Jago let himself into the warehouse using a set of lock picks he’d confiscated from Irish Willie Lonegan. The picks were steel and of superior quality. Jago had confiscated them because Irish Willie was, as his name implied, from across the water, County Donegal, and thus not wise to the ways of the local fraternity of cracksmen. Willie had come a cropper the night he broke into an Eaton Square mansion and relieved the lady of the house of a jewellery box containing a fine selection of family heirlooms, including a ruby pendant, three sets of pearl earrings and a diamond necklace. His downfall came when he had paid a celebratory visit to Mistress Lovejoy’s Finishing School for Young Ladies on Bedford Street, and bragged drunkenly to his pliant companion of the evening about his exploits. Irish Willie barely had time to tuck himself back into his breeches before he was hauled unceremoniously before a glowering Jago, who had explained the rules very carefully. London was his patch and no itinerant bog-trotter was going to encroach on his territory without permission. Punishment was swift and severe. Irish Willie was relieved of his tools, the remains of his takings, and both thumbs. On reflection, the Irishman had considered himself lucky. As for the picks, as Jago had remarked at the time, waste not, want not.
Maybe, Jago thought, as he stepped over the threshold, this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He wished he was carrying something more substantial than a cudgel and a Runner’s baton. A pistol would have been much more reassuring. A rat skittered past his feet. Jago ignored it. The warehouse seemed unnaturally quiet and permeated by an air of neglect and abandonment. He turned a corner and found himself facing a dark passageway. The hairs along the back of his neck prickled. Jago was no stranger to fear. He had faced many dangers, on the battlefield and among the pitch-black alleyways of the Rookery, but the sense of dread that accompanied him along that corridor was as heavy as if the Devil was sitting on his shoulder. There was something terrible here, Jago knew. Something wicked.
“Damn fine morning, Officer Hawkwood. Wouldn’t you agree?” William Lee grinned, stuck the cheroot between his lips and puffed expansively.
Hawkwood didn’t answer. He was sitting on the deck, back against the gunwale, hands bound in front of him, eyeing the pistol in the American’s hand and wondering if it might be possible to overpower Lee without getting his head blown off. The odds, he decided, were not favourable, certainly not trussed as he was. And there was still Sparrow, now manning the tiller, to contend with. The mast had been raised and they were under sail, heading downstream, hugging the eastern shore, close hauled into a light south-easterly breeze. Mill Wall lay to port. Wells’s Yard lay off the starboard beam on the opposite side of the river.
Emerging from the warehouse and into the main river, Hawkwood’s eyes had moved instinctively to the steps where he’d left Jago. The boat was still there. Jago wasn’t. Had the boat been absent, it might have suggested that Jago had done as he was told and was now en route to alert Chief Magistrate Read. The fact that the boat was still in place meant it was more than likely that Jago had disobeyed Hawkwood’s instructions. Knowing Jago, the sergeant, restless at Hawkwood’s failure to return, had probably gone looking for him. No surprise there, Hawkwood thought, feeling a sudden rush of affection for the big man. Jago riding to the rescue, again. Only this time he’d be too damned late.
“Master Woodburn told me the vessel suffered damage,” Hawkwood said. He had the strong urge to keep Lee talking. As a means of delaying the inevitable, he didn’t think it would be that effective, but at this juncture, he was prepared to try anything.
Lee took a leisurely draw on his cheroot and flicked ash over the gunwale. “Nothing that couldn’t be fixed.” He looked at Hawkwood with amusement. “Storm in the Channel it was. Lost a man, too. Which is how I ended up with Sparrow there. Scully brought him in.” Lee took the cheroot out of his mouth and jabbed the stub towards Hawkwood’s face. “Now I’ve lost Scully, too. You, sir, have a great deal to answer for.”
“So, why here?” Hawkwood voiced the question that had been gnawing at him since he and Jago had left James Read’s office. “It’s bloody madness. You could have waited until the ship was in the estuary, given yourself room to manoeuvre, given yourself an escape route. Christ, man, this is a bloody death trap!”
Lee drew on his cheroot and spread an arm. “You know why they built the yards here, Officer Hawkwood? It’s so they’d be close to London and protected from foreign invasion. Deptford ain’t the largest, it ain’t the most strategic, and it ain’t Chatham or Portsmouth, but by Christ it’s the one that’s going to make ’em sit up and take notice! Can you imagine the effect when I sink your newest goddamned ship in the middle of your goddamned capital city, and with the Prince of Wales on board? Your Admiralty boys’ll be soiling their breeches for a month! It’ll set back your war effort so far, you might as well go ahead and scuttle your whole damned navy! That’s why we’re here, Officer Hawkwood.”
The door to the cell stood ajar. Jago used the cudgel to push the door open and the smell of death hit him. The body lay across the bed, face up. The artery in the neck had been punctured and there was a great deal of blood. The room stank of it.
Jago was not, by nature, a religious man, but he crossed himself nonetheless, and as he stared down at the corpse he felt himself torn by twin emotions: intense rage at the manner of death, and the absolute gut-wrenching certainty that he was unlikely to see Hawkwood alive again.
Lee stared out over the bow. They had been making good headway. To port lay the Isle of Dogs, a low-lying stretch of sparsely inhabited meadow and marshland. Only two roads served the Isle. The Deptford and Greenwich Road followed the shore, granting land access to the few isolated wharves and industries that occupied the east bank. The Chapel House Road bisected the Isle, connecting the Ferry House, on the southern bend of the river, with the Blackwall entrance to the West India Docks. Lee turned his eyes to the opposite bank, which was far more congested. Thickets of tall mastheads had begun to clutter the skyline as the heavily laden merchantmen awaited their turn for admission into the big dockyards. The entrance to the No. 1 Commercial Dock was visible over the starboard beam. Next to it, the smaller East Country Dock marked the Surrey-Kent border. Immediately south of the border was Dudman’s Yard, with its mooring docks catering for the transports carrying convicts to the other side of the world. Beyond that, less than a mile distant, lay the Royal Dockyard, and his prey.
At a nod from the American, Sparrow, with quiet assurance, eased back on the tiller, taking them off the wind. The bow dipped. Without the advantage of the breeze, the sail began to flap listlessly.
Lee narrowed his eyes, and flicked the remnant of his cheroot over the side. “I’d say it’s time, Mr Sparrow.”
Sparrow lashed the tiller and moved to the mast. It took only seconds to lower the sail, lift the mast out of its socket and secure it to the deck.
The American touched his temple in salute and indicated the open hatch. “This way, Captain Hawkwood, if you please.”
Hawkwood hesitated. He was conscious that behind him Sparrow’s pistol was now drawn and cocked, and pointed at the back of his skull. Hawkwood rose to his feet and watched as the American backed down the hatchway. Lee had been right. The hatch was very small. It looked like a tight fit. Hawkwood stepped across the deck. He knew he had no choice. He couldn’t take on two armed men. The sensible thing, therefore, was to follow orders in the hope that an opportunity for retaliation would present itself in the not too distant future. Heart thumping, he followed Lee down the ladder and into the boat.