The Darkest Walk of Crime

by Malcolm Archibald

  “Did you never wonder about my scarred face? That was just one flick of the cat’s tail. The rest you have seen; now you know why I have no cause to favour the authorities. If Ogden had his way, we would all be sent back to Port Arthur.” Supremely uncaring of his nudity, he stared at Scott. “Women are treated no better.”

  “I think you have made an excellent point,” Scott said. Stepping forward, she lifted Armstrong’s clothes from the ground and handed them to him, holding his eyes. “Perhaps you had better get dressed; it is cold in here.”

  She watched over him as he gently eased his shirt and jacket over his warped body.

  “And now, Mr Mendick, perhaps you had better take a seat?” Although Scott’s voice still held the grittiness of the mill, her eyes seemed more troubled. “You have seen both sides of us today. You have seen the fraternity of the Charter and the steps we sometimes have to take to achieve our aims. You have also seen . . .” she indicated Armstrong, “why we must take these steps.”

  The words hung in the air for a few seconds, and Mendick wondered if Scott was attempting to justify the murder of Ogden. She was watching him, her head cocked on one side and her eyes mobile, until he turned away.

  “Drink?” Monaghan posed the word as a question but did not wait for a refusal as he produced a decanter from the cupboard that sat against the far wall. “These factory owners lived in fine style, Mr Mendick, and it seems a waste to neglect their luxuries.”

  “Indeed.” Mendick wondered how Ogden had died. Had Peter beaten him to death, or simply broken his neck? The memory of that final scream lingered.

  The brandy splashed into crystal balloons, swirling in an amber invitation he knew was dangerous to accept. He put out his hand, suddenly desperate for the comfort of alcohol after the sordid murder of his comrade, but determined to only sip the contents.

  “You’ll be wondering what sort of people we are,” Monaghan said calmly, “but we’re not monsters, I assure you. Mr Armstrong has very effectively shown you the price of failure; many of our comrades were transported to Van Diemen’s Land back in '42; most remain there. Others were shot or imprisoned in this country. That’s what we’re up against, but you already know that.” He drank deeply of his brandy, waiting for Mendick to join him.

  “That spy knew of you,” Scott leaned closer. “He knew you had tried to incite a Chartist mutiny.”

  Mendick blessed Ogden’s presence of mind; even when facing a horrible death, the Lancashire policeman had remembered the detail from their brief discussion across the kitchen table.

  “It was nothing,” he said, truthfully, “an exaggeration.”

  “I’m sure it was no exaggeration.” Leaving her seat, Scott allowed her hand to drift over his shoulder. “I think that there’s more to you than meets the eye. You are a soldier and a Chartist, a man who is not afraid to act alone, yet a man who faithfully follows orders, a man with enough Christian humanity to plead for the life of a sworn enemy . . . you are an interesting man.”

  Mendick shrugged. “Not really.”

  A swallow of brandy fortified him, the smooth spirit warming him against the malignant chill that emanated from these people. They had calmly and brutally murdered an officer of the law and were now speaking as if nothing untoward had happened. He took another drink, closing his eyes in remembered pleasure.

  “Oh, I think you are,” Scott said softly.

  Monaghan finished his brandy with a quick jerk of his head. “Like the rest of us, Miss Scott, Mr Mendick is only one individual fighting to restrain the excesses of the Whigs and to bring work for all through reforms to the electoral systems.” Monaghan shook his head as if bewildered that the authorities did not immediately accede to the demands of the Chartists. “Is that too much to ask? To improve the lot of the people?”

  “Revolutions are never easy.” Scott barely sipped at her brandy. Her voice had softened in conjunction with her eyes which never strayed from Mendick’s face.

  By now the alcohol had entered his bloodstream, relaxing him so he leaned back on his chair, stretching out his legs as Monaghan smiled at him over the rim of his glass.

  “As Miss Scott says, Mr Mendick; you are an interesting man. I believe that we can trust you.” As he leaned closer, the amiability hardened into something vicious. “Indeed I think we have to trust each other now, for you are deeply involved. You have knowingly trained men for a revolution, which is treason, and have participated in the death of a police officer, which is murder.”

  “I understand that, but you have no need to distrust me. I am as dedicated to the Charter as you are.” Even a single glass of brandy had made Mendick loquacious.

  “Aye?” Armstrong raised his skeletal face. “You were the Queen’s man once, and still you fomented mutiny.”

  “And in doing so, proved his loyalty to our cause,” Scott’s eyes still washed over Mendick.

  “Even so,” Monaghan mused, “even so.” He looked up. “You’ve done a good job so far; I feel sure that you will continue. I would not be pleased if you were to revert to any earlier loyalties.”

  “I assure you, Mr Monaghan, I only have one loyalty,’” Mendick told him.

  Reaching for the decanter, Monaghan refilled Mendick’s glass. “Let’s hope that it’s the right one, shall we?”

  The second brandy was even more warming than the first, and Mendick felt himself mellowing, although the image of Ogden being dragged to his death was horribly imprinted on his mind.

  “It will be.” Scott was smiling at him, and then she shook her head. “Oh, how I hate all this formality. We have already dispensed with titles and ranks, so we should not need such things as misters and misses. Mr Mendick, if you permit me, I will call you by your given name, which is?”

  “James.” With two glasses of brandy inside him, he found it easy to return her smile. “And may I call you Rachel?”

  “I would be offended if you did not!” She gave that strange, whooping laugh that he remembered from Trafford Hall.

  Mendick allowed Monaghan to refill his glass once more. By now the brandy was an old friend, warming him as it removed his reserve.

  “Then Rachel it is, and Josiah?” He raised his glass to Armstrong, who nodded coldly.

  “Mr Armstrong will do nicely; as will Mr Monaghan.”

  “I see.” Mendick shrugged; he knew that brandy affected his judgement, but it seemed that only Rachel was friendly here, and he smiled to her again.

  Monaghan was examining him as if he was some strange creature dropped from the heavens.

  “Are you certain that you were a soldier, Mr Mendick?”

  “Of course!” He lurched to his feet, holding the brandy glass as if it were a weapon. He glared at Monaghan. “What sort of damn-fool question is that?”

  Monaghan smiled slowly, lifting a placatory hand. “Now, now, there’s no need for that attitude. My point is that you’re the first soldier I’ve met who can’t handle a mere three glasses of spirits.”

  “Handle three glasses?” Reaching for the decanter, Mendick filled his glass to the brim, spilling brandy on to the desk. “I can handle a hell of a lot more than three.”

  “No, no.” Scott laid a soft hand on his arm. “I do not think you are a drinking man, James.”

  When Scott leaned closer her face seemed to metamorphose into somebody entirely different until Mendick imagined that his wife sat next to him, with that serene smile hiding her mischievous nature and her husky laugh ready to tease him to distraction.

  “I am all of that,” he said, but he did not object when she gently removed the glass from his hand and replaced it on the desk.

  “Come on.” She was shaking her head, a sister chiding her wayward brother, a mother her son. “You’re in no state to travel, James. We’ll bed you down here for the night.” Her touch was so gentle that he could not resist as she guided him into a small anteroom, where a splendid red coverlet lay atop a single bed.

  “Sleep tight.”

 
As Scott helped him remove his outer clothing, Mendick allowed the brandy to drift him away to a place where Ogden’s screams resounded through his mind and Emma was standing in the shadows, shaking her head disapprovingly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lancashire: March 1848

  “Have you heard the news?” Armstrong eased himself out of the coach even before it halted. “It’s revolution, red, raging revolution.”

  “What? Is the Queen still on her throne? When did it start?” Mendick stared at him, suddenly feeling very sick. He had been training his men in volley shooting, extolling the stopping power of the Brown Bess musket while his mind raced over the mysteries that he had yet to unravel. The arrival of Armstrong’s coach upset his entire parade; the volunteers were crowding around listening to the news and raising undisciplined cheers. He looked around, contemplating the chilling prospect of his men facing the rolling volleys of regular British infantry.

  “Not over here but on the Continent – Naples, Palermo, Paris; the monarchs are tumbling like skittles.” Armstrong grabbed his arm, jerking it like the handle of a water pump. “Our revolution is going to happen, Mendick, and you and I are going to be right in the middle of it. Just imagine, we can boast to our grandchildren of the day we toppled the Whigs and established the Charter.”

  “So it’s not happened yet.” Mendick tried to calm Armstrong down, holding both thin shoulders. “We’ve not had a revolution here.”

  “Not yet,” Armstrong admitted, “but soon. Monaghan has called a general meeting of all the delegates, including you and me.”

  “Where and when?” If he could inform Scotland Yard about such a meeting, the police could pick up all the Chartist leaders simultaneously and end any insurrection with a minimum of violence. As he could no longer use the pigeons, he would have to slide away to the railway station and get the next London-bound train.

  “This afternoon, at Trafford Hall.” Armstrong’s words ended any hopes of a swift resolution. “So come on, Mendick, nearly everybody is already there; just you and I are missing.”

  “Trafford Hall? Sir Robert’s place?”

  Armstrong’s wink revealed how light-hearted he was feeling. “Why not?”

  *

  It felt strange to roll up to the front door of Trafford Hall in Armstrong’s coach and to have a stony-faced flunky open the door for him as if he were somebody important rather than a masquerading police constable.

  Feeling as apprehensive as he had when approaching the walls of Amoy, Mendick stepped up the broad steps and into a hall that had obviously been designed to impress. Fluted pillars soared upwards from the marble floor to explode in Corinthian splendour on an ornate ceiling. Between them, two crystal chandeliers swung low, their multitude of sparkling lights amplified by mirrors that covered half the walls. Classical sculpture added to the splendour, with an array of white marble deities presiding from raised plinths.

  The Chartist delegates appeared ill at ease amidst such opulence; a few were affecting loud bravado, but others were shrinking into the corners or standing with arms folded and faces furrowed. Only Rachel Scott appeared relaxed as she contemplated the muscles and manhood of Michelangelo’s David.

  “A good copy,” she said.

  Monaghan swept into the room, puffing on a cheroot and wearing a very plush morning coat.

  “This way, gentlemen.” He indicated a side door and the entire gathering trailed through, some slouching, others putting on a betraying swagger.

  Monaghan took them through a lancet arch door into a much simpler hall, a primitive chamber with a flagstone floor and an oak-beamed ceiling. Great logs crackled in the huge fireplace as servants set out rows of wooden benches for the convenience of the delegates. Mendick found a space close enough to the wooden platform to hear what was being said but far enough back to appear inconspicuous. He avoided Armstrong, who sat right at the front, but was strangely disappointed that Scott walked past him with hardly a glance.

  “I won’t keep you long.” Monaghan spoke so quietly that everybody had to strain to hear him. “We all have a great deal to do. You will have heard about the revolutions taking place all across Europe, and now it is our turn.”

  They cheered at that, simple, desperate men alongside the cynical and the cunning, the honest worker and the devious politician, all ostensibly committed to the Chartist cause.

  “You are all aware that Feargus O’Connor has organised yet another petition and a massive march that will end in a rally in Kennington Common in London. If Parliament accepts our five points – only five, note, not six, for we are allowing them some leeway – then we will have won.” Monaghan waited for the excited buzz to fade away before he continued.

  “But if they do not,” he said, and his voice had a new edge to it, “if Parliament does not accept the Charter, then it will be our time, brothers, and all our work here will be needed. If Parliament ignores our demands, then we will be embarking on more direct, and much more physical, action.”

  This time the cheers were shorter, ending in a general chant of “Tell us how” and “Name the hour” from a small but vociferous group at the front of the meeting. Recognising Armstrong as a prominent member of these men, Mendick reasoned that Monaghan had instructed them on what to say and when to say it.

  “We will take part in O’Connor’s march and rally, so if the Charter is turned down, we will be in London and ready to rise. We will gather in the Midlands and travel south in our units, with our weapons carried in carts.”

  The hiss and crackle of the fire seemed a suitable backdrop as the delegates listened to Monaghan’s words.

  “We will not make a Moscow of Manchester, instead we will strike at the political and economic heart of this nation; we will take over London and dictate our terms to our oppressors!” Monaghan paused, allowing the audience to wait for the final words they knew he would announce: “We will achieve the Charter!”

  Strangely, the climax sounded weak. Mendick had expected something more inspiring, but the Chartists still erupted in spontaneous applause. Monaghan had to raise both arms to achieve quiet.

  “O’Connor’s rally at Kennington Common is planned for the twelfth of April, so we will start to travel south a fortnight before. That is only a few days away. Our brothers in London will welcome us, and we will recruit them to our cause.”

  April the twelfth. Mendick closed his eyes. Now he knew the plan, and he knew the date. Monaghan intended to infiltrate his Physical Force Chartists into what would otherwise be a peaceful gathering, and if the government did not accept the Charter, he would lead an uprising in London itself. It was very simple but could also be very effective, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed and trained men already in position amidst a disgruntled and angry populace. The recent uprisings across Europe had showed how easy it was to topple an unpopular government; perhaps it was Great Britain’s turn next.

  He tried to ignore the secondary mystery of Scott’s Uncle Ernest and that teasing mention of a white horse. The relationship between Scott and Trafford was unimportant compared to ensuring that this attempted revolution did not go ahead. He would have to act like a Chartist this afternoon. Later, he would slip away and return to London with his information.

  Standing up, Mendick cheered and thrust his fist in the air to announce his approval of the plan to turn London into a city of devastation and horror, with dead bodies in the gutters and half-trained Chartists exchanging fire with the Brigade of Guards.

  “We will achieve the Charter!”

  Armstrong was beside him, hand extended in comradeship.

  “The day is announced, brother: the day of our liberation!” He was grinning, his eyes brighter than Mendick had ever seen. “The process will be painful, but picture the results: a full franchise, full employment and equality.”

  Taking his hand, Mendick shook it vigorously, realising that all around him, men were doing the same. They were cheering their own revolution before it had taken place, congra
tulating themselves for initiating their own destruction. If he closed his eyes, he could recall the sordid reality of that faraway war in China, the valour and slaughter of the assault on the Bogue Forts, the rotting corpses, the shrieking wounded, the row after row of the sick on their hammocks; did these people really want that here? Did they have any idea what a civil war would do to the country? And then he remembered the misery of the brick streets of Manchester, the dripping cellars with their hopeless occupants, the dying children and weeping mothers; did the moneyed classes understand what they were doing to the country? Did they care, so long as it did not impinge on their own comfortable lives?

  “Go now!” Monaghan was back on his feet. “Return to your volunteers and prepare for war! Prepare for government!”

  There was a last cheer, a final triumphant roar, and Armstrong began to sing. Although he knew the tune of Rule Britannia well, it was the first time that Mendick had heard those particular words:

  “Spread, spread the Charter

  Spread the Charter through the Land

  Let Britons bold and brave join heart and hand.”

  Others joined in, and then the tune and words altered to Armstrong’s favourite Chartist song. Others joined in until the entire room was roaring out the words, and Mendick saw the tall figure of Trafford standing behind Monaghan, a glass in hand as he joined in,

  “Truth is growing – hearts are glowing

  With the flame of Liberty:

  Light is breaking – Thrones are quaking-

  Hark! The trumpet of the Free

  Long in lowly whispers breathing

  Freedom wandered drearily

  Still, in faith, her laurel wreathing,

  For the day when there should be Freemen shouting

  Victory!”

  The Chartists were still singing as they began to dissipate, in small knots or individually. Mendick edged toward the door, now knowing exactly what intelligence he had to carry with him to London. All he had to do was get to the railway station in Manchester and within hours he could put a stop to all the impending trouble.