by Andy Emery
Gedge followed his gaze, and saw one of the other robbers carrying a small packing case, and barging someone out of the way before heading inside the storeroom.
Cross called to Gedge. ‘Lucas! Get after him! Haddow and I’ll take this one into custody. Darius is chasing the other two. They’re out of the mews and running off down the road.’
Gedge flew through the double doors and into a warehouse space lined with boxes of all shapes and sizes. He was just in time to see his quarry disappearing through a doorway on the far side. He set off in pursuit, despite the nagging pain from the knife wound.
He entered a corridor with a number of small rooms leading off. He glanced quickly into each one.
‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’
An elderly voice, somewhere ahead, followed by a cry and a bumping sound.
Gedge forged ahead, and emerged into a foyer, realising he must be at the front of the building. The auction room was visible to his left, with rows of seats and a raised stage at one end. Just opposite, an elderly man in a commissionaire’s uniform lay in a heap at the foot of a pair of glass-panelled doors.
Gedge rushed over and gently rolled him onto his back. The white-haired gent winced in pain. ‘That little bastard bashed straight into me. Knocked me for six with that box. Feels like I’ve broken me arm! But I’ve seen the sod’s face. I’ll know him again!’ He held up the torn remnants of a Death Dog mask.
Gedge had to stifle a smile. ‘Snap. I’ve got one of those, also whipped off one of those swine as he was running away. We’ll soon have a set. Now, did you see where the hell he went?’
‘Through the bloody doors, of course!’
‘Why are they open at this time of night?’
The man sighed. ‘He was just lucky. I was clearing up before pushing off home, and took some bags of rubbish out. Should have left it until tomorrow. If I had, he’d have been trapped like a rat.’
Gedge puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well, there’s no chance of catching him now. He’s got away with what he came for. Hopefully my friends have had more luck. Now, let’s get you up. We’ll get a doctor to look at that arm.’
Back out by the delivery cart, Darius had also failed to catch the two men he’d chased, losing them in a maze of alleyways just off the main road. They’d held onto the one Death Dog, but Jack Cross wasn’t happy. ‘We must be slipping, you and me. It was four against four, and we let three of them get away. And it looks like they got what they come for.’
Gedge pondered. ‘They might have made a mistake. Got the wrong box.’
‘And they might not. It makes it all the more important to get whatever we can from the one we’ve caught. Haddow, get our prisoner into the hansom. We’re going back to the station.’
Then Cross turned back to Gedge. ‘Wait a minute, why are you holding your side like that? You’re injured!’
Gedge lifted up his shirt and examined the wound. ‘I’ll live. Just a small gash. I’ve bled a little, but it’s fine. I’ll bandage it up at home.’
25
Doherty’s Gaiety Music Hall on the Whitechapel Road had closed down the previous year, but was being redecorated and revamped by the new owners prior to a grand opening in a few months’ time. The new owners were a syndicate, and the syndicate was controlled by Seamus Flynn and his gang.
Flynn sat on the stage, on a huge carved wooden chair that was more like a throne, the embodiment of the King of the Banshees. Michael O’Neill stood at his right hand. Piles of paint pots, brushes and dust sheets littered the margins of the stage behind them. The rest of the Banshees gathered around a dozen tables at the foot of the stage, supping beer and spirits.
Flynn was deep in whispered conversation with O’Neill.
‘Michael. The situation is this. We’re an organisation in rude health. I told you the way to do this was to treat our gang like a proper business, because that’s what it is. We’re not hoodlums only interested in having a laugh, although, obviously, we do that sometimes. But we’re as serious about making money as any company in the city or northern mill owner. We have to look at our operations in that way.
‘It’s all about profits, and we’re raking it in. Plenty of protection money. But that’s old school. We’ve fingers in so many pies. Places like this. People can’t get enough of the singin’ and dancin’, and we can sell our stolen booze through here.’
O’Neill nodded at all this. ‘Seamus, what about drugs? Opium and laudanum. They say there’s a new route from the orient. A new supply’s opened up out there. I’ve heard that more and more of the upper class fashionable set in London can’t get enough of the stuff. It’s the way of the future, Seamus.’
Flynn pursed his lips. ‘You might be right, but that stuff doesn’t sit right with me. Give me good old-fashioned liquor any day.’
‘Seamus, the good businessman must move with the times.’
Flynn laughed. ‘You got one in there, I’ll give you that. But listen. Our territory’s expanding. We’ve made in-roads into what used to be that Jew Kaplan’s manor, and we’re starting to encroach south of the river. It’s proof that our methods are working.’
‘Yes, this is our time, all right. That’s why we need to take advantage.’
Flynn nodded. ‘Now, I think it’s time for your little announcement.’
O’Neill stood up and took a few steps away from the table. Flynn thumped the base of his heavy wooden cane on the floor three times, bringing the Banshees to order.
‘Alright, gentlemen! Michael here has something to tell you. Listen up! It’s a new venture for our business. A new opportunity that’s fallen into our laps.’
The Banshees, almost all men, applauded, banging their tankards on tabletops in anticipation.
O’Neill hooked his thumbs inside his braces and addressed the cherry-red faces of the men looking up at him. ‘Boys. Some fascinating intelligence has come into our hands. It concerns an item that’s extremely valuable to a few select people. And there are other people who’re trying to get hold of it. But they’re amateurs. That’s where we come in. We’re professionals in matters like these, and I’m planning how we can get hold of this treasure and sell it on to the highest bidder.’
One of the men at the front spoke up. ‘What is this treasure, Mr O’Neill?’
‘You’ll laugh, but it’s a book. A very old one, mind. Written by the ancient Egyptians, if you please. They used little pictures instead of proper writing. All very musty and crumbly, I’d imagine. But it doesn’t matter to us what it’s like. Only what it’s worth, right? This one book could make us the equivalent of a couple of years’ takings from our protection business.’
A cheer went up. Then another question. ‘Where is it?’
‘I’m working on the details. You’ll know soon enough. I want you to be ready to move on this in the next few days. So don’t make any other plans. We’ll let you know who we’ll need, where and when.’
As O’Neill went to sit down again next to Flynn, a higher pitched voice piped up. ‘I’d like to be involved, Mr O’Neill, if I might be so bold.’
O’Neill looked at the dark-haired girl near the back of the group. The only woman in the room. She’d stood up to make her appeal.
‘Well, well. Sally O’Riordan. The boys say you’ve been doing a good job, shouldering a man’s burden. Not cutting any slack to those who’ve been tardy with their payments. And your past shows a commendable use of viciousness when the occasion warrants it. And I hear you do the keening better than any man here. I’ll certainly consider you for this job, along with a number of others. No promises, mind.’
Sally sat back down with a smile on her face, and received a few admiring looks from the gangsters around her.
On the stage, Flynn stood and patted his lieutenant on the back. ‘Right! Now it’s time to celebrate. Eat all you want, boys, then get some rest, ready for the work ahead. Bring in the food!’
He clapped his hands, and half a dozen waiters emerged from bac
kstage, carrying platters groaning with roasted meat and vegetables. An even bigger cheer went up from the assembled gang.
Nearing the end of their repast, with most of the gang engaging in raucous carousing, Flynn swirled an inch of brandy around in the bottom of his glass. ‘Michael, the O’Riordan girl. Not been with us long, has she?’
‘No, Seamus. But she’s an asset we should be pleased to have. She worked for that ex-soldier Ackerman. You know, the one who was auctioning off girls to the highest bidder?’
‘Oh, him. The bugger was in league with a bent Special Branch copper, wasn’t he? He almost pulled it off, they say. Fact that he didn’t was more to do with some sort of vigilantes than the police.’
‘That’s it. Anyway, she’s a hard-nosed little tart, and clever with it. Ambitious. I’ve a mind to set her a task. A little project. See how she performs. If she does well, she could move ahead of some of these soft wretches in the pecking order.’
Flynn sipped his drink. ‘Well, just watch her, Michael. Get to know her. You know I’m always a bit nervous about the new ones. We can never know quite enough about them for my liking.’
O’Neill smiled and nodded, taking a long swig from his own glass. He looked out across the room and saw Sally O’Riordan drinking several of his more hard-bitten thugs under the table.
26
Western Siberia, Russia
3rd November 1890
Volkov wakes, glances about him, and pushes aside some of the branches that concealed him as he slept. He shakes off the thin rime of ice that covers his coat. He stretches in place, returns some of the feeling to his aching, freezing limbs. Pain throbs from the brand on his shoulder. He peers along the railway tracks, where they disappear into the mist to the east. It shouldn’t be long now.
He turns and scans the trees around and behind him, then the cutting below, and the forest on the other side. The only movement is the fluttering of birds high up in the canopy, dislodging small clumps of snow that flutter to the ground.
There is the sound of twigs snapping, at the edge of the tree cover immediately opposite him on the other side of the tracks. He flattens himself to the ground, his right hand moving to the hilt of the knife he took from the peasant last week. He focuses solely on one small patch of forest, trying to discern movement, the shape of a human body, anything to give substance to the noises as they get clearer, closer.
His mind pictures another fugitive, somebody like himself. Another who has travelled hundreds of kilometres through harsh terrain, endured dreadful weather, stolen and killed in order to stay alive, and headed west towards salvation. He can almost taste the coppery tang of blood as they meet in a vicious fight to the death.
The foliage quivers, low to the ground. The other man must be prone like him, crawling along as he approaches the forest’s margin.
With a crash, and a miniature eruption of snow, the figure springs out from behind the cover of a tree trunk, landing a foot or so in the open, staring directly at Volkov.
And Volkov, defying the constant need to stay hidden, to keep silent and never let his guard drop, throws back his head and lets out a peal of laughter.
‘A sodding pine marten!’ The creature shoots him a haughty glance and turns away, strolling along the tree line.
He resumes a sitting position, pulls his hood down and his scarf up, leaving just a slit for his eyes, and stares into the mist to the east, willing the train to appear.
After a while, his concentration lapses, and his mind drifts back to his family’s dacha, back to the long Christmas holiday in ’52. He thinks about that unfortunate experience with the neighbour’s girl, Svetlana. His assumptions about her had proved false, and his actions had been covered up.
That had been surprisingly easy, but his family treated him differently afterwards. Nothing had been said, but they all acted carefully, tiptoeing around him. And then it became known at his school, and to his friends. They sniggered in corners or avoided him altogether. He had changed schools, but it didn’t provide the fresh start he desired. He started going to bars, and a chance encounter in one particularly seedy dive sparked an interest in politics, in bolshevism.
He nurtured a growing distaste for the very caste into which he’d been born. He realised that his family and their ilk were not only a drain on Mother Russia’s resources, but together with all of the bourgeoisie and everyone up to and including the royal family, they represented the problem. Without them, the country would realise its true potential, and with its huge land area and unparalleled natural resources, would dominate the world. Revolution was the panacea for Russia’s ills.
That Christmas, the atmosphere at the dacha was a powder keg. The family saw their time together in the country as a way of mending fences with their errant son Nicolai. But he would have none of it, pushing away every kind word, going off for long walks alone, refusing meals.
Then, one afternoon, while sitting looking out over a lake a mile away from the house, and devouring the contents of a revolutionary periodical, he observed his idiot cousin Pyotr haltingly approach the lake some hundred yards away, and venture out onto the narrow wooden jetty. The boy tottered to the end of the wooden structure and looked down at the ice-covered surface of the lake. Something was fascinating him down there.
Pyotr, grinning, struck the surface of the ice with a stick. Volkov assumed he’d seen fish swimming in the water below the surface layer. The lake bed shelved off steeply at that point and the end of the jetty stood in about eight feet of water; the better to fish from that spot in warmer weather. Volkov stood up and moved around the lake edge towards the jetty. Pyotr was gurgling to himself and gurning. Communing with the fish?
Volkov stepped onto the jetty, and Pyotr swung around, his eyes widening in fright. For some reason he hadn’t taken to his cousin.
He got to his feet, stepped back, and his right foot slipped on one of the wooden planks. For a long moment he seemed suspended on the edge of the jetty, his arms windmilling, as he tried to keep his balance. He toppled backwards, letting out a high-pitched squeal, and hit the ice with a crack, splitting the surface and passing through it immediately.
Volkov calmly walked along the jetty. He saw a hand flail, then disappear beneath the ice. Then a jet of bubbles. He stopped, and looked around, along the lake edge. Nobody to be seen. He walked on and reached the end of the jetty. Looked down. There was the idiot. He was lying face up, under the ice several feet to one side of the hole he’d made. A few tiny bubbles escaped the corner of his mouth. His face looked placid and peaceful, the pale skin refracted through the greenish ice layer. Volkov smiled.
Ten minutes later, Volkov heard his sister calling out to him. He didn’t turn around as he heard her walking down the jetty towards him.
‘Come along, Nicolai. Dinner’s ready. What are you doing down here?’
She stood next to him. Looked around. Finally looked down. Then let out a piercing scream.
‘Oh, God! It’s Pyotr! Nicolai, get him out!’
‘No need, Anna. He’s fine. It’s too late, anyway.’
She stared at Volkov. With streams of tears running down her face, she ran as fast as she could back to the house to get help.
Volkov couldn’t get over how peaceful it was: the snow, the lake, the trees, and the boy transfixed below the ice, like a seed head in a paperweight.
He is brought out of his reverie by the faint sound of a train whistle. He can’t see it yet, but now he knows it’s coming.
He has chosen this spot because the train will slow down as it approaches a curve just to the west. The tricky part will be timing his run down the side of the embankment; he must delay it so that the driver does not see him, but not leave it so late that he can’t reach the last freight car.
With the Ural Mountains between him and the west, it’s vital that he gets aboard somehow. Trekking across the mountains by any other means will be too dangerous.
The train thunders by, wheels screeching, sparks fl
ying. Sure enough, it starts to slow, the brakes grinding. There are four passenger coaches behind the locomotive, followed by perhaps twenty freight cars. As the fifteenth of these draws level with him, the locomotive passes out of sight around the curve ahead, and Volkov slings his pack onto his back and hurtles down the side of the cutting.
He runs full pelt, parallel with the train, fixing his attention on the rear of the second to last freight car, where a set of steps allows access to the area above the buffers, between the cars.
He has to time it perfectly. If he lunges at the steps and misses, he’ll either fall under the wheels and be crushed to death, or he’ll end up writhing in the snow and won’t recover in time before the last car passes him. Then the train will speed up as the track straightens and he’ll have to wait for the next train in a week’s time, or risk the walk into the Urals.
He gets close, and launches himself. He grabs the rungs of the iron steps with his right hand, almost wrenching his arm out of its socket. He gets a grip with the left hand, and pulls himself up.
He wedges his body into the space above the buffers and watches the forest pass by behind him.
He smiles.
III
27
Gedge walked down Smith Street towards the Farnsworth Asylum with a growing sense of unease. A one-eyed urchin playing in the gutter stared at him. Gedge shuddered at the empty socket where the other eye should have been. He had the familiar sense that poor children these days had already seen the worst the world could offer. Little did they know.
Caterwauling from the upstairs window of a filthy tenement. It sounded like the cry of a wild and feral creature. Up ahead, a dark cloud glowered in the sky, just above the institution he was heading for. The sound of whistles and shouts seemed to be coming from the same direction.