The Whitechapel Conspiracy Read online

  “Good.” Narraway recrossed his legs. “Then listen to me, and remember what I say. Whatever you think, I am right, and you will need to act on what I say if you are to survive, let alone be any actual use to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t parrot back at me! If I wanted a talking bird I’d go and buy one!” His face was tight. “The East End is full of poverty—desperate, grinding poverty such as the rest of the city can’t even imagine. People die of hunger and the diseases of hunger ... men, women, and children.” A suppressed anger made his voice raw. “More children die than live. That makes life cheap. Values are different. Put a man in a situation where he has little to lose and you have trouble. Put a hundred thousand men in it and you have a powder keg for revolution.” He was watching Pitt steadily. “That’s where your Catholics, your dynamiting anarchists, nihilists and Jews are a danger. One of them could be the single spark which could unintentionally set off all the rest. It only needs a beginning.”

  “Jews?” Pitt said curiously. “What’s the problem with the Jews?”

  “Not what we expected,” Narraway confessed. “We have a lot of fairly liberal Jews from Europe. They came after the ‘48 revolutions, all of which were crushed, one way or another. We expected their anger to spill over here, but so far it hasn’t.” He shrugged very slightly. “Which isn’t to say it won’t. And there’s plenty of anti-Semitic feeling around, mostly out of fear and ignorance. But when things are hard, people look for someone to blame, and those who are recognizably different are the first targets, because they are the easiest.”

  “I see.”

  “Probably not,” Narraway said. “But you will, if you pay attention. I have found you lodgings in Heneagle Street, with one Isaac Karansky, a Polish Jew, well-respected in the area. You should be reasonably safe, and in a position to watch and listen, and learn something.”

  It was still very general, and Pitt had little idea of what was expected of him. He was used to having a specific event to investigate, something that had already happened and was his task to unravel so he could learn who was responsible, how it had been done, and—if possible—why. Trying to learn about some unspecified act which might or might not happen in the future was completely different, and something too indefinite to grasp. Where did he begin? There was nothing to examine, no one to question, and worst of all, he had no authority.

  Once again he was overwhelmed by a sense of failure, both past and to come. He would be no use at this job. It required both skills and knowledge he did not possess. He was a stranger here, almost a foreigner in the ways that would matter. He had been sent not because he would be of use but as a punishment for accusing Adinett, and succeeding. Perhaps as far as Cornwallis was concerned it was also for his safety, and so that he still had a job of some sort, and an income for Charlotte and the children. He was grateful for at least that much, even if at the moment it was well buried beneath fear and anger.

  He must try! He needed more from Narraway, even if it meant stifling his pride and making himself ask. When he left this tiny, drab room it would be too late. He would be more completely alone than he had ever been professionally in his life, until now.

  “Do you believe there is someone deliberately trying to foment violence, or is it just going to happen by a series of unguarded accidents?” he asked.

  “The latter is possible,” Narraway answered him. “Always has been, but I believe this time it will be the former. But it will probably look spontaneous, and God knows, there is enough poverty and injustice to fuel it once it is lit. And enough racial and religious hatred for there to be open war in the streets. That’s what it is our job to prevent, Pitt. Makes one murder more or less look pretty simple, doesn’t it, even close to irrelevant—except to those concerned.” His voice was sharp again. “And don’t tell me all tragedy or injustice is made up of individual people ... I know that. But even the best societies in the world don’t eradicate the private sins of jealousy, greed and rage, and I don’t believe any ever will. What we are talking about is the sort of insanity where no one is safe and everything of use and value is destroyed.”

  Pitt said nothing. His thoughts were dark, and they frightened him.

  “Ever read about the French Revolution?” Narraway asked him. “I mean the big one, the 1789 one, not this recent fiasco.”

  “Yes.” Pitt shivered, thinking back to the classroom on the estate again, and the word pictures of the streets of Paris running with human blood as the guillotine did its work day after day. “The High Terror,” he said aloud.

  “Exactly.” Narraway’s lips thinned. “Paris is very close, Pitt. Don’t imagine it couldn’t happen here. We have enough inequality, believe me.”

  Against his will, Pitt was considering the possibility that there was at least some truth in what Narraway was saying. He was overstating the case, of course, but even a ghost of this was terrible.

  “What do you need of me, exactly?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully controlled. “Give me something to look for.”

  “I don’t need you at all!” Narraway said in sudden disgust. “You’ve been wished on me from above. I’m not entirely sure why. But since you’re here, I may as well do what I can with you. Apart from being able to provide you with as reasonable a place to live as there is in Spitalfields, Isaac Karansky is a man of some influence in his own community. Watch him, listen, learn what you can. If you find anything useful, tell me. I am here every week at some time or another. Speak to the cobbler in the front. He can get a message to me. Don’t call unless it’s important, and don’t fail to call if it could be! If you make a mistake, I’d rather it were on the side of caution.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right. Then go.”

  Pitt stood up and walked towards the door.

  “Pitt!”

  He turned. “Yes, sir?”

  Narraway was watching him. “Be careful. You have no friends out there. Never forget that, even for an instant. Trust no one.”

  “No, sir. Thank you.” Pitt went out of the door feeling cold, in spite of the close air and the semisweet smell of rotting wood, and somewhere close by an open midden.

  A couple of enquiries led him through the narrow, gray byways to Heneagle Street. He found the house of Isaac Karansky on the corner of Brick Lane, a busy thoroughfare leading past the towering mass of the sugar factory down to the Whitechapel Road. He knocked on the door. Nothing happened, and he knocked again.

  It was opened by a man who appeared to be in his late fifties. His countenance was dark, very obviously Semitic, and his black hair was liberally flecked with gray. There were both gentleness and intelligence in his eyes as he regarded Pitt, but circumstances had taught him to be cautious.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Karansky?” Pitt asked.

  “Yes ...” His voice was deep, slightly accented, and very wary of intrusion.

  “My name is Thomas Pitt. I am new to the area, and looking for lodging. A friend of mine suggested you might have a room to let.”

  “What was your friend’s name, Mr. Pitt?”

  “Narraway.”

  “Good, good. We have one room. Please come in and see if it will suit you. It’s small, but clean. My wife is very particular.” He stood back to allow Pitt to pass him. The hall was narrow and the stairs were no more than a couple of yards from the door. It was all dark, and he imagined that in the winter it would be damp and bitterly cold, but it smelled clean, of some kind of polish, and ahead of him there was an aroma of herbs he was unused to. It was pleasant, a house where people led a family life, where a woman cooked, swept and did laundry, and was generally busy.

  “Up the stairs.” Karansky pointed ahead of them.

  Pitt obeyed, climbing slowly and hearing the creak with every step. At the top Karansky indicated a door and Pitt opened it. The room beyond was small with one window so grimed it was difficult to see what lay outside, but perhaps it was a sight better left to the imagina
tion. One could create one’s own dream.

  There was an iron bedstead, already made up with linen that looked clean and crisp. There seemed to be several blankets. A wooden dresser had half a dozen drawers with odd handles, and a ewer and basin on top. A small piece of mirror was attached to the wall. There was no cupboard, but there were two hooks on the door. A knotted rag rug lay on the floor beside the bed.

  “It will do very well,” Pitt accepted. Years fled away and it was as if he were a boy again on the estate, his father newly taken away by the police, he and his mother moved out of the gamekeeper’s cottage and into the servants’ quarters in the hall. They had counted themselves lucky then. Sir Matthew Desmond had taken them in. Most people would have turned them onto the street.

  Looking around this room, remembering poverty again, cold, fear, it was as if the intervening years had been only a dream and it was time to wake up and get on with the day, and reality. The smell was oddly familiar; there was no dust, just the bareness and the knowledge of how cold it would be, bare feet on the floor, frost on the window glass, cold water in the jug.

  Keppel Street seemed like something of the imagination. He would miss the physical comfort he had become used to. Immeasurably more than that, unbearably more, he would miss the warmth, the laughter and the love, the safety.

  “It will be two shillings a week,” Karansky said quietly from behind him. “One and sixpence more with food. You are welcome to join us at the dinner table if you wish.”

  Remembering what Narraway had said about Karansky’s position in the community, Pitt had no hesitation in accepting. “Thank you, that would be excellent.” He fished in his pocket and counted out the first week’s rent. As Narraway had said, he must find work of some sort, or he would arouse suspicion. “I am new in the area. Where is the best place to look for a job?”

  Karansky shrugged expressively, regret in his face. “There’s no best place. It’s a fight to survive. You look like you have a strong back. What are you prepared to do?”

  Pitt had not thought seriously about it until this moment. Only as he counted out the money for his rent did he realize that he would have to have a visible means of earning it or he would invite undue suspicion. It was many years since he had put in great physical effort. His work was hard on the feet sometimes, but mostly it was his mind he used, more especially since he had been in charge in Bow Street.

  “I’m not particular,” he answered. At least he was not close enough to the docks to have to heave coal or lift crates. “What about the sugar factory? I noticed it just along Brick Lane. Can smell it from here.”

  Karansky raised one black eyebrow. “Interested in that, are you?”

  “Interested? No. Just thought it might have a job offering. Sugar uses a lot of men, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh yes, hundreds,” Karansky agreed. “Every second family around here owes at least some of its living to one of them. Belongs to a man called Sissons. He has three of them, all around here. Two this side of the Whitechapel Road, one the other.”

  There was something in his expression which caught Pitt’s attention, a hesitation, a watchfulness.

  “Is it a good place to work?” Pitt asked, trying to sound completely casual.

  “Any work is good,” Karansky answered. “He pays fair enough. Hours are long and the work can be hard, but it’s enough to live on, if you are careful. It’s a lot better than starving, and there’s already enough around here that do that. But don’t set your heart on it, unless you know someone who can get you in.”

  “I don’t. Where else should I look?”

  Karansky blinked. “You’re not going to try for it?”

  “I’ll try. But you said not to count on it.”

  There was a movement on the landing beyond the door, and Karansky turned. Pitt saw past him where a handsome woman stood just behind. She must have been almost Karansky’s age, but her hair was still thick and dark although her face was lined with weariness and anxiety and her eyes held a haunted look, as if fear were a constant companion. Nevertheless her features were beautifully proportioned, and there was a dignity in her that experience had refined rather than destroyed.

  “Is the room right for you?” she asked tentatively.

  “It is good, Leah,” Karansky assured her. “Mr. Pitt will stay with us. He will look for a job tomorrow.”

  “Saul needs help,” she said, looking past her husband to Pitt. “Can you lift and carry? It is not hard.”

  “He was asking about the sugar factory,” Karansky told her. “Perhaps he would rather be there.”

  She looked surprised, worried, as if Karansky had done something which disappointed her. She frowned. “Wouldn’t Saul’s be better?” Her expression indicated that she meant far more than the simple words, and she expected him to understand.

  Karansky shrugged. “You can try both, if you want.”

  “You said I wouldn’t get anything at the sugar factory unless I knew someone,” Pitt reminded him.

  Karansky gazed back in silence for several seconds, as if trying to decide how much of what he had said was honest, and the truth of it eluded him.

  It was Mrs. Karansky who broke the silence.

  “The sugar factory is not a good place, Mr. Pitt. Saul won’t pay as much, but it’s a better place to work, believe me.”

  Pitt tried to balance in his mind the advantages of safety and the appearance of ordinary common sense against the loss of opportunity to discover what was so dangerous about the sugar factories which supported half the community, either directly or indirectly.

  “What does Saul do?” he asked.

  “Weave silk,” Karansky answered.

  Pitt had a strong feeling that Karansky expected him to be interested in the sugar factory, to go for that job in spite of any warning. He remembered Narraway’s words about trust.

  “Then I think I’ll go to see him tomorrow, and if I’m lucky, he may give me some work,” he replied. “Anything will be better than nothing, even a few days.”

  Mrs. Karansky smiled. “I’ll tell him. He’s a good friend. He’ll find a place for you. May not be much, but it’s as certain as anything is in this life. Now you must be hungry. We eat in an hour. Come, join us.”

  “Thank you,” Pitt accepted, remembering the smell from the kitchen and recoiling from the thought of going out again into the sour, gray streets with their smell of dirt and misery. “I will.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  It was not the first night on which Pitt had been away from home, but Charlotte felt a kind of loneliness that she had not experienced at other times, perhaps because now she had no idea when he would be back, or even if. When he was, it would be only temporary.

  She lay awake a long time, too angry to sleep. She tossed and turned, pulling the bedclothes with her until she had made a complete mess of them. Finally at about two o’clock she got up, stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets. Half an hour later she finally slept.

  She woke in broad daylight with a headache—and a determination to do something about the situation. It was not tolerable simply to endure it. It was completely unjust, firstly and mostly of course to Pitt, but also to the whole family.

  She dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Gracie sitting at the table. The scullery door was open and a shaft of sunlight fell across the scrubbed floor. The children had already gone to school. She was angry with herself for missing them, especially today.

  “Mornin’, ma’am.” Gracie stood up and went over to the kettle, which was singing on the hob. “I got fresh tea ready.” She poured it into the pot as she spoke and carried it back to the table, where there were two cups waiting. “Daniel and Jemima’s fine this mornin’, off wi’ no trouble, but I bin thinkin’. We gotta do summink about this. It in’t right.”

  “I agree,” Charlotte said instantly, sitting down opposite her and wishing the tea would brew more quickly.

  “Toast?” Gracie of
fered.

  “Not yet.” Charlotte shook her head very slightly. It still throbbed. “I was also thinking about it half the night, but I still don’t know what there is we can do. Mr. Pitt told me that Commander Cornwallis said it was for his own safety, as well as to keep him in a job of some sort. The people he’s upset would be happy to see him with nothing, and where they can reach him.” She did not want to put it into words, but she needed to explain. “They might have meant him to have an accident in the street, or something like that ...”

  Gracie was not shocked; perhaps she had seen too much death when she was growing up in the East End. There was nothing about poverty she had not known, even if some of it was receding into memory now. But she was angry, her thin, little face hardened and her lips drawn into a tight line.

  “All because ’e done ’is job right an’ got that Adinett ’anged? Wot der they want ’im ter do? Pretend like it in’t wrong ’e murdered Mr. Fetters? Or just act daft like ’e never realized wot ’appened?”

  “Yes. I think that’s exactly what they wanted,” Charlotte answered. “And I think not every doctor would have seen anything wrong. It was just their bad luck that Ibbs was quick enough to realize there was something odd, and it was Thomas he called.”

  “ ’Oo is this Adinett, anyway?” Gracie screwed up her brows. “An’ why does anyone want ’im ter get away wi’ murderin’ Mr. Fetters?”

  “He’s a member of the Inner Circle,” Charlotte said with a shiver. “Isn’t the tea ready yet?”

  Gracie looked at her shrewdly, probably guessing how she felt, and poured it anyway. It was a little weak but the fragrance of it was easing, even while it was still too hot to drink.

  “Does that mean they can get away wi’ murder, an’ nuffink is supposed ter ’appen to ’em?” Gracie was clenched up with anger.

  “Yes, unless perhaps someone either brave or reckless gets in the way. Then they get rid of him too.” Charlotte tried to sip the tea, but knew she would burn herself, and more milk would spoil it.

  “So wot are we goin’ ter do?” Gracie stared at her with wide, unflinching eyes. “We gotter prove ’e were right. We dunno ’oo’s in this circle, but we know there’s more o’ us than there is o’ them.” It was not a possibility to her that Pitt could have been mistaken. It was not even worth denying it.