
‘Split your command. Double back on yourselves. If you’ve got time, go on pointless journeys. Unless he wants you for murder, Dolly hasn’t got the resources to go outside the Met area, and there are all sorts of jurisdictional issues. If he realizes he’s getting the run-around, he’ll back off.’
‘That’s good advice, Mr Tanner.’
‘It is, Mr Grand,’ the landlord nodded, ‘but it doesn’t come cheap, I’m afraid.’
‘Ah.’ Grand reached for his wallet. ‘No, of course not.’
Tanner laughed. ‘I don’t want your money, Mr Grand. I want information. Why is Williamson nosing into your affairs particularly? Yes, there’s the Yard file but, in theory at least, you and he are on the same side. There has to be a reason. What case are you working on?’
For a moment, Grand hesitated, and was about to come out with the usual client confidentiality claptrap, when he realized who he was talking to. ‘The murder of Charles Dickens,’ he said.
Tanner whistled through his teeth. ‘Get away!’ he murmured. ‘Who’ve you got in the frame?’
Grand shrugged. ‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘Everybody.’
‘There’s a woman involved, of course.’
‘There is?’ Grand’s eyes widened.
‘Oh, yes.’ Tanner was sure. ‘There’s always a woman involved. There i
s a Mrs Dickens, isn’t there, if memory serves?’
‘There is and we haven’t talked to her yet, but I can’t see a motive. He left her years ago.’
‘Hell hath no fury, Mr Grand, like a woman left years ago. And revenge is a dish best served cold. I can let you have a whole load of other platitudes if you like.’
‘There was a mysterious woman at the funeral,’ Grand was thinking aloud. ‘We haven’t been able to identify her yet. And another – or is it the same one? – called Stella. We don’t know who she is either.’
‘I think I can promise you she won’t be what she appears to be,’ Tanner said.
‘What does that mean?’ Grand had not travelled seventy miles and been jostled and poked by the ladies of Alresford to be given platitudes and cryptic.
‘I don’t know,’ Tanner said. ‘Call it an old copper’s nose. If I were you,’ he leaned forward and became conspiratorial, ‘I’d call in the Yard. I hear that Dolly Williamson’s a good bloke.’
Fortunately for Matthew Grand, the beds at the Swan Hotel were comfortable and reached by a single staircase. He was quite the hero of the hour that night, with the ladies who had rapidly adapted to his London ways just happy to listen to his accent whilst buying him drinks, and the teachers from up at the college all quizzing him on the recent hostilities, whilst also buying him drinks. Moll helped him up the stairs and then left him at his door, despite mild protestations from him that he needed help taking his boots off. In the morning, still booted, he awoke to a tremendous headache, not helped by the mad Hampshire bird sitting on his windowsill that was not so much singing as shouting ‘tweet’ down its own personal megaphone. He crept downstairs, refused breakfast and made his way to the train. His plans to visit Winchester Cathedral were all put aside in favour of sitting rocking slightly with closed eyes on the platform of the city’s station, waiting with tensed muscles for the London-bound train to arrive with an almost preternaturally loud scream of whistles, howl of engine and yell of brakes, applied with what he considered unnecessary vigour. A sleep in his corner seat made him a little more human, but even so it was fully evening before he felt able to share his findings with Batchelor, or fully understand what his partner had discovered. A bath and a plate of something greasy concocted by Mrs Rackstraw and he was finally fit to face the world, the world of Canton Kitty.
TEN
Batchelor felt quite ill at ease, following so precisely in the footsteps of Charles Dickens. As they walked down Cable Street towards Canton Kitty’s he could almost sense the author by his side, excited at the prospect of a pipe of the poppy in the dark of the den. Batchelor hadn’t been keen to knock his idol from his perch, but the facts were stacking up against him now; just because he was a womanizer and a drug addict didn’t stop him from being the world’s greatest writer. After Edgar Allan Poe, no author’s life nor death could be considered that dissolute or peculiar; although there was clearly something not quite right about the last days of Dickens, at least he was wearing his own clothes when he died. Or was he? Batchelor made a mental note to find out.
‘This must be it.’ Grand broke into Batchelor’s thoughts.
Batchelor looked at the door, discreetly lit by a gas jet in a cage above it. There was no sign, no door knocker even, just a small grille set at approximate head height. Could this really be the place? How could a drug-addled visitor ever find it?
Grand tapped on the door and the grille immediately swung open. In the shadows within, a face loomed closer. ‘Yes?’ It was hard to tell from just one word, but it didn’t sound like the rough patois of Edwin Drood’s opening. Still, the night was young.
Before setting out, Grand and Batchelor had agreed the form of words they would use and had also decided that Grand should do the talking. A foreign accent would probably stand them in better stead than Batchelor’s local but well-spoken tones. Grand laid it on a bit thick.
‘Hi y’all.’ Batchelor poked him in the back and he toned it down. ‘I’m new in town and I’m as desperate as a porcupine in a melon patch for a pipe of the good stuff.’ He felt rather silly saying that, and avoided Batchelor’s sardonic eye, but it did the trick and the door eased open just far enough to let them in. The hall was dim but clean and tidy. They had expected to stumble over bodies as soon as they were inside, but the only person living, unconscious or dead, that they could see was the one who had let them in. It was a woman, that much they could tell, small and dressed simply. Her hair was tightly wound into a bun at the nape of her neck and her evening dress was dark in colour and fitted like a glove. She stood, hands folded in front of her, and she seemed to be waiting for something. The agents shuffled their feet; this wasn’t what they were expecting and their thoughts were the same: could this possibly be Canton Kitty’s, the most notorious opium den in London?
The woman sighed. ‘Do you gentlemen have the password?’ she said, in genteel tones.
‘Hell no,’ Grand said, keeping up his subterfuge. ‘We jest heerd …’
The woman sighed again and held up a hand. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘We really don’t need theatrics, do we? Has someone sent you here or are you just here on the trail of Edwin Drood? Um …’ The woman bowed her head momentarily. ‘You do know it’s fiction, do you?’
Grand and Batchelor were frankly amazed. It was as though the woman had read their minds. Batchelor was first to recover. ‘It’s more the trail of Charles Dickens we are on,’ he said. ‘We were friends of his.’
‘I am very sorry for your loss,’ the woman said. ‘If you were friends of Charles’s then you are welcome, of course, and you won’t be expecting all that five passed-out sailors in one bed nonsense. That will save us a lot of time.’ She stepped into the light shed by the candelabra discreetly placed around the hall. She was about Dickens’s age, but very well preserved. Her cheek was olive but she had clearly never been nearer Shanghai than the two enquiry agents had. She saw their expressions and chuckled. ‘I see Charles didn’t share my little secret. No, I am not, nor ever have been, Chinese. My father, God rest his soul, was a librarian in a private house in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. My mother died when I was very small, but was a very cultured woman, by all accounts. But a librarian doesn’t leave enough for a daughter to live on and I had a flair for business and so …’ she spread her arms and smiled, ‘here I am. Now,’ she stepped forward and linked one arm through Grand’s and one through Batchelor’s, ‘how can I amuse you two gentlemen today? Not personally, of course. Those days are very much behind me, thank heaven. Are you really here for the poppy?’ she asked Grand, ‘or do you have more exotic tastes? Many of our gentlemen who are not used to smoking prefer to take their poppy in more palatable form. We stock all the best laudanum brands; I must say I recommend that if you have a favourite you already use at home, it’s best to stick to that here. It saves …’ and she gave another of her little deprecatory head bobs, ‘incidents.’
Batchelor, remembering his visit to Gads Hill, said, ‘I personally favour McMunn’s.’
‘An excellent choice,’ she said, squeezing his arm in a friendly manner. ‘Now, the only other thing I need to know is, do you want to indulge together?’
‘Or?’ Grand wanted to hear the options.
‘Well, or separately, of course,’ she said. This time it was Grand’s arm which had the little squeeze. ‘Other options are whether you want to have one of the girls to join you, again, together or separately or, and this is quite popular, would you like to join the small party I have in my own apartments. I would warn you, though, that the party is more for …’
Batchelor filled in the gap. ‘Addicts?’
She dropped his arm. ‘Addicts?’ she said. ‘I fear you have been reading dear Charles’s book. Or Silas Marner – you look like a reader.’ She made it sound like an insult. ‘And what I always say is,’ she said, drawing herself up in outrage, ‘what Mary Ann Evans doesn’t know about laudanum could be written on the back of a very small envelope. However,’ she came down off her hig
h horse and pushed open a door, ‘I think we’ll start you two young gentlemen off easily, until you find what you want. After that, we’ll see.’
With a light push, they were in the room and the door was closed firmly behind them. In the silence, they could hear muffled piano music and also conversation, with the occasional high-pitched shriek, quickly stifled. The room itself was small and dark; in the corner there was a bed, unmade but clean-looking. A single candle burned in a sconce on the wall.
‘Not what I was expecting at all,’ Batchelor muttered to Grand.
‘What was you expecting?’
The voice, coming from the shadows beneath the candle, made them both jump.
‘I expect you was expecting lascar sailors and young university gents with yellow skin and eyes like dark pools, wasn’t you?’ The owner of the voice stepped out and a pretty young girl came into view. She was deliberately dressed to look much younger than her actual years, but her eyes were knowing and her voice tired. ‘Well, Kitty don’t allow that sort of thing and, anyways, how could they afford it? Talking of which, that’ll be a half-sovereign, gents, if you both wants the works. If it’s just one of you, it’s still a half-sovereign.’ The girl broke into a throaty laugh. ‘You’ll excuse my little joke, I know.’
Batchelor swallowed hard. ‘And if we don’t want the works?’ he said. ‘If we just want some laudanum?’
‘It’s still half a sovereign,’ she said, getting surly. ‘A girl has a living to make. Kitty’s kind enough as they go, but she ain’t a charity, you know.’
Grand fished out the money and passed it over. It disappeared faster than winking inside her bodice and she started to haul up her skirts. ‘Well, now,’ she said. ‘That’s more like it. Who’s first?’
‘Neither of us,’ Batchelor said, quickly.
‘Oh, it’s just the drops, then?’ she said, going over to a small table under the light. ‘How much d’you want? You don’t have to take it all at once …’
‘No,’ Grand said. ‘Not drops either. We were wondering if you had ever met Charles Dickens.’
