Hudson's Kill--A Justice Flanagan Thriller

by Paddy Hirsch

  Kerry stood up and went to her window. The glass was screened with a muslin curtain, and she twitched it aside to look into the street. Then she turned to look at Justy. The light was behind her, silhouetting her and throwing her face into shadow.

  “I’ve hidden her away. Somewhere you can’t get to her.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means she’s in as much danger from you as she is from Owens. I know you, Justy. You’re a law man, and the way you see it, Sahar broke the law when she killed that bastard.”

  “And how do you see it?”

  “That he got what was coming to him. He was a rapist and a pimp and a murderer. Sahar told me he killed the girls who couldn’t produce kinchen for him, or who tried to run away. He gave them to his men first, then he had them killed and buried up the island somewhere. God alone knows how many. He would have killed Sahar, after what she’d done, so as far as I’m concerned, it was self-defense.”

  Justy looked at his hands. “I wasn’t going to arrest her.”

  “Oh, you weren’t?” Kerry’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “You were just going to let her walk away, after she topped a man, right in front of you?”

  “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Because if I was going to arrest her, I’d have to arrest you, too. It was you put him on the ground, remember?”

  She said nothing. Her eyes were hooded, but he could feel the anger radiating from them.

  He sighed. “I swear, I don’t know what I was going to do. The report I wrote for Jake Hays last night? I left that part out. And you know what that makes me? An accessory.”

  “You could write another report.”

  “I could. And I should. Because what she did was murder, plain and simple. But right now I’m more concerned about another murder. Which is why I want to talk to her now.”

  “You won’t arrest her.”

  “Not today.”

  She stepped towards him. “Not ever, Justy. You let her go free. Or she’s gone for good.”

  Behind her, in the street, the sun came out from behind a cloud, and the light turned her hair into a dark halo. He felt as though someone had grabbed him by the throat. “You’d let Rumi’s killer go?”

  “If it saved Sahar’s life, yes.”

  “Jesus, Kerry!”

  It was hot in the small room, stifling. He could feel the sweat soaking his shirt under his arms. He wanted to wrench the scarf from around his neck so that he could breathe. Kerry was like a statue, dark and cool as marble. He felt the mad urge to tear off his coat and press himself against her, to rest his burning cheek on hers.

  He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. He twisted it in his hands, resisting the temptation to mop his face. “I won’t arrest her.”

  “You swear it?”

  “I swear.”

  She waited for a moment, very still. And then she made up her mind. “I’ll take you.”

  * * *

  They waited in the street while she changed. Justy leaned on the wall of the warehouse building opposite and let the sweat dry on his forehead.

  “Is it always like that with you two now?” Lars asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you looking like a wee puppy and her deciding or not whether to jump you?”

  “What?”

  Lars snorted. “I wish the two of yez would just get it over with and dab it up already. There’d be a good deal less tension.”

  Kerry’s front door rattled and she stepped out. She had pulled her hair up and pinned it, so that it showed off her long neck above the ruff of the high collar of her black dress. She looked at them, sharp green eyes. “What are you two scheming?”

  “Nothing.” Justy could feel the flush creeping over the top of his head.

  She looked him up and down. “This way, then.”

  They followed her down towards Chapel Street, and then into the lanes of Canvas Town. For a long time they walked through the busy markets, dodging shoppers carrying bags and messengers carrying loads as the lanes twisted left and right under the colored awnings.

  And then they burst out of the shade and into the sunlight and Justy blinked. “Here?”

  They were standing outside the waterfront entrance to Hughson’s Tavern. Kerry led them up the exterior staircase and through a first-floor doorway. A maid bobbed a curtsey as they passed her on the landing. Kerry tapped on a door.

  There was a single bed, a small table with a three-spike candleholder, a threadbare wooden chair with spindly legs, and a wardrobe. And nothing else.

  Justy felt his face redden. He spun around. “Where is she?”

  Kerry leaned on the door. “No arrest. You swore it.”

  “Yes. I swore. Now produce her, Kerry.”

  She smirked at him, and opened the door.

  It was a moment before Justy recognized Sahar. She seemed smaller than the night before, without her bright robes. She was dressed in a maid’s uniform, and the white of her mob cap made her skin look darker. She looked just like a hundred other black servants in the city. Justy might walk right past her in the street and never notice. He smiled, despite himself.

  “She was on the landing, when we came in, wasn’t she?”

  Kerry nodded. “Did you twig her then?”

  “No. I never would have. It’s a good disguise.”

  Sahar sat on the bed, Kerry beside her. Lars leaned his bulk against the door.

  Justy sat carefully on the spindle-legged chair and faced Sahar. “You’re in no danger from me. I’m not here to arrest you. Has Kerry told you that?”

  Sahar nodded. She had a small, heart-shaped face, with large, oval eyes and dramatically arched brows, a long, thin nose, and a tiny purse of a mouth. Justy had calculated she must be nearly thirty years old, but she looked at least ten years younger. She was looking at her hands, folded in her lap, narrow palms and long fingers, lighter close to the knuckles where she had taken off her rings. That gave Justy an idea.

  “Sahar, I need you to tell me everything you can about the night Rumi was killed. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. But I know very little. I was locked in a room.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Absalom wanted to be sure I would not try to stop him whoring my daughter.”

  He saw the fire in her eyes then, the strength she had used to cut Umar’s throat. “Last night, he said he saved her from being stoned to death. Did that happen often?”

  “Only once. A few years ago. A man was stoned for raping a boy.”

  “I see. And Rumi’s crime was bad enough for her to be stoned?”

  “So he said.”

  “So why wasn’t she?”

  “Because he wanted the child.”

  Justy nodded. “He had to punish her, though. To keep everyone else in line.”

  “He disowned her,” she spat. “He wanted to put her in her place. He told her he would whore her, then take her child and make her a serf, cleaning the bog houses.”

  Kerry took one of her hands.

  “So what happened?” Justy asked.

  “I don’t know. I was locked in. But I heard the noise. A crashing sound, like glass breaking. People shouting. I was told Rumi had stabbed the man and run away.” She looked down. “It was only later I heard it was not she who had stabbed him, but the other way around.”

  She gripped Kerry’s hand, skin on her knuckles turning pale. Justy waited for a moment.

  “Do you know who the man was?”

  She shook her head. “One of the wealthy men that came up every few weeks, to drink and smoke and plough the white women. I never saw their faces. I don’t know their names. The angels served them.”

  “But Rumi wasn’t white.”

  Sahar’s eyes filled with tears again, so that her pupils looked magnified. “When Absalom locked me up, he said one of his visitors wanted a dark-skinned woman for a change. But he feared getting the pox from a Canvas Town whore. Rumi was perfect because she was clean.”
Her voice wobbled.

  “Thank you, Sahar.” He sat back, gingerly. He had the feeling the chair was going to collapse under him, but it was surprisingly sturdy. “Now it’s my turn to try and help you.”

  A faint smile. “How can you help me?”

  “Umar … Absalom … was Rumi’s father. But was he your husband also? Were you pledged to each other?”

  She looked up. The whites of her eyes were brilliant, as though her tears had washed them clean. “Why do you want to know this?”

  “It may help you.”

  She shrugged. “He took my innocence when I was young. We had a child together later.”

  “Was there a formal marriage? Some kind of ceremony?”

  “When Rumi was born, there was a ceremony. We were pledged to each other then.”

  “Who witnessed it?”

  “Everyone.”

  “And did Umar have any other children? Or was Rumi the only one?”

  “She was the only one.”

  Justy nodded. “That’s very good, Sahar. Now we need to find some of the other people who were at the ceremony. They can testify that you and Umar were husband and wife.”

  “And why would I want this?”

  “Because if you are his wife, in the eyes of the law, you will inherit an estate that could be worth a great deal of money. Enough to get to a safe place and build a new life. For you, and anyone else you wanted to bring with you.”

  She looked at Kerry. Kerry nodded, and squeezed her hand.

  Sahar’s face darkened. “But what about Owens?”

  “You will have to be careful. Stay hidden. Have Kerry look for your witnesses. You and they have to see a lawyer and sign some papers.”

  He made to leave.

  “One thing.” Sahar was standing by the bed, holding her head up. “When my friend came to tell me Rumi had stabbed the man, she said the angels, the white women, gave him a nickname.”

  “What was it?” Justy asked.

  “Firkin.”

  FORTY-THREE

  “Could be anyone.” Lars was wedged into the backward-facing seat of a public hansom, shoulder to shoulder with Hardluck and facing Justy, who had the uncomfortable sensation that the cab might come apart at any moment. The wind whistled in around the sides of the doors and through a hole in the flimsy leather roof, and there were gaps in the floorboards, so wide that he could see the cobbles on the road.

  A firkin was a barrel. So the man might be barrel-chested, or barrel-bellied. That could describe half the men in the city. Or perhaps it was a reference to the man’s appetite for food. Or drink. It was a neat description for Jake Hays, now that he thought about it.

  He felt a chill. Hays had warned him away from Jericho. He had forbidden him to talk to Umar. And Riker. And Beaulieu. Could Hays have killed the girl? It seemed impossible. The High Constable was a happily married man, with two daughters of his own. But Justy knew from experience that apparently happily married men were capable of all kinds of depravity.

  “It could be anyone,” he said to himself. Except that it could not be anyone. Umar had managed to keep his brothel-cum-infant farm a secret. So secret that even Seamus Tully, a man who knew almost everything that went on in the city, had never caught a whiff of it. Which suggested a small, exclusive group. And Rumi’s killer had been a frequent visitor, which suggested he was wealthy or influential enough to be worth cultivating. A man of a certain class. And not of the class of men that took their pleasure in Canvas Town. So not just anyone at all.

  And how did he get to Jericho? Not in a hackney: such a man would not want to risk being seen in public. And not in his own carriage either, because servants talk, and a driver might tell a housemaid, who might let it slip to her mistress. Another man’s carriage, then.

  And that thought made Justy smile, because they were drawing up to the Tontine, the horses sweating and farting as the hack lurched to a halt. He climbed out and flicked a coin to the driver, who rubbed it tenderly with his thumb and tipped his beaver hat in thanks. Then Justy led Lars and Hardluck around the corner of the Tontine to the stables.

  Tobias Riker’s carriage was drawn up to the side. It was identical to the one Justy had won from Piers Riker, except that it was, if possible, in even better condition. The paintwork gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, and the pennants flickered like snakes’ tongues in the breeze.

  The driver, dressed head to toe in white, had his back to them, and was leaning into the cab. Justy quickened his pace.

  “The jarvie there, what’s his name again?”

  “Meriday,” Hardluck said.

  “Meriday is going to tell us everything we need to know. Who went where, and when.”

  The driver was almost flat on his stomach now, reaching for something deep inside the cab. There was a grunt of satisfaction, and he pulled himself upright. He was a big man, about fifty years of age, with a crown of white hair. He sweated freely, the beads of perspiration standing out on the dark skin of his brow. He grinned, a wide, white smile, and showed Justy what he had found. It was a small gold watch. He wound it up as he spoke.

  “All the way down the side, it was,” he said, in a deep voice. “It winked at me as I was wiping down the seats. Mister Riker will be pleased I found that.” He lifted the watch to his ear, laughed, and slipped it into his pocket.

  “I want to ask you about the people who have been using this carriage,” Justy said.

  Hardluck stepped up behind him. “Sir, I—”

  Justy waved him back. “A moment, please, Hardluck.”

  “But this isn’t Meriday.”

  Justy felt as though all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. The driver flashed his wide smile again. “I’m William, sir.”

  “Where’s Meriday?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Taken ill, perhaps. I ain’t seen him since yesterday. Mister Riker told me to take on his duties this morning. He didn’t say why.”

  Justy wanted to curse and swear and stamp about the stables, but he contented himself with groaning inside. Riker might have no idea who knew what about his relationship to Umar, but he was clever enough to realize that it was better for everyone if he erased all trace of it. And that included squirreling away his driver, who must have seen every face, and knew every address. And where was Meriday now? Shipped back to the farm was one possibility. Facedown in the Helgate was another.

  “I’m Justice Flanagan. Did Mister Riker tell you of our arrangement?”

  The driver nodded. “She’s all washed and swept and ready to go, Marshal. I expect young Hardluck here will be driving her for you.”

  “He will be driving, yes. Although not for me. This is now Mister Cross’s carriage.”

  “Mister Cross, sir? Is that this gentleman?” William turned his wide smile on Lars.

  “No. That is this gentleman.” Justy slapped Hardluck on the shoulder. “Allow me to present Hardluck Cross, a free citizen of the city of New York.”

  William’s mouth fell open, into a huge O, and his eyes opened wide. Hardluck was grinning, his eyes shining, and it was a moment before William had gathered himself. “It’s true, then?”

  “True as the nose on your face, Willum.”

  The older man’s face seemed to melt slightly, and his eyes were suddenly wet. He cleared his throat. “That’s wonderful news, Hardluck. Best news I’ve heard in I don’t know when. Carly will be fair betwattled when I tell her. And Tilly, too.”

  “You give them my love, now.”

  The driver smiled his wide smile. “I’ll do that. I certainly will.”

  He shook Hardluck firmly by the hand, then turned away.

  Hardluck watched him go. “Willum’s normally a footman. Can’t drive worth a damn.” His voice was tight.

  “You’re good friends?”

  Hardluck nodded. “I’ve known him since I was a chit. He’s like an uncle, more or less.”

  “He seemed pleased to have found Mister Riker’s watch.”

  Hardl
uck shook his head. “Not Mister Riker’s. He doesn’t stand for jewelry. Him and Master Piers had a terrible fight about it once. He says it draws attention.”

  Justy watched William climb the steps to the servant’s entrance at the back of the Tontine.

  Hardluck was staring at the carriage, and the two chestnut mares, standing quietly in their traces. “Are you sure about this, sir?”

  “I am, Hardluck. I felt awful about asking you to torch the other one. And it’s the least I can do in return for your help last night. You’ll do me the honor of taking it and saying no more.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “And you’ll stop calling me sir, please. I’m Justy, to my friends.” He held out his hand.

  Hardluck shook. “Thank you, Justy.”

  Now Justy had to clear his throat. “Right then. Let’s get on out of here, before Riker changes his mind.”

  “Where can I take you?” Hardluck asked.

  Justy shook his head. “Lars and I are taking Shanks’ pony from here, but there is one thing you can do for me, if you don’t mind.”

  “Name it.”

  “I need you to take a message to Kerry O’Toole.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  The working week was now over, and Wall Street was a shadow of its normal self. There were plenty of people in the dress shops and fancy goods stores up and down the hill, but the usual crush of traffic was a memory, and it was an easy task to cross the freshly swept street.

  Justy walked alone down William Street. The whole way down the hill he felt his insides drawing tighter, until he made the right turn and arrived at the High Constable’s house. There was neither a door knock, nor a bell pull, so he rapped on the dark green paint with his knuckles. A moment later the door was hauled open and Hays was glaring at him.

  “And where the rotting cod have you been?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry, Jake, I—”

  “It’s ‘sir’ to you, until you’ve explained yourself, young man.”

  Justy flushed. “And should I do so on your front step with all the glimms in the street a-peeping?”

  Hays scowled. He led Justy down to his study. It was a small, brown, airless room, crammed with books, with barely enough room for a desk and chair. It was lit by a single window, set high in the wall.