Peter Lovesey - The Tick of Death

She put the question in a disarmingly mild manner, but Devlin’s predatory stare from behind McGee left no doubt of the importance of the answer.

Cribb gave a deliberately naive reply. ‘I thought it was a cab, miss.’

‘One takes that for granted, Mr Sargent.’ Her voice took on a more insistent tone. ‘Why Great Scotland Yard?’

He grinned, as if he had some joke to share with her. ‘Ah, I see your point entirely, miss. A pertinent inquiry, in the circumstances. The fact of the matter is that I’m a reader of The Times. Have you seen today’s edition? There’s a stirring account of the damage perpetrated in the capital last night. As one not uninterested in the fortunes of the dynamite campaign, I studied every word of it. What caught my eye in particular was a paragraph about the bomb discovered at the foot of Nelson’s column. Did you know that it was conveyed to Great Scotland Yard and left in the open for reasons of safety? They won’t have it inside for fear of blowing up what’s left of the Detective Department. So there it stands, miss, for anyone to see, and it’s asking too much of a man as interested as I am in explosives to stay away. That was why the Yard was going to be my next port of call.’

Rossanna turned to Devlin. ‘It appears to answer the point, Patrick. Mr Sargent would naturally be interested in seeing an infernal machine for himself.’ Receiving no response, she addressed her father. ‘What do you say, Papa? Is Mr Sargent to be relied upon?’

It was heartening to have Rossanna’s support intimated, even if Devlin maintained a sceptical silence. The verdict that mattered, though, was being uttered from the invalid-chair. Understanding nothing of the inane sounds McGee was producing, Cribb studied the slits in the mask for some flicker of assent, and saw none. The only conceivable indication of what was going on was the movement of McGee’s head, and when Cribb saw which way it was moving he preferred to regard it as a doubtful portent. Possibly, he told himself, the agitated conversation with the hands was rocking the chair.

It stopped. Rossanna faced Cribb. ‘Mr Sargent, my father wishes me to inform you that he is interested in your claims, but not entirely satisfied of their veracity. However, he is prepared to give you an opportunity tonight of convincing him. You are invited to participate in a small expedition. It provides you with a chance to demonstrate the qualities of a professional adventurer. I take it that the prospect is attractive to you?’

‘Shall I be paid for my services, miss?’ Cribb asked, in a strictly professional manner.

She smiled for the first time. ‘You will get what is due to you, Mr Sargent.’

Cribb decided he preferred Rossanna without the smile.

The sound of a church bell travelled across the water of Gravesend Reach. One o’clock. The last of a mass of cloud passed inland, uncovering the moon. The slate roofs and spires of Gravesend were picked out sharply in the swiftly-moving luminosity, as if the gauze was being drawn away in some transformation effect at Drury Lane. Certainly the night had a theatrical feel about it for Sergeant Cribb, leaning on the taffrail of a small steam launch chugging past the monstrous shapes of the merchant fleet, moored in readiness for the last few miles upriver on the morning tide. Whatever he had expected from the dynamite conspirators, it had not included a substantial supper, followed by a midnight outing on the Thames. After his ordeal in front of McGee, everyone-even Devlin-had made a point of being disconcertingly civil to him. As he had sipped claret and eaten cold chicken, he had been reminded of the cosseting of condemned men on their last night on earth. From there his thoughts had fastened morbidly on the late Constable Bottle being drawn from the Thames with grappling irons, an image that had been disturbingly revived after supper, when Rossanna had led the party out to a boat-house.

‘Sargent!’ a voice called from the direction of the cabin. ‘Come below. Miss McGee wishes to speak to you.’

He answered the summons, careful as he descended the steps that no one was concealed on either side, waiting to crack him over the skull again with a blunt instrument. The twinges from the last battering were particularly acute in movements up and down stairs.

Rossanna was seated at a small table lit by an oil lamp. Facing her, more sinister than ever in this light, was Malone, who had joined the party after supper. Devlin stood at the wheel with his back to them. McGee had been left in the house, in the care of the functionary Cribb had taken for a cab-driver, but whose duties he now knew to include serving at table and ministering to the needs of the invalid.

‘Please sit down, Mr Sargent,’ said Rossanna, and added firmly, ‘Here will do,’ when Cribb was faced with the choice of sharing a bench with herself or Malone.

It was quite impossible to position himself on the narrow strip of bench without physical proximity of the sort one usually encountered in crowded third class railway compartments- and then with nameless strangers. To accommodate her bustle, she was seated obliquely, and Cribb was obliged to adopt a similar position to avoid embarrassing contact with her knees under the table. In consequence, his legs were so restricted that he was sure his right thigh would touch her left if he leaned even slightly forward.

‘Observe the map, Mr Sargent,’ Rossanna ordered, as if divining his thoughts and indicating that she, at any rate, was too taken up with the night’s business to be troubled by them. It was a chart of the river from Purfleet to the Estuary, and it was spread out across the table. ‘We have just passed the Ovens buoy, marking Coalhouse Point, and this is the stretch of the river known as The Lower Hope. The place we are bound for is here.’ She touched the map.

‘Canvey Island?’ said Cribb.

‘Not quite, Mr Sargent. Look more closely.’

He was practically sure he felt the warmth of contact on his leg before he moved. ‘A creek,’ he said. ‘Hole Haven. I can’t say I’ve heard of it before.’

‘Then you should read The Times more thoroughly. Hole Haven has more than once been referred to in the Parliamentary Report. Eight hulks are moored there. It is a desolate spot, accessible only by water when the tide is flowing, or across marshland from Canvey Island. Probably not more than a few of the islanders knew of the existence of the hulks until two of them were found unguarded three years ago. The owners were fined a total of over a thousand pounds for negligence.’

‘Seems unaccountably excessive,’ said Cribb.

‘So one would have thought until 1882, when one of them, the George and Valentine, sank in Hole Haven. It was then revealed that it contained two thousand cases of dynamite, the property of Nobel’s Explosives Company. Each of those hulks is a magazine, containing over fifty tons of dynamite.’

‘Jesus!’ said Malone, pulling excitedly at his whiskers.

‘But where’s the sense in it?’ asked Cribb. ‘Nobel’s manufactory is in Scotland. What is the stuff doing in the Thames Estuary?’

‘Waiting to be loaded on to outward bound vessels,’ said Rossanna. ‘They stop there regularly to collect consignments. It would be most unsafe, you understand, to have explosives stored in warehouses in the Port of London. Instead, they use the hulks in Hole Haven. Two of them belong to a German firm, the rest to the mayor of Gravesend, who receives the dynamite from Scotland and sees to the discharging, reloading and storage. An eminently sensible arrangement, and inexpensive, too. Each magazine, I understand, is guarded overnight by a single caretaker.’