The Tick of Death

‘I’ll take your word for it. Just hadn’t pictured you pacing railway platforms in your spare time. Is this a new enthusiasm?’ Cribb said it rather as a doctor inquires about the onset of an illness.

‘I’ve been going to stations on my days off since the October before last,’ Thackeray admitted. ‘It first gripped me on the Brighton line when we was returning from the Prothero investigation. We was pulled by 328, if you recall, the Sutherland, one of the G class. She was only single-drive, but when I saw her as we came up the platform, standing there so nobby with the steam still rising from her, something happened inside me, Sarge. A kind of fluttering in my stomach. I’ve been unable to pass a station ever since.’

‘Must be inconvenient,’ said Cribb. ‘You weren’t here on the morning they found the infernal machine, I suppose?’

Thackeray shook his head. ‘No, more’s the pity. What a diabolical thing to do, putting a bomb in a station! I saw the damage caused by the one at Victoria. It wrecked half a dozen offices and shattered the glass roof, as well as bursting the gas-pipes and starting a sizeable fire. Someone will have to catch these dynamiters soon. The Special Branch don’t seem to be making much progress, if the talk at Paradise Street can be relied upon. I’d like to know how that lot spend their time.’

Watching you, thought Cribb. He decided to change the topic. ‘Where do you drink these days, Thackeray? Now that we’ve chanced to meet in this way, I’d like to buy you a pint of ale, if you weren’t planning to spend the rest of the day with Number 214, that is.’

The constable grinned sheepishly. ‘She has to be off in a few minutes, as it happens, Sarge. Twelve-thirty to Brighton, via Victoria and East Croydon. She’s the fast.’

‘Ah, then I shall definitely take you for a drink,’ said Cribb. ‘Best to leave the fast ones alone, eh? Which pub did you say?’

‘The Feathers in Rotherhithe, Sarge. Just a halfpenny bus ride away. I’m the only one from Paradise Street that drinks there. The others go to the Spread Eagle. They’re a trifle particular about where they drink in view of all the bother lately. Mine’s an Irish pub, you see.’

It had to be, thought Cribb, inwardly groaning. How many more connexions would Thackeray have with the dynamite campaign? Any minute now he was going to mention the Peep o’Day alarm clock an American friend had given him, and the imitation Remington pistol he kept in a portmanteau under his bed.

‘It ain’t the best time for service,’ Thackeray explained, as they approached The Feathers. ‘We shan’t get near the pump for brats.’ But his substantial form moved like an ironclad through the throng of ragged infants clamouring with jugs for the noonday beer for their families. ‘Two swipes, Michael,’ he called over the cropped heads, and in seconds the Yard was slaking its thirst at a table in the corner.

After a long draught, Cribb cordially asked, ‘How’s the crime in Rotherhithe, then?’

‘I’d be obliged if you’d keep your voice down, Sarge,’ said Thackeray through his teeth. ‘I don’t like to be known here as one of the Force. The crime? Ah, it’s about the same, you know. There ain’t much to talk of-not that you’d cross the road for, so to speak. The usual brawling in the docks. It provides me with a stabbing or a questionable drowning once or twice a week to occupy my time. Otherwise I’m left with fallen women and ferocious dogs. Oh, and opium-smokers. We’ve got as many Chinamen between here and London Bridge as there is in Pekin. What’s the matter with your right arm, Sarge?’

Cribb patted the area of his collar-bone, so sore from rifle-practice that he was drinking left-handed. ‘Too much responsibility,’ he joked. ‘It’s more than I can shoulder.’

‘Do you need some assistance?’ Thackeray spoke in earnest, shaming the sergeant with open- heartedness.

‘No, no. Nothing like that. So this is an Irish house, then. Didn’t know you favoured the Paddies-or is it the hard stuff that you’ve taken a fancy to?’

‘Not me, Sarge. I never was a whisky man. No, I come here for my own reasons-professional reasons, you might say. I’ve never forgotten something you told me the first time we worked together. There’s more useful information to be learned in a public taproom than there is in the Police Gazette.’

‘Did I say that? Must have been feeling low at the time, Thackeray.’

‘Ah, but there’s a deal of truth in it. Provided that you don’t spend your time drinking with bobbies, that is. There’s nothing so certain to put a stop to conversation in a pub as half a dozen pairs of regulation boots crossing the threshold. I think you said that, too, Sarge.’

‘Probably.’ Cribb took another draught. ‘You still haven’t told me why you drink in an Irish pub.’

Thackeray leaned forward confidentially. ‘That’s something I wouldn’t care to go in to this morning, Sarge.’

‘Dangerous company these days, the Irish,’ Cribb persisted. ‘They’ve other things on their minds than Blarney Stones and fairy cobblers. Do you just listen, or do you mix with ’em?’

‘A bit of both, I suppose. You can’t sit in a corner on your own and say nothing. That would give them cause for suspicion, wouldn’t it? I pass the time of day to anyone that catches my eye, and if they want to say a few words more, well I don’t turn my back on them.’

‘Do you buy ’em a drink?’

‘On my wage? Not unless they buy one first for me.’

Cribb nodded. ‘I take your point. My turn to fill the glasses. You’ll have another?’

‘Since it’s my day off, yes. My first Sunday in three months.’

‘These drinking-companions of yours,’ Cribb doggedly began again, when he returned with the beer. ‘The ones that treat you first, I mean. Are any of ’em here this morning?’

‘Not many do, Sarge. We tend to buy our own. It’s more likely to be the occasional visitor that treats you than the regulars. Good health.’

‘Yours, too. Who would want to come to a pub like this-without disrespect, of course-in the backstreets of Rotherhithe, and stand a round of drinks for a bunch of Irish dockers and a constable off duty?’

‘They don’t know about me, Sarge,’ Thackeray assured him in a whisper. ‘Someone with a sharp ear for accents might detect that I wasn’t born in Tipperary, but they don’t know I’m in the Force. If there’s a round of drinks being bought, I’m usually included. I was personally treated once, too.’

‘Who by?’

Thackeray smiled. ‘Ah, a big, bearded American with more money than sense. He came here three or four months ago, early in the new year. Swore he was an Irishman whose family emigrated at the time of the potato famine.’

‘Did he have an Irish name?’

‘I don’t recall, Sarge. We was conversing about trains, and once I’m on that subject I find that I don’t listen much to the other fellow. He wasn’t what you might call a railway connoisseur, but he was interested. He kept asking questions about railway stations and buying me whisky.’

Jerusalem! Cribb blinked. ‘You were on spirits that night, then?’

‘I have a nip just occasional, Sarge. Yes, he was a generous sort of cove. Big, too. Barge-horse of a man. Stood well over six foot. None of the regulars would have wanted to mix it with him.’

‘Was he a fighting man, then?’

‘I don’t think so. I always look at the hands, since you taught me how to spot a pugilist. It was odd, really. There was hard skin on them, and some blistering, but it was on the palms, not the knuckles.’

‘A navvy,’ suggested Cribb.

‘Not with money to spend on whisky, Sarge. Besides, I looked at the fingernails, and they were manicured. You notice a thing like that in a dockers’ pub.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Another thing,’ said Thackeray, clearly experiencing a total recollection. ‘His hands smelt of spirits.’

‘Whisky, you mean?’

‘No, Sarge. Methylated. Strange, I do remember his name now. It came back to me with the smell. Malone.’

‘Malone. Did he happen to mention how long he was staying in London?’

‘No, but I could ask his friends. There’s three or four over from America who visit The Feathers regular.’

‘Three or four?’ Cribb sank the rest of his beer at a gulp. ‘Perhaps you’d care to tell me about them. I need another drink first.’