Telegram Home

by Kirsten McKenzie

  Still a relative newcomer to the city, Meredith turned himself around more than once as he tried to find the mosque on Brougham Terrace. A terrible sacrilege to a fine English city Meredith thought. If he had his way none of the heathens would be in England.

  As Meredith rounded the corner, he staggered to a stop, his way obstructed by a crowd forming outside the ornate building. His jaw hung open. Were all these people desirous of converting to a different faith?

  The crowd surged forward, jostling Meredith and his heavy bag. Ahead of him the doors had opened to admit a dark-haired man. A man Meredith recognised in a heartbeat; Kurdi.

  Meredith let the crowd flow around him, his feet rooted to the spot as he struggled to decide a course of action. His first instinct was to barge into the building, but to what end? No, he needed more circumspection. He had time on his side, and the element of surprise. No one expected anything to happen at Christmas. Kurdi and Williams would expect to carry on with their nefarious smuggling activities with the upmost impunity. But they hadn’t countered on Clifford Meredith. He’d feed every thing they imported into the ravenous Queen’s Pipes — the giant chimneys used to destroy smuggled goods, then he’d see them hang for their crimes.

  ‘Going to hell, the lot of them,’ a voice said behind him, ‘although at least they’ll have full bellies.’

  Meredith turned to find a nondescript man, small and weedy, wrapped up in a giant overcoat, his hat pulled low over an acne-scarred face.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I know who you are, and why you’re here. Who you’re here to see. I’m right aren’t I? The name’s Noel Glynn. And you and I have got a lot in common, we have.’

  ‘You’re delusional, we’ve got nothing in common and I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Meredith spluttered.

  ‘Kurdi’s just gone into that building, and I bet you a badger’s tail that they’re not discussing Christmas pudding in there. He’s not alone inside—’

  ‘I’m not blind, I can very well see other people are in there with him,’ Meredith snapped, annoyed at the interruption to his quest.

  ‘Never said you were. But you’re barking up the wrong tree. Mark my words,’ the man said, tugging his scarf tighter around his skinny neck, ‘you should look at who he’s keeping company with. That’ll get you your job back.’

  ‘What do you know…’ Meredith started, but broke off, his mind racing in a hundred different directions. ‘How do you know this? Where’s your evidence?’

  ‘You shout me a pint somewhere warm, and we can talk more,’ the man offered, rubbing his hands together.

  Meredith snorted in disgust. The leech was conning him.

  ‘Clear off, I’m working.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you, Mister Meredith? They let you go. Showed you the door because of your obsession with Kurdi and Mister Williams. Word is you started the fire which burnt up that poor lad looking for a dry place to sleep. You don’t want to ignore my offer Mister Meredith, I’ve got my own reasons for sharing this information with you. Up to you whether you do anything with it. Come on, let’s go for that pint. Surely I’ve piqued your interest, eh?’

  With the crowd disbursing, Meredith realised he was an island of conspicuousness amidst an emptying street.

  ‘Be quick about it. But if you’re playing games, let me warn you it doesn’t pay to cross Clifford Meredith.’

  The men turned away from Liverpool’s first mosque and hurried against the icy wind towards the nearest tavern where the fire-warmed interior embraced them like a lover.

  Meredith reluctantly dumped a handful of coins on the counter and joined his companion with two handles of ale, the liquid spilling over as he slammed them onto the table.

  ‘Good cheers to you,’ Meredith’s newest confidant toasted, and he swallowed half his drink without pausing for breath.

  Meredith sipped his pint, no point in dulling his wits. He wanted this over and done with so he could return to Brougham Terrace before Kurdi left.

  ‘Right, Glynn, you’ve got your drink. You’re in a warm place. You’ve got what you wanted, so now it’s time to spill. What is it you wanted to tell me about Kurdi and Williams?’

  ‘Oh, nothing about Williams. He’s not involved in this—’

  ‘So you’ve wasted my time, and my coin.’

  ‘Hang on there. I only said it didn’t involve Mister Williams. I bet by now Mister Kurdi is sitting in a pile of his own shit, wondering where his paddle is,’ Noel Glynn said

  Meredith’s hands curled into fists, a vein pulsing in his temple, years of frustration threatening to boil over.

  ‘Stop speaking in riddles, man.’

  ‘Guns.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Guns, that’s what they want him to bring in. Guns for their holy war. And he’s not the only one they’ve asked, there are others. Some said yes, some said no, but those that said no aren’t celebrating Christmas this year, not when they’re buried six feet under. Another pint?’

  In a daze Meredith motioned for another round, his dwindling supply of coins exchanged for two more pints even though he’d hardly touched his first drink. He couldn’t wrap his head around the information. Guns? They’d give him a medal if he destroyed a gun smuggling network.

  ‘A holy war you say?’

  ‘Yip. Stole my sisters away too whilst they were at it. That killed my poor Ma. At least my father didn’t live to see the day his baby married one of them.’

  Revenge was the best motivator, as Meredith himself well knew.

  ‘Now I’m not saying that Quilliam knows anything about it. He’s one of the good ones, doing grand deeds for the poor. Hell, he even offered to take me in when my sisters turned tail. No, don’t you focus on him, but it’s his acquaintances ye see, they’re the ones who’re speaking to our mutual friend today. Asking Kurdi to make a fast decision. They like quick decisions — a yes or a no. And if he’s still alive come Boxing Day, then them guns aren’t far behind. Now that’s worth a pint, ain’t it?’

  Meredith stared into the ale, his watery reflection gazing back at him. He was imagining Queen Victoria herself pinning the medal to his jacket, and a promotion to Collector of Customs in London. Guns. He still couldn’t believe it. His ample stomach rumbled, the thrill of the chase generating a sudden hunger.

  ‘Lunch?’ Meredith asked, a fervent brightness to his eyes. The day was improving.

  Over lunch, they prepared a plan of action guaranteed to cause maximum disruption to the gun smugglers. Meredith suggested bringing in some support, but the protestations of his companion knocked that on the head. It was to be the two of them, dependent on which way Kurdi went.

  ‘When will you find out his decision?’ Meredith asked, trying to fathom the logistics. He’d never been very good at big picture thinking, preferring the rip, shit and bust approach to life. Using threats and intimidation to get what he wanted.

  ‘We have eyes and ears in his hotel. Since he’ll want his partner’s approval first, he’ll write. That’s how they operate, and how we’ll find out.’

  Meredith eyed his companion. As much as he was distasteful, Glynn knew more about Kurdi and Williams than he did.

  ‘Did your sister tell you about the guns?’

  The acne-scarred Glynn tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘It don’t matter how I found out. And my sisters are dead to me now, so you leave them out of it. They picked their side and God will punish them.’

  Meredith toyed with the remains of his lunch, his appetite not as ravenous as it had been, uncomfortable with the gaps in the man’s story. But the glorious vision of his lofty promotion stirred again, and he shrugged off the unease. England didn’t need more guns in circulation, especially if someone planned on using them against the Queen’s men. This was why they’d destroyed the established arms manufacturers in India. Didn’t pay to let your subjects arm themselves. He squared away his concerns, attacking his lamb shank with ren
ewed vigour. He fancied they were eating the last supper before retribution rained down upon the heads of the sinners among them. And nothing made him happier.

  ‘You’ll be in contact then, after you hear from your eyes at Kurdi’s hotel?’

  ‘I will. You sit tight in your rooms and wait for my word. Once we hear, you’ll know what to do.’

  Meredith lay his cutlery on his plate. This was the best Christmas ever. Either way, it’d ruin Williams and Kurdi. They’d either be dead, or locked away awaiting the imminent pleasure of death at the end of the hangman’s noose. He’d sleep well tonight.

  The Letter

  Samer struggled over his letter to Robert. It would take weeks to hear from Robert in any robust form. Potentially they could exchange telegrams, but that was akin to telling the world, and he needed to be more circumspect. He didn’t know if he could bring himself to become embroiled with the plans of the men from Brougham Terrace.

  Frustrated, Samer slammed his fist against the desk, sending the ink bottle toppling over. For the smallest of moments he watched the dark ink inch across the heavy wood, the whorls of the grain making the ink appear wavelike in its encroachment. With a sudden start he rushed to clean up the spill, mopping the tacky liquid with his handkerchief. Ruined, he threw it into the rubbish bin, where it joined several discarded drafts of his report to Robert. How did one compose a message asking another to agree to a deal which could be viewed as treasonous? The worst part was that he suspected Robert wouldn’t be against the idea. Profit came first.

  Samer sat with his back to the window, he didn’t want to see people carrying about their business when he had such a heavy load on his own shoulders. He allowed himself a moment to drift towards Sally Glynn. Discreet enquiries had established that the Glynn family were a reasonably large household, with Sally one of the younger siblings, he wondered if her conversion to the Muslim faith had caused any friction within the family. Their outing this afternoon would be interesting.

  ‘Damn it, Robert,’ Samer said to the room. With a flourish he signed off the latest draft of his letter, sealing it with a finality which felt all too significant. ‘Where to from here, Robert? Where to?’

  The Intercept

  In the morning light of Meredith’s rooms, the avalanche of blackheads on Noel Glynn’s bulbous nose did nothing to improve his looks — the protrusion out of proportion to the rest of him — fat and pudgy whereas everywhere else he was skinny, underfed. Meredith tried focussing his thoughts elsewhere, but with every word that came out from between Glynn’s non-existent lips drew Meredith’s eyes to Glynn’s nose.

  ‘Yer not listening to me,’ Glynn said.

  Meredith’s mind had wandered. The landlady had made another unwelcome appearance at his door that morning pestering him for his overdue rent, and it had taken every fibre in his body to stop shaking sense into her. He was the saviour of Britain, a modern day Crusader. The papers would proclaim him a hero and then how would she feel? Glynn clicked his filthy fingers in front of Meredith’s eyes, and his halcyon daydreams evaporated.

  ‘Yer not thinking of backing out now, Meredith? Are yer?’

  ‘Just running through the permutations,’ Meredith replied, taking perverse enjoyment from Glynn’s perplexed look — the man clearly lacked any formal education. It amused Meredith to use complex words with his underlings. Put them in their place.

  ‘Yeah, whatever. So… I have here in my hot little hand a copy of the letter our mutual friend sent to India—’

  ‘A draft isn’t evidence,’ Meredith retorted. It wasn’t good enough, he needed to catch Kurdi with the guns, although that would take time and time wasn’t an ally. He’d never been a canny saver, preferring to spend his discretionary income on his personal pursuits. So what he had left was running out making it imperative he got his job reinstated.

  ‘It’s enough when you read what it says.’

  Without his hat, scarf and the bulky overcoat, Noel Glynn looked like someone had tried inflating his nose with a bicycle pump, and as he talked, he wheezed, as if that air was trying its hardest to escape. And despite the seriousness of their conversation, Meredith giggled as Glynn blew his nose into a snot-encrusted handkerchief.

  ‘Yer think this is funny do you that they will use those guns on good people, who don’t deserve it. And it’s up to us to stop them, you and me, and show the world what they are monsters who steal away good women whilst planning to murder us all in our beds,’ Glynn said, eyes wide, spittle forming at the edges of his mouth. ‘We have to kill them before they kill us.’

  Meredith threw up his hands. ‘Arrest them you mean?’

  Glynn shook his head. ‘I said nothing about arresting anyone. They don’t deserve justice. That there is all the evidence you need to nab them at their next meeting; to take them by surprise. Then Sally will realise and come home where she should be.’

  ‘Sally?’

  ‘My sister, the one they stole away. But we’re not talking about Sally, we’re talking about the plan. Read the letter.’

  Meredith looked at the crumpled sheet of paper he hadn’t realised he was holding, the edges smudged with ink. All his life he’d obeyed the laws, enforced them. He’d never turned a blind eye or gone soft on an importer. The rules were the rules. The law was as black and white as the zebra he’d once seen at London Zoo. If you broke the law, you risked the consequences, which ranged from a fine, to imprisonment, and transportation to the colonies in the old days. That was justice. What Glynn want to do wasn’t justice, it was murder. It was against the law.

  ‘Read the letter,’ Glynn yelled.

  The paper remained crumpled in Meredith’s hand. If he opened it and read it, what would that mean? It meant he had in his possession evidence, evidence the relevant authorities should have, either Scotland Yard or Customs and Excise. And if he acted on it, what would that make him? Glynn wanted him to break the law. To do the very thing he’d been fighting for thirty years. Who was he fooling, there would be no medal from the Queen.

  He shoved the paper into his pocket.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m taking it to the authorities. Thank you for your help but—’

  ‘No, no, we’re going now, to sort them. To save my Sally.’ Glynn pleaded.

  ‘This isn’t about Sally—’

  ‘It is. We need her at home but they stole her—’

  ‘It’s about the guns, and so we’re handing it over to the authorities. I am not a vigilante,’ Meredith said, the words hollow on his tongue. He’d almost abandoned his moral compass to kill a man he hated with every fibre of his being, but that wasn’t who he was.

  ‘You said you’d take him down, you swore to me,’ Glynn screamed, his pale skin marred by a tide of red indignation flowing upwards from his neck.

  ‘And I will, through the courts,’ Meredith answered, still shocked at how close he’d been to breaking the law. Kurdi and Williams would face justice, but not at the hands of a madman with a pistol.

  Glynn glared at Meredith before turning tail and disappearing down the stairs of Meredith’s rooms, startling the landlady who’d been eavesdropping.

  Alone in his room, Meredith smoothed the sheet of paper, the smudged ink barely legible. If Kurdi’s letter was about the illegal shipment of guns, then he’d written it in code. From what Meredith could decipher it was more a plea to remove themselves from the opium trade, a brief discussion detailing future business opportunities and a final blurred paragraph, where he could only read every fifth or sixth word, including the words holy war.

  Meredith stood next to the meagre fire in his room; the landlady extra parsimonious with firewood since his ability to pay his board would soon cease. His hand wavered above the flames. There was nothing he wanted more than to destroy Williams and Kurdi, but not in the way Glynn suggested. Justice through the courts was the right course of action, and this letter wasn’t enough evidence for a constable to even question the men. It was nothing.


  Screwing into a ball, Meredith tossed it into the flames, the fire devouring the fresh fuel in a flash of light, before simmering down to an emaciated flickering.

  He would catch them, his way, one day soon. Glynn still had his part to play in assisting him. But they needed a new plan, one of Meredith’s own design.

  The Authorities

  Meredith rubbed his hands in front of the flames, confident he’d made the right choice. It was out of his control now. He could relax and reap the acclaim from unmasking a threat to the nation. Perhaps that medal would be his.

  ‘You sit tight, Meredith,’ the officer instructed, adjusting his hat and tweaking his leather gloves.

  ‘Eh? No way, I’m coming too,’ Meredith said, jumping up from his seat.

  ‘No civilians allowed.’

  ‘I am hardly a civilian.’

  ‘But you are now. If your information is correct, we’ll have the buggers by dinner time.’

  There was no point in arguing, the other men’s faces set in stone with sombre moustaches and hooded eyes, shifty hands holding wicked batons. Meredith decided it was better to let them get themselves shot than putting himself in harm’s way, and he returned to the fireplace.

  The policemen filed from the room. Head would roll today, including Kurdi’s if everything went to plan. It wasn’t only the heat which made Meredith rub his hands together.

  His ample stomach rumbling, Meredith waited until the sounds of action disappeared before rummaging through the Chief Inspector’s desk. Just as he thought, the requisite bottle of rum lay ready for him in the bottom drawer. People should learn to lock their drawers. You never knew who was about.

  Pouring himself a generous measure, he nursed his drink by the fire, loading another two logs into the grate, the sap spitting in the heat. Contentment was a wonderful thing. So was revenge. Oh how they’d fete him afterwards.

  A second tot of rum warmed him right through as he imagined what was happening at a nondescript warehouse near the port. He envisioned armed officers hammering down doors, surrounding bearded men unpacking crates of rifles and ammunition. He went as far as painting a picture of a gun fight, like on the frontiers of California. And what a glorious battle it was.