Dodger (30 page)

‘Late for the choir, Mr Dawkins?' A man's voice from inside the carriage, rich with scorn. I turned to face it and saw a white gloved hand pull back the curtain on the lowered glass window. ‘I did not take you for a churchgoer.' I could make out a thin dark silhouette inside the coach, the long length of his hat and a metal object glinting in his left hand. I heard the click of a pistol. ‘You won't find what you're looking for in a house of God, sir. I think you'll find a turn around the city with me will prove much more enlightening. We've been following you all morning and a refusal will not do.'

The small silver barker was pointed straight at me. It was no use trying to run, I'd be shot before my back was turned. And yet I was terrified of placing myself at this man's mercy. I knew full well who he worked for.

‘This isn't a request, Mr Dawkins,' the voice said. The door was unlatched and swung open and the coachwoman walked over and held it. There was nothing else I could do but to cross over to the coach and climb inside as I was bid.

‘Take us to the Mutineer, Calista,' the man said to the rider as she shut the door after me. ‘I have a great many questions for Mr Dawkins of Dawkins Wool.'

‘Should it be necessary,' asked the man, as the horse began pulling us away, ‘for me to introduce myself?' He lay the small silver flintlock pistol on his lap and breathed out winter air.

‘No, it ain't,' I answered careful. ‘You're Timothy Pin. Evershed's man.'

Our knees was almost touching as we sat opposite one another in that small but plush carriage. And where the outside of the vehicle was death black, the inside looked like it was coloured to hide blood, with its cherry-red walls and crimson furnishings. There was large stains on the cushions already what could be from anything and the curtains on the windows was drawn so I could not tell where he was taking me. The man's face was as hairless as any I had ever seen. He had no eyebrows, no whiskers and, although his hat covered the crown, I doubted that there was a single strand upon his head. He was finely dressed and my thief's eye could not help but note that he had about his person a number of shiny items: a silver ring on the finger, a gold watch and chain in the vest-pocket, a stud in the necktie. Beside him was a thick satchel, like one a medical man would carry, only this was made of alligator skin and had locks of sterling silver. He reached over and unclasped it and began searching through all these papers.

‘Tim Pin,' he said with a small nod. ‘A humble servant.' Then he looked over to me and smiled wolfish. ‘But not your humble servant, I'm afraid.'

I was most unsettled by now, what with the man, his pistol and his red furnishings. I wondered what my odds for survival would be if I was to just make for the door and hurl myself out when he was distracted. Not good, I considered, and so instead I chose a different move.

‘Very happy to meet you, Mr Pin,' I said and I raised my hat in a manner most genial. ‘I'm glad you've come to collect me as it goes, cos I was just now on my way to your address in Greenwich, as requested, to tell you all about my doings. You've saved me a lot of bother by seeking me out –' I gave him my cheeriest smile – ‘and I'm obliged to you for it, sir. Obliged!'

He ignored me and carried on rifling through the satchel. At last he fished out a small round tin with a confectionary label on it and looked back at me. ‘Why is the aborigine not with you?' he said at last.

‘The British weather has laid poor Warrigal ill,' I replied. ‘He's having a lie-in.'

‘A shirker, eh? Disappointing. Well …' he inspected me, ‘although you chose to ignore the kind message that I sent to you via Warrigal –' he waved his hand to silence my attempts at denial – ‘I have received a number of messages about you from my employer.'

I stopped smiling and sat as far back from him as I could. I could glimpse through the crack in the curtains that the river was still on my right, meaning we had not crossed a bridge. So we was not heading towards his home in Greenwich but to another location. The horse galloped hard, making the carriage rock up and down, which only added to the discomfort of the situation.

‘Bonbon?' said Pin as he popped the lid off the tin and, after folding back the paper, offered me one of the boiled sweets within. I refused and so he just took one himself and stared at me as he sucked.

‘You have some explaining to do,' he said at last.

‘I suppose I do,' I said, and tried to affect the air of a man what has everything under control. ‘Right. Well, as Warrigal has already told you, the Jakkapoor stone was not where I thought it would be.'

‘What an unfortunate assumption you made then,' he said, and I'm sure he would have raised an arch eyebrow if he had one. ‘You've rather been wasting my employer's time, haven't you?'

‘But it don't matter,' I rattled out in haste, ‘cos I know who must have it. I know who has the jewel.'

‘Who?'

‘A lad called Bates,' I told him. ‘My best friend when I lived in Saffron Hill. If I weren't Fagin's favourite, then Bates was most definite. So it's a good thing Evershed sent me back after all. So I could work that out and go fetch it off him.'

‘You can assure us that this Bates was given the jewel, can you?' said Pin as he placed the cover over his sweet tin and put it away.

‘Certainly.' I nodded. ‘Either him or another lad called Eddie Inderwick.'

‘Mr Dawkins,' he said, his hand resting on the barker again, ‘would I be saving us all a good deal of time if I was to just blast your brains out here and now? It's a quiet part of town; it would be so easy to just drop you into the river afterwards.'

‘Do whatever you care to, Mr Pin,' I challenged him. I had decided I was not going to let the man frighten me. If he wanted me dead he would already have killed me. ‘But I told your employer I could find the Jakkapoor stone before Christmas, which is still three weeks away by my count.'

‘And is there a chance you will have the jewel by then?' he asked as he drew back the curtains from the window.

‘I'm confident, yes,' I said, noticing we was drawing close to St Katherine's Docks. ‘You don't know what I've just learnt in that there toyshop.'

Pin lowered the glass of the window and spat what remained of the sucked sweet out into the street. ‘I look forward to hearing it,' he said, and put the pistol away.

We soon came to a dirty row of houses so lopsided with disrepair that it looked as though the wind had blown them all into one another and only the large public house at the end was preventing full collapse. Outside this pub was where our carriage stopped and, if Pin had wanted the carriage curtains drawn so that I would not know to where I had been brought, he had wasted his time. We was at the Dancing Mutineer in Wapping. I knew of this pub and feared it.

The coachwoman, this Calista, could be heard dismounting the carriage and as she came round to open the door for us Pin wrapped a thick scarf around his neck. ‘I own this establishment,' he said as he folded the cloth out so half his face was obscured, ‘but I try not to be seen here.' The pub was shut at this hour but Calista unlocked the door and Pin gave her some orders while I was shoved through and into the front bar.

The Dancing Mutineer was notorious among criminals for its dark history, and Fagin had often said it was haunted by the ghost of Baron Beazle, better known as the Drowning Judge. As I followed Pin through the stone-floored bar and towards the stairs I could see through to the back window what overlooked the river. Beyond that on the shore of the Thames, dangling from a scaffold so simple in shape that a child could draw it, was the shortened noose with which he would have hanged those what
had committed crimes at sea. At the top of the stairs was a private room, where Pin led me now, unlocking it with his own key, and through this window the wicked Beazle would stuff his fat face with pie and ale and watch the limbs of dying men he had condemned quiver and shake out their last. Now, in that small, musty room with its view of the river and the hanging post outside, was a desk covered in legal papers, ink pots and other used stationery.

‘Sit,' said Pin, pointing to the chair what faced the river while he placed his satchel on the desk and sat opposite me. Then he opened the bag again and pulled out a copy of
News of the World
.

He pulled out a thin leaf of paper from within the pages and asked me if I would like to read his latest piece of communication. ‘It was delivered to my home in Greenwich in the early hours of this morning by a young fellow who works in the telegraph office. Would you like to read it?' He turned the paper towards me and held it close. It was unreadable.

‘These ain't letters,' I said. ‘It's all dots, dashes and queer shapes.' Pin whipped the paper away and smirked.

‘Of course you can't read it,' he explained. ‘It wouldn't be much of a code if you could. Sensitive messages of this kind pass through many hands.' He placed it down upon the desk but my eyes was then distracted by a different text, what I did understand. I snatched it up and began reading with some urgency.

‘One of yours, Dawkins?' asked Pin with amused surprise to find me so interested in today's story. My eyes was still distracted by the news as I asked him what he meant. ‘That publication only concerns itself with the most nefarious crimes,' Pin continued. ‘And I take it from the look of horror upon your face that one of your own is this morning's feature.'

‘Nothing to do with me,' I said at last, and whistled in relief
as I folded the paper over. ‘Thank a ghost. But I think I know the poor victim's family, bless them.'

Pin waved it away in annoyance. ‘Well, you can read it on the journey home,' he said, and turned back to his telegram. ‘
This
is much more pressing and it does concern you. It was sent from the Canary Islands.'

I had been to the Canary Islands myself when the
Son and Heir
had docked in Tenerife for a spell on my return journey from Australia. It was run by Spaniards, scorching hot and the only thing worth stealing from the markets was fruit. I could not imagine who would be corresponding with Pin from there.

‘It confirms what I already knew,' he sighed. ‘He'll arrive in two weeks or thereabouts.'

‘Who will?'

‘Lord Evershed.' Pin gazed out of the window then, towards Bermondsey on the opposite bank. He seemed as unsettled by this news as I was.

‘What's he coming here for?' I asked. ‘Warrigal is supposed to take the stone back to him in Australia.'

‘He left some weeks after you. It seems he wants the jewel as soon as he can get it and will not wait another six months for the return journey.' He spoke then, in a quieter, more confidential tone than he had used before. ‘Lord Evershed is a great man, Mr Dawkins, and our Empire owes him much. But there's something I feel that you must know about him which may help to explain a lot of the unusual business that you have found yourself caught up in.' I leaned in closer as he lowered his voice. ‘His Lordship …' he whispered, ‘is not of sound mind.'

He leaned back again and looked upriver towards the many clippers what was sailing in from foreign parts. There was a small silence which I broke.

‘I'll be honest with you, Mr Pin,' I ventured with caution. ‘That thought had crossed my mind already.'

‘I blame George Shatillion,' Pin went on, ignoring me. ‘If only that man had controlled himself and left Lady Evershed alone then all of this would have been avoided.' He waved his hand over the many pages of coded telegrams what could be seen bunched together in his satchel and his voice tailed off. ‘Revenge,' he said instead, ‘is a wild thing. It can never be sated.'

‘Revenge on who?' I asked. ‘George Shatillion is dead, ain't he? He fell off a cliff.'

Pin looked me square in the eye and said nothing. The truth fell upon me and I was surprised I had not thought it sooner.

‘He was pushed then,' I said at last as I held his gaze in return. ‘By you.'

Pin did not confirm this and he did not need to.

‘I pride myself on being the perfect employee,' he said instead in a small whisper. ‘I do as I am bid.'

I recalled then what Inspector Bracken had said to me that night in the stables. He had said that there was those in the police force what thought that the death of Evershed's wife was suspicious, and I found myself getting angry at the whole rotten business.

‘What about Lady Evershed?' I asked. ‘That you as well?'

Pin leaned his chair back and shrugged that one off. ‘I was not in Lord Evershed's employ at that time,' he said. ‘He has had many servants throughout the years. You and the aborigine are two of the most recent.'

He got up then and walked over to the window as if he expected Lord Evershed to come sailing up the Thames at any moment.

‘We have a common interest, Mr Dawkins. The latest telegram makes it clear, as if it were not already, that failure will not be tolerated. We both need that jewel to be presented to him on the
very day he arrives or there will be severe consequences. For myself as well as for you.'

‘All this for one little jewel?' I asked. ‘He's crossing the world just for this?'

‘He wants to know where the Jakkapoor stone is, Dawkins, and by Christ we had better find it before he arrives. He thinks, do not forget, that you already have it.' Pin laughed and I could not tell at what. ‘He thinks you were the child it was given to.'

‘I'll have it by the time he docks, Mr Pin,' I promised him. ‘I won't let you down.' But even as I said these words I doubted very much that they was true.

‘You shall bring it here, to this public house,' he said, and wrote down the address for me so I would not forget. ‘And we shall present it to him together.'