‘Even odds on ’im lasting the night is what I hear. They say the attacker was a cripple–a hideous twisted thing, like old King Richard or summat from a fairy tale.’
This is a colourful fellow indeed, Norton thought as he took the note from his desk. It had been written in a strained hand, the pen strokes scratched across the paper, and in one corner there was a smeared, bloody thumbprint. The author had managed only three slanting, wobbling words: Kitson is here.
He showed it to his visitor. ‘Wray sent me this. From his hospital bed.’
News of the assault, along with the note, had been brought to Norton at around ten o’clock. He had been dining alone, his daughter having retired early with a headache, his son having stayed on in town like the dissolute popinjay he was proving himself to be. After half an hour’s anxious deliberation, he had sent for Mr Twelves.
The investigator glanced down but did not take it from him. ‘Ye do not know who Kitson is, then, Mr Norton.’ This was not a question. ‘But the fact that the Major wrote this in what might well be ’is last moments on Earth rightly concerns you. Per’aps Kitson’s this cripple, per’aps he’s not. But either way, he’s important–and you need to discover who he is, what he wants, and most of all how he can be dealt with.’ Twelves sounded distinctly bored by his own summary of the situation.
Norton nodded. ‘I must stress again the need for discretion, Twelves. Very few people are aware of my connection with Wray, and I would keep it that way. I cannot chance any interruption to my affairs, not now.’
The investigator took out a notebook and began jotting things down in an economical hand. ‘Aye, the timing is rather poor, an’t it, Mr Norton? The eve of your Exhibition, with the Prince Consort coming to town, God save ’im.’ Twelves turned a page. He continued to write for a moment before snapping the book shut and returning it to his pocket. ‘We will find this Kitson for ye. I guarantee it. My comrades and I are like the mighty Argus. Once we turn our attention to a subject, nothing whatsoever escapes our gaze.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, without pride. ‘And once we ’ave ’im, Mr Norton, what then?’
The labour-lord blinked, running a hand through his white whiskers. ‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Our Mr Kitson, I would wager, is bad news for the Norton Foundry. Running up against a man such as yourself, well, that makes ’im like a second Ajax, don’t it, defying the lightning. And the end result will surely be the same.’
Norton scowled at his visitor uncomprehendingly. This Twelves, he was fast coming to realise, was something of an autodidact–that insufferable breed of working-class man who insists on flaunting his limited, self-acquired learning at every possible opportunity. Which was all well and good, but Norton could not see exactly how this precious learning had served him. His profession, if it could properly be termed thus, was by any yardstick a shameful way of earning a crust.
‘He will be brought down,’ Twelves enlarged, ‘down low. It could ’appen sooner rather than later, if ye catch my meaning, with nothing about it that’d attract any attention to speak of. Manchester can swallow a man like you wouldn’t believe.’ He picked at his hat’s narrow brim with a fingernail. ‘Why postpone the inevitable, Mr Norton?’
Somewhat taken aback by this proposal, Norton sat heavily in the leather-bound chair behind the desk. He reached for a silver paper knife and began pressing its point against the palm of his hand, trying to disguise his alarm at how casually murder had entered their discussion. ‘I… applaud your enthusiasm, Mr Twelves. For now, though, just discover what you can.’
Twelves, taking this equivocation as weakness, eyed him with cool, contemptuous pity. ‘As ye wish, Mr Norton.’ He put on his hat. ‘Ye will hear from me soon. A good night to ye, sir.’
The investigator left. Charles Norton stared up at a display case of shining buckles mounted on the study wall, seized by a constricting sense of foreboding that threatened to suffocate him where he sat.
Lieutenant-Colonel Boyce rode the line on a black mare, the points of his moustache jutting out into the clear midday air like a pair of tusks, waiting for the order to advance.
‘Look at that cunt,’ muttered Private Cregg, scratching at his sweat-darkened armpit. ‘Just look at ’im. Thinks ’e’s king, gen’ral and pri’ minister all rolled up inter one. God on the bleedin’ throne.’ He paused to spit a sour pellet of well-chewed tobacco through a gap in his blackened teeth. ‘The cunt.’
‘Aye,’ agreed those who crouched or sat around him, ‘the cunt.’ They were careful to keep their voices down. The officers of the 99th, although deaf to complaints about the lack of decent rations and shelter, had remarkably good hearing whenever anybody had a bad word to say about the Lieutenant-Colonel. Dozens had been flogged raw for such indiscretion. Dan Cregg, however, wasn’t bothered by the lash. They’d done him three times already since the day they set sail from Old England, and would do him as many times again, most likely. He’d erred countless times in his life, and considered his stubborn refusal to learn from these experiences to be bold, manly defiance. He would name things as he saw them, by God, and to hell with them all.
Coming to the end of the 99th, Boyce wheeled his mare about and started back again. Cregg squinted, lifting up his gun as if preparing to fire. ‘It’d be so bleedin’ easy,’ he sneered. ‘Bam! And one less toff cunt in the world, drinkin’ up all the brandy.’
There was a low, nervous chuckle. Cregg could be trouble, but today his comrades welcomed his disrespectful talk, if only as a distraction from the scene that stretched out before them. A wide, gently sloping plain, dotted with small copses and the occasional vineyard, led down some two miles to a hamlet of crude stone houses and barns. Behind this, fringed with trees, was the narrow, brownish River Alma. Rising up abruptly on its opposite bank were the Heights. To the men of the 99th, who were mostly from the south of England, these heights seemed positively mountainous, a daunting climb indeed; but climb them they must, for up there, like a dark burn across the soft green hillsides, was the enemy. The soldiers found their eyes returning to the massed ranks of Russians time and time again. For nearly two weeks they had been kept in constant expectation of an enemy attack; and yet here the bastards were, dug well into the perfect defensive position, waiting patiently in the warm sunshine. The redcoats swallowed hard, wiping their clammy palms on their trousers.
It was towards his own men, however, and not the Russians, that Lieutenant-Colonel Boyce’s gaze repeatedly wandered. Like him, they were in full dress uniform; squirming and complaining, as the common soldier was so wont to do, tugging gracelessly at their tight tunics, and the leather chin-straps of their shakos, but smart and correct. Boyce had the junior officers well trained. Any attempt by a private to undo a button, or take off his helmet, would immediately be halted, and the miscreant’s name taken for punishment.
If only the same rules could be applied to the other ranks, he thought angrily, as his eye snagged on the solid figure of Major Maynard, who stood at the edge of the 99th’s battalion with a telescope in his hands, scanning the Heights. Boyce had made his desire for dress uniform quite plain at the regimental briefing that morning. And his own costume, from the shining leather of his boots to the plump ostrich feather bobbing on his cocked hat, perfectly demonstrated the sartorial magnificence available to the field officer prepared to invest in his wardrobe.
