The Street Philosopher Part 18

'What of the other womenof the other women you have known?'

'You are the finest by far. The most beautiful, the most exquisitea rare treasure so precious that naught can equal it.' There was a faint, almost indiscernible note of weariness in Cracknell's voice as he said this. 'You would be my choice of all the women in creation.'

Styles could now see Mrs Boyce, half-naked, reclined on Cracknell's cot. Her shoulder, breast and thigh formed a rhythmic, curving pattern, which his pencil quickly traced out in the strip of candlelight that fell across the page of his sketch-book. Drawing her, even in this extraordinary, unseen state, seemed immediately familiar to him. It was as if his hand remembered the dozens of depictions it had made on the decks of the Arthur Arthur so many months before, and created a rapid, faithful likeness of a well-loved subject. The high, wide cheekbones, the skin over them lightly flushed with arousal; the large, dark eyes misted with love; the full lips curling with gratified amus.e.m.e.nt at Cracknell's sweeping declarationsall were captured in a flurry of economic strokes. so many months before, and created a rapid, faithful likeness of a well-loved subject. The high, wide cheekbones, the skin over them lightly flushed with arousal; the large, dark eyes misted with love; the full lips curling with gratified amus.e.m.e.nt at Cracknell's sweeping declarationsall were captured in a flurry of economic strokes.

Cracknell, who was lying across from her, propped up on an elbow, was a very different prospect. His shoulder hid his face, and was round and pink like a side of bacon, heavily shaded with thick black hairs. Despite the privations of the campaign, something of a round belly could still be seen; and there, before Styles' dispa.s.sionate gaze, his member sprang into view, suddenly released from his trousers. It was an angry, tumescent red, like a raw root, strangely incongruous with the rest of the man, as if a swollen appendage from a quite different creature had been unaccountably attached to his burly frame. The pencil worked away busily.

Slowly, Mrs Boyce reached over and took it in her hand. 'What would you do, Richard, to be with me?'

'II would give up all that I am,' answered Cracknell with a slight tremor. 'I would turn in my post at the Courier Courier in an instant, I would sell everything but the clothes on my back, I would sail any distance. Without you, dearest Maddy, life is but ashes.' in an instant, I would sell everything but the clothes on my back, I would sail any distance. Without you, dearest Maddy, life is but ashes.'

This speech finished, his hands vanished under what remained of her skirts. She moaned his name, pulling him towards her. There was a brief struggle, and a couple of oaths, and then her petticoats came away, revealing her nakedness. Cracknell cast the garments aside, and moved in over her, their feet, both still in their boots, scrabbling and b.u.mping together as they positioned themselves.

'Will you ever leave me?' she gasped.

'Never.'

Styles turned over a page in his sketch-book and began another drawing.

7.

Charles Norton made some enquiries, and then headed over briskly to a miserable-looking lodging house close to the quay. Once again, the stench of Balaclava was quite unbelievable; he put a handkerchief up to his face in a vain attempt to block it.

Someone called his name before he could enter. James was sitting on a wall at the side of the building. He was pale, his coat drawn tightly around him as he coughed into his hand. The lines at either side of his mouth were more p.r.o.nounced, and the eyes behind his spectacles, although red with exhaustion, were strangely bright.

'What are you doing out here, Anthony?'

James coughed again, phlegm rattling in his throat. 'Believe me, Charles,' he whispered, 'it is preferable to being inside.'

Speaking quickly, Norton apologised for leaving him; and then, unable to contain his glee, said that he had brokered a deal the previous evening that would change everything for them. This awful war, Charles declared, was going to give them the chance they had prayed for. He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and waved them in his son-inlaw's faceurgent telegrams that had to be wired back to Manchester as soon as possible.

James, however, was not impressed. 'Who exactly have you been negotiating with, Charles?'

Norton shrugged defensively. 'An officer of infantry, that is all. A man with an interest in the railway that is being built outside town. A man who has-'

'Colonel Nathaniel Boyce of the 99th Foot. That's right, isn't it?'

Norton didn't deny it. He gave a brief account of the situation regarding the spikes, and Boyce's long a.s.sociation with the Quartermaster-Generalwhich would ensure the success of a bid from the Norton Foundry.

'For someone of high birth, the Colonel has a rare appreciation of business matters.' Norton paused carefully. 'He has already obtained a crate of the spikes currently in use, in fact, for us to examine back at the Foundry, and perhaps utilise as models. His men will be bringing it down from the plateau later today, to be loaded aboard the Mallory Mallory.'

James shook his head. 'So you have been neglecting the worthy task Mr Fairbairn a.s.signed us to hatch alliances with corrupt soldiersmen prepared to exploit personal connections in order to bypa.s.s the normal conditions of contractual compet.i.tion. Did it not occur to you, Charles, that abuses of privilege such as this might be a part of what has gone so terribly wrong out here?'

I am being judged once more, Norton thought, irritation souring his mood. 'I will attend to our errand for Fairbairn in due course, Anthony. Do you not understand what is being proposed here? Do you not understand what is being laid before us?'

But James would not listen. 'I have been speaking with people also, Charles. Yesterday afternoon I met Richard Cracknell, the Crimean correspondent from the London London Courier Courier. He shared a number of disturbing confidences with me.'

Norton snorted, remembering the officers' conversation in the farmhouse. 'Ah yes, the Irishman from the Courier Courier. I have heard all about him him.'

His son-in-law coughed again, and removed his spectacles so that he could wipe his eyes. 'No, Charles, I seriously doubt that you have. Mr Cracknell had come down to the harbour specifically to warn travellers such as ourselves about Boyce. He said that the Colonel has been trying to recruit men from outside the military for several weeks, to serve his own crooked ends.' He tried to put the spectacles back on his face, and only just managed it without poking himself in the eye. Norton realised that for all his vociferousness, James was desperately weak. 'Your Colonel is guilty of heinous crimes indeed. At Inkerman, he led his regiment to an entirely avoidable disaster through his own incompetence: this is a matter of military record. But he has also engaged in looting, Charles, and has had men killed, his own men own men, to cover up his robberies.' He started to cough. 'There isis aa painting painting...'

James was prevented from talking any further by a severe cramp, which seized his midriff and bent him over almost double. His spectacles dropped from his nose, c.h.i.n.king against the stones below.

For a moment, Norton stood very still, absorbing what he had heard. James knew about the painting in the crateknew more than he did, in fact, about the murderous means by which his new partner had supposedly obtained it. His estimation of the deal itself was startlingly accurate as well, tearing away the comfortable net of self-delusion Norton had spun around himself. The truth of Boyce's venture could no longer be denied. It was corruptcriminal, even.

He looked steadily at James' shivering, shuddering back, and suddenly he knew that his son-in-law was dying; one night in the festering filth of Balaclava was all it had taken for disease to claim him. None of Anthony James' immense ambition or ability would ever amount to anything. His daughter would be made a widow at twenty-eight. And he, Charles Norton, would take the opportunity Colonel Boyce had offered and make himself one of the foremost labour-lords of Manchester.

'A painting? In this place?' He furrowed his brow with good-humoured scepticism. 'What utter nonsense. That Irishman is an unhinged troublemaker, nothing more.' He became solicitous. 'You are weary, Anthony; weary and, I fear, a little credulous. Have you had any sleep, or anything to eat? I'm afraid that you might have caught something here, my ladyou need to go to bed. Come, we will find you a clean room. There must be one somewhere. On board one of these ships, if nowhere else.' Norton crouched down and picked up the spectacles. They were smeared with black mud and the left lens was smashed. He gave them back to James, who now had a hand pressed blearily against his brow. 'What would my Jemima say if I brought her husband home an invalid?'

Manchester June 1857

1.

Cregg had been waiting with Stewart on London Road for the better part of the afternoon. They pa.s.sed a pint of gin between them, trying to keep their eyes on the modest doorway of the Model Lodging House.

This, Cregg knew, was his last chance. He'd seen enough coves go under to know well enough what was happening to him; he just didn't seem to be able to muster the energy to bring a halt to it. His acts against the army, against that bleeder Wray, hadn't brought him any real satisfaction or relief. Some days it even seemed like they had made things worse. His hand, his leg and his face all ached to high b.u.g.g.e.ry, sometimes getting so bad that his insides twisted up and his eyes grew unreliable. There was one answer to all this and one answer only: the bottle.

His recollections of his time in Manchester were accordingly spa.r.s.ehalf-memories of dingy pot-houses and gin palaces, of dark alleys and rank, undrained courts, of squalid two-room houses and crumbling bas.e.m.e.nts, all nestled in the shadows of pounding mills. There had been vomiting, a good deal of vomiting; some joyless fornication with a toothless wh.o.r.e not a day under fifty; and numerous clumsy attempts to position himself on floorboards already covered with coughing bodies.

At some point he had acquired Stewart, a pallid, sly looking Irishman. Cregg was dogged by the sense that Stewart was after something beyond simple companionship. He was a steady drinker, though, and didn't yet seem to be tiring of his new friend's lengthy Crimean stories, tearful eulogies to the Crimean dead, and Crimean songs, sung over and over with sodden earnestness. He said he was an ironmonger by trade, with a specialisation in making spannersyet he had plainly practised little but self-obliteration for some time.

One morning, quite recentlythree or four days ago, he thoughtCregg had woken at dawn in a t.u.r.d-filled gutter with his mouth full of straw. This in itself was hardly unusual, but as he had sat up and tried to get his bearings, he found that he was also smarting with lost purpose. Before him was a public house called the Hare and Hounds. He could dimly recall entering it for an important meeting with his employer. Whether this had transpired or not he couldn't rightly say. Drink had close-shaved all remembrance of the day from his mind, leaving it utterly bald. He knew, though, in that brief moment of semi-sobriety, that he had duties in the Cottonopolis. He had come there for a reason. There was a proper scheme in place, a scheme for revenge. The nature of this scheme, however, and his role in it, were lost to him completely.

Shaking the worst of the filth from his greatcoat, Cregg had decided that he must see Mr Cracknell, offer his sincerest apologies, and make his best effort to get himself back on track. A few shreds of information clung to his bruised brain, like the sc.r.a.ps of an over-pasted bill left sticking to a wall after an attempt to tear it down. Cregg still knew where Mr Cracknell had based himself; and he swore that once he had drunk his shaking limbs back under his control, and soothed the beast that raged inside his skull, he would go there straight away.

And so there he wasa little late maybe, and not exactly clean, but chock-full of the best will in the world. The unexpected length of their wait was taking its toll, though. A soft impact on Cregg's upper arm told him that Stewart had gone to sleep, and was leaning against his sleeve. The crippled veteran lifted up their gin bottle. Only a quarter-inch of the dirty spirit remained. Bringing the bottle close to his disfigured face, he sloshed this liquid from side to side, momentarily transfixed by the tiny bubbles popping at its edges. Then, through the warped gla.s.s, he spotted the man he sought, swinging a cane as he walked briskly towards the Model. Dropping the bottle in the gutter, and leaving Stewart to topple on to the pavement, Cregg rushed over to intercept him. Cap in his hand, he made a boozy but heartfelt plea for forgiveness.

Mr Cracknell stopped with some reluctance. 'I cannot use you, Cregg,' was his impatient response. 'You were drunk in the Hare and Hounds, drunk as a b.l.o.o.d.y lord.' He leant in closer, sniffing, his nose wrinkling slightly. 'And by Jove, you're pretty b.l.o.o.d.y drunk now. How exactly I am supposed to lay complex plans, and make careful arrangements, with a man who can't stay dry for long enough to b.l.o.o.d.y well hear 'em? Answer me that!' The correspondent set off again. Six strides took him almost to the door of the lodging house.

Cregg, contrite and servile, scurried along at his side. 'I'll make amends, sir, promise I will. You know me will is strong, sir. What's the scheme, sir? What would you 'ave me do?'

Mr Cracknell turned around, quickly moving in close again, his voice sharp with spite. 'Your will may be strong, Cregg, but your mind is weak indeed. There is no place in my scheme for the weak-minded.'

A familiar feeling crept into Cregg. The situation was sliding beyond his control. Nothing he could say or do now would stop Mr Cracknell from dropping him. It was like all the other positions he'd lost, all the magistrates he'd stood before, all the demotions, humiliations and punishments he'd received in his wretched life. Bitter rage welled up inside him. 'So 'ow am I to get me vengeance, then?' You fat paddy You fat paddy b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he almost added. ''Ow am I to get Boyce, if you won't 'ave me?'

'Well, the Brigadier appears to be out of town at the minute,' Mr Cracknell replied, stepping up to the door of the Model, 'but my sources tell me that he is due at the Albion Hotel in a couple of days. You left your bayonet in Captain Wray, I understand, but I'll warrant that a fellow like you will have no trouble securing himself another weapon. Why don't you simply go over there and kill him? Stick him one in the gut, perhaps? There, is that a scheme you can take in? You would certainly have your vengeance then, Cregg! Now, begone!'

Mr Cracknell opened the door and walked through grandly, as if the Model Lodging House was the sw.a.n.kiest address in all Manchester. It slammed behind him.

2.

'h.e.l.lo,' said Bill Norton, spying the soot-scarred back of a city cab through a tangle of wisteria. 'What's a growler doing here at this hour?'

His father glanced up from his half-eaten kipper. Promptly dropping his fork on to his plate, he cast aside his napkin and rose from the breakfast table. 'A business a.s.sociate,' he explained curtly, walking around the back of Bill's chair. 'I will return shortly.'

Bill and Jemima looked at each other. The morning sun shone brightly through the breakfast room's large window, casting slanting shapes across the table between them. It was early still, but these blocks of light already shimmered with rising heat.

'Strange time of day for a Foundry call,' Bill mused. 'And since when did the governor's a.s.sociates ride around in growlers? Every man-jack of them has at least one private carriage.'

Jemima lowered her eyes. 'You are right. It is strange.' She moved her coffee cup around in its saucer. 'Almost as strange as the readiness with which he agreed to let me go to the Belle Vue this evening.'

It had been a risky propositioneven Bill had seen this. The upsets of the company visit were less than two weeks old. Their father had forbidden Jemima from seeing Mr Kitson again, in the severest terms. And now all of a sudden she was requesting permission to accompany her brother and his friend Alfred Keane to the Belle Vue, Manchester's largest pleasure gardena place she had not visited, and shown no desire to visit, since before her marriage. It would hardly have been a great piece of deduction for their father to realise that Mr Kitson had been contacted and would be meeting her there.

But Jemima had been determined to try. She said that she had to see Mr Kitson as a matter of urgency. This was not merely lover's hyperbole. Since the company visit she had been stuck fast in a quiet, bitter anger, which was far more significant than the impatient ire that formed a daily part of her character. It was an anger of rumination, and of ominous conclusions; Bill had thought about asking its precise cause, but swiftly decided that he didn't really want to know. Best to leave it to Mr Kitson.

'I take it that you are suspicious of his leniency.'

Jemima stared at him in disbelief. 'William, are you not not?'

'Come now, Jem, what sinister motive could there possibly be? The governor has no inkling of our, ah,' here Bill paused, blushing a little, 'of our true pursuits once we are clear of these walls. Perhaps he simply wants peace.'

'I would put nothing past Father, and neither should you.' She got up. 'We must remain very much on our guard.'

Bill sighed, pushing away the remains of his plate of b.u.t.tered toast. 'Very well, Jemima. As you say.'

He followed his sister out in to the velvet gloom of the hall. There was a faint smell of dried lavender and wood polish. The door to their father's study was firmly closed. Jemima went towards the wide staircase, heading up to her rooms. After a second's reflection, the heir to the Norton Foundry turned on his heel and strode down towards the hall's opposite end with sudden purpose. The sonorous ticktocking of a dark grandfather clock seemed to echo his steps as he walked past.

Bill swept into a reception room, his silk dressing gown billowing around him, intending to throw open its patio doors, go out on to the lawn and feel the morning sun on his face. He shed his shoes and stockings before leaving the house. The gra.s.s was still damp with the last droplets of dew, but had a wonderful warmth and softness, sinking under his bare white toes like a quilt. For a moment, as the sun's rays. .h.i.t him, his entire world dissolved in fiery brightness. Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked down to the willow lake at the lawn's end. His favourite gardener was at work among the bulrushes, already in his shirt-sleeves, his bronzed arms rippling as he dragged some driftwood to the sh.o.r.e.

He was filled with antic.i.p.ation, excitement almost, about the evening ahead. Things had not been going so well of late for Freddie Keane and himself. Bill reckoned that their fathers had been plotting together; concerted moves were certainly being made to press both young men into their respective family firms. This was an anathema to Bill, but he was far better equipped to fight against it than his friend. Keane simply did not have the strength of spirit to weather such a.s.saults and was allowing them to preoccupy him utterly. He was unable to think or talk of anything but his father's business plans. Although his knowledge of the details was scant, he remembered enough of what had been said to be able to predict the end of his life, properly speaking, and the commencement of an unbearable waking death.

But Bill was not inclined to worry about this. A good deal more than Keane's pouts were required to spoil the prospect of the Belle Vue on a summer's evening. They had not been there in some months. It was an easy place to move in, and an easy place indeed to meet like-minded acquaintances. After nightfall, away from the pavilion and the dancing boards, there were a great many secluded corners where sport could be had without fear of interruption.

Bill found that he looked forward to the more conventional pleasures of the place as well; to the rare sights, the drinks, and the dancing. Keane would be distracted, for a few hours at least, and Jemima would forget her anger and her misgivings completely once she was reunited with her street philosopher. Bill was quite certain of this. This little trip was exactly what was needed for all three of them.

He looked back at Norton Hall. Its western side was a slab of blue shadow, the dark windows seeming to contain a vast quant.i.ty of filthy water, as if the house was nothing but an enormous brick rain tank. Bill imagined smashing one on the ground floor, releasing a bursting cascade out on to the lawn, and watching the level drop in all the windows around it. This notion was in his mind so strongly he actually had to stop himself from stooping down and plucking a stone from a path that bordered the gra.s.s.

As he was gazing at this window, a sallow face floated to its surfacea square face, with a narrow mouth and round, black eyes. It was one of his father's hired men, the leader in fact; Bill recognised him from the company outing to the Exhibition. For a long moment, they contemplated one another. Then the hired man turned away.

'He beat you, Mr Twelves. Evaded you; gave you the slip. That's the rub, is it not?'

Twelves adjusted his hold on his stew-pan hat. His expressionless manner did not leave him, but Norton could tell that he was profoundly annoyed. The man's natural arrogance had been undermined by unequivocal failure. Charles found that he was rather enjoying himself, but was glad that the solid ma.s.s of his desk was between him and the black-suited investigator.

'G.o.d knows, it was a simple enough task. One would think that a man with your reputation would be able to do such a thing with ease.'

Twelves fixed him with a dispa.s.sionate stare. 'My employees let me down, Mr Norton. Ye know what that's like. I saw yours in the Exhibition, streaming out of those halls like the Jews after Moses, with nary a thought for the coin it'd cost you.'

Charles shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He did not like to think of the Foundry visit, and it pained him to recollect that this unsavoury fellow had witnessed it all.

'Most of 'em what go 'ave been reacting the same way, if it's any consolation. Pearls before swine, Mr Norton.' Twelves' mouth twitched into the very slightest of sneers. 'Down my way, they complain that working people can't afford to attend the Exhibition. But they can afford the American Circus at Ordsall, for the same money. I don't see any going thirsty either, if ye follow my meaning.'

Norton sat forward. Twelves was managing to turn their discourse away from his own shortcomings. 'You have not been able to find him since, have you?'

The investigator remained outwardly unperturbed. 'Ishmaels like Richard Cracknell are usually pretty good at hiding themselves away. He'll appear again soon enough.'

'That may be so, but a chance has appeared for you to redeem yourself before then.' Norton cleared his throat. 'My daughter came to me this morning requesting that she be allowed to go to the Belle Vue Gardens tonight. In the company of my son and his friend Alfred Keane.'

'So the son is involved as well as the daughter.'

The brute was striking back at him now, striking back with an expert touch. 'It would seem so.'

Without altering his tone or his features in the slightest, Twelves managed to radiate malicious satisfaction. 'That is awful, Mr Norton. Both your offspring, your own flesh, as perfidious as Caesar Borgia. My sympathies.'

Norton tried to ignore him. 'My daughter obviously intends to meet with Kitson in the gardens somewhere. I think we can safely a.s.sume that Cracknell will be present as well. They will be attempting to draw her into their despicable schemes once more.'

Twelves' eyes were wandering coldly over the bookshelves behind Charles's desk. 'And what d'ye want us to do?'

The labour-lord put a hand to his brow. 'Watch them congregate. Ascertain the extent of my son's involvement. Wait until they are all together.' He spoke slowly and deliberately, choosing his words with care. 'Then you are to act. I want you to do to Cracknell what you were supposed to last time.'

Twelves had taken out his notebook. 'Only that? Surely more is warranted now, Mr Norton?' He plainly wanted revenge on the man who had embarra.s.sed him.

Charles looked out at the dense, layered canopy of a cedar of Lebanon, and the gravel driveway that snaked beneath it. 'Do what I ask, Mr Twelves, and nothing more. Incapacitate him. That is all that is necessary.'

The investigator was not pleased. He wrote something down. 'And what of the other onethe street philosopher? The same?'

Briefly, Norton thought of that day in the Exhibitionof the protests of Kitson and his daughter, and the obvious regard she held him in. All of it had seemed genuine. He was certain, however, that it was merely another manipulation, part of the grand scheme that these two demons were orchestrating against him. He nodded. 'Afterwards, I want you to bring both my children back here. I will talk to them immediately.'

Norton smoothed his whiskers, setting his mouth in a hard line. This had to be done. The depths of their treachery had to be exposed once and for all. And it would cause such shame, such utter disgrace to be brought upon the pair of them that he would henceforth be entirely justified in exerting the full force of his will. His son would make a bonfire of his dandy clothes, and enter the Foundry before the month was out; and his daughter, swathed in ignominy yet again, would be sent away from Manchester for good. No other option remained. Jemima had an aged spinster aunt in Newcastle, her late mother's elder sister, who was famous for both the dull confines of her life and the bilious spirits which she inflicted on all who entered them. If the girl is so determined to be objectionable, he thought, let her kneel at the feet of an authority. She will soon learn something of the true boundaries that can be thrown around difficult women.

'You must succeed, Mr Twelves. My partner returns to town tomorrow, and I do not want him troubled by these degenerates.'

The investigator tucked away his book. 'I will take charge personally, Mr Norton. All will go smoothly.'

'Very well.' Norton stood, straightening his jacket. 'It is high time we ended this foolishness once and for all.'