Above the Harvest Moon (4 page)
Her screams mingled with those of the writhing child, but she retained enough presence of mind to leap into the scullery and grab the bucket of ice-cold water she had placed there for the morning. She tipped the whole lot over him, dousing the flames, and gathered him up against her breast, pulling her skirt up and round him so as to cocoon him.
He was gurgling horribly in his throat, the smell of burnt flesh and hair in her nostrils as she held his convulsing body, screaming for someone to help her. She was aware that Silas had gone, presumably by the front way, and now she stumbled into the scullery, shouting for Mrs Murray who lived next door. She came face to face with that good lady as she opened the door into the backyard.
‘Landsakes, hinny, what’s wrong?’
As Rose fell into Mrs Murray’s arms, she was aware of her neighbour yelling for her husband at the top of her voice and then more people surrounding them. Rose fought the enveloping faintness with all her might, struggling to stay conscious for the sake of her child, but then the rushing darkness took over and she knew no more.
Chapter 3
Silas’s rage was still uppermost as he left the house, pulling on his cap and tucking his muffler into the neck of his jacket. He walked along the dark snowy street rubbing his bruised arm and calling Rose every name under the sun. She’d taken him for a mug, that’s what she’d done, and he’d have sworn on oath before this day she wouldn’t dare defy him, let alone salt money away. It would have made all the difference to that last game; he could have won the lot, damn her. As it was, he was even further in over his head with the McKenzies, and they’d made it clear before he left this evening they weren’t going to wait much longer for their money.
He ground his teeth, wishing his hands were round Rose’s neck. And now this with the kid on top of everything else. Would she keep her mouth shut and say it was an accident? He doubted it, she was besotted with the brat, besides which she’d see it as the perfect opportunity to set man and beast against him.
Damn it, how had he let himself get saddled with her and the bairn? It wasn’t as if she had ever held any attraction for him. She was too thin and scrawny and quiet. He liked his women big and busty with a bit of fight in them. He had only taken her down in the first place to get one over on Donald Hedley, the bumptious upstart. What was her da but a miner like himself and yet he dared to look down his nose at him and his da and brothers. Aye, it’d been sweet knowing he had Hedley’s daughter eating out of the palm of his hand but he hadn’t expected the rest of it. She had gone and got herself pregnant and when she’d come blubbing to him and he’d told her to sling her hook, she’d let on to her father and all hell had broken loose.
Without conscious thought, Silas made his way to North Bridge Street, turning off into the grid of streets which led to the river. He had to
think
. He had to work out what he was going to do and say. His da would skin him alive if he thought he’d hurt the kid. Mind, it was his da who’d got him into this mess.When old man Hedley had come shouting the odds, it had been his da who had insisted he marry Rose, threatening he’d break his legs if he didn’t get wed sharpish. For all his drinking and fighting, his da could be a soft touch and his mam was fair barmy about Jake. He didn’t understand that because the only endearment he and his brothers had ever got from his mam was a cuff round the ear or worse.
think
. He had to work out what he was going to do and say. His da would skin him alive if he thought he’d hurt the kid. Mind, it was his da who’d got him into this mess.When old man Hedley had come shouting the odds, it had been his da who had insisted he marry Rose, threatening he’d break his legs if he didn’t get wed sharpish. For all his drinking and fighting, his da could be a soft touch and his mam was fair barmy about Jake. He didn’t understand that because the only endearment he and his brothers had ever got from his mam was a cuff round the ear or worse.
As he walked, the enormity of his predicament fully dawned but it was more the threat of the McKenzies that had him gnawing on his bottom lip than anything else. He knew how the McKenzies handled bad payers. They started with a knee-capping and progressed from there, and more than one body found floating in the docks had the McKenzie stamp on it.
It had started to snow quite heavily by the time he reached Williamson Street at the back of the ship-repairing works. Silas knew this area well, he was in the habit of visiting a certain bawdy house here. For a moment he was tempted to see if Vera was available. She was game for anything, was Vera, if he paid her enough, but therein lay the problem. He was skint.
Cursing under his breath, he stood for a moment, hands thrust in his pockets as he watched a few seamen leave the White Swan pub. He wished he’d chosen a seafaring life instead of following his da and brothers down the pit.Them sailors had a woman in every port, whereas he was lumbered with a wife and bairn. And a frigid stick of a wife into the bargain.
Hell, I need a drink, he thought. He sorted through the few pennies in his pocket, his brow furrowed. He should have stopped long enough to pick up her little hoard, it was his by rights anyway. He had enough for a couple of pints but that was all and he needed a drop of the hard stuff. Cursing again, he walked on round the wharf, passing the warehouse where he’d bet on the outcome of a cock fight the previous week, and turned into an alleyway which divided the warehouse and a shipbuilding yard on his right.
He had taken no more than a step or two when through the driving snow he became aware there was a fight in progress in front of him. He flattened himself against the slimy wall of the alleyway, aiming to make himself invisible. He had enough on his plate without getting mixed up in anything more and from the look of it the man on the ground was getting a good kicking from his two assailants.The grunts and pants which had alerted him to trouble were all coming from the two men on their feet; the other one was making no sound as they laid into him with a viciousness that excited Silas. Violence of any kind always had this effect.
After a minute or two the men rifled the pockets of the third man, speaking to each other in a language Silas didn’t recognise. It could be Dutch or perhaps Swedish, some Nordic tongue.
Whether something alerted them to his presence he wasn’t sure, but one of the men looked his way and said a few words in a different tone before the two of them took off, immediately lost to sight in the whirling snow. Silas let out his breath in a sigh of relief. He hadn’t known how things would go there for a moment. Waiting to make sure they had really gone before he moved, he carefully made his way to the inert body on the ground, intending to see if they had left anything which might be worth taking.
He stood for a moment staring down at the man who was lying on his stomach. He jabbed at the body with his boot but there was no sign of life. He realised why when he turned the body over. The lolling head was a pulped mess with half his skull gone and his brains showing.They’d done for him all right. Silas knelt in the crimson snow and began a thorough search of the body. The trouser pockets were empty but he’d expected that, and he thought he’d seen one of the men unhook a pocket watch, certainly something which had shone momentarily anyway, before they had made themselves scarce.
The man’s clothes were of good quality, a cut above the norm, Silas thought. He could have been a well-to-do merchant or perhaps the captain of a ship. Certainly his attackers could have been foreign sailors, the way they’d spoken. Maybe the dead man was their captain and they’d got a grudge against him. Whatever, they’d done a thorough job on him; even his own mother wouldn’t recognise him.
A moment later Silas’s hand froze. He’d worked his way under the man’s jacket, shirt and vest and his fingers had found what felt like a money belt. His heart beating fit to burst and keeping a constant lookout for anyone approaching, he pulled off the jacket and undid the shirt buttons to see what was what. A few seconds later he sat back on his heels, the cloth pouch in his hands. Shaking with excitement, he opened the bag and then let out a soundless whistle. He drew out a thick wad of notes. There must be all of thirty pounds, maybe more. A small fortune. Enough to pay the McKenzies what he owed and then some. But wait, how was he going to explain coming by it? And what if someone knew the dead man was carrying a muckload of cash? If his death got in the paper, that someone could well put two and two together and make ten. And ten could hang him.
His fingers tightened greedily on the small pouch. He wanted this money; he’d had nothing to do with the man’s death and what was the point in looking a gift horse in the mouth?
He continued to sit for a few moments more, his mind racing. An idea came to him, an idea so beautiful, so perfect, he marvelled it hadn’t occurred to him immediately. He began to strip the clothes from the figure on the ground until the man was as naked as the day he was born. Then Silas hastily divested himself of his own clothing, shivering as he pulled on the dead man’s underwear and then his other garments.The shirt was badly stained with blood as was the collar of the jacket, but if he knotted his muffler round his neck it’d do for now until he could get somewhere quiet and rub the stains out in the snow until they were faint enough. He’d take his cap too, it didn’t look as though the man had been wearing a hat of any kind, something which again suggested he might be a foreigner.
Dressing the body in his own clothes was much more difficult than he’d thought, but eventually it was done. When he tried to fit his boots on the dead man’s feet, though, he ran into a problem. His boots were a good couple of sizes too small. He hadn’t noticed that when he’d pulled on the other boots - they were calf length, of a fine good leather and infinitely superior to his hobnailed ones. They’d slipped onto his feet like a lass’s caress.
He frowned. The body would have to be bootless. It wouldn’t matter.The law would assume someone had made off with them.
When he’d finished, he was panting slightly. He now had to drag the body to the landing near the wharf and shove it under the platform as far as it would go. With any luck it would bob about there for days before it was discovered, and with every hour it was in the water it would deteriorate, which was all to the good.
The last thing he did was the most important for his plan to succeed. From a lad he’d had a lucky rabbit’s foot on a small chain which he always carried with him, making sure it was in his pocket for everything from the odd tinpot game with his father and brothers to the real gambling schools like those with the McKenzies. He’d had his name carved in the pewter base surrounding the foot by one of the travelling engravers at the annual Michaelmas fair years ago, earning himself a good ribbing from his family in the process.
‘You make your own luck in this world, lad,’ his father had scoffed, ‘and it’s nowt to do with a dead rabbit.’
But his father had been wrong. This piece of luck was everything to do with a dead rabbit. Smiling to himself, Silas knelt beside the dead man and made sure the rabbit’s foot was still in the pocket of his coat and that the clip was holding to the material inside. The rabbit’s foot was going to confirm he was dead while at the same time buy him a new life. A life that would start with plenty of money in his pocket, good clothes on his back and a fine pair of boots on his feet. No matter they were too big, they were of the finest quality and that’s what he intended to have from now on. No wife, no squawking brat hanging on his coat-tails. He was a free man again. It felt heady, euphoric.
Once the body was in the water under the landing, Silas returned to the alleyway, thanking his lucky stars the night was such a raw one with the snow reaching blizzard proportions. This area right on the waterfront was always quiet once the engine works and rope works and other extensive industry lining its banks closed for the night, but some of the streets nearby had one pub to every half a dozen houses and the dockside dollies who frequented such establishments often brought their customers to just such a secluded spot.
The big fat snowflakes were starting to hide what had occurred in the alley although here and there red stains were still visible. But it wouldn’t be long before all evidence was under a layer of snow and it was unlikely anyone would come this way now. Silas picked up his hobnailed boots and tucked them under the thick warm jacket which was like nothing he had owned before. Glancing around one last time, he pulled his cap low over his eyes and made off, keeping his head down.
He walked swiftly, his only desire to put as much distance between him and Monkwearmouth as he could. He had already made up his mind to go down south, Sheffield maybe or even further afield. If the weather had been better he would have walked all night, he felt so good.
Mind, if the weather had been better, he reminded himself in the next instant, likely there would have been more folk about and he wouldn’t have found himself in this position. The dead man might still be walking about with his money belt in place. No, he certainly wasn’t knocking the weather, far from it. It had served him well the night.
He reached North Bridge Street without meeting a soul apart from one or two scurrying figures in the distance.The bridge into Bishopwearmouth was equally deserted, the weather and the late hour having driven most Wearsiders indoors.
Walking wasn’t easy in the blizzard but the unaccustomed luxury of the expensive, richly lined jacket and thick trousers meant he was as warm as toast. He cut through the town and veered east towards Hendon where he slung his hobnailed boots into the back of the cricket ground. Someone would find them in due course and it would be finders keepers and no questions asked.
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