The Tick of Death by Peter Lovesey Page A

leaning on the taffrail of a small steam launch chugging past the monstrous shapes of the merchant fleet, moored in readiness for the last few miles upriver on the morning tide. Whatever he had expected from the dynamite conspirators, it had not included a substantial supper, followed by a midnight outing on the Thames. After his ordeal in front of McGee, everyone—even Devlin—had made a point of being disconcertingly civil to him. As he had sipped claret and eaten cold chicken, he had been reminded of the cosseting of condemned men on their last night on earth. From there his thoughts had fastened morbidly on the late Constable Bottle being drawn from the Thames with grappling irons, an image that had been disturbingly revived after supper, when Rossanna had led the party out to a boat-house.
    ‘Sargent!’ a voice called from the direction of the cabin. ‘Come below. Miss McGee wishes to speak to you.’
    He answered the summons, careful as he descended the steps that no one was concealed on either side, waiting to crack him over the skull again with a blunt instrument. The twinges from the last battering were particularly acute in movements up and down stairs.
    Rossanna was seated at a small table lit by an oil lamp. Facing her, more sinister than ever in this light, was Malone, who had joined the party after supper. Devlin stood at the wheel with his back to them. McGee had been left in the house, in the care of the functionary Cribb had taken for a cab-driver, but whose duties he now knew to include serving at table and ministering to the needs of the invalid.
    ‘Please sit down, Mr Sargent,’ said Rossanna, and added firmly, ‘Here will do,’ when Cribb was faced with the choice of sharing a bench with herself or Malone.
    It was quite impossible to position himself on the narrow strip of bench without physical proximity of the sort one usually encountered in crowded third class railway compartments— and then with nameless strangers. To accommodate her bustle, she was seated obliquely, and Cribb was obliged to adopt a similar position to avoid embarrassing contact with her knees under the table. In consequence, his legs were so restricted that he was sure his right thigh would touch her left if he leaned even slightly forward.
    ‘Observe the map, Mr Sargent,’ Rossanna ordered, as if divining his thoughts and indicating that she, at any rate, was too taken up with the night’s business to be troubled by them. It was a chart of the river from Purfleet to the Estuary, and it was spread out across the table. ‘We have just passed the Ovens buoy, marking Coalhouse Point, and this is the stretch of the river known as The Lower Hope. The place we are bound for is here.’ She touched the map.
    ‘Canvey Island?’ said Cribb.
    ‘Not quite, Mr Sargent. Look more closely.’
    He was practically sure he felt the warmth of contact on his leg before he moved. ‘A creek,’ he said. ‘Hole Haven. I can’t say I’ve heard of it before.’
    ‘Then you should read The Times more thoroughly. Hole Haven has more than once been referred to in the Parliamentary Report. Eight hulks are moored there. It is a desolate spot, accessible only by water when the tide is flowing, or across marshland from Canvey Island. Probably not more than a few of the islanders knew of the existence of the hulks until two of them were found unguarded three years ago. The owners were fined a total of over a thousand pounds for negligence.’
    ‘Seems unaccountably excessive,’ said Cribb.
    ‘So one would have thought until 1882, when one of them, the George and Valentine, sank in Hole Haven. It was then revealed that it contained two thousand cases of dynamite, the property of Nobel’s Explosives Company. Each of those hulks is a magazine, containing over fifty tons of dynamite.’
    ‘Jesus!’ said Malone, pulling excitedly at his whiskers.
    ‘But where’s the sense in it?’ asked Cribb. ‘Nobel’s manufactory is in Scotland. What