The newspapers had called the next day “Burial Monday,” and it was to take place at Woolwich Cemetery.
I’ve never liked burials. No one does, I suppose, but I find them unnerving. They make me fidget, and I have often distracted myself by seeking the least uncomfortable way to stand in my stiff best boots. But I understood why Mr. Vincent wanted me to attend. From where I stood unobtrusively behind a group of men clad in dark coats, I saw Mr. Vincent and members of Parliament, suitably subdued and mournful. There was Rotherly standing at Quartermain’s side. For the entire service, through prayers and hymns, neither looked in my direction, although I sensed they were aware of my presence. After the final prayer was concluded, I breathed a sigh of relief and left. Outside the cemetery stood about two dozen uniformed Metropolitan Police, their hands on their truncheons. As I came through the gate, I saw why.
Across the road was an angry mob of perhaps fifty or sixty people. Many of them held ripped Irish flags, the orange, green, and white tattered. Four men in ape suits like I’d seen once in a music hall wore the Irish flag like a nappy over their nether regions. Some were chanting, but it took a moment to distinguish the words, as the voices weren’t in time with each other yet. At last I heard “Dirty Bogs! Irish brutes!” gaining volume and energy with each round.
I pivoted and walked in the opposite direction. It would take me out of my way, but better an extra half mile in these wretched boots than risk being caught up in that.
“Corravan!” came a shout behind me. It was Rotherly’s voice.
Unwillingly, I turned. His ivory-tipped walking stick slicing forward and back, he came toward me, tipping his head toward the mob. “You see what’s happening here, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“The situation worsens daily.” His eyes glared from under his thick gray brows. “You need to find and arrest that man Conway. I know you’re reluctant”—he raised a hand—“and the entire commission has been informed why, but he caused hundreds of deaths, whether by accident or deliberately.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “You haven’t spoken to him.”
“And you have?” he demanded.
I said nothing, unwilling to lie but angry with myself for having replied at all.
“In protecting that man, you are standing in the way of the law!”
I remained silent.
He leaned in, his head thrusting forward. “The safety of London, her economy, her very reputation as a city of civility and rules is in absolute peril! And you refuse to do what’s right, simply to protect one of your own.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you IRB?”
“I am not,” I said between clenched teeth.
He drew himself up and planted the tip of his cane in the ground. “I suppose to some extent, you can’t be blamed, given your upbringing. Eighteen years of thieving and fighting can’t be expelled from the blood by any amount of training—certainly not completely. There is part of you that will always be greedy and grasping and lawless. But let me be clear. If even one more person dies because you have allowed this man Conway to remain free, to wreak further havoc in our city, you will be on trial with him, I assure you.” He turned on his heel and strode away.
I knew what Rotherly was. I valued his opinion of me not at all. And I knew Conway wasn’t up and about, wreaking havoc anywhere. Still, his words unsettled me, and I spent the walk to Wapping playing out in my mind various grimly satisfying scenes of Rotherly’s mortification and humiliation—as he was proven wrong in a courtroom, in a parliamentary hearing, in the papers …
By the time I arrived at my office, I had beaten Rotherly down to the size of a worm, small enough that I could settle at my desk to review the various lists Stiles had provided for me: the dead on the south shore, with a column for the date they’d been retrieved; a similar list for the north shore dead, held at the gasworks; and a list of the crew of both ships that he’d gathered from various sources. I stepped outside my office. “Andrews, bring me the latest lists from the papers, would you?”
He entered carrying pages of newsprint. “What do you need, sir?” He raised his right hand. “The Times?” He raised his left. “Or the Record?”
“Both,” I said and thanked him.
I was combing through the first column of survivor lists in the Times for any mention of the missing Ned Wilkins of the Princess Alice, when Stiles knocked on the doorframe. His face looked peaked with fatigue and the end of his nose was red with cold.
His expression was somber, and I stifled a sigh. “What is it?”
As he stepped into my office, he brought the brine and dankness of the river with him. He shut the door with a click that in its muted quality suggested that he longed to tamp down my response to whatever he was about to say.
“They raised the aft section,” he said.
“More bodies?”
Stiles nodded. “It’s gruesome.”
“I was there yesterday.”
“But there’s something else.” His expression was full of regret. “I found dynamite, Corravan.”
A chill ran down my arms.
“A box of it.” His hands sketched the parcel, two feet on each side, about a foot high. “It was waterlogged, but the sticks were obvious enough.”
There was no possible way this disaster was merely an accident, and the dynamite would be taken by the papers as yet another powerful link to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. A curse slipped out.
“I know,” he said.
“Were any newspapermen there?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “It’s the advantage of working at two in the morning. No one’s watching.”
I sat back, relieved. “I’m glad it was you who found it.”
“Because I was looking for it.” He dabbed at his nose with a white handkerchief. “Mr. Wood understood the need to be discreet. He’s the only one I showed.”
“Rotherly wasn’t still there, was he?”
Stiles shook his head. “He’d left long before.”
Thank God.
“And you’re certain the dynamite never exploded?” I clarified.
“The box was intact, stuffed underneath a bench.”
I blew out my breath. “So it may have been a plan held in reserve. If the timing didn’t work to steer the Princess into the path of the Bywell, the dynamite could be used to blow up the Princess. One way or another, it seems someone was determined to sink her.”
Stiles had the air of someone who wanted to get something off his chest. “Frankly, Corravan, I’ve always thought it seems too much of a coincidence that the Princess and the Bywell Castle met there. The Bywell was hours behind schedule, what with the barge mishap and having to find a second pilot. Now I think the dynamite was the better plan, the one more likely to bring about the disaster.”
“There were half a dozen places the Princess and the Bywell could have met with the same result,” I reminded him. “The Princess hugs the south shore for most of the return.”
“True,” Stiles conceded.
“But I take your point,” I said. “You’re wondering, why not just use the dynamite? It’s the IRB calling card. Why go to all that trouble, just to implicate the Bywell Castle?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Stiles said slowly. “It could be the IRB’s way of showing they can make anything—even a collier—a weapon.”
I nodded. It was a powerful, terrifying message. But I had growing doubts that the IRB was sending it.
“Unless,” Stiles added, “they were worried the dynamite wouldn’t go off. Like last year at Victoria Station.”
I remembered. The timer mechanism attached to the dynamite sticks had failed. And that wasn’t the only element prone to error. A fuse could become detached, or the dynamite could go bad.
Stiles raked his hand through his hair. “What if there was someone on board the Princess who might have been a particular target for the IRB? There were two MPs with their families. Some bankers and businessmen.”
“There are easier ways to murder someone than sinking an entire ship,” I said.
“Unless the target was a group of people. There were some Salvation Army members and some police, and there might be others we haven’t identified,” he offered.
It was time to voice the suspicion that had grown since I spoke with Conway. “Stiles, I don’t think the Brotherhood caused either the railway crash or the Princess Alice.” At his startled expression, I raised a hand. “I know that the Brotherhood has the best access to dynamite. But surely, with enough money and the proper connections, another group could obtain it, somehow, from America.”
“Yes,” Stiles allowed cautiously.
“I spoke to John Conway,” I said. “Thank you for finding him, by the way.”
Stiles looked disconcerted. “Good God. I was so preoccupied with the dynamite, I forgot about him. Was he awake? Is he all right?”
“He looked to be in pain, but the doctor said she was hopeful he’d recover.”
Stiles blew out a sigh. “What did he say?”
“He’s not IRB, Stiles. He’s been to some of their meetings, but he doesn’t hold with their beliefs anymore.”
He cocked his head. “You believe him?”
I nodded. “He says that a fair-haired man on the Bywell tried to kill him.”
Stiles stared. “That’s what Eyres said too—a fair-haired man.”
“And that isn’t a piece of information that has made it into the papers—at least, not that I’ve seen,” I said. As Stiles shook his head, I continued, “There’s a man named Ned Wilkins, with fair hair, who was one of three who had access to the emergency tiller. And from what Boncy says, Wilkins was the only one who was down below during the accident.” I paused. “He hasn’t come forward, but Boncy says he knows how to swim and doubts he died.”
Stiles’s gaze shifted to the lists on my desk. “You’re looking for his name?”
I nodded. “And I’m wondering if Ned might have placed the dynamite. Perhaps he’s the fair-haired man who tried to kill Eyres—and Conway as well.”
Stiles unbuttoned his coat. “It’s possible he turned the ship into harm’s way, but he might also have been trying to fix the tiller, if it wasn’t functioning properly.”
“It’s possible.” I nodded. “Before I start racing around London looking for him, I want to be sure he hasn’t been reported dead. So far I haven’t found his name, but the newspaper lists aren’t complete. Where are your most recent ledgers?”
“They’re not complete either, I’m afraid, with so many unidentified dead.” Stiles retrieved them from his desk. “By the way, regarding the dead man from the stairs—Schmidt. I don’t suppose it’s relevant anymore, but it seems he had been unfaithful to his wife before she died. His father-in-law had nothing good to say about him.”
I grunted. That might explain why the man’s wedding band looked unworn.
Stiles sat opposite, opened the first ledger, and ran a finger down the first page.
I picked up the Times and continued looking for a mention of Wilkins.
Except for the sound of pages turning, Stiles and I worked in silence for nearly two hours. The newsprint was small, and my eyes strained over it. Several times I had to stop, look away, and blink a few times before I resumed looking.
Once, Stiles drew in a quick breath, and I looked up. “Here’s a D. Wilkens, with an ‘e,’” Stiles said, and trailed his finger across. “But it’s a woman.”
We finished, finding Ned Wilkins on neither list.
“Would you like me to go to the Labor Protection League for his address?” Stiles offered.
“No.” I stood and reached for my coat. “The walk will do me good.” I didn’t even have to take a step to feel the blisters on my heels. “But first, I’m going to change out of these blasted boots.”
I knew the Labor Protection League’s offices were on the second story of a former warehouse one street away from St. Katharine’s docks, but I couldn’t remember which one. I asked for directions, but several people just shook their heads and turned up their hands. At last, I caught one of the messenger boys—one who had passed me twice, hurrying, with a sharpish look about him. I offered him a shilling and asked for the Labor Protection League. Obligingly he pointed at a door with a window covered over with wooden boards. “Thar, up the stairs,” he said. I followed his directions to the top floor. To the right of the doorframe was a small hand-lettered sign: “LPL.”
I entered to find two clerks, both peering through their spectacles at some papers on the desk before them.
“Good afternoon. I’m Inspector Corravan, from Wapping.”
The younger of the two looked up. I noticed that although his shoulders were bulky, his left sleeve was empty and pinned above the elbow. “Mickey?”
His face wasn’t familiar until he removed his spectacles. From some dark region of my brain surfaced a memory of him, fifteen years younger, on the docks, pushing a rolling cart.
“Francis,” I said. “Francis Merton.”
His mouth curved in a smile. “You remember!”
“Of course. You worked on the docks.”
“With you and Pat,” he said. “Pat was a friend.”
I felt my smile fade, and I let my eyes drift toward his left side. “Sorry about your arm. An accident?”
He nodded. “One of the cranes caught me. Chain broke. It’s how I ended up here. I’m trying to make things safer.”
“The docks were a dangerous place. Had to keep your eye out all the time.”
He frowned, and his tone sharpened: “Still are.” I nodded in agreement, and his expression cleared. “So you’re at Wapping now.”
“Yes. Looking into the Princess Alice disaster.”
“What do you need here?”
“I’m looking for a Ned Wilkins,” I replied. “He was on the Princess Alice, and he isn’t on any of the lists of survivors. They’re not complete, of course. I was hoping to find an address for him.”
Francis rose and lifted a ledger from a shelf, laying it on the table in front of me and running his forefinger down the page. Then he turned it around for me to see and pointed. “Expect this is the man you want.”
I took out my pocketbook and recorded the information on the line next to Edward Wilkins: Care of Mary Wilkins. 36 Dove Street, Lambeth.
His wife, or mother? I wondered.
“Thank you, Francis. I appreciate it.”
“Did you ever think you’d be a policeman?” he asked with a dry chortle as he replaced the ledger on the shelf. “I remember you sparring with a constable or two after a night at the pub.”
I grimaced. “Ach, did I? Well, I suppose we all do such things when we’re young and stupid.”
He grinned. “Good luck to you, Mickey.”
I thanked him and was at the door before it occurred to me to ask, “One more thing: a man named John Conway, a river pilot. What can you tell me about him? Any marks on his record?”
Francis consulted a different ledger, and a frown creased his brow. “His license was suspended last year in April. The ship he was driving ran ashore at Goodwin Sands. There was a snowstorm.”
“Surely they didn’t suspend him for running aground,” I objected. That sort of misdemeanor usually resulted in a fine, especially given the reputation of Goodwin Sands. “That area is perilous at the best of times.”
“It wasn’t for that.” Francis’s brown eyes behind his spectacles were regretful. “Mr. Conway’s license only extends to the smooth water portion of the Thames. Goodwin Sands is a good seventy miles beyond Gravesend, which is well past the limit of his license.”
My heart sank because I knew the heavy fine a pilot might need to pay to have his license reinstated. Conway could very well have been bribed to do something against his conscience, if he’d been threatened with losing his livelihood.
“My telling you this won’t cause problems for him, will it?” Francis asked worriedly. “The rest of his record is clean—even exemplary—for nearly twenty years. Far better than most.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t.” I thanked him again and left.
I’d see Mr. Conway again soon. But first, I needed to find Ned Wilkins.
It had been a decade since I’d been to Dove Street in Lambeth, but I remembered it, anchored on one end by a small church and on the other by a theater that featured young women dressed in feathers and not much else. There were plenty of streets like that in London, and the incongruity of the pairing always made me shake my head in bemusement. The street was barely wide enough for a cab, but it was tidier than I remembered. The cobblestones were well kept, without the detritus one often finds in the poorer areas; the stoops were swept clean, and the windows were whole. Ten years ago, when I walked a beat in Lambeth, it hadn’t been the case.
The cab stopped at number 36, and I knocked at the door.
It opened, revealing a stout woman of about forty-five, with hair that had once been dark but was now graying.
“Mrs. Wilkins,” I said.
“Yes.” She peered at me warily and stood with one hand on the door and one on the frame. “You’re looking to board? The room won’t be free till t’morrow.”
I shook my head. “Mr. Corravan, from Wapping Division.”
“You’re police?” She gave a look of disgust and resentment, and her grip tightened on the door and frame.
But I’d had plenty of practice in ignoring unpleasantness, keeping my voice reasonable, and pressing on. “I’m looking for your son Ned—Edward.”
Her reply was curt: “He’s not here.”
“Have you seen him since the Princess Alice disaster?”
Her chin came up. “Nae. He don’t live here.”
“Surely you’ve heard from him,” I said.
She pursed her mouth.
You haven’t seen or heard from your son, and you’re not worried? I thought, but kept silent, my suspicions roused. I saw no signs of grieving. Either she was the most heartless mother in London, or she knew he was alive and well, and she was lying to me.
Nothing uncommon about that.
“Where could I find him?”
“Dunno,” she said.
Clearly she would not willingly hand me a likeness; she’d claim she didn’t have one. I’d have to find it for myself.
“May I have some water, please?” I asked. “I’ve been working since early this morning.”
Her eyes widened with indignation, and she began to shut the door.
I put out my hand and stopped it. “Please,” I said.
Muttering, she dropped her hands and stepped back, and I slid inside. She headed to the back of the house, and I heard the slosh of water. I stepped into the small, stuffy parlor and took in the room. No photographs or pictures on the walls or on the mantel or above it.
But on the desk was a framed, tinted photograph of three young men, all with fair hair. Two looked to be around eighteen years of age, and the other was somewhat younger. I took it up and studied it, holding it in my hand as she reentered the room with a tin cup. She thrust it at me ungraciously, and there was a foam on top as if she’d spit in it.
“This is a fine likeness,” I said, setting the cup on a nearby table. “Strapping young men.”
She had her hand out like a claw for the photograph, but I retained it and asked, “Which is Ned?”
Her mouth tightened, and as her arms crossed over her chest, her chin came up, moving in a jerky arc from left to right. “David, Christopher, Ned.” Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re looking for the others, David’s left London and Christopher’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, mum.”
Her eyes remained hard, and the lines around her mouth deepened, like a drawstring pulled tight. It made me wonder if the police had something to do with her son’s death.
“When you do see Ned, ask him to come to Wapping Police Station,” I said. “We just need a statement for our files.”
She stiffened. “I’ll tell him, when I see him.” She reached for the picture a second time.
“I’ll give it to your son when he comes to see me.” I slid it into my pocket.
She made a sound halfway between a grunt and a snarl. “You can take anything, and there’s not a word I can say, is there? You lot are all the same.”
I bid her goodbye, wondering at her vitriol. What had a policeman done to her, or her family? Worry twanged at me, for policemen made mistakes, God knows.
As I closed the door, I saw her gaze darting about the room in search of anything else I might have taken, as if I were a common thief.