to spend. Notes could be a bugger. Besides, you started flashing paper money around and you were asking for trouble. Especially given Sawney’s haunts.
Sawney poured the money back into the bag. “So how come you picked the name Dodd?”
“Why not?” Hyde said, unsmilingly. “It’s as useful a name as any.”
Sawney absorbed the reply. “S’pose so.” There didn’t seem anything else to add. He slipped the bag of coin into his pocket. There was an awkward silence. “Right then. Time to go to work.”
Sawney paused when the doctor laid a hand on his arm. A fresh light shone in Hyde’s eyes.
“No need to leave just yet. This Hawkwood fellow – tell me what you know about him. He sounds most intriguing.”
14
It was early morning when Hawkwood climbed the front steps of number 4 Bow Street and made his way up to the Chief Magistrate’s office on the first floor.
Twigg was at his desk in the ante-room, head bowed and scribbling, when Hawkwood entered. He looked up, peered through his spectacles, and frowned in mild annoyance. “Could’ve wiped your feet.”
Hawkwood glanced down at his boots. They were wet with slush from the melted snow that had fallen during the night. Looking behind him, he saw the tracks he’d left across the wooden floor.
“You’d have made someone a grand wife, Ezra,” Hawkwood said. He grinned at the clerk’s pained expression. “How about if next time I take them off and carry them upstairs with me?”
The corners of Twigg’s mouth drooped. “Oh, very droll, Mr Hawkwood. You ought to be on the stage.”
Hawkwood started to remove his coat, but Twigg shook his head. “He’s not here.”
Hawkwood raised his eyebrows in enquiry.
Twigg sighed and passed Hawkwood the note. “He left a message. You’re to attend him directly. Caleb’s waiting with his carriage downstairs.”
Hawkwood pulled his coat back on and the clerk muttered under his breath as yet more meltwater dribbled from the coat’s hem on to the floor beneath.
“Sorry, Ezra – I didn’t catch that.”
Twigg nodded towards Hawkwood’s feet. “If I were you, I’d clean my boots. Where you’re going, they won’t take kindly to mud on their carpet.”
Twigg wasn’t wrong, thought Hawkwood, as he was shown into the grand, high-ceilinged room. The expression on the face of at least one of the men facing him hinted that his presence was an imposition. Nothing new there, then, he thought, not without an element of satisfaction.
“Ah, Hawkwood.” James Read stepped forward. There was no welcoming smile, just the vocal acknowledgement of his arrival.
Two other men occupied the room. One was standing by the window, the other was seated in a chair by the fireplace. They turned towards him. It had been the man by the window who had cast a dour look at the marks Hawkwood’s boots had left on the rug.
During all parliamentary sittings, a Runner was required to be on duty in the lobby of the House of Commons. The task was rotated among the squad; some considered it to be light, if unexciting, work, and were content to be away from the streets, but it wasn’t a job Hawkwood enjoyed. He found the proximity of so much hot air excruciating and was more than happy to trade places. As a consequence of being so close to the chamber, however, he had become familiar with many of its occupants, including the Home Secretary, Richard Ryder, although the two of them had never been formally introduced.
“Home Secretary,” Read said. “Allow me to present Officer Hawkwood.”
Ryder nodded, his face solemn. He was a relatively young man, only a few years older than Hawkwood, with thinning hair and watchful eyes. “Officer Hawkwood. Yes, I recognize you from the House.”
Hawkwood wondered if that was true or whether Ryder was just being icily polite.
Read turned back and indicated the man by the fireplace.
“This is Surgeon-General McGrigor.”
The Surgeon-General was perhaps four or five years younger and slightly leaner in the face than the Home Secretary, though both men had the same air of authority about them. Ryder, Hawkwood knew, was from an aristocratic family. McGrigor came from merchant stock.
McGrigor stood up and held out his hand. “Grand to meet you, Hawkwood.”
“You, too, sir,” Hawkwood said. He could see the Home Secretary was puzzled by the Surgeon-General’s enthusiasm.
“We’ve not met, though I know of Captain Hawkwood from my brother-in-law’s letters,” McGrigor explained in a soft Highland lilt. “They fought together in Spain.”
Ryder looked momentarily nonplussed until McGrigor took pity on him. “Captain Colquhoun Grant.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Ryder said. He threw Hawkwood a look, obviously as intrigued by the reference to Hawkwood’s rank as he was by his indirect relationship with the Surgeon-General.
“How is the captain?” Hawkwood asked.
McGrigor smiled. “Still giving the Frogs a good run for their money, you’ll be pleased to hear.”
Hawkwood hadn’t seen Grant for over two years, not since leaving Spain. Grant was Wellington’s chief intelligence officer, operating behind enemy lines, providing Wellington with details on the disposition of French troops and equipment. He worked closely with the Spanish
It had been Grant who’d persuaded Wellington to employ Hawkwood as a liaison between the resistance fighters and British intelligence units. Hawkwood’s fluency in French and Spanish had proved invaluable. He’d fought alongside the
“So, gentlemen,” James Read said, “to the matter in hand.”
The Surgeon-General made a gesture of apology for the diversion and sat down again. Ryder remained by the window. Hawkwood was left standing, as was Read, who went and joined McGrigor by the fire. There was a guard in place, Hawkwood noted with inner amusement.
Read addressed Hawkwood. “I’ve advised Home Secretary Ryder and the Surgeon-General of our interest in Colonel Hyde’s background. That is why they have agreed to meet with us.”
Looking at the three men, Hawkwood wondered about the authority wielded by the Chief Magistrate that he could, with remarkable ease, interpose himself between a member of the cabinet and Wellington’s chief medical officer in a government office deep in the heart of Whitehall. He decided there were still aspects of James Read’s sphere of influence that would remain for ever a mystery and that it was probably unwise to broach too many questions on the subject.
Hawkwood saw that both Ryder and McGrigor were looking at him expectantly. So that was the way it was going to be, he thought. They weren’t going to volunteer information; he would have to delve for it. He’d warned Read he might have to step on some toes. Well, there was no time like the present.
“Why was Colonel Hyde held in Bethlem Asylum? It wasn’t because he was melancholic, was it?”
Both men, Ryder in particular, looked taken aback by the bluntness of Hawkwood’s question. It was McGrigor who recovered first. With a sideways glance towards the Home Secretary, he sat forward. “I take it you have some knowledge of the colonel’s medical background and his army career?”
“Not as much as we’d like,” Hawkwood said.
“Colonel Hyde ran field hospitals in the Peninsula. Guthrie reckons he was probably the bravest surgeon he’d ever met. Hyde was considerably older, of course, much more experienced. Guthrie said he watched Hyde treat wounds that would have made other surgeons hold up their hands in horror. The man’s knowledge of anatomy was astonishing.”
Hawkwood knew Guthrie. He’d met him once. For his age, the young Irishman was rated as one of the army’s best surgeons. He’d begun his military career as a hospital mate in Canada. He had the ear of Wellington.
The Surgeon-General’s face clouded. “You know Colonel Hyde and I served together in the West
