by Andy Emery
Volkov and the other prisoners return inside, and force themselves through the press of bodies to their preferred spaces, however meagre. But as Volkov slowly moves through the crush, he notices one of the men moving between his fellows and whispering, turning and indicating Volkov. The prisoners raise their heads towards him, and miraculously, the chaotic noise starts to abate.
One by one, the men stop what they were doing and look at Volkov. They goggle, and he smiles back at them. When he has stared them out and they have all gone back to their pointless activities, he sits down, reaches under his mattress, and pulls out the piece of wood wrapped in cloth. He starts to whittle.
17
Cotter had made up his mind. He was going to have to talk to someone high up in the Banshees. There were any number of girls they could use to do their dirty work; why pick on Ruby? He didn’t expect that they’d just do what he asked, but if there was something in it for them, they might just agree.
He reasoned that the gangster hierarchy couldn’t be very different from the upper echelons of any organisation. They wanted something to remember themselves by. What he was going to offer would mean playing both ends off against the middle. He was already a photographer of crime scenes for the police; now he was going to pitch for work as the man who records the daring deeds of the Banshees.
Of course, a lot of what they did couldn’t be publicised, but they were brazen about most of their activities, and he reckoned he had a sporting chance. Maybe the head of the gang, Seamus Flynn, fancied writing a memoir, and so he’d need a dignified photographic portrait to go with it. Flynn had always been fascinated by photographic images; the gang boss had shown great interest when Cotter was making his first hesitant steps in the field. And he had a definite vain streak.
But it wasn’t a conversation to be taken lightly. Flynn had a fearsome reputation. He had murdered thrice over before coming to England from the Emerald Isle in his teens, and he’d spent his lifetime building up the gang, a process that didn’t seem to have been hindered by two spells in prison.
Cotter was familiar enough with the ways of the street to know how to get a message to the Banshees. He had a printer friend who did illicit work for them. The message would be passed on to a minor functionary, and then up the chain.
The morning after he had spoken to the printer, a note was slid under his door. He didn’t see it arrive, and had no chance of seeing who left it.
Grierson’s Wharf, 9pm
It was one of the warehouses that formed part of the huge London Dock complex, alongside the Thames in Wapping. He walked there in trepidation. He wanted to help Ruby get away from the gang, but he had no idea whether his scheme would work. Even if it did, would he be in the gang’s pocket forevermore?
There was no sign of activity as he approached the vast wooden doors on the landward side of the wharf. The name Grierson’s was marked out in blue lettering on the brickwork above his head.
He stood and listened, but on hearing nothing, gave one of the doors a push. It was heavy, but with a heave he opened it a foot or so and slipped inside.
Piles of packing cases, ten feet high, stretched across most of the width of the warehouse. Male voices came from a glow of light somewhere behind them.
A man in an emerald green hat emerged through the gap between the cases, and beckoned to him. Cotter passed through into a separate makeshift room created using the boxes. Further back, he could hear the sounds of gulls and the soft lapping of water.
Six men stood in the space. Aside from the green hat, there were four tough-looking individuals who could have been dock workers. But the room was dominated by the sixth man: the leader of the Banshees, Seamus Flynn. He was sitting in the middle of the enclosed area, idly picking his teeth while perching on a large barrel. Despite the humdrum backdrop, there was an aura about him.
Flynn was bare-headed, his face heavily lined. The top of his head was bald, and thin wisps of grey hair fringed his jaw. The trademark patch over his left eye was said to be the souvenir of a battle with a rival Irish gang in Shoreditch, twenty years earlier. According to legend, in revenge for losing his eye, he had cut off the ears, nose and tongue of the opposing gang boss before dispatching him. Sitting tight to the side of Flynn’s chair, and baring its teeth at Cotter, was a huge black dog with triangular pointed ears, a long muzzle lined with ferocious fangs, and the musculature of a prize fighter. It was probably a hybrid breed displaying the worst qualities of each. Cotter was relieved to note that it wore a collar and Flynn had a firm hand on the other end of the lead.
Cotter looked down at the beast. ‘Simmer down, Storm.’ He motioned for Cotter to come forward and fixed him with an unreadable expression.
‘I’m told you have some sort of grievance with my organisation. It just so happens that I’m in your neck of the woods tonight, so I thought I’d give you the chance to explain personally.’
Cotter was always surprised how thick Flynn’s Irish accent remained after all the years he’d spent in London. He was pretending he didn’t already know Cotter, for some reason, but there was no mistaking the menace behind the words.
‘Mr Flynn, I want to start by saying I’ve only got respect for you and your boys here. I’m a local lad, and I’ve always been impressed by the way you’ve expanded your business.’
‘Horse shit! Come to the point, will you? You’re right, I’m a businessman, and that means I don’t have time for this mealy-mouthed nonsense.’
‘Right you are, guv. Here’s the thing. I’m here about Miss Ruby Brown, a friend of mine. She’s done a bit of work for you, and she’s been asked to do some more… things that she’s not comfortable with…’
Flynn addressed the man with the green hat. ‘Michael, any idea who he’s talking about?’ He turned back to Cotter. ‘This is Michael O’Neill, one of my lieutenants.’
O’Neill stared at Cotter with a sour expression. ‘Yes, I do know her. In fact I’ve known her for a long time. Maybe longer than our photographer here. Maybe I know what she likes and doesn’t like a little better than he does.’
Flynn frowned. ‘You fancy her as well, do you? Girl trouble. Nothing like it for messing with the smooth running of an operation. So we won’t let it. Mr Cotter, I’ll let you run with your knight in shining armour routine a little longer. What is it that Michael has asked her to do that’s put your nose out of joint?’
Cotter swallowed. ‘Just the other night she was made to help him shake down a dandy for his cash. She’s worried your man O’Neill here won’t stop there. She’s fearful where it will lead.’
O’Neill scoffed. ‘Bloody nonsense, Seamus! She’s not done anything she objected to. And neither will she. Don’t listen to this cockney bantam!’
Cotter balled his fists, but Flynn held up a hand to silence both of them, then put his other hand to his ear.
A peculiar noise rose from beyond the packing cases on the Thames side of the wharf. It sounded like a muffled and strangulated scream. No words could be made out, and it died out into a whimper. A man or a beast was in some sort of trouble back there.
With a cruel smile on his lips, O’Neill ushered Cotter towards the source of the sound. The big doors fronting onto the river were open, flooding the area with the sickly light from a gibbous moon, newly emergent from the clouds. A human figure wriggled on the floor, bound with thick rope, gagged and blindfolded.
Cotter gaped. ‘What the hell?’
Flynn rose from his throne, and sidled up behind them. He was hobbling and using a stick. He was also sporting a pot belly, which must have been acquired recently. The dog padded along behind him, its tongue lolling.
Flynn regarded the bound figure. ‘A young man named Cohen. He was found nosing around one of our other facilities. He denies it, but we’re certain he’s a low-level runner for the Kaplans.’
‘Your rivals? The Jewish gang?’
‘You’re well informed, Mr Cotter. The Banshees have got the upper hand now, and we aim to kee
p it. Old man Kaplan’s nose will be out of joint, but there’s nothing he can do about it. No point sending boys around to snoop, anyway.’
Cotter thought he recognised the boy, from what little part of his head and hair was visible. ‘That’s not Avi Cohen, is it? The baker’s boy? Are you sure he’s with the Kaplans? He doesn’t seem the type.’
O’Neill spoke now, furious. ‘Regular know-all, aren’t you? Just because he’s not a muscle-bound thug doesn’t mean he’s not in a gang. We employ all sorts, and so do the Kaplans. Anyway, I know he’s with them. No other reason for him to be hanging around where he was.’
Flynn broke in again. ‘The point is, Mr Cotter, that we don’t take kindly to anyone interfering in our business. Now, I’ve taken account of the fact that you politely asked for an appointment and stated your case, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your request. I don’t see any sign that this young woman’s being put in any real danger. I hope you’ll drop the matter now.’
He waved a hand and two of his henchmen yanked the struggling Cohen off the floor.
Flynn hobbled up to him and wrenched the blindfold from his eyes. As he did so, the dog emitted a low, rumbling snarl. ‘This is what happens to meddlers.’
Young Avi Cohen’s eyes looked around, terrified. He tried to shout out again, but this time it emerged through the gag as a muffled murmur. The two men carried him towards the dockside.
Cotter cried out. ‘For God’s sake, no!’ O’Neill held him back with a firm hand on his chest. This was outrageous: drowning a teenager just for being spotted in the wrong place. And he was sure O’Neill was wrong about his involvement with the Kaplan gang.
The men lifted Cohen into the air and suspended him above the river. Time seemed to stand still. Cotter watched the last moments of Avi Cohen, about to be consigned to the fetid depths of the Thames, like so many before him.
A voice from the water, below the edge of the dock. ‘Alright, lower him down.’
Cotter blew out his cheeks in relief.
Flynn laughed. ‘Not quite as barbaric as you imagined, Mr Cotter? He’ll be taken downstream to some wasteland by the Bow Creek, down Canning Town way, and dumped there to find his own way back. He’ll live. But next time he’ll think twice about poking his nose into other people’s business. And here’s something for you to think about. We made the decision. We could have sent him to the bottom, and nobody would have stopped us. We exercised leniency instead. This time.’
O’Neill poked Cotter in the chest. ‘This is our East End. We’re the Banshees. And we do what we want.’
18
Cotter hailed a hansom as soon as he got back to the main road, and had to pay over the odds to be taken out to Canning Town, as fast as the driver could push his nag. Two and a half miles away, and outside the East End proper, Bow Creek consisted of a couple of meandering loops of sludgy water where the River Lea joined the Thames, near the East India Dock. Various industrial developments had sprung up along the water’s edge, and more were under construction. Now, the filth of a dozen factories ended up in a stream that must have been tranquil and bucolic fifty years previously.
The boat that Flynn’s men were using had to be a small one, a dinghy or skiff, and Cotter hoped that the hansom would beat them to the place where they’d been told to dump young Avi Cohen. He owed it to the boy to try and get him home safely.
The cab hurtled down Abbott Road in Canning Town. Bow Creek was at the end of the street, beyond a low wall topped by a fence. The driver brought his vehicle to an abrupt stop at the dead end. ‘This is as far as I can go, mister.’
Cotter shoved another pound at him and leapt out of the cab. ‘Wait for me.’
He looked around. Terraced housing either side of the road: the homes of dock or factory workers, presumably. There was a narrow alley, running alongside the wall bordering the river, both upstream to the left and downstream to the right. He headed right and after a hundred yards, came across a gap in the fence. He reached up, pulled a couple of planks free, and climbed onto the wall and through the aperture.
The drop on the other side was greater than he’d been expecting and he winded himself on landing. As he rose to his knees, he scanned along the shoreline, and noticed a reflection on the water’s surface to his right. A small vessel moved away from the muddy shore a couple of hundred yards away from him, setting course for the Thames.
When he was sure he’d not be seen by the men in the boat, Cotter made his way onto the mud, the sticky filth caking his boots. He saw something wriggling just feet from the water’s edge. It was the boy.
He increased his pace as much as he could, but as he reached the still-trussed and gagged form of Avi Cohen, he slipped and slid over full length into the mud. He was covered in the stuff from head to toe.
‘Jesus Christ!’
It momentarily crossed his mind that despite Flynn’s claim that Cohen would be fine but for the ordeal of walking back home, if he’d not been found, he’d have likely drowned on this godforsaken stretch of polluted riverbank. He rolled the boy over to face him, but Cohen’s eyes widened in horror. Perplexed, Cotter pulled the gag from his mouth.
The boy jerked away from him. ‘What do you want? Why were you with them?’
‘Steady on, Avi, mate. You think I’m part of the gang ’cos you saw me at the warehouse? I was there trying to help a friend of mine, a young lady as it ‘appens. No joy, of course. They’re miserable bastards, as you’ve found. But they told me where they’d dump you, and I’ve come to get you out of here and back to your family.’
The boy seemed to accept this, and Cotter untied him. The two slid and slurped their way across the sticky mud, back to the gap in the fence. Cotter clambered up the wall himself, then leaned down and pulled Cohen up after him.
When the two of them arrived back at the hansom, the driver was dozing in his seat, head lolling. Cotter reached up and gave him a poke. He awoke with a start.
‘My God! What heathen devils are you? Get away from my cab!’
‘We’re no demons. It’s me. Your fare. And this is the boy I told you I came here to find. I know we’re a right sight. It’s good old Thames mud, this is.’
The driver peered down at them, recognition spreading across his face. His expression turned to one of distaste. ‘And you think you’re comin’ back with me, lookin’ like that, with that whiff comin’ off yer?’ He fanned the smell away. ‘It’ll take me a month of Sundays to clean the bloody cab.’
Cotter sighed. He fished inside his jacket and silently gave thanks that his wallet remained dry and clean. He felt the crisp banknotes, and knew he was going to have to offer a fair few of them in compensation.
A few minutes after setting off, Cotter turned to Avi. ‘I can’t believe it’s true, but the Banshees claim you were spying for the Kaplans. That’s why they grabbed you.’
‘That is nonsense, Mr Cotter. I was hanging around outside a dress shop on Brushfield Street, when I was bundled into a cart and tied up.’
‘A dress shop? Sorry, mate. I didn’t realise you were that way inclined.’
‘You don’t understand! I was hoping to see a girl who works there. I like her. I wanted to ask her to come out with me. The trouble is, she isn’t Jewish. I don’t know what my father will think.’
Cotter laughed. ‘A delicate problem for you, but I’m relieved. Although it takes all sorts, they say. So you’ve got no connection with the Kaplans, then?’
‘I have nothing to do with any gangs. You have to believe that.’
It was the early hours of the morning by the time they got back to Spitalfields, and lights were on in the Cohen bakery, only a few doors away from Cotter’s studio on Fashion Street. Avi’s father Mordecai would already be preparing batches of dough and checking through his ingredients for the day’s baking. Avi, who had been quiet on the rest of the journey back, pointed at a side gate, and pushed through it. They walked down an alley to the back door, which led directly into the bakery kitch
en.
Mordecai Cohen looked up from a baking tray he was cleaning. He was a slight man who Cotter knew was in his late forties but looked ten years older.
‘Avi, is that you? Thank God! Where have you been? And is that Mr Cotter with you? You are both filthy.’
‘Hello, Mr Cohen. Young Avi here’s got himself into a bit of a pickle, you might say. I’ve helped him out of it, but it’s left us in a right state. Sorry to drop dirt on your floor.’
19
Omsk Penal Fort, Western Siberia, Russia
13th May 1885
Two prisoners sit in one corner of the barrack room, trying to savour a crust of mouldy bread and a chunk of dry cheese: the extent of their lunch. The first, a pot-bellied former accountant from Moscow called Maliutin, taps the taller individual on the shoulder. The tall man is so thin he looks as though he could slip through the gaps in the floorboards.
‘Listen, Cheremukin. That one over there. They say he’s called Volkov. No, don’t look now, you fool. He’s dangerous! Didn’t you hear he killed Smirnov the other day, when they were outside? Stomped his head to pulp with a guard watching on.’
‘Of course I heard. Everyone has. But some say he did Smirnov a favour. He was dying in his own skin, you know that.’
‘But that way? His brains smothered in the dirt out there?’
‘A bullet would have been more humane, but you might have noticed only the guards have guns.’
‘Pah! Well, that wasn’t what I wanted to say, anyway. I’ve heard other stories about him. Seems he’s going mad in here. Strange behaviour.’
Cheremukin chuckles. ‘Something else you haven’t noticed, then. Strange behaviour is the norm in the Omsk Penal Fort. I can’t name a single prisoner who behaves in the nice, normal way they would back home. And who can blame us in these conditions?’
‘Clever dick! I’m talking about something else. A creepy, perverse streak. They say he’s taken to eating spiders, flies, woodlice.’
