Kitabı oku: «The Reckoning»

1

It was late evening and in the Hanged Man trade was brisk, which wasn’t surprising, given the weather outside. Rain had been falling on and off most of the day and there was nothing more welcoming on a wet winter’s night than a crackling fire to warm the bones, a swig of brandy to comfort the soul and perhaps a wager or two to while away the time.

The tavern was situated – some would say hidden – in an alleyway behind Buckbridge Street and thus it did not cater for what other, more salubrious, establishments might have termed a passing trade. The Hanged Man was for locals. It wasn’t somewhere you stumbled upon by accident.

The western end of Buckbridge Street was only a stone’s throw from Oxford Street; not in itself a notorious address, but it was the area that lay beyond the street’s eastern border, trapped between Broad Street to the south and Great Russell Street to the north, which deterred those citizens of a more upstanding character from venturing uninvited into its shadowy maw.

Covering close to ten acres, the St Giles Rookery was a fetid maze of crumbling tenements, roofless hovels, dank cellars, crooked passageways and rat-infested sewers. To law-abiding Londoners it was a filthy, festering sore; a canker eating away at the city’s heart. To its inhabitants – those who were seen as living on the more disreputable fringes of society – it was home. The Hanged Man was a refuge within a refuge.

On the ground floor, dense tobacco fumes rising from the tables had merged with the smoke from the hearth to form an opaque layer of fog which sat suspended between windowsill and ceiling. A hubbub of conversation and coarse laughter filled the room. In one corner, close to the fire, a fiddler – blind in one eye and seemingly oblivious to the din around him – was attempting to scrape out a tune on an instrument in dire need of a new set of strings. At his feet, a small wire-coated terrier rested its head on its paws, while his immediate neighbour, a drunken moll, sprawled half in and half out of her chair, her large, blue-veined breasts spilling like opened sacks of lard from her part-fastened bodice.

Reached by a staircase leading up from the back of the taproom, the first floor was noticeably quieter. At a table next to the rear window, a game of dominoes was in progress. Relaxed and unbothered by the sounds filtering from below, the four players studied the pattern of tiles laid out on the table before them; each man ruminating over his hand and the move he was about to make.

“Jesus, Del, you’ve been lookin’ at those bloody bones for ’alf an hour. How long’s it goin’ to take?”

The speaker, a balding, morose-looking individual with stubbled jowls and a silver ring in his right ear, rolled his eyes towards his other two companions in exaggerated disbelief.

“I’m thinkin’, ain’t I?” the player to his left protested. Of a similar age to the speaker, but with a fuller face and salt-and-pepper hair, he wrinkled his brow as he contemplated his remaining tiles and scratched his chin with the edge of a stubby thumb.

“Well, think faster. God knows, I ain’t gettin’ any younger.”

“You take your time, my son.” It was the bearded player to the speaker’s right who spoke. “Jasper’s only narked ’cos he’s down a bob. If he was up, he wouldn’t be botherin’.”

“Plus he wants us to forget it’s ’is round,” the player opposite Jasper murmured without raising his head. “Mine’s another brandy, when you’re ready.”

“Heard that,” the first speaker responded. “I’ll get ’em in soon as Del here makes up ’is mind.”

“You catch that, Del?” the bearded man said. “Best get a move on.”

“There,” Del said, as he slid his tile across the table and deposited it at the end of the row. “How’s that?”

Jasper stared down at Del’s contribution and then at his own instantly redundant counters. “Double three? Double three?”

“Make that two bob.” The bearded man – whose name was Ned – grinned as he added his own tile to the opposite end of the row. “I were you, I’d get the drinks in afore Del cleans you out. Mine’s a porter.”

As the player opposite him – stocky, broad-shouldered, with a craggy face and close-cropped, pewter-coloured hair – relinquished his remaining tile, Jasper snorted in disgust, regarded the man to his left with exasperation and muttered darkly, “One of these days. One of these bloody days …”

Placing his leftover tiles on the table he rose from his chair. “Right, I’m off to the pisser. Get ’em in. I’ll settle up when I get back.”

“Heard that one before,” Del chuckled as he totted up the score on a ragged scrap of paper. Calculations made, he began to spread the tiles face down in preparation for another game.

By which time Jasper was already out of earshot and heading for the back stairs.

“You want to watch it,” Ned warned. “You wind him up too hard and the bugger’ll snap. Seen Jasper when he snaps. Not a pretty sight. Last time it ’appened, he chewed a watchman’s ear off. He was spittin’ gristle for a week.”

“Nah,” Del said confidently. “Bark’s worse than ’is bite.”

“Tell that to the poor sod who lost ’is ear.”

As the two men traded quips, their companion, seated with his back to the window, remained silent, his right hand curved around his glass. From his posture and calm expression, he looked at ease with his surroundings, though as he surveyed the floor his watchful eyes told a different story. Raising his glass to his lips, his attention moved towards the table at the top of the stairs and the man seated there alone, reading a book.

Sensing he was under observation, the reader looked up and met the grey-haired man’s study with an even gaze. The connection lasted perhaps a second before the grey-haired man’s eyes moved on, scanning the room.

Forger Jimmy Radd was in his usual corner, one hand on his glass of rum, the other resting on the arm of a stick-thin moll with a strawberry birthmark just visible along the curve of her throat. At the counter, hunched in seats made from empty Madeira casks, cracksman Willy Mellows was in deep conversation with Abel McSwain, the local fence, while two tables away a bespectacled, scholarly dressed individual, known to all as The Padre – in reality a physician struck off for gross misconduct – was making notes in the margin of a well-thumbed, leather-bound copy of the Book of Common Prayer, interspersing his scribbles by taking measured sips from the glass of gin resting by his right elbow. Glancing sideways over the rim of his spectacles, he acknowledged the grey-haired man’s perusal with a small nod before returning to his jottings.

Tiles arranged to his satisfaction, Del sat back. “All set.” Frowning, he looked around. “Bugger not back yet? Got a nerve, tellin’ me I’m takin’ my time. All he ’as to do is shake it dry.”

“It was his round, don’t forget,” Ned said.

“Tight sod,” Del said. “In that case, mine’s a large one. That’ll teach him.” Del paused as he glanced over Ned’s shoulder. “’Old up, ’e’s here.”

Jasper’s head had reappeared at the top of the stairs.

“He don’t look too happy,” Ned observed.

It didn’t need a genius to see that Jasper did indeed look, if not in the best of spirits then certainly more than a little distracted. His ascent from the passageway leading to the outdoor privy was slow, almost hesitant.

“God’s sake,” Del muttered sotto voce, “now, what?”

As two men rose into view beyond Jasper’s left shoulder.

At which point Jasper was propelled forward by a hard shove in the back and the duo behind him stepped into plain sight.

Both were dressed for the weather, in wide-brimmed hats and long, calf-length riding coats, the collars turned up. Both coats hung open, revealing a pistol stuck in each man’s belt. The pistols were clearly back-up weapons, as each man hefted a thirty-inch-long Barbar blunderbuss which, prior to that moment, they had been concealing beneath the rainwear. As Jasper went sprawling, chairs toppled and customers scattered, only to become rooted as the gunmen brought their weapons to bear.

“Ah, shite,” Del said, the blood draining from his face.

The grey-haired man started to rise.

“Don’t you bloody move, Jago.”

The room fell silent, while from downstairs came the incongruous sounds of continued merriment and the rasping groan of a badly tuned fiddle.

The warning had carried a distinct Irish brogue. As his partner covered the room, the gunman who’d spoken stepped forward.

The grey-haired man looked quickly towards the table at the top of the taproom stairs. The lone customer was still seated, but this time his hands were palm down on the table beside his book and his jaw was clenched. The business end of a third Barbar nuzzled the back of his head. The weapon-holder stood behind him. He was dressed in similar fashion to his companions, in a long coat and a hat which cast his face in shadow. Above his clamped lips, the seated man’s eyes expressed silent apology. The grey-haired man’s gaze returned to the threat in hand.

“Told you I’d be back,” the first rain-coated man announced.

“So you did,” Nathaniel Jago said calmly.

“And that there’d be a reckoning.”

“As I recall.”

The gunman frowned. Tall, with a cadaverous face, a faint bruise was visible below his left eye.

“God save us, Shaughnessy,” Jago said softly. “I might have grey hairs but they ain’t affected my memory. Talking o’which, you remember what I said to you last time?”

A thin smile formed on the Irishman’s face. “Said you’d kill me if I showed my face.”

“Offer still stands.”

The gunman’s eyes flickered. The grin faded. “Think you’re king of the castle, don’t you?”

“An’ you got plans to the contrary, I take it?”

“Do it, Patrick,” the second gunman urged; the brogue as strong as his companion’s. “Bloody do it now.”

“What’s up, Declan?” Jago’s gaze flickered to the speaker. “Arms gettin’ tired?” He moved his gaze back. In the second it had taken to divert the first gunman’s attention, he’d already braced himself. His hands cupped the edge of the table.

“Going to enjoy this,” Shaughnessy gloated.

Made for close-quarter combat, the blunderbuss was a fearsome weapon and capable of inflicting appalling damage. From where Jago was standing, the muzzle looked as big as a howitzer. He wondered if the table top would absorb any of the gun’s load and if he’d be able to move in time. Unlikely, but it was worth a try. At this stage, anything was worth a try, to avoid the murderous hail that was about to be unleashed in his direction.

But it wasn’t Shaughnessy who opened the bidding.

As the Irishman’s trigger finger tightened, a sharp grunt and a clatter from the direction of the taproom stairs drew everyone’s attention. Shaughnessy pivoted, in time to see his companion sinking to the ground, hands clasped about his throat, blood spurting from between his fingers. As the body toppled, another figure moved into view. The Barbar, Shaughnessy saw, had changed hands.

With a curse, he turned back and fired.

The roar from the gun was deafening. A woman screamed. Downstairs, the music trailed off and the fiddler’s dog let out a shrill bark of alarm.

But by then Jago was already hurling himself aside.

Having anticipated the move, Del and Ned were also flinging themselves backwards. As the table went over, dominoes, coins of the realm, alcohol and broken glass flew in all directions. The table top did absorb a lot of the charge but it wasn’t enough. Jago, still travelling, felt the impact as shot scored across his right shoulder. The window took the rest. He heard the panes shatter as he hit the floor. And then he was rolling, or trying to.

Around him, panicking customers, undeterred by the second gunman’s threatening stance, were throwing themselves behind tables or towards the back stairs and sanctuary.

Jago’s legs were caught up in Ned’s abandoned chair. He kicked it away. His shoulder felt as if it was on fire. He looked up. Shaughnessy stood over him. The Irishman had drawn the back-up pistol from his belt. He levelled it, eyes black with rage.

Christ, Jago thought wildly.

The second gunshot was as loud as a whip crack.

Jago flinched and then watched in disbelief as Patrick Shaughnessy’s head snapped back, the air misting red as the body fell away.

Declan, who’d already turned to face the new threat, bellowed an obscenity at seeing his comrade cut down and brought his own gun to bear.

Which was when Jasper, who was still half-prone, rammed the edge of his boot heel into Declan’s left knee. It was enough to send Declan’s aim wide. Shot slammed into the rafters and then there was another ferocious roar and Declan went over backwards, the discharged weapon falling from his grip. Something warm and viscous landed across Jago’s left cheek. Wiping it off hurriedly, he stared down at his hand and the ragged piece of flesh adhering to it. His sleeves, he saw, were flecked with blood. Flicking the offending gobbet on to the floor, he raised his head cautiously as the echo from the guns died away.

It was hard to make out details. The room was filled with dissipating powder smoke and the sulphurous stench of rotten eggs, while the scene was more reminiscent of an abattoir than a public house. Around the room, people were slowly regaining their feet, transfixed by the carnage. Astonishingly, from below there came the screech of a fiddle starting up, indicating that, to the downstairs clientele, who’d only heard the gunshots and not witnessed the effects, it had sounded like just another drunken night in the Hanged Man.

Jago stood groggily, ears ringing. He stared down at the bodies and then at the two men who’d come to a halt beside him.

One was the former occupant of the far table who now held a discharged pistol. The second man, whose hands gripped the still-smoking Barbar, was taller and might have been mistaken for an associate of the dead men, for he, too, was dressed in a long military greatcoat. The difference was that he wore no hat, which, now that he had drawn closer, rendered his features visible, in particular the powder burn below his right eye and the two ragged scars that ran across his left cheek.

Jago stared at him. The other man gazed back, a grim smile on his face.

“Can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” he said.

Several seconds passed before Jago found his voice.

“Nice to see you, too, Officer Hawkwood. It’s been a while.”