Somehow I found these scientific justifications for his cruelty even worse than Drake’s blunt brutality and Monday’s twisted religion. Yet I kept my temper in check, and asked Brabazon a few more questions about the voyage.
‘Why kill the slaves in batches? Why not all at once?’
‘It is hard work killing three hundred men. The crew needed to rest. If it sounds shocking, that’s because it is.’
‘When we last met you mentioned a sea captain who destroyed himself through opium use. Was that Evan Vaughan?’
‘Yes, I tried to help him wean himself off it, but the poppy does not let go easily. It is something I’d like to research one day: the properties of addictions and how to fight them.’
‘Did his habit have anything to do with the failures on that voyage?’
‘Oh no, the leak could have happened to any ship under any captain. And at the time Vaughan’s use of opium was purely sybaritic. It was only afterwards that it got worse, in Kingston. When we returned to Deptford, he started smoking more and more – I believe to keep the memories of that voyage at bay. I’ve seen it happen before, to some of the hardest men you ever saw – and God knows, Evan Vaughan is no angel. They work the Middle Passage for twenty years, and never give it a moral pause, then one day wake up weeping at all the things they’ve seen and done. In Vaughan’s case, perhaps it is not surprising.’
‘Do you know where Vaughan is? His landlord says he’s left town.’
‘I advised him to get out of Deptford and take some rest. He decided on Brighthelmstone, I think. Or was it Margate?’
All very vague. Perhaps deliberately so.
‘How about John Monday? Does he use opium?’
‘I’ve never observed him do so, but it’s possible. A lot of seafaring gentlemen retain old habits when they retire.’
Seemingly satisfied with the consistency of his mixture, Brabazon added a clear spirit to the bowl, stirring to let it down to a liquid. Then he decanted the laudanum through a funnel into a bottle. ‘This will need to steep for a while. Shall we go next door?’
Brabazon’s parlour was not dissimilar to my own bookroom: a refuge of dark furniture, bound volumes and Morocco leather. A skeleton in a corner gave the only clue to his profession. There were no mementos of his slaving at all. Perhaps Brabazon, like Amos Grimshaw, preferred to forget the horrors of the Middle Passage when in port.
The manservant had brewed a pot of coffee, and Brabazon offered me a bowl. As he poured, he leaned over to close one of his desk drawers. It was one of those inconsequential gestures that seem to have no purpose, and attain every consequence and purpose as a result. I wondered if there was something in that drawer that he did not wish for me to see.
‘Where were you on the night Archer was killed?’
He stirred sugar into his bowl. ‘What a question. I attended a lecture that afternoon at the Naval Hospital at Greenwich. There was a dinner afterwards and I stayed almost until the end. Over thirty surgeons and physicians were in attendance. You can check.’
‘I will. What time did it finish?’
‘Around one, I think.’
‘Did you go directly home afterwards?’
‘No, I went to check on Daniel Waterman.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘The boy himself. He should be more lucid by tonight.’
‘Those papers people say that Waterman stole. Why was everyone so convinced that it was him?’ I was chancing my arm here, seeking confirmation of my suspicions.
Brabazon arched an eyebrow. ‘You have been busy. Who else could it have been? I was in the warehouse myself at the time the papers went missing and I saw Waterman go up to the office. Naturally, I regret saying anything to Monday, but neither he nor I can blame ourselves. Drake was only supposed to punish the boy, not leave him a cripple. I’m afraid the other man I hold responsible is Mr Archer. He dangled an inducement in front of Waterman to tempt him into a criminal act. That’s reprehensible.’
So Tad had bribed Waterman to steal the papers from the warehouse, and Monday had ordered the attack on Waterman as a reprisal, based on Brabazon’s evidence. It explained Nathaniel’s hostility towards them. I was not in the least surprised to learn that it was Frank Drake who’d carried out those orders.
‘What are these papers?’
‘They relate to The Dark Angel, though I’m not sure how. Monday will be able to tell you more.’
I doubted Monday would tell me anything at all. ‘Did you hear about the dead bird on Monday’s doorstep?’
‘Another one? How tiresome. Archer spread it around town that we killed those slaves, and now the Deptford Negroes seek to punish us. To me a dead cock is just a dead cock, but this is a superstitious town. Monday’s been struggling to find crew for The Dark Angel ever since.’
‘I heard Vaughan was rather shaken up by it all.’
He smiled. ‘Drake too. He denies it, but you can see that it unsettles him.’
I questioned Brabazon a little more, on these and other matters, but he seemed quite unruffled. Truly, the man was slippery as a slow worm. Yet Nathaniel had said he’d been frightened like the others. I wondered what Tad had known that I did not.
For the time being, I admitted defeat. Brabazon walked me to the door, where he laid a hand on my arm. ‘A word of advice, Captain Corsham. Friend to friend, so to speak. Monday and Vaughan might not take too kindly to you repeating Archer’s lies. That theory of his is slanderous after all. I’d hate to see you end up in a court of law.’
‘Thank you for your concern,’ I replied pleasantly, as though we were indeed good friends, ‘but I don’t believe you need worry on that score. I think a court of law is the last place those gentlemen would want this subject raised.’
He only smiled. He knew that I knew that he was lying. But I couldn’t prove it – and to my great chagrin, he knew that too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The landlord in the coaching inn greeted me warmly. ‘God save the King, and Yankee Doodle be damned for a dandy. What can I get for you, Captain?’
I ordered a pot of ale. ‘I wondered if you’d heard anything from Captain Vaughan?’
‘Not a whistle, sir, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m a little anxious for him, to be honest. I wondered if I might take a look inside his room, see if there is any clue there to his whereabouts?’
His face clouded with suspicion. ‘Vaughan wouldn’t like that. How am I to know you’re really a friend?’
‘Didn’t you say he owed you rent? I’d be happy to settle his bill. I’d hardly offer to do that if I wasn’t a friend.’
The furrow in the man’s pink forehead deepened. ‘It’s near two guineas.’
‘As I say, I am happy to settle it.’
I could see that he liked the sound of my two guineas. He was probably wondering if he’d ever see his tenant again.
His wife emerged from the back room and deposited a tray of glasses on the counter. She gave me a nod. ‘Afternoon.’
‘Gentleman says he’ll give us Vaughan’s rent, if we let him take a look inside his room.’
She glanced at me, and then at her husband. A piece of unspoken communication passed between them, the kind that only exists in the closest marriages. I felt a pang of envy.
‘You’re not to take nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ll be watching to make sure.’
I paid the outstanding amount, and she led me upstairs to the landing, where she unlocked a door. Vaughan’s room was large, furnished with mahogany pieces: a four-poster bed, an armoire, a desk and a washstand. An arrangement of chairs and a sofa stood in front of the fire. True to her word, the landlady stood watching with folded arms as I made a methodical search of the premises.
I began with the desk. The upper drawers held star charts and nautical equipment: dividers, a sextant, and a leather box containing a telescope. In a middle drawer I found a pair of account books. They revealed little except that Vaughan, like Monday, was a ri
ch man, with over five thousand pounds in savings and investments. The lowest two drawers held correspondence, much of it business-related. I spent some time looking through it, ignoring the landlady’s impatient sighs, but discovered only that Vaughan had a financial interest in a Barbados sugar plantation and an investment in a Liverpool timber yard. Nothing seemed particularly relevant, but I made a note of Vaughan’s correspondents. I would write to them to see if any of them had heard from him.
On the desktop were a well-thumbed Bible, the usual writing implements, and a ceramic pot of chinoiserie design. Inside the pot was a pouch of tobacco and a small brass key.
I paused in my labours to study the painting over the desk. It depicted a colonial harbour scene, black lines of chained Africans being marched off a Guineaman. A brass plaque was screwed to the frame: Port of Havana, Cuba.
‘That’s where Vaughan was born,’ the landlady said. ‘His father owned a small plantation. His mother was Spanish.’
The armoire held an array of very fine clothes, and I remembered Jamaica Mary had said that Vaughan cut quite a swathe. Wherever he had gone, it didn’t look as if he’d taken much with him. At the back of the armoire I found an opium pipe and a wooden box. Inside were three red waxed-paper packages. From what Brabazon had told me about the grip of the poppy drug, I was surprised that Vaughan had left his opium behind. Everything suggested that he had departed in a hurry.
I drew back the curtains from the bed and started with surprise. Lengths of string had been pinned to the canopy, and each had something tied to it: a desiccated sprig that might have been heather; brass charms like the ones the gypsies had tried to sell me the other night; a crucifix; a rabbit’s foot; a number of blue glass beads painted with little white eyes. If Vaughan was trying to ward off evil, then he was leaving nothing to chance. I ran my hand across the strings and the charms tinkled softly. The landlady shook her head. ‘Moon-crazed.’
In the drawer of the bedside table was a leather case containing a length of pig intestine for guarding the male member during amorous intercourse, and some mercury pills.
‘Did Vaughan ever bring his women here?’
‘Certainly not. I run a respectable house.’
‘I apologize, madam.’
Under the bed I discovered a metal strongbox. I took it to the desk and fitted the brass key I had found earlier into the lock. Inside was a pouch containing twelve guineas, a silver caddy filled with tea leaves, a bundle of papers, and a leather-bound book.
My pulse quickened as I realized that the papers were bills of sale for slaves that Vaughan had sold for personal profit. Monday had told me on our walk down to the dock that he allowed his captains to undertake a few such transactions on each voyage. The Governor of Jamaica had said in his letter that the surviving slave was Vaughan’s personal concubine. I went through the bills until I found the one I was looking for, studying it with mounting excitement.
19th Day of June 1780 Captain Evan Vaughan Esq. of Deptford, England hereby contracts to sell one Negress girl of about fifteen years of age named Cinnamon to Lucius Stokes Esq. of Deptford, England for the sum of fifty guineas.
Here was proof that Scipio had lied to me. Cinnamon hadn’t been bought from a Bristol sugar merchant a year ago – and if Vaughan had kept her for a short time before selling her to Stokes, she could certainly have been on board The Dark Angel.
The landlady had opened the leather-bound book and was leafing through it. ‘Lord have mercy. Will you look at that?’
The book’s pages were covered in ink, barely an inch of paper left blank. Drawings of ships riding the waves, patterns of stars and strange fish. A skull with coins in the eye sockets. Writing ran between the drawings at odd angles, or took up whole pages, the letters large and small, hastily scrawled.
Last night they came again. Those long dark hours when I cannot dream, yet when I close my eyes, I hear them. Their siren song. And the children look at me. There is no respite. Ah Jesu. Your servant. Black faces. Black voices. Black like the demon in the smoke. He waits.
Much of it was biblical verse:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.
Under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Ink spatters testified to the frenzy with which the diary had been written. I turned a page and saw a drawing of a man I took to be Vaughan. His long curly hair was thrown back from his face as he arched his spine, his mouth and eyes contorted into an expression of deepest anguish. The scar on his face had been drawn so savagely, the quill had torn the paper.
I turned another page, then another. The same words over and over again, like a child’s lines for punishment. A hundred times, a thousand. I turned more pages. The landlady sucked in her breath and muttered a prayer.
For the wages of sin are death.
For the wages of sin are death.
For the wages of sin are death.
For the wages of sin are death.
Amidst all the lies I had been told, one truth stood stark: wherever he was, Evan Vaughan was not a well man.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘Toss her! crush her skull!’
‘Skewer that bitch.’
‘Stamp on her. Again. Give it to her.’
The bull’s hide was slick with sweat. His eyes rolled back in his skull. He dipped his horns to charge the crowd, and those who’d got too close leaped back, eyes wild with excitement. The chain securing the bull snapped taut and the dogs seized their moment. One darted in and fastened her teeth deep in his flank. He bellowed and dipped his head again, spearing one of the other dogs with his horns. Sweat and blood sprayed the crowd, as he tossed her into the air. They cheered.
We were in one of the fields that banked Deptford Creek. I had heard the noise from the road, and come up here to take a look. Most of the crowd were fixated by the bait, while others were taking advantage of the action to conduct a little business. The fine clothes, groomed beards and sun-darkened complexions of one group drew my attention. Sea captains. I went over and introduced myself as a friend of Captain Vaughan. Warm with ale and the thrill of the bait, they were happy to talk to me.
‘Not Brighthelmstone,’ one said, in response to my queries. ‘Not Margate either.’ He thought for a moment, pipe-smoke wafting in the breeze. ‘Bath, it was. Vaughan’s gone to take the waters.’
‘You cannot believe that?’ another said. ‘He’s with one of his women – induced her to leave her husband and ran off to Spain. Vaughan has family there.’
‘I heard he was dead,’ said a third. ‘A jealous husband put a knife in his guts and dropped him in Deptford Reach.’
‘Is there any evidence for that?’
The man grinned. ‘It’s probably horseshit. Vaughan could cuckold the Devil himself and still talk his way out.’
I’d heard more answers to the question of Vaughan’s whereabouts than I’d had hot pies. I could only conclude that he didn’t want to be found. I wondered if he’d decided to get out of Deptford and lie low. As The Dark Angel’s captain, he would have given the primary account of the voyage to John Monday’s insurers. He had more to fear from Tad’s inquiry than most. Yet there was also his state of mind to consider.
I was about to return to Deptford Strand to make further inquiries, when I noticed two men standing beneath a large oak tree on the fringes of the fray. The magistrate, Peregrine Child, and The Dark Angel’s third officer, Frank Drake, heads bent together over the inevitable bottles in their hands. It was the first time I’d seen either of them since Drake had attacked me in the alley. I walked over to join them.
‘For a man who doesn’t believe in conspiracy, Mr Child, the pair of you look positively cabalistic.’
Drake scowled, and Child laid a soothing hand on his arm. ‘What can I do for you, Captain Corsham?’
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He listened, frowning, as I told him about Amelia and the other murders. Drake only smirked.
‘Archer is dead. His sister and her maid are dead. Two London Africans are dead. Daniel Waterman is a cripple because of this man you drink with here. How many more people are going to get hurt before you act?’
Child turned to Drake, and I realized this was the first he’d heard about Waterman.
‘Didn’t he tell you? I’m sure it was a fair fight. That boy must have weighed at least a hundred and thirty pounds.’
Drake’s bright blue eyes glittered dangerously. ‘The boy was a thief. I confronted him, and he came at me with a knife. I had a right to defend myself.’
‘I suppose you were defending yourself against me too, when you and Isaac attacked me in those alleys?’
He grinned. ‘You said it.’
He seemed so confident that I wondered if he was paying Child off. Or if there was another aspect to their relationship I didn’t understand.
‘I hear you’ve been having trouble with dead birds, Drake. Bones, rats, dolls? Scare you, does it?’
Drake licked his lips. ‘It’s nothing. Nigger magic. Miserable cowards.’
‘You’d know.’
His ruined drinker’s face flushed scarlet. ‘You know why I had it out with Waterman? Because Mr Monday told me to. You know why I drowned those slaves? Because Captain Vaughan ordered it. You know why I didn’t kill your friend, though Christ knows he had it coming? Because Mr Monday ordered that he not be harmed.’
This was new. ‘When was this?’
Drake hesitated, but Child gave him a nod to continue. I wondered if he wanted to hear Drake’s answer as much as I.
‘The morning before they found his body. Monday had heard that Archer was back in town. He summoned me and Brabazon to his house, and said no one was to touch him. So there we are.’
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