by BK Duncan
Sid pulled a set of skeleton keys out of his pocket and got them inside before May had time to catch her breath. He closed the door and locked it again.
‘Don’t want no one trying it and falling in arse over elbow.’ He produced a torch from inside a canvas waist belt and handed it to May. ‘Keep it steady mind and don’t go flashing it window way. You, keep your ear to the door. Watchman does his rounds about now. Hear anything, snap your fingers; he’ll be tuned for what he’s not expecting and that’ll sound like rigging on a mast.’
Jack stayed where he was instructed while May shuffled across the wooden floor as soundlessly as she could to stand beside Sid. The safe was a small one set at head-height into the brick wall.
‘Reckon they couldn’t be stashing no dosh here with only this to keep it company.’ Sid ran his fingertips over the dull metal. ‘Have this baby open in a blink.’
Three slow turns of the dial and he was as good as his word. He stood back for May to see inside. A red ledger. She lifted it out. Underneath was an envelope. She took them both over to the desk, the torchlight quivering in her hand. Jack left his post to join her.
‘What you got, Sherlock?’
She wanted to slap him; he was almost dancing on the spot with excitement.
‘Keep your voice down if you don’t want to be back on the boat to Dublin.’
Sid sniggered. May gave Jack the torch and opened the envelope. Inside was a sheet of paper. Her legs began to shake as she read:
Just make sure you’re fucking here when you’re told to be. One more slip like the last and that piece of yours will find the sides of her face no longer match.
Jack was shining the light down over her shoulder and she heard him suck his breath in through his teeth.
‘Charming, I must say. Spared the details, I notice. Acid? Razor? Broken bottle?’
‘What the hell does it matter? Whoever wrote this knew Miles and knew he had a fiancée.’
‘Is this what we’re looking for?’
She ignored the implied collusion. ‘I don’t know. Part of it perhaps.’
She debated for a moment whether to tell him anything else but decided that a second opinion might be useful.
‘I’m pretty sure some illegal imports were coming in here. I thought maybe instigated by Miles, but I’m not so sure he was a willing participant after reading this. Perhaps he was at the beginning then changed his mind. But it explains why he wasn’t bankrupted by his need for opium.’
‘No need to thank me for my insightful direction in that regard.’
‘Can’t you two put a sock in it? Worse than my missus.’
‘And I think the Tong are behind it. Trying to get Elliott Shipping for themselves.’
‘Why would they bother threatening Miles? Kill him outright, yes, but blackmailing him first just isn’t their style. He was being given an option here and the Tong don’t give options. They bleed dry.’ Jack opened the ledger. ‘If you’re right then perhaps this is a record of the transactions he handled. There’s a chance he wasn’t the pushover he appeared to be and was preparing his way out of the deal with a little arm-twisting of his own.’
‘Against the Tong? And with his fiancée’s well-being at stake? He’d have to be a fool to do that.’
‘Or someone whose capacity to think rationally was impeded by opium. I’ve had a lot of practise at working with figures recently; perhaps I can find a pattern here against ships dropping stuff off-’
‘It’s called discharging. You’d obviously have never got through a proper interview for a docklands’ newspaper.’
‘Cut the rabbiting. One of you take my place. Must be something here for the lifting to make this worth my while.’
Sid slipped over to the desk beside Jack and started to go through the drawers. May didn’t feel she was in any position to stop him and retreated to the door. Away from the weak beam of torchlight the room felt both small, and limitless. She was conscious of the damp smell of the river trapped in the air. Straining to focus on the outside world she could hear the deep boom of a siren - probably a P&O liner entering far away East India Dock - the ever-present background chorus of cranes and winches, and something else. She pressed her ear to the wood. Muffled voices... Coming closer. The watchman and a companion? She tried to snap her fingers but her skin was too sweaty and they slid apart with a soft rustle. She wiped them on her trousers and tried again. This time the crack cut through the air like a cap-gun. Sid stopped rifling immediately.
‘I’m for a long stretch if I get nabbed. Out the back window for me. Don’t reckon you two can talk your way out of this one neither, so you’d better get on my heels sharpish.’
May saw him vanish from the orbit of light. Then, seconds later, heard his feet slap on the stairs at the back of the room. She hurtled after him, banging her thigh heavily on the front corner of the desk. Holding in the cry of pain she flailed her arm out to catch hold of Jack. The torchlight whirled around to illuminate the way ahead. She heard the screech of a sash window being jerked open. A billow of cold air reached down to meet her. They were on the narrow landing at the turn of the staircase when Jack stopped.
‘I’ve got to go back.’
‘The watchman will be here at any minute.’
‘For the letter. I shut it inside the ledger. It’s the only evidence you’ve got.’
‘How could you be so...’ But he had gone.
She held her breath as she heard a key being waggled in the lock. Jack wouldn’t have the time to get back to the stairs. She hoped he’d had the sense to switch off the torch as she tried to remember if there was anywhere for him to hide. If they just looked in and didn’t turn on the light then he might be able to press himself into one of the dark corners... Heavy footsteps crossing the room... The desk drawers being yanked open. Was the watchman doing a little light fingering of his own? Or had the Tong sent someone to search for what they’d just found? Would he go to the safe next and notice it open? Her body began to shake as she heard objects hitting the floor. Her breathing was so shallow her head began to swim. She shoved her knuckles in her mouth and bit down on them to stop a sob from escaping. A low laugh, followed by: ‘Got you’.
Not Chinese. Not the Tong.
Footsteps on the floor once more; the door opening and closing. Then words so clear she thought they were being whispered in her ear: ‘Torch it.’
May’s legs felt like rubber. She crouched down with her back against the wall. The explosive shattering of glass. The searing reek of petroleum. The soft whump of liberated flame. A sinister crackling began to fill her shrinking world. A hand grabbed her and wrenched her up. She screamed and hit out with her fists.
‘Cut it out. It’s me. Move. Now!’
But everything in her body was disconnected. Except her lungs and her throat and her voice and the screaming. She felt the stinging slap of his hand across her face. Now every part of her wanted to move at once and she stumbled up the stairs on her hands and feet. She saw Jack silhouetted in the window in the brief moment before he jumped. She climbed up onto the ledge and looked down. It was a long way. Too far. Behind her, the fire’s roar grew stronger with everything it devoured. A sudden whoosh and a flash of heat. It was coming up the stairs. The smoke was tearing at her throat and making it hard to swallow. Her body shuddered with one sob after another.
‘Jump, for Christ’s sake! I’ll catch you.’
She wanted to make them but her fingers wouldn’t let go of the frame.
‘Jesus, May, isn’t one suicide in the family enough?’
Alice. She took a deep breath and tumbled into space.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Her eyes stung as she opened them. As first they refused to focus through the tears. Then she saw the fuzzy shape of someone bending over her. The clang of a bell quivered throug
h her muscles. She tried to sit up. The effort made her cough until she retched. A hand behind her head and the cold rim of a glass against her lips. Something spicy. She took a sip. The brandy set her coughing again, but less painfully this time. The muzziness subsided a little. She was indoors, lying on softness.
‘Back room of the Ship Aground, love.’
It was Charlie.
‘Me and a few of the others was mooring our lighters when we saw the smoke. Reckoned it might be the wharfinger playing fast and loose with the insurance - robbing us of bleeding work into the bargain. So we got ashore as quick as you like and set about bailing from the river to do our bit while they was getting the fire engine horses hitched. I was running to fetch more pails when I tripped over you. Out cold you were. You right as rain now? Nothing broke?’
‘Is Jack here?’
Her voice was as raspy as a striking match.
‘He a pal of yours? Dreaming of him?’
‘He was there with me.’
‘Not when I got to you he weren’t.’ He stared into her eyes. ‘I reckon I should be fetching the quack. A bang on the noggin can get you in funny ways. And I should know because I’ve had enough of them in my time.’
May put all her energy into shaking her head. She didn’t want to have to face any questions from an over-inquisitive local doctor about what she was doing in the middle of the night outside a blazing Elliott Shipping. Charlie, on the other hand, would never presume to ask any such thing.
‘I’m fine, really. Just bruised. And a little woozy. What would do me more good than anything is to be in my own bed and sleep it off.’
‘Reckon I’d be feeling the same way myself and a stroll in the fresh air might be just the thing to sort you out. So I’ll take you back. But if we can’t get no further than the Eastern Hotel without you looking set to peg-out then I’m hoisting you over me shoulder like a sack of grain and it’s straight up to the hospital for you.’
She smiled. He handed her the glass and she drank the rest of the brandy in one long, slow, swallow. The warmth replaced the weariness in her limbs. Taking Charlie’s hand she swung her legs off the couch, stood for a moment to get accustomed to her wavering balance, then looped her arm through his and walked as purposefully as she could towards the door.
***
The first thing she did was go upstairs to strip away the reek of smoke. She had to have both feet on each step before she could move onto the next and with her palms flat on the walls to steady her, she felt as though she was climbing a mountain. She’d started sweating and shaking when she’d first faced the stairs but had forced herself to remember that this was her house... that she was safe in it... that the arsonist couldn’t have known she was in there... that it hadn’t been the Tong and a firebomb was not going to come hurtling though the window.
The journey back down to the kitchen was easier. Wincing as she bent her stiff back, she stoked up the range. Despite what she’d told Charlie, there was no point in her even trying to sleep. Not when Jack could still be in danger. She had got him into this. Where was he? She poured some milk into a saucepan and set it to heat. Why did he leave her? She should have made Charlie realise that she hadn’t been imagining it, that she hadn’t been alone; he could’ve got some men together to try and find Jack. Whoever had let themselves into Elliott Shipping wouldn’t have wanted to confine themselves to shaking hands if they’d bumped into him. A dog barked in one of the yards. What if they’d knocked him out and thrown him back in the burning building? May felt her panic rising along with the bubbles in the milk. She had to stop imagining the worst. But when there was nothing other than that to go on, what else was there to do?
She sat at the kitchen table with her hands around the mug of cocoa, the heat on her skin bringing back her moments of terror. It was at times like these when she wished she smoked or that she could add to the brandy in her system and deaden her whirling brain with alcohol. But she never kept spirits in the house. Another legacy from her father; she knew she could take it or leave it but what if Alice developed the same thirst for spirits he obviously had? Except Bert said he hadn’t. But then the landlord of a pub probably would say that in case she held it against him for not stopping her father drinking so much that night. Had he actually been in the Blakeney’s Head? She couldn’t remember; the reports she’d been given of the inquest had been filtered through a blur of grief and disbelief. Since then, all she’d felt was such bitterness and anger that she’d never stopped to ask the question. But recent events had left her with nothing but questions.
In the stillness, she could hear the Naylors in the basement going about their early morning routines; the poker clattering against the range grate, water gushing from the tap, a muffled voice calling for someone to get up. Soon she’d be able to smell the bacon frying ready to be put into the husband’s lunchtime sandwiches. She’d never felt more alone. Not even when Alice had returned after the summer with Aunt Bella and she’d had to sit her down - the pain of it still vivid even now - and tell her that their father hadn’t felt life was worth living. Now, of course, she knew the truth: that he hadn’t felt them worth living for.
May laid her head on her arms and sobbed.
***
When she awoke she had a crick in her neck. Her eyes were sore, the lids swollen from crying. There was enough dawn light for her to extinguish the gas mantle. Her brief sleep had been punctuated by sweat-inducing nightmares of a Chinaman standing over her holding a cleaver so the biting edge looked like a ribbon of quicksilver. She walked stiffly across to the sink and splashed her face with cold water.
What she needed was someone who could help her think clearly again. She thought she knew just the person. He was notorious for his ability to unravel impossible situations such as three ships needing to berth on the same quayside at the same time, all with perishable cargo when every minute was money rotting in the hold. And most important of all: she trusted him. He’d sought her out when she’d got back from France and said he would arrange for her rent to remain at the dockers’ rate and, although it was nothing really to do with him, he’d been as good as his word. He also started work as soon as it was light enough for the pilots to bring the ships down the river. If she hurried, she could get to him before he became embroiled in his first seemingly intractable problem of the day.
***
‘So, how are you coping?’
Alexander Laker, the wharfinger, towered above her so much May felt as she had the first day she’d met him. Then she’d been holding her father’s hand - he’d taken her along to ask for a job because he’d heard that the toughest of the wharf owners had a soft spot for children. It had nearly gone badly wrong when she’d started grizzling with the cold, but he’d bent down to fold her in his arms and said her father should do a double shift to buy enough coal to give her a blazing fire to go home to. This didn’t happen of course because the wages were only sufficient for rent and food and she and her brother had to continue to run behind the coalman’s cart to pick up any lumps dislodged by potholes.
‘Can’t complain. Alice has left George Green School for her first job. In the box office of the Gaiety. The manager jumped at the chance to take her on.’
‘All the credit down to you, I’m sure. When you going to take up the offer of a post in my office? I meant it, you know.’
He’d asked her if she wanted to clerk for him immediately after saying he’d fix the rent. May had never been able to figure out why he’d been so kind, it wasn’t as if he made a habit of it. Now she wondered if it was because he’d remembered the little girl with a runny nose wearing a pair of Albert’s hand-me-down shorts. In winter.
‘I’m very happy in my present job, thank you. But that is what I’ve come to talk to you about.’
‘Well, take a seat as it’s official business we’re about to embark on. I reckon I’ve about...�
�� he looked at his wristwatch, ‘ten minutes until the next is due to berth. All hell will be let loose then as it’s a tight turnaround so don’t stand on ceremony, spit it out.’
May swallowed hard. It was difficult to know where to start; there was so much she couldn’t divulge due to the nature of the investigation; however, Bert had told her enough to surmise what was common knowledge.
‘Elliott Shipping. Is it on one of your wharves?’
‘No. Wouldn’t own Anchor if you paid me. Dog of a situation that is, last before the river so ships get unloaded by lighter. No profit in it.’
This made things a little easier, it meant he wouldn’t feel he had anything to protect. Although, she of course, still did.
‘The son of the owner was found dead in the Causeway three weeks ago.’
‘Heard about it. Shame when it gets taken out on the children.’
‘What do you mean?’
May sat forward on her chair, a flick of energy bringing her numb brain to life. Had there been something even bigger than she’d guessed at going on? He waved his hand like a giant parting the sea as if it were a puddle.
‘Only that boys should be given a chance to step into their father’s shoes to see if they measure up. Last few years tells us that way of the world’s long gone.’
He’d been referring to the Great War. May let go of the hope and tried to pick up the thread of where she’d been going.
‘It’s my job to investigate on behalf of the coroner so that the right people can be called to court to account for what happened to him. I think the death was connected with something underhand going on at Elliott Shipping but the only lead I had has gone up in smoke. I’ve no proof, and am not likely to come across any now.’