He would not fall. He shook off his dismal fancies and strode on.
*
Late in the afternoon of the following day, Dan decided he had talked to enough jewellers and went back to the Bow Street office. There was a note from Townsend summoning him to Berkeley Square. He turned round and went straight out again.
The square was full of carriages, their occupants flocking to visit friends in the hope of discovering some gossip about Louise Parmeter’s murder. Plebeian sensation-seekers milled in the street around the house, thrilling to the sight of so many gorgeously dressed men and women, so many high-bred horses and liveried footmen, so many gleaming carriages with ornate insignia. A hackney coach drew up as Dan forced his way into the house.
The hall was crowded with servants, the men shouting and shaking their fists, the women wailing and weeping. Parkes’s voice rose above the rest: “This is an outrage!” Miss Taylor, probably overcome by her sensibility, swooned in a chair while the scullery maid fanned her with a greasy apron. Sarah Dean stood quietly by, her haughty contempt more damning than all the noisy protests.
Pickering stood at the centre of the commotion, his hands cuffed behind him, his arms in the grip of two constables. One of the officers sported a red mark around his eye that in a few hours would turn into an impressive shiner. He was getting his own back on the prisoner by attempting to shove him along with vicious punches in the back. Pickering refused to budge.
Townsend, struggling to hold the servants back with his cane, called, “Foster! Don’t just stand there. Get him into the hackney.”
“Why have you arrested Mr Pickering?”
“That’s police business. Not to be discussed in front of all and sundry.”
All and sundry sent up a furious howl.
For the sake of showing a united front, Dan saved his questions for later. He shouldered the vengeful constable out of the way. “That’s enough. Mr Pickering, you’re with me.”
Pickering allowed Dan to lead him off. Dan opened the front door. There was an “ooh!” of delighted surprise, then a surge of voices. “It’s the Negro!” “Look at him, the murdering devil!” “They should have been cleared out of the city years ago!”
Dan got Pickering down the steps and into the hackney. Townsend stepped out behind him to cheers and applause. He acknowledged the adulation with a regal wave, descended, and pushed Dan aside.
“You can meet me at Bow Street.”
“Mr Townsend,” Dan said in a low voice, “this is surely over-hasty. There are other suspects.”
“I think you’ll find there’s no need for your other suspects.”
“But what have you got on Pickering?”
“Irrefutable evidence, that’s what.”
He stepped into the cab. Dan shut the door and waved on the coachman. He watched the vehicle rattle off, then glanced back at the house. The servants crowded around the front door, Parkes at their head. The door swung shut, blocking out their distressed faces.
A crowd had already gathered outside the Bow Street Magistrates’ Office when Dan arrived. It was always a mystery how news got out so quickly. There were reporters there too, shouting questions and supplying their own answers when none were forthcoming from the police.
Pickering was still at the front desk, where the gaoler was recording his details. Full name: Ignatius Pickering; age: twenty-seven; occupation: coachman. Townsend stood by, agreeing placidly with his fellow officers that yes, it had been a good, quick arrest.
“Intuition and intelligence,” he said, “that’s what did it.”
When Pickering had been booked in, Townsend ordered two men to take him into a side room. They pushed the prisoner into a seat and tied his ankles to the chair legs.
“Come with me, Foster,” Townsend said. “You might just learn something.”
Dan followed him into the room. He leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and waited for the lesson to begin.
Townsend paced around the prisoner two or three times before coming to a halt in front of him. “You know why you’re under arrest?”
“A mistress is murdered. It must be one of the servants. One of them is black. It must be him.”
Townsend clipped Pickering on the ear. “Don’t be clever with me. You’re here because you lied about your whereabouts. Your stable hands confirmed that you were in the yard all morning and went out at half past eleven yesterday morning, like you said. But when I checked with Lord Stanhope’s head stableman, he told me you didn’t get there till nearly one o’clock. It doesn’t take an hour and a half to get from Berkeley Square to Conduit Street.”
“What difference does that make? I was there, wasn’t I?”
“With over an hour unaccounted for. And that hour fits in with the time Miss Parmeter was murdered, which was shortly before midday, when Agnes Taylor knocked on the study door.” He glanced at Dan. “As I have determined.”
Dan made no comment. This was not the time to dispute the point again.
Townsend, satisfied that the argument had been conceded, continued, “Where were you and what were you doing?”
“Why should I have been doing anything particular? I dawdled over an errand. What servant doesn’t?”
“That’s a lot of dawdling for a ten-minute walk. What time did you get to Lord Stanhope’s?”
“Why would I remember the exact time I got there?”
Another cuff. “You’ve got a fancy watch in that smart weskit.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m looking at it every five minutes.”
“Were you keeping out of the way while your accomplice broke in and murdered Miss Parmeter? Or maybe you were doing the deed yourself?”
“Never! I would never harm her.”
“So you got someone else to do it for you. Or was it an accident? Maybe he overstepped the mark, went further than you’d agreed? In which case don’t you want to see him pay for it?”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“But you’re the one who’s going to hang unless you tell me where I can find him.”
“I know nothing about it. And I don’t see how you can pin it on me when I wasn’t there.”
“So where were you? Waiting somewhere for him to come and divvy up the spoils?”
“If I was in possession of a fortune why would I have stuck around mucking out stables?”
Townsend rapped the top of Pickering’s head with his cane. “How do I know what goes on in that woolly head of yours?” He leaned down, put his face close to Pickering’s. “Tell me who your accomplice is or I’ll have you dancing at the end of a rope.”
They went on like this for another hour, with Townsend delivering sly little raps and slaps and knocks. None of them were major blows in themselves, but cumulatively they were irritating and humiliating. Pickering’s temper finally snapped.
“I tell you, I know nothing about it, you damned dog!”
Townsend bunched his fist, drove it into the side of Pickering’s head. He tipped to the side and the chair toppled to the ground. Townsend raised his cane, but before he could strike the fallen man, Dan stepped in front of him.
“I think we’ve been at this long enough to see he’s not going to change his answer,” he said, righting the man and chair.
“He’ll sing a different tune by the time I’ve finished with him,” Townsend retorted.
“Do you want to spend the whole night in here with him? I say we should lock him up and leave him to think over his options. That should soften him up now he knows what to expect.”
Pickering, his cheek seeping blood, opened his mouth to shout his defiance, but Dan, his hands grasping the prisoner’s coat collar as he settled him in the seat, gave a warning shake of his head.
Townsend clicked his tongue. “It is getting late.” He straightened his coat, tucked his cane under his arm
, put on his hat. “Very well. Take him over to the Brown Bear.”
When he had gone, Dan untied Pickering’s legs and helped him to his feet. “You know,” he said, “Townsend does have a point. That missing hour looks bad. It would be a lot better for you if you told us where you were.”
“What’s this? One does the beating, the other’s my best friend?”
“Why don’t you tell us? Are you protecting someone? Someone you’re willing to hang for?”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Dan led Pickering across the street to the Brown Bear where the landlord provided cells for the use of the Bow Street officers. Dan shackled Pickering to the bed and re-cuffed his hands in front of him. Then he placed a pitcher of water and a hunk of bread within his reach, and left him a handkerchief so he could clean himself up.
Chapter Ten
“I never wanted him here in the first place.” Caroline banged a dinner plate on the table. Mrs Harper stood by making soothing noises that only increased her daughter’s irritation. “He’s lazy, and he answers back, and he’s always missing when I want him to do something. Why you ever thought he should live with us I don’t know.”
Dan, who had hardly had time to take off his hat and coat before Caroline launched into her complaint, said, “If you remember, when I offered Nick a home, you and I were not living together.”
He was treading on dangerous ground bringing that up. He and Caroline had lived apart for a while after the discovery that he had fathered a son. Dan had kept Alex with him, employed a nurse to look after him, and offered Nick his keep in return for helping about the house. When Dan moved back to Russell Street he had insisted on keeping his promise to the boy.
“Come now, Caro, he’s not a bad lad,” Mrs Harper said. “He does his best.”
“Does his best for himself, you mean.”
“You still haven’t told me what he’s done,” said Dan.
“He helped himself to the pie meant for tonight’s supper. The greedy little pig ate the lot!”
“There’s no harm done, lovey,” Mrs Harper said. “I’ve been and got another pie.”
“That’s not the point, Mother. Oh, now look what you’ve done.”
Caroline rushed across the room and lifted a bawling Alex out of his cradle. Angrily she jiggled him up and down. He gazed up into her face, puckered his forehead and cried louder than ever. Mrs Harper hovered around her daughter, trying to take the child from her. Irritably, Caroline snatched him away from her flapping hands.
“Nick ate a pie?” Dan said. “Is that it?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
“Did you tell him he couldn’t eat it?”
“Why should I have to do that? He shouldn’t help himself to things.”
“Caroline, you have to give the boy a chance. Just as Noah gave me a chance when I was his age.”
She opened her mouth to make a sharp retort, thought better of it and said, “You were different.”
“I wasn’t. Here, give him to me.”
Rescued from his mother’s anger, Alex calmed down and nestled quietly in Dan’s arms. Mrs Harper pottered around the table and finished laying up. Caroline joined her, fidgeted with one of the plates.
“I’ll have a word with Nick,” Dan said. “Where is he?”
“How should I know? He took off an hour ago.”
“You didn’t throw him out?”
“No. He ran away.”
“He hasn’t got anywhere to go.”
At least she had the grace to look ashamed of herself. Dan put Alex back in his cradle. “I’m going to look for him.”
He retrieved his hat and coat and stepped out into Russell Street, headed towards the lights and noise of the Piazza. The shops in the surrounding streets were still open, the coffee houses and taverns full. A few of the market stalls were trading, though most stallholders had packed up and gone home.
Dan made his way through the bawling traders and voluble pedestrians, many of whom nodded a greeting at him, for this was his home patch. Nick could be anywhere by now. He might have gone back to Southwark, where Dan first met him, to hook up with one of the gangs of street children. It was what Dan had done when he found himself alone in the world. He had left his mother huddled on a bundle of rags on the floorboards of their filthy room, reeking of gin, vomit and the last man to lie with her. The parish had come to take her away for burial. From his hiding place in the alley, he had seen them haul her out like a sack of rubbish. Then he had run. Not long after, he had been recruited into Weaver’s child-troop of thieves, whores and pickpockets. That old devil must be long dead by now. If he wasn’t, he soon would be if Dan ever came across him again.
Maybe Nick had not gone so far. Covent Garden was a good place for getting food and somewhere to sleep. There were plenty of stalls to snatch your dinner from, and when the shopkeepers had cleared the goods from the shelves outside their shops for the night, you could sleep snug in the space beneath. Dan leaned against one of the columns on the Piazza and scanned the bustling scene. After a moment he located a small figure standing in the shadows by a bread stall, watching the baker pack his unsold goods.
Dan stepped out from the colonnade and edged around the square. If it had not been Nick, he would have taken no notice: arresting a child for stealing a stale pastry did not appeal to him. He collared the boy as he reached out his hand, yanked him away from the table before the baker knew anything about it.
“Not coming home for supper, Nick?”
“Go to ’ell! I ain’t coming.”
“You are.” Dan dragged him back to the colonnade, shoved him down on to the steps and sat next to him. “What do you think you were doing?”
“Wot’s it look like?”
“Don’t cheek me, Nick. Answer the question.”
“Making a living.”
“You don’t need to make a living.”
“She threw me out.”
“If you mean Mrs Foster, no, she didn’t.”
“She wanted to.”
“It’s not surprising, is it, if you’re giving her a hard time?”
“She’s always on my back. Call that clean? What do you think that is? Were you born stupid or are you doing it on purpose? And now I suppose you are going to thrash me. Well I ain’t staying for it.”
He jumped up. Dan pulled him down again, held him in place while he wriggled and squirmed to break free.
“I remember,” Dan said, “how at first it was like a miracle. Suddenly you’ve got enough to eat, somewhere to sleep. Someone to notice whether you’re alive or dead. Then the difficulties set in. All the rules you have to learn: wearing shoes, reading and writing, plates and forks, washing – you always seem to have your head in a bucket. And all the ordinary things are no go all at once. Helping yourself to something from a market stall. Diving into a pocket. A drop of daffy. Dad caught me with a pint of gin once. He went mad, took it off me, said I’d be no good if I went that way. I never drank the stuff again.”
Nick stopped struggling. “Did he beat you?”
Dan let go of his arm. “No, he didn’t. And I’m not going to beat you. But you’ve got to do better, Nick, if you’re going to be any help to me.”
“Help? With your work, do you mean? Like when I watched them body snatchers for you?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that, but if it’s what you want later, when you’ve had a bit of schooling, then I don’t see why not. I’m thinking of now. I didn’t take you in to make things more difficult at home. I need you to pull your weight, help me out there.”
“I was helping you out,” Nick wailed. “I took him the pie like you said. And she said I was a thief, and when I tried to tell her she wouldn’t listen.”
“Like I said? What are you talking about?”
“Your pal. The one who asked me for something to eat.”
“Someone told you I said you should give him a pie?”
“Just something to eat. But the pie was handy, so I give him that.”
“What did he say his name was?”
“He didn’t. Just said he’d left you not ten minutes ago and you’d sent him round to get some food. You don’t mean it was a take-in?”
“What do you think? Did he come to the door, this pal of mine?”
“No. I’d just come out to go and get some candles and he stopped me, said he didn’t want to knock on the door and trouble the missus. He waited in the street while I went back to the house for the food. You could knock me down with a feather. He was down on his luck, but he didn’t look like a canter, not at all.”
Dan laughed. “Looks like I took you off the streets just in time, if you’re so easily fooled.”
“But he wasn’t on the cheating lay, I’m sure of it. Are you going to arrest him?”
“He’ll be long gone by now. Besides, what’s he done? Tricked someone into giving him a pie. I should think he’d have a shock if he found out he’d picked on a Bow Street officer’s house.”
Nick shook his head. “It don’t make no sense. I could have swore he weren’t shamming.”
“Call it a lesson learned and be less ready to give away my household goods in future. What’s more important is that you owe Mrs Foster an explanation.”
“But I tried to explain. She wouldn’t listen.”
“You survived for years on the streets of London, and now you run away from a woman’s sharp tongue? You can do better than that.” Dan stood up. “And I’m ready for my supper. You coming, or do you prefer some rotten leftovers from the market?”
Nick grinned, fell in beside him. “Not me.”
“And about that schooling.”
Nick groaned.
“If I can do it, you can. I can find someone to teach you two or three mornings a week. If I do, will you go?”
Death Makes No Distinction Page 6