The Candle Man (40 page)

A whistle blew outside, muted by the storeroom’s thick door. Argyll’s attention focused back on Robson. ‘No, I’m not going to kill you. But I do need you
not
to
follow me.’ He dangled the twine in front of him.

Robson eagerly presented his hands to be tied.

‘Not necessary.’ Argyll stepped forward quickly and punched the knife deep into the man’s thigh, leaving the handle protruding like a flagstaff.

Robson screamed. ‘FUCK!!!’ Looking down boggle-eyed at the wooden handle, he reached to pull it out.

‘No. You should leave it there,’ said Argyll. He stooped down and quickly wound the twine around the top of the man’s thigh. He reached for a slating peg on the storage shelf
beside him and inserted it into the loop of the twine. He twisted it several times, cinching it tight. Robson gritted his teeth with the pain.

Argyll grabbed one of the man’s shaking hands and placed it on the peg. ‘Like that, all right? You’ll need to hold it as tight as you can, for as long as you can, if you wish
to live.’

‘FUCK!!’ Robson grunted again. ‘FUCK!!’ His forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.

‘And I really wouldn’t suggest that you try getting up. You’ll open the wound and bleed out. If you stay right there, you’ll be just fine.’

Argyll turned back to the door and switched off the electric light. ‘I’ll send someone along in due course.’ He stepped outside and closed the door gently behind him.

N
ow Robson was damn well gone as well. Warrington couldn’t see any sign of the man. He’d been distracted, talking to the tart for less
than a minute, and in that time Robson seemed to have vanished into thin air! He could still see the girl though, still standing in the middle of the Great Hall next to her bag on the floor,
looking anxiously around her at the last of the passengers funnelling through past the ticket clerk.

The floor was almost empty now. Most of those who intended to get the nine o’clock train for Liverpool were now already on the train or on the departure platform saying their goodbyes.

Warrington wondered whether Robson had followed Hain into the cloakroom. Perhaps, whilst he’d been busy dealing with the tart, Robson had made his way across to help. Perhaps Hain had
actually taken the initiative and made a move and taken the man by surprise, with his trousers down, quite literally.

In which case, excellent! To hell with Rawlinson’s instructions not to approach the Candle Man. If Hain had actually managed to drop the bastard right there in the public toilets, then
Warrington was going to make sure the reckless, disobedient, son-of-a-whore Hain got a damned bonus for using his initiative.

He let go of the railings and began to hurriedly make his way down the stairs from the gallery when his eyes caught a quick scooting movement across the floor below. Mary Kelly was being hustled
by a tall dark figure towards the departure platform.

Warrington stopped dead in his tracks.

It’s Babbitt. Where the hell are . . . ?
There was no damned sign of those other two fools. Hain he’d seen disappear into the public conveniences and Robson had just
disappeared.

He watched Babbitt and the Kelly girl approach the ticket clerk, the man waving his ticket at the clerk frantically. Warrington glanced up at the clock; it was three minutes to nine.

Dammit!

Something must have happened in the toilets. Something must have gone wrong for Hain and now that slippery American bastard knew he’d been followed here to the station. All of a sudden, he
wasn’t quite so sure Hain was going to get his bonus. He wasn’t quite so sure the poor bastard was going to be doing anything anymore. He cursed under his breath. Perhaps the same fate
had befallen Robson as well.

How the hell did he manage to . . . ?

Warrington carried on down the steps until he reached the polished granite floor of the Great Hall. His eyes locked firmly onto the backs of the girl and Babbitt, proceeding more calmly now down
the departure platform.

It’s just me now.

A guard blew his whistle and the engine at the far end of the platform impatiently huffed a column of billowing steam that rose up towards the underside of the wrought iron roof and then rolled
along it, scattering pigeons that had been roosting on the spars.

‘Where were you?!’ cried Mary. ‘I was getting so worried about you!’

‘There was a god-awful long queue in the cloakroom,’ he replied. ‘Quite the wait.’

She held his hand, which felt clammy and warm. Concerned, she touched the back of her hand against his cheek. ‘You’re hot, John. And you’re shaking. What’s the
matter?’

‘I’m fine. Come along.’ He smiled. ‘We don’t want to miss our train.’

Further up the platform, he could see several guards walking through the wraiths of steam that billowed out from beneath the carriages, down the side of the train, closing the doors left open
and politely cajoling embracing sweethearts to conclude their goodbyes.

He looked through the compartment windows they passed as they made their way up the platform, seeking a compartment that was empty, or at least if not that, then not full. ‘Here . . . this
one looks good for us.’ He pulled the door open and offered Mary a hand as she stepped up into the carriage.

‘A quick thing I have to do,’ he said.

‘John?’

‘I’ll be back in just a moment.’ He handed her his satchel and, leaving the door open, he double-timed back down the platform towards the clerk. It was then that he saw a
gentleman remonstrating with the ticket clerk.

George.

‘I’m sorry, sir, if you ’aven’t got a ticket, you can’t come through!’

Warrington bared his teeth in frustration. ‘Goddammit, man, this is . . . this is police business! I need to get on that train right now!’

The clerk shrugged. ‘Well, if it’s police business, sir, then I’m going to have to ask you to identify yourself properly.’

Warrington cursed and then tried to push past the man.

‘Sir!’ The clerk grabbed hold of his arm firmly. A surprisingly strong grip for such an old man. ‘I’m sorry, sir, you can’t go through!’

‘Is this man troubling you?’

Warrington turned away from the walrus-whiskered clerk to see Babbitt standing a few feet away. He stopped struggling with the clerk immediately.

‘George!’ said Babbitt, as if greeting a long-lost cousin. ‘How are you, old chap?’

Warrington stared at him dumbfounded; a perfectly still moment between both men that seemed to last an eternity.

‘Sir,’ the clerk replied to Babbitt, ‘I can deal well enough with this customer, thank you very much! You’ll need to board the train now. It’s due to
leave.’

Argyll acknowledged him with the faintest nod, but his eyes remained on Warrington. ‘George, I’ll be leaving soon. Going home. I suggest you tell your friends that our business
together is finished now.’ He smiled. ‘It’s perfectly safe with me.’

‘The girl . . .’ Warrington glanced quickly at the clerk. ‘Let go of me, damn you!’ The clerk loosened the firm hold on his arm. He’d really much rather this
conversation wasn’t being held like this: conspicuous and overheard. There were several other guards walking down the platform to see what was going on. ‘The girl?’ he said to
Babbitt. ‘How much have you told her?’

Babbitt said nothing.

‘She knows . . . doesn’t she? She knows what you are? What you’ve done?’

‘She’s not your concern,’ Babbitt replied coolly.

‘Gentlemen, if you
please
!’ said the clerk.

‘She’s a damned liability now you’ve involved her,’ hissed Warrington. ‘You know we can’t leave it at that!’

The clerk had had enough. He turned to Babbitt. ‘Sir! If you want to take this train, you need to board it
now
! And you, sir.’ He turned to Warrington. ‘Would you mind
buggering off? This gent needs to leave. Now!’

‘We might have let you go, but not . . .’ Warrington shook his head. He wanted to say ‘but not with some young slapper who might drink a little too much one night and tell a
tale’. He didn’t need to, though. The Candle Man narrowed his eyes with a tacit understanding and the slightest nod. He took a step backwards away from the clerk and Warrington.

‘I’ll be in touch, George. Make sure you read the papers.’ He turned quickly and headed for the train, pulling open the last door of the rear-most carriage, to the
clerk’s obvious relief.

‘We’ll find you, you know!’ shouted Warrington. ‘We’ll have men watching the ships!’

Babbitt stopped. Looked back at Warrington. ‘Who said anything about ships?’ he called back. ‘Oh, George, by the way –’ he pointed toward the Great Hall –
‘caretaker’s storeroom . . . chap of yours might appreciate some help.’ He stepped up into the carriage and pulled the door closed with a slam that echoed along the platform.

Several guards’ whistles blew and finally a green flag was raised. With the distant scream of steam from the locomotive at the front, the train suddenly lurched forward, the trucks and
wheels beneath each coach chattering one after the other as the slack was taken up and the final carriage began to move away slowly.

Warrington saw Babbitt again, his head appearing out of the door’s window; eyes that he could have sworn glinted a sulphurous red within the dark orbits beneath his brow. The bastard even
managed a cheerful wave for him.

M
ary watched the stevedores and lumpers working industriously along the Waterloo Dock quayside. To the left of the quay, a row of sail and steam
ships of all sizes were lined up, smoke stacks puffing dirty columns up into the thick grey sky. A jam of handcarts and wagons filled the quay, laden with rain-dampened wooden packing crates and
canvas sacks of produce coming in from all corners of the world. To the right of the quay, a continuous wall of storage warehouses, their yawning fronts open wide, both disgorging and swallowing up
a steady convoy of top-heavy carts and weary-looking lumpers. A parade of relentless activity as far as the eye could see that put the paltry scale of the London docks to shame.

Through the tea shop window, she could hear steam whistles, the clank of heavy chains working, swinging crane arms, and the colourful language of master stevedores bellowing profanities that
would make a priest’s toes curl, as they cajoled their men to put their ‘bloody backs’ into it.

Watching it all, she felt a touch of excitement roll down her spine. It felt like that thing John did in bed: a gentle finger rolling down the bumps of her vertebrae, one after the other, like a
harpist stroking the catgut chords on his instrument.

She would have loved to have taken rooms nearer the Prince’s Landing Stage. Close enough to see the Cunard, Pacific and White Star passenger ships coming and going, the broad thoroughfare
filled with people of all classes, from all corners of the world, embarking or disembarking together. To see all the wonderful clothes of the first-class passengers; the plumes of ostrich feathers
and the fine layers of lace, the wonderfully precise cut of felt on the men’s suits. But John had convinced her it would be better picking a smaller, less obvious hotel. Quite sensible,
really.

‘Another slice of your usual cake, ma’am?’ asked the waitress.

Mary shook her head. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

The pink-faced girl all but seemed to curtsey as she backed up a step and returned to stand dutifully behind the tea shop’s counter. Mary had been into this place enough times now over the
past few weeks that they’d spoken together a little. The waitress was just a year younger than Mary and yet she treated her with complete class-based deference.

That was me a few weeks ago
, Mary mused.

No, perhaps she was flattering herself. It wasn’t. In the stratified bands of social class that existed in the East End, being a ‘seamstress’ – a codified way of
admitting she
occasionally
took men for money – meant she would have been dipping her head deferentially even to a shop girl.