‘I’m sure Superintendent Jackson will be pleased to see you anytime,’ retorted Patrick. Shock registered on Freddie’s battered face. ‘You forgot that I helped him put an end to the Tugman gang, didn’t you, Freddie?’
‘Archer’s a bloody felon. I mean, it were my duty to turn him in.’
Patrick shifted his feet and Freddie flinched. ‘And was it your duty to tell the police that my sister was his “bit of jiggy” and that she was knowingly sheltering him?’
Patrick drew back his arm to thump Freddie again.
Mattie stepped between them. ‘Who told you who Nathaniel was?’
‘I can’t say as how I remember. Some fella in a pub,’ Freddie replied, his gaze shifting from her face to the floor and back again. He dusted down his blood splattered shirt and gently touched his nose, which was now sitting at an odd angle between his red and swollen eyes. ‘Just some bloke. I don’t know who.’
Mattie balled her hands into tight fists. ‘By the saints, Freddie Ellis, if I were a man I’d beat you into a pile of offal where you stand for what I’ve been through. You’re a sorry poor excuse for a man and no mistake.’ Mattie’s lip curled up. ‘What with your sluts, your drinking and your work-shy ways. But you’ve crossed the line this time and I’m giving you your walking papers.’
Freddie stared at her for a moment and a mottled flush coloured his face.
‘What!’ He stepped closer and the smell of beer and sweat wafted over her. ‘You can’t do—’
‘For our Kate’s sake I’ll let you have ten bob from the table to see you through until you get work.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Now get out!’
Freddie’s complexion darkened and he didn’t move. Mattie’s gaze didn’t waver.
‘You heard my sister,’ Patrick said from behind her.
Freddie ground out a collection of guttural sounds, snatched two crowns from the desk and stomped to the door.
‘Feck you both, you pair of cussed Irish tinkers. I said nothing but the truth,’ he yelled from the doorway. ‘You,’ he jabbed a dirty finger at Mattie, ‘and Archer have been rolling around under the blankets for months and whatever you told the police, you knew the law was after him.’
Patrick started forward but Freddie was already running down the stairs.
‘Good riddance,’ Mattie said, beginning to pick up the coins. ‘It’s a good thing you knew Jackson or else I’d still be under lock and key.’
‘Is it true?’
Mattie squared her shoulders. ‘Patrick, we love each other and we are to be married as soon as he can clear his name.’
‘Did you know he was wanted?’
‘Not at first,’ Mattie replied holding her brother’s implacable stare. ‘But he told me everything, up front. He wanted to leave, to keep me safe, but I persuaded him to stay.’
They stared at each other for a long moment. ‘How could you?’ he asked, his tired eyes searching her face.
‘How could I what, Patrick?’ Mattie asked softly. ‘Lie to the police? Shelter a wanted man? Or fall in love again?’
‘How could you forget Brian. He’s only been dead three years.’
‘You’re wrong. Brian’s been dead for three long years. Three exhausting years of birthing and raising a child, running the yard, keeping Queenie from harm and going to bed alone. I never believed there would be another man for me, not after Brian.’ An image of Nathaniel smiling down at her floated into her mind and her chin trembled again. ‘But I do love Nathaniel. And I know he is innocent.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ Patrick replied.
Mattie fixed her brother with an inflexible stare. ‘You’ve always looked out for me, Patrick. You walloped that boy from Greenbank when he pushed me in the puddle and took a strapping from the school master when it was me who wrote that he was a Nancy boy on the class blackboard.’ Her lower lips started trembling again but this time Mattie couldn’t stop it. ‘I love you something fierce but I love Nathaniel, too. And, as dear as you are to me, Pat, if you can’t stand with me on this then . . . then . . .’
Her voice caught in her throat as the floor seemed to shift under her feet.
Patrick crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around her. ‘There there, Matt. It’s alright,’ he said kissing her forehead. ‘You’ve been through enough without me rowing at you.’ He held her until the shivering subsided. He squeezed her shoulders. ‘Let’s get back to ours. Josie has a hot dinner for you and I know there’s a young man who’s waiting to see you.’
Mattie nodded gratefully and Patrick kissed her forehead. ‘You can tell me all about it and,’ – he fixed her with a fierce stare – ‘I mean all about it.’
With his collar tucked up around his ears and his cap pulled low and, keeping as far as he could in the shadows, Nathaniel made his way past St James’s church towards the river.
It was dusk, and the men who made their living on the water were lashing in sails and securing boats in the fading light before making their way home. Those without a supper awaiting them stood outside pubs and gin shops with tankards in their hands, while some of the local prostitutes weaved between them.
As he turned into Narrow Street the tangy smell of the river mingled with the sour stench from the local brewery. The tall masts of the barges anchored in the basin swayed in the evening fog and the low boom of their hulls nudging into each other added to the eerie scene. Nathaniel tucked himself out of sight in a doorway and waited.
Two policemen appeared out of the swirling haze walking at the regulation three miles per hour and with bulls-eye lamps in their hands. Nathaniel pressed himself against the wooden door and held his breath.
When Boyce brought the news that Mattie had been arrested, Nathaniel tore out of the Duck, intent on giving himself up to free her. He’d been half way to Bishopsgate police station before Boyce’s two heavies dragged him back. Boyce had argued, and tipped spirit down him for three hours before Nathaniel had been carried senseless to his bed.
In the cold light of day and through a splitting headache, Nathaniel conceded that even if he’d turned himself in it would have only proved Mattie’s guilt. When he’d told Boyce that he was going to slip down to the river again, ‘a brainless, yokel idiot’ was one of the milder invectives Boyce had yelled at him. Given that a pair of Her Majesty’s finest were now plodding by within a few feet of him, Nathaniel thought perhaps Boyce had a point. But despite the danger, Nathaniel had to leave the safety of Spitalfields rookery and explain himself. His honour – and hers – demanded it.
As the steady footsteps of the beat constables faded, Nathaniel spotted the tall figure he was waiting for making his way along the quay. As Patrick Nolan neared, Nathaniel stepped into the mellow light of the street lamp.
Patrick’s face contorted with fury. ‘You bastard.’
‘I have to talk to you about Mattie,’ Nathaniel replied.
Patrick sprung forward. ‘Don’t you dare mention my sister’s name after the way you’ve treated her, you filthy, lying convict.’ He shoved him but Nathaniel stood his ground.
‘There isn’t a name under God’s sky that you could call me that I haven’t called myself for leaving Mattie as I did, but surely you can see that I had no choice? If I’d been caught in her yard then there would have been nothing you or anyone else could have done to save her from prison.’
‘That may be, but it wasn’t you who had to listen to Brian crying for his mother all night, was it? And it wasn’t you who had to spend the night in a stinking cell, cold and afraid. No, when the peelers came calling you just showed a clean pair of heels.’ He jabbed his finger at Nathaniel. ‘I knew there was something dodgy about you from the start. And I almost believed the cock-and-bull story about you being framed for stealing from your employer by your friend. Until Mattie named Amos Stebbins as the man behind it all. You overreached yourself there, chum.’ He laughed. ‘Amos Stebbins! If you’d named the Archbishop of Canterbury I could have swallowed it, but Amos Stebbins
burying moneybags in your back garden, visiting brothels and fiddling Mattie out of the yard? Never.’
Nathaniel stepped forward until they were almost nose to nose. ‘Are you sure?
‘If I saw it with my own eyes I’d still have trouble believing Amos Stebbins would do such things.’
‘Well, why don’t you try?’ Nathaniel drew out a sheet of paper from his pocket. ‘You owe me, and now I’m calling in that debt.’ He held it in front of Patrick’s face. ‘This is the address of a discreet establishment that the saintly Amos Stebbins visits at least twice a week. And when you see with your own eyes his true character, perhaps then you’ll consider helping me stop him destroying everything Mattie holds dear.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Swinging his cane in an effort to look unconcerned, Amos turned into the yard and inspected the premises. The mountain of coal at the far end was proof that the Maguire yard had doubled its wholesale order to keep up with demand.
‘I’ll be but a moment,’ a voice shouted from the stable.
Amos flicked the specks of coal dust already settling on his coat then looked up as Eli shuffled out.
‘Oh, it’s you, sir,’ Eli said, wiping his hands on the front of his trousers. ‘I thought it were a nipper after a bucket of coal.’
‘Is Mrs Maguire in?’ Amos asked. ‘I thought I would drop by to see how she’s bearing up.’
‘She’s gone to market, sir, But she shouldn’t be too long. Why don’t you go and rest your plates of meat in the kitchen until she comes back?’
Amos pulled out his hunter and flipped open the case. ‘Very well,’ he said snapping it shut.
Avoiding a pile of horse muck in the middle of the yard, he marched through the back gate and into the house. As he pushed open the kitchen door a young girl of about eight or nine looked up from the floor where she was playing with Brian.
Her pale green dress was partly covered by a white apron and, even though she was playing on the floor with Brian’s toy soldiers, she seemed to have a maturity and self possession about her unusual in one so young. She was dark, too. Not just her hair but her deep olive skin that reminded him of the young girl from Ceylon who’d charmed him at Madame’s.
‘Hello, young man,’ he said to Brian as he closed the door.
Brian scrambled to his feet and presented him with a brick, then went back to his other toys.
Amos smiled at the young girl. ‘I don’t think I know you,’ he said, taking off his hat and gloves.
She stood up and straightened her skirt. ‘I’m Annie Nolan,’ she told him, flicking her heavy braids over her shoulder. They bounced against her hips.
‘You must be Patrick’s girl,’ Amos said, pulling out a chair from the table nearest to her.
She nodded. ‘I’m staying with my Aunt Mattie for a while to help.’
‘I’m sure she’s very grateful for that,’ he replied, in a smooth tone. ‘You must be about my stepdaughter Ruth’s age.’
‘I’m ten next month,’ Annie replied proudly, standing tall.
Amos’s eyes travelled over her and he settled himself more comfortably in the chair. ‘I’ll tell you what, Annie, while we wait for your aunt why don’t we get to know each other better?’
As the last of the drays rolled westward to the city, Mattie reached the yard. She waved at Pete and Billy unharnessing the horses and made her way across the yard towards the garden.
‘Only me, Annie,’ she shouted as she opened the door. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
Mattie froze as her gaze rested on Amos Stebbins sitting at the kitchen table with Annie beside him. Annie had her school primer open on the table and had drawn her chair alongside Amos’s so he could see her work. His knees touched Annie’s in a seemingly casual way whilst his hand rested lightly on her bare arm.
With a monumental effort, Mattie only just stopped herself from running across and snatching her niece away from him. ‘Mr Stebbins, what an unexpected pleasure. Have you been waiting long?’
‘Only five minutes or so.’ He beamed at the little girl beside him. ‘And five very enjoyable minutes they were, too.’
Mattie mentally crossed herself and said a prayer of thanks to the Virgin that he hadn’t been with Annie any longer.
Annie jumped off her chair. ‘Shall I get Brian ready for bed, Auntie Mattie?’
Mattie nodded and Annie took Brian’s hand and led him upstairs. As the latch clicked shut, Amos rose to his feet. ‘My poor, poor, Mrs Maguire.’ He crossed the kitchen floor and grasped her hands. ‘What you must have suffered.’
Ignoring his moist palms and her creeping feeling of disgust, Mattie allowed him to give her hands a squeeze.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked just about able to maintain her pleasant expression as she removed her hands from his grip.
He nodded. ‘I understand. You must maintain your dignity, your pride,’ he said, as she moved the kettle on to the fire and collected the cups. ‘Of course. How else could you hold your head up after such humiliation. Parading you through the streets in handcuffs like one of the Bett Street doxies or an Old Nichol thief.’ He shook his head ponderously, then his eyes and mouth narrowed a fraction. ‘And you had no idea that this . . . this . . .’ his face screwed into a puckered ball. ‘What was his name?’
‘Nathaniel Tate,’ Mattie replied, taking the kettle from the stove and wishing she could swipe it across Amos’s deceitful face.
‘Ah, yes, Tate.’ He frowned. ‘I want you to know that I don’t believe one word of the rumours flying around about you betraying your husband’s memory with such a rogue and villain. Not one word.’
Mattie went to the larder and, with her back to Stebbins, closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten in her head.
‘Thank you, Mr Stebbins,’ she replied, returning to the table and pouring the tea. She handed him a cup.
Amos sipped his tea. ‘And you had no idea at all? About Tate, I mean.’
Mattie looked at him with wide-eyed innocence. ‘How could I? He did his job, took his pay and I didn’t pry.’
Amos studied her face intensely. ‘So you don’t have any idea where he is now.’
‘None whatsoever.’
That was the truth.
Her eyes ran over Stebbins’s expensive suit, polished shoes and the chain and fob looped across his silk waistcoat. The words liar and cheat sprang into her mind as she looked into his well-fed face. She thought of Nathaniel’s wife and children buried together in a country graveyard and then of Queenie’s broken body lying in the stinking mud of the Thames. The cup and saucer in her hand rattled and she slammed it down as tears of fury shimmered on her lower lids.
Amos mouth dropped open. ‘My dear Mrs Mag—’
‘I’m sorry . . . it’s . . . it’s been a very trying time,’ she forced out.
Amos reached across. ‘Here, here,’ He patted her hand. ‘May I, as an old friend, offer you some advice?’ Not trusting herself to speak, Mattie nodded. ‘No one more than I admires the way you’ve struggled on with Maguire & Son’s but surely this unfortunate business with Tate shows you just how vulnerable you are to charlatans and fraudsters. Why don’t you think about my colleague’s offer for the yard again? Mm?’
Mattie took a firm grip of her temper. Any unguarded reaction would alert Amos to the fact that she knew all about his despicable game. She made a show of extracting her handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. ‘I need time to think,’ she said, trying to look fragile rather than furious.
Amos patted her hand again. ‘Of course.’ Footsteps ran across the floor above their head and Amos looked up and smiled. ‘But remember, Mrs Maguire, you have to think about what’s best for Brian, too.’ He stood up and shrugged on his coat. ‘I’ll leave you now but if there is anything I can do . . .’
‘You’re too kind,’ Mattie replied, rising to her feet.
Amos opened the door and touched the brim of his hat. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Maguire.’
&nbs
p; Mattie stared at the closed door for a moment then picked up the cup and saucer she had served his tea in. It was part of her prized tea set that her mother had given her as a wedding present and which Mattie kept for best. She studied the pink and blue flowers around the rim where Amos had placed his lips, the delicate handle that he’d gripped between his stubby fingers and the flute-edged saucer he’d cradled in his palm. Then hurled them into the fire.
As Amos turned off Whitechapel High Street and into the White Swan Yard, a drunk stumbled into him. Wrinkling his nose at the over powering smell of cheap spirits, Amos shoved him away. The man fell against the wall opposite then slid down on to the dirt road with his legs splayed out in front of him. Amos stepped over him and continued towards the far end of the narrow alley.
White Swan Alley was really just a passageway between the houses that fronted onto the High Street. The dwellings clustered behind the busy thoroughfare were no more than a collection of ramshackle wooden fleapits that housed pungent trades such as fur puckers, rag dealers and night-soil men. Somewhere along the way, one of the narrow dilapidated structures had been turned into an ale house and christened the Bird in Hand.
Suppressing his godly repugnance at such an establishment, Amos pushed the door open. It took his eyes a while to adjust to the almost non-existent light from the tallow candles on the walls. A couple of men slouching on the bar glanced his way but swiftly returned to their drinks. Peering through the thick tobacco smoke, Amos spotted Tucker and Dutton wedged into a booth at the far end of the tightly packed bar. He pushed his way through and slid into the seat. The barmaid, wearing little more than her underwear and a tatty skirt, swanned over.
Tucker ordered another two ales but Amos waved her away.
‘Nice place to meet,’ he said, drawing his hip flask from inside his jacket.
Dicky grinned. ‘Well we could have dropped by after Church but we thought it might send the old spinsters into a flutter if we strolled in.’
Perhaps Tomorrow Page 26