They had been admitted to the house by a hard-faced woman, who had greeted Jago not with annoyance or surprise at the late visit, but with warmth and affection. After a murmured conversation, during which no introductions were made, the woman led them through to the small kitchen at the back of the building. Bidding them goodnight, she left, the sound of her footsteps fading as she made her way upstairs, candle held aloft.
Jago pointed to a chair. “Sit yourself down.”
Hawkwood watched as Jago raided the pantry, returning with a jug and two tin mugs. “Get some of this down you.”
“This from Boney’s cellars too?” Hawkwood asked, pouring from the jug and taking a sip. He winced as the brandy rinsed the split in his gum.
Jago grinned and raised his own mug. “Just like old times. You in the wars, and me lookin’ after you.”
Jago’s words, spoken with a grin, were like nails being driven into his heart.
The ex-sergeant frowned. “What?”
“I thought it was you, Nathaniel. I thought you’d fed me to Scully.”
“You talkin’ about the note?”
Hawkwood nodded. “I should have known. I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I was a bloody idiot.”
“Is that all? Bloody hell, Cap’n. If I’d been in your shoes, I’d have thought that too. Don’t go tearing yourself up. We been through too much together for me to hold that against you.”
“Which is why I should have known better,” Hawkwood said, shaking his head. “I was a damned fool.” Then the thought struck him. “So, how the hell did you know where I was? How did you know about the note?”
Jago shook his head. “Blind luck. I finally had a tickle from Lippy Adams over in Bell Lane, regardin’ the goods ’oisted from your coach ’old-up. Lippy owes me a favour or two. Couldn’t believe my luck when he told me it was Spiker who’d dropped the stuff off. Figured I’d get a message to you, using young Jenny. Would you credit it, she told me she’d passed one message on already. From bloody Spiker, no less! Which was when alarm bells started ringing. Mind you, Jen weren’t much use. Can’t read, can she? She couldn’t tell me what the bleedin’ note said!”
Hawkwood waited patiently. He knew Jago would get to the point eventually.
“Well, Spiker’s nowhere to be found—no big surprise. But then I gets to thinking that likely as not he can’t read nor write neither. Which means he must ’ave ’ad someone write ’is note for him. And in our neck o’ the woods there’s only one scribe who’d do that for ’im. Solly Linnett.”
“So, you had words with Solly.”
“That I did. In fact we ’ad an entire conversation. Very obligin’, is old Solly, given the right inducements. Told me everything I needed to know, and not a moment too soon, from what I could see.” Jago’s face split into another disarming grin. “Swear to God, I don’t know what you’d do without me. You’re not safe to be let out on your own.” The ex-sergeant’s expression turned suddenly serious. “Now, would you mind tellin’ me just what the bleedin’ ’ell’s goin’ on?”
“I’m not sure you’d believe me,” Hawkwood said wearily.
“Try me,” Jago offered. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
So Hawkwood told him. Beginning with the coach robbery, through to the missing clockmaker, Warlock’s murder and William Lee and his submersible boat. By the time he’d finished, Hawkwood’s throat, though well lubricated with brandy, felt as if it had been stuffed with nettles. He suspected it had as much to do with the amount of smoke he had inhaled as with his telling of the tale.
“Bloody hell!” Jago said, after a lengthy silence. “You weren’t kiddin’, were you? So, what happens now?”
“We find Lee and stop him.”
“Whoa!” Jago said. “What do you mean, we? Jesus, you’ve got a bloody nerve!” The big man fell silent, then he sighed. “Christ, all right, I’m in. But how are we goin’ to stop the bugger if we don’t know where he is?”
“I don’t know,” Hawkwood said. “I’ve a feeling I’m missing something, something important.”
Both men stared into their drinks.
“Bleedin’ generals,” Jago said.
Hawkwood looked at him. “What?”
Jago sighed. “Bleedin’ generals—remember? What was it we used to say? They never tell you anything. They keep you in the dark and feed you on shit, like bloody mushrooms. Well, if you ask me, I reckon that’s what’s been happening here. I think someone up there ain’t tellin’ you the full story. I reckon once you find out what it is they ain’t been tellin’ you, you’ll be able to figure it out.”
“They should have made you a bloody general,” Hawkwood said.
16
Hawkwood grinned at the big man’s discomfort. “No need to look so worried, Nathaniel. You’re safe. You’re with me.”
“If you say so.” Despite the reassurance, Nathaniel Jago did not look like a man convinced.
But then at two o’clock in the morning, in the Chief Magistrate’s chambers at Bow Street, Hawkwood thought with amusement, who could blame him?
A bleary-eyed Ezra Twigg had answered the door. The little clerk, clad incongruously in a calf-length nightshirt and tasselled cap, had taken one look at Hawkwood’s smokeblackened clothes and bruised face and the big man standing beside him, and let them into the house without uttering a single word.
“I need to speak with him, Ezra,” Hawkwood said. “Is he up?”
“Course he’s up,” the clerk grumbled. “Still dressed, too. Doesn’t need any sleep, that one. Not like some of us,” he added tartly.
As Twigg padded off, muttering dire threats of retribution, Hawkwood led the way upstairs.
Did the Chief Magistrate ever go to bed? Hawkwood wondered. When James Read appeared, shadowed by the now hastily attired Ezra Twigg, he looked as well turned out and as urbane as ever, and not at all put out by the lateness of the hour.
“Good morning, Hawkwood.” James Read paused as his eyes took in both men. “Ah, the redoubtable Sergeant Jago, I presume?”
Jago shot Hawkwood a startled glance.
“Come now, Sergeant,” Read said. “No need to be alarmed. Your description and reputation precedes you.” Read looked Hawkwood up and down. “I suspect I’m going to regret asking this, but why do you look like something that has been trampled by a squad of dragoons?”
“I’ve been having words with one of our highwaymen.”
The Chief Magistrate brightened instantly. “Have you indeed? Capital!”
“Not really,” Hawkwood said. “He’s dead. Nathaniel killed him.”
James Read’s face fell. “That is most unfortunate.” The magistrate peered questioningly towards Jago. “His death was unavoidable, I take it?”
“He’d have killed me, if he’d had his way,” Hawkwood said. “Nathaniel saved my life.”
“In that case, Sergeant, we’re much obliged to you.” Read moved towards his desk. “So, who was he?”
“His name was Scully. Ex-navy, which explains his lack of horse sense. He was the one who shot agent Ramillies. He and his partner were working for William Lee.” Hawkwood paused. “We met him, too.”
It was almost comical the way the Chief Magistrate froze in mid stride. “You met Lee? He’s here?” Suddenly Read checked, looking first at Jago then at Hawkwood. His eyes darted a warning.
“Sergeant Jago knows, sir. I told him everything.”
The Chief Magistrate cocked an eyebrow. “Did you indeed? That was rather presumptuous of you.”
“Nathaniel did save my life.”