by Fay Weldon
She emerged from the milliner with her ragged head hidden beneath a new straw hat – not a bonnet, a hat, with a flat crown and a broad rim. ‘It looks well on you,’ he said, and meant it. It shaded her face and gave her the look of a pioneer. They were almost outside Dan’s. ‘I’ll not stop,’ he said, ‘I’ve some business this evening.’ She’d not asked about his business, though he could tell she was curious. She put her hand into her reticule and pulled out a crumpled calling card and handed it to him. ‘The Chinese character on the back stands for silver,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know where the coordinates are. Do you?’
Michael looked at the card. ‘That’s just off shore,’ he said, ‘a bit north but not far at all. Where did this come from?’
‘I found it on the floor at China Wharf the day Ryan died. That lovely copperplate isn’t his handwriting, though.’ She raised that eyebrow again to make her point. ‘Good night then,’ she said. But she wanted to say something more. She looked at him almost shyly, and then down at her hands. ‘How is Thomas?’
‘In good health, still sensible, and hard-working too, from what I can gather. But you’d want to know about the condition of his heart, being a woman, and I can’t tell you about that.’
‘I’m only asking as a friend.’
‘Aye, I know that. I might even have known it before the two of you did, without wanting to sound too clever. You’re not made from moulds that fit together, are you. There’s much to be said for a friendship that has outlasted romance. I sometimes wonder if …’ He couldn’t say it. Seven years was a long time to be away. People changed. Rhia was looking right into him with her sloe-black eyes, as if she could see it.
‘They must have been lonely years,’ she said.
‘I made a life for myself, and that’s just what you’ll do when you get home. Maybe it’s this place. You can’t just give up because you’ve found yourself at the farthest reaches of the earth. The people here – colonists, settlers, prisoners – all want the same thing: freedom.’ Rhia was watching him intently, and Michael laughed. ‘I’d best get off my soapbox and get on with my business.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘when next we meet I hope to have the price for a clipper full of merino to Dublin. Godspeed, Mr Kelly.’
‘Aye, Godspeed.’ He watched her walk into the drapery before he set off. She moved slowly and carefully, like an old lady. He didn’t think she was ready to ship wool just yet. He took another look at the calling card and put it in his pocked thoughtfully.
Maggie’s girls hadn’t seen any of the Smiths for months now, and one of Calvin’s night patrols had reported some unusual goings-on in one of the small inlets off the cove. As if that wasn’t enough, Jarrah had finally tracked down the rigger who knew something about Josiah Blake’s death. He’d got as far north as the Hunter River, a good seventy miles, which was impressive for a sailor on horseback.
Calvin was sitting on the verandah with his boots on the rails, smoking. It was the posture he liked to take as the gas lanterns were lit at Circular Quay. He was still hugely entertained by the notion of gaslight. It was also the best time of the day to watch the shop girls on their way to the quay and, after all, women were as much a glowing mystery as gas. Of course, gas was a natural phenomenon, and women were another thing altogether with that unknown quality which could soften your heart or harden your cock. Calvin had never married. No woman could or should put up with being of less importance than a policeman’s work. The map of Calvin’s heart was his work. He was in love with his strip of sand and docks and maritime industry, and devoted to keeping it running as smooth as oil.
Calvin leaned forward instinctively when a timber creaked, his hand reaching towards the boot where he kept his pistol. He had the natural uneasiness of one who kept the law in a lawless land, but he wasn’t usually so twitchy.
‘It’s only me, Cal.’
‘Michael. Ready for the show?’
‘You think they’ll be shipping soon?’
‘Any time now. I’ve got boys keeping watch on the beach. There’s a clipper anchored outside of the harbour’s reach; just beyond the sights of my telescope. But I know a fisherman who likes to throw his net out in the deep water, and he tells me she’s called Sea Witch. I’ve got men on the beach tonight so you and I can have a chat with the sailor who went droving.’
‘Well, I can tell you exactly where I think you’ll find your clipper,’ said Michael and handed Calvin the calling card.
‘The Jerusalem Coffee House?’
‘Turn the card over, man.’
‘Ah,’ said the policeman. ‘What’s the squiggle?’
‘Chinese character for silver.’
‘Ah.’
They walked to the barracks, smoking and talking about who should, and should not, be on the cricket team. There was a big match soon between the constabulary and the military.
The boy was younger than Michael had imagined, which accounted for his lack of judgement in sailing back into Sydney Cove when Calvin had warned him against it. He was sitting in the corner of his cell with his head bent sulkily. He barely looked up when the two men entered.
‘Evening, son,’ said Calvin cheerfully. ‘I’ve brought an associate along to see if we can’t, between us, get you out of here.’ The sailor looked up quickly, his expression fleetingly hopeful before he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
‘Why’d ye care?’
‘I don’t care especially, but I need some information. If I say I’ll let you go once I’ve heard what I want to, then that’s what I’ll do because I’m a man of my word. But if you walk free today, I don’t want to see you again. Ever. I mean it this time.’
The prisoner looked at his hands. ‘Well I still don’t know nothin’.’
‘That’s not what I heard. I heard you told someone that the Quaker who fell off the Mathilda was up to no good.’
‘No, that’s not what I said.’ He bit his lip and stopped himself before he gave any more away.
‘Then you did say something?’
Silence. Calvin turned to Michael. ‘You know, I told this boy that if he came back to my patch he’d be in a rope cravat when he left again. Am I a man of my word, Michael?’
‘Aye, you are, Calvin.’ Michael looked at the youth. He could see that he was scared out of his wits, and not just of the gallows. ‘If you tell us what you know, we’ll have the master of this coining operation so swiftly he’ll not have time to come after you for ratting.’ He watched the boy’s eyes widen with surprise.
‘How’d you know about the coining?’
‘By the end of this week there won’t be a coiner left in the Rocks, and the only crew on the Sea Witch will be soldiers. Now, you can either talk or not, it’s your life, son.’
This seemed to decide him. He took a deep, resigned breath. ‘I seen the Quaker gent in the Calcutta bazaar, but I thought he was the other one, the one that was hiring crew to go up to Lintin Island. I needed the work, see. So I told him I was as good a rigger as any. He looked at me peculiar, like he didn’t know what I was on about, so I said I knew that he, being a Quaker, shouldn’t exactly be filling clippers full of black gold and I hoped he didn’t mind my coming to him. The problem was, see, that no one seemed to know anything much about that charter, since most of the crew were Indian and the craft, Mathilda, was supposedly signed off to the dry dock.’
Michael frowned. This didn’t entirely make sense to him. ‘So the Mathilda was making an undocumented run to Lintin Island.’
The boy nodded.
‘You said you thought the Quaker was the other one?’
‘Well, I made a mistake, see. I was told it was the Quaker who came in on the Mathilda who was in charge of the run to Lintin Island, but two flat-hats came in on Mathilda – and he was the wrong one. Which accounts for why he looked at me so strange.’
‘Then why was Josiah Blake, the Quaker gentleman you spoke to, killed?’
‘He started asking questions. He went to the dry doc
k and asked to see the register and found out that the Mathilda was never there when she was supposed to be.’
‘And what about the coining, did Josiah know about that, too?’
‘I might have let on something about it.’
Michael was beginning to wonder how the so-called criminal before him was ever going to make a career of it. ‘You might have?’
‘Well, it was confusing, see. I only realised what was going on when I got to Sydney. The Mathilda sails from Calcutta to Lintin Island with opium, collects silver and then, instead of going directly back to Calcutta, to the exchange, she sails south into the open sea where she meets with the Sea Witch, who’s left Sydney with counterfeit—’
‘So the counterfeit silver is exchanged for the real silver at sea, and the forged coins are absorbed into the Calcutta exchange, while the Sea Witch, with her cargo of real silver, sails for London?’
‘That’s it.’
‘And the master of this crime is a Quaker?’
‘I wouldn’t know for sure. It’s the ship’s captain that’s in charge at sea. I’ve never known a Quaker to go to Lintin Island.’
Michael looked at Calvin. ‘I believe that gentleman’s name is Isaac Fisher,’ he said.
The policeman was frowning. ‘Of course, it is always possible that he doesn’t even know his opium charter is collecting counterfeit on its return voyage.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Michael admitted. ‘I do know, though, that the Mathilda and the Sea Witch are the joint property of a collective of London cloth traders.’
‘So how do we narrow down who chartered the Sydney leg?’
Michael looked at him. ‘Two of them are dead, including Josiah Blake.’
‘How interesting.’ Calvin looked back to the boy. ‘So, we’ve established that the cloth trade isn’t profitable enough for a certain trader and that Mick the Fence is the boss of a coining racket in Sydney?’
‘Wasn’t me told you ’bout Mick being the boss!’
‘Then he is?’
‘Bollocks. Aye.’
Calvin took his watch from his coat pocket. ‘It’s getting late. You can stay in tonight, and tomorrow I’m putting you on the first vessel that hauls anchor and you can work your passage to wherever she’s sailing.’
As soon as they were outside, Calvin looked sidelong at Michael. ‘You didn’t tell me this was Mick the Fence’s operation’.
‘I wasn’t entirely sure myself until just recently.’
Calvin grinned slyly. ‘I knew it anyway. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t, would I? I’ve got a watch at the Hare and Hound on the junction road. You can see Mick’s from one of the upstairs rooms.’
Michael shook his head. ‘I thought Mick was too clever to use his own place for business. They’d be in a basement if he is, though, and his is one of the few in the Rocks. If they’re melting down old coin and casting plaster moulds, they’re probably forging guineas – copper on the inside, silver-plated. No point in wasting time on shillings, they wouldn’t make mercantile princes wealthy enough, or give punters a leg up.’
Calvin was listening keenly and nodding. ‘Speaking of punters, I’ve had a word with a man by the name of Wardell, the government agent on the Rajah. He says he’s looking into the story the ship’s boy told you, about seeing the botanist on deck the night of the killing. He also said he’d find out when Reeve’s passage was booked and by whom. It’s unlikely he’s come so far from home without a benefactor.’
‘Now that’s of interest,’ Michael said, ‘because I was just going to ask if you’d care to pay a call to Mr Reeve. I’ve a matter to discuss with him that I think you’d find interesting.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Aye,’ said Michael.
21 October 1841
The light is as dazzling as the sky is cloudless and the temperature constant. This place is the opposite of Ireland in every way. The seasons are reversed, and the south wind colder than the north. Instead of fog and damp, the air is dry and translucent. The poisonous breath of industry has not yet touched it. It is spring but already as warm as our Irish summer. I expect the light and warmth account, in part, for the geniality of people. I spent this morning with Joan, the draper’s wife, who laughed approvingly when I cursed over spilt tea and then offered me a cigarillo after breakfast. I took one, but I’ve still some practising to do before I master smoking.
I bothered Joan with questions all morning, because this place seems so full of contradictions. It is a modern nation in the making, and at the same time an ancient one being ruined. The Originals, as Michael Kelly calls them, are nowhere to be seen. Had I not met Jarrah, I might not have known they were here but for the spirits amongst the trees, watching the foolish empire builders from the shadows. Now I know why the trees seem so ghostly. There are bonechilling stories about the killings, and when I hear of the murderous behaviour of the English and the Irish, I feel ashamed to tread here.
Joan says that oranges can be grown in New South Wales, that she plucked one herself, early in the morning, with the dew still fresh on it. She says she has fat green peas on her table for ten months of the year and that her linen will dry in an hour. But she also has a spider the size of a fob watch in her pantry, and thieving possums climb in through open windows and help themselves to any food left unattended.
In just three days we will be sailing, and there is plenty to keep me busy. Dan and Joan have found the best priced merino in New South Wales, and I’m gathering stamina to supervise the shipment. Joan says that she will help and that I must not try and do too much too soon. Whenever I feel daunted I think of Antonia. It is faith that makes the difference, be it faith in some deity or an inner light, or in oneself.
I can’t say I’m looking forward to another sea voyage so soon, but it will bear no resemblance to my outward passage. I’ve an entire season’s patterns crowding my thoughts after my long walk, and I intend to fill a book with them before I reach London. If Mr Montgomery won’t buy them for a good price, then they will become the first prints for Mahoney Wool.
Convention be damned.
Houndstooth
Reeve was at least smart enough not to close the door on Calvin and Michael. He still had a purple bruise on his left cheekbone where Michael’s fist had connected with it.
‘Good evening, Mr Reeve,’ said Cal cheerfully.
The botanist merely scowled and turned his back on them, returning to whatever he had been doing. When they followed him into the room he was at his table, scribbling in a book with agitated strokes, his head hung like a sulky child.
‘Just a courtesy call,’ continued Cal, ‘to update you on my enquiry into your suspected criminal activities. I’ve had a conversation with a Mr Wardell. You might remember that he was the Government agent on board the Rajah. He seemed to think that you were in the vicinity of Laurence Blake’s cabin on the night he was murdered.’
That had Reeve’s attention. He looked up, worried.
‘Furthermore,’ the policeman continued, sitting himself down in the chair opposite the botanist, ‘he tells me that your passage was paid for with a bankers draft.’
Michael had not known this. He glanced sharply at Calvin who gave him an affirmative nod. The policeman had been doing some snooping around. That was his job, after all. ‘Anything you’d like to add, Michael?’ Calvin asked.
Michael was thinking fast. ‘There is. I’m wondering if whoever paid your passage also paid you to keep an eye on Rhia Mahoney. I wonder if you were supposed to discover what, if anything, she knew about the death of Josiah Blake. Maybe you thought Rhia had something, a letter perhaps, that your boss wanted. You thought that she’d given it to Laurence Blake for safe keeping. You entered his cabin while he slept, hoping to find it and unwittingly – or witlessly – woke him. He might have grabbed you, you might have picked up the letter knife, intending only to threaten him, not to murder him. Either way, you panicked and killed him.’ Michael was thinking aloud,
piecing together all the little details Rhia had told him. ‘Maybe it wasn’t an accident, because if word got out that you’d been snooping in a respectable passenger’s cabin, your hopes of station and wealth would have been instantly dashed. You searched his cabin and found the portrait and recognised one of the men in it.’ Michael hadn’t taken his eyes from Reeve, whose own eyes just grew wider and more startled. The open drafting book displayed poorly executed drawings of indigenous flora.
‘Of course I have a patron,’ Reeve said finally, ‘it is essential and normal in my profession. But his identity is a private matter and what you are accusing me of is utter twaddle.’ He didn’t sound convincing, or convinced.
Calvin nodded slowly. ‘Twaddle? You’d prefer to move into the barracks, then, than to give us a name? It must be rather a large boodle you stand to lose. You might find, eventually, that freedom is worth more.’
‘I’ve found it priceless myself over the years,’ Michael agreed.
Reeve looked as if he might retch. ‘You’ve not a scrap of evidence and I have nothing more to say.’
‘I don’t need evidence to arrest a man in Sydney, Mr Reeve. And I’ll guarantee you’ll have more to say, once you’ve seen your new accommodation. The idea of a lenient sentence might seem more appealing in a few days. That’s what we offer here in return for a confession, for names. We make our own rules here. Think about that.’
Cal went to the doorway and called out to the two young constables who were waiting in the hallway. Michael watched Reeve. It was clear that he was thinking about it, because he had picked up his pencil and was scribbling so hard on his drafting paper that he tore a hole clear through it. When Calvin’s boys walked in – and they were boys – eager to have something to do to pass the time, Reeve threw down his pencil, looking piteously sorry for himself.
‘We’ll leave you with your escort, then,’ said Calvin. ‘Don’t worry about strapping his hands, lads, I saw you loading your pistols out in the hallway.’
