The Poisoned Island (33 page)

Nott continues into Leather Lane, Horton close behind. There is a growing sense of the metropolis here, of buildings clustering together, of noise and crowds and an intensity which was missing in Clerkenwell. Up ahead streams the great thoroughfare of Holborn, but to get there they must walk the entire length of Leather Lane, past George Yard and then past the biggest institution they have seen since they left Coldbath Fields: Furnival’s Inn, the ancient Inn of Chancery. The Inn’s massive buildings stretch back from Holborn to Greville Street, enclosing a space that resembles the prison from which Nott has just been released, even down to the tidy little gardens and fields inside. This particular prison, though, contains clerks and solicitors, not thieves and murderers, and they are chained to depositions and not walls. Thomas More himself had learned the law within Furnival’s, and did he but know it there is something of More in the starchy and prissy missionary’s son who now walks beneath the walls of the Inn. Nott hurries past, head down, as if trying to hide from the eyes of the lawyers and their students watching him from above.

Now they reach the wide stream of Holborn, the thoroughfare of lawyers which connects London with Westminster. A stream of carriages and people pours in and out of the City, to and from Westminster, racing eastwards down the hill to the culverted Fleet or back up the hill towards the theaters,
salons, and shops of the West End. And here Nott stops, as if in awe of what he is seeing, and Horton stops with him, seeing the thin little black-garbed figure halted before a tide that sweeps across him, a visiting Moses struggling with the immensity of the Red Sea. Moses was a foundling, it occurs to Horton. Perhaps Nott is one, too.

Nott walks in a small circle for a while, as if afraid to plunge into the waters of traffic, but in fact he is just bouncing off passersby, trying to get one of them to stop and tell him which way to go: south to the river, east to the City, or west to Westminster. Horton itches to see the address written on the envelope Nott is holding, the destination towards which he travels.

Finally, a shabby-looking fat man relents to Nott’s pleading and listens to his question. Again, the gesturing and the pointing to the envelope. Again, the finger indicating the direction. And then Nott is off again, turning right onto Holborn. Westminster it is, then.

Following now becomes particularly hard. Anyone walking along Holborn has to share the street with the dozens of carriages and post chaises which jostle each other, seeking a quick way through the crowds. Horses whinny and stamp, their heads knocking into the rears of the vehicles in front of them, while drivers hurl cheerful insults to each other. All the while, people of every description swirl around the carriages, in between them, in front of them, behind them, in a lethal dance, and all simply to get to the other side of the road. In this madness, Nott seems for a while to be frozen with fear, taking only a few steps in and out, being pushed and sworn at by others more familiar with the rhythms of the insane thoroughfare. Finally he begins to move more steadily, making his way west. They squeeze through the point where the
road is partly blocked by an island of buildings in front of Staple’s Inn, and from here the going is easier, as the road is narrower and forces the carriages to move more slowly and take more care. Gray’s Inn goes by on their right-hand side, and then the buildings which ring Lincoln’s Inn appear to their left. They ride the stream through this valley of the law, suspended between the City and Westminster, a machine of equity and tort which processes lords, bishops, merchants, and industrialists alike.

Soon after passing Lincoln’s Inn, Nott stops again, and again those walking beside and behind him visibly curse him for interrupting their flow. But he is busy comparing the address on his envelope with the sign on the little street off to the left. He turns into it, and Horton follows: Little Queen Street, a narrow place with poor-looking dwellings on either side which, Horton believes, are certainly boardinghouses of some kind, no doubt accommodating students of the law and clerks from the great Inns.

At the end of Little Queen Street, Nott turns right into Great Queen Street. Suddenly a more prosperous type of metropolis leaps into view, a place of some refinement, elegance, and wealth. Great white Palladian villas line both sides of the street, and clean steps lead up from the pavement to solid black front doors festooned with as much brass as a fighting brig. Nott walks down this row of houses and stops in front of one about halfway down. Horton crosses the street, anticipating Nott going in. There is a neat little coffeehouse almost opposite the door Nott has chosen, and he plans to take a seat and wait to see what happens.

Nott knocks on the door, which after a moment or two is opened by a servant who is barely visible from Horton’s viewpoint. Nott speaks to the man for some time, growing
increasingly pleading and showing the letter he has carried all the way from Coldbath Fields. Eventually the servant must relent, because Nott is let in. A minute or two later, the servant appears at the door and walks down to the street, hailing a ticket porter and giving him a note, presumably to be taken to the absent master of the house with news of the visitor. The porter, a neat youth with shiny shoes and an eager demeanor, races off down the street towards Drury Lane and Bow Street.

Horton orders himself a coffee and settles down at a table in the window of the coffee house. If following is something he has had to teach himself to do, waiting is something that comes naturally. There has been a good deal of waiting in Charles Horton’s life, and it is something he does very well indeed. A pot of coffee, a cup, a milk jug, and a sugar bowl are deposited on his table, and he pours the coffee and adds several spoonfuls of sugar and no milk. The street outside is busy, but its aristocratic air, a haven from the fierce battles of Holborn to the north, gives it a refinement and a kind of peace which is entirely absent from the City. The smell of the West End is strong in the air, a fresh smell of money and manners. The coffee is potent, and his eyes widen a little at the first swallow, the liquid hitting his stomach and his brain almost at the same time with that familiar broadening of awareness. He thinks about the current investigation, and then forces himself
not
to think, pushing back the connections and hypotheticals and conjectures into the dark back corners of his brain, allowing them to continue mixing and fermenting, determined not to let them out into the light before they are ready. He worries, of course: about Abigail and about Jeremiah Critchley, who is still out there in the metropolis. How does he fit in? Was it indeed him in Ratcliffe?

He waits for an hour, consuming three more cups of sweet coffee, so that his hands are shaking and the unusual vessel of his imagination is rambling gleefully all over the six deaths and those faces. Ransome, Attlee, and Arnott had been smiling terrible smiles on their deathbeds, but the men in Ratcliffe were different. Their faces were full of fear. He is thinking so hard on this that he almost misses the arrival of the master of the house, who appears at the western end of Great Queen Street and walks up to the house and then up the stairs and into the door, magnificent in a bright-blue tailcoat, white breeches, and elegant hat.

It is Aaron Graham.

It is to Aaron Graham’s immense credit that he makes his way with such speed to John Harriott’s office in Wapping. He can have been in no doubt about the flavor of the reception. When he is shown into Harriott’s office it is like being introduced to a typhoon. Harriott’s unspoken resentment towards Graham has been building like water in a mine and now comes out in a crashing wave. The revelation that the Otaheite missionary—if such he is—has been attempting to correspond with Bow Street feels like a final confirmation that Graham’s interests do not coincide with Harriott’s. The older man believes that, once again, he has been manipulated, and this takes his rage beyond the bounds of decent manners.

Graham, for his part, is embarrassed beyond words by the situation and spends much of the immediate minutes after his arrival apologizing with rehearsed precision, rolling out assurances and conciliation like golden gifts to an angry god.
Horton had preceded Graham to Wapping, bearing the news of Nott’s visit to Great Queen Street. Now he watches the two men reduce themselves to their essences: Harriott’s rage against Graham’s balm. For a while he wonders if he might be seeing the very end of their friendship, and he finds himself wondering if such an outcome would upset him. He rather thinks it would not. He remembers Graham’s visit to his own apartments during the Ratcliffe Highway investigation, and his helpless anger at Graham’s machinations. Harriott’s rage today feels something like justice.

Eventually, though, Graham’s immense charm begins to work its way through the Harriott cataclysm. Horton reminds himself that rage will always wear itself out. Better to let it break its waves upon you than seek to shout back at it. He can see Graham following this strategy, and thinks how much he could learn from this shameless diplomat, if he cared to do so. Harriott sits down eventually with a final resigned yelp of disenchantment. His rage has been such that even the uselessness of his lame leg has been ignored. Graham prepares to exploit the moment.

“Harriott, please, allow me to explain.”

“I have no interest in your explanations, Graham. If they are of the same flavor as your usual excuses and flattery, they will be both pretty and unbelievable.”

Graham looks like he might become angry himself at that, but stops himself. Horton can see him do it—can see the lips tighten, the eyes narrow, and then the sigh which accompanies his resignation and acceptance.

“Please, Harriott, please. Let us not say something we come to regret.”

“I regret a great many things, Graham. Not least the friendship of a man who seems to take me for either a fool or
a mere instrument of his own ends. I have nothing I need to hear from you.”

“You must listen to what Nott has told me.”

“Why?”

“Because it will explain what he wishes to speak to me about. And it will exonerate me of any of the suspicions you lay at my door. Please, John, allow yourself the chance to find the truth of the matter. Your anger has an incandescent quality which may burn out more than you wish.”

“I am tired of this, Graham. I had hoped to discuss my conversation with Sir Joseph with you, but now I fear I may not trust you with any thoughts I had from it.”

“You become too hot again, John. You became somewhat too hot when conversing with Sir Joseph, as I recall.”

“Well, Graham, we do not all possess your bottomless wells of patience and—what is it the French say—
sangfroid
. Ah yes. Cold blood. I do believe your blood is pretty cool.”

“And I do believe your own blood could benefit from a drop in temperature.”

“Oh, well, say what you will. Horton will listen to you. I am done with you.”

And with that Harriott swivels his chair away to the window. Graham looks appalled at this. For once, the Bow Street magistrate is lost for words. He looks at the back of Harriott’s chair for a moment, then looks at Horton. It is a measuring look, and Horton sees that despite everything Graham remains calm and alert. Once again Horton reminds himself not to underestimate this fellow, who hides his enormous ability beneath a fashionable carapace of elegance and wit.

“Well then, gentlemen. Here it is. Peter Nott has approached me in an unexpected capacity. You know, Harriott, and you may know too, Constable, how I once acted as an
advisor to a man accused of being a mutineer on the
Bounty
. A man called Peter Heywood.”

At that, Harriott’s chair turns round again to face Graham. He says nothing, but stares intently at the other man as he continues to speak. Graham’s words are so unexpected that they beg to be heeded. Heywood is a name which was rarely out of the newspapers twenty years before. Even Horton, then a mere adolescent, is shaken by the name. Graham continues.

“Heywood was a young officer, barely a boy, on the
Bounty
, and claimed that he had not intended to throw in his lot with the mutineers led by the blackguard Fletcher Christian. He was seized from Otaheite by the
Pandora
in 1791, and brought back to England for trial. I had some acquaintance with his family, and they asked me to help prepare his defense, which I agreed to. The defense was partially successful. Peter was found guilty but thrown onto the King’s mercy. He was pardoned, and returned to the Navy, where he has rebuilt his career with a good degree of success.”

“All this we know, Graham,” says Harriott, and his tone is softer now. “All this every Englishman knows.”

“Indeed. But you do not know this. Peter Nott, you see, claims that Peter Heywood is his father.”

No one says anything to that.