chaffed her: Not too much of that there tea, lad; don’t you know it’s the devil’s drink? Then, to Jenkins: Go on, give us a drop more rum; don’t be stingy now, son. Or, You’re a pretty pair, you with your black eye and him with that bloody nose. But once they had their tea, the men retreated into clusters that reflected their trades: glaziers with glaziers, stonemasons with stonemasons. And they drank their illicit rum without much relish.
“Ain’t no one talking,” muttered Jenkins.
So she hadn’t imagined the tension. “Why’s that?”
“Cor, you don’t know nothing, do you?”
“Tell me then, if you’re so clever.”
Jenkins glanced about furtively. They’d served all the builders by now and were nowhere near any of them. All the same, he spoke barely above a whisper. “One o’ them brickies, chap named Wick, offed himself the other night. His body was right over there.”
A jolt shot through Mary. “He killed himself?”
“That’s what I said,” hissed Jenkins. “He jumped off the tower.”
“How d’you know?”
Jenkins glanced around. “’S plain. He were up there at night, and the police ain’t done nothing. If he got pushed, the Yard – ” he pronounced this nickname with over-casual pride, “the Yard’d nick somebody for it.”
“They might still be looking.”
Jenkins made a scoffing noise. “Not Scotland Yard. If they ain’t found no one, ain’t nobody to find.”
Mary looked at him thoughtfully. She’d initially dismissed the lad as a bit dim: why else would he pick a fight he had no chance of winning? But now she wondered. He was sharp enough to make the tea round into a profitable venture. He had a reasoned theory as to Wick’s death. She’d have to watch the lad – and watch her own behaviour around him. He might be totally uncritical of the police, but he was clever enough to catch any slips she might make in the role of Mark Quinn.
If Wick had in fact thrown himself from the tower, there had been no conflict and there was no killer. But there was still the question of motive. What would drive a man to kill himself? Despair? Debt? And what of his choice of method? Many suicides chose the river, from sheer familiarity, or poison, for its swift neatness. But jumping from a tower was a dramatic final gesture. Had he intended something by that? It could even have been a message to his employers…
“Time to clear up.” Jenkins raised the rum-pot aloft and tipped the last few drops from the spout directly into his mouth.
She glanced about. There was indeed a general dispersal of the labourers. “What should I do with this cold tea?”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
Mary nodded. In a well-run household, spent tea leaves were either used to clean carpets, or sold to a rag-and-bone man. Here, however, the nearby Thames served as sink, sewer, bathtub and well, all in one.
When she returned, Jenkins was sniffing cautiously at the chipped milk jug. “Go halves?”
Mary shook her head. It was probably out of character to decline free food of any sort, but there were little curds of solid milk clinging to the edges of the pitcher, and the fluid itself was a funny bluish grey. She just couldn’t bring herself to drink it.
He knocked that back, too, then pulled a face. “Phew. Bit past it, that.”
Mary grinned. She could remember a time when she’d have choked back the milk, too. “I’ll put all this away. Then what?”
“Back to work, if you’s such a goody-goody.”
“And if I’m not?”
“’Up to you, isn’t it?”
Six
“Bit slippy out here,” said the coachman as he unfolded the carriage steps. He held out his arm, much as he would to a lady.
The boots that swung out of the carriage were distinctly male, as was the hand that waved him away. “I’m perfectly able to descend three steps unassisted, Barker.” To prove it, he climbed down quickly and slammed the carriage door himself. He was far from old – his hair was dark, unmixed with grey, and his face was unlined – but he didn’t move like a young man. There was something stiff about his gait.
Barker was unperturbed. “Very good, sir.”
The gentleman scanned the building site, a deep frown drawing his brows together. The Palace, still unfinished after all these years, loomed over the workers like an ungainly child squatting over an anthill. “You may go; I’ll get a cab when I’m done.”
“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’ll wait. It may be difficult to find