The Blue and the Grey Page 5

  Luther smiled at Grand. ‘You be sure and have a good day, now,’ he said.

  SIX

  ‘Wakey, wakey, sir.’ Someone seemed to be shaking his shoulder, but James Batchelor was tired and wanted to sleep. Surely, it wasn’t morning already? He opened one eye carefully and looked at the man looming above him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked. The man didn’t answer. ‘And where am I?’

  ‘I am Inspector Tanner,’ he said. ‘You are in Vine Street Police Cells.’ Tanner could be a man of few words, and he preferred to wait until the incarcerated had asked both of the inevitable questions. It saved time.

  ‘Oh.’ Batchelor remembered it all now. He glanced down at the dried blood on his trousers, on his hands, brown and cracking now, peeling off from between his fingers like tiny petals of long-dead flowers.

  ‘And now you remember why you are here,’ Tanner said. He stood upright, and Batchelor saw that he was very tall. He would have to bend to get through the cell door. ‘Will you follow me? We need to get some details about you and the events of last night, sir.’

  Sir? Did this mean he was no longer the Number One Suspect? He struggled to his feet and scurried after the man, who was striding off down the corridor. ‘Excuse me,’ Batchelor called. ‘Excuse me.’

  The man stopped and turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Am I still a suspect? In Effie’s murder?’ He mentally gave himself a kick. Calling her by her name like that made their relationship seem so much more than it actually was. ‘The dead girl.’ It was too late, but worth a try.

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Tanner said. He turned and opened a door, stepping back. ‘After you.’

  Batchelor walked through into normality. Here was an office, with a small square of carpet on the floor, a desk, some chairs and, at the windows, some curtains which had seen both better days and a much larger window. There was a reassuring smell of pipe tobacco, and there, as if in proof, on a large glass ashtray on a corner of the desk, smouldered the actual pipe. Batchelor could have cried with relief; he had begun to think that the world he knew was gone for ever, but this could have been his editor’s office, back at the Telegraph.

  ‘Take a seat, Mr Batchelor.’

  ‘Mr Batchelor?’

  Tanner went round behind his desk and shuffled some paper, eventually choosing a single piece and holding it at arm’s-length, squinting down his nose. He looked up. ‘James Batchelor. That is you, I hope,’ he said. ‘I’ll swing for that sergeant.’

  ‘Yes,’ Batchelor said hurriedly. ‘Yes, that’s me. I just wondered why I am suddenly Mr Batchelor, when I have been locked up in a stinking cell since last night without even a sip of water.’

  ‘No breakfast?’ Tanner asked. ‘Tsk. Never mind. Hopefully we can sort this out quite quickly. Now, I have here all of your details, I think. James Batchelor … oh, that appears to be all I have. Oh, this is too bad. I really will have to have a word.’ He sat down behind his desk and flicked open his inkwell. ‘Now—’ he dipped his pen – ‘address?’

  ‘Thirty-one, Fleet Place,’ Batchelor told him.

  ‘Oh,’ the inspector said, beaming, ‘nice and handy for the Hoop and Grapes.’ Tanner wrote laboriously, crossing the tees with a flourish. ‘Occupation?’

  ‘Journalist.’

  Tanner put the pen down. ‘Journalist? How fascinating. Would I have read anything of yours?’

  ‘Do you like flower shows?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Dogs?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Babies?’

  ‘Only when related. I have two of my own, and they are usually pleasant enough.’

  ‘Then you won’t have read anything of mine.’

  Tanner gave an appreciative chuckle. ‘Still making your way, I see,’ he said. ‘Never mind, you can write up this case, perhaps.’

  ‘If I live as long,’ Batchelor said, ruminatively.

  Tanner looked shocked. ‘My dear chap,’ he said. ‘Are you ill?’

  Batchelor was startled. ‘Er … no. It’s just that … well, the constable who arrested me suggested that … well, that I might be hanged for killing Effie.’

  ‘Did you kill Effie?’ Tanner’s pen was raised.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why would we hang you for it, then?’ the inspector asked, reasonably. ‘We don’t just pick men off the street, you know. We like a modicum of evidence first. Would you like to …?’ He gestured to Batchelor’s bloody hands.

  ‘Wash?’ Batchelor was delighted. He could feel the dried and flaked blood as if it were red hot. ‘I would love to.’

  Tanner got up and walked to the door. Flinging it open, he shouted down the corridor, ‘Hot water in here, if you please?’ Turning back to Batchelor, he asked, ‘Tea?’

  Batchelor nodded. He was confused and tired and thought he might cry any minute, something he hadn’t done since he was ten.

  Tanner raised his voice again: ‘And some tea.’ He shut the door and slipped back behind his desk. ‘Where were we?’ he asked, mildly.

  ‘That I hadn’t killed Effie.’ Batchelor didn’t think it was possible to say it too often.

  Tanner didn’t pick up his pen again. Instead, he looked across his desk at Batchelor and then suddenly smiled. It transformed his face, and for the first time since he had knelt down by Effie’s dead body, Batchelor felt safe. ‘I didn’t think you had,’ he said. ‘We have a number of eyewitness accounts of a man seen with the deceased unfortunate and they don’t match you at all. Let me see …’ He rummaged on his desk again and came out with a second sheet of paper, much screwed up and with stains of what looked to Batchelor very like blood on one corner. ‘While the estimable Constable Morris was walking you back here and filling your head with nonsense, Brown was being a little more inventive. He asked members of the crowd whether they had seen Effie with anyone. Apart from one girl who kept saying it was you, the others were unanimous. She had spent most of the evening with a rather well-set up gentleman, tall—’ Tanner broke off with another of his smiles. ‘I should explain that to an eyewitness tall can mean anything over their own height, but I think in practice we can take it this time as being around five feet ten or so. You are … what?’

  Batchelor drew himself up. He tried not to sound offended. ‘Five feet six.’ He paused. ‘And a half.’

  ‘And a half. Just so.’ Tanner extended his arm again and read from the paper. ‘The man appears to have luxuriant facial hair, Piccadilly weepers at the very outside, but some people went for the beard, so we are not too sure on that. Hmmm …’ He appeared to be editing as he went. ‘Some of the other unfortunates had some things to say that we, as gentlemen, don’t need to share. And I’m not sure I could repeat them in court, either.’

  There was a tap on the door.

  ‘Ah, tea.’ Tanner raised his voice. ‘Come in.’

  A constable came in with a tray in his hand, bearing a teapot and two cups.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tanner said, dismissively. ‘I’ll pour.’ He looked over his shoulder at the paper again as he did so. ‘Yes, facial hair … and that’s about it, I think. A disguise, clearly. The facial hair, I mean. The height is a little harder to fake. An inch or so with built up heels, but not four inches.’

  ‘Three and a half,’ Batchelor amended.

  ‘As you say. Three and a half. Even so, Mr Batchelor—’ Tanner pushed his cup nearer – ‘even so, I am convinced you did not kill the poor girl.’ He leaned forward. ‘I am going to share something with you, Mr Batchelor, although all my instincts say I shouldn’t. The girl was strangled with a fine wire, which cut the arteries on her neck as well as severing her windpipe. She had no chance of survival; this was not anything other than a murderous attack. It didn’t appear to be for gain, because her paltry earnings were still in her bodice where she had tucked them. It was done for bloodlust, Mr Batchelor, pure and simple.’

  Batchelor was frozen on his side of the desk, his cup to his lip. Dr
eams of journalistic glory floated above his head. Headlines. His name prominently displayed. Fame. Fortune. He sighed and drank his tea.

  ‘What is it, Mr Batchelor?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘I don’t suppose I can use this information in a story,’ he said, plaintively.

  Tanner threw open his arms expansively. ‘Of course you can, Mr Batchelor,’ he said. ‘That’s why I have told you these gruesome details. I have, of course, held some things back. We must do that, you know. But, in essence, you have the story at your fingertips. I urge you to write it. The people of this fair city deserve to know.’

  ‘Truly?’ Batchelor’s eyes were open wide. ‘It will make my career.’

  ‘Least I can do,’ Tanner said, leaning back. ‘After the appalling behaviour of my night patrol. Throwing you in that cell and all.’

  Batchelor swigged his tea and jumped to his feet. His hot water hadn’t arrived, but washing was for men who didn’t have a headline to write. ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Please,’ Tanner said. ‘Please do. Get some sleep. Write your story. Become famous.’ He twinkled at him. ‘Don’t forget me when you are rich, Mr Batchelor.’

  Batchelor smiled and nodded, but he was already out of the door. The headline was writing itself in letters ten feet high above his head. ‘Fame!’ it trumpeted. ‘Fortune! Knighthood for Batchelor!’ He hurried down the stairs and out into the early morning crowds of Vine Street.

  Tanner, in his office, poured another cup of tea. He hadn’t had a journalist in his pocket for a while now. They were of limited importance and could come expensive, but they had their uses. He smiled his beautiful smile and leaned back in his chair, content. A good morning’s work, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.

  James Batchelor skimmed along Piccadilly with his head in the clouds. The editor would have to listen to him now. He was going to go home and write the article of his life. It would be headline news. ‘My Night In The Cells And What I Know About Police Brutality.’ No, that wasn’t really fair to Inspector Tanner, who had given him a cup of tea and some kind words. No, this was better: ‘Murder In The West End; My Brush With Horror In The Haymarket.’ He smiled and made several people, already eyeing his bloody hands with distaste, cross the road hurriedly.

  Back at his lodgings, he washed his gory hands at last, watching the water turn to rust as he cleaned the last of the blood away. He used some soap his sister had given him for Christmas; Attar of Roses wasn’t his usual perfume, but he felt that he needed something to counteract the blood, soaked into his skin. He changed his clothes and put the dirty ones in a neat pile for his landlady. He finally sat down at the small deal table he liked to think of as his desk and pulled a clean sheet of paper towards him. Dipping his pen in the ink he poised it above the virgin page. Then, a thought struck him.

  ‘MRS BIGGS,’ he wrote, in large capitals. ‘Don’t worry about the blood on these clothes. It isn’t mine. Yrs James.’

  He put it on top of the pile and pulled another sheet towards him. ‘HORRIBLE HAYMARKET GAROTTING!’ he began. Then, in smaller capitals, ‘“IT WAS DONE FOR BLOODLUST, MR BATCHELOR, PURE AND SIMPLE,” INSPECTOR TANNER TELLS YOUR REPORTER.’ He put down his pen and rubbed his hands together. Oh, yes, this was going to make his career.

  ‘Yes?’ The editor of the Telegraph didn’t waste words. Thornton Leigh Hunt knew how much each one cost, to the penny.

  James Batchelor stood on the square of carpet in front of the cluttered desk, on the corner of which a pipe smouldered in a large glass ashtray. ‘I … Did you hear about the murder in the Haymarket on Friday night?’ he asked.

  ‘Not specifically.’ The editor did not look up, continuing to wield his blue pencil lavishly on the pages in front of him.

  ‘There was one,’ Batchelor said, smugly. ‘I was there.’

  ‘Victim?’ the editor said, clamping the pipe back between his teeth.

  ‘An unfortunate …’

  ‘No. Were you the victim?’

  ‘Well … no.’ Batchelor felt his crest beginning to fall.

  ‘Perpetrator?’

  ‘No.’ This time he was more certain. He drew himself up and opened his mouth to continue.

  ‘In that case, I don’t think your little murder case can trump this, can it?’ Leigh Hunt turned the paper round to face Batchelor. The headlines screamed: ‘MURDER – President Lincoln Shot By An Assassin – THE ACT DONE BY A DESPERATE REBEL.’ The editor raised a sardonic eyebrow as he looked at Batchelor’s expression. ‘I grant you, this headline is very similar to that of the New York Times, but I dare say they’ve pinched the odd idea from us from time to time. George Sala is certain of it.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Batchelor managed to force out eventually.

  ‘Call yourself a journalist?’ the editor sneered, moving his pipe to the other side of his mouth. ‘George sent the news in on Saturday by telegraph. We were beaten by the Sundays, of course, but I like to think that our coverage will be the most complete of the weeklies. Bugger off now, Batchelor, there’s a good chap. They could do with some help in editorial; we’re waiting for some woman who once visited Washington to come in and give us an interview.’

  ‘Did she meet the President?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘I don’t believe so. Her late husband had his hair cut by a barber who once borrowed some scissors from the barber who once worked with the President’s barber – that kind of thing. Anyway, off you go. When she gets here, have a chat with her and bring me what she says.’

  ‘She won’t say much, though, will she, sir?’ Batchelor didn’t see the way the wind was blowing.

  ‘Make it up!’ the editor snapped.

  ‘But … that would be …’

  ‘Journalism, lad.’ Finally, the editor looked up at him and removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes. ‘It’s called journalism. Now, are you going to do this interview or not?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ Batchelor asked.

  Leigh Hunt leaned forward, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. ‘Of course you do, Batchelor. James, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And in that case, I would rather not, sir.’

  The editor smiled again, but there was no real warmth in it. He put his glasses back on and bent again to the pages, blue pencil at the ready. ‘In that case, I’ll have to let you go, Batchelor.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘Go, Batchelor – I will have to let you. There’s no room on this paper for a journalist who won’t make up the news. Off you go. Miss Witherspoon will make up your wages till Friday.’

  ‘Go?’

  ‘Your grasp of English is frighteningly rudimentary, Batchelor. I’m giving you the sack, if you want the vernacular. I can’t offer references, but if anyone asks me for a character, I will make you look good. As good as I can, anyway. I can’t lie, of course—’ and he gave a little chuckle – ‘but I’ll do my best.’

  Batchelor felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, as did the bile in his throat. Although never rich, he had always known where his next meal was coming from, and suddenly he stood on the brink of disaster. ‘But, sir …’

  Leigh Hunt looked up briefly. ‘“But, sir” never really works for me, Batchelor. I expect rhetoric, hyperbole, exaggeration.’ He held up his hand to stop the man, who had drawn a big breath to begin at least one of those. ‘Too little, Batchelor. Too late. Shut the door behind you as you go out. Oh, and tell Miss Witherspoon to make up your wages until tomorrow. And before you say so, Batchelor, I know I said Friday, but I am the editor and I can change my mind as I see fit. I know I can trust a truthful lad like you to do as I ask. Goodbye.’

  And that was clearly that. Batchelor stood for a few more seconds and then turned on his heel and left the room, closing the door behind him with exaggerated care.

  Miss Witherspoon had some bad news for him. In making up his wages until the Tuesday, she had perforce to take off monies owing for pen, paper and wear and tear on the desk, not to mention exp
enses which had been blue-pencilled by the editor after payment. The four shilling coins she pressed into his hand were all she could manage, she said, smiling like a basilisk. Batchelor left the office hurriedly, in case she suddenly discovered that he was behind with the coal money. With what he had hidden under the carpet at Mrs Biggs’, he had just three pounds, ten shillings and fourpence three farthings in the world. He squared his shoulders and walked out past his scribbling ex-colleagues with his head high. Once he was gone, every set of shoulders slumped. There but for the grace of God was the single thought in everybody’s head. Joe Buckley, Ed Dyer – it could have happened to either of them. It could even have happened to Gabriel Horner – in fact, more so to him since he was Methuselah’s elder brother. The sword had fallen and had got Damocles, also known as James Batchelor, right between the eyes.

  In the doorway he met a small woman, dressed in deepest black, with a thick veil over her face. He held the door open for her.

  ‘I believe you are waiting for me,’ she said in a voice thick with tears. ‘I was once in Washington …’

  The rest of the sentence was drowned by the sound of stampeding journalists. James Batchelor closed the door on their hyena-howling and set off in search of the rest of his life.

  SEVEN

  The ironclad Montauk rode at anchor that Tuesday along the eastern branch of the Potomac. Guards posted at the gates of the Navy Yard saluted stiffly as Captain Grand passed them. In his hand, he carried the brief message from Lafayette Baker: ‘Montauk. Nine o’clock.’ Not much of a conversationalist was Lafayette Baker. The soldier who’d brought the note was a corporal in the First District of Columbia Cavalry, and he’d waited while Grand washed, shaved and put on his full dress uniform. At least Baker hadn’t broken into his room this time. Even so, the note was clearly not a serving suggestion.

  The hull of the Montauk was battered and scarred, carrying the memories of her shelling of Confederate forts along the coast of Dixie and her clash with CSS Nashville two years earlier. She wore her wounds with pride, as befitted a warship of the bleeding United States that had been disunited for so long. At the gangplank Grand was obliged to hand over his Navy Colt and unhook his sabre. Today, whatever her past, the Montauk was a floating prison, and there were dangerous men on board.