Y. Lee: The body at the Tower

As Mr Lamb filled a dirty bottle under Jenkins's supervision, Mary glanced around the pub. The unvarnished floorboards were sticky beneath her boots. Small, furtive movements in the corners of the room suggested the presence of rats. There was one small window in the far wall, so dirty that at first she thought it was a particularly sooty painting. And sprawled around the room, threatening the rotting furniture, were small heaps of men and women in the last stages of inebriation. No one was merry in this pub; that phase had passed hours before. Instead, they stared at Mary and Jenkins – and at nothing in particular – with glassy, bloodshot eyes. Only their drinking arms worked with monotonous regularity, raising mugs to mouths.

"Cheers, then," said Jenkins, nudging her in the ribs.

Two small tumblers of amber liquid sat on the bar, and Jenkins's fingers were curled around one. His keen eyes were focused on her face, and Mary understood the test: she had to prove that she wasn't, after all, Harkness's teetotalling pet.

She picked up the other tumbler. "Cheers." As the first waft of raw spirits hit the back of her throat, she realized she should never have tried to down it all in one go. Her throat contracted. Her stomach lurched. Her eyes watered. She swallowed anyway, and as the liquid burned its way down her gullet, she began a mighty coughing fit that made flashing lights appear in her otherwise dim vision.

At the Academy, the ladies drank wine with dinner, and Mary had tried punch and other well-diluted drinks a few times. But never had she encountered neat spirits. And Jenkins had carried out his task well, watching Mr Lamb carefully so that the publican couldn't water the rum, as was his usual practice with inattentive customers. When Mary was able to stand upright, she received a watery impression of Jenkins and Mr Lamb grinning at her. She wiped her eyes and mopped her damp forehead and tried not to gasp for air.

"Strongest rum in London," Jenkins announced with pride.

She cleared her throat. "Not bad." Her voice was raspy – but that was actually an advantage in her being Mark.

He smirked. "Guess you's not a teetotaller now." Jenkins's timing was just right. By the time they had made a vast pot of real tea and decanted the rum into a separate teapot, it was nearly eleven o'clock. A few coins still jingled in Jenkins's pocket, and he fished them out with satisfaction.

"Fourpence." He counted out four ha'pennies with loving care and handed them over reluctantly. "Halves, mind. You swore."

"I know." The money clearly meant more to Jenkins than it did to her, but it would have been ridiculously out of character not to take it. His eyes followed her hand as she pocketed the coins and she wondered if they'd still be there at day's end, or whether Jenkins would try to steal them back. She thought not. The fight had resolved matters between them.

"And don't you go nowhere but the Blue Bell; other pubs is dearer." He sounded for all the world like a frugal housewife giving instructions to a servant.

She bit back a smile. "Can't Harky smell the rum? How can he not?"

"Dunno. He's never said nothing, though, and I been on the tea round for months."

No bell tolled, but precisely on the hour, the labourers downed tools and began to drift towards the "tea table" – a broad plank balanced between a pair of carpenter's horses. Harkness was first in the queue, by common consent. Mary was still feeling the effects of the rum, not only in her throat, but in a slight tipsiness that made her feel extremely conspicuous. She was quite sure that her cheeks were flushed and that she smelled of drink. Yet Harkness seemed not to notice.

As he returned to his office, the men clustered about the tea station in earnest. Oddments of food – slabs of bread-and-butter and hunks of cold boiled meat, the occasional pastry – appeared in their hands as if from nowhere, along with their own thick, glazed mugs. Despite the differences in costume and context, Mary couldn't help thinking back to the last time she'd helped pour tea at a social gathering: beside Angelica Thorold, in Chelsea. This time, she made sure to hold the enormous teapot in an awkward grasp. Tea-pouring was a feminine technique, so she tried not to look too practised as she filled the mugs half-way with weak black tea. Jenkins then topped them up with rum.

With Harkness gone, the general mood should have lifted. After all, what was likelier to produce gossip and levity than food, drink and a change of pace? Yet for the most part, the labourers remained silent and solemn. A few of them chaffed her: Not too much of that there tea, lad; don't you know it's the devil's drink? Then, to Jenkins: Go on, give us a drop more rum; don't be stingy now, son. Or, You're a pretty pair, you with your black eye and him with that bloody nose. But once they had their tea, the men retreated into clusters that reflected their trades: glaziers with glaziers, stonemasons with stonemasons. And they drank their illicit rum without much relish.

"Ain't no one talking," muttered Jenkins.

So she hadn't imagined the tension. "Why's that?"

"Cor, you don't know nothing, do you?"

"Tell me then, if you're so clever."

Jenkins glanced about furtively. They'd served all the builders by now and were nowhere near any of them. All the same, he spoke barely above a whisper. "One o' them brickies, chap named Wick, offed himself the other night. His body was right over there."

A jolt shot through Mary. "He killed himself?"

"That's what I said," hissed Jenkins. "He jumped off the tower."

"How d'you know?"

Jenkins glanced around. "'S plain. He were up there at night, and the police ain't done nothing. If he got pushed, the Yard – " he pronounced this nickname with over-casual pride, "the Yard'd nick somebody for it."

"They might still be looking."

Jenkins made a scoffing noise. "Not Scotland Yard. If they ain't found no one, ain't nobody to find."

Mary looked at him thoughtfully. She'd initially dismissed the lad as a bit dim: why else would he pick a fight he had no chance of winning? But now she wondered. He was sharp enough to make the tea round into a profitable venture. He had a reasoned theory as to Wick's death. She'd have to watch the lad – and watch her own behaviour around him. He might be totally uncritical of the police, but he was clever enough to catch any slips she might make in the role of Mark Quinn.

If Wick had in fact thrown himself from the tower, there had been no conflict and there was no killer. But there was still the question of motive. What would drive a man to kill himself? Despair? Debt? And what of his choice of method? Many suicides chose the river, from sheer familiarity, or poison, for its swift neatness. But jumping from a tower was a dramatic final gesture. Had he intended something by that? It could even have been a message to his employers…

"Time to clear up." Jenkins raised the rum-pot aloft and tipped the last few drops from the spout directly into his mouth.

She glanced about. There was indeed a general dispersal of the labourers. "What should I do with this cold tea?"

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Mary nodded. In a well-run household, spent tea leaves were either used to clean carpets, or sold to a rag-and-bone man. Here, however, the nearby Thames served as sink, sewer, bathtub and well, all in one.

When she returned, Jenkins was sniffing cautiously at the chipped milk jug. "Go halves?"

Mary shook her head. It was probably out of character to decline free food of any sort, but there were little curds of solid milk clinging to the edges of the pitcher, and the fluid itself was a funny bluish grey. She just couldn't bring herself to drink it.

He knocked that back, too, then pulled a face. "Phew. Bit past it, that."