Corpse Thief Read online

  “Why did you not summon me immediately?” Szekely was saying.

  Hawke straightened. “I keep a gin bottle stashed beneath the boards,” he answered truthfully. “It was the first thing I thought to do.”

  “You are truly pathetic, Sólyom,” Szekely said.

  “I do not deny it.”

  Szekely leaned in. “Look me in the eye. Did you kill Lucas?”

  “No. I came home, found him. I did not know what to do. In the end, I chose to drink it away.”

  “He lies,” Goaty said.

  The Hungarian ignored his mastiff-mangled acolyte, glancing instead at the man who led the gang in Szekely’s name. “Blackbird?”

  Blackbird shrugged those powerful shoulders. “What does it matter? We’ve all done worse.”

  “It matters,” Szekely replied, “because good workers are hard to come by.” He looked back at Hawke. “Let us say I believe you, Sólyom. Would that please?”

  Hawke nodded vigorously, relief flooding his body like laudanum. He had seen, and done, enough bad things in his life to know that men were wicked, but this man, this pallid, slightly built and softly spoken figure transcended such simplicity. For all his urbane manners, he was terror incarnate. “It would, Mister Szekely, that it would.”

  Szekely sighed heavily, standing straight. “You are a sot. A husk of a man.”

  “I know it.”

  “But you are clever, I think. I know you can read and write, which is more than most, and you speak well. But there is something else behind that gaze.” Szekely cocked his head to the side, examining Hawke as a hawk might examine a sparrow. “A wit within. Once sharp, now dull, but not yet blunt. If you did not kill Lucas, I would be glad to know who did.” He replaced his hat, and said, “There; your opportunity.”

  “Opportunity?” Hawke echoed, baffled.

  “Find the culprit,” Szekely replied as though it were obvious.

  “If it ain’t Hawke,” Blackbird spoke now, “then it’s the Giltspur Boys.”

  The Hungarian nodded thoughtfully. “Aye, you are probably right. And perhaps that is precisely what Sólyom will discover. I should like to know for sure.”

  Blackbird seemed perturbed. “I will discover the truth of it, Colan.”

  “No, my friend, you will not,” Szekely said. “Subtlety is required here, not brute force. I would avoid a war with the Giltspurs if possible. You are a cudgel. Our associate, here, might just prove himself the scalpel I need.” When Blackbird’s proud chin essayed a reluctant nod, Szekely eyed Hawke. “You know our world and the folk within it, yet you do not cut so distinct a figure as we. Move among the shadows, vanish therein. Turn over a few rocks. See what crawls out.”

  “I will, Mister Szekely,” Hawke said, for he had no other choice. “Which den do the Giltspur Boys frequent?”

  “The Bell, at Smithfield.”

  That final word resonated in Hawke’s mind like the toll of a gong. He found himself in the Dog & Bull, staring into the laconic gaze of George Ruthven. What had he said about the dead girl? He knew the matter was a risk to pursue, but nor would he again be afforded so ripe an opportunity. He said, as lightly as possible, “Funny. They were talking of it in the tap-house.”

  “Talking of The Bell?” Blackbird said.

  Hawke shook his head. “Smithfield.”

  “Oh?” prompted Szekely.

  “Something Milne,” Hawke went on. “A butcher.”

  “Boris, aye,” Szekely said. “What of him?”

  Hawke met his eye levelly. “His daughter was killed.”

  “You heard this in the tavern?”

  Hawke nodded. “Gossip only. But it sounded bad. Murdered, they were saying.”

  “Boris Milne is a known man,” Szekely said slowly, evidently running the implication through his mind as he spoke.

  “Runs protection rackets,” Blackbird elaborated. “A fearsome cove.”

  “I had not heard tell of his girl’s demise,” Szekely said. He laughed briefly, grimly. “Jesus, but I would not like to be in the perpetrator’s shoes.”

  The others laughed too, though a vein of anxiety seemed to subdue the sound. They were scared of Butcher Milne. With good cause, Hawke thought, though they were ignorant to it. If Ruthven spoke true, the man blamed London’s network of grave robbers for the death. He glanced back at Lucas’s broken body. Perhaps Milne had already exacted revenge. But how could he articulate his concern to Szekely? It was all too tenuous for a half-heard rumour in a nameless drinking den, and he could hardly disclose his real source. “The Bell?” he repeated the name of the tavern he would visit.

  “The Bell,” Blackbird repeated the name irritably, “you dullard.”

  Hawke mouthed the word a couple more times, making a show of committing it to memory. “I do not know the area well.”

  Colan Szekely was already walking towards the door. He looked back briefly. “That is why you will take Corissa.”

  Θ

  The man and woman moved with one mind, darting through the alleys like shoaling fish, silently, instinctively, inseparable. To anyone who cared notice, they were a couple, lovers, linked by hand and intent on an evening of shared company, the rest of the world an irrelevance to be blotted out. They ignored the calls of the meat vendors as the last of Smithfield’s myriad stalls were packed away in the rimy dusk. They leapt an offal-clogged gutter that was already skeined in new frost, skirted a cluttered repository for empty barrows, and moved swiftly between tables upturned in preparation for folding. The butchers bellowed to one another, smeared pink hands on crimson aprons, wiped cleavers and packed away blades of every length and severity. Kites, gulls and crows circled above, biding their time for the feast of fleshy scraps over which they would do battle with a legion of rodents. The district lamplighter tramped over the cobbles nearby, heading for the lamp that stood on sentry duty at the centre of the market, while smaller lights illuminated many of the shadowy tributaries that funnelled London’s population in and out of the area.

  The man and woman took one such path, scuttling quickly so as not to tarry in the dangerous gloom. The city was as alive at night as it was by day, but the creatures abroad were a different breed all together. It was wise never to linger. At the end of the alleyway, where the buildings on either side gave way to a courtyard that was littered with animal dung, the couple came to a halt by a low door, above which creaked a hinged sign. It was daubed with a rough picture of a golden bell. The man, wrapped from chin to knees in a long greatcoat, shoved it open, propping it with a booted foot for his companion to cross the threshold. He doffed a silk top hat, the dents on the crown betraying hard use. She looked back as she stepped into the murky interior, pulling the blue shawl from her head to reveal a complexion that was exotically tanned, like creamy cinnamon, the mingling of Europe and the Orient. She winked coquettishly, her eyes large and almond-shaped. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  Joshua Hawke followed her to a sticky table pushed hard against one of the tavern’s tobacco stained walls. “What’ll it be, Miss Lott?”

  Corissa Lott licked lips that were plump and dark. “Gin?”

  Hawke found himself transfixed on her glistening mouth as he waved a hand to summon service. “Gin, twice,” he said, sensing the pot-girl’s arrival but not looking round. When the rustle of skirts faded to nothing, he leaned in a touch. “What now?”

  “We wait and watch,” Corissa said, her sharp local accent a stark contrast with Hawke’s. She took a moment to arrange the curls at her ears, making sure the rest of her long, coal-black hair remained pinned in its chignon knot at the nape of her neck. “The Giltspurs are hard to miss. Irish stock. All red heads and mad eyes.” She made a theatrical shiver, though she was wrapped snuggly enough within a fur-lined pelisse coat that stretched all the way to her ankles. “Cold out there.”

  Hawke would have leapt over the table there and then if he thought his warming embrace would be remotely welcome. But she was a trifler, he thought. A game-p
layer. She had always been kind to him, a little too friendly, given her relationship with Colan Szekely, and he half suspected her duty was to weed out those with the temerity to chance their arm with their employer’s woman. Szekely valued loyalty almost as highly as he valued discretion, and it was probably good policy to test prospective newcomers to his organisation with the sweetest bait imaginable. Consequently, Hawke had to make do with staring at Corissa Lott from afar, and stare he most certainly did. She was a natural wonder, as far as he was concerned, a radiant flower that had somehow bloomed in this most barren, corrupt soil.

  “You’re a strange one, Joshua Hawke,” Corissa said, the intense light from a newly stoked hearth dancing across eyes that were like nuggets of polished obsidian.

  “Oh?”

  Corissa waited a second as the serving girl appeared, taking the moment to pluck free her gloves. Two cloudy looking glasses full of gin were set down, and she clasped one with delicate fingers, wincing as she sipped. “Goaty don’t like you,” she said as the girl vanished. “Harlowe neither. They reckon you’re stuck up your own arse.”

  “Kind of them,” Hawke said, putting his own glass to his lips.

  She chuckled, sipped. “On account of your voice, see?”

  Hawke swilled the gin round his mouth, letting it blaze at his decaying gums. “My voice is different,” he said when he had swallowed the welcome fire down, “because I am from the north.”

  She shook her head. “Plenty from the north hereabouts, and from a sight further off than that. Not so many with good schooling.” She looked him straight in the eyes, spearing him. “Colan thinks you’re hiding something.”

  He swallowed hard, though there was no drink this time. ”He said that?”

  “Didn’t ‘ave to. I can tell in his eyes.”

  “And what do you think?”

  The corners of Corissa’s mouth upturned a fraction and she wrinkled her small, slightly squashed nose. “I ain’t made up my mind yet.” She had thick eyebrows that shifted together as she frowned, examining him. “You’re skinny as a runt, pale as a ghost and you shake like a shitting whippet.”

  “Please, Corissa, compliments make me uncomfortable,” Hawke joked, though the brutally truthful assessment cut him to the quick.

  She laughed. Little dimples excavated her cheeks, transporting her instantly from mid-twenties to late teens. “I was going to say that, in spite of it all, you make me curious. You walk too straight, your eyes are too busy, and you ain’t stupid. It’s like there’s a man - a real man - trapped inside that scrawny body, just waiting to leap out.” Her eyes narrowed suddenly, as if she hoped to penetrate his very soul. “Or maybe it’s hiding.”

  If he had hitherto wished she knew there were hidden depths to Joshua Hawke, he now prayed that she was guessing. “Your head’s full of bees, girl,” he blurted, almost too quickly.

  She pushed a glossy black ringlet away from her left eye, her gaze roaming over his face. “Maybe. Colan’s ain’t, though.”

  That was true enough, Hawke thought. The leader of one of the most powerful crime syndicates north of the river had come, so legend told, from almost nothing. He was self-taught and self-made, ambition, wit and a propensity for violence serving as triple engines that drove him out of the gutter in a rise that was as rapid as it was stellar. If Szekely was frightening for his ruthlessness, he was formidable for his intellect.

  “How many gangs does he run now?” Hawke asked, desperate to deflect Corissa’s attention from his own provenance. “Four?”

  “Double it!” she corrected him, pride invigorating her tone. “Not all sack-’em-uppers, mind. Pickpockets, house breakers, fences. Owns the whole o’ Bloomsbury and St Giles. Now he’s looking south. Latest was Uriah Todd’s operation down at Blackfriars.”

  Hawke fell silent as he sketched a rudimentary map of the area in his head. “Giltspur Street’s not so far removed from there. That’s what’s riled them?”

  She nodded. “Old Uriah owed Colan money. They say he paid up eventually, but only after Colan had deprived him of his bollocks.”

  “What became of him?”

  “Bled out, tied to a tree outside St Andrew by the Wardrobe.”

  “Christ,” Hawke muttered, quaffing the rest of his drink in a single breath. He wondered what horrors would be reserved for him should his own secrets ever come to light.

  “Colan had bought off or killed Todd’s lads before the corpse was cold,” Corissa went on.

  “And before the Giltspur Boys could move in.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Corissa said. “Blackfriars should’ve been theirs for the taking, or so they claim.”

  So that explained Blackbird’s accusation against the Giltspur Boys. Hawke said, “Szekely has a goodly number of men in his employ now.”

  “And women,” she chided.

  “And women,” Hawke repeated. But you are more than Szekely’s employee, he thought jealously. “It is an empire, of sorts.”

  She shrugged. “He’s ambitious. Wants to rule London’s dark heart.”

  “There are many who would stop him,” Hawke ventured. “Bow Street and the like.”

  Her laugh was mocking. “He don’t give a stoat’s cock for the Runners, Joshua, you knows that. The law does not work for the little man. For the poorest of the poor.” Her nose wrinkled in a sneer of pure malevolence. “The authorities despise the common folk. Would be rid of us all if they could. You’re from up north. You must have heard what they did to that crowd at...” she clicked her fingers, “where was it?”

  “I cannot think,” Hawke said quickly. “Does Szekely not fear rival gangs, then?” he prompted, hauling the conversation firmly back to the south of the country. “Not just the Giltspurs. The city is overrun.”

  The ghost of concern shifted across her delicate features. “Don’t ever air your misgivings to his face, Joshua. I once saw him skin a fella for lack of faith. He may be small but he’s deadly.”

  “I have seen him with a blade. He is quick.”

  “Quick? That ain’t the half of it. He is cruel. He will go further, cause more pain, more suffering, than his enemies. There are plenty o’ bad apples in London town,” she warned quietly, “but Colan Szekely is more rotten than all the rest.”

  A fact you rather like, Hawke thought bitterly. He supposed he could hardly blame her. Not because she was Szekely’s woman, but because she had come from the same unlikely place. Szekely’s rise had dragged his associates out of the slums on his coat tails. Corissa Lott was one of those who had clung on tightest.

  The door swung suddenly open at Hawke’s back. The flames in the nearby hearth reared madly in response. He could not see who entered, but read all he needed in Corissa’s face. She immediately seemed to sink in her chair, dipping her head and reaching out across the table to take Hawke’s hands in her own. Lovers again; he wished it was no charade.

  “Giltspurs,” Corissa whispered. “Four of them. Drinking small beer.”

  “Must be on a job later,” Hawke said.

  “Or they’ve murder in mind,” she replied, raising her soot-black brow questioningly.

  “One way to find out.”

  The door opened again, another gust of chill night air blasting the nape of Hawke’s neck. This time he turned, a matter of instinct, to be greeted by the sight of a huge man. He must have been at least six and a half feet tall, and as wide, all the way from shoulders to waist, as the doorway through which he now stooped. He was alone, but seemed undaunted by the gazes that fell upon him, striding confidently into the room. Hawke knew that he and Corissa were supposed to keep their presence concealed, but he could not help but twist as the big man sidled past, unable to wrest his gaze from so dominating a figure.

  A voice whispered close to his ear. “Boris Milne.”

  Hawke stared at Corissa, startled by her sudden appearance on the bench at his side. “The butcher?”

  She nodded, sliding up against him so that their legs tou
ched. He caught her scent, gentle lavender, as she slipped a hand between his thighs. “You know him?”

  The girl was doing nothing but her duty, merely maintaining the pretence of courtship to discourage second glances, but that did not stop Hawke from feeling himself stiffen at her touch. He swallowed thickly. “Szekely mentioned him before.”

  They watched Milne as he reached the bar, turning back to face the room as he did so. He slowly rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms like shoulders of ham. His hands, Hawke noticed, were stained red, and there was a large cleaver thrust into a belt at his hip. He was bathed fully in the light from the tavern’s half-dozen oil lamps now, and for the first time Hawke could discern his features. Milne’s face was wide and round, framed by thick side whiskers, his complexion pock-pitted and his eyes narrow. He had a high forehead, with copper-coloured hair that was cropped short in wiry curls, save a bald patch at his left temple where an old wound had slashed the skin barren. That same injury had accounted for the bottom half of his left ear, a ragged patch of scar tissue all that remained of the lobe. Hawke knew the type; the ascendant male in any pack. He had encountered and subdued plenty in his old life. With a pang of shame, he realised the Smithfield butcher could snap the new incarnation of Joshua Hawke like a dessicated twig. He stared at his boots as Milne cleared a grinding throat.