CHAPTER 68

A LILY PLUCKED AND DISCARDED

Issachar and Zebulon Templebane had directed that the Safe House be watched at all hours of the day and night, and from all sides. This kept their adopted sons busy, sleepless and consequently at increasingly short temper with each other.

The most annoyed of them was Garlickhythe, who had been the youngest until the arrival of Amos into the cold but extendable bosom of the family three years ago. As such he had had to endure all the worst jobs for longer than he liked to remember, and he had got used to enjoying his freedom from them once the mute had been brought into the house.

However, since Amos was not yet returned from his mission to Rutlandshire, Garlickhythe had become the youngest again, and thus the receiver of the short straw in all decisions. In the matter of keeping the Safe House under surveillance it was generally considered that the most uncomfortable post was to the south, close by the river: it was windy, wet and beset by the most startling and mephitic odours that the sewers, emptying themselves freely into the Thames just below his observation point, could provide.

He was not too upset by the smell, being a Londoner born, but he was also a hypochondriac who spent much of the time worrying about his health. There was no question that his post, outside a most unappealing shop-front specialising in broken-backed chairs, scarred tables and all manner of second-hand bric-a-brac (including a rack of wooden legs which clattered ominously in the wind) was the most uncomfortable and exposed to the elements.

Worse than that, it was boring. It was so very boring that Garlickhythe decided to divert himself. Nothing other than the normal comings and goings of the fat cook, the thin man in midnight blue and a couple of tradesmen, a ratter and a blacksmith had been seen for days. He was sure he would miss nothing by a sporting encounter with one of the accommodating ladies from Neptune Street, and it would not take long.

He was, however, not willing to stray too far from his post in case he was whistled in by Coram or Bassetshaw or one of the other older “brothers”. He knew they would have great glee in reporting his absence to Issachar. So he engaged with one of the girls to meet her outside the shop and then to repair to a less visible spot to conduct their business. The spot he chose was down some greasy steps that took them under the shadow of a disused jetty on the edge of the river.

Lily, for that was the girl’s name, complained about the mud he was clearly intending her to walk through to get to his chosen private trysting place beneath the dank pilings and their ruined boardwalk. She was especially vocal on its pernicious effect on “her nice new shoes”, shoes which were, as he pointed out, neither nice nor convincingly new. He suggested that she take them off, which she surprised him (since taking off clothing was something of a prerequisite of her chosen profession) by refusing to do.

“You can carry me,” she said.

“Carry you, my arse!” he retorted.

“You’d carry me if you was half a gent,” she pouted.

“If you was half the size you are I might give it a go,” he said. “I ain’t putting my back out trying to lift a dirty great plumper like you—”

And then he stopped.

In the shadows beneath the jetty there was a lighter or flat-bottomed barge moored in close in such a way that no one would notice it from the street above, and he saw The Smith disembark from it and cross the mud to the river wall where there was a barred culvert.

“You bast—” began Lily, outraged at the aspersions he had just cast as to her size.

His hand lashed out and grabbed her, yanking her down into the mud. She gasped and began to cry out again, but he was so acutely sensible of the need for silence that he mashed her face, mouth first, into the ooze at his feet and held her there as he watched what The Smith was about.

He was fascinated to see the culvert gate swing open and the fat cook emerge to look at the boat. There was a muttered conversation and in order to catch at least a few words he was obliged to push Lily’s face deeper into the river mud so that the bubbles she was producing as she struggled and began to spasm did not distract him.

“… load it up… turn of the tide tonight or tomorrow morning…” was all he could make out. Then they both disappeared back into the culvert and the gate was clanged shut and audibly locked behind them. He waited, frozen for a long while, until he was sure they were not going to return.

“Well,” he said to Lily. “I think them has got themselves a secret tunnel to the river from that there ’ouse. What do you think the old fathers is going to give me for discovering that?”

Lily didn’t answer, and when he stopped pressing down on the back of her neck she didn’t get up either.

He looked down at the body with a cold disinterest, the excitement of what his fathers would do for him when he transmitted the intelligence having kindled a greater fire inside him than the lust he had intended to quench in the girl.

He looked around, especially watchful of the blank warehouse wall rising like a cliff above him, but no one was watching.

He sighed and bent to pick her feet up, dragged her to the edge of the mud bank and rolled her into the rising water. He looked down at his trousers.

“You were right about that mud,” he said to the sad jumble of skirts that had been Lily. “It’s ruined my bloody shoes.”

And he walked gingerly back to the greasy steps and back up into the city, his pace quickening with excitement.

By the time he got to Issachar’s and Zebulon’s study, the Thames had risen enough to float the girl and start her on her journey around the great loop in the river pulling inexorably towards the darker expanses of Blackwall Reach.

From that point things moved fast: deducing that a lighter was engaged to carry something from the Safe House in secrecy, and further extrapolating that whatever–or whoever–it was that was to be the cargo must be something of rarity and value, Issachar went to see Mountfellon.

That interview was substantially more amicable than their last contact, although Issachar found the opaque windows that Mountfellon had glazed the house on Chandos Place with gave the interiors an unworldly and disconcerting feeling, as if one were trapped under ice.

A plan was agreed, which was as follows: Issachar would engage some biddable gentlemen who had no scruples about foul play.

“The Wipers will suit, I think,” he said thoughtfully. “My brother or I, depending on time of day, will direct matters personally. This is too serious a business to delegate—”

“Exactly,” said Mountfellon. “I will engage two boats, steam launches for speed. One can be crewed round the clock close by this hidden jetty, and when these damn people endeavour to make their escape with whatever it is they are trying to hide, the first boat will follow and effect an entirely justifiable act of appropriation as soon as they can. A reasonable act of piracy, if you will.”

“And the second boat, my lord?” enquired Templebane.

“I shall pilot that myself. As soon as the hare is running, I am to be alerted and will embark in pursuit.”

“But it will take a long time to get there from here,” said Templebane.

“I do not intend to catch a chill sleeping on a boat,” said Mountfellon. “And we do not know which of the two tides they will take. So I will stay at your house. It is close to the river. It looked clean enough, and I’m sure you can provide something approaching a comfortable bed.”

And so the plan was made.

And all this before poor accommodating Lily had even been missed for her dinner.