A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders

by Malcolm Archibald

  Mendick and Deuchars stood apart from the others and the police line looked thin and weak as it rallied once more to face the onslaught. Five constables were crumpled on the ground and others swayed in the ranks, white faces streaked with blood. Most officers nursed some sort of injury. Superintendent Mackay was in the centre, brandishing his official sword and giving loud orders but even he looked shaken, while the flames from burning shops illuminated the night. Smoke, dark and acrid, coiled between the buildings.

  “Talk about the squares at Quatre Bras, eh?” Deuchars altered his grip on the staff. His face was scarlet-streaked with blood, but there were three soldiers on the ground immediately in front of him, one secured by handcuffs and the others in groaning immobility.

  “And here come the French cavalry.” Mendick nodded at the next onrush of soldiers.

  He saw the carriage again, the dark-coloured brougham. He craned his neck to see past the soldiers, but a drift of wind blew smoke from the burning cart between them. When it cleared the carriage had vanished.

  “Get the bastards!” The soldiers rallied again and the noise multiplied. It was like nothing Mendick had heard since China. A constant background roar, punctuated by coarse voices screaming obscenities, the drumbeat of army boots on cobbles and the crash of breaking glass.

  “Watch your front, boys. Here they come again.”

  As Mendick stepped forward the redcoats seemed more numerous and even more determined. He blocked one hissing belt, slammed his staff against an unwary bicep, staggered as something thumped into his side, sidestepped a clumsy kick and slipped on the blood-greasy cobbles. He felt himself falling, saw Deuchars leaping to help, and then a knot of soldiers closed over him, boots and fists swinging.

  Mendick yelled as an iron-shod boot scraped down his shin and lunged savagely upward with his staff, catching somebody a shrewd blow in the groin. The man shrieked, and crumpled on top of him. Mendick shoved the body away, tried to rise, flinched as a boot crunched into his ribs and curled into a foetal ball as a crowd of soldiers concentrated on kicking him to pieces.

  “Sergeant!” That was Deuchars, his voice sounding distant. He heard sharp commands, the rhythmic crunch of disciplined feet, and a hard hand helped him to his feet. An army captain was nodding calmly to him, a cheroot bouncing from the corner of a moustached mouth.

  “You’ll be Sergeant Mendick, then?”

  “I am.” Mendick took a deep breath to calm the rapid hammering of his heart. “But not for long if you hadn’t turned up.”

  “Captain Chambers,Twenty-First Foot on attachment.” Chambers spoke as if he was introducing himself in a drawing room rather than in the heart of a riot.

  Mendick looked around. There were at least three shops ablaze, and a couple of carts, with orange flames leaping skyward to illuminate what now seemed like a battlefield. “How many men do you have?”

  “Three piquets of thirty men each.” The captain said. “We’ll have your town tidied up before you can snap your fingers.” He drew heavily on his cheroot.

  Mendick saw a group of soldiers drag another face down along the ground and throw him onto the flat bed of a wagon. “Your boys are a bit rough, are they not?”

  “Different regiments tend to have a little rivalry.” The Captain sounded casual, as if regimental difference allowed for any level of violence. He watched unemotionally as two of his men kicked one of the rioters senseless. “That lot let us down in the Peninsula, so we don’t like them much.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Mendick watched Deuchars push two of the rioters onto the back of an omnibus the police had commandeered to transport the prisoners to the police office. “Well, before you kill them all, I’d like to interview a few.”

  The captain shrugged. “As you wish. Any in particular or shall I pick them at random?”

  Mendick walked to the flat wagon and raised his voice. “Anybody here know Private David Torrie, the man whose murder caused all this mayhem?” He looked round the battered faces of the redcoats just as the firelight gleamed on a brougham pulling up from Castle Street. Ignoring the bedlam, the driver negotiated the knots of fighting soldiers, cracked his whip and growled past Mendick. For a second he looked up, eyes bright behind a black mask; then pushed his tall hat further back on his head and whipped on the horses.

  Mendick raised his voice. “Stop! Stop that carriage!”

  “What’s that, Sergeant?” Sturrock looked at him as if he was suddenly insane.

  “That was China Jim! Stop him!” He nodded to Chambers, “Excuse me, Captain,” and began to run, but the coach picked up speed as it rattled along the now quiet High Street and he knew he would fail.

  “You!” He pointed to the constable in control of the omnibus, “Follow that coach!”

  “But Sergeant . . . I have prisoners . . .” the officer stared at him in astonishment.

  “I don’t care,” Mendick began, then realised the futility of trying to follow with a bus full of truculent soldiers. He could see the brougham clattering along the cobbles, its narrow body already fading into the night. He followed on foot and hoped for some miracle that would delay its progress. The carriage turned right into South Tay Street, and the driver whipped up.

  “Damn and blast and buggery!” Gasping with fatigue and frustration, Mendick stopped. He knew he would never catch the brougham and by the time he organised a proper search, it could be anywhere in Dundee or within a ten mile radius. It was another victory for China Jim. He stared at the disappearing coach and swore softly.

  “Here come the fire engines now,” Deuchars tied a handkerchief around a bleeding wound in his forehead. “They’ve got a job of work ahead of them.”

  Dundee’s entire force of three engines and fifteen firemen arrived a few moments apart and started to pump water into the burning shops. Those of the crowd who had not fled gathered round to watch this new entertainment.

  “I still don’t understand why the soldiers started fires,” Deuchars said, just as the western sky was lit up. The flame shot fifty feet above the roofs of the tenements, as if a new sun was rising in the west, remained constant for a good five minutes then began to settle down.

  “Dear God in heaven,” Deuchars said quietly. “What the devil was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Mendick said. He watched as the captains commanding the fire engines debated with their superintendent which fire was more important, and eventually one of the engine crews began to gather their equipment together for this new conflagration.

  “By the time it gets there, there will be nothing to save,” Sturrock continued to stare at the western sky where the fire silhouetted the stark tenements.

  “Leave the fire to the fire engineers,” Mendick said, “we have our own job to do. Come on lads, we have murders to solve.”

  Since all the cells in West Bell Street were full of battered and truculent soldiers, it was not difficult to find people to interview. One by one, Mendick hauled them out to the interview room and he and Deuchars interrogated the men while Sturrock took notes. All gave very similar answers.

  “Yes, I know Davie Torrie. He’s that Johnnie Raw that was murdered.”

  “No, he had no enemies within the regiment, he hadn’t been there long enough to make any. Did you not hear me, you peeler bastard? He was a bloody Johnny Raw!”

  “How should I know why that Chinese bastard picked him out? I told you he was a Johnnie Raw, a no-nothing, a recruity, less than dog shit on my shoe. I never spoke to the bugger.”

  “Did he have any connections with anything illegal? I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  There was only one constantly recurring answer that interested Mendick:

  “Why did Torrie join the army? I think he was scared.”

  “Torrie was running from something or somebody.”

  “He was hiding behind the uniform, plain as the snout on your ugly face.”

  When Deuchars asked if they thought rioting and burning shops would
help, some glowered and said nothing but a few gave a sly grin and looked away which Mendick found intriguing. When the small soldier with the poisonous eyes openly laughed, Mendick’s patience gave out.

  “What the devil are you laughing at?” He leaned across the table and grabbed the man by the throat.

  “I’m laughing at you,” the soldier gasped. “Trying to bullyrag me. You’re only a bloody bluebottle.”

  “And what are you? You’re only a broken-down redcoat.” Mendick allowed the man to drop back into the chair.

  “Maybe I’m broken-down, but I’m a redcoat with a golden boy,” he gave another grin. “Look at this!” Diving deep into his pocket, he produced a sovereign. “That’s why I rioted. I never knew Torrie, I never knew he existed until yesterday, he was just another shit-scared Johnnie Raw.”

  Mendick lifted the coin. It was genuine, and more than a month’s pay for the average soldier. True, a redcoat officially earned a shilling a day plus a penny beer money, but with stoppages for damages and barrack room expenses he was lucky to see a third of that. A sovereign was a small fortune to him.

  “So where did you get this from?”

  “Some woman gave it to me.” Closing a grimy fist over the coin, the soldier breathed stale alcohol into Mendick’s face.

  Mendick exchanged a glance with Deuchars, who raised his eyebrows. “What did she look like, this woman?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to wonder at,” the soldier sneered.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Deuchars said. “That’s stolen money so we’ll have it.” He reached out for the sovereign but the soldier snatched it back.

  “Hey! That’s mine.” He closed his fist tight. “The woman gave one to each of us, and a half dozen bottles of beer to start us off.”

  “Why?” Mendick leaned across the table and pressed his forehead against that of the soldier. “Why did she do that? Do you mean to say that this entire riot was arranged? Who was she?”

  “How the hell should I know who she was?” The small soldier gave another short laugh. “She just came to us this morning when we were gawking at Torrie’s body.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened.” Mendick retreated a little, but glared at the soldier’s unrelenting eyes.

  “We were up the Law, watching the fun and laughing at the bluebottles buzzing around, useless as ever, when this woman wandered up, all smiles and cheeriness. She bumps herself against me, friendly like. ‘Hello’ I sez, and ‘hello yourself,’ sez she, ‘would you like to earn yourself a sov?’ I smiled at her and gave her the look, ‘I thought it was more normal for me to pay you,’ I sez, but she just laughed and told me to gather as many boys as I could and come to the High Street at five and I could earn a golden boy for a job I’d enjoy. So I told a few of the fellows and we came down, and she came in her coach and handed out sovs as if they were sweeties. She sez we were to start shouting about China Jim and start as many fires as we could.”

  “Describe her.” Mendick said. “Was she tall, short, well-dressed, a gentlewoman, a weaver, a fishwife . . .?”

  “Oh, she was no gentlewoman,” the soldier said. “She was maybe a prostitute or a fishwife, and her in her green cloak and feathers.”

  Mendick grunted. “All right, that will be all.”

  “When you get out of the cells,” Deuchars said, “I hope the army flogs the skin off you.”

  The soldier shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last, and worth last night’s fun any time. And I got a golden boy for it.” His grin was triumphant. “It isn’t every day we get paid to ram the boot into some bastard peeler!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So, are we any better off?” Deuchars faced Mendick across the desk while Sturrock listened, puffing at his churchwarden pipe.

  Mendick shrugged. “Not much. All we know is that Torrie was a recruit and the woman in the green cloak wanted to start fires. We don’t know why yet, but we can assume she works for China Jim.”

  “Maybe China Jim was just causing trouble for trouble’s sake?” Sturrock blew thick blue smoke across the room. “I can’t think of any other reason.”

  “I think we can assume China Jim had a reason, we just don’t know what, yet.” Mendick said.

  “Oh, he had a reason all right.” Superintendent Mackay arrived with his usual silent grace. “When three quarters of the police force and all the fire engines were busy around the High Street, the Scouringburn Distillery was burned down.”

  “We saw the flames, sir,” Mendick remembered.

  “We suspect it was deliberate fire-raising,” Mackay said. “I want you to go with James Fyffe, the superintendent of the Fire Brigade, and see what you can find out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mendick reached for his coat.

  “And when you return, Sergeant,” Mackay’s voice was like cut glass, “come and see me in my office.”

  “Nobody hurt, Sergeant Mendick,” Mr Fyffe lifted his tall hat and scratched the top of his bald head. Smuts of soot settled on his bushy eyebrows. He surveyed the damage to the distillery, “But it’s made a fine mess of the building. The place went up like a bomb, we were lucky the burning spirits did not spread to the houses nearby.”

  Mendick looked at the Scouringburn. Blue smoke sat trapped by low housing, tenements and high-walled mill buildings. The streets were narrow, dark and noisy with tall chimneys adding to the smog. Newly idle distillery workers gathered in disconsolate groups, muttering about unpaid bills and hungry children. Mendick glanced at the nearest chimney and shivered.

  He looked upward to where the flue ascended forever, the sides black and slippery with soot and the exit a tiny circle of light diminished by distance.

  “Move you bugger! Or it will be the worse for you.”

  That voice still haunted his nightmares. He forced himself back to the present. Even in the street outside Mendick could hear the unending clatter of the mill’s machinery, the noise seeming to repeat one phrase ‘more profit, more profit, more profit.’ This was an area of densely packed buildings with small factories and workshops wedged between tenements and low houses, there were scores of children gathered everywhere and a number of pubs that sold kill-me-deadly whisky and watered beer. If the fire had spread in this neighbourhood, there could have been many hurt or killed. Water flowed slowly down the cobbled street, carrying all the debris of a gutted building amidst the smuts of soot. Mr Fyffe moved to speak to the manager of the distillery, a man made round-shouldered by the sudden uncertainty of his future.

  “Do you know what caused it?” Mendick asked the nearest fireman. The man shrugged and continued to coil up his canvas hose and load it into the wagon. The matched brown horses flicked their ears as smuts of soot irritated them.

  “Our job is to put out fires, Sergeant, not to find out how they started.”

  The fireman slammed shut the hinged compartment that held the hoses, checked the water pump was secure and clambered onto the engine. “That’s it out now, so I’ll leave you to it.” Raising his hand in farewell, he cracked his whip and the horses jerked the machine away. The crowd switched its attention to Mendick who ignored them as he peered through the charred doorway to the still-smoking remains of the building.

  He stepped inside the mill, coughing as warm ashes and smoke engulfed him. The interior was more cramped than he had expected; two storeys high with little space between the copper stills and the mash tubs that stood on a slabbed stone floor. The ground was a mess of sodden ash, with pieces of charred paper seemingly everywhere. Light filtered in from the open door.

  “You’d better be careful, Sergeant,” Fyffe said, “This is no place to walk around.”

  Mendick nodded. “Aye, you’re not wrong there, Mr Fyffe. Are fires like this common?” He stood in the centre of the floor, surveying the devastation.

  “That was one too many,” the distillery manager said. “There will be no whisky distilled here again.” He shook his head. “That’s the second fire this month. T
he engines put out the first one before it caused too much damage, but not this time.”

  Mendick stirred the ash with his cane. “Is there some weakness in the building perhaps, that makes this distillery more vulnerable to fire?”

  “We have had a spate of fires in Dundee lately,” Mr Fyffe said. “There have been three pubs burned out in the last month. I think it more likely to be carelessness than anything else, though.” Fyffe spoke with a broad Dundee accent, a man who had educated himself. “There are many reasons for a fire starting where there is raw spirits.” He sighed. “It could be something as innocent as a man dropping a match when he’s having a sly smoke, or a spilled lantern of oil, or something similar. I doubt we will ever know. We can only thank the Lord that He did not see fit to take any lives.”

  Mendick only grunted. “I have my suspicions, sir, that this fire may not have been quite as accidental as you think.”

  Mr Fyffe waved a hand at the remains of the distillery. “Well, Mr Mendick,we shall never know what started this mess, but who this side of Bedlam would want to start a fire in a distillery?”

  Mendick recalled the mutilated remains of the three murdered men. He tapped his cane against the nearest copper still. “I am not at all certain that the man I have in mind is on the right side of Bedlam, sir. Indeed, I am certain he would be better off locked inside there forever, if a gentle judge spared him the noose.” He touched the brim of his hat. “I shall leave you now, sir. Thank you for your help.”

  Mackay’s office was the largest and plushest in the building, but was still permeated by the austere atmosphere of the police office. Mackay sat back in his leather armchair and pressed together the lean fingers of his hands. “So far you have not been as successful as the reputation of Scotland Yard would have us believe, Mendick. There have been three murders since you arrived, one serious riot and at least one possible case of major fire-raising.”