by Clive Mullis
Cornwallis and Rose stared at Frankie for a moment because he’d hit the nail on the head; they were each trying to outdo the other in the guilt department, and in so doing were forgetting what they should in fact be doing. Cornwallis held up his hands. ‘You’re right, Frankie.’ He turned back to Rose and apologised. ‘I’m sorry, Rose, I know we both feel like shit about this, but feeling shit is not helping matters. It’s not our fault; the fault lies with the bastards who grabbed Isabella.’
From somewhere Rose found a smile, the first one since they had left the Jerkey Turkey late last night. ‘It’s all right, Jack, I think we’re all tired and worn out and our tempers are a bit frayed; that’s not really helping much.’
‘Good morning,’ trilled Mrs Gridlington, as she breezed into the office. ‘My, my. Look at you all, anyone would think that you’ve been up all night.’
Cornwallis snapped his head up and painted on a smile of welcome. ‘Good morning, Mrs Gridlington, I didn’t realise that was the time,’ he responded, checking his pocket watch. ‘We haven’t had a very successful night, I’m afraid, so are not looking our best. You’re a bit early aren’t you?’
‘Tch, tch. Never mind I’m sure. Yes, I am a little; I thought I’d pop in first to see if you need me to do anything. Mr Gridlington is a bit unwell this morning, but this being only my second day, you know, what would it look like if I didn’t turn up? I told him I’d pop back a little later, if that was all right with you?’
‘Unwell, you say?’ said Cornwallis.
Mrs Gridlington nodded.
‘Then I suggest you go home and look after him. There’s nothing here that can’t wait a day or two.’
Mrs Gridlington looked surprised. ‘Are you sure, Mr Cornwallis? It looks like you three could do with a little looking after, I’m sure he won’t mind.’
‘No, no. You go. We have a lot to think about, and to be frank, we would be better off thinking without you here. We don’t want to burden you with our little problems.’
‘Oh dear, you do sound very depressed. Incidentally, a gentleman handed me this letter to give to you as I came in.’ She fished out the letter from her pocket and handed it over.
Cornwallis took the letter and slid his fingernail down the edge; he pulled out the contents and then began to read. Suddenly all his weariness drained away and he sat up in attention. He read the note again and then handed it to Rose. ‘Who gave you this?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, a gentleman downstairs, but he’s gone now. He tapped me on the shoulder and said to give it to you. Is it important?’
‘Yes, Mrs Gridlington, it is. What did he look like?’
‘Oh, I didn’t really get to look at him. Just an average sort of man, I suppose.’
Cornwallis sighed as Rose gave Frankie the note to read.
‘You go and look after your husband. We’ll be all right here,’ said Cornwallis sombrely.
‘Well, if you insist. Toodle pip then, and thank you.’ Mrs Gridlington blessed them all with a smile and then departed.
When the door closed, Cornwallis reached for the note again. ‘Ten thousand dollars ransom they want. Gornstock Bridge, tonight.’
‘At least we know she’s still alive,’ said Rose, with a little relief. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Pretend to pay it of course, unless we find out where she is before then. We have all day to work it out.’ Cornwallis’ face took on a steely expression. ‘The bridge is the worst place for them for an exchange; we can seal off both ends.’
‘Bastards,’ exclaimed Frankie vehemently. ‘If they harm her, I’ll rip them apart with my bare hands.’
For the next few minutes, they went over all the possibilities and ramifications of the ransom demand. The act of receiving it had nudged them back into positive thinking and suggestions were coming thick and fast. They were so engrossed in contriving a workable action plan that nobody heard the scratching at the door, and it wasn’t until a howl like a banshee assaulted their senses that they realised that something out there wanted to get in.
Rose jumped up and flung the door back on its hinges to reveal Fluffy sitting outside. The cat regarded Rose with a look of utter contempt before standing up and striding in with his tail stuck up high in the air.
‘Well, look what the ca…’ began Frankie, before realising that the cat actually brought itself in.
Fluffy looked disdainfully at Frankie before turning his attention to Cornwallis. He jumped up on the desk and sat down with a superior look on his face. ‘Youse wondering where I got to, ain’t youse?’
‘I expect some back alley somewhere,’ replied Frankie with a sneer. ‘Hiding perhaps?’
‘That’s not fair, Frankie,’ replied Rose, regaining her chair. ‘You can hardly expect a cat to tackle a man with a knife.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Cornwallis calmly to Frankie, ‘Fluffy owes us nothing; he’s already been more than helpful.’
Fluffy lay down and purred. ‘I can be even more helpful now, if youse wants to know.’
‘Really? How?’
‘Because while youse lot were scrapping and running, I got on the coach.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Cornwallis, his head snapping up.
The cat had everybody’s attention now.
‘How?’ ‘Where did it go?’ ‘What happened to Isabella?’ The questions were suddenly pouring out of them, while Fluffy lay there cleaning his whiskers and enjoying the attention.
Fluffy explained what had happened and how someone decided to lock the cat flap, trapping him in the house, however, the wait was worth it, as he overheard that they planned to send Isabella overseas, where she would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Fluffy didn’t know when they were to do this, but he assumed it would be soon. In the meantime, they held her in the cellar at the house, but he couldn’t get in to see her as they kept the door locked. There were five men and a woman guarding her, and the woman screamed the place down when the men turned up with the wrong girl. She eventually recovered and decided to make as much money as she could out of the failure. It wasn’t until this morning that anyone in the house ventured outside, giving Fluffy the opportunity to escape. Rose had shown him the office when she brought him back the other day and again last night to meet up with MacGillicudy, but Fluffy still had to find it. It took a lot of going up blind alleys until he eventually came across somewhere he recognised and could make his way here. Of course, he didn’t relate everything to Cornwallis, as that would have given the game away about how they had all followed him last night.
‘That settles it then, the ransom note is a ruse,’ deducted Cornwallis, when Fluffy had finished. ‘They just sent it to buy some time. They don’t want us digging around and finding out where they are, which means they plan to move her on today. They’re hoping that we won’t do anything until after the deadline.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘But they are going to be wrong.’
‘And you think you can find this place again?’ asked Rose.
The cat grinned. ‘Of course I cans, what do youse take me for?’
‘In that case,’ said Cornwallis. ‘What are we waiting for?’
The cat’s information had galvanised them into action, renewing their energy straight away.
Cornwallis and Frankie made sure they were well armed, but Rose made do with just a small dagger. They would have to inform MacGillicudy as they might need a few more men to help storm the address. Fluffy described the layout of the house the best he could, adding that it had a communal stable and a yard out back. Cornwallis listened attentively, being thankful that because of the cat’s quick thinking they would soon be able to save Isabella. Anything else they might find out would be a bonus.
Fluffy led, and the three people followed frustratingly behind. The cat had eventually found them in Hupplemere Mews but he’d taken a lot of detours on the way; and by retracing his steps, he did the same, because he followed his scent trail. Fluffy had sprayed at virtually every street corner and
the cat now admitted that it began to get a little confusing, as his scent had got mixed up with all the other cats that had passed by.
‘We’s a getting closer now,’ Fluffy confirmed, as he sniffed at a particularly rank piece of boarding. He twitched his whiskers and headed off down a fetid alley. ‘Definitely came this way, recognise this bit.’
‘We’re going in circles,’ observed Frankie, his frustration increasing. ’This is a cut through back to Buryshaft Lane. We’ve already been down there.’
Rose was more understanding. ‘He’s got to go the way he came, it might take us a while, but he’ll get us there in the end.’
‘Yeah, but will the end be too late?’
Cornwallis set his face hard as they followed the cat; he kept his impatience more in check than Frankie did, but that didn’t stop his mind from screaming at the cat to hurry up. Then half way down the alley the cat stopped, his hackles rose and he went into stalking mode. Behind him, the three investigators stopped and waited for a moment; as Cornwallis opened his mouth to say something, Fluffy shot off beneath a railing and into an old building. Cornwallis, Rose and Frankie looked at each other; in the end, Rose ventured the question.
‘Do you think we’re there? This doesn’t look like the terrace house he described.’
Frankie shook his head slowly. ‘Why-oh-why are we following a bloody cat?’
‘Because the cat’s the only one who knows where they’re holding Isabella,’ replied Cornwallis, tight-lipped.
Fluffy crept out from under the railings looking as sheepish as a cat ever could. ‘Sorry, saw a mouse,’ he said by way of an excuse. ‘Difficult to stop the old urges youse knows.’
Frankie sighed. ‘Any more of that and I can assure you, I’ll find a way,’ and then he mimed wringing a neck.
‘No needs fer that, a cats gotta do what a cats gotta do,’ he said indignantly.
‘Let’s get going,’ interjected Cornwallis, seeing that the two of them could keep this up for hours. ‘Time is passing and we don’t need arguments.’
‘Not arguing,’ said Fluffy, huffily, before running to the end of the alley and taking a sniff.
Fortunately, there were no more cat excursions after mice or rats or any other edible small rodent, and the rest of the journey passed without incident.
Nearly an hour after they set off they came close to the House of the Assembly, and for the first time in an age they just waved to Frankie’s mum instead of taking a break and eating a free lunch. As they crossed the road, Fluffy seemed to be more confident in his location and now set out with a determination born of knowledge. He stopped sniffing the scent trail, and with his tail held high, he confidently walked down the Trand. They dodged all the people and traffic then turned into a side street, then another turn into a side street, and Cornwallis felt a sense of foreboding descend. If they turned left at the bottom of this street, it would confirm what had just gone through his mind.
They turned left.
Cornwallis swore to himself as they stood at the corner and looked over towards Havelock Crescent. Last night there had been no sign of anyone in the building, no lights, no nothing, just deathly quiet. They had been so close, but they hadn’t realised it, and here they were again. A brothel of all places; they should have realised that a brothel should have customers coming in and out of the place. Fluffy confirmed that they had been aiming here all along, and he indicated the house that held Isabella by running over and sitting outside. It confirmed it all.
‘We are definitely going to need some more bodies,’ decided Cornwallis, thinking the situation through. ‘We are going to have to be patient for a while longer.’
Frankie went for reinforcements while Cornwallis and Rose kept an eye on the place, hoping against hope that they weren’t too late. Rose stayed on the street corner watching the front of the house, while Cornwallis made his way to the back with the cat. He strained at the leash as he desperately wanted to go ahead himself and force a rescue, but with the probability of there being at least six of them inside, he reckoned his chances were remote. Better to wait just a little while longer and be certain of success.
Fluffy brought him around to the stables and showed him the back gate into the house, which appeared firmly shut; but whether locked or not, he couldn’t take the risk to find out. The stable block looked like a good vantage point as a little hayloft overlooked the yard. He pushed open the door and poked his head inside. The heads of five horses stared back at him from the neat row of stalls; they regarded him with interest to start with, but that soon wained, as if to say if you haven’t brought any titbits, then you can just sod off. Cornwallis ignored them and looked for the ladder to take him up to the hayloft. The horses snickered one by one as he walked past them with Fluffy; the cat looking up at them disdainfully as if to say you’re banged up, but I’m not. The horses looked back at Fluffy as if to say that if you came in here we might change our mind about being vegetarian.
Cornwallis came to where the ladder leant against the loft. The stable block was shaped like the letter “F”, and there in the first “-“ of the “F”, they found the battered coach from last night. He gave himself a wry grin, then climbed the ladder and kicked a path through the loose hay to the loft door. He knelt down to look through the slats, and found he had a good view of the houses opposite, being able to see over the wall and into the garden, where he could observe both the back door and the privy, and he could see who would use it. A technicality entered his mind, and he decided that it was a long drop, old technology but still useful; it just meant that some unfortunate servant would have to go down periodically and clean off the pebble dash. He had a much better one, up to date and inside the house too. It had a water cistern fed from the tank on the roof, and a u-bend just after the pan which stopped it from smelling. Strange what entered the mind when a long quiet wait beckoned, he thought. He sent Fluffy back to Rose to tell her he had found a good position, and then settled down to wait, hoping that Frankie wouldn’t be too long in bringing the reinforcements.
Rose found it a little more difficult to be inconspicuous, the street corner being not perhaps the best place to stand when observing a brothel. A few people passed by giving her curious glances, but her own imagination did the rest. Street corner. Brothel. Girl standing nonchalantly. How many of them know there’s a brothel here, she wondered? That would be the second time in a matter of days that someone had mistaken her for a lady of easy virtue. She decided to move around a bit, always keeping the house under observation. The park seemed a nice place to take a stroll, but would that be worse? Virtually all the other girls she has seen around this residential district wore long dresses, and most had a hat. She wore trousers and a jacket, which definitely placed her in the working fraternity, and as the trousers weren’t far off being of the painted on variety, her standing near a brothel might have indicated what work she did. So perhaps she could understand the looks she received. And, she continued thinking, if it wasn’t for her spurning Jack, then Isabella wouldn’t have been kidnapped, because Jack wouldn’t have gone to the Inn to see the ghost and hope to indulge in the afters. She still felt guilty, not only because Isabella had been kidnapped, but because after they had spoken for a while she found she actually liked her, and thought that they would be friends. Isabella had told her that one look from her, and how Jack had looked at her when they’d come in, was enough to know that whatever might have happened would definitely not happen now, and besides, she quite liked Frankie too.
She sighed, and Fluffy sighed. Rose looked down at the cat, who she had not noticed come back, and bent down to ruffle his neck.
‘He’s in the hay loft out back, he sent me to sees if youse is all right,’ purred Fluffy.
‘I am. It’s just a matter of waiting now.’
Cornwallis watched the door and the windows through the slats, hoping that they wouldn’t move just yet. He piled up some hay to make it more comfortable and settled back down. He cast his eyes al
ong the windows of all the houses and noticed that he could see inside relatively easily. Little dramas were being played out, and here he sat, watching it all. It reminded him of working on suspected adultery cases, but with more of an edge to it. A movement took his eye along the row and he could see a maid at the window polishing. He counted the hands and made it four. He screwed up his brow in thought and then watched as two of the hands began to wrap around her waist. She began to giggle, and part of him wished he’d bought one of those new-fangled seeing-up-close devices that had just come on the market in order to see better. He slapped his wrist and returned his attention back to where it should be. A curtain twitched in the upstairs window and he concentrated, trying hard to see who twitched it; but he just saw a shadow, so he put away the information that someone was up there. The back door flew open and a man hurried to the privy with a rolled up newspaper tucked under his arm. That looked like it could be a long one, he thought, hoping the seat was full of splinters. The back door opened again and this time two more men came out, but this time they went past the privy, but took the opportunity to bang on the door and laugh. They then headed for the back gate, opened it, and walked through; with a degree of concern, he then saw them come towards the stables.
He hunkered down low as they opened the big double doors, listening intently to hear what they were up to as they came in; they swore profusely and headed straight for the coach to drag it outside.
‘Haven’t long put the buggering thing away and she wants it bloody out again,’ says one of them.
‘Aye,’ agrees the other. ‘She’s never sodding happy. This should be the last time for a while though, gonna take her guest down to the docks to wait in the warehouse for the ship to come in.’
