The Hangman's Child (3 page)

The 'Orator' shot his crisp white cuffs, his interest in the hat at
an end.

'Mr Bragg is concerned about your legacy.' 'What legacy?'

Hawkins' mouth extended in a muscular spasm that might have been taken for a grin in a better-natured man.

'First off, there's your young women. Miss Jolly and Maggie Fashion. Mr Bragg got no special use for 'em, but they can't be left. Who's to protect them?'

'Protect them from what?'

Hawkins cleared his throat and dropped his voice.

'There was some scheme you and Pandy was working on. Something rich. Six houses you entered on dark evenings last October, Soapy Samuel first acting as a parson collecting charity subscriptions. To spy out the land.'

'Gammon,' said Rann miserably. 'Ask Soapy Sam, if it interests you so much.'

'We would,' said Hawkins evenly, 'if he could be found. He'd be asked in such a manner as he'd never forget.'

Rann said nothing. He guessed what was coming next.

'Thing is, Jack Rann, not one house ever complained of being burgled.'

'So they was never entered, or there was nothing taken.'

Hawkins sat back, stuck his thumbs under his lapels and drew a deep breath at the hopelessness of it all.

'West End,' he said patiently. 'Two in Portman Square, one in Audley Street, one off Park Lane. One in Belgrave Square. A furrier's rooms in Regent Street. Nothing worth taking? Don't play games with me, Jack! You and Pandy was after something bigger than pictures on their walls or jools in the safes. You were investing time - and money. And it ain't come to the boil yet, has it? I want to hear about it. Then we'll see about protecting your young women.'

Maggie Fashion and
Miss Jol
ly were to be the sacrifice. He
stared at Hawkins and knew he was done for. The Orator eased one soft hand with the other.

'Trouble is, Handsome Jack, you and Pandy were up to some lark you never should have been. Hunting other men's game.'

'Hunting?'

'Call it poaching. You must have known you were working where no one works without Mr Bragg or Mr Nash allow. So Mr Bragg and Mr Nash want to know two things, as your side of our bargain: what's the lark and who's the putter-up?'

'There's no lark and no putter-up!' said Rann grimly. 'Houses ain't apt to complain when they lose something they shouldn't have had in the first place.'

Hawkins nodded as if he understood.

'So the Bishop of London's hiding stolen goods, is he? And old Lady Mancart's got a collection of saucy paintings, has she?'

'You might put it the other way round,' said Rann hopefully.

Hawkins flicked dust from his cuff and glanced at Rann with ineffable contempt.

'Don't fuck me about, Jack. You're time's up, one way or t'other. But when you step off, the job you and Quinn planned won't be forgotten. If you won't tell, others must. Mr Bragg's a gentleman, always has been, but others is less refined. When you've swung, we'll ask Mag and Miss Jolly, for a start. Much the same as they might have asked Pandy, if he'd been fortunate enough to live a bit longer.'

'Those girls got nothing to do with it.'

'Won't stop Mr Bragg asking. Them not knowing, if that's true, would be most unfortunate for them and a bit of a pleasure for him. I daresay you'd recall Mr Mulligan that's called "Strap?" Old Strap might think Christmas comes early if the sorrowful task was given him. But you let us take all the care about this business of yours and you'd save those young persons a world of grief when you depart.'

Hawkins broke off and made a gesture, as if the possibilities were limitless. Rann sat up and stared at him, but it was Hawkins who broke the silence.

'And here's the little bit of a bonus, Mr Jack. Little bit of a bonus, eh? Of course, Mr Bragg can't save you being turned off. No one can. But you might have better living the next week or so than you'll otherwise get. Every comfort might attend your remaining days.'

'I'm in here, aren't I?' He felt again that he might weep in front of Hawkins and the girl with the new intensity of despair.

'And will remain,' said Hawkins reasonably, 'but you may eat the best, brought in from the London Coffee House, instead of slum-gullion for the cells. And a man may visit a female relative if she happens to be on the women's side of the prison. You could remember a young cousin, I daresay. Several might claim that right with you.'

'You never were in Newgate,' Rann said. 'Things like that can't be done in here. Not by you, nor by Bully Bragg!'

Hawkins examined his perfectly clipped fingernails.

'Not by me nor Mr Bragg,' he agreed reasonably, 'but for a pocketful of chinkers, you could not begin to imagine what Mr Lupus might do.'

'Warder Lupus?' Rann stared into the dead blue eyes. 'He's the brute of them all!'

'And who more likely to take gold for favours than the brute of them all?' Hawkins sat back with a self-satisfied smile. 'Therefore of greatest use and value.'

Rann stared at him again.

'So when I'm gone, Bragg and Catskin Nash and the rest are going to protect Mag Fashion and Miss Jolly if I tell you a story now?'

'Why should they not?'

'And Soapy Samuel? He's to be protected, is he?' Hawkins almost checked himself, but for the slightest movement of the eyes.

'No!' said Rann, his whisper little more than a hiss. 'He's dead and at the bottom of the river, I suppose! A knife slipped, like it did when Bragg was asking Pandy! And Mag Fashion and Miss Jolly'd go the same way, once he had his answers. You think I'd trust a man that put me here? Him and Flash Fowler?'

But Hawkins had regained his poise and looked again at the gold hunter-watch. Rann struggled to his feet.

'Bloody crawling Judas! You can't help me and never meant to! You go back to Policeman Fowler and Bully Bragg! I'd sooner see them and you in Hell!'

Hawkins favoured him with a wry, wan smile.

'But you'll be there first, Jack Rann. Next week, as it happens. Still, if you got further to say, I'll be back to say a prayer with you. Easy, now they know me. You might have a week so agreeable you'd hardly concern yourself with what was to come at the end. Respited even for a week more till sessions ends and they have the last gallows. You got to swing. That's the law. But next week might turn into the week after if you slipped down the list. So long as you're hung this sessions. You got no business to be around after that. Until then, sweet and savoury. Glass of wine of an evening; muzzle cocked by a young lady on the other side with an arse like a marchioness. You don't have to suffer now and hang prompt, do you, Jack?'

But Rann turned to the door and waved the turnkeys towards him.

'You always were a stupid little squirt, Handsome Rann,' Hawkins said, moving his lips in a mimicry of benediction. 'Never anything but a fool to yourself.'

He turned away and took the girl by her arm. Rann thought he saw a significant glance exchanged between Hawkins and Lupus, at a distance through the glass. The 'Orator' looked back as the warders began to move.

'One other thing Mr Bragg'd have to know. Where's your box of tricks? Bars and wedges. Steel
picks. And Pandy let on about a
Jack-in-the-Box to bust any safe. And Mr Bragg would want the micrometer Pandy put together. Especially that. They reckon it opens a lock soft as a spring breeze passing. All that'd be part of the bargain, Mr Bragg says. You think about it, Handsome Rann.'

Jessup came in on the prisoner's side. He slid his hands into Rann's pockets and patted him down. Anger and despair teased the Hangman's Child as he shuffled back to the bleakly furnished cell. They took his shackles off and the cuffs from his wrists. Lupus was alone with him, standing beside him, last to leave. William Lupus had understood Hawkins' final glance.

'You ain't half a caution, 'andsome Jack,' he said bitterly, driving his fist hard into the narrow back above the right kidney.

James Babb, known familiarly as 'Baptist' Babb, had kept watch with his colleagues on the glass square of the prisoners' consulting-room. Like the others, he stood back to respect the privacy of a man's last sight of his child. Through the glass, the exchanges between Rann and his visitors were so much dumb-show.

Unlike his colleagues, Babb had spent some time as a policeman until an infection of the lungs reduced him to the role of turnkey. And among his legacies from childhood, with a deaf cabinetmaker for a father, was a knack of reading lips. In his short career as a constable, it was admired and envied for the use it might be.

He had caught a little of what passed between Rann and Hawkins. It was enough to trouble him. It troubled him the more for its hints at corruption among his colleagues. To speak of that among them now was impossible: to keep silent would be to condone it. And what if, after all, the accusation proved untrue?

That evening, he sat alone at the stained table in his Newgate lodging. The remains of a veal and ham pie with a glass of water half-drunk stood to one side. He was a solitary man, unlikely to be visited at this hour. As the white gaslight bubbled and flared in the corner-bracket above him, he took an 'ink-and-dip'. In his mind he saw a man who might be broken but would never bow, stubborn and valiant, faithful to justice. Dipping the steel nib in the evil-smelling ink, Baptist Babb adjusted his cuff and addressed himself to Sergeant William Clarence Verity of the Private-Clothes Detail, 'A' Division Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard.

Sergeant William Clarence Verity of the Private-Clothes Detail, Detective Division, Whitehall Place, presents his compliments to Chief Inspector Henry Croaker. Sergeant Verity begs leave to bring to Mr Croaker's attention certain facts respecting the case of James Patrick Rann, alias 'Handsome Jack' Rann, now under sentence of death in Her Majesty's Prison at Newgate for the murder of a confederate, William Arthur Quinn, commonly known as 'Pandy' Quinn.

Sergeant Verity is in receipt of information from an officer of Newgate Gaol. This witness was on supervision when Rann received his last visit from a person claiming to be a workhouse missioner, accompanied by a second person alleging herself to be the prisoner's daughter. Sergeant Verity has the honour to request that Mr Croaker will read the enclosed report upon this incident.

Sergeant Verity believes the first impostor to be Edward Warren Hawkins, familiarly known as 'Orator' Hawkins, dismissed from his position as an attorney's clerk three years since, following allegations of fraud. Prosecution of this case was dropped on the complaint being withdrawn. The young person now acting as his confederate appears to be one Suzanne Berry, formerly detained at Tothill Fields House of Correction for six months under the vagrancy laws. The means by which two such persons gained access to the prisoners' consulting-room remain to be investigated.

From further information which Sergeant Verity has the honour to present, gathered by a prison officer present at the visit, a criminal conspiracy of importance appears to be in contemplation by those who sought the deaths of Quinn and Rann. The identities of Bragg, Mulligan, Nash and 'Moonbeam', are known to Sergeant Verity from previous inquiries. Though not lately convicted, Bragg is a violent criminal who served seven years' transportation in his youth for warehouse burglary. Alfred 'Catskin' Nash is known as a 'putter-up', though acquitted for lack of identification in the trial of those indicted for the robbery of Acutt's Linen Drapery, Westminster Road. William Mulligan has been twice convicted of living upon immoral earnings and once for assault and battery. Henry Jenks, a fairground prize-fighter known as 'Moonbeam', was convicted with Mulligan on the last of these charges.

In the light of the enclosed information, Sergeant Verity further requests that consideration may be given by the Home Office to a stay of execution in the case of James Patrick Rann, while the evidence given against him by Bragg and others is further investigated. Though Detective Sergeant Fowler was able to arrest Rann while the suspect was restrained by Bragg and Jenks, no weapon was found at the time with which the accused could have stabbed the victim. The blood upon Rann's clothing appears solely the result of having been held down upon the wounded man. The information which is now to hand may point to Quinn being murdered by others and the prisoner Rann being victim of a conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice.

Sergeant Verity has the honour to remain Inspector Croaker's obedient humble servant.

W. Verity, Sgt., 12 May 1860

From Deputy Commander Detective Division, Whitehall Place, SW

Chief Inspector Croaker is in receipt of Sergeant Verity's memorandum of the 12th inst. Mr Croaker takes this opportunity to remind Sergeant Verity that it is not his place to address his superiors as if he knew the business of the Division better than they.