Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel by Mark Keating

ham and beef joints and not the earlier awakening of bread, milk and honey that he took in his rooms.
    The prince, still in his night-robes and cap, chewed determinedly as he glanced over the morning sheets. He nodded his dismissal to Timms but called him back with a spluttering of beef as he choked on the morning headline.
    ‘Your Highness?’ Timms returned to his master’s side as George wiped his mouth and aided his recovery with a sip of brandy and water. Then Timms’s eyes fell to the crisp sheet of print upon the desk. The prince coughed through his linen. The servants in the room studied the prince’s exasperation from the doors and corners but would never move without being summoned.
    The headline Timms saw was typically garish. ‘MURDER’. A murder in Wapping, he read. A timely apprehension by the brave and competent Thief-Taker General, Mr Jonathan Wild. But alas to no avail as the villain’s accomplices had aided the escape of the murderer identified as one John Coxon of unknown origin. Escape from Newgate no less. Murder of the unfortunate Mr Thomas Langley and another of Mr Wild’s assistants added to the villain’s toll as did the suspected murder of one of the inmates also.
    Timms shivered at the repetition of ‘murder’. Four deaths in less than a day. Four killings that could all be marked by one man’s hand. Walpole was insane to bring such a man to aid them.
    Last night the prince had been assuaged by Timms’s inference that if Devlin could escape from Newgate it would bode well for their far more dangerous intentions for the pirate. But this? An inconceivable disaster. The prince’s anger was most certainly justified.
    Timms lowered his eyes. ‘My apologies, Your Highness. I will inform Walpole immediately that we should consider an alternative arrangement.’
    Timms was not expecting the riotous laugh.
    The prince slapped his thigh, his face redder than usual. ‘No, no, Timms! This is perfect! Stupendous! Capriccio !’ He re-read the broadsheet, his head shaking in disbelief and joy. ‘I look forward to meeting this fellow for myself, Timms! I am envious that you have been so privileged before me!’ He forked some more of the beef. ‘If anything he has no other recourse than to assist us!’ Again he almost choked on his humour. ‘He has probably made himself the most wanted man in London, by God!’
    Timms forced a smile. He kept sheltered his own distaste at considering the services of a murderer to be beneficial. Walpole’s insanity, he decided, was clearly infectious. The afternoon would settle it. The pirate had still yet to appear, after all.
     
    Leicester House sat on the north end of a public landscaped square in what had once been St Martin’s field. The public gardens, now known since the building of the house as Leicester Field, were a left-over from the old ‘common-lammas’ where cattle-men could graze their stock freely and without reproach. Now it served for Sunday strolls and coy ‘meetings’.
    At one time the house had stood almost alone, with a southerly slope of fields cascading all the way down to Charing Cross. Now it was surrounded by shops and taverns as much as any part of the city. Still, the house was one of the grandest in all of London and had proved a suitable dwelling for the Prince of Wales for the last two years, since he had fallen out of favour with his father. And since then it had also become the unofficial hub of the King’s opposing government. The prince could think of no better circumstance to annoy than to patronise the politicians that his father distrusted the most. This afternoon, however, it was Whigs that ate and drank their way through his stores.
    Devlin approached. The wide thoroughfare that edged the square was divided by bollards the shape of sugar-loaves with pyramid tops, to separate the pedestrians from the carriages, and he used the throng of people as cover to snake towards the open gate of the mansion.
    He stopped by the