Enemies at Every Turn Read online

  ‘Find out the figure, man, then I can decide.’

  About to grin, Gherson had to fight to control his features; Ralph Barclay would pay whatever was demanded and in that would include a decent reward for his own efforts, more now than if he had acted, as he could have done, straight away. He would employ the thieves and Barclay would never meet them, so would never know the true cost of the transaction.

  ‘Then, sir,’ he said, ‘if we are fully agreed on what must be done, I will be on my way.’

  It was hard for John Pearce not to favour his foot by walking gingerly; just as difficult was to walk with an air of insouciance and not catch the eye of anyone, for if those people Michael had mentioned were looking for a bandaged foot, they knew his rank and would be bound to give an extra examination to anyone dressed in a blue uniform coat and the distinctive naval headgear of his fore and aft scraper.

  The port and town of Dover sat in a deep coomb that ran down to the sea, with steep wooded slopes on either side fronted by the dirty white cliffs, so the way out was a long trudge uphill along the valley floor, which seemed designed to put extra pressure on his wound. As soon as they cleared the town gates and were out of sight, Michael offered to carry Pearce by piggyback, a piece of generosity immediately refused.

  Luck gave them both a lift on the tail of a hay cart which was going as far as the hamlet of Kearnsey, by which time Pearce felt he could favour the injury even if it affected his gait, yet it was still a long walk and it was with stiffening muscles that they made to the village which was their destination, the first stop of the London road.

  Given the slope and a heavy carriage, horses exiting Dover soon became exhausted, too much so to cover the customary ten miles between stops. Michael had found that the first change for coaches after Dover was only just over five miles distant at a place called Lydden and it was there, if there was room, they would catch it on the morrow and proceed to Canterbury and eventually to London.

  It was a tired and grateful pair who, after a filling stew of local mutton and root vegetables, sat themselves in front of a fire at the Bell Inn in the late afternoon, having bespoken accommodation, not much of the remains of a pot of porter in hand. Pearce, once the proprietor departed, had removed his shoe, pleased to see there was, on his stocking, no trace of blood, which showed the stitches holding the angry red weal together were intact.

  Propped on the copper fire surround, the sole was being nicely warmed by the blazing logs; it might be springtime, but the evenings were still chilly, the nights cold. It was then they heard the sound of a large party of riders and instinct fed by fear had Pearce leap up, grabbing his hat and his ditty bag, signalling to Michael that they should get out of the parlour and into the passage that led to the rear and the stables. Stopping just inside the door, he pushed it to so it was open a fraction, putting his ear to the crack to listen.

  The Irishman went out the rear door and came back in without his ale jug, carrying two long firewood logs to use as weapons, one silently put in Pearce’s hand. From being quiet in that parlour it was suddenly very noisy as the large party of riders came in and loudly demanded to be served, the boots thudding on the bare floorboards.

  ‘You’re too soft, Franklin,’ said a gruff, distinctively cracked voice. ‘I would have stuck a knife in that postmaster’s gut and he would have told all of what he knew.’

  ‘He affirmed what we needed to know, Jahleel; our man was there with a big bugger at his back, seeking that which that gaoler told us of. Besides, that’s all we need, the law on our tail an’ to what purpose, when we already know where Pearce is headed.’

  ‘How long we goin’ to ride, Jahleel?’ said another voice. ‘I got sores on my arse as it is.’

  ‘You’ll have a sore damned head if you ask that one more time.’

  ‘We can’t ride all the way to London without we stop, not on them plodding mounts you gave us, especial when we ain’t accustomed.’

  ‘Give me a ship any time,’ said another of the group.

  ‘’Cepting we ain’t got one, numbskull, it was seized by the excise. London’s where Pearce has gone, man, and if we are to lay the bastard by the heels so must we. God damn his luck, if we’d heard a mite earlier of him being had up we would have caught him afore he got away.’

  ‘I’ve no mind to carry on in the dark, Jahleel,’ insisted the voice that went by the name of Franklin. ‘I reckon we must stop at Canterbury an’ I doubt we’ll make that before the light goes complete.’

  ‘I expect more of you, brother.’

  ‘I am not so daft as to push our horses till they drop, especially our fine racing mares. It be madness to break a good horse even for such a prize, so let us rest them overnight and we will happen make London on the day after the morrow if we start out at first light.’

  ‘We’ve got to catch the sod, Franklin, afore he disappears, and get back what he has stolen from us.’

  ‘All sold now, Jahleel, I reckon, given it took a week to reach us that he was the villain and there was little trace of our stuff.’

  ‘Then we’ll have the coin he got for the cargo, or his skin in place of it.’

  ‘Gentlemen.’

  That got a hoot from someone, the owner of the Bell Inn addressing them so, a sound taken up by others, mixed with exchanged ribbing not short on the odd cuss word.

  ‘Some food,’ the gruff voice said, loud enough to command silence.

  ‘With such a number, sir, it will be a while if ’n you want it hot.’

  ‘Bread and cheese will suffice,’ said the calmer Franklin voice, ‘and ale for eight thirsty souls.’

  If there had ever been any doubt about who was in pursuit, it had been laid to rest, nor any question of what was in store if they were caught. Easing away from the door and putting his ale pot on the floor, Pearce indicated that Michael should precede him out of the rear door. If any one of those sods asked if a man with a bandaged foot had happened by, it would not be too much of a leap for the innkeeper to admit to who had.

  All he had to do was tell them there had been a naval officer and his well-built friend sat by the fire not five minutes before for those fellows to be made curious enough to come searching. He had not only looked at these men who now filled the parlour in that Gravelines tavern, he had also seen their faces from the deck of their ship a week previously; they would have seen his likewise and it was quite possible it would register.

  ‘Is it who we reckon?’ Michael whispered.

  Pearce nodded and once outside he slipped back on his buckled shoe, then, with Michael bringing up his rear, he made his way unseen past the door to the kitchen, then around the corner and along the side wall till he could look at the front courtyard, filled with tethered horses, eight in number, with a lad watering them from a leather bucket. Still fully harnessed and saddled, they were waiting to be ridden on.

  Dropping his makeshift club and bag, slipping off his coat and handing both that and his hat to Michael, Pearce walked out into the open, aware that the courtyard could be seen through the windows and thus keeping as much as possible his back to the front of the inn. The horses he saw were, in the main, broad of back and sturdy of flank, animals that might be put to haul a cart and maybe even a plough, slow lumbering cuddies that would never be speedy.

  But two were different creatures, as was their livery. Instead of scuffed saddles and rope-made head collars and reins, these two had harness of high quality: good leather and polished metal. While no equine expert, he knew enough to see these for what they were, the property of men who could afford to ride for pleasure. Getting close he ran a hand down the leg of the nearest mare; when he stood up the stable lad looked at him and smiled, which was returned.

  ‘Fine mounts, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Handsome they are, sir.’

  Now at the horse’s head he was stroking its nose and it was responding; clearly it was accustomed to being much cosseted. He stretched out a hand to include the other mare, made jea
lous by not getting the same attention, recalling the words Franklin had employed.

  ‘You could race this pair.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Michael, come and have a look.’

  Pearce registered that his companion had loaded his coat into the bag, though he had to carry the hat, yet more pressing was that he was in a quandary. Pearce did not want to harm this boy but he was stroking the means by which they could escape. Michael could ride like every Irishman country raised and if they could get away on this pair nothing left behind would have the speed to catch them. Yet he could hardly just mount them without the lad crying out and that would require him to be silenced.

  ‘It would please me to feed them an apple each,’ he said, more in hope than expectation.

  ‘I was told not to feed them, Your Honour, and to go easy on the water, given they are soon to be moving on.’

  Pearce laughed, which he hoped sounded sincere because it certainly was not. ‘I doubt an apple will slow them, and would they struggle to keep pace with the others even if they had a bucket of oats?’

  ‘Never,’ the stable lad grinned. ‘There’s a tub of windfalls in the stables, which we keep for the mail coach horses.’

  ‘For which I will happily part with a sixpence – these two ladies deserve a treat.’

  If the lad had a wage it would not run to that much in a month of stable-cleaning and horse-minding; probably he worked for his food and board and was grateful. As he ran off, Pearce was still dithering; the boy could find himself without his job and maybe even with a birch rod on his back for negligence. It was Michael, well aware of the way Pearce’s mind was working, who settled matters.

  ‘The lad they won’t kill, John-boy, and they might not even touch him.’

  Michael’s hands were cupped and the decision was made. Unlooping the reins from the hitching post, Pearce allowed himself to be lifted aboard by his good foot, slipping easily into the stirrups. As Michael followed suit – he was big enough to get himself astride with a leap – a face peering out of the window of the inn saw what they were about and his shout was loud enough to penetrate the small panes of glass.

  Hauling hard, Pearce brought the mare’s head round then he kicked with his heels and set her in motion, just as the door burst open and the men who were after them poured out. If there was one fact he knew about horses, they were ever ready to run and, even more spooked by the ballyhoo to their rear than his thrusting knees and insistent hands, his mare was soon in full flight, the second one right behind.

  They tried to catch them, they even had swords out and were waving them but, thank the Lord, they had no pistols. Also, they were wearing thigh-high riding boots, with heavy coats, and that made even harder what was in any case impossible – to catch a galloping horse. Soon their angry voices faded into nothing and Pearce could tug on the reins to slow his mount’s pace to a fast canter.

  ‘The bill those creatures want from us just got longer, John-boy,’ Michael called, ‘and we are thieves of horseflesh as well, which is a hanging offence where I was born.’

  ‘Whatever else, I do not think they will report us for that. They do not strike me as men who use the law to settle their scores.’

  ‘They will follow us, for sure.’

  ‘To London, Michael, which is the biggest city in the known world. I wish them joy of ever finding us there and we will not go by Canterbury.’ He looked at the sky, clear, but now no longer bright as the sun had dropped. ‘If there is one thing I have learnt, it is where the North Star resides in the firmament. So we will make for the road from Ramsgate to the Medway and we will not, even in the dead of night, get lost.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cornelius Gherson stood on the borders of a world he hated, the rookeries to the east of the city, where stinking poverty was the norm, sometimes little more than a hundred yards away from the fabulous riches of London’s better coffee houses, a rising tumble of stinking, crowded, crime-ridden dwellings so close to places where millions were traded daily.

  Of decent Huguenot stock, the son of an upright father in a good and profitable trade, Gherson père being a highly regarded manufacturer and repairer of superior-quality carriage lamps, it was to the coffee houses his son should have progressed. Precocious and with a quick mind, well educated in letters and good at numbers, he had been first driven to these rookeries after falling out of grace with his own family, who took objection to his constant petty theft in a household where trust was essential, given the valuable materials used in the business.

  His mother had protected him from parental wrath for a long time but when she had passed away his father had cast his continually errant young son out of his house, his trade and his prospects. Forced to make his own way in an unsympathetic world, Cornelius Gherson had used his angelic looks, ready tongue and quick mind to find good employment, but from time to time things had gone against him.

  This was usually the discovery of some peculation or other: a bookkeeping error that could not be explained away, some missing item of value or a too close proximity to the lady of the house that broke the bounds of prudence, age and looks being no bar to the young man’s endeavours to gain access to the household monies. Shown the door each time, it was to these rookeries he had returned, to recover his purpose and seek out new avenues to pursue among the dregs of humanity, who by their bearing and manner were the very spur he needed to force him to escape.

  The last time he had been caught in the wrong bed had nearly proved fatal, for he had cuckolded a very powerful and vengeful man called Denby Carruthers, middle-aged, rich and successful, an alderman of the City of London, who had made two glaring errors. The first was to marry, just like Ralph Barclay, a woman much younger than himself, whom he had no idea how to treat properly. The second was to employ a good-looking clerk of near the same age called Cornelius Gherson.

  Caught out, Carruthers had hired a pair of real toughs to exact revenge, but instead of the beating he anticipated, these fellows, having stripped him of the clothing bought for him by the alderman’s wife, had tipped him over the parapet of London Bridge into the roaring Thames as it came through the supporting arches.

  Had a naval cutter not been passing right where he entered the water, had a hand not grabbed him, he would have drowned. Instead he ended up aboard HMS Brilliant as a pressed man among many, those fetched out of the Liberties of the Savoy by a gang under the command of the man who now employed him.

  It had taken much effort and not a little chicanery to get him to where he was now, but he had never doubted his ability to rise like a phoenix from any setback. There were others, who when his name came up saw it differently, responding with the well-known expression that ‘Shit ever did float!’

  As he entered this dark world, he first ensured his purse was so placed that it could not be stolen by slick hands, then wrapped his cloak tight to hide his good clothing – high-quality apparel he had acquired for a pittance from the distressed and needy refugees of Toulon – while ignoring the filth that stuck to the hem as he walked, this being no place for sweepers.

  To raise it would expose his silver shoe buckles and that, in this location, could get his throat slit. Next he made sure to meet the curiosity of the seemingly idle with a steady eye, to let those who would seek to rob him know that he could smell their game as much as their grime-covered bodies.

  There were places Gherson knew that he wished he did not, low dens where a whore was as cheap as a thimble of rotten gin and just as foul, and the price of a stolen linen handkerchief enough to allow a man to drink himself insensible; places where, in the past, he had sought information about those in the city who possessed the wealth he so craved – if anyone knew where the household chests were bulging it was those desirous of stealing them.

  These dens were much frequented by those who robbed for a living and it was in such pits they met with even more dubious creatures: the men who fenced their valuable goods, usually selling them back to the origina
l owners for a reward. There was little market for outright money exchange as well as too much risk attached to it, and when it came to pieces made of silver or gold, melting them down led to a loss of value.

  The fellow he sought was known by the single name of Codge – no one ever used his given name of Jonathan. The man was a liar, thief and cheat of epic scale, a fellow of such low morals as to make the common shit-eating dung beetle look virtuous, his other trait the certainty, which he took no pains to hide, that he was far superior in brainpower to any other man alive.

  To deal with him it was necessary to flatter his vanity, as well as listen to his endless boasting of imagined feats of brilliance – acts that usually left some other soul paying a very high price, not excluding the rope. Gherson found him at a table with a quartet of idiots who fawned on his every utterance, men who were content to listen to his endless droning self-regard, which he seemed to be able to pursue without the need to draw breath; I this and I that – Codge was a man addicted to the first-person singular.

  That he could provide what Gherson needed was not in doubt, but care was required to be taken, for once he had been paid his fee for whatever service he provided, Codge was as likely to pass on what he knew to the Bow Street Runners as to keep any promise he made to remain silent, this to ensure that his own crimes were never brought to his door and his nefarious ways could continue, the thief-takers turning a blind eye for an easy catch.

  It was a mystery to more than Cornelius Gherson as to why anyone trusted him but there were fools who did, men so stupid or desperate that they did not see, when he turned on one of his grovelling coterie to protect himself, that the proper reaction was not to praise him for his foresight but to get well away from his orbit, for they were in danger of being the next victim.

  There was no need to attract his attention; Codge, quite apart from his habit of keeping an eye on the door, was a man who could smell the possibility of an ill-earned coin, and besides, when a non-habitué of his favourite burrow came through the low portal, even in a fug of thick tobacco smoke, with a hat pulled well forward to hide his face, it caused those who frequented the place to drop their voices, cease to puff their pipes and wonder at the visitor’s purpose.