Long Spoon Lane (37 page)

“Fast as you can! I’ll pay extra!”

“ ’Ang on!”

The hansom lurched forward and increased speed as the light faded in the streets. Pitt hung on as they slewed around corners going south towards Oxford Street. They forced their way through the traffic eastwards, the driver yelling alternately praise and abuse. Oxford Street changed to High Holborn, Holborn Viaduct, Newgate Street then Cheapside. At the junction at Mansion House there was chaos. Two carriages were locked wheel to wheel.

The driver pulled up. Pitt was in a fever of impatience. All around people were shouting, horses backing and squealing.

Then they seemed to turn almost back on themselves, and down King William Street towards the river.

“You can’t get through there!” Pitt shouted furiously. “You’ll come up against the Tower!”

The driver shouted something he did not hear. It was darkening rapidly with a misty rain. They were picking up speed again, but it would do them no good. They could not get around the great bulwark of the massive eight-centuries-old Tower of London, built by William the Conqueror.

Then they turned again and were going north. Of course. Gracechurch Street, up Leadenhall Street, through Aldgate and Whitechapel, and on east. Pitt sat back, gulping, and trying to steady himself. He had miles to go yet. The gray air was full of rain, the road surface gleaming wet in the lights from carriage and streetlamps. The splash and hiss of wheels was almost drowned by the sound of hooves.

Finally they pulled up at the King’s Arms Stairs in near darkness. Almost immediately Voisey’s tall figure came out of the gloom, solid black against the shifting glitter of the river, ships’ riding lights dancing on the ripples of the tide behind him.

Pitt leapt out, thrusting money at the driver—probably twice as much as he owed. He thanked him, and followed after Voisey over the quayside to the water’s edge.

“He’s on that barge,” Voisey said huskily. “He’s been hiding there. They’ll take him out on the turn of the tide…about twenty minutes.” He pointed out into the river. “I’ve got a boat. Borrowed it from one of the ferrymen. It’s not much, but it’ll get us out there.” He started down the dark steps, balancing himself with one hand against the wall of the embankment.

Pitt could see the black shell of a boat riding in the water and the dripping rope that held it knotted to the ring in the stones. The oars were shipped, waiting.

Voisey clambered in and took the oarsman’s seat. Pitt untied the rope, coiling it over his arm, and jumped into the stern. Voisey unshipped the oars, and slipped them into the rowlocks, and then threw his weight against them.

They pulled out into the tide, slithered around for a moment, righted, slewed the other way, then met the waves straight and the oars dug in. Voisey leaned forward, back, found his rhythm, and they sped away.

He slowed as they reached the moored barge, and swung the oars on board again. Pitt stood up carefully, balancing to reach out as they came around. He needed to stop them from bumping the hull of the barge and alerting whoever was there. Piers Denoon would not be alone. He reached forward, catching the side and holding on. Then he jumped and rolled, landing easily and regaining his feet, then dropping onto his knee not to make a high outline against the sky, if anyone were looking. He had a cudgel in his pocket, but at this moment he wished it were a pistol. Thank goodness Voisey was with him, with as much interest in catching Denoon as he had. Voisey was quite a big man, and both powerful and ruthless.

He crept forward and saw the lighted hatchway. There was only one man standing there. He looked about twenty years old, slender and angular. Beyond him there was the shadow of a second man, heavier, but bent forward a little. He did not appear to be armed, as far as Pitt could see.

He did not want to strike the younger man. He put his arm around his neck instead and pulled him backwards. The other man jerked up, startled.

There was a movement on the deck. Pitt turned to look for Voisey, but it was a big man in a woollen hat. Beyond him, the boat with Voisey in it was pulling away, back towards the steps. It was the betrayal at last, at the one time he had not expected it.

11

P
ITT WATCHED
the boat slide over the glittering water with a rage that almost choked him. How unbelievably, fatally stupid of him! But what clue had he missed? Voisey wanted Piers Denoon caught and charged just as much as Pitt did. It was the final connection between Wetron and the bombings. It was proof of police corruption that could not be denied.

The big man on the deck was coming towards him, hunched forward a little as if preparing to lash out. “Get outa my way, Mike!” he snarled at the fair young man struggling in Pitt’s tightening grip. The only other person he could see was the older man inside the cabin.

Why had he believed Voisey that Piers Denoon was here at all? Because he had grown used to believing him. He had been swept away by the fever of the chase, the expectation of victory, and forgotten what Voisey was, what he had always been. Perhaps he even knew where Piers Denoon really was!

The big man stopped, momentarily confused by the fact that Pitt had the young man around the front of his neck, but it would be respite for a very short time. The other man was coming up the steps, an iron bar in his hand.

Pitt’s only chance was to back away and hope to jump over the side without hitting himself too hard on any of the loose spars and boxes on the deck, or anything in the water. Even so he could easily drown. He was thirty yards from the shore; the current was high and pulling out to sea. The water was cold, and he had a coat and boots on. He would be lucky, very lucky indeed, to make shore, quite apart from the strings of lighters that went down the river and could strike him, knock him senseless, entangle him and drag him under. He needed only to catch a part of his clothing on a half-submerged spar, drifting wood, anything, and he would be trapped, sucked down.

He moved backwards carefully, dragging the man with him. He was struggling now, kicking and trying to gouge with his hands. Pitt was paying the price for his ultimate stupidity. Narraway had warned him, Charlotte had, even Vespasia. Why had Voisey taken the chance that Charlotte would not use the evidence against Mrs. Cavendish? Because if she did, she would have nothing left with which to defend herself, or the children! The thought twisted inside his belly till it was a physical pain.

“Jump!”

The sound startled him so abruptly that he slipped and stumbled, falling backwards and yanking the man off his feet as well, and letting him go. They both went clear together just as the big man struck, hit the furled sail and let out a yell of pain.

“Jump!” the cry came again.

This time Pitt scrambled awkwardly to his feet and threw himself over the side. He landed on his hands and knees on the bottom of a small rowing boat, sending it rolling so wildly it shipped water. It was lucky to right itself with considerable effort by the man working the oars.

“You clumsy oaf,” he said, not very critically. “Keep your head down, just in case one of them has a pistol.” He threw his weight against the oars, shooting farther out into the middle of the river and away from the lights. He steered between the moored ships into the current, pulling for the opposite shore.

Pitt climbed to his feet without straightening up, and sat in the stern now that they were beyond the light. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, even though he had no idea if he was actually any better off.

“I’ll collect,” the man replied. “I’d have left you there if I didn’t know you were the only one with a real chance of stopping the police bill.”

Pitt was bruised and uncomfortable, but intensely grateful not to be in the water. “Who are you?”

“Kydd,” the man replied, grunting as he put his weight to the oars.

“I was lucky you were passing,” Pitt tried to steady his breath, and the beating of his heart. The air was damp on his skin. “Are you a ferryman, lighterman?”

“Anarchist,” Kydd answered, irony in his voice, his face invisible in the darkness. “And I wasn’t just passing. It’s my job to know what’s going on. If you weren’t trying to stop police corruption, I’d have let them kill you. But as they say, politics make strange bedfellows of us. More strange than you and Charles Voisey! That was a mistake. But I imagine you know that now.”

They seemed to be nearing the farther shore, because Kydd eased the boat around to go in stern first, alongside the steps. However, there was little that Pitt could see except the denser blackness of the unlit wharves and warehouses. They must be farther downriver than the Dog and Duck, where the public house lights would be clear.

“Where are we?”

“Saint George Stairs,” Kydd answered. “By the railway yard. A little walk for you, and a swift brandy. Then you can make your way back. Cut along to Rotherhithe and get a ferry to Wapping, if I were you. I wouldn’t get back on the water downriver of that.”

Pitt received the advice in silence, turning over what Kydd had said. The boat was lashed to an iron ring and they climbed up the slippery steps, but the tide was only just turning so they were near the top anyway. Pitt followed the dark figure of Kydd across the open dockside. The wind was cold now and there was a slight fog settling, blurring the lights and making the damp air hang in little droplets. From farther down the river came the mournful cry of foghorns.

They walked for about ten minutes until, in an alley still close to the waterfront, Kydd stopped and opened a narrow door and immediately they were in a warm passageway. He closed it, setting a wooden bar across it, and they went on through a farther door into a startlingly comfortable and tidy room. It had three chairs in it, one wooden and two upholstered, and on the biggest one there appeared to be a cast-off hat, or rolled-together pair of fur gloves. At the sound of Kydd’s footsteps it unwound itself into four legs and a tail, then yawned prodigiously and blinked. It started to purr. Pitt judged the kitten to be about twelve or fourteen weeks old.

Kydd picked it up with one hand, stroking it absentmindedly. “The brandy’s over there.” He pointed to a cupboard on the wall. “Let me give Mite something to eat first. She’s been alone all day.” He took a small piece of meat out of his pocket and tore it into pieces. The kitten snatched them from him almost before he had finished the task, purring so loudly now she sounded as if she rattled.

Pitt opened the cupboard and found the brandy. There were several glasses and cups. He chose two and poured mean portions into them, aware that there was not much there. He drank his in one gulp, and put the other on the small table for Kydd.

“Who were they?” he asked.

“On the barge?” Kydd put the kitten back on the chair and took his brandy. “River thieves, probably. What were you looking for, for God’s sake?”

“How did you know I was going to be there?” Pitt continued.

Mite sharpened her claws, then climbed slowly up Kydd’s leg and back and settled on his shoulder. He winced, but did not put her off.

“I didn’t, but I knew Voisey was waiting for someone. It was an educated guess,” he replied.

“You’ve been following me?”

Kydd looked very serious. In the light his face was high-cheekboned, blue-eyed. “I want to know who killed Magnus. I have to know it wasn’t one of us. If it was, I’ll execute him myself.”

It was becoming clearer. “You were part of Magnus’s group,” Pitt said. “You are the leader who has taken over.”

Kydd was unimpressed. “Who killed Magnus?” he repeated. “Don’t you know yet? Someone betrayed him. Was it his father?”

“His father?”

“He came after him, several times. Tried to persuade him to go back to the establishment and give up his beliefs.” Kydd had a savage amusement in his face, his voice was edged with pain as well as anger. Absentmindedly he put his hand up and stroked the little animal still perched on his shoulder. “Mite was Magnus’s,” he said irrelevantly. “He rescued her…or him. Actually I have no idea which it is. Hard to tell with kittens.”