The barmaid scowled but said nothing as she poured the drinks, banging the first down on the bar in front of the man. ‘God be looking on you kindly, today, Fred.’
The man, Fred, stepped forward with a light stumble, pushing closer to Jonas’s face. Fred widened his eyes again, seeming not to recognise Jonas. Above his dark beard, his burgundy cheeks and wide nose were lined with a myriad of burst blood vessels, Jonas noted.
The barmaid placed another ale on the bar. ‘Five pence.’
Jonas passed the money over. ‘How you been keeping yourself, Fred?’ Jonas asked, taking a large mouth of ale, allowing some to seep from the side of the glass down his smock. ‘A plentiful catch this morn?’
Fred nodded slowly and glanced at the fresh pint of ale.
Jonas smiled. ‘I be having a job for you,’ he said, pressing ten guineas into Fred’s hand.
‘Oh, and what be that, then?’ Fred asked.
‘Well,’ Jonas said, lowering his voice, ‘after what be a-happening on Sunday, we be in need of a new boat and more contraband.’ Jonas was trying his luck, assuming that Fred, like most fishermen in the area, was involved to some degree in the smuggling trade.
‘That right,’ Fred said, backing away and forcing the money back into Jonas’s hand.
Jonas did not flinch, did not show that he was slightly taken aback by the man’s refusal. Perhaps he had been wrong and this man had nothing to do with the trade. ‘It be a bit of a rush. Delacroix in Boulogne have got overstock,’ he said quietly, hoping that his nonsensical statement would be lost to the man’s inebriation. There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes, so Jonas pushed his luck further by leaning in to whisper in Fred’s ear, ‘Ransley be sending any number of boats over. We be paying extra…’
‘Twenty guineas,’ Fred responded.
Jonas smiled.
‘You be a-wanting Rummy’s yard, then,’ Fred had said on the voyage across the Channel.
‘That be right,’ Jonas had confirmed, not knowing who Rummy was. With the persuasion of twenty guineas, Fred had mustered a crew of eight fishermen and sailed Jonas over on the Anne-Marie.
‘Where be Rummy?’ Jonas said vaguely, searching the shoreline, as the rowing boat struck the shingle beach of Boulogne, as if knowing for whom he was searching, but just could not actually locate him.
‘There,’ one of the fishermen said, pointing out a thin man part-way up the beach, running a chisel into a plank of wood, while a pipe dangled through his matted ginger beard.
‘Rummy!’ Jonas called affably, striding up the beach towards him.
Rummy stopped and stared.
‘I be in need of a new boat. Last one got cut Sunday night,’ Jonas said, drawing close to the man’s scrutiny.
‘So I be a-hearing,’ Rummy said with a laugh. ‘Ransley be in need of another, then.’
‘Aye, that be right,’ Jonas said, receiving his first certain confirmation that the Aldington Gang were involved in Sunday’s smuggling run which had led to Morgan’s murder.
‘And who the bloody hell do you be?’ Rummy sneered, his toothless mouth swimming around the words. ‘Why b’aint he a-sending Sam?’
‘Sam took a musket ball on Sunday night,’ Jonas answered, quickly regretting the disprovable lie.
Rummy laughed wildly at this news, then said, ‘A boat be ready in three days.’
Jonas nodded, glanced back at the waiting boat of fishermen, then made his way up the beach in the direction of the distant town, hoping that he was headed somewhere close to the right direction.
After some time, and with the help of passing tradesmen, Jonas arrived at a vast warehouse with the sign Delacroix above a huge closed door, which was sufficiently wide for two carriages to pass through simultaneously. Jonas banged his fist on the door and waited.
Several seconds passed before he heard the clunk and scrape of what he assumed to be a heavy-duty lock on the other side. Eventually, a short man with a stout black moustache cracked the door open, just enough to peer out. ‘Que voulez-vous?’
‘Do you speak English?’ Jonas asked.
‘Oui, un peu,’ the man responded, his hard face unchanging.
‘I work with George Ransley and Sam. May I come inside?’ Jonas asked.
‘Non, certainement pas,’ the man said, slamming the door shut.
Jonas knocked again, much harder this time.
‘What do you want?’ the man answered.
‘Like I say, I work with George Ransley. I’ve come for more contraband.’
‘I don’t know who or what you are talking about. This door will close again and will not reopen to you. Au revoir.’ The door crashed shut in Jonas’s face once again.
Jonas grinned. It did not matter. Over the rude Frenchman’s shoulder, he had seen the enterprise taking place inside: hundreds, possibly thousands of barrels were being loaded into carts; he had unequivocally found the depot which supplied the Aldington Gang.
What he did not know yet, but was determined to find, was the identity of the man who had pulled the trigger on Richard Morgan.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
7th August 1826, Hythe, Kent
The eleven-mile walk from Dover to Hythe had lifted all but the negative residual effects from the four pints of ale which he had consumed: just a headache and a swelling feeling of nausea remained. He arrived hot, his smock sodden from the odorous sweat trickling down his sides. He was here to follow up a lead, garnered yesterday from the loose tongue of a disgruntled labourer who had been lost in liqueur.
Having made great strides in the first three days of his investigation, Jonas had found that the influence and reach of the Aldington Gang was such that he had smoked out nobody willing to go beyond pointing a broad
