“You’re O’Brian, aren’t you?” said Sebastian brusquely. “Luke O’Brian?”
The purchasing agent turned. He had light brown hair and hazel eyes that flashed with a lively intelligence. “That’s right. May I help you?”
“My name is Taylor.” Sebastian clasped the lapels of his corduroy coat and threw out his chest. “Simon Taylor. We’re looking into the death of Rose Fletcher.” He’d learned he never actually had to say he was from Bow Street; as long as he looked and acted the part, the assumption simply followed.
Sebastian watched as the guarded smile slid away from O’Brian’s face and his lips parted on a quick, silent intake of breath. “Dead? Rose is dead? You’re certain?”
“We believe she was one of the residents of the Magdalene House when it burned Monday night.”
O’Brian turned toward the canal, one hand coming up to cover his mouth, his eyes squeezing shut. He was either devastated or a very, very good actor. It was a moment before he managed to say, “You’re certain there’s no mistake?”
The smell of hot tar and dead fish pinched Sebastian’s nostrils. “We don’t think so. When was the last time you saw her?”
O’Brian shook his head, his face still half averted, his voice a torn whisper. “I don’t know. . . . Ten days ago, maybe. She didn’t tell me she was leaving Orchard Street. I just went there one day and they said she was gone.” He looked around suddenly. “You’re quite certain she was at the Magdalene House?”
“It’s difficult to know anything with these women, isn’t it? Did she ever tell you her real name?”
“No. She didn’t like to talk about her life . . . before.”
“She never told you anything?”
O’Brian fiddled thoughtfully with the fob at the end of his watch chain. It was of gold, Sebastian noticed, discreet but well-fashioned. The cuffs and collar of his shirt were carefully laundered, his cravat snowy-white. No black neckcloths for this agent. “Only that her mother was dead,” said O’Brian, staring out over the masts of the ships rocking at anchor off the docks. “From one or two things she let slip, I gathered the family lived in Northamptonshire. She may have had a couple of sisters—and a brother. I believe he was in the Army. But she didn’t like to talk about them.”
“Northamptonshire? Do you know why she left home?”
O’Brian shook his head. “No.”
“And you’ve no idea why she fled Orchard Street?”
“No. She knew how I felt about her. If she had trouble, why didn’t she come to me?”
Sebastian said, “You think her trouble was with Kane?”
O’Brian’s jaw hardened. “Maybe. More likely that bloody magistrate.”
“What magistrate?”
O’Brian’s nostrils flared on a quickly indrawn breath. “Sir William. The bastard knocked her around pretty bad a couple of times.”
“Ian Kane says he keeps rough customers away from his girls.”
“Usually.” O’Brian stared against the sun peeking out from behind a cloud to set the wind-ruffled surface of the water to sparkling and flashing. “But you can’t exactly keep a Bow Street magistrate away, now can you?”
“Bow Street? You mean Sir William Hadley?
O’Brian cast him a sideways glance, an unexpectedly hard smile curling his lips. “That’s right. Sir William Hadley himself. So what are you going to do about that? Hmmm, Mr. Bow Street Runner?”
Chapter 19
Since Bow Street Runners did not in general drive around London in their own carriages, Sebastian had arrived at the Isle of Dogs in a broken-down hackney driven by a gnarled old jarvey who refused to nudge his mule out of a slow trot. But Sebastian had better luck on the return journey, the hackney swaying along at a satisfying clip as they bounced over the bridge spanning the Limehouse Cut and swung into the long, straight stretch of the new Commercial Road.
It was only by chance that Sebastian glanced back in time to glimpse the dark-coated man astride a raw-boned gray trotting along behind them. Sebastian had noticed the man before, lounging in the door of a coffeehouse near the wharf.
It could be a coincidence, of course. Anyone wishing to return to London from the West India Company docks would inevitably travel this same route. Leaning forward, Sebastian spoke to the driver. “Turn left here. Just wind your way down toward the river.”
“Aye, gov’nor,” said the jarvey in surprise.
They swung into a narrow lane bordered on one side by an open field, on the other by a long row of new houses. This was a part of the city that was expanding rapidly, transformed by the massive new construction of docks and warehouses that had accompanied the war. They ran past the long rope walks of Sun Tavern Fields and, beyond that, the spicy fragrance of a cooperage and the blasting heat of a foundry.
The dark-coated man on the raw-boned gray kept pace behind them.
“Where now, gov’nor?” called the jarvey.
“Pull up at that tavern halfway down the lane.”
The tavern was a new two-story brick structure with twin bay windows. As Sebastian paid off the jarvey, the dark-coated man trotted past, then reined in at the base of the hill overlooking the quay and the warehouses that bordered it.
Sebastian entered the tavern and ordered a glass of daffy. The tavern was crowded with dockers and day laborers who filled the small public room with their voices and the smoke of their pipes and the pungent scent of their hardworking, unwashed bodies. Gin in hand, Sebastian took a seat at an empty table near one of the windows overlooking the street.
At the mouth of an alley directly opposite the tavern stood Dark Coat. As Sebastian watched, he lit a white clay pipe, the blue smoke wafting about his face as he drew hard on the stem. He looked to be in his early thirties, a medium-sized man with a crooked nose and a powerful jaw shaded blue by a day’s growth of beard. He sucked on his pipe, one shoulder propped against the brick wall of the shop beside him, his eyes narrowed against the smoke and the inevitable reek of the alley.
Sebastian set his drink on the table untasted and walked out of the tavern. He had to check for a moment and wait while a dray piled high with coal rumbled past. Then he stepped off the footpath into the churned mud of the unpaved lane. Dark Coat turned his head away, his attention seemingly all for the forest of masts that filled this part of the Thames.
Sebastian planted himself directly in the man’s line of vision. “Who set you to follow me?”
The man’s eyes widened, but he otherwise managed to keep his face admirably blank as he pushed away from the wall. “I don’t know what the bloody hell yer talkin’ about.”
Experience had taught Sebastian to watch a man’s hands. He saw the flash of the knife the instant before it slashed up toward his face. Flinging up his left fist, Sebastian knocked the man’s forearm with his own in a sweeping block as he took a quick step backward.