‘I’ve heard of those places,’ Belle interrupted, seeing the distress on Jenny’s face. ‘Baby farms, they call them.’
‘So had I,’ Jenny replied, ‘they feed the babies with watered down milk, doctored with lime, until they are too weak to survive and when they die they pocket the money. She knew that too. She preferred to see her grand-daughter dead than recognise her.’
‘What a dreadful woman,’ Belle said. ‘What did you say to her?’
‘I told her I would take care of Molly myself, and she became angry. “You will receive nothing then from my family and should you ever return to my home, I will summon a constable,” she said. She never once saw Molly, or she’d never have been so heartless.’ Jenny stopped speaking and looked over towards Molly again, her eyes liquid-bright. ‘The worst thing is that I kept the sovereign she gave me.’
‘Come here,’ Belle said, seeing the tears welling. She hugged her tightly, feeling the dampness of Jenny’s cheek against her neck. ‘You’ve had such a struggle, and you’ve always worked so hard, but how did you get so deep in debt?’
‘It was long before you came here,’ Jenny replied. ‘I’ve always taken in work and it brought in enough to feed and clothe us, but I could never make enough for a nice place like this. I had to have someone to share the room and help pay the rent.’
‘Yes, I remember you telling me of Millie, the girl who was here before me,’ Belle replied. ‘She seemed like a nice girl.’
‘She was,’ Jenny said, ‘but I’ve never told you of the others.’
‘There were others, before me?’
‘Two,’ Jenny said. ‘I caught the next girl shaking Molly, because she was crying, and then the one after that robbed me. She took the rent money and everything else I had, of any value. It was then I started borrowing, but I still couldn’t manage. I suppose I should have moved, but it’s such a nice place, and then you came along. You mustn’t leave, not yet.’
Chapter 6
The men looked uneasy as Caine walked into the kitchen. He looked at each of them in turn, watching them squirm, letting his strength feed on their apprehension. They expected him to speak, so he chose to remain silent for a while. There was power in silence. He knew now was the time; the time to wake them up and teach them some respect. He just had to find some excuse.
Caine watched their vacant faces, feeling the acid anger burning inside him. Not one of them had a thought of owing him anything; not a grateful feeling between them. They’d take it all away from him in the blink of an eye, if they thought they could get away clean. He smiled to himself, forgetting his anger for a moment and moved to his armchair. ‘So you took my absence as an excuse for idleness?’
‘We’ve been out all morning,’ Harry Wood snapped. ‘We just came in for something to eat.’
‘And stayed to play cards,’ Caine said, working on the uncertainty.
‘It’s only a couple of hands,’ Jeb replied. ‘Anyways, where’ve you been, all dressed up like that?’
‘I’ve been to the Coroner’s Court,’ Caine replied. ‘Not that any of you have the wit to understand why.’
‘To see what they decided about Tom Hunt killing himself and his daughter?’ Harry Wood asked, tentatively.
‘Do you think I care about that?’ Caine spat back. ‘I went so that I’d be seen there. So no one would open their big mouths about Hunt owing us money. I don’t want the authorities nosing about in our business, because some strutting Irishman starts blabbing his big Oirish mouth off.’
‘We should have come with you,’ Tommy Wood said, smiling.
‘If we’d gone in like a mob, it would have drawn attention,’ Caine said. ‘Besides the day’s not come yet when I need you lot behind me to put respect in people. They saw me there and that was enough. They all kept their mouths shut about Hunt owing us.’ He smiled. ‘The jury said he was a murdering lunatic.’
‘How much did he owe us when he died?’ Harry Wood asked.
‘It’s not the money,’ Caine shouted. ‘It were only three pounds, but his dying has stirred things up. They’m all saying that he topped his self because of debts, even if they were too scared to say so in court.’
‘Maybe it was his debts,’ Tommy Wood said. ‘He never struck me as being a lunatic, and Jeb did give him a deal of grief, threatening what he’d do to his wife and kids.’ He turned to his brother and then to Jeb. ‘You said as much yourself, Jeb’
‘If you’re soft they don’t pay,’ Jeb said, ‘and if one of ‘em gets away with it then the others stop paying, and word spreads fast in Avon Street. Besides, he knew what to expect.’
‘You don’t know where to draw the line,’ Tommy said, looking again to his brother for support.
‘I wasn’t any harder than he deserved,’ Jeb spluttered, watching Harry Wood. ‘I only hit him a few times and I even give the bastard extra time. He told me he knew someone who would give him the money. They must have let him down or else he were lying.’
‘Jeb’s right,’ Caine said, watching the man smile at the unaccustomed recognition. ‘Hunt shouldn’t have borrowed what he couldn’t pay back. He knew the rules. Anyways, it came out in court that he still had enough money for drink.’
‘I heard his wife got arrested for shop-lifting,’ Jeb interrupted. ‘That’s why he did it, because he had to look after his brats on his own.’ He laughed and a few of the others joined in, but not the Wood brothers, Caine noticed. ‘Anyways, what’s done is done, who cares why he did it?’ Jeb said, staring at Harry Wood.
‘He’s dead and we won’t get paid,’ Harry said. ‘But three pounds isn’t much of a set-back. It’s over and best forgotten.’
‘But it won’t be that quickly forgotten,’ Caine spat back. ‘There’s someone who won’t let people forget. Think who our best customers are for money lending?’ He waited, making it clear he expected an answer, needing them to understand.
‘The Irish,’ Harry replied. ‘They’m breeding like rabbits. There’s more of they now in Avon Street than in Dublin, and they’m always short of money, now there’s no work on the railways.’
‘That’s right, the Irish in Avon Street,’ Caine said, measuring his words. ‘And Hunt’s wife is as Irish as they come and that papist priest, Brennan, keeps telling his bloody flock not to borrow from us.’
Jeb laughed ‘There’s nowhere else they can borrow. We’ve driven everyone else out.’
‘Brennan’s already talking about lending to them himself,’ Caine spat back, ‘setting up some sort of Friendly Society, as he calls it. Mark my words, it’ll be worse now because of Thomas, bastard, Hunt. The priest will use his death to turn the Irish against us, if they needed any more turning.’
‘Why don’t we get rid of Brennan?’ Jeb asked.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Caine spat back. ‘There’d be hell to pay if we kill him. The Irish think he’s a saint. But we need to do something, and quick before he gets them organised.’ Caine stood. ‘It needs thinking about.’ Deep down he wondered if he was getting too old to keep up with it all, but he needed more put by; enough so he wouldn’t end up like his father.
The thought took him by surprise. He hadn’t given the briefest thought to his father for years. He could barely remember him, but he remembered well enough that his father never went short of food, even if it meant his wife and son going without. That hunger still haunted Caine’s stomach, always complaining and paining him.
He had still been a child when his father had headed the old Cockroad gang, ‘feared throughout the West Country’, his father used to tell him on the few occasions he was drunk enough to be happy, but not that drunk that he wasn’t. He was certainly feared by his wife and his son. Caine could not picture his face now, but he remembered his bull-neck and heavy hands well enough. He’d ended his days on the gibbet at Gloucester jail, swinging with a rope around that bull-neck, for the whole world to laugh at, like so many other Caines before him. It wasn’t going to happen to him though; he would make su
re of that. He’d been there that day, watching with the others. He tried to remember if he had laughed like them, but the memory was buried and he preferred not to resurrect it.
The others had returned to their game of cards as Caine paced the length of the kitchen, feeling the anger growing inside him. ‘Let’s have a reckoning,’ he said, and immediately picked up on Jeb’s uneasy expression.
Caine walked to the far end of the table and began sifting through the contents that had been placed there. By the side of the large tin cash box stood a number of neat columns of coins, mainly copper, but some silver and gold and next to them a few notes. He took the small black, leather-bound book from under the tin, scanned the names and ran his eyes down the columns of dates and amounts, stopping when he reached the entry for Thomas Hunt. He obliterated the name with thick black pencil lines. That was the good thing about learning, he thought, half the time those who borrowed forgot what was owed and tried to argue over when it was due, but he always had it here, written down in his book, as good as any bank manager. What was to be paid and when and how much each of the lads had collected.
He began calculating what should have been collected that morning, from those who were due to pay. He knew he would find something wrong, and, if he did not find it, he could always invent some reason. By the side of the coins was a small heap of silver items, cutlery, snuffboxes, card cases, matchboxes and silver household plate and when he had finished writing he sifted through the objects. He looked up at the men again. Jeb was watching him, but he looked back at his cards as soon as he knew he’d been spotted. Caine knew now what had to be done.
‘The small silver and the bank notes was all brought in by pickpockets and the silver plate from a burglary you agreed up at The Circus,’ Harry Wood said. ‘I paid four sovereigns and ten shillings for the £5 pound notes and eight sovereigns for the £10 notes, like you said, and I got the silver for next to nothing. I put the reckoning in the cash box.’
‘That’s good,’ Caine replied. ‘We’ll smelt the silver plate down tomorrow. It’s too easy to recognise as it is.’ He noticed Jeb watching him from the corner of his eye. ‘One of you can take the watches and the small silver into Bristol at the end of the week,’ Caine said, not letting on that he’d noticed Jeb’s interest. ‘But spread them around, I don’t want to depend on a couple of fences and have they cutting prices on us.’
Caine counted the banknotes and sovereigns before taking them over to the safe in the corner of the room. He bent forward and unlocked it with the key he kept on the thick gold chain around his neck. Then he returned to the table and began counting the other coins into the tin cash box. He checked his book again. He was sure now. He readied himself quietly. ‘There’s enough in the tin here for buying whatever comes in this afternoon and tomorrow,’ Caine said. He kept his tone soft and measured. They paid little attention as he walked slowly down the length of the table, until he was standing behind Jeb’s chair. ‘What you collected today ain’t right,’ he said, watching as Jeb’s body froze.
‘Nothing to worry about, Nat,’ Jeb said. ‘I borrowed a bit for the cards. I was going to put it back from my winnings.’
Jeb kept his eyes averted and showed no reaction when Caine placed his left forearm on his shoulder and pushed down hard, and then harder, until he felt the pain bite. ‘They’s good cards, Jeb,’ he said, ‘best be sure they’m not marked.’
‘We’re all friends Nat,’ Jeb stuttered. ‘We wouldn’t play with marked cards.’
Caine took the knife from its sheath on the belt under his jacket and held it under Jeb’s ear. ‘But they’m bound to get marked when I take off this ear, Jeb.’ He kept his voice low, hiding the exhilaration he felt.
‘Don’t, Nat, please don’t,’ Jeb said. ‘I was going to put the money back.’
‘You’ve let me down, Jeb,’ Caine said. ‘You’ve disrespected me. You know you never steal from your own.’ He could feel the tension in Jeb’s body now; sensed him preparing to make his move. ‘And don’t try for that knife in your boot,’ he said, ‘I’ll have both your ears off and slit your throat before you reach it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jeb said. ‘I was just borrowing the money.’
Caine drew the razor-sharp knife back slowly towards him, slitting through Jeb’s earlobe, watching as the blood began first to drip and then to trickle like a scarlet stream onto his shoulder. All the time he leant harder with his left arm on Jeb’s body, pushing him down further with all his force.
‘Keep your ear,’ he said, when he was satisfied with his work. He wiped the knife’s blade on the back of Jeb’s shirt, before sliding it back into its sheath. ‘Put the money back, with a bit added, and have some respect in future, or it’ll be your head I take off, not just your ear.’
Jeb grabbed a rag from his pocket and held it to his ear. His earlobe was no longer attached to the side of his head and the rag quickly drenched a vivid red with blood.
Caine went back to his armchair and was about to sit. The room was still and though Jeb was careful to move quietly, Caine sensed his approach. He whirled round to face him, pulling his knife as he turned. ‘Ready for it, Jeb?’ Caine pulled himself up to his full height. He was forty, Jeb was closer to twenty, but Caine was still the more powerful of the two and he could see the uncertainty in Jeb’s eyes. ‘Sit down now and I’ll let you live, but you ever face me with a knife again and you’ll be dog’s meat.’
Jeb backed away, tucking his knife into his boot as Caine knew he would. He sheathed his own knife, smiling, knowing that order had been restored for a while. At the table, he saw Harry Wood looking at Jeb’s cards, before replacing them where Jeb had left them. He smiled to himself, confident now that they understood who was master, and who was servant.
Moving the old Cockroad gang to Bath had been the making of them. It had been only eighteen months and they already ruled the city or at least the Avon Street quarter and it was all his doing. Yet he knew that wasn’t quite true. In fairness it had never really been his idea. His good luck was all down to chance, to stopping the London coach that night and robbing its single passenger.
You could have knocked him down with a feather when that same man tracked them down to The Blue Bowl, a month later; came in bold as brass asking for his watch back and his money. Everyone laughed at him, dressed fit for a gentleman’s club, like a lawyer, or a doctor, or one of the landed gentry, but he walked in, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, with only a thin wooden cane to defend himself.
‘If I can track you down the law will do it someday soon,’ he’d said and the words had rung true. Highway robbery had become a dangerous business, what with the peelers on horses, and the drivers carrying more guns with them than an infantry regiment. Besides the pickings were getting thin, with more and more of the gentry travelling by train. He had thought the stranger a bit simple at first, risking his life for a few sovereigns and a watch. But then he made his proposal and it had been a good one.
That’s when they took up working together and it had been very profitable for them both from the start. He was a clever man and knew things as only a gentleman could. It was him who supplied the information on the best places to rob and the things worth taking. It was even him who came up with the idea of moving the gang to Bath and got them started up with the money lending, and lending was the most profitable robbery of all.
The best part of it was he was never greedy in the cut he took, not compared to the money they were making. And he had no ambitions to take over, knowing full well that the lads would never accept him, being a gentleman and all. He stayed the sleeping partner, knowing his place, providing the ideas and the information, leaving Caine to run the gang. He asked the odd favour, but it was worth it. The Cockroad gang was now the Caine gang again, and it wasn’t just feared, it was respected.
‘Listen up!’ Caine shouted, pausing until he was sure of everyone’s attention. ‘We need to get some good out of Hunt’s death. The Irish will be restless, st
irred up by their Father Brennan. They’ll expect us to stay low and soften, but if we back off now they’ll take it for weakness. So we’ll do the opposite. Come down even harder on those that don’t pay, and tell them the charges are going up. And we’ll deal with that bloody priest, tonight. We’ll show them who runs Avon Street.’
Chapter 7
‘If you’ve done wrong, Richard, you know I will not judge you,’ James Daunton said. ‘You know you can speak freely to me.’ He sank into the armchair facing his friend, waiting for some response.
Richard continued to stare into the fire, the lines in his forehead etched deep and unmoving; his eyes almost lifeless, as though his mind were somewhere else, somewhere far less comfortable. ‘Give me some time.’ His voice was unusually quiet. ‘I was at the Coroner’s Court this morning.’
James looked around the room searching for distraction, his eyes drifting from one item of furniture to the next, drawn to their imperfections. The ottoman under the window was scuffed at the base, the keyhole of the writing desk at its side was badly scratched, and the sofa had a tear which had been repaired poorly. He needed no reminding that the furniture was old and ill-matched; at odds with the newly decorated room, with its fine purple flock wallpaper, but he could never dispose of them, not with the memories they held. He knew the origin of every scratch and mark to every piece and remembered where each had stood in his family’s home in Ireland, when he was boy.
James stared up at the mantelpiece, bare except for the Louis XIV clock and the pair of ornate Georgian silver candlesticks, bequeathed to him by his father, their lustre now dulled and darkened by the gas mantles. The letter was there behind the clock, where he had put it on Richard’s arrival. He tried to put it from his mind and looked back towards Richard.
‘My apologies,’ Richard said, as though he had sensed the glance. ‘I needed some time to settle and control my temper.’
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