Avon Street

by Paul Emanuelli

  ‘We won’t talk,’ one of them said.

  ‘Oh, one of you would talk if you stay,’ Caine said. ‘I don’t doubt it, or you’d try what Dawlish tried. Besides, the chief constable will be watching you, waiting for you to put a foot wrong. One of you’d get caught doing something, and he’d offer you a lighter sentence to spill your guts. Someone’s put a bee in his bonnet. He’s after me now and you’re his way in.’

  ‘But we’d never talk,’ one of the men said.

  ‘Maybe not, but I can’t be sure of that. Then there’s the Irish. They’ll be after you with scores to settle, and no uniforms to protect you. It’s best you leave Bath. That’s the condition. If you take this money you leave the city today and you don’t come back. If I find any of you in Bath tomorrow you join Constable Dawlish on Lyncombe Hill and don’t think the chief constable will protect you. I’d get to you in time. I’m a patient man. And if I can’t get to you, I’d get to your kin. Of course you can ask for more, but that’s all that you’ll get; fifty sovereigns a piece – or Lyncombe Hill. Think about it for a while if you must.’

  ‘I’ll take the money,’ one of the men said, without hesitation. The others quickly nodded their agreement.

  Caine threw a bag to each of the men and turned to Jeb. ‘See these gentlemen out,’ he said.

  When they were gone Caine summoned his own men to the table. ‘Watch each one of them and make sure they leave the city before the end of the day. If they don’t, I want to know.’

  It was all starting to go wrong, Caine thought. He could feel it on the streets when he walked around. He had half-expected the Irish to react, but they had not. The money lending was drying up. People were paying off their debts, thanks to the priest. Now the peelers were sniffing around and the chief constable was after him, brothels and gambling dens getting closed down or moved on. He was almost a prisoner in his own house. At least, he thought, there was still Lansdown Fair. A chance to show them all that Nat Caine was still a name to be respected.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  On his way to The Fountains Inn, John couldn’t put Billy’s death out of his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was spend time in Jeb’s company now. So many things had happened in the last few days. There had been no time to think, or talk. Last time he’d met Jeb he’d vowed to tell James and Charlie everything. But James had only just received Harry Wood’s challenge and the time hadn’t seemed right. Then they’d been preparing for the duel, and then Caine went after Charlie, and now Billy’s death. There was never a right time. He knew the truth had to be told and soon, but the longer he said nothing, the harder it got to speak.

  John half expected Jeb not to be there when he walked into the ale house, but he found him already at the bar, a quart tankard in front of him, standing alone as usual. He smiled; the same ugly, loathsome smile that John had got to know so well.

  ‘So you’re here,’ Jeb said, his grin growing broader. ‘Harry Wood’s dead, you’ve probably heard, drowned in the river.’

  John tried to act surprised, ‘I heard someone had drowned, but I didn’t know it was Wood. Was it an accident?’

  Jeb leered, ‘Maybe, or maybe I got rid of him. There’s no one now between me and Caine except Harcourt. You know what that means?’

  ‘You’re in line for taking over from Caine.’

  ‘More than that,’ Jeb said. ‘Caine will have to go with Harcourt on the next break-in, himself. If neither of ‘em comes back then I take over.’ He looked to John for acknowledgement and John smiled. ‘Like I said,’ he went on, ‘there’ll be a job for you. I’ll need someone I can trust and you’ll make more money than you’ve ever dreamed of.’

  ‘I can see it now,’ John said. ‘We’ll be unbeatable.’

  ‘But I’d be boss,’ Jeb said. ‘Don’t go getting ideas.’

  ‘I’ve no ideas,’ John said, ‘but we need to deal with Caine first.’

  ‘The house they’re doing’s in Queen Square – belongs to a man called Etheridge.’

  ‘When?’ John asked.

  ‘Three nights before Lansdown Fair,’ Jeb replied. ‘Now if someone were to tell the peelers … ’

  ‘I won’t let you down,’ John said. ‘Let’s drink to it.’

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Caine looked through the window of The Fountains Inn. Inside he saw Jeb and another man deep in conversation. He tried to make out who he was, this man who was so obviously friendly with Jeb, but there were too many people in the way to see him clearly. Each time he caught a glimpse of his profile the man turned away, or someone obscured his view, but there was definitely something familiar about him. If only he could remember.

  When he saw him make a move towards the door Caine hid in the alleyway opposite and watched him leave, his cap pulled down over his forehead, his features masked in the shadows cast from the light of the opened doorway. Caine watched him walk up the road and then ran over to the window. Jeb looked settled in for the night and he decided to follow the other man.

  There was something about the man’s face. He knew he had seen him before, but for the life of him he could not recall where, and the where was important. It wasn’t too long ago, but how long? He had been with someone, someone he knew, but the more Caine thought, the more the man’s face faded into a hundred other faces until he could no longer picture him.

  Caine tried to catch up with him, without giving himself away, but the faster he walked the more distance the man seemed to put between them, as though he were playing games with him. He turned a corner, seeming to glance back, but Caine could not make out anything of his face and when he turned the same corner the man had disappeared.

  Caine made his way back to The Fountains Inn, checking first through the window that Jeb was still there. It was then that the sudden realisation came to him. He could picture him perfectly now, even remember their conversation. The man he had just followed, the man who had been talking to Jeb, was the same man he’d seen with Charlie Maggs that day in The Pig and Whistle; the one Maggs had said was his nephew. He’d been right all along; Charlie Maggs was mixed up in all this.

  Throwing open the door, Caine waited for the silence which always followed his entrance to a room. He had not been to The Fountains Inn for months, but it was still Jeb who looked the most shocked to see him; taking those few too many seconds to find the uncertain smile that he eventually affected; the all-important seconds that proved he was guilty.

  ‘What brings you here, Nat?’ Jeb said. ‘I’ll get you a beer.’

  ‘I saw this chap leaving just now,’ Caine said. ‘He were a stocky man. I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Do you know who I’m talking about?’ He watched Jeb’s face; the guilt was plain beneath his mask of indifference. His eyes always gave it away.

  ‘There was a chap, just left. He’s in here a lot, but I don’t know him.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Caine said. ‘It was you I was looking for. What time is it?’

  Jeb took out the pocket watch on the end of its silver chain. ‘It’s just before ten,’ he said. ‘Where’s your watch?’

  ‘That’s the point,’ Caine whispered, leaning in towards Jeb’s scarred ear. ‘I can’t find it anywhere. I think I lost it the other night scrabbling around down the riverbank where you did for the Irishman.’

  ‘You’ve probably mislaid it,’ Jeb said. ‘It’ll turn up.’

  ‘I can’t take the chance,’ Caine said. ‘It’s got my name cut proper on the back. If they find it they’ll put me in the frame for the killing.’

  ‘But they’d have found it by now.’

  ‘Well they haven’t yet, as far as I know, and I don’t want someone else stumbling on it. Best we go and look for it now.’

  ‘We won’t find it in the dark,’ Jeb said.

  ‘Well we can hardly go rooting around there in the daylight,’ Caine snapped back. ‘It’s gold. We’ll find it sure enough if it’s there. It may be on the path down to the riverbank, I fell over there when I was looking for
you. I can find the spot easy enough.’

  Caine led the way out of the ale house and back up to Walcot Street. On the slope down to the river he found the clump of brambles near the spot where he had fallen. He pointed out to Jeb the now worn impressions his feet had left on the muddy path when he had slipped, and they both ferreted around in the brambles until they were satisfied that nothing could be found. ‘It must be down by the river,’ Caine said, ‘where we had our little disagreement.’

  The steepness of the path down to the river propelled them at a rate of knots and Caine tumbled at the bottom almost ending in the water. Jeb helped him up.

  ‘What did you tell that man in The Fountains, Jeb?’ Caine said. ‘It weren’t to do with my business were it?’

  ‘Why would I tell him anything to do with you, Nat? Besides, I don’t know anything.’

  ‘That’s right old friend,’ Caine said as they walked along the path. He stopped when they came to the spot where the Irishman had died and looked around. Then he pointed to a spot in the oozing mud at the river’s edge. ‘It’s there – look.’

  Jeb looked at where he was pointing. ‘That’s just a pool of water, Nat, catching the light.’ He bent over to get a better view of the spot. Caine grabbed the collar of his jacket then and kicked him at the back of his knees, sending him sprawling forward. He planted his knees in the small of Jeb’s back with all his weight, and pushed his face into the river-slime. Jeb struggled for a while, arms and legs thrashing the ground, but Caine kept him pinned, hands around his neck until his body finally went limp.

  It was as though someone else was taking Jeb’s life, acting for him while he watched. Caine held him there for a while after his struggles had stopped. Then, when he was sure he was dead, he reached under his lifeless body until he located the watch chain. He pulled it free and the Irishman’s watch along with it and fastened it tight around Jeb’s wrist.

  ‘No loose ends, Jeb,’ he said. ‘Now they’ve got someone for the Irishman and who’s to say you didn’t do for yourself out of remorse. I warned you enough times old friend, but you wouldn’t learn.’ He waded a few steps into the water, pushing Jeb’s body in front of him and watched as the river took it.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  It was almost ten thirty when John got back to the house. He found James alone in the drawing room and the words burst from his mouth without thought, ‘I think Caine saw me with Jeb. He followed me from The Fountains Inn.’

  ‘He followed you here?’ James asked, rushing to the window.

  ‘No. He’s not as fast as he’s strong. I lost him soon enough, but he may have recognised me. If he did and he remembers seeing me with Charlie, then he knows we’re all in this together.’

  ‘Thank God we moved from Charlie’s house,’ James said. ‘What did Jeb tell you?’

  ‘Three nights before Lansdown Fair, Caine and Harcourt are going to rob the house of a man called Etheridge in Queen Square.’

  ‘Then I will have to write tomorrow to the chief constable, in the same fine copperplate as my last letter and inform him of the facts.’

  ‘But what if Caine knows what Jeb has told me?’

  ‘Then we will have to deal with him in some other way.’

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ John said, pausing, ‘something I should have told you long ago.’ He looked at him, almost expecting an interruption, but James said nothing. ‘I know you’ve wondered at times why I was so eager to help you. Perhaps you put it down to bravery or kindness, I don’t know. But in truth my fight with Caine began before I met you. I haven’t been kind, nor brave.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ James said.

  ‘That night in Avon Street when I helped you, I wasn’t there by accident. I’d been watching Caine’s men for days, off and on; following them from place to place.’

  ‘But why?’ James asked.

  ‘I’ll get round to that,’ John said, ‘but there’s something you need to understand first. I’d followed Caine that night to kill him. You being there and him being after you gave me the perfect chance, or so I thought.’ He looked James full in the eyes, needing him to understand. ‘Do you see?’ he asked, not waiting for a reply. ‘I wasn’t bothered about what happened to you; I just wanted to kill Caine. I wasn’t even bothered what happened to me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do it?’ James asked. ‘Why didn’t you kill him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ John said. ‘I’ve been over it a thousand times in my head. You think nothing scares me; that I can do anything, but Caine is the man I hate most in the world, and I couldn’t kill him.’ He hesitated, reliving the night, trying to remember the thoughts that went through his mind. ‘I came up behind him with my knife. No one heard me. I could have done it then, while he was watching you, but I wanted him to know I was going to kill him and why. When he turned round and I saw his grinning face, I wanted to kill him more than ever, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take his life.’

  ‘So you hit him instead and saved my life,’ James said.

  ‘I wasn’t being noble,’ John said. ‘I hit him because I lost my nerve, because I wanted to get away from there as much as you did. All I had in my mind was the need to run.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter why you did it,’ James said. He looked sincere. ‘What matters is that you stayed. You didn’t have to and how many times have you helped me since?’

  ‘I’ve done no more for you than you have for me,’ John said. ‘But you’re a friend now and I want no more half truths between us.’

  ‘Then tell me why you hate Caine so much.’ James said.

  ‘I told you once that a woman I knew had made me think about my life and the things I’d done,’ John replied. ‘I said she looked at the world as Sean does.’

  ‘I remember,’ James replied. ‘It was when you were talking about the Opium Wars.’

  John nodded. ‘Her name was Isabella; her father was Spanish. We met up each time I was in England, and we wrote to each other. I’d tell her all the ports on the voyage ahead, and there would always be letters waiting for me wherever I docked.’ John paused, remembering how much those letters had meant to him, read time after time, each reading a reminder of a softer life. ‘She was the gentlest person I’ve ever known, and yet so strong with it. I don’t think I even realised how much I loved her until it was too late.’

  ‘She lived in Bath?’ James asked.

  ‘Her father had a wine shop in Bristol and she worked for him. In her last letter, she told me that they were moving to a better shop in Bath. She was excited and looking forward to living here, so full of plans. Then I heard nothing.’

  ‘Where is the shop?’ James asked.

  ‘It doesn’t exist,’ John said. ‘I tracked it down easy enough, but it was derelict. I asked the neighbours what had happened. They said there’d been a fire.’

  ‘Was she killed?’ James asked.

  ‘The neighbours said Isabella and her parents got out alive, and they’d moved to London, to stay with her mother’s brother. I tracked them down eventually, but it was too late, Isabella never recovered from breathing all the smoke. She died a few days after they moved.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ James said, and John knew that he truly meant it.

  ‘Her father told me Caine had threatened him, wanting payment for the privilege of running a shop so near to Avon Street,’ John said. ‘He’d refused to pay of course; the Spanish are a proud and stubborn people.’ He hesitated, as though struggling for the strength to go on talking. ‘Isabella was always proud and knew her own mind. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I loved her.’

  ‘So Caine set fire to the shop,’ James said.

  ‘Caine, or one of his men,’ John said, ‘it doesn’t matter who did it; Caine was behind it and I couldn’t even kill him for it. I was going to, but now I remember … ’ He hesitated. ‘When I grabbed the knife I kept thinking of Isabella, and what she would have thought. That’s why I couldn’t do it.’

 
; ‘There’s no shame in that, John,’ James said. ‘There will be justice in the end for Caine. We will make sure of that.’

  ‘Will you tell Charlie all this, about Isabella and what happened?’ John asked. ‘I couldn’t go through it again.’

  ‘Of course,’ James replied. ‘Charlie needs to know, he thinks a great deal of you. Caine will have his just deserts. Believe me, John.’

  Chapter 36

  Belle took off a white glove and ran the index finger of her right hand along the mahogany shop counter. It was fine quality timber, wood that her father would have enjoyed working with. Her finger had left a faint trail where the polished wood glowed, fiery dark against the slight peppering of dust. ‘The landlord spoke true when he said the shop was not long vacant,’ she said. ‘We should decide quickly if we are going to take it.’ She turned around, looking to where Jenny had been a moment ago, but found herself alone in the room. Smiling, she listened to the sound of footsteps on the bare floorboards above her head and pictured Jenny flying from room to room again, her mind busy with plans and her eyes full of the future.

  Belle looked out of the shop window. The man who had been standing in the shop doorway opposite was no longer there. For days now she had felt as though she was being watched everywhere she went. Yet each time she thought she had identified her watcher it was as though they were a ghost, able to appear and disappear at will. It rarely seemed to be the same face, but there seemed to be eyes on her wherever she went. She shuddered as the cold feeling ran up her spine. Harcourt was still in Bath as far she knew, and she had heard nothing from James. His parting words of warning kept running through her mind.

  Belle looked at her watch again. They had been in the shop for nearly three hours; climbing up and down the stairs over and over again, wandering from room to room. She felt tired, but Jenny’s energy seemed to grow as if she gathered strength from every cupboard and recess she inspected, in every room.