The Devil's Mask

by Christopher Wakling

  I watched the man’s face intently. He glanced at the papers spread out before him, but only fleetingly. His gaze slid sideways away from the evidence as if he were repelled by what he saw. No, not repelled, intimidated. He huffed and stood up and backed away from his desk.

  ‘I’ll have these ditties scrutinised,’ he said. ‘But they add nothing. Anyone could have written them. The sailor; your absconding employer; even you! They make no difference to the facts as I see them.’

  My mouth tasted brackish. ‘Of course they make a difference,’ I said as levelly as I could.

  But Wheeler just grinned. ‘No, they don’t. For you see, Mr Blue has confessed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To the murders of his fellow shipmates.’ The Justice could not prevent his voice from rising in triumph. ‘He has claimed the deeds as his own!’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Impossible.’

  ‘I too serve the court, Mr Bright.’ Wheeler ran his fingers across the grain of his jowls, pausing for effect. ‘Does my word not also deserve respect?’

  ‘Listen. The deaths of Addison and Waring have not occurred in isolation. They are part of something larger, I’m sure of it. The other bodies, recently reported, of the women – found in Clifton, on mudflats in the gorge, and at Brandon Hill – were also connected with the ship.’

  ‘You know this how? Where’s your evidence?’

  ‘They’re all black for a start …’

  Wheeler shook his head slowly, savouring his incredulousness. ‘Two of them were,’ he pronounced. ‘Who’s to say about the first?’

  ‘Manacles,’ I said. ‘The report mentioned that the first woman was chained foot to foot.’

  ‘There’s no accounting for perversion.’

  ‘She was trafficked here on the Belsize. I know it! The children in Long Ashton said the second woman had been branded. She had the Company’s initials burnt into her leg!’

  Now the Justice began pacing the width of the room.

  ‘This has been your game, eh. Tampering with evidence. Spurious private investigations! Well, you’ve been pissing into a headwind, my boy. Ivan Brook was caught red-handed. The second woman threw herself to her death. And the third froze or starved or a combination of both. I don’t much mind. Whores, no-hopers, vagabonds. Nothing to do with our eminent ship’s surgeon and the sea captain.’

  ‘But the Belsize is exactly the connection. The ship!’

  Wheeler walked from left to right and back again. He paused by the sagging bookshelves and turned on his metal-tipped heel and stumped back to the other wall, on which there hung a notice board and a length of varnished wood spiked with hooks. The notice board was empty. The hooks were hung with keys. He looked like an actor buying time so as to remember his lines. I had a premonition that he had been speaking words written by another hand, and now found himself having to ad lib. But when he raised his eyes to mine again there was no lack of conviction in them.

  ‘If these last two women, the ones we know to be Negroes, did have to do with this ship, the one Doctor Waring and Captain Addison arrived on, both those estimable men being now dead, at Mr Blue’s hand, and him being a sailor on the ship as well, and a blackamoor to boot, then I’m thinking that if their deaths, by which I mean the deaths of these poor women, were in any way untoward, or suspicious, or the result of foul play, then I’ve probably got the culprit already, as likely as not, walled up next door, wouldn’t you say?’

  He uncoiled this little speech like a string of Turkish Delight. There was work in the untangling of it, but he derived much satisfaction from the results.

  I gripped my head in my hands. ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘He confessed!’

  ‘There’s been some mistake. I was there. You are wrong.’

  ‘Wrong now, am I? “I did it,” a man says, and I’ve somehow got the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘This has to do with the ship’s owners. Its backers. There were slaves on board, don’t you see? The ship traded them in the Indies, and brought some back here …’

  I fancied I saw the man stiffen at the word slaves, but the glitter in his eye was undiminished.

  ‘And you believe that having gone to all that trouble to bring so valuable – not to mention risky – a cargo to our port, these owners are now summarily killing them.’

  ‘I –’

  He rode straight over me. ‘You come from a trading family yourself, if I’m not mistaken, Mr Bright. So you above most should see that what you’re saying is absurd! Your Bristol merchant would sooner … trade his better half, or first born, perhaps … than sell goods at a loss, much less destroy them entirely.’

  ‘There’s a different sort of ruthlessness at work here. They’ve overreached themselves. The decision – to keep slaving – must have been cooked up two years ago. There were those who said they’d flout the new law then, and they’ve done it, only now they’re scared of the consequences. The public mood has shifted. Punishment for these crimes is real. They’re trying to cover the thing up now, and it seems they have the power to do so. First they get to the Dock Company, who suddenly lose interest in chasing their unpaid duties, and then, then they’ve got to …’

  The Justice had stopped walking. He planted his feet, straightened his back, and stuck his fleshy chin out at me. ‘Go on man, say it, I dare you,’ he said softly.

  But accusing him outright would serve no purpose, so I jinked sideways as convincingly as I could. ‘They have got to Joseph Blue. I’m not sure how, but it’s the only satisfactory explanation. If he’s saying he’s guilty it’s at someone else’s bidding.’

  Wheeler lowered his chin; the udder swell beneath it bulged. ‘If anyone’s got to anyone in this matter, you might want to pause to consider whether they’ve done so in your favour. Cry “corruption” and the new broom might sweep you back into the fray. You don’t want that. Not with you being so thick with the black during his murdering days. It’s hard enough to hold you apart as it is, despite the incentive.’

  The rickety seat creaked beneath me as I leaned forward upon it. ‘The sailor was only present at the scene of these crimes because of me,’ I said. ‘The victims aside, it’s him and Adam Carthy I’m concerned about. Not myself.’

  Wheeler allowed himself a smile. ‘Very worthy. But short-sighted, I’m sure.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s the younger Alexander daughter you’ve got in your sights, isn’t it?’

  I felt my hands balling beside my thighs, and I leaned yet further forward on the chair, ready to roll up out of it and take the man by the throat.

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Well.’ Wheeler pared some dirt out from under a thumbnail and flicked it to the floor. ‘Heston Alexander is a reasonable man, but I’d vouch he doesn’t want himself tainted by these horrible events, even through a potential son-in-law.’

  As evenly as I could, I said, ‘Blue is innocent of these murders. If you won’t reopen the case, I shall do so my—’

  ‘Oh … damnation! Give it up. He’s confessed. If you won’t believe me, come next door and you shall hear it from the man himself!’

  Sixty-one

  Wheeler took his keys from their rack on the wall with the self-satisfaction of an orchard keeper picking the year’s first apple. He jangled them cheerfully and beckoned me to follow him down the hall. We emerged through an unlocked door at the rear of the house into a cramped courtyard. Above us the sky was the blue-purple of a new bruise; night would soon fall. Three sides of the courtyard held gridiron doors, behind which stood cramped cells. Like the harbour, the courtyard managed to be both open to the weather and infused with a feral smell.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Wheeler. Away from his desk the man was in his element. He selected a key from the bunch and unlocked the nearest door. I flinched upon seeing Blue. The Justice had taken his coat, leaving him in a hutch half open to the elements, its floor a shit-stained mess. He was holding himself awkwardly, as if to pro
tect his midriff from a blow. We regarded one another. He took a breath and said emphatically, ‘Both men deserved their fate.’

  ‘I’ll have you out of here.’

  ‘But he’s admitted it. You just heard him,’ crowed Wheeler.

  ‘He’s admitted nothing.’

  Blue shrugged. ‘The Captain and Doctor Waring were evil men. It was my duty. I meted out what both –’

  ‘Enough!’ I cut in.

  Wheeler laughed. ‘No use shutting the door now, Mr Bright. The savage is out. He has shot his civilised bolt!’

  My eyes growing accustomed to the half-light, I saw that Blue’s mouth was swollen and split, and that the hand he was cradling to his chest appeared broken, its fingers twisted.

  ‘What have they done to you?’ I asked, but I knew already. The sailor’s thumb would have been screwed from its socket to evince this false confession. ‘Evidence got this way will not stand up,’ I said.

  Wheeler snorted beside me. ‘Is that it? Your best retort?’

  ‘Nobody will believe he means what he’s saying.’

  Again the snort. ‘He’s standing before you, confessing, and he’ll do the same before the magistrate. He’s seen the light, haven’t you my friend?’

  ‘I’ve heard no confession; he has merely –’

  ‘Then you’re deaf as well as blind.’

  Wheeler’s smirk sat in the middle of his face like a knife-cut in a dough-ball. The man’s complacency was infuriating. I took a half step backwards and surveyed the courtyard. Only one of the other three stalls stood occupied: an open mouth hung behind the grate to my left, and thick, workingman’s fingers curled through its bars: Ivan Brook, no doubt. My own hands itched to make fists of themselves.

  ‘You should tell him of the developments,’ the Justice went on, nodding from me to Blue. ‘The other murders, you know, of his black sisters in town. There might be some more confessing to be done yet!’

  I chose my words carefully. ‘Leaving aside Addison and Waring, whose deaths Mr Blue here had nothing to do with, I must concede I was mistaken as regards the suspicious nature of those other cases, involving the women. You have sound explanations for those deaths, as you say. Mr Blue need not be weighed down further with unfounded accusations.’

  ‘That’s more like it. No sense in complicating things.’ The Justice smiled. ‘The paupers are squared away.’

  A thought came to me. I said, ‘You have had the bodies buried already, I expect?’

  ‘Eh? Certainly! The stench in this town works well enough without our leaving dirty corpses laying around to add to it.’

  ‘Who paid for the burials?’

  ‘The Venturers, I believe, coughed up to have the unfortunates planted at arm’s length. It’s not as if the women’s nearest and dearest were queuing up for the honour, and the powers that be never miss an opportunity to curry the town’s favour on the cheap. A plot costs less than a pint of beer out at Horfield.’ Wheeler’s smirk split further. ‘The name suits the purpose well enough, don’t you think?’

  Blue was wavering: I feared his legs would buckle entirely, and reached to steady him, but the Justice stepped between us and pushed Blue away, saying, ‘No hand-holding, unless you want to do it behind the bars!’

  I willed Blue to stand up for himself. Together we could overpower this man. But as he slumped to the floor it appeared he had given up. Wheeler scraped the door back into its socket and locked it with a pathetic flourish, before ushering me away.

  Sixty-two

  I could not face returning to the Carthy household. The thought of little Anne and her mother there, waiting for him to come back, prompted a stab of guilt so sharp I fancied I could taste blood in my mouth. But I could not put my plan into effect until the small hours, so I resolved to walk both the time and my agitation away between now and then.

  The streets were darkening, as emphasised by the dots of light in windowpanes, the occasional yellow slash out from under the doorjamb of a tavern, and haloes of brightness jerked here and there on the tips of lamp-bearers’ poles. I threaded my way through St Nicholas Market and let my feet take me out to St Augustine’s Reach. There the water looked like tar. I found myself drawn up the hill towards the cathedral. There was a rehearsal of some sort going on inside; the same snatch of organ music pumped weakly across the dark grass again and again. Since moving down to Carthy’s I had not attended services here – or anywhere – regularly, but the three of us, John, Sebastian and myself, had flanked our father through sixteen years of Sunday mornings in this church before I left. The great embossed door stood ajar. I stepped inside, stood blinking for a second in the candlelight, then made my way over the smooth flags towards our pew. In here, the organist’s practising was loud enough to be impressive, but as the phrase he was attempting to perfect repeated itself again and again I felt as if I were listening to a great orator who had lost his mind. There should have been reassurance in the pew’s familiarity, hope in the vaulted ceiling, and solace in the great calm of the place, but when I shut my eyes to reach for a prayer, the enormous roof above me was immediately transformed into an upturned ship’s hull, and the familiar feel of the wood beneath my hands was hatefully cloying, and the calm, the calm, was simply emptiness, vast and unforgiving as the sea.

  I felt as if I were drowning.

  The risk was that I’d pull people down with me.

  I should do what I could to cut those closest to me free.

  I reeled out of the cathedral; the organist may have been distracted by my footsteps, for he stuttered in his playing as I jinked back out into the night. Within ten minutes I was knocking upon the door of the Alexanders’ house in Queen Square.

  Spenser, the footman, drew it open, and pretended for a second that he did not recognise me. His face thawed unnaturally slowly and he responded to my request – that he announce me to Lilly – with a demonstrable lack of urgency. I was left standing upon the chequered tiles. Eight this way, eight that. My father taught me to play chess as a boy, and he never let me win, believing the victory would taste bad if he did. Yet if anything, the opposite was true. For many years after I became the better player, I held off winning for fear of how bad I knew defeating him would make me feel. The footman’s delay worked to my advantage. I’d calmed down somewhat by the time Lilly, her hands clasped together with excitement, appeared.

  ‘Oh, it’s been days! They’re just finishing up with dinner. Have you eaten? Would you join us? Or shall I have Spenser show us into the drawing room. There’s cake!’

  ‘Cake.’

  ‘Yes! It’s a new recipe. Spiced ginger. And the icing is made with scrapings of orange peel!’

  ‘Delicious. The drawing room, then.’

  This answer pleased Lilly. Apparently, it amused the footman, too. He opened the drawing room door with a voila and gave a complicit bow as he showed us across the threshold. This false solicitude gave him away. Knowing he would waste no time in telling Lilly’s mother of my arrival, I cut to the chase.

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

  Lilly rounded upon me and looked me over, nibbling her lower lip, and before I could continue she said, ‘And I you, I’m afraid.’ Her excitement had a nervous, unsettled quality to it, which made me feel suddenly protective. Or perhaps it was that any excuse to prevaricate was better than none. I nodded at her to go on.

  ‘You mustn’t be disappointed,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure, whatever it is, that I’ll cope.’

  ‘But it has to do with the wedding. There’s a problem, and it means a delay.’

  Lilly was beckoning me to sit down, and I did so, nodding gravely, but in truth it felt as if a weight had been lifted from my chest.

  ‘I see. Well, I’m sure –’

  Lilly perched on a footstool next to my chair and looked up at me, her eyes filmy. I gathered myself to suggest that she tell me all about the difficulty, but she leapt up and rushed to the door – in search of the maid with the
cake, I suspected – before I could begin. Her silhouette, leaning out into the hall, her chin uplifted and expectant, was perfect, and I knew for sure that she was aware of it, and was deploying it now to hold my attention and steer us around whatever difficulty it was she perceived stood in our way. There was something futile and persistent about her which again stirred my affection, and her ringlets, in the lamplight, had a beguiling amber glow.

  ‘What is it, Lilly?’

  She turned back into the room slowly and her hands, which had been clasped together, dropped to her sides.

  ‘The reception rooms, for the wedding breakfast … there has been some mix-up … a double booking … we shall have to put back the date.’

  She was looking at the nest of dull red coals, pulsing low in the grate, and not at me, and I knew that she was making this excuse up, and not for her own benefit; she was lying. What’s more, she knew I knew this to be the case, and was prepared, if fleetingly, to reveal as much.

  ‘I suspect this makes the revelation of your own news unnecessary,’ she said quietly, ‘for now at least.’

  ‘A double booking?’

  ‘Yes. No doubt Papa could offer them more money to secure the rooms in our favour, but he knows the other interested party … something to do with a dinner for foreigners … and … it’s perhaps for the best. Luckily the invitations have not been sent out yet. We can have them reprinted.’

  Those fine hands, still hanging disconsolately at her sides. I climbed out of my chair and took hold of them in my own. They were cool to touch.