The Tea Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  There was an earth-shaking crash. A stack of chests had gone over. “Stinking little bitch …” he cursed. Another crash. Closer to her this time, much closer. “This is my warehouse … my tea …” he thundered. She squeezed her eyes shut. He was on the other side of the chests, only feet away. All he had to do was take two more steps and he’d find her.

  And then he stopped. And she heard a noise. From downstairs. A steady pounding. No, not a pounding … a battering. Coming from the front of the building. From the doors. As she listened it picked up in tempo. She realized it was the sound of axes. Someone was chopping at the doors.

  She heard a scream of rage, felt the chests next to her shake, then topple. Two crashed down beside her. A third clipped her shoulder, tearing through her jacket and into her skin, before smashing open only inches behind her. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. Tea dust swirled all around her.

  The chopping stopped. “William Burton!” a voice boomed from below. “This is Sergeant Rodney O’Meara. Open the door and give yourself up!”

  Hurry, Uncle Roddy! Hurry! Fiona silently begged him.

  She heard Burton run toward the street-side windows, heard him enter the stairwell, heard his shoes on the steps. After a few seconds she risked a glance. He was nowhere in sight. She fought the impulse to crawl out from behind the chests and bolt down the steps. She could only see the top of the stairs from where she was, and he might be hiding halfway down them. It would be safer to remain here, out of sight. All she had to do was wait for Roddy to break the door down. Once the police were inside, she would be all right. The chopping started again.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead and rolled down her face as she waited. She felt breathless and hot. Tea dust, still floating in the air, stuck to her skin and got into her eyes. The chopping continued. The wooden doors were huge and thick, built to keep people out. “Oh, hurry,” she whispered. “Please, please, hurry.”

  Her eyes started to water. Her throat burned. Where are they? she wondered anxiously. What’s taking so long? She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and realized it wasn’t tea dust she was breathing. She scrambled out from behind the tea chests and looked at the landing. It was filling with smoke. Burton had set the wharf on fire.

  Fiona knew she had to get off the third floor. The wharf was a tinder box filled with wooden chests and dry tea leaves. It would go up in no time. If the fire reached the stairwell, she’d never get out. Steeling herself, she stood up and dashed across the room. Smoke obscured the stairway. She took off her jacket and held it over her nose.

  She was shaking with fear as she descended, expecting Burton to rush at her from below, his knife drawn. But he didn’t. She made it down safely to the second floor and looked around. In the center of the room, chests had been pushed together and set on fire. The flames burned brightly, leaping toward the plank ceiling. As she started down to the ground floor, she heard a voice shout, “We’re almost in, Sergeant!”

  She sobbed with relief. All she had to do was get to the door – just a few more steps – and she’d be safe. The smoke was thick and black as midnight now. Her eyes were running; she could barely breathe. “Uncle Roddy!” she shouted. “In here!”

  She stretched her hand toward the door, and just as it gave way under the ax, a face came roaring at her through the smoke, a hellish mask of rage and madness, streaked with ash and blood. Its black eyes were blazing, its torn cheek hung open, exposing teeth and bone.

  Burton grabbed her by her hair and pulled her, screaming, up the stairs after him.

  “Let ’er go!” a voice thundered.

  It was Joe. He was fighting his way through the smoke toward them.

  “Joe! Help me!” Fiona cried. She kicked and struggled, trying to slow Burton down, but he was massively strong and he dragged her up the stairs until they were on the empty fourth floor where the builders had not yet made repairs. Pieces of smashed tea crates littered the floor. Loopholes stood unshuttered. He hauled her over to one and stood in it, his left hand braced against the brick arch, his right arm around her neck in a chokehold.

  “Stay back!” he shouted. “Stay back or I’ll jump and take her with me!”

  Fiona could barely move, but she managed to twist her head far enough to look down and see the river churning below. They were standing in the easternmost loophole, right at the edge of the building. The dock ended directly below it. If she fell, her only hope of survival would be to clear its edge and hit the water.

  “You won’t get the chance to jump, Burton, I’ll kill you first.” It was Roddy. He had a pistol drawn and aimed at Burton’s head.

  “Let ’er go. It’s over,” Joe said, walking toward them.

  Fiona felt the arm around her neck tighten. She looked at Joe and her eyes filled with tears. All Burton had to do was take one step back and she would never see Joe again.

  Roddy kept yelling. Joe kept talking, kept walking. Fiona saw that though he was addressing Burton, he was looking at her. She could feel him willing her to be strong, to keep her head. She nodded at him, then saw his eyes flick to her right. To the side of the loophole. Once. Twice. She followed his gaze and glimpsed a large iron ring, used for tying ropes, mounted into the brick.

  Joe drew nearer. Roddy yelled louder. “You won’t jump, you son of a bitch! You’d kill anyone who got in your way, anyone at all, but you wouldn’t kill yourself!”

  “Stop!” Burton shrieked, his eyes flicking from Roddy to Joe. “Don’t come any closer!”

  “Now, Fiona!” Joe yelled.

  With every ounce of her strength, Fiona lunged forward and grabbed the ring. In the same instant, Joe rushed Burton and pulled his arm from her neck. The two men scuffled. Burton stepped backward, but his foot found only air. He lost his balance. His hands scrabbled for purchase.

  And found Joe.

  “Nooooo!” Fiona shrieked as both men plunged out of the loophole. She lunged after them, but a strong pair of arms grabbed her and held her back.

  “No, Fiona, no!” Roddy shouted, pulling her away.

  Wild-eyed, screaming, she pummeled him, trying to break free.

  “Come on!” he yelled. “We have to get out now or we won’t get out at all!”

  He dragged her across the room. Smoke was billowing up between the floorboards. The third floor was in flames. Tongues of orange licked at the stairwell. When they reached the second floor, they saw that the stairs to the ground floor were engulfed.

  “Run! Fast as you can!” Roddy shouted, putting her down. “It’s the only way!”

  Covering her head with her hands, Fiona barreled through the flames. She heard a loud roaring, felt an incredible heat. There was a blistering pain on her leg, and then they were outside and a dozen hands were slapping at their clothing.

  She pushed past the constables and bystanders and ran for the Old Stairs. She flew down the stone steps and had just reached the riverbank when a sound like the end of the world hit her, flinging her forward like a rag doll, into the mud and water. For a few seconds, she could neither see, nor hear, nor move her limbs. Water filled her mouth and nose. Then suddenly her senses returned. Coughing and spitting, she raised herself to her knees and looked back. The Old Stairs were gone, ripped away. In their place was a mountain of bricks and flaming timbers. Where the west wall of Oliver’s had been there was now a hole at least two stories high. Smoke and fire were pouring out of it. Fiona could no longer see the Town of Ramsgate, or the alley that had led from the Old Stairs to the street. Where was Roddy? Had he stayed with his officers? Or had he run after her?

  “Roddy!” she screamed, starting back toward the stone steps. “Uncle Roddy!”

  “Fiona! Are you all right?” The voice was strong, but distant. He had to be on the other side of the rubble. “It’s the gas lines! Get out of there before the whole building goes!”

  “I can’t! I have to find Joe!”

  The tide was coming in. Fiona ran under the pilings, into the murk
y water, calling for Joe. Farther and farther she went, the waves buffeting her against the tall timbers. She was trying to get to the easternmost end of the wharf, where there was a patch of riverbank to the right of the dock itself. If Joe had cleared the dock and hit the water, he might’ve had a chance. As she finally struggled out of the pilings, the river swirling and sucking around her knees, she saw a figure lying still on the mud bank, half in and half out of the water. His leg was at a funny angle to his body.

  “Joe!” she screamed in despair. “Oh, no … please, no!”

  Joe groaned and struggled to sit up. Fiona ran to him. She kissed his face, sobbing. “You’re all right! Please say you’re all right!”

  “I’m fine, I think. Except for me leg. Snapped it on the edge of the dock on the way down. Just below the knee. I can’t move it.”

  “What happened to Burton?” Fiona asked, looking around fearfully.

  “I don’t know. ’E wasn’t ’ere when I pulled myself out of the water. I think ’e ’it the dock.” Joe tried to pull himself farther up on the bank, but fell back into the mud, racked with pain. Fiona saw that his face had gone gray and though he was shivering, his skin was slick with sweat.

  “Lie still,” she said. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  But how? she wondered frantically. The tide was rising by the second. She had five, maybe ten minutes before the rest of the mud bank was completely under water. She couldn’t go back the way she’d come. The Old Stairs were useless and beyond them were only the high sheer walls of the treacherous Wapping Entrance. Out on the river, she could see barges, but they were all moored midstream, too far away to be of any help. The only other way out was the Wapping New Stairs, but it was well east of where they were now. Between Oliver’s and the New Stairs were half a dozen large wharves, all abutting one another with no alleyways between them. By the time she got to the New Stairs and brought help back, it would be too late, the tide would be in. And then there was Oliver’s itself. One more explosion might level the entire wharf. Fiona realized that she had to get Joe into the water. The New Stairs was their only way out.

  She told him of her plan. “Can you find me some boards or sticks?” he asked her. “To brace me leg?”

  Fiona ran toward the Orient Wharf, desperately searching for bits of wood. She found part of a tea crate and a piece of driftwood. They would have to do. She ran back to Joe and knelt beside him. As she was ripping a length of fabric from her skirt to secure the splint, Joe’s head snapped up. His eyes widened.

  “Fiona, look out!” he yelled, pushing her away.

  As she tumbled sideways, she felt something swish by her cheek.

  “Run, Fiona, run! Get out of ’ere!” Joe shouted.

  She staggered to her feet, felt a searing pain across her shoulder, turned and saw William Burton, bloodied, broken, his knife in his hand, lunging for her. She screamed and backed away from him. She felt what he’d done, felt the hot blood on her back. He kept coming, forcing her back toward the Old Stairs, away from the Orient Wharf, away from the river and any hope of escape.

  “Leave ’er alone, Burton!” Joe shouted. He was trying to raise himself, trying to get to her.

  Burton swiped at her again, grinning, pushing her farther and farther away from Joe.

  “Help! Help me, somebody!” Fiona screamed.

  “I looked for you in streets in alleys in houses and rooms. There were so many like you, whores all,” he said.

  Still backing away, she banged into the wall of the Wapping Entrance. There was nowhere else to go. It was over, all over. He was going to kill her. She turned and tried desperately to scrabble up the wall, then reached down, grabbed stones and handfuls of mud and blindly threw them. “Murderer!” she sobbed.

  Burton kept advancing, mumbling his strange litany. “Polly, Dark Annie, Long Liz. Catherine with the little red flower. Marie who sang me a song while she still had her throat. Pretty Frances. And the one who meddled, a dead redhead …”

  Fiona knew these names. They were all prostitutes. Except one. The one who meddled. A dead redhead. She sank to her knees in the mud, beyond fear now. Beyond terror. He was only five or six feet away now. A sickening certainty had taken hold of her. “Are you Jack?” she rasped.

  Her eyes found his. Darker than heart’s blood. Bright and black and insane.

  “… you ran, but I found you. My knife is sharp and ready for new work. You won’t escape, I’ll tear your heart out, tear it out…”

  “Are you Jack?”

  He raised his knife.

  “Answer me, damn you!” she shrieked.

  There was a sharp crack in the air. And then another, and another. Six in all. Burton’s body twitched and jerked with every report. He stood motionless for a few seconds, then pitched forward and dropped to the ground. Behind him stood a man with a pistol in his hand. Fiona looked from the pistol to Burton, at the blood oozing over his lips, seeping from the holes in his body. She started screaming then and could not stop. She cowered against the stone wall, her eyes closed, but felt hands under her arms, pulling her up. “Come on, Mrs. Soames, we’ve got to go,” a man said. Oliver’s was an inferno now.

  “No!” she cried, scrabbling away, delirious with fear and pain.

  There was a wild, metallic screech as a winch pulled free of its anchors. It came crashing down into the dock, sending shards of wood flying. The man yanked Fiona to her feet and pushed her into the water.

  “Joe!” she screamed, lurching toward the pilings. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  The man held her fast. “ ’E’s all right, Mrs. Soames. We’ve got ’im. ’E’s on the boat. Come on now, luv.”

  Fiona, shaking and in shock, looked up at the man. He was young and muscular and had a scar across his chin. “I know you,” she said. “You’re Tom. Tom Smith. From the churchyard.”

  Tom Smith smiled.

  “How did you get here? Did Roddy send you? My Uncle Roddy?”

  Tom laughed. “ ’Ardly. Sid Malone sent us. ’E’s been looking out for you. Bloody good thing, too.”

  Sid Malone. The man who’d tried to force himself on her. The man who’d killed Bowler Sheehan. What did he want with her? She did not want to be trapped in a boat with the likes of Sid Malone, but she had no choice.

  Tom walked her to the boat’s edge. It was a large wherry. Hands immediately reached down for them, plucking them out of waist-high water. When they were in, oars dipped down and the boat pulled away from Oliver’s. There were five men in the boat – two near her in the stern, two rowing, and one more, his back toward her, in the bow.

  “Where’s Joe? Where is he?” she asked, looking from one unfamiliar face to the other. Tom pointed behind himself. Joe was stretched out on the bottom of the boat with a blanket over him. His eyes were closed. She knelt by him and saw that he was in a great deal of pain. She took his hand and held it to her cheek, frightened by his pallor, then sought Tom again. “Thank you,” she said to him. “I still don’t know how or why you did this, but thank you.”

  “Wasn’t me, Mrs. Soames,” Tom said, nodding at the figure in the bow.

  He helped Fiona make her way over to him. “Mr. Malone?” she said to his back, trying to keep her voice even, to not show any fear. There was no answer. “Sir, where are you taking us? My friend needs a doctor.”

  “ ’E’ll be taken care of,” the man said.

  His voice was strongly Cockney. And familiar. So familiar.

  “I don’t think you understand. He needs to go to hospital.” She touched his arm. “Mr. Malone?”

  He took off his cap and turned around.

  Fiona gasped. Her legs buckled. If Tom hadn’t been at her side to catch her, she would’ve collapsed. “It can’t be,” she whispered. “Oh, God, it can’t be …”

  “ ’Ello, Fiona,” the voice said.

  The voice of a dead man.

  The voice of a ghost.

  The voice of her brother Charlie.

  Chapter 84


  “And the returns on Quick Cup, they’re absolutely phenomenal! We’re feeding ten tons of tea through the machine a week and we still can’t keep up with the demand. The new machine’s on order, and Dunne promised it’ll be in New York by November. Just in time for the holidays! Maddie’s designed the most beautiful gift tin for Christmas. You’ve got to see it. I brought the sketches –”

  “Oh, never mind the tea, Stuart. How are you?” Fiona asked. “How are Michael and Mary and Nate and Maddie? How’s Teddy? And Peter?”

  “I’m fine. They’re fine. Everyone’s fine, Fiona. The bigger question is, how are you? No one really believes what’s happened, you know. Michael kept telling us installments and we kept saying he was making it up. I mean, really! First a whole new tea company, then a husband … everyone thinks you’ve gone bonkers!”

  Fiona laughed. She was so happy to have Stuart here. He’d just arrived from New York that morning. She’d arranged to have him met at the station, and have his things taken to the Savoy, and then she’d gone to see him herself, arriving there only half an hour ago. She’d planned for them to have a nice, civilized luncheon, but he said he was tired of sitting and insisted they go right to Oliver’s and then Mincing Lane. A tea man through and through, he was much more interested in business than lobster salad.

  They were walking down the Wapping’s High Street arm in arm now, catching up.

  “Really, though, Fiona,” Stuart said, suddenly serious. “All jokes aside, it sounds like you almost lost your life.”

  “Found it, rather.”

  “But the man nearly killed you! William Burton, of all people. I almost went to work for him once. As a lad. Years and years ago.” He shook his head. “It defies comprehension. And you say they never found the body?”

  “No, by the time they got the fire out, the tide had come and gone. It took him with it.”

  “And the man who killed him?”

  “They never found him, either,” Fiona said, looking away.

  “He just shot William Burton, rescued you, and kept on going?”