Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  Sir Jasper was visibly growing impatient. ‘You will have to trust me, madam!’ he said sharply.

  ‘It ain’t a matter o’ trust, sir. It’s a matter o’ natural caution, a matter of survival. I wouldn’t trust me own rabbi from shoppin’ me if ‘e was to find counterfeit money in me ‘ouse! Stands to reason, don’t it? In the eyes o’ the law, Ikey and me, we’d both be guilty!’ She paused and smiled at the police officer. ‘May I suggest summink more appropriate?’

  The Upper Marshal banged his fist down hard upon the table. ‘No, madam, you may not! I hardly think a woman of your background could improve on our methodicals! This plan is the work of experienced officers, it requires no alteration, being quite perfect as it is!’ He folded his arms across his chest and glowered at Hannah in a most imperious manner.

  Hannah remained silent until she gauged that Sir Jasper’s exasperation had somewhat calmed, then she persisted. ‘ ’Is coat. Sew the money in the linin’ o’ his coat, then nick ‘im on the street, away from ‘ome, away from me and the young ‘uns!’

  The police officer, despite his irritability, looked up at her in surprise. ‘I say, do you think you could do that?’ Then he rested his chin on his chest and mused, as though to himself, ‘Lining of his coat? Caught red-handed with the money on his person, in his possession?’ He looked up and smiled at Hannah. ‘By, Jove, that’s perfectly splendid! No way of wriggling out of that, eh?’ Sir Jasper rubbed his hands gleefully together, completely mollified. ‘Perfect! Why, it’s quite, quite perfect, m’dear!’

  ‘Not so perfect, already!’ Hannah scowled. ‘ ’E don’t ever take ‘is coat orf, not never and not particular never at this time, when the weather is inclement and comin’ up to Christmas.’ She cocked her head and thought for a moment, ‘On the other ‘and, if ‘e don’t ever take orf ‘is coat. . .’ she paused, thinking again, ‘then the only person what would ‘ave put the money there is ‘isself, ain’t that right, then?’

  Sir Jasper clapped his hands in delight. ‘I say, that’s damn clever, m’dear! Capital, how very wise of you!’

  Hannah knew the task of apprehending Ikey away from home would be a most difficult one. Ikey’s mode of travel through the rookeries was nocturnal and shadowy, never tiring in the task of concealment. No magistrates’ runner or Bank of England law officer could ever hope to follow him, or even dare to enter those parts where his crepuscular fellow creatures engaged in business with him.

  Ikey’s coat was a very elusive target and the more she thought about it the less confident she was that such a scheme could be made to work. But with the knowledge that all the stolen property concealed in her White-chapel home would come into her possession while she was, so to speak, under the protection of the law, Hannah possessed a powerful additional incentive to succeed.

  ‘When will ya let me ‘ave the false finnies, sir? I needs no more than two.’

  ‘Finnies? Oh, you mean the five pound notes? You shall have them promptly on the morrow.’

  ‘In the afternoon, if ya please. I needs me beauty sleep!’ Hannah smiled and then, with one eyebrow slightly arched and her head cocked to one side, her expression coquettish, ‘Perhaps you would like to bring ‘em y’self, sir?’

  Sir Jasper Waterlow’s complexion turned a sudden deep purple and his nose began to twitch alarmingly. Avoiding Hannah’s eyes he gathered up his top hat from the table and moved towards the door where he paused, and slid the slender fingers of his left hand into a bright yellow leather glove. He was quite exhausted and in urgent need of a stiff brandy.

  His expression now somewhat composed, he looked directly at Hannah. ‘I shall require you to wait five minutes before leaving,’ he grunted, then added, ‘I should also be very careful not to lose the five pound notes I shall send you. It would be most difficult to convince me that such a calamity was honestly come about.’ He pulled the second glove on and glanced briefly at Hannah from under the rim of his top hat. ‘Though, of course, in such an event, we do have others.’ Then he touched the brim of his hat. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Solomons,’ Sir Jasper said and, passing through the doorway, closed the door behind him.

  Hannah smiled. She could hear the clatter of his mincing high-heeled steps in the hallway and then the silence as he stopped to retrieve his cloak from the proprietor, then a few more steps as he departed the Blue Wren. ‘That’s gratitude for ya,’ she said to herself. ‘But that one will be back soon enough for a good spankin’ from ‘is adorable nanny, nothin’ surer.’

  Not long after this meeting, Hannah once again summoned Bob Marley. He was surprised to be contacted by Hannah so soon after it would have been apparent that he had duped her in the matter of the raid on the premises in Bell Alley. Hannah was not known for her forgiving nature. Marley was therefore understandably suspicious at her openly friendly manner. She sat him in the parlour where a bright fire blazed and where she had laid out a single glass and fresh bottle of brandy with a plate of oat cakes.

  Apart from his initial greeting Bob Marley remained silent, pouring himself a large glass of brandy and helping himself to a couple of the cakes.

  ‘It weren’t nice what ya done, Bob Marley,’ Hannah began. ‘Takin’ advantage of a poor woman what was ‘elpless.’

  Marley, with a mouth full of cake, stopped chewing and rose from his chair as though to leave. ‘No, don’t go!’ Hannah added hastily, smiling. ‘We got things to talk about what could be to yer advantage.’

  Bob Marley swallowed the cake in his mouth and took a gulp of brandy to wash it down. ‘It were you who called me, remember? All I done was take advantage of a situation what was not o’ me makin’!’ He was still holding the glass and, bringing it up to his lips, paused. ‘It would ‘ave been unprofessional not to ‘ave done what I did. People might ‘ave thought I was losin’ me grip o’ things!’

  Hannah refrained from reminding him that there was only herself involved. When she thought about it, she supposed she too would have thought less of him if he hadn’t exploited such an opportunity to benefit from her predicament. It was this very self-serving aspect of Bob Marley’s nature which she now wished to use to her advantage.

  ‘I needs a job done, no questions asked,’ Hannah said finally.

  Marley gave her a bemused look. ‘There’s always questions, lovey.’

  ‘What I means is, I don’t want to talk about me motives, I wants ya to accept ‘em, no questions asked.’

  ‘No questions costs more money, it means I can’t measure the exact amount o’ risk involved.’

  ‘No more risk than if ya knew everyfink, you ‘ave my word on that.’

  Marley waited, saying nothing, and Hannah continued. ‘Ikey will come back to London, reasons that don’t matter to ya, but ‘e’ll be back. He can’t come ‘ome, too dangerous. ‘E’ll need a place to ‘ide and somebody ‘e can trust to find it for ‘im and act,’ she paused and looked at Bob Marley, ‘sort of as a go-between ‘tween me and ‘im.’

  Marley took a long swig at the brandy in his glass, prolonging his lips on the rim of the glass longer than would have seemed necessary, as though he was thinking carefully on the proposition. Finally he looked up at Hannah. ‘There’s a big reward out - I’d ‘ave to be paid ‘least that, and expenses, mind. Findin’ a deadlurk what will keep ‘im safe wif ‘arf the bleedin’ world keepin’ a greedy eye out for ‘im ain’t goin’ to be easy!’

  Hannah had already taken herself through the process of having to pay Marley the equivalent of the reward on Ikey’s head, but she was nonetheless shocked at the prospect when she heard it coming from Marley’s own mouth. She swallowed hard, ‘For that sort o’ money I’d want more,’ she said, her gaze steady.

  ‘More? What’s ya mean?’

  ‘I wants ya to plant some fake stiff on Ikey.’

  Marley brought his palms up in front of his face. ‘Hey now, Hannah, we’s family people! Ya going to shop Ikey by plantin’ snide on ‘im, that ain’t nice. That ain’t nice at all?’

&n
bsp; Hannah stiffened. ‘Remember, I said no questions. I ‘as me reasons, Bob Marley.’

  Marley whistled. ‘I bet ya ‘as, lovey.’ He sighed and looked directly at Hannah, ‘Sorry, I don’t do domestics.’

  ‘I’m not askin’ ya to take sides! Jus’ to plant some fake soft.’

  ‘I’ll not shop ‘im, Hannah. I’m no copper’s nark.’

  ‘I didn’t ask ya, did I? Just to do a plant, that’s all.’

  Marley looked up. ‘Jus’ the plant?’ He seemed to think for a moment. ‘It’ll cost extra.’

  Hannah laughed and then shook her head. ‘Sorry, love, when ya asked for the reward, that be the limit. There’s ‘undred pound on Ikey’s ‘ead and I’ll pay that, but not a farthin’ more.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Since time out of mind, long before the coming of the great belted engines with their hiss and suck of steam and whirr of wheels and pistons, before the city provided warmongery to the world with its mountains of iron ore, furnaced, hot rolled, steam hammered, pressed, poured and moulded into the fiery spit and spite of small arms, Birmingham had always been the Babylon of baubles. It was here that goldsmiths and silversmiths, in a thousand tiny workshops, made jewellery so wickedly extravagant as to turn many a fine lady into a whore, and many a whore into a fine lady.

  As may be expected, where there is gold, silver, plate and wicked little stones with nimble fingers to shape and polish them, there are gentlemen with even lighter fingers to fleece them from their rightful owners into the greedy hands of the unctuous fence.

  Ikey arrived in Birmingham at eight o’clock in the morning of his second day out from London, not stopping to pass the night in a comfortable tavern, though several of these establishments existed for this sole purpose - inns where a weary traveller could expect a crackling fire, a sizzling pot roast, a pewter mug of good mulled claret and, upon a quiet word into the landlord’s ear, a bed warmed by a ploughman’s daughter, a wench with ivory skin and thighs as creamy to the sight as fresh churned butter. It was common enough talk among those who often travelled these ways that the yokel’s daughter, so lasciviously described, had indeed been much ploughed and so often seeded as to sprout half the snot-nosed bumpkins in the parish.

  It was most surprising that Ikey chose to continue on the smaller, faster night coach to Birmingham. He was, after all, a natural coward and it being the Christmas season the danger of meeting a highwayman or footpad on the road was greatly increased. Only a fool or a traveller with most urgent business would think to travel with a mail-coach running hard through the night. But Ikey, a creature of the dark hours, felt most vulnerable when exposed to the brightness of sun-pierced light and, in particular, within a restricted location such as a coach. He had sat miserably all day trapped and huddled in the corner of the day coach from London, the collar of his coat pulled high and his hat placed deep-browed upon his head, with his face turned outwards to the passing countryside. Should his fellow passengers have wished to observe him they would have seen only the collar of his coat and the broad-brimmed hat which appeared to rest upon it.

  To all appearances these aforementioned fellow passengers looked innocent enough: the ginger-bearded horse dealer with his shaggy one-eyed dog, the two long-fenced clerical types in dark cloth, only the colour of their waistcoats telling them apart, and of course the monstrously fat woman in widow’s weeds, a human personage so big she could easily turn a living in the grand freak show at Southwark Fair. But Ikey was taking no chances and said not a single word all day, not even allowing the most banal of courtesies.

  When evening came and his fellow passengers left the coach for the comforts of a night spent in a village tavern, the opportunity to continue on alone was presented to Ikey by the departure of a lighter and faster mail-coach travelling through to Birmingham. It contained sufficient room for four passengers, though he seemed to be the only one to purchase a ticket from the coachman.

  It was a most bitter disappointment to Ikey when Tweedledum, the red-waistcoated clerk, climbed unsteadily into the coach. He smelled strongly of cider and barely nodded as he found his seat at the window opposite but on the same side as Ikey, so that their eyes could not meet. Now they both faced in the direction in which the coach was travelling. Ikey had not thought of him as separate, but as one component of a two-part presence in red and yellow, and it disturbed him to think that he’d made such an unthinking assumption based simply on their attire.

  Ikey’s first instinct was to become immediately suspicious of the man’s presence. But if Tweedle was an officer of the law sent to keep an eye on him, his recent intake of the local cider had rendered him ineffective, for Tweedle was becoming increasingly cross-eyed, his head lolling with the delayed effects of the local scrumpy.

  The ostler had all but completed checking the harnessing and the coachman was already aboard, whip in hand, when the fat widow, clutching her large hamper to her bosom, emerged panting from the tavern and came towards them.

  The coach was delayed ten minutes as the ostler and the coachman pushed and squeezed, panted and shoved to fit the giant woman through the door of the smaller carriage. Once contained within its interior it would have been quite impossible for any further souls to occupy the remaining space, of which there was now very little. The lighter mail coach, though harnessed with a full team of horses, was built for speed and not for the comfortable accommodation of passengers. The gargantuan woman filled one entire side of its interior, her fat knees occupying the corridor between them, and her hamper taking up the centre of the opposite seat with the silently drunken Tweedle at one side, and Ikey huddled tightly into the corner at the other.

  It was snowing quite hard, though the road was still clear and the post-chaise set off at a brisk pace into the night. The widow completely ignored Ikey’s presence and shortly after they reached the first toll-gate she reached over for the hamper, placed it on her lap and clamped her fat arms around its lid. Then she fell into an immediate and seemingly deep slumber.

  Ikey hoped to do the same, for he was desperately tired and had been awake more than twenty-four hours, and with the absence of the hamper the seat beside him promised to make an excellent bed. But Tweedle, as if struck by a blow from an invisible hand, collapsed into the space left between them. The cider had finally rendered him senseless.

  Ikey turned up the collar of his coat and, pulling its lapels around his chest, settled down to sleep. Alas, the widow soon put this prospect from his mind, for she caused a great deal more trouble for Ikey asleep than ever she’d done in a state of wakefulness.

  During the day Ikey had observed from the corner of his eye and by a direct assault on his nostrils, that the widow had partaken of several large meals, the fare coming out of the seemingly inexhaustible larder on her lap.

  Now, as she snored, her tightly compact innards fought back with a series of combustible noises. From her vast interior oleaginous gases rumbled in ferment. After a period of time all these internally combusted sounds combined to reach a climax. It seemed that at any moment the pressure within her would become so great that a cork must surely pop from her navel, cause a huge efflux and send coach and horses, Ikey and the unconscious Tweedle all the way to kingdom come.

  Ikey sat huddled in his corner with the collar of his coat and the brim of his hat tightly pushed against his ears, though the sounds prevailed, penetrating the protection of his cupped hands. Just as he supposed he could stand it no longer, when the noises and fumes of regurgitated gases and thunderous farts became too noxious even for his seasoned nose, with a soft sigh the widow quietly awakened and proceeded to open the hamper on her lap.

  A small lantern swinging from the coach roof cast a to-and-fro shadow across the interior of the cabin, so that the widow would disappear into the complete darkness and then a moment later appear again, lit by the dim light of the swaying lamp.

  Ikey watched from the inside of his coat as food began to appear. First was the smaller part of a haunch of ham
, one side showing white to the bone and the other plump with pink meat. From it the widow carved, at the very least, a pound of pig flesh and proceeded to layer it upon a thick crust of bread. This she sprinkled with a generous pinch of salt, swiped with a blade of yellow mustard and garnished with pickle forked from a large jar. Finally she added to the conglomeration several thumps of thick, dark, treacle-like sauce.

  Each meal was taken precisely on the hour, each different; a mutton pie large enough to feed a hungry family, a plump chicken and a raisin tart, a turkey leg and a pound of white breast meat, a large cold sausage and apple pie, a slab of cold roast beef and several boiled potatoes. A large pork and leek pie was the last but final means of satisfying the giant woman’s voracious appetite.

  Ikey, thoroughly miserable, watched as a cold blue dawn appeared over the gently rolling countryside, the tops of the low rounded hills blanketed with snow. He was desperate for sleep and his small belly, so seldom demanding of food and having observed so much of it during the night, now rumbled with the need for sustenance, though even now food was not his greatest need and he would willingly have remained hungry for another day in exchange for two hours of uninterrupted sleep. He envied Tweedle who seemed not to have stirred on the seat beside him.

  With no further food to consume, the widow settled down to finish off the demijohn of gin. She seemed unaware of the sleeping shape of Tweedle, whose face lay only inches from her plump white knees, but fixed Ikey with a stern and disapproving eye, or rather, she fixed her disapproval on the dark, silent upright bundle in the corner. Holding the neck of the demijohn in her fat fist, she brought it to her lips, and with a tolerable level of sucking and lip smacking and occasional bilious burps the widow proceeded to get very drunk. Ikey, at last, was able to fall into an exhausted sleep.