The Wild Rose (48 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

Sid smelled tea. He heard voices. And water.

He was afraid. Water was dangerous. Water meant death. He’d heard them talking—Madden and his boys. They were going to put him in the water, dump him into the river. He would drown there. He would never see India again. Never see his children. They would never know what happened to him.

He tried to move, to get up, desperate to get away from the water, but when he did, pain—fierce, hot, and red—slammed into him. It was everywhere. Inside his head. In his gut. His knees. His back. He felt like he was made of pain. He cried out with it. He tried again, to get up, to at least open his eyes, but they wouldn’t do what he wanted.

“Shh! Stop it, Sid. You’re all right. Everything’s all right,” one of the voices said.

With great effort, Sid opened his swollen eyes. His vision was blurry. He could see a man’s face leaning over him. And a woman’s. He didn’t know who they were.

“He sees us, John,” the woman said. “I don’t think he knows us, though. Talk to him, love. Tell him who we are.”

“Sid? Sid, can you hear me?”

Sid nodded. He tried to get up.

“No, don’t get up. Don’t move. You’ll start everything bleeding again. Just stay still. I’m John. This is me wife, Maggie. I used to do some work for you. Years ago. Do you remember us?”

Sid tried to think, tried to remember, but the pain wouldn’t let him.

“He doesn’t know us. Poor sod probably doesn’t know his own name right now,” Maggie whispered to her husband. “You came to our room one night, Sid. You had a lady doctor with you,” she said. “She was asking us questions. About what we eat and what it costs and what John’s wages were.”

Suddenly Sid remembered. “Maggie Harris,” he croaked, through his split lips. “Maggie and John.”

“Yes! Yes, that’s us,” John said.

Sid’s mind went back in time. To 1900. Before he’d left London. Before he’d married India. She had been at a Labour rally and had been arrested. He’d got her out of jail, but a reporter had pursued her. She hadn’t wanted to speak to the man, so Sid had helped her throw him off. They’d hidden out in the tunnels under Whitechapel, had finally surfaced in the Blind Beggar, a pub, where they’d had a meal. Afterward, he’d taken her to meet the poor of Whitechapel.

One of the homes they’d visited had belonged to John and Maggie Harris, who had six small children and lived in two damp, dreary rooms. Maggie and her children—all but the youngest, who was sleeping under the table—were up late, working. They were gluing matchboxes together. He had fallen in love with India that night.

“Where am I?” Sid asked now.

“You’re in the hold of me boat,” John said.

“How did I get here?” Sid remembered clocking Teddy Ko and taking a few shots at Madden’s men. Nothing else.

“Madden’s lads brought you. They gave you one hell of a hiding.”

Sid remembered that part.

“Then after you’d blacked out, they slung you into the basement at the boatyard. You’ve been there for days. This morning, just as I got in from one job, they told me I had another to do—picking up some swag in Margate. They carried you on board, threw you in the hold, and then Madden told me I’m to sail out into open waters before I go to Margate, weight you, and throw you in. I told them I would, but I won’t. I made you a bed here. Got some laudanum into you, too.”

“Why? Why did you do that?” Sid asked, knowing full well that Madden would kill John if he ever found out he’d disobeyed him.

“Because you always took care of me, Sid. So now it’s on me to do you a good turn. And besides, I hate that bastard Madden. He works me to death, pays me nothing. Makes me do things I don’t want to do. I mean, thieving’s one thing, but murdering blokes, well, that’s quite another. I want to leave but I can’t. I’d have to go far away, me and me whole family, and I haven’t the money. Madden’s threatened he’d do for me, and for Maggie, and he’d make me kids watch, if I ever do leave.”

“What are you going to tell him?” Sid asked, as he realized the full enormity of the risk John was taking on his behalf.

“I’ll tell him I did the job, of course,” John said. “He’ll believe me. There’s no reason not to. I’ll take the boat out past Margate. Dump a pile of rubbish off the stern—rocks, old rope, broken tools—all wrapped up in a canvas in case someone’s watching. Knowing Billy, someone will be. Then I’ll continue on to the job.”

“How the hell am I going to get home?” Sid asked, wincing with the effort of talking.

“You’re not. Not yet. I should get to Margate after dark tomorrow. Cargo won’t be loaded until the following morning. We’ll get you off the boat safely. You’ll have to make your own way home from there.”

Sid nodded.

John stared at Sid, frowning, as Maggie pressed a cloth to Sid’s lip. All the talking had opened it up again. Sid could feel blood running down his chin. He could see the worry in John’s eyes.

“You ought to have a doctor,” John said. “You’re in rough shape, Sid, but you’ve got to hang on. Do you hear me?”

Sid nodded. His vision was fading. The pain was pulling him under. He thought of India. She would be frantic with worry. He wished he could get word to her, but he’d have to tell John who she was and where she was and he didn’t want to tell him—or anyone connected with Madden—that he even had a family, much less where they were.

“You hang on, Sid. . . .”

John’s voice was growing fainter. It sounded farther away. Sid heard the water again, lapping at the boat’s hull. It wanted to get at him. To fill his nose and mouth. To drown him. He wouldn’t let it. He would fight it. There had been another time, long ago, when he’d gone into the water. It was here, on the London river. He’d been doing a job with his men. The robbery had gone wrong. He’d fallen off the dock into the river, hit a piling, and ripped his side open. He’d almost died from the wound. He’d felt, then, that he would die. And he hadn’t much cared. But India had saved him. She’d fought for his life.

He pictured her now, held her beautiful face in his mind as the pain racking his damaged body pulled at him, threatening to drag him under. He’d had nothing to live for the last time, and no one to love.

This time he did.

CHAPTER EIGHTY

Willa leaned back into the furry warmth of her camel. The animal was lying down for a much-needed rest. Willa had driven Attayeh hard, but she knew she couldn’t work him too hard. If something happened to him, she would never make it to Lawrence’s camp.

Willa had driven herself hard, too. She had ridden all night, and all the next day, ever since she’d escaped from Damascus. It was now eight o’clock of the following night. She was hurting and exhausted, but she did not sleep. Instead, she had pulled all of Max’s maps and papers out of the pillowcase and was going through them. What she’d read so far made her see that Max von Brandt had been playing her just as hard as she’d been playing him.

She’d read reports he’d made in which he stated he did not believe what she had told him about the size of Lawrence’s army or its location. This disappointed her. She’d given him nothing but false information, hoping it would throw him off Lawrence’s scent. In Max’s opinion, Lawrence was south of the Jabal ad Duruz hills and he was going to ride due north from there to attack Damascus.

Furthermore, Willa had discovered that the Turkish Army had a second encampment ten miles west of their Jabal ad Duruz camp and directly parallel to it, so that when Lawrence rode north, Turkish troops from both camps would converge on him, making defense all but impossible—and making the slaughter of Tom Lawrence, Faisal, Auda, and the thousands of men with them all but inevitable.

And Lawrence had no idea of the trap that waited for him, not even an inkling. Because her plane had crashed, and she’d been taken prisoner, Willa had not been able to tell him about the first camp, and until this very moment, no one but the Turks had known about the second.

Willa rested her chin on her knee, thinking. Max had indicated on one of his maps exactly where he thought Lawrence might be—at Salkhad. It was well north of where the Bedouin trader in the market had said Lawrence was. According to Max’s reports, he’d based the position on recon carried out by Bedouin scouts. But were those scouts reliable? Were they truly in the service of the Turks? Some of the Bedouin were extremely wily and would think nothing of taking Max’s money and then taking even more money from Lawrence to feed Max misinformation. Was the trader who’d told her Lawrence’s whereabouts reliable? Had Lawrence moved since that man had seen his camp? The area south of Jabal was large and desolate, and Lawrence could be anywhere in it.

Willa knew she had to get him, no matter what. She had to let him know what he was riding into. Should she trust Max’s information and ride to the point he’d indicated on his map? Or would she need to ride farther south as the trader had told her to?

“How far do we go, Attayeh?” she said softly. But Attayeh had no answer for her.

She rolled up the maps and put them back in the pillowcase. Thank God she’d thought to take them; she would have no idea where she was going without them. She then gathered the memos and reports, having decided that she would finish reading them later. She was tired and needed to sleep. As she shuffled the scattered papers together, a few slipped from the pile. She picked them up, and a line at the top of one caught her eye.

It was a death warrant. Her own. Telegraphed from Berlin.

Her blood ran cold as she read it. Max, as it turned out, was not going to take her to Germany, or to Everest, but to the prison yard to have her shot. Today. The day after their dinner together. The day after he’d made love to her.

For the first time since she’d beaten him, she thought about the possibility of having killed him and she felt no remorse. He would have killed her. If not last night, when he’d beaten her as she tried to escape, then today.

The Bedouin who’d sold her the camel and given her water and some of his own food had also stashed two cigarettes and a box of matches in her saddlebag. She fished one of the cigarettes out now, lit it with shaking hands, and took a long drag.

She was still days away from Lawrence’s camp—wherever it might be. She had little food and water. She had stolen vital military information from the desk of a German officer, information that might well turn the tide of the battle for the Middle East. She had likely killed that same German officer, and by now there would be a price on her head. Every desert bandit would be after her, as would every soldier in the entire Turkish Army.

She had escaped death last night, yes . . . but for how long?

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

Sid winced as Maggie pressed a warm, damp cloth to his forehead. He was sitting shirtless, enduring Maggie’s efforts to clean him up, at a tiny table in the small space belowdecks that John used for sleeping and eating when he was on the water.

It was nearly ten o’clock at night, and John had just docked at a tumbledown warehouse in Margate. He was on deck right now, pretending to check the lines, but really checking to see if anyone was about—a watchman, perhaps, or any of Madden’s crew. Sid was desperate to get off the boat, desperate to get home to India and the children. He knew they’d be out of their minds with worry.

“Hold still, Sid,” Maggie scolded. “You can’t go out and about with blood all over you. The busies’ll be on you quicker than you can blink. Surely you don’t need me to tell you that. You must remember one or two things about avoiding Old Bill from your London days.”

Sid smiled as best he could. “One or two, Maggs,” he said.

It was Wednesday—four days since Madden and his boys had given him a beating, one day since he’d come to in John’s boat, but everything still hurt. It was painful to open his eyes. To turn his head. To bend and stand and walk. It hurt to swallow, and when he’d taken a piss off the stern of the boat earlier, his water had been bloody.

“Your clothes are a lost cause,” Maggie said. “John brought some of his old things for you. As soon as you’re washed, you can put them on.”

“You and John have been very good to me, Maggie. I owe you both.”

Maggie shook her head. “You owe us nothing, Sid Malone. I couldn’t even count the times you saved our bacon. With all those jobs you gave John. There were several times we would have starved without you. I don’t know how I would’ve fed the kids without those wages.”

“How are your children?”

Maggie didn’t answer right away. “The younger ones are all right,” she finally said. “They’re still only kiddies. The older ones are a worry. Me eldest girl has trouble with her lungs. And the two boys, well . . . they’re boys, aren’t they? Starting to run wild. Can’t blame them, I suppose, with what they see all round them. But still, once upon a time, I had hopes, you know? Hopes that it might be better for them than it was for us. Madden’s already got his eye on our Johnnie. I don’t want our lad near that man, but it’s hard to keep him away. He gives him booze. Women, too, I’ve heard. Makes him feel like he’s cock of the walk. He’s only fifteen, Sid. He don’t know any better. He won’t know any better until it’s too late.”

Sid saw that her brow was knit with worry as she spoke. “You can’t get him out of London?” he asked her. “Send him off to the country with relatives for a bit?”

“We haven’t got any relatives in the country. They’re all in London,” she said. “As mad as it sounds, I’m thinking of talking to him about enlisting as soon as he’s sixteen. If the war’s still on. He’s safer on the lines, with Gerry shooting at him, then he is in Madden’s company.”

As Maggie finished speaking, they both heard footsteps above them—two sets. And then voices. Maggie held a finger to her lips. Sid stiffened.

“You all right then, John?” they heard a man say. “All settled in for the night?”

“Aye, Bert. Right as rain,” John replied.

“I’m leaving now. Harry’s on in the morning. He knows to expect you. Lads should be early. Madden told me to tell them to get the goods here before dawn.”

“I’ll be ready for them. Ta ra, Bert.”

“Ta ra, John. Sleep well.”

A minute or so later, John’s feet were seen climbing down the narrow wooden ladder that connected the deck to the lighter’s hold.

“Coast is clear,” he said, closing that hatch above him. “There was only Bert about, and he’s leaving.” He looked at Sid. “Well, you won’t win any beauty contests, not with that face, but you look better than you did,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have won any beauty contests before Madden got hold of me either,” Sid said.

John took a seat across from him. He reached into his jacket pocket, took out some money, and put it on the table. “That’s two and six,” he said. “It’s all I could scrape together. Take it. Get yourself home.”

Sid was deeply moved by his friend’s generosity. He knew that this money was likely all John had in the world. He didn’t want to take it, but he had no choice. Billy’s men had gone through his pockets before they’d dumped him off with John. They’d taken all his money.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll get it back to you. I swear.”

John nodded. The clothes he’d found for Sid were lying on top of the table. Sid picked up the shirt and put it on. The sleeves were too short, which made them all laugh, but it was better than what he’d had. The trousers and jacket fit. John gave Sid the layout of the town of Margate and told him the best way to go to get out of the town quickly.

When they’d finished talking, Sid readied himself to go. He stood up and tried to thank John and Maggie, but they waved his words away.

“Sid, before you go . . . can I ask you something?” John said.

Sid nodded.

“Why did you go back to Teddy Ko’s to ask about that woman—the one who killed herself—Maud Selwyn Jones? Are you really looking to take your manor back, or were you feeling completely barmy that day?”

Sid raised an eyebrow. “Neither, I was just after some information. How do you know about that, anyway?” he asked. He’d told John he was at Teddy Ko’s, but not why.

“Because we—me and Madden—arrived at Ko’s just after your first visit. I heard everything Billy and Teddy talked about. Enough to know you was digging around for information on the Jones woman. And enough to know that you just being here made Billy furious. Did you get what you was after?” John asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Sid said.

John and Maggie traded anxious looks.

“What is it?” Sid asked them. “Do you know something? Can you tell me?”

“Aye, I know plenty,” John said. “Enough to maybe put Billy Madden in front of a firing squad. Which I’d quite like. And meself as well. Which I wouldn’t.”

Sid sat back down. “Tell me, John,” he said. “I’ll keep you out of the shite no matter what. I promise.”

John took a deep breath. “Years back, right before the Jones woman’s death, a man by the name of Peter Stiles bought morphine and a syringe off Teddy Ko. I was at Ko’s that day, picking up his weekly payment to Billy. I saw Stiles come in. I saw him pay Teddy for something in a small brown bag. After he’d gone, I asked Teddy what it was and he told me.”

“I don’t see the connection,” Sid said. “The name Stiles doesn’t ring a bell. It’s never come up in the police reports on Maud’s death,” Sid said. “Lots of people buy drugs from Teddy.”

“Hear me out,” John said. “I knew Stiles. He’d come to the Bark, to see Madden, earlier in the year. This is 1914 I’m talking about. He had made certain arrangements with Madden. . . .” John’s voice trailed off. He looked pained. Sid could see that talking about Peter Stiles was difficult for him.

“Go on, John,” he said.

“These arrangements concerned taking a mate of Stiles’s—a man named Hutchins—out on me boat. Every fortnight. To the North Sea. To certain coordinates, to meet another boat. Stiles was moving swag to the continent. Jewelry. At least that’s what he said. Meself? I don’t think it was jewels that he was moving. We were always met there by a boat. Hutchins would give a box to the captain. He sounded as English I do, Hutchins that is. The captain of the other boat, though? And the crew. They were speaking German.”

“Christ, John,” Sid said. “How long did this go on? When did it stop?”

“That’s the thing—it didn’t,” John said. “Hutchins is dead. Another bloke did for him back in ’14, but I’m still meeting the boat. With a new man—Flynn. I don’t want to do this, Sid. I never wanted to do it. I’m running secrets to the Germans. I know I am. Our boys are dying over there and I’m helping Gerry kill them. I want to stop but I can’t. I’m in too deep. Madden’ll do for me. And then what happens to me kids?” His voice broke. He looked away from Sid, but before he did, Sid saw the anguish in his eyes—and recognized it. It had been his own once.

“Madden’s a bastard, well and truly,” Sid said. “We’ll get round him, though, John. Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out. I’ll fix this somehow. But first finish your story. Tell me all of it. I still don’t understand how this ties in with the death of Maud Selwyn Jones.”

John wiped his eyes. “Her death was a big news story, wasn’t it? It was in all the papers.
HEIRESS TAKES HER OWN LIFE
, the headlines said. There were pictures of her. I saw them. And when I saw them, I recognized her. I’d seen her before. And Stiles, too. I saw them together. Only he wasn’t Stiles then.”

“Hold on, John. Slow down. I’m not following you,” Sid said.

“We was casing a house, me and a few more of Madden’s crew. In the West End. Belonged to some toff who had lots of silver, paintings, the usual. We was going to knock it off one weekend when he was away. We went in one afternoon—me and another bloke—posing as inspectors from the gas company. Wanted to get a gander round the place—see what was where upstairs, and get the lay of the basement doors and windows. While we was in the foyer, messing about with a gas lamp, I saw them come in—the Selwyn Jones woman and Peter Stiles. Only she called him Max, and she introduced him to the lady of the house as Max von Brandt. After her death, I checked out this Max von Brandt. Found out he was from Germany. He only posed as Stiles, an Englishman, to get the use of Madden’s boat. I don’t see him anymore—Stiles, that is. And I never told Billy about him being von Brandt. But I still see his man Flynn. Every fortnight. And whatever he’s giving the Germans . . . well, it ain’t diamond earrings.”

Sid sat back in his chair, gobsmacked. So many questions were whirling around in his head, he barely knew which one to ask first.

“John,” he said at length. “I believe what you’re telling me—that Stiles or von Brandt is passing documents to Germany, but it doesn’t follow on that he killed Maud. Max von Brandt’s alibi was solid. He was completely cleared of any connection in Maud’s death. The police reports said he didn’t do it. They said she killed herself with an overdose of morphine.”

“I know what the reports said. I read the papers,” John said. “But since when do the busies have the last word on anything? What are they now, geniuses? They say he didn’t. So what? I say he did.”

“How?”

John shook his head. “That’s the rub, isn’t it? I don’t know. Maybe he was quick and injected her right then and there when he took her home. Maybe he paid off the cabbie to say he’d only been in her house a minute or two, when he’d actually been in there longer. Maybe he had a key on him and snuck back later that night. Maybe he didn’t need a key. Maybe he went back all nice-like, pretending he wanted to make up, and she let him in. If anyone could’ve pulled it off, he could’ve. He’s one clever sod.”

“But why? Why would he want to kill her? He finished with her, not the other way round.”

John thought for a bit, then he said, “Maybe it had nothing to do with their love affair. Maybe she knew something. Maybe she’d seen something she shouldn’t have.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sid said slowly. “Here’s another question: Where is von Brandt or Stiles or whatever he calls himself now?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the war started.”

“But you’re still taking Flynn and the documents out to the North Sea?”

John nodded.

“So Billy’s still getting paid,” Sid said. “Or else you wouldn’t be. He doesn’t do anything from the goodness of his heart, not our Billy. Somebody’s still sending the money.” Sid thought for a minute, then he said, “How does Flynn get the documents?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t say much. He just appears at the boatyard every fortnight. Like clockwork. I just took him out this past weekend. Due to go again not this coming Friday, but the next one.”

Sid took a deep breath, then blew it out. “Well, John, I have to say . . . this is one fine fucking mess. We could go to the police, tell them all you know about von Brandt and Flynn and Madden. Maybe get you some sort of informant’s deal. But then what? Madden just denies everything. There’s no proof of any of this, right? It’s just your word against his. Old Bill does nothing, much as they’d like to, because they can’t. Madden knows you snitched and comes after you. Not what I’d call a good result.”