Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [122]
He moved backwards carefully, dragging the man with him. He was struggling now, kicking and trying to gouge with his hands. Pitt was paying the price for his ultimate stupidity. Narraway had warned him, Charlotte had, even Vespasia. Why had Voisey taken the chance that Charlotte would not use the evidence against Mrs. Cavendish? Because if she did, she would have nothing left with which to defend herself, or the children! The thought twisted inside his belly till it was a physical pain.
“Jump!”
The sound startled him so abruptly that he slipped and stumbled, falling backwards and yanking the man off his feet as well, and letting him go. They both went clear together just as the big man struck, hit the furled sail and let out a yell of pain.
“Jump!” the cry came again.
This time Pitt scrambled awkwardly to his feet and threw himself over the side. He landed on his hands and knees on the bottom of a small rowing boat, sending it rolling so wildly it shipped water. It was lucky to right itself with considerable effort by the man working the oars.
“You clumsy oaf,” he said, not very critically. “Keep your head down, just in case one of them has a pistol.” He threw his weight against the oars, shooting farther out into the middle of the river and away from the lights. He steered between the moored ships into the current, pulling for the opposite shore.
Pitt climbed to his feet without straightening up, and sat in the stern now that they were beyond the light. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, even though he had no idea if he was actually any better off.
“I’ll collect,” the man replied. “I’d have left you there if I didn’t know you were the only one with a real chance of stopping the police bill.”
Pitt was bruised and uncomfortable, but intensely grateful not to be in the water. “Who are you?”
“Kydd,” the man replied, grunting as he put his weight to the oars.
“I was lucky you were passing,” Pitt tried to steady his breath, and the beating of his heart. The air was damp on his skin. “Are you a ferryman, lighterman?”
“Anarchist,” Kydd answered, irony in his voice, his face invisible in the darkness. “And I wasn’t just passing. It’s my job to know what’s going on. If you weren’t trying to stop police corruption, I’d have let them kill you. But as they say, politics make strange bedfellows of us. More strange than you and Charles Voisey! That was a mistake. But I imagine you know that now.”
They seemed to be nearing the farther shore, because Kydd eased the boat around to go in stern first, alongside the steps. However, there was little that Pitt could see except the denser blackness of the unlit wharves and warehouses. They must be farther downriver than the Dog and Duck, where the public house lights would be clear.
“Where are we?”
“Saint George Stairs,” Kydd answered. “By the railway yard. A little walk for you, and a swift brandy. Then you can make your way back. Cut along to Rotherhithe and get a ferry to Wapping, if I were you. I wouldn’t get back on the water downriver of that.”
Pitt received the advice in silence, turning over what Kydd had said. The boat was lashed to an iron ring and they climbed up the slippery steps, but the tide was only just turning so they were near the top anyway. Pitt followed the dark figure of Kydd across the open dockside. The wind was cold now and there was a slight fog settling, blurring the lights and making the damp air hang in little droplets. From farther down the river came the mournful cry of foghorns.
They walked for about ten minutes until, in an alley still close to the waterfront, Kydd stopped and opened a narrow door and immediately they were in a warm passageway. He closed it, setting a wooden bar across it, and they went on through a farther