Ian McGuire - The North Water

“Everyone knows Baxter. Rich bastard, lives over on Charlotte Street, number twenty-seven. Used to be in the whaling business, but now it’s to be coal oil and paraffin, they say.”

“Since when?”

“Since his two ships went down in Baffin Bay last season and he got paid off by the underwriters. The whaling trade is dying anyway, and he got out just in time. You won’t find no flies on Jacob Baxter, I’ll tell you that. You can look him over all you want to, but you won’t find nary a single one.”

“How much did he get paid for the sinking?”

The barman shrugs.

“A good deal, they say. He gave out some to the wives and bairns of them that drowned but he still kept plenty back for hisself, you can be sure of that.”

“And now it’s to be paraffin and coal oil?”

“The paraffin is cheap, and it burns a good deal cleaner than the whale oil does. I’d use it myself.”

Sumner looks down at his hands, pale gray and blood-spotted against the dark wood of the bar. He would like to leave now, escape all this, but he feels a hot animal pressure building in his face and chest like a creature grown large inside him, scratching to get out.

“How far is Charlotte Street from here?”

“Charlotte Street? Not so far. You go up to the corner and turn left by the Methodist Hall, then keep on going. You an acquaintance of Mr. Baxter, are you?”

Sumner shakes his head. He finds a shilling in his pocket, pushes it across the bar, and waves away the change. The woman is singing “Scarborough Sands” as he leaves, and the men have gone back to their games.

Baxter’s house has a row of spear-top railings in front and five stone steps leading up to the door. The windows are shuttered, but he sees a light above the transom. He pulls the bell and when the maid answers he tells her his name and that he is here to see Mr. Baxter on an urgent matter. She looks him up and down, pauses for thought, then opens the door wider and instructs him to wait in the hallway. The hallway smells of tar soap and wood polish; there is a whalebone hat stand, a rococo mirror, and a pair of matching Chinese vases. Sumner takes off his hat and checks that Drax’s gun is still in his pocket. A clock chimes the quarter hour in another room. He hears the clicking of boot heels across the tiled floor.

“Mr. Baxter will see you in his study,” the maid says.

“Was he expecting me?”

“I couldn’t say if he was or he wasn’t.”

“But the name didn’t alarm him at all?”

The maid frowns and shrugs.

“I told him what you asked me to, and he said to bring you right to his study. That’s all I know about it.”

Sumner nods and thanks her. The maid leads him past the broad mahogany staircase to a room at the back of the house. She offers to knock for him but Sumner shakes his head and gestures her away. He waits until she has gone back upstairs, then he takes the revolver from his pocket and checks there is a bullet in the chamber. He turns the brass doorknob and pushes open the door. Baxter is sitting in a chair by the fire. He is wearing a black velvet smoking jacket and a pair of embroidered house shoes. His expression is alert but untroubled. When he begins to get up, Sumner shows him the revolver and tells him to stay just where he is.

“You don’t need the gun now, Patrick,” Baxter scolds. “There’s no need for that.”

Sumner closes the door and steps into the center of the room. There are bookcases on two sides, a bearskin rug on the floor, and a seascape and a pair of crossed harpoons over the fireplace.

“I’d say that’s for me to decide, not you,” he says.

“Perhaps so. Just a friendly suggestion, that’s all. Whatever exactly has happened tonight, we can resolve it without the need for firearms, I’m quite sure of that.”

“What was your plan? What did you mean to happen in that timber yard?”

“Which timber yard would that be?”

“Your man Stevens is dead. Don’t play the fucking fool.”

Baxter’s mouth hangs open for a moment. He glances into the fire, coughs twice, then takes a sip of port. His lips are thin and damp, and his face is colorless aside from the faint blue bruise of his nose and the scribbles of broken vein across both cheeks.

“Let me explain something to you, Patrick,” he says, “before you jump to any quick conclusions. Stevens was a good man, willing, loyal, biddable, but there are some men who can’t be controlled. That’s the simple truth of it. They’re too vicious and too stupid. They won’t take orders and they won’t be led. A man like Henry Drax, for example, is a grave danger to everyone around him; he has no understanding of the greater good; he obeys no master but himself and his own vile urgings. When a man like myself, an honest man, a man of business and good sense, discovers that he has such a dangerous and unruly fucker in his employ, the only question is: how best may I rid myself of him before he destroys me and everything I’ve worked for?”

“So why pull me into it?”

“That was wrong of me, Patrick, I confess, but I was in a tight corner. When Drax came back here a month ago, I thought to make him part of my plans. I knew he was a dangerous bastard, but I believed I could use him anyway. That was my mistake, of course. I had some doubts from the start, but when I got your letter from Lerwick, I understood for sure that I had bound myself to a monster. I knew I had to part from him before he sank his teeth even deeper into my flesh. But how could I work it? He’s an ignorant fucker, but he’s no fool. He’s wary and he’s guileful, and he’ll kill a man just for the joy of it. A brute like that can’t be reasoned with or talked to. You know that as well as I do. Force must be employed, violence if necessary. I realized I needed to set a trap for him, to lure him away and catch him unawares, and I thought I might use you as the bait. That was my design. It was reckless and ill considered, I see that now. I should not have used you as I did, and if Stevens is dead now, as you say he is…”

He raises his eyebrows and waits.

“Stevens was shot in the back of the head.”

“By Drax?”

Sumner nods.

“And what’s become of the evil bastard now?”

“I killed him.”

Baxter nods slowly and purses his lips. He closes his eyes, then opens them again.

“Shows some boldness,” he says. “For a surgeon, I mean.”

“It was one of us or the other.”

“Will you have a glass of wine with me now?” Baxter asks. “Or sit yourself down at least?”

“I’ll stay as I am.”

“You did well to come here, Patrick. I can help you.”

“I didn’t come here for your fucking help.”

“Then what? Not to kill me too, I hope? What would be the good of that?”

“I don’t believe I was just there as a lure. You wanted me dead.”

Baxter shakes his head.

“Why would I want such a thing?”

“You had Cavendish sink the Volunteer , and Drax and I are the only ones who might have known or guessed it. Drax shoots me, and then Stevens shoots Drax, and everything is neat and tidy. Except it didn’t work like that. It misfired.”

Baxter tilts his head to one side and gives his nose a scratch.

“That’s sharp thinking on your part,” he says, “but it isn’t right, not right at all. Take heed now, Patrick, listen carefully to what I’m saying. The plain fact is there are two men lying dead in that timber yard, one of them murdered by your hand. I’d say that puts you in fair need of my assistance.”

“If I tell the truth, I have little enough to fear from the law.”

Baxter snorts at the idea.

“Come, Patrick,” he says. “You’re not so innocent and childlike as to believe such a far-fetched notion. I know you’re not. You’re a man of the world, just as I am. You can tell the magistrate your theories, of course you can, but I’ve known the magistrate for some years, and I wouldn’t be so sure he’ll believe them.”