An Arrowood Mystery

Chapter Ten

We walked down Lower Thames Street, through the mayhem of porters and wagons outside Billingsgate, past Custom House and around the great grey walls of the Tower, the guvnor wheezing and complaining about his feet all the way. After the bridge, we wound our way through St Katherine’s Dock and over the basin lock. The deeper we went into Wapping, the darker it became, the high walls of the dockyards rising over the slouching buildings, shutting out the sun. As we marched down the busy high street lined with provisions shops, ship chandlers, missions and pubs, we could hear languages from all the continents of the world. I’d spent a lot of time in these streets when I was sixteen or seventeen, trying to earn a crust when my ma was laid up at home. It was a seafaring neighbourhood, and money ran through its calloused hands like water. Money I’d do just about anything to get my own hands on.

Belasco’s home was on a dirt alley behind the High Street, two doors down from a pub where red-faced Russians stood sweating and swearing on the street. It wasn’t such a well-off alley but not a slum either. Kids were everywhere, hanging out windows, sitting on doorsteps, running up and down after a ball of paper and string. A few old folk sat on stools, watching the nippers. Through the windows you could see women working: sewing collars and sacks, pressing clothes, gluing matchboxes, boiling up shrimp and sheep’s trotters.

The door to Belasco’s building was open. Inside, the corridor was dark, the floorboards bare and dusty. Just past the staircase was another door, also open, and there was Belasco, asleep on a mattress on the floor.

We walked in. He had a poultice tied to his head with a bit of rag, dried blood crusted round his ear. His thick brown hair was hard and stuck together.

‘What d’you want?’ asked a woman coming out from the gloom at the back of the room.

She was maybe ten year older than Belasco, with a growth on the side of her chin and a hard look in her eye.

‘Mrs Belasco?’ said the guvnor. He gave a bow. ‘I’m Mr Arrowood. This is Mr Barnett. We’re here to see your husband.’

She nodded, the hardness in her face turning into a smile.

‘I heard of you.’

‘Your husband didn’t arrive for work last night. We were worried.’

‘And you can see why,’ she said with a nod. ‘Got clouted, didn’t he?’

Belasco slept on.

‘When?’ asked the guvnor.

‘On his way home yesterday afternoon. Been drinking, of course. Mate of his brung him back. Didn’t Captain Moon get my message?’

‘No, ma’am,’ I said.

‘I sent a boy. Paid the bloody rascal.’

I dropped to my knee and gave Belasco a poke. He grunted, so I poked him harder. ‘Wake up, mate.’

His eyes opened. It took him a few moments to see straight, then he raised himself on an elbow.

‘Norman. Mr Arrowood.’

‘What happened to you?’ I asked.

He sat up proper, leaning his back against the wall. I could see one of his arms was bruised and swollen. He felt the bandage on his head, wincing.

‘Blimey, that hurts.’

I pulled out my box of Black Drop and tossed it to him.

‘Cheers, Norman,’ he said, dropping a few of the pellets in his mouth and swallowing. He spoke slow. ‘I was just leaving the pub. Some bloke come up behind and coshed me.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Didn’t see him. I was out like a lamp. Lucky my mate came out else I don’t know what else the bloke would’ve done. He ran off, anyways.’

‘Did your friend see him?’

‘Only from behind.’ Belasco shook his head. ‘Bughunters. They work the area. I’d had a few mugs of gin. Weren’t too steady on my feet.’

Mrs Belasco brought over four mugs of tea and handed them round. There were only two chairs. A little table was piled high with lengths of cotton and half-made shirts. Another straw mattress was leant against the wall.

‘Something else happened to the boat last night,’ said the guvnor, having a swallow of his tea. ‘Someone tied two ropes to the gunwale. One had children’s skulls knotted on.’

‘What?’ asked Belasco.

‘Children’s skulls. Fourteen.’

Belasco shook his head, his face pale. His wife stared at the guvnor, her mug of tea frozen in the air just before her open mouth.

‘The other rope was tied to three corpses. Two women and a man.’

‘Come off it, Mr Arrowood.’

‘The police are there now,’ said the guvnor.

Belasco looked at him for some time. Several times he seemed about to say something, but each time he didn’t. Finally, he asked, ‘Suzie didn’t see it, did she?’

‘She saw everything.’

‘So it’s murder now,’ said Belasco, pushing himself to his feet. ‘Jesus bloody Christ.’ He found his britches and pulled them on. Seeing him struggle with only one good arm, his wife went over to help him.

‘The skulls must mean something,’ said the guvnor. ‘Can you remember anything you’ve seen, anything you’ve heard? It doesn’t matter how obscure. Something the captain might have said. Or Suzie.’

Belasco shook his head. ‘It don’t make sense. Lord, they must be out of their minds about it. Where are they? Still on the boat?’

‘Yes,’ said the guvnor, slurping his tea. ‘The police want to speak to you.’

‘’Course.’ Belasco took his shirt from the floor. ‘I’ll go now.’

‘You ain’t well enough,’ said his wife.

‘Captain needs me.’

‘Wait a moment, my friend,’ said the guvnor. ‘There’s more to this than just driving the Gravesend Queen out of business. If it is Polgreen then there’s something else behind it, something more personal. He wouldn’t risk being hanged just to gain the Gravesend run for himself. Can you remember anybody who might have a feud with the captain? Anyone at all?’

Belasco stuck his feet in his boots and bent to do up the laces. ‘I been thinking about it since this thing started, but there’s nobody. He talks away with me and Suzie when he’s not blue, but he keeps his distance from just about everyone else. Most folk don’t even notice him.’

‘What d’you know of his life before he took you on?’

‘He never talks about it. I only know about his wife and kids from Suzie.’

‘Did you ever ask him?’

‘Few times, but he don’t like to look back, he says. I know he had another steamer, but that’s all.’

‘The name?’

‘I don’t know.’ As he talked, Belasco struggled to get his swollen arm into his greasy shirt. His wife helped him get it on, tuck it in. He picked up some coins from the table, spooned a bit of porridge in his mouth. ‘Don’t even know the route. I did ask him but he always says the past’s the past.’

‘What about his friends?’ asked the guvnor. ‘D’you know any?’

‘There’s a fellow in Gravesend he sees when we’re waiting for the return trip. Has his dinner with him. Curtis. Lives somewhere near the high street.’

The guvnor scribbled it in his notebook.

‘Any others?’

‘I never heard him mention anyone else.’ Something came over him as he spoke and his eyes did a flutter. He clutched the doorframe. I got up to help him, leading him to my chair where he sat heavily, holding his head in his hands.

‘What is it, darling?’ asked his wife, laying her palm on his back.

‘Just come over dizzy,’ he mumbled. Then, real quick, he reached for the chamber pot and spewed up the tea he’d just swallowed. Then came another spurt of a different colour.

Mrs Belasco gave him a rag for his mouth. ‘You’d better stay home today, mate.’

Belasco shook his head. Holding the back of the chair, he rose slowly. ‘I’m all right now. Must’ve needed to get that out.’ He leant over and kissed her.

‘You be careful,’ she said.

‘’Course,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the detectives with me, ain’t I?’

Chapter Eleven

It was midday when we got back to the pier. On the boat, we found the Moons still sitting in the saloon, while Petleigh and the constable waited on deck, guarding the bodies against the gulls circling above. Belasco strode over to Suzie and gripped her arms.

‘Suzie,’ he murmured.

Her eyes glazed like tears were about to come. They didn’t. She pulled away.

‘Where was you?’ she asked sharply.

He pointed to the grey bandage on his head. ‘Got knocked out last night. Don’t know who by.’

‘You was drinking.’

Belasco looked at Moon, who sat staring out the window. ‘How is he?’

‘He won’t talk. His nerves is gone.’

Petleigh poked his head through the door. ‘Are you Mr Belasco?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Could you come over here and look at the bodies?’

We followed Belasco onto the deck, where the three corpses had been laid out on their backs. A seagull stood on the smaller woman’s arm, trying to pull out a little purple sweetbread from the wound in her belly. Petleigh yelled and clapped his hands. Vexed, the gull beat its monstrous wings and rose, hovering above the bodies and shrieking back at the copper. Then, in an instant, it twisted and shot off across the river.

The guvnor turned away, his belcher to his mouth. The tall woman still had the bit of rope round her ankle where she’d been tied to the other one. Her bloody eyes, dried out in the sun, stared dully into the blue like week-old herring. Over the deck spread her tangled hair, run through with sticks and straw, knotted with bits of black river grease. They’d closed her nightdress over her belly, giving her a bit of dignity. The guvnor coughed, then turned back. Next to the big one the little one was laid out, her undershirt ripped almost in half. This hadn’t been arranged for her modesty, and we could see her belly torn open, the ragged purple muscle and pipes washed clean of blood by the river and now baking in the summer heat. Her innards seemed to be full of animal parts, sheep’s ballocks and pigs’ livers and bits of calves’ brains. On the deck next to her lay the sweetbread the gull had been trying to pull out, a spleen or something, a thin blue tube leading back inside her. Her hands were open on the deck, the palms facing the sun and one finger sticking up queer like a prick. Her head twisted towards the other woman, her starry eyes bright, her lashes glinting with river salt.

Next to her the man lay on his back. His head was clean-shaven, smooth and yellow like he was made of butter, spoiled only by the ragged wounds where his ears should be.

‘They call those butcher’s earmuffs in the criminal world,’ said Petleigh.

A long shirt covered the dead man down to his thighs; below that he was bare. Petleigh nudged a baby eel twitching on the floor next to him.

‘We pulled that out of his backside.’

The guvnor flitched.

‘D’you know these people, Mr Belasco?’ he asked.

‘No, Inspector.’

‘Customers?’

‘Can’t remember ever seeing them.’

‘Acquaintances of Captain Moon?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What did the surgeon say about the skulls?’ asked Arrowood.

‘Children, all different ages, died anywhere between five and a hundred years ago, he thinks.’ Petleigh brought out his snuff box and had a toot. His eyes watered. He sneezed. ‘Dug up from somewhere. Though why anyone would do that I do not know.’

‘It’s a message, for goodness’ sake,’ snapped the guvnor. ‘A child could’ve worked that out.’

‘I know it’s a damn message, William.’

‘It didn’t sound like it.’

‘Why are you so short-tempered today? Haven’t you been sleeping well?’

The guvnor glared at Petleigh: it seemed like the inspector was provoking him.

‘I’m short-tempered because we’ve just discovered fourteen children’s skulls and three corpses,’ said the guvnor through clenched teeth, ‘and this family are being ruined by somebody. My Lord, you’re a cold fish, Petleigh. Where’s your damn heart?’

‘I keep it at home when I’m called to a murder. Otherwise I couldn’t do this—’

‘At home!’ barked the guvnor, stiffening. His damp brow drew down over his eyes, his swollen nose flushed with blood. ‘With your wife who you told us you were divorcing?’

I took the guvnor’s arm to calm him. ‘What will you do now, Inspector?’ I asked.

Petleigh continued to hold the guvnor’s eye. ‘Investigations, Norman.’ He turned to Belasco. ‘I need you to come to the station, sir. I understand this is the first time you’ve ever deserted the boat.’

‘I got coshed last night,’ protested Belasco, pointing at the bandage on his head. His eyes were still on the bodies. ‘Knocked out cold.’

‘Fetch the captain too. His nerves have the better of him at the moment, but he’s going to have to start talking soon.’

‘You want Suzie?’

Petleigh looked at her through the saloon window. He shook his head. ‘I’ve already spoken to her.’

Belasco helped Moon up, then climbed off the boat with Petleigh. Arrowood fell onto a bench, his red face throbbing with heat and vexation. He pulled off his boots with a gasp, and we sat there with Suzie until the police wagon arrived, then watched as the coppers packed the ropes and skulls in canvas bags and carried away the bodies on three battered old gurneys. A crowd had gathered to watch, packed onto the pier and the Swan Stairs.

Suzie had one more look round, then locked the saloon, the wheelroom, the engine. She pulled on a simple brown bonnet and tied it under her chin. The piermaster stood by the gangway waiting for us.

‘Terrible business, Suzie,’ he said, a briar pipe hanging from his lips. Behind him, the crowd was following the coppers off the pier and up toward Thames Street. ‘But they oughtn’t to have left the boat here. I’ll need this space later.’

‘Sorry, Mr Wellersby,’ she said. ‘I’d have moved her if he’d let me.’

‘Not your fault, my dear. And can you tell your father the fees are overdue?’

Suzie nodded, a great sigh drifting from her pale lips. I didn’t think her grim face could have got any grimmer.

‘You need anything?’ asked the old fellow.

‘A bit of luck is all.’

He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘You get some rest. I’ll watch over her.’

We walked with Suzie to the bus stop by the Monument.

‘D’you have any idea who those people might be?’ asked the guvnor as we waited.

‘No, sir. I never seen them.’

‘The skulls were a message, and I think your father knows what they mean.’

She spun round, her eyes fierce. ‘No, he don’t! He’d have said if he did.’

‘But he hasn’t spoken more than a few words since Norman pulled them up, Suzie. Something’s shaken him.’

‘’Course he’s shaken! Someone’s killed those people. ’Course he’s blooming shaken up – his nerves is gone!’

‘But yours haven’t. Norman’s haven’t. Your father’s been sitting there since this morning looking into the distance, his mind closed in on itself. That’s what people do when they’re remembering something difficult. What could it be, Suzie?’

Her brow was drawn low, her lips tight. ‘Go after Polgreen,’ she said.

‘Was he being threatened by creditors?’

‘We owed a bit, but they wouldn’t do this, would they?’

‘Did your father tell you of any other trouble he’s had? Now or in the past?’

‘He don’t talk about his past. Never has done. Ma didn’t neither.’

‘What about his work? Did he tell you about what he did before the Gravesend Queen?’

‘No, he never talks about it.’

‘Didn’t you ever ask?’

‘Don’t keep going on with the same question, Mr Arrowood. I don’t know, but you got to see Polgreen again. He’ll be back about seven tonight. It’s him that’s behind it. He’s a bad heart. A nasty and evil heart.’

The bus arrived and we watched Suzie as she was swallowed by the press of people climbing aboard.