Dodger (14 page)

‘Tell me, Mr Dawkins,' he said, watching my face with great intentness before asking me a question I would never have expected, ‘does the name Fagin mean anything to you?'

It was a beautiful place he had brought me to – the clear green water was nothing like the brown murk of the Thames and the sound of it flowing was most pleasing. There was no one else here except for Evershed and myself and a small number of aboriginals what he seemed to employ as servants, including this Warrigal cove. After I had finished with the sugar bowl I picked up the cup by its saucer, said cheers to his health and drank the coffee down.

Evershed did not say cheers back. Instead his smile thinned and I could sense his body stiffen. When he next spoke his voice was a little quieter, his tone a little more threatening.

‘I asked you a question, Mr Dawkins,' he said as I placed the cup and saucer back on to the white-sheeted table. ‘The polite thing to do is to answer it.' I picked up the larger spoon, scooped out the fruit segments and slipped grapefruit into my mouth. I let him wait while I swallowed it. In truth I was most surprised to hear the name of my old teacher and friend spoken out here in Australia and I could not imagine what business this high-born toff could have had with him. But the old Jew had taught me many valuable lessons over the years and the highest among these was how, should anyone important ever ask, he did not really exist.

‘Fagin, you say?' I mused, and made a great show of giving it some thought. ‘Can't say I've heard the name before. Is it a mister or a missus?'

Evershed's eyes left me for the first time since I had sat down and he glanced over to the man standing by the door, who was eyeing me like a sheepdog watches a ewe. Warrigal then crossed over to stand just behind my chair so I could not see him but could hear his breath. If this was done to intimidate me then it worked, although I took good care not to show it. Evershed then pushed his own chair back and stood up. ‘Come now,' he said, and circled the table towards me. ‘Mr Fagin from Saffron Hill. He's said to be a notorious fence and corrupter of children. A kidsman, I believe they call it. I have been informed by some private investigators here in Australia that you and he were close once.' He stood over me now, crossed his arms and rested his buttocks on the table. ‘Tell us what you know of him,' he said.

‘Can't help you.' I shrugged. ‘He sounds a proper shady one, this Fagin. I try not move in such circles if I can help it.' I tapped the crockery with the spoon and listened to the sound. ‘Bone china?' I asked.

Lord Evershed chuckled then. ‘Honour among thieves, eh? Well, I call that admirable, Mr Dawkins. Very admirable indeed.' He then looked to Warrigal and I heard knuckles crack. I dropped my head down into my knees and waited for it.

The strike came, much to my surprise, from in front rather than behind. It was Evershed's own fist that smashed into the side of my face. My chair toppled and crashed to the floor, my dropped cup shattering against the desk. My head stung like he had opened it and I felt my temple for blood. There was hot liquid on my face and all over the wooden floor but I soon saw that this was just splashed coffee. ‘What was that for, you vicious sod?' I demanded. ‘I've done nothing to deserve it.' Evershed kicked me in the side hard and through my pain I could still marvel at how much strength he had in him for someone of his advanced years. I was on all fours and trying to stand as his polished gaiter shoes came close and the left foot stepped down hard upon my fingers. I cried out in pain but he just pressed down the harder. Then he removed his foot, reached into his waistcoat and handed me his silk handkerchief. I took it and wiped away the coffee.

Warrigal then helped me back into the chair, as innocent as if he had just watched it fall out from under me. Then he touched my face and turned it towards him. ‘Bad,' he said, and tutted. ‘Red tomorrow.' He fetched a little dustpan from just inside the house and wiped away the smashed crockery before taking a cloth to the spillage. Then he went back to his place just behind my chair.

‘I shall ask again, Mr Dawkins,' said Evershed, taking his seat once more, ‘and perhaps we will have more luck with you this time. Does the name Fagin mean anything to you?' I held the handkerchief up to where his fist had struck and said nothing. ‘Don't be unreasonable,' Evershed sighed. ‘He is in no danger, if that is what bothers you. Neither are you.' I dabbed the bruise all
sceptical. ‘This is a job interview of sorts and you're being very stubborn. The job is in London and, if I think you and I can do business, then you will be sent back there a free man. I have the ear of the Governor of New South Wales.' He pointed through to the house where there a hung a large picture of a man what I now assumed to be the Governor himself. ‘We are very old friends, he and I, and I assist him in his duties here in Australia in an unofficial capacity. It would not be difficult for me to obtain his signature on your pardon. Not with all I know about him.'

I considered these words and wondered if they was true. To return home to London with a full pardon and to be reunited with Fagin and the others was all I wanted at that time. I could not have asked for a greater wish if an Indian vetala had granted me three of them. But, as the poets tell us, ‘A Fool Trusts He Who Has Just Punched Him In The Face' so instead I kept my council.

‘Mr Dawkins,' said Evershed as Warrigal's knuckles could be heard cracking again, ‘I'm waiting for your answer.'

‘Fagin …' I said after a long pause. ‘Yeah, I recall the name.' Evershed's smile returned as he sat up straight. ‘He was a horse I lost three guineas on.' A second punch, this time from Warrigal, landed in my left cheek and I was back on the floor. Now I bled hard.

‘A pity.' Evershed sniffed as he began eating his breakfast. ‘A great pity. I had hoped you were going to be more sensible than this.' Then he spoke to Warrigal. ‘The fellow is an impossibility.'

‘Take away?' asked the aborigine.

‘Back to the colony?' said Evershed between mouthfuls. ‘It's more than he deserves. I've a mind to just feed him to some hungry pigs.' I raised my hurt head and looked to him. He looked back as if wondering what I even was, let alone what was to be done with me. Then after he had finished his half of the grapefruit and
had begun eating the rest of mine he spoke again. ‘Let's try something different. Back in his chair.' Warrigal forced me back up as Evershed cleared his throat.

‘An easier question this time, Mr Dawkins. If you have never heard of this man Fagin then let's try someone a little more famous. Does the name George Shatillion mean anything to you?'

Warrigal stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders forcing me not to go anywhere. I did not think I could take another punch. ‘Course,' I said with sullenness, ‘everyone has.'

‘Everyone has,' Evershed agreed. He laughed then but the laughter was hard and mirthless as if daring either me or Warrigal to laugh with him. ‘Who is he then?'

‘He's a novelist.' I answered. ‘The greatest living Englishman.'

Evershed's fist bashed down upon the table, making the china wobble. ‘
He's a thief and a bastard!
' he shouted, his face reddening. ‘A faithless jackanape! And he's very far from being the greatest living anything now. They buried the unconscionable shit in Highgate Cemetery some months ago. And when I return to London I intend to visit his resting spot and piss all over it. What do you say to that, sir?'

‘Well, his stories weren't for everyone,' I answered. ‘I found them to be most entertaining myself.'

Evershed laughed as though he had been presented with a stupid person. He began to calm himself and crossed over to the writing desk. ‘You and his legions of other admirers will be disappointed to learn that his final serialisation,
The Mystery of Mary Sweet
it was called, will forever go unsolved.' He then pulled out a sheet of paper from the desk and turned back to me. ‘But as one mystery closes –' he rolled the paper up into his fist and motioned for me to stand – ‘a clue to another is revealed. I assume you are familiar with his story
The Curse of the Jakkapoor Stone
?' I nodded that I
was. I told him that I had been telling other convicts about it only a few days before. ‘Then you'll be delighted to learn that you are in the company of the lead character,' said Evershed.

I thought about what he might mean and remembered that the name of the corrupt English officer in the story was called Nevershood.

‘I have never encountered anything as fantastical as a vetala,' he said as he went over to the door and opened it. ‘But it was I that took the real Jakkapoor stone.' He motioned for me to follow him. ‘Let us take a walk along the river, you and I. And I will tell you the truth behind the fiction.'

A breeze cooled my face as we strolled along the Hawkesbury together and every so often Evershed would use his silver cane to point out the more unusual birds what twittered in the oaks above. It was as if we was two idle gentlemen on a Sunday jaunt and it was only my brown convict clothing and my cut face that said otherwise. Warrigal followed at such a distance that he was not part of our conversation but could still catch me should I try to run for it.

‘If there is one thing I cannot abide, Mr Dawkins,' Evershed said, ‘it is a thief.'

‘Me neither,' I said, dabbing the cut with his handkerchief. ‘Rotten little buggers.'

‘And yet throughout my life,' he went on, ‘there have been many foolish men who have dared to accuse me of being one.' He stopped at a brook and looked off into the distance. He was a queer sort and seemed to be drawing into himself as he spoke. Then he carried on walking.

‘George Shatillion never accused me, but he
insinuated
, the coward. What is worse, he made his insinuations in print by modelling the villainous lead character in that wretched book of his upon me and therefore bastardising my own heroic actions.'

He shook his head and tutted at this but I found myself most impressed. If anyone ever put me in a book I should be proud.

‘Many years ago, during the time of the mad king, I served with distinction in India during the Mysore Wars as captain of the 19th Light Dragoons. Like this fellow in the book I was there at the storming of Seringapatam and I did more than any other to bring about victory for the Empire. My speeches had enflamed the soldiers before battle, I had led the charge over the citadel walls and my claymore was the first to clash with the enemy sabre. Yes, as Shatillion depicts, it is true that the conquering heroes of John Company indulged themselves most shockingly in looting and rapine once the fighting was over but British blood does not cool quickly. The citadel, and everything in it, was now the rightful property of the Wodeyar dynasty but we had fought savagely on their behalf and the men were now as wild animals. I remember sweeping through the many rooms of the palace yelling my commands and punishing any looters whom I caught in the act. I shot one man, a colonel's nephew no less, straight through the eyes for daring to make free with one of the dead sultan's concubines. But despite this I could not have brought order to chaos if I was a thousand Captain Eversheds, and it was not long before I elected to leave them to their indulgences and pursue my own prize.'

He lowered his voice now as we passed along the riverbank as if he was concerned that hidden ears lurked behind trees.

‘I had heard of the fabled jewel of Jakkapoor and about the powers it was said to grant to those who possessed it. I had been told two nights before by the uncle of Prince Mummudi that the Wodeyar people believed that jewel's loss had been responsible for all their previous defeats. Legend tells that those who hold the small black jewel are blessed with great fortune, but should one
lose the stone then they would be beset by bad luck until the day that bad luck destroys them. Of course, as an Englishman I have little time for foreign mysticism, and yet…'

Evershed let the sentence hang there for a bit before continuing.

‘I found the jewel at last in an ancient temple, encrusted upon a statue of a God, and I knew it instantly. Something about its blackness called to me and I prised it out with my sword and took it for my own. This is not stealing,' he said, and looked at me steady, ‘because the enemy had fallen. To the victor the spoils.'

He waited to see if I was simple enough to disagree with him before continuing.

‘And yet years later when George Shatillion learnt that the jewel was in my possession he tried to paint me as some sort of mercenary thug rather than what I truly was, an imperial servant merely helping himself to a small and just reward. I have always despised fat and comfortable men like Shatillion; they are hopeless in battle. They write about murder as if it were the worst thing in the world and yet they know nothing of killing. They just sit like cowards behind their desks using only the poison of their inkwells as a weapon.'

There was much hatred in his voice as he spoke about my favourite novelist and, gentleman though he was, I thought he was going to spit. His hand moved up to his waistcoat and he pulled out something small and gold what glinted in the sun. It was a locket on a chain.

‘It was Shatillion who stole,' he said. ‘He did not face me in battle like a real man and take what was mine by force. No, he crept in the night as thieves do and took what was precious.' He held up the locket for me to see and opened it. ‘What do you think?' he asked.

‘It's beautiful,' I told him, wanting it for mine. ‘Is it solid gold?'

‘I'm not speaking of the locket, fool,' he said. It was only then I noticed there was a picture inside. It was a small but very life-like pencil sketch of a fair young girl with flowing hair and a lovely long neck. She was about eighteen and I liked her almost as much as I did the locket.