Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

Sandman, surprised to be asked, thought for a moment. 'I suppose I want my old life back.'

'War? Being a soldier?' She sounded disapproving.

'No. Just the luxury of not worrying about where the next shilling comes from.'

Sally laughed. 'We all want that.' She poured more oil and vinegar into the bowl and stirred it. 'So you had money, did you?'

'My father did. He was a very rich man, but then he made some bad investments, he borrowed too much money, he gambled and he failed. So he forged some notes and presented them at the Bank of…'

'Notes?' Sally did not understand.

'Instructions to pay money,' Sandman explained, 'and of course it was a stupid thing to do, but I suppose he was desperate. He wanted to raise some money then flee to France, but the forgeries were detected and he faced arrest. They would have hanged him, except that he blew his brains out before the constables arrived.'

'Gawd,' Sally said, staring at him.

'So my mother lost everything. She now lives in Winchester with my younger sister and I try to keep them alive. I pay the rent, look after the bills, that sort of thing.' He shrugged.

'Why don't they work?' Sally asked truculently.

'They're not used to the idea,' Sandman said, and Sally echoed the words, though not quite aloud. She just mouthed it and Sandman laughed. 'This all happened just over a year ago,' he went on, 'and I'd already left the army by then. I was going to get married. We'd chosen a house in Oxfordshire, but of course she couldn't marry me when I became penniless.'

'Why not?' Sally demanded.

'Because her mother wouldn't let her marry a pauper.'

'Because she was poor as well?' Sally asked.

'On the contrary,' Sandman said, 'her father had promised to settle six thousand a year on her. My father had promised me more, but once he went bankrupt, of course…' Sandman shrugged, not bothering to finish the sentence.

Sally was staring at him wide-eyed. 'Six thousand?' she asked. 'Pounds?' She merely breathed the last word, unable to comprehend such wealth.

'Pounds,' Sandman confirmed.

'Bloody hell!' It was sufficient to persuade her to stop eating for a while, then she remembered her hunger and dug in again. 'Go on,' she encouraged him.

'So I stayed with my mother and sister for a while, but that really wasn't practicable. There was no work for me in Winchester, so I came to London last month.'

Sally thought this was amusing. 'Never really worked in your life before, eh?'

'I was a good soldier,' Sandman said mildly.

'I suppose that is work,' Sally allowed grudgingly, 'of a sort.' She chased a chicken leg round the bowl. 'But what do you want to do?'

Sandman gazed up at the smoke-stained ceiling. 'Just work,' he said vaguely. 'I'm not trained for anything. I'm not a lawyer, not a priest. I taught in Winchester College for two terms,' he paused, shuddering at the memory, 'so I thought I'd try the London merchants. They hire men to supervise estates, you see. Tobacco estates and sugar plantations.'

'Abroad?' Sally asked.

'Yes,' Sandman said gently, and he had indeed been offered such work on a sugar estate in Barbados, but the knowledge that the appointment would necessitate the supervision of slaves had forced him to refuse. His mother had scoffed at his refusal, calling him weak-willed, but Sandman was content with his choice.

'But you don't need to go abroad now,' Sally said, 'not if you're working for the Home Secretary.'

'I fear it is very temporary employment.'

'Thieving people off the gallows? That ain't temporary! Full bloody time if you ask me.' She stripped the meat from the chicken bone with her teeth. 'But are you going to get Charlie out of the King's Head Inn?'

'Do you know him?'

'Met him once,' she said, her mouth full of chicken, 'and fat Sir George is right. He's a pixie.'

'A pixie? Never mind, I think I know. And you think he's innocent?'

'Of course he's bloody innocent,' she said forcefully.

'He was found guilty,' Sandman pointed out gently.

'In the Old Bailey sessions? Who was the judge?'

'Sir John Silvester,' Sandman said.

'Bloody hell! Black Jack?' Sally was scathing. 'He's a bastard. I tell you, Captain, there are dozens of innocent souls in their graves because of Black Jack. And Charlie is innocent. Has to be. He's a pixie, isn't he? He wouldn't know what to do with a woman, let alone rape one! And whoever killed her gave her a right walloping and Charlie ain't got the meat on his bones to do that kind of damage. Well, you've seen him, ain't you? Does he look like he could have slit her throat? What does it say there?' She pointed to the penny broadsheet that Sandman had taken from his pocket and smoothed on the table. At the top of the sheet was an ill-printed picture of a hanging which purported to be the imminent execution of Charles Corday and showed a hooded man standing in a cart beneath the gallows. 'They always use that picture,' Sally said, 'I wish they'd find a new one. They don't even use a cart any more. Fake off, culley!' The last three words were snapped at a well-dressed man who had approached her, bowed and was about to speak. He backed away with alarm on his face. 'I know what he wants,' Sally explained to Sandman.

Sandman had looked alarmed at her outburst, but now laughed and then looked back at the broadsheet. 'According to this,' he said, 'the Countess was naked when she was found. Naked and bloody.'

'She were stabbed, weren't she?'

'It says Corday's knife was in her throat.'

'He couldn't have stabbed her with that,' Sally said dismissively, 'it ain't sharp. It's a, I don't know, what do you call it? It's for mixing paint up, it ain't for chivving.'

'Chivving?'

'Cutting.'

'So it's a palette knife,' Sandman said, 'but it says here she was stabbed twelve times in the…' He hesitated.

'In the tits,' Sally said. 'They always say that if it's a woman. Never get stabbed anywhere else. Always in the bubbies.' She shook her head. 'That don't sound like a pixie to me. Why would he strip her, let alone kill her? You want any more of this?' She pushed the bowl towards him.

'No, please. You have it.'

'I could eat a bloody horse.' She pushed her plate aside and simply put the bowl in front of her. 'No,' she said after a moment's reflection, 'he didn't do it, did he?' She stopped again, frowning, and Sandman sensed she was debating whether to tell him something and he had the sense to keep quiet. She looked up at him, as if judging whether she really liked him or not, then she shrugged. 'He bleeding lied to you,' she said quietly.

'Corday?'

'No! Sir George! He lied. I heard him tell you the Earl wanted the painting, but he didn't.'

'He didn't?'

'They was talking about it yesterday,' Sally said earnestly, 'him and a friend, only he thinks I don't listen. I just stand there catching cold and he talks like I wasn't anything except a pair of tits.' She poured herself more ale. 'It wasn't the Earl who ordered the painting. Sir George told his friend, he did, then he looked at me and he said, "You're not hearing this, Sally Hood." He actually said that!'

'Did he say who did commission the painting?'

Sally nodded. 'It was a club what ordered the painting, only he'd be mad if he knew I'd told you 'cos he's scared to death of the bastards.'

'A club commissioned it?'

'Like a gentlemen's club. Like Boodles or Whites, only it ain't them, it's got a funny name. The Semaphore Club? No, that ain't right. Sema? Serra? I don't know. Something to do with angels.'

'Angels?'

'Angels,' Sally confirmed. 'Semaphore? Something like that.'

'Seraphim?'

'That's it!' She was hugely impressed that Sandman had found the name. 'The Seraphim Club.'

'I've never heard of it.'

'It's meant to be real private,' Sally said, 'I mean really private! It ain't far. In St James's Square, so they've got to have money. Too rich for me, though.'