The Tea Rose Part 64

It had been a long time since Roddy had conducted an interview of this nature. McPherson had offered to help, but he'd declined. He wanted Bowler all to himself He waited a few more minutes, until Bowler, finally exhausted, sat down on the bench inside his cell. Then he took a ring of keys from his belt, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. As he expected, Bowler rushed him the second the door, clicked shut. Roddy was prepared. He deflected the blow with his truncheon, grabbed Bowler's arm, spun him around, and threw him against the bars. Bowler bounced off and came at him again. Roddy brought his truncheon down on his skull, opening a gash above one eye.

Bowler shrieked. Roddy grabbed him by his shirt and pitched him back onto the bench.

"Paddy Finnegan was like a brother to me," he said.

"What the f.u.c.k 'as that got to do with me?" Bowler shouted, wiping blood out of his eye.

"You murdered him. You and William Burton."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You also murdered Dennis Quinn and Janey Symms."

Bowler spat a gob of b.l.o.o.d.y phlegm. "You've got the wrong man. It was Sid Malone. 'E wants into the East End. 'E was trying to throw 'is weight around with Quinn, but Quinn wasn't 'aving it. So Malone did for'im."

Roddy drew two pieces of paper out of his jacket pocket, unfolded them, and held them up before Bowler's eyes. "Can you read?" he asked.

"f.u.c.kyou."

"I'll take that as a yes," Roddy said. "Read these carefully. They're signed confessions made by Reg Smith and Stan Christie and witnessed by two of my constables. They say that you yourself stabbed Quinn and that Reg and Stan cut Janey Symms."

Roddy watched Bowler's eyes as he read the doc.u.ments, pleased to see a flicker of fear in them.

"So what?" Bowler said when he was done. "That's what those two say. I say different. I was nowhere near the Taj when Den was murdered."

"Listen, Bowler, I'm going to make you an offer. We both know you did this. I've got Reg and Stan's statements to back it up. And if I need to, I'll get more witnesses. Potter the bartender will place you there. So will half a dozen of Den's girls."

Bowler smiled. "They wouldn't dare."

"Not if they t'ink you're going to get out," Roddy conceded. "But if I a.s.sure them you won't, you're done for. I hear Ronnie Black who owns that gin shop on Lamb Street was playing snooker when you arrived. T'ink he liked paying you off all these years? I bet he hates your guts. Bet he'd sing like a budgerigar. Bet any bloke in the room would. They'd love to get shut of you."

Bowler took a deep breath, held it, then blew it out. "What do you want?" "The truth. About Quinn. About Paddy Finnegan, too. I want you to say how the Finnegan murder happened. How William Burton put you up to it."

Bowler nodded. "That's exactly' ow it did 'appen! 'E put me up to it!"

"I t'ought so," Roddy said encouragingly. "Burton's the one I really want."

Bowler leaned forward, eager now. "If I do this, what's in it for me?"

A place on the hangman's dance card, Roddy thought. "I'll take care of you, Bowler," he said.

''I'm not one to hide my appreciation. I'll make sure the magistrate knows that you helped me out and I'll do my best to get him to go easy on you. You'll get prison instead of the gallows, with time off for good behavior. Ten, fifteen years, you'll be a free man." He paused, then said, "But if you refuse.

I'll call in every favor I've ever done, every debt I'm owed, to make sure you hang for Quinn."

Bowler sucked his teeth, deliberating. "All right," he finally said. "I know when the game's up. But if I'm going down, Burton's coming with me. You 'ave some paper in this dog' ole? A pen?

Let's get this over with."

Chapter 76.

Fiona, wearing a somber gray suit, hurried down Commercial Street, past Christ Church, and into a tumbledown pub called the Bells. It was an overcast morning, not quite six o'clock. A few workmen, hard types, sat at the bar, washing down meat pies or Scotch eggs with tea.

"Fiona! Over here!"

It was Roddy. He was seated at a table in the snug. He'd sent her a note last night asking her to meet him here. He said he had information pertaining to her father's death. To their plan. He had a pot of tea and the remains of a cooked breakfast in front of him. She noticed he was unshaven and bleary-eyed. "You look like you haven't slept. What happened?" she asked as she sat down.

"More like what hasn't happened," he said wearily. "Got called out at two o'clock this morning." He glanced around the room, then lowered his voice. "A body was found in an alley off Fournier Street. A prost.i.tute. Her t'roat had been cut. A man heard her scream, went to help her, and found her dead."

"You're joking." "I wish I were."

"It sounds just like Jack."

Roddy scrubbed his face with his hands. "Aye, that it does," he said.

"And the papers are going to have a holiday with it. Reporters were crawling all over the crime scene trying to get information. We're under orders not to give them anyt'ing, but that's not stopping them. What they can't find out, they just make up. b.l.o.o.d.y Bob Devlin, the editor at the Clarion, will have the whole East End in a frenzy by evening. We've asked for reinforcements from Limehouse, Wapping, and Bow in case there's trouble. But none of this concerns you, la.s.s." He paused as the barmaid brought a fresh pot of tea to the table and asked Fiona what she wanted to eat.

"Nothing, thank you," she said.

"This time of day, snug's only for customers who are dining," the woman said sulkily.

"Fine. Bring me a cooked breakfast."

"Do you want chipped potatoes or tomatoes -"

"Everything. I want everything," Fiona said, wanting the woman gone. She poured herself a cup of tea and sloshed in some milk while Roddy continued.

"I asked you to come down here because I knew I wouldn't be able to get to you today and I wanted to tell you what's happened," he said. "A few days ago a man by the name of Dennis Quinn was murdered along with his girlfriend, Janey Symms."

Fiona nodded, uncertain what Quinn's murder had to do with her father's death.

"It was Bowler Sheehan who did it. Another criminal, man by the name of Sid Malone, gave him to me. In a roundabout sort of a way."

"Malone?" Fiona repeated. "The same Sid Malone who tried to drag me down an alley once?"

"I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know for sure. Haven't seen the bloke in ten years."

Roddy explained how Malone's men had brought Reg and Stan to the station and how his own men had found Sheehan holed up in his sister's house in Stepney. "I told him I had him for Quinn," Roddy said, "but that I'd get the beak to go easy on him if he confessed to your father's murder ... and fingered William Burton."

Fiona clattered her teacup back into its saucer. Her eyes were enormous.

"And did he?"

"Aye."

She sat back in her chair, floored by this sudden turn of events. As she considered all the implications, she realized she didn't have to wait six months for Nick's shares. She didn't need them.

Sheehan's confession would hang both himself and William Burton. "You can arrest Burton now, right? You can put him in prison and bring him to trial and hang him for what he did," she said.

Roddy hesitated. "I hope so, la.s.s," he said, "but I can't guarantee it." "But why?" she asked, distressed. "You have Sheehan's confession."

"All I've really got is the word of a known criminal against that of a respected merchant.

There were no eyewitnesses to your father's murder. No way to prove what Sheehan says is true,"

Roddy said. ''I've done the best I could do. And maybe with a little luck, it'll be enough. I've sent a pair of constables to Burton's offices to apprise him of Sheehan's confession and conduct a formal interview. Maybe we'll get a miracle. Maybe he'll confess. It's happened before. A person can only live with murder on his conscience for so long before the guilt does him in." He covered her hand with his own. "Try to have a little faith now."

Fiona nodded disconsolately. William Burton was not such a person and faith was not her strong point. She was close, so close to avenging her father's death. Roddy had done so much. He'd put most of the puzzle pieces in place. Now all she needed was a bit of additional leverage, some way to trap Burton, to compel him to confess. But what?

Her meal arrived. She picked at it. It's all right, she told herself. No matter what, Roddy has Sheehan. He's going to hang for what he did. And if Burton doesn't confess, then you just go back to your original plan _ Neville gets the shares and you use them to get Burton. She took a sip of tea, trying to quell her disappointment. Her eyes fell on Roddy's newspaper. The Clarion. He'd placed it on the table. "Murder in Whitechapel!" the headline screamed. "Woman Slashed in Alley." Below that was one about a brawl. "Twenty-Five Injured in Public House Melee." And under that, "Scandal!

Local Minister and Fallen Woman. Details on Page 5." With headlines like these, the Clarion makes the New York papers look downright restrained, she thought. She read them again. For some reason, one word in particular jumped out at her.

Scandal.

It was a word she was well acquainted with. She'd married Nick to avoid one. And over the next six months she might well lose her tea business if her father-in-law made good on his threat to create another.

Scandal.

Shouted or whispered, it was a powerful word. Intimidating. Terrifying, even. Marriages were ruined by scandals. Businesses, reputations, lives. A mere threat could be devastating. People went to great lengths to prevent them. Threaten someone with a scandal and you had power over him. Leverage. Control.

She pushed her plate aside. "We don't need a miracle, Uncle Roddy," she said quietly.

"No?"

"No. All we need is a friend at a newspaper. Any newspaper. How well do you know the man you mentioned? Devlin?"

"Very well. We've done a lot of favors for one another over the years." She opened her purse, placed a few coins on the table, and stood up.

"Let's go see him."

"Why?"

"To see if he'll help us engineer a scandal. We may not be able to convict Burton for my father's murder, but we're going to make people believe we can."

"I don't understand. What will that do?" Roddy asked, balling up his napkin.

"Everything, I hope. Come on, let's go. I'll explain on the way."

RODDY PAUSED, his hand on the door to the Clarion's offices. He turned to Fiona and said, "You know, la.s.s, this just might work."

"It better, Uncle Roddy." "Are you ready?"

"l am."

"All right, then. Let's go."

He pushed the door open and they entered a long, noisy room containing the printing presses.

It smelled strongly of oil and ink.

"Come on," he said, leading her toward a flight of stairs. "The newsroom's this way."

He knew the building. He'd visited it many times. The Clarion was hardly the Timed, but it was a feisty, two-fisted paper with a strong circulation. It broke all the local stories, many of which were picked up by the Timed and other leading papers. It would serve their purpose well.

Fiona had explained her plan to him. It was brilliant, but whether it worked or not depended entirely on Devlin. He was generally an all-right bloke, but he did have a stubborn streak. Just in case he proved to be in a balky mood today, Roddy had stopped by the station on the way over to pick up some insurance. A little present. Grease for the gears.

Tobacco smoke hung thickly in the air of the newsroom, mingling with the smell of uneaten breakfasts. A dozen or so reporters sat hunched over desks typing, while in the middle of the room, a short man stood and yelled.

"Call yourself a reporter, Lewis? You're a peabrain! Where's the detail? Where's the color?

You said her throat was cut? How long was the wound? How deep? Did he get the windpipe? Was there blood on the ground or did it soak into her clothes? These are the things our readers want to know. Now get out and don't come back until you've got a real story for me."

"But, Mr. Devlin, sir, the police aren't giving us a thing! I can't get a look at the weapon. I can't even get into the alley!"

"Are you a man, Lewis? Have you got anything in those trousers? Stop whining and get the story! If the police won't help you, find someone who will. A lodger in a neighboring building. The coroner's a.s.sistant. The bloke who mopped the floor after the autopsy. A few coins in the right hand work wonders. Find a way!"

The reporter, a lad of no more than eighteen or nineteen, slinked of: his head down, his cheeks burning. Devlin watched him go, shaking his head, then spotted Roddy.

"Sergeant! To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, walking over. "Got to talk to you, Bobby. In private."

Devlin nodded and ushered them into his office. Roddy introduced Fiona, then, before the man could start asking questions, said, ''I've a story for you. A good one. And I need it to go on the front of tonight's paper."

Devlin angled his head, a puzzled expression on his face. "That makes a change," he said.

''I'm used to you trying to keep the good stories out of the paper, not get them in. And with top billing, no less. What's it about?"

Roddy told him how a union leader named Patrick Finnegan had been murdered ten years ago, right before the dock strike, and that Bowler Sheehan had just confessed to the crime. The second suspect, he said, was William Burton ~the tea merchant.

Devlin frowned. "It's an interesting story," he said. "But the accusations can't be proved. I'll put it in if it helps you, but not on the cover. Page four, maybe. Murdered wh.o.r.e's getting the cover.

I'd hoped that's what you were here about."

Roddy had antic.i.p.ated a negative answer. "Come on, Bobby. I've done plenty of favors for you. Given you plenty of leads. I gave you the Turner Street Murders in '96, remember?" he said.

"Made your career, those did. And the Blind Beggar gang. You wrote a whole series of stories on those thieves. Got you promoted to editor."

Devlin, fiddling with a paperweight, huffed with irritation. "Why's this story so important to you?"

"Can't tell you that. Not yet. Just do it for me, Bobby. I'm calling in me debts."