"That's for Alf Stevens, you piece of shit," he said. Then he straightened and looked around the room, daring all comers. There were none. "Give Sid my message," he said. "Tell him to come." He picked up his prybar and walked out of the pub.
As soon as the door closed behind him a figure walked out of the shadows and into the taproom.
"Frankie, did you burn down Bristow's warehouse?" Sid asked.
"Bloody hell, boss, were you there all along? Thanks for the help."
Sid crossed the room in a few quick strides. He hoisted Frankie off the floor and slammed him into the wall. "I said, Did you burn down Bristow's warehouse?"
"Yes! For Christ's sake, let me down!"
But Sid didn't let him down. Instead he hit him, again and again and again, until Frankie was begging him to stop and Des and Ozzie were pulling him off. When he finally released him, Frankie slumped to the floor.
"Why'd you do it?" Sid yelled. "Stevens wasn't one of us. He was an old man, Frankie! He never hurt no one!"
Frankie lifted his battered face. "I done it for you. While you were in the hospital. I didn't mean to hurt the geezer. I told him it was time his guv started paying us and he took a swing at me. Knocked a lamp over. I yelled at him to get out, but he wouldn't."
"And now he's dead. And Bristow knows it was you."
Frankie stood. "You're not going, are you? To see him, I mean. Bristow."
"I don't know," Sid said, pacing. "I don't bloody know."
"First the doctor. Now the MP. Next thing, you'll be cozying up to the filth."
Sid turned white. Frankie thought he was going to take another crack at him, but he didn't. "What do you know about the doctor?" he asked, his voice shaking with anger.
"Jesus, guv, I don't give a shit who you're shagging."
Sid took a step toward him, his fingers curling into a fist.
Frankie stood his ground. "Go on, do it. I don't care. Everything's falling apart and you're letting it. The Chinese, the Jews, the Italians--they're all carving up our gaff. Scrapping over the hop dens, the whorehouses, and pubs like a pack of mongrels. And Madden, he don't want just this street or that one, he wants the whole riverside. Are you blind? Can't you see what's happening?"
"I can see, Frankie. I don't care. Madden can have it. All of it."
"What?" Frankie said. "But this is yours. You built it piece by piece. Fought for it."
Sid reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. One of the half dozen they'd kept for themselves from the Stronghold job. He placed it on a table.
"I'm out," he said.
Frankie felt the breath go out of him, the life, the heart. The pain of Sid's punches was nothing compared to the pain of his leaving. "Why, guv?" he asked, in the voice of a bewildered boy.
"I don't want this life, Frankie," he said softly. "I never did."
Sid took a last look around himself. At Desi and Oz. At Lily. At the Bark. The river.
"Des, you're in charge now," he said. "I'll make it right by you. By all of you. Give me a few days."
To Frankie, he said, "Listen to Desi. Learn from him. He knows more about the game than all of us put together." And then he turned to leave.
Watching him go, watching him walk away from them, Frankie's sorrow turned to rage. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he screamed after him. "You can't just leave!"
Sid turned around one last time. His anguished eyes met Frankie's. "I already have," he said. "Take care of yourself, lad." And then he was gone.
Chapter 59
Seamie, Albie, and Willa were lying on their backs in the Aldens' garden, staring up at the sky. It was a clear night and the stars were sparkling like diamonds.
"Ask me another, Wills," said Seamie.
"Orion," Willa said. "Right ascension?"
"Five hours."
"Declination?"
"Five degrees."
"Visible between?"
"Latitudes eighty-five and seventy-five. Best seen in January."
"Major stars?"
"Alnilam, Alnitak, Betelgeuse, Mintaka, Saiph, and... don't tell me... Rigel!"
"And..." Willa prompted. "There's one more."
"There isn't. You're trying to throw me."
"There is."
"What is it then?"
"Bellatrix."
"Damn!"
How he hated that. Willa could name the constellations and cite their characteristics all from memory without ever making a mistake. He'd seen her navigate with a sextant on her family's yacht. She was better at it than he was, better than Albie, and almost as good as their father, who was an admiral in the Royal Navy.
"I'll never get them all right," he sighed. "And Shackleton says I have to."
"You will," she said. "Keep swotting. Sounds like you'll have plenty of time for it between here and Greenland."
"Talk about a dogsbody!" Albie said, chuckling.
"Shut up, will you?" Seamie growled.
"First you're a kitchen boy, now you're a kennel boy."
"Don't listen to him, Seamie," Willa said, stifling her own giggles. "Take a sextant with you. The voyage will be the perfect opportunity to practice your navigation."
"When you're not scooping poop!" Albie said, collapsing into laughter along with his sister. Seamie glowered.
The expedition was still months away, but preparations were already in full swing. Clements Markham and Captain Scott had gone to Christiania with Fridtjof Nansen to view the Fram and confer on ship design. Shackleton had left for Dundee two days ago to haggle with shipbuilders. Seamie was supposed to have gone with him, but there had been a last-minute change of plan. He was going to Greenland instead. In three weeks' time. To round up a bunch of bloody dogs.
Shackleton had been writing to breeders in Greenland, trying to buy sledge dogs for the expedition, but he'd had no luck. Scott had raised the possibility of Russian dogs, but Shackleton didn't want them. Greenland dogs were the best, he'd said. They were tougher, faster, better able to endure extreme cold. Consequently they were in high demand. Breeder after breeder had told him that he had no dogs left to sell, but Shackleton, never one to take no for an answer, told Edward Wilson, the expedition's junior surgeon and zoologist, to go to the breeders in person--armed with a heap of cash. And he'd told him to take Seamie with him. Wilson would negotiate, and when the dogs were bought Seamie would crate them, feed them, water them, groom them, exercise them, and sing to them.
"Sing to them, sir?" Seamie had said, thinking he'd heard him wrong.
"Yes, sing. They get homesick, just like humans do," Shackleton had replied. "If they look sad, sing to them. It cheers them up. Those dogs are more valuable to the expedition than you are, my boy. I want them happy and well."
After their meeting, Wilson had noticed Seamie's glum expression and told him to consider himself lucky. He could be stuck with Clarke, the second cook, and Blissett, one of the stewards, in a Dundee warehouse, counting boxes of Oxo cubes and tins of sardines.
He felt a poke in his side now and turned his head toward Willa.
"Stop sulking," she said. "It's better than flogging oranges or peddling tea."
She was smiling mischievously. Her color was high. There had been a proper family dinner tonight and she'd had to dress like a girl for it in an ivory silk frock, lace stockings, and heeled shoes. My God, but she's pretty, Seamie thought.
"I suppose it is," he allowed. His eyes lingered on her. He thought she might blush but she didn't, and it was he who finally had to look away. Again.
"I'm hungry again," Albie said. "I'm going to see if there's any hope of a sandwich."
"Bring a plateful, will you, Alb?" Willa said. "And some pickles. And lemon squash."
"Anything else, madam?" Albie said.
"Cake."
He loped off toward the house, leaving Willa and Seamie by themselves. Willa rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows.
"It'll be lonely when you're gone, Seamie. I won't have anyone to talk a
bout climbing with."
"What about Albie?"
"He keeps trying to make me stop. Keeps telling me I'll hurt myself, but really he's just cross because I'm better than him and he hates being shown up by a girl."
Seamie laughed.
"George Mallory--remember him from the RGS?--he wants to go climbing on Mont Blanc in the spring," Willa said. "He's awfully good. I'm going to go with him. At least I hope I am. All depends on whether or not I can talk Albie into coming along. My parents would never let me go otherwise. I might ruin my reputation."
Jealousy, unexpected and unwelcome, shot through Seamie at the idea of Willa and Mallory in the Alps together. "Sounds like fun. I hope you have a good time," he said.
"Do you?" Willa asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Of course, why wouldn't I?"
She shrugged and changed the subject. "I suppose I still have to go and tell Fiona the news? You haven't made up yet?"
"Yes, you do," Seamie said. "And no, we haven't."
He felt heavy-hearted at the mention of Fiona. He would have gone back tomorrow if he could, but he didn't know how. He'd have to apologize, consent to return to Groton, and he wasn't about to do either. He knew his stubborn sister would never apologize, so he was stuck.
"You could go and see her before you go to Greenland, you know," Willa said, as if reading his mind. She often did that. It unnerved him.
"No."
"I'm sure Fiona's cooled off by now."
"No."
Willa sighed. "Just a thought," she said.
She shifted her gaze back to the sky, back to Orion, the great hunter. "Is someone looking up at him in Antarctica now, do you think? Can they see him at Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro and Everest? How I wish I could be him. I wish I could see what he sees. The whole world! All of its magic and mystery. All of its beauty and power and sorrow and danger."
How the hell does she do that? Seamie wondered. How does she put into words exactly what I'm feeling? Still on his back, he looked up at her, at her face, luminous in the moonlight, at the curve of her mouth, at her wide and wondering eyes. And he realized, with a sudden, deep ache, that he was going to miss her. More than he would miss Albie. Even more than he would miss his own family. She was seventeen now. She would be nineteen or twenty when he returned from Antarctica and different. Grown up. She might be engaged. Or married. The thought filled him with a desperate sadness. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but he didn't know how. He was terrible at these things.
"Willa..." he began.
She looked down at him. "I know," she said. "I'll miss you, too." And then she kissed him, quick and hard. "Be careful," she said. "Come back."
"Wait for me."
She winced, as if the demand had been unworthy of him. "No."
"Why?"
"If it was the other way round--me going, you staying--would you wait? With all the deserts yet to be mapped, and the mountains yet to be climbed, and the rivers and jungles and forests yet to be discovered. And you just aching to get out there and map them and climb them and make them your own. Feeling that you'd wither and die if you didn't. Well, would you?"
With another girl he would have hemmed and hawed and come out with some sort of fluttery flattering nonsense. Not with Willa. With her, he could tell the truth.
"No," he said. "I wouldn't." He paused, then said, "Does Albie know what you want to do? Do your parents?"
"I talk about exploring all the time, but they think I'm just nattering."
He'd always thought she was, too, but now he wasn't so certain. "Why don't you try to get on an expedition?"
She laughed. "Are you mad? With a boatload of men?"
"Hadn't thought of that."
"Best I could hope for would be to marry a sea captain and make a few voyages with him. No one would ever take me on as a single woman. Can you imagine the scandal? And no one will finance a women's party, either. I could be better than Scott and Nansen combined, and it wouldn't matter. The Royal Geo wouldn't give me a farthing. So I'll have to finance myself."
"How?"
"My mad aunt Edwina. She's my mother's elder sister. She's a spinster and a suffragist. Deadly anti-marriage. She says it's an institution--same as a prison or an insane asylum. She says that young women should have choices, but you can have choices only if you have money. So she's given me some. Five thousand pounds in a trust. I can have it when I turn eighteen. It won't finance an expedition like Scott's, but it should get me around the world a few times."
Seamie was amazed. "You're really going to do it, aren't you? Leave home, leave your family, to go exploring."
She nodded, her gaze hard and determined. "Yes, I am."
He thought of Mrs. Alden and how upset she became every time Willa climbed a hill or went rambling and came home with scrapes and freckles. "It won't be easy, Wills."
"Don't I know it." She was silent for a few seconds, then she kissed him again, and the touch of her lips on his felt bittersweet, for he knew he might never feel them again.
"Meet me there, Seamie," she said.
"Where?"
She raised her face to the night sky and smiled. "I don't know exactly. Somewhere out there. Somewhere in this wide world. Somewhere under Orion."
Chapter 60
Frankie Betts knew what had to be done. And he knew he had to do it.
He walked toward Spitalfields Market at a leisurely pace, stopping for a morning pint at a porter's pub, buying a crimson rose for his buttonhole.
He was dressed like a workman today, like Sid usually dressed, in denim trousers, a collarless shirt, a seaman's jacket, and a wool cap. The red rose stood out on his navy jacket. Sid wouldn't have liked that, Frankie knew, but he needed to draw attention today. Just a bit. Just enough so that a man drinking at the pub where he'd stopped, or the flower seller with whom he'd flirted, would recall him.
He crossed Commercial Street, jogging to avoid an oncoming coal wagon. The revolver in his breast pocket banged against his chest as he did. It was Sid's revolver, the one he'd left in the Bark when he'd told him he was leaving.
A haberdasher's window reflected his image back at him as he passed by. He caught sight of it and smiled. At a glance he was the spitting image of Sid. Right down to his hair, which he'd bound into a ponytail under his hat.
The man he was going to see knew what Sid Malone looked like, but Frankie would have wagered a thousand quid that no one else around him did. That was important. He had to leave a witness or two, or his plan wouldn't work. Someone had to be left standing to tell Old Bill what had happened and who was to blame.
Frankie walked into the doorway of 8 Commercial Street, read the directory in the foyer, then skipped up the stairs to room 21. The door was set with a frosted-glass panel. A glazier was scraping a painted name off it-- F.R. Lytton, Member of Parliament.
"Pardon me, mate," Frankie said, making a todo of stepping around the man and his tools. A charlady, carrying a bucket of water, followed him in. He winked at her.
Inside the office, another woman was busy filling bookcases and filing cabinets with the contents of several crates and boxes. Her back was to him. The nameplate on her desk said Miss G. Mellors.
"What's the G for, luv?" he asked loudly. "Gorgeous?"
Miss Mellors jumped. She turned around. "May I help you?" she asked frostily.
"I'd like to see Joe Bristow."
"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Bristow is unavailable to his constituents right now. His office doesn't open for another hour."
"Give him my name, missus. I think he'll make an exception."
"Sir, I cannot--"
"Give it a go, eh, luv?" Frankie said, cutting her off. "You don't want your guv angry with you when you tell him I've come and gone."
"Very well. What is it?"
"Malone. Sid Malone."
"One moment, Mr. Malone. Have a seat, please."
Frankie sat down, hands on his thighs, and stared at the pattern in the carpet. His breathing was e
ven. His heartbeat steady. Oz would be sweating buckets. Des's hands would be shaking. Ronnie would be shitting himself. But he was calm and cool. Sid always said he didn't have one nerve in his whole body.
Winter Rose, The Page 54
