Ring of Terror (8 page)

He said, ‘I suppose the Russians jumped you and got your briefcase.’

‘Guess again. If they’d tried anything like that, I’d have given them something to think about. No. What happened was I was passing the iron-ore loading bay. They’d been using an outsize scoop on a swivel arm. They’d swing it out over the hold of ship and could put in a couple of hundredweight or more at a time.’

‘I saw them doing it,’ said Luke. ‘It seemed a quick and sensible way of loading the ships.’

‘Very sensible.’ Farnsworth gave a laugh, but there was not much humour in it. ‘They’d been working at it when I went past. Now they’d knocked off for the night and normally the scoop would be swung back alongside the building. I happened to notice that, for once, they’d left it out, over the quayside. Maybe that sounded a warning. I don’t know. But as I was going to step under it, I glanced up and I saw the scoop starting to open. I did the only thing possible. I jumped for it.’

‘Jumped where?’

‘Into the water,’ said Farnsworth with a grin. ‘I heard the solid thump as a hundredweight or so of ore came down on the place I’d been standing a split second before. A few lumps hit the water with me, but they didn’t bother me. I was underwater and swimming hard. When I surfaced I realised I’d dropped my briefcase. Too late to do anything about that. There was a strong tide running and it must have been halfway to the North Sea. Not that I was worrying just then about the papers. I was thinking first about getting back on to dry land, which I did, via a ladder two hundred yards downstream. Next thing I was worrying about was how the thing could have been rigged. As soon as I’d changed into some dry clothes I tackled the man who was running the loading operation. He said it was two of the Russians who handled the crane. Reliable men, he said, who’d never failed to swing the scoop back alongside the building when they knocked off. Must have been intruders. Boys, perhaps, playing with the machinery. Panicked when they saw what they’d done and run off. It sounded thin to me, but difficult to prove anything.’

‘You were lucky to get away with nothing worse than a ducking.’

‘Agreed. Pity about the papers, though.’

Emmeline Farnsworth, who had been listening with growing impatience, said, ‘The way you keep on about those papers. What do they matter? Don’t you realise that but for the grace of God, you’d have been under a heap of stones, squashed as flat as a black beetle?’

‘Well, I wasn’t,’ said Farnsworth. He shook his head, as though clearing such ideas out of it. ‘But one thing did make me think that Silistreau was behind it. My deputy, who came round that evening to find out how I was, told me that Morrowitz – as he called him – had packed up and pushed off on the train that very same afternoon. As you may imagine, I grabbed the telephone and left word for Fred Wensley. The four o’clock train stops at York for an hour and doesn’t reach London till half past ten, so he’d have had time to get the arrival platform covered.’

Mrs Farnsworth, who was as little interested in trains as she was in papers, muttered something uncomplimentary about a husband who couldn’t look after himself and if he didn’t clear those Russians out she didn’t know what would happen next.

‘They’ll be no trouble now the big man’s gone,’ said Farnsworth. ‘And I’ve got some news for you, young Luke. The
Amelie’s
nearly finished loading and with any luck she’ll be away on the evening tide tomorrow. Better get a good night’s rest. Might be another rough trip.’

In fact, the sea was as calm as the North Sea ever condescends to be in winter. Luke, standing by the stern rail and watching the roofs and towers of Newcastle disappearing into the evening mist, was thinking about Mrs Farnsworth’s expression, ‘squashed flat as a black beetle’. It was an exaggeration, of course. The contents of the skip would have knocked Farnsworth on to his face and would certainly have dazed him. Long enough for Silistreau lurking in one of the nearby entrances to dart out and pick up the briefcase, and perhaps kick Farnsworth’s head in for good measure. What was really worrying him was not the damage Farnsworth had escaped by his prompt action, or the loss of the papers. It was a growing appreciation of the sort of man they were up against: a man of influence among his fellow emigrants; a man clever enough to devise and organise in the short time he had been there, such an elaborate and nearly successful ambush.

As Luke turned to go he glanced out to sea. What he saw was a cloud, so black and heavy that it looked solid. The skipper, behind him, said, ‘Yon’s a present from Russia.’

‘Stormy weather, is it?’

‘Not so much a blow as a dowsing. There’s a bucket of rain in it, aye, and sleet and maybe snow. ‘Twon’t be much pleasure for anyone to be up here while they’re hosing that little lot over us.’

Certainly, in the next few days the deck was no place for anyone not properly protected by oilskins against the wet and by thick clothing against the bitter cold. Luke spent most of the journey in the cuddy talking to members of the crew as they were allowed down, one after the other, to get some warmth into their bodies.

The skipper had to spend a lot of his time aloft and when he did come below was in no mood for talk. On one occasion, observing Luke’s depression as he huddled over the stove, he said, with a grim smile, ‘Cheer up, lad. Nothing lasts forever.’

Luke said, ‘I was born and brought up on the Suffolk flats and I thought the North Sea had no more surprises for me.’

“Tisn’t from the sea, this little lot. It’s from the land behind the sea. There’s a powerful devil lives there, did you know? Slings a bucketful of hate at us from time to time. Just to let us know as he hasn’t forgotten us.’

Having said which, he stumped off to get a few hours’ sleep, leaving Luke alone with his thoughts.

So there was a devil in the north-east. A devil who rolled out a great black cloud to show that he was there; to show that he hated them.

The stove had burned low and he was shivering. He piled on more wood before creeping off to his own bunk. ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ he said to himself and tried to get to sleep with that small grain of comfort.

It was not until the last hours of the trip that the weather relented. At four o’clock, on the evening of January 3rd, as the
Amelie
swung out of the river and edged into Shadwell Basin and the East Dock, a pale sun looked out from the clouds. Luke, who was standing on deck watching the operation of docking, raised his eyes.

To the north, less than a mile away, a thick column of smoke stood up against the evening sky.

The streets were oddly quiet and empty and he noticed that many of the windows were shuttered. Away to his right, the smoke he had seen was billowing up. Now that it was growing dark, he could see the sparks and fragments of burning wood that were whirling up in it. The silence of the street he was in magnified sounds from that direction and he could hear the noise of a considerable crowd. That was understandable, though why such a large crowd in a part of London where fires were a common occurrence? And why the shuttered windows?

No matter. He would hear all about it from Joe. He hitched his bag on to his other shoulder and made for the second-storey apartment which they shared at 15 Osborne Street.

Joe was at home and fast asleep. He moved not a muscle at the noise of Luke’s entry. It looked like the sleep of exhaustion. Luke let him lie, dumped his bag and headed for Leman Street.

Here the mystery deepened. The only man in the police station was the desk sergeant, who was writing so busily that he looked up briefly, acknowledged Luke with a grunt and went on writing. Clearly he was not to be disturbed.

Retracing his steps Luke headed for the fire, which must surely be the key to the puzzle. As he turned into Sidney Street, the sounds of the crowd grew louder; a babble of excitement so high pitched that it was close to frenzy. There was a solid line of uniformed police across the road. They were reinforcements, Luke noted, from ‘K’ Division to the east and ‘J’ to the north.

Half the inhabitants of Stepney seemed to be there, squashed six deep behind the police line, others leaning out of the windows or perched on top of the buildings on either side of the street. The roof of the brewery on the corner was a grandstand, fully occupied. Despite the excitement, nothing much seemed to be happening. The fire brigade were attending to what was left of the building at number 100, their efforts punctuated by the occasional crash of falling timber. He thought he saw Wensley among a bowler-hatted group on the pavement. Very odd. He controlled his curiosity and hurried back the way he had come. If he was going to get a sensible explanation of what it was all about, there was only one thing for it. He was going to have to rouse Joe.

This was easier said than done.

Knowing that food ranked high in Joe’s list of life’s attractions, he spread out on the table between the beds the remains of the generous supplies that the cook on the
Amelie
had seen him off with. Cold cooked sausages, two or three pies, a hunk of cheese and a bottle of beer. Then he rapped repeatedly on the table, chanting ‘Arise and shine’, ‘Come and get it’ and other suitable slogans, until Joe rolled over, opened his eyes, said, ‘What the bloody hell,’ and sat up.

‘Brought you some food,’ said Luke.

‘So I see. Ugh. Mouth full of shit. All the same, if I started with the beer, I dunno, I might manage to swallow a crumb or two.’

Luke filled a tooth glass with beer and pushed it across. Joe emptied it, returned it for a second helping, swallowed most of that and then seemed strong enough to tackle one of the pies.

‘Now,’ said Luke, ‘before you fill your mouth again, perhaps you can tell me what it’s all about.’

‘What it’s all about is that you’re a lucky bugger. A very lucky bugger.’ He awarded this important announcement a full stop in the form of a further chunk of pie.

‘Understood,’ said Luke patiently. ‘I’m a bugger and I’m lucky. No truth in the first statement. Maybe some in the second. Now, let’s hear what you’ve all been up to.’

Joe finished his mouthful so deliberately that Luke guessed he was giving himself time to think. Then he said, ‘The moment your restraining influence was removed – how long ago was it? Best part of three weeks? Seems like three months – all hell broke loose. It started with a crowd of Russians – Letts, Poles maybe; they all crawl out of the same hole as far as I’m concerned – breaking into the Harris jeweller’s shop. You know, the new one in Houndsditch.’

‘Houndsditch? Wouldn’t that have been a matter for the City boys?’

‘Too right. The front of the shop, being in Houndsditch, is indeed in the City. The rear part, known as Exchange Buildings, is in this division. So, it might have fallen out either way. As it happened the man who heard the break-in – they didn’t seem to mind how much noise they made – headed for the Bishopsgate Station. Result, half a dozen of the brightest and best of our City chums surrounded Exchange Buildings and called on the people doing the housebreaking to come out and show themselves.’

Joe stopped for a long moment.

‘So what happened?’ said Luke impatiently. Then, seeing the look on Joe’s face, repeated more gently, ‘Tell me. What happened?’

‘What do you bloody suppose happens when men without guns face up to a crowd of bastards who’ve got guns and are prepared to use ‘em? Result. Three of our men were killed. Nothing clever. No marksmanship needed. Just press the gun into the man’s side and pull the trigger two or three times. Bound to do some damage that way, aren’t you?’

‘Anyone—?’ Luke hesitated to put the question.

‘Anyone we know? Yes. Sergeant Tucker—’

‘Daddy Tucker?’

‘That’s the one. And Bob Bentley.’

‘Not the one whose wife—’

‘Yes. His wife was pregnant. If they’d known, I suppose it would have made them even happier to think that she might have died from the shock. And the baby as well.’

It was clear that Joe, who usually took life lightly, was angry, upset and bitter.

‘You said three.’

‘The third I didn’t know. A constable called Choate. He was the best of the lot. Got his arms round one of the bastards and wouldn’t let go. As they were rolling on the floor, a second man came up and emptied his gun into them. Finished Choate, but wounded the other man too. Wounded him badly. They got him away somehow. Wensley says he died two days later. Unlamented. So that was the score. One of them to three of us. That was when we really got going. Started to take Whitechapel and Stepney to pieces. Well, you know what they’re like. Everyone seems to be related to someone else and as soon as you start asking questions they all clam up and if things start to look too dangerous, why, they scuttle off down one rat hole into another before you can grab hold of their slimy tails. We were at it night and day. Particularly night. Got nowhere, until a couple of days ago, two of the bastards were located.’

‘In that house in Sidney Street?’

‘Right. We pushed two vanloads of men into the street to block it off. After that, things seemed to get stuck. They wouldn’t come out. We couldn’t get in.’

‘Couldn’t?’

‘One narrow doorway. Staircase with a turn in it. Man waiting behind the bend with a gun. Would have been an easy way to commit suicide. Not surprisingly, after what happened at that jeweller’s shop, no volunteers. So they called out the Army. Scots Guards from the Tower. After that it was a game of ping- pong. Both sides shooting at each other. Two against two hundred. They kept it up for hours. And it was first blood to them. They put a bullet into Sergeant Leeson. You remember Ben? Tall fellow with a squint.’

‘Yes, I remember Ben. Was he killed?’

‘Next door to it. Had to be got to hospital. The trouble was he was stuck in a doorway opposite number 100. They got him out at the back, ran a ladder up and hoisted him on to the roof of one of the brewery outhouses. Our one and only Fred was helping him up and got stuck on the roof. He was lying in the gutter with the bullets parting his hair, and a rumour got into the papers that he’d had it.’

‘But he hadn’t?’