Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“And what is it now, boy?”

“Day, sir.”

Molloy looked impressed and gave a slow nod, then reached into his waistcoat. There was a flick of his wrist and Sam found himself looking at a folded blade that spun across the table toward him. It had a bone handle, yellow with age and handling. He set down Boyo, but made no move to pick it up.

“You can take that from me, and the dog from Mrs. Bligh. Go. Come back before it gets dark and meet me or her here. Tell Sarah at the bar you’ve got Molloy’s word to pay with, and then stay and wait if you must.”

“Shall I, Mrs. Bligh?”

“If you’re willing, lad.” Sam nodded and took up the knife. He tucked it in his waistband, whistled to Boyo and left the room. Jocasta watched them go. “Ten years I’ve fed that dog. He never even looks back.”

“Ha! He goes where he’s needed.”

“What you give him the knife for? He’s no notion of the use of it.”

“Bit of steel in the pocket, bit of steel in his spine.”

Jocasta turned back to Molloy and watched his dry, cracked face.

“What’s this to you, Molloy? Why you being so helpful when there’s no profit in it?”

He let the smoke slip out of the side of his mouth, till it wavered thin like a last breath. “Maybe there will be. I’ve learned to take a long view in these days. But as much. . I’ve got two boys and a little girl. Eldest wants to get on a boat, younger one is fool enough to like a red coat. The girl I’ll marry to a shopkeeper and get her to tend me in my glorious age. As for the lads, bombs and bullets they’ll have to deal with themselves for their foolishness in choosing so unprofitable a career. But I’ll not have their throats cut by an ink-stained murderous clerk and his bitch mother, nor any fucker who goes round slicing up little kids to feed the Frenchies our news.”

He stood and pulled his cloak around him. Jocasta sat where she was and looked at him with her head on one side.

“Molloy, you tight thieving squeezing crack-faced dog. You’re a patriot!”

“I used to mark you as a woman of few words, and liked you for it. Now you’re running on like a wife. You going to sit there yapping or follow me to where there’s business to be done?”

Jocasta heaved herself upright.

As soon as Harriet reached Berkeley Square she summoned Mrs. Martin to her room.

“Yes, madam?”

“Mrs. Martin, I wanted to thank you for your tact and help when I returned here last night.”

The housekeeper folded her hands in front of her and gave a quiet nod.

Harriet had wanted nothing more on returning home than to kiss her children and her sister at once, when this woman, waiting half the night in the hallway to do her any service she required, had gently drawn her attention to the blood all over her gown and hands. She had guided Mrs. Westerman to her room, undressed her and wiped the last traces of it from her palms while Mrs. Westerman stared into the candlelight and wept. Then, red-eyed but calm, Harriet had visited her sister and children and seen them safe more like a woman than some devil escaping hell.

“It must have been horrid, madam.”

Harriet thought of Isabella’s body lying across Morgan’s knees. “Yes. It was. The stomach wound had bled a great deal.”

After a short silence Mrs. Martin spoke again. “May I ask how the captain is, madam?”

Harriet put her hand to her neck, and pushed some thread of hair away from her cheek. She had spoken at length to Dr. Trevelyan about the little scene with James and the model boat. The doctor had been encouraging, and thought it interesting that the model boat seemed to have shaken loose some memory, but was cautious as always about James’s prospects of recovery. Telling Trevelyan the history of Mr. Leacroft, Bywater and Isabella had been more difficult. The horror and cost of it had reared up again before her in the shock written on Trevelyan’s usually calm face. She allowed herself to remember the pressure of her husband’s embrace for a moment, the warmth of the breath on her neck as he said her name, and she touched her throat with her fingertips.

“Much the same, Mrs. Martin. Now I have a favor to ask you.”

“Anything, madam.” The housekeeper straightened up and smiled willingly at her. She seemed to be one of those people with the good sense to put down an unpleasant thought and move away from it, treating it as one would a dog of suspicious temper. “Since you came it’s been made clear to us that a word from you is as good as one from Mrs. Service or Mr. Graves.”

“Thank you. But this is not something I can order you to do.” Harriet turned to her and spoke with a slightly brittle brightness. “I wish to borrow some clothes from you, then have you come with me to Lord Carmichael’s house.”

The woman lost her smile, looked a little stunned and gave a mumbling assent, then turned to leave the room. Her hand on the doorknob, however, she seemed to reconsider and turned back toward Harriet.

“May I speak my mind, madam?”

Harriet kept the bright tone as if she might win her point by sheer good humor. “Do, Mrs. Martin.”

“I mean no disrespect, madam, but I think you have in mind to pass for a servant and get into conversation with Lord Carmichael’s household. I need to tell you, I don’t think you’ll pass, madam. Not even if you dress in rags.”

Harriet frowned. “You think I cannot adopt the proper tone?”

“I think you have no notion of the manner of it, madam. How could you? And if you wish to talk to the people there, I know a better way. The beau of Susanna, maid at the house on the opposite side of the Square, he’s a footman at Lord Carmichael’s, and there would be nothing strange about me popping in to give him some message or other on my way to elsewhere.”

Harriet thought at first to protest, but something in the calm certainty of the young woman made her falter. Instead she said: “What is your suggestion?”

“You and I can go in the carriage together. Drop me a little out of the way and I’ll swear if it can be done, I’ll come back with what you need. Now how’s that, Mrs. Westerman? And no need for you to be seen playing at being a servant as if it’s a holiday.”

“It is a better idea, Mrs. Martin.” Harriet hesitated. “I hope I did not insult you with my request.”

The woman paused. “I am not in a position to take offense, madam. You are as good a mistress as many and better than most, I think. But your feet don’t touch the ground in London much between carriage, chair and porch, do they? That restricts your knowing.” She folded her hands in front of her again, and became once more the model of an efficient servant to her house, as if the hand of some deity had passed across her face and masked her from the world. “You’ll wish to be leaving now, madam? I’ll have Slater fetch the carriage round.”

Harriet nodded and looked down at the hem of her dress. It was perfectly clean and colored pale. In the country she could never manage more than half a day without kicking up mud and dust and tearing the thin fabrics on brambles as she went about her estate. How much easier it was to keep decent in Town, for all the blood she walked through.

The river was as crazed with noise and traffic as the Strand. Dozens of wherries with an oarsman or two and little nests of passengers in the stern rowed back and forth across the water. The men held their hats in place and tried to look at ease, while the women pulled their skirts tight around their ankles to keep them out of the wet. Along the river, great merchant ships waited to unload their goods or see to their provisioning, making the Thames a winter forest of masts and ropes.

Jocasta and Molloy went along the banks as best they could, each stopping and talking with whomever they could hold onto by the arm for enough time to get a word and a story out. The faces of those they spoke to looked grim and angry, then like as not they shook their heads and carried on. It took hours, and Jocasta was ready to curse Molloy for a fool and wring the neck of the next fella who pointed to the ships-as if a merchant seaman would do her any good-till a youngish man who wore, with a swagger, a neater coat than most, said, when his head shaking and teeth sucking was done, “Try that way, if that’s your liking, mate. If I hear Proctor tell me one more time about the great heroes of the sea he’s served with, I’ll break my oar over his back. You’ll find him down along by the by the Black Lyon Stairs-works there with his nephew, Jackson.”