regiment of socialist women. You’ve been seen speaking with William Stead, and I understand you are a close associate of the Reverend McClain.”
“So far, all of your assertions are correct.”
“Are you a socialist?”
Barker gave a yawn, patting it down with the back of his hand. “Are you keeping me from my bed merely to discuss politics?”
“You have not answered.”
“I do not feel compelled to answer your questions, sir.”
“Come, Barker, it’s a simple question. Are you a socialist, or aren’t you?”
“No, sir, I am not. I am a Conservative, not a Fabian.”
“Yet you associate with them.”
“I have been hired to find a child’s murderer. I will associate with whomever helps me find him.”
The man got a tight smile on his face. “You have no clue what this is about, do you?”
“Enlighten me,” Barker murmured.
“Stead has vowed to see that the age of consent is raised from thirteen to sixteen. I represent a consortium of men who will not allow that to occur.”
“And why would they interest themselves in such an issue, sir?” Barker continued.
“That is not your concern. Perhaps the girl was a sacrifice made by the socialists in order to bring attention to the so-called white slave trade.”
“Do you know this for a fact, or do you merely suspect it, sir?”
“A blind man could see it. Are you blind behind those black spectacles?”
“I am not, I assure you,” Barker said. “Have you any more to recommend to me?”
“Only that the men I represent are very powerful and will not be pleased if the vote should be entered and passed.”
“You give me too much credit, sir. I am but an enquiry agent; I cannot control the processes of the House of Commons. I thank you for the information, however, and shall consider it thoroughly.”
The man reached into his pocket, pulled out a small sack of coins, and tossed it into one of the gang member’s hands. The men could not help but give a short cry of savage joy. No doubt they would be drunk as lords soon, despite the hour. Closing time is variable when there is money to be made.
The man turned and, without a look back, climbed into his vehicle and rattled off. The gang followed, looking for the nearest public house. In two minutes, we had the courtyard all to ourselves.
“I believe that gang is the Ratcliff Highway Boys, but I’ve got to find out who that gentleman is,” Barker stated.
“Oh, I know who he is, sir,” I told him. “That is Lord Hesketh, Palmister Clay’s father. I’m surprised he didn’t recognize me. It was his money that put me in prison.”
16
“Anychance for some coffee?” I ASKED MAC after we came back.
“You drink too much of that brew,” he answered.
“Would you rather I fell asleep at my post?”
He made the coffee, though not without a few sighs. Then he and Barker lay down back to back. Hearing Barker’s spectacles being set on the floor, I took two steps toward him and then heard Mac cough. There was no chance of finally seeing the Guv without his spectacles, not with his watchdog guarding him.
I drank the coffee and watched Green Street from the window. Mac had set up a notebook and logged various people as they came and went, presumably from Barker’s descriptions of them. The Guv had continued to record people through the evening. For once, I had the easier work; there wasn’t much to write down. The night watchman made his early rounds and the constable walked his beat, swinging his truncheon more out of boredom than swagger. The night soil cart came through and the waste of hundreds of horses were shoveled into it, as if it were a precious thing. A few inebriates were escorted home, and the homeless, forbidden to loiter or sleep in doorways, were herded along by the police like tired sheep. I grew bored with looking through the grimy window and made my way up the ladder to the roof. It was balmy outside that evening, and I could smell the river on the wind. Pigeons cooed in the corners of the roof, not discomfited in the least by my presence. I sat on the ledge, watched the street, and thought.
What I thought of was Jenny Ashby, or rather, Jenny Llewelyn, though she had that name but a short time in this life. It was as if out of some sort of self-preservation I had shut her up in a wardrobe somewhere and seeing Palmister Clay had opened it again. My Jenny, my own sweet girl. I recalled the way the wind caught the curls by her ears and the sun lit them up and turned them red. I remembered the pattern of freckles across her upturned nose as if she were standing in front of me and the warm, soft blue of her eyes, like cornflowers, like the entire June sky reflected therein. I’d been tricked into marrying her, perhaps, but if she were there just now, I’d have married her all over again. Beatrice Potter was a beauty and a great catch for any man in the whole of England, but I would have traded the entire world for just one more afternoon with Jenny.
I’d never have that afternoon, however. Palmister Clay had robbed me of those final months. It washed over me again, like a bucket of scalding water, the deep anger that I felt for that man.
She was gone from me, buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Oxford, a pauper’s grave. At least, that’s what a solicitor had told me. Where did she lie, my wife, my dearly departed? How did one look for an unmarked grave? I had not the least idea how to begin.
All this being alone was making me maudlin. I removed my jacket and did a few stretches on the roof the way Barker had taught me. At least it kept me awake. The hours slowly passed. By the light of the gas lamps, I saw the night watchman and the constables continue their rounds. How did they stand the boredom? I knew I should go mad in such a situation.
Eventually, there was a change in the step of the constables below. They began knocking on doors, waking the residents for their daily work. There was money to be made in this, Barker had told me once, as much as four pence a week per residence. No need for a timepiece when someone else can watch the time for you. The constables and the night watchmen were in competition. I watched them hurry through the streets, knocking steadily on doors, then, before I knew it, Mac was at my elbow, with a fresh cup of coffee. It was six in the morning and I had finished my shift.
Jacob Maccabee and I have an unusual relationship. We’d gotten off on the wrong foot on my arrival in Barker’s household. Sometimes we treated each other fairly, and other times we traded barbs. Perhaps I was thankful for the coffee or tired or simply overwrought, but just then I felt I needed one less enemy in the world.
“Mac,” I said, “I wanted to tell you you’ve done a good job of looking after us here. You were also rather handy with that gun of yours, even if you didn’t actually use it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
It was a blatant attempt to flatter him. He knew it and I knew it, but it unbent him a little nevertheless.
“Tell me, how came you to be hired by the Guv?”
Mac gave me a guarded look. “I assumed he had told you.”
“The Guv? Not a word. Why would you think that?”
“You work with the man.”
“You know how he is. One would sooner get blood from a stone. So, come, tell me how he came to hire you.”
Mac put a foot up on the ledge and looked out across the rooftops. I thought he might refuse to tell me, but all of a sudden, he began to speak.
“I was working as a second footman to a good family in Islington. The master was a director for the Great Western Railway. When they hired me they called me Mac in order to conceal my religion. I was eighteen years old.”
“Why did you want to be a servant? It isn’t a normal occupation for a Jew.”
