Kate gathered them back to herself, doubtfully. “They are letters, but not to Freddy or from him, but from-” She stopped herself. “There now-I’m running on. Mr. Broodigan in the shop, he says I always do-but the customers like to have a chat and a gossip while they are trying their scents.” She closed her bag and gave her head a little shake. “Thank you, Mrs. Bligh. You’ve told me I need to go and speak clear with my husband and stop dancing round it. That’s good advice and I thank you for it.” She got to her feet. “I’ll be on my way.”
Jocasta frowned at the shimmering cards. “I’ve told you no such thing. I’ve hardly tasted air. There’s some stuff here I need to step through with you. I don’t like the look. Sit now.”
Mrs. Mitchell lifted her chin and held out a coin, which trembled slightly. Jocasta drew her shawl tighter round her and would not take it, so Kate set it down neatly in the center of the cards.
“Jenny at the shop was right when she said you were worth speaking with, Mrs. Bligh. But I have what I need now, so I’ll be away. Don’t be offended, I mean nothing against you.”
“Not a case of offended. You’re looking all brave and clear now, but this is something fiercer than a little lack of confidence man to wife, isn’t it, my dear?” She looked up into the young woman’s face. “Let us pick through before you go charging off!”
Kate opened her mouth to speak, but no words came to her, so she turned on her heel and almost stumbled, such was her hurry to get out of the room. The door clapped to behind her. Jocasta sucked in the air through her teeth again and looked back down in the cards. Their whispering was growing clearer, more insistent. A trickle of coldness started to slick in Jocasta’s belly; it grew and spread as if it were embers on dry matter.
Boyo got onto his feet and jumped up beside her. Jocasta put out her hand and rubbed behind his ears, but he could tell he hadn’t caught her attention and whined. She didn’t hear him, she was still watching the cards in front of her. The Moon, cards of the Suite of Swords several and warlike; and worst of all, though that was serious business enough, in the middle of the spread of cards where Kate had laid her shilling, was the picture of a Tower cracked and burning that filled the air with sparks and injury and people falling from it hard.
6
The outhouse into which Justice Pither showed Crowther and Harriet was low, and too dark for its size to be properly judged. However, it seemed to be made up mostly of unlikely angles. It was as if a once reasonable-sized space had been gradually encroached upon by the surrounding buildings; as if its neighbors had shuffled inward at various times and from various directions, so the space had been forced to fold in on itself, jutting out a limb, or fragment of wall wherever it could find a space in the press. The floor was earth and the air smelled damp and brown. Both Harriet and Crowther had to stoop a little as they stepped down through the doorway. The only light came from an oil lamp hanging from a central beam. Below it, on a trestle table, was a human form shrouded in a white linen sheet. The place bred silence.
The sheet used for a covering had soaked up the damp from the corpse, making it limp and heavy, as if a solid slice of river fog had stolen over the man in his sleep and smothered him. Harriet was reminded of the deepest places in a ship after a long voyage. The air here was a little foul, but she could not say if that was the breath from the body or the river water that clung to it. Either way there was an air of contagion about the place. It was a room for things to rot in, forgotten and brooding.
The atmosphere could not still Justice Pither, however. He had done nothing but apologize since their arrival. He continued to do so now, caught between pride at their coming and embarrassment at the cellar-like outhouse into which he had shown them. He was also disposed to treat both Harriet and Crowther with a deference that the former at least found a little grating.
“I do not wish for miracles, sir, madam,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “But my wife, she is an energetic woman, saw your names in the paper, the Royal Society. . and of course we had read about last summer. . and so when this poor fellow was brought along, she suggested we might call on you for your assistance. . and she was right. We must do what we can, and we would be so glad of your acquaintance.”
Crowther looked down at him. “Have you been a justice long, Mr. Pither?”
“No, no, sir. That is to say, not so long-three months now. My wife suggested I put myself forward for it-she says London has a great need of righteous men. And I have been reading of what other men in the metropolis have managed in their areas, so I made some modest proposals. . The sheriff seemed most willing-then when this. . and I thought, perhaps if you were at liberty. . The manner, the supply of magistrates in this borough is uneven. .”
Harriet looked at his rather pinched and narrow face. She guessed he was a man who, no matter the skills of his tailor, would always look rather swamped by his own clothes, but he seemed to her in many ways a cut above the usual justices in London. The city was not known for the quality of its officers of the law. Only that spring, Mr. Burke had, in the House of Commons itself, called the Middlesex justices who were supposed to administer the law in the city “the scum of the earth.”
In the countryside, a justice was expected to be a gentleman, and a figure of some standing in his community. He had powers, and those powers were traded for influence and respect in the rural body of England, but here, in London, the choking and congested heart of an empire, the justices took another currency. The populace ignored them when they could, and paid them off when they could not. There were exceptions, of course. Since the Fielding brothers had shown what a magistrate might be in London from their house in Bow Street, the situation had improved, but it was said that barely half the magistrates of London could write their own name, and the fragile peace of the city still rested on the ancient and ignored officers of the watch, the constables unable to pay their way out of their obligations to the parish, the prosecutions of thief-takers, the rough justice of the crowds, and the occasional intervention of the troops. It seemed that Mr. Pither was trying to follow more in the footsteps of the Fieldings than suck up his living in the wake of the other sort of justice. Harriet might be a little skeptical about his chances of success, but the little man should be encouraged, surely.
“Sir,” she said, with a graceful nod of her head. The man hurrumphed into his cravat and looked pleased. “You have mentioned the manner in which this body was found, but no specifics. What was unusual?”
A young male voice spoke from the shadows at the back of the little room. “He was tied.”
Harriet, startled, found herself looking for a moment at the corpse itself. Then from the gloom behind the body two men wearing the red jackets of the Thames Watermen came forward into the little ring of light. The shadows of the room went back a long way.
The man who had spoken looked almost a child, lithe and slender with high cheekbones, and smooth-skinned enough for Harriet to wonder if he was yet out of his teens. Shuffling out of the dark beside him was an older man, bearded and a little stooped though his chest was broad and his hands, held clenched at his sides, looked fearsome enough. Justice Pither waved toward them.
“These are the fellows who brought him in. They run a wherry from the Black Lyon Stairs. This is Proctor, and this his nephew Jackson. I thought perhaps you might wish to speak to them.”
The older man grumbled under his breath, “Aye, though it keeps us from our trade half the day and there’s rent to be earned. Regular passengers of ours crossing the river in our rivals’ boats.”
Harriet looked directly at him, her eyes frowning. “I know you, Proctor.”