The Devil's Ribbon (16 page)
The next voice that spoke was a cold one. ‘That’s Seamus O’Reilly, the factory floor steward. Make sure that one lives, Hatton. He’s a well-known radical and an agitator. It’s a bit more than a flesh wound, though, isn’t it? And what was that about a priest? What the devil was he muttering?’
Not answering Inspector Grey, Hatton did what he could until two
soldiers appeared with a stretcher. ‘If you move him, you’ll surely kill him,’ Hatton yelled, but the soldiers were already running down the lane in the other direction, the man screaming in agony.
‘So, if you’ve finished with your heroics and the saving of savages, let’s try and find Mr Hecker before it’s too late, shall we?’ Grey moved off towards the factory, and as he did passed under the stuffed feet of an effigy, which was swinging from a nearby lamppost. A grotesque figure dressed in a top hat and tails, with a loaf of bread in its hand and a sign around its neck:
Aniochdaire
. The face was on fire. But Hatton looked at another face he no longer recognised. Grey was smothered in other men’s blood, his mouth opening, words coming out into a black void of what felt like hell, and he was, what? The devil?
Roumande was already waiting for them at the factory gates. Behind him, the yard was empty, the great water turbines of the mill still turning, slow sloshes of river water dripping down shuttles. The main building was attached to other outbuildings, linked together by little iron bridges. Running along the top of the factory were the words
Hecker’s Flour and Machine Made Bread. Britain at its Finest
. The line of the sky was pewter with the threat of an oncoming storm, so the next rumble in the distance was Nature, not man.
‘Quick, this way,’ said the Inspector, gesturing the two men into the massive factory. ‘They’re the mechanical roller mills,’ said Grey. ‘I’ve been here when the whole thing’s working. You have to shout to make yourself heard. It’s quite a sight. The other workers must have fled, though it would take something extraordinary to make Mr Hecker stop
the mills. Like a visit from the Queen or,’ the Inspector laughed, ‘an exceptionally beautiful woman.’
Grey seemed to know exactly where he was going, past a huge oil painting of a hurling sea, a windswept beach, heather-kissed mountains, which hung above the stairwell and was entitled
Home Sweet Home
. Hatton glanced at the painting, but then followed.
‘He’ll be up in his office under the table, if he has any sense, hiding from the mob,’ Grey shouted behind him, as he leapt up the flour-sprinkled steps, two at a time, followed by Roumande. ‘We need to find out who’s been behind all this, aside from Seamus O’Reilly, of course.’
‘You don’t even know if that man was involved in this, Inspector,’ said Hatton, trying to keep up. ‘A man is innocent until proven …’
Grey stopped in his tracks at the stop of the stairwell, turned around. ‘Yes, yes, and I’m a Dutchman. He was here, wasn’t he? And is leader of their damned Worker’s Association? O’Reilly was directly outside the gates, which is why he got a pummelling. There’s no doubt in my mind how all of this started. A man has a right to choose his workforce. We don’t have Johnny Foreigners at The Yard. It’s all very well at St Bart’s, but there are limits to an Englishman’s tolerance, and this is
food
we are talking of.’
But you are Welsh
, thought Hatton. The inspector’s voice echoed, ‘Mr Hecker? Are you here, sir?’
Upstairs, Mr Hecker’s office was just another floor of the warehouse, covered with bags of grain standing in corners, ropes and pulleys, little trolleys on wheels, barrows and crates, huge mechanical sifters. And to the back, a vast arched window, made silver by the sun, an oak desk and a huge leather chair on castors. On the desk were quills, ink, pencils, some half-eaten biscuits, morsels of cheese, and a couple of
crystal glasses. The place was glittering. Was it sunlight? Fairy dust?
Roumande gestured towards the sheen. ‘Look, Professor … the dust … and he’s definitely had a visitor …’
The inspector’s voice reverberated around the empty building. ‘Mr Hecker? Are you here?’
Only the gaping silence answered, a flurry of floury motes shimmering in the air.
‘Well, he has to be here, somewhere …’
Hatton turned to Grey. ‘That painting … the one in the stairwell? It’s exactly the same as …’
‘Worth a bloody fortune, Hatton. It’s a Millais. An original, no less. Hecker had it commissioned a number of years ago. Very pretty I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. I prefer nudes.’
‘But it’s called
Home Sweet Home
,’ said Hatton. ‘And it reminds me of a painting of Ireland. One I saw only yesterday at White Lodge …’
Grey bit the end of his thumb. ‘Well spotted, Hatton, but there’s a man’s life at stake here. We’ll come back to that painting, but right now, we need to split up to cover the ground and find Mr Hecker. Hatton, you go to where the grain supply is kept, over the connecting bridges. Roumande, you take the biscuit section and I’ll search elsewhere. Here …’ The inspector rummaged in his pocket and pulled out two silver whistles. ‘Take these and mind yourselves. Some of those leprechauns might be waiting with a cudgel, so keep your eyes skinned and if anything should happen, just put your lips together and, well, you both know the drill.’
Roumande sped to the right, his hand not on a whistle but on his pocket pistol. Hatton stood where he was for a brief second and looked upward. The bridges which linked the warehouses were vertiginous, but
this was no time for fear, thought Hatton, as he left the other two and headed up wrought-iron stairs. Only once did he look down, grasping the metal railing to see Roumande disappearing into the biscuit section, and as he stepped outside onto a little platform saw a toy world below him. Little houses for miniscule people; cows the sizes of pinheads. At the best of times, Hatton had little head for heights, but he kept going. And the final bridge crossed, he found himself in the interior of an enormous brick silo, and towards the bottom, he could see the storage bins. Huge bullet-shaped metal containers, painted Cornish cream, with the words on the side emblazoned
T.W. Hecker 1855
.
‘Mr Hecker …’ Hatton’s voice bounced around the walls as he descended an iron staircase that hugged the inside of the red-brick wall. ‘Mr Hecker.’ But there was no miller at the bottom of the silo, just piles of grains, old sacks, cloths, the scurrying of mice, and beyond the grain, a voice. Inspector Grey must have come around the back. He was still brandishing his pistol, as he stood under the lintel. ‘We’re too late, I’m afraid, but I’ve found Mr Hecker.’
Hatton followed the Inspector outside to see a delightful orchard full of sweet, black plums. His eyes scoured the abandoned millstones lying dead or supine in the high summer grasses, the old rusty machinery, interlaced with bright red poppies and golden buttercups cascading towards the river, under the darkening of storm clouds. And in the middle of it all, Hatton’s gaze settled on a body that was no body at all because the runner stone had been lowered upon the bed stone, and the contraption turned, grinding poor Mr Hecker like grain among the burgeoning flowers. ‘Oh, the pain,’ thought Hatton. The terrible pain.
Roumande had just joined them, as Hatton crouched down on his haunches, his magnifying glass pressed to his eye, studying the crimson specks that feathered through the meadow grasses towards the river. But the attackers had vanished, leaving behind nothing except a shape in the air, their lust for unspeakable violence, an echo. There were no footprints, no scraps of cloth caught on bushes, no obvious fibres. Hatton took a soil sample, a grab of grasses, and one or two kernels which were scattered on the ground.
‘They’re hops, probably dropped by a bird,’ said Grey. ‘There’s a huge swathe of hop fields beyond the Greenwich Marshes, which isn’t so far from here, and plenty of breweries further along the river.’
Hatton popped the hops into a calico pouch, thinking whoever did
this – gang or no gang – would have been as strong as an ox to lever that stone. The man’s body had been pulverised; his blood squeezed like Sauce from a bun. ‘Well, at least we can be clear about the motive, Inspector.’
‘The fucking ribbon? Well, we could hardly miss it,’ said Grey, looking at the huge swathes of ribbon that were wrapped around the stone before pulling out his pocket watch, tutting at the broken links in its chain. ‘Cost me a pretty penny this. Must have snapped during the riot. Anyway, I don’t need a watch to tell me Drogheda will soon be upon us and these murderers, whoever they are, will surely kill again. But
where
? And more important,
who
?’ Grey wrinkled his nose against the cloying stink of Mr Hecker. ‘But I can’t think here. Back to the factory, gentlemen …’
The three men made their way quickly back to Hecker’s office, where light streamed in from the window, a diamond sheen just visible on the windowsills. ‘Do you see it …’ hissed Roumande.
‘I see it,’ Hatton whispered back, but held his hand up to beg Roumande to let the Inspector, who seemed to be grappling with something just beyond his reach, speak. Grey was preoccupied, as he ran a gloved finger along the edge of the oak desk, saying, ‘When he asked me to come and see him, I could sense Mr Hecker was worried. He stood exactly where I stand now and had a signet ring on his finger and kept turning it. I remember the ring especially, for I admired it. He had excellent taste, Mr Hecker, in all manner of things.’
‘A ring’s a ring,’ said Roumande.
Grey tutted. ‘Not so. This ring was a delight, monsieur. A dear
little ship, I remember. Gorgeous thing. Hecker pursued a number of different commercial ventures, shipping being one of them. But as I say, he was worried and stuttered every now and then, especially when I asked him how long he and Monsieur Pomeroy had known each other. Where and how they met? He only said that he was simply concerned for Pomeroy’s safety, as a friend. That his disappearance was out of character.’
Hatton was intrigued. ‘But he’d only been missing a week? Men can disappear for much longer before anyone turns a hair in this city.’
The inspector sighed. ‘I wish I’d pressed him more, but their friendship seemed so obvious to me. Pomeroy had recently branched out and was selling recipe cards, each one recommending Hecker’s Premium Flour. Two shillings for ten and flying off the shelves, by all account. They needed each other – one man a purveyor of fine flour, the other, his most valued customer – and Pomeroy was well connected in this city, especially with politicians. Before he became so celebrated, he cooked private dinners for Charles Trevelyan, I believe.’
‘Baronet Trevelyan?’ Hatton was looking at the glitter along the windowsill, using a fine brush to sweep samples into a test tube, which he carefully placed back in his medical bag, under the close supervision of Roumande as he continued, ‘You mentioned the government work committees ran soup kitchens during the famine, Inspector? Wasn’t Charles Trevelyan in charge at the time?’
Grey leant against the desk, shut his eyes for a second, opened them again. ‘You’re right, Hatton. Trevelyan was in charge of the emergency feeding programme in Ireland, such as it was. Pomeroy would have been serving up the finest food at glittering tables, as the baronet and
the other politicians discussed the famine. We already know Pomeroy was a religious man. That might have been hard to stomach, unless …’
Hatton added, ‘Unless he offered his services in some way to appease his conscience. Perhaps Pomeroy, out of charity, went to Ireland to help, and we know he was deeply religious because his sous chef said so.’
Grey nodded, curtly. ‘But if that’s the case, then we need to go to Pomeroy’s home in Fournier Street immediately. Perhaps he does have a connection with Ireland after all, as you suggest, and the Fenians are holding him, still? Perhaps they intend to ransom him? But if that was the case, they’d have left a note, wouldn’t they?’
But Hatton was still intent upon the glitter. ‘I have to go somewhere, Inspector – sooner rather than later. A chemist, name of Dr Meadows, who I think can help us with this glitter stuff and … err, Inspector, put the match away … I wouldn’t have a cigarette in here, I really wouldn’t …’
Hatton lunged but too late, the match was lit. But Grey, as cool as a cat, simply pursed his lips and blew it out. ‘Panic not. The chemical compound, if that’s what it is, will have to wait. A man’s life could be at stake. I thought you said it was just silver firmament, anyway?’
‘And something else … a type of acid … but I’m not sure what.’
‘Well, talk to this Meadows chap if you think there’s a forensic link, but that picture you mentioned? The one in the stairwell?’ Grey licked the hot match with his tongue, popped it in a pocket and began rattling around in various drawers, looking in cluttered shelves, muttering, ‘Nothing … nothing at all.’ He slammed the drawers shut. ‘And yet the title of the picture is
Home Sweet Home
? And you say it reminds you of Ireland and another picture you saw?’
Hatton nodded, moving towards the picture, looking again more carefully as he said, ‘It’s similar to one Mrs McCarthy showed me in the piano room. The frame of the mountains is almost identical and the curve of the beach, except here in the distance,’ Hatton pointed out. ‘There’s a ship. But are you looking for something specific in the drawers, Inspector?’
‘Deeds …’
‘Deeds? Deeds of what?’
‘Deeds of sale, Hatton.
Home Sweet Home
? There were umpteen sales of land during the famine. The land was going for practically nothing. But assuming Hecker bought land in Ireland, what did he want it for? And why buy in the West of all places, where Ardara is, being little more than bog and stones, and he couldn’t have grown corn or anything profitable, so why be there at all, unless …’
‘Unless what, Inspector?’ asked Hatton.
Grey suddenly slumped on a nearby chair, as if someone had suddenly taken all the air out of him. He seemed to rise on the crest of a wave, only to suddenly dip again. ‘Buggered if I know,’ he said. ‘It was just a hunch, that’s all, that he may have had investment there, along the west coast. I knew Tobias Hecker and he was a man motivated by profit. But you can’t grow corn on bog. And the West of Ireland is bog.’
What had Sorcha said? Hatton asked himself again. That Ardara was a land of legends, gushing rivers, windswept beaches, the glorious Atlantic. The picture above the stairwell was so similar – malachite fields, refracted sunlight, thunderous skies, a swelling sea, a ship. Sailing west towards the horizon and beyond the horizon, west towards …
‘You say Mr Hecker wore a signet ring because he had interests in shipping? It might have survived. I want that millstone up.’
‘What, now? I’ll need a posse of officers to lift it. Do you have something, Hatton?’
‘The millstone, Inspector.’
‘You think you have something, don’t you?’
That millstone weighed what? Twenty tonnes? And the compression on a signet ring would be, what? Double? Even if the gold was mixed with iron, it would hardly survive the impact of that tremendous weight unless, despite the drugs, Tobias Hecker being of farming stock, a big man, struggled and …
Hatton didn’t wait for the posse, but rushed back to the orchard, laid on his stomach, slipping his hands under the cool of the millstone. His fingers were thin and sinewy; the fingers of a surgeon, adept at peeling back fat, the finest of membranes, tissues, threadlike veins, and … the grass under the millstone was moist as Hatton patted around in a crack of dark, flat, empty nothing. He grazed the top of his knuckle, reaching further, further, patting the ground and thinking nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing … until. ‘Got you.’ The cold of the gold on the tip of his fingers, a gift. ‘Not so clever, are you?’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Well, a few more mistakes like that, whoever you are, and I’ll have well and truly got you.’
Two hours later, Hatton was back in the morgue, the Inspector pacing the floor. At Fournier Street, the curtains had been drawn, the bed made, the tables polished, Pomeroy’s private papers rifled through by Scotland Yard already, and as for forensic traces after more than ten days? Virtually nothing. Only a singular thread caught around the bottom of the door edge, noticed as they left.
‘Well, Hatton?’
Taking a miniscule pair of tweezers, Hatton had popped the thread into an evidence bag, smothered as it was in a week’s worth of London soot, but under the strength of his eyeglass, soot didn’t cover the fact that the thread had once been vibrantly coloured. Coincidence? Pomeroy was a religious man (there were icons all over the house) and entertained regular visits from Catholic priests and numerous feminine customers smothered in silk, keen to converse with the maestro about dinners and puddings, but did they wear green, he asked himself? Quite possibly, meaning the thread could have come from anywhere.
But here at St Bart’s, despite the greased-up windows of the morgue, the shut door, the interminable heat, the case seemed a little clearer, its burden a miniscule lighter. Step by step, link by link, a molecular chain was forming, thought Hatton to himself, as the Inspector pressed again with, ‘Well, Hatton?’
‘It’s clearly a frigate. You can see the gun holes on the side.’
‘
Non
,
non
, Adolphus,’ said Roumande, peering over the piece of parchment where they had just made an indigo impression of a tiny sailing ship from Mr Hecker’s signet ring. ‘See the angle of its bow and the complicated rigging. It’s clearly a brig, Professor.’
Patrice was in the gallery, his illustrations for the hospital, in charcoal, laid out across a table. He pushed them to one side and quickly came to join them with a shy, ‘
Excusez-moi
, but I might be able to help you here.’ The other men stood back a little and made a space for him, as he traced the image with his finger. ‘There are many ships like this at the Isle of Dogs and in Marseille, I painted a few to make a little money.’ He leant a little closer and nodded to himself. ‘It’s a clipper. A
trade ship, do you see? With its square build, its four masts, built for speed, whereas the brig has only two. And the square of its hull is for cargo. For tea, timber, slaves from Africa, and here’ – he pointed to the deck – ‘it has a broad deck for passengers, who can sleep up there for practically nothing. The third-class berths are below.’
The inspector nodded to himself. ‘Mr Hecker had shipping interests, which is why he had the ring, as a sort of memento, I suppose. Ten years ago, Hecker had a whole fleet of ships for exporting corn from the East of Ireland, but not from the West. Why, any fool knows that it’s the eastern plains of County Wicklow where the real money’s made, not the rocks and bogs of Donegal, where a man can grow little. But the mill and the biscuits were his preferred ventures these days, and I believe most of Hecker’s vessels were donated to the British government when the smallpox broke out among the sailors back in ’52, as a sort of grand philanthropic gesture, and they remain moored somewhere along the river up near Greenwich.’
Hatton knew these huge hospital ships, the
Dreadnought
and other frigates, which cast eerie shadows across the brackish waters of the Thames. However, the image on the ring didn’t speak of typhus and disease but was jaunty, heraldic; almost musical in its impression. Hatton said so and added, ‘But what interests me, Inspector, is why hang the painting in such a prominent place at the mill? You’ve told us that the boggy land of Ardara is worth nothing, so why celebrate it by commissioning a Millais, of all things?’
‘Why celebrate it, indeed?’ The inspector’s eyes widened. ‘The title of the painting is
Home Sweet Home
? I suspect Mr Hecker owned that land, which is why he had it painted and why I was looking for deeds
of sale back at the mill.’ Something suddenly occurred to the Inspector, a triumphant smile on his face. ‘Of course. He wasn’t exporting
grain
from the West. Do you remember what I told you? He loved a quick profit and must have been there in Donegal during the famine, like so many other traders with vessels. There was a programme at the time to help the people leave. To flee the famine and start a new life in America. That’s why he was proud. He was making money and at the same time helping people survive. Shipowners offered those wretched peasants a lifeline, Hatton. Thousands more would have died if they hadn’t sailed on these clippers to the New World because …’
