Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  “I always thought you had one.”

  “Did you, Harry? My body seemed to be of more interest, as I recall.” That remark had emerged through the anger that was plainly visible in her face. But he knew that the tone was false, more a desire to justify herself than to damn him. But whilst Naomi proceeded to withdraw her sting by the softening of her voice, it was done slowly. “Was I anything to you but comfort?”

  “I cannot demand an explanation, Naomi. But I do think that I’m due one. Why did you engage in this conspiracy?” Harry tried to keep his tone level, but the image of his house, burned to the ground, sprang to mind. “Why was my whole family to be sacrificed to see it concluded?”

  She stood up and laid her hand on his arm, her voice gentle as she replied. That tactile gesture, and the direct gaze that accompanied her words, made him regret the implied accusation of deliberate intent.

  “That shocked me, Harry, more than even the hanging of Bertles’s crew. And believe me I never once mentioned your name. We’re alike, you and I. What I did was stirred by instinct. First Bertles, with his madcap scheme. Then the idea that I could revenge myself. I had no idea where it would lead, or the trouble it would cause. How many times have you set a course that you’ve later regretted?”

  Harry’s mind turned to the manifest, in which he listed all the details Trench needed to both suspect and locate him. That and the posters. It was an appropriate moment to remind himself that the attack on his house had not been generated by any action of Naomi Smith. What concerned him was why everyone had refused to believe him afterwards.

  “It seemed so simple. Set the fool up, then let Trench know who was stealing his contraband.”

  “Through Temple?” asked Harry.

  “That should have been enough.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it?”

  Her hand gripped his arm tightly to emphasise her words.

  “You have to understand, Harry, to begin with, the name of who was backing Bertles didn’t matter. I couldn’t own to it myself or they might have smoked my game. Matters took a turn I hadn’t looked for. You’ll know where Obidiah Trench is from. Feelings about the Kent smugglers can run pretty high in those parts and he wasn’t content with Bertles. Temple’s not knowing cast suspicion on him. The only way he could convince Trench that he wasn’t involved himself was to provide another name. And I couldn’t tell him there was no one, ’cause I’d hinted before that there was, hinted at someone powerful, and close by.”

  “It would have been as easy to give them my name.”

  Naomi frowned, as though the idea in her mind was unpleasant. “Except you weren’t at home, were you. An’ you’d been away for near two years.”

  “So you shifted their attention to my brother-in-law.”

  “I tried to, ’cause I could think of no one else,” she admitted. “But believe me when I say, even then, that I had no inkling of what harm would come. I didn’t reckon on Obidiah Trench bein’ such a murderous sod. Nobody did.”

  They fell silent. Naomi hooked her hand through his arm while Harry mulled over what she’d said. Arthur thought she was sucking up to him. And all the time he’d been a pawn in Naomi’s game. But had he not been just that himself and for a lot longer than his brother-in-law? She looked at him closely, for the first time betraying a trace of the genuine affection he always felt existed between them. She made that sigh that presaged the beginning of a long tale.

  “There were four men I hated, four men who ruined my happiness. Bertles was one of them. Probably more than any of the others since the method they used was his idea. He didn’t come near the Griffin for three years after Tolly died. But I knew him, right off, as soon as he walked through the door. Those daft hairs on his cheeks. He was a slippery one and no error, with his big talk and short purse.”

  “He told you about Trench?”

  “He did. Though he never let on what an evil bugger he was, just that there was a rate of contraband across the water, waiting to be picked up gratis. We could pinch a few cargoes and then retire on the proceeds.”

  “And all he needed was a ship?”

  “The money for a ship. It wasn’t to be like a partnership. He was no more taken with the idea of a smart woman than most men.”

  Harry looked at the small neat headstone. “The exciseman Braine wasn’t convinced Bertles was guilty. Are you?”

  “I didn’t need convincing. My husband told me before he met his maker. The whole thing was carried out at his bidding. He even boasted of it.”

  “Tolly?” Her eyes were on him now, searching to see if he could add it up. “I know he didn’t have an unblemished past.”

  “Tolly was retired from the smuggling game. But he kept in touch with his old gang. They’d all come out to the Griffin’s Head to get drunk an’ talk over old times. That’s how I knew what I had to do, for they was always talkin’ about the good old days, and some bad ones, including the time the Kent smugglers had clapped a stopper on the Hawkhurst gang.”

  “Smuggling’s one thing. Many a body’s resulted from a heated encounter. But cold murder is something else. I find it hard to believe that Tolly would do that.”

  “He wasn’t really a bad man, Harry. But he had one fault that he couldn’t control, and that was jealousy.”

  “The difference in age,” said Harry lamely, for Tolly Smith had only ever had one thing to be jealous about. She exerted enough pressure on his arm to induce him to walk away, and they made their way around the graveyard, casting an odd glance at the mosscovered headstones.

  “He was a sick man, and old, that couldn’t pleasure his young wife, an’ hadn’t done for two years. I didn’t look elsewhere for pleasure, Harry, it just happened along. And when it did, even though I tried, it was too strong to pass up. Tolly knew he was dying and so did I. But that didn’t put a stopper on his pride. He couldn’t abide the thought of anyone else in my bed, even if he was gone to meet his maker.”

  “Are you sure it was just that?”

  “I won’t say that the Aldington gang didn’t get something out of it. The Preventatives were causing trouble. It scared the livin’ daylights out of the rest of them.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “What else is there to say? When Trench’s stuff went missing he started looking to see who was robbing him. It didn’t take much to point him towards this part of the world and I’d primed Temple to tip him the wink. But he was a bit sharper than I thought. He didn’t try to find Bertles himself, but he let Temple know that if it didn’t let up he’d feel free to take it out on any Deal boat he came across. Temple demanded I tell him when the next sailing was due. He claimed he only sold Bertles to Trench to keep the peace.”

  “Some peace,” said Harry sharply.

  “That was when he came after me for another name. He kept asking about you, and I kept ducking the answer. But he knew too much. You were close, powerful, and one bought tankard of ale would be enough to glean the rest of the story about us. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he said he had written evidence. I couldn’t say he was wrong without letting out the whole story.”

  He could see no point in remonstrating with her. Naomi knew the consequences of what she’d done as well as he did. Being in the grip of an obsession, she probably didn’t care. Nor did he wish to ask how he stood with her now, for he thought he knew the answer. It wasn’t a shared sense of freedom, at all. Naomi was the subject of constant attention from men at the Griffin’s Head. What better way to deflect that than to be involved with Harry, a man who was powerful locally and rarely home. But his reason for not asking was that if it was the truth he didn’t want to hear it said.

  “You killed Temple today, didn’t you?”

  She looked at the sky, which was darkening slowly.

  “Why are men so stupid, Harry? There’s not one that doubts every woman wants him. Fat, thin, stupid, or toothless, they’re all the same. Once Bertles had finished his first trip, and proved himself, it was time for
the next stage. I went into Deal. As luck would have it, the new Fencibles were having their first drill and there was Temple smack in the middle on his horse. Catching his eye was easy, just as easy as it was to let him think I was soft on him. Temple thought that in his shiny uniform, there was nothing to match him. There he was, in all his finery, with his red coat, his feathered hat, and that damned buff belt he was so proud of.”

  They’d come full circle, back to the point in front of the smaller of the two headstones. As Naomi looked at it the wistful tone evaporated, to be replaced by a hard-edged, callous voice which Harry had never heard before.

  “I wish you’d met him, Harry. You would have liked him, for he was a bit like you. He was a man to charge the guns and no error. He wasn’t like Braine, content to sit inside his dripping walls and take what the gangs threw him. He went after them, doing what he was paid for, and proved how easy it was to get results with a bit of effort. That’s the real reason they helped to do him in.”

  “And me?” Harry asked, even although he promised himself he wouldn’t.

  “No one came as close as you to wiping his memory.” She laughed humourlessly. “But then no one else got the chance.”

  “So it wasn’t to save on your rent?”

  She could easily have demurred, said something to mollify him. But he could hardly complain if, instead, she demonstrated that streak of honesty he’d always admired. “I don’t love you, Harry, if that’s what you’re asking. But I reckon you know that already. Perhaps it started as convenience, but it wasn’t hard. You’re a good man, and handsome, who could make me laugh. I need that sometimes.”

  He tried, but failed to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Only sometimes. Then it’s as well I was frequently absent.”

  “If you’re hurting, I’m truly sorry. But don’t ask me to be sorry for the four men that killed him. They took the only man I ever loved and buried him alive. And since they own the law and had terrified the excise, nothing happened. I swore revenge every time I tended these flowers. But I had to wait four years till Bertles showed up with the means.”

  She turned to look at him again, tears beginning to run from the corners of her eyes. “An’ I had to hide my grief. Tolly died within the month, knowing how much I hated him. Bertles went as I would have wished, for the shingle in the cellar was his notion. Every strip of his skin that Trench removed was well earned. Temple died because he thought that I couldn’t resist his handsome uniform. He thought he was going to bed me at last, after months of effort. His sabre was just laying there, waiting to be used.”

  For the first time Harry noticed that her hands were covered in dried blood. Temple’s blood, which she hadn’t bothered to wash off. Then he looked at the date on the headstone, April 10th, 1790. There was a jarring note in the end of her story that he could not dismiss. For all Naomi’s strength and character, let alone her behaviour, he found it hard to see her committing murder in such a calculating fashion.

  “I cannot believe you waited for the very day?”

  His dissenting tone seemed to alarm her. Her reply was hurried and nervous. “I wanted one of them to expire on the right date. God knows, I’ve died every day.”

  “Why did you kill Temple, Naomi?” She sobbed and her shoulders slumped. Harry recalled the words of the exciseman who rushed in to tell Braine that Temple had been “skewered.” “He was naked when they found him. And he was in his bed.”

  The tears flowed copiously now and her eyes pleaded to be forgiven. “I thought I’d made amends, thought that you were safe. Gratifying him seemed a small enough price after the trouble I’d caused. But he laughed at me, Harry, afterwards, and told me that he had a cellar, just for you, waiting to be filled.”

  Her hand went out to the headstone and her fingers ran over the lettering.

  “CHARLES TAVERNER”

  BORN AUGUST 24TH 1762

  DIED BY FOUL MEANS

  APRIL 10TH 1790

  “I lost him. I couldn’t stand by and lose a friend the same way.”

  Harry stood up abruptly. Naomi could not have come and gone at the Hope and Anchor without being observed. There could be a hue and cry after her at this very moment. He searched his mind for a place to hide her and settled on his ship. Perhaps with good legal help he could get her off a capital charge. If not, then he would need to get her away to a safer place, perhaps the Americas. Time was pressing and he needed to move swiftly. But he had just one more question requiring an answer.

  “You said there were four men who buried Charlie Taverner alive. You’ve only mentioned three.”

  Her hand wiped her eyes, but the tears kept flowing as she looked at Harry in the gathering gloom.

  “Yes. There were four. Tolly Smith, Tobias Bertles, and Jahleel Temple. The other one was Cephas Quested.”

  “Who is now a witless fool.”

  “That won’t save him. After I stuck Temple, and dressed myself, I called for him. He came like a lamb, dribblin’ and grinnin’. Then I put the sword in his hand, Harry. Quested might go to hell for the wrong killing, but go he will. He’ll swing for sure, witless or not.”

  About the Author

  JACK LUDLOW is the pen-name of writer David Donachie, who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has always had an abiding interest in history: from the Roman Republic to medieval warfare as well as the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he has drawn on for his many historical adventure novels. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  allisonandbusby.com

  First published in 1991.

  This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2015.

  Copyright © 1991 by DAVID DONACHIE

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1917–4