3 Great Historical Novels (34 page)

Who would have thought he’d feel such pride in showing someone from home around Sydney? Michael was pleased as punch when Rhia exclaimed over the elegantly carved stone edifices of Government House, and the fine turret of St Philip’s church. Gone was the bitterness of the early years when he’d seen how labouring men were expendable. The pain and fury of it had led to his pamphlet, and countless angry essays about the false gods of commerce that the colonists had hewn from the sandstone cliffs. He’d paid his dues to the real cost of nationhood, to the butchery and the heartbreak of the forgotten.

He pointed out loan and investment companies, the library, the offices of the Australian Gas Light Company and the Australian Sugar Company, the literary and scientific societies, the School of Arts and the new museum. Rhia was shaking her head by the time they were back on George Street.

‘I’d no idea that an architect could earn a living in Australia,’ she said.

Michael laughed. ‘The principle architect was transported for forgery. The change in his circumstances turned out well for him. He’d never have designed so many important public buildings if he’d stayed in Bristol.’

Rhia had her eye on the shop windows as they passed saddlers, tea dealers and druggists and, closer to the quay, ship
chandlers and sail makers. She stopped at a milliner to look at the bonnets behind the panelled window. She turned with a raised eyebrow and a look that Michael recognised. She was, after all, a woman.

There had always been something about Rhia Mahoney, Michael reflected as she disappeared through the milliner’s doorway. She had the old woman’s eyes, the grandmother – as dark as pitch and somehow a little unnatural, as if they could see beyond the visible. Michael took out his tobacco tin and watched the street. A cart and dray swung past, piled high with bales of merino. There had been a lot of talk of wool, and Rhia was right, it was time to start shipping. The loss of liberty did strange things to you. It made you hungry for life.

She emerged from the milliner with her ragged head hidden beneath a new straw hat – not a bonnet, a hat, with a flat crown and a broad rim. ‘It looks well on you,’ he said, and meant it. It shaded her face and gave her the look of a pioneer. They were almost outside Dan’s. ‘I’ll not stop,’ he said, ‘I’ve some business this evening.’ She’d not asked about his business, though he could tell she was curious. She put her hand into her reticule and pulled out a crumpled calling card and handed it to him. ‘The Chinese character on the back stands for silver,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know where the coordinates are. Do you?’

Michael looked at the card. ‘That’s just off shore,’ he said, ‘a bit north but not far at all. Where did this come from?’

‘I found it on the floor at China Wharf the day Ryan died. That lovely copperplate isn’t his handwriting, though.’ She raised that eyebrow again to make her point. ‘Good night then,’ she said. But she wanted to say something more. She looked at him almost shyly, and then down at her hands. ‘How is Thomas?’

‘In good health, still sensible, and hard-working too, from what I can gather. But you’d want to know about the condition of his heart, being a woman, and I can’t tell you about that.’

‘I’m only asking as a friend.’

‘Aye, I know that. I might even have known it before the two of you did, without wanting to sound too clever. You’re not made from moulds that fit together, are you. There’s much to be said for a friendship that has outlasted romance. I sometimes wonder if …’ He couldn’t say it. Seven years was a long time to be away. People changed. Rhia was looking right into him with her sloe-black eyes, as if she could see it.

‘They must have been lonely years,’ she said.

‘I made a life for myself, and that’s just what you’ll do when you get home. Maybe it’s this place. You can’t just give up because you’ve found yourself at the farthest reaches of the earth. The people here – colonists, settlers, prisoners – all want the same thing: freedom.’ Rhia was watching him intently, and Michael laughed. ‘I’d best get off my soapbox and get on with my business.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘when next we meet I hope to have the price for a clipper full of merino to Dublin. Godspeed, Mr Kelly.’

‘Aye, Godspeed.’ He watched her walk into the drapery before he set off. She moved slowly and carefully, like an old lady. He didn’t think she was ready to ship wool just yet. He took another look at the calling card and put it in his pocked thoughtfully.

Maggie’s girls hadn’t seen any of the Smiths for months now, and one of Calvin’s night patrols had reported some unusual goings-on in one of the small inlets off the cove. As if that wasn’t enough, Jarrah had finally tracked down the rigger who knew something about Josiah Blake’s death. He’d got as far
north as the Hunter River, a good seventy miles, which was impressive for a sailor on horseback.

Calvin was sitting on the verandah with his boots on the rails, smoking. It was the posture he liked to take as the gas lanterns were lit at Circular Quay. He was still hugely entertained by the notion of gaslight. It was also the best time of the day to watch the shop girls on their way to the quay and, after all, women were as much a glowing mystery as gas. Of course, gas was a natural phenomenon, and women were another thing altogether with that unknown quality which could soften your heart or harden your cock. Calvin had never married. No woman could or should put up with being of less importance than a policeman’s work. The map of Calvin’s heart was his work. He was in love with his strip of sand and docks and maritime industry, and devoted to keeping it running as smooth as oil.

Calvin leaned forward instinctively when a timber creaked, his hand reaching towards the boot where he kept his pistol. He had the natural uneasiness of one who kept the law in a lawless land, but he wasn’t usually so twitchy.

‘It’s only me, Cal.’

‘Michael. Ready for the show?’

‘You think they’ll be shipping soon?’

‘Any time now. I’ve got boys keeping watch on the beach. There’s a clipper anchored outside of the harbour’s reach; just beyond the sights of my telescope. But I know a fisherman who likes to throw his net out in the deep water, and he tells me she’s called
Sea Witch.
I’ve got men on the beach tonight so you and I can have a chat with the sailor who went droving.’

‘Well, I can tell you exactly where I think you’ll find your clipper,’ said Michael and handed Calvin the calling card.

‘The Jerusalem Coffee House?’

‘Turn the card over, man.’

‘Ah,’ said the policeman. ‘What’s the squiggle?’

‘Chinese character for silver.’

‘Ah.’

They walked to the barracks, smoking and talking about who should, and should not, be on the cricket team. There was a big match soon between the constabulary and the military.

The boy was younger than Michael had imagined, which accounted for his lack of judgement in sailing back into Sydney Cove when Calvin had warned him against it. He was sitting in the corner of his cell with his head bent sulkily. He barely looked up when the two men entered.

‘Evening, son,’ said Calvin cheerfully. ‘I’ve brought an associate along to see if we can’t, between us, get you out of here.’ The sailor looked up quickly, his expression fleetingly hopeful before he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

‘Why’d ye care?’

‘I don’t care especially, but I need some information. If I say I’ll let you go once I’ve heard what I want to, then that’s what I’ll do because I’m a man of my word. But if you walk free today, I don’t want to see you again. Ever. I mean it this time.’

The prisoner looked at his hands. ‘Well I still don’t know nothin’.’

‘That’s not what I heard. I heard you told someone that the Quaker who fell off the
Mathilda
was up to no good.’

‘No, that’s not what I said.’ He bit his lip and stopped himself before he gave any more away.

‘Then you did say
something
?’

Silence. Calvin turned to Michael. ‘You know, I told this boy that if he came back to my patch he’d be in a rope cravat when he left again. Am I a man of my word, Michael?’

‘Aye, you are, Calvin.’ Michael looked at the youth. He could see that he was scared out of his wits, and not just of the gallows. ‘If you tell us what you know, we’ll have the master of this coining operation so swiftly he’ll not have time to come after you for ratting.’ He watched the boy’s eyes widen with surprise.

‘How’d you know about the coining?’

‘By the end of this week there won’t be a coiner left in the Rocks, and the only crew on the
Sea Witch
will be soldiers. Now, you can either talk or not, it’s your life, son.’

This seemed to decide him. He took a deep, resigned breath. ‘I seen the Quaker gent in the Calcutta bazaar, but I thought he was the other one, the one that was hiring crew to go up to Lintin Island. I needed the work, see. So I told him I was as good a rigger as any. He looked at me peculiar, like he didn’t know what I was on about, so I said I knew that he, being a Quaker, shouldn’t exactly be filling clippers full of black gold and I hoped he didn’t mind my coming to him. The problem was, see, that no one seemed to know anything much about that charter, since most of the crew were Indian and the craft,
Mathilda
, was supposedly signed off to the dry dock.’

Michael frowned. This didn’t entirely make sense to him. ‘So the
Mathilda
was making an undocumented run to Lintin Island.’

The boy nodded.

‘You said you thought the Quaker was the
other one
?’

‘Well, I made a mistake, see. I was told it was the Quaker who came in on the
Mathilda
who was in charge of the run to Lintin Island, but two flat-hats came in on
Mathilda
– and he was the wrong one. Which accounts for why he looked at me so strange.’

‘Then why was Josiah Blake, the Quaker gentleman you spoke to, killed?’

‘He started asking questions. He went to the dry dock and asked to see the register and found out that the
Mathilda
was never there when she was supposed to be.’

‘And what about the coining, did Josiah know about that, too?’

‘I might have let on something about it.’

Michael was beginning to wonder how the so-called criminal before him was ever going to make a career of it. ‘You
might
have?’

‘Well, it was confusing, see. I only realised what was going on when I got to Sydney. The
Mathilda
sails from Calcutta to Lintin Island with opium, collects silver and then, instead of going directly back to Calcutta, to the exchange, she sails south into the open sea where she meets with the
Sea Witch
, who’s left Sydney with counterfeit—’

‘So the counterfeit silver is exchanged for the real silver at sea, and the forged coins are absorbed into the Calcutta exchange, while the
Sea Witch
, with her cargo of real silver, sails for London?’

‘That’s it.’

‘And the master of this crime is a Quaker?’

‘I wouldn’t know for sure. It’s the ship’s captain that’s in charge at sea. I’ve never known a Quaker to go to Lintin Island.’

Michael looked at Calvin. ‘I believe that gentleman’s name is Isaac Fisher,’ he said.

The policeman was frowning. ‘Of course, it is always possible that he doesn’t even know his opium charter is collecting counterfeit on its return voyage.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Michael admitted. ‘I do know, though, that the
Mathilda
and the
Sea Witch
are the joint property of a collective of London cloth traders.’

‘So how do we narrow down who chartered the Sydney leg?’

Michael looked at him. ‘Two of them are dead, including Josiah Blake.’

‘How interesting.’ Calvin looked back to the boy. ‘So, we’ve established that the cloth trade isn’t profitable enough for a certain trader and that Mick the Fence is the boss of a coining racket in Sydney?’

‘Wasn’t
me
told you ’bout Mick being the boss!’

‘Then he is?’

‘Bollocks. Aye.’

Calvin took his watch from his coat pocket. ‘It’s getting late. You can stay in tonight, and tomorrow I’m putting you on the first vessel that hauls anchor and you can work your passage to wherever she’s sailing.’

As soon as they were outside, Calvin looked sidelong at Michael. ‘You didn’t tell me this was Mick the Fence’s operation’.

‘I wasn’t entirely sure myself until just recently.’

Calvin grinned slyly. ‘I knew it anyway. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t, would I? I’ve got a watch at the Hare and Hound on the junction road. You can see Mick’s from one of the upstairs rooms.’

Michael shook his head. ‘I thought Mick was too clever to use his own place for business. They’d be in a basement if he is, though, and his is one of the few in the Rocks. If they’re melting down old coin and casting plaster moulds, they’re probably forging guineas – copper on the inside, silver-plated. No point in wasting time on shillings, they wouldn’t make mercantile princes wealthy enough, or give punters a leg up.’

Calvin was listening keenly and nodding. ‘Speaking of punters, I’ve had a word with a man by the name of Wardell, the government agent on the
Rajah
. He says he’s looking into the story the ship’s boy told you, about seeing the botanist on
deck the night of the killing. He also said he’d find out when Reeve’s passage was booked and by whom. It’s unlikely he’s come so far from home without a benefactor.’

‘Now that’s of interest,’ Michael said, ‘because I was just going to ask if you’d care to pay a call to Mr Reeve. I’ve a matter to discuss with him that I think you’d find interesting.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Aye,’ said Michael.