‘Just for a little while,’ she replied, making a happy face at him.
Brian’s brow drew together. ‘When are you coming home?’
‘The very moment I can.’ Nathaniel ruffled Brian’s hair. ‘And I’ll take you to see the tiger when I do.’
Brian yawned and laid his head on Mattie shoulder. Nathaniel embraced them and pressed his lips briefly onto Mattie’s forehead then slipped out of the gate, which Mattie closed. She waited and listened. No shouts, no police rattles. Nothing other than the clomp of studded boots as the workers passed along the pavement outside.
The tears that she’d held back threatened to overwhelm her as a sob suddenly welled up.
‘Don’t cry, Mammy,’ Brian said, rubbing her cheek with his chubby hand.
Mattie hugged him to her, and kissed his cool cheek before starting towards the back gate. ‘I had better get you tucked up in bed, young man, before you take a chill.’
Back in the house she tiptoed past Waverley and carried Brian up to his room
‘Jack going to take me to see the tiger at Jamrach’s?’ he asked in a sleep-slurred voice.
‘I know.’
Brian yawned again, and as she sat there listening to his rhythmic breathing Mattie crossed herself and prayed to the Virgin that the Bengal tiger would be the only thing her son remembered in the morning.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mattie lifted the tea pot and looked across at Sergeant Makepeace and Constable Waverley sitting at her kitchen table. ‘Sugar, gentlemen?’
‘Two, if you please,’ they replied in unison.
Despite the headache cutting across the back of her eyes, Mattie fixed a smile to her face and dolloped in four heaped teaspoons of sugar from her precious supply.
‘Good God, Waverly, what’s the matter with you? Sit up, man!’ Makepeace barked.
The constable snapped up and blinked hard. His gaze wavered as he focused on his senior officer. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ve been awake all night.’ He shook himself vigorously and took a loud slurp of his tea.
Brian pointed at Waverly. ‘You snore.’ He shouted gleefully and becan mimicking the noise and dripping the porridge from his spoon.
Makepeace’s eyes narrowed.
‘I’ve got a bit of a tickle,’ Waverley said, punching his chest. ‘It’s the damp.’ He illustrated his point by coughing dramatically.
‘Eat your breakfast, Brian,’ Mattie said, repositioning the spoon in her son’s hand.
Through the kitchen window she could see Billy and Pete with their heads together as they loaded up the carts. Their eyes had almost fallen out of their heads when they’d arrived an hour before to find the police on the premises looking for Nathaniel. No doubt it would be the talk on every street corner by midday. Unsurprisingly, Freddie hadn’t yet arrived, but he would no doubt be crowing all day once he heard the news.
Where had Nathaniel gone? Mattie wondered as a lump formed in her throat. And when would he be back.
She turned her attention back to her uninvited guests. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a fruitless night.’
Makepeace’s moustache twitched back and forth. ‘Yes! Well! Has Tate stayed out all night before?’
Mattie shrugged. ‘As I said yesterday, he comes and goes as he pleases. As long as he’s on number one cart by six-thirty each morning I don’t pry,’ she replied, in as disinterested a voice as she could muster. ‘This is the first time he’s not turned up.’
‘Do you think someone warned him?’ Waverley asked.
‘I shouldn’t wonder at it,’ the sergeant said looking, pointedly at her.
Although her breath fluttered in her chest, Mattie returned his gaze with a cool stare. She stood up.
‘Now, Sergeant, although I’m much obliged to you and your fine officers for keeping us safe this past night, if you’ve no further business with me, I have a coal yard to run.’ She folded her arms.
‘Jack going to take me to see the tiger,’ Brian’s small voice piped up.
Mattie held her breath.
Makepeace squatted and smiled at Brian in a friendly manner quite at odds with his infuriated eyes. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. Yellow eyes and normouse teeth.’ He barred his teeth and roared.
Mattie picked her son up and sat him on her hip. ‘Now Brian, the policeman’s got to—’
‘Have you seen, Jack, son?’ Makepeace asked sweetly.
Icy cold washed over Mattie.
Brian nodded. ‘Number one cart.’
A hysterical laugh threatened to burst from Mattie but she forced it down and fashioned her face into a picture of serenity. She set Brian on the floor. ‘Get your boots on and once I’ve seen the wagons away we’ll go to market.’
Brian toddled off to find his boots then sat on the mat to put them on. With a heavy sigh, the sergeant picked up his hat. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Maguire, and you’ll inform us immediately should Tate turn up.’
‘Of course,’ Mattie replied, feeling a weight float off her shoulders with every passing second.
Brian stood up and clomped across the kitchen and stopped in front of the sergeant. He craned his neck back and looked up. ‘Jack said he’s going to take me to see the tiger.’
Makepeace hunkered down until his ruddy face was level with the boy’s. ‘Did he, son?’ Brian nodded. ‘When was that then?’
‘Last night when Mammy opened the gates for him.’ Brian covered his mouth with his hands and giggled.
Mattie stopped breathing but she forced herself not to react. She ruffled her son’s hair playfully. ‘Children! You wonder what they’ll come out with next, don’t you?’
‘Indeed,’ Makepeace replied still looking at Brian. ‘And what else did Mammy do when she opened the gate?’
Brian covered his mouth with his hands and giggled. ‘She kissed Jack.’
Mattie’s heart thumped uncomfortably in her chest. She stared helplessly at the two police officers.
Makepeace straightened up and a smug look spread across his face. ‘Mrs Maguire, I am arresting you for sheltering—’
‘No!’ Mattie snatched Brian up. He struggled in her embrace but she pressed her face against his and hugged him.
‘You are not obliged to say anything,’ continued Makepeace, ‘but what you do say will be taken down and used in evidence against you. Do you have anything to say?’
‘My son. What about my son?’
Makepeace’s mouth formed into a hard line under his moustache. ‘You should have thought of that before you gave shelter to a felon, shouldn’t you? Waverly!’
Waverly grabbed her and led her to the door. Mattie repositioned Brian’s weight on her hip. He twisted in her arms and wound his arms tightly around her neck and buried his face in her shoulder.
‘I don’t like the policemen, Mammy, make them go,’ he mumbled into her hair.
Pete and Billy stopped mid-motion and their jaws dropped as Mattie appeared through the garden gate flanked by two burly policemen. As the officer marched her across the yard, Mattie noticed a small crowd was already gathering outside the gates. As they stepped into the street, Milly, the butcher’s wife from across the road, ran over.
‘Why you taking ’em?’ she asked, planting herself in their path.
‘Stand aside, missus,’ Makepeace told her. ‘Or I’ll have to arrest you, too, for obstru—’
‘Arrest!’ Milly shouted. ‘What you arresting Mrs Maguire for?’
‘Never you mind,’ the sergeant replied.
Brian started crying and Mattie tried to pull herself from the officers’ grasp but they held her firmly.
‘Don’t think you can make a run for it,’ Makepeace said, as the mob jostled them.
‘For pity’s sake, I’m not trying to make a run for it,’ Mattie said angrily. ‘I’m just trying to give my son to someone.’
‘Here you are, Duck,’ Milly said, trying to pull Brian from her. ‘I’ll take him to your brother’s.’
‘Mammy, Mammy,’ he shrieked, clinging to her so tightly she could hardly breathe.
‘It’s all right, Brian,’ Mattie said, feeling tears starting to form in her own eyes. ‘You go with Milly and she’ll take you to Auntie Josie until Mammy gets back.’
She prised him off her and held him so Milly could take him.
‘No, Mammy, no,’ Brian sobbed, his small fingers clutching on.
Mattie untangled his hands gently. ‘Come on Brian,’ Mattie said, with a tremor in her voice. ‘Be a good boy and go with Auntie Milly.’
The butcher’s wife hooked her hands under his arms and lifted him away.
‘There there, Mammy won’t be long,’ Milly soothed. ‘Shall we go and see your Uncle Patrick?’ She turned away and walked towards her shop.
Brian twisted in her arms. ‘Don’t go, Mammy,’ he screamed, reaching out for Mattie.
‘Mammy’ll be back soon, sweetheart,’ Mattie called after him.
‘Cuff her, Waverly.’ Makepeace ordered.
The constable stepped in front of her, obscuring her view, and snapped the inflexible iron handcuffs around her wrists. Mattie peered around him to see Brian for a brief second more but he’d already disappeared inside the butcher’s shop with Milly. Her shoulders slumped and she tried not to think about how long it would be before she saw him again.
Mattie woke with a start. By the look of the light streaking through the elongated grill situated at the top of the far wall it was probably just after dawn. She shivered and hugged her shawl around her, but after almost twenty hours locked in the women’s cell of Wapping police station the wool was as damp as everything else she wore.
The sound of footsteps approaching echoed outside and Mattie fixed her eyes on the stark metal door. Keys jangled and a lock clicked. She heard voices in the corridor and then the faint retreat of the noise. She stared at the shuttered peephole and she thought of Brian. Her chin started to wobble and she lowered her head onto her knees. How much longer was she going to be left here?
When they’d led her down a long green-and-cream tiled corridor into the wood-panelled charge room, she had been told she was being held for questioning. She’d then been led away to be strip-searched by the matron, a middle-aged woman with a face like a sucked lemon and hands like sandpaper. After it had been established that her corsets were only stiffened with whalebone and there were no blades in her shoes, she was locked in a cell.
The women’s holding room at Wapping sat just above the level of the riverbanks. Grey wall tiles glistened with trickling condensation and the odd patch of black mould. A chipped basin served as a toilet. She had the small dank residence to herself until just after midnight when two young women dressed in tatty satin gowns and rouged lips joined her. They’d been arrested for fighting over a soliciting pitch in Betts Street. Neither one of them could have been more than twenty, but by the shadows under their eyes and the hard lines around their mouths they’d probably been working the streets for half their lives. They now slept huddled together in the corner with their lacklustre hair fallen over their dirty, bloodied faces.
Another woman soon followed and now lay spread-eagled in the centre of the cell mumbling and drooling. It had taken four policemen to get her through the door and after running through every known expletive she’d crashed backwards to the floor reeking of gin.
Tears stung Mattie’s eyes again as she relived the sight and sound of Brian screaming ‘Mammy, Mammy’ as Milly carried him away. How could she have let this happen? Why hadn’t she listened to Nathaniel’s good sense and let him go? Come on, Mattie Maguire, she told herself firmly, Pull yourself together. She damped down the fear that was interfering with her thoughts. Patrick would surely have been told what had happened by now and after he’d run through seven shades of incoherent rage he would have gone to the yard and taken over and Brian would be with Josie.
But for how long?
She couldn’t tell the police anything because she had no idea where Nathaniel was or who he was with. But what about knowingly hiding a felon? She didn’t know much about the law but she didn’t think anyone could be convicted of a crime on the say-so of a three-year old. Besides, as they hadn’t actually caught Nathaniel they couldn’t prove he was the man they were after. What if they asked her straight out if she knew Nathaniel was wanted? The denial had tripped easily off her tongue in her own kitchen but could she put her hand on the Good Book and repeat the lie?
A door opened some way away and footsteps echoed down the corridor. A key jangled in the lock and a streak of light cut through the dim interior of the cell. Fresh air rushed in. The doorframe was blocked by a large policeman whom Mattie hadn’t seen before. Stamping into the middle of the cell, he narrowed his eyes and fixed his gaze on the woman sprawled on the floor.
‘Constable Burton, get Dirty Meg sobered up and send her back to her old man,’ he barked.
The door creaked again and a younger officer stepped in and threw a bucket of water over Dirty Meg, splashing Mattie and the two prostitutes in the process. Meg let out an almighty snore and sprung upright like a jack-in-the-box, her hands flailing wildly in front of her.
‘Bejesus, what the feck are you buggers playing at?’ she screamed. She wobbled to her feet, sidestepping one way and then the other. ‘A soul could be sent to eternity from waking like that.’
Constable Burton took her arm. ‘Give your old man our regards, Meg,’ he said affably as he escorted her out of the door.
The sergeant jabbed a finger at Mattie. ‘You. Come with me.’
She stood and smoothed her skirt down. A cry like a cat caught under a cart wheel started in the corner of the cell.
‘Oi, Diga! Wot about me and Clara?’ one of the trollops whined as she clambered to her feet.
The sergeant’s bushy eyebrows drew together into a knot over his nose. ‘It’s Sergeant Bell to you, Mary. And you ain’t going nowhere because you and her have an appointment with the magistrate.’
The girls let out an ear-piercing yell then slumped together on the bench, their arms around each other as they sobbed out the injustice of it all.
Sergeant Bell led Mattie back to the charge room. He opened a leather-bound register atop a tall desk, flipped over a couple of pages and beckoned her over. ‘Make your mark here,’ he said, pointing at a clear line on the page.
Mattie signed her name.
Bell snapped the book shut. ‘Follow me.’
Mattie did, through another heavy door into the front reception area. Hysteria bubbled up in her chest – on the other side of the waiting area, with dark circles around his eyes and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin, stood Patrick.
Chapter Twenty-Four
St George’s church bells were calling the faithful to worship by the time Mattie and Patrick crossed the Highway. Several of her neighbours looked their way and nodded as they passed. Mattie acknowledged them with a smile but Patrick just marched on in silence.
They stopped in front of the yard and Patrick thumped on the gate. ‘Eli came by when he heard you’d been arrested.’ His eyes flickered over her briefly. ‘He’s been guarding the place and tending the horses.’
‘That was good of him,’ Mattie replied.
‘Yes, wasn’t it?’
The bolts shot back and the gate opened.
‘Welcome back, missus,’ Eli said, as a toothless smile cut across his weatherbeaten face.
Through the stable door she could see Poppy and Samson’s tails swishing back and forth as they stood in their stalls. All five carts were stored alongside each other and the piles of coal glinted in the weak November sunlight. Her bottom lip started to tremble and she caught it with her teeth.
‘Thank you, Eli,’ she said, hearing her voice falter.
The old man touched the peak of his battered cap. ‘Say nothing of it. And don’t you fret about the orders or nothing. I’ll be back in the morning.’ He turned to go. ‘Oh, by the by. Freddie’s in the office.’ He nodded towards the st
airs at the side of the house.
‘Is he now!’ Patrick said.
Mattie turned to Patrick. ‘What’s Freddie doing in the office?’
‘Shall we go and find out?’
He turned and marched across the cobblestones towards the stairs. Grasping her skirts in her hand, Mattie trotted up the stairs behind Patrick, who took them two at a time. She reached the top step just as he opened the door to find Freddie rocking back in the chair with his feet up on the desk. To one side was an open money bag spilling out a dozen or so coins that he had arranged in three neat stacks. His jaw dropped open as they entered and the front legs of the chair crashed onto the floor as he sprang to his feet.
‘Mattie!’ he exclaimed, darting a wary look at Patrick. ‘So the police didn’t charge you th—’
‘You bastard!’ Patrick crossed the room in two steps and punched Freddie square on the jaw. He fell against the desk, shoving it backwards and knocking over the chair behind it. The coins scattered onto the floor falling between the cracks and rolling in all directions. Blood poured from Freddie’s nose.
‘Feck you, Nolan,’ he bellowed, as he threw himself at Patrick.
Patrick jerked his head and Freddie punched into thin air. Patrick’s fist found its mark again and Freddie crumpled against the shelves, taking them to the floor with him.
Patrick drew his fist back again but Mattie caught his arm. ‘Don’t, Pat! Stop! You’ll kill him.’
‘It’s no more than he deserves,’ Patrick replied, trying to throw her off. ‘He’s ruined Kate and now he’s trying to drag you down as well.’
Mattie held on.
Freddie groaned and shook his head. From out of his one good eye he peered up at them. ‘I just was checking the money. Take a look for yourself if you don’t believe me.’
Patrick pulled his arm from Mattie’s grip. ‘I’m not talking about the poxy money, I’m talking about you grassing my sister to the police.’
Mattie’s jaw dropped open. ‘You told them Nathaniel was here?’
Freddie scrambled to his feet and spat out a piece of tooth. He jabbed his finger at them, as his face contorted with outrage. ‘That’s a lie. You just tell me who carried such a tale and I’ll set them right, don’t you worry!’ He blinked rapidly.
Perhaps Tomorrow Page 25