The Devil's Acre (27 page)

There was the sound of chairs being knocked over as men grappled with one another. Caroline glanced behind her; the tumbledown alleyway was empty but for a few shambling drunks, their shoulders hunched in the cold.

‘You’ll do no such thing!’ This was Martin. ‘We’ve got to stay put!’

‘If they make to attack Catholic Irish, I bleedin’ will, I tell you!’

‘Think for a moment, Pat. If you fire off a Colt revolver in the Acre tonight, the Yankees’ll be sure to hear of it afore the morrow. They’ll seal up their factory tighter than the bleedin’ quod. Caro won’t be able to lift any more guns. And then where will Molly’s scheme be, eh?’

Caroline’s brow furrowed. What was this – who was Molly, and what did the stolen guns have to do with her? In fact, why did the Irishmen still have the Colts at all? Why had they not already passed them on to their creditor? She moved closer to the window.

‘What in blazes would you know about
Molly’s scheme,
Martin Rea?’ Slattery replied with biting scorn. ‘It ain’t your concern no longer. You just need to make sure we get our bleedin’ guns.’

This brought forth a growl of agreement from the rest of those gathered in the Lamb. Martin had been beaten down. Caroline was taken aback by the contempt in their voices. Some kind of quarrel had plainly taken place – a serious one.

‘We’ve waited too long now,’ Slattery continued. ‘It was going so damn well, and now nothing. What’s the reason for this delay? Why has that Saxon bitch grown so bleedin’ slow?’

‘Trouble at the works,’ Martin replied. ‘Spies and so forth. She’ll come through. You can’t expect her to –’

‘I saw him t’other day, ye know,’ Slattery interrupted, his anger reaching a new ferocity. ‘I bleedin’ well
saw him,
Lord John Russell, the shrivelled little
cunt,
hobbling into that
stinking Parliament like a little hunchback. I saw the man that passed a death sentence on Catholic Ireland and thought nothing of it at all. He has to die, my brothers. He has to die, and soon. We’ll get our guns, our holy dozen, and we’ll end him on the steps of that Parliament o’ theirs. For our lost ones, for Molly Maguire, we’ll bleedin’ well
end him.’

Caroline sat down on the stoop, her head falling into her hands, staring disbelievingly at the ground. What a miserable fool she was. She’d swallowed that lying story about the debt almost without question. Those Irishmen in there were planning a bloody
murder,
and someone important from the sound of it. This was an entirely different order of wrongdoing. If she was captured and connected with them, identified as someone who’d aided them, she could go to the gallows. She didn’t give any consideration to their motives. The crazed talk of Catholic Ireland, their ‘lost ones’, and this woman Molly Maguire meant nothing to her. All that mattered now was finding her sister and niece and making good their escape before Walter Noone arrived with the police.

Without Martin, however, it was impossible. Shortly after Michael’s death he’d taken his wife and daughter out of Crocodile Court in order to escape an official quarantine imposed on account of the cholera. Caroline had welcomed this at first, but soon came to realise that he did not plan to settle them anywhere else. They went from room to room, all over London, staying nowhere for more than a couple of weeks. The sisters would only see each other when Amy called at Caroline’s boarding house. She’d thought this strange, perhaps another manifestation of Martin’s grief – although now she understood that it was rather the behaviour of a man preparing to make a quick, clean break. Right then, at any rate, she had not the faintest idea where Amy and Katie might be.

A deadening numbness began to spread through her. In a single dreadful hour she’d lost everything. Those she’d been in league with had revealed themselves to be villains of the most deceitful kind, plotting murder with guns she’d got for them – and one of their number stood between her and all that remained of her family. She was surely
being hunted by Colonel Colt’s men, and could never again return to her home or her place of employment without falling into their hands. Her few possessions, including her clothes and spare pair of boots, were gone for good. She had no money, and no friends who she could trust not to fetch the police on her when they learnt what she’d been doing.

An unexpected sob surged up Caroline’s throat, bursting loudly through her lips like a sneeze. There was movement inside the Lamb, and a moment later a bolt drew back. She took to her heels at once, running as fast as she could, making it to the end of the alley before the door opened. A man shouted her name, Jack Coffee it sounded like, begging her to stop. She didn’t care; lifting the front of her skirts, she headed off into the Acre.

There was one last person she could try.

Keeping to the shadows of Bessborough Place, Caroline made a hasty survey of the Colt works. It felt odd to look upon the deserted yard, a place so familiar to her, that she would surely never set foot in again. The factory still seemed to be running, despite the lack of operatives. Lights were burning in the engine room and some of the upper windows. This was a good sign; the person she sought might well be inside, attending to the Colonel. Questions continued to itch away at her, however, like so many angry flea bites. What if he wasn’t in there? What if she waited and waited for nothing? Or if he left with Colt, on his way to some fancy gathering – would she then give chase, and pursue them into Belgravia or Mayfair, trailing behind that glaring yellow carriage in the stupid hope of somehow catching the secretary’s eye?

Caroline had no answers. Her situation had the simplicity of absolute desperation. The choice was this or a leap from the nearest bridge. She made for Ponsonby Street, intending to hide herself among the mismatched huts and outbuildings that were scattered along the wharf, from where she’d be able to keep a close watch on the factory door.

Mr Lowry was standing opposite the Spread Eagle, just
thirty yards down the riverbank. She stopped dead, dazed for a moment by her good fortune. It looked as if he’d been there for some time, maintaining a vigil outside the tavern, and was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice her approach. She took his coat cuff between thumb and forefinger and gave it a tug.

He turned with alarming abruptness, lifting a hand as if to shove her away. Sight of her stopped him at once. ‘Miss Knox, thank God!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are in trouble, I fear – terrible trouble!’

Glancing around them, Mr Lowry steered Caroline away from the merry windows of the Spread Eagle, down the side of a wooden rope-shed. ‘I am certain that Walter Noone is after your brother-in-law,’ he said urgently. ‘He will surely be coming for you as well before very long.’

There was a new disquiet in the secretary; his light-hearted charm was quite gone, as if fine varnish had been stripped away to expose the raw wood beneath. She’d been preparing a full confession, and was ready to tell him about the guns in the cellar, the Irishmen’s murderous plot – how she’d been lied to, manipulated, and made to give him up. This had to happen, she’d thought, if she was to have a chance of regaining his trust.

Mr Lowry wouldn’t hear it, though, cutting in before she’d said half a dozen words. ‘There’s simply no time for this. We have to get you away from here as quickly as possible, or you will be caught.’

Caroline leaned back heavily against the side of the shed, realising all of a sudden how very tired she was. ‘Do you have any notion of what I’ve done, Mr Lowry?’

His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I saw you in the Westminster rookery with those Irishmen. I’d say you were stealing.’

She stared at him. He’d known since the summer – for months. ‘Why – why didn’t you tell anyone, then? Any of the Yankees?’

‘It was plain to me that you were involved against your will.’ Mr Lowry looked away from her, a little embarrassed. ‘I – I suppose I wanted to find a way to untangle you from Rea and his accomplices – to rescue you before Noone
found out. But I was too slow, too hesitant. And now it’s too late.’ He sighed ruefully. ‘I’ve been trying to get away from the Colonel all day to deliver a warning to you. I considered going to your lodgings at Millbank, but it seemed too likely that Noone would have someone posted there. Waiting outside this inn was all I could think to do, in the slight hope that you still visited it. And here you are, thank the Lord.’

A blush rose in Caroline’s cheeks as she listened to this; she felt herself smiling even as new tears stung her eyes. This man alone had placed her before everything else, before his own concerns even, despite the cruel treatment he had received from her – and for which he still had yet to receive a proper explanation. Amid all the trickery and treachery, it seemed that she had stumbled undeservedly across a true friend.

‘Oh, they lied to me, Mr Lowry,’ she said, starting to weep, ‘how they
lied
to me. They used my sister against me, and her children…’

‘Miss Knox, I promise that I will hear all of this later, gladly, but we must leave. If you are willing, I propose that you come back to my rooms in Holborn.’ He hesitated. ‘I would never normally suggest such a thing, of course, but I don’t believe that Noone would think to look for you there. My building is a busy one, and large – no one will pay you any mind. And first thing in the morning I will withdraw a sum of money from my bank, enough to take you from this city and set you up elsewhere.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re being very good to me, Mr Lowry, but I can’t possibly think of leaving London without my sister and her daughter. They are caught up in this too. I don’t know where they might be. I must find them and take them with me.’

The secretary consulted his watch in the light from the Spread Eagle’s windows. ‘Very well, Miss Knox, but we must leave now. The last eastbound boat will be docking shortly. We will locate them tomorrow, I promise you, but we must go.’

He held out a hand and together they went back out onto Ponsonby Street, hurrying along the riverside road to Pimlico
Pier. Caroline heard the clanging of a bell out on the water, and the thrashing of paddle-wheels; a small passenger steamer was pulling in, sounding its bell, two blue signal lights blazing and smoking upon its prow. The gates opened and a handful of passengers walked across the raised wooden platform to the boat’s gangplank. Mr Lowry bought their tickets at the booth; she kept herself out of sight as best she could.

They stood in the centre of the vessel, next to the chugging chimney block. Gratefully, Caroline closed her eyes. The steamer rocked beneath her feet as it nosed back out into the main current of the river, and a bank of freezing winter wind swept across the deck. Soon afterwards the sounds of the boat and the curt exchanges of its sailors gained a dull, metallic echo; they were passing beneath the iron arches of Vauxhall Bridge, leaving the Colt works behind them as they headed steadily downriver. For now, at least, she was safe. She tightened her grip on Mr Lowry’s hand, feeling the warmth of his palm through his calfskin glove. He turned slightly, protecting her from the wind; she laid her face softly against his upper arm, her tears soaking into the sleeve of his coat.

Martin and Jack returned to the Lamb. Slattery and the others were on the stoop, smoking their pipes. Their numbers had grown, Slattery having gathered in a couple of new recruits from the huge reserve of aggrieved Irishmen living in the Acre. Martin hadn’t learnt their names and didn’t care to. He knew very well that they’d been taken on to replace him.

‘Well?’ Slattery demanded as they approached. ‘Who was it?’

‘Me sister-in-law, I think,’ Martin replied. ‘Hard to see, though. She was gone by the time we reached the alley’s end. We hunted about a bit, but there’s just too many out tonight.’

‘It were Caro,’ asserted Jack, ‘for certain. Saw her with me own eyes, so I did.’

‘Oh, you
saw
her, did you, Jack Coffee,’ Slattery sneered, ‘you who makes his pennies smashing bleedin’ murphies against his bonce all evening long! Was it the Virgin Mary Herself came down from Heaven and pointed the girl out to you, Jack? Or just a couple o’ the bleedin’ angels?’

Jack’s performances at Rosie McGehan’s theatre had become a sore point between the Mollys. Several of them, Slattery included, had recently got six months’ navvy work on the Parliament site, as part of a push to finish off the great entrance tower at the southern end. Slattery was well pleased by this, believing that it would allow them to get familiar with both the layout of the building and the details
of Lord John’s routine – and thus deduce the best time and place to strike at him. Toiling away in the cold rain to run up the palace of their tyrants was a price worth paying, in Slattery’s view, for such knowledge. He wanted to get as many of them on the site as possible; but Jack, wedded to the boards it seemed, had so far resisted, earning him frequent jibes and gestures of contempt.

‘She’ll have heard about the plan for Russell,’ Martin said through the laughter. ‘This could prove a problem, Pat.’

‘I don’t for the life o’ me see why.’

‘She’ll stop helping us. She was doing it for Amy. She won’t want any part of the scheme for Lord John.’

Slattery wasn’t worried. ‘Ah, the Saxon bitch is ours, Martin, and for as long as we bleedin’ want her. What she’s done already would damn her in the eyes o’ the law, and she knows it. And if she does try to buck the bridle, well, we’ll just have to think up a way to hush her back down.’

There was more laughter from the gang standing around him. Martin understood his meaning clearly enough. If Caroline had stolen from Colt to save Amy from an imaginary threat, she could surely be made to keep at it to save her from a real one – one that Pat Slattery would have no qualms about supplying.

‘If yous so much as think about hurting me family,’ he stated simply, ‘I’ll knock yous stone bleedin’ dead.’

This only increased their mirth. ‘Would you now?’ Slattery hooted. ‘Would you indeed? Well, it’s good to know that there are still some things that put some blood in your pizzle, Martin! Shame that Molly’s justice ain’t bleedin’ one of them, eh?’

Martin moved towards him. ‘I mean it.’

Slattery took a drag on his pipe, squinting nastily in the dark lane. ‘How can you turn away from your people, Martin Rea? How the devil is it done?’ He blew out his smoke. ‘I lost less than you in the Hunger, for certain I did, but I would sooner cut off me bleedin’ hand than lie down in the manner that you have.’

This exchange would have ended with them fighting in the
mud had a great cheer, hundreds upon hundreds of voices, not rolled across the rookery from the direction of Parliament, rattling windows with its tremendous volume. It was the type of rousing shout usually stirred up by some singular public spectacle – the appearance of a monarch or a murderer’s final drop from the Newgate scaffold.

‘Proddies have reached the Abbey,’ Thady said. ‘They’ll have got that bleedin’ fire going, Pat.’

Slattery backed away from Martin, knocking out his pipe-bowl and starting from the alley. ‘Best get over there double-quick, then. Wouldn’t want to miss the caper, brothers, now would we?’

At first, Martin stayed put. Jack asked if he was coming and he shook his head. He was no longer one of them; that had been made clear enough. Let them wage their impossible battles without his help. He would return to the room in Soho where he’d lodged his wife and child and consider what to do next. But then, in the light of a gas jet out on St Anne’s Street, he noticed that Slattery was carrying himself strangely. Something heavy was concealed beneath his black fustian coat, weighing his wiry frame down on one side. It had to be a revolver. Owen had brought one to the Lamb that evening so that they could all practise loading it – Slattery must have taken the thing from the tavern while Martin and Jack had been chasing after Caroline. Martin swore; there was no telling what the hot-headed fool might end up doing with it. This could make things far worse than they were already. He had to get that pistol back.

The Acre was in uproar, its residents now under steady attack as restless mobs that had splintered from the parade moving along the riverbank came over to confront their Catholic foe. Martin shoved his way through brawls and beatings, ducking volleys of stones, mud-pies and random rubbish. Furious insults were being hurled back and forth; women screamed and spat from windows, and struck out at any who came close. He just managed to keep sight of Slattery and the rest. They were avoiding the worst of the fighting, striding across Orchard Street and past the tall, solid walls
that separated the fringes of the rookery from the precincts of Westminster Abbey.

Martin pursued the Mollys out onto the open expanse of Broad Sanctuary, past the Abbey’s pale, soot-streaked towers and blackened stained glass. The enmity of the Acre was left behind as entirely as its cramped, winding lanes – as if it had been another world or a particularly shallow region of hell. Everyone here was concerned only with advancing down Broad Sanctuary to the square at its end. Martin could hear the rumbling chatter of a very large crowd, and the smell of smoke was growing stronger. He came to the church of St Margaret’s, as chalky and ancient-looking as the Abbey but only a fraction of its size, standing next to its vast neighbour like a calf beside its mother. Just past it, around the corner of its façade, was a sight that made him promptly forget the Colt hidden beneath Pat Slattery’s coat.

In the centre of the square, upon a rectangle of muddy grass, was the bonfire, a two-storey pyramid constructed from numberless branches, planks and beams. Atop it was a crown of flame, already leaping six yards high. People were packed in close to this inferno, as if seeking to toast themselves before it. A few among them were darting in closer still, to toss on more fuel or to poke bravely at its glowing heart; and then they were rushing back away again, alarmed by sudden pops of combustion or the crash of a collapsing branch. Around this blaze had sprung up a bustling winter fair, generously furnished with stalls, street performers and musicians, and the odours of roasting and frying mingled with the wood-smoke. The mighty bonfire, a multitude of torches, lanterns and spitting, flare-like fireworks, and several lines of smart iron street lamps all combined to make the square seem like the most brightly lit spot in the whole of London. Were it not for the chill of November and the scattering of dim stars overhead, Martin thought, you could almost pretend that you stood in some cavernous assembly hall rather than the open air.

The crowd was typically metropolitan in its make-up. Martin saw red infantry jackets, trailing whores like gulls behind a fishing boat; a crew of bemused Lascar sailors
who’d found their way over from the docks of Limehouse; a clean-collared, well-supervised crocodile from a respectable boarding school being harassed by grubby street children; numerous rowdy, well-oiled parties from every kind of office, shop and factory; and the standard smattering of rascals and adventurers, trying out their tricks on the scores milling around them. Advertising placards nailed to poles stuck up above the hats, bonnets and caps like so many sails on a lake, announcing the usual amazing exhibitions, affordable guest houses and quality goods. One caught Martin’s attention; it was light blue, about five feet by three, with a tolerably accurate drawing of a single-action revolver at its top. Beneath this, in large, plain letters, was painted
Colonel Colt’s Repeating Pistols of British Manufacture – Beware Counterfeits and Patent Infringements!
There was a paragraph in smaller print trumpeting the virtues of Colt’s revolver and providing the address both of the works by the river and the sales office in Cockspur Street. And under that was a sketch of some horsemen, American cavalry Martin guessed, routing a band of Indian braves, the ground around them carpeted with the dead.

Remembering his purpose, Martin wheeled about, hunting for Slattery. He was easily found; the Mollys were locked in discussion with another, far larger gang, Irish navvies it looked like, over by the white wall of St Margaret’s. Their faces were grim; they were not there to celebrate. All of them started along the side of the church, in the direction of the river. Something was going to happen. Martin followed as quickly as he could, barging through a game of dice. Before him now was the sturdy fence of the Parliament site, lined with blue-coated policemen. He could see the roofs of the small hamlet of temporary wooden structures that clustered around the base of the building; and beyond them, receding into shadow, the unfinished palace itself. Much of the crazy, eye-crossing decoration was lost to the gloom, leaving only the impression of a tight grid of stone spanning its immense surface – and those narrow windows, more than he could possibly count, each one reflecting an orange shard of firelight. At the northern end was the hollow stump of
what would one day be the clock tower, already over a hundred feet tall, with a lifting engine squatting atop it like an iron spider crawling from a drainpipe.

Martin was drawing close to the Mollys and their friends when a clamour of enthusiasm spread across the entire square. The figure of the Guy, the thwarted Catholic revolutionary still so hated by these Protestants, appeared from the direction of Millbank, and was borne past the new Parliament to a deafening chorus of jeers. A chant started over at the mouth of the Old Palace Yard and was soon taken up by all:
Guy, Guy, Guy, poke him in the eye, put him on the bonfire and there let him die!

‘Steady, now, brothers,’ Slattery was saying, ‘steady…’

The Guy had a long boat-hook inserted under each of his arms and was lifted high into the air, at which the chanting grew louder and faster; slowly, he floated over the crowd to his pyre and was balanced at its summit. The flames claimed him at once, wrapping around him ravenously. Two minutes later Guy Fawkes was all but gone.

‘The Holy Father!’ someone yelled – was it Slattery? ‘They’re going to
burn the Holy Father!’

There was a great push forward, causing many to fall; Martin staggered, losing his balance. As he struggled to recover, he glimpsed a hideous, grinning model of the Pope, coming into the square from the same direction as the Guy. Pulling himself upright, he stared over disbelievingly at this horrible and deliberate slur upon his religion – the dearly held religion of his parents and sisters. Irish hands were already pulling at its gown, making it slump to one side and the striped hat topple from its head. Martin felt the cheerful mood of the people around him darken swiftly at this disruption of their festivities. A ring of determined defenders closed around the fake Pope, heaving back the press of Irishmen, set on preserving him for the bonfire. Blows were traded; women shrieked; large numbers both fled the brawl and hurried towards it.

Standing in the midst of it all, Martin experienced something unforeseen: a bright flash of exhilaration. He wanted to be there. Pitching in eagerly, he made for the Pope, thinking
that he would see this insult to his people ground into the dirt, along with any who tried to stop him. For the first time in many days he heard the voice of Molly Maguire, hoarse with passion, urging him on; he could feel her hovering above the swell of bodies like a tattered kite, guiding him with her gaze. To his left, Thady Rourke went down, a man clinging to his back. Martin was at his side in seconds, kicking off his attacker. Then he was back at the Pope, a stout stick in his hands, swiping at the kneecaps of one of its bearers. This did the job – down came that revolting form, falling into a jumble of stuffed sacks and outsized autumn vegetables. Molly was chuckling happily, a sound like a handful of rusty tacks jangling together in a jar; Martin looked around, grinning, wanting to share his victory. Through the struggling, swearing crowd he caught sight of Pat Slattery, sprawled awkwardly in the mud. His face was smeared with blood, his black coat all but torn from his back. Molly’s mirth stopped dead. Sensing disaster, Martin ran straight over and started helping him to his feet.

Jack was there too, a moment later. ‘Knew you’d come wi’ us, Mart,’ he muttered. ‘Knew it.’

They got Slattery to the high pavement next to St Margaret’s. His nose had been broken again, and badly. Jack peeled back his bloody shirt; someone had stamped on his shoulder so hard that the curve of a boot-heel had been cut into his flesh.

‘The gun,’ he panted. ‘They swiped it.’

Martin looked at Jack. ‘Who, Pat? Did ye see?’

Slattery shook his head, angry and ashamed; he didn’t want to say. ‘Whipped it from under me coat, he did, easy as ye damn well please. The cunt
thanked
me for it afore he lammed into me – can you believe that?’ He tried to touch his burst, crooked nose but the pain was too much; he tore the hand away in disgust. ‘Damn it all, he was a bleedin’ Yankee!’

It had been Noone. There could be no doubt of it. The method was his: the careful selection of the moment, the sudden, violent action, the deliberate sowing of fear and confusion
among his stunned victims. Martin had been certain that those tales of massacre and child-killing that Noone had spun at the Yankee dinner had been both an attempt to rattle him and a clear signal that the watchman was preparing to strike. He’d tried to warn Slattery about this in the Lamb, but he hadn’t wanted to hear it.