The Tick of Death

CHAPTER 2

Long after the cab put them down in Great Scotland Yard, Cribb was deep in conversation with Inspector Jowett. For the first time that day he functioned as a detective. He was totally involved in acquiring information, and he subjected Jowett to the class of interrogation usually reserved for the last suspect in a case of murder. He discharged a volley of questions at the hapless inspector under the blue lamp at the very entrance to the police offices. Nothing in the case against Thackeray escaped his attention. He extracted the evidence the Special Branch had amassed syllable by syllable. Only when he had recorded it all in his notebook and had it checked again by Jowett did he allow him to pass inside. Then, still studying the notes, he walked slowly across the Yard and along Northumberland Avenue in the direction of the Embankment.

There, by the Thames, where he and Thackeray had so often plotted the arrest of dangerous men, Cribb pondered his assistant’s strange conduct. Strange-it was unbelievable that a constable who had faced corpses, crocodiles, even naked chorus girls, in the name of law and order should so abandon his principles as to consort with the dynamite party. Thackeray an informer? Thackeray the lion-hearted, the man above all others he would have at his side in an emergency? Monstrous.

Yet as he stood at the Embankment wall and regarded the river-not the steam-launches and sailing-barges, nor the beguiling glitter of afternoon sunlight, but the water itself below him, turbid and thick with impurities, flowing more rapidly than ever it appeared from a cursory glance across the surface-Cribb decided to re-examine his opinion of Thackeray. It took several more minutes’ contemplation of the water to achieve the detachment to penetrate the layers of loyalty and regard formed in five years. What was then revealed-what he really knew of the man-was so slight that he winced at the realisation.

He called himself a detective and all he knew about his principal assistant was that he stood six feet tall in his socks, sported a grey beard and was game for anything except educational classes. Exaggeration, perhaps, but not short of the truth. Oh, there were other details-the fondness for melodrama and Kop’s ale, the tender feet and the sensitiveness upon the subject of retirement-but what did they amount to? What grounds had he for believing Thackeray incorruptible? The plain truth was that the section house adjoining Paradise Street police station could be a dynamite manufactory for all he knew. Not once had he met Thackeray off duty. He had no idea whether he was a Home Ruler or a hot gospeller. The man was dependable when it mattered, and that had always been enough.

He supposed he ought to examine the divisional defaulters’ book. Thackeray’s name would be there, for sure. There was not a constable of any length of service whose sheet was blank. Entries on the defaulter sheet in the first years of service, said the Police Code, will materially reduce the possibility of eventual promotion and selection for the prizes of the Force-so every station inspector took it as his duty to foster discipline among young constables by including their names from time to time in the Morning Report. Nor were the not-so-young forgotten: If a man’s conduct has not been uniformly good, or his incapacity may have been brought about by irregular or vicious habits, the Commissioner will recommend that a lower scale of pension or gratuity be granted to him. In his more bitter moments, when the prizes of the Force seemed too remote to bother over, Cribb would point out that even if one earned a commendation (and there was no regular procedure for that) the only place where it could be recorded was on the defaulter sheet.

So Thackeray’s sheet would contain the predictable catalogue of misdemeanours-taking off the armlet to obtain a drink from a publican, gossiping on duty, quarrelling with comrades, soliciting gratuities, unpunctuality, and so on-together with a list of the stations he had served in, and perhaps an entry in red ink commending his part in the arrest of Charles Peace in 1878. Cribb doubted if there would be any subsequent entries in red; none of the crimes he and Thackeray had investigated had caused such a stir.

He thought of going down to Rotherhithe to find out what the Paradise Street contingent knew of Thackeray. There must be someone who had an off-duty drink with him, or lodged in the section house. You could hardly use the same scullery and tin bath without getting to know something about a man. He considered the idea, and rejected it.

This was his dilemma-the repugnance he felt at being asked to spy on Thackeray, and the necessity of discovering what the man was doing. Until he was sure of Thackeray’s complicity, he refused to ignore the bond between them- however slender it suddenly seemed. For Jowett, though, the issue had been clear. ‘The Yard recognises that some of its employees are corrupt,’ he had blandly explained. ‘What do you expect on a wage of seventy-eight pounds a year for a constable, First Class? Read your Police Gazette, Sergeant. It is full of wretched officers who have succumbed to bribery of one sort or another. There are just as many dismissed constables-not to speak of sergeants-scrubbing out workhouses as there are inspectors such as myself promoted for unstinting service. That is the nature of our profession, Cribb. Thackeray has misguidedly transgressed, and must prepare to join the floor-scubbers. Not before he has rendered certain services to the dynamite investigation, however. You are not, on any account, to inform him of what we know.’ There was nothing for it but to cooperate. If Thackeray were really an informer, Cribb could only believe it by seeing it for himself. If not-if he were innocent and shamefully misrepresented-the way to set the record straight was to learn what was going on. Either way, Cribb was now drawn in to the dynamite investigation, and the threat to public safety overshadowed everything. He was committed to a course of action totally repugnant to him-spying on Thackeray, decent, dutiful, dependable Thackeray.

‘Damn you, Thackeray!’ he said aloud, and instantly felt better for it.

He left the Embankment thinking not of his assistant, but Mrs Cribb, and how she would take the news of his move to Woolwich Arsenal.

The course in explosives, Cribb shortly discovered, was organised with Civil Service precision. A team of Home Office experts and sergeant-instructors from the Royal Artillery engaged his attention continuously between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. each day. As their solitary trainee, he stood in solemn attendance while they mounted their set-pieces, lit the fuses, and retired. Sometimes the preliminaries took two or three hours, but the conversation was entirely confined to such things as time-fuses and percussion-caps. The instructors shrank from anything more sociable. Between detonations they allowed him to eat or sleep. Any remaining time-and there was precious little of it-was expected to be spent practising with fire-arms on the ranges. By the week’s end he was almost ready to doubt whether observation of the Sabbath was permitted to secret agents under instruction.

It required unimaginable self-discipline to raise himself from his pillow on the Sunday, his head still singing from a Lithofracteur blast and his shoulder sore from rifle-practice, and examine a telegraph message from Inspector Jowett: Thackeray off duty today. Suggest you keep under discreet observation. Did this mean no explosions were planned that day? He was into his clothes and out of the Arsenal gates before anyone could tell him otherwise.

A train to Liverpool Street and a cab across London Bridge brought him to Rotherhithe, and Paradise Street police station. The sergeant on duty was an old friend.

‘Thackeray? Reliable man. Helped to arrest Charlie Peace in seventy-eight, did you know that?’

‘He’s helped me too, on occasions,’ said Cribb, a little bleakly. ‘Where do I find him this morning-in the section house?’

‘I doubt it. He’s an early riser. He’ll have been up since six. Thackeray doesn’t believe in spending his time here when he can be up and about. Not lately, anyway.’

Cribb noted the emphasis. ‘He’s changed his habits, you mean?’

There was a shade too much of the professional manner in the inquiry. The duty-sergeant shot him a quick glance. He felt the shabbiness of what he was doing.

‘He goes out a bit more, that’s all,’ explained the sergeant. ‘I don’t believe in prying into a man’s off-duty hours.’

‘Nor me,’ said Cribb emphatically. ‘A bobby’s entitled to his private life, as much as any member of the public. Do you know the duty I shirk more than any other? Inspecting the lodgings once a month. It’s a liberty going into a man’s home uninvited, in my opinion. No, I was wanting to see Thackeray for old time’s sake. We’ve worked together so often, you understand. You wouldn’t know where I could find him, I suppose?’ This was altogether more casual and disarming.

‘Sunday morning?’ said the sergeant. ‘Probably at one of the main railway stations. He spends a lot of his time at the stations, if my information’s correct.’

Cribb gulped.

‘I’ll ask if anyone knows,’ the sergeant continued. ‘I wouldn’t want to send you to Paddington if he’s fixed on Waterloo this time.’

The constable at the desk thought Thackeray had set off in the direction of London Bridge.

‘I’ll try that, then,’ said Cribb, quickly. ‘You wouldn’t know what he does at the main line stations, would you?’

‘I’ve no idea, Sergeant. He don’t talk to nobody about it.’

Cribb thanked them, and took a bus up Jamaica Road and Tooley Street, a mile’s drive along the riverside, past breweries and warehouses. To the left, trains thundered along the viaduct above the chimney-pots of Bermondsey.

He left the bus at a step brisk enough to betray anxiety about the future of London Bridge station. Thackeray was not in the booking-hall. Nor had the man in the cloakroom seen anyone answering his description that morning. His step eased a little.

Eventually he discerned a familiar, bearded figure in bowler hat and ulster at the far end of the Brighton platform. He purchased a platform ticket and strode straight up to his man. Discreet observation be blowed!

Thackeray had not noticed his approach. ‘Good Lord! You, Sarge? Fancy that!’

‘I saw you standing there,’ said Cribb, truthfully, ‘so I came along.’

‘What are you doing, then? Are you off to Brighton for the day?’

‘Not me,’ said Cribb. ‘How about you?’

A tinge of mild embarrassment coloured the constable’s cheeks. ‘Me, Sarge? I-er-well, if you really want to know, I’m here because of this.’ He made a small, limp gesture with his hand.

Cribb’s eyes followed the direction, and then blinked. ‘That, you mean?’

Thackeray nodded.

In his bee-line along the platform, Cribb had quite omitted to notice it: an enormous express locomotive painted in the brilliant golden ochre and dark olive green livery of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company.

‘Number 214,’ Thackeray said, as if he were making an introduction. ‘The Gladstone. One of William Stroudley’s engines.’

Cribb nodded, avoiding the impulse to lift his hat.

‘Did you ever see such a finish?’ Thackeray went on, with undisguised emotion. ‘Look at that buffer-beam, Sarge. There’s all of five colours in it-red, white, black, yellow and claret. And how about the wheels-ain’t they the handsomest that ever touched a track? What other railway company would paint its wheel-centres bright yellow and keep ’em as clean as that?’ He turned on Cribb, almost challenging him to supply an answer.

The sergeant frowned. ‘Do I understand, Thackeray, that you came here this morning to make the acquaintance of this-er-Number 214? To a railway terminus, on your day off?’

‘I couldn’t have seen her anywhere else, Sarge,’ said Thackeray, simply. ‘And she’s worth a mile walk on a Sunday morning, you must admit. Mr Stroudley hasn’t any rivals as a locomotive-engineer, in my opinion.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. Just hadn’t pictured you pacing railway platforms in your spare time. Is this a new enthusiasm?’ Cribb said it rather as a doctor inquires about the onset of an illness.

‘I’ve been going to stations on my days off since the October before last,’ Thackeray admitted. ‘It first gripped me on the Brighton line when we was returning from the Prothero investigation. We was pulled by 328, if you recall, the Sutherland, one of the G class. She was only single-drive, but when I saw her as we came up the platform, standing there so nobby with the steam still rising from her, something happened inside me, Sarge. A kind of fluttering in my stomach. I’ve been unable to pass a station ever since.’

‘Must be inconvenient,’ said Cribb. ‘You weren’t here on the morning they found the infernal machine, I suppose?’

Thackeray shook his head. ‘No, more’s the pity. What a diabolical thing to do, putting a bomb in a station! I saw the damage caused by the one at Victoria. It wrecked half a dozen offices and shattered the glass roof, as well as bursting the gas-pipes and starting a sizeable fire. Someone will have to catch these dynamiters soon. The Special Branch don’t seem to be making much progress, if the talk at Paradise Street can be relied upon. I’d like to know how that lot spend their time.’

Watching you, thought Cribb. He decided to change the topic. ‘Where do you drink these days, Thackeray? Now that we’ve chanced to meet in this way, I’d like to buy you a pint of ale, if you weren’t planning to spend the rest of the day with Number 214, that is.’

The constable grinned sheepishly. ‘She has to be off in a few minutes, as it happens, Sarge. Twelve-thirty to Brighton, via Victoria and East Croydon. She’s the fast.’

‘Ah, then I shall definitely take you for a drink,’ said Cribb. ‘Best to leave the fast ones alone, eh? Which pub did you say?’

‘The Feathers in Rotherhithe, Sarge. Just a halfpenny bus ride away. I’m the only one from Paradise Street that drinks there. The others go to the Spread Eagle. They’re a trifle particular about where they drink in view of all the bother lately. Mine’s an Irish pub, you see.’

It had to be, thought Cribb, inwardly groaning. How many more connexions would Thackeray have with the dynamite campaign? Any minute now he was going to mention the Peep o’Day alarm clock an American friend had given him, and the imitation Remington pistol he kept in a portmanteau under his bed.

‘It ain’t the best time for service,’ Thackeray explained, as they approached The Feathers. ‘We shan’t get near the pump for brats.’ But his substantial form moved like an ironclad through the throng of ragged infants clamouring with jugs for the noonday beer for their families. ‘Two swipes, Michael,’ he called over the cropped heads, and in seconds the Yard was slaking its thirst at a table in the corner.

After a long draught, Cribb cordially asked, ‘How’s the crime in Rotherhithe, then?’

‘I’d be obliged if you’d keep your voice down, Sarge,’ said Thackeray through his teeth. ‘I don’t like to be known here as one of the Force. The crime? Ah, it’s about the same, you know. There ain’t much to talk of-not that you’d cross the road for, so to speak. The usual brawling in the docks. It provides me with a stabbing or a questionable drowning once or twice a week to occupy my time. Otherwise I’m left with fallen women and ferocious dogs. Oh, and opium-smokers. We’ve got as many Chinamen between here and London Bridge as there is in Pekin. What’s the matter with your right arm, Sarge?’

Cribb patted the area of his collar-bone, so sore from rifle-practice that he was drinking left-handed. ‘Too much responsibility,’ he joked. ‘It’s more than I can shoulder.’

‘Do you need some assistance?’ Thackeray spoke in earnest, shaming the sergeant with open-heartedness.

‘No, no. Nothing like that. So this is an Irish house, then. Didn’t know you favoured the Paddies-or is it the hard stuff that you’ve taken a fancy to?’

‘Not me, Sarge. I never was a whisky man. No, I come here for my own reasons-professional reasons, you might say. I’ve never forgotten something you told me the first time we worked together. There’s more useful information to be learned in a public taproom than there is in the Police Gazette.’

‘Did I say that? Must have been feeling low at the time, Thackeray.’

‘Ah, but there’s a deal of truth in it. Provided that you don’t spend your time drinking with bobbies, that is. There’s nothing so certain to put a stop to conversation in a pub as half a dozen pairs of regulation boots crossing the threshold. I think you said that, too, Sarge.’

‘Probably.’ Cribb took another draught. ‘You still haven’t told me why you drink in an Irish pub.’

Thackeray leaned forward confidentially. ‘That’s something I wouldn’t care to go in to this morning, Sarge.’

‘Dangerous company these days, the Irish,’ Cribb persisted. ‘They’ve other things on their minds than Blarney Stones and fairy cobblers. Do you just listen, or do you mix with ’em?’

‘A bit of both, I suppose. You can’t sit in a corner on your own and say nothing. That would give them cause for suspicion, wouldn’t it? I pass the time of day to anyone that catches my eye, and if they want to say a few words more, well I don’t turn my back on them.’

‘Do you buy ’em a drink?’

‘On my wage? Not unless they buy one first for me.’

Cribb nodded. ‘I take your point. My turn to fill the glasses. You’ll have another?’

‘Since it’s my day off, yes. My first Sunday in three months.’

‘These drinking-companions of yours,’ Cribb doggedly began again, when he returned with the beer. ‘The ones that treat you first, I mean. Are any of ’em here this morning?’

‘Not many do, Sarge. We tend to buy our own. It’s more likely to be the occasional visitor that treats you than the regulars. Good health.’

‘Yours, too. Who would want to come to a pub like this-without disrespect, of course-in the backstreets of Rotherhithe, and stand a round of drinks for a bunch of Irish dockers and a constable off duty?’

‘They don’t know about me, Sarge,’ Thackeray assured him in a whisper. ‘Someone with a sharp ear for accents might detect that I wasn’t born in Tipperary, but they don’t know I’m in the Force. If there’s a round of drinks being bought, I’m usually included. I was personally treated once, too.’

‘Who by?’

Thackeray smiled. ‘Ah, a big, bearded American with more money than sense. He came here three or four months ago, early in the new year. Swore he was an Irishman whose family emigrated at the time of the potato famine.’

‘Did he have an Irish name?’

‘I don’t recall, Sarge. We was conversing about trains, and once I’m on that subject I find that I don’t listen much to the other fellow. He wasn’t what you might call a railway connoisseur, but he was interested. He kept asking questions about railway stations and buying me whisky.’

Jerusalem! Cribb blinked. ‘You were on spirits that night, then?’

‘I have a nip just occasional, Sarge. Yes, he was a generous sort of cove. Big, too. Barge-horse of a man. Stood well over six foot. None of the regulars would have wanted to mix it with him.’

‘Was he a fighting man, then?’

‘I don’t think so. I always look at the hands, since you taught me how to spot a pugilist. It was odd, really. There was hard skin on them, and some blistering, but it was on the palms, not the knuckles.’

‘A navvy,’ suggested Cribb.

‘Not with money to spend on whisky, Sarge. Besides, I looked at the fingernails, and they were manicured. You notice a thing like that in a dockers’ pub.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Another thing,’ said Thackeray, clearly experiencing a total recollection. ‘His hands smelt of spirits.’

‘Whisky, you mean?’

‘No, Sarge. Methylated. Strange, I do remember his name now. It came back to me with the smell. Malone.’

‘Malone. Did he happen to mention how long he was staying in London?’

‘No, but I could ask his friends. There’s three or four over from America who visit The Feathers regular.’

‘Three or four?’ Cribb sank the rest of his beer at a gulp. ‘Perhaps you’d care to tell me about them. I need another drink first.’

And fast. Three or four! Lord, it was like being beaten over the head with a truncheon. Or a shillelagh. The innocence of the man!

When the descriptions were done, and they stood outside in the street looking for a cab for Cribb, Thackeray seemed at last to sense his concern. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think me unco-operative, Sarge,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never really had the opportunity of doing much detective-work on my own. You know how it is when you overhear something that just might have some connexion with a matter under investigation. You keep it to yourself until you’ve got something positive, or you find that it don’t mean a thing. These blooming Irish have such fanciful notions that if you believed everything they said, you wouldn’t stop another night in London. It’s sorting out what’s the truth that takes the time. But I can wait. I have to win their confidence first.’

‘That’s the dangerous bit,’ said Cribb.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The easiest way to gain a confidence is to give one.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re saying, Sergeant.’

Confound the man. He could not put it more plainly. ‘Think about it, Thackeray. Think about it. There’s no more difficult duty in police work than handling an informant correct. That’s another dictum to remember. Do you understand me?’

Thackeray looked at Cribb for several seconds. Then he nodded his head once. His face was expressionless. It was as if an empty frame signalled the end of a lantern-show.