The Tick of Death

by Peter Lovesey

‘I couldn’t have seen her anywhere else, Sarge,’ said Thackeray, simply. ‘And she’s worth a mile walk on a Sunday morning, you must admit. Mr Stroudley hasn’t any rivals as a locomotive-engineer, in my opinion.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it. Just hadn’t pictured you pacing railway platforms in your spare time. Is this a new enthusiasm?’ Cribb said it rather as a doctor inquires about the onset of an illness.

  ‘I’ve been going to stations on my days off since the October before last,’ Thackeray admitted. ‘It first gripped me on the Brighton line when we was returning from the Prothero investigation. We was pulled by 328, if you recall, the Sutherland, one of the G class. She was only single-drive, but when I saw her as we came up the platform, standing there so nobby with the steam still rising from her, something happened inside me, Sarge. A kind of fluttering in my stomach. I’ve been unable to pass a station ever since.’

  ‘Must be inconvenient,’ said Cribb. ‘You weren’t here on the morning they found the infernal machine, I suppose?’

  Thackeray shook his head. ‘No, more’s the pity. What a diabolical thing to do, putting a bomb in a station! I saw the damage caused by the one at Victoria. It wrecked half a dozen offices and shattered the glass roof, as well as bursting the gas-pipes and starting a sizeable fire. Someone will have to catch these dynamiters soon. The Special Branch don’t seem to be making much progress, if the talk at Paradise Street can be relied upon. I’d like to know how that lot spend their time.’

  Watching you, thought Cribb. He decided to change the topic. ‘Where do you drink these days, Thackeray? Now that we’ve chanced to meet in this way, I’d like to buy you a pint of ale, if you weren’t planning to spend the rest of the day with Number 214, that is.’

  The constable grinned sheepishly. ‘She has to be off in a few minutes, as it happens, Sarge. Twelve-thirty to Brighton, via Victoria and East Croydon. She’s the fast.’

  ‘Ah, then I shall definitely take you for a drink,’ said Cribb. ‘Best to leave the fast ones alone, eh? Which pub did you say?’

  ‘The Feathers in Rotherhithe, Sarge. Just a halfpenny bus ride away. I’m the only one from Paradise Street that drinks there. The others go to the Spread Eagle. They’re a trifle particular about where they drink in view of all the bother lately. Mine’s an Irish pub, you see.’

  It had to be, thought Cribb, inwardly groaning. How many more connexions would Thackeray have with the dynamite campaign? Any minute now he was going to mention the Peep o’Day alarm clock an American friend had given him, and the imitation Remington pistol he kept in a portmanteau under his bed.

  ‘It ain’t the best time for service,’ Thackeray explained, as they approached The Feathers. ‘We shan’t get near the pump for brats.’ But his substantial form moved like an ironclad through the throng of ragged infants clamouring with jugs for the noonday beer for their families. ‘Two swipes, Michael,’ he called over the cropped heads, and in seconds the Yard was slaking its thirst at a table in the corner.

  After a long draught, Cribb cordially asked, ‘How’s the crime in Rotherhithe, then?’

  ‘I’d be obliged if you’d keep your voice down, Sarge,’ said Thackeray through his teeth. ‘I don’t like to be known here as one of the Force. The crime? Ah, it’s about the same, you know. There ain’t much to talk of—not that you’d cross the road for, so to speak. The usual brawling in the docks. It provides me with a stabbing or a questionable drowning once or twice a week to occupy my time. Otherwise I’m left with fallen women and ferocious dogs. Oh, and opium-smokers. We’ve got as many Chinamen between here and London Bridge as there is in Pekin. What’s the matter with your right arm, Sarge?’

  Cribb patted the area of his collar-bone, so sore from rifle-practice that he was drinking left-handed. ‘Too much responsibility,’ he joked. ‘It’s more than I can shoulder.’

  ‘Do you need some assistance?’ Thackeray spoke in earnest, shaming the sergeant with open-heartedness.

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that. So this is an Irish house, then. Didn’t know you favoured the Paddies—or is it the hard stuff that you’ve taken a fancy to?’

  ‘Not me, Sarge. I never was a whisky man. No, I come here for my own reasons—professional reasons, you might say. I’ve never forgotten something you told me the first time we worked together. There’s more useful information to be learned in a public taproom than there is in the Police Gazette.’

  ‘Did I say that? Must have been feeling low at the time, Thackeray.’

  ‘Ah, but there’s a deal of truth in it. Provided that you don’t spend your time drinking with bobbies, that is. There’s nothing so certain to put a stop to conversation in a pub as half a dozen pairs of regulation boots crossing the threshold. I think you said that, too, Sarge.’

  ‘Probably.’ Cribb took another draught. ‘You still haven’t told me why you drink in an Irish pub.’

  Thackeray leaned forward confidentially. ‘That’s something I wouldn’t care to go in to this morning, Sarge.’

  ‘Dangerous company these days, the Irish,’ Cribb persisted. ‘They’ve other things on their minds than Blarney Stones and fairy cobblers. Do you just listen, or do you mix with ’em?’

  ‘A bit of both, I suppose. You can’t sit in a corner on your own and say nothing. That would give them cause for suspicion, wouldn’t it? I pass the time of day to anyone that catches my eye, and if they want to say a few words more, well I don’t turn my back on them.’

  ‘Do you buy ’em a drink?’

  ‘On my wage? Not unless they buy one first for me.’

  Cribb nodded. ‘I take your point. My turn to fill the glasses. You’ll have another?’

  ‘Since it’s my day off, yes. My first Sunday in three months.’

  ‘These drinking-companions of yours,’ Cribb doggedly began again, when he returned with the beer. ‘The ones that treat you first, I mean. Are any of ’em here this morning?’

  ‘Not many do, Sarge. We tend to buy our own. It’s more likely to be the occasional visitor that treats you than the regulars. Good health.’

  ‘Yours, too. Who would want to come to a pub like this—without disrespect, of course—in the backstreets of Rotherhithe, and stand a round of drinks for a bunch of Irish dockers and a constable off duty?’

  ‘They don’t know about me, Sarge,’ Thackeray assured him in a whisper. ‘Someone with a sharp ear for accents might detect that I wasn’t born in Tipperary, but they don’t know I’m in the Force. If there’s a round of drinks being bought, I’m usually included. I was personally treated once, too.’

  ‘Who by?’

  Thackeray smiled. ‘Ah, a big, bearded American with more money than sense. He came here three or four months ago, early in the new year. Swore he was an Irishman whose family emigrated at the time of the potato famine.’

  ‘Did he have an Irish name?’

  ‘I don’t recall, Sarge. We was conversing about trains, and once I’m on that subject I find that I don’t listen much to the other fellow. He wasn’t what you might call a railway connoisseur, but he was interested. He kept asking questions about railway stations and buying me whisky.’

  Jerusalem! Cribb blinked. ‘You were on spirits that night, then?’

  ‘I have a nip just occasional, Sarge. Yes, he was a generous sort of cove. Big, too. Barge-horse of a man. Stood well over six foot. None of the regulars would have wanted to mix it with him.’

  ‘Was he a fighting man, then?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I always look at the hands, since you taught me how to spot a pugilist. It was odd, really. There was hard skin on them, and some blistering, but it was on the palms, not the knuckles.’

  ‘A navvy,’ suggested Cribb.

  ‘Not with money to spend on whisky, Sarge. Besides, I looked at the fingernails, and they were manicured. You notice a thing like that in a dockers’ pub.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Another thing,’ said Thackeray, clearly experiencing a total recollectio
n. ‘His hands smelt of spirits.’

  ‘Whisky, you mean?’

  ‘No, Sarge. Methylated. Strange, I do remember his name now. It came back to me with the smell. Malone.’

  ‘Malone. Did he happen to mention how long he was staying in London?’

  ‘No, but I could ask his friends. There’s three or four over from America who visit The Feathers regular.’

  ‘Three or four?’ Cribb sank the rest of his beer at a gulp. ‘Perhaps you’d care to tell me about them. I need another drink first.’

  And fast. Three or four! Lord, it was like being beaten over the head with a truncheon. Or a shillelagh. The innocence of the man!

  When the descriptions were done, and they stood outside in the street looking for a cab for Cribb, Thackeray seemed at last to sense his concern. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think me unco-operative, Sarge,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never really had the opportunity of doing much detective-work on my own. You know how it is when you overhear something that just might have some connexion with a matter under investigation. You keep it to yourself until you’ve got something positive, or you find that it don’t mean a thing. These blooming Irish have such fanciful notions that if you believed everything they said, you wouldn’t stop another night in London. It’s sorting out what’s the truth that takes the time. But I can wait. I have to win their confidence first.’

  ‘That’s the dangerous bit,’ said Cribb.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The easiest way to gain a confidence is to give one.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying, Sergeant.’

  Confound the man. He could not put it more plainly. ‘Think about it, Thackeray. Think about it. There’s no more difficult duty in police work than handling an informant correct. That’s another dictum to remember. Do you understand me?’

  Thackeray looked at Cribb for several seconds. Then he nodded his head once. His face was expressionless. It was as if an empty frame signalled the end of a lantern-show.

  CHAPTER

  3

  CRIBB’S COURSE AT THE Arsenal ended in an unexpected way early on May 31st, 1884.

  The sound of the morning mug of tea arriving on his locker was followed by a deferential cough. ‘Your beverage, Sergeant,’ a voice announced, ‘and if you would be so decent as to down it at your earliest convenience—’

  What the devil! He turned his head on the pillow.

  ‘—you’ll be ready for the van which is already on its way from Scotland Yard for you,’ continued the duty constable, a mealy-mouthed member of the Woolwich establishment he had scarcely noticed before. ‘I was most particularly instructed to rouse you and advise you in a civil manner to be packed and ready to leave by six. Begging your pardon, Sergeant.’

  Scotland Yard? The fellow might have said Timbuctoo for all the significance it had at 5.30 a.m., three weeks into the explosives course. He groped for the programme on his locker. ‘It’s Saturday. Blast effects and craters. I have it written here.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. The platoon has already passed through the gates on its way to dynamite the demonstration area.’

  Cribb gripped the sides of the bed. ‘Then what the blazes are you going on about police vans for?’

  ‘Orders from the Yard, Sergeant. A telegraph from Inspector Jowett arrived during the night. They want you urgently.’

  If Jowett had got up in the night to send a telegraph, the urgency was extreme.

  ‘Then you’d better stop the platoon before it starts the dynamiting.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that, Sergeant, with respect. That’s an army matter. We have no authority to interfere in army matters.’

  ‘Confound it, man, they’ll be doing their dynamiting for nothing. I shan’t be here.’

  ‘Ah, but they’ll still need the craters.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Filling in, Sergeant. There’s a fatigue-party laid on for this afternoon. They parade at half past twelve, draw spades from the store at one o’clock and commence filling in at a quarter past. I stand to be corrected, but I don’t think the army would appreciate having to change all that on the Saturday before the Whitsun holiday.’

  Cribb took a mouthful of tea. ‘Why should I agitate myself about the army anyway? Get me some toast and dripping, lad. I’m damned sure Jowett hasn’t invited me to the Yard for breakfast.’

  The journey there confirmed that impression. It was not the kind of jaunt that kindled the stomach-juices. The van-driver took the streets of Greenwich and Deptford at the gallop, as if all the cat’s meat men and milk-boys were Red Indians in ambush. Cribb, inside, braced himself grimly against the seat-back and tried to imagine what exigency justified such driving.

  There was a marked slowing of the pace after Westminster Bridge, not unconnected, Cribb decided, with the fact that they were now in ‘A’ Division, the home of the Yard itself. But the driver disabused him of that notion by saying through the communication-window: ‘Sorry about the holdup, Sergeant. The traffic’s jammed all the way along Whitehall. It’ll be the crowds ahead, I reckon.’

  Crowds? Before eight in the morning on Saturday in Whitehall? Who could they be—Socialists? Suffragists? Extraordinary time for a public demonstration.

  ‘You’d be just as quick on foot, if I might suggest it,’ the driver went on. ‘It’ll take us twenty minutes this way.’

  He was right. It would be quicker to foot it, so long as he didn’t find himself in the thick of a demonstration. ‘What’s going on this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘Sight-seers, I reckon, Sergeant. There was a crowd already gathering in the Yard when I left soon after six this morning.’

  Cribb had never regarded Great Scotland Yard as one of the sights of London. Visitors from the provinces occasionally called at the Convict Office and in return for a small contribution to police funds were taken up to the garret to see a collection of grisly relics that had come to be known as the Criminal Museum, but the Yard itself was otherwise one of the dullest spots in the capital—until this morning, apparently. Well, he was damned if he would ask the van-driver a second time what was going on. ‘I shall make my way on foot, then, Constable.’

  ‘Very well, Sergeant. Inspector Jowett said you was to report to him in his usual office.’

  Confounded cheek, telling him where to report, as if Jowett had ever said such a thing. Some of these drivers seemed to think that managing a pair of horses successfully gave them a privileged position in the Force. Why, a man like Thackeray had never breathed an insubordinate word in all the time he had known him, yet here was this jumped-up stable-lad coolly giving orders to a sergeant after driving him across London at a rate that could only be described as hair-raising.

  He was glad of the walk to cool his temper a little. The way he felt on leaving the van, he was liable to say something to Jowett he might regret. Besides, he was actually making quicker progress than the line of vehicles. Some of the cabmen had resignedly attached nosebags to their horses’ heads. But his fellow-pedestrians interested him more than the traffic. There were more travelling in his direction than one usually encountered, and by no means all were Civil Servants on their way to work. By their appearance, many were members of the poor class who had trooped across Westminster Bridge from the backstreets of Lambeth, some in considerable groups, children, parents and grandparents marching purposefully up Whitehall, bright-eyed with the expectation of some family treat in store.

  At a loss to account for it, Cribb strode briskly on until the press of people beyond the Horse Guards slowed him to a shuffle. The Yard itself, when he reached it, was as thick with humanity as a painting by Frith. The concourse had come to an enforced stop. They stood shoulder to shoulder, bowler to bowler. Infants sat astride their fathers’ backs and snatched at the tassels of passing parasols. Newspaper-boys and fruit-sellers had materialised from nowhere and bawled their wares into the captive ears around them.

  Being tall, Cribb could glimpse the helmets of a poli
ce cordon controlling the crowd. He pressed forward with difficulty. It was some minutes before he reached the front ranks. There, the reason for the crowd’s presence came dramatically in sight.

  A hole about fifteen feet by twenty had been blasted in the Criminal Investigation Department. Debris was scattered widely across the quadrangle, amongst it broken cupboards, a battered safe and the remains of two carnages, a landau and a brougham. The front of the Rising Sun, on the opposite side, was in ruins, although the landlord had contrived an entrance for the public, who were paying to look inside. Every window in the Yard had been shattered by the explosion. Workmen were engaged in shoring up the Police Office with wooden beams.

  Cribb reached the police-line, was recognised, and passed through, stepping over the rubble with a sureness of foot quite recently acquired. The entrance was on the side away from the explosion. He mounted the stairs to Jowett’s office.

  ‘Kindly leave the door open behind you,’ the Inspector called to him as he went in. ‘We shall at least be able to breathe if there is an unobstructed passage of air. This dust is asphyxiating me by degrees.’ He was seated at his usual desk in front of a window-frame empty except for a few jagged segments of glass. A large fall of plaster from the ceiling had all but obliterated the tufted rug to which, as a senior officer, he was entitled. A thin film of white dust lay over everything in the room, including his hair and suit. ‘Unfortunately, there is nowhere else for us to talk.’

  ‘When did this happen, sir?’

  ‘Shortly after nine o’clock last night. One of the newspapers has already produced a special edition to report it. I have been here myself since the small hours.’ He stroked the unshaven bristles on his chin to emphasise his quick response to the emergency. ‘They sent a cab out to South Norwood for me.’

  Better than a police-van, thought Cribb. ‘Is this the work of the Clan-na-Gael, sir?’

  ‘Without a shadow of doubt. Did you notice which room was the target of the attack?’

  ‘It looked to me like the Hackney Carriage Licensing Department, sir.’