I left McCabe with my thoughts like the chop of waves during a storm. I had acquired a few important pieces of information and wormed a promise from McCabe not to hurt Colin, but everything else about the meeting unsettled me.
Yesterday we’d reached something like a gentleman’s agreement, an understanding, even something like a cautious, temporary alliance. But tonight he’d acted as though he distrusted me all over again. Or perhaps he simply had other matters on his mind.
As I walked, I took apart our exchange second by second, word by word. McCabe had seemed angry about something beyond Finn’s defection. Had Finn taken others with him? Or had someone else taken Finn?
Good God, could it be Colin, forming his own gang?
Even as the thought came into my mind, I dismissed it. Colin didn’t have the power for that, the reach, the experience. It had to be Finn.
I recalled the twitch McCabe gave when I said that he had to let Colin out. Had that been impatience, or a sign that he found the demand vaguely humorous? Or a sign of nonchalance?
I couldn’t dispel the sense that McCabe had acquiesced too easily. But why?
My next thought halted my feet:
Because Colin had already left.
That had to be it.
If McCabe’s gang had fractured, and Finn had split away—and Colin had gone with him …
My fear and fury formed a riptide inside my chest. Damn everything. Damn everything ten times over.
The only place I could think of finding Colin was Pinton’s. I turned north and ran.
Outside the gambling house, I took a moment to recover my breath before I pulled open the door. I crossed the floor to where two men again guarded the staircase, and the one I recognized put out a hand.
“He’s not here tonight.”
“Is he really not here, or did he tell you not to call him down for me?”
“He’s not here, guv’nor.”
The man was lying. The sly spark in his eyes—the joke he was having with himself over tricking me—gave it away. But I didn’t care; he’d told me what I needed to know. I left the place and took up a spot in the shadows around the corner, grateful that the clouds scuttling across the sky were dropping no rain.
By the time Colin emerged from the doorway and started down the street, silhouetted against the weak light from windows and the odd gas lamp, I’d spent two hours mulling over the argument we were going to have, and I was angry and frustrated enough that I wanted to grab him right there. But instead, I tailed him for a few streets, watching for anyone following either of us, and then I chased him down soundlessly and pushed him into a wall.
He bounced back from it, his left fist coming up in a swift undercut aimed at my chin, and it was only by pure reflex that I dodged it and backed him against the bricks, one of my hands on each of his shoulders, pinning his arms.
“What the hell are you doing, Colin? Did you leave the Cobbwallers? Did you actually betray McCabe?”
He glared up at me and let go a string of curses, which I interrupted.
“Shut your head!” I growled at him and gazed straight into his face. Our breaths were coming fast, and as he wrenched his shoulders in protest, I heard a muted thunk of something heavy striking the wall behind. His expression flattened, and quick as lightning, I ran my hand down his side to his waist and felt the unyielding metal of a gun.
For a moment we both froze. “Colin.” It came out hoarsely. “Where’d you get it?”
He merely stared up at me.
“McCabe says a group has splintered off,” I said, “and my guess is you went with it.”
His eyes were dark with anger. “What the hell does it matter to you? Jaysus, Mickey, leave me alone!”
In those words, I heard an admission I’d guessed correctly. When I’d seen McCabe tonight, he’d known Colin had left. He’d been laughing up his sleeve at me trying to get Colin out. Well, so be it. That wasn’t what mattered.
“I can’t leave you alone, damn it,” I retorted. “I am not going to let you being young and bloody stupid take you from Ma.” The mention of her seemed to give him pause. “Now, I’m going to take your gun and step away, but I swear to you, if you run instead of talking to me, I will drag you down to Wapping, throw you in a room, and make up charges if I have to, to keep you there and safe.”
“All right!” he growled, and another curse came from between his gritted teeth.
Slowly I eased my left hand inside his coat and withdrew the gun, stowing it in my pocket as I removed my right hand from his shoulder and backed away.
I wanted to confirm it had been Finn Riley who’d taken Colin away from McCabe. But even more I wanted to explain. I needed to clear the misunderstanding that lay between Colin and me if I had any chance of him listening or answering any of my questions.
I began slowly. “Col, when I left Whitechapel, I was running for my life. But you’re right. I didn’t think about what I left behind. I wasn’t thinking about how it would affect you or Ma or Pat or Elsie. But I thought about you all every day, how much I was missing all of you. I was so bloody miserable. And afraid. More than anything, afraid of … of starving, of being killed in my sleep before I found a place to live. Of never being able to come back.” My voice caught, and I coughed to clear it.
His face screwed up in disbelief.
“But it doesn’t mean I didn’t care what my leaving did to you. I just had no idea of it.” The words came out in a rush. “When you’re young, you—you don’t think that way, and I was younger than you are now, Colin. I had no idea what I was leaving behind me. If I’d given it any thought, I’d have said I was leaving Whitechapel and taking my mess away from all of you. That’s as far as I could think at the time. But it was wrong of me. I can see that now.”
He sniffed and turned his head to stare down the street.
I continued. “I know you weren’t told why I left, not right away, and you had a lot of time to think I’d just gone off and forgotten about you. But I came back as soon as O’Hagan admitted he’d made a mistake. As soon as it was safe.” Still, Colin was silent, and I felt compelled to fill the silence, somehow. “Surely that has to count for something. And I’m here now, trying to keep you from making a mistake that at some point you won’t be able to come back from. Some mistakes you can’t undo if they go on for too long.” I slowed my words. “But this one, you still can. It’s not too late.” I paused. “Let me help you, Colin. Please.”
He glared up at me. “You can’t just throw me against a wall and tell me what I’m going to do.”
“Fair enough,” I granted, and put up my two hands. “I’m sorry I threw you against the wall.”
He snorted. “You and Pat always left me behind, sitting on the steps with Elsie. But I’m not a bloody child anymore!”
Was this where some of his resentment began? Suddenly, sharply, into my mind came the image of Colin and Elsie on the steps, her with a doll and Colin with a set of marbles he’d lined up in a row. And Pat and I stepping carefully around them, on our way somewhere.
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re not a child anymore. Which is why what you do now—and who you do it with—matters. It’ll affect the rest of your life. I talked to McCabe. He says he’ll let you go. And I can get you far enough away from whoever it is you’re with now.”
His face was incredulous, his tone injured. “You say you know I’m not a child anymore, but you’re still treatin’ me like I have no say! Who are you to talk to McCabe about me and—and plan what the two of you are going to do for me, without asking me the first thing about it?”
“Colin—”
“I’m not just grown. I’ve things I’m doing! People respect me. You just don’t know!”
I clenched my teeth. “Fair enough. You’re grown. Then act like it. Have some integrity. Don’t change sides from one gang to another.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my voice and kept on. “Don’t lie to people, telling Ma you can’t work on the dock because there are too many Russians and Poles taking the jobs when it’s really because you’re picking fights and sending people to hospital. And don’t tell other people to lie for you, saying you’re not upstairs gambling when you are!”
He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “You’re one to talk about integrity! You’re Whitechapel Irish, Mickey. Remember? And you’re puttin’ on police airs, acting like you’re better’n all of us, taking up with some hoity-toity woman in the West End—”
“Leave her out of this, Colin. I mean it.”
He heard the razored edge in my voice and knew he’d gone too far. But he gave another snort. “Oh, yes, sir.”
I felt a flare of anger and impatience with this boy.
“Who split off?” I asked. I wanted him to say it. “Who are you working for now? Tell me, Colin.”
Years ago, Colin would have done anything Pat or I had bid him. Now he merely shook his head, his resistance as solid as the wall at his back.
“Is it Finn Riley?” I asked.
Colin stiffened, and his chin came up. “Did Elsie say so? Jaysus, she can’t keep quiet.”
Instantly I looked away to conceal my thoughts. Elsie? What the devil did she have to do with this? My mind leapt to Elsie’s account of her quarrel with Colin. Was Finn Riley the “friend” Colin had been pressing her to take up with? After a second, I met his gaze again. “It wasn’t Elsie.”
“It’s not what you think,” he burst out, then clamped his mouth shut.
I remained silent, waiting for whatever Colin would say next, hoping like hell it would help me understand what was happening inside his head.
“Why’d you leave McCabe?” I asked.
His eyes slid away from me, and he shrugged. “All I was doing was fetching money from one place to another. Anybody can do that.”
Was that what was behind this? Wanting to feel important? Perhaps that’s how Finn Riley had pulled him away. I imagined Finn Riley being a few years older, confident, arrogant, so sure he could take on McCabe. Someone like that plucking Colin out of the crowd around McCabe would make him feel chosen and special.
“What did Finn promise you?” I asked.
“I get a third of everything.”
A third? That meant Finn Riley had a partner.
“Think on it,” I said. “Finn Riley’s partner isn’t going to want to give up any of his share. He’ll find a way to make Riley doubt you.”
Colin’s chin came up. “Nah. Finn trusts me.”
“Why?”
He merely looked at me.
Worry spiked again inside me as I wondered what Colin would’ve had to do to earn Finn Riley’s trust so quickly, but I pushed that aside.
I studied his heavy, stubborn jaw, his eyes bright and belligerent. It’s Pat all over again, I thought. Pat, who thought he could take on the world, so long as he had me, his loyal friend, with him. Only Colin wasn’t choosing his loyal friend wisely.
“Colin, please let me get you out.” My voice was low, insistent. I heard the pleading note and saw his look of impatience, but I kept on. “Finn Riley won’t find you. Neither will McCabe. I have friends in Lambeth or even farther, if you want.”
He shook his head, so his dark curls shifted. “I know what I’m doing, Mickey. You’ll see.” His voice was confident, taut, full of certainty. Even excitement.
It made me think of the day he’d come home with a trinket he’d bought for Ma, his eyes bright, swearing it was silver. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was plate.
The moon slid out from behind a cloud, and for a long moment, in its light, we could each see the other clearly. The anger was gone from his face, replaced by a stolid patience, as if he was resigned to standing there for as long as it took for me to be done. My own anger faded, replaced by a stabbing, sick regret that I couldn’t change his mind, that I’d let him drift far enough away from me that I’d lost all influence. That I couldn’t make him see what he was doing.
At last, I said the only thing I could think of: “Just be careful, all right?”
He gave a laugh that sounded almost genuine, bemused, even indulgent. “I’m fine, I tell you. Go on, Mickey. Go be a policeman.” He pushed himself away from the wall, both hands low, the palms open, as if to assure me he meant no harm. He just wanted to walk away.
And he did, turning his back on me.
The last I saw of him, he was rounding a corner, leaving the street empty, except for me.
I remained there for a long moment, the weight of my worry like a thick pall dragging at my shoulders.
I hoped to hell Colin was right. He seemed so certain that Finn Riley trusted him that I nearly believed him. God knows, I wanted to. Perhaps Colin was close enough to Finn Riley to be protected from the jealousies and backstabbing that happened because power shifted in new gangs as easily as the tide.
But what did this have to do with Elsie? Why would Colin think she’d have mentioned Finn Riley?
Out of nowhere came the memory of Ma Doyle saying some of the lads were sweet on Elsie. I closed my eyes, putting myself back in the Doyles’s kitchen, and I could hear the tone of Ma’s voice, but I couldn’t recall for certain if she’d said Finn Riley’s name. But she might have.
I opened my eyes to the dimly lit street. Was that a card Colin believed he held up his sleeve? But what would happen when it became clear to Finn that Elsie preferred Eaman? Then again, perhaps Finn already knew, and it didn’t matter because he really did value Colin.
A gas lamp flickered unevenly, and I headed toward home, the gun an off-balance drag in my pocket.
Clearly there was no point in arguing with Colin further. If he had once worshipped me, he certainly didn’t now.
At least I’d done what I could to make him safe from McCabe, who knew I could make good on my threat.
Perhaps Colin was right. It was time for me to go be a policeman.