The Poisoned Island (19 page)

The building may be young but the brick is already beginning to darken, and the scrub of land in front of the gatehouse, which must have been tidy eighteen years before, is now scruffy and overgrown. This morning it even has a sheep grazing morosely upon it, presumably left behind by one of the trains of livestock which make their way down the hill from here to Smithfield.

Harriott pulls with his usual impatience on one of the two gigantic door knockers which are attached to the wooden gates. Nothing happens for a moment, but then the gate begins to open and the wicked old face of the chief warder appears. The man scowls when he sees who is waiting outside. He knows Harriott suspects him and the other warders of corruption, and his antipathy towards the old magistrate only serves to confirm Harriott’s suspicions. Harriott scowls back, goes in, and the two old enemies walk into the jail, the gate closing behind them.

The main prison building sits in the middle of the nine-acre site, encircled by scrubby patches of market garden in which a number of prisoners are halfheartedly digging. It is a staunchly solid stone affair punctuated by iron gates and iron windows, like a lunatic asylum from one of the thick Gothic romances Harriott’s wife enjoys. The building is constructed around four quarters, and the warder leads Harriott to the first quarter on the left, where the prisoners on Charge—not yet tried but waiting interrogation or trial—can be found.

Nott is in a cell between a man accused of murdering his wife, and two petty thieves caught by one of Harriott’s constables on Wapping Street, picking pockets. The murderous husband weeps quietly to himself, while the thieves bicker
with each other over some complicated tale articulating the depravity of Napoleon Bonaparte. As they approach the cell, Coldbath’s old jailer leans in towards Harriott and, apropos of nothing at all, tells him Nott already has a visitor. Harriott bristles.

“A visitor? I left no instructions that he be allowed visits.”

“You left no instructions that he not be allowed them either,
sir
.” There is no respect, only contempt, in the old man’s voice and face.

The visitor, though, is Horton, who is standing in the cell.

Nott sits on the scruffy unmade little bed with his head in his hands, silent. When Harriott appears, Horton nods at him, saying nothing, as if he does not wish to disturb whatever considerations are going through the chaplain’s distraught mind. He is watching Nott carefully, notes Harriott, who wonders what his constable is learning from the observation. Harriott instructs the warder to leave open the door of the cell.

“We shall be taking a turn through the gardens with this man.”

“A
turn
, is it?” says the warder. “Not sure the governor would allow that.”

“Well, do feel free to consult with him. Now leave us.”

The warder scowls again, leaving the cell door open as ordered, and then walks away back up the corridor, screaming a terrible curse into one cell from which Harriott can hear a soft whimpering which sounds distinctly like that of a woman.

“Come with us, Nott,” he orders, waiting outside the cell. Nott raises his head from his hands, and Harriott feels a sharp and, for him, unfamiliar wave of sympathy for what he sees there. He is reminded of Nott’s scared eyes the day
before, but today that fear is accompanied by something else. The man looks tortured and exhausted.

The prisoner stands, and looks at Harriott and then at Horton before stepping out of the cell. Horton steps out behind him. The magistrate and the constable walk on either side of the prisoner, out to the back of the jail where there is tilled land and prisoners attempting to grow things in it. Harriott feels that in some way they are
attending
Nott; two curates walking down the aisle with the bishop. He looks at Nott’s feet, and sees there an ancient but well-cared-for pair of leather shoes, exactly in keeping with the man’s ecclesiastical bearing.

It is a pleasant day. There is a single empty bench at the side of the little plot. Half a dozen prisoners are digging in potatoes, under the eye of a fat, surly warder who shouts at Harriott as they appear from the building but whom Harriott magnificently ignores. The three of them sit on the bench, for all the world like old friends taking in the air in Hyde Park. Indeed there is something pleasantly bucolic about this incongruous piece of agricultural England, out behind the massive prison. Only the remorseless wall along the back of the plot lies between them and the pleasant hills to the north, up towards Hampstead.

Nott has lost his haughty air of the previous evening, Harriott is pleased to observe. He is forced to admit to himself that it is damnably hard for him to be firm with this man. Like all Englishmen, Harriott is acutely attuned to matters of class and respect. Nott is no common riverside thug. He seems a man of learning and morality, despite the things of which he is suspected, and Harriott speaks to him on this basis. Nott’s priestly air demands another kind of respect again, whatever the beliefs of those doing the interrogating.

“You are comfortable here?” Harriott asks. Nott looks away from the men toiling in the soil, and turns his scared face to Harriott. Horton, the old magistrate can see, is keeping a watchful eye, as if recording every move of Nott’s in some invisible ledger.

“Is it intended that I should be comfortable, Mr. Harriott?”

The question is a good one, but is not meant sardonically. It is a genuine query. Again, that boylike innocence.

“You are being held because of the events in Rotherhithe . . .” he begins, but Nott interrupts him, though without heat.

“Events which I witnessed, Mr. Harriott, that is all. Why is the boardinghouse landlord not here? Or the women that stood in that hall? They all witnessed it as well as I. Yet I am here, and they are not.”

Horton smiles a little at that, Harriott sees. Is he smiling at Nott, or at the old magistrate trying to interrogate him?

“Nott, do avoid any impertinence with me,” he says, abandoning polite intercourse and adopting the air of the severe magistrate. “You were the last person to see your two shipmates alive.”

“But I was not, sir. I most definitely was not. The last person to see them alive was he who killed them.” The
he
is said with some reverence, as if Nott were talking of God.

“You are the last person we know of. And thus the main suspect for their deaths.”

Nott sighs at that. “It is quite ridiculous, Mr. Harriott. Why would I have killed them, in broad daylight, and then made such a fuss of it? Your constable here”—he gestures at Horton, and there is that flash of yesterday’s haughty man with expectations of deference—“he saw me. He saw the state I was in. Why would I behave in such a flagrant manner if I had just killed those men?”

“You were calm when we first encountered you,” says Horton. “You only became upset when we returned to the room.”

“For reasons I have explained—they were not dead when I left them!”

“You may have concocted the whole story, for all we know,” says Harriot. “You play-acted your upset to throw Horton off the scent.”

Nott exclaims at that. “Stupendous! Your theory is ridiculous, sir!”

“Again I say to you, do not grow hot with me. I may be forced to return you to your cell and interview you there.”

“Hot, am I? I have been arrested and imprisoned in a jail where the warders demand payment in return for sending letters. I have tried to write to my captain, but have been told that payment of a shilling is required. The jailers here seek to profit from their inmates! What kind of place is this?”

“We will discuss this before long. But now I wish to ask—”

“We will discuss it now, sir! I have been maltreated and ignored, and I will put up with it no longer!”

Nott stands, and for an insane moment Harriott imagines he will stamp his feet like an enormous aggravated toddler. But he only steps off a pace or two, and then begins walking to and fro like a man wrestling with an enormous problem.

“Nott, be seated.”

“England is not supposed to be like this! Where is the liberty? The justice?”

There are tears in Nott’s eyes now, tears of frustration. He bangs his fists into his hips as if to stop himself striking the old magistrate.

“Nott, be seated, immediately.”

“I am the son of an important man, Harriott! This is unacceptable!”

The insolent use of
Harriott
causes the magistrate to bellow, “Horton, seize him!” but then Nott falls to his knees and starts to pray with a fierce intensity, his hands locked together against his forehead, his eyes closed, the words forced out as if his lips were tied together: “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”

Harriott recognizes Ephesians, and allows Nott to finish. It is a missionary’s prayer, and the words calm the man down again. At the end, he drops his hands to his sides while his head remains bowed. Horton and Harriott wait for him to come to himself once more. After several minutes, he stands and returns to the bench, where he sits down again, his head still bowed.

Harriott looks at Horton, and nods. Time for the constable to take over. The magistrate is angry, and may shout.

“Nott,” says Horton, his voice gentle and almost inaudible. “Are you now able to talk in more detail about the events of yesterday?”

Nott gives out a little sigh, as if the last drop of Holy Spirit is departing his body.

“Yes. I believe I am able to do so.”

“Good. So, once again, please. Your version of what happened.”

“I was planning to visit Attlee and Arnott, my former
shipmates. I had not seen them since the ship docked, and I wanted to warn them.”

“Warn them of what?”

“Warn them of the death of Sam Ransome.”

“What did you know of Ransome’s death?”

“Only what Captain Hopkins told me. After your visit to the
Solander
. Up until then I had not left the ship.”

“You believed Attlee and Arnott in danger?”

“I did.”

This is new, as Horton’s glance to Harriott makes clear. The constable went on.

“Why did you believe so?”

“I cannot say.”

“Cannot, or will not?”

“I cannot and I will not.”

“Even at the expense of your own liberty?”

“It is not my
liberty
which is at question.”

Harriott cannot stop himself breaking in.

“You know what you are saying, Nott? You are admitting to knowing more of this business than you say, and you refuse to say what you know. This will end badly for you, sir.”

“I understand.”

Harriott has nothing to say to that. Nott speaks the words without energy or feeling, as if the stones at their feet were speaking to them.

“Why were you on the
Solander
, Nott?” asks Horton.

“I was born on Tahiti.”

“You mean Otaheite.”

“Such is how you like to say it. We say Tahiti.”

“We? You are a native?”

Nott looks up at that.

“A savage, you mean? An uneducated pagan without morality,
one generation away from cannibalism, consumed with carnal lust? Is this what you mean by
native
, Constable?” The fire is back in his words, but they are spoken without heat.

“I meant only to ask whether you were born on the island.”

“Yes. To an Englishman and an island woman. I am, how do you say it . . .
mestizo
.”

“It is a Spanish word, not an English one.”

“It will serve the purpose.”

“Who is your father?”

“My father is Henry Nott. He is a missionary of some renown. He is a great man, Constable.”

“And he is still on the island? He did not travel with you?”

“No, I came alone.”

“Again I ask: why?”

“And again I reply: to search out my family.”

“The Notts?”

“Among others.”

“And have you made any progress in finding them.”

“None at all. The events on the
Solander
interrupted my search.”

“So, you knew of some danger Attlee and Arnott were in. You will not speak of this danger. And you decided to visit them yesterday morning.”

“Yes.”

“Describe what happened, Nott.”

“I left the ship, walked to their lodgings, and the boardinghouse landlord let me in. I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer I opened it and went inside. And I discovered them.”

Harriott has not visited the room in question and has no mental picture of it. But Horton seemed to think the disarray in the room was a key part of this case. The old bulldog holds
himself back and decides to let Nott speak for himself. The results are surprising.

For a moment, Nott says nothing at all. He looks expectantly at Horton, waiting for the next question, and then at Harriott. When it doesn’t come, he looks confused for a moment. His shoulders sag, and suddenly the man is whimpering, afraid, like a dog whose master is pouring cold water upon its back. Nott looks up at the wall which holds them in, but not with longing; to Harriott, it looks like fear that the walls will not be sufficient to keep out whatever lies beyond them.

“The room was wrecked. It looked like a gale had blown through it. Their kit bags were open. Their clothes, such as they were, were everywhere. But they were still in their beds. They seemed to be asleep. The place had been ransacked, and I feared for my safety. It was then that I ran out.”

“How long were you in the room?” Harriott does not know why he asks this question; it seems to come from somewhere else.

“Seconds. I touched nothing.”

“And there was no blood in the room at this point.”