Blood Will Out

by David Donachie

  Walking brings on more than unhappy recollection. Elisabeth yearned for someone to talk to, anyone precluding her brother or her Aunt Sarah. Her friend Annabel Colpoys would be a welcome companion right now, able perhaps to give some advice on the dilemma she had of being forcibly married, added to the need to keep it unconsummated so annulment remained possible. Even a benign sounding board would help, perhaps to formulate some plan.

  Annabel, initially disinclined to take her part, had in the end proved stalwart, in the way she’d passed on a message from Edward Brazier saying Elisabeth should be ready to depart at a moment’s notice. Yet now and above all, and it could hardly be thought odd, it was him she most wanted to share her immediate concerns with; that and their hopes for a shared future.

  It would not have served her, at present, to enter his fevered mind, for she figured not at all. In his currently troubled reveries, there was a lack of any structure to his imaginary wanderings, though all had some link to his life as lived so far: a cosseted child who became a callow midshipman, then a naval officer, rising through the ranks until he took command of his first ship. There had been several to follow, the last being the frigate HMS Diomede, which, when it entered his dreams, had aspects so troubling he more than once cried out loud.

  In the main his recollections were benign: maternal warmth and childhood scrapes, which morphed into the early acts of a new recruit to the King’s Navy, not least fights with faces familiar or strange. The captains and crews, with whom he’d served and associated, came and went in a jumble of mixed and outlandish images, the fancies of a man in a coma. Barely conscious, he had been fed soup while still lying face down, most of which had ended up on the cloth set to catch the dribbled spill. This too had lacked reality, given the person spooning it took on the aura of an ethereal creature, not human but a deep-voiced chimera, which soothed but could not kill off the pain racking his upper body.

  Freedom from such agony came from going under again, to a state closer to semi-consciousness, where he began to range across his boyhood, more idyllic in a dream than it could possibly be in reality: there were no disappointments, no cuts or bruises or foul weather which threatened to blow out the windows of the family home. Nor was there scolding for his escapades and misdemeanours, added to stern warnings telling him if he did not pay attention to his letters and numbers, his Latin and Greek, he would end up a beggar.

  Lucidity, when it came, and it did so frequently, brought more agony, which the man tending to him eased with tincture of laudanum from a bottle which had lain unused in the chest for years. It induced a deeper sleep as well as dreams of a more formed nature, vividly taking him back to the actions in which he fought off the Azores and the Cape of Good Hope. Then he was off the north coast of Ceylon, on a scorching day, a lieutenant preparing to go into a land battle with fleet marines, sepoys from the British East India Company, as well as a strong party of sailors who’d landed and hauled into position the ship’s cannon, to batter the walls of the Dutch forts of Trincomalee, in a bloody encounter in which his pistols would not fire and his sword, however hard he tried, would not swing.

  His Good Samaritan watched as smiles turned to frowns and back again, as the lips twitched, the mouth opening often in what appeared to be silent shouts, arms seeking to move and fists clenching, wondering what animated such expressions and brought forth the occasional groan. Then he saw the eyelids flicker, one eye opening first, the mouth forming the beginnings of a grimace of pain, one he could no longer do anything about: he had no more tincture with which to ease it, the bottle now empty.

  With care he raised the pad he had placed over the wound to look at the rough stitching, a red scar surrounded by dark-blue bruising, pleased to see no sign of putrescence. Fever notwithstanding, there was a high chance his charge would recover. He was on his knees already, so giving thanks to God came easily. Through one open eye and lying face down, Brazier struggled to make out his features. On his knees, hands clasped and lips moving silently, the man was so close he could feel his breath.

  It slowly dawned on him, even in what was limited light, he was looking at an elderly black man, skin wrinkled, hair white and tightly curled, rendering the fact of his race and age obvious. Sense, aided by the pain in his shoulder, began to intrude; if Edward Brazier had no idea where he was, it was clear he was alive.

  ‘Who are you?’ he croaked.

  ‘The man who found you, sir.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Down by the stream, which edges my property.’

  ‘What stream?’

  ‘Does it matter? Best think, sir, on how you came here with a musket ball in your back.’

  The recollection came slowly, of what had happened at Tulkington’s place: the shock of discovery, guns going off, he and his companions fleeing, the thud of impact as he was hit. There was vague recall of his argument with Dutchy and the others, followed by being thrown on to the back of a horse, one soon galloping, then nothing.

  ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘On a fine mare, and “here” is my smallholding.’ Brazier’s eyes closed again and it was clear from his expression he was feeling waves of pain. ‘You need to rest, sir, and hope God grants you a happy recovery.’

  ‘I must …’ faded to silence, as feeble as the attempt to raise himself up; the amount of pressure to stop the movement was minimal, so Brazier was soon back with his head on the feather-filled bolster, which muffled what came next.

  ‘There are things I must see to.’

  He passed out again, to the sound of a deep chuckle.

  By the time he arrived at his destination, Henry Tulkington was in a more sanguine frame of mind: matters with John Hawker would be resolved. The Freemason’s Lodge by which he alighted served as a meeting place for the Brotherhood as well as a social club, where local worthies could take their ease and ensure their businesses prospered, with the added need to keep those not so fortunate in some form of order, behaviour which did nothing to threaten their collective hold on the town.

  The mood was not diminished by the first person he encountered, if anything it was enhanced by the nature of their relationship. Tobias Sowerby was someone who relied on him, a fellow raised from paucity to prosperity by his association with the Tulkington family. Even better was the serious look with which he greeted Henry, taken as evidence a recent warning about his failure to cover certain losses had hit home. Sowerby had failed to fully compensate Henry for the loss of a cartload of tea, stolen by Dan Spafford.

  ‘Why, Tobias, you look concerned,’ Henry exulted, for it pleased him to twist the metaphorical knife. ‘There is no need, I do assure you. Our recent difference is quite forgotten.’

  Sowerby wanted to scream ‘Liar’, but it was essential to allow nothing of the sentiment to show. He knew it was not, just as he knew he was talking to a man who would and could see him reduced to penury if the fancy took him. It was he who owned the carting company contracted to transport the Cottington farm produce. More profitably, he moved the recently landed contraband from where it was stored to where it was to be sold, which involved despatching his horse-drawn vans to many parts of Kent, as well as filling a barge to carry smuggled goods up to London.

  He was well rewarded, indeed overly so for the activity, and now enjoyed a comfortable life. Yet he lived constantly with the fear common to those who start with nothing: namely, by some stroke of ill fortune, they will be returned to such an estate.

  The recent disagreement with Henry over recompense had brought home to him just how vulnerable he was, and it was an uncomfortable place to be. Also, as an accomplice in what was a seriously illegal activity, he had no option of retaliation.

  ‘I had hoped it would be so, Henry,’ he dissembled, ‘but, as of this moment, it’s not that which concerns me and I’m not alone. There could be trouble for the town on the horizon.’

  ‘You intrigue me.’

  ‘We have just been visited by the High Sheriff of Kent.’

&n
bsp; Henry shrugged. ‘What is a placeman like him doing hereabouts?’

  ‘Can you not guess?’

  ‘Please, Tobias,’ was delivered with a look of mild frustration, the voice a touch less friendly. ‘Do not trifle with me.’

  ‘He’s interested in the fire at Quebec House. More, it should be said, in the discovery of the body in the embers.’

  Sowerby related the details: how this High-Sheriff had failed to behave as had his predecessors, who would never have travelled all the way to the east coast, leaving it as a problem to be dealt with locally. The present incumbent had come to look into the matter himself, seemingly intent on doing so with some application, despite it being made plain, if not vocally explicit, his presence was not welcome.

  It was Henry’s turn to be guarded; it had been his idea to have Hawker work up a mob and force Brazier out, though no one was supposed to set fire to the place, just as no one was supposed to die. A thorough drubbing for him and his companions by a mob was the notion, which would serve as a final notice to desist in his pursuit of Elisabeth. The only shortcoming was it had failed in its object, leading inevitably to the mayhem of the previous night.

  ‘An accident, surely? The mob got carried away, I’m told.’

  ‘He sees it as foul murder, following on from a riot, one set in motion by persons unknown for purposes as yet undiscovered.’

  ‘Does he have any reason for such an assertion?’

  ‘He seems to think so, but granted us no details.’

  ‘Us?’

  Sowerby named those who’d been at the Three Kings, then, very elliptically, referred to what was at stake. If Sowerby was deeply involved in the business of smuggling, his fellow jurats and leading citizens were not much better placed. All happily and regularly purchased untaxed goods, some making good money selling them on to family and friends away from the coast. When it came to the trade itself, a judicious blind eye was the common attitude.

  Various excuses had been conjured up over many decades for such an approach, the primary one being it could not be stopped and, if such was the case, it was best to seek the kind of oversight which kept the most dangerous aspects under control, not least the violence that came from competition. This was not easy when every boatman on Deal beach could readily cross to France if the wind and weather were right, and they could find the purchase price of contraband, returning with brandy, tea, silks and the like for discreet local sale, the proceeds of which, in many cases, kept them from dearth.

  Too heavy a hand had led to disturbances in the past, with those standing out against the trade finding their homes threatened. Thus, legality was put aside in favour of security and it was no good the likes of Billy Pitt and the government in London railing against it; he and they didn’t have to live with the consequences. Nowadays, the only people at risk were those who advocated temperance and deplored drink and criminality from wherever it came.

  When one family, not without a degree of less than subtle brutality, began over time to consolidate their enterprise, it was seen as a corrective and an improvement, though small-time smuggling still went on. Their increasing domination cooled the endemic rivalry of the beach boatmen, as well as the bloodshed such uncontrolled activity encouraged; in short, they brought peace to replace the kind of disorder which put at risk those of means.

  ‘It would be unwise to have such a fellow poking about,’ Sowerby continued. ‘We discussed a notion afterwards. If he persists, we’ll have to find a culprit to hand over.’

  ‘Come, if he’s here it cannot be for long. He’ll soon get bored and go back to wherever he comes from to fiddle with his quill. Believe me, Tobias, I have heard of the kind of cully who fills such a post and they are, to a man, lazy and ineffectual.’

  ‘Not John Cottin.’ A pause to note the enquiring look. ‘That’s the name and he’s determined to question people who may know something. After we left him, he was spotted calling on Saoirse Riorden, which leads us to suspect he means to stay until he has the truth.’

  It was natural to then ask, ‘Anyone in mind?’

  ‘One of my carters tells me Dan Spafford was at the forefront of the mob, him and his gang of ne’er-do-wells. Fellow denies being there himself, of course, but that’s by the by. He’ll want for work if he talks to Cottin, but we could give up Spafford and I reckon it might be something you’d welcome.’

  ‘Why do you say so?’ was sharply delivered.

  ‘Will it not get him out of your hair?’

  Sowerby realised he had said the wrong thing as the face before him closed up in what he took to be anger. In truth, Henry was trying to contain himself, stopping the words which nearly came out unbidden. Spafford was not anywhere near his hair, he was a nobody to be swatted like an annoying fly. He was really more concerned by what he could not ask: if Tobias Sowerby thought Spafford was the leader of the mob, and it could be an opinion held by many, on what grounds had they come to think it so? Was there anything to suggest the truth, which was he had set the whole affair in motion?

  Sowerby spoke quickly, seeking to recover ground. ‘I just thought you might want to join us in reeling him in. The whole neighbourhood would surely be better off without him and his kind.’

  The difficulty this posed immediately surfaced. Spafford not only had a bullet in his gut, he knew it was his idea to force Brazier out, indeed it had been the price of he and his men originally being released from the slaughterhouse and any retribution, after his son Harry had fingered them as the original thieves of Henry’s cargo of tea. What would happen if he sang, always assuming he could live to do so, and not just about the riot?

  ‘Might it be an idea to put out feelers to find out where he is?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see how far this Cottin is prepared to go.’ Knowing he must return to the slaughterhouse, Henry stalled even more. ‘I doubt offering up Spafford would be a good notion, anyway, given the certain risk he would have of the rope. Who knows whom he might incriminate if we do.’

  The inference was obvious. Dan Spafford had to have knowledge of who shifted the Tulkington contraband and perhaps a lot more besides, maybe even where to, since he had known where to intercept and rob a load of tea.

  ‘I care not who we give Cottin, Henry. But if we want to see the back of him, I reckon we have to offer up someone.’

  ‘Best haul up a creature from the beach, there are enough villains there to fill a prison hulk, some of whom are known to rob their own. Then get a few people to swear to the guilt.’ It was a notion Sowerby was thinking on when Henry added, ‘Now if you will forgive me, Tobias, I have some important business to which I must attend.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Being a sensible woman, Saoirse Riorden made sure those who’d come to see her at such an ungodly hour were fed, time she used to dress properly and think through what she’d been told: that it beggared belief went without saying and this applied only to what they knew for fact. None seemed to have a clear idea of what had been the final outcome, except Harry Spafford had taken a ball between the eyes and was likely gone from this earth, which was no loss. As for the rest, it was mislaid in the fog of their own reaction.

  Plain as day was the evidence of Edward Brazier’s naivety, which surprised her: teaming up with a character like Dan Spafford showed terrible judgement. She recalled their first meeting, which certainly gave no indication of such folly, quite the reverse. His air of self-assurance generated more interest than the kind extended to the average newly introduced client, the man doing the introductory honours, Vincent Flaherty.

  If she had a soft spot for him it was based on a love of horses and riding, a shared background, added to a degree of amusement at his fecklessness, held to be a national trait with the Irish and one to which Vincent gave much credence. Allow him a guinea and he would spend it on wine − good-quality wine, it had to be said, for he was no drunk, which was even more foolish on an endemically constrained purse.

  It was telling how little presence he
r fellow Irishman had compared to Brazier, though there was, of course, a marked difference in height and build: the one was tall and imposing, whereas Vincent had the build of the ex-jockey he had been. Yet there was more. Those attached to the Navy Yard were frequent visitors to the Old Playhouse, but somehow he seemed dissimilar, with his saturnine, captivating countenance, added to a sardonic smile utterly lacking in any kind of condescension, and an ability to command the space around him.

  Dismiss it she might, and she had, but Saoirse had found him arresting, as much for the way he contained the same feeling in regard to her. Attraction had been evident in his eyes, but without − which was unusual − him seeking to take it further. In this regard the contrast with Vincent was doubly striking, often so eager to impress her he engendered more sympathy than the kind of feelings he sought.

  Many of those who frequented the Old Playhouse, those who made their wants plain, might see her as a woman devoid of emotion, but this was far from the truth. It was the well-honed carapace of protection an attractive woman required to stave off untoward advances, something to which she was bound to be subjected when running a place of entertainment. Men took it for granted a lady in her position was in need of their company, even a degree of protection; Saoirse went out of her way to make it plain she required no such thing.

  Tending to Brazier following the beating he’d suffered, not yards from her front doorway, also had an effect, though she saw it as no more than what would be granted to one who’d quickly become a friend. Some people, if and when they heard the tale of her taking him in, would suspect much more. Had not Dutchy Holland hinted at the possibility of such a deeper connection in her hallway not minutes past? Saoirse would decline to argue it was not the case; there was no point in pitting truth against rumour.

  ‘My hair now, Dottie, if you please.’

  Her maid came forward with the brush, to run it through the long auburn tresses, the act doing nothing to dismiss the feeling Saoirse had, given the way matters had turned out, this being somehow she was responsible for the trouble he’d brought down on his head. By being open with Brazier about the stories surrounding Henry Tulkington, and they could be no more than opinions lacking hard evidence, she might have set much in motion which would have been best avoided.