A Wayward Man: A Prequel to A Dangerous Invitation (The Rookery Rogues) (5 page)

He was a good
man, damn it.

A woman shrieked.
The sound curdled his stomach, stirred him into action. He pushed
himself up from the ground, standing unsteadily next to the corpse.
In a minute—too soon for him to start running—she was
upon him. Behind her was an older patrolman, his portly body stuffed
into the blue coat and trousers with a red waistcoat that were meant
to instill national pride.

Relief seized upon
Daniel, stupid, unexplainable relief. Someone would see that this man
had been murdered. The killer would be found.

“Please,
you've got to help,” he said, though he knew the man was long
past assistance.

“Don't move,”
the patrolman barked.

Daniel stood still.
The patrolman's unsheathed cutlass was luminous in the lantern light.
At twice Daniel’s age, he would’ve doubted the officer
could hurt him, if the blade wasn’t so damnably sharp. In the
officer’s other hand he carried a truncheon, and a pair of
handcuffs were strapped to his side. He was a short man, his coat
buttons straining to confine his stomach bulge.

“It was him!”
The woman cried, her stubby arm extended out, finger pointed straight
at Daniel. “Arrest him!”

Daniel shook his
head vigorously. “You don't understand. You don't understand.”
He repeated the phrase, for it seemed right on his tongue. “He
was like this when I found him. I can't...I can't imagine how he got
here. It wasn’t me, I swear.”

“I saw you,”
the woman insisted, peeking out from behind the patrolman's large
frame. Venom dripped from her tone, poison to condemn him for a crime
he'd never committed.

As the patrolman
dropped to his knees to examine the body, Daniel thrust his right
hand into his coat pocket. Swiftly, he removed his glove from his
fingers.

The urge to run
burgeoned beneath the surface, a foolhardy sensation. He took a step
back, contemplating it. Perhaps if he could just get word to Atlas,
there might be a way out of this...

The patrolman lit a
match so that he could see the body better. “This man's throat
has been slit.” He spoke with all the gravity of someone
delivering important information.

“Anyone can
see that,” the woman snapped.

Panic threatened to
besiege Daniel, but damn it all, he hadn’t
done this. He
couldn’t be accused of a murder he didn’t commit, right?
Foolishly, he clung to that thought.

“Listen, my
name is Daniel O’Reilly.” He struggled to keep his voice
flat, hysteria creeping through on the fringe. “I’m a
shipping assistant with Emporia. Please, just ask Richard
Morgan—he’ll vouch for me.”

The policeman’s
nose crinkled as he turned back to Daniel. “O’Reilly, you
say? Why should I believe you, bog trotter? I’d say the case is
pretty clear.” Beside him, the woman tittered with laughter.

Of all the patrolmen
in the whole district, he’d gotten the one who hated the Irish.
Daniel stifled a groan, running his gloved hand through his hair.
That did little to soothe his mind.

He’d to make
them believe in his innocence. He couldn’t go to jail, couldn’t
be executed. Kate needed him. He
needed
Kate.

“I’m
engaged.” He didn’t hold any real hope that they’d
care, but he said it because in that moment it gave him every reason
to want to survive. “I’m marrying a beautiful, wonderful
woman named Kate Morgan. She’s the daughter of my boss…God,
you have to talk to them, do you understand? I wouldn’t do
this. I’m going to be married. I love her. I can’t lose
her.”

“You should’ve
thought of that before you killed this man,” the woman
retorted.

“I don’t
know what you think you saw, but it wasn’t me.” Daniel
held his hands out. “Look, I don’t even have blood on my
hands. How could I kill him and not be bloody?”

The patrolman
crossed behind him, grabbing his arms.
This couldn't be happening.
It was all some grand lie, another dream after blacking out. But
the shackles snapped onto his wrists were disconcertingly real.

“You're coming
with me,” the patrolman said. “Taking you to the
magistrate in the morning.”

“I didn't do
this,” Daniel repeated.

“There's the
knife.” The woman thrust her foot toward the right corner of
the warehouse, where the street met with the wall. There, barely
visible, was a small knife.

Daniel’s body
went cold.

How had he missed
that? Daniel swayed on his feet, his knees threatening to give out.

He
looked down again, noticing the victim’s clothes. Tan trousers
and a white linen shirt, discolored by thick, caked crimson. None of
that mattered in contrast with his navy blue coat, and the insignia
embroidered onto the right breast. Daniel had missed it before, too
focused on the man's injuries to register it.

Emporia.
Regulation uniform for a warehouse laborer in Morgan's employ,
for Daniel too had once worn it.
Shit.

“You're
standing in front of the body. Looks like murder to me, but the
magistrate will be the judge of that.” The patrolman gave him a
tug, offsetting Daniel's balance.

Daniel stumbled
forward. Out of the alley they trudged, the woman following behind
them, her hands clasped in front of her and a smirk plastered onto
her lips. Daniel darted a glance back at the body, left to rot. Would
another officer come to collect it?

He was going to be
arrested and sentenced to hang at Newgate, and he couldn't even
remember how he'd gotten to this fucking alley in the first place.

Daniel didn't even
know the man's name. No one did, apparently. All he could gather
during the ride to the tavern where he'd be held for the night was
that the patrolman had been walking his assigned streets when the
woman had stopped him. Her voice echoed in his mind, long after the
patrolman had seen her into another carriage.
I saw him. Arrest
him.

Officer Strickland
had become laconic after taking Daniel's initial statement. The man's
arrogance was almost palpable, sucking out what little air was left
in the hack. Away from the cadaver, Daniel could smell the whisky on
Strickland's coat; see the redness in his eyes as they passed
underneath a street lamp.

Strickland uncapped
the flask stowed in the coat of his jacket. He watched as Strickland
swallowed down the spirits. His head was clouded; he couldn't fathom
how in the hell he'd come to take the fall for this. He closed his
eyes, leaned back against the seat, and tried to compose his mind.

That vile shrew was
mistaken about his identity. She had to be. When he’d awoken in
the alley, the fatal blows had already been dealt. Even if he’d
managed to somehow grab that knife and stab the man in his comatose
state, there would have been signs of it on Daniel’s body. So
who had she
really
seen kill the laborer?

But this supposed
the woman had given a somewhat true accounting. He knew people could
be hired to give false testimony. Atlas had spoken of it once; said
there could be good money to be made in it.

No solace could be
found in darkness. He opened his eyes. Whisky might clear his mind.
His hands were bound, so he couldn’t reach his own flask.
“Might I share a bit of that?”

Strickland guffawed,
his old face crinkling. He should have known Strickland would refuse.

Daniel sucked in
another breath. Time for another tactic. He had to continue trying.
“I think someone's hired an affidavit woman. There’s no
way anyone could have seen me kill that man.”

“Aye? That's
what you want me to think, don't you, you wicked hobgoblin. Why would
anyone do that? That magistrate will figure out what to do with you.”
Strickland's mouth opened slightly, baring yellowing teeth as he
leered at Daniel. “I hope you swing, Paddy lout. That'll teach
your kind.”

“I didn't do
this,” Daniel murmured again.

The carriage stopped
in front of a public house on George Street that Daniel had never
been inside before. Care had obviously been taken on the outside
appearance of the Brindle Brier, for every brick was scrubbed to
remove the grit and soot that usually adorned the streets of Stepney
borough. Even the walk in front of the tavern had been shoveled free
of snow and debris. But for all the meticulous cleanliness, Daniel
saw the walls with splotches of blood, the windows with the dragged
fingerprints of the warehouse laborer as he collapsed upon the
ground. Would they ever be able to unclench the man's hands from his
throat? He doubted it, not when stiffening set into the body.

Strickland motioned
to the innkeeper at the front desk. “Prisoner to transport.”

The innkeeper
nodded, stepping out from behind the desk and scurrying off further
down the hall. Strickland's flaccid hands were wrapped around
Daniel's arm, as though he expected Daniel to burst forth out of the
inn and run down the road with shackles clamped on to him. Where
would he go if he escaped? He thought again of Atlas, the only person
he knew who could get these cuffs off. Daniel recognized this side of
George Street, for it was not that far from the docks. Kate's
townhouse was another hack ride away. He couldn't go there, wouldn't
risk her name getting pulled into this.

Kate must be kept
safe.

Strickland shoved
Daniel into a room off to the side of the lobby. In the dim light,
Daniel made out the shapes of five other men, chained together on a
wooden bench. It was the middle of night, and most of the prisoners
had slipped into the deep sleep of those who have much to forget.
Whereas the lobby had been spotless, this room was coated in dust.

Strickland elbowed
Daniel hard in the gut, and Daniel fell to the ground, too weak and
stunned to object. Grabbing a length of the chain, the patrolman
snapped the restraints around Daniel's ankles. One of the men
stirred, murmuring something incoherent before nodding off again.

Once Strickland had
left, Daniel looked from one corner of the room to the other. Hunched
against the wall, his arse pressed firmly onto the bench, he could
barely move without jingling the chains and risk rousing the curses
of other fatigued prisoners.

His mind rattled
uselessly, shifting through endless scenarios but never reaching a
conclusion. Why had this happened? He had no enemies, or at least,
none that would go to such lengths to see him hang. Any distrust of
his coworkers at Emporia stemmed from his nationality and his
relations with Kate.

Kate.
He
thought of the twinkling sound of her laughter, that special smile
she had when she thought she was being clever. She seduced him with
the slightest tilt of her head. She was perfect, beautiful and
respectful and everything he didn't deserve.

He hadn’t told
her about Atlas, hadn't been proper in abstaining until marriage,
hadn't kept off the drink. There were a thousand things he could
think of he should have done, and he'd screwed them all up. He wasn't
strong enough.

He needed the gin,
needed it now more than ever, for the only thing he understood fully
was that it would help him to think. And he needed so badly to think.

When the sun rose,
he’d be formally arrested and taken to Newgate. He let out a
shaky breath. He’d thought this holding room was bad—that
didn’t compare to sunless rooms, bribing a gaoler for prime
spot begging at the gate.

Would Kate come to
visit him in prison? A part of him wanted that so badly, to say one
last goodbye to her, while the other part wished she’d stay
away. He didn’t want her to see him like this, stripped of
whatever humanity he’d left.

God, he was fucked.
He couldn’t think of a single way out of this.

Daniel stood before
the magistrate in the public office of Shadwell. His hands were
cuffed behind his back—Officer Strickland had deemed him too
much of a threat to be free—and his head stung from no food and
a meager ration of sour ale. He kept his eyes open, when all he
wanted was to go back to the darkness that had consumed him finally
last night.