The Darkest Walk of Crime (19 page)

Ogden tried to straighten, but
the pain of broken ribs forced him into a crouch. He gasped as Armstrong
slapped him hard across the head.

“Sergeant Ogden is a spy for the
government, aren’t you, Sergeant Ogden?” Punctuating each question with a
savage slap, Armstrong continued, “You have been spying on us, haven’t you,
Sergeant? And you’ve been watching what we’re doing, haven’t you, Sergeant? And
you’ve been sending messages down to your masters in London, haven’t you,
Sergeant?”

“That’s enough.” Mendick grabbed
Armstrong’s wrist, feeling the frailty of bone and the lack of muscle. “We’re
Chartists, not savages.”

“Mr Mendick is right.” Scott
stepped forward. “Anyway, it’s not what Sergeant Ogden has been doing that
matters, it’s how much information he has sent down to London.”

“I’ve sent nothing to London.”
Bright blood dribbled from Ogden’s mouth and onto the carpet. “And that’s God’s
own truth. I swear.”

“Ask him again,” Armstrong said
quietly, and Peter landed a slashing chop to Ogden’s kidneys that sent the
sergeant reeling back to the floor. He writhed, clutching his back and gasping
at the fresh agony.

“For God’s sake!” Mendick
stepped forward. “You can’t treat the man like that!”

“We don’t want to.” Monaghan
placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “But we have to. I told you we would
show you the true face of the enemy, and here it is.”

“He doesn’t look very dangerous
to me. For mercy’s sake, let the man go!”

Monaghan shook his head. “You
are a compassionate man, Mr Mendick. I admire that trait, but sometimes we have
to push our natural sympathy, aye, even our Christianity, aside for the sake of
the greater good.”

Peter lifted Ogden and punched
him again, twisting his fist to direct the blow inward, and the sergeant
screamed his agony.

“Please! I tell you, I didn’t
send any messages.”

“Maybe he’s telling the truth.”
Mendick tried to pull Peter back, looking to Scott for support, but again
Monaghan intervened, shaking his head.

“There is no secret that the
various branches of the Chartist movement use pigeons as carriers,” Monaghan
explained. “We have done so for years. But the authorities have grown wise to
that, so they have borrowed our ideas. You see,” he nodded to Ogden, who was
trying to straighten up, “that man is one of the leading experts in pigeon
racing in this area. Obviously we have been aware of him and only a few days
ago we intercepted one of his messages.”

“Intercepted? How?” Mendick
stared at Monaghan. “How can you intercept a pigeon?”

“With a hawk,” Monaghan said
bluntly, and Scott looked shrewdly at Mendick.

Dipping into her pocket, Scott
produced the slip of paper she had been reading earlier. She handed it to
Mendick, who read it quickly:
Trafford friendly with Chartists. Has large
quantity of arms. Will remain in position.

“Jesus!” The blasphemy was
unintentional, but he felt suddenly sick at seeing his message in the hands of
the Chartists. The shock was twofold. Firstly, if his message had not got
through, then Smith was unaware of the full situation up here, and secondly, an
innocent man was now carrying the blame. He looked up at Ogden, who gave a tiny
shake of his head.

What should he do? If he
admitted his guilt, then he would be failing in his duty, he would probably be
killed and the insurrection would go ahead anyway. On the other hand, his
conscience would be clear and Ogden might be saved. Mendick read the message
again, looking for some salvation.

“Trafford? That’s utter
nonsense.” He tried to sound like an angry Chartist. “Trafford is no friend of
ours.”

“Maybe Ogden got it wrong then.
Ask him again,” Monaghan ordered, and Peter took hold of Ogden’s arm, bending
it behind his back until the policeman moaned in agony. Mendick stepped
forward; conscience had to take priority over his duty.

“No, you can’t do that; he’s an
innocent man!”

Ogden looked up at that, his
face screwed with pain. Blinking away the blood that streamed over his eyes, he
spat at Mendick.

“We know you, you treasonous
bastard! You’re Mendick! You tried to incite mutiny in the army, you bloody
Chartist!”

The message could not have been
clearer; Ogden did not want Mendick to reveal himself. Stepping back, hating
what he had to do, Mendick drew himself erect.

“Maybe he’s not so innocent.”
Unable to look away, he stared into the face of the man he was abandoning.

Ogden screamed as Armstrong
pulled back his boot and kicked him full force in the groin.

“What other messages have you
sent? What other damage have you done to the people?” Stamping his foot on Ogden’s
instep, Armstrong twisted his heel to increase the agony as the policeman
writhed, his mouth wide in soundless anguish.

“Enough, surely!” Mendick looked
desperately at Monaghan. “We can’t create a new country based on torture!”

“So says the soldier, a man who
was paid to kill and to whom violence was a way of life.” Scott put a light
hand on his arm, squeezing slightly. “But you are right, Mr Mendick. We are
getting nowhere here.” She nodded to Monaghan. “The spy is either very stubborn
or very ignorant.”

“Dispose of him,” Monaghan
agreed.

Armstrong nodded to Peter, who
dragged Ogden out of the room.

This time Mendick could not meet
the policeman’s eyes.

“What are you going to do?”

Monaghan gave a small smile. “We'll
kill the bastard and stuff the body under a collapsed building so it looks like
he died in an accident.”

For a second Mendick thought of
that happy household in the Manchester suburbs with the bustling Mrs Ogden’s
bare ankles and bread-and-cheese, but he shook away the memory. He could do
nothing to help Ogden; he could only hope to avenge him by performing his duty.

Only a couple of hours ago he
had felt welcome amongst the men in the Beehive, he had believed that the
Chartists were dedicated to equality, but now he had witnessed the brutal
reality. Perhaps these people were sincere in some ways, but no respectable
person would have acted in such a manner, and nobody who called himself a
Christian.

“You do not approve.” Scott had
her head on one side as she studied him. “You are a good man, Mr Mendick, but
you are offended by the practicalities of revolution.”

Her sneer stiffened him. “I’ve
seen a lot worse,” he said truthfully. “But I am surprised that the spy could
have been so far from the mark. How could he believe Trafford was a friend of
ours?”

“He was not too far off the
mark,” Monaghan said.

Mendick raised his eyebrows.
“But how can that be possible?”

“Because we have mutual
enemies,” Monaghan was smiling as he explained. “Sir Robert Trafford is an
old-fashioned Tory, a man still living in the past. This new breed of
industrialists and factory owners challenge his idea of the correct order of
things and he needs our help to put them in their place.”

Mendick nodded. “So he’s just
using us then.”

“That is what he believes,”
Monaghan agreed. “Sir Robert believes that if we remove the Whigs from power,
his Tories will return.” His smile included the whole room. “He has yet to
realise that when we achieve suffrage we will never return to the old ways.”

Mendick tried to appear calm,
but his mind began to race. Monaghan had given him the information that he
required, and he could leave these muddled, contradictory people and return to
Scotland Yard.

“I see, so that is why we can
train our volunteers so close to Trafford Hall.”

“Exactly so,” Monaghan nodded
solemnly. “We needed land to train our men; Trafford has plenty, so we asked
him nicely to borrow some.”

So much for the story of raising
money by subscription. “And he agreed?”

“Very readily.”

Monaghan glanced at Scott and
gave a small, conspiratorial smile. “So you see the spy was not so wide off the
mark and far more dangerous than you realised.”

Mendick nodded. “You are a
clever man, Mr Monaghan, but I still do not agree with casual brutality.

Monaghan shook his head. “I do
not agree with casual brutality either, Mr Mendick; ours is targeted and
necessary.” He leaned closer. “But at the end of the day, does it matter? Compared
to the suffering of countless numbers of people, does it really matter?”

Mendick realised his commitment
to the Chartist cause could be questioned if he gave the incorrect answer.

“Perhaps not,” he said. He
looked up as somebody screamed: a long drawn-out sound which rose horribly
before it abruptly ended.

Although Rachel Scott sounded
calm, there was perspiration on her forehead. “That's the end of Sergeant
Ogden’s worries, and one less enemy for the cause.”

When Armstrong and Peter
returned, both were splashed with blood. Peter immediately returned to his
previous position at the door, but Armstrong was watching Mendick. “You are
wondering at our apparent cruelty.”

“I wonder at the necessity,”
Mendick modified.

“I do not,” Armstrong said, “for
one piece of cruelty may prevent something a great deal worse. I have no reason
to love the peelers, or their spies; if I may?” He glanced at Monaghan, who
gave a brief nod of approval. “Look.”

Armstrong slipped off his
jacket, unfastened his braces and slowly unbuttoned his shirt, which he removed
with obvious effort. Apparently oblivious to the presence of a woman, he
unbuttoned his trousers, let them fall and stepped free, naked and unashamed.

Although his face and arms were
deeply tanned, his body was as white as that of any city clerk and so thin it
was nearly emaciated. Mendick could count every rib down to the sunken stomach,
but it was the scores of ugly scars wrapped around Armstrong’s sides that held
his attention. He heard Scott’s sudden indrawn breath and looked round at her.

Scott’s mouth was pursed and she
dropped her eyes briefly before jerking them back up.

“And now look.” Armstrong turned
slowly around, and Mendick winced. Scars and weals criss-crossed him from the
neck to the back of his knees; some were crusted and weeping, others ridged
white, but there was hardly a square inch that was not disfigured, and not an
ounce of fat anywhere. With all the spare flesh ripped away, the muscles and
sinews writhed obscenely beneath his skin whenever he moved.

“You can see why I use a coach
rather than ride a horse.” He indicated his buttocks and thighs, from which the
flesh had been virtually stripped.

“God in heaven!” Mendick looked
away. He had seen enough floggings in the army to recognise the distinctive
clawing of the cat-o'-nine-tails, but he had never seen anybody scarred so
badly before.

“There is no God in Van Diemen’s
Land,” Armstrong said, “and many of the inmates would welcome the chance to
ascend to heaven, or even to hell, for either would be preferable to that
place.” He turned round, fingering his twisted mouth as he glared at Mendick.

“Did you never wonder about my
scarred face? That was just one flick of the cat’s tail. The rest you have
seen; now you know why I have no cause to favour the authorities. If Ogden had
his way, we would all be sent back to Port Arthur.” Supremely uncaring of his
nudity, he stared at Scott. “Women are treated no better.”

“I think you have made an
excellent point,” Scott said. Stepping forward, she lifted Armstrong’s clothes
from the ground and handed them to him, holding his eyes. “Perhaps you had
better get dressed; it is cold in here.”

She watched over him as he
gently eased his shirt and jacket over his warped body.

“And now, Mr Mendick, perhaps
you had better take a seat?” Although Scott’s voice still held the grittiness
of the mill, her eyes seemed more troubled. “You have seen both sides of us
today. You have seen the fraternity of the Charter and the steps we sometimes
have to take to achieve our aims. You have also seen . . .” she indicated
Armstrong, “why we must take these steps.”

The words hung in the air for a
few seconds, and Mendick wondered if Scott was attempting to justify the murder
of Ogden. She was watching him, her head cocked on one side and her eyes
mobile, until he turned away.

“Drink?” Monaghan posed the word
as a question but did not wait for a refusal as he produced a decanter from the
cupboard that sat against the far wall. “These factory owners lived in fine
style, Mr Mendick, and it seems a waste to neglect their luxuries.”

“Indeed.” Mendick wondered how Ogden
had died. Had Peter beaten him to death, or simply broken his neck? The memory
of that final scream lingered.

The brandy splashed into crystal
balloons, swirling in an amber invitation he knew was dangerous to accept. He
put out his hand, suddenly desperate for the comfort of alcohol after the
sordid murder of his comrade, but determined to only sip the contents.

“You’ll be wondering what sort
of people we are,” Monaghan said calmly, “but we’re not monsters, I assure you.
Mr Armstrong has very effectively shown you the price of failure; many of our
comrades were transported to Van Diemen’s Land back in '42; most remain there.
Others were shot or imprisoned in this country. That’s what we’re up against,
but you already know that.” He drank deeply of his brandy, waiting for Mendick
to join him.

“That spy knew of you,” Scott
leaned closer. “He knew you had tried to incite a Chartist mutiny.”

Mendick blessed Ogden’s presence
of mind; even when facing a horrible death, the Lancashire policeman had
remembered the detail from their brief discussion across the kitchen table.

“It was nothing,” he said,
truthfully, “an exaggeration.”

“I’m sure it was no
exaggeration.” Leaving her seat, Scott allowed her hand to drift over his
shoulder. “I think that there’s more to you than meets the eye. You are a
soldier and a Chartist, a man who is not afraid to act alone, yet a man who
faithfully follows orders, a man with enough Christian humanity to plead for
the life of a sworn enemy . . . you are an interesting man.”