Authors: Julia Watts
“How do you know our names? We never told you our names.”
Liv clasped and unclasped her hands, rethinking the wisdom of contacting the former pirate.
“Don’t let that worry you,” he said. “Or the fact that I know where you’re staying. It’s someone else I wanted to talk to you about, but wait—you called me. You first.”
Anthony explained their situation, leaving out nothing, except for the identity of Cumpston. Liv supposed Anthony didn’t want to overload Morehouse and scare him off. There was no response for several seconds, and she thought the phone might have gone dead.
Anthony wound up his speech with a plea. “We need you to go back with us and do something to stop the bad guy from killing this man—or anyone else.”
The phone wasn’t dead. It vibrated in Anthony’s hand as Morehouse’s voice roared through it. “You want me to do what?”
Anthony held the phone at arm’s length as Morehouse continued his rant. “Have you collectively gone mad, or do you simply not remember that I left London in the seventeen-seventies for a very good reason?”
Liv became aware that Precious was jumping up and down on Frederica’s shoulder, straining at her little bird leash and leaning toward the phone.
“Look,” whispered Liv. “She’s doing the eye-flash thing at the phone.”
Frederica answered, “She probably just likes the color, and it’s shiny.”
Precious broke free and flew to Anthony’s shoulder, fluttering her wings and pecking at the phone. “Are you a pirate? Are you a pirate?” she squealed.
“I know that voice!” Morehouse’s own sounded disbelieving. “It’s not human—it’s. . .No, it couldn’t be.” He cleared his throat. “Back to the matter at hand, Anthony. I’ll meet with you, and we’ll talk. I can do it in an hour, but not at your place. My associate knows where you’re staying, and these days I never know what might set him off.
“There’s a lovely little eel pie and mash shop, just a short journey for you. It’s called The Jellied Eel.” Cal groaned and held his stomach.
Morehouse continued, “Take the tube toward Notting Hill, and the shop’s in Portobello Road. Hop off at the Ladbroke Grove stop, and it’s a two-minute walk for you. Got that?”
“Got it,” said Anthony, and hung up. He pulled Precious from his arm and handed her to Frederica. “Let’s get these two back to your place.”
The four walked back, and Precious sang snatches of tunes with words like “ale” and “buccaneer.” McGinty hunkered down and leaned on Frederica’s cheek, looking depressed.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Anthony told him. “She isn’t Morehouse’s type.”
In spite of its name, The Jellied Eel was attractive and clean. Live eels swam in tanks at the shop’s front window, and a long marble countertop ran almost the length of the place. Black and white wall tiles and an abundance of mirrors complemented the Victorian wrought-iron chairs and tables, but did nothing to ensure privacy.
Liv looked left and right on the street before leading the others inside. Morehouse was waiting for them. They were close to Portobello Road Market, where Cumpston and his partners had their place of business, but surely the chances of running into him were small. Besides, Morehouse knew how to take care of himself, and he had suggested the place.
She brushed her fears aside, followed Morehouse up to the cash register, and listened as he ordered eels and mash for everyone. The others trailed along, and minutes later they were padding over the clean sawdust floor to help themselves to forks and spoons.
Cal rummaged through the silverware box. “I need a knife.”
“You won’t find one, mate,” advised Morehouse. “A proper pie house has no knives. Proximity to pubs and all that.”
“Why is the furniture bolted to the floor?” asked Liv.
“Same reason.” He carried his loaded plate to a marble-topped table in a deserted corner of the shop. He selected a hard-backed wooden seat and motioned to the others to do the same.
The boys set their plates on either side of him and the girls sat at the next table, swiveling their chairs to face the others.
Anthony immediately began consuming his feast while Cal and the girls stared at the mounds on their plates.
“Come on, tuck in,” ordered Morehouse. “You’re looking at a time-honored delicacy. Londoners have been eating eels for thousands of years.” He picked up a large bottle of malt vinegar and sprinkled it liberally over his plate.
“In ancient times,you just walked down to the river and caught, cooked and ate your eel. The jellied eel stalls in the Middle Ages were a great invention.” He smiled at the thought. “Washed down with a pint—a sweeter meat you’ve never tasted.”
Liv pulled a sliver of meat from the spiny bones with her fork, then loaded her spoon with mashed potatoes. She buried the meat in a mouthful of potato and swallowed without chewing. Congratulating herself, she repeated the process. Frederica watched for a moment, then tried the same thing.
Cal took a bite of meat, closed his eyes, swallowed quickly, and made a face. A shudder began at his mouth and traveled down his entire body.
“Okay,” he said to no one in particular. “I tried it. Are you happy?”
Anthony spoke with his mouth full. “And you’re not going to finish it? I can’t believe you—this stuff is great!” He reached for the bottle of vinegar. “Here,” he said, drenching Cal’s plate with the liquid, “you need more of this. Or just spoon some of that crazy green sauce on it. What’s not to like?”
“What’s in the sauce?”
Morehouse wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “It’s just the water from the pot used to cook the eels. They boil parsley in it to give the lovely green color we call it parsley liquor.”
Cal pushed his plate away and looked out the window.
Frederica laughed. “It’s okay, Cal. I don’t like them either. The bones stick out like thumbtacks, and you have to chew and chew that slimy skin. The jelly’s the worst part of it—like someone with a sinus infection had a great sneeze.”
“You’re not helping!” he said, keeping his face toward the window. Something on the street seemed to capture his attention, and he laid his fork down and stared.
When he turned back to the others, he whispered to Morehouse, “It’s lucky you made me look out there. Two guys are standing on the corner.” He stole a glance. “They were looking right at us and now they’re talking to each other, but they’re still not moving.”
“Mmm. . .it’s Nigel and Eddie—two of Lance’s toughs,” Morehouse said in an undertone. “They’re not the sharpest rounds of cheese in the cheddar factory. Usually they just deliver messages for Lance, which I suspect come with threats and a bit of roughing up.”
He spooned a bite of mashed potatoes and swallowed. “But why hang about out there, watching us and not coming in? I don’t like it.” As he spoke, the two nodded at each other and moved on.
“Probably nothing to worry about,” said Morehouse, “but it bears being a little more careful. We won’t come here again.”
It was time to get down to it. Frederica began, smiling at Morehouse. “The others tell me you were something of a buccaneer in your day.”
“Well, I suppose I was for a time,” he admitted, a hint of pride showing in his voice. “My usefulness, in the government’s opinion, was attacking French East India Company ships. It drove the company out of business in seventeen sixty-nine. As a reward, I was offered the position of lieutenant on a British East India Company vessel with the promise of working my way up to captain, but I turned it down.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Now there was a magnificent ship—a British East Indiaman. Lord of the Ocean. It couldn’t outrun a pirate ship, mind you, but it took care of itself with heavy arms.”
Anthony was wide-eyed. “It sounds awesome—what an adventure! How come you turned it down?”
“It was dangerous enough. But adventure? Back and forth, back and forth, officer cabins furnished like a fancy house, crews with scurvy, dysentery, and the likes of me chasing after them.” He shook his head. “No thanks, I told them, I’ll just keep on pirating. Things began to go downhill, to use a modern expression, after that.”
His voice turned bitter. “We’d served the government for over a century, mapping the Caribbean, collecting scientific data, harassing the Spanish Navy.” He stabbed at his potatoes. “Why, there was a time when whole towns in the Caribbean made their livelihood by trading with pirate crews like mine, buying our booty and selling us supplies.”
Anthony whistled softly.
“Often my crew and I pretended to steal goods from the merchants, when we were actually paying—double price, in fact. Dealers would leave things ‘unattended,’ then send a messenger to collect the money and tell us where to find them. And I can tell you, the officials and legal merchants often behaved worse than the pirates, so I chose my side. We were democratic—no matter what your race, religion or prior social rank—if you were on the ship, you had a vote.” He smiled at the memory.
“By the time I got into the life, the British government’s imperialist takeover of the Caribbean and South Pacific was almost complete. The state turned its back on my kind, criminalizing and imprisoning us. They couldn’t hire me or convince me to turn in my fellow privateers, so I became a liability to be disposed of at all cost.”
He propped his elbows on the table. “So, you can understand, London in seventeen seventy-two would be the last place I’d want to go. And I must ask, why me?”
“We’re in situation that’s beyond us,” said Frederica, giving the others a look that dared them to say otherwise. “We need someone with connections, experience and intelligence. No one alive can match your combination of those qualities.”
He looked pleased. “And exactly what is it you need done that only I can do?”
Liv spoke up. “We’ve tried to think of several possibilities, Mr. Morehouse, and we hoped you might have some ideas of your own.”
Morehouse picked up his fork, snorted, and took another bite. Liv continued, “It’s the twelfth of June today. King George the Third was assassinated on June eleventh. We don’t know how to choose the month or day when we travel, just the year. So do it today, and you go on the twelfth of June. The closest you can get is seventeen-seventy-one almost a year before the event.
“We were hoping you could draw Cumpston away from the scene—maybe offer him something to disappear, or send him on a really long errand out of the country—even kidnap him. Anything—just so it takes him months and months to get back home.”
Morehouse dropped his fork and stopped chewing his eel pie. “Who’s that? What was the name? I didn’t know any Cumpston in the seventies—the seventeen seventies, that is.”
“Well, he knows all about you!” said Cal. “Or knew about you. He had you followed. He was paid by the king to make you disappear, and he hired the guy who gave you your scar.”
Morehouse gave his parsley liquor a languid stir. “Even after all this time, it’s daunting to learn the name of the person who pursued me and tried to carry out His Majesty’s orders to kill me. It gives me a bad feeling about Lance, too. Heredity or environment, he seems to have continued the family tradition. And now I’ve two descendants of men from my past to deal with.”
“Two?” Liv’s discomfort increased. Morehouse surely had some strange baggage.
“Jonathan Pridgeon was my Quartermaster in the sixties—the seventeen-sixties,” Morehouse said, “and a finer one I never saw. He was my second-in-command, elected by the crew, though I would have chosen him myself. He kept order on the ship, settled disputes kept records, and fought alongside me every time.”
The memory brought a smile to Morehouse’s face. “He led a raid on a Spanish ship, which we decided to keep. He wanted to take a few crew members and become captain of it, and I was happy to reward him for years of faithful service. Pridgeon headed to Jamaica and recruited enough British sailors to desert the navy and fill out his crew.
“Imagine my surprise when I first stepped into Carmine’s office and saw the oil painting on the wall behind his desk. Jonathan’s ship, which he renamed the
Blue Star
, with him at the helm! I nearly swallowed my tongue—I’d never made the connection, in spite of the uncommonness of the name.”
Morehouse peered out the window and cut his eyes left and right. Satisfied, he returned to his story. “He’d bought the painting because it had his ancestor in it, but he’d never heard of me, which was a great relief. I suppose it lulled me into complacency to know a descendant of my good friend was one of those in charge, and I didn’t look into the firm’s doings as I should have. Jonathan would never have let things get out of hand like this.”
He shook his head. “It pains me to say it, but Carmine is more corruptible than his ancestor ever was.”
Frederica asked, “More corruptible than a pirate?”
The handsome smile froze. “You see yourself as better than imperialists of your own time? Better than other pirates of my time who joined the government to rid itself of pirate competition?” Morehouse lowered his voice to a growl. “I find it incredibly offensive that anyone would compare what wealthy colonists did to Africans, indigenous peoples, women, natural resources—even their own working classes to what I did in my pirate prime.”