Convicted Innocent Read online

Convicted Innocent

  by Meggie Taylor

  Convicted Innocent

  By Meggie Taylor

  Copyright 2014 Meggie Taylor

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  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Characters

  Prologue

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday morning

  Sunday afternoon

  Epilogue

  About the author

  Visit me!

  Nods and smiles

  to Amy, my perpetual sounding board,

  and to all who have supported my writing passion

  with their love and candid advice

  Characters (alphabetical order)

  Bartholomew, Simon - police sergeant; DI Tipple’s assistant and sounding board for the duration of the case

  Bates - the warden at Holloway Prison

  Bradtree, Eustace - plainclothes detective sergeant; speaks with a lisp; assisted DI Tipple at the station

  Burberry, (Mr.) - half-blind witness to the kidnapping

  Carew, Violet - David Powell’s childhood sweetheart; appears only in a dream

  Colmes - police sergeant and PC Simmons’s immediate supervisor; mentioned only

  Duke, Conway - Nicholas Harker’s uncle; not part of the Harker clan

  Ediker, Corbin - convict; overheard a discussion in prison that set in motion the kidnapping

  Fred - Corbin Ediker’s pal; mentioned only

  Frost - police constable; assisted DI Tipple with Conway Duke’s interview

  Gervais, Milo - the murder victim that resulted in Nicholas Harker’s arrest; rival to Harker clan; mentioned only

  Griffiths - guard at Holloway Prison

  Haggerty, Broderick - plainclothes detective sergeant; assisted with the maps in the tunnels

  Hansworth, (Dr.) - police coroner; mentioned only

  Harker, Archibald - Nicholas Harker’s uncle; the factory owner

  Harker, Ernest - Nicholas Harker’s great-grandfather; former patriarch of the Harker clan; deceased; mentioned only

  Harker, Nicholas - also goes by Innocent; the patsy

  Harker, Rafe - Nicholas Harker’s father; deceased; mentioned only

  Harker, Winston - Nicholas Harker’s grandfather; current patriarch of the Harker clan and once a suspected murderer/rapist; mentioned only

  Innocent - the name Nicholas Harker prefers to be called

  Little - police constable; doesn’t know what an albatross looks like

  Marquette, Henri - one of David Powell’s language student; Elise Marquette’s husband; mentioned only

  Marquette, Elise - Henri Marquette’s wife

  Marsh, (Mrs.) - Lewis Todd’s landlady

  Marvelle, Penelope - also goes by Penny; David Powell’s friend and Lewis Todd’s quasi love interest

  McNamara, Angus - Cat’s husband and Agnes (Annie) McNamara’s father; mentioned only

  McNamara, Annie - first name is Agnes; Cat’s daughter; mentioned only

  Mercers - a Portsmouth gang

  Nolan, John - police sergeant; telephoned DI Tipple about a new murder early in the morning

  O'Malley, Frank - murder victim; Nicholas Harker’s friend

  Powell, Agatha - David Powell’s eldest sister; mentioned only

  Powell, David - priest; Lewis Todd’s best friend and fellow kidnapping victim

  Powell, Lucy - David Powell’s second eldest sister; mentioned only

  Powell, Margaret - also goes by Maggie; David Powell’s twin sister; mentioned only

  Powell/McNamara, Catherine - also goes by Cat; David Powell’s youngest sister; Angus McNamara’s wife and Agnes (Annie) McNamara’s mother; mentioned only

  Simmons - police constable; alerted DI Tipple to Nicholas Harker’s disappearance

  Tipple, Mathilda - also goes by Hildy; Horace Tipple’s wife

  Tipple, Horace - also goes by Rory; plainclothes detective inspector; Mathilda Tipple’s husband; leads the investigation against the Harkers and the hunt for the missing men

  Todd, Lewis - also goes by Lew; police sergeant; David Powell’s best friend and fellow kidnapping victim; DI Tipple’s protégé

  Venn - a thug with particular animosity for David Powell

  Prologue

  London, early April 1887

  Corbin Ediker spat through the bars into the hallway, the brown stream of tobacco juices widening a damp patch on the bricks he’d been working on for a while now. T’weren’t much else to do in lock-up. The guards didn’t like him or any of the other inmates spitting on the floor, but it wasn’t as though there were anywhere else to aim.

  ‘Cept the pisspot, Corbin supposed, but he wasn’t inclined to turn his head in that direction.

  In any case, the guards’ apoplexy was far more intriguing. Prison was hideously dull, even though Corbin had never been in more than a month at a time. This particular stint at Holloway had run about two weeks now – yes, thirteen days – and he wasn’t even in gaol proper yet. No, he and a few of his crewmates (and their patsy) had been collared just a fortnight ago and were awaiting the conclusion of the trials. If convicted, all six of them would be heading north on life sentences of hard labor.

  Their patsy would hang.

  As the plan had gone the last three or four times, this wouldn’t happen. Well, the boss’s red herring still would get his neck stretched. After all, that was his purpose. But the rest of them would slip free. Somehow, the case against them would fall apart and onto the patsy’s shoulders, and Corbin was looking forward to the trial’s conclusion.

  The boss had picked a real sharp one this time to take the fall. Normally, the patsy wasn’t too bright, but setting up a chap to eat a murder charge? The kid was a guaranteed imbecile. Like as not, the dolt wouldn’t realize what had hit him until the noose pulled tight around his neck. And then, what for it? He’d be dead moments after.

  Corbin just wished the boss could’ve found another method for evading the police besides having members of his crew – namely, himself – arrested from time to time. ‘Course, the boss was a fair amount smarter than he was. In fact, the man had to be a bloody genius. Else, who could run such smashing cons under the nose of the law? Corbin had never known anyone who could wreak such havoc, prop up someone or some other gang to take the blame, and emerge on the other side without the public being any wiser.

  This time, from what Corbin had learned since his arrest, the boss had set up some old London crime family – the patsy’s family, in fact. With the patsy at the center of the public’s attention, that family sure seemed to be drawing the city’s ire.

  His boss had to be the most infamous of unknown men, and Corbin would make no claims above his station.

  Need a few heads bruised? Bones broken? Shops torched? Corbin’s your man. Just keep the pay nice and steady, and no questions asked.

  And since the boss kept his end of the bargain, only requiring those few distasteful stints behind bars, Corbin wasn’t inclined to grumble much.

  He even got visitors and a steady supply of tobacco.

  …True, the prison food was awful, and there was no bed, no privacy, and the boredom….

  He wouldn’t grumble too much. Or too loudly. Mustn’t let the boss think Corbin was dissatisfied; otherwise, he might find himself alongside the next patsy.

  Corbin drew back fro
m the bars as one of the guards started clanking his nightstick on the iron as he made his way down the hall. The clanging warned blokes to step back and not try anything, else the club would happily be brought down on flesh and bone, rather than unfeeling metal. Seeing this happen once was enough for Corbin.

  ‘Sides, why make this temporary stint anymore unpleasant than it already was?

  The bobby had someone in tow – a visitor, most likely. Though it was much too early in the day for Corbin’s mate Fred to come by, Corbin leaned close to the bars (still out of the bobby’s reach, though) in interest.

  Most visitors were weeping or ranting family, the occasional physician, or the frequent solicitor, but sometimes a chap like Fred would turn up. Not that Fred ever said what the boss was up to in the Queen’s English (he and Corbin weren’t fools: ‘shaw! that’s what codes were for). But not everyone was as smart.

  In which case, Corbin would listen and then pass along what he heard to the boss. Last time, when he’d been working a job for the boss in Portsmouth and the local constabulary played into the boss’s hand, Corbin had managed to overhear plans one of their rival crews had been putting together. Once he’d passed along this information, the boss had not only managed to squash the other gang, but also made them his patsy. Magicians would’ve been in awe of the boss’s sleight of hand.

  Sodding idiots. That’s what codes are for, Corbin thought to himself with a remembered sneer.

  He plucked the spent wad of tobacco from his cheek with brown-stained fingers and flicked it onto the floor of the corridor, trying to provoke an outburst from the guard. Recollecting his rivals’ past stupidities had gotten Corbin’s blood pumping, and he felt a confrontation with the guards wouldn’t be amiss.

  But the bobby – a rotund, wheezy, sallow-faced fellow with bad breath and a squint – didn’t notice. He’d stopped across the hall with the visitor and one cell short of Corbin’s, and he wasn’t facing Corbin’s direction.

  No matter. The visitor should prove entertaining enough. After all, he appeared to be a doddering old fool of a man, his lined face creased in concern for whichever poor sod he was calling on.

  A moment, though.

  Now that he was looking well and good at the old, bow-legged chap, Corbin thought he knew him. He peered closer through the dim glow the lamps in the corridor afforded, brow furrowed. When he realized the fellow was speaking with the boss’s dolt of a scapegoat, Corbin was sure of it.

  What’re you up to, old Frank? he wondered, straining his ears to hear the low-pitched conversation. He wished he could yell for the other prisoners to shut their yappers, since the usual yammering and arguing commonplace in the cells continued unabated. But that wouldn’t be smart. Yelling would only encourage more yelling, and the conversation would be even harder to hear.

  So he held his breath and listened carefully, trying to tune out every other murmur and wail and curse.

  As what he heard over the next quarter hour of the patsy’s halting stutter and old Frank’s raspy grumble sunk into Corbin’s brain, he felt his blood chill.

  If ever the boss’s plans could fail, sending Corbin, all his crewmates…maybe even the boss himself…to jail or the noose, this would be the time. That conversation would be the death of them all, should the proper authorities learn of it.

  Had old Frank’s escort realized what was happening? No, that tub of lard was scratching a sweat-stained armpit, uncaring.

  But the patsy still had ample time to share his tale in court where there were bobbies and magistrates who did care – old Frank, too – and the thought made a cold sweat prickle on Corbin’s skin.

  Then he almost laughed aloud as the panic abruptly broke.

  Fred had yet to come by today. And the two of them could speak in code. In code.

  Assured he could pass along whatever information the old chap and the patsy were so stupidly divulging, Corbin leaned against the wall separating his cell from the next and continued listening.

  The boss would have plenty of time to set up a counter scheme, and, as he’d done in the past, the genius rewarded loyalty such as Corbin’s most handsomely.

  Yes, Corbin thought this turn of events could actually spell a turning point in his career. Maybe even win him his own team and a con or two to run himself. After all, thinking a little – just a very little – was something the boss prized almost as highly as unquestioning loyalty.

  Corbin smiled.

  Friday

  Late April 1887

  David Powell fished a few coins out of his pocket, selected a tuppence piece, and traded it with the newsboy for a paper.

  It was late morning, the early spring air just warm enough to be comfortable without yet feeling hot. David had finished teaching his morning class only an hour or so ago, and he only taught the one on Fridays. Normally he would be heading for home now, but a few errands begged his attention first.

  For one, he needed to drop by his solicitor’s to see if the situation had changed about the property he wanted to buy.

  ‘Buy’ was perhaps too strong a word…‘acquire’ was more appropriate. He needed to acquire a building to serve as a school for the English language classes he taught, as he was currently working out of borrowed digs. And since the funds he was cobbling together to finance the undertaking were hardly his own (poor clergymen had to rely on others’ benefaction), he would be acquiring premises in the end.

  Hopefully.

  Having the keys to a building – any building – for the sake of his school would be fantastic. So he needed to meet with his solicitor.

  But first he had another errand to run.

  …Or was it two? David had a sudden suspicion he was forgetting something as he strode through the noisy bustle that was Commercial Road. No matter. He’d recollect it eventually.

  He’d only gone a block or so down the wide thoroughfare when the sight of a mass of people blocking most of the street made him pause.

  The mob seemed a peaceable sort, he determined after a moment, and Lord knew they were common enough nowadays. A few beehive-helmeted policemen were keeping the crowd in check to allow street traffic to continue flowing, but they weren’t otherwise interfering.

  The protesters seemed to be mostly women. A spark of curiosity almost drove David closer to find out what they were on about. Was it a workers’ movement? A suffrage gathering? The temperance society?

  But he desisted, figuring they wouldn’t be vacating that part of the street or pavement any time soon. He could find out after he paid a visit to his friend.

  Well, David didn’t suppose he’d actually find his best mate, Lewis Todd, at his flat right then. The chap was a police sergeant, a bobby just like the blokes now patrolling the mob, and he tended to work longer hours than most folk.

  In fact, David knew his friend had recently been involved in some arrests that had brought a rather notorious East End crime family to court: the trials were still in full swing. He was sure the paper under his arm shrieked the details of the proceedings in the headlines.

  In any case, Lew was probably testifying or waiting to do so even as he thought about it.

  A voice hailed David just then, and he paused to speak with the young woman, the wife of one of his students. Elise Marquette had one of her children clutching at her skirts, and the little girl stared up in silent interest at her mother and David as the two conversed.

  The Marquettes had only been in London for about six months, but Henri had found steady work at an industrial millinery almost immediately. On account of his lessons with David, though, the Frenchman’s broken English had improved to the point that he’d recently been promoted to shift leader, news which Elise shared with shy delight.

  Just after he and Mrs. Marquette parted, someone else caught David’s arm with a greeting and a grin. Another few minutes passed, and when that conversation ended, another followed, then another. David belatedly realized that if he wished to accomplish anything further that morning he would have
to be rude or make his way off Commercial.

  He chose the latter, and David slipped down a much less crowded and far narrower alley as soon as the opportunity presented itself. He could cut through here, zigzag down a few streets, and leave a note with his friend’s landlady within a few minutes. Then he could come back and let the passersby and protesters demand as much of his attention as they wanted.

  …No. Hang it all – he’d forgotten about the solicitor…and whatever that something else was.

  Shaking his head at himself, David strolled briskly down the close-walled street. From Commercial, the roadway looked as though it dead-ended in a row of tenements, but David knew the street actually doglegged around the buildings and continued on. Still, the appearance thinned the foot traffic considerably, even to the point that he was practically alone when he turned the first corner at the end of the tenement. The clotheslines overhead dimmed the sunlight and dampened the street noise, granting a respite from Whitechapel’s often-raucous vivacity.

  Around the next corner, that solitude ended rudely.

  Not fifteen feet away, four blue-jacketed bobbies were struggling mightily to hold a fifth to the ground.

  For a moment, David wondered if the man on the ground, a dark-haired chap whose helmet had fallen off, was a having a fit and the other four were trying to aid him.

  In the next, however, he realized he was very wrong. The four bobbies holding the other down were being quite rough about it, and then the man on the cobbles twisted around. David felt his pulse quicken when he saw the fellow’s face.

  The fifth man was Lewis Todd, and his expression was furious. When he caught sight of David, his eyes widened and he tried to shout something, but one of others had a hand over his mouth. The sound came out muffled, but Lewis’s meaning was clear.

  These men were hardly there to help him.

  David found himself running forward before he even consciously thought to do so. Lewis would’ve done the same for him, after all.

  But then, Lew was quite formidable in a fight. What was more, the man was a good head taller, a few stone heavier, and much more agile and muscled than just about anyone David knew. The chap had even been a champion prizefighter at one time.

  David was quite the opposite. Sure, he knew how to throw a punch if necessary, despite the fact that his profession was supposed to be a peaceful one. But he was short where his friend was tall, no more dexterous or athletic than the average man, and boyishly unassuming where Lew could be downright ferocious.

  That didn’t stop David from hurling himself at the nearest of his friend’s attackers with a wordless shout. The tackle took them both to the ground, and the priest was pleased to see out of the corner of his eye that his intervention allowed Lewis a chance to change the fight’s momentum. In a heartbeat, his best mate surged to his feet and managed to lay one attacker low with a belt to the chin.

  Then an elbow caught David in the mouth and he lost his grip on the man he’d tackled.

  “Run, David!” Lewis bellowed, still fending off his assailants.

  The words made sense, and David thought he might’ve been able to comply, but fists had followed the elbow to his face, and he was now quite dazed. Too dizzy to do much more than lurch unsteadily to his feet when the man he’d jumped turned his attention back to Lewis Todd. Far too dizzy to run away.

  Perhaps he might still be able to distract the other bobbies – though they weren’t that, were they? – from their attentions to his friend…

  —Wait. Was he seeing double? David wondered, for the number assaulting the policeman seemed to have swelled. Too many to count at a dazed glance, in any case, and Lewis was soon lost to sight under a violent surge.

  Though the priest tried to yank one of the assailants away from his friend, a pair of burly arms grabbed David from behind and hauled him backward. Off balance, the priest was unable to resist to any effect and found himself crammed against the alley wall, trapped and immobilized by the owner of the burly arms.

  David craned his neck around (as much as he was able with a meaty palm across his mouth) and managed to spy his friend lying crumpled and unmoving on the cobbles once the surge of men drew back.

  Horror shocked its way through him like a bolt of lightning.

  “Go about your way, if you please,” one of the men said abruptly, his tone startlingly polite, city accent mostly gone. “Just police business ‘ere.”

  He was speaking to someone just out of the priest’s line of sight. Had help come? Had another passerby seen or heard the scuffle and thought to intervene? Surely the tumult had attracted attention, though the assault had lasted almost no time at all.

  Hope faded in David’s breast when no further conversation was had with the newcomer, and their assailants – yes, a few more had joined the original four, for a total of seven – paused to confer with one another as they stood over the policeman.

  “Wha’ we do now?” one asked as he caught his breath. “Leave ‘em ‘ere?”

  “Two blokes knowed each other an’ seen our faces. They’d tell the blighted p’lice,” another fretted as he righted his fake bobby’s uniform, which had been pulled askew in the tussle.

  “This one ‘ere is th’ p’lice, y’dullard.”

  “Hi don’t fancy ha killin’ in broad daylight,” the first chap grumbled.

  “Two killins,” another grumped.

  David’s heart lurched unsteadily once – twice – at their casually spoken words, and then his pulse returned to a steady, if galloping, pace.

  Oh God.

  A thin, fair-haired bloke was going through Lewis’s pockets as the others muttered to each other; what looked like a letter or two, a little book, and a few other odds and ends disappeared into the attacker’s possession. When the blond fellow finished, he stood and silenced his comrades with a curt gesture.

  “Shut yer soddin’ gobs. Botched hit, didn’t we? They know each other, ‘ave seen us, an’ killin’ ‘em now’d be daft. Too public. So we takes ‘em wif us. Load ‘em up in the wagon ‘afore someone wif more stones ‘appens upon us.”

  Apparently this man was the leader, for the others did exactly as he said.

  David found himself yanked around, frog-marched to a side alley, and bodily thrust into what looked very much like a police wagon, the sort used for inmate transport. Once he’d been thrown inside, the door was slammed shut, leaving the priest alone with two of his assailants. One of them trussed David up with eerie proficiency, binding his wrists behind him as though he were wearing a set of police cuffs, and then fitted him with a blindfold and gag made from a pair of musty handkerchiefs. The other helped himself to the contents of David’s pockets.

  A few moments later, the sound of men dragging something – someone – heavy reached David’s ears, and he almost sighed in relief. Briefly, he’d thought they might decide Lewis was too much of a bother to haul away alive, and finish him on the spot.

  “Oof!” One of the men said scowlingly from just outside the wagon. “Why’d you ‘ave to brain the bugger? ‘E’s bloody ‘eavy!”

  “Shut hit!” the leader snapped as the door opened.

  Amid a round of grunts and groans, David felt as much as heard them hoist his friend’s limp form into the vehicle, leaving the unconscious policeman to sprawl on the floorboards. Several more of their attackers jostled their way into the back, then the door slammed shut.

  Within a half-dozen hammering heartbeats, they were underway. David tried briefly to figure where they were going by the twists and turns of the road and what little he could hear over the vehicle’s clatter, but his thoughts (though clearing) were still too jumbled for that.

  In maybe twenty minutes or half an hour, they arrived at their destination.

  God only knew where that was.