The men in the bar turned back to their drinks. Panic rose up in Josie. ‘I have to find the children before Ma Tugman harms them,’ she shouted, but no one answered.
The landlord leant across the bar. ‘This ain’t the place for you, Miss.’ He looked over her head at Gus. ‘Why don’t you take her home and if Pat drops by I’ll tell him you were looking for him.’
A rapid fluttering rose up in Josie’s chest and threatened to swamp her. ‘No you don’t understa—’
The bar door burst open. The men in the bar turned.
Iggy Bonny staggered in, clutching his chest. ‘Pat’s been arrested.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
With the damp from the wall at his back seeping through his jacket, Patrick watched as the morning light filtered through the high window of the police cell. He shifted his position and rubbed his wrists under the iron shackles he’d been bolted into the day before. All around him, men in dirty clothes slumped against walls or curled up on the stone floor oblivious of the stream of stale water and urine that trickled down to the drainage channel. Patrick guessed that the cell was below the level of the nearby Thames as the musky, chilly air mingled with the pungent smell of unwashed bodies.
He’d been too stunned to argue as the three officers dragged him from the Mermaid and marched him through the streets of Westminster. His mind had focused on only one thing - his children. Thankfully, he’d regained his wits by the time he stood in front of the duty officer, who had read the charges to him. It was then that he’d managed to convince them that Iggy had nothing to do with it and tell them of his involvement with Superintendent Jackson. They had looked dubious but dispatched an officer to Arbour Square nonetheless.
Although bone weary he hadn’t slept a wink. Annie and Mickey had been in Ma’s clutches for a day now and anything could have happened to them. Fury surged up in him but he shoved it aside again. He’d spent the last ten hours calling himself all kinds of a fool for not realising that Ma wouldn’t just want him dead because of Charlie, she’d wanted him to suffer and she’d succeeded.
Then there was Josie. She’d be frantic by now too, and God only knows how she’d be when she heard he was taken.
The bundles of rags snoring all around him began to rouse themselves.
The barred door opened and a warden wearing a dishevelled jacket and an indifferent expression entered, with a pot in one hand and half a dozen dingy plates in the other. The old hands alongside Patrick shuffled over, but he remained where he was. He might be starving but he still didn’t think he could keep down the grey gruel being slopped on the plates.
The groans of the night gave way to the slurp of men eating. The day staff eventually entered and threw the drunks who weren’t worth dragging into court back onto the streets. Then the warden returned, accompanied this time by three police officers one of whom unlocked the barred door.
Patrick and the other men formed themselves into a single line and marched up the stairs to the daylight. Across the road a small crowd watched with mild interest as they stepped into the back of a closed wagon for the two miles to Anne’s Gate Magistrate’s court.
He was shoved into a tall waiting room with cream-tiled walls. There were a dozen or so men from other police stations already there, so he was thankful that the court started almost immediately. The pickpockets and beggars were taken up first, presumably because they could be dealt with quickly and dispatched on to the various correction houses. Finally, he heard his name called, so he picked up the chains joining his wrist and feet shackles and made his way between two prison officers into the court.
The steps took him straight up into the dock opposite the magistrate. He glanced around and his gaze shot to the public gallery. Josie stood gripping the metal railings, her knuckles white. Behind her stood his mother, two sisters, Gus, Iggy and two of the boatmen from the Town of Ramsgate. All of them stared across at him, but Josie alone held his attention.
All the guilt and self loathing he’d managed to keep at bay during the long night in the cell surged back. She was wearing her best dress covered with her paisley shawl, and her bonnet was secured with its usual side bow. Compared to the other women in the gallery she looked like a duchess.
Judging by the dark shadows under her eyes, she’d probably had as little sleep as he had. She gave him a small encouraging smile which tore Patrick’s heart wide open.
The clerk of the court stood up and the noise in the courtroom ceased. All eyes turned to the high bench where the magistrate sat.
The magistrate shook out his black gown and peered around. Satisfied that he had everyone’s attention, he examined the charge sheet over his half-rimmed spectacles then looked back at Patrick.
‘You are Patrick Michael Nolan of number twenty Walburgh Street, Wapping?’ he asked, with just a trace of a London twang.
‘I am,’ Patrick replied.
‘You are charged that on the twenty-fifth of August you were in possession of stolen goods to the value of two hundred pounds - the property of Sir William Pettit of Bedford’s Park, Havering. How do you plead?’
‘Not guilty,’ replied Patrick.
The magistrate looked up at him from under an oversized wig. ‘It will not do you any good to waste the court’s time.’
‘Not guilty,’ Patrick repeated.
‘Have it your own way,’ the magistrate answered. ‘The evidence if you please, officer.’
The police officer who had discovered the silver plate took the witness stand. ‘I am Constable Grant and, acting on information received, I and Constables . . .’
Information received. He knew it!
He glanced over at Josie. Even with the iron rings dragging on his wrists and ankles he felt her love surround him like a warm blanket.
Constable Grant came to the end of his evidence and the magistrate shuffled the documents, sniffed over the paper for a moment and then looked back again to Patrick.
‘The evidence in this case seems very clear to me, but I suppose I must ask you if you have some explanation for being found in possession of Sir William’s family silver. What have you to say?’ He jabbed his finger at Patrick. ‘I’ve seen your type in court before so I don’t want to hear any of your cock and bull stories. I don’t look kindly on people wasting my time.’
Patrick drew himself up and looked him in the eye. ‘Mrs Tugman organises and oversees all of the criminal activity in the London Docks and has tried to force the honest rivermen who earn their living ferrying goods along the Thames to take her stolen goods on their ships. I refuse to do this and, two weeks ago, I went to speak to Superintendent Jackson of H-division with a plan to trap her. He agreed, and the arrangement was that I inform him of when the trap was ready to spring. Which I did last night.’
The magistrate leaned forward. ‘Are you telling me that you are a police informer?’ he asked.
A low muttering started in the court. Patrick took a deep breath. ‘I am an honest man who tried to help the police put a criminal gang behind bars. I sent word to Superintendent Jackson,’ Patrick said in as even a voice as he could manage. ‘Unfortunately, he was not on duty that night but I told Sergeant Plant all the details so that he could put his men into action.’
The magistrate sniffed and turned to the prosecuting officer in the witness box.
‘We sent a constable to speak to Superintendent Jackson but he has gone to Northampton to assist the chief constable there with a murder inquiry. The constable, however, spoke to Sergeant Plant, who said he has no knowledge of last night’s events,’ Constable Grant said.
No knowledge!
Patrick looked across to Josie. Her face was ashen. He gripped the railing around the top of the dock and his chains jingled. ‘Plant’s lying! I told him everything.’
The magistrate pounded the gavel. ‘Don’t compound your offence by besmirching one of Her Majesty’s constables. I will not have it, do you hear?’
‘Plant’s a liar and in Ma’s pocket, I shouldn
’t wonder. I told him. It was as we planned. He even wrote it in his pocketbook.’
The magistrate stacked the papers together and handed them to the clerk. He banged the gavel again. ‘Patrick Michael Nolan, you are remanded in custody to appear at the Central Criminal Court for trial,’ he said, without even glancing up at Patrick.
Anger exploded in Patrick’s head, blotting out all coherent thought. The gavel banged again somewhere but was almost drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears.
Annie and Mickey! Sweet Mary, he had to find them!
Ma’s words about what she planned for his children flooded back into his mind and cut off his breath. Mickey sold and brutalised and Annie’s innocence torn from her.
Patrick threw off the two men holding him. They stumbled as Patrick tried to scale the dock but his chains held his hands together and stopped him raising his legs. He kicked the board and something cracked. The two wardens caught him again and one hit him across the shoulders with his stick. Patrick barely felt it as the pain in his heart overruled everything.
‘Patrick!’
The voice calling his name wrapped around his heart and steadied it. Patrick looked across.
Josie had pushed her way to the end of the gallery nearest to him and was stretching her hand out to him over the railing.
His mind calmed and his breath began to steady. Heaving his chains up and almost welcoming the pain as they cut into his skin he too reached out but was pushed back.
‘I’ll find them, Patrick,’ she shouted above the clamour of the court room. ‘I promise I’ll find them.’
‘Josie.’ He stretched for her again and the warden smashed the stick across his shoulders. Patrick sunk to the floor.
‘I love you, Patrick,’ she called, as a grey fog clouded his mind. ‘And I will find them,’ were the last words he heard as blackness closed around him.
Ma sat in her usual chair in the bar surveying her domain with a benevolent eye and a rare, unrestrained smile.
Although Harry had said he’d stashed the silver out of sight on the Mermaid, she couldn’t rely on him pointing his prick downwards when he pissed so there was always the chance that Patrick might have found it and rumbled her game. She also fretted that, despite Plant’s evidence, Patrick might still be able to convince the judge of his story, especially if Jackson started poking his nose in. But fortune had smiled on her when the bastard superintendent was called away up north. Without Jackson to back his story Patrick would go down like a cannon ball in water when he came up at the Bailey.
She swallowed the remains of her drink and turned to Charlie, propped up in his cushions in the chair beside her.
‘Are you all right my love?’ she asked in a sing-songy voice as she moved a lank strand of hair out of his eyes.
Charlie grunted something that she couldn’t understand. ‘Good,’ she said, and patted his arm.
A laugh boomed across the room and Ma turned her attention to Harry, dressed in his flamboyant best at the other end of the bar. He was leaning on the counter with his arm around Lucy. She giggled as she pressed her body into his, her faded dress showing the curves of her slender body. Her cheeks glowed red in the lamplight and her eyes already had a glazed appearance as she smiled up at the man beside her. She had clearly taken advantage of the free booze.
The men in the bar were throwing drinks down their throats as if Judgment Day was about to dawn. Ollie Mac dragged himself up from his seat and swayed dangerously across the floor. He took hold of the squat barrel on the counter and thrust his glass under the spout. He tipped the keg forward but nothing came out so he threw it sideways. The empty barrel bounced onto the floor with a hollow sound.
He swung his arm out and nearly lost his balance. ‘You load of bastards,’ he bellowed at no one in particular. ‘You’ve drunk the lot.’
A couple of other men lurched across to investigate and one tripped on an uneven floorboard, colliding with Ollie. He shoved him back, sending him reeling onto a spindle-legged table and spilling the drinks set there.
Chairs scraped on the wooden floor as others stood to join in the fray, but Ma banged her glass on the table in front of her and the noise stopped instantly.
‘I suppose if I don’t want you breaking up the place you’d better tap the other barrel,’ she chuckled.
A cheer went up and those squaring up to each other forgot their differences and turned back to their drinks. Ma regarded the brutes attacking the second barrel with a maternal eye, reflecting that they were good boys really, they just needed keeping in line. Now, with Nolan gone, she thought, life would settle back to its natural order and the bog-trotting Micks could crawl back under their stones again.
A happy glow settled over her. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so cheerful - Probably when she’d watched her husband Harry’s coffin being lowered, if the truth were told. A smirk spread across her lined face as she thought how Patrick Nolan tried to pit himself against her. Bloody nerve of it. She, Ma Tugman, who took over when Harry had croaked, and who saw off the Poplar crew when they thought to muscle in.
She chuckled to herself again as the tap was hammered into the next barrel. She might be getting on a bit but she could still outwit better than Nolan in her sleep. If he’d had half the sense she was born with he’d have realised she would have him the moment he thumped Charlie over the head.
Harry raised his glass and swung it around his head sprinkling brandy on those nearest to him. ‘Here’s to you, Ma,’ he shouted, sliding along the bar towards her and bringing Lucy with him. ‘No Paddy bastard could get the better of my ma.’
There was a roar of agreement.
Ma beckoned to Ollie. ‘Come and tell me again what happened in court.’
Harry’s right hand man stood up and swept his gaze around the room. ‘I sat at the back of the flea pit, keeping meself to meself, but wiv me eyes sharp. First I saw Nolan’s women come into the court with his brother and that darkie who works with him.’
‘What did she look like?’ Ma asked, relishing the thought of Josie O’Casey pressed into the public gallery alongside Whitechapel’s pimps and trollops.
A grin spread across Ollie’s face. ‘Bad. Eyes like coal holes and a face like a sheet.’
Ma would liked to have seen that but, instead, she pictured Patrick, not proud and defiant as he was at his sister’s wedding, but filthy and lice-ridden held between two prison officers.
Charlie gave a choking laugh. Ma turned to him. ‘See? I told you I would take care of him for you.’
He snorted and a stream of snot slid out of his left nostril. He wiped it on the cuff of his good arm.
Ollie continued. ‘’E was a flash one and no mistake. He stood there as bold as brass and told the world his plan to double deal you.’
‘Fecking cheek of it!’ someone shouted.
A crafty smile spread across Harry’s face. ‘But it didn’t do him no good, did it?’
‘No it didn’t.’ Ma slapped her thigh, the joy of her victory bursting out of her. ‘Tell me again what happened when the magistrate sent Nolan down. I want every last bit, mind.’
‘You should have seen ’is face! Like a mad animal it was. He would have jumped right over the rail too, if the chains hadn’t held him back. Still, he kicked the box so hard he dislodged the wood. It took the wardens beating him - with blows that would break another man’s back - to stop him.’
Ma leant forward. ‘And what about ’er? Tell me what she did.’
Ollie’s grinned widened. ‘It was just like one of them plays at the hippodrome. He’s being dragged away, like, and she’s calling out, “I’ll find them, Patrick, I promise. I’ll find them,”’ Ollie warbled in a falsetto voice, his arms outstretched and a simpering expression spread across his craggy features.
Tears of laughter gathered in Ma’s eyes. She would have given half the stash in Burr Street to have seen that.
‘Well, she won’t have to find ’em now, will she?’ a small v
oice slurred. ‘Not now Nolan’s ba . . . ba . . . banged up and away.’
The men in the bar, who only a few moments before had been rolling around in high spirits, were suddenly quiet.
Ma’s eyes fastened on Lucy. ‘What?’
Lucy blinked and screwed her thin face into a puzzled expression. ‘I ssssaid . . . the O’Casey woman won’t ’ave to find Nolan’s kids ’cause you’ll let ’em go now.’
Ma heaved herself up from the chair and waddled over to the girl. The drink had made Lucy forget herself but, even so, she’d noticed that since Harry had taken up with her the slut had become less biddable.
Typical, she thought studying the girl coolly. Harry never could keep his women in order.
A Glimpse at Happiness Page 31