Death & Dominion

by Carol Hedges

  “And are you happy that you have your precious diamonds?” he murmurs, caressing her bare shoulders.

  “Oh, I am,” she says.

  Hawksley lifts her effortlessly off the ground.

  “Then why don’t you show me how happy you are,” he says, as he carries her towards the open door of the bedroom.

  ***

  It has been some time since Jack Cully has been on duty in an official capacity after dark, but here he is now, out and about on the mean (and tonight very foggy) streets of London. The only scenery comes from above the forest of twisty chimneys, where a few bright stars are managing to pierce the fog.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the ongoing rash of red painted outrages has resulted in a plea for men to volunteer for night duty. Cully has left his wife Emily sewing by candlelight. His last sight of her was the white nape of her neck as she bent over her work. He carries the image of it in his head as he proceeds steadily along the streets.

  He stops to check on a couple of constables, who inform him that they have seen nothing paint-related pass them by so far tonight. He strolls on. He has just reached the Commercial Road, an old stamping ground of his from when he was a constable, when his sleeve is suddenly plucked by an importunate hand attached to a thin youth in a coat, muffler and cap.

  The youth leans closer and whispers hoarsely, “Mister Cully? You needs to come along o’ me.”

  Many might be suspicious of such a greeting and on such a dark night, but Jack Cully has patrolled these streets for so many years that very little surprises him. He nods, and starts following the youth.

  For a while he loses his bearings in the narrow maze of side streets and back alleys. Then he hears the splash of water, sees the outlines of tall masts looming above the house tops, and recognises where the youth has brought him.

  They are close to the docks. Sinister grey fog rolls up through the street from the distant waterfront, where Cully pictures it dripping from rigging and coiling snakily around ropes and creaking timbers. The fog has a rich fruity quality to it, with top notes of rotting vegetation and a bouquet of raw sewage and rancid fat.

  The youth ducks down an alley. Cully follows, crossing a narrow street and entering another alley so narrow that the upper storeys of the houses seem to touch. There is no artificial light here; no cressets of flickering gas lamps, only watchful darkness and a sense that unspeakable things might be being enacted in the shadows.

  The alley widens into a small square of brick-banded houses clustering round a small cobbled courtyard, inch-thick with things Cully doesn’t want to think about. At the far end of the courtyard, smoky gaslight illuminates a painted signboard above a door. There is a picture of a woman in a crown painted on the board, an indication that the building attached to it via the other end of a short rusty pole is a local hostelry.

  Beneath the painted signboard is a dark wooden door, on each side of which small grimy windows are set in peeling frames. To the casual visitor who has accidentally lost his way, it looks exactly like a disreputable tavern.

  In actual fact, the Queen’s Head is a reputable disreputable tavern. Its regulars have a certain rough-hewn respectability: they do not produce weaponry unless the need arises, and they have been known to assist the casual visitor back out of the maze of passageways without relieving him of his personal possessions along the way.

  As Cully stands in front of the peeling door, waves of memory wash over him. He had forgotten all about this place. Now the sight of it looming out of the darkness takes him back to his early days as a beat constable. He is surprised that it is still standing. Literally. Bits of it were falling off even then.

  The Queen’s Head used to be a very late-night and definitely very illegal drinking haunt, where for a discreet knock and a back strategically turned, a man could obtain a glass of cloudy beer and a warm-up in front of a fire on a cold winter’s night.

  The youth lifts the latch and pushes open the door. Inside the tavern, flies crawl down the walls, dark and slow, as if they are waiting for someone to finish them off. There is only one person present: a small bald-headed man in shirtsleeves, a check waistcoat and greasy brown corduroy trousers.

  The man sits in the corner, watching the door expectantly. He has a very large white cat on his lap, which he is stroking with one hand. The hand is missing two fingers. He glances up as Cully enters, and gestures towards a chair set strategically opposite where he is sitting.

  “Evenin’, Mr Cully. Nice of you to drop by.”

  His smile is bright and cold, like the smile on the face of the moon.

  “Nevis, drink for Mr Cully. Drop o’ brandy – something to warm the cockles of his heart.”

  Cully starts, then stares very hard at the youth.

  “Nevis Thewl? No – that’s never young Nevis!”

  “He’s all grown up, innee, Mr Cully? Not like when you knew him back in the good old days.”

  Nevis Thewl, Cully thinks, sitting down and accepting a glass of brandy from the youth’s hand. His mind spirals back ten years to when six-year-old Nevis Thewl was the leader of a local gang of pre-pubescent entrepreneurs whose forte was robbery with innocence.

  It was while escaping from one such robbery that their paths crossed – or rather, young Constable Cully rescued junior Nevis Thewl as he was about to dart across a road where a herd of cows was running amok.

  The heartfelt gratitude of Nevis’ parents upon the safe return of their errant offspring couldn’t be expressed in words, but was subsequently visited upon Cully in free beer and the odd tip-off. He guesses this latter is the reason for the renewal of their acquaintanceship now.

  The bald-headed man’s mouth is like a hole with a hem.

  “Long time since we seen you in this neck of the woods, Mr Cully. We understand you are a married man.”

  Cully nods. He is not surprised. News, good or bad, travels fast. Especially around the less salubrious parts of the city.

  “That’s pleasing to hear. A man shouldn’t have to darn his own socks or cook his own dinner.”

  The white cat jumps down and pads over to Cully, where it begins a thorough investigation of his trouser cuffs. Satisfied that they contain no rodent elements, it scrambles onto his lap, turns around a couple of times, and settles down.

  The cat’s owner watches it intently.

  “Do you like cats, Mr Cully? I always feel they’re a good judge of character.”

  Cully sneezes. In his experience, cats knew instantly who was allergic, and gravitated to them.

  “I brought you here because I have two words to say to you, Mr Cully,” says Thewl Père. “And them two words is: Red Paint.”

  “Ah.”

  “We gather as how the police is baffled by it.”

  “And you know something?”

  Thewl taps the side of his bulbous nose with what might be, but isn’t because it is missing, his index finger.

  “I hear as how that Bob Murdoch who has the chandler’s shop down by the docks is suddenly doing a roarin’ trade in paint. And he ain’t sellin’ it to shipwrights. Might be worth askin’ why, and who to.”

  Cully digests this information.

  “How did you find out?”

  Thewl’s face darkens ominously.

  “You remember Nevis’ twin sister Annathema?”

  Cully recalls a small wispy-haired girl with a grubby pinafore, bare feet and a pathetic expression. He often encountered her standing on street corners with a basket of violets. Sometimes the violets were replaced by watercress, or matches, depending on the time of year. He looks round the room expectantly.

  “Oh, she ain’t here, Mr Cully. Gone into service. Doing alright for herself. Not alright enough for bloody Bob Murdoch’s son though. Courted her all though the summer, then dropped her. Fair broke her lovin’ little hart. So you see, I don’t owe them Murdochs any favours. Ho no!”

  “I understand,” Cully nods.

  “You go round there t
oot sweet and ask him. Ask him who’s buying all that paint.”

  “But don’t mention your name?”

  Thewl laughs. The sound is like a metal spoon being put through a cheese grater.

  “Got it in one, Mr Cully.”

  He chirrups to the cat, which uncoils itself from Cully’s lap and jumps lightly down. Cully wipes his smarting eyes on the back of his sleeve.

  “Better get going,” he says, rising to his feet. “Thanks for the tip. And for the brandy.”

  “Don’t make it so long next time,” the small man says. “Always a drink for you at the bar. For old time’s sake. Bring your lady wife next time, why don’t you? Mrs Thewl likes a good gossip, and ‘eaven knows there ain’t many ladies around here for her to gossip with. Nevis, show Mr Cully the way back.”

  Outside, the fog is so thick you could cut it and serve it in slices. Cully follows Nevis Thewl back through the maze of tiny passageways and crooked streets until they reach the main thoroughfare.

  Then Nevis tips his cap and is gone, blending seamlessly into the foggy darkness and leaving Cully to make his way back to Scotland Yard. Before he departs, he prepares a short report on the night’s events and places it on Stride’s desk.

  Back home at last, Cully removes his boots at the door and tiptoes in stockinged feet to the back bedroom where Emily sleeps, her face turned to the wall. Quietly as he can, he takes off his outer clothes, then slips under the blanket and curls himself around his wife’s back.

  Emily gives a little sigh, but does not wake. Cully closes his eyes and relaxes into the warmth of her body. Before his heavy eyelids close, he experiences a brief moment of utter contentment. His life is perfect. He cannot think of a single way it could be improved.

  ***

  A smoggy day in London town. It has Stride low and has him down. Here he is walking into work, keeping company with the usual inhabitants of the dawn streets: the homeless, the hungry, the people of the mists and mud, those whose lives are as rickety and insecure as their houses.

  These are not the people who live in fine mansions, who go to balls and dinner parties and to the opera in coaches, but the other ones. These are the people Stride knows best, for he deals with them every day, and was once one of their number.

  These are the people who make everything work: the toilers and labourers, the sweepers and servers. These are the ones who cart away the night-soil; the faces in the crowd, the invisible ones whose insignificant lives are of no consequence in the grand scheme of things.

  Once Stride walked the streets of London every day of his working life as a beat constable. Back then he knew where he was by the feel of the streets beneath his boots. Now, he cannot remember the last time he went on patrol, the last time he stood in a doorway watching the moon, with the rain tipping down from an overhead gutter, the last time he chased some criminal through the backstreet alleyways and courts.

  Now he rarely moves faster than a walk. He has an office and a desk and paperwork. Always paperwork. And politics. Sometimes Stride feels a pang of regret for the old days. It was simpler back then. Then, he was a hunter. Now, he moves folders around and writes reports.

  He enters Scotland Yard, and grunts at the desk sergeant as he makes his way to his office. Somewhere in a back room the night duty constables will be writing up their reports, which will be placed on his desk in due course. As will the morning papers. He does not know which of the two he is less looking forward to.

  Today is not going to be a good day. Later he has to meet the lawyer Frederick Undercroft and regretfully inform him that after exhausting every avenue of inquiry, which has involved his men showing the cake box to every bakery in the area, and visiting every chemist enquiring after the purchase of poisons, he has come to the conclusion that the identity of the person who sent the parcel of poisoned cakes may never be known.

  Stride hates failure even more than he hates paperwork. Or the press. But the truth has to be faced and communicated. He has thought long and hard about this case, staring at the ceiling in the watches of the night and trying to get his mind around its various tortuous possibilities. And this is the conclusion he has reached. There are also other conclusions he could have reached. But he has no proof.

  Stride closes his eyes and for a moment wishes himself somewhere else. Then he picks up the top folder from the pile that never seems to go away, however hard he works at ignoring it. He is somewhat surprised to recognise the neat copperplate hand of Jack Cully. Intrigued, he opens the folder and begins to read.

  When he has finished reading, Stride closes the folder and stares thoughtfully at the opposite wall for a bit. Coincidentally, Mrs Stride has been complaining about the state of the hallway, which she insists needs repainting. He can’t see the need himself, but then, he leaves home early and returns late. And his decorating skills err on the side of extreme reluctance.

  Maybe now would be a good opportunity to investigate the potential cost of said repaint job and look at some colours. If only to stop her nagging the life out of him, and to give the impression that he is going to get around to it. One day.

  ***

  Murdoch’s Chandlery is a small old-fashioned shop tucked away in a small old-fashioned street running parallel to the Commercial Road. It can barely be described as a shop – it resembles more the front room of a house that has somehow been overrun with accumulated and very random stuff.

  Goods spill out onto the pavement: a basket of firelighters props up some twiggy brooms that lean witchily against the smoke-blackened outer wall. Fire irons in various sizes and combinations lay wait for the unwary passerby, ready to trip them up.

  Here are coal shovels, dusters, caustic soda, cones of sugar, household soap, door stops, mangles, washing tubs and rolling pins, all higgledy-piggledy. Presiding over all this is a small elderly woman with a downturned mouth and piercing black eyes in a flat doughy face. Her hands are encased in black lace fingerless gloves, and she eyes Stride and Sergeant Evans suspiciously as they step over the threshold.

  “Good morning, madam,” Stride greets her pleasantly. “We are interested in the purchase of some paint.”

  “Ow, are yer now?” the woman says, raising one eyebrow. “And why should two gents such as yerselves come all the way here to buy paint when there must be a hunnerd or so other shops you could have gorn to?”

  Stride recognises her instantly as one of those women who belong to the you-can’t-pull-the-wool-over-my-eyes-don’t-think-you-can-for-one-minute school of elderly females. He is married to a member of the cadet branch.

  “We were recommended to come here. Is Mr Murdoch on the premises?”

  “No, he ain’t. Stepped out on a bit of business.”

  “That’s a pity.” Stride strokes his chin with a thumb and forefinger.

  “Is it?” The woman snaps her mouth shut and stares at him.

  While they have been exchanging polite hostilities, Sergeant Evans has been looking round the shop. He now approaches the counter carrying a black coal shovel.

  “This is just what my Megan – my sweetheart – has been looking for,” he says triumphantly. “The one she uses is all old and bent out of shape.”

  The woman glances up at him, her features instantly softening.

  “Well, young man, I can tell you have got an eye for quality,” she says. “And where does your sweetheart work?”

  “She’s an under-housemaid in a fine house in the Welsh valleys,” Evans says in his lilting accent. “That’s where I come from too.”

  “Aww, you pore young man,” she croons. “Ain’t yer a long way from home?”

  “I am indeed, madam,” Evans says, laying the shovel down on the counter.

  When Sergeant Evans had joined the Metropolitan Police straight from the Neath Police, his accent marked him out immediately as a ‘foreigner’. That he survived was largely down to two things: his physical appearance, and the fact that he was incredibly likeable.

  Sergeant Evans got on well
with people, even those he was arresting. And in a city noted for its rudeness, he was always unfailingly polite. Watching him in action was like watching some miraculous talent unfolding magically in front of your eyes.

  Stride takes a step backwards, and waits for the magic to begin.

  The old lady smiles soppily at the young sergeant and reaches for a roll of brown paper, some string and scissors.

  “We never sold anything to abroad before. I shall have to tell my son when he comes back. Wales. Who’d have thought it?”

  While she fusses with the brown paper, Sergeant Evans casually introduces the subject of paint: general uses of. While she cuts off the requisite lengths, he moves the topic on to paint: supplies thereof. As she loops and ties the parcel with string, he narrows it down to specific colours of paint: recent purchases of.

  By the time she has dripped sealing wax on the knots, it is clear that this is, indeed, the source of the red paint used in the recent attacks on buildings and monuments in the city.

  They leave the shop, the shovel tucked under Sergeant Evans’ arm.

  “Ooh, my Megan is going to be so pleased when she opens this,” Evans says happily.

  Stride stares into his big honest face.

  He really means it, he thinks. He does. He hasn’t a clue how the world works, how women work, how anything works, but it doesn’t matter because people just look at him and they like him. And somehow, that’s what works.

  They retrace their steps, passing several newsvendors’ boards all proclaiming variants on the headlines of:

  Red-Hand Gang Strike Again!

  London on the Verge of Total Anarchy!

  Police Force Unable to Cope!

  “Would you like me to arrange for someone to watch the shop?” Evans asks.

  “Yes, why don’t you do that, lad,” Stride says wearily. “After all, what have we got to lose?”

  ***

  The end of the working day, and the working man makes his weary way back to home and hearth, where domestic bliss in the form of his helpmeet and household angel await his return.