The Masters of Bow Street Read online

  As she waited at a corner for traffic to slacken she saw a woman inside a brougham with a handsome man at her side. The woman glanced sideways but did not appear to notice her. Richard had pointed her out to Ruth one Sunday two years ago. It had been near here when they had been walking through St. Martin’s Fields and admiring the magnificence of the new church.

  ‘There she is, my love, the famous or the notorious Mrs. Braidley, take your choice. They say she is the highest paid whore in London.’

  ‘Richard! You should hot say such things!’

  ‘You speak more true than you realise,’ Richard had replied, still laughing. ‘If the great John Furnival were to hear me he’d throw me out of his service, and then where would we be?’

  ‘You mean he goes to her?’

  ‘No, m’dear. He is one of the favoured few; they do say there are only three left. She goes to him.’

  ‘Have you actually seen her, close to?’

  ‘I’ve even held the lady’s cloak and been bewitched by her dazzling smile,’ Richard had boasted, eyes laughing at Ruth. ‘Haven’t you noticed the time when I’ve come home, walking on air?’ A few minutes later, very soberly, he had gone on to say, ‘Mr. Furnival and Mrs. Braidley are good friends, Ruth. She doesn’t go to him simply a- whoring. I’ve heard him laugh with her more than with any woman - or any man, for that matter. She’s good for him, and a man who works as hard as he does needs to relax.’

  ‘And how hard do you work, sir?’

  ‘I do my relaxing at home with my wife!’

  They had laughed together and had soon forgotten.

  Now, she remembered. She asked herself what Richard would have her do, and unexpectedly smiled; the notion was so absurd. For a few moments she caught some of the light-heartedness she had so often known with Richard and it did not go immediately when she went into Hennessy’s tiny shop and saw the two brothers whispering, one small and one big, each in blue-and-white apron with cross stripes, the white stained with blood. The larger of the two greeted her heartily while the small one vanished into the storeroom.

  ‘Well, what a sight for my poor eyes!’ the Irishman boomed. ‘And ‘tis the truth I’m telling ye when I say ye look a prettier woman than I’ve ever seen before in all me natural. How are ye keeping, Mrs. Marshall? And that bonny broth of a boy, a strapping boy if ever I saw one. How is he?’ There was a momentary pause before he asked, ‘What can I be doing for ye this morning, Mrs. Marshall, sweetheart?’

  ‘If you have two pennyworth of scrag and bones I would like them.’

  Almost at once the door behind him opened and the small brother came through with a package wrapped in thin mutton cloth, stained pink from the meat inside. He handed it across the wooden bench, which was roughened with marks of choppers, and gave her a timorous smile.

  ‘Take these with our blessing and may the Holy Mother look after ye and yours,’ the big brother said, but his words and the accompanying smile were forced and he lowered his tone as he went on. ‘The word is out that we’re riot to serve, ye, Mrs. Marshall. Friends of Fired Jackson came to us yesterday and warned us, that they did. The next time must be the last time, they said, as true as I’m standing here. From the bottom of me heart I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve me own safety and the safety of me family to consider.’

  ‘And mine, remember,’ the little man said. ‘And mine, Michael.’

  ‘And me brother’s, too,’ boomed Michael Hennessy. Ruth wanted to throw the package into his face, and gripped it so tightly that the blood oozed through the wrapping and onto her fingers. She stared at the big man, who looked thoroughly ashamed, and made herself speak.

  ‘Have you sent for the peace officers, Mr. Hennessy?’

  ‘Now, ma’am, what good would a peace officer be to me if he came and found me with me throat cut? Not even John Furnival himself could guard the shop and me home all the time.’

  ‘Or mine, Michael, or mine!’ came the echo.

  ‘All day and all night they would need protecting, and how could a poor tradesman like me afford watchmen on his own? The streets are so full of villains, why, I heard that Mr. Walpole was attacked in Piccadilly only last week! ’Tis sorry I am, Mrs. Marshall, but ‘tis the truth I’m telling ye.’

  She continued to look at him until both he and his brother grew uneasy under the scrutiny of this young and comely woman, with her chestnut-brown hair showing beneath her small bonnet with its lace fringe, and the clear blue eyes and the full mouth and skin almost without a blemish. They could not be expected to understand that she was no longer thinking of them but only of what they had told her and what it meant to her.

  If the friends of Frederick Jackson had put the finger of fear upon those prepared to help her, whom could she count as friends? If she had no friends, how could she live?

  ‘Mrs. Marshall, ’tis nothing personal I’d have ye understand, ’tis—’

  ‘Fear of Jackson striking you from his grave,’ she interrupted. ‘I know, Mr. Hennessy. And how do you think people will ever become free from fear if men like you cringe at a threat and will do nothing in defiance?’

  Before either man could answer, she turned away; and she was a hundred yards along Long Acre before she realised that the package was dripping onto the coarse wrapping cloth of the work for Mrs. Hewson. She stood still for a moment, outside a saddler’s shop, then gingerly placed the package into her basket and walked on. Deliberately, she went out of her way to Covent Garden piazza and the still-magnificent though dilapidated houses and walked along the path towards the south side so that in a few moments she could pass Mr. Morgan’s shop and perhaps catch a glimpse of James opposite the establishments with their small windows set in weathered boards stained with pitch and topped by big fascia boards on which the names of the merchants were beautifully and elaborately inscribed. A new market building was going up and dozens of labourers were moving piles of red bricks and stacks of wooden scaffolding, others carrying iron-cast guttering and pipes, others digging a huge ditch to carry away the waste; already an offensive stink rose from the ditch. Hammering, banging and shouting combined to make a deafening noise and she almost wished she hadn’t come.

  There was James! She had never seen him so loaded. From each arm of the yoke hung three baskets at different levels so that as they swung to his walk they would not bang into one another. Three round baskets were balanced on his head, and he pushed the laden cart out of the shop.

  ‘Hurry, James,’ Mr. Morgan called. ‘I want you back by noon and not a minute later.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ James replied and he turned hurriedly in the opposite direction from his mother.

  As he worked seven days a week it had been a long time since she had seen him in morning light, and this was a bright crisp morning when it should have been good to be alive. He looked tired out already, yet he began to move forward at a slow jog, watched by Morgan from the door. A black-haired man, Morgan wore a clean white apron from neck to knees, and his fat calves were covered in black stockings rucked up over highly polished black shoes. Heavy-bearded except at the chin, itself clean-shaven, he glanced in her direction as he went back into the shop but did not recognise her, and she did not make herself known.

  That was the moment when she made up her mind to accept John Furnival’s proposal.

  That was the moment, also, when Eve Milharvey woke for the second morning of her ‘widowhood’ in the apartment to which Frederick Jackson had first brought her, so long ago. There was heaviness in her breast, a sense of loss and of grief, and she lay alone and looked at a bright patch of sky. She heard the old woman whom she had met on that first day moving about in another room and scolding a chambermaid for dallying at the window. Easing herself up on her pillows, she pushed back the bedclothes, but as she swung herself over the side of the bed she felt the onslaught of nausea. When she stood up she could only keep steady by gripping one of the fluted oak posts of the bed. She lowered herself again and belched, but hardly eased the nausea. Sh
e placed her well-shaped, well-kept hands on her belly, feeling the softness of the silk Fred had liked her to wear; it was the nearest cloth to feel like the smoothness of her skin. ‘I can’t be,’ she said aloud. ‘It isn’t possible!’

  But of course it was possible. She had been to see him in Newgate, where he had the use of a private room; not once, not twice, but a dozen times she had helped him to forget his danger.

  And if she had a child it could only be Fred’s.

  Ruth Marshall heard the footsteps on the stairs and moved towards the door. She was quite calm, and indeed had been much calmer since reaching her decision than she had expected to be. She opened the door to find Furnival at the head of the stairs. He took off his hat but still had to stoop to get through the doorway. It was daylight and yet gloomy in this room, and the sound of the children shrieking in the yard travelled clearly. So did the stomping of a horse’s hooves. She realised he had come on horseback, consequently alone; and that in its way was a great compliment to her. She closed the door as he tossed his cloak back over his shoulders; she noticed that he was breathing hard, as if the ride had been furious or the climb up to this room had been exhausting. He took a folded paper from his pocket and she recognised the note she had sent him yesterday, the day following her decision. James had delivered this to the offices in Bow Street only last night. She had written:

  If it still pleases you I would be proud to enter your service in the manner of our discussion.

  She studied the strong face and the massive body of this ‘great bull of a man’ and was aware of the appraisal in his tawny eyes. His lips were unexpectedly shapely when he began to smile as he asked, ‘Who taught you to write, Ruth Marshall?’

  ‘My father, sir.’

  ‘And what was your father, pray? A teacher? A parson?’

  ‘He was a preacher, sir, and in his spare time a carpenter and wagonmaker.’

  ‘And could read and write well enough to teach his children. You were fortunate in your father.’

  ‘I have long been aware of it, sir.’

  ‘No doubt he had a ready tongue, also,’ said Furnival dryly. ‘What made you make up your mind so quickly?’

  ‘A variety of reasons, sir,’ she answered, ‘and the most telling was that I did not want my children to go hungry or my son to miss the chance of going to school.’

  He nodded slowly and then added in a quieter voice, ‘By your leave I will sit down.’

  She was angry with herself for not offering him a chair and pushed forward the armchair in which Tom Harris had sat two nights ago. The arms were carved, and polished with age, and he rubbed them with each hand as he went on.

  ‘What other reasons, Ruth? I want to know them all.’

  She stood in front of him and words like ‘out of respect’ and even ‘out of affection’ came to her mind but she could not utter them. He waited, watching. She remembered Richard telling her, ‘He can smell when a witness is lying or telling half the truth. I’ve seen him on the bench make a man confess to a horrid crime simply by staring at him and saying: “I want the truth, only the truth.”’

  And she could understand that as John Furnival stared at her now until she was driven to say, ‘It would be false to pretend deep affection for you, sir.’

  He started. ‘Affection? For me? You may have to wait months before you can even tolerate me!’ He actually laughed, and she had never liked him more. ‘But there was another reason for such haste. Speak frankly, Ruth, and fairly.’

  ‘There was,’ she admitted.

  ‘What was it, pray?’

  She told him, faltering at first, about her visit to the Hennessy brothers’ shop, and what had transpired there, and his laughter and the softness of his expression faded. He was silent when she finished, as if he expected more from her. So she said in a husky voice, ‘Life would be difficult enough on my own without Frederick Jackson’s friends conspiring against me. There are so many harmful things they could do. They might - they might try to turn James against me, sir, or lure him to drink or to crime. They might—’

  ‘That is enough,’ he interrupted. ‘I know all they might do and fully understand why you reached so quick a decision.’

  ‘And you are not angered, sir?’

  ‘Angered? By a woman who uses her head as well as her heart? No, Ruth, that way you’ll never anger me. Many things do. I need—’ He broke off abruptly. ‘Do you need time to con sider afresh?’

  ‘No, sir. I am firmly decided.’

  ‘Then the cottage will be ready for you on Monday,’ he promised. ‘As for James, he should give his master fair notice, a week or perhaps two, and then he can find out whether the school near Saint Paul’s can teach him as much as his grandfather taught you.’ He palmed the carved heads on the arms of the chair and asked, ‘Is this his carving?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it is.’

  ‘Whatever else you wish to bring to the cottage with this, tell my man Moffat, who will come to fetch you on Monday morning with a cart large enough to carry all you have.’ He stood up, placed his hands on her shoulders and pressed, and then smiled at her again. ‘Ruth,’ he said, ‘I think we shall become good friends. But we never will if I frighten you. Do I? Or does my reputation?’

  ‘No, sir,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘I am apprehensive but not frightened - not even by your reputation!’

  She sensed that he was trying to make sure that she was telling the truth, and indeed she was. Suddenly he laughed and took his hands away, swept her a mock bow, arid turned towards the door.

  She was more lighthearted than she had been for at least six months, and she felt positive that she had reached the right decision. She was so preoccupied with his manner and her new lightness of heart that she did not move until she heard his horse on the cobbles, and by the time she reached the window, he was through the alley and gone.

  5: ‘ROBBERY’ IN FLEET STREET

  ‘Is it the truth?’ demanded Eve Milharvey, a week after the morning when she had fought the nausea and been frightened by its significance. She was walking in the warm sunlight in the piazza of Covent Garden with Peter Nicholson, one of Fred’s oldest friends, who had been present at the hanging. The grass in the squares divided by post and rails had been freshly scythed and boys were sweeping the cuttings into great piles; the scent of the new-cut grass was as overpowering as a French perfume. A few people, mostly couples of middle class, judging from their clothes, strolled on the gravel paths, and from the windows of the rows of fine houses on either side, old people and young were basking in the sunlight. A street seller of oranges was singing, voice touched with melody.

  ‘Sweet China oranges to sell, sweet China oranges.’

  ‘Aye, ‘tis the solemn truth,’ Peter assured Eve. ‘She has moved into the cottage, and the whole family is with her.’

  ‘And she spends much time in Furnival’s offices?’

  ‘She is the food provider for him and the court officials and mistress, of his offices and rooms,’ replied Peter, with a lopsided smile. He was a tall, silky-haired man in his late thirties, foppish after a fashion, wearing a pale-blue cloak over a striped green-and-dark-blue shirt and breeches with pale-blue bands beneath the knees. His boots were of pale hogskin which looked as pliable as silk. He inclined his head towards Eve as if to make sure that no one else could hear and there was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice.

  ‘Mistress of his bed, more like!’

  ‘With him, she’ll be that too.’

  ‘I wonder what Lisa Braidley will say to this new competition?’ Eve asked, obviously wanting no answer. ‘The woman is young and comely, you say?’

  ‘Yes, Eve, in all fairness that must be said.’

  ‘And she goes to Sebastian Smith’s church, Saint Hilary’s?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Peter Nicholson. ‘Her husband would never go but she always does.’

  ‘Peter,’ Eve said, touching him on the arm with her gloves, ‘make sure that Lisa Braidley is made aware
of this new situation soon, and make sure the Reverend Smith is also acquainted. Neither of them will be fooled by what kind of mistress she is called.’

  ‘It shall be done, Eve, and quickly.’

  ‘And carefully, remember, as a piece of gossip, not as by the common informer!’

  ‘As a delightful morsel of gossip,’ he assured her. ‘And the Reverend Smith, with his nose for prudery, will be in a right mood to admonish her!’

  They walked on for a few moments in silence, reached a yard leading to Long Acre, and turned and began to walk back. The singer’s voice seemed to have died away and there was very little traffic in the roads which ran about the great square.

  Suddenly Eve Milharvey said, ‘The boy. What is the boy doing?’

  ‘The boy James?’

  ‘Who else would I mean?’ she demanded impatiently.

  ‘He is still with grocer Morgan, who sells coffee and tea and spices.’

  ‘He won’t be for long, if I know John Furnival,’ she said, and her voice became momentarily strident. Another silence followed and lasted until they were close to the south entrance, when she took Peter’s arm again and said with quiet venom, ‘Listen to me, and make sure everything is carried out as I say. Have a boy of Marshall’s age dressed as he dresses and carrying parcels and pushing a cart as he does. Have this boy go into a shop ahead of Marshall and leave by the back way. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I do declare I even understand what you are planning,’ her companion said, his eyes glowing.

  ‘As young Marshall passes the shop have the shopkeeper raise a cry of “Stop thief!” And be sure,’ went on Eve Milharvey, ‘there is a thief-taker at hand to stop the Marshall boy and search his baskets.’ She looked levelly into her companion’s eyes and went on slowly. ‘It will not be difficult to find the stolen money in one of those baskets. Make sure the shopkeeper will swear to it and make sure some independent witnesses are stopped who will swear they saw the boy go in and come out again. If there is no one who can be proved an honest citizen, Furnival will get the boy out. We shall need them all in court when he comes up for hearing, and at the Sessions their evidence should be enough to have him hanged. Take all the time you need in which to prepare.’