Blood & Sugar

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  The stable-yard was ringed with outbuildings and smelled of manure. A stone passage – wide enough for a carriage to pass through – gave access directly onto the Green. The black dog raised its head to watch me as I passed. I found Nathaniel in Zephyrus’s stall, brushing down his silver flanks. I gauged the lad at about seventeen years old. He was in his shirtsleeves, well built and muscular for his age. Zephyrus gave a whinny of recognition when he saw me, and Nathaniel glanced up and smiled.

  ‘Nathaniel Grimshaw? Captain Corsham. I’m staying at the inn.’

  He bowed. ‘My mother told me. Are you in town on business, sir?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. I was a friend of the man you found murdered at the dock. I am trying to find out more about what happened to him.’

  He regarded me warily with his soft green eyes. ‘Mr Valentine was a friend of yours, sir?’

  ‘Mr Archer was his real name. Yes, he was.’

  ‘He told me his name was Valentine.’ He seemed resentful.

  ‘I think he had good reason for wanting to keep his real name a secret. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about his time in Deptford?’

  ‘I already told Mr Child everything I know.’

  ‘I’d like to hear it from you. I’ll give you a shilling for your time.’

  That got his attention. ‘I’ll talk to you, sir. Got nothing to hide.’

  ‘Mr Child tells me that it was you who found his body?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He kept the brush moving as he talked. ‘I keep watch most nights over some warehouses at the Public Dock, patrol them every two hours between midnight and six. I was having a pipe after my four o’clock round when I saw him hanging there.’

  ‘You didn’t see anyone else?’

  ‘It was quiet. Some fishermen came later, but whoever killed him was long gone.’

  ‘It must have been quite an ordeal.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse.’ His voice was strained, and I could tell it was false bravado. ‘A lot of people in town think he had it coming.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Don’t know. No. Not really.’

  ‘Your mother said he had stayed at the inn before?’

  ‘Three times including the last. The first was about eight weeks ago. The second four or five weeks after that. He stayed for a few days each time. Except the last – that was only two nights.’ Nathaniel draped a blanket over Zephyrus and filled a trough with oats from a sack.

  ‘Do you remember when he was hurt? He had cracked ribs and a cut face.’

  ‘Aye, sir, that was the second time. Mr Child brought him back here and sent me to fetch Mr Brabazon.’

  ‘He was attacked down at the dock by a sailor named Frank Drake.’

  The wariness returned. ‘I don’t know nothing about that, sir.’

  ‘Do you know Drake?’

  His eyes slid away. ‘A little. He was a friend of my da’s. They crewed together.’ The boy frowned. ‘I just remembered something. Mr Archer asked me a lot of questions once. Wanted to know if I’d seen who’d left a letter for him here.’

  I noted the swift change of subject – I guessed Drake had that effect on people – but I decided to go along with it anyway.

  ‘Did you see who left this letter?’

  ‘No. Nor did ma.’

  ‘When was this? Which time?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘The second again – before he got hurt.’

  I wondered if it was one of the threatening letters – and if Drake had been its author.

  ‘Did Archer have any visitors? Can you remember where he went or who he saw?’

  ‘He was out a lot of the time. I don’t remember any visitors, except for Mr Brabazon and Mr Child.’

  ‘No women?’ I said, thinking again of Tad’s dark angel, and the lady in the black lace veil at his funeral.

  He gave me a curious glance. ‘No, sir. Once I saw him heading off east, Greenwich way. People say he was causing trouble with the Negroes in the Broadway, but I never saw it myself.’

  ‘Your mother said you run errands for people staying here at the inn. Did you run any for him?’

  ‘Got him a hot pie once. A bottle of gin.’ He smiled, his cheeks dimpling. ‘Anything you need, sir, you just come and find me. Either here, or after dark at the Garraway warehouse on the Public Dock.’

  ‘I may well do that. Right now, it’s the Private Dock I need to get to. Can you show me the way? There’s another shilling in it for you if you can.’

  I knew the way to the dock – you could hardly miss it – but Nathaniel was loosening up a little, and I was keen to cultivate our acquaintance. Living at the inn, he must hear a lot.

  His face brightened. ‘Just give me a moment, sir.’

  I waited while he closed up the stable and put on a blue coat with brass buttons. ‘Come on, Jago,’ he called. The dog came running as we walked out onto the Green.

  A man with a yellow parrot on his arm was standing outside the Noah’s Ark, taking coins from passers-by to make it talk. ‘God save the King,’ it squawked. ‘George Washington is a whoreson.’

  ‘I’d like a bird that talks,’ Nathaniel said. ‘I wonder where it’s from?’

  ‘The Americas, I should think. Perhaps Brazil.’

  ‘Da went to Brazil once. He fell in with some Portuguese who were an officer short in Elmina. In Rio they passed off a cargo of black gristle as prime African rump. Da’s share was nearly two hundred pounds.’

  ‘An enterprising man,’ I said, in as neutral a tone as I could muster.

  ‘Aye, sir, he was.’ Nathaniel’s voice caught on the words. I remembered Mrs Grimshaw’s widow’s weeds, and guessed his father had died recently.

  We were walking the same way I’d walked with Child the day before, following the high wall of the Private Dock. Weary fishermen and whores were trudging home after their night’s catch, while coal-heavers and stevedores were just embarking upon the day’s business. On the other side of the street, the taverns were already busy, and I wondered if they ever closed their doors.

  ‘Were you present when Mr Child cleared Archer’s room after the murder?’

  ‘I let them in, but Mr Child asked me to wait outside.’

  ‘Child wasn’t alone?’

  ‘He had Mayor Stokes’s Negro with him. The one who dresses like a swell.’

  ‘His secretary, Scipio?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The morning we found your friend. I took the body up to Brabazon’s on a cart I borrowed. When I came back to the Ark, Mr Child and the Negro was already there.’

  Stokes and Child had moved fast, I thought, for two men who were so ambivalent about finding the killer. I wondered if they’d been looking for something in particular? The same thing as the man who’d searched Tad’s rooms? The thing Tad came to Deptford to collect?

  Jago was sniffing around a chicken bone, and Nathaniel called him to heel. ‘Were you in America, Captain Corsham?’

  ‘For a time, until I broke my leg.’

  ‘My friend Danny’s got a broken leg. Brabazon says he might lose it.’

  ‘He told me. At least your friend is in good hands.’

  ‘Aye, sir, the best.’ There was an edge to his voice that surprised me. He kicked a stone and it spun along the street. ‘I’m going to be seeing the world myself, sir, before too long. Slaving, not soldiering. Got a place on my da’s old ship. An officer’s post.’

  I detected no great enthusiasm in his tone. Little wonder. I’d read that one in three slave ship sailors died at sea. It saddened me to think of this impressionable young man dragged down by slavery, becoming a brute like Frank Drake. ‘Child tells me jobs in the trade are hard to come by.’

  ‘Not if you know the right people,’ he said, with a bit more swagger.

  We walked a little further, him chattering away, and I steered the conversation back to our previous topic. I was wondering if Scipio would be willing to talk t
o me. I had discerned no great affection for his master on his part.

  ‘Tell me, is Scipio a slave?’

  ‘No, he’s free. There’s not many free Negroes in Deptford. They’re too afraid someone will slip a draught in their drink, and they’ll wake up in a slave-hold Atlantic-bound.’

  ‘Is Scipio not afraid?’

  ‘He works for the mayor. No one will touch him.’ Nathaniel frowned. ‘My da always said a nigger had no more business learning to read than old Jago here, but Mr Valentine – sorry, Mr Archer – he said blacks were as fitted to learn as you or I.’

  He was looking at me to see what I thought. ‘Mr Archer wasn’t wrong. I met a black gentleman only yesterday who had written a book.’

  He grinned. ‘Da would spin in his grave.’

  We had reached the gates of the Private Dock, and Nathaniel gestured to the guards. ‘They’ll touch you for some silver, sir, but don’t be bilked. No more than a shilling. Even that’s highway robbery.’

  I tossed him the coins I’d promised him, and he caught them deftly.

  ‘Remember, come find me at the inn, sir, if there’s anything else you need. Or come by the warehouse later after dark. It can be lonely work, keeping watch all night long. I like the company.’

  Pleased to have made an ally in Deptford, I said I might. He offered me a military salute and walked off whistling.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Private Dockyard contained perhaps a hundred warehouses, as well as wet and dry docks, slipways and repair yards. The roads between the warehouses were strangely quiet, and before too long I discovered the reason for it. I rounded a corner, following the gate guard’s directions, and saw a large crowd of working men gathered outside one of the warehouses, their attention fixed upon some spectacle. From the feverish expressions on their faces, and the flinching and wincing, I guessed it was a cockfight or a boxing match. I pushed my way through the crowd to discover that I was wrong.

  A half-naked man was pinned down over a barrel by two stevedores, his back a criss-cross of bloody stripes. A fourth man in his shirtsleeves stood behind them, holding a bullwhip. He flicked it into the air, and the crack as he brought it down reverberated around the wooden warehouses. A sickly miasma of blood rose into the air, and his victim spasmed and groaned.

  I asked the man nearest me what the fellow had done to merit such a punishment.

  ‘Who knows?’ The man’s jaw worked a wad of tobacco. ‘Blasphemed while he laboured. Diced on the Sabbath. Don’t take much to make you a sinner in John Monday’s eyes.’

  Monday was the merchant I sought, and I studied the man holding the whip with interest. He was about fifty years of age, I judged, tall and broad as a barn door. His shirt was plastered with sweat to his muscular torso. He wore no wig and his shaven head, baked a dark mahogany by years of exposure to foreign suns, shone with perspiration like a conker. He raised his arm, and the lash came down again.

  ‘Mercy,’ cried the man over the barrel.

  I could see no mercy in Monday’s deep-set eyes. The flogging seemed to last an age. Finally, he stood back panting, and threw the whip to one of the men who’d held his victim down. ‘Get him cleaned up.’

  The crowd murmured their disappointment at the curtailment of the spectacle and began to drift away. Some of them filed into the warehouse behind us. Monday took a towel from the top of a shipping crate and dried his hands.

  ‘Mr Monday?’ I stepped forward.

  He appraised me a moment, giving me the opportunity to look more fully upon his face. His brown skin was riven with cracks and crevices, like an old piece of wood much scoured by the elements. The two deepest lines framed an aquiline nose and nearly touched the corners of his taut, unsmiling mouth.

  ‘You have the advantage of me, sir.’ His voice held enough of the local dialect to suggest he was not a gentleman born.

  I handed him my card, introduced myself and bowed. Monday only waited for me to state my business.

  ‘I’m looking for a suitable venture in which to place an inheritance. Someone said you might be looking for investors.’

  I had decided to conceal my true purpose, not least because Tad’s connection to Monday and his company was so unclear. Despite Child’s belief that the killer wouldn’t implicate himself by using his master’s brand, I thought it possible that the man I sought was a member of Monday’s crew. Perhaps Frank Drake, perhaps another man. In London a gentleman might expect a merchant to assist him if one of his workers was suspected of a crime, but as Child was fond of reminding me, this wasn’t London. It had also occurred to me that Monday might be the slave merchant Tad stood accused of harassing. It was even possible he was involved in Tad’s murder himself.

  Monday examined my card. ‘War Office, eh? Serve any time in the Colonies?’

  ‘Several years, until I was injured at Saratoga.’

  ‘Then I’m glad to know you, Captain. War can be a wretched business, but a necessary one too. Much like slavery. How much are you looking to invest?’

  I plucked a substantial figure from the air. ‘A thousand pounds.’

  Monday threw the towel onto the shipping crate and retrieved a mustard-yellow coat and a silver periwig lying next to it. He put them on and extended a hand for me to shake.

  ‘I’m currently putting together a syndicate for my next voyage. Seven hundred would be enough to buy you in. I can tell you more about it, if you’d care to come inside.’

  I glanced at the barrel as we passed, brown with the flogged man’s blood. Monday seemed to sense my disapproval. ‘Our ways might seem a little coarse to you, Captain, but the man socked a pouch of tobacco from one of my crates. I won’t have anyone stealing from me or my investors.’

  Inside the warehouse it was cool and dark. Men clambered over stacks of shipping crates, or heaved them along the aisles. Others were attaching ropes and lifting them by means of hoists and pulleys into the eaves. The only light came from a row of small windows near the roof. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams like Danaë’s golden rain.

  ‘How much do you know about the Atlantic Trade, Captain Corsham?’

  ‘Only a little.’ Not quite true, but I wanted to find out more about his business.

  Monday led me down one of the aisles, calling to a man to fetch him a crowbar. I watched as he levered a crate open. Inside were bulging canvas sacks and Monday slit one open with a knife from his belt. He gestured me forward to inspect the contents. Glass beads. Thousands of them. At his invitation, I lifted a handful, letting the tiny coloured spheres slip through my fingers.

  ‘The Negro princes like them,’ Monday explained. ‘Five hundred beads buys one African prisoner. They like rum and tobacco too. Also guns. Give them guns and the slave tribes can capture more prisoners from rival tribes. Those tribes in turn, seeking to defend themselves, come looking to us for guns of their own. The only currency we accept is slaves, which is how we have spread the trade up and down the Guinea coast. It holds a pleasing symmetry, don’t you think?’

  I could think of other words for it, most of them unrepeatable, but I murmured a few polite sentiments nonetheless.

  ‘The next stage of the voyage is the Middle Passage across the Atlantic.’ We moved deeper into the warehouse. ‘Are you a religious man, sir?’

  ‘I try to be.’

  ‘Then be content that this investment is the Lord’s work. The blacks lead an immoral existence in Africa. They practise polygamy, in thrall to pagan gods. They have never known the solace of the Testament.’

  ‘You give them that solace?’

  ‘It is a privilege of my position. I have my captains hold prayers on deck after the Negroes have taken their exercise. They read to them from scripture and then they sing a psalm. Sometimes it takes a little while to warm them up, but they embrace the Lord eventually. Picture a sea of black faces, out there on the ocean, their eyes uplifted to the heavens. It is quite a sight.’

  I had already heard quite enough of The Gospel Accord
ing to John Monday. ‘In which parts of the Caribbean do you sell your slaves?’

  ‘We usually aim for Jamaica, sometimes the Windward Isles, sometimes Bermuda. There we exchange the slaves for goods destined for the European markets.’

  He ordered more crates opened and showed me samples of the various commodities to be found inside. ‘Bermudan tobacco. Jamaican coffee beans. Barbadian sugar – white gold. If you come up to my office, I can show you the expected returns.’

  I followed him up a flight of wooden stairs to a little room that overlooked the warehouse floor. It was furnished with a desk, a stove, a cabinet for files and two chairs. A large crucifix hung on the wall, next to a map of the Atlantic Ocean. Monday paused to plot the stages of the voyage on this map, drawing a triangle with his finger. ‘From Deptford to the slave coasts, the Middle Passage across the Atlantic, then home with a hold full of profit.’

  He retrieved some papers from the cabinet, and took them to his desk to show me.

  ‘Seven hundred pounds will buy you a ten per cent stake in my next voyage. The profit is hard to predict with any certainty, but my investors usually see returns of between twenty and twenty-five per cent, sometimes much more.’

  It was a very good rate of return – much better than that offered by any of my genuine investments. ‘Are the profits divided equally between the syndicate?’

  ‘Each of the seven members will see ten per cent. I take twenty, the captain five. The surgeon takes three per cent and the remaining two is divided between the other officers. Because they take a share of the profit, they have a greater interest in the success of the voyage.’

  ‘How many ships do you own?’

  ‘Five Guineamen, each commissioned for the African trade. Ordinary merchant vessels never compare. My ships are fitted out with racks to hold the slaves, which means we can fill the hold to maximum capacity. The racks are removable, so that when we reach the Caribbean, the hold can be filled as normal.’

  Even thinking about it made my skin crawl. ‘How many slaves do you intend to buy?’