The Atlantic Street Murder

Chapter One

Chapter OneLondon, December 1854

Whatever time of day and however many people crowded on board, London omnibuses always smelled of damp wool mingled with stale beer and sweat. Watters sat back in the uncomfortable seat, tipped his tall hat forward to conceal his eyes, tapped his cane on the floor, and surveyed the other passengers.

A fussy looking businessman hid behind his newspaper as if scared of meeting the eyes of the woman sitting opposite. She was an erect schoolmistress with a mouth like a closed gin-trap. There was a young clerk with a gilt-topped cane and a hole in his shoes; a shifty-looking woman whose face was a stranger to soap and water and whose hair sadly wanted brushing, and a strikingly handsome woman who looked out of place on the bus. Watters swivelled his eyes to watch the latter. He did not like enigmas. This woman dressed and sat like a gentlewoman yet lacked a gentlewoman's calm assurance. She had excellent eyes, Watters noticed absently, startlingly blue. Perhaps she merely had domestic worries. He shifted his gaze to the back of the bus where Detective Silver sat beside the stairs with a curl of dark hair escaping from his cloth cap and smoke trickling from the bowl of his pipe. The omnibus cad leaned out of the open back to check for potential passengers.

The omnibus eased to a stop. The businessman and shifty woman stepped off. A young woman in a grey cape stepped on, followed by a scarlet-coated sergeant, and then another young woman carrying a basket. The cad followed the soldier as he headed to the cheaper seats upstairs, while the two women entered the lower deck. Watters caught Silver's eye and gave a tiny nod.

The caped woman glanced around the bus with eyes as bright and predatory as any eagle, and then slid beside the gentlewoman, while the woman with the basket sat opposite, gave a broad smile, and began to talk.

'I'm sure I know your face. You and I have met before, haven't we?'

The gentlewoman shook her head as if she did not understand. When the first woman shifted slightly, the bottom of her cape slipped, seemingly accidentally, over the gentlewoman's lap. Watters caught Silver's eye again and touched the brim of his hat with two fingers. Silver removed his cap and tried to flatten his dark curls. The cad ran down the stairs and requested the fares as the bus rolled on.

'Well pet, you are so like a gal I know. I am sure we rode on this shillibeer together only last week.'

The gentlewoman smiled and shook her head. 'I have not ridden one before.' Her accent was foreign; French perhaps, Watters guessed. With this blasted Russian war bringing so many foreigners to London there was no telling what the woman was.

Watters barely saw the furtive movement, but he knew that the caped woman's hands were busy searching for loot. He knew the system: a pair of pickpockets boarded the bus and selected their victim, their gull. While one woman engaged the victim in conversation, the other slid her hand into his or her pocket to gather whatever she could. Watters allowed the caped woman a few moments to incriminate herself with substantial evidence before he moved in. He sighed; he had been sent to stop the spate of pickpocketing on the omnibuses, and after three days of travelling through the streets of London, he had the culprits or, more accurately, two of the culprits. In London this winter of 1854, there would be many more.

The woman with the basket leaned forward, holding the attention of the gentlewoman with her bright smile. 'Well pet, you are so like a gal I know, are you certain we have not met?'

'I am quite certain thank you.' The gentlewoman's attempt to shrink away was unsuccessful with the caped woman on one side and the impoverished clerk on the other.

'What the devil!' the driver shouted as the bus jerked to a sudden stop, ramming the passengers against each other. The cad staggered, swore, and put a hand on Silver for balance. Silver's pipe clattered to the floor and slithered along the centre of the bus until it came to a halt at the caped woman's left boot.

Watters glanced out the window and saw a group of laughing street Arabs cartwheeling across the road in front of the traffic as the smallest and most ragged held out a cap, more in hope than expectation.

'Come on sirs, we are starving, and it's nearly Christmas.' The young voice was clear above the muted curses of the driver.

The cad leaned outside and gave the urchins a mouthful of invective that bounced off their slum-hardened ears like hail from a plate glass window. One paused to stick out his tongue while the beggar tried again.

'Spare a penny for starving boys?' His voice was midway between a whine and a threat. A ragged man on the pavement plucked a farthing from his pocket and tossed it into the boy's cap.

'Get up there!' The driver flicked his reins, so his horses began to pull again, hauling the omnibus on its strictly timed route.

The caped woman stood up and straightened her clothing, 'I do apologise. I was thrown all over the place by that wretched driver.' She patted herself down.

Watters caught Silver's eye and nodded. Silver retrieved his pipe, tapped the glowing embers onto the floor and casually stood on them.

The caped woman began to move toward the exit at the rear of the bus, to find Silver blocking her path. 'Excuse me please, sir; I have to get off at the next stop.'

'We'll come with you,' Watters put his left hand on her shoulder, 'and your companion in theft will be accompanying us.'

The caped woman tried to shake herself free from Watters's grasp. 'I'm sure I don't know what you mean, sir.' Her voice had a similar mixed tone of whine and threat to that the juvenile beggars used. 'Who do you think you are to manhandle me?'

'I am Sergeant George Watters of Scotland Yard, and this is Detective William Silver.' Watters rapped his cane on the pickpocket's arm. 'Come along now.'

Immediately Silver took hold of the basket-woman, the omnibus again jerked to a stop. There was a loud curse from above, and the army sergeant tumbled down the stairs. As Silver moved instinctively to catch him, the caped woman suddenly pushed Watters and leapt off the bus.

'Here! Stop that woman!' Watters looked around. Oxford Street was a shifting mass of people, easy for the pickpocket to hide in. Swearing, Watters staggered as the omnibus pulled sharply into the flow of traffic. A hansom cab braked suddenly, and the driver of a brougham cracked his whip in frustration as the 'bus crossed his path. Watters saw a brief swirl of a grey cloak disappearing behind a woman with a large crinoline.

'You secure the other one, Silver,' he shouted, 'and get the victim's details.'

Without waiting for a response, he leapt from the omnibus and followed the grey cloak. 'Police! Stop that woman!'

A multitude of faces confronted him. Faces smiling, faces laughing, faces pinched with the cold, well-fed middle-class faces, unconcerned faces, red faces, plump faces, bespectacled faces, faced festooned with ribbons, faces gaunt with hardship but no faces that tried to help. Watters pushed a stout man aside and plunged on, grabbed at the fold of a grey cloak, missed, staggered as a large matron banged against him, and shouted again.

'Police! Stop thief!'

For a moment, Watters lost the grey-cloaked woman in the press of bodies, and then he saw her reflection in one of the windows. The plate-glass superimposed her image upon an array of silks and satins such as she would never be able to afford in her lifetime, and he felt an impromptu twist of sorrow that poverty should coexist with useless indulgence. However, the woman was a thief, and he had his duty to perform. Lunging forward, Watters swore as a nanny pushed a perambulator into his path; she threw him a look that should have killed him where he stood and rammed the clumsy machine over his left foot.

Watters winced, roared 'Stop, thief!' and pointed to the cloaked woman.

One man in a light-coloured top hat looked around at the fleeing woman and then averted his eyes and walked on, ignoring Watters as if he was not there.

The pickpocket did not turn around. Instead, she dashed across the road, jinking through the traffic to disappear behind a corpulent man carrying a parcel. Watters followed, swore as a passing brougham sprayed him with mud, and barged into the crowd.

A woman in a long coat squealed and dropped a pile of gaily wrapped parcels. Watters hesitated for only a second, grabbed hold of his hat that threatened to go the way of the packages and pushed on. The woman in the grey cloak had pulled ahead and now broke into a run, knocked down a child, and kept moving. The street Arabs were following, screeching with excitement until the woman turned around.

'That man there!' She pointed to Watters. 'He's a peeler come to lock you up. Stop him!'

'Stop, thief!' Watters yelled.

'Stop peeler!' one of the urchins parodied his words, with the rest echoing his words.

'Stop peeler! Stop peeler!'

They formed a solid mass in his path, dodging this way and that to slow him down. Watters roared at them to get out of the way, staggered as the tallest one tripped him, jumped over another attempted trip, swiped his cane at an imprudent backside, grunted with satisfaction at the resulting squeal, lengthened his stride and powered through the crowd.

Watters was so intent on following the pickpocket that he did not take notice of his surroundings until he realised he had passed through Holborn, Chancery Lane, and Fleet Street and was inside the rookery of Seven Dials. He was out of the brightly lit streets of prosperous London and running along a lane of crumbling brick houses with sagging roofs and blank-eyed windows that accused the world of bitter cruelty. The buildings on both sides of the passageway inclined forward so women leaning out of the windows could nearly shake hands with those opposite, while gaunt-faced girls with the eyes of old women pulled shawls over their heads and stared at Watters as he pounded past.

'It's a bloody peeler.' A woman stopped knitting to point wooden needles at him. 'I know that smell.'

Somebody from an upper window dropped a stoneware jar that shattered into a hundred pieces a yard behind Watters. He looked up and saw only a flapping washing line with patched linens side by side with stained woollen underwear.

'Stop that woman!' he shouted again, knowing that in this location, nobody would come to his aid.

'Murder!' The pickpocket gave a high-pitched scream. 'Help!'

In such a street, most of the inhabitants would watch a crime with either no concern or a professional interest in the criminal's technique. However, with the words following so close after the revelation that there was a peeler present, people rushed to block Watters from his quarry.

'Where are you going, bluebottle bastard?' The speaker was short, stout, and cocky with the shoulders of a stevedore.

'Police. Get out of my way.' Watters's attempt to push him aside was like blowing on a granite mountain.

'That's him, Joey. Kill him!' The pickpocket had stopped running and pushed to the front of the crowd that was forming around Watters. She smiled to him, 'not so brave now, are you, peeler?'

As Joey stepped closer and spread his arms, Watters feinted at his eyes and kicked evilly upward into his groin. When Joey crumpled in agony, Watters smashed a fist into his jaw.

'I am Sergeant Watters of the Yard,' he shouted, 'and you,' he grabbed at the pickpocket, 'are under arrest.'

The crowd which she had whistled up now proved the pickpocket's undoing as she could not run through the press. Watters's hand closed on the collar of her cloak. 'Come on you.'

'Don't let him take me!' the pickpocket screamed. 'Murder!'

Watters jerked back his head as her nails raked the air quarter of an inch from his eyes. He dragged her away, pushing through the mob.

'Let her be, peeler!' A tall female pushed to the front of the crowd. 'Go on, boys, get him!' Her accent was pure Cockney, but her face and hair would not have been out of place in Connacht.

Angry faces glared at him, men shouting threats, waving fists or cudgels. A woman thrust a poker at Watters's groin, and a gang of bare-foot boys screeched their hatred of the police.

'Move aside there!' Watters hauled his prisoner onward, swinging his cane to try and clear a path.

'Yes, let her be, you blue-devil bastard.' A group of men pushed in front of him. The yellow patch on the left elbow of the tallest contrasted with the stained brown flannel jacket while the knees of his burly companion showed through ragged tears. The third carried a flat-iron as a weapon and wore a battered billycock hat with a broken seagull feather in the band. Despite the cudgel that swung from the hand of the fourth, Watters knew that Billycock was the most dangerous.

'I am Sergeant Watters of Scotland Yard!' Watters swore as the pickpocket twisted in his grip and tried to bite his arm. 'Keep still you!' he growled and reversed his cane, so the lead-weighted handle hung down from his left hand.

Billycock shook his head. 'We don't care a damn for the police, bluebottle bastard.' He glanced at Watters's cane and gave a gap-toothed grin. 'That don't scare me neither, Sergeant, I'm handy enough with my mauleys not to need a twig like that.'

'Save me, boys! Kill the peeler!' The pickpocket's heels caught Watters on the shin. He gasped and slackened his grip. She slipped to the ground at his feet. 'Let me go, peeler, please, sir. I ain't done nothing wrong!'

Stooping, Watters hauled her to her feet by her hair. 'Come on you!' He stepped forward, dragging her behind him and swinging his cane in a hissing arc. 'Clear out of my way!'

The man with the cudgel leered and swung wildly. Watters sidestepped, thrust the end of his cane into the man's throat and crashed the lead-weighted end onto the side of his head, sending him staggering. The cudgel clattered to the cobbles.

Billycock lifted his flat iron and gave a sudden kick; Watters swung his prisoner round, so Billycock's boot thudded into her leg. She shrieked, 'leave it out,' as Billycock assumed a prize fighter's crouch.

'Come on then, Peeler.'

Without hesitation, Watters shoved the pickpocket toward Billycock, yanked her back the second they came in contact and swung his cane to the side of the man's jaw. The pickpocket squealed, but her flurry of skirts and waving arms distracted Billycock long enough for Watters to land a second blow on his left hand. The crack of breaking knuckles was audible even above the pickpocket's high-pitched screams.

As Billycock winced and doubled up to cradle his injured hand, Watters saw a slight gap in the circle of spectators and barged in, dragging the pickpocket by her hair and slashing left and right with the supple end of his cane.

'Move aside there! Make way for Scotland Yard!'

People cringed or pulled aside from the cane as Watters pushed on, dragging the struggling pickpocket behind him. Bottles and broken bricks battered down from the upper windows, endangering the crowd as much as Watters.

'Out of my way!' Watters slashed at the arms of a thin-faced virago, twisted his hand tighter in the pickpocket's hair, flinched as a woman's sharp-toed boot thudded into the side of his leg, and hauled onward until the volley of missiles ended. The five men who blocked his path were broader, taller, and better dressed than their compatriots. One wore a broadcloth suit, with his stovepipe hat tipped back on his head. They were smiling as they waited, with Broadcloth at the rear and the largest in front.

Watters knew that the odds against him had lengthened; these were professional bullies rather than gutter scruffs wasted by drink and weakened by poverty. He tightened his grip on the pickpocket's hair and balanced his cane.

'Right, you bracket-faced bugger,' the largest said and moved smoothly forward, with two others coming at Watters from the side. Watters swung the pickpocket around in a screaming flurry of skirts and kicking legs and staggered as a round-house punch landed on his shoulder.

Reversing his cane again, he cracked it onto one of his attacker's heads, saw the immediate spurt of bright blood and kicked out, missing as the man rolled away.

'You bloody bastard,' the pickpocket screamed and thrust her nails into the back of the hand that held her hair. 'You let me go! Please, sir, I ain't done wrong, sir.'

Another boot thudded onto Watters's leg, and then a brick knocked off his hat. He stooped to retrieve it with the hand that held his cane, swiped sideways at the legs of his attackers, and dragged his prisoner another few steps toward the more respectable parts of London. The crowd surged around him, screaming their hatred.

'Now we'll slate you, peeler!' The pickpocket kicked out at him, clawed with hooked fingers. 'You're a dead man!'

'I doubt that,' Watters said. 'Listen!'

As the sound of the police rattle echoed harshly above the renewed clamour, Broadcloth gave a loud whistle, and his bruisers withdrew.

'This way, boys!' Silver dropped his truncheon from up his sleeve and cracked it across the head of one of the retreating bullies. Half a dozen uniformed constables charged into the street, swinging their truncheons with callous unconcern whether the blows landed on male or female, old or young. In the back slums of London, the police regarded everybody as actual or potential criminals.

Watters ignored the screams of vituperation. 'Right, my girl,' he transferred his grip from the pickpocket's hair to her arm as he fastened handcuffs onto her wrists, 'let's see what you have managed to steal and find a nice snug cell for you. Keep you out of the winter chill, shall we?'