James McGee - Ratcatcher

Sparrow chuckled. The sound was like small bones rattling in a tin cup.

“Good bye, Captain,” Sparrow said.

“Piss and damnation!”

Nathaniel Jago swore violently and checked his pocket watch for what felt like the hundredth time. Where the hell was Hawkwood? The hour had come and gone, but Jago had continued to wait, stubbornly pacing to and fro on the dockside like a caged bear, trying to ignore the crawling feeling in the pit of his stomach that was telling him something had gone badly wrong.

Jago was angry. He was angry with Hawkwood, he was angry with the world, but mostly he was angry with himself for letting Hawkwood go off on his own. Experience had taught him that if trouble were to be found then, sure as sunrise, Hawkwood would find it-as illustrated by the incident aboard the Rat’s Nest. It had been sheer good fortune that had seen Jago arrive in the nick of time on that occasion. Jago had not pulled Hawkwood out of the fire, almost literally as it happened, in order for him to go wandering off again, sticking his nose into places it wasn’t wanted. All right, so the man was a police officer, but for Christ’s sake, didn’t he ever bloody learn?

“Bugger it!” Jago knew he couldn’t wait any longer. What had Hawkwood told him to do in the event of his nonappearance? Contact Magistrate Read? Jago shook his head in exasperation. Well, if the captain was expecting him to go running off to Magistrate Read, then the captain had another bloody think coming. Bending down, Jago secured the dinghy’s painter to the ring by the side of the jetty steps. Then, with another muttered curse, he set off along the busy waterfront.

“No! Wait!”

Sparrow’s finger whitened on the trigger.

“I said hold your fire, damn it!”

The pressure on Hawkwood’s skull eased fractionally, enough that he was able to lift his head. He heard Lee’s voice.

“Y’know, Sparrow, we’ve only Officer Hawkwood’s word that the authorities suspect Lord Mandrake’s involvement in our little enterprise, but they’ve no positive proof. It could be sheer coincidence that his lordship’s headed north. Likewise, we could be using his warehouse without his knowledge. Lord Mandrake’s a valuable ally with powerful friends at the heart of the government. Be a damned shame if we couldn’t continue to make use of him. If we leave Hawkwood’s body here, there’s a connection. But if Officer Hawkwood disappears, what then? They’d have nothing. If his Bow Street brothers come looking for him, they’ll find themselves up a blind alley with no trail to follow, and his lordship will live to serve another day. No, I say we dispose of Officer Hawkwood’s body somewhere else.”

“And how the hell do we do that?” Sparrow said. Light dawned in the seaman’s eyes. “Christ, you mean we take him with us? You can’t be serious?”

Lee shrugged. “Can’t say I like it any more than you do, but it makes more sense. We’ll transport him downriver, drop his corpse off later.”

Sparrow thought about it. “So I shoot him now and we take his body on board? All right, I can live with that.” Sparrow aimed the pistol.

Lee sighed. “I’ve no desire to try and lift his dead weight through the damned hatchway. It’s constricted enough as it is. Besides, I don’t want his blood all over my breeches. No, he can climb below by himself. And don’t look like that, Sparrow. My decision, and there’s an end to it. Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance later. Now, tie his wrists. The mademoiselle there’ll keep her eye on him.”

With a look that could have flayed skin from bone, Sparrow did as he was instructed.

“And Master Woodburn?” Hawkwood asked, when Sparrow had performed his task and retrieved his pistol.

Lee smiled. “Don’t worry, he’s in safe hands-providing you do as you’re told. Bring him aboard, Mr Sparrow. Lively now.”

With Sparrow’s pistol at his back, Hawkwood stepped off the dock on to the submersible’s deck. The vessel moved gently beneath him.

Lee turned towards the woman. “You know what to do?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Then we’ll rendezvous later, as arranged.”

Lee brandished his own pistol and nodded towards the mooring lines. “I have him, Mr Sparrow. Cast off, if you please.”

Hawkwood looked back in the direction of the dockside and the old man. There was a strange, almost haunted look on the clockmaker’s face. Hawkwood suddenly felt as if he was missing something. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Was the old man trying to pass him a message? If that was so, Hawkwood was unable to decipher it, though he had the uncomfortable feeling that the expression on Josiah Woodburn’s face would remain etched in his memory for ever. He glanced at the woman.

Catherine de Varesne smiled. “Goodbye, Matthew.”

“I’ll see you in hell,” Hawkwood said.

A tiny inclination of her head, as if acknowledging the possibility. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She turned away. Sparrow used an oar to push the vessel off from the landing stage. With smooth precision, the submersible slipped through the doors and out into the river.

Jago let himself into the warehouse using a set of lock picks he’d confiscated from Irish Willie Lonegan. The picks were steel and of superior quality. Jago had confiscated them because Irish Willie was, as his name implied, from across the water, County Donegal, and thus not wise to the ways of the local fraternity of cracksmen. Willie had come a cropper the night he broke into an Eaton Square mansion and relieved the lady of the house of a jewellery box containing a fine selection of family heirlooms, including a ruby pendant, three sets of pearl earrings and a diamond necklace. His downfall came when he had paid a celebratory visit to Mistress Lovejoy’s Finishing School for Young Ladies on Bedford Street, and bragged drunkenly to his pliant companion of the evening about his exploits. Irish Willie barely had time to tuck himself back into his breeches before he was hauled unceremoniously before a glowering Jago, who had explained the rules very carefully. London was his patch and no itinerant bog-trotter was going to encroach on his territory without permission. Punishment was swift and severe. Irish Willie was relieved of his tools, the remains of his takings, and both thumbs. On reflection, the Irishman had considered himself lucky. As for the picks, as Jago had remarked at the time, waste not, want not.

Maybe, Jago thought, as he stepped over the threshold, this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He wished he was carrying something more substantial than a cudgel and a Runner’s baton. A pistol would have been much more reassuring. A rat skittered past his feet. Jago ignored it. The warehouse seemed unnaturally quiet and permeated by an air of neglect and abandonment. He turned a corner and found himself facing a dark passageway. The hairs along the back of his neck prickled. Jago was no stranger to fear. He had faced many dangers, on the battlefield and among the pitch-black alleyways of the Rookery, but the sense of dread that accompanied him along that corridor was as heavy as if the Devil was sitting on his shoulder. There was something terrible here, Jago knew. Something wicked.

“Damn fine morning, Officer Hawkwood. Wouldn’t you agree?” William Lee grinned, stuck the cheroot between his lips and puffed expansively.

Hawkwood didn’t answer. He was sitting on the deck, back against the gunwale, hands bound in front of him, eyeing the pistol in the American’s hand and wondering if it might be possible to overpower Lee without getting his head blown off. The odds, he decided, were not favourable, certainly not trussed as he was. And there was still Sparrow, now manning the tiller, to contend with. The mast had been raised and they were under sail, heading downstream, hugging the eastern shore, close hauled into a light south-easterly breeze. Mill Wall lay to port. Wells’s Yard lay off the starboard beam on the opposite side of the river.