The Poisoned Island (43 page)

“I have read of them in Lieutenant Cook’s log, sir.”

“We did not know what to make of them, Brown. We didn’t
know if they were minstrels, priests, mummers, or murderers. They traveled the island and seemed to have an enormous power over the local people. But to what extent their practices were part of the accepted religion I was never able to ascertain. As a young man, I was drawn to them, drawn to their self-indulgence and their . . . well, they
consumed
life, Brown. They lived it with a freedom and an intensity which almost devoured me. But there was a terrible dark side to them. They believed their power was transmitted to their children. So to keep their power to themselves they destroyed a great many of those children. Mothers destroying newly born babes. Even the powerful ladies who were non-Arreoy were consumed by this belief. They believed it was their right to do with their children as they wished, even if it meant destroying them. Bougainville called the Island
la nouvelle Cythère
. But every Paradise has a Hell. Or perhaps that is just an old man’s thinking.

“As I told you, I corresponded with a great many others over the years, to learn more of this leaf. And I admit this correspondence grew more urgent when the King became unwell, with an apparent frenzy of mind which no treatment could assuage. The leaf began to seem to me a possible remedy. Perhaps even a cure.

“The King has long been my friend, Brown. He is a difficult, prickly, insecure man, but he is capable of enormous kindness and a touching loyalty, much like that of a child. He has elevated me beyond all expectation. We have together embarked on a great project to ally the theories and discoveries of natural philosophy with the growth in Great Britain’s power and prestige. Our great nation dominates the face of the Earth and the surface of Knowledge like no other. And I will take some credit for that, Brown. I will claim that it was
my friendship with the King and my tireless efforts to develop the Royal Society which brought Britain to this happy state. And I did not want that to end.

“So I arranged for the leaf to be brought here. And I placed you directly in harm’s way, Robert Brown. You have my apologies: as the President of the Royal Society, as a friend of the King, as a man and, I trust, as a friend.”

“Thank you, sir. Your honesty is evidence of your sincerity.”

“I feel deep and complete responsibility for your current state, Brown,” Banks says, now looking at the floor, his massive chin sunk into his swelling chest. “But I think your addiction can be either managed or overcome. We can grow the leaf, and we can give it to you as required. It is a medicinal process, nothing more. But you do not want that, do you?”

“No, Sir Joseph.”

“No. Because the addiction isn’t the problem, is it? Your current unwell state, awful as it is, is rather beside the point.”

“Yes, Sir Joseph.”

“It’s the
visions
, Brown, is it not?”

Brown nods, his throat dry, unable to speak anymore.

“My God, man, your face when you described what you saw in those dreams. You looked as a man must look when he is confronting his own death, for the final time in this world. You were
pursued
in your dreams, Brown, I think. No. I know.”

The great clock in the corner of the library makes a huge mechanical noise as it turns through the hour. Brown has long before disabled its chime, but its workings still have the capacity to disturb quiet thoughts within the library.

“We seek knowledge, you and I,” says Banks, and turns his face to look at the bookshelves as he speaks, gazing upon Britain’s intellectual harvest. “We harness the world within
observation, experiment, and description. We seek out new frontiers and we pull them into our circle of understanding. We collect, catalogue, and classify. But not everything that is can be classified, Brown. It is something enormous for a President of the Royal Society to say, but perhaps only one such as I, with access to a century and a half of secrets, can admit to the stark truth: there are more things on this earth than are dreamt of by our natural philosophy.”

Brown watches, and waits. Banks is silent for some time, and then he turns his old eyes to his librarian, who is disquieted to see the evidence of tears on the old man’s cheeks.

“You see, I think I know who was pursuing you. I think I pursued her myself, once. I think she has been looking for me.”

It is midafternoon. Abigail is once again considering whether there is any hope of eating supper with her husband today when her fears are confirmed by a knock on the front door. It will almost certainly be a message from the River Police Office, carrying the familiar news that Charles Horton will not be returning home at a normal hour and she must make do with her own company.

Contrary to the beliefs of her husband, however, making do with her own company has never been a chore for Abigail Horton. She will open another book on natural philosophy—perhaps even her recently acquired copy of Davy’s
Elements of Chemical Philosophy
, which she has been much anticipating—and while away the empty hours until her husband’s return by dreaming of the undiscovered frontiers of the natural world, where miracles occur and revelations abound. Unlike her husband, Abigail is a comfortable but firm believer in the Creator (in this, she is much more like her husband’s superior, John Harriott),
and she believes that she celebrates Him by glorying in the array of his creation.

She opens the door, and outside is a broad, dark-haired smiling man dressed in shipshape breeches and tailcoat, holding a very naval-looking hat in his hands.

“Mrs. Horton, is it?” he asks.

“It is, sir.”

“Splendid. Mrs. Horton, my name is Captain Hopkins. Of the
Solander
. Perhaps your husband has spoken of me?”

Charles had said something of the man, she believes. He seemed to like him very much.

“Why yes, Captain. Charles has mentioned you to me.”

“Splendid. Well, Mrs. Horton, I am soon to be taking off on a new adventure. New oceans, new discoveries, that sort of thing. There is a particular place I have been waiting to visit. You know what we sea captains can be like. I very much hoped to leave a small token for Mr. Horton. It has been such a pleasure conversing with him.”

“Well, how kind.” The man’s charm is palpable. Abigail has never met a sea captain before, but she thinks this man might be the very model of one.

“Not at all. May I leave my gift here for him?”

“Well, he is sure to be at the River Police Office, if you would like to . . .”

“Oh, I don’t wish to disturb him there, and besides I must be on my way. Here it is.”

And he hands over a small leather pouch. Actually, not leather; it seems to be made of something like tree bark.

“May I inquire what it is?” Abigail asks, feeling rather that this is a rude question.

“Oh, of course. It is some tea, from China. Rather beautiful tea, the best I have ever tasted. It has an extraordinarily
uplifting quality. Best taken in boiling water without any milk, I find. Quite delicious. It is a small thing, but I hope it will be taken in the spirit in which it is given.”

“Well, this is very kind.”

“Oh, it is nothing, nothing at all. And do feel free to try it yourself, should the constable be a long time returning. No doubt he is busy with some difficult case. And with that, good lady, I will be on my way. Another new world awaits this captain!”

He puts his hat on his head, gives a jaunty little salute, and walks off into the early evening. Abigail watches him go, shakes her head slightly, and goes back inside.

Nott is the key. There is something about the relationship between Nott and Hopkins which is at the heart of all this. Their stories were already intermixed, even before Horton learned from Mrs. Hopkins of the chaplain’s evening visit to Putney. With Markland closing the Ratcliffe case, pinning all the blame for the murders on the dead Jeremiah Critchley and claiming credit for a tidy case quickly dispatched, there are no other options. Finding Peter Nott has suddenly become critical: certainly, in the short term, more critical than spending an evening with a terribly neglected wife.

So Horton spends the day scouring the riverside. He tries to seek out as many of the
Solander
crew as he can, officers and seamen, in boarding rooms across Wapping, Limehouse, Ratcliffe, Rotherhithe, Deptford, and Southwark. A good number of the men have already moved on, to new adventures or old haunts, and in more than one place he is greeted by an angry landlady or landlord complaining about the absence
of due rent. He bounces around a dozen inns and alehouses, almost running between each of them, spiraling ever closer to the Police Office, where Harriott will be waiting with a keen interest in what happens next.

In the Town of Ramsgate he finds Red Angus Carrick, tucking into another plate of herring. The Scotsman is almost merry at the sight of him.

“By God, man, you look like you’ve been runnin’ all year.”

“Do you know where Peter Nott is?”

“The half-breed? No, why would I?”

“Do you know who would know?”

“Same ways, no.”

“Well then.”

Horton turns to leave, to try perhaps one more alehouse or one more lodging before surrendering to Nott’s disappearance and heading for the Police Office with empty hands, but Carrick stands and pulls him back by the arm.

“Slow down, man, slow down! I’ve questions for ye.”

Horton looks at him. Being pulled back has stilled what was a kind of mania in him. Now he feels terribly tired and terribly in need of seeing Abigail. He sits down opposite Carrick with a thundering sigh, and asks for an ale from the landlord. Carrick sits down and pushes his herring away.

“Potter and Frost,” he says. “Word is, they’re dead.”

Horton only nods, too tired to speak. Carrick sits back in his seat.

“Fucking hell.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Horton says, and his beer appears beside him. He swigs a third of it at a draft, feeling the alcohol swirl into his bloodstream, calming him and waking him and sharpening him again. Two more gulps, and the pint pot is finished, and he’s ready for Harriott.

“Do you know who did this?” asks Carrick, and Horton is reminded of a story of a Corsican vendetta he once heard from John Harriott. Carrick looks murderous.

“Aye. I believe I do.”

“Who, man? Who?”

“Soon, Carrick. Soon.”

*  *  *

It is clear, or at least the visible parts are clear. He’d found a fragment of red cloth beneath one of the beds. On his way back from Putney, he’d visited the Clapham tailor mentioned by Mrs. Hopkins, who’d confirmed that Hopkins had taken a red coat to be mended the day after the deaths. The rooms of all the dead men had been searched. The signs were there at Critchley’s room at the Pear Tree just as they had been at Sam’s, at Attlee and Arnott’s, and at Potter and Frost’s: the sea chests and bags had all been opened and ransacked. But money had been left behind.

Three of the men were found dead with smiles on their faces, implying some state of rapture, of one kind or another, on the point of death. Two others had looked terribly afraid, and though they didn’t smile their faces had also suggested a species of transport. All these five had apparently consumed something, possibly a kind of tea. It was likely they were asleep—or, more accurately, they were under the influence of whatever was in the cups—when they were killed. The odd, ruptured timescale of Attlee’s and Arnott’s murders can thus be explained. If they’d been asleep or unconscious when Nott burst in on them, and if the killer had been in the room
while Nott was there
, it was possible for the two men to have been killed after Nott left the room for the first time, and for the
killer to make his escape. Just a few slashes to the throats, that was all the butchery that the situation required. The killer must have hid beneath the bed when he heard Nott coming in, and must have caught his coat on the frame when he was down there.

Finally, Nott had a closer relationship with Hopkins than either admitted to. He had dined at Hopkins’s house, and Hopkins had visited him in Coldbath Fields immediately before his release. And Nott had written the letter that incriminated Critchley, days before the murders themselves—unless, thinks Horton, Hopkins demanded he write Critchley’s note while visiting him in Coldbath Fields.