Underworld

by Oliver Bowden

  They were rooms much like his own, as it turned out. He, too, had the first floor of a bay-fronted building in a terrace of other bay-fronted buildings, similar to the Waughs’ place, only this one had been split into apartments for renting out. It was all he could afford on a constable’s wage. Police work wasn’t as lucrative as pornography.

  Mrs. Shaw opened the door and relaxed when she saw his uniform. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’re Freddie Abberline?” When he nodded, she burst out with, “Well, haven’t we heard a lot about you! Children, come and meet the famous Fresh-faced Freddie.”

  She had ruddy cheeks but was otherwise different from Aubrey in every way, being slight where he was well built, and while he wore a permanently nervous and bewildered expression, she was an entirely different kettle of fish, beaming with welcome and fussing about her hair as she invited her guest inside.

  Two children, a boy and a girl, both around five or six, came running, only to skid to a halt, cling to her skirts and gaze at him with the kind of naked curiosity that only children can get away with.

  Abberline’s heart, already heavy with worry for Aubrey, sank a little more at the scene. It would have been easier to keep a safe distance between him and the things Aubrey loved. Seeing them like this would only make things harder if what Abberline feared was true. Most of the time he envied men like Aubs, who went home to wives and families, but not at times like this. Not when you saw what you left behind.

  “I can’t stay, Mrs. Shaw, I’m afraid,” he said, reluctantly having to dampen the warm welcome he was being given. “I was just wondering if you knew of Aubrey’s whereabouts at all?”

  Her smile slid off her face, replaced by a look of immediate worry. The two children, sensing their mother’s sudden distress, clung to her skirts more tightly, eyes widening into frightened saucers.

  “No, not since he went out this morning,” she said.

  “On his way to Lord’s?”

  She chewed her lip. “I can’t rightly say.”

  “I know he was on his way to Lord’s, Mrs. Shaw, but the match is over, and I was wondering if he’d returned.”

  “Maybe he went for an ale in The Green Man?”

  “Of course,” he said. “That’s it. I’ll take my leave for there, if I may, and wish you all the best, and if you’d let Aubrey know that I’m looking for him, then I’d be much obliged.”

  And Abberline did just that. He took his leave. He went back to The Green Man, just in case, and Sam shook his head and said no, and Abberline went to the station house, just in case, and the desk sergeant shook his head no, with a suspicious expression, as though he knew Aubrey had been playing truant. And then, lastly, Abberline went to the rail works, where he stood by the fence and looked over the site. The work continued: fires had been built as they were every night and braziers glowed on the mudflats. As Abberline watched, a steam train pulled in from farther up the line and the activities on the wooden cranes grew even more frenetic as laborers began to unload the spoil.

  But Abberline wasn’t watching that. He was keeping his eye on the office. He watched as the door opened and out came the Indian lad, clutching his files.

  Good, thought Abberline, finding it a reassuring sight. For some reason he doubted any harm would come to Aubrey if the Indian lad was around.

  “He is indeed on the side of the angels. He’s a good man. A better man than either you or I will ever be.”

  What Abberline saw next was an even more reassuring sight. Coming out of the office were the punishers, all three of them, as casual as you like. And if they were here, well, then they weren’t out there somewhere, hurting Aubrey. Abberline wondered if maybe their paths had been similar to his own. Perhaps they had reached The Green Man and been sent to Lord’s, where they were deterred by the crowds.

  Yes, he thought, turning away from the fence and putting the site to his back. Yes that was it. Hopefully by now, Aubrey was safely back in the bosom of his smiling family . . .

  * * *

  His landlady lived on the ground floor and she appeared the minute he showed his face. “Busy day, Constable?” she said.

  “You might say that, ma’am,” said Abberline, removing his helmet.

  “Too busy to tell me you were expecting a delivery?”

  He looked at her sharply. “A delivery?”

  “Three gentlemen delivering a large rug, so they said. Must have been a bloody heavy rug, too, because it took all three of them to get it up there . . .”

  Abberline was already mounting the stairs.

  * * *

  The bastards had left the body sitting up in one of Abberline’s chairs, as though awaiting Abberline’s return. They’d left it there as a warning: This is what lies in store for you.

  They’d beaten him to death. He was barely recognizable beneath puffed-up livid flesh, bulging bruises, closed-up eyes, blood that oozed from cuts made by brass knuckles.

  “Oh, Aubrey,” said Abberline.

  It’s not like they’d been friends, but . . . wait a minute, yes, they had been friends, because friends supported one another. You could turn to them for advice. They helped you think about things a different way. And Aubrey had done all that and more for Abberline.

  Before he knew it, his shoulders were shaking and tears dropped to the boards of his room. “Oh, Aubrey,” he repeated, through a wet mouth, wanting to reach and embrace the man, his friend, but at the same time repulsed by what they had done to him, his features pummeled away like so much tenderized meat.

  Instead he tried to imagine Aubrey as he was, telling him music-hall jokes in The Green Man. Mourning the death of a slum girl. He had too much compassion, that was Aubrey’s problem. He had too much heart for this world.

  He wondered what it would have been like for Aubrey in his dying moments. They would have demanded information, of course. They would already have known about the Indian from the bodyguard, so what might Aubrey have told them? About the man in the robes, perhaps. As if it mattered now. The other day Abberline had told himself the killing had to stop, but the whole business had claimed yet another life, a precious one.

  Maybe Aubrey was right. Maybe there were no answers. Maybe he just had to accept that once in a while.

  For the time being, he simply stood with his friend, Aubrey Shaw, shoulders shaking, tears flowing more freely now.

  “I’m sorry, mate,” he said, over and over again. “I’m so bloody sorry.”

  And then Aubrey’s eyes opened.

  FORTY-SIX

  Months passed. In May, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gladstone declared himself delighted after taking the first full journey on the new underground railway. He and various other Metropolitan dignitaries, including John Fowler, Charles Pearson and Cavanagh, had traveled the entire length of the line, all four miles of it, from the Bishop’s Lane Station in Paddington, through tunnels and other half-built stations—Edgware Road, Baker Street, Portland Road, Gower Street, King’s Cross—and lastly to Farringdon Street in the city. A journey of some eighteen minutes or so.

  Gladstone’s seal of approval was important to the Metropolitan, especially as the prime minister, Palmerston, had always been rather sniffy about the project, declaring that at his age he wanted to spend as much time as possible aboveground, thank you. But Gladstone’s approval gave a boost to a project that was otherwise greeted with at best mild suspicion and apathy by the general public and at worst outright hatred and hostility. The railway’s reputation was dented further when, the following month, the Fleet Sewer burst. The brick pipes through which London’s “foul black river” flowed had been weakened and eventually broke, water and filth flooding the tunnel to a depth of ten feet, putting the project back by months while remedial work was carried out.

  Then, early one morning in late July, the Clarence belonging to Mr. Cavanagh of the Metropolitan Railway left the sit
e, bearing its owner to St. Katherine Docks.

  There the carriage waited for a ship to discharge its cargo, which in this case was three Indian men in brown suits, two of whom were escorting a third man, who they delivered to the Clarence, taking their leave with a bow and returning to their ship.

  The new arrival took a seat across from Cavanagh, who had loosened his jacket but otherwise made no concession to the July heat.

  “Hello, Ajay,” said Cavanagh.

  Ajay looked at him flatly. “I was promised money. Lodgings. A new life here in London.”

  “And we were promised the full benefit of your knowledge with regard to Jayadeep Mir,” said Cavanagh, then pulled the cord and sat back as Hardy shook the reins and they made their return to the site. “Let’s see if we can both abide by the terms of the agreement, shall we?”

  A short while later the carriage came to a halt outside the rail works and Ajay was directed to look out of the window. As arranged, Marchant brought the unsuspecting Bharat Singh to a designated spot some one hundred yards away on the other side of the fence, close enough for Ajay to see.

  “That’s our man,” said Cavanagh.

  “And what does he call himself?” asked Ajay.

  “He goes by the name Bharat Singh.”

  “Then that must have been something of a comedown for him,” said Ajay, who pulled down the blind and settled back into his seat, “because that man is Jayadeep Mir.”

  “Excellent,” said Cavanagh. “Now, how about you tell me everything you know about him?”

  * * *

  There was a trick the gangs used when they wanted information. “Two birds” they called it. Gang members would take two unlucky souls to the roof, throw one of them off and make the other one watch.

  Two birds. One of them flies, one of them sings.

  Ajay had been outside the door when Kulpreet died her honorable death. He had seen what lay in store for him: either the world’s most painful manicure or death.

  Then he made them his offer. They could torture him, and good luck to them if they tried, for he’d do everything to resist, and if their questioning was successful, they’d get what they needed to know but nothing else besides, and they’d never be sure if it was the truth or not.

  Or . . . if they met his demands, then he would tell them everything they needed to know and a lot more besides.

  So the Templars had it put about that Ajay died in the alley, and the Assassin—now an ex-Assassin, a traitor—was given passage to London.

  There outside the railway, he upheld his side of the bargain and told Cavanagh everything the director needed to know. He told them the man they knew as Bharat Singh was in fact Jayadeep Mir. He told them Jayadeep had been imprisoned because of a failure of nerve, and Cavanagh had been most interested in that particular aspect of the story before Ajay went on to tell him that Jayadeep had been delivered into the custody of Ethan Frye for a mission. More than that he did not know.

  “A mission?” mused Cavanagh, staring with interest at The Ghost, seeing him anew. “An undercover mission, perhaps?”

  Cavanagh’s mind went to the information relayed by the punishers. The two Hardys and Smith had returned from questioning Constable Aubrey Shaw with news that a man in robes was responsible for killing Robert Waugh, and now, with this latest piece of information, things had finally fallen into place.

  How ironic. Their newest recruit, who had curried favor with them by killing a traitor, did so with treachery on his own mind—and was not even responsible for the kill.

  All in all, thought Cavanagh, it was a delightful outcome. He had long since decided that when he killed Crawford Starrick and wrested the position of Grand Master from him, when he had the artifact and was the most powerful man not just in London but in the known world of the Knights Templar, that his first order of business would be to smash what remained of the Assassin resistance in his city.

  Here, though, was a chance to do both simultaneously, an opportunity to ascend to the rank of Grand Master with a feather in his cap as well as the artifact to prove his suitability for the role. In one fell swoop he would secure command of the rite as well as the respect of its membership. Oh yes, this was most opportune.

  “And now for your side of the bargain,” said Ajay.

  “Yes, my side of the bargain.”

  The door to the carriage opened, and there stood Hardy. “I promised you riches and lodgings in London, and you shall have them, on one condition.”

  Guarded and ready for the double cross, with an escape route in mind, Ajay said, “Yes, and what is that?”

  “That you continue to tell us everything you can about the Brotherhood.”

  Ajay relaxed. They would keep him alive that long, at least. Plenty of time to make his escape.

  “It’s a deal,” he said.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Months passed, during which Aubrey stayed in Freddie Abberline’s rooms and Freddie nursed him back to health. Aubrey had fewer teeth and spoke differently, as though his tongue were too big for his mouth, and there were other injuries besides, but he was alive, and there was a lot to be said for that. He was also a good companion, and Abberline soon found that there was a lot to be said for that, too.

  One night, a fortnight or so after the beating, Abberline had brought Aubrey some broth, leaving it on a bedside table, and thinking him asleep was about to depart when he looked at his friend’s face and saw it wet with tears.

  He cleared his throat and looked down at his stockinged feet. “Um, are you all right there, me old mate? You getting a bit of the old bad-memory gubbins, are you? Thinking back to what happened?”

  Aubrey winced with pain as he nodded yes and through broken teeth said, “I told them everything, Freddie. It weren’t a lot, but I sang like a bird.”

  Abberline had shrugged. “Good luck to ’em. Hope it means more to them than it does to either of us.”

  “But I told them. I told them everything.” Aubrey was wracked by a sob, his bruised face crumpling with the shame of it.

  “Hey, hey,” said Abberline, perching on the edge of the mattress. He reached for Aubrey’s hand. “It doesn’t matter, mate. Anyway you had no choice. And look, something tells me that our friend in robes can look after himself.”

  He sat like that for a while, in silence, grateful for the comfort they each provided. And then Abberline had helped Aubrey with his broth before taking his leave, telling his friend that he needed his rest.

  Meanwhile, Aubrey was listed as missing. “Missing, presumed bored of police work and retiring to The Green Man for good,” was the rumor, but Abberline knew different. He knew that the point of the attack was to send a message, and to all intents and purposes, he heeded the warning. No more site visits for him. By complete coincidence the division sergeant had assigned him a different beat, one that took him nowhere near the rail works. “Just in case you get tempted,” was what he’d said as he delivered the news.

  You’re in it up to your eyeballs, aren’t you? was what Abberline had thought, staring with concealed fury across the table at his division sergeant. But he walked his beat, and when his shift was done, he went home to peel off his uniform, check that Aubrey was okay and then ignore the other man’s warnings and return to the rail works. Every night, hidden in the shadows. A lone vigil of what, he didn’t know, but a vigil nevertheless.

  Aubrey was up and about by now, albeit with limited locomotion, and later the two men would sit before the fire, having a chat. Abberline would talk about the case. He was consumed by it. Aubrey talked of little else but his family and, more to the point, when he would see them again.

  “No, Aubs, I’m sorry,” Abberline told him, “but those geezers left you for dead, and if you turn up alive, they’ll want to finish the job. You’re staying here, missing presumed croaked, until this thing is over.”

 
“But when will it be over, Freddie?” said Aubrey. He shifted painfully in his chair. Though his face showed no signs of his ordeal apart from a crisscrossing of scars left on his cheek by the brass knuckle-dusters, his insides had taken a pummeling, and there was a pain in his hip that seemed in no danger of going away. It made it difficult to walk; it even made it difficult to sit still at times, and every time he winced with the pain of it, his mind went back to an anonymous darkened room and the relentless thump of fists ramming into a soft body that belonged to him. Aubrey would never walk the beat again, but thanks to a combination of the punishers’ carelessness and Abberline’s care he was alive, and he never forgot to be grateful for that. On the other hand, what was life if it was a life spent without his loved ones?

  “Just how do you think this whole thing—whatever this ‘thing’ is—is going to end?” he said.

  Abberline reached to the fire and gave his friend a mournful smile. “I don’t know, Aubs, is the truth, I don’t rightly know. But you mark my words, while I can’t lay claim to being on top of the situation, I’m there or thereabouts. I’ll know when it’s time, and I promise you we won’t lose a second getting you back to your family.”

  They had decided for safety’s sake that his wife and children couldn’t know he was alive, but it meant all four of them lived in purgatory. One day Abberline and Aubrey took a police growler out to Stepney and sat in the street so Aubrey might catch glimpses of his family through the windows. After two hours or so, it had been too much for him and they had left.

  Abberline went to them with money and gifts. He took them Aubrey’s uniform. There was no light in Mrs. Shaw’s eyes now. The visits were traumatic for her, she said. Every time she saw Abberline standing on the doorstep she thought the worst. “Because I know if he was alive he’d be with you. And when I see you alone, I think he’s not.”

  “He may still be alive. There’s always hope.”

  “You think so? I’m not sure I agree, but you know the worst thing?”