The Poisoned Island (7 page)

The courtly ladies remember themselves first, and one—a young, tall, stunning redhead whose décolletage had been the most wondrous thing about the morning, prior to the arrival of the barges—exclaims: “Sir Joseph, England is enchanted by this gift!” And with that, all of those on the jetty compete with each other to craft the most memorable aphorism.

The President recovers his famous bonhomie, which persists in the galloping face of the gout that has consumed his frame this last decade. He turns away from the miraculous barges and towards the crowd behind him, which for a moment stops competing with itself and waits to hear what he has to say.

“Gentlemen! And ladies! In the name of the King, whose condition I regret but in whom I will always place my loyalty and my friendship, I give you—the cargo of the
Solander
!”

After several more acclamations, the crowd moves away from the jetty and towards a marquee that has been placed on the lawn in front of the Dutch House for a celebratory luncheon, leaving the lightermen to unload the precious cargo from the barges, under the watchful eyes of Banks, Brown,
and Hopkins. The plants are carried, one by one, into the Gardens, where a team of gardeners and botanists are waiting to catalogue them and prepare for their planting, either in the grounds of the Gardens or in the enormous hothouse, the Great Stove.

Brown can see the true fire of excitement in the old fat face of Sir Joseph Banks. That riveted greed in the eyes, that expulsion of all external elements in the cause of
investigation
—it is plain to the librarian that Banks is being transported as the plants are carried from the barge into the Gardens. Occasionally, the older man will rattle off a little fragment of Latin, presumably naming the plants to himself as they appear. This is a feat beyond even Robert Brown, whose knowledge of botany is as broad as anyone’s; for the past year Brown has been responsible for Banks’s library and herbarium, which records the old man’s unquenchable collecting. These new plants are profoundly exotic, the products of a strange, alien island in the middle of a great ocean, which have only survived the journey to England thanks to techniques pioneered by Banks himself.

Before long, Captain Hopkins takes his leave, saying he has business in town that cannot wait. Banks is back in his wheelchair, exhausted by his efforts, and the botanists bring him individual plants in their heavy wooden pots for him to investigate, like wise men presenting gifts to a prince. Banks observes each one, closely, and mutters in his occasional Latin, before passing it back and advising where it should be planted. Brown finds himself wondering whether Banks can remember these plants from his own visit to Otaheite. Can it be that he has carried the image of them in his head these past forty years?

Brown picks up one of the smaller pots, containing a
sapling with no more than a dozen small, bright-green oval leaves. He recognizes it immediately: breadfruit, the strange treasure of Otaheite which, even now, is growing with impertinent relish in Jamaica to feed the slaves who still work there. It is such a commonplace thing, in fact, that he almost hands it straight to one of the attending botanists, who will know without any advice from him how to deal with it. But Banks barks at him, and Brown hands the sapling to him instead.

It is about ten inches tall. The pot it sits in is light, the soil having dried out quickly despite the obvious care taken by the
Solander
’s crew to maintain it. Banks snaps his fingers at one of the gardeners, who brings a small watering can, and Banks slowly dampens the soil, with the infinite care of a mother washing a baby’s face. Brown imagines he can see the little sapling actually grow a little straighter, two or three of its leaves almost touching the face of the President, before telling himself he has been spending too much time alongside fanciful fools and the women of court.

This odd scene is broken by the crashing sound of a carriage approaching, at speed, from the gate at Kew Green. The sun sparkles on the gold inlay and the brocade at the windows of the carriage, and on the exotic costumes of the attendants. The noise and the exoticism of the carriage cause even Banks to look up, and then his eyes darken as he realizes who is about to arrive. His botanic enthusiasm is, for now, switched off. Banks stands up from his chair, still holding the pot with the sapling in it, as if it held some kind of totemic force.

The glorious carriage comes to a stop on the grass itself, gouging heavy ruts into its immaculate green surface, and several attendants climb down. Steps are placed, doors are opened, and a succession of increasingly expensively dressed men and women begin to climb out of the obviously cavernous
interior. Eventually two men step out and aid an enormous beau down the elegant steps (which, Brown notices in passing, have been reinforced with carefully contrived struts and beams). The man is dressed with insane magnificence, as if fashion had been taken to a point of theatrical satire. The Prince appears like some globular sartorial moon, his powdered wig sending up little clouds of dust into the golden air. He is handed a stick and then, with the small crowd of noble men and women following him, he totters across the grass towards Banks and Brown, who bow deeply.

“Your Royal Highness,” growls Banks, looking down at the grass, so that his expression is impossible to read. “Your presence is as welcome as it is unexpected.”

The fat man says nothing, and fiddles with his wig for a moment before turning in exasperation to an attendant, who fiddles with it some more before the fat man is satisfied.

“Is it all here?” he asks, his voice surprisingly squeaky for such a frame. Banks looks up to reply, his face composed.

“More than we can possibly have hoped for, your Highness.” The fat man looks without interest at Brown before turning back to Banks.

“Then I take it this hugely expensive folly of my father’s can be judged to have been a success?”

Banks’s face stiffens a little at that. Brown tries not to show surprise at the inference—that the mad King, and not his old friend Banks, had paid for this voyage.

“Your father can be assured that we have done everything we hoped to do, and much more. The Gardens will eventually have a new Pacific hothouse where we will attempt to transplant much of the fauna from Otaheite. It will be a wonder of natural philosophy and of botany. I hope your father will improve such that one day he may enjoy it.”

It is the fat man’s turn to look slightly put out.

“It is a hope we
all
share, Banks. Do not assume any individual merit in your concern for my dear father. I more than anyone understand the anxiety his condition engenders in the People.”

“Indeed, your Highness.”

“When will this new hothouse be ready?”

“Not for some time. For now the plants which cannot survive in the open will be taken to the Great Stove, which is insufficient as a permanent home but will pass muster for now. There they will bloom, I am sure. Within weeks I anticipate wonders.”

“Within weeks. We have already waited months. Even years.”

“Nature will not be rushed, sir. We will do all we can to encourage her along.”

The fat man looks down at the pot in Banks’s hands, as if gazing on a hungry dog lying dead in the dirt.

“And this thing you are holding? What wonders does it contain?”

Banks looks down at the sapling, almost as if in surprise.

“This, your Highness? This is a particular species of one of the most useful trees in Paradise. I am taking a personal interest in its cultivation.”

The morning after he and Abigail discovered the dead body and its melodramatic attendant, Charles Horton is in the office of his superior, John Harriott. Harriott is seated in his ancient chair. Right now, he is facing out to the river, pondering what Horton is telling him about the death of Samuel Ransome.

The river is busy on this bright spring morning, but then the river is always busy. Between here and the Surrey shore there must be a hundred boats visible from the Police Office window: larger ships moored on chains or making their way to the entrance of the London Dock or the legal quays up past the Tower; and the smaller lighters and wherries which service them, manned by men from ancient families with long pipes in their mouths, wearing misshapen, colorless clothes. The window is partly open, and the shouts of these men provide the background for Horton’s precise narrative. The smell of the river creeps in through the window, too; a complicated aroma consisting of salt, shit, and steel.

Ransome’s body is still where Horton and Abigail discovered it. It is being watched by another constable of the Police Office, ready for the coroner to visit later today. Harriott is (as Horton had been) immediately exercised by the question of jurisdiction. He has listened patiently to Horton’s tale, and (like Horton before him) has assumed that the case will be handed over to the Shadwell magistrates forthwith, following its accidental discovery by a River Police officer. But as soon as Horton mentioned the
Solander
, Harriott realized this would be no simple matter. Like his constable before him, the magistrate sees immediately how a simple handover to Shadwell may not be in his best interests.

Not for the first time, Harriott finds himself regretting the limited powers he has to investigate crimes on the land, even when those crimes involve river activities. He has no one but himself to blame for this persistent annoyance. He had helped draw up the blueprint for the River Police Office, and thus had been one of the fathers of a system of policing which he now finds works only in the most limited fashion. There are magistrates in each of the seven new Police Offices which were established in the parishes around the City at the end of the last century. Within the City itself the role of magistrate is performed by aldermen. But these magistrates have little interest in cooperating with each other; indeed, they compete for success, and for the positive regard of the Home Office. Harriott has little time for most of them, and he harbors a particular contempt for the limited men who currently infest the office in Shadwell.

“Have the Shadwell magistrates responded?” he asks Horton.

“Yes, sir. First thing this morning. They will be taking over supervision of the body and will arrange the inquest.”

“I have heard nothing from Markland.”

“No, sir. No doubt you will.”

“No doubt. He is the only halfway competent magistrate in the place. But the man is desperate for prestige in Whitehall. An investigation into a murder linked to the
Solander
will look like a golden opportunity to one such as Markland.”

“I would agree, sir. And on the face of it, this is a straightforward felony. Ransome was killed and apparently robbed, though there was money left behind and it remains unclear what was actually taken. The old woman who runs the place confirms that she heard someone ascending to Ransome’s room sometime before I came upon the body. If only she were as diligent in keeping an eye out for murderers as she is for constables, we might even have a description of the killer.”

Something in Horton’s voice causes Harriott to turn his chair around and face his constable. Horton is standing in his customary position in front of the desk, hands behind his back, eyes watching his magistrate closely, with that infernal quality of inspection which the man brings to everything he looks at. Horton is wearing his usual darkly bland uniform of charcoal gray trousers and frock coat. Harriott is dressed in a more traditional manner, with breeches and wig, as is his custom when attending as magistrate. It is a costume increasingly out of step with the street clothes of Wapping and the environs of the dock. This is a fact which Harriott has magnificently failed to notice.

“You think it a mere robbery?” he asks.

“On the face of it, yes.”

“Horton, you are beginning to perform a merry little dance which I will soon find exasperating. Your voice and your attitude suggest you believe there is more to this.”

“Sir, I do not have enough information to describe to you
any more than a sensation. A feeling that there is something going on beneath the obvious.”

“The source of this feeling?”

“The bag of money in the sea chest. If this was a robbery, why was it not taken?”

“Why indeed?”

“The materials in the room—the cup, the kettle—suggest Ransome had imbibed something before he was killed. The look on his face, while hardly evidence, is indicative of something unusual. And then there is the timing.”

“Timing?”

“Ransome is killed the day he gets home from an ocean voyage. His sea chest is ransacked, but his pay is left behind. Was something else taken? And was that something related to the voyage of the
Solander
?”

It is extraordinary—only yesterday, the captain of the
Solander
was seated next to where Horton stands now. Harriott’s breezy conversation with Captain Hopkins now seems poignant. The situation has quickly become complicated. Any investigation involving Sir Joseph Banks will be fraught with political dangers. Harriott has had dealings with Banks before. Six months ago he and the Bow Street magistrate Aaron Graham had investigated the terrible murders on the Ratcliffe Highway, an investigation which had ended with illicit undertakings into which Charles Horton himself had been dragged. Harriott believes that Horton knows little of the link between those dark events and the President of the Royal Society, but he now makes a rare (for him) political decision; he will not speak of Banks just now.