Read Online Kill-Devil and Water by Andrew Pepper - Free Book Online
Authors: Andrew Pepper
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Crime, England, London, Murder, London (England), Crimes against, Investigation, Jamaica, Prostitutes, Sugar Plantations
Ads: Link
frustration. ‘Could you give me a description, then?’
The fat man rubbed his whiskers. ‘Older ’n me, wizened little fellow. Grey hair. But you’d know him on account of the patches he wears over his eyes, like a pirate, and the long bamboo cane he carries.’
‘This man is blind ?’
‘Didn’t I say that? He’s blind. That’s right. Why else would he be wearing patches an’ carrying a cane?’
Pyke walked back up the hill to the Ratcliff Highway thinking about what he had just been told and whether this mudlark’s condition was, in any way, linked to the manner of Mary Edgar’s death.
FOUR
Even for a country teetering on the brink of full-scale economic depression, the scene outside the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs was a remarkable one. There must have been a thousand people clamouring for the attention of the foreman and his crew; in addition to the regular porters, stevedores, coopers, riggers, warehousemen, pilers and baulkers who had already been admitted into the docks. The explanation for the crowd, if not its size, could be seen over the top of the high brick wall that circumnavigated the docks: a three-mast ship had docked overnight and word had quickly spread that the company intended to employ around fifty casual dockers to unload crates of sugar, rum and coffee on to the quayside. The mood of the would-be dockers was anxious, and even from the fringes of the crowd, Pyke could scent their desperation. Jobs were scarcer than smog-free days and the deluge into the city of farm labourers, identifiable by their dirty smocks and kerseymere coats, and navvies, unemployed since the railway boom had faltered, had made the situation even worse. The merest whiff of a job would attract tens, sometimes even hundreds, of dead-eyed men; workhouses across the city were turning people away; petty theft and begging were on the rise; and men and women were sleeping rough in numbers Pyke had never seen before.
A horn sounded and the men surged towards the arched entrance to the docks, crushing those at the front. Hands were raised to attract the foreman’s attention and coins were offered, by way of a bribe. But rather than select men by pointing at them, the foreman threw a bucket of brass tickets into the mob and stood back to admire his handiwork. Scuffles broke out as men fought each other, desperate to catch or pick up the tickets, or indeed prise them from those who’d been fortunate enough to scoop them up. Some of the tussles turned violent; one man was stabbed in the eye; another had part of his ear bitten off. It was a difficult thing to watch: men fighting for a job that would earn them just a few pence an hour and that would be paid not in coins but tokens that could be redeemed only at taverns owned by the dock company, where prices were kept artificially high.
As the crowd began to disperse, Pyke contemplated what Emily would have said about such a spectacle and how little he had done since her death to honour her legacy.
Pyke passed through the stone archway and paused to survey the scene. Directly ahead of him, bobbing gently up and down in the water, was the tall ship with three masts and a thick forest of rigging. The stevedores, who were the most experienced and therefore the best paid of the workers, brought the crates and sacks up from the ship’s hold as far as the deck, where the ordinary dockers would carry them down gangplanks to the quayside. There the sacks and crates were taken by warehousemen and porters to the various storage buildings that surrounded the dock.
At the company’s clerical offices, Pyke showed the drawing of Mary Edgar to a bored clerk who had introduced himself as Mr Gumm and explained that she’d recently arrived in London from the West Indies.
Gumm didn’t feel able to handle Pyke’s query himself, so he fetched his supervisor, Nathaniel Rowbottom, who listened insincerely as Pyke explained why he
The fat man rubbed his whiskers. ‘Older ’n me, wizened little fellow. Grey hair. But you’d know him on account of the patches he wears over his eyes, like a pirate, and the long bamboo cane he carries.’
‘This man is blind ?’
‘Didn’t I say that? He’s blind. That’s right. Why else would he be wearing patches an’ carrying a cane?’
Pyke walked back up the hill to the Ratcliff Highway thinking about what he had just been told and whether this mudlark’s condition was, in any way, linked to the manner of Mary Edgar’s death.
FOUR
Even for a country teetering on the brink of full-scale economic depression, the scene outside the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs was a remarkable one. There must have been a thousand people clamouring for the attention of the foreman and his crew; in addition to the regular porters, stevedores, coopers, riggers, warehousemen, pilers and baulkers who had already been admitted into the docks. The explanation for the crowd, if not its size, could be seen over the top of the high brick wall that circumnavigated the docks: a three-mast ship had docked overnight and word had quickly spread that the company intended to employ around fifty casual dockers to unload crates of sugar, rum and coffee on to the quayside. The mood of the would-be dockers was anxious, and even from the fringes of the crowd, Pyke could scent their desperation. Jobs were scarcer than smog-free days and the deluge into the city of farm labourers, identifiable by their dirty smocks and kerseymere coats, and navvies, unemployed since the railway boom had faltered, had made the situation even worse. The merest whiff of a job would attract tens, sometimes even hundreds, of dead-eyed men; workhouses across the city were turning people away; petty theft and begging were on the rise; and men and women were sleeping rough in numbers Pyke had never seen before.
A horn sounded and the men surged towards the arched entrance to the docks, crushing those at the front. Hands were raised to attract the foreman’s attention and coins were offered, by way of a bribe. But rather than select men by pointing at them, the foreman threw a bucket of brass tickets into the mob and stood back to admire his handiwork. Scuffles broke out as men fought each other, desperate to catch or pick up the tickets, or indeed prise them from those who’d been fortunate enough to scoop them up. Some of the tussles turned violent; one man was stabbed in the eye; another had part of his ear bitten off. It was a difficult thing to watch: men fighting for a job that would earn them just a few pence an hour and that would be paid not in coins but tokens that could be redeemed only at taverns owned by the dock company, where prices were kept artificially high.
As the crowd began to disperse, Pyke contemplated what Emily would have said about such a spectacle and how little he had done since her death to honour her legacy.
Pyke passed through the stone archway and paused to survey the scene. Directly ahead of him, bobbing gently up and down in the water, was the tall ship with three masts and a thick forest of rigging. The stevedores, who were the most experienced and therefore the best paid of the workers, brought the crates and sacks up from the ship’s hold as far as the deck, where the ordinary dockers would carry them down gangplanks to the quayside. There the sacks and crates were taken by warehousemen and porters to the various storage buildings that surrounded the dock.
At the company’s clerical offices, Pyke showed the drawing of Mary Edgar to a bored clerk who had introduced himself as Mr Gumm and explained that she’d recently arrived in London from the West Indies.
Gumm didn’t feel able to handle Pyke’s query himself, so he fetched his supervisor, Nathaniel Rowbottom, who listened insincerely as Pyke explained why he
Similar Books
