The Potato Factory (16 page)

'Gorn?' The policeman looked quizzical. 'Madam, I must inform you, we 'ave the 'ouse surrounded.'

'That won't 'elp none, you could 'ave the bloomin' 'ousehold cavalry outside, 'e still ain't 'ere. 'E left three days ago on business.'

'And where might 'e 'ave gorn, madam?' the police officer demanded. He was aware of Hannah's reputation and would not normally have appended the word 'madam' to his questions, the criminal classes being best addressed in the bluntest possible way. But such is the regard of the English for property that he was in truth paying his respects to the imposing three-storey residence and the expensive furnishings, in particular the magnificent Persian carpet upon which his large feet rested. He hadn't expected anything like this, and they demanded a courtesy which he knew the frumpy whore in curling papers, who hadn't even bothered to wear a mob cap, should be emphatically and officially denied.

Hannah's face puckered into a frown. 'I beg ya to understand, sir. I cannot tell ya the whereabouts of me 'usband. These are 'ard times and 'e is on the road seekin' customers for 'is bright little bits!'

The officer now leaned forward feigning exasperation, raising his voice and speaking in an imperious manner.

'Come now, we all know your 'usband's vocation, don't we! 'E ain't no jeweller sellin' 'is wares at country fairs an' the like, now is 'e, madam?'

Hannah shrugged her shoulders, wondering briefly why they'd sent this clumsy man to interview Ikey. She felt vaguely insulted - they deserved better, a more senior man who spoke proper and who would be a fair match in the wits department for Ikey or herself. She could almost see the cogs turning in the big policeman's head.

'I dunno what ya can possibly mean, sir! 'Onest to Gawd, officer, I swear I dunno where 'e is.' She folded her arms across her chest and pouted, 'He scarpered three days ago, that's all I can tell ya.' She gave the police officer a brief smile. 'Shall I tell 'im ya called when 'e returns?' Hannah raised her eyebrows slightly. 'Whenever, from wherever? What shall I tell 'im it's in connection with? Shall I tell 'im you've a warrant out?'

The policeman ignored Hannah's questions. 'Scarpered? You mean 'e's left you, done a runner on you and the kids?'

Hannah smiled, inwardly relieved. She knew from the policeman's reply that Ikey wasn't yet under arrest, they hadn't taken out a warrant nor had they a search warrant for the house. 'Nah! I mean 'e's just gorn. 'E'll be back. Sellin's 'is trade, ain't it? When 'e's sold 'is stock 'e'll be back orright, grumblin' and cantankerous,' she sighed, 'just like 'e never left.'

The policeman sniffed. 'Receivin', more like! Gorn to Birmingham or Manchester then, 'as 'e?'

Hannah shrugged again, though she was slightly more impressed. At least the officer had done some homework. 'What you take me for, a bleedin' clairvoyant? I told you, I dunno nuffink about where me 'usband's gorn, for all I knows 'e's gorn to Windsor Great Park to see the giraffe what the Mohammedan from Egypt give to the King!' Hannah's expression brightened at this bizarre thought and she added, 'Perhaps 'e's stayed to play a game of battledore and shuttlecock with 'Is Majesty? Wouldn't put it past 'im.'

The policeman sighed heavily and rose from the chair, pointing a stubby finger at Hannah. 'We've got the Froggie and we'll get Ikey! You can quite be sure o' that! This ain't no normal enquiry from the magistrates' runners, this is City, Bank o' England!' He sniffed again and turned towards the front door. 'We'll be back with a warrant, you may be sure o' that!'

'Always welcome, I'm sure,' Hannah said, smiling brightly at the officer. 'Next time, stay for a cuppa.' She arched an eyebrow and sniffed.' 'Ardly worth lightin' the fire, that was, the price of a lump o' coal bein' what it is!'

Despite her outward calm, Hannah was far from in possession of her wits. The single word 'City' followed by the three others 'Bank of England' had struck terror into her heart, for they told her all she needed to know. They'd arrested Van Esselyn, and now they were after Ikey. The house in Bell Alley must have been raided and Ikey had somehow been informed just in time to make good his escape.

Hannah knew the seriousness of the situation, but she also knew her man and unlike Mary she did not for a single moment think he'd either betrayed or deserted her. Not when all their wealth was still sitting in the basement safe. Ikey had made no attempt to take a large sum of money with him, therefore he was not planning to escape to America as he'd often speculated they would do if there was no hope of either of them beating a rap.

Hannah would have liked to go to Australia where John and Moses, their two oldest sons, had been sent, well capitalised, to establish themselves in respectable vocations in Sydney Town. But she knew that New South Wales was not beyond the reach of the law or, even more so, the wrath of the Bank of England.

Hannah wanted her children to have a better life than her own. For them to be accepted as respectable members of society, even if it was only colonial society, was uppermost to her ambitions. The idea that they should follow in the path of their loathsome father was unthinkable. Curiously, Hannah did not see herself as an example of moral degeneration. She was, in her own eyes, a good girl turned temporarily aside by the events which Ikey had caused to happen to their family. Hannah saw her immorality as an expedient to be discarded as easily as a petticoat when the time came to lead a respectable middle-class life.

Left destitute as a young wife with two small children by a husband imprisoned on a hulk as a common thief awaiting transportation to Australia, Hannah had been forced to survive on her wits. The brothels she now owned were simply the end result of her determination not to be destroyed. She had even come to think upon herself as a necessary component in a complex but predestined society. The gin-soaked whores, starving brats, the deformed, witless, the whoresons, freaks, cripples, catamites and opium addicts, they all came to her and, if she thought she could convert their tortured minds and broken bodies into a cash flow, she employed them. Hannah took a secret pride in the fact that she was called
'Mother Sin, The Queen of the Drunken Blasphemers',
in a popular Wesleyan tract widely issued by the Salvationists. To her this inglorious title meant she had earned her place in life's rich tapestry, that she had triumphed within a social structure not of her making, and had overcome obstacles which would have defeated most other young women saddled with two infant mouths to feed.

Hannah saw herself as a good mother who worked hard and selflessly so that her children might grow up to have both the trappings and the virtues of respectability. She told herself it was all for them, John and Moses, who were already on their way in life, and David, Ann, Sarah and baby Mark. She was convinced that while they remained in England they would be regarded as the bottom of the social heap, the criminal poor. She was quite unable to recognise that she was already in possession of a grand fortune, that her children would never starve again.

The capacity to delude herself had been a part of Hannah's personality from a very young age, and her subsequent social disintegration had become so complete that she felt not a morsel of shame for her actions. Her life, she told herself, had been a bitter disappointment, meaningful only in the fact that she had been blessed with children, so she extracted, and continued to extract, her revenge upon it. Hannah was a woman who was possessed by hatred which had long since consumed her conscience. The only purity in her life was her offspring, the precious fruit of her loins, and the major object of her hate was their father.

It was quite clear to Hannah that Ikey would be returning and that he must have already evolved a plan to beat any indictment against himself for forgery. Although she loathed him, she respected his brains and his ability to make money and even, in a perverse sort of way, she enjoyed the 'respectability' he gave her as a criminal of international repute who carried the undisputed title of Prince of Fences.

Long after the departure of the police officer, Hannah continued to sit with her hands cupping her chin, staring into the fireplace which now filled the little parlour with its warmth. Her first task, she told herself, was to determine precisely what had happened earlier that morning. She could not go around to what she now thought of as the deserted house in Bell Alley, though she would need to ensure that it was securely bolted against intruders. She had often witnessed how the desperate poor could strip a deserted house of its contents, then occupy it in a matter of hours and destroy its worth in a matter of days. Of course, she knew nothing of Mary and imagined the property completely vulnerable, doors left off their hinges by an uncaring City police, windows thrown open to create a deliberate deadlurk. Hannah determined to send a dozen street brats immediately to scatter throughout the surrounding rookeries to find Bob Marley who she knew, given sufficient incentive, could be relied upon to see that the house was made safe against intruders.

To put this thought into action Hannah simply walked down the hall, opened the front door, put two fingers to her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. It was a trick she'd been taught by her coachman father as a child and was a well-known signal to any children in the neighbourhood. In a matter of moments two ragged urchins appeared and Hannah instructed them to gather ten of their mates. The boys soon returned with well in excess of this number.

Hannah explained what she wanted. Marley was well known in the Whitechapel markets and in Rosemary Lane where the local urchins looked up to him as a flash macer and both feared and greatly admired his reputation as the acid slasher.

'Me, missus, me!' they shouted, jostling each other. 'Please, missus, I'm yer man, I knows 'im, I knows 'im well! This Bob Marley cove, I knows where 'e lives, missus, 'onest I does! Please, me, me!' they yelled, clamouring around the front step, their skinny arms protruding from the tattered rags they wore.

Hannah selected ten helpers. Then she went into her kitchen and put a dozen apples into her pinny together with a sharp knife. From each apple she cut a single wedge a different size and handed the smaller piece, one to each of the selected boys, returning the apple to her pinafore pocket.

'I must 'ave Mister Marley 'ere on me doorstep in one 'our, no more, mind!' she instructed, then added, 'The boy what Mister Marley 'imself declares found 'im, gets a silver shillin'!' The urchins around her gasped and Hannah continued, 'The rest gets tuppence for yer 'ard work 'o lookin', can't be fairer'n that now, lads, can I?'

'No, missus, that's fair!' they chorused.

Hannah waved her forefinger and admonished the children standing directly below her. 'Don't no one eat the piece o' apple what 'e got, not even a tiny bite, if the piece ya brings back don't fit what I got in me pinny, ya don't get bugger all!'

'Does we get to eat the 'ole apple too, missus?' one of the urchins asked hopefully, his breath frosting in the air about his dirty little face as he pointed at Hannah's bulging pinny.

Hannah laughed. 'Cheeky bugger!' she looked down at the tiny, malnourished child standing below her with his arms folded across the dirty rags covering his chest. Cold sores festered around his mouth and his nose ran so that he was constantly sniffing. Hannah saw none of the collective misery contained in the urchins crowded at her steps, they were all the same to her, dirty, ugly, starving, cruel, thieving and drunken and to pity them was a waste of time and sentiment. 'I'll 'ave to think about that,' she said at last. 'Make a nice apple pie these apples would.'

'Can we 'ave a penny now, missus? In advance, like?' the urchin tried again.

Hannah looked down at him in horror.

'You again! Well I never 'eard o' such a cheek! Think I was born under a cabbage leaf, does ya? Give ya a penny and 'ave ya all go out an' get a tightener or a mug o' gin and yours truly never sees 'ide nor 'air of any of ya brats again. Think I'm bleedin' barmy or summink?' Hannah looked down scornfully at the hungry, eager faces looking up at her. 'Righto, you lot! Tuppence and ya all gets the 'ole apple thrown in, that's the deal! Now scarper, before I changes me bleedin' mind!'

With the immediate details taken care of Hannah returned to the parlour to think, though moments later she was called to the front door by the arrival of the wet nurse to feed and care for baby Mark.

Hannah stood at the door and made the woman bare her breasts and squeeze them with both hands so that she might see her lactate. She wasn't paying for a wet nurse who was short of milk. Then she made the woman open her mouth and she smelt her breath to see if it carried the fumes of brandy or gin. The woman's teeth were rotten and her breath was foul, further burdened with the sour smell of the ale she'd had for breakfast, though nothing else. She allowed her to enter.

The children hadn't risen yet, though she knew the nurse would tend to them when they did. She instructed the woman not to disturb her or allow the children to do so and returned to the parlour, asking only that the woman bring her a cup of tea before she fed the baby.

The wet nurse was one of two selected for their milk. One stayed with the children at night while Hannah was at work and the other took care of the baby during the day and also tended to the house. This one, as well as breast feeding Mark, was employed for the rough work. Both women, Hannah knew, ate her out of house and home, but short of catching them stealing food for their own young 'uns, she didn't mind. The food they consumed, she told herself, went into making milk for baby Mark.