Shadow of the Hangman Read online

  ‘I’ve talked to dozens of them,’ said Hale.

  ‘Did you tell them how important it is to find these fugitives?’

  ‘I did my best to do so.’

  ‘So why have you come back empty handed?’

  ‘They’ve let us down.’

  ‘Then it’s time to bang heads together.’

  ‘I tried that, Micah.’

  ‘They’re idiots – every damn one of them!’

  ‘They’ve helped us in the past.’

  ‘We need their assistance now.’

  The Runners had met at The Peacock. Any hopes that Yeomans had held of good news had been dashed. None of the informers they kept throughout London knew of the whereabouts of the two American prisoners who’d escaped from Dartmoor. Since most of them inhabited the rougher areas of the city, Yeomans had expected that at least one of them would have caught wind of the new arrivals and been able to point the Runners in the right direction.

  He drained his tankard of ale and belched loudly. A thought surfaced.

  ‘Someone is lying, Alfred.’

  ‘They swore that they’d seen nothing.’

  ‘What they’ve seen is what the newspapers have told them – there’s a reward for the capture of Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg and it’s a tempting one. Instead of helping us to find the two Americans, they’ll try to do it on their own account so that they can claim the money for themselves.’

  ‘I warned them against doing that, Micah.’

  ‘Then they might do something even worse.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They could sell the information to Peter and Paul Skillen.’

  ‘God forbid!’

  ‘That’s the last thing we want.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Hale, ‘though we must remember that the Home Secretary did call on the Skillen brothers instead of us.’

  ‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ said Yeomans with asperity. ‘It’s one of the many mistakes made by the Doctor.’

  It was the nickname of Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, and it was not a flattering one. The son of a physician, he’d spent his entire career at the mercy of his critics. His ill-fated reign as Prime Minister came in the wake of William Pitt’s administration and the two men were compared in a cruel epigram devised by George Canning. ‘Pitt is to Addington, as London is to Paddington.’ Though the judgement hung thereafter around Sidmouth’s neck like an invisible albatross, he bore it with great fortitude. The Runners were well aware of the low esteem in which the Doctor was held by his political enemies and by some wicked cartoonists. Whenever the Home Secretary exasperated them, as now, they joined the ranks of his detractors.

  ‘The Doctor is a blockhead,’ said Yeomans, irritably.

  ‘He never takes our advice.’

  ‘No, Alfred, he’d rather listen to those abominable twins.’

  ‘What do they have that we lack?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the other, ‘except good fortune.’

  ‘Maybe they pay their informers more than we do.’

  ‘Gully Ackford holds the purse strings. He knows who and where to bribe.’

  ‘There was a time when you did, Micah.’

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ snapped Yeomans, thrusting the tankard at him, ‘and refill this for me. Anger makes me thirsty and I am furious.’

  Glad to escape his companion’s rage, Hale went across to the bar. Yeomans was left to brood on the situation. It was vital to convince the Home Secretary that the Runners were far more competent than two brothers with no sanctioned position in law enforcement. Yeomans saw it as a battle between hardened professionals like himself and rank amateurs like the Skillens. While he was wholly committed to the task of policing London, they were mere dabblers.

  When he felt a touch on his arm, he thought that Hale had returned with the tankard of ale. Instead, he saw that he was standing next to a chimney sweep whose sooty hand was on the Runner’s sleeve. Yeomans shook it off at once.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ he said, scowling.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘Stand off before some of your filth gets on me.’

  ‘I’m told I could find Mr Yeomans here.’

  ‘Well, you’ve found him and I don’t want my chimney swept so you can get out of here before I kick you out.’

  Donal Kearney took a precautionary step backwards and held up black palms.

  ‘I mean you no harm. Mr Yeomans. I’ve come to help you.’

  ‘And who says that I need help?’

  ‘They should be arrested, sir.’

  ‘What are you babbling about?’ asked Yeomans with a sneer. ‘I’ve got better things to do than to listen to the tittle-tattle of a chimney sweep.’

  ‘My youngest son told me, you see.’

  ‘I don’t care a fiddler’s fuck what the little runt told you.’

  ‘I set him on to one of Fallon’s brats,’ said Kearney with a sly grin, ‘and he got the truth out of him. It’s them, Mr Yeomans.’

  The Runner glowered. ‘You’re asking for trouble, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s them two Americans what escaped from prison.’

  Having raised his fist to strike, Yeomans froze in position.

  ‘Could you say that again?’ he asked.

  ‘Those prisoners who escaped – I know where they are, sir.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I live in the same tenement.’

  Yeomans lowered his arm. ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘It’s behind Orchard Street, sir. There’s lots of us Irish there.’

  ‘And you’re telling me that Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg are hiding there?’

  ‘I’d swear it on the eyes of my children!’ vowed Kearney.

  Yeomans looked at him more closely and decided that he was in earnest. At that moment, Hale came back with a full tankard in his hand.

  ‘Go back and buy another one, Alfred,’ said Yeomans, taking the drink from him. ‘I’m sure that our friend here would like a sup of ale as well. Unless I’m very much mistaken, he’s just brought us the intelligence we sorely need.’

  When he left the offices of Rendcombe and Spiller, he was in high spirits. Peter Skillen had the names of two likely suspects, both of whom had worked for respected lawyers and been unable to find the same level of employment elsewhere. When he called at the first of the two addresses he’d been given, he was distressed to learn that he’d come to a house of mourning. A neighbour explained that Peter would be unable to speak to Adam Tate because the man had died a few days earlier.

  ‘The rumour is he died by his own hand,’ confided the neighbour.

  ‘Is there any likelihood of that?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Mr Tate was very upset when he lost his job.’

  ‘How did he live?’

  ‘He struggled, sir. He was too proud to borrow money so he did without. If you want my opinion, I think he starved himself to death. The last time I saw him he was skin and bone. It’s a shame, sir.’

  The neighbour was clearly ready to hold forth on the decline in the fortunes of Adam Tate but they had no interest for Peter. If the man had died, by whatever means, a few days ago then he couldn’t have been the scrivener who drew up the document for the American prisoners. That had been dated after Tate’s death. Peter had to look elsewhere. As he set off in search of the second address, his erstwhile high spirits had shrunk into a distant hope. Realistically, he couldn’t expect to locate the person he was after so easily. It might well be that neither of the names he’d been given would be of any practical use. When he eventually found the house he wanted, he used the knocker without any real conviction. There was a long wait before the door was unbolted and thrown open by a podgy woman in a dowdy dress. Her resentful frown vanished when she saw a gentleman on her doorstep.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, politely.

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Nason.’

  ‘That’s my husband, sir.’

 
; ‘Is he in at the moment?’

  ‘I’m afraid that he isn’t,’ replied Posy. ‘He’s out on business. Is there a message I can take for him? My husband is excellent at his job. Whatever it is that you want, I’m sure that he can oblige.’

  Peter took his cue from her because it suited him to act as a prospective client. It would remove any suspicion from the woman’s mind and allow him to probe into the character of Jubal Nason and the nature of the services he provided.

  ‘Am I right in thinking that your husband works from home?’

  ‘Yes, he does, sir. We’ve a room he uses as an office.’

  ‘I believe that he once worked for a lawyer in Portland Place.’

  She became defensive. ‘He left because of a misunderstanding.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been because of any deficiency in the quality of his work,’ said Peter, trying to put her at ease. ‘The person who recommended him to me was full of praise for him.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, relaxing. ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘What I really need is for some documents to be copied.’

  ‘Then you’ve no cause to look any further, sir. My husband is an experienced scrivener. He’ll copy out whatever you wish.’

  ‘That’s reassuring.’

  ‘His charges are very reasonable.’

  ‘I’m always ready to pay well for work of quality,’ said Peter. ‘When do you expect Mr Nason to return?’

  ‘He told me that he’d be no more than an hour or so.’

  ‘Then I’ll call back.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, sir,’ she said, afraid that he might take his custom elsewhere. ‘My husband will be very upset that he missed you. He may only be half an hour, even less. Why don’t you step inside and wait?’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Nason.’

  She stood aside so that he could walk into the house. A compound of noisome odours invaded his nostrils and made him cough. She conducted him upstairs to a small room converted into an office by her husband. It was a dark, poky and unwelcoming lair. Dog-eared law books leant against each other for support. The desk was a gravy-stained kitchen table littered with papers. There was a whiff of misery in the air. It was all a far cry from the order, comfort and cleanliness of Martin Rendcombe’s office. Both men might make their living from the law but Jubal Nason belonged to a decidedly lower of order of creation.

  ‘It’s not usually as untidy as this,’ said Posy, shuffling papers into a pile.

  ‘Fear not, Mrs Nason. My own study is even more chaotic.’ The lie seemed to settle her nerves and she stopped hovering. ‘Apart from copying documents, what else does your husband do?’

  ‘I can’t rightly say but, whatever it is, he does it well.’

  Peter was hoping that she’d leave him alone so that he could sift through the papers to see if any of them linked Jubal Nason to the two fugitives but Posy was determined to stay between him and door, beaming inanely at Peter and barring his way so that her husband didn’t lose a client.

  ‘Do you happen to know where your husband went, Mrs Nason?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but he left some time ago so he must be there by now.’

  Jubal Nason hobbled into the court and looked nervously at the tenements around him. They were teeming with noisy life. Various heads popped out of windows to take stock of the stranger. People came and went through the main doors. Children fought battles over territory. A knife grinder sat on a stool and plied his trade with ear-splitting effect. When he tried to speak to people who went past him, Nason was studiously ignored. He was perceived as an intruder and, as such, was shunned. One person, however, did not ignore him. Nason was grabbed from behind, pushed up against a wall and held there immovably.

  ‘What, in the name of all that’s holy, are you doing here?’

  ‘I was looking for you, Mr Fallon.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like being looked for.’

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ bleated Nason.

  ‘How did you find out where I lived?’

  ‘It was a guess.’

  ‘Tell the truth,’ ordered Dermot Fallon, pressing him harder against the wall.

  ‘It is the truth. When that dog attacked me, it was no more than forty yards from here so I guessed that you didn’t live far away. I knew there were Irish people living behind Orchard Street so I thought I’d try here first.’ He was unable to stop himself from being turned swiftly around and slammed against the brickwork. ‘I had to see you, Mr Fallon.’

  ‘Why – what’s happened?’

  ‘If you let me go,’ spluttered Nason, ‘I’ll explain.’

  Fallon released him and stood back to appraise him. Jubal Nason looked as dishevelled and miserable as ever. Smiling nervously, he took a newspaper from his pocket and unfolded it.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ he asked.

  ‘Where would I get the money to buy newspapers,’ said Fallon, ‘and how would I find the time to read them?’ He pushed Nason. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘There’s a reward for the capture of your friends.’

  Fallon seized him again. ‘Is that why you’re here, you scheming piece of shite?’ he demanded. ‘Have you come to rat on us?’

  ‘No, no,’ shouted Nason. ‘I’m here to warn Mr O’Gara and Mr Dagg.’

  ‘Are you sure you came alone?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But if I can find you, someone else can so you’d better tell your friends to hide somewhere else. I’m only trying to help, Mr Fallon.’

  ‘I don’t like being spied on.’

  ‘People are out looking for your friends. Their names are in the newspaper.’

  ‘Then they’ll have to be moved,’ said Fallon, letting go of him again. ‘And I suppose I’ll have to thank you. I’d have been caught with Tom and Moses.’

  ‘The same goes for me. Because I prepared that document, I’ll be seen as a conspirator.’

  ‘You’re in the clear – we wouldn’t name you.’

  ‘Tell your friends to get out as soon as possible.’

  ‘I will. And I’m sorry I had to hurt you a bit.’

  Nason shrunk way from him. ‘I wasn’t spying. I needed to raise the alarm.’ A dog came trotting across the court. ‘That’s the wild dog that attacked me in Oxford Street. What’s it doing here?’

  ‘I caught it and trained it,’ said Fallon with a grin. ‘I’ve a way with dogs and women, Mr Nason. He won’t bite you again.’

  The truth slowly dawned on Nason. ‘It’s your dog, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is now.’

  ‘You made it attack me then pretended to save me.’

  ‘Oh, what an evil mind you have,’ said Fallon with mock reproach. ‘There was I, saving you from being bitten through to the bone, and all you can do is to accuse me of trickery. Now shift your carcase before I tell him to take a piece out of your arse.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Nason, backing away. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Good riddance!’

  ‘You will pass the warning on to your friends, won’t you?’

  ‘No,’ joked Fallon, ‘I’ll turn the pair of them in and collect the reward.’ He shoved Nason in the chest. ‘Tom is family, you Godforsaken numbskull. Of course, I’ll warn them. Now – go!’

  One eye on the dog, Nason scuttled off. As soon as they were out of sight, Fallon raced into the tenement and went up the stairs in bounds. He’d hated being run to ground by Nason but he could see that the man might just have rescued them from the shadow of the gallows.

  There were days when Sidmouth found his work excessively tiresome and another one was added to the list when he arrived to find his desk covered in dross and trivia. Tempted to sweep it aside or delegate it, he instead applied himself with his usual vigour and gradually thinned out the pile of documents and seemingly unending correspondence on issues in which he had no interest. At least, he consoled himself, there were no inordinate demands about Dartmoor this time accompanied by threats against his life. All was cal
m, tedious and monstrously unexciting. It was only when Bernard Grocott came into the room that the Home Secretary found something that aroused his interest at last.

  ‘They’re back,’ he declared.

  ‘To whom do you refer, my lord?’

  ‘I speak of those unspeakable Luddites.’

  ‘They no longer exist,’ said Grocott. ‘Thanks to our prompt action, they were suppressed a couple of years ago. Those that were neither hanged nor imprisoned were transported to Australia. They can’t smash machinery to pieces from Botany Bay. It’s a geographical impossibility.’

  ‘Then who attacked this factory in Nottinghamshire?’

  ‘It was not the Luddites.’

  ‘Find me another culprit.’

  He handed the report to Grocott who studied it before passing it back to him.

  ‘The machinery was not destroyed, my lord,’ he noted. ‘The whole factory was burnt down.’

  ‘In the course of the blaze, the machinery was badly damaged. That’s the hallmark of the Luddites. Fearing that they’d be put out of work by machines, they sought to destroy them.’

  ‘It’s much easier to light a fire than to smash heavy machinery to pieces. This is probably the work of some jealous rival or of an operative dismissed from his post. We are not facing a revolution in Nottinghamshire, my lord.’

  ‘The county is nevertheless simmering. It’s the same with Lancashire and Yorkshire. Opposition to the status quo is mounting all the time. It’s inevitable that it will break out into something more dangerous and concerted.’

  ‘Then it will be suppressed without mercy,’ said Grocott.

  ‘That’s my worry. Brutal suppression creates more enemies for us and we have enough of those already.’ He put the report aside. ‘Well, distressing as that incident was, it did have the virtue of waking me up again. What you see on my desk, Grocott, is the most stultifying rubbish. Most of it will go straight into the wastepaper basket where it belongs.’

  ‘It will vanish without trace before morning, my lord. Levitt will see to that. I’m eternally gratefully to the person who guided her into my hands.’

  ‘The only problem is that having her here reminds us inescapably of Horner’s disappearance. That still baffles me.’