Chapter 16
Sixteen
brODIE
He found Hodges Transport easily enough, not far from Waterloo Station.
It was a small operation compared to more well-known companies with wagons and vans that crisscrossed London daily.
A faded sign hung over the entrance to what passed for an office. There was a side yard across an alley, with two wagons and the horses that pulled them.
A lanky lad closed the gate behind him and crossed the alley to that small office.
A woman behind the counter looked up as he entered the office that was in fact no more than a counter with a coal stove in one corner and a doorway at the back, no doubt to a storeroom or possibly a room where the owner lived.
“We made the last run of the day if yer here about a shipment,” the woman told him, with a weariness that was familiar in the streets of the East End.
“I can set somethin’ up for first thing in the mornin’, if it suits you.” There was a long look.
“If it’s work yer after,” she continued, “I could use a man, with me husband laid up with the rheumatism and only Gilley here to pick up the extra work.”
Brodie shook his head. “I’m here about a shipment picked up last night from the rail station. Yer company name was shown on the papers, signed for by someone with the letters S.T.”
“S.T.?” the lad replied.
He was tall but thin, no more than fourteen or fifteen years by the scattering of chin hairs. Already a man with a man’s responsibilities, Brodie thought.
“That be Sam Turner,” Gilley added.
The woman made a disgusted sound. “And now no doubt layin’ somewhere drunk, the reason I’m short a driver. What’s yer interest in the shipment?” she asked.
“It’s gone missin’.” Closer to the truth than not. “And the man I work for sent me. If ye can help with information where it was delivered …” Brodie took out a coin and placed it on the counter.
The woman looked at him with suspicion, snatched up the coin and dropped it into a drawer behind the counter.
“It wasn’t on the log,” she explained. “I didn’t know about it until this mornin’. Gilley here sleeps in the harness shed. He heard Sam take off with a wagon after his last run last night and not a word about it.
“He found the wagon and the team in the yard this mornin’, but no sign of Sam, and good riddance, I say. I need a driver I can rely on.”
She eyed him sharply. “Are ye sure you don’t need some extra work? Or might know someone who does?”
Brodie shook his head. “Do ye know where Sam might be? Where he lives?”
She shook her head. “He mentioned a woman he kept company with once, but never said where. Lately he took to the shed with Gilley. I got the feelin’ there weren’t no woman. Not that it’s any surprise. He gets his pay and he’s into the drink.
“Not something a woman would put up with, if you know what I mean,” she added, “You certain you couldn’t use some work? You look fit enough.”
“What about you?” he asked Gilley. “Some place he might have mentioned where he might go of an evenin’?”
He saw way the lad’s expression changed, the glance that slid to the woman. Gilley shook his head.
There was something there, but it was obvious the lad wouldn’t say.
“I thank ye,” he told the woman.
He gave Gilley a long look, tipped his cap, and left the freight office.
The lad caught up with him on the street.
“I didn’t want to say nothin’ in front of Mrs. Hodge,” Gilley explained. “She goes hard on Sam and he needs the work when he’s not in the drink.”
“Do ye know where I might find him?”
Gilley nodded. “You might try the Hole in the Wall tavern. It’s just over the way under the tracks where the trains make the turn-about. I’ve brought him back from there often enough.”
He thanked Gilley and handed him a coin. He refused at first.
“I like Sam. He’s been good to me, showin’ me the way with the horse team and how to make me way around the other haulers that would like to put Mrs. Hodge out of business.”
“Ye take it,” Brodie insisted.
“I thank you kindly,” Gilley told him. “With what I make haulin’ freight ... well, I appreciate it. Not that you would understand.”
“More than ye know,” Brodie told him.
Gilley tipped his cap and turned back to that small building tucked back from the street.
Brodie followed the lad’s instructions and found the tavern with the rumble of railcars passing overhead.
The Hole in the Wall was just that, a hole in a stone wall with a sign over and light in the windows, and the familiar sounds and smells of a tavern.
Inside, workers gathered at the tables, and two- and three-deep at the bar, as pints of ale were set down by the barman.
He made his way to the end of the bar and ordered a pint of ale.
“Sam Turner? A friend told me he could be found here.”
The barman gestured across the tavern to a table at a niche in the wall, as another train rumbled overhead and shook the wood floor underfoot.
“He’s been here since late last night, had a special job, he said. Still there this mornin’. Now he’s still here, not that I object when a man wants to spend his money.”
Brodie nodded and retrieved the mug of ale set before him. He made his way through the chaos of conversation, hoots of laughter, and more than a few curses, to that niche in the wall.
He pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “Sam Turner?”
The man stared at him. “Do I know you?”
Brodie set the mug on the table. Ale was not his first choice, and not on this night when he needed to keep his wits about him.
He eyed the man across from him. There were dozens of men just like him across the city, who worked in the factories, docks, and back of shops. And more often for just enough coin to purchase that next pint when they should have gone home to a family and paid the rent or the grocer for enough food to get through another day.
“Ye picked up a shipment late last night from the rail station.”
“Who told ye that?” Turner managed to reply.
“Gilley told me. He’s worrit about ye, said ye didn’t come in today.” Close enough to the truth, the lad was worried for the man.
“Ah, Gilley. He’s a good lad,” Turner replied as he waved a hand overhead, a signal for another pint.
A young girl appeared eventually, squeezing her way through the crowd of customers as another train rattled the mug she set on the table. Brodie paid for it. She smiled and disappeared back toward the bar.
“I can pay for me own drink,” Sam Turner said.
“That last run of the night from the station must have paid well.”
“Well enough,” Turner agreed.
“From Portsmouth, ye say.”
Not that Turner had said. But he wouldn’t know that in his condition.
The man took a drink and nodded. “I kept the wagon out late so Ms. Hodge wouldn’t know. She would have wanted the whole fee,” he explained with a wink at Brodie.
“Not that she deserved any of it, but I’ve a bit left over for Gilley. He’s a good lad.”
Brodie continued to play the part. “I’d sure like to find a job like that, even if it was for one night.”
Turner nodded over his mug. “The man never gave his name, jus’ said that he needed a driver.”
“Wot did he look like? A tall sort, an accent?” Brodie suggested. An associate of Duvalier’s perhaps?
Turner nodded. “An accent sure enough, one of them foreign sorts.” He laid a finger aside his nose.
“But I know how to handle ’em. He was a short, wiry fellow, stopped me at the gate when I came in after the last delivery of the evenin’. Said there was a good fee in it just to pick up a shipment that come in from Portsmouth at the rail station.” He patted the pocket of his worn jacket.
“Sure enough, ten pounds. I’d be lucky to see that much in a year.” Turner took another long drink of ale and smiled, no doubt at the thought of his newfound wealth that was rapidly disappearing in mugs of ale.
“Where were ye to deliver the shipment? Some company, a warehouse perhaps, for a fee like that?”
Sam Turner looked over at him through blood-shot eyes and grinned.
“That was the beauty of it, my friend. I had to deliver it to the river. For ten pounds!” He chuckled and almost went over.
“A dangerous place for certain,” Brodie replied as he righted the man once more in the chair.
“Fer some,” Turner shrugged. He grew serious.
“I wasn’t there long. There was a boat waiting at the landing just after the bridge.”
Brodie nodded as he made a mental note of what Turner was telling him.
“Must have been good-sized for a large cargo.”
Was it possible the man knew where it was bound? Something overheard?
Turner leaned closer with a gaping smile.
“True enough.” He took another drink and smiled. “Curious I was, who would pay that much for a delivery. I watched from the high street after I left. Wot sort of cargo was worth what the man paid me to deliver it, I asked meself. And how was one man lame at one leg to go about it?” He poked Brodie in the arm.
“There was others there, waitin’. They loaded the cargo on a boat and crossed the water easy enough. But only as far as the island.” He winked.
“I know because I saw the lantern when they made landing there.”
“An island? In the middle of the river?” Brodie made a scoffing sound as he continued to listen.
“There are several islands up the north where some of the rich people have places. But not this island.” Turner reached across the table for the mug of ale in front of Brodie.
“No sense lettin’ it get warm,” he said as he took a drink.
“Wot about the island?” Brodie asked, determined to get as much information as possible from him.
“It’s covered with trees and grass, and rock, you see.” The words slurred. “What ye can’t see is what’s left of an old stone tower, built a long time ago.”
Turner smiled again and nodded, his eyes closing as he swayed in the chair.
Brodie steadied him once more. Turner patted him on the shoulder.
“Tell Gilley ... I’ll be round in the mornin’,” he said as he slumped forward on the table and began to snore.
A man with a limp who paid Sam Turner ten pounds to deliver that shipment from Portsmouth. An island in the middle of the river that could only be reached by boat, and an old stone tower. The perfect place to hide a shipment of smuggled artifacts.
He tucked a gold crown in Sam Turner’s pocket, stopped the barmaid on his way out of the Hole in the Wall tavern, and gave her a half crown.
“See that he has food, and a place for the night.”
She stared after him as he left.
The railroad tracks rumbled overhead with the next train that made the turn around over the Hole in the Wall tavern as Brodie made his way toward the river.