Convicted Innocent(2)

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 from 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.