Thaddeus felt sudden movement beside him, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep Jack from clambering over the fence.
“Maggie!” Jack screamed as he dropped to the ground and ran across to the body that now lay in a crumpled heap. Startled, Flea jumped out of his way while Pierce stood open-mouthed on the back of the wagon. With a sob, Jack knelt and cradled his sister in his arms.
Flea recovered himself first. “Well well well,” he said, “if it isn’t another Porter spawn. I thought we’d got rid of the worst of them, but the young ones keep springing up, just like a nest of vermin. Doesn’t matter how many you kill, there’s always another one nosing around.”
“Shut up,” Jack said, his head still bowed over Maggie’s lifeless body.
“No, I won’t shut up,” Flea said. “I’ve had enough of shutting up just because somebody like you thinks I ought to. This is a different land, young Jack, and you don’t hold the whip hand anymore.”
“Shut up,” Jack said again, his head still bowed.
“I’ve taken such pleasure in seeing the misfortunes of the Porter family come raining down on their heads,” Flea went on. “Let me see, what on earth has happened to you all? Oh yes, of course, the fever. It has no favourites, does it?”
Thaddeus could see that Jack was breathing heavily with anger. The boy would spring at Mullen, he knew, if pushed much farther.
“And then your uncle accidently drowned, didn’t he? What a shame. And such a beautiful man he was, too, all decked out in his finery.”
Jack looked up at Flea for the first time. “What are you talking about?”
“Why, your poor Uncle David. Or should I say your aunt? It was hard to tell which he was with his skirts on.”
So they had been right, Thaddeus thought, as he crouched behind the fence with Luke and Rennie. The drowned man at Wellington had been David Porter.
“What did you do to him?” Jack demanded.
“Me?” Flea said. “I did nothing. I did nothing when he ran off that night, except to follow him. I did nothing but sit in the foul hold of a timber ship watching the rats gnaw on dead bodies while he slept in the cabin above me and dined with the captain. I did nothing when half the souls around me were taken off the ship and sent to purgatory on some God-forsaken island. And because I did nothing, he very nearly got away with it. I very nearly lost him at Quebec. And then someone called out “Florence” and I realized what he’d done. The bastard had disguised himself, and had stolen even my name from me. He’d seen me. And then, like it was the biggest joke in the world, he donned a dress and called himself Florence.”
“What did you do?” Jack asked again.
Flea went on as if Jack hadn’t spoken, lost in the reverie of his mad chase across the Atlantic Ocean. “I couldn’t get close to him, you see, not until we got past Kingston. I was bottled up with a hundred others on the prow of the steamer, while he sat his lily-white arse down on a bench in the ladies’ cabin. But Providence rewards those who wait, eh, young Jack? And sure enough your darling uncle made a mistake.”
“What was that?” Jack’s voice was low, almost a hiss, and Thaddeus had to strain to hear the words.
“Miss Florence had to go outside to take a piss. Such a lovely dark night it was, and the wind blowin’ so no one could hear him hit the water. A ribbon in the pocket, a good shove, and over he went.”
“I’ll see you hanged for it, Mullen.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, young Jack. You see, I made a mistake, too. I was seen. By Captain Bellwood of the good ship Bellweather. I thought that was that, I would be hanged, but of all the steamer captains on all the great lakes, I managed to pick the one that’s crookeder than the wake he steers. Bellwood didn’t turn me in, he turned me over — to Hands — who is a fine, upstanding member of the Orange Lodge and has half the Toronto police in his pocket. My punishment, young Jack, was not to hang, but to land the best job I’ve ever had. I tell you, young Jack, pandering and pilfery suits me better than growing black potatoes any day. And then, as if fortune hadn’t smiled on me broadly enough, it sent sweet young Maggie my way. She was tasty, Jack, she was a delight. It’s too bad she didn’t see it that way, I’d liked to have tried her a few more times.”
Thaddeus expected Jack to rise to the bait Flea had dangled before him and attack, but instead his mouth twisted into a sneer.
“You’re not the one with the last laugh after all, Mullen,” he said.
For the first time since Jack had dropped so unexpectedly into the yard, Flea looked uncertain.
“You chased my uncle halfway across the world in the name of revenge,” Jack said, “but you’ve missed a few important facts. There were three Porters and three shots. Which one found its mark? The bailiff fired over everyone’s heads. Uncle David aimed at the mob all right, but he missed. Me Da was on the roof — not a good angle to shoot from — but then he couldn’t anyway. He’d laid his rifle against the cabin before he climbed up the ladder. It was waiting there, for whichever man was brave enough to use it. You sent the wrong man into the water, Mullen.”
“You? It was you?”
Luke climbed over the fence and dropped into the yard, reaching behind him to unlock the gate so that Thaddeus could slip through. From his vantage point on the back of the wagon, Pierce saw them immediately and shouted a warning to his brother. But before Flea could move, Jack lunged forward. Thaddeus caught only a flash of metal and then Flea toppled backward, Jack’s knife buried in his chest.
Pierce scrambled down from the wagon, Luke rushed to Flea’s side, and Thaddeus ran forward to grab Jack. But none of them moved fast enough, and before any of them could intervene, Flea had reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown pepperbox pistol. He fired once, and it was Jack’s turn to fall back.
The bullet struck Jack in the throat, and a spray of bright red blood spewed across the yard. Thaddeus reached the fallen boy first and tried to staunch the flow, but it gushed around his hands in spurts, and he knew that the injury was dire. Jack’s eyes were glassy and his mouth opened and closed in wordless protest.
Luke left Flea and knelt by his father, jamming his handkerchief into the wound in a futile effort to stop the lifeblood from draining away into the dirt. A few moments later, although it seemed like years to Thaddeus, Jack Porter died.
“Pierce, quick!” Both Luke and Thaddeus turned at the words. “Quick, the gunshot will bring Hands running.”
Pierce had been standing by the wagon, his mouth hanging open in surprise at the carnage that had erupted in the small yard. Now he hurried to his brother’s side.
Flea reached into his pocket, and Thaddeus tensed, ready for another round of violence, but Flea pulled out a large roll of banknotes and handed it to his brother.
“What do you want me to do with that?” a bewildered Pierce asked.
“Take it … take it … go get Dermot,” Flea gasped as he spoke, his breathing erratic and laboured. “I’m done. Forget about the girl … just get Dermot and get out. Go to the States where no one knows you.”
Pierce just stood there looking foolish as his brother panted instructions at him. Neither of them noticed Rennie as she strode into the yard. She marched over to Pierce and snatched the roll of money, peeled off the majority of the notes, and stuck them in the pocket of Luke’s jacket.
“You big lummox,” she hissed at him. “Go on, then. Go off to America and don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”
She flung the remaining notes at him. They hit his chest and then fluttered to the ground. As they landed, Luke saw one that appeared to be only half there. He snatched it as Pierce scrambled to pick up the rest of the money.
Just then the back door slammed open and a voice boomed out, “What in the name of God happened here?”
Pierce ran for the gate and disappeared down the street.
“Hands,” Flea gasped. “I’ve been stabbed.”
For some reason, Thaddeus had expected Hands to be a large man, blond and ruddy-faced perhaps, but that could have been because of Luke’s confusion over his name. One would expect “Hans” to be Dutch or German, with a physical presence that matched the extent of his power. “Hands,” on the contrary, was of medium height, with medium-brown hair and a medium build, a figure surprisingly nondescript for a man whose influence reached so far. He was accompanied by two large men who towered over him. They stood with their fists balled up, ready to start swinging at whoever their boss told them to.
“You need to send someone for a doctor,” Luke said.
Hands looked at the butchery that had taken place in the yard and laughed.
“There’s no point wasting good money on an Irishman. Looks to me like Flea’s dying anyway — we’ll just wait ’til he goes. He’s so small we can pop him in the same coffin as the girl. Two for one, eh boys? Just like we did before.”
“This man may well recover if he gets medical attention,” Thaddeus said. “And at the very least you should call the police.”
“The police?” Hands laughed even harder. “There’s no point in calling them either. They’d just reach the same conclusion that I believe I’ve come to. This is nothing but a case of two drunken Irishmen killing each other over a couple of whores.”
There was a sharp crack from somewhere behind Thaddeus, and Hands suddenly swayed as a red bloom of blood spread down his right shoulder. His hands clutched at the wound before he crumpled to the ground. Astonished, Thaddeus spun around to see Rennie, still pointing the gun, with a look of grim triumph on her face. Hands’s henchmen rushed to his aid. Thaddeus pulled Luke by the arm.
“Come on, run!” He headed for the gate, grabbing Rennie’s arm as he went by. He knew they had only a few moments to disappear into the shadows. At least one of Hands’s men would soon give chase, and Thaddeus knew that they could never outrun him. Their only chance was to find someplace to hide. He stopped only long enough to snatch the gun out of Rennie’s hand and toss it back into the yard.
Their unfamiliarity with the neighbourhood put them at a disadvantage, and the light spilling from the gas lamps made them far too visible. They needed to get away from the main thoroughfares and lose themselves in the maze of lanes and paths that led behind the houses.
Thaddeus nearly ran right past the lane, but at the last moment he saw it and veered into it, calling softly to Luke and Rennie to follow. He hoped that there was an exit at the end of it.
There wasn’t. The houses had been built in such a haphazard fashion that the lane ended at a brick wall.
Thaddeus gasped as they turned to retrace their steps. The bed of the laneway consisted of gritty sand covered with a layer of coal dust. Their footprints were clearly visible, even in the dim light thrown by the waning moon.
“Let’s hope we haven’t been followed too closely,” he said as they ran back down the lane. But just as they reached the end and were about to run back into the street, they saw one of Hands’s men walking along, peering carefully from side to side. They shuffled back into the lane and Thaddeus tried to figure out what to do.
Just then they heard a low growl, and Rennie let out a muffled shriek. A huge dog advanced stiff-legged toward them, ears back, tail stiff. A watchdog, set loose at night to keep the lane clear of thieves and picklocks.
The dog sniffed, then growled again. Thaddeus realized that the front of his jacket was covered in Jack Porter’s blood and that for some reason this aggravated and confused the dog. It would only be a matter of time before it sprang at them.
Luke was dragging his foot back and forth through the sandy grit of the lane. Thaddeus wanted to caution him to stay still, but then Luke slowly stooped and picked up a stray piece of coal that lay in the dirt. The dog’s growl grew louder. Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out a bloody handkerchief. He must have shoved it back into his pocket, Thaddeus realized, after he had used it to try to save Jack. Luke tied the bloody cloth around the chunk of coal.
“Get ready,” he said in a low voice, and Thaddeus tensed himself to move.
Hands’s man had reached the laneway. Startled, the dog turned and at the same moment Luke let loose the package. The bloody missile flew through the air and struck the man in the chest just as the dog leapt at him, slavering and barking furiously.
“Now!” Luke yelled as he grabbed Rennie by the arm. They dashed out of the laneway, past the man, who was beating at the dog with his hands, trying frantically to keep the beast’s gnashing teeth away from his face.
Thaddeus felt a stabbing pain in his knee as they ran. He was out of breath after two blocks and began to fall behind; Luke and Rennie slowed to allow him to catch up.
“I don’t think Hands’s man is in any condition to follow us,” Luke said. “We can stop running.”
“Good,” said Thaddeus. “I can’t run anymore anyway.” He glared at Luke. “You do realize that I’m far too old for this.”
“Would you rather have faced the dog?”
“No. But where are we going? Wherever it is, I’m not going to be able to get there very quickly.”
“Do you think we should go back to Corktown?” Luke asked. “Rennie was able to hide there.”
It would have been the safest choice, but Thaddeus knew he couldn’t walk that far. An inn was out of the question, given their appearance. Both he and Luke were covered in blood and Rennie’s odd apparel and Irish accent would draw far too much attention.
“We need to get out of the city,” Thaddeus said. “And we need to do it right away, before Hands gets a search organized. They’ll be watching the harbour.”
“What if we took the stage as far as Whitby and caught a steamer from there?” Luke suggested.
“We’re far too conspicuous even for that. We’ll have to find somewhere to shelter for tonight and get ourselves cleaned up in the morning.”
“We are going back to Kingston, aren’t we?” Rennie asked. “I need to get back to Deirdre.”
Luke was about to answer her, but Thaddeus caught his eye before he could speak. Now was not the time to tell this woman that her child was ill. Better to leave it until there was something she could do about it.
“Yes,” he said, “we should go back to Kingston.”
They turned and walked south toward the city centre, Thaddeus limping and leaning heavily on Luke, Rennie trailing along behind. They had not gone far, though, when Thaddeus said, “Here we go.”
They had arrived at a stone church whose congregation seemed to be in the process of adding a shed-like hall to the rear of the building. The walls were still open to the elements, but it was partially roofed and would provide adequate, if not comfortable, shelter for the night.
Rennie sat apart from the two men, sniffling and wiping her nose from time to time with the muddied skirts of her gown.
Thaddeus was exhausted, and in pain. All he wanted to do was to lie down, go to sleep, and dream away the violent events of the evening, but he was too aware of the young woman’s distress.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“No,” Rennie replied. “I’ve never shot anyone before. Do you think I killed him?”
“I doubt it,” Thaddeus said. “You just winged him. He won’t be writing letters anytime soon, though.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. I meant to kill him.”
“You needed a better gun.”
He could feel Luke shaking beside him, as much, he suspected, from shock as from the cold. Rennie noticed as well. She slipped her arms out of the sleeves of Luke’s coat.
“I’d better give this back.”
“No, it’s all right. You ke-keep it for tonight,” he said, although his teeth were chattering.
“I don’t think this is the time to observe the usual standards of propriety,” Thaddeus said. “We’ll make both coats do as a blanket and we’ll all get under them. I know it’s a little unseemly,” he said to Rennie, “but it’s better than freezing to death.”
“It was closer quarters than this on the way over the ocean,” she said, as they huddled together, “and the men weren’t nearly so gentlemanly.” And then after a moment, she said, “Do you think Flea is dead?”
“I’m afraid he may be,” Luke said. “The knife went in close to his heart.”
“He killed David Porter, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. He took Charley Gallagher’s ticket and chased Porter all the way across the ocean. For no reason, if Jack Porter can be believed.”
“I’m not sure that he can,” Thaddeus said. Although he desperately wanted to sleep, every time he closed his eyes his mind played out the scene that had ended with two men dead. “He claimed to have fired the shot, but it doesn’t really make any sense. Why would John Porter have left the gun leaning against the cabin, if everyone knew there was going to be trouble? Anyone could have picked it up. If it were me, I’d have kept it near me.”
“But why would Jack lie about it?”
“I think Jack was striking back at Flea by making him think he’d killed the wrong man. After all, Flea was really rubbing Jack’s nose in it, gloating about the deaths of all the Porters.”
“But the Porters aren’t all dead,” Rennie pointed out. “There’s still Anna.”
“Anna can’t be touched because she’s some sort of fairy being,” Luke said. “Flea might have been able to do something about her because he’s a cluri … whatever … but no one else would dare, isn’t that right?”
“Only if you believe in fairies,” Rennie said. “I know Pierce wouldn’t dare go near her. He’s a big cowardly lummox with no more backbone than a lumper potato.” She hesitated for a moment. “I’m not sure what Dermot would do. Not if he knows that her brother killed Flea.”
“But Flea told Pierce to leave the girl,” Thaddeus said. “Leave the girl and go to the States, that’s what he said.”
“But which girl was he talking about leaving?” Rennie asked. “Anna or me?”