The North Water(78)

In the silent darkness of the narrow street, he feels suddenly enormous, distended, as if his shaking body has swollen to twice its normal size. He walks back towards the town, maintaining a steady pace, not rushing and never looking rearwards. He ignores the first two pubs he sees but enters the third. Inside, a man is playing the piano, and a moon-faced woman is singing. All the tables and benches are filled, so he finds a stool by the bar. He orders a fourpenny ale, waits for his hands to stop trembling, then drinks it down and orders another. When he tries to light his pipe, he fumbles the match, and when he tries again, the same thing happens. He gives up and puts the pipe back into his pocket next to Drax’s revolver. The barman watches on but says nothing.

“I need the railway timetable,” Sumner tells him. “Do you have it there?”

The barman shakes his head.

“Which train is it you’re wanting?”

“The soonest one to leave.”

The barman checks his pocket watch.

“The mail train is likely gone by now,” he says. “It’ll be the morning.”

Sumner nods. The woman begins singing the “Flying Dutchman,” and the men playing dominoes in the corner join in with the chorus. The barman smiles and shakes his head at their raucousness.

“Do you know a man named Jacob Baxter?” Sumner asks him.

“Everyone knows Baxter. Rich bastard, lives over on Charlotte Street, number twenty-seven. Used to be in the whaling business, but now it’s to be coal oil and paraffin, they say.”

“Since when?”

“Since his two ships went down in Baffin Bay last season and he got paid off by the underwriters. The whaling trade is dying anyway, and he got out just in time. You won’t find no flies on Jacob Baxter, I’ll tell you that. You can look him over all you want to, but you won’t find nary a single one.”

“How much did he get paid for the sinking?”

The barman shrugs.

“A good deal, they say. He gave out some to the wives and bairns of them that drowned but he still kept plenty back for hisself, you can be sure of that.”

“And now it’s to be paraffin and coal oil?”

“The paraffin is cheap, and it burns a good deal cleaner than the whale oil does. I’d use it myself.”

Sumner looks down at his hands, pale gray and blood-spotted against the dark wood of the bar. He would like to leave now, escape all this, but he feels a hot animal pressure building in his face and chest like a creature grown large inside him, scratching to get out.

“How far is Charlotte Street from here?”

“Charlotte Street? Not so far. You go up to the corner and turn left by the Methodist Hall, then keep on going. You an acquaintance of Mr. Baxter, are you?”

Sumner shakes his head. He finds a shilling in his pocket, pushes it across the bar, and waves away the change. The woman is singing “Scarborough Sands” as he leaves, and the men have gone back to their games.

Baxter’s house has a row of spear-top railings in front and five stone steps leading up to the door. The windows are shuttered, but he sees a light above the transom. He pulls the bell and when the maid answers he tells her his name and that he is here to see Mr. Baxter on an urgent matter. She looks him up and down, pauses for thought, then opens the door wider and instructs him to wait in the hallway. The hallway smells of tar soap and wood polish; there is a whalebone hat stand, a rococo mirror, and a pair of matching Chinese vases. Sumner takes off his hat and checks that Drax’s gun is still in his pocket. A clock chimes the quarter hour in another room. He hears the clicking of boot heels across the tiled floor.

“Mr. Baxter will see you in his study,” the maid says.

“Was he expecting me?”

“I couldn’t say if he was or he wasn’t.”

“But the name didn’t alarm him at all?”

The maid frowns and shrugs.

“I told him what you asked me to, and he said to bring you right to his study. That’s all I know about it.”

Sumner nods and thanks her. The maid leads him past the broad mahogany staircase to a room at the back of the house. She offers to knock for him but Sumner shakes his head and gestures her away. He waits until she has gone back upstairs, then he takes the revolver from his pocket and checks there is a bullet in the chamber. He turns the brass doorknob and pushes open the door. Baxter is sitting in a chair by the fire. He is wearing a black velvet smoking jacket and a pair of embroidered house shoes. His expression is alert but untroubled. When he begins to get up, Sumner shows him the revolver and tells him to stay just where he is.

“You don’t need the gun now, Patrick,” Baxter scolds. “There’s no need for that.”

Sumner closes the door and steps into the center of the room. There are bookcases on two sides, a bearskin rug on the floor, and a seascape and a pair of crossed harpoons over the fireplace.

“I’d say that’s for me to decide, not you,” he says.

“Perhaps so. Just a friendly suggestion, that’s all. Whatever exactly has happened tonight, we can resolve it without the need for firearms, I’m quite sure of that.”

“What was your plan? What did you mean to happen in that timber yard?”

“Which timber yard would that be?”

“Your man Stevens is dead. Don’t play the fucking fool.”