Scotland Hard (Book 2 in the Tom & Laura Series) (18 page)

The frequent stops gave them a chance to buy tea for the boys, as well as freshly prepared hot food. Hawkers came to the side of the train shouting out their wares at each station and the prices were so low that even
Arnold
couldn’t complain that their purchases were not well spent.

It was dark by four in the afternoon and the weather had become inclement. Snowflakes darted across the platforms and the lamps in the station gathered haloes around them. The number of hawkers diminished as the evening grew darker and colder.

“I thought these carriages were heated?” Daisy had pushed the leaver as far as she could towards the word ‘Hot’, but the compartment was still ice cold.

Arnold
felt the metal grill under the seat. “I don’t think these carriages were designed for this weather.”

“You mean winter?”
Cam
asked.

There were all very glad they had brought coats as the night became even darker and colder.

The train came to a juddering halt on the tracks in the middle of the night.
Arnold
looked out of the window expecting to see either a station or the friendly lights of a town. Instead, all he could see were flecks of snow melting as they hit the window glass.

After an hour of sitting in the cold, a ticket collector opened the door to their compartment and leaned inside to speak to them.

“There’s been an accident up ahead. A train ran into a cow and was partially derailed. It’s stopped all the trains travelling north, but in our case, we shall be on the move any minute now. There’s a special chartered train ahead of us, which is just about to set off. When it goes, we’ll give it a few minutes start and then follow it.”

“Where’s it going to?”
Cam
asked quickly before he could leave.

“
Edinburgh
and then up into the
Highlands
as I understand it,” The ticket collector told her and smiled. “There are a number of army camps in the middle of nowhere and it’s probably heading to one of them. Sorry for the delay, but it could have been a lot worse for us.”

Up ahead, the train with Tom and Laura on began to move and its jolting start woke up
Alice
.

Tricky put his hands over his ears in pain as a sleepy Alice repeated a message that she had send so many times that it no longer had any meaning for her. She also missed out a few words.

“GOING TO
MmmBRIDE
STATE
. WORKS FOR MAGIC, THE BASTARD. GOING TO WHIP TOM TO ‘URT ‘ER. FIND US TRICKY, NEEDS YOU.

Ebb smiled as Tricky rolled onto the floor beneath the seats.

“Knew you’d find ‘er,” he said to Tricky as he joined him on the floor.

“It’s
Alice
…, and she’s close,” Tricky said weakly a few seconds later. “Damned near blew me ‘ead off with ‘er shouting.”

“They must be on that chartered train,”
Arnold
said excitedly and lowered the window so he could look outside. A barrage of screams suggested he close the window up again before he was thrown out for freezing them.

“What did
Alice
say to you?”
Cam
demanded of Tricky.

“Didn’t make any sense,” Tricky explained. “She said she was going to be a bride and work for ‘er magic. Someone was going to whip Tom to ‘urt ‘er and that we should find ‘er, as she’s really needing us.”

Cam and
Arnold
were astonished by this strange message.

“Do you think she was being tortured?”
Cam
asked as her puzzlement over the message grew.

“Nah, I thinks she was half asleep and got it muddled,” Tricky offered. “She’s done that to us afore.”

Daisy smiled broadly.

“It’s just like a puzzle in a book. We have to get Tricky to remember the exact words
Alice
used and then work out what she really meant.”

Tricky looked worried. “I’ve already forgotten what she told me,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Don’t you worry, we shall get it all out of you,
one way or another
,”
Cam
said with a smile on her face that was the exact opposite of reassuring. Tricky felt the blood drain from his face and for the first time began to serious worry about the people he was travelling with.

20.
      
Catching Up

James Saunders left Trelawney’s office elated that he had managed to convince the old fool to let him chase after the young spies. There had been a real possibility he could have vetoed it. After all, the Secretary of War had demanded that his best men should search
London
for the killers of Young and Carter, a wild goose chase that would let the real trail go cold.

This had been exactly what Saunders initially wanted. After all, who better to go looking for the kidnapper but the man himself? It would have been easy to suppress any incriminating evidence that might have turned up. He still couldn’t remember where he had left his top hat, for example.

However, the danger from the Hobsgate students was much greater than the odd piece of evidence he might have left lying around on the killings. He had to trust to luck that the MM1 agents would display their usual incompetence and fail to find any evidence traceable back to him. The matter in hand was to dispose of the students and he knew exactly where he could get the help he needed for that little task.

Saunders left the MM3 building in
Whitehall
and hailed a cab.

“
Berwick Street
,” he ordered curtly as he climbed into the hansom cab. The driver flicked his whip and his horse set off a fast trot towards
Soho
.

There had been a market in
Berwick Street
since the Romans invaded
Britain
. It had always been a place riding on the edge of respectability. There was a warren of side streets running off it in all directions. A gentleman couldn’t walk for long between its market stalls or down any of the alleys before a prostitute would offer him her services, often flashing her assets at him if the opportunity presented.

There was a joke going around The Rosicrucian Club that one of the Brotherhood had tried to stop a girl pestering him in
Berwick Street
by telling her that he only had a thre’penny bit to his name. She replied that he was not to worry about it because she could give him tuppence change.

The Crown Tavern was in a side street just off the market. It was in this tavern that Saunders had interviewed and selected the two young people who would look like Young and Carter without their heads. It was also the tavern where the killers of that particular pair drank. They were men who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty for the right price. Men who knew that talking to the constabulary would kill them quicker than the gallows, and much more painfully.

The tavern looked Tudor in construction though the original had burnt to the ground in the Great Fire. The owner of the time had the tavern rebuilt in its original style with broad oak beams painted black and large square panels between them filled with whitewashed wattle and daub. The builders had increased the floor space by stretching its walls out above the street on its first floor.

This overhang gave the street girls and the hawkers somewhere to stand when it was raining. Right at that moment, it was raining ice cold drops of water. Saunders knew it would be falling as snow out in the country.

He found his way blocked by a well-endowed young girl. She might have been as old as fourteen. She opened her shawl to reveal breasts mottled with bruises.

“Can I offer you some warmth, your lordship?” she asked hopefully. “Bury your head in my bosoms and you’ll soon forget the cold. I expect that ‘tache of yours could tickle my melons.”

“He’s almost short enough to tickle your fancy,” an older woman near her shouted before making a rude gesture.

Her fellow streetwalkers and the hawkers cowering from the cold rain, laughed at her wit.

Saunders spoke through clenched teeth. “Get out of my way.”

The girl stood her ground; she was almost as tall as him. Then she felt something prick into her some way below her belly button. She looked down to see a thin bladed knife in Saunders’ hand.

“No offence meant, my lord,” she said backing away with her hands raised. She felt drips of blood fall from where his blade had cut her.

“None taken,” Saunders said politely and touched his hat to her.

She stepped towards the other girl.

“He cut me,” she said in shock. One of the male hawkers pulled a knife and stepped towards Saunders, but the girl pulled him back.

“He’d kill you soon as look at you. I know the type. Leave him be.”

The girls and the hawkers stood in a huddle and hurled abuse.

Saunders ignored them and walked into the tavern without a backwards glance.

The tavern was crammed with people and stank with noxious fumes from tobacco smoked and tobacco spat. Sawdust underfoot made the floorboards a little less treacherous, though the floor was wet from spilled beer and dripping boots.

It was a dark and gloomy place, the only light coming from the odd oil lamp hung from the black painted beams. The lamps swayed on their hooks as people jostled against them. Saunders was short enough to walk under them without noticing they were there.

He pushed his way to the bar through the throng. Being short had some advantages in making a way through the crowd. When he arrived at the bar, the tavern keeper reached under the bar for the good bottle of brandy he kept in readiness for whenever Saunders called. There were some customers it paid to show respect to; if you wanted to live to see your next birthday, that is.

“This’ll warm your cockles, Mr. Saunders, sir,” the tavern keeper said as he poured a generous helping of brandy into a glass and put it down in front of Saunders.

“Thank you, Eddie. I need something strong after being out in the weather this morning. I fear it’s going to be a bitterly cold night.”

“They often are this time of year, sir,” Eddie replied. “Would you be looking for anything in particular this morning, sir?”

“Have you seen Mick and Joe anywhere?”

Eddie moved closer and scanned the faces of the people close enough to hear. Satisfied that none of them were copper’s narks he spoke in a low voice.

“Mick’s laying low. The constabulary are after him over a break-in at a jewelers over in Spittlefield last night.”

“Did he do it?”

Eddie laughed. “I hopes so, what with the money he owes me.”

“And Joe?”

“Joe’s around here somewhere. I saw him half an hour ago. He’s probably found a game of crib to keep him occupied. He’s a fierce crib player and no mistake.”

Saunders turned, trying to see Joe in the crowd, but all he could see was the chest of a large man trying to get to the bar.

“I’ll see if I can find him,” Saunders told Eddie, who nodded.

“If you need any help; I’ll be available after midnight,” Eddie shouted as Saunders struggled back through the crowd towards the alcoves at the far end of the room. A game of cribbage required a certain amount of elbow room and that couldn’t be found at any of the tables in the other parts of the tavern.

He found Joe sitting at the end of the room in the snuggest alcove. The burly man sat with his back to the room and a set of dominoes in his hand. He was playing
penny-knock
with three men and there a fair pile of copper coins had been gathered in the centre of the bench.

Gambling was illegal, but nobody paid much attention to the law of the land in such matters. If a constable were to walk into the bar, all the money would vanish from sight long before he could have made his way over.

Saunders looked at the dominoes on the table and in Joe’s hand and counted spots. It was clear Joe controlled one end of the domino line with the last five. This did not guarantee he would win, but it did make it extremely likely. He found an unoccupied chair and sat down beside Joe, who doffed his cap when he saw the audience he had attracted. Another two plays around the table and Joe scooped the money into his cap.

He turned away from the other players who were grumbling into their pints.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, guv’nor,” he grunted at Saunders. “Is there a job for me?”

“You and Mick.”

Joe shook his head.

“Mick’s gotta lay low, now’s not a good time for ‘im.”

“I heard about the jewelers. The job will be out of town. It could take a few days or even weeks. Normal pay rates apply.”

“Extra for any we ‘as to dispose of?” Joe asked, licking his lips in sudden anticipation of a kill.

Saunders nodded.

“Three, you will get the bounty money shared between you.”

“Any perks?”

“Two of the targets are young women. I don’t care what you do with them before you cut their throats,” Saunders said without a flicker of emotion reaching his eyes.

“I’d best go and get Mick then,” Joe said, and he stood up eagerly.

“I’ll hire a coach and pair from our good landlord,” Saunders told him, making no move to get up. “Bring Mick to the stables around the back. He should be safe enough from the constabulary once he’s in the coach. I can deal with them if they try and stop us.”

Joe gave Saunders a poor imitation of an army salute and pushed his way out of the tavern.

Saunders smiled. Now he had the muscle it was only necessary to find the targets.