The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  I had no idea whether the rate represented good value, or what was meant by a half hour turn. But the woman next to me gave a small nod and an encouraging smile, so I offered my hand and we shook on the deal. It was all done so quickly that only as he left with my money did it occur to me that I might have been hustled like the greenest josser ever to walk onto a gaff. I looked down at the contract slip he had given me. The ink was green and the writing so spidery that I could hardly make it out.

  The trader was lost in the crowd already. If the woman now made her excuses and left, I would know for sure that I had been conned. It would take only one such slip to seal my fate. The woman had let go of me already. Fighting my reserve, I took her arm as she had done mine a few moments before. She did not pull away.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said.

  She squeezed my hand. “You Republicans are so polite.”

  “Are you changing money for a journey north?”

  “I’m surely not!” she said, as if I had suggested something dangerous. “This is only my hobby.”

  Perhaps she sensed my confusion because she gestured to the crowds before us and explained, “Only men can work the trading floor. They’re lords over us, yes?”

  “I suppose–”

  “Well you suppose too easily! As do they. But they see only the little things. The price of the Mark against the Pound. The Franc against the Dollar. Standing here, listening in, we can see it all. My hobby is to change money from one currency to another, then on to another still.”

  I felt a smile spreading across my face. I was not the target of her games. The traders were.

  “How much money do you make in a day?”

  She put a hand to her chest in faux shock. “My dear! I thought such questions were never asked north of the border.”

  “Like I said, I’m coming home.”

  “I’m beginning to see that,” she said. “There’s a Royalist underneath all that Republican grey. As to the money...” She nodded towards the men of the trading floor. “I make more than any of them.”

  My trader in his russet bowler returned before the half an hour had expired. He took the contract slip, wrote down the time then made me countersign it. I counted the thick bundle of paper money he had given me. One hundred and sixty-five Kingdom pounds. The man touched the brim of his hat then dived back into the chaos from which he had just emerged. As I wove away through the crowds, I took a final glance at the woman in the jewel-green dress. For all her instant friendliness, she had not bothered to take a final glance at me. Her focus was back on the money market, her arm held high, waving to attract the attention of another trader.

  It was said that the house of a true Republican was narrow, ensuring that the frontage would not give away the wealth within. The house of a Royalist was wide by contrast, often with a high false wall at the front. “Wide and shallow” had become the phrase wherewith Republicans made fun of their southern neighbours. “Mean and narrow” being the standard reply.

  As if to belie this cliché, the Turkey Cafe, which stood opposite the Midland Money Exchange, seemed too narrow for its height. Yet its frontage was as rich and showy as any Kingdom building could have been. The ornately curved windows might have come from the Kasbah of Algiers. Moulded plaster turkeys stood proud from the walls on either side of the front doors and a brightly coloured turkey emblem crowned the apex of the building.

  Taking a table with a good view of the street, I ordered a cup of rose-flavoured chocolate and something the waiter described as the Turkey Special – a raisin pastry square, dotted with brilliant blue icing and what appeared to be tiny flecks of gold leaf.

  I handed over a note and received a handful of thre’pences, crowns and shillings, none of which were familiar to me. I pretended to check the money. Then, none the wiser, nodded my acceptance of the waiter’s arithmetic.

  As I ate, I thought about the woman in the money exchange. She had found a way to make the world of men serve her own advantage. In that respect we were alike. Yet I felt uneasy. The signing of financial contracts in the Republic was hidden away in wood-panelled offices – a shameful necessity in the pursuit of higher goals. One would no more talk of it than discuss intimate medical complaints with a stranger. In the Kingdom, the acquisition of money seemed to be an end in itself.

  There was so much that I did not understand. Though I had spent most of my life south of the border, I had never learned to be an adult there.

  Rested, but with my mind buzzing from more sugar than I had eaten at one sitting for many years, I hefted my case from the floor and set off back into the afternoon sunlight.

  On Rutland Street, I found a used-clothing shop. A man in a lilac and mustard check waistcoat jumped to his feet as I entered.

  “Are you the proprietor?” I asked.

  He nodded, his fingers dancing nervously over the edge of the counter.

  “I need a skirt, blouse, coat and bonnet.”

  “We don’t... that is, we do... but not...”

  I began to rummage through the nearest rack, pulling out possibilities, holding them against myself then replacing those obviously too small. The double life I led precluded any possibility of training my waist down to fashionable dimensions.

  “There is nothing – how should we say? – Nothing plain enough to–”

  “It will be a gift for a Royalist friend,” I said.

  “Will your friend... ah... be coming into the shop for... for a fitting?”

  “We’re two peas in a pod. If they fit me, they’ll fit her.”

  As a child, I had shopped in places like this. I used to love the touch and smell of the fabrics. Only the poorest women in the Republic would wear second-hand clothing. In the Kingdom rummaging castoffs was one of life’s great pleasures.

  Having found a green skirt similar to the one worn by the woman on the trading floor, I moved on to a rack of puff-sleeved blouses. My shoulders being unfashionably broad, I was surprised and pleased to find several possibilities. Soon I was striding across the changing room, testing my new outfit for the freedom of movement it allowed. After years of wearing full-length skirts, I felt a thrill of daring excitement on seeing my boots and stockinged calves in the looking glass.

  “You’re surely not wearing them?” said the frowning proprietor as I emerged, money in hand.

  “I surely am!” I said, trying out an abrupt Royalist tone of voice and liking the effect.

  “But they’re for your friend. Won’t she–?”

  “She likes me to wear them first,” I said.

  He nodded, accepting my words. It seemed that no amount of strangeness would be a surprise if it came from the mouth of a foreigner.

  Noticing a rack of accessories, I picked out a straw hat with turquoise ribbon and flash of jay feather.The proprietor eyed the pile of subdued clothing in my arms as if he were examining an exotic creature. “I suppose... that is, you’ll be wanting to hold onto your old ones... since you’re buying for a friend.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Clothes in the Republic are made to last a lifetime before being cut into squares or hexagons and stitched together as quilts. In the Kingdom, fashions change from one year to the next and clothes fall apart if worn for too long. Therefore, I had no illusions, knowing full well I was exchanging good for bad. But I had no more need of Republican clothes. If I succeeded in my quest, I would win the freedom to remain. And if I failed I would be permitted no return.

  Chapter 32

  Comfort comes from simple knowledge, whether the knowledge be true or false. Thus are fools so common and wars and lovers also. And thus will the audience know for sure that you caught a flying bullet with your teeth.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  The low winter sun warmed the red brick and cream sandstone of London Road Coach Station, catching the words Arrival and Departure above the arched entrances. London Road – the very name sent a thrill of excitement through me.

  A woma
n travelling in a group is always less conspicuous. Therefore it was my intention to catch up with Julia and her father en route and arrive in the capital with them. If things had gone to plan they would now be at an inn near the air terminus at Bedford, having made the journey from Market Harborough by coach.

  The faster route to Bedford was priced at a premium. I counted out an alarming number of notes from my newly changed paper money and was soon clattering out of the grand station forecourt on the express coach. A team of six fine horses rushed me and a select group of well-to-do travellers south towards the air terminus at Foxton Locks.

  The landscape through which we passed became more familiar the further we travelled out of Leicester. Gripping the leather strap to steady myself against the wild rocking of the carriage, I stared out of the window at small fields, thatched cottages and winding side-lanes as they whipped past. In a cut-off triangle of grass at the intersection of three fields, I saw a bow-topped gypsy wagon with smoke rising from its chimney pipe. Animal skins were stretched on three wooden frames planted in the ground. Fox and deer, I thought. Pressing my face to the window glass, I craned my neck to prolong my view of the small encampment as it receded behind us.

  “Does their squalor unsettle you?” asked a gentleman in a green velvet jacket. He was sitting directly opposite and seemed to be taking an unwholesome enjoyment in the sight of my ankles. I remembered him wearing a wedding ring earlier in the journey. At some point it seemed to have disappeared.

  I could think of no answer that would extricate me without seeming waspish. Therefore I turned my face to the homely looking lady sitting next to me. Noting her pallid face, said: “You’ll feel better if you keep your gaze on the horizon. Would you like the window seat?”

  She accepted my generous offer and thus I left the man in the green jacket disappointed.

  Foxton was an important staging point even before the signing of the Great Accord and the birth of the Gas-Lit Empire. The famous ladder of locks allowed boats to descend towards Leicester, completing the canal route from the south. There being no other practical means to transport heavy loads, traffic increased every year. Eventually the canal was widened and a boat lift constructed – an engineering marvel that cemented Foxton’s importance as a transportation hub.

  Wide beam barges carry cargo from London all the way to South Leicester, where they are unloaded. The cargo is given into the hands of teams of porters, who carry it through the maze of the Leicester Backs to be loaded onto the same barges that have, in the meantime, slipped across the border paying no duty. From North Leicester the boats can steam on to Nottingham and the north.

  When the age of the airship dawned, it was natural for the terminus at Foxton to grow in importance. As Anstey is to the Republic, so Foxton is to the Kingdom. Along the fifteen miles that separate the two air termini is the best paved road in either nation. Thus I was at Foxton before sunset, had bought my ticket and seen my case loaded.

  Once again I felt the unsettling lurch of take-off. Having never before been on a night flight, the view and experience were thrilling to me. Instead of seeing the fields and towns spread out below, the world appeared like a map of the heavens, the lights burning by roadsides and in windows seeming more like clusters of stars than the creation of man.

  As with the coach trip that had preceded it, I found myself subjected to the unwanted attention of a male traveller. This time older and dressed in charcoal-grey. A tourist, I thought, behaving disgracefully abroad. Excusing myself from his company, I took a seat near a husband and wife and was thus able to complete the flight unmolested.

  The engine noise changed, the carriage began to tilt forward and I felt that fluttering in the stomach that accompanies descent. Soon the floodlights of Bedford Air Terminus came into view. We slowed. The landing lines dropped. The ground crew hauled and we inched into dock.

  A fugitive sees peril in every stranger’s face. Picking my way down the stairs from the alighting platform I scanned the waiting crowd below. Some waved and jumped on seeing their friends or relatives emerge from the carriage, displaying degrees of exuberance that would have drawn disapproving looks at an air terminus in the Republic.

  Others in the crowd held up paper signs on which the names of people or corporations had been written: “Herrick Mathews” “Telford Castings Ltd.” “Edgar Payne”. Cabbies, I spotted there also, furtively touting for business, keeping clear of any terminus marshals who might throw them out onto the street. Scattered through this throng a few men of nondescript appearance stood watching, drinking in all the details of the arrival hall. I picked out three of them, each wearing unremarkable clothing. There may have been more.

  Just as they stood out to me, so must I have been conspicuous to them. Though dressed in appropriately colourful clothes, I could not yet walk through a crowd with the same fluidity as the women of the Kingdom. That I travelled alone made me even more unusual.

  I clipped across the polished stone floor, not turning to look but certain that one of them had fallen into step behind me. I seemed to feel his eyes on the back of my head as I handed my chitty to a magnificently moustached baggage handler and received my battered travelling case in return.

  “Will there be more arrivals tonight?” I asked.

  The handler shook his head. “She’s the last of them.”

  “When’s the next London flight?”

  “Nine tomorrow morning. You’ve got somewhere to stay?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  I gave him a warm smile then started off across the emptying passenger hall. With less noise than before, I could hear the footsteps of the person following behind me. They only stopped when it became clear that I was heading for the ladies’ washroom. I slipped a Kingdom penny into the turnstile and pushed through, hefting my case over the top of it.

  Inside were white and blue tiles, a row of porcelain hand basins smelling of lavender soap and a line of stalls along the opposite wall. Choosing the stall furthest from the entrance, I bolted myself in, put down the toilet lid and sat with my case resting across my knees.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 33

  Why disdain the bullet catcher who employs a stooge? The illusion will amaze just as surely, unless the method be guessed.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  There are many ways to confuse a witness, change of appearance being first among them. As I sat in the ladies’ washroom, I occupied myself by searching through my travelling case for the elements of an improvised disguise. The best I could find was a change of clothes. I swapped the full-sleeved, puffed-shoulder blouse I’d been wearing on arrival, to one with straighter lines. I pinned up my hair, exchanged the straw hat for a cotton bonnet, folded my coat away and was thankful he hadn’t had a close view of my face the night before.

  The eye of the observer is not a scientific instrument of brass and lenses. It perceives a greater picture, and thus it can be distracted. Have a man walk through a crowd and many will afterwards be able to describe the things he wore and even the details of his face. But if that man were to walk the same path carrying a parlour palm or a stuffed crocodile or any other unexpected object, all details of his person would be forgotten. Everyone would see the object, but no further. Thus he could not be identified without it. My travelling case was my crocodile, so to speak – too battered and conspicuous for me to risk carrying it out of the washroom.

  Since I had not returned through the turnstile the night before, the intelligence gatherer who’d followed me must know he had found a story of interest. He would still be there.

  By half past seven in the morning, women had started to come and go from the washroom with enough frequency to confuse anyone watching outside. Water flowed in hand basins. Cisterns flushed. It was time to make my escape.

  I emerged from the stall to see the floor being cleaned by a hunched Negro woman with a wrinkled face. She was pushing her mop from side to side across the tiles, leav
ing them wet and shining behind her.

  “Could you watch my case?” I asked.

  “I’m no luggage service,” she said.

  I placed a two shilling coin in her hand and closed her fingers around it. “Twenty minutes.”

  “The men will be for you then,” she said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  She flashed her eyes towards the exit. “The men that’s waiting.”

  “How many?”

  She showed me the five fingers of her hand.

  “Private intelligence men?”

  “Red coats. Men-at-arms.”

  “Did you see the badges they wore? Whose insignia?”

  Shaking her head, she took the suitcase from my hand and put it back in the stall from which I had just emerged. Then she took a wooden sign from one of the capacious pockets of her housecoat and hung it on the door catch: CLEANING IN PROGRESS.

  The cleaner had not spotted the sixth man, a private intelligence gatherer who stood leaning against an iron pillar, nursing the last inch of a cigarette. As for the other five, they were exactly as she had described. Red-coated men-at-arms, swords hanging from their belts on one side, flintlocks holstered on the other.

  Stitched to each chest was a badge of office, the emblem of the aristocratic house from which they derived their authority. It showed a green oak tree below a blue sky in which hung an off-centre triangle of white stars. All aristocratic families might have seemed the same to the cleaning woman, but they were not the same to me. This was the house I had grown to fear and loathe. This was the emblem of the Duke of Northampton.

  To my credit, I did not break step on seeing them, but pushed through the turnstile and stepped out into the passenger hall, holding my head up so that the private intelligence man could get a clear look at my face – something he would not have been able to do the previous night. He frowned as he stared at me, then made a small shake of his head, a signal to the men-at-arms who were tensed, awaiting his direction. Only when I was clear of them did I begin to gasp in lungfuls of air, trying with no success to slow my racing heart.