The Winter Rose

THE WINTER ROSE

A Novel

Jennifer Donnelly

In memory of FRED SAGE and the London he knew

Contents

Part One -- May 1900

Part Two -- London, September 1900

Part Three -- London, 1906

May 1900

Lily Walker could smell a copper a mile away.

Cops reeked of beer and bay rum. They walked as though their shoes
pinched. In poor neighborhoods filled with hungry people, they looked as
plump and glossy as veal calves, fattened up from all the free meals
they cadged.

Cops scared Lily. It was a cop who'd taken her kids away from her and
put them in the workhouse. It was another cop, a man named Alvin
Donaldson, who'd put her in jail after she'd gone on the game to get
them back.

And now there was one sitting at the bar right in front of her.
Inside the Barkentine, the Firm's own stronghold. Pretending to be a
regular bloke. Talking. Drinking. Reading a paper. Ordering food.

The bloody cheek.

What did he want? Was he looking to nick Sid? To shut the place down?

The thought of the Bark closing more than scared Lily; it terrified
her. She had her kids with her now. They had a room. It was small, but
it kept them warm and dry. If she lost her barmaid's job, and the wages
it brought, she would lose the room. And her kids. Again.

As she stood behind the bar, nearly paralyzed with worry, a sudden
movement caught her eye. It was Frankie Betts, Sid's right-hand man.
He'd been sitting down, knocking back glass after glass of whisky, but
now he was on his feet. He stubbed out his cigarette and pushed back his
sleeves.

He's sussed the cop, Lily thought, he must have. And now he's going to do for him.

But before Frankie could make a move, a fresh drink appeared on the bar. Desi Shaw, the publican, had put it there.

"Not leaving yet, are you, mate?" Desi said. "You only just got here." Desi was smiling, but his eyes flashed a warning.

Frankie nodded. "Ta," he said tightly, sitting back down.

Desi was right to have stopped him. Sid would be angry. He would say
he was disappointed. Frankie knew better than to disappoint Sid. They
all did.

Desi turned to Lily. "Look lively, darlin'. Bloke down the end needs a refill."

"Sorry, Des. Right away," she said.

Lily served her customer, barely smiling, her nerves taut. It was a
tense time. For Sid. For the Firm. For all of them. A dangerous time.
The rozzers were all over Sid. He and his lads had robbed a wages van
last week and had made off with more than a thousand quid, prompting
Freddie Lytton, the local Member of Parliament, to declare war. He'd had
Sid arrested. Frankie and Desi, too. But the beak had let them go.
Turned out there were no witnesses. Two men and a woman had seen the
robbery, but when they'd learned it was Sid Malone they'd be testifying
against, they'd suddenly been unable to recall what the robbers looked
like.

"A mistake's been made. The police arrested the wrong man," Sid had
said to the press on the steps of the Old Bailey after he'd been
released. "I'm no villain, me. Just a businessman trying to make an
honest living." It was a phrase he'd used many times--whenever the
police raided his boatyard or one of his pubs. He said it so often, in
fact, that Alvin Donaldson had christened him the Chairman and his gang
the Firm. Lytton had been furious. He vowed he'd have Sid's head on a
platter. He swore he'd find someone, some honest man, who wasn't afraid
to speak the truth, who wasn't afraid of Malone and his pack of thugs,
and when he did, he'd lock them away for life.

"He's just blowing smoke," Sid had said. "Wants his picture in the papers. It's almost election time."

Lily had believed him, but now this cop was sitting here, as bold as
brass, and she was no longer sure he was right. She picked up a rag and
wiped the bar with it, stealing glances at the man.

Is he one of Lytton's? Or someone else's? Why the hell is he here?

Lily well knew that where there was one cop, there were usually more. She scanned the room, looking for more unfamiliar faces.

If ever a pub deserved to be called a den of thieves, she thought, it's the Bark.

Dark and low-ceilinged, it sat squeezed between two wharves in
Limehouse, on the north bank of the Thames. Its front touched Narrow
Street and its back sagged brokenly over the river. At high tide you
could hear the Thames lapping at the rear wall. She recognized almost
every face. Three local blokes were standing by the fire, passing bits
of jewelry back and forth. In a corner, four more played cards while a
fifth threw sharks' teeth at a dartboard. Others sat clustered around
rickety tables or at the bar itself. Smoking and drinking. Talking too
loudly. Laughing too hard. Bragging and swaggering. Minor villains, all.

The man this cop was after, well ...he n't brag and he didn't
swagger, and there was nothing minor about him. He was one of the most
powerful, most feared criminal bosses in London, and Lily thought that
if this barmy rozzer knew what was good for him, he'd get up and leave
now. While his legs still worked.

While she continued to watch the man, Desi came bustling out of the
kitchen and banged a bowl down in front of him, sloshing broth on his
newspaper.

"One Limehouse hotpot," he said.

The man stared at the steaming horror. "It's fish," he said flatly.

"Proper Sherlock Holmes, you. What was you expecting? Rack of lamb?"

"Pork, I guess."

"This is Limehouse, innit? Not the bloody home counties. That'll be tuppence."

The man slid a coin across the bar, then stirred the gray broth with a
dirty spoon. Bits of bone and skin whirled through it. A scrap of
potato, some celery. A chunk of white flesh.

"Oi, Lily!" Frankie shouted, pointing at his empty glass.

"Right away, luv," Lily said, taking the glass from him. As she put
the new pint down, Frankie caught her hand, pulled her toward him, and
kissed her cheek. She batted him away. It was an act. They were both
laughing, but there was no mirth in their eyes. He kissed her again.
"Find out what he's after," he whispered in her ear, then he let her go.

Lily knew what to do. She served a few more customers, then took a
handkerchief from her pocket and made a show of mopping her neck with
it.

"It's like a bloody furnace in here tonight," she said aloud. "You lot have me run off my feet."

Then she unbuttoned the top of her blouse, fanning herself with her
hand. Her soft, freckled bosom was large and firm--so large, in fact,
that Sid often joked he could hide his dosh down it. She walked over to
the man, placed her hands on the bar, and leaned forward, giving him an
eyeful.

"Something wrong with your supper, luv?" she asked, smiling warmly. "You ain't touched it."

The stranger put his spoon down. He hesitated.

This ought to be good, she thought.

"Can't eat a bloody thing no matter how hard I try," he finally said.
"Been livin' on porter. Anything else and me stomach just heaves at
it."

"What? Nothing at all?" she asked, feigning concern.

"Porridge. Milk. Sometimes an egg. Screws did it. Kicked me guts in. Haven't been right since."

Lily nearly laughed out loud, but she kept her face straight. "Sent down, was you?" she asked.

"Aye. Smash-and-grab. Jewelry shop up Camden way. Had a clasp knife
in me pocket so the coppers said I was armed. Beak gave me five."

"You just come out?"

The stranger nodded. He pulled his cap off, revealing what looked like a prison-issue haircut.

"You poor bloke," Lily said. "Think your stomach's bad, you should see your head. What nick was you in? Reading?"

"Pentonville."

"My late husband did a bit of bird there. Warden's a right hard case. Willocks, his name was. He still giving everyone gyp?"

"Oh, aye."

Drummond, you git, Lily thought. Should have asked round. There was
no Willocks at Pentonville; there never had been. The bollocks was
pretending.

"Well, that's all behind you now," she said brightly. "Like another pint, would you?"

The man said he would. As she moved off to get it, Frankie's eyes caught hers. Take care of this, they said.

Lily nodded. She pulled a pint, then returned to her customer. "Here
you are. On the house." As she set the glass down, she purposely sloshed
some of its contents onto his newspaper.

"Oh, how clumsy!" she said. "I'm so sorry. Between me and Desi, we've soaked your paper."

"No harm done," the man said, smiling. "Mopping spills is about the only thing this bloody rag's good for."

Lily laughed prettily and the man took her false good humor for an opening--just as she'd known he would.

"Name's Michael Bennett," he said. "Pleased to meet you."

"Lily Walker. Likewise."

"You hear about this?" Bennett asked, pointing to a story on the
paper's front page. "It's about that wages robbery. They say Sid Malone
done it. That he got away with ten thousand quid."

Doesn't Sid wish, Lily thought. Those flipping papers always exaggerated.

Bennett touched the back of her hand. "I heard Malone stashes some of
his dosh on a barge in the Thames," he said. "And some in a sugar
warehouse."

"Did you?" Lily asked, leaning in to give him a better look at her breasts.

"Aye. I also heard he keeps some here in the Bark. Why, we might be
sitting on it right now," he said, tapping his foot on the floorboards.
"Don't happen to have a prybar in your pocket, do you?"

Lily forced another laugh.

"Wherever he stores it, it must be a big place. The Firm don't go in
for any tuppenny-ha'penny Fagin rubbish. One bloke told me their bullion
thefts alone have brought them thousands. Thousands! Cor, can you
imagine having all that money?"

Lily felt anger flash inside of her. Her fingers twitched. She wished
she were a man; she would break this bastard's nose. It would teach him
to keep it out of other blokes' business.

"I've also heard Malone frequents this pub," Bennett said. "Heard it's his headquarters."

"I wouldn't know about that," Lily replied.

Bennett leaned in close. He took her hand in his. "I need a word with him. Just a word, is all. Know how I can find him?"

Lily shook her head. "I'm sorry, luv, I don't." She leaned over
farther and bent her head to his. "What do you want with him anyway?
Good-looking man like yourself... just out of the nick... seems to me
it's a woman you'd be wanting, not a bloke."

Bennett mulled over her offer. "How much?" he finally asked.

"I usually get a pound."

The man snorted. "A bloody pound?" he said. Too loudly.

Typical rozzer, quibbling over money, she thought. Villains never
did. She placed a finger on his lips. "For you, darlin', fifty pence."

Bennett's eyes flickered back to her chest. He licked his lips. "All right, then," he said. "Where do we go? Upstairs?"

Lily shook her head. "Meet me outside. By the river. There's a
stairway round the side. It'll be quiet there this time of night. Quiet
and dark."

"When?"

"Give me fifteen minutes."

She winked at him, then disappeared into the kitchen. Once there, she
swiftly climbed a flight of wooden steps that led from the kitchen to
the upper floor. Her fake smile was gone now; her expression grim. She
ran down a dingy hallway and knocked twice on a locked door. It was
opened by a rangy man in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat who made no effort
to hide the cosh he was holding. Behind him, in the middle of the room,
another man sat at a table, counting money. He raised his emerald-green
eyes to hers.

"Trouble," she said. "One of Lytton's. Must be. Says his name is Bennett. I'll have him out back in a few minutes."

The emerald-eyed man nodded. "Keep him there," he said, resuming his counting.

Lily shot back to the kitchen and made her way down to the basement.
She let herself outside through a rickety door and crept behind a
cluster of pilings. It was low tide. She could barely see the river in
the darkness, but she could hear it--lapping at the hulls of barges
moored midstream, hissing about the lines and buoys, gurgling in tiny,
whirling eddies. Bennett was already there. Lily watched him as he took a
long piss. When he finished, he lit a cigarette.

Good, she thought, that'll take up some time. She didn't want to do
this. Not with him. Not with any man. She didn't want to go back to what
she'd been.

She bit her lip, remembering what it was like to be on the game. To
give herself to any man who asked her. She'd done it so many times she'd
lost count. She'd done it for her children.

She'd lost them a few weeks after her husband died. He'd been a
tan-ner, working fourteen-hour days in the yards in all sorts of
weather. The coroner had written pneumonia on his death certificate, but
Lily knew it was the work that had killed him.