“Thank you,” Hoffmann said.
“Don’t talk to me.”
“But I can. . you know, I can help you. I know where one of the others are. I mean, where he is. One of them that escaped with me.”
The three policemen looked at one another.
“You’d help us catch him?” Hammersmith said.
“I would,” Hoffmann said. “I would help you if you were to put in a good word to the head warder for me.”
“We don’t make promises to criminals,” Tiffany said.
“It’s gonna. . it’s going to be harder on us this time round. In Bridewell. I mean, the head warder. He’s gonna. . he’s going to hurt us, take away meals and our time outside. And he’ll take away our tea. I like teatime most of all.”
“You killed a man,” Blacker said. “Tea seems like the least of your worries.”
“Where is he?” Hammersmith said. “If you know where one of the others is, tell us.”
“Promise first. Promise you’ll talk to the head warder. Just a word to him. Just a good word from you, it’s all I ask. A recommendation. I’m not asking for more than that. I know I’ve made mistakes and I don’t ask for forgiveness or special favors. Tea is all. A piece of toast is all. It’s not much, is it? A piece of toast? Maybe a spot of jam. But not necessarily. I didn’t mean to say jam. It’s too much to ask. Toast is all I need. Please, just toast.” Hoffmann’s voice grew more shrill as he pleaded with them. Hammersmith looked away from him at the two inspectors.
“I don’t like making bargains with criminals,” Tiffany said.
“And I don’t like standing out here like this,” Blacker said. “Let’s get him inside and locked up. Then we can talk.”
“Do you think he actually knows something?”
“I do,” Hoffmann said. “I do know something.”
“Maybe he does,” Tiffany said. “But we’ll find the other men without him.”
Tiffany tugged on Hoffmann’s elbow and led him toward the gates where a blue-uniformed warder was watching them.
“It might be worth finding out what he knows,” Blacker said. “Or thinks he knows.”
Hammersmith saw something move at the far corner of the high stone wall. It appeared at the periphery of his vision and moved fast toward the little cluster of policemen with Hoffmann.
“Move,” Hammersmith said. “Get him through the gates.”
Blacker didn’t even look up. He pushed Hoffmann forward and immediately closed the gap behind him. Tiffany moved into the lane, his Webley revolver already up and aimed. Then he lowered his weapon, just as the figure resolved itself in Hammersmith’s vision as a young boy on a bicycle. The two policemen looked at each other and then looked over at Blacker, who had managed to get Hoffmann through the gate and was only now turning to see if he could help the others.
“Well,” Blacker said, “we know how to move fast when we have to, don’t we?”
“And when we don’t have to,” Tiffany said. He scowled at the boy, who skidded to a halt in front of him. “Move along, son. Police business here.”
“Was lookin’ for police, sir.” The boy gulped and took several deep breaths. He was sweating and his hair was tangled from the wind.
“Someone sent you?”
“Yes, sir. A second, please. Catchin’ me breath.”
“Is it the Yard?”
“No, sir. The prisoners, sir. The ones who escaped? Mrs Pye’s seen two of ’em, and on my very street, sir, where I live.”
“Two of the prisoners? Who’s Mrs Pye?”
“Lady lives on my street, sir. Gave me a penny to ride up here and tell you.”
“How did she know we were here?”
“Anybody, sir. Said to tell anybody I saw.”
“Where are they?”
“Phoenix Street, sir. Not far. I’ll show you. They’re livin’ in a house over there. They hurt Mr Michael and took his house, but Mrs Pye, she went right in like it wasn’t nothin’ and she untied Mr Michael and saved him, sir, but he don’t got a tongue no more. They cut it out of him, if you can believe it.”
Tiffany turned to Blacker. “Leave him.” Then to the gatekeeper. “Can you take him from here?”
The warder nodded. “I got him, all right.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Blacker squeezed out through the gap in the gate and the warder swung it shut behind him with a mighty clang. Hoffmann twisted away and threw himself against the bars of the gate on the other side.
“No,” he said. “I can tell you where he is. The strange one. The Harvest Man. I can tell you. I only want toast in return. That’s not so much to ask! Tea and toast!”
“The hell with you and your toast,” Tiffany said. “We know where the other fugitives are now. We don’t need your information.”
“Toast!”
Tiffany ignored him. He and Blacker hopped up into the back of the waiting wagon. The boy on the bicycle circled around so he was facing back the way he had come. He jumped on a pedal and rolled away from them down the lane.
“Follow him,” Tiffany said.
The boy up top sighed. He picked up the reins and gave a haw and the old horse out front took a tentative step and then another and the wagon began to move.
“You coming, Sergeant?”
Hammersmith nodded and allowed himself to be pulled up into the back of the wagon with the two inspectors as the horse gained momentum and chuffed along after the waiting bicyclist. Hammersmith stared out at the weeping prisoner clinging to Bridewell’s gates and wondered how Inspector Day was faring.
At least, he thought, the remaining prisoners were hiding in a house on Phoenix Street while Day was safe and sound, far away from it all.
46
Is he gone?”
Day shouted at the rocks around him, not daring to hope for an answer. He knew that there were two men with him, one on either side, both shackled there by Jack. He did not know the man to his right, the one who might be dead, but Adrian March was only a few feet away, to his left. And if March was still alive. . How long had it been since he had last heard him? An hour? Two?
“He’s gone.” March’s voice came wavering through the rock. He sounded drugged or addled.
“Adrian?”
“I’ve dropped it, Walter. I dropped the lockpick.”
“Were you able to-”
“No. I couldn’t get the proper angle on the thing. I’m older, I suppose. I used to be able to hold those tiny things, but my fingers. .”
“Adrian, you sound. . Has he hurt you?”
“Of course. But he won’t kill me for some time, I think. He’ll keep me alive as long as he can. It’s a shame I don’t have my little jailer’s gun with me today.”
“Jailer’s gun?”
“Cunning thing. I sent you one, but you don’t have it here either, do you? Shaped like a key, it is. Holds a single bullet. A single bullet’s all it would take, one way or another, Jack or me.”
“What’s he done to you?”
“He has started with the wounds he gave Annie Chapman. One of his victims. They were the last wounds we inflicted on him before he escaped.”
“What kind of wounds?” He didn’t know what had been done to Annie Chapman. The photographs and drawings of Jack’s victims were horrible things to look at, but he had never read the autopsy reports. When Saucy Jack had committed his gruesome deeds, Day had been a country constable, riding his bicycle down winding lanes, giving warnings to children who stole apples from the market.
“He has cut my cheeks and my stomach,” March said.
“Oh, God!”
“Not as bad as all that, actually. Of course, he’s gone further than we ever did with him. I believe he’s cut something vital in my cheek. I don’t seem to be able to speak properly.”