Blood & Sugar

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Child went off to attend to his business, and I wandered the streets of the dockside quarter alone. The wholesalers here all catered to the shipping trade: sailcloth merchants, victualling yards, ironmongeries. It was the last of these that interested me.

  I went from shop to shop – there were nearly a dozen ironmongeries in Deptford, I was told – and in each I showed the drawing of the slave brand. I sweetened my questions with a little silver, but each time they were met with blank looks. Until the seventh place I tried.

  The ironmonger had a mane of greying hair and a large mole on his nose. He peered at my drawing. ‘That’s one of mine. You want one like it?’

  ‘Maybe. Can you tell me about it?’

  Samples of his wares hung around the walls of the shop: lengths of chain in different thicknesses – sold by the mile; collars, manacles, fetters. A sign above the collars read: ‘Every size from four years up.’

  I thought of a collar encircling the neck of Ben, my childhood friend. Then I thought of Gabriel, not much younger than the boys for whom the tiniest collars were intended. I breathed deeply to dispel the fury these images provoked.

  The ironmonger scratched his stomach through his leather apron. ‘It could have looked better, if you want to know the truth. Iron is all well and good for initials, but for a picture it should be gold.’ He pressed a knuckle into the back of his hand and made a hissing noise. ‘Gives a crisper edge. Customer didn’t want to go the extra mile.’

  ‘Can you give me his name?’ I held up a silver crown. ‘If he’s brought any slaves back here to Deptford, he might let me take a look. I’d prefer to see it in the flesh, as it were.’

  The ironmonger smiled at my little sally, eying the coin. If he didn’t believe my story, then he didn’t care. He took a book down from the shelf behind his counter, and spent a little while turning the pages.

  ‘Here.’ He turned his book round so I could see. The page had a sketch of the same design as my drawing: a crescent moon surmounted by a crown. Next to it was a record of the order, together with the name of the merchant who’d commissioned the brand: John Monday Esq. Atlantic Trading and Partners. I made a note of the address, a warehouse in the Private Dock, and my coin disappeared into the ironmonger’s pocket.

  Flushed with triumph, I made my way out of his shop. Next to the door stood a tailor’s dummy, painted chocolate-brown. The face had grotesquely exaggerated African features. Fitted to its mouth was an odd metal contraption.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ I asked.

  ‘Behold the speculum oris.’ The ironmonger came out from behind his counter, and turned a screw on the side of the device. Slowly the dummy’s hinged jaw inched open. ‘Some slaves get a touch maudlin upon the Middle Passage and refuse to eat. The oris allows them to be fed against their will.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ I murmured, bile rising in my throat.

  It was too late to go to the Private Dock now, and I needed to find lodgings before dark. I decided to try the Noah’s Ark, where Tad had stayed. After collecting Zephyrus from the watchhouse, I made my way there.

  The landlady, Mrs Grimshaw, welcomed me in the taproom. A tall woman in widow’s weeds, with red-brown hair, she had a trace of Irish in her accent. She ran a practised eye over my uniform, and I felt as if I was being priced by the yard.

  ‘I can offer you the Barbados room, sir. It is our finest, with a lovely prospect over the river.’

  She named a princely sum and we haggled, eventually agreeing terms. I entrusted Zephyrus to the care of her stable boy, and then Mrs Grimshaw showed me upstairs to my room. It was small and square, crammed with old, oaken furniture. On one wall was a picture of the harbour in Bridgetown, Barbados. The ‘lovely prospect over the river’ proved to be a vista of the inn’s stable-yard and a slaughterhouse in an unloved corner of the Private Dock. Beyond the warehouses and other buildings, I could just make out the quays, and a row of the giant Guineamen anchored out on the water.

  ‘Is this where he stayed?’ I asked. ‘The man who was murdered?’

  Her face fell. ‘You heard about that? This is our finest room, so naturally a gentleman would stay here. I can give you another room, if you wish?’

  I looked around at the place where Tad had spent his last night on earth. ‘This will do very well.’

  She smiled and handed me the key.

  ‘Did you have much to do with him? The dead man?’

  ‘Only at breakfast and dinner. My boy, Nate, spoke to him more. Said he seemed a good and honest gentleman for all his odd opinions. He’d stayed with us twice before, but mostly he kept to himself. If only he’d gone back to London as he’d planned.’

  ‘Do you know why he changed his mind?’

  ‘Only that he decided to stay another night at the last minute. Poor devil.’

  That fitted with what Amelia had told me. She had been expecting Tad to call on the night of the seventeenth. I wondered what had made him change his plans.

  ‘It was my Nate who found the body,’ Mrs Grimshaw went on. ‘I don’t care what people say. It was a terrible thing to happen.’

  I agreed it was.

  ‘If you want any errands running, sir, or letters delivering while you are here, then my Nate is your man. His room is over the stable, or you can find him about the inn during the day.’

  She offered me refreshment, and I asked for a plate of fried anchovies. She went downstairs to see to it, while I unpacked my bags, and formulated a plan for my time in Deptford. I was unwilling to accept Child’s assertion that the slave ship sailor who attacked Tad at the dock was blameless in the matter of his death. People must have heard about the incident, and I decided to ask around the dockside taverns to see if I could find out his name.

  Tomorrow I would go to the Private Dock to find the merchant who’d commissioned the slave brand, Mr Monday. It might also be a good place to ask around about the dead slaves in the master’s journal. Surely if the ship had sailed from Deptford, someone would remember such a voyage? I was still baffled as to how and why those slaves had died.

  I also wanted to talk to Nathaniel Grimshaw, my landlady’s son – he had found the body, and he might know if Tad had ever had a visit from a woman here at the inn. He came here to see his dark angel. I remembered Cinnamon’s words, and Moses Graham’s reaction to them, thinking of the lady in the black lace veil at Tad’s funeral. Could that have been her? Tad’s dark angel?

  There was the opium to look into, and then there was the silver ticket I’d found in Tad’s rooms. My original intention had been to give it to Amelia to sell, but I’d since had second thoughts. Season tickets in silver, brass and gold were often issued by places of fashionable resort: pleasure gardens, theatres and assembly halls. Caro and I, for instance, had a gold ticket for Carlisle House. Yet Tad had hated the recreations of the bon ton with unbridled passion.

  Such tickets were also used in exclusive brothels and gambling houses, but the Tad I remembered would never have had the means, nor the inclination, to squander his money in such a fashion. For him to have outlaid what I imagined was a considerable sum, this ticket must have been important to him – and nothing mattered to Tad more than the causes he served. Perhaps the ticket was connected to his inquiry and provided admittance to some place of recreation here in Deptford? The town certainly had no shortage of brothels and other houses of debauch.

  Finally, there was Tad’s interactions with the slaves of Deptford Broadway. In particular, I desired to speak to Miss Cinnamon again, anxious to learn what she knew about Tad’s business here in Deptford. Yet I’d have to get past her owner, the mayor, Lucius Stokes first. I wondered what his reaction would be when he discovered I was back in town. Would it trouble him? I rather hoped it would.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I went downstairs to the dining room, which was busy with patrons taking supper. Mrs Grimshaw had kept a table aside for me, and as she was showing me to it, I heard a voice calling my name
. It was the surgeon, James Brabazon, who was dining alone in one of the booths.

  ‘A pleasure to see you again, Captain Corsham.’ He smiled at me over his plate of battered fish and boiled greens. ‘Are you taking supper? Would you care to join me?’

  I said I would, thinking he would be a useful person to talk to about the town and its inhabitants. I also had some questions for him about the nature of Tad’s injuries.

  I took the seat opposite him in the booth, wincing a little at the cramp in my leg as I slid in.

  ‘Does it trouble you?’ Brabazon asked. ‘I noticed your limp the other day.’

  ‘Only a little. It’s always stiff after a journey.’

  ‘How did it happen, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘My horse was shot from under me at Saratoga. The poor creature landed on top of me and broke the leg in two places. I was lucky not to lose it.’

  ‘I am glad that you were in good care. Too many surgeons are too quick to resort to the knife, though broken legs always present a challenge. I am presently treating a patient with such an injury myself, a young man with whom I once sailed. Things were looking hopeful for a time, but an infection has set in. I am praying for a miracle, but I fear it will have to come off.’

  His long face in the candlelight looked suitably grave. He had thick, slanted eyebrows, hollow, slightly pox-scarred cheeks, and a cleft chin. His tailoring was dark and soberly cut, with a starched white stock at the throat. With his unpowdered hair and clipped Scottish tones, I was reminded of a puritan from the last century, one of those old lawyers in the portraits at Lincoln’s Inn. His eyes were no less startling upon a second inspection: one a rich brown, flecked with amber and gold, the other the pale blue of a northern loch.

  ‘It is called heteroglaucous,’ he said, noticing my interest. ‘A rare but harmless abnormality.’

  ‘Forgive me, I did not mean to stare.’

  He smiled to signal he had taken no offence. ‘If I am an oddity, then I am in good company. Plutarch says Alexander the Great had eyes of different colours, and the first Emperor Anastasius was known as Dicorus for the same reason.’ He nodded at my leg, which I’d stretched out beyond the confines of the table. ‘I have a tincture of laudanum which might help with the stiffness. If you come to my rooms at the Broadway, I should be glad to prescribe it.’

  I thanked him. ‘Do you make the laudanum yourself?’

  ‘I do.’ He looked surprised by the question.

  ‘I ask because I wondered if there was anywhere a man might purchase opium in town?’

  ‘There is a den down in the Lascar quarter. Near the Upper Watergate. People call it the Red House. If you intend on going there for recreational purposes, then I feel duty bound to try to dissuade you. The poppy drug is a cruel mistress. She makes slaves of her suitors. A sea captain I know was consumed by the stuff.’

  ‘I have no wish to try it myself. It’s possible Mr Archer was a customer.’

  ‘You surprise me. Normally I can tell when I meet a man if he is an opium eater. I recognized none of the signs.’ He examined me curiously. ‘Is it Archer’s murder that brings you back to town?’

  ‘Yes, there remain many unanswered questions. I did not realize that you had met him when he was alive?’

  ‘We dined together once, and spent an enjoyable evening arguing about slavery. I knew him then as Valentine, of course. Deptford is not overburdened with cultured company, and I tend to seek out interesting visitors to town. I met him again when I treated him. He’d had a spot of trouble down at the dock.’

  ‘This would be the fight Child told me about?’

  ‘He mentioned it, did he?’ Brabazon looked faintly surprised. ‘Poor Mr Archer was quite a mess. I patched him up.’

  ‘I had not realized he was badly hurt.’

  ‘A couple of cracked ribs and some bruising. His assailant wore a fistful of rings and they’d made a mess of his face. Had Mr Child not stepped in when he did, it could have been worse. I advised bedrest, and Archer duly returned to London. I was surprised when he came back. Your friend was nothing if not headstrong, Captain Corsham.’

  Anger coursed through me. A bloody nose, Child had said. Damned liar. I was convinced this was the attempt on his life that Tad had told Amelia about.

  ‘Do you know the name of the man who attacked him?’

  Brabazon took a sip of wine and refilled his glass before answering. ‘I don’t believe I ever learned his name.’

  Mrs Grimshaw approached our table, and placed a platter of anchovies in front of me, as well as a bowl of bread and a glass of yellow wine. Brabazon took advantage of the interruption to change the subject.

  ‘How long were you in America?’

  ‘Six years, until Saratoga. I left Oxford to enlist.’

  ‘What made you sign up?’

  I smiled. ‘The usual. A woman.’

  Brabazon gave a grimace of understanding. ‘Your story mirrors my own tale, as it happens. I was training to be a physician in Glasgow, until I fell under Eve’s spell. I lost my head and dropped out of my studies. In my case, the refuge was slaving.’

  ‘You’ve never thought about completing your degree? There is a lot of call for Scottish physicians in London society these days.’

  ‘The money in slaving is better. I hope soon to acquire a vessel of my own.’ Brabazon raised his glass.

  I had little desire to toast his good fortune, but I was not there for my own pleasure. I murmured the usual platitudes and drank the vinegary wine.

  ‘I have been thinking about Mr Archer’s injuries,’ I said. ‘The tortures he endured. Mr Child presumes they were inflicted to punish him for his views on slavery, but I wonder if he is correct. The whip, I accept, is commonly used to punish slaves, but isn’t the brand simply a mark of ownership?’

  ‘I believe it is occasionally used as a punishment too. On the plantations, rather than the slave ships.’

  ‘How about the thumbscrew? Have you ever applied it as a punishment?’

  He looked offended. ‘Only ever for information – and only then when lives were at stake. I am not a monster, sir.’

  ‘I only wonder if the thumbscrew was used on Archer for its traditional purpose?’

  ‘To force information out of him? What might the killer have wanted to know?’

  I judged there was no harm in telling him about the letters. ‘Someone was sending Archer letters demanding that he stop asking questions in Deptford. Perhaps the murderer wanted to find out how much he’d learned?’

  ‘That he was asking questions, I can attest. He paid sailors money to tell him about the conditions aboard the Guineamen. What he wanted most of all was stories about the mistreatment of slaves. He spoke to some of the Negroes up in the Broadway too. It caused quite a stir.’

  I thought of the master’s journal and the skulls. Had Tad’s questions related to one particular ship and one particular voyage? Was that why the sailor had taken such exception?

  ‘Can you remember anything else Archer said about his business here in town? Did he have dealings with any women, do you know?’

  Brabazon was stripping the flesh from the bones of his fish with surgical precision. ‘I don’t recall him mentioning a woman. We talked mainly in the abstract – about philosophical matters. Aquinas on slavery, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Did you come to any conclusions?’

  ‘Only that old Aquinas liked to have his cake and eat it.’ He smiled. ‘How does Mr Child feel about you being back in town?’

  ‘Not overjoyed. What he lacked in encouragement, he made up for in blunt advice.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Brabazon’s lips twitched. ‘Child might be forthright in his opinions, but he keeps the more villainous elements of the town in check. The merchants like him because he has greatly reduced thievery at the docks.’

  ‘He certainly seems to have the blessing of the mayor.’

  ‘He wouldn’t last long in Deptford if he did not. Lucius Stoke
s owns half the town.’

  ‘Is he popular? Stokes, that is?’

  ‘I would say rather that he is respected. People say he has close connections in Whitehall and with the West India lobby. The new West India dock will be a test of his powers in that regard. There is strong competition from Wapping, but Stokes is confident that he can convince the ministry to build the dock right here in Deptford.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘As for Mr Child, he has to tread a careful line between the Broadway merchants and the men of the Strand – and between the town and the Navy Yard. Every time something goes missing from the Yard, the Admiralty are quick to point the finger at Deptford.’

  ‘Being magistrate here sounds a thankless task.’

  Brabazon gave an odd little smile. ‘It has its compensations, I am sure.’

  I would have liked to ask more, but the dining room door swung open and a young man in a horsehair wig strode into the room. He had a thin, handsome face and soft green eyes that were bright with agitation. I recognized him as the lad who had shown me to Child’s table the other day. He gave me a distracted nod and addressed the surgeon. ‘He is asking for you, sir. Will you come?’

  Brabazon was already rising from his chair. ‘My patient,’ he explained. ‘The boy with the broken leg. Mrs Grimshaw and her son are looking after him. I am sorry to break up our conversation, Captain. Perhaps we can resume it another time?’

  I said I would be glad to, we bowed, and they departed. As I finished my dinner, I reflected upon our conversation. Had it not been for my purpose and his slaving, I’d have enjoyed Brabazon’s affable, intelligent company. Yet I had detected reticence when I’d asked him about Tad’s assailant at the dock.

  A surgeon who applied thumbscrews. It was a perfect Deptford paradox. And a salutary reminder: trust no one.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The dockside slums were a disconcerting prospect after dark. A maze of narrow alleys leached down to the river, jostling with brothels and ginshops and tumbledown lodgings. Attic storeys pressed in overhead, blocking out the night sky, echoing to the sounds of Deptford life. Men talking and laughing in voices ragged with drink. Lovers pitching battle, or making congress without a care. Somewhere up above an Irishman sang of home, and a woman screamed at the Papist bastard to be quiet.