Whitechapel Conspiracy

He had accepted Isaac’s offer to help him find work with Saul, the silk weaver. Of course, it was completely unskilled labor, a matter of bending his back to lift crates and bales, to sweep the floor, fetch or carry everything as needed, run errands. It was the most manual task in the establishment, and the pay corresponded, but it was better than nothing at all, and probably physically easier than labor in the sugar factory. It also offered him far more opportunity to be in the streets, to listen and observe without calling any attention to himself. Although he could see little purpose in it; the capture of anarchists Nicoll and Mowbray was evidence that the Special Branch’s detectives were well schooled in their craft and needed no help from a stranger in the area like Pitt.

As he was walking back to Heneagle Street—he could not think of it as home—he heard shouting ahead of him. The anger in it was unmistakable. Voices were high and rough, and a moment later there was a crash as if a bottle had been hurled to the pavement and splintered to pieces. There was a yell of pain, and then a torrent of abuse. A woman screamed.

Pitt broke into a run.

There was more shouting and the sound of a load of barrels cascading onto the ground, several bursting open as they landed on each other. A cry of rage rose above the general hubbub.

Pitt turned the corner and saw about twenty people in the street ahead of him, half of them partly obscured by a wagon whose tailboard was open. Barrels rolled into the street, blocking the traffic in both directions. Men were already beginning to fight, hard and viciously.

Other people came out of shops and workplaces, at least half of them joining in. Women stood on the sidelines shouting encouragement. One stooped and picked up a loose stone and hurled it, her arm swinging wide, her torn brown skirts swirling.

“Go home, yer papist pig!” she screamed. “Go back ter Ireland w’ere yer belong!”

“I in’t no more Irish than you are, yer soddin’ ’eathen!” the other woman shouted back at her, and whirled a broom handle around so hard that when it caught the first woman across her back it broke in half and sent her flying into the gutter, where she lay winded for a few moments before sitting up slowly and beginning to curse viciously and repetitively

“Papist!” someone else shrieked. “Whore!”

Half a dozen more people, men and women, joined in the melee, everyone hurling abuse with all the power of their lungs. Several scruffy children were hopping up and down, squealing encouragement, backing whomever they fancied in the scrum.

A police whistle blew, thin and shrill. There was a moment’s lull through which came the pounding of feet.

Pitt swung around. It was not his job to stop this, even if he could have. He saw a constable running towards them, and he stepped back near the arch of the gate into a stonemason’s yard. Narraway would expect him to observe. Although what he could tell him that would be of the slightest use, he had no idea. It was only one of countless numbers of ugly street scenes that must occur regularly and surprise no one.

More police came and started trying to pull the fighting men apart, and were rewarded for their trouble by becoming the victims themselves. Hatred for the police seemed about the only thing that the crowd had in common.

“Useless bloody rozzers!” one man yelled, flailing his fists in the air, willing to hit anyone and everyone within reach. “Couldn’t catch a cold, yer stupid bastards! Pigs!”

A policeman lashed out at him with a truncheon, and missed.

Pitt remained in the shadows. He looked around at the shabby, crumbling buildings grimed with the smoke of thousands of chimneys, the patched windows, the broken cobbles of the streets, the overrunning gutters. The smells of rot and effluent were everywhere. The fighting in the street was vicious. It was not a quick flare of temper but the slow, sullen rage of years of anger and hate shown naked for a few moments, before the police frightened or beat it into silence again … until next time.

Pitt turned and walked away before he was noticed—and remembered. He kept his head down, hat jammed forward, hands in his pockets. He went around the first corner he came to, even though it was away from Heneagle Street. He had been aware of a simmering resentment since he came here, an edge to people’s voices, a quickness to take offense. Now he had seen how close the rage simmered under the surface. It only needed an insult perceived, one ugly remark, and it broke through.

This time the police had come quickly and some form of order was restored, but nothing was solved. Pitt had been startled by how anti-Catholic feeling had erupted within seconds. It must have been only just controlled all the time. Now, as he walked past a row of small shops, narrow-fronted windows piled with boxes and goods, he remembered other remarks he had heard, slang words for papist said not in fun but with vindictiveness driving them.