Hudson's Kill--A Justice Flanagan Thriller

by Paddy Hirsch

  Traffic was heavy and the carriage was moving slowly. They were in the new build, to the north of the city, and Justy stared out of the window at the half-made houses as they inched along. The view opened up at a junction in the road, and he was suddenly looking down a sweep of freshly laid cobbles that ended abruptly at the edge of the ramshackle chaos of Canvas Town. In the sunshine, the slum looked like a colorful regatta of small boats, jumbled up in a crook of the river. But then the wind gusted, carrying the stink of the cesspits and middens up the hill; the sun disappeared and Justy saw the place for what it was: a tip of broken masts, torn sails, ragged sheets and blankets, ingeniously piled up and stitched together, the most concentrated mass of people in New York, a rookery to rival London’s Cheapside.

  And to the north, close by the river, were the dun-colored walls of the Mohammedan village. There were people in the marshland around Hudson’s Kill, small figures stooped between the grasses. Justy marveled at how Umar had hidden his Jericho in plain sight. The compound was invisible to the casual observer, screened by rickety buildings and crooked scaffolding, so that it looked like an extension of the sprawl. But now, knowing what to look for, Justy saw the full spread of the place. He walked around the interior walls in his mind, trying to recall the tour that Umar had given him and Gorton. But it was hard to match what he had seen then with what he was looking at now. It was like trying to fit a jigsaw piece into the wrong space. Perhaps he simply couldn’t remember which way they had gone in.

  “He’s a fly cove, isn’t he?” Owens read his thoughts. “He’s walled up tight in there, like a rat in its nest. But there’s a way in, boy. There always is.”

  * * *

  The carriage lumbered around a turn and down the hill, rocking on its axles as they moved off the cobbled road of the New Town and on to the muddy lanes of the slum. They pulled to a halt by an alley, and Owens led him through the back door of a shack and into a small, dim coffee shop. Four men sat at a small table under a window, playing cards, but they all stood up when they saw Owens. He gestured, and all but one hustled away, through a curtain made of strings of beads, and into a back room.

  The window looked out onto the front gate of the compound. A hugely fat black man stood there, dressed in a stained gray smock and a battered straw hat. He filled the entryway like a prize bull, chewing slowly and spitting an occasional stream of tobacco juice into a puddle.

  Owens turned to the remaining card player. He was a gaunt-looking man, with knobby wrists and elbows that had been polished to a high shine, like bits of weathered walnut.

  “Have you seen anything?” Owens asked.

  The man jerked his chin at the gateway. “Just yon bacon-fed gundiguts stood there. He hasn’t moved since long before noon. Not even to piss.”

  “No traffic?”

  “A carriage went in a while back. Nothing since.”

  Justy looked at the sentry. He was like a wall, his jaw moving slowly, his eyes invisible under the wide brim of his hat. He was the only way in. There were other ways, of course, hidden in the chaos of shacks and lean-tos abutting the walls, but Justy had no idea of where they were, and no time to find them. He had to get past the guard.

  His fingers twitched. There was an easy way. He could stroll up to the sentry, ask an innocent question, and then attack, hard and fast. He imagined the knife in his hand, the blade like a lash across the man’s throat, the spray of blood. He would be covered in gore, but he would be inside in a second, and that was what mattered.

  “Don’t,” Owens said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t stick a blade in some poor cove that’s done nothing more than stand in a doorway minding his own. I believe they’d call that murder up by Federal Hall.”

  “Ware,” the card player said.

  The sentry stepped back against the wall beside the gate. A pair of chestnut horses appeared, and then a four-seater sprung drag, with a low-slung cab painted a glossy midnight blue.

  Justy felt as though all the blood in his body had been sucked into his feet. “Hardluck!”

  The jarvie ignored him. He sat slouched in his seat on the top of the cab, wrapped in a dark cloak, his face shadowed by a hood. He flicked his whip hard against the backs of the horses. They snorted and jolted into a canter, hauling the cab hard along the rutted street.

  Justy stared at the carriage as it rattled past. The curtains on the windows were drawn tight. He watched the carriage turn, wanting to convince himself that his eyes had tricked him, but there was no mistaking the two red pennants streaming from the whips on the back of the rig.

  He shook himself awake, leapt into the street and broke into a run. His boots skidded in the mud as he made the slight turn in the road, but he stayed on his feet, and saw the carriage ahead of him, the driver’s whip rising and falling. He ran down the shallow hill, gaining on the cab as it slowed to make another turn. And there was a sudden tug at his foot as the sole of his boot came loose, and he tripped and went hurtling forwards, his shoulder slamming into the dirt.

  There was a ripping sound as the seam of his coat split down the back, and then he was rolling, over and over, pain shooting up his right arm and down his right leg. He stopped on his back. His right shoulder was numb, and his hand was tingling. He lifted his arm, and saw a long tear in the sleeve of his coat, and blood on his fingers. There was a grating feeling in his knee. The sole of his right boot was hanging by a few threads.

  “Come on, then.” The card player loomed over him, a slight smile on his face. He held out a hand like a shovel. It was warm and dry and as hard as iron. He pulled Justy to his feet.

  Justy wiggled the fingers of his right hand, and winced as pain rippled up his forearm. “Did you see which way it went?”

  The man shrugged. “It turned left, so up to the Broad Way then down to the town, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Where’s Owens?”

  The man shrugged again.

  Justy felt the cold sweat of shame. He had been a damned fool. Piers Riker had wanted to find out what he knew, so he had set a trap. And Justy had blundered right into it. Riker had baited Justy into a card game, wagered his carriage, then lost it on purpose. But he never had any intention of giving up the vehicle, or its driver, Justy saw that now. Hardluck was his spy, reporting back to his master, who had now reclaimed his carriage. And what recourse did Justy have? Was he going to take Riker to court, to claim a carriage and a slave won in a card game?

  Across the street, a small boy in an indigo shirt was watching from the doorway of his house. He was grinning, his hand over his mouth. Justy looked down at his feet, at the sole of his right boot flapping on the mud. The whole of his right side was covered in filth. His sock was sodden with what looked like horse piss. He sighed. He was a dupe. He was a fool. He had let everyone down. Especially himself.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Kerry lay on the floor, listening. She had no idea what time of day it was, or how long she had been in the cell. There were no windows, and no natural light came through the gaps in the door. There was no sound.

  Before he left, Umar had replaced the small burning dishes above the candle sconces, and refilled them with several small blocks of brown resin. The cell instantly filled with smoke again, and Kerry fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she awoke, she found a bowl of food and a cup of water on the stool beside her. She was able to sit up and eat and drink and use the bucket, but the effort left her exhausted, and she fell back to sleep. The next time she woke, the bowl was gone and her latrine bucket had been emptied, and the room was once again heavy with smoke.

  Her mind had screamed at her to get up.

  She had forced herself to sit up, but as she tried to swing her legs off the bed, her arms folded under her, and she fell to the floor. She was too weak to move.

  She drifted. The dirt floor was cool under her cheek. There was a faint breeze from under the door, not much, but enough to waft the smoke up and away from her mouth. She felt her he
ad clear, slowly, as though she had opened her skull and was removing wadding from around her brain, piece by tiny piece. She felt her senses return, and when the pain in her elbow had sharpened to a point, she rolled over onto her back, flexing her arm, wiggling her toes, and feeling the almost unnatural sensation of the breath in her lungs and throat, and the blood pumping in her limbs. She looked around the room, took in the bed, the stool, the lidded bucket, and the sconces. She took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet. She took the burning disks from the sconces and tipped the twists of resin, hissing, into the latrine bucket. Then she lay down on the floor again, and watched the thin cloud of smoke as it slowly dissipated.

  She listened. Her ears sang with the silence. Her cell could not be the only one. No one ever built a single cell. She wondered who else had been locked away. She imagined herself in the middle of a row of small boxes, each with their mean cot and latrine bucket. She wondered if the others would be drugged. She wondered about Tanny, and she shivered at the thought of the brutal tool that Umar had shown her. The evil bastard.

  She heard the faraway sound of a door opening, somewhere outside. She eased herself slowly up onto the bed, lay on her back, and closed her eyes.

  She concentrated, listening to the sound of someone approaching. But not straightaway. More doors opened, one after the other, and she realized she was right, that she was in one of a row of rooms. A single person was making their way down the passage, entering each room in turn, doing something that didn’t take long, and then moving on to the next room. Not delivering food, or attending to the latrines: the movements were too quick, and there was no noise other than the shuffling of feet on the bare ground.

  She counted seven doors, and then it was her turn. She slowed her breathing. She felt the air on her face as the cell door swung open. The person stopped. She felt them watching her. And then the door closed and the footsteps continued down the passageway, shuffling along, opening doors, performing the small task and moving on. Twelve cells in all, she counted, and then the person opened another door and she was left with the silence.

  Her mind raced. Whatever task the person had performed in all the other rooms had not been done in hers. Was it the drugs? Had the person realized there was no smoke in her room? Why stand and watch her, and then leave? She strained her ears, wondering what she should do next. There were no locks on any of the doors, as far as she could tell, presumably because all the occupants of the other cells were drugged, and could not leave. But even if she was able to get out of her cell, which way should she go?

  First, a reconnaissance. She had heard enough of Justy and Lars’ stories to know that a mission’s success was usually dependent on the amount and quality of scouting done beforehand. She would just go into the passage and try the doors, to see whether they were even locked.

  She was on the point of swinging her legs out of the low cot when she heard one of the passage doors open. Then the sound of footsteps on the packed floor outside, moving towards her. A man, judging by the rapid, heavy sound of the boot heels on the floor. She shut her eyes and lay flat on her back.

  Her door opened. And closed again, and the man was on top of her, dragging the thin pillow from under her head and pressing it over her face.

  “Quiet now, missy!” Half hiss, half whisper, his breath heavy with the smell of raw liquor. She struggled, but his body was heavy on her, crushing her. She could feel the hard boards of the bed under her shoulder blades through the straw. She screamed, but the pillow muffled her voice.

  He thrust at her, and pressed his hand hard over her face. “No one can hear you!” he sang in a half whisper. “They’re all sleeping.”

  She was finding it hard to breathe. Panic bubbled in her chest. She squirmed under him, but his thighs and chest trapped her. He grunted, and reached down, lifting his groin off hers, just enough so that he could get his hand down and loosen his breeches. She got an arm loose and punched him in the side of his head. He cursed, and pushed down hard on the pillow with one hand, lifting himself off her, then drove his fist into her solar plexus.

  It was as though someone had reached into her chest and squeezed her lungs together. She felt like a fish, gulping for air. He hiccupped with laughter, and pulled himself out of his breeches, and she felt him, stiff against her thigh. She had the sensation of being transported to the corner of the ceiling, where she huddled in the shadows, watching as he dragged her skirts up and began to paw at her underdrawers, as her arms flailed weakly at his shoulders, dragging at the pillow, trying to pull it away from her face, desperate to breathe.

  She was barely aware of the door to the cell slamming open, but she felt the man stop, and the pressure on the pillow over her face was lifted. She pushed it away from her mouth and sucked the air in.

  “You heard Absalom.” A hoarse, loud whisper, a woman’s voice. “This one is not to be touched. Now get out, or I will cut off your pizzle, and feed it to the gulls.”

  The weight came off her, as the man climbed off the bed. A woman stood there, a long knife in her hand. She pushed Kerry back down as the man hurried out of the door, hunched over with his back to her, fumbling with the ties to his breeches.

  The woman wore a long, saffron-colored robe. She leaned close, and Kerry smelled a dark scent, musky and floral at the same time. “Let him run,” the woman whispered. “If he is drunk enough to come in here, he is drunk enough to kill you if you try to fight him, no matter what Absalom says.”

  Kerry felt the energy go out of her. She slumped back on the bed, blinking back the tears pricking at her eyes. The woman went to close the door. Her eyes were dark in the wan candlelight, and made darker still by rings of heavy makeup. Her lips were stained a shade darker than her skin. She tugged the skirts of Kerry’s dress down, and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I saw you took the charas out of the burners.”

  “Charas?”

  “It is a drug. He makes us put it in all the rooms.”

  So this woman was the person she had heard working her way down the line of cells earlier.

  “Who else is here?”

  “Women. Young women.” The woman hesitated. “Girls.”

  “The woman who came with me? Where is she?”

  “The dark one? Absalom has her in another place.”

  “Has he hurt her?”

  The woman glanced at the door. “She is unharmed. But he will destroy her if you do not do as he tells you.”

  Kerry thought of the breast-ripper. She felt something nameless rise in her, roll on the surface, and submerge again.

  The woman’s fingers were warm on her cheek. “Such smooth skin. You remind me of my daughter. Have you seen her, I wonder?”

  Kerry felt her chest tighten. “Your daughter?”

  “Rumi. She ran away. Four days ago.”

  Kerry opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again at the sight of the fear in the woman’s eyes. She knew that look. She had seen it in the looking glass enough times. The terror of the unknown, not for oneself, but for one’s child.

  “What do you know?” the woman whispered.

  “What was she wearing, when she ran away?”

  “Red shoes. Her favorites.” She smiled, and then the smile disappeared. “A golden robe. He made her wear it.”

  She stared into Kerry’s face, her eyes darkening slowly, like a dying fire. And then, “She is dead, isn’t she? I can see it.”

  Kerry wanted the bed beneath her to give way, and the earth to swallow her up. The woman’s face seemed to collapse, melting like the candles in the sconces on the wall, until she looked a decade older, her eyes sunk deep in their sockets. “How?” she whispered.

  “A knife.” Kerry’s throat was tight. It was hard to speak. She touched her belly. “Here.”

  The woman closed her eyes. “She was with child.”

  Kerry said nothing.

  A whisper. “Where? Where did she die?”

  “On Chapel Street. In a lane by one o
f the warehouses.”

  The woman was still holding the knife. Her knuckles were white around the handle. She looked down at the blade, as though seeing it for the first time.

  “I’m sorry,” Kerry said.

  And suddenly the tip of the knife was an inch from her right eye. She froze.

  “My Rumi is dead, stabbed like a pig in an alley, and you are sorry?”

  It was an effort to look past the knife, and into the woman’s eyes. But it was like looking into two holes, dug deep into the earth.

  “I couldn’t save her.”

  The woman’s eyes were wide. “She was alive?”

  “Only for a moment. She had lost too much blood.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “No. I held her, and she died.”

  The woman dropped the knife, and put her face in her hands. She quivered, like a tree in a storm. Kerry sat up and put her arm around the woman’s shoulders.

  “We’ve been trying to find you. To tell you.”

  “Where is she?” The woman’s voice was muffled.

  “In the Almshouse. She’s being cared for.”

  “I must have her. I must wash her, and say prayers, and bury her in the correct way.”

  “I can take you to her.”

  The woman shook her head. “We cannot leave. If he catches you, he will kill you. And if he does not catch you, he will kill your friend.”

  She sat up, and wiped the tears from her face with the edge of her robe. She smiled, weakly. “I am sorry about the knife.”

  “There’s no need to apologize.”

  The dark eyes searched Kerry’s face. “You know what it is to lose a child, I think.”

  Kerry nodded. “A long time ago.”

  “She must have been very young.”

  “He. His name was Daniel.”

  The woman took a deep breath, and when she exhaled, her eyes were full of tears again. “I am sorry for it.”

  Kerry nodded.

  The woman took her hand and squeezed it between her palms. “My name is Sahar.”