The Winter Rose Page 9

  But Charlie had had no one to help him then. Only Denny Quinn and his pack of thieves. He had no one now, either. No one to tell him about the danger he faced. If he didn't leave East London, and turn his back on the life he was leading, Freddie Lytton would do for him.

  Don't get involved, Joe had told her. Forget him. Bury the past.

  She wondered now if Joe had forgotten the lesson they'd both learned-- that the past was a restless corpse that never stayed buried. It crawled out of its grave again and again, trailing its bitter stench of sorrow and regret.

  Sid Malone was a product of that past--a violent and bloody past--one that had begun in 1888 when a murderer had stalked the streets of Whitechapel. When dockers worked sixteen-hour days for fivepence an hour. When villainous lodging houses spilled forth thieves and prostitutes.

  It had all begun when their father died. Paddy Finnegan had had an accident at Burton Tea, where he worked. He'd fallen from a high doorway at the company's wharf. The children had weathered his death, but then their mother was killed--stabbed by a madman called Jack the Ripper--and something had happened to Charlie. He'd come home to find his mother dying in the street and it had unhinged him. He'd run off and no one had been able to find him. A few weeks later a body had been fished from the Thames, so badly decomposed that the authorities had been able to iden-tify it only because of a watch they'd found on it--a family heirloom that Paddy had given to Charlie.

  Alone with Seamie, and desperate for money, Fiona had pursued a claim for compensation her mother had made after her father's death. She'd gone to Burton Tea one evening, determined to speak with the owner, William Burton. Instead, she'd overheard him discussing her father's death with a criminal named Bowler Sheehan. Her father hadn't died acci-dentally, she learned; he'd been murdered by Sheehan at Burton's behest because he'd been trying to convince his fellow workers to join a dockers' union. Discovering this had put Fiona's own life in jeopardy. She'd fied London, vowing that Burton would pay for what he'd done, and she'd kept that vow, returning ten years later to take his tea company from him.

  Burton had tried to kill her then, too, but was thwarted. He escaped the police, but they hunted for him. When weeks passed and he wasn't found, it was assumed he'd gone to the Continent, but he hadn't. He'd hidden in his old tea wharf. Eventually, he managed to lure Fiona there and had made a third attempt on her life. The only reason he hadn't succeeded was because of Sid Malone.

  Unbeknownst to Fiona, Sid had been watching her ever since her stun-ning takeover of Burton Tea made the newspapers. His men had followed her to the wharf and had saved her and Joe, spiriting them away to the south bank of the Thames. There they'd learned that Charlie Finnegan had not died back in '88; instead, he'd become Sid Malone.

  After Charlie had run away from the sight of his murdered mother, he'd wandered East London half mad, not knowing where or who he was. One night, while digging in a rubbish bin for food, he was attacked by an old en-emy, a lad named Sid Malone. Sid beat him viciously, robbed him of his watch, and tried to kill him. Charlie hit back in self-defense, but he hit too hard and fractured Sid's skull. In a panic, he dumped the body into the river, forgetting to take his watch back.

  Little by little he'd recovered his mind, eventually remembering who he was and where he lived, but when he went to look for his family, they were gone. Alone, terrifled he would be found out for Malone's murder, he went to the only person he could trust--Denny Quinn, a minor underworld fig-ure. Denny had advised him to lay low and to take Sid Malone's name. Malone had been a loner, and with his red hair he'd looked like Charlie. If the police ever grew suspicious and started asking questions, Quinn rea-soned, Malone was alive and well and could answer them.

  Fiona had been undone by meeting the brother she'd thought was dead. She'd hugged him and wept, overjoyed to see him, but she'd been upset to discover who and what he'd become, and pleaded with him to leave the villain's life behind. Hurt and angered, he'd told her he'd done what he'd needed to do to survive, and had refused to see her again. Her uncle Roddy, a police officer, had looked for him, combing the river's north and south banks, but hadn't been able to find him. "Let him go, Fee," Joe had urged, and she'd reluctantly agreed, deciding never to tell Seamie what had really become of the older brother he'd loved and admired. That he'd become a criminal, vicious and brutal.

  "Mrs. Bristow! What are you doing, ma'am? You should be sitting down."

  It was Mel. He'd returned with the tea. Fiona hadn't even heard him come up the stairs.

  "You still don't look well," he said, placing a steaming mug on top of a tea chest. "I think you should go home. I'm going to fetch your driver now, and I don't want any arguments. Sit there and drink your tea while I get him."

  Fiona nodded gratefully. He was right. She should go home. As she sipped her tea, she saw something glinting at her from the floor. It was the sixpence she'd won from Mel. She'd had it in her hand when she came up here, and she must have dropped it when she'd collapsed. She picked it up. Sixpence was nothing to her now, but once it would have meant the difference between eating and starving.

  She looked at it, but saw other coins. Pennies, tanners, shillings. Char-lie was pulling them from his pocket and putting them on the rickety table in the damp, dingy room where they lived. There was a pound note, too-- crumpled and bloodstained--his winnings from a dreadful bare-knuckle brawl he'd fought. "Take it," he'd said. "All of it." She hadn't wanted to, but she did. It had bought milk for the baby. Meat for their supper. Coal for the grate. Boots for Seamie. It had paid their rent.

  "Charlie," she whispered brokenly, curling her fingers closed over the coin.

  She had needed him then, desperately. They all had. And he had been there for them, giving up his own dreams--dreams of going to America-- to take care of them.

  Now he needed her.

  "And I will be there," she said.

  She would search for him herself. He wouldn't listen to strangers--he'd made that clear--but he'd listen to her, she would make him. If only she could get to him.

  But how? She had no idea where to even begin searching. She knew he moved about in the East End, but didn't know where he lived. Bennett told her he'd met him at a riverside pub, but he hadn't told her which pub, and Joe had shown him the door before he could. Joe. Fiona felt guilt prick her at the thought of her husband. He would be furious if he knew what she was planning to do. She heard his voice in her head, cautioning her. He was only trying to protect her. To keep her safe. He wanted her to let go of the thing she couldn't have, and concentrate on all the things she did have. She was so fortunate, so blessed. She had everything money could buy and everything it couldn't. She was happy, truly happy. And yet, alongside her happiness lived a deep and aching sadness for the one who was missing. The one who never came to Sunday dinners. The uncle whose name the children never shouted. The brother absent from every family photograph.

  She would do it. She would find him. It was a risk, a gamble, but one she was prepared to take. She would tell no one of her plans, not even Joe. She felt terrible about the deception, but she saw no other choice. Joe was intractable on this issue. He saw her brother as a hard man, a lost cause. But he wasn't, and when she'd found Charlie, when she'd brought him back to them, Joe would see he'd been wrong. He would forgive her for going against his wishes. Charlie didn't belong to the dark underworld of wide boys and villains. He never had. He belonged to her, and she would get him back. Somehow, some way, she would get him back.

  "Mrs. Bristow!" Mel bellowed, hurrying back up the stairs. "Carriage is out front! Driver's waiting!"

  She got to her feet, still weak, but resolved.

  "Are you ready, ma'am?" he asked, huffing and puffing up the stairs to help her.

  She nodded. "Yes, Mel," she said. "I am."

  Fiona realized she was still clutching the sixpence. She squeezed the coin tightly, then put it in her pocket. She was a gambler, and this time she would bet on Charlie.

  Chapter
6

  "Guv!" Frankie Betts yelled. "Guv, we're through!"

  Sid Malone motioned for the lantern and shone it on the bricks. There

  was a hole all right--he could see the pillars that held up the Stronghold's roof through it--but it was only about a foot wide. Nowhere near big enough.

  "Ronnie, Oz, take over!" he barked. "Move!"

  The sledgehammers changed hands. Ronnie and Oz smashed away while the others, winded and sweating, picked up the shattered brick and loaded it into empty crates. Sid looked at his pocketwatch. Half past twelve. Only one more hour until O'Neill's boat docked. Only two until the tide turned. If they weren't gone by then, they were done for.

  "Des, where's the guard?" he asked, his voice on edge.

  "Still outside having a gander at the wagons."

  "The fat bastard," Sid swore. Earlier that night, he'd had two of his men set fire to an abandoned warehouse a street away. As planned, the blaze had drawn every watchman within a mile to battle it--every one but this one. The man weighed twenty stone if he weighed a pound. It was too much work for him to walk up a street to watch the fire, so he'd settled for watching the fire brigade. He could come back inside any minute, and that would complicate things. At least he couldn't hear the noise they were making. The fire brigades were using the street that ran in front of the wharf for access to the burning warehouse--as Sid had known they would. Their bells and wagons made an unbelievable din.

  "Oi! The rozzers!" Desi suddenly shouted.

  Sid grabbed Ronnie's shirt and Oz's arm, nearly getting whacked with a sledgehammer.

  "What is it?" Oz said, panting.

  "Quiet!" Sid hissed. "Desi, what are they doing?"

  "Testing the lock."

  Sid felt every muscle in his body tighten.

  "They've left it. They're talking to our fat little friend. That's it, be good lads now...."

  "Des!"

  "It's all right, guv. They're moving off."

  Sid exhaled. With his next breath he grabbed Ozzie's hammer and attacked the wall. Fear drove him. The muscles in his broad, bare chest rippled and fiexed with every swing. Sweat ran off his body. The impact of iron against brick sent painful shock waves up his arms, but he barely felt them. It was taking too long. They'd never get out in time. He saw Tom waving wildly at him and stopped swinging.

  "Stop, guv, stop! It's enough. We're in."

  Sid dropped the hammer. He was through the hole before Tom stopped speaking. Five men followed, with Ozzie dragging the lantern. Desi stayed behind in the London Wharf as sentry. Sid motioned for the lantern now and shone it around the cavernous room. There was nothing but roll upon roll of fabric. Heavy silks and brocades, all wrapped in brown paper. No boxes, no crates.

  "Frankie, we didn't come here to make dresses," he said.

  "They're in here," Frankie insisted. "I know they are. Me mate said on six. Maybe he got the floor wrong. Let's try five."

  The men were as quiet as death on the stairs. When they reached the fifth floor they fanned out, lifting tarpaulins and moving boxes. After a few minutes, Ozzie doubled back. "Nothing, guv," he said.

  "Then we'll try four!" Frankie snapped, stalking off to the stairwell.

  Sid checked his watch in the lantern's light. Fifteen more minutes gone, and all they'd done was arse about. This was no good. They were cut off from Desi now, too far away to hear if he called for them. He had no idea where the watchman was, or if the police were still near. He would give Frankie another five minutes to find what they were after and then they were out, goods or no.

  When he reached the fourth floor Frankie was in the middle of the room, working the lid off a crate with a prybar. The nails screeched as they pulled free, making Sid flinch. Then there was a low laugh and Frankie's voice, "Here, guv! Over here!"

  Sid saw the markings, stamped in big block letters, as he approached the boxes: Winchester Repeating Arms Co., Manufactured by Bonehill Gun Works, Birmingham. Frankie took a rifle out of the crate and hefted it admiringly.

  "Let's go," Sid said. "Time's running out. We've got to shift the whole lot up two flights of stairs now before we can even begin shifting it down six more. Where are the rest of them?"

  Frankie put the gun back and the rest of his men quickly counted fifty-four more crates of rifles and another twenty of revolvers.

  "Ronnie, half a dozen Bristols in a sack for us," Sid said, motioning to the revolvers. "The rest go on the boat. Let's move."

  Pairing off as planned, each man and his partner hoisted one of the long crates between them and headed for the stairs. Sid heard grunts and curses. The crates contained twenty-five rifles apiece. They were heavy and awkward. He was worried. The weight. The extra stairs. The added time. And where was that fucking watch?

  Desi was nearly dancing with agitation when they pushed the first crate through the hole. "Where the hell have you been? I thought you was nicked!" he said. Sid explained. "I don't like it," Desi said. "Too many crates, too many stairs. We'll never make the boat in time."

  "We will. Just keep an eye on your man down there."

  One by one, the crates were pushed through the hole and into the Lon-don Wharf. Sid heard every rattle and bump. The Stronghold's wooden stairs were old and dry, and they creaked with every footfall. The sounds plucked at his nerves like fingers on a harp. Again and again he and his men went back into the Stronghold, Sid glancing at Desi first, Desi giving him a tense thumbs-up. They were on their second-to-last trip, almost done, when Sid heard the voices. Two of them. On the first floor. At the mouth of the staircase. "Freeze!" he hissed. His men stopped dead, the heavy crates suspended between them. Sid was at the bottom of the fifth-floor staircase, completely exposed. If only he had the pistols he'd told Ronnie to put in the sack. They weren't loaded, but the watch wouldn't know that. The sack was now up on the London's sixth floor with Desi. Along with the hammers and prybars. And his shirt and jacket, with his knife in its pocket. He had nothing, not one bloody thing. It was a beginner's mistake. How could he have been so stupid? If the watch came all the way up, if he saw them, he and Frankie would have to drop the crate and run after him. He didn't want that. Didn't want the noise. Or the blood. He hadn't planned it that way.

  He'd planned it so that the watch would be distracted. So that no one would find out the guns were missing for days. Maybe weeks. That would give O'Neill time to get to Dublin without interference. He'd be docked on the Liffey, cargo unloaded, drinking Guinness in his favorite pub before the rozzers even twigged.

  Involve the watch and things got tricky. You had to knock him out and tie him up. Make sure he didn't see your face. His men would find him the next morning, or his wife would tell the police he hadn't come home. When he was finally untied, he would tell the police what had happened and a hue and cry would go up immediately.

  Sid waited and listened, his muscles straining with the effort of keeping the crate aloft. It was all on him, this. It had all been his idea. Desi had tried to talk him out of it.

  "Forget it, guv. It's a one-way ticket to the nick," he'd said. "Wharf's got no roof access. Got doors like a fortress. Walls are five feet thick. Why do you think it's called the Stronghold?"

  "Same reason the piss-water you serve's called beer--wishful thinking," Sid replied. "The walls are five feet, but only at the base. They narrow as you go up. By the time you're on the sixth floor, they're only a foot thick."

  "How'd you know that?" Desi asked sulkily, put out by the beer remark.

  "Looked at the blueprints," Sid said.

  "You never. Where?"

  "The Guildhall. Me and Frankie. Wore our Sunday best and told them we was architects. This is how we'll do it. In through the London's riverside doors, up to the sixth floor, then smash through the wall into the Stronghold. Get the goods, cover our tracks, and get out."

  "Jesus, guv, you're a bloody genius, you," Oz had said excitedly, as Sid spread out the drawings they'd made. "The Guildhall, architects... who'd have thought of it? We p
ull this off, we'll make ourselves a pile."

  And if they didn't, they'd go to prison.

  An image flashed into Sid's mind now. A swirl of gray with fiecks of black and white. The stone floor at Wormwood Scrubs prison. Granite, he'd thought, in the instant before his head smashed into it. Then nothing, just a blinding white pain as Wiggs kicked his ribs in. Years later, the man's shrill laughter still echoed in Sid's head.

  Below him, in the Stronghold, the footsteps kept coming. Up the first flight, across the floor and up the second. He could hear the voices clearly now. One belonged to a woman. They were talking about the fire. The woman wanted to see it from the wharf's windows. Sid could hear her clearly for she was halfway up the stairs to the fourth floor. They would be face-to-face in seconds.

  And then the watchman, grunting and groaning, said, "For Christ's sake! How far up do you want to go? You can see it same from here as you can up top."