The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7), Nathan Goodwin [little red riding hood ebook TXT] 📗

replayed the events in his mind, wondering if he might have been up to the job of shooting the Preventative Officers. Perhaps, he considered, merely stepping forward and outnumbering them might have been enough to have saved the two men.

When he reached Braemar Cottage, he found Hester and Ann in the parlour, obviously waiting for what news he brought.

‘What be a-happening?’ Hester demanded.

‘Two men be captured down Dover,’ he answered.

‘The two what you carted down there?’ she asked, her voice faltering with something Sam guessed to be somewhere between anger and incredulity. He nodded his agreement and her face knotted in utter exasperation. ‘You buffle-headed fool, Sam Banister! When do you be a-learning?’

‘What would you be having me do?’ he shouted back. ‘I bain’t even able to lift a shovel on the parish farm.’

‘We be a-managing,’ she replied, a hint of understanding finally creeping into her voice. ‘We a-done it before, Sam…’

‘That were different,’ he countered, ‘that were an ‘andful of days without labour; I can’t be working, Hester, in no other job. It be this or the poorhouse.’

Hester rolled her eyes and he could see her on the verge of daring to say that the workhouse might be preferable. He stiffened himself to rebuke her, but she did not speak; Ann did.

‘What be happening to Spence?’ she asked, quickly adding, ‘And Brazier?’

Sam knew that Ann had become friendly with Spence since she had helped to heal the rope burns on his hands. He gave a churlish shrug, borne out of his jealousy for their friendship.

‘Happen you should rescue them, case they be getting jawsy,’ Ann said pointedly.

‘Happen we might be,’ Sam replied, on his way to the stairs. ‘I be going to bed.’

Chapter Thirteen

9th August 1822, Dover, Kent

The horse-drawn coach arrived at Dover Quay, pulling up beside the Gun Inn—an untidy amalgamation of one small squat building and one very thin narrow one, sandwiched between a long run of warehouses.

Ann Fothergill stepped down from the coach wearing a straw bonnet over her curled hair, which she wore from a central parting. Without asking, she had borrowed Hester’s best outfit: a striped open gown with fitted bodice and elbow-length sleeves.

She breathed deeply, drawing the warm blended smells of the bustling quay to her nose. She savoured the sour mixture, separating them into their individual scents of tar, rope, fish and sea salt. She inhaled deeply, as she took in the humming quay: merchants were busy trading; cargo was being loaded onto the abundance of moored vessels; sweaty fishermen were heaving great crates of mackerel, plaice and cod into stacks on the wharf; ragged women and children were running handcarts of wares from a Dutch luger into waiting wagons.

A hint of a smile crept onto Ann’s face at being back in the town and remembering her time here—so very different from her existence in Aldington village. Then she recalled the purpose of her visit here and her smile faded and the melancholic veil, which had been present for these last weeks, returned to her shoulders.

With a briskness which she hoped might restore her doughy heart, Ann marched into town. The notion of unusual business which she had detected on the outlying streets became undeniable when she reached the Charlton High Road in the centre of town. Great swathes of people from the lower echelons of society jostled at the edges of the road; ostlers, brewers and labourers stood elbow-to-elbow with prostitutes, vagabonds and thieves.

Ann pushed unapologetically through the crowds, receiving the curses and devil-looks from those into whom she ran.

The crowds on Black Horse Lane were an astonishing seven or eight deep; she had no hope of getting anywhere near to the front.

Turning sideways, Ann attempted to edge her way between the two men in front of her. They turned simultaneously and scowled at her. ‘Watch it, lady,’ one of them growled.

‘He be my brother,’ Ann lied, with a sniff. ‘Please be letting me through.’

One of the men remained resolute, the other huffed, then stepped aside to allow her to squeeze into the gap. ‘Hey, be letting this lady through—she be his sister,’ the man said, tapping the shoulder of the person in front of him.

The news that the condemned man’s sister was in the crowd rippled through, magically opening a narrow gap through which Ann could push to the front. Though this was far from the first time that she had witnessed a hanging, she gasped when she saw the wooden gallows just opposite her. From the large windows of the Black Horse Inn, directly behind and facing them, Ann ruefully spotted the better-classed spectators—seated men in fancy coats and breeches, who had paid more than one pound for the privilege of a front row seat. In the main central window four seats had been left vacant. She scanned across the faces of the other men and saw someone whom she thought that she recognised. She pushed herself forward, squinting hard. He was standing behind one of the chairs, chatting to the Preventative Officer seated before him. The man was tall and handsome with a neat dark moustache and dressed in an expensive-looking coat. She was staring hard at him, trying to pull information from her mind as to from where she knew him. Perhaps it was here, at a previous hanging where she had seen him. He certainly was distinguished-looking and someone whom she might have noticed. The man suddenly shifted his attention and began to glance down at the crowd. Ann went to look away but it was too late; their eyes locked and certain familiarity dawned on the pair of them simultaneously.

The seated Officer in front of him pointed down the street and the rest of the men beside him suddenly became agitated. The crowd, too, erupted in heightened, excited conversation and Ann heard a chorus of shouts to