Mackay sat down again and waved Sturrock to join them. “Carry on, Mendick.”
“It’s whisky, sir.” Mendick gave a quick explanation of his kidnap and attempted drowning. “When I was in the hold of the sloop, one of the kegs was leaking, it was pure whisky. I probed about half a dozen of the others as well and each one was the same. There is no reason to suppose that the others were any different.”
Sturrock whistled, “An entire ship-load of peat reek? China Jim works on a large scale then. What must that be worth?”
“Thousands of pounds,” Mackay said softly. “Thirty years ago the Highlands were rife with illicit distilling. It was virtual war between the Excise and the smugglers.” He stood up. “If China Jim has an entire shipload he must have a wide net. These illegal stills are small scale, capable of producing only a few dozen gallons. Well done, Mendick. I must consult with the Excise officers and get their opinion on this.”
“There is more, sir,” Mendick said. “Do you recall the riot the other day?”
“Of course,” Mackay snapped at him, “we have not all been dead here, Mendick. Only you.”
“Yes, sir. China Jim paid the rioters to start fires in the middle of Dundee, if you remember, and when the fire engines were in the High Street, there was a fire at the Scouringburn Distillery. Mr Fyffe, the Fire superintendent, suspected fire-raising but any evidence would have been destroyed.” Mendick winced as the bump on his head began to throb.
“For what reason?” Sturrock asked, “Dundee has hundreds of pubs and cheeping shops, surely there is enough for both the distillery and China?”
“Yes, constable,” Mendick tried to be patient, “but China does not want a mere share of the market. He wants to control it.” He rose and began to pace the room, weaving between the desks. “Imagine what he could do with a monopoly or even a near-monopoly of the whisky supply? He could charge what he liked. How much whisky is drunk in Dundee on a daily basis? And we know he is even exporting the stuff!”
“Good work, Mendick.” Once again he almost smiled, “You should be killed more often, you uncover more that way.”
“There’s more, sir.” Mendick said, “Listen. When Thoms was murdered, we found the tattoo Rose on his arm. We have been looking for a girl of that name, but it may be a ship.”
Mackay raised his eyebrows, thought for a moment and finally nodded. “That is true only if Thoms was a seaman, and he was not. He was a shopkeeper and a resetter of stolen property.”
“Maybe that's what he was this year, sir, but what was he in 1842? I’ll wager he was a seaman seven years ago.” Mendick said. “I think we’ve been looking at this all the wrong way, sir. We’ve been looking for a Chinese connection, but this case does not revolve around China, it revolves around the sea.”
Mackay grunted. “I’m not convinced about that, Mendick. These ugly murders are Oriental, you mark my words.” He stood erect and walked towards the door. “Now you are back in the land of the living, you may as well make yourself useful. Take some men to Fish Street. I want you to shake that house upside down and see what you can find, and Mendick,” Mackay turned around, “find yourself some decent clothes for heaven’s sake. You’re a disgrace to the Dundee Police.”
“Yes, sir,” Mendick waited until Mackay left the room before adding. “While I’m organising Fish Street, Sturrock, I want you to look at the shipping list for Dundee and find every ship that has the name Rose. And consult the Lloyds lists as well. Check which companies own them and find out if Thoms was a seaman at one time. Do the same for Milne.”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Sturrock stood up.
“Deuchars, find me the name of every sloop in and around Dundee. I want to know who owns them, where they are now and what their cargo should be.” Mendick grinned around the room. “Up until now we have played pat-a-cake with China Jim, now I am going to show him what a dead man can do.”
The leading horse pawed the cobbles and whinnied softly, a call repeated by two of the other three horses. All stood in front of black hackney cabs while their drivers sat holding long whips with their hats tilted forward against the slow seeping drizzle that glistened momentarily in the yellow gas light. Mendick ordered his men inside.
They filed in quickly, tall men in tall hats and swallow tail coats, some still bearing the marks of battle from the late riot in the High Street. The cabs rocked under their weight as the drivers looked on sourly.
“Mind you keep together,” Mendick ordered, and they glowered at him in silence. “I want us to arrive simultaneously, not in penny packets. Once I get inside, get moving.” He checked his pockets for his pistol. “Step on!”
The hackney jerked and pulled into the road, the others following, their heavy wheels growling on the cobbled road.
“Ready?” Mendick nodded to the three policemen who shared the interior of the cab with him. They nodded, each man firmly grasping his staff. “This is the counter-attack, lads. Dundee has taken enough from China Jim. Now we will hound him and destroy his business. He made his first mistake leaving me alive. We will force a second, and then snatch him . . .” Mendick grabbed empty air, “just like that.”
“Are you sure you are fit, Sergeant?” Sturrock pointed to the bruises disfiguring Mendick’s face. “You took quite a beating there.”
Mendick grinned, “Oh, I am fit for this, Sturrock.” He tapped the comfortable weight inside his now much battered and repaired Chesterfield. “And I am more than ready. I bought myself another barker.” He pulled back his coat to show the chequered black handle of the Harrison pepperpot revolver. “It has a self-cocking hammer and a rotating cylinder. I don’t care if we meet dogs, men or that devil Beth, the Dundee Police will win this battle.”
“That’s a clumsy-looking thing,” Sturrock said. He brandished his staff. “This will do me. Get me to close quarters and nobody will give me any trouble.”
The constable opposite, a lugubrious man with carefully shaped sidewhiskers and a gap in his front teeth, grunted. “Criminals prefer a simple pistol with a large bore. They are easier to carry and one shot from them can tear your arm off or stop an elephant dead.”
“And after one shot it is nothing better than a clumsy blackjack,” Mendick told him.
“Where did you get the gun, Sergeant?” The fourth constable was pink-faced with eager eyes.
“I bought it from McGregor’s of Union Street, youngster. You stick with Sturrock there and don’t try to be a hero.” Mendick raised his voice. “Now listen lads, I have no idea what is waiting for us. The place could be full of blackguards just waiting to slit our throats, and it could be empty. We will go in hard and fast, but for God’s sake watch out for dogs.”
The two cabs arrived in a jingle of harness and rumble of wheels. The drivers reined in simultaneously and a phalanx of blue-coated officers tumbled out. Holding his official staff in his left hand, Mendick raced up the steps and turned the handle of the front door. It held firm. He swore. His packet of lock-picking tools had gone the same way as his watch, so he had to resort to the more old-fashioned method of booting a door panel until it splintered, inserting an arm and unlocking the door from the inside. The noise alerted half the street and must have sounded like the knell of doom to anybody inside.
“Lanterns, lads!”
Three beams probed the darkness, highlighting patches of floor, the banister of a turnpike stair and the handle of an inner door. The policemen flicked their lanterns up and down. The hallway was empty. Mendick led the way inside. “Pair off and arrest everyone you find, we can work out the details later.”
“Arrest them on what charge, Sergeant?” The young policeman asked.
“Suspicion!” Mendick shouted. He took the stairs two at a time.
“Where are we going?” Sturrock kept pace with him, staff held ready and his left hand holding his hat firm on his head.
“Either the room where I was captured or somewhere I can look down on the cellar,” Mendick told him. “This way.” He
smashed through a flimsy door and they were in a labyrinth of corridors and doorways, each room leading to another, all divided or subdivided, with paper thin partition walls and floors of solid oak.
“Sergeant . . .” Sturrock pointed to a solid pair of shutters set in an internal wall. “That could be interesting.”
Mendick pulled open the simple hook-and-eye catch and opened the shutters to reveal a wooden panel held between two horizontal slides. He remembered its grating sound very well.
“This is the place, Sturrock. China Jim and Beth watched me from here.”
He looked down, seeing the cellar where he had fought the dogs from China Jim’s viewpoint. The bleak, stone chamber was now lit by dancing lanterns. “We’re going down there,” he said.
There were three dead dogs, two of them ripped to ribbons and masked with congealed blood. Mendick stepped over the bodies without a glance.
“Careful boys, there may be more somewhere.” He saw the broken shaft of his cane protruding from the eye of one dog and dragged it out. “That was a waste of a good cane,” he said, and landed a vindictive kick in the ribcage of the dead dog.
“You had some fight, Sergeant,” Deuchars arrived, panting.
“Where the devil have you been?” Mendick asked. “Get some light in here so we can inspect the place properly.”
It was the work of moments to light the oil lamps suspended from the ceiling above, and Mendick examined the chamber where he had nearly been torn apart. It was larger than he had thought, now empty of barrels or indeed, anything else. He looked at the chute through which he had escaped and pointed to a battered cover low down on the opposite wall.
“Kick that open,” he ordered. “Be quick about it.”
The opening behind was dark and wide; the chute led downwards at a slight angle.
“That will lead to a stable where the barrels were loaded onto carts.” Mendick said. “I think we’ve found where China stored his whisky. We’re central to a score of pubs so nobody would think twice if they saw a cart unloading here, and it’s handy for the docks.”
“The place is empty though, Sergeant,” a constable reported to him. “There is nobody here.”
Mendick hid his disappointment. “I want this building scoured. Collect anything that might be useful and bring it to me.” He nodded to Sturrock. “That was a complete fudge, let’s finish off and get back to the office.”
A yell came from outside, followed by a harsh laugh and a scream of pain.
“Where’s the back door?” Mendick pushed open a door, entered another room and swore as he saw another tiny room with three more doors. “This place is a blasted rabbit warren!”
Mendick cursed as he ran through the house. He entered rooms filled with the stench of mould and followed corridors leading nowhere before he crashed through a door which opened into the stable. There were four box stalls, bundles of straw on the floor and a bay for carts, with an arched doorway that opened into a narrow lane. A young policeman lay crumpled on the ground, his hat and staff beside him, holding his hands to his face.
“Did you see who did this?” Mendick eased the man’s hands away. Blood surged from a straight slash above his eyes.
“I’m blind,” the man moaned. “I can’t see anything!”
“You’ve got blood in your eyes,” Mendick licked his thumb and passed it over the man’s eyelids. “Open them slowly. It’s an old trick, son. You’ll be fine. Did you see who did it?”
“She came out of the straw, just like a ghost. One minute I was alone and the next she was there with her razor.” The man rose, clutched his forehead and staggered. Mendick caught him and lowered him to the ground.
“Get him to the surgeon,” he said. “Sturrock, you’re with me. This sounds like Beth’s work.”
Mendick led the way into the cobbled lane curving gently downward towards Dock Street and Earl Grey Dock. He peered into the unlit street at the score of people who lounged around. Seamen with rolling gaits and sunbrowned faces, prostitutes in feathered hats and skirts that stopped shy of their ankles, the ubiquitous gaggle of ragged children who made crude comments, but Beth was not there.
“Keep going,” Mendick said as he hurried past Sturrock. “She might be wearing a green cloak.”
There was no green cloak to be seen and none of the people they questioned admitted to having seen any woman passing that way. The uniformity of their denials raised Mendick’s suspicions as they either held his eyes in a flat stare or gave voluble explanations that told him nothing. The gaping doors of cheeping houses invited inspection, but by the time Deuchars had brought half a dozen reinforcements, most of the clientele had vanished into the morass of closes which made up what had once been Dundee’s maritime quarter.
“We’ll get nothing here,” Sturrock said, pushing past the entrance of the lane and into Dock Street, “She’s well away.”
Mendick glared along the length of the street. As always it bustled with life but there was no sight of a swirling green cloak, and with so many pubs and closes into which Beth could disappear he had little chance of finding her. “You are right, Sturrock. We’ll just give the building a thorough search and close it off.”
“The search was worthwhile,” Mendick reported to Mackay as they gathered back in the Police Office.
“We discovered where China Jim stored the whisky before he shipped it away and we will soon find the owner of the property as well. We have disrupted China’s operation, flushed out one of his people, that woman, and let him and the criminal classes know that when the Dundee police come after him, he has to cut and run.”
Mendick lifted a hessian sack. “This is what we found in the property, sir. An assortment of papers and other material.” He looked inside. “It will take some time to sift through, but there might be something there.”
“Let me know as soon as you can,” Mackay said. “I was sorry to hear we had a good man injured. Constable McKee will be off for some time while his wound heals.”
Mendick nodded. “It was a surface slash, sir. It’s a trick the Baltic seamen use a lot, a cut across the forehead so the blood flows into the eyes. It will leave a scar but no lasting damage. Constable McKee will be back on duty before you know it.”
“I hope you are right, Mendick,” Mackay said.
“Now, sir,” Mendick said. “We must push China Jim hard, flush him out and destroy him.” He drew on his military experience. “We have effectively removed his place of storage in Dundee; we know what type of vessel he uses to transport the whisky . . .”
“We know more than that,” Mackay said. “We have checked all the Dundee registered sloops and rejected those that were not black-hulled. Only three sailed within the last few days: Elena Swan, bound for Riga in the Baltic; Our Mary, for Lerwick; and Rebecca, for London.”
“One of those vessels, then,” Mendick said, “and if they are heading to their intended destinations we can have a stab at capturing them.” He shifted in his seat as he recalled the conversation he had heard before he was thrown overboard. “The vessel I was in was heading south, they spoke of Fife Ness.”
Mackay smiled. “Rebecca, then. We have her! I will contact the police in London and check if she has arrived yet. Confiscating her cargo will be a massive blow for China Jim.”
“Do we know the owners of these crafts?” Mendick asked.
“We do,” Mackay said. “Elena Swan and Our Mary are owned by the Robertson Brothers and your vessel, Rebecca, by Gilbride.”
“Of course: Rebecca. She’s a character in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.” Mendick said. “I should have caught that one. Gilbride again; maybe he names his men after Scott’s characters as well.”
“We have discussed this before, Mendick. Mr Gilbride is a respectable business man,” Mackay said.
“Indeed, sir.” Mendick kept his voice level. “As you know, the most unlikely people can turn to crime, members of the criminal class or not. Why, I only became sergeant when my predecessor, a Scotland
Yard detective, turned traitor against the Queen.” He stopped as Mackay stirred uncomfortably in his seat.
“That will do, Sergeant. Keep to the matter in hand, if you please.”
“Sir.” Mendick realised that Mackay did not want to face the unpleasant reality that money and position and smart clothes did not always equate with decency, respectability and honesty. “Mr Gilbride, sir, is a man who has no alibi for any of the murders, has a fixation with Walter Scott and his whale boiling yard is right next door to the Arctic Yard where Milne was found.”
“These are merely circumstantial facts, Mendick; they prove nothing.” Mackay’s gaze did not falter for a second. “I would be obliged if you treat Mr Gilbride as a gentleman when you interview him.”
“I will sir.” Mendick hid his smile, Mackay had just sanctioned an investigation of Gilbride’s business affairs and a personal visit. He lifted the bag. “I will speak to him once I have looked through this material, sir.”
Mendick tipped out the bag and sifted through the resultant shower of scraps of paper, pieces of broken glass and fragments of cloth.
“Anything, Sergeant?” Sturrock asked.
“Not that I can see,” Mendick said. He held up some papers, “although this may be something.” He looked more closely at the fragment. “Someone has tried to burn this, Sturrock, and they would not do that unless they were hiding something.” He read what remained of the words:
“Wap . . . ee . . . Dow . . . arf.”
“It means nothing,” Deuchars decided with a shrug.
“I agree, Sergeant. It might have been important if even one of the names had been intact, but those are just meaningless letters.” Sturrock said.
Mendick shook his head, “That, gentlemen, is where you are both wrong. These letters say a great deal. You both have far more Dundee knowledge than I do but I know London. ‘Wap’ could be Wapping; the ‘ee’ means nothing I agree, but ‘Dow’ and ‘arf’ could be Downie’s Wharf, which is in Wapping in London. Gentlemen,” Mendick looked up, “I think we may now know where Rebecca will be docking. Sturrock, go to Mr Mackay with this information, if you please.”
A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders Page 18