A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders E-Book

Malcolm Archibald

• Herausgeber: Fledgling Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The second book in the Mendick Mystery Series. Following "The Darkest Walk", when Sergeant Mendick is sent to Dundee to collect a prisoner, he expects a speedy return to London but instead an unfortunate turn of events see him retained to help solve a particularly gruesome murder. Within days Mendick finds himself leading the hunt for the mysterious China Jim who appears to control the criminal classes of Dundee through fear. Mendick's investigations take him from the curling rinks to the foul closes of the disregarded poor, and the bed of the enigmatic Johanna Lednock. More deaths follow and suspicion falls on a handful of men the elite of Dundee society, including Johanna's husband and Mr Gilbride, a local ship owner. Each murder involves apparent cannibalism, shocking even the war-hardened Mendick, who strives to find a connecting link. Dundee seems closed against him apart from the friendly Adam and Mrs Leslie, a prosperous couple who mourn the death of their seaman son. An attempt on Mendick's life convinces him he is nearing the truth, but only when a pawnbroker uncovers a watch stolen from one of the murdered men does Mendick begin to unravel the case.

Leseprobe

A Burden Shared:

The Dundee Murders

Malcolm Archibald

© Malcolm Archibald 2013

The author asserts the moral right to be identified

as the author of the work in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of

Fledgling Press Ltd,

7 Lennox St., Edinburgh, EH4 1QB

Published by Fledgling Press, 2013

www.fledglingpress.co.uk

Print ISBN: 9781905916597

eBook ISBN: 9781905916603

Following his adventures inThe Darkest Walk, Detective Mendick returns in this, the second of the Mendick Mysteries.

PROLOGUE

DUNDEE, Autumn 1827

“Get up there, you little dog, and get it swept.”

The voice echoed in the choking darkness, distorted by the surrounding brickwork but still containing enough menace to make Jamie shiver. He looked upward to where the flue ascended forever, the sides black and slippery with soot and the exit a tiny circle of light diminished by distance.

“Move you bugger! Or it will be the worse for you.”

Aware the threat was genuine Jamie continued the climb, coughed as the soot entered his throat and tried not to sneeze as particles irritated his nostrils. Soot had smoothed the inside of the flue so he had to scramble for hand and footholds. He brushed continuously as he did so, for if the fall of soot lessened his master would take it ill. His master was not a man to cross. His voice boomed up the flue, echoing horribly as it always did, and Jamie inched upward, sweeping, pushing the soot before him with his cap and blinking the soot from his eyes. He did not cry: he had stopped crying years ago. Tears only invited blows.

He had been a climbing boy since his father had died of fever and his mother had signed him onto a seven year apprentice. He knew nothing else but he knew life was a nightmare of misery, pain and work. He hated the restriction; he hated the dark; he hated the rough, bullying voice of his burly master; he hated the smell of soot nearly as much as he hated the smell of drink on his master’s breath that was an invariable precursor to unremitting violence. He had been so young when his mother signed the articles of apprenticeship he had all but forgotten his earlier life: his world was restricted to the circumference of a flue, the exhausted slumber of end-of-work and the cringing acceptance of his master’s belt.

“Faster you wee bastard! There are two more to go after this one.”

There were always more to go. There was always more work, always more sweat and more pain and always the gnawing agony of hunger in his shrivelled belly.

Jamie braced himself with his back against one side of the flue and his feet on the other and brushed into the tiny wedges between the brick. He blinked against the renewed clouds of soot; felt for the tiny hand and footholds and inched up. The circle of daylight seemed to recede even though the desperate darkness beneath him increased. His master delighted in telling him about climbing boys dying up these chimneys; losing their footing and sliding downward, screaming to a crashing death on the grate far below. The lucky died at once; the less lucky survived in mangled agony and lived the remainder of their miserable lives as broken cripples. Other boys had vanished in a maze of flues in some old building or were trapped in a restricted space to die of thirst and terror in the dark.

Jamie gasped as an intense heat beat upon the soles of his feet. He looked down, coughed in the spiralling smoke and knew at once what had happened. His master had placed a pile of straw on the grate and set light to it. The heat was only a taste of what to expect, a warning that the fire would be lit now to urge him to greater endeavour. Never a patient man, the master would brook no excuses. Jamie began to brush even more furiously and shoved his skinny body upward at a greater rate.

He felt his feet slip but clung on with broken nails, he whimpered as the smoking vacuum beneath invited him to fall, but slammed his knees against the brick and moved upward. He gasped as the orange glow beneath him increased and the heat came in waves against his bare feet and legs. He reached up, but too quickly, and his fingers slid on a soot-smoothed shelf so he slithered and had to push flat hands against the brickwork opposite. His brush fell, bouncing once, twice, three times from the walls of the flue, to clatter into the fire below and sent biting sparks against the legs of his Master.

“You clumsy wee bastard! Come down here and get your brush, and take what’s coming to you!” The flue hideously deformed the word and intensified the menace and Jamie knew too well what would happen when he returned. He had experienced his Master’s rage too often; the whirring belt and the plunging fists and boots until he was reduced to a cringing broken, wreck as his Master leaned over him, panting, with his broad red face dripping with sweat and his mouth open.

Reinforced by a score of memories, the fear overwhelmed him. Jamie looked downward, listened to his Master’s repetitive curses and knew what was going to happen, and then he began to claw his way upward. He had no plan and no real idea what he was doing; he only wanted to get as far away as possible from his Master and the agonising brutality that was the inevitable result of dropping the brush. The flue narrowed as he climbed, so the sides were scraping against his shoulders and hips, but still he pushed on. He gasped; sobbed as the rough bricks rubbed him raw, tore away the skin of elbows and knees, rubbing the flesh from shoulders and hips and buttocks as he strove to escape.

“Where the devil are you, Jamie?” The voice thundered through the dark tunnel of the flue, battering against his ears. “Get down here, you little bastard!”

The circle of light was like a beacon, a lighthouse in the turmoil of darkness and fear. Feeling his breath rasp in his throat and the soot clog his nostrils and eyes, Jamie edged himself up, reaching for the tiniest of holds as he strained for escape. He felt the downdraught cooling his face and knew he was within a few yards of freedom, and then he stuck. As he neared the top, the chimney abruptly narrowed so even his underfed body could not wriggle through.

Fresh air tantalised his face but he was trapped. The sweep’s cap on his head had pushed the soot ahead of him so now it had constricted even the small space of this flue. For a moment Jamie gave way to frustration as he struggled with the weight of compressed soot above him. He wrestled himself an extra inch and screamed as the sharp bricks scraped skin and flesh from his hips. “I’m not going back,” he said, repeating the words like a mantra, “I’m never going back.”

He strained, moaning with effort as he pushed hard with his cap. Tears had coursed white lines down his face before he felt the mass above him give. He shifted slightly and a black avalanche of soot descended on his face and cascaded down his naked body. He felt the ripping agony of unyielding brick slashing deep into his skin, but he knew there was hope and pushed himself the final few feet upward.

His Master’s voice was far below him, half-heard and wholly unheeded now. All that mattered was easing out of the chimney and escaping along the roof. He could not see beyond that; he thought only of escape. Next week, tomorrow, the next hour; none of that mattered. The panic that drove him recognised only his need to run from the immediate threat; the future was irrelevant.

Jamie’s hand waved in the air, and then his arm; he moaned at the agony of torn flesh but hauled himself upward, feeling the bricks shred the skin from his hips and ankles but he was free. He ripped off his cap, threw it back down the flue and allowed the cool air to dry the sweat from his body. He leaned over the chimney, feeling the first surge of triumph he could ever remember experiencing. It was a sensation he savoured, unfamiliar but so welcome that he shouted an incoherent animal cry of victory. He looked around. He had expected to see the familiar sight of a roofscape, but instead he was on top of a tall factory chimney. The chimney stretched downward, thirty, forty, maybe fifty feet of vertical brick with a keen wind already raising goose pimples on his unprotected skin and ruffling the filthy, lice-ridden tangle of his black hair. For a long time Jamie sat on the rim of the chimney, unsure of what to do. He knew he had two choices; he could return the way he came and face his Master, or climb down the outside of the chimney.

When he closed his eyes a vision of his Master returned; the bulging eyes and foul breath, the sagging jowls, the ever-ready fists. The decision was made, he looked down the stalk of the chimney, if he fell he would die; but better a quick death than the constant torment of life. Jamie inhaled the crisp air, turned around, and lowered himself downward. He held onto the rim for a minute, aware that once he released his hold he would be unable to return, and then took a deep breath and felt for the first foothold.

For years he had been used to climbing in enclosed spaces with a hard surface on which he could lean back, but here there was nothing. The space behind him beckoned with sucking tenderness, inviting him to fall, encouraging him with the appeal of freedom, the subtle siren call of nothingness and peace, but he resisted. The chimney was just an inverted flue; a problem to be overcome. He could not think what lay beyond; the next hour was a distant country, tomorrow was unthinkable, only the next handhold mattered, the next inch of red-brick chimney to negotiate, the next level to clamber down.

There was no end to this circular monstrosity, life was reduced to fighting the chill wind that threatened to pluck at him, to fighting the pain in his fingers and toes, to surviving another minute, another second, another breath as he eased down. He knew he was trembling, he knew he could not last another single level of unending brick; he must surrender to the pain and fall into the peace of oblivion. And then there was a different sensation, a roof of sliding blue slate, and he sagged down in disbelief.

He had made it; he had survived and now all he had to do was shin down one of the cast-iron waterspouts to the ground and run as far away as possible from the Master. Run and run and run until the breath rasped in his chest and his throat burned from heaving in air that tasted rich and sweet after the smoke-choked thickness of the flues. He was free, he had survived. Never again would he look upward in fear as the black confines of the chimney dragged him in, never again would he cringe before the rage of his Master; never again would he listen with dread for his Master’s dragging footsteps.

He was hungry. The realisation dawned slowly. Hunger was nothing; many master sweeps starved their apprentices so they did not put on weight and remained undersized and scrawny for negotiating the constricted spaces within the flues, but now something was different. Jamie frowned as he explored his novel position until he found an answer. Yes, he was hungry and he could do something about it.

Glancing upward, he judged the time by the sun. Nearly evening and late summer, so there would be fruit in the gardens. He had seen fruit many times on the servant’s tables in the houses of the wealthy, and he had even eaten it once or twice, if a kindly cook had taken pity on him, or he had sneaked an apple when nobody was looking. Now he could see an apple tree beyond a high wall, with the fruit hanging heavy on the branches, inviting him to help himself. The concept of theft was as unknown to him as possession and kindness; he had never owned anything and never expected to.

It was the work of a second to climb the wall; another moment saw him scramble along a branch and then he sat astride a bough with his bare legs swinging on either side as he munched into the sweetest apple he had ever tasted.

“Hi! Get out of that!” The challenge was as rough as it was unexpected, and Jamie almost fell from the tree in surprise. He looked down to see a tall man waving a fist at him, but before the man could speak again Jamie had scrambled higher up the tree and was racing along an overhanging branch. It was nothing to reach the edge, balance for a second and drop to the ground ten feet below. He rolled as he landed, picked himself up and continued to chew on the apple as he loped along, relishing this new freedom.

He did not think what to do, he moved instinctively as he explored the town of Dundee. He had lived here all his life but knew it only as a place of work and oppression. Now he could see the opportunities, the shops with displays tempting nimble fingers, the windows not quite closed through which he could squeeze, the gentlemen with silk handkerchiefs and silver watches placed carelessly for any slender hand to slide away with.

Yet Jamie ignored these sweet temptations and wandered down to the docks. He did not know how often he had dreamed of running away to sea, of tasting the freedom of these beautiful vessels that sailed to strange places. He did not know to where they sailed, he only knew there would not be any chimneys there, or masters with hectoring voices and ready fists. Now he heard the call of the seagulls and smelled the strangely exciting aroma of tar and damp canvas and whatever cargoes these vessels carried.

The first vessel was a passenger ferry so no good to him; he did not want to slog back and forth to Fife. The second was a recently returned whaler, reeking of blubber and battered by ice and gales. The third was larger, with three tall masts and the figurehead of a Highland warrior. He sneaked on board, slipped under the first hatch cover he saw and finished his apple.

He felt the sudden cold blast before he realised he had been sleeping, but the face that stared at him was more perplexed than angry, and the hand that lifted him was gentler than his master had ever been.

“Now what do we have here? A young stowaway.”

Other men joined the first, hard of face but without the predatory cruelty he had come to recognise so well.

“A naked young stowaway,” Jamie’s experience with people was limited, but he knew enough to avoid this man, his eyes were too interested.

“What’s your name, boy?” The first man pushed the second aside.

“Jamie.”

“Jamie what?” The first man asked. “What’s your last name?”

Jamie thought for a long time; he did not think he had a last name. He had always been Jamie. He looked up.

“Wee bastard.” It was the only name he knew.

“Poor wee bugger,” one of the men said. “Look at the colour of him. He’s either a runaway climbing boy or a beggar.” He bent closer, his scarred face concerned. “You don’t know your name, do you?”

Jamie shook his head.

“Well then, I’ll give you one. You’re a mendicant, I guess, so you can be Jamie Mendicant. No . . . that’s too long; not Mendicant, Mendick. That’s your name now and forever more.” The man straightened up. “Well, James Mendick, you and I and everybody else on this ship are bound for the Indies, so you’d better bid farewell to Dundee and prepare yourself for hard work.”

When James Mendick looked over the taffrail he could see the town of his birth and childhood already fading behind a pall of its own smoke. He felt no emotion when the ship dipped her foremast to the incoming waves and slid clear of the Firth of Tay.

CHAPTER ONE

DUNDEE, SCOTLAND 23 March 1849

Fluttering bravely in a fitful easterly wind, the red and white house flag proclaimed that the Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Line steamer was back home in the Tay. Detective Sergeant Mendick of Scotland Yard watched the smuts trail astern, fought the slow sinking sickness in his stomach, struck a Lucifer match and puffed his pipe to life. He stared at the passengers who milled at the rail, listened to their excited chatter and contemplated his immediate future.

He was returning to Dundee, God help him. He was returning to the only place on earth that frightened him. He had experienced the humid heat of India and the alien cultures of China; he had survived tropical typhoons that could raise waves sixty feet high, Baltic ice so thick it imprisoned a whole fleet of ships and the results of battle and siege. None of these had scarred him as Dundee had. Only the death of Emma, his wife had left a deeper impression.

Mendick did not smile as he watched the passengers stare at their surroundings or huddle into their cloaks as if doomed to exile. He felt like an exile himself: exiled to return to the place of his birth. He watched as Dundee loomed up on the north bank of the Tay, a town of slender mill chimneys penetrating an eternal pall of smoke, of mud-coloured tenements and of a harbour crowded with shipping. Above all was the Law, rising over five hundred feet of rock, grass, and woodland to dominate the town.

He remembered his childhood thoughts of the Law as a watchful mother caring for her teeming children. Mendick snorted; he left her by sea, and now he was returning the same way. He would not stay long; he could not stay long, he must leave by the next tide. He had no desire to confront his past; he wanted to forget it, together with the nightmares that sometimes surfaced from his sleep.

Even as he struggled to avoid the plunge into dismal memories, Mendick eyed the crowd, sorting them into their various categories and unconsciously searching for criminals. After the voyage from London he knew they were a heterogeneous bunch: tradesmen and businessmen, a few genuine travellers, a peddler or two, a sprinkling of families and a couple of gentlemen who filled the first class cabins. He grunted as he saw two undoubted pickpockets hovering on the fringes, their half-furtive swagger typical of their type and their youthful faces lean and predatory. Mendick searched his memory and nodded; he knew their names and most of their criminal history.

Seeking one of the benches that lined the upper deck, Mendick sat, placed his cane between his knees, folded his arms and tipped his hat forward over his face as though trying to sleep. It was a trick he had picked up years ago: a man sitting down was far less conspicuous than one standing, and he could observe while being overlooked. The pickpockets were working together, each moving either side of a large but flustered-looking gentleman in a morning coat. Mendick sighed, rose and stepped forward, swinging his cane. As always when Mendick was working, one or two of the not-quite-respectable guessed what he was and moved away, but the less guilty, or those who had not yet been detected in their crimes, remained static. He raised his voice slightly and allowed the authority to creep through.

“Move aside, there!”

Although the pickpockets had closed with their target, the large man seemed completely unaware he was a gull. While one lithe youth engaged him in conversation the other slithered at his left arm, nimble fingers ready for the quick dip. Mendick lifted the rattan and struck left and right, delivering a stinging cut to the shoulders of each youth.

“Jesus!” The nearest youth gasped at the unexpected pain. He swung around, snarling, but stopped at the sight of Mendick’s steady stare.

“Be off with you!” Mendick balanced his cane over his right shoulder and jerked his head in the direction he intended the pickpockets to go.

With a sneering glance at their intended victim, the youths slid along the deck, mouthing unheard obscenities over thin shoulders as they rubbed their injuries.

“Good God!” The intended victim adjusted his spectacles and stared at Mendick through pale, startled eyes, “What on earth was that all about? That young fellow was merely enquiring the correct time, sir!”

“That young fellow, as you call him, was distracting you, sir, so his companion could lift your pocket-book,” Mendick told him. “I am Sergeant Mendick from Scotland Yard. Those rascals were Robert Mitchell and Peter Smith − they are old lags, sir, and well known to the police courts . . . don’t check your pockets, sir, they will still be watching . . .”

“Good God,” the man repeated and immediately produced a fat pocket-book from the depths of his coat. “Well, I am very much obliged to you, Sergeant Mendick, very much.” Opening the pocket-book so the whole ship could see the contents, he fished out his card and handed it over. “My name is Leslie, sir, Adam Leslie, and I am a merchant in general goods and crockery.”

Mendick glanced at the card:

Adam J. Leslie:

Crockery dealer and general merchant;

Reform Street, Dundee.

He placed it in his inside pocket. “Thank you, Mr Leslie. If either of these young blackguards should come close again, pray do not hesitate to call on me.” Mendick prepared to return to his seat, but Leslie clung to his sleeve, flinching as the crowd surged to the rail. Men and women waved greetings to Dundee as if they had been at sea for months rather than days.

“If these boys are pickpockets, should you not arrest them?”

“I cannot arrest them on suspicion that they may commit a crime sir, but I will alert the local police to their presence the moment I step ashore in Dundee.”

Leslie pulled at Mendick’s sleeve, his eyes wide. “Does Scotland Yard appoint a detective to watch for pickpockets on every London boat? I rarely travel by boat, you understand. My son, my stepson rather, died at sea so I prefer the coach or the railway, but London is so very far away.”

Mendick shook his head. “No sir. I am afraid Scotland Yard do not appoint a detective on any boat. I am going to Dundee on quite another matter. I am sorry to hear about your stepson, sir; you have my condolences.”

“But sir . . .” Leslie retained his hold of Mendick’s sleeve and followed him, his heavy steps thundering on the deck. “You must be off-duty, then. You had no need to help. I really am most grateful to you.”

“You have no need to be grateful, sir, I assure you. It is my constant charge to prevent crime and catch criminals wherever and whenever I can.” Mendick touched his hand to the brim of his hat, “Now, if you will forgive me sir? I must prepare to disembark. You be heedful of such people in the future.” Mendick removed Leslie’s hand and sauntered along the deck in the wake of the two pickpockets. It had been a small episode, nothing of importance, but it served as a reminder that he was not the small boy who had left Dundee, but an experienced police officer. If he kept that in his mind he could face Dundee with more equanimity. He straightened his coat, swung his cane through the air and nearly whistled, but that was bad luck on board a ship, so contented himself with poking the weighted end of his cane into the back of Mitchell. “I am watching you, my lad!”

London eased into Dundee docks and Mendick stepped ashore; his feet sounded like the sonorous drumbeat of hell on the quay. He was back in Dundee but not for long. Please God, not for long. As if on order, the rain started.

Dundee police headquarters squatted morosely in West Bell Street, slightly to the north of the town centre. It was not an unlovely building, but to Mendick it still appeared as grim and unprepossessing as the prison next door. He stood outside for a moment, watching the coming and goings of the uniformed police as he tried to get the measure of the place and the people. One officer stopped, doffed his hat and reached out to touch the square pillars that framed the entrance. Raindrops collected on the scar disfiguring the man’s face, then ran down from his forehead to drip from his chin. The officer mouthed something, replaced his hat and vanished inside; Mendick tapped his cane on the ground and followed.

The duty officer carefully closed his book and looked up. He saw what seemed like a civilian thrust through the door, remove his hat and stand just inside the entrance. Water eased from his coat onto his glossy boots.

“Here’s another one.” The duty officer did not try to hide the contempt in his voice. “A so-called gentleman, I wager, enticed into a disorderly house by a girl and relieved of his wallet.”

The office Sergeant, grey-haired and running to fat, grunted, “I doubt he’s a gentleman, Sturrock. Not with that stance. See those shoulders? Erect as a guardsman, and his left thumb is in line with the seam of his trousers. Ex-ranker in the military or he’s a Frenchman.”

“He could be an officer,” Sturrock guessed. “That would make him a gentleman.”

“An officer has private means,” the Office Sergeant said, “but no gentleman would entertain a cheap one shilling hat like that. He is no officer and no gentleman. Look at his face, he has seen more life than a man of his age should have.”

Sturrock grunted. “If he is ex-military, he should have had more sense than to listen to one of those sirens.”

The sergeant grinned. “Few men have sense where women are concerned, son. As soon as a woman shows a hint of ankle, all sense flies out of the window. You’ll learn that in time. Now, look at this fellow: about five foot nine, maybe 32, 33, maybe 35 years old? Yes? Now observe the way he’s dressed. He’s not dressed like a soldier,” the sergeant nodded across the room. “That’s a fine Chesterfield coat he’s wearing so he either stole it or he has aspirations to something better than a mill hand or cab driver; his boots are polished to a glitter, so he has pride in himself, and see the way he carries that cane? A sign of some authority. A corporal at least, I would say.”

The sergeant watched, intrigued, as Mendick continued to stand just within the doorway, tapping his cane against the side of his boot as he inspected every inch of the office. “Now you think on, Sturrock,” the sergeant said, “and we’ll see how right I am.”

Mendick stepped to the desk, nodded to Sturrock and addressed the sergeant.

“Good afternoon. I am expected.” He reached inside his Chesterfield and produced an official staff, adorned with the Crown and VR. “The name is Mendick, Sergeant Mendick, Criminal Officer of Scotland Yard. I am here to collect a prisoner and take him back to London.”

“Ah, Sergeant Mendick,” the sergeant glanced at Sturrock. “We have your man all tucked up nice and secure.”

Mendick replaced the staff in its inside pocket and tapped his cane on the desk. “No sense wasting time then. Take me to him, Sergeant.”

“You surely have time for a mug of tea, Mendick?”

Mendick shook his head. “I have neither time nor desire to linger, Sergeant. I stepped off the DLP steamer London a bare half an hour ago and I have tickets for the DPL ship Perth to London; she leaves on the next tide. Pray take me to the prisoner.”

The sergeant glanced at Sturrock. “Definitely a military snap there!” He nodded to Mendick. “Come this way if you please.”

The cells smelled exactly the same as police cells did in London or Manchester and probably anywhere else in the world; the same mix of urine, sweat and human misery, and the inhabitants held the same expressions of fear, desperate defiance or hopeless, broken passivity. The last of the night’s drunks lay hollow-eyed and supine, waiting for their summons to the Police Court and the inevitable petty fine they could not afford. One man was singing, badly off-key.

“Stop that horrible noise!” The sergeant shouted. He swaggered to the end cell, swinging his keys as the sound of his boots echoed around the short corridor.

“This is your man, Mendick. Jeremy Thatcher. Swindler, coiner and thief.”

The cover of the peephole scraped slightly as Mendick opened it and peered into the cell then took a sheet of paper from his inside pocket and compared the description written on it with the man in front of him. He was looking for a man of small stature, shabbily dressed and with the marks of smallpox on his face.

“That’s my man,” he confirmed. Thatcher huddled on the plank bed, shackles around his ankles and his wrists clamped in handcuffs. One eye was badly bruised and his jaw was swollen. “You have him well secured.”

“He has to be,” the office sergeant said. “He’s tried to escape three times already. This is a devious and spunky man.”

Mendick slid the peephole shut. “How did you apprehend him?”

“He tried to pass a false bank note in an Overgate pub,” the sergeant said. “Two of our constables had to rescue him when the locals found out.” He grinned, “It was probably the first time he was pleased to see a policeman in his life.”

“You did well, catching him,” Mendick gave grudging praise. “He’s been convicted of forgery and sentenced to 14 years transportation, but he escaped from the courthouse right after the trial.” He re-checked the cell. “I’ve been chasing him ever since, the length and breadth of the country.”

“Well, here he is.” The sergeant fitted the key into the lock and turned. Mendick pushed open the door.

Thatcher glanced up from the plank bed, met Mendick’s eye and looked away quickly. Mendick studied him, tapping his cane against his leg. “I hope you are fit to travel, Thatcher. You’re going on a long trip.”

Thatcher said nothing; the chains rattled as he shifted his feet.

Mendick rapped the chains with his cane. “Up you get.”

Thatcher lifted his manacled hands as if for help, but Mendick left him to it. He watched as Thatcher clattered from the bed and shuffled across the stone-flagged floor. The office Sergeant led the way upstairs, with Mendick making up the rear and the prisoner in between.

“You will have to sign him out,” the sergeant said.

“Of course.” As Mendick dipped the wooden pen in the inkwell, he was aware of the great front door opening. Two agitated men in civilian clothes stumbled in, but when they nodded to Constable Sturrock Mendick realised they must be off-duty police or Dundee criminal officers. Both men began to talk at once. Mendick ignored them and concentrated on the matter in hand. He wanted to complete his business as quickly as possible and get back home.

There were a number of forms to fill in and sign. Mendick wrote rapidly with the clumsy pen, dipping into the inkwell and blowing the words dry. He checked what he had written, lifted his copies of the release documents and put his hand on Thatcher’s shoulder. “Right, lad, you’re my prisoner now and it’s Van Diemen’s Land for you.”

Thatcher said nothing and kept his shoulders hunched as he shuffled towards the door. He looked up with his left eye partially closed, and spoke thickly through his damaged mouth.

“Can I have these slackened, please Mr Mendick?” He raised his arms high. They looked so thin Mendick wondered how he had the strength to bear the weight of the chains.

“No. Wait here and keep your mouth closed.” As Mendick nodded a farewell to the sergeant, two uniformed policemen crashed in, each holding a struggling man. One constable was hatless, the other bleeding from a cut lip while their prisoners were kicking furiously and shouting. A group of women crowded behind in a flurry of skirts and a volley of screeching abuse as they waved their hands aloft. A waft of stale whisky accompanied each word.

“You damned blackguard!” One woman pointed a furious finger at the hatless policeman, “You let my man go!”

When the constable ignored her, the woman swung her fist, sending him off balance, and pushed him in the chest. The policeman sprawled to the ground and his prisoner lunged for freedom, dived under the outstretched arm of the second constable and yanked open the door of the police office.

“Stop right there!” Mendick reached for the escaping prisoner but two of the women dived in his way, screaming language that would embarrass any hardened marine. He barged into them, lost his hat and momentarily wrestled with a woman whose arms were muscularly defined by long hours of mill labour. In that split-second Thatcher took his chance. He raised his arms to his mouth, pushed a sliver of metal through his teeth, opened the catch of his manacles and let them drop to the floor.

Mendick heard the clatter even through the drunken racket. He clamped the woman in a headlock just as Thatcher transferred the tiny picklock to his hand, bent down, opened the leg irons and pulled them apart.

“Hey you!” One of the worried-looking plain-clothed officers stepped forward, but Thatcher lifted the irons, swung them like a club and caught the man across the mouth. The officer yelled and covered his face as the second criminal officer grabbed at Thatcher’s arms. Thatcher ducked low and swung a second time so the heavy manacles caught him around the legs, wrapped around like a bolas and brought him to the ground in a tangle of limbs and chains.

“Enough of that!” Sturrock stepped clear of the desk and came to help, his ginger hair a beacon in the drab room.

“Don’t do it, Thatcher!” Mendick released the woman and jumped over the writhing body of the second Criminal Officer, but Thatcher had slipped through the crowd and dodged into the grumbling traffic of Bell Street. Mendick pushed back into the screaming mob obstructing the door of the Police Office and one filthy hand grabbed at the sleeve of his coat while another clutched his throat.

“You near broke my neck,” the muscular woman yelled. “Bluebottle bastard!”

Mendick raked his boot down her shin so she squealed and snatched back her hand, shook his sleeve free from the second woman and pushed clear, but two more women leaped at him. He thrust the tip of his cane into the throat of the closest and swung it against the hip of the next to send her yelping away. He looked up in time to see Thatcher disappearing down Constitution Brae, a street that sloped steeply towards the congestion of the town centre. Carts growled over the cobbles as their drivers ignored the drama. Mendick sprinted over the road, bounced off the back of a laden cart, dodged the clattering hooves of a cab-driver’s horse and ran around the corner.

“Thatcher! Don’t be a fool!”

He could see Thatcher running full pelt for the massed houses of central Dundee. Constitution Brae descended to Barrack Street, opposite which was the walled and gated cemetery of the Howff. Beyond Barrack Street began the heaped buildings, the intricate closes and the narrow wynds of the Overgate, in which any fugitive could vanish for hours or days before the police winkled him out. Mendick glanced right and left, hoping for a glimpse of the friendly blue of a police uniform, but saw only the slow trundle of traffic on the road and a group of masons working around spindly scaffolding. Thatcher was ahead, running as if the devil was at his heels rather than a single detective.

“Stop! Thief!” Mendick roared the old, familiar words, and saw the masons look around. One spotted the small figure of Thatcher, lifted one of the long wooden scaffolding poles and threw it into his path. Thatcher jumped and continued, but the pole bounced, its end rising just enough to clip his right ankle. He gave a shrill yell, hopped for three steps and continued, more slowly than before.

“Got you, my lad”, Mendick said, but Thatcher did not hesitate. He ran, limping, up to the outside boundary wall of the Howff graveyard, pulled himself onto the three foot high wall and vaulted the iron railings.

Mendick followed, balanced on top of the railings and watched as Thatcher jinked between the ranked gravestones. The rain was heavier than ever, and the oncoming dusk did not help his visibility, but he could see the lithe body when it emerged from the cover of the grey, lichen-smeared stones.

“Have you caught him yet, Sergeant?” Sturrock puffed up behind him, red-faced with his staff held firmly in his right hand.

“Not yet, Sturrock, but I know where he is. Tell me, how many entrances are there to this graveyard?”

“Four. Two on the northern wall and two on the western.” Sturrock came up with the information immediately. He peered between the railings. “I can’t see him.”

“Only four. Then it won’t be difficult for you to watch them while I flush out this thief. You stand up here and shout if you see Thatcher move, and catch him when I chase him out.”

“Yes, Sergeant, but I have to watch all four gates?” Sturrock sounded dismayed.

“Yes. Don’t concern yourself with anything else and don’t let him escape.” Mendick jumped down and strode in the direction he last saw Thatcher. He made no pretence at hiding, instead announcing his advance by striking each gravestone with his cane. “I can see you, Thatcher. If you give yourself up it will be easier for you.”

There was no reply except the hiss and patter of rain on the grass. Mendick strode on, following a gravel path and checking to left and right. At each step he expected to see Thatcher cowering behind a tombstone, but there was no sign of him. Just the ranked stones of the dead, one newly-made grave and one empty, waiting for its occupant.

“Sturrock!” Mendick turned and roared. “Have you seen him?”

“No, Sergeant.” Sturrock remained on top of the railings. Mendick swore and began to work his way back through the gravestones, again checking to left and right. He stopped at the newly-dug grave and pushed his cane into the turf; it sunk easily into the damp soil. The empty grave showed promise too; Mendick looked inside. Rain water dripped down the mud of the walls and onto the black canvas tarpaulin six feet down, forming a succession of small, shallow pools but with a distinctive dry bulge in the centre. Mendick glanced up, Sturrock remained exactly where he had left him, balancing on the rails with the rain bouncing from his tall hat and his arms folded across his chest.

“You keep watch, Sturrock!” Mendick shouted and, balancing one hand on the edge of the grave, he vaulted down and landed heavily atop the suspicious bulge.

“No!” The canvas bucked beneath him and Thatcher emerged. His hands scrabbled at the stiff canvas as he launched himself at the mud walls of the grave and scrambled up with hands and feet. Mendick waited until Thatcher had secured a handhold at the lip of the grave, then lifted his cane and landed a smart crack on each hand. Thatcher yelled and tumbled back down. He landed on his back and immediately jumped up, intent on escaping until Mendick pressed hard on his thin shoulders.

“Stay where you are,” Mendick said, “and bend over!” As Thatcher glowered at him, Mendick thrust him into a crouch and used him as a stepping stone to climb out of the grave.

“Sturrock!” Mendick shouted, “Come here with your shangies.” He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and swore. “Damn you, Thatcher! We’ve missed our boat. Now I must stay an extra day in Dundee.”

Thatcher looked up, rainwater streaming from his face and his eyes bright and defeated. He said nothing.

The voice that sounded behind Mendick had the hard lilt of the Highlands. “You may be in Dundee a good deal longer than one day, Sergeant Mendick.”

Mendick turned around and faced the newcomer. Despite the rain he wore no coat above his close-fitting dark suit. His eyes were a cold blue above hectic red cheekbones.

“Indeed, sir?” Mendick kept a firm hold of Thatcher as he turned around. “I am afraid you are mistaken but thank you for your interest.” He touched a hand to where his hat should have been, frowned slightly as he remembered its absence and returned his hand to his side.

The man placed his forefinger on Mendick’s cane.

“That seems a handy tool, Sergeant, lead-tipped I would say?” He held Mendick’s eye for a long moment. “Aye, I thought as much. You might have need of that during your stay in Dundee.”

“I will be on the first steamer to London, sir, with my prisoner.” Mendick said.

“I see I have not explained myself, Sergeant Mendick.” The Highlander held Mendick’s gaze. “I am Donald Mackay, Superintendent of Dundee Police. Both my Criminal Officers were injured in that riot in the Police Office and I have a most unpleasant murder to solve, so I am keeping you here for the present. I have already prepared the paperwork for your Inspector Field. Now,” the blue eyes turned granite hard. “If you have finished playing in the mud, you may come with me and see if your Scotland Yard skills work in my town.”

Mendick said nothing as he felt the weight of childhood horrors crushing him once more. Dundee would not allow him to escape.

CHAPTER TWO

What was it about murders that attracted bad weather? Mendick crammed his battered hat further down on his head, cursed as rain splattered onto his face, turned up the collar of his Chesterfield and glowered across the road. Even if the weather had been better, there would be nothing picturesque about the shop in Candle Lane. It was situated in a tenement building beside a foul-smelling fish curer, and opposite the piled timber of a wood merchant, but in the soot-laden rain of a March evening it was as dismal a picture as he could imagine. The sign above the door tried its best to entice customers but the cheap paint had peeled so the reader needed great patience to decipher the words.

Oriental Emporium: all the delights of the East

Mendick grunted. He knew all about the delights of the East: dirt, flies, disease and a thousand nameless horrors under a humid, pitiless sky. There was little Oriental about a seedy shop mouldering in the chill damp of a Dundee evening. The shop was about half way up the lane, with a common close to the right and two storeys of a stone-built tenement pressing down on it, the dark windows glaring onto the dark roadway like the black eyes of a failed pugilist. The door was firmly closed against the predators of the night. Mendick looked up into the steady rain − a broken waterspout spilled its contents into the lane and slates sliced upward to a stack of chimneys.

He pulled his silver watch from his fob and checked the time. Half past eight and he was stuck in this town that he hated beyond all others. It was already dark and the sub-human inhabitants were swarming out from wherever they hid during the day, turning the night hideous with their drunken bawling and assaults. This dockland area of Dundee was just like the back streets of Rotherhithe or Wapping; a festering warren of lanes and dead ends, streets crammed with pawnshops and dingy lodging houses. Candle Lane was a narrow, ancient thoroughfare that pointed towards the town centre as directly as a disembarked sailor heading for a pub.

Mendick looked around, seamen and befeathered women crammed the doorways and spilled onto the road. The women’s skirts trailed along the granite cobbles and through the central channel that sluiced away the rainwater mingled with the droppings of passing horses, but their voices shouted raucous invitations and their eyes were bold and devoid of pity. Mendick looked away. He could see the masts and spars of ships just a short step away and he shivered. There were too many memories here, he had to concentrate on the job, solve this murder and get back to London. He could not stay long in Dundee.

“Is that how Scotland Yard operates?” Mackay did not sound impressed. “Up here we tend to look at the murder rather than admiring the scenery.”

Mendick grunted. “Take me to the murder, then.”

Two uniformed police stood sentinel at the shop entrance. Legs apart, heads erect and each holding the long staff that acted both as their prime method of deterrence and a badge of office, they looked as formal as guardsmen.

Mendick followed Mackay inside.

“There is a shop and a store room with living quarters,” Mackay explained, “and both inner and outer doors were locked.” Mendick touched the outside door: two panels had been smashed and the heavy iron bolts drawn back. The key was in the lock inside.

“So how did we find the body then?”

The familiar smell of damp, mould and decay wrapped around him, mingled with the throat-catching stench of raw blood and a surprising aroma of cooked meat. Mendick lingered just within the door. Smells could be very revealing sometimes, he had expected to smell spices in an Eastern Emporium, but there was little hint of them in here. The hissing gas jet cast flickering shadows around the interior.

Mendick looked around. The shop was filled with cheap Brummagem trash, with a few knick-knacks that were vaguely oriental and may have been brought back by seamen from the East, or possibly thrown up by an underpaid woman in some garret sweatshop. A shelf on the wall held a row of jars that carried vague labels: Indian Spice, Chinese Spice, Arabian Spice, Best quality Tea, Green Tea and Coffee. A quick inspection found a few pounds of tea or coffee, probably mixed with other less savoury substances while he had no idea what was in the spice jars and had no intention of finding out.

“Our two criminal officers suspected this place of being used to reset stolen goods,” Mackay said quietly. “They came in to check and walked straight into a nightmare.”

Mendick pointed to the broken exterior door and the interior door where one of the panels had also been obviously kicked in. “We tend to more subtle methods in London.”

“Indeed,” Mackay’s voice was dry. “Well, step subtly through the door and see what you make of it, Mendick. But I warn you, it is not a pretty sight.”