Whitechapel Conspiracy

“Ever read about the French Revolution?” Narraway asked him. “I mean the big one, the 1789 one, not this recent fiasco.”

“Yes.” Pitt shivered, thinking back to the classroom on the estate again, and the word pictures of the streets of Paris running with human blood as the guillotine did its work day after day. “The High Terror,” he said aloud.

“Exactly.” Narraway’s lips thinned. “Paris is very close, Pitt. Don’t imagine it couldn’t happen here. We have enough inequality, believe me.”

Against his will, Pitt was considering the possibility that there was at least some truth in what Narraway was saying. He was overstating the case, of course, but even a ghost of this was terrible.

“What do you need of me, exactly?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully controlled. “Give me something to look for.”

“I don’t need you at all!” Narraway said in sudden disgust. “You’ve been wished on me from above. I’m not entirely sure why. But since you’re here, I may as well do what I can with you. Apart from being able to provide you with as reasonable a place to live as there is in Spitalfields, Isaac Karansky is a man of some influence in his own community. Watch him, listen, learn what you can. If you find anything useful, tell me. I am here every week at some time or another. Speak to the cobbler in the front. He can get a message to me. Don’t call unless it’s important, and don’t fail to call if it could be! If you make a mistake, I’d rather it were on the side of caution.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. Then go.”

Pitt stood up and walked towards the door.

“Pitt!”

He turned. “Yes, sir?”

Narraway was watching him. “Be careful. You have no friends out there. Never forget that, even for an instant. Trust no one.”

“No, sir. Thank you.” Pitt went out of the door feeling cold, in spite of the close air and the semisweet smell of rotting wood, and somewhere close by an open midden.

A couple of enquiries led him through the narrow, gray byways to Heneagle Street. He found the house of Isaac Karansky on the corner of Brick Lane, a busy thoroughfare leading past the towering mass of the sugar factory down to the Whitechapel Road. He knocked on the door. Nothing happened, and he knocked again.

It was opened by a man who appeared to be in his late fifties. His countenance was dark, very obviously Semitic, and his black hair was liberally flecked with gray. There were both gentleness and intelligence in his eyes as he regarded Pitt, but circumstances had taught him to be cautious.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Karansky?” Pitt asked.

“Yes …” His voice was deep, slightly accented, and very wary of intrusion.

“My name is Thomas Pitt. I am new to the area, and looking for lodging. A friend of mine suggested you might have a room to let.”

“What was your friend’s name, Mr. Pitt?”

“Narraway.”

“Good, good. We have one room. Please come in and see if it will suit you. It’s small, but clean. My wife is very particular.” He stood back to allow Pitt to pass him. The hall was narrow and the stairs were no more than a couple of yards from the door. It was all dark, and he imagined that in the winter it would be damp and bitterly cold, but it smelled clean, of some kind of polish, and ahead of him there was an aroma of herbs he was unused to. It was pleasant, a house where people led a family life, where a woman cooked, swept and did laundry, and was generally busy.

“Up the stairs.” Karansky pointed ahead of them.

Pitt obeyed, climbing slowly and hearing the creak with every step. At the top Karansky indicated a door and Pitt opened it. The room beyond was small with one window so grimed it was difficult to see what lay outside, but perhaps it was a sight better left to the imagination. One could create one’s own dream.

There was an iron bedstead, already made up with linen that looked clean and crisp. There seemed to be several blankets. A wooden dresser had half a dozen drawers with odd handles, and a ewer and basin on top. A small piece of mirror was attached to the wall. There was no cupboard, but there were two hooks on the door. A knotted rag rug lay on the floor beside the bed.

“It will do very well,” Pitt accepted. Years fled away and it was as if he were a boy again on the estate, his father newly taken away by the police, he and his mother moved out of the gamekeeper’s cottage and into the servants’ quarters in the hall. They had counted themselves lucky then. Sir Matthew Desmond had taken them in. Most people would have turned them onto the street.

Looking around this room, remembering poverty again, cold, fear, it was as if the intervening years had been only a dream and it was time to wake up and get on with the day, and reality. The smell was oddly familiar; there was no dust, just the bareness and the knowledge of how cold it would be, bare feet on the floor, frost on the window glass, cold water in the jug.