It was a little after five in the morning. My burns throbbed, my brow glistened with fever. The streets of Deptford Broadway were quiet, but in John Monday’s house they had already been up for some time. I could tell by the sleepless eyes of the maidservant who came to the door, and the general air of disturbance that pervaded the house.
The maidservant was uncertain about letting me in at that hour, and I was in too much pain to press the point forcefully. Yet Monday must have heard our conversation on the doorstep, for he barked an order to let me come inside. The mulatto boy was playing with a spinning top in the hall, and he watched me as I limped into his father’s study.
Monday looked up from his papers. ‘The Dark Angel burned in the dock last night. I was just attending to my insurance documents.’ His eyes travelled over my old suit of clothes, my wigless state, my bandaged hand. ‘But perhaps you already know this?’
‘Mr Stokes’s secretary, Scipio, destroyed the vessel deliberately,’ I told him. ‘He tried to kill me, just as he killed Archer and Moses Graham and the two other Africans in London, Jupiter and Proudlock.’
‘Then it wasn’t Frank Drake?’
‘No, Scipio killed Drake too.’
The door opened, and Mrs Monday walked into the room. She looked pale and drawn. ‘Is there any news, John? Oh—’
I guessed I looked as terrible as I felt.
‘Madam.’ I was hurting too much to bow, but under the circumstances, civility be damned. ‘I was just telling your husband that the murderer is dead.’ I repeated my explanation about Scipio. ‘Perhaps this will ease the burden of your conscience. Your husband was not involved in Archer’s murder.’
Monday turned to her. ‘You thought that, Eleanor?’
She flushed. ‘I didn’t know. After Mr Brabazon came and you went out …’
‘Who was it you were trying to protect when you summoned the mayor and the magistrate here that night?’ I asked. ‘Archer? Your husband? Or someone else?’
She didn’t answer.
Monday looked grave. ‘How could you have believed that, Eleanor? I made it plain to Mr Brabazon. Nobody was to touch Archer. There had been too much killing, too much disregard for God’s laws.’
I was unsteady on my feet, my head spinning, still so cold. Yet I pressed on. ‘That wasn’t the only reason, though, was it?’ I said. ‘After all, Brabazon was wrong. He thought Vaughan was on the ship, and he thought if you knew Archer was heading there, you’d kill him to prevent their meeting. Perhaps you would have done so in other circumstances. Only you knew Vaughan wasn’t on that ship. He never was.’
Monday looked away.
‘I don’t understand,’ Mrs Monday said. ‘What does he mean?’
I had little sympathy for her distress, nor her confusion. ‘Tell me, madam, do you ever pray for George, your old house-slave? He didn’t get a funeral, did he? He ended up in Deptford Reach, a scapegoat. Does he trouble your conscience? Or don’t Africans count before your God?’
She frowned at my words and my tone. ‘What does George have to do with this?’
‘I only wonder why you did nothing to prevent his murder? When one word from you could have saved him.’
Her lip quivered. ‘I told them the truth. I never went with any Negro. They didn’t believe me.’
‘You only needed to mention your lover’s name. You said the child was a throwback, and so he was. But you let people believe you meant your throwback, or your husband’s, whereas the African blood was on your lover’s side.’
It had been right in front of me all along, but I had missed it. Vaughan’s curly black hair, his swarthy skin, his birth on a plantation, all those rumours he spread about his Spanish blood.
‘Brabazon guessed,’ I said. ‘He told me he wasn’t surprised that Vaughan lost his mind. I didn’t see what he meant at the time, but I do now. People say mixing the blood weakens it. It’s balderdash, of course, but Brabazon believes it.’
Her eyes met mine, and I was surprised to see defiance there, rather than shame. It angered me. ‘George must have seen you together, and under torture, he told your first husband. That’s why Owen Forrester wanted nothing more to do with you after that. But it was too late for George. If it doesn’t trouble your conscience, then it should.’
Monday passed a hand across his weathered face. ‘It is an old sin. There is no need to rake over it now.’
Mrs Monday’s hands were crossed in front of her. She tugged at the elbows of her dress. ‘What did he mean, John, when he said Vaughan wasn’t on that ship? Brabazon said he was.’
‘That’s what Brabazon believed,’ I said. ‘Your husband told his officers that he’d moved Vaughan to a safe place in order to prevent him from speaking to Archer. He even went so far as buying opium to maintain the pretence. I think Brabazon saw lights on The Dark Angel, put two and two together, and came up with five. Just as I did.’
‘Then where is Evan?’ she said.
Monday pursed his lips. I remembered him down on his knees in the church. You think you understand the consequences of Archer’s visit here? You haven’t the first idea.
‘Evan Vaughan was already sick when Archer first came to town,’ I said, ‘but Archer’s visit turned his conscience inside out. Archer refused to give him absolution for the drowned slaves, and so Vaughan sought forgiveness for his other crimes elsewhere. Then he disappeared. Before he did, he and your husband went for a drink together down in Deptford Strand.’
Mary had been out on the quayside that night. She’d just finished with a customer, and was taking a rest in one of the alleys. Vaughan and Monday had come walking along the dock, arm in arm, a friendship forged in the crucible of the Middle Passage. Vaughan was drunk, Mary said, his voice loud and ragged, doing most of the talking. Monday had listened, and then suddenly stepped away. Vaughan spoke more urgently, and Monday turned his back. Vaughan ran after him, and angry words were exchanged.
In the fight that followed, no knives were drawn, but neither man gave any quarter. The blow that finished it was glancing, but Vaughan fell badly and hit his head. Monday had stared down at him, Vaughan groaning, asking for help. Then Monday had rolled him to the edge of the quay, and pushed him over.
Mary, in the shadows, had heard the splash. She’d watched Monday walk away, and then crept onto the quayside. There she’d found Vaughan’s purse, fallen from his pocket during the struggle. It held six guineas and some banknotes, and so she decided to ignore the noises she heard from the water, considering it a night well done. She’d sold the banknotes in Greenwich for a fraction of their worth, and afterwards regretted it. The notes had been signed over to Vaughan by their previous owner. They could be traced to him, and thence to Mary. For weeks she’d waited nervously for the magistrate’s knock. A rich gentleman had been murdered, she’d stolen his money. Who’d believe her story?
Yet the magistrate never came, and she’d started to breathe more easily. Then Tad had come to see her, asking all his questions about Evan Vaughan. The letters were only supposed to frighten him, just as they were later supposed to frighten me. She’d left me the first letter the night I’d interrogated her about Vaughan at the bathhouse, slipping it under my door when the inn was busy, while I’d been at the opium house. She’d sent the second after she’d heard I was back in town. I couldn’t hold it against her, especially after she’d saved me from the river. In the great scheme of things, her crimes amounted to little.
‘Where is Evan?’ Mrs Monday asked again.
Her husband raised his head. ‘He told me you still looked at him as you used to, tempting him with Eve’s promise. That he tried to resist, out of deference to our friendship, but he was a man and hot-blooded. He wanted my absolution, but I wouldn’t give it. It wasn’t like that, was it, Eleanor? He forced you, was that it?’
She was still looking at me. ‘Where is Evan, sir? It is important that you tell me.’
‘Evan Vaughan is dead, madam.’
She groaned and sank onto a chair. Monday rose and knelt before her, gripping her hands. ‘He didn’t love you, Eleanor. He never did. Did he stand by you when you got with child and were shamed by your husband? If he made dalliance with you consequently, it was because it was there to take. You opened your legs for him like a whore – with Evan Vaughan who had lain with half the women in Deptford.’
To my shock, she flew at him, clawing and scratching, her features contorted, mewling an animal sound. Monday raised a hand and hit her across the face. ‘We signed a contract, properly witnessed, there was no duress. I will not tolerate thievery, madam, I never did.’
I left them to their bitter marriage and their troubled consciences. In the hall, the mulatto boy was still spinning his top, and as I reached the front door, he spoke to me. ‘Please, sir,’ he said, staring at my olive skin. ‘Are you my father?’
‘No,’ I said, my voice thick with compassion and pain and fatigue. ‘I’m sorry. I am not.’
He held my gaze a moment longer, as if to ascertain the veracity of my answer. Then he turned back to his top, spinning it down the hall.
I walked out of that strange, unhappy house, thinking of Evan Vaughan. I had never met him, and yet the damage he had wrought by his various crimes had confronted me everywhere in Deptford. That poor boy was another victim. I never did learn his name. Perhaps I could have done more for him. I wish I had.
I found Zephyrus at the coaching inn, checked his saddle, and was relieved to see that Monday’s contracts were still there. We took the Kent Road out of Deptford, and I didn’t look back. The storm had blown itself out overnight, the sun high, the air fresh. In the distance I could see London, a city of gold.