Blood & Sugar

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  He hesitated. ‘His name is Caesar John. Another African who gives my race a bad name.’

  ‘Is he an abolitionist?’

  ‘He is a villain,’ Proudlock broke in, his accent much thicker than Graham’s. ‘You have doubtless read newspaper reports which claim that London is awash with free blacks lying in wait to rob your house or cut your throat? Such stories are founded upon prejudice, and yet we have our rogues and ne’er-do-wells just as your race does. This Caesar John is one such man.’

  ‘What was he doing here? Was he a friend of Mr Archer’s?’

  ‘I wondered that myself,’ Graham said. ‘He is a dangerous man. I counsel you to stay away from him, sir.’

  ‘How about Tad’s dark angel?’ Amelia said. ‘Have you ever heard of her?’

  Proudlock looked up sharply. He had a smattering of freckles across his broad nose, and they stood out against his russet skin. Graham shot him a warning glance.

  ‘Tad’s dark angel,’ Amelia repeated, also observing this reaction. ‘We know that’s why he went to Deptford. Captain Corsham believes that if we can find out more about what he was doing there it will lead us to his murderer.’

  ‘We know nothing about that, madam.’ Graham pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Please forgive us, but we are late for an appointment. Once again, I am so sorry for your loss.’ He bobbed a hasty bow and they moved away.

  ‘Wait.’ I started after them. ‘If Mr Archer was your friend, then please tell us what you know. It is imperative.’

  Graham swivelled round and his voice dropped to an urgent whisper. ‘You place black lives in danger merely by asking about her, sir. I beg you never to speak of her again.’ He gave me one last look of entreaty, and then he and Proudlock hurried away across the grass.

  ‘Well,’ Amelia said, as we watched them go, ‘there walks a man frightened half to death.’

  ‘Two men,’ I said. ‘Whatever they are afraid of, it cannot just be a Deptford danger. They feel unsafe even here.’ I resolved that when I returned to London I would seek out Moses Graham again.

  ‘If one’s enemy is powerful,’ Amelia said, ‘I suppose he can reach one anywhere.’

  It was a sobering thought. We stood for a few last moments at the graveside, and I bowed my head, remembering the Africans’ song. It seemed a more fitting tribute to Tad than any of the vicar’s pious prayers.

  The world recedes; it disappears.

  Heaven opens on my eyes, my ears,

  With sounds seraphic ring.

  Lend, lend your winds! I mount! I fly!

  O Grave! Where is thy victory?

  O Death! Where is thy sting?

  *

  My parting from Amelia Bradstreet demands a mention.

  ‘I don’t like to think of you going back to that dreadful place,’ she said, as we stood at the churchyard door. ‘It may be dangerous.’

  I pulled aside my coat to show her my sword and flintlock pistol. She did not look overly reassured.

  We were standing in the shadows of the belfry. Amelia gazed after the retreating line of the mourners’ carriages.

  ‘Most of them could hardly bring themselves to speak to me.’

  ‘For the women it is a point of principle,’ I said. ‘As for the men, I suppose they are afraid of insinuation if they are kind.’

  ‘You have been kind, and you do not seem afraid.’

  I did not wish to give her false hope that we could maintain an acquaintance once our inquiry into Tad’s murder was concluded. It would only make things worse with Caro.

  ‘Tad was my oldest friend. I could hardly do otherwise.’

  She lowered her gaze. ‘Yes, of course.’

  I regretted the words almost as soon as they were spoken. ‘Forgive me, Mrs Bradstreet, I did not mean—’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ She stared at the thin golden band on her finger. ‘It was wrong what we did to poor Leonora Bradstreet, I do know that. Yet I would do it all again in a heartbeat. To have loved like that just once – without a thought for the consequence – I am not ashamed of it. Can you possibly understand?’

  ‘Love? Yes, I understand it.’

  ‘Respectable love, you mean, the sanctioned kind.’ She raised her chin to look at me, and I saw pride and anger written there. ‘I can withstand their censure, their gossip, even your pity, Captain Corsham. It’s the loneliness I find I cannot endure.’

  PART TWO

  24–26 JUNE 1781

  In the mind there is no absolute, or free, will. The mind is determined to this or that volition by a cause, which is likewise determined by another cause, and this again by another, and so ad infinitum.

  II. Of the Soul, Ethics, Baruch Spinoza

  CHAPTER TEN

  I collected my horse, Zephyrus, from outside the church, and took the road south out of Bethnal Green, heading for the river. We crossed the Thames as I had done previously, at Rotherhithe. I soothed Zephyrus with soft words as the horseferry navigated the treacherous currents, breathing in the pungent scents of the carters and oyster-women around us. Once deposited on the south bank, we took the road east at a canter.

  As I rode, I thought about the master’s journal and the skulls. Was it possible that more than three hundred slaves had died aboard a single vessel? And if so, how had they died? I knew that disease sometimes ravaged slave ships, but this would have been a veritable plague. It couldn’t have been a wreck or a fire, as the dates suggested the deaths had occurred over several days. I had read appalling reports about slave ship sailors who brutalized Africans in their care, yet surely no captain would ever countenance the destruction of such a large portion of his ship’s cargo?

  Between these thoughts, I dwelt much upon Amelia Bradstreet. I felt badly for the way I’d spoken to her and wished very much that I could take it back. I decided to call on her when I returned from Deptford, that I might explain.

  The road dipped south, following the great curve of Deptford Reach. Soon I encountered queues of carts and cavalrymen waiting to enter the Navy Yard. This vast compound was a small town in itself, protected from thieves and radical elements by ten-foot walls. Beyond the Yard, ramshackle houses lined the road into Deptford Strand and I breathed the appalling stench of the town once more.

  I found the Deptford watchhouse easily enough. A squat building with a conical roof, it looked better suited to serve the law enforcement needs of a small village, rather than a town of Deptford’s size and reputation. I tethered Zephryrus to a post outside the door.

  Peregrine Child was inside, playing cards with an old man with a ginger beard. Three bottles of wine, two of them empty, stood on the table. ‘Captain Corsham,’ Child greeted me – a little warily, I felt. ‘Back again.’

  He made no move to get up and the old man, whom I took to be a constable, followed his example, offering me only a toothless grin.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Child. I have brought you evidence pertaining to Mr Archer’s murder.’ I handed him the threatening letters. ‘It is unclear whether this correspondence was sent to him here in Deptford or in London, but the Deptford connection is plain enough. I found them at Archer’s chambers, where I encountered an intruder searching the place. I told you there was more to this murder than first appeared.’

  Child grunted. ‘Word often gets around when a person dies. Petty villains rob the dead man’s house while it’s lying empty.’

  ‘Petty villains don’t take legal documents. Nearly all Archer’s papers were stolen. If I hadn’t disturbed the intruder, he might have got these too.’

  Child gave the letters a cursory examination, and then handed them back. ‘What of it? I told you that your friend upset people here.’

  ‘These letters prove that Archer was asking questions in this town – it was that which angered the author, not simply his views on slavery.’ I had decided to make no mention of the pages from the master’s journal until I knew more about them myself. ‘At the very least these letters suggest he knew his killer.’


  ‘Whoever wrote these letters didn’t like Archer very much, but it doesn’t follow that the author then killed him.’

  ‘It is surely worthy of further investigation?’

  Child smiled blandly. ‘Last time you were convinced a slave merchant killed your friend. This doesn’t look much like the hand of a merchant to me. Or do I take it you have abandoned that particular theory?’

  ‘Slave merchants employ uneducated men. Or the merchant might have disguised his hand.’ I bit back my frustration, adopting a more even tone. ‘Have you made any progress at all since I was last in town?’

  ‘I’m afraid my reward remains unclaimed. It’s as I told you: slaving men look after their own.’

  ‘How about that slave girl, Miss Cinnamon? She said Archer had come to Deptford to see his dark angel. What did she mean?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You didn’t ask her?’

  Child folded his arms, his expression combative. ‘On the night Archer was killed, there were three more murders in Deptford Strand: two knife fights in the taverns and a strangled whore. There were countless brothel brawls, a theft of gunpowder from the Navy Yard, and many more thefts from the warehouses down at the dock. I’d like to say that was unusual, but I’d be lying. I have my hands full, sir. I can afford to give no corpse special treatment.’

  ‘I can see how busy you are.’ I gave the bottles on the table a pointed glance. ‘With that in mind, I have decided to look into the murder myself.’

  Child’s face betrayed no surprise, only a hint of calculation. ‘That is your prerogative, of course. Yet I counsel caution, sir. I am sure you are a fine hand with your sabre and your pistol, but Deptford is not a battlefield – at least, not one like you’ve ever encountered before. There is little enough honour among gentlemen to be found in these streets, and the only distinction your redcoat will bring you here is a sign on your back saying that you’re ripe for robbing.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning, but I’m afraid my heart is set on it. Now I would like to see the place where you found the body, Mr Child. Will you show me?’

  I anticipated another refusal, but Child only shrugged. ‘Go on then. I have some business down at the dock anyway.’

  Perhaps he wanted to keep an eye on me. He was welcome to do so if he wished. But given the evasions and the obstinacy that were my experience of Peregrine Child to date, I was equally inclined to keep an eye on him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The dockside streets echoed to the sound of hammers and saws. The stench grew stronger as we neared the river. Peregrine Child glanced scornfully at my limp, and rather than check his gait so that we walked at the same pace, kept striding ahead and then waiting ostentatiously for me to catch up. We passed roping yards and coal stores, warehouses and shipping offices. On every corner, gangs of men were standing around in the sun, looking for work.

  ‘Slaving ships are a favourite target of the French, damn their eyes,’ Child said. ‘If they can’t capture them, they sink them. The town lost a lot of men last year. Investment isn’t what it used to be and fewer voyages means less work. Not just aboard the Guineamen, but in the shipyards, the victuallers, everywhere.’

  ‘Tell me about the man who assaulted Archer.’

  ‘Assault’s a strong word for it. Your friend was handing out his pamphlets in one of the quayside taverns. Slavery is a sin, and a lot of other words to that effect. With the mood here in town, it’s not surprising there was trouble. I had a similar scene last year with a Quaker gentleman who gave a sermon on the evils of the African trade in the middle of the High Street. The fishwives pelted him with oyster shells and he came crying to the watchhouse.’ He grinned at the memory.

  ‘We were talking about Mr Archer, sir.’

  ‘So we were.’ Child spat onto the cobbles. ‘What can I say? Archer interrupted a game of dice with his speechifying and a fight broke out. He was half the size of his opponent, and he ended up with a bloody nose. I broke things up, and told him to get out of town. I hoped he’d listen.’

  We emerged from between the buildings and I was momentarily silenced by the impressive sprawl of the docks. Several hundred vessels rose and fell with the tide, tugging at their moorings, flags snapping in the breeze. A gang of stevedores were heaving shipping crates up the quayside, unloading one of the Guineamen out on the Reach. Barges floated around the larger vessel like nursing whale calves.

  ‘Did you arrest the man who attacked him?’

  ‘If I arrested every man who got into a fight down here, they’d have to level the church to make room for the prison. Besides, Archer gave as good as he got. Bit the other fellow on the hand. It looked nasty.’

  The stevedores had noticed the magistrate and they struck up a dirty song. Child raised his hand to acknowledge the compliment and they laughed.

  ‘What was his name? This sailor?’

  ‘The man has an alibi. He wasn’t trying to kill anyone, just teach your friend a lesson. I’ve ruled him out. That’s all you need to know.’

  I was intrigued by his refusal to name Tad’s assailant. If the man was as innocent as Child claimed, then why did he feel the need for circumspection?

  ‘Does this man have any connection to the slave merchant Archer was harassing? The one you also refuse to name?’

  Child gave me a look. ‘Only that they both endured Archer’s provocations.’

  The hammering and sawing grew in intensity as we approached the Navy Yard. Men shouted and whistles blew. Occasionally great plumes of steam shot fifty feet into the air. I knew they were getting ready to send more troops to the American colonies. My patron, Nicholas Cavill-Lawrence, said the war would be won by Christmas, but then he’d said that last year and the year before that.

  Child stopped at the base of a metal hook upon a pole. ‘Here’s where we found him. Archer’s hands were tied, and he was naked. His clothes haven’t turned up. Either the killer sold them or they’re at the bottom of the Thames.’

  I gazed at the hook, the bleakness of this corner of the dock. ‘Why put him up there? Because the killer was proud of what he’d done? Or as a warning to others?’

  ‘The latter, I’d say. Abolitionists not welcome here.’

  ‘Especially ones who think they know how to end slavery.’

  ‘If you say so. We haven’t found the murder weapon either. Brabazon, the surgeon whom you met the other day, thinks something larger than a pocket knife was used.’

  ‘A hunting knife?’

  ‘More like a bayonet. There was no sawing, just one clean cut.’

  I could hardly bear to think of it, and yet I must. ‘How about the slave brand? Have you identified the merchant who uses it?’

  ‘What good would that do?’

  I restrained my impatience. ‘The killer might have crewed one of the merchant’s ships?’

  ‘Why would the killer brand him with a symbol that could identify him? That makes no sense.’

  It was a fair point, but not one I was willing to concede without closer inquiry. ‘Who found him?’

  ‘A lad named Nathaniel Grimshaw. He works as a nightwatchman in those warehouses over there. Young Nate went out for a pipe of tobacco around four, and found your friend swinging here. Archer had been staying at his mother’s inn – the Noah’s Ark, where we met before. The lad recognized him right away, and roused the watch constable, who fetched me from my bed.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what time he was put here?’

  ‘Nate says he passed by earlier, about one, and Archer wasn’t here then.’

  ‘So between one and four?’

  ‘After two is more likely. This stretch of the dock sees a lot of traffic from the riverside taverns before then. The killer would have been taking quite a risk.’

  ‘The torture would have taken some time. At least an hour.’

  ‘I’d say more,’ Child said, his face unsmiling.

  I took another look around, at the warehouses and the tav
erns and the proximity of the Navy Yard with its guards. ‘He can’t have been tortured here. The killer would have needed somewhere quiet. One of the warehouses, perhaps?’

  ‘A lot of them are lying empty. A score of Deptford merchants have gone out of business in the past few years.’

  I sensed a slight unbending in his manner, and I wondered if Child was more troubled by the murder than he appeared. Magistrates in provincial towns were appointed by the wealthiest citizens. Here, I presumed, that meant slave money. Perhaps Child was concerned for his position? Or afraid where an investigation might lead?

  ‘He’d need to be tall and physically strong to get him up there.’

  ‘Unless he had help.’

  ‘Do you think that’s possible?’

  Child’s face seemed to close in on itself, adopting its old belligerent lines. ‘Anything is possible.’

  ‘And you have no other suspects?’

  Child gazed at the barren marshland on the Isle of Dogs across the water. A gibbet stood there and the corpses of three hanged men – mutineers or pirates – rotted slowly in the afternoon sun.

  ‘Nobody’s talking. Nobody wanted him here in the first place. If anybody does know who did it, then I’m the last person they would tell. They’d probably be down the nearest tavern, buying the killer a drink.’

  ‘So you think anyone could have done it, except the one man whom we know attacked Archer before.’ It was horseshit. He hadn’t even tried.

  ‘That’s about the size of it. Caveat viator.’

  Let the traveller beware. I was getting a little tired of the magistrate’s cod Latin.

  ‘You think he got what he deserved?’ I asked sharply.

  ‘Nobody deserves that. But slaving men are a breed apart. It’s the trade that does it to them. Deadens the goodness in the soul. Pick a fight with men like that –’ Child gestured at the hook – ‘you come off worse.’