Matthew Hawkwood Thriller Series Books 1-3: Ratcatcher, Resurrectionist, Rapscallion

“But even then we were not safe.”

Bonaparte’s invasion of the peninsula had forced the family to break apart once more. At the first rattle of French musketry, Hawkwood recalled, the Portuguese king and queen had taken flight to Brazil, along with a good number of Portuguese aristocrats. It had been the beginning of a chain of events that had led, eventually, to Britain’s involvement with the war in Spain.

And yet she had remained behind. At risk. Why?

She had given a wistful sigh. “Here, in England, I am close to France, among friends who feel as I do, who will never rest until Bonaparte is defeated and we can all return home.”

Her eyes had flickered to the stiletto on the nightstand. It had been her father’s, she told him, pressed upon her when he had engineered his family’s escape from the guillotine. She had kept it with her at all times, during her flight across the mountains into Portugal, concealed within the folds of her dress by day and beneath her pillow at night. Because, she told him, those who opposed Bonaparte were never safe and the English Channel was no protection against determined agents whose sole agenda was to eradicate the Bourbon dynasty and all those who supported it.

“They took my father,” she had told Hawkwood. “They will not take me!”

The chiming of the tavern clock brought Hawkwood back to the present with a reminder that a day and a half had passed since his meeting with Jago. He had hoped that the ex-sergeant might have come up with something by now, a clue that would lead to the identities of the two highwaymen. But he had heard nothing. Experience had taught Hawkwood that Chief Magistrate Read, a man not widely known for his patience, would be expecting, if not demanding, a progress report. And the Chief Magistrate was not a man who accepted disappointment lightly.

To be fair, Hawkwood, due to circumstances not entirely unpleasurable, had not made it easy for Jago to track him down. Which meant it was now his responsibility to search out his old comrade and see if the former sergeant had come up with anything. He did not relish making another pilgrimage into the Holy Land, but he had no choice. An unannounced journey into the rookery was asking for trouble, however. It looked as if he’d have to have another discreet word with Blind Billy Mipps.

As he set his empty coffee mug aside, Hawkwood wondered if and when he would see Catherine de Varesne again. He would need to gather his strength beforehand, he reflected wryly. He thought about those bewitching eyes, that smooth skin and the way her body had arched above his and, as the serving girl took away his empty plate, he couldn’t help but smile to himself at the memory of it.

His attention was drawn again to the clock on the wall. The hours had sped by all too quickly. The day was nearly half over. It was time to pay that call on Blind Billy. Tossing payment for the meal on to the table, Hawkwood left the booth and exited the tavern.

His first thought as he felt the brush of the boy’s hand against his sleeve was that of all the marks available, it was the young pickpocket’s supreme ill luck to have chosen a Bow Street Runner as his target.

Hawkwood’s arm shot out with the speed of a striking cobra. His fingers encircled a thin wrist.

“Not so fast, lad.”

But instead of the expected cry of protest and whine of innocence, there was only the breathless, “Ease up, Hawkey! It’s me, Davey!”

Hawkwood looked down. The face peering up at him was streaked with mud and set on a rail-thin body that would not have looked out of place on a sick sparrow. A fringe of ginger hair sprouted from beneath a filthy woollen cap.

Hawkwood released the wrist. “Christ, Davey! You should know better, sneaking up on a body like that … And don’t call me Hawkey. I’ve told you before.”

The boy pouted. “I weren’t sneakin’! An’ if I ‘ad’ve been, you’d never ‘ave spotted me! Never in a million bloody years!” The pout disappeared to be replaced by a disarming gap-toothed grin. “Mr ‘Awkwood.”

Hawkwood couldn’t help but grin back. For indeed, had he been a legitimate mark, he knew that young Davey would have made the snatch and been off and running without him being any the wiser.

Not that picking pockets was young Davey’s sole source of income.

Davey was a mudlark, one of the many homeless children who prowled the Thames at low tide, wading through the stinking black mud and silt on the lookout for items that might have been washed ashore or had fallen or been tossed from a ship, boat or barge. Anything that could turn a profit. They operated alone and in packs, living by their wits, like rats in the darkness.

Young Davey had other talents, too. They lay in the use of his eyes and ears, for the boy was one of Hawkwood’s most reliable informers. Despite the best efforts of watchmen patrols and the Wapping-based River Police, crime along the river was rife and the authorities relied on any help they could get.

Davey and his cohorts were certainly no angels, it had to be admitted, but in the general scheme of things, they were small fry. Hawkwood and his fellow law officers were prepared to overlook instances of petty pilfering in order to land the bigger fish, the organized gangs of thieves and traffickers who stole to order from ships and warehouses the length and breadth of the water front.

“So, what’s up, Davey? What have you got?”

The boy glanced around. He looked apprehensive, as if afraid of being overheard. The cockiness of the previous few moments had evaporated. When he spoke his voice was low. “We’ve found a dead ‘un, Mr ‘Awkwood.”

The first uncharitable thought that entered Hawkwood’s mind was that if the boy had only seen one dead body so far that morning he obviously hadn’t been trying hard enough.

Not that the streets of the capital were strewn with corpses, but they were not that uncommon, providing one knew where to look. Old age, disease and foul play all took their toll, particularly among the poor and destitute. Venture down any dark alley in one of the rookeries and you could guarantee a cadaver most days of the week. Which, given the sort of company that young Davey ran with, made it all the more curious that the lad should have thought the matter worthy of Hawkwood’s attention. Hawkwood started to say as much when something in the boy’s eyes stopped him cold.

“But, Mr ‘Awkwood, this ain’t no ordinary stiff. This ‘un’s different. ‘E’s one o’ yours. ‘E’s a Runner!”

9 (#ulink_cb5fbea9-1c8e-5311-a53b-bb15915711c4)

The body lay partially embedded in the mud, head on one side. One arm was outstretched as if reaching for something. The other was twisted beneath the corpse.

The smell coming off the river was foul even by the city’s grim standards. A stew of gut-churning odours – tar, damp cordage, stagnant water, rotting vegetation and raw sewage – vied with a thousand other noxious, throat-searing smells from the tanning factories, timber yards, mills and dye houses that lined the river bank.

Cautiously, Hawkwood picked his way down the rough stone steps. Stepping off the bottom tier, he cursed as the stinking black ooze sucked at his boots. The boy, lighter on his feet, skipped across the treacherous surface with the agility of a sand crab. The broad span of Blackfriars Bridge loomed above them, blocking the sunlight.

Two children squatted at the bottom of the steps; members of Davey’s gang. They stood up at Hawkwood’s approach. At first sight he’d taken them for boys, but then he saw that one was a girl of about nine or ten. Both looked to be on the point of bolting for cover. A quietly spoken word from Davey, however, was enough to persuade them that Hawkwood’s presence posed no threat, whereupon the girl picked up a stone and tossed it on to the mud. It was only when she began to hop and skip in between throws that Hawkwood realized she was playing some sort of game. A variation of hopscotch, he supposed. The girl’s companion remained seated and, with equal disregard, began to pick his nose, wiping the findings on the side of his breeches. Their features, beneath the layer of grime, were close enough alike to suggest they might be brother and sister.

Hawkwood bent down. The sickly sweet smell of putrefaction and the sound of buzzing flies rose to meet him. He swallowed hard and tried not to retch.

His first attempt to turn the body over met with scant success. The thick black mud was reluctant to relinquish its glutinous hold and the water-sodden clothing didn’t help. Hawkwood had to call on Davey to help. Together, after much tugging and with a sickening wrench, they managed to pull the corpse free. A series of long, liquid farts erupted from the various body orifices, as deep inside the intestinal tract disturbed stomach gases erupted. Hawkwood bit back on the sour taste of vomit as he wiped slime and weed from the dead man’s cheeks. A stab of horror moved through him as his eyes took in the bloated yet still familiar features.

In life, Runner Henry Warlock had been a small man with a wiry physique. Neat in both manner and appearance, his somewhat timid looks had concealed a sharp mind and a terrier’s talent for hunting villains. Something of a loner – as indeed, given the nature of the job, were all the Runners – he had been a highly skilled operative.

Death had not been kind to Runner Warlock. Immersion in the river had not only caused the body to swell, it had also transformed dead flesh into the colour and consistency of cheese curd.

And Warlock had died hard; that much was immediately evident. The area of damage behind his left ear was not extensive, but beneath the ragged mess of matted hair and riven tissue, it appeared as if the wound ran exceptionally deep. Hawkwood wondered what sort of weapon had been used to deliver the fatal blow. Some kind of hammer, perhaps.

“Looks like the rats have been at ‘im,” Davey observed matter-of-factly, nodding at the corpse’s extended right hand. The boy seemed impervious to the smell and the deteriorating state of the corpse.

Hawkwood followed Davey’s stare and saw the chewed and bitten flesh. Vermin, most likely, as the boy had suggested, or perhaps a hungry dog seeking an easy meal. Hawkwood wiped his hands on his coat hem. “How’d you know he was a Runner, Davey?”

The boy looked at Hawkwood with something like pity. “Do us a favour, Mr ‘Awkwood. We can spot you lot a mile off. Besides, we knew this ‘un on account of ‘e caught Pen napping a clout a couple o’ weeks back.” The boy nodded towards the girl, then, squatting on his haunches, he ran his eyes down the body and sniffed. “He was all right. Not like the rest of ‘em ‘Orneys. Let ‘er off wiv a warning. She’d’ve been sent to the ‘ulks otherwise.”

Hawkwood knew that Warlock’s sympathy for the children of the street had been regarded as a failing by many of his colleagues, a weakness ripe for exploitation. Certainly, most law officers made little or no concession when it came to apprehending felons. Be they adult or child, it made no difference. With Warlock it had been different. Few of Warlock’s fellow officers knew the reason for his soft-hearted – some had called it foolhardy – attitude. Those, like Hawkwood, who were in possession of the facts, did not allude to it openly. There had been a young wife, Hawkwood had learned, who’d died giving birth, and an infant – a son – who had succumbed to the fever less than a week later. Knowledge of such tragic events made it easier to understand why Warlock had not been the sort of man who’d have wanted the incarceration of a nine-year-old girl on his conscience. Eight years’ imprisonment would not have been an unusual sentence for stealing a lace hand-kerchief. There would have been precious little room for hopscotch on the overcrowded deck of a prison barge, Hawkwood reflected gloomily.

He stood and looked around and wondered how many people had noticed the body. For, despite the squalid surroundings, the place was well frequented. The bridge was in constant use and there was a lot of waterborne traffic in the area. Large ships were unable to navigate beyond London Bridge, but lighters and small boats could pass through the arches of the bridge and travel upstream with comparative ease. Blackfriars was a convenient mooring place and an oft-used dropping-off point for the flotilla of bumboats ferrying passengers to and fro between shores.

It was just feasible, Hawkwood supposed, given that the body had been half submerged and lying in shadow, that it might have remained undiscovered for days. What was more likely, however, was that passers-by had seen the corpse and simply chosen to turn a blind eye, viewing it as just another victim of a drunken brawl. In other words, a death of no consequence.

Except that hadn’t been the case. Henry Warlock had been a law officer and he had been murdered. Savagely.

Hawkwood had witnessed death in many forms. In war, he’d seen men hacked to pieces by sabres and blown to shreds by cannon shot. And in his relatively short career as a Runner, he’d dealt with enough murder and maiming to last a lifetime. Viewing death was always hard. When it involved a stranger you could look upon it with a certain detachment, but when it came to one of your own, that was different. Hawkwood had experienced it on the battlefield with members of his own company. Staring down at Warlock’s distended carcass, he felt it now; the feeling of personal loss, the senseless waste and, above all, the stirrings of intense anger.

Smothering his revulsion, Hawkwood began a search of the dead Runner’s pockets. Not a pleasant task, but it had to be done. In the event, the search produced nothing. The dead man’s pockets were empty. No pocketbook, no coins, no personal belongings of any kind.

Hawkwood gnawed the inside of his lower lip. Inconceivable though it seemed, the evidence appeared beyond doubt. Runner Warlock, for all his experience in dealing with assorted villainy, had apparently fallen victim to one of the commonest crimes in London. Murdered and robbed by the very breed of criminal he had been obligated to pursue. Hawkwood wondered if Warlock had died appreciating the irony. A thought occurred to him. He turned to the boy. “Have you been over him already, Davey?”

The boy looked startled, then indignant. “Not me, Mr ‘Awkwood. No way.”

Hawkwood clasped the boy’s arm. “The truth, Davey. It’s important.”

The boy shook his head vehemently. “Swear to God, Mr ‘Awkwood.”