The American Boy (65 page)

Authors: Andrew Taylor

BOOK: The American Boy

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âCan they not even bury the dead?' I said.

The officer had heard me. âHe was probably a prisoner from one of the hulks upstream, sir. Most of them are sailors from captured privateers. They tip them over the side.'

âDo they not merit something better than this?'

His round, good-natured face split into a smile. âBut there are so many of the knaves, sir, and he was only a rebel, after all.'

âCheaper, too,' Noak pointed out. âThough as far as His Majesty's Treasury is concerned it will come to the same thing. No doubt someone will claim the allowances due â for the shroud, the cost of committal and so on.'

I looked downstream. In the distance, the seagulls danced like blackened cinders against the blue sky. The body was no longer visible. The sea was greedy.

âAs I told you, sir,' Noak went on, âthere is the possibility of profit here, and that is true even in wartime. Indeed, perhaps more so than in peace.'

This was the first dead body that I saw in New York, and the first of the two dead men I saw that very day. As an individual, this one meant nothing to me, then or now. He and I had nothing in common apart from our shared humanity. I would never learn his name or how he died or who had thrown his corpse into the East River.

Chapter Two

I had met Samuel Noak on the voyage from England.

Mr Rampton, my patron, had arranged my passage on the
Earl of Sandwich
, a Post Office packet of which he was part-owner. The ship's principal purpose was to carry the mails to and from North America and the West Indies. The owners supplemented the considerable income they derived from this by squeezing a handful of passengers into the cramped cabins. Most of them were, like myself, travelling on official business. But there were a few who made the voyage in a private capacity. Such a one was Mr Noak.

He and I were thrown into immediate intimacy for we were obliged to share a cabin little bigger than the commodious kennel that housed Mr Rampton's mastiff at his house in the country. Noak was a small, spare man who wore his own sandy hair with only a modicum of powder for gentility's sake and tied it with a brown ribbon. He scraped back the hair so tightly that the bones of his face seemed to poke through the skin. His figure was youthful but he might have been any age between twenty and forty. He spoke with a thin, nasal voice, and always with deliberation, in an accent that I later discovered was characteristic of his native Massachusetts. There was something of the puritan about him, a sourness of mien.

Even before we had weighed anchor, I resolved to keep a proper distance between Mr Noak and myself during the passage to New York. But I had not reckoned with the peculiar swaying motion of the ocean, let alone with the terrifying effects of rough weather.

Within a few hours of our leaving Falmouth, I descended into an abyss of spiritual and physical suffering. I was convinced that I was dying â that the ship was sinking; and my condition was so miserable that, for all I cared, the world might end in the next instant, which would at least put a period to my agonies.

It was then that I began to see Samuel Noak in a different light. For it was he who sponged my brow, who emptied my basin, who assisted me to the heads. It was he who forced me to undergo what he assured me was an old naval remedy for mal de mer: to wit, to swallow a lump of greasy pork again and again until the stomach no longer had strength to resist it.

Slowly, over the long days and longer nights, my symptoms subsided. Mr Noak brought me Souchong tea laced with rum and spooned it into my mouth, which eased my aching gut and at last encouraged me to fall into the first unbroken sleep I had enjoyed since leaving England.

Given Noak's kindness, I could hardly hold the man at arm's length, even if I had wished to do so. As I recovered, we slipped by degrees into a relationship that was something less than friendship but much more than mere acquaintance. It is difficult not to be civil to a man who has restored you to life.

âWill you remain in New York, sir?' I asked him one afternoon. The weather was calmer now, and we were strolling on deck after dinner. âOr do you travel on?'

âNo, sir â I have a position waiting for me in the city. A clerk's desk in a contractor's house. A friend of my uncle's procured it for me.'

âI'm surprised you should wish to leave London. The opportunities must be far greater there.'

âTrue,' he said. âBut in New York I shall be a senior clerk, whereas in London I had no hope of advancement at all. Besides, I had a desire to see my native land again.'

âWhere were you employed?'

âAt Mr Yelland's in the Middle Temple, sir. I had been there for three years.'

âI believe I know the gentleman. That is to say, I have come across him once or twice.'

âIndeed?'

âI have a position at the American Department,' I explained. âAs you know, Mr Yelland acts as the British man of business for many Loyalists. He sometimes favours us with communications on their behalf.'

That was an understatement, as Noak must surely have known. Mr Yelland was one of several London attorneys who had reason to bless this unnecessary war, for it was proving very lucrative for them. He and his colleagues kept up a steady flow of letters to the Department. London was packed with displaced Loyalists who were convinced that the American Department owed them compensation for the losses they had sustained because of their attachment to the Crown.

âWill you stay long in New York, sir?' Mr Noak asked after a pause.

âA month. Possibly two. Lord George has entrusted me with a commission and I do not know how long it will take.'

Mr Noak nodded, as if making a token obeisance to the august name of Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State for the American Department. The truth of my appointment was more prosaic: Mr Rampton, one of the two under secretaries, had decided that I should go to New York. Lord George had signed the necessary order, but I was not perfectly convinced that His Lordship knew who I was.

âPerhaps we may encounter one another there,' Noak said.

âPerhaps, sir,' I agreed, privately resolving that for my part I would not pursue the acquaintance once we reached America.

âWhere will you lodge?'

âAt Judge Wintour's. He is an old friend of Mr Rampton, the under secretary.'

âAh yes,' he said. âOf course.'

âAre you acquainted with the Judge?'

âOnly by reputation, sir.' Mr Noak paused. âThey say his daughter-in-law is a great beauty.'

âIndeed.'

âAnd the heiress to Mount George, as well.'

âI believe the air is growing chilly. I think I shall go below.'

âOnce seen,' Mr Noak said quietly, ânever forgotten. That's what they say. Mrs Arabella Wintour, I mean.'

About the Author

Andrew Taylor is the author of a number of novels, including the Dougal and Lydmouth crime series, the historical thrillers
Bleeding Heart Square
and
The Anatomy of Ghosts
, the ground-breaking Roth Trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed drama
Fallen Angel
, and
The American Boy
, his No. 1 bestselling historical novel which was a 2005 Richard & Judy Book Club choice.

He has won many awards, including the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger, an Edgar Scroll from the Mystery Writers of America, the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award (the only author to win it twice) and the CWA's prestigious Diamond Dagger, awarded for sustained excellence in crime writing. He also writes for the
Spectator
.

He lives with his wife Caroline in the Forest of Dean.

www.andrew-taylor.co.uk

@AndrewJRTaylor

Praise for
The American Boy

âAn enticing work of fiction â¦ Taylor takes account of both a Georgian formality and a pre-Victorian laxity in social and sexual matters; he is adept at historical recreation, and allows a heady dÃ©cor to work in his favour by having his mysteries come wrapped around by a creepy London fog or embedded picturesquely in a Gloucestershire snowdrift'

Patricia Craig,
TLS

âWithout question, the best book of 2003, and possibly the best book of the decade, is Andrew Taylor's historical masterpiece,
The American Boy
. A truly captivating novel, rich with the sounds, smells, and cadences of nineteenth-century England'

Manda Scott,
Glasgow Herald

âLong, sumptuous, near-edible account of Regency rogues â wicked bankers, City swindlers, crooked pedagogues and ladies on the make â all joined in the pursuit of the rich, full, sometimes shady life. A plot stuffed with incident and character, with period details impeccably rendered'

Literary Review

âTaylor spins a magnificent tangential web â¦ The book is full of sharply etched details evoking Dickensian London and is also a love story, shot through with the pain of a penniless and despised lover. This novel has the literary values which should take it to the top of the lists'

Scotland on Sunday

âIt is as if Taylor has used the great master of the bizarre as both starting- and finishing-point, but in between created a period piece with its own unique voice. The result should satisfy those drawn to the fictions of the nineteenth century, or Poe, or indeed to crime writing at its most creative'

Spectator

âAndrew Taylor has flawlessly created the atmosphere of late-Regency London in
The American Boy
, with a cast of sharply observed characters in this dark tale of murder and embezzlement'

Susanna Yager,
Sunday Telegraph

âMadness, murder, misapplied money and macabre marriages are interspersed with coffins, corpses and cancelled codicils â¦ an enjoyable and well-constructed puzzle'

Tom Deveson,
Sunday Times

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Anatomy of Ghosts

Bleeding Heart Square

The American Boy

A Stain On The Silence

The Barred Window

The Raven On The Water

The Roth Trilogy: Fallen Angel

The Four Last Things

The Judgement Of Strangers

The Office Of The Dead

The Lydmouth Series

The Blaines Novels

The Dougal Series

Copyright

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77â85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith
London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2003

The Scent of Death
extract Â© Andrew Taylor 2012

Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Ebook Edition Â© December 2012 ISBN: 9780007380985

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

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