‘Why did he attack your cushions, Captain?’
Polgreen brought his face up close and spoke real slow, like the guvnor was stupid, ‘’Cos he thought I’d damaged his boat.’
‘He thinks you’re trying to drive him out of business.’
‘I am trying to drive him out of business.’
‘Why’d you set up on the Gravesend run when every other boat’s given up?’
‘Folk from the East End still go there. Folk who can’t afford to go anywhere else. Listen, Moon don’t own that route. He’s got no right to it.’
‘He was there first,’ I said.
Polgreen scratched his sun-scorched belly. ‘But I want it,’ he said.
The guvnor looked at him for a while. ‘If it wasn’t you, then who’d you think’s been doing it?’
‘There was a fellow asking after his boat a few week since. Asking where she was moored.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘Don’t know where she’s moored, do I?’
‘Really, sir?’
Polgreen shrugged.
‘Did this fellow say anything else?’ asked the guvnor.
‘No.’
‘What did he look like?’
Polgreen frowned. His eyes moved from the guvnor to me. ‘A bit like him,’ he said, twitching his head at me. ‘Big, eyes far apart too. Made you queasy just to look at him. But it was dark. I didn’t get a good look.’
‘Clothes?’ asked the guvnor.
‘Checked shirt. Not so well off.’
‘Hair?’
‘Brown or black, and a moustache.’
‘His voice?’
‘London, I’d say.’
The guvnor looked at him for a while without speaking.
‘Just like Mr Barnett, then,’ he said at last.
‘That’s what I said,’ answered Polgreen. ‘Now, get off my boat.’
The guvnor looked over at me, twitched his eyebrows, and stepped back. I moved in, taking the bloke by the throat and pushing him back towards the bar.
‘Leave off!’ he growled. He didn’t shout; I guessed he didn’t want his family to hear. He tried to break free, but I had hold of him tight. I caught his arm as he swung his wrench at me and threw him onto the floor. Soon as he landed I had my boot and all my weight on his wrist. He groaned.
I pushed down harder. He twisted, trying to hammer on my knee with his other hand, but it just hurt him more.
‘Any more damage to Moon’s boat and I come back for you,’ I told him.
His face was screwed up in pain. ‘And I’ll be waiting, you prick,’ he hissed.
We walked back through Battersea Park, the guvnor tapping his stick on the path as we went. It was a fine old day. The lawns were dotted with folk enjoying the sun: couples murmuring soft to each other, old codgers nattering on benches, little gangs of kids shouting and showing off. Along the path people sold lemonade and ginger beer, ice cream and oranges, and everybody had a smile on their face.
‘You didn’t have to hurt him,’ said the guvnor. ‘Not with his lad on the roof.’
‘I didn’t hurt him.’
‘All you needed do was threaten him.’
‘A man like that’d need more than threatening,’ I said. ‘If it was him.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘Do you?’
We stepped onto the grass to get round a nanny trying to settle a little lad with a great gash in his knee. Two young ladies on bicycles came directly towards us. They didn’t seem to see us, so wrapped up were they in their conversation. We stepped further from the path to get out of their way, and they passed without even a nod.
‘I just don’t know,’ he said as we approached the little row of caged birds at the far side of the park. ‘It’s clear the two men have confronted each other, but Suzie was more certain it was Polgreen who’d damaged the boat than her father. Moon only confirmed her when pushed, and even then he wavered. D’you remember how he spoke? And as for Polgreen, well, it was too convenient that the fellow he says was asking about Moon’s boat looked like you. I know it’s difficult to invent a story on the spot, but he was almost telling us he was deceiving us. On the other hand, when he described Moon throwing his cushions in the water his anger seemed real enough. Did you see how his eyes widened, how his jaw stuck out? Everything Darwin says about anger was there.’
‘It doesn’t mean he didn’t damage Moon’s boat.’
‘True, but his denial was convincing. There was no slight twitch or hesitation. Nothing. So I’m wondering why he’d invent this mystery man if he didn’t have something to hide?’ He grunted and shook his head, pausing a moment to examine a peacock in one of the cages. ‘What did you think of Captain Moon, Barnett?’
‘I liked him.’
‘I also. He seems very worn down. I wish I could believe that’s the end of it, but I’m afraid whatever’s going on is more complicated than it seems.’
Chapter Three
We visited Moon to tell him what had happened, shook hands, and hoped that was the end of it. When we got back to Coin Street, a message from Scrapes had finally arrived asking us to start on his case. A letter had gone missing from a fellow’s house, one that might have caused a scandal if ever it should get out. Took us a day to track it. A bit of easy money for a change: no freezing nights on the watch, no getting stamped in the face, just a lot of questions, a bit of walking, and a little righteous housebreaking.
It was turning into a hot summer, so I treated myself to a nice straw boater from the pawn shop, with a green and yellow band and a good brim to shade the sun. I’d had my eye on it for a while, but this was the first time I had a few spare coins to buy it. Wearing it felt like a bit of success: it made me feel a happier man.
It was the day after Scrapes’ case that Captain Moon found us again, this time in Willows’ coffeehouse on Blackfriars Road. We were at lunch; the guvnor had took all the Thursday papers and shoved them under his thigh so none of the other punters could get at them. He was reading them through one by one, catching up on the cases as were going on in other parts of town. All the windows were open and the door wedged ajar, but it was still hot in there with the kettles and the great vat of soup aboil on the range. We were both in our shirts, our sleeves rolled up, our chests there for all to see.
‘Miss Arrowood told me you’d be here,’ said Moon, lowering himself onto a stool opposite. He wore a stained canvas shirt, a blue handkerchief around his neck. His boatman’s cap was on his head. ‘He’s been at it again.’
‘You want something, mate?’ asked Ma Willows, coming over to the table. Her red hands had swelled up as they always did on a hot day. She was breathing heavy.
Moon ran his tongue over his dry lips. He shook his head.
‘Another for me, Rena,’ said the guvnor, holding out his empty mug. ‘And a bit of seed cake.’
‘You got anything for that rash?’ asked Rena, her nose wrinkling as she watched him itch away at his oxters.
‘I’ve been using Whelpton’s. Doesn’t seem to do anything.’
‘Try Elliman’s Universal. That’s a better one.’ Her eyes fell on the jacket hanging from the back of my chair. She pointed at the patch I’d sewn on it the week before and laughed. ‘Who put that bloody thing on?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Couldn’t you have got one the same colour?’
‘It’s almost the same.’
‘You must be blind,’ she said, turning to collect the mugs and bowls from the table next to us.
‘I never been in this place afore,’ said Moon, looking around at the food on the other tables. ‘You from around here, Mr Barnett?’
‘Born and raised in Bermondsey,’ I told him. ‘What about you?’
‘From up country,’ he said. ‘What about you, Mr Arrowood?’
‘I’ve been here since I was twenty,’ said the guvnor. ‘How about you tell us what happened, Captain?’
‘Belasco and me kipped on the boat last night.’ Moon’s mouth was dry as flour, and his tongue made a clicking noise when he spoke. He scratched his wild orange beard. ‘Been sleeping there all week. Something woke me, maybe the good Lord himself as if he hadn’t I might have rose with the angels this morning. There was a little launch right up aside us, and two big blokes making ready to board.’
Moon stopped when Rena Willows came over and dumped the coffee and cake on the table. As the guvnor took a bite, she patted his shoulder and rubbed his back, looking down on his uneven hair and red scalp beneath. She seemed to appreciate the guvnor eating more than anything else in that coffeeshop; sometimes she’d put her elbows on the counter and just watch him gobble down a beef sandwich or shovel great spoonfuls of porridge down his hole. And the messier it got, the more she seemed to like it.
A rabbitman came in the shop and went to the counter. Rena gave the guvnor’s neck a little tickle, then lumbered over to have a look at what the fellow had.
‘Belasco gave the first one a wallop with the boathook as he tried to get aboard,’ Moon went on. His eyes seemed to crackle with anger. ‘We were shouting away anyways. When they saw there was two of us they pushed off and raced away downriver.’
‘Did you pursue them?’
Moon shook his head, his eye on the guvnor’s coffee. ‘Takes too long to get the steam up. Coffee good in here, is it?’
‘It is,’ said the guvnor. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one?’
Moon shook his head. The guvnor looked over at Rena. ‘Mug of ale for our friend, Rena, if you will.’
‘What d’you think they were going to do?’ I asked.
‘Who knows? Could put me out for good if they broke in the engine room. It’s a bad lot, Mr Barnett, it truly is.’
‘Was it Polgreen’s boat?’ asked the guvnor.
‘No. One of them new electric launches, about twenty-five foot. Brown. Name covered over with a blanket.’
‘Can you describe the men?’
‘They’d caps and scarves over their faces. I did go to the coppers again this morning. Told me to hire a guard. Seems to me they don’t want to know about half the crimes in London. Not interested least happens right in front of them.’
Rena came over with the ale: Moon drank it down in one swallow.
‘Cheers, mum,’ he said, handing the mug back to her.
‘You didn’t see Polgreen, then?’ asked the guvnor.
He shook his head.
‘You’re not as sure as Suzie that it’s him, are you, Captain?’ asked the guvnor. ‘Why?’
It took a moment for him to reply. ‘I do think it’s him,’ he said.
‘But you’re not certain. Tell us why.’
Moon shook his head. ‘I am sure. Suzie and me both.’
‘Well, if you want us to help we can. The other case is finished.’
‘Thank you, Mr Arrowood.’ Moon reached over and took the guvnor’s hand, shaking it, squeezing it. ‘You’re a gent.’
‘It’ll be twenty shillings a day,’ I said. ‘Three days in advance.’
The guvnor cleared his throat, looking out the window. Though he was greedy for money, he never liked to bargain, never even liked to ask for payment. He saw himself as better than that. He picked up his mug and blew on the coffee. He slurped it in.
Captain Moon took off his boating cap and wiped the wet from his forehead. He looked at the guvnor. ‘Any chance I could give you ten now and the rest in two day? Tickets’ve been down since this business started.’
‘Talk to me about the money, Captain,’ I said. ‘I do the bookkeeping.’
‘I will get it you,’ he said, turning to me. ‘I swear I will.’
I held his eye hard for a time.
‘You got my word, Mr Barnett,’ he said. ‘Please. It ain’t just for me, it’s for Suzie too. We rely on that boat.’
‘Ten now, another fifty in two day,’ I said at last. ‘No delay.’
Moon put his fingers in his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. He dropped them in my hand: it was exactly ten bob.
The guvnor put down his mug. ‘Now, there’s no point us threatening him again, Captain,’ he said. ‘If it didn’t work last time, there’s no reason it’d work this time.’
‘You going to hurt him?’ asked Moon.
‘That’s not how we work.’
‘It’s the only way he’s going to stop. He won’t be reasoned with. I’ve tried hard enough.’ He looked at me again. ‘Just break a bone in his arm, Mr Barnett. That’d finish it.’
‘Is that what your daughter’d want us to do?’ asked the guvnor.
‘She’s young. She don’t understand folk as we do.’
‘Is that why you came alone this time, Captain Moon?’
Moon blinked and was silent for a few moments.
‘Leave her out of this, Mr Arrowood,’ he said at last.
‘If you want us to help, you’ll have to let us do it our way,’ said the guvnor. ‘Now, when’s your next trip?’
‘Got two Gravesend runs, one on Saturday, the other Sunday. I lay her up by London Bridge tomorrow night to get an early start Saturday, then again Saturday night for the Sunday trip.’
The guvnor raised the saucer and tipped the cake crumbs into his mouth. As he sucked on them, he looked out the window at the carriages going past, pondering.
‘If he wants to drive you out of business, he’ll try to stop you going out this weekend,’ he said at last. ‘But I don’t think he’ll do it tomorrow night. It’s too busy by London Bridge. No, the chances are he’ll get to you while you’re still in the dock, and that means tonight. Since he knows you’re sleeping on the boat, he’ll no doubt bring more men this time.’
‘Want me to move her?’
Arrowood thought again.
‘No,’ he said. ‘If he can’t find the boat we’ll never get evidence it’s him. We’ll wait on board with you tonight. I’ll bring a pistol. If Polgreen isn’t with them, we’ll catch one of the men. I’m sure we can get a name out of him.’
We got the new mooring off him and arranged to meet at nine that night.
Chapter Four
The light was just starting to fade when we reached St Saviour’s Dock. On one side was a jumble of wharves, on the other a row of sooty warehouses rising straight from the brown milk of the Thames. The dock was still busy: barges queued down the neck of the inlet to unload grain at the New Concordia; lighters at the crooked landing stages were dumping their cargoes of tea and tapioca, straw and stone. Porters and carters lifted and winched and strained at trolleys, their chests grimy and wet from a long day’s work in the sun.
The Gravesend Queen was moored at a little repair yard where the neck of the inlet opened into the dock’s basin. It was a fair bit smaller than the pleasure steamers that worked the river these days, and an awful lot older. Still, it was a boat that was cared for: the brass rails and lights were polished, the hull painted a thick red, the funnel a deep green. Captain Moon stood on the sponson deck in his shirtsleeves, smoking his pipe and looking out of the dock to the busy Pool of London beyond, his face carved deep with worry. He didn’t notice us till the guvnor called his name.
He led us up to the sundeck, where he passed around a jug of ale while we talked a bit about the river. Moon tried his best to make conversation, but something was distracting him. The spark we saw that first day was gone, and he seemed blue. The guvnor lit up a cigar; I rolled a smoke. When we were all puffing away, Moon broke the silence with a long sigh. He looked at me with a nod, his mournful eyes a mess of blood vessels. He nodded again and looked away to the river.
I stood and stretched, then rested my elbows on the balustrade and looked down into the creek. The dirty streams from Jacob’s Island on one side and Horsleydown on the other opened into the dock, and the water was thick and greasy, slopping up and down the slimy bricks of the embankment walls. Around the boats floated turds and papers, dead gulls and bones. A couple of swans, too white for the dirty docks, drifted out towards the river like lost princesses.
After some time, a bloke climbed the stairs to join us. He was small and stocky, with a tattoo of crossed hammers on his arm. His eyes were too close together, and the thick tousle of brown hair on his bonce stood up straight like a hedge.
‘Belasco,’ said Moon, the relief clear in his voice. ‘Meet Mr Arrowood and Mr Barnett.’
‘These the private agents, Captain?’ asked Belasco with an odd smile across his face. He took the guvnor’s hand, then mine. His voice was high like a woman; his grip was strong.
Moon nodded.
Belasco looked us up and down. ‘Like Sherlock Holmes only cheaper, that right?’
‘Not like Sherlock Holmes at all, sir,’ said the guvnor with a twitch of his nose.
‘That’s a shame,’ said Belasco. He leant back against the balustrade, folding his arms over his chest.
‘Holmes doesn’t always solve his cases, you know,’ said the guvnor.
‘He’s solved every one I ever heard about,’ replied Belasco as Moon handed him the jug.
‘They don’t report on the ones he fails to solve. He didn’t solve the case of the Stockbroker’s Clerk. Or the Adventure of the Yellow Face.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘Watson says it himself,’ said the guvnor.
Belasco seemed to lose interest. He looked at me.
‘You’re a big bloke. You his helper, are you?’
‘Help him with his bootlaces. When he can’t reach.’
Belasco grinned. ‘Same with me and the captain, so he don’t fall in the water.’
‘Now, here’s the plan,’ said the guvnor, uninterested in our conversation. He brought out one of his friend Lewis’s pistols from his pocket. ‘We’ll hide. If they come, we wait until the first one’s on board then you two capture him. I’ll use the pistol, order the rest to unmask.’
‘What if Polgreen ain’t there?’ asked Belasco.
‘We’ll still have our prisoner. We’ll make him talk then hand him over to the police.’
‘Could get nasty,’ said Belasco, his smile widening. I couldn’t make out if he was happy or nervy.
‘Are you willing to fight, my friend?’ asked the guvnor.
‘Blooming right I am,’ answered Belasco. ‘But what if the one we capture don’t know who’s behind it?’
‘He’ll know who’s paying him at least,’ said the guvnor. ‘We’ll pick up the trail there.’
‘Here, you ain’t kin to Belasco the prize fighter, are you?’ I asked.
‘My old man.’ As he spoke, his arms hardened, his tanned chest puffed out. ‘You heard of him, then?’
‘’Course. He ever taught you to fight?’
Belasco smiled. ‘Reckon you’ll find out tonight, mate.’
I offered him my baccy pouch.
I liked Belasco.
Captain Moon got a packet of potato and onion from the engine room, and we had dinner there on the deck. He was still blue; he’d answer your questions all right, but after that he’d dry up, looking out over the water, puffing away on his pipe.
‘Where’s Suzie tonight?’ asked the guvnor, after a long stretch of silence. A warm drizzle had started to fall but we stayed out on the deck: it was a relief from the heat.
‘At home looking after the birds,’ said Moon. ‘Didn’t want her here if there’s trouble.’
‘D’you have other children?’
A long pause.
‘Had three. The Lord took them, one after the other. And the wife.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the guvnor, patting Moon’s knee in the gloom.
The captain cleared his throat and spat over the railings into the water. A couple of bats swooped and twisted above us. ‘If there is a God he’s a bad ’un, that’s for sure.’
Further up the dock, someone emptied a bucket into the water. A seagull cried on the roof of the boatyard shed. Moon got to his feet with a groan and walked over to the far side of the deck, where he stood alone at the balustrade, his back to us.
‘He lost one as a babbie,’ said Belasco real quiet. ‘Weak blood. Then another, little Katie, she had typhus. The oldest, Annabel, was took away in the fire at their rooms.’ We watched Moon’s dark silhouette, his hands gripping the rail. Belasco whispered now: ‘Mrs Moon, well she finished herself off. Couldn’t take it no more. Drank down a whole jug of paraffin.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ murmured the guvnor.
‘Suzie’s the only one he got left, see, her and his bloody birds.’
As darkness fell, the wharves started to wind up. Some of the boats drifted past us back to the river. Others laid up for the night. All around we could hear the voices of the lightermen and porters having a drink. A concertina started up over the other side, and we listened as the music filled the darkness. Then Moon, alone on the other side of the deck, began to sing. His voice was deep and handsome.
‘Oh, Reuben was no sailor
Ranzo, boys, ranzo
He shipped aboard a whaler
Ranzo, boys, ranzo
‘They took him to a gangway
Ranzo, boys, ranzo
And gave him forty lashes
Ranzo, boys, ranzo.’
As he sang, voices began to join in from the barges and lighters moored around the dock. Soon, we three also joined in, singing out to the river and the sleeping city. Though the guvnor’d been having singing lessons over the last few months, he was the only one flat, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered those few minutes was being part of that great dockside chorus.
At the end of the song the concertina went silent and the voices disappeared back into the night. Though the sky was still covered with a murky brown cloud, the rain had stopped. We had a few more swigs of the rotten ale, a few smokes, listening as hatches were shut, pisses were taken into the stinking water. After an hour or so the place was quiet.
‘Come,’ said the guvnor, climbing down the stairs. ‘Let’s get ready.’
We followed him as he inspected the main deck. The middle of the boat had a small saloon, with a walkway on either side. In front of it was the wheelhouse, and at each end of the boat were benches.
‘The two of you need to be on the water side so you can seize the first fellow who comes aboard,’ he said to Belasco and me. ‘Best sit here, against the saloon wall. Have you something we can put over you?’
‘There’s what’s left of the awning aft,’ said Belasco.
‘Fetch it, will you?’
‘Might be an idea to get a weapon too, mate,’ I said, pulling my neddy from my jacket.
Belasco came back a few minutes later dragging a heavy canvas sheet behind him, a scaling hammer tucked under his arm. We got down on deck with our backs to the low wall of the saloon and they covered us with the awning. Through the rips in the fabric I’d just be able to make out an invader on the bow; Belasco was to watch the stern. The guvnor and Moon went off to wait in the wheelhouse.
We sat there on the deck for a long while, listening to the water move around, to the clink of the boats and the rats padding about on the path. After an hour or so, Belasco whispered, ‘Can’t keep my eyes open.’
‘Nor me. What’s wrong with the captain? Something happen this afternoon?’
‘Sometimes he’s blue. Sometimes he ain’t. Just comes over him like that.’
We talked on, quiet as we could, trying to keep each other awake. He asked me where I came from. I told him about the workhouse and the court on Jacob’s Island I lived in with my ma, just up the road from where we were that night. I told him how the guvnor and me met when I worked in the law courts and he was a reporter for Lloyd’s Weekly, and about how I started helping him after we’d both lost our jobs. He told me about growing up in Wapping, about his old man, the bare-knuckle fighter Aby Belasco, about how life goes when you’re the son of a champion. I didn’t tell him how well I knew Wapping myself, just as I’m sure he didn’t tell me about those parts of his life as needed most explaining. But I knew that if we got to know each other one day we would; we came from the same world, Belasco and me.
I asked him how he started working for Captain Moon.
‘Had a job at Thames Ironworks before,’ he whispered. ‘There was a bit of trouble, a strike and all.’
‘I remember.’
‘It was a bad time, mate. Anyways, I was fitted up for thieving and out the door.’
‘Fitted up by who?’
