The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  Julia and her father were waiting near the alighting platform, watching the unearthly sight of a large airship approaching the docking pylons.

  Mr Swain saw me first. “Elizabeth!”

  I rushed the last few paces, holding my finger to my lips in warning.

  Mr Swain beamed at the sight of me. “Why, my dear, I thought you were to stay in the north.”

  I could not speak, but held my hands to my chest, trying to slow my breathing.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Julia.

  “Don’t... speak... my name,” I gasped.

  They guided me to a seat. Julia placed her hand to my forehead.

  “You’re perspiring Eliz–” She brought herself up to a sudden stop then whispered urgently. “What has happened?”

  “Your luggage–”

  “They told us to bring it to the alighting platform.” Mr Swain gestured to a pile of bags by the window. Among them, I now saw Julia’s travelling case, which we had packed together two days before. It was newer, bigger and definitely more expensive than my own. I opened my mouth to speak but then changed my mind and closed it again.

  Julia clutched my hand. “What is it?”

  “I can’t ask it.”

  “If something needs to be done, you must!”

  Mr Swain cleared his throat. “If there is some danger, I should be the one to do it, whatever it is.”

  “You can’t,” I said to him. “This must happen in the ladies’ washroom.”

  It was not the men-at-arms or the intelligence gatherer that disturbed Julia. Rather, it was the thought of her clothes being on public view as we emptied her travelling case. But still she did as I asked and soon her things were piled on the seat next to me. Mr Swain placed his coat over the top to hide his daughter’s underwear from public view.

  We watched over the balcony as she descended the stairs, suitcase in hand, and made her way across the passenger hall towards the women’s washroom. As she approached the men-at-arms she slowed. My heart did a double beat as I realised she was heading for the intelligence man who still stood leaning against the pillar.

  “No!” the word escaped my mouth as a gasp.

  Her father stepped forwards and gripped the railing. His knuckles whitened.

  Below us, Julia was speaking to the intelligence man. She put down her case then handed him something too small for us to see at such distance. He fished in his trouser pocket and passed her something in return. Suddenly I understood.

  “It is a penny for the turnstile!”

  “But him! Of all the people she could have approached!” exclaimed Mr Swain.

  “Oh, but you should be proud of your daughter. Don’t you see? When she comes out, he’ll know she’s not the one he’s watching for. He’ll know her face.”

  Blowing air through his lips like a deflating balloon, Mr Swain lowered himself into a seat. “And your brother does this for a living!”

  Julia was emerging from the washroom. Too quick, I thought. She should have waited longer. And now she struggled with the case, where before she had carried it with ease. One of them would surely notice. If they searched hers and found mine concealed inside... the thought of it sent dread through my veins. Watching was greater agony than ever I had felt when my own life had been in danger.

  The intelligence man stepped towards her and reached his hand for the case.

  Mr Swain was on his feet again. “I must go to her,” he said, and was ready to act on his word but I reached out and gripped his hand.

  “Wait.”

  Julia had placed the case on the ground. She was nodding, in conversation with the intelligence man. At last he touched the brim of his hat. She smiled, picked up the case again and was off towards the stairs.

  Her father said something under his breath that could have been a prayer or an oath, I could not tell which. Then she was up with us again, cheeks flushed and wearing the broadest smile I had ever seen on her.

  “That was such excitement!” she said. “He wanted to know if there was anyone suspicious waiting inside. I told him someone could have been hiding in one of the stalls.”

  Then her father hugged her and so did I.

  It was the biggest airship I had ever seen. Four carriages hung below the vast envelope. Though my ticket had been for a different carriage from the Swains’, a word with the conductor was enough to have me transferred. Thus we sat together at the very front, just behind one of the great engines.

  Julia and her father took the window seats.

  The front mooring rope had been tethered to a traction engine. This now began to steam forwards, leading us through the hangar doors much as a tug might guide a ship through the tight confines of a harbour mouth.

  Never having travelled on a ship of such size, this ballet of machines was new to me. In other circumstances I might have drunk in the details as my companions were now doing. But my mind was occupied with the perplexing events of the last few hours.

  All ports and crossing places have their spies. That one of them had chosen to follow me across the arrival hall presented no mystery. As a woman travelling on my own, I had piqued his interest. Doubly so when he realised I was spending the night in the washroom. He would surely have suspected me of being a runaway from a husband or a father. I imagined him casting around the crowds for sight of a waiting lover.

  But the intelligence man had not simply waited and watched, collecting information to sell later. He had immediately sent a message to the Duke of Northampton, who had dispatched men-at-arms so promptly that they were waiting when I emerged in the morning. It had been five years since my flight from the Kingdom. If I was indeed the one they sought, it could only be because news of my crossing the border had reached the Duke.

  “Will you tell me your thoughts?” said Julia.

  I wondered how long she had been observing me. “You should be enjoying the view,” I said.

  “There is no view.”

  I looked through the window. We had climbed already and cloud swirled around the ship.

  “In such conditions they navigate by compass and dead reckoning,” her father said.

  “Why didn’t the soldiers enter the washroom?” Julia asked.

  “You should know that from our reading,” I said. “The warrant they carry doesn’t allow entry into private places. And certainly not to a ladies’ washroom. They have to wait for a regular constable. Then they can force entry if need be.”

  Mr Swain tutted. “The law of the Kingdom seems unreasonably complex.”

  “The aristocrats wouldn’t give up their private armies,” Julia explained. “It adds a whole layer of law enforcement.”

  “And the King?”

  “It may be called a kingdom. But the Council of Aristocrats makes the laws.”

  “Your lessons haven’t been wasted then,” her father said with a wry smile. “But if the aristocrats have all that power, why do their soldiers need a constable at all?”

  Julia frowned. “I don’t know.”

  She and her father both turned to look at me.

  “That’s politics not law,” I said. “Why should I know?”

  “You have a way of seeing under the surface of things,” said Julia.

  “Well...” I began. “I guess there’ve been enough revolutions around the world to give them warning. There aren’t many monarchies left. Perhaps the Council of Aristocrats knows that if they push the people too hard it’ll be the end for them.”

  “You’re saying they rule fairly?” asked Mr Swain.

  “Certainly not! But I’m suggesting there are limits.”

  A growing puzzlement on Julia’s face told me that she had begun to think through the events of the morning. “How did the soldiers know where to find you?”

  “Harry Timpson doesn’t want me to reach London,” I explained. “Nor does he want to waste his time trying to stop me.”

  Her puzzlement turned to shock. “But he wouldn’t!”

  “I’m afraid h
e would. He’ll have sent a message to the Duke of Northampton telling him I’ve crossed the border. I guess they’ll have searched the washroom by now. That means they’ll know they’ve been tricked. They’ll also have a good idea where I’m heading.”

  Julia reached across and put her hand on mine.

  “You’re surely safe,” said her father. “You’ll be in the capital and disembarked and lost in the crowds before news reaches St Pancras. Nothing is faster than airship.”

  “I wish that were so,” I said. “But a carrier pigeon is faster still.”

  Chapter 34

  Jossers want to be tricked. They pay for the privilege. Do not feel remorse for fulfilling their desire.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  The great airship inched its way to the mooring pylons under a rainy London sky. Ground crewmen secured the front and rear lines. Then a steam whistle blew outside and a juddering movement passed through the carriage as we began to move once more. The pylons themselves were being winched towards the hangar along a pair of iron rails. Soon we were brought to a halt under the cathedral-like iron and glass canopy of St Pancras International Air Terminus.

  A smaller airship rested to our port side, its two carriages adorned with Cyrillic writing and the double-headed eagle of the Russian Republic. The alighting platform on the starboard side was empty. But further along, I could see passengers climbing up into the carriages of a distinctively elongated French airship.

  Amid all this wonder, it was the forecourt that had my fixed attention. Immediately before us were the officials of the air company, waiting to check our tickets. But beyond them, I saw a cluster of red-uniformed men-at-arms mixed in with the jostling crowd. I could not recognise the badges from such distance, except to say that they did not belong to the Duke of Northampton. The aristocratic houses looked out for each other’s interests, however. Northampton’s men would be on their way.

  Sitting next to me, Julia’s eyes were round with wonder. “You were right about the clothes,” she said. “I couldn’t have believed it, but I look dull in comparison to these people, even dressed as I am.”

  Mr Swain drew in his breath and I knew that he too had seen the welcoming committee. Then Julia followed our gaze.

  “Stay in the carriage,” she said, alarmed.

  “That is impossible.”

  “You could fly back to Bedford,” her father agreed.

  “They’d be waiting.”

  “But–”

  “Please look after my travelling case,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Mr Swain. “But there must be more we can do.”

  “There is. Empty your pockets. Give me all the coins you carry.”

  We stood in line waiting to be allowed through the barrier. With four carriages disgorging all at the same time, several officials were kept busy checking tickets. A considerable throng had gathered outside. Shouts of greeting rose above the excited hubbub.

  “Why do they check our tickets again once the flight is over?” asked Julia.

  “They don’t,” I said. “Not usually.”

  Though the men-at-arms could not know what I looked like, I assumed my ticket number had been carried to them. Two men were being checked at the front of the queue. Between myself and them stood a woman in a peacock feather hat. I started to breathe deeply and tightened my grip on the coins in both hands.

  “Swap tickets with me,” Julia hissed.

  “No!”

  “You could slip away.”

  “And let you suffer my fate?”

  The lady with the feather hat was being processed at the front of the queue. The official nodded her through and called, “Next please.”

  I stepped forwards and presented my ticket, filling my lungs again.

  “Thanking you,” he said.

  I saw recognition bloom on his face as he read the ticket number. He started to turn towards the men-at-arms and was raising his hand to signal.

  “Thank you,” I said, stepping into the press of people then immediately cutting left.

  “Stop her!” came a cry close behind me.

  A tremor of agitation passed through the crowd. Something was happening but they didn’t know exactly what. Turning side on, I started shouldering my way through. A barrel-chested man in a greasy cloth cap grabbed my arm. I tried to wrench myself free but he held on tighter.

  “Stop her!” I cried, gesturing my balled fist in the direction I’d been trying to move.

  He let go and started barging on ahead of me. I followed in his wake, quicker now, but we’d reached the thinning edge of the crowd. I glanced back and saw three red coats, the nearest but ten yards behind. I flung one arm forward, opened my fist and let the coins fly. The sound of spilled money rang out and suddenly everyone was moving. The nearest red coat took a shoulder in the chest and went sprawling.

  Jinking right then left I dodged, picking up speed as I reached the end of the crowd. Twenty yards ahead lay a narrow archway and beyond that the forecourt where coaches waited and beyond that again would be the London streets.

  I gulped air, my throat and lungs raw.

  “Stop that woman!”

  Now out of the crowd, I couldn’t fool anyone. So I hurled the second fist of coins up into the air and shouted, “Money!” Metal glinted as they spun. Then I was under the archway and the coins were landing around me.

  It took only a second for that constricted space to become a mass of bony-limbs, rags, oaths and the stench of unwashed bodies. The beggars who habitually crowd outside such places had rushed in en masse. Station guards were laying about them with long truncheons in a futile attempt to force them back out onto the street.

  I ran the cobbled forecourt, dodging between coaches and steamcars, then out into the thin sunshine and the crowds of Euston Road.

  I did not fear discovery amid the city’s millions. Yet wandering the streets at random would not bring me closer to my goal. From what Tinker had told me, Mr Orville must have fled to the Jewish quarter in Spitalfields – and more particularly to the close-packed streets where apothecaries and chemists were known to work. There he would hope to find the knowledge to unlock the supposed power of his machine.

  Harry Timpson had surely followed. His men would be scattered through those same streets, watching, offering rewards, putting the word around. That is where I needed to go also. But being fresh in their memories, I could not walk into Spitalfields undisguised. Therefore my first stop had to be to reclaim my battered travelling case from Julia and her father.

  On approaching their hotel, however, I saw three red-coated men-at-arms questioning the doorman. It seemed that the connection between us had been established. The guileless Swains would not have been hard to track from St Pancras. They would be tailed until I was finally captured or they had crossed the border back into the Republic.

  One course of action was available to me. I must arrive at the courthouse when it opened its doors first thing in the morning and wait inside for Julia and her father. The building would be safe because its rules allowed no weapons to be taken inside or force to be administered – except by the executive of the Patent Office itself.

  With most of my money folded away in my travelling case, I did not have the option of booking into a comfortable hotel and was forced to search the cheaper streets for a guest house in which to spend the night. But even the most rundown establishments proved too expensive.

  Eventually, having walked a couple of miles south, I discovered the Tangiers, a dimly lit hostel with alarmingly green palm trees painted to either side of the entrance. In the mildew-smelling lobby, the cashier informed me that they specialised in renting rooms for short durations. He said he would do me a deal on the hours from two until six in the morning. We shook on it, his palm greasy with sweat.

  Then, having no other choice, I walked until my feet were sore. And as I walked, I stared into the windows of those shops that were still illuminated, looking through glass at colourful di
splays of shoes and dresses, foodstuffs and books. The Republic had wealth, but its riches would never be displayed in such abundance. Just as disorienting were the people who passed me on the street. In their clothes, their expansive gesticulations and in the volume of their speech, they dazzled the senses.

  My father had once brought me to London. I’d been dazzled then also, my small hand gripping his fingers, scared of losing him yet elated to be seeing the marvels of our nation’s capital.

  With my remaining money I purchased a small, sweet loaf and a bottle of ginger beer from a vendor. These I consumed as I walked, and such are attitudes in the Kingdom that I received no glances of disapproval. I would have sat but there were no benches and I did not wish to join the many homeless who huddled together on the pavement, palms upturned.

  At last I could walk no more and stood leaning on a railing, watching river traffic ploughing up and down the grey waters of the Thames.

  I woke to the sound of knocking. Opening the door of my mildew-smelling room, I was confronted by a woman wearing a burlesque combination of wasp-waisted corset and red pantaloons. My time was up, she said. I could either pay for another hour or get out. She had customers waiting in the lobby.

  I stumbled out onto the dark street, still half asleep. The air had turned colder during the night. Somewhere nearby a clock struck the three quarter hour. I had been thrown out fifteen minutes early.

  Knowing I’d freeze to death if I stood still, I set off in what I hoped was the direction of Fleet Street and the Patent Office Court.

  Gradually the city started coming to life. Occasional coat-wrapped figures hurried past. Working men at first, then gentlemen also. The further I walked west, the grander the buildings became. After half an hour, a sickly yellow dawn began to spread across the eastern sky. Lamplighters trudged their rounds, extinguishing the streetlights one by one. By the time I reached Fleet Street the roads had filled. Cabs and coaches raced through, wheels and hooves throwing mud and worse over the legs of pedestrians.