Kitty Page 28

  ‘I expect he’s probably still in the mess-hall,’ the sergeant said. ‘But I can’t leave you upstairs, so would you like to sit in the waiting room while I go and find him?’

  ‘Yes, I will, thank you.’ Kitty brushed gently past him, but just as she did, and for no reason whatsoever, her reticule slipped from her grasp and hit the wooden floor with a very audible clunk.

  This time she wasn’t the only one who froze. Very slowly, her gaze travelled up the front of Sergeant Royce’s jacket to his face, knowing that his attention would be on the ink that must surely be spreading across the floorboards by now.

  But no, he was looking directly at her, silent but questioning.

  She glanced down at her reticule, which, thank God, wasn’t sitting in a puddle of ink.

  ‘I’ve been caught, haven’t I?’ she said quietly.

  He nodded. ‘What is it?’

  Kitty blinked, and this time her tears were real. She was so frightened she wondered if her legs would continue to hold her up.

  ‘Treats. A jar of oysters and one of pickles. Uncle Avery said the food here is awful.’

  The sergeant looked at her for a moment longer, then bent down to pick up her reticule. Kitty also reached for it, wincing as the pen nibs dug into her flesh, but he got there first. He straightened up, his fingers fumbling clumsily with the clasp.

  ‘No!’

  He stopped.

  ‘Please,’ Kitty pleaded, ‘there are things in there. It’s…my time of the month.’

  Sergeant Royce’s face immediately flushed a dull red and he thrust her reticule at her. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said.

  ‘No, I should apologise. I know nothing should be brought into the barracks. I’m very sorry. I won’t do it again.’

  He nodded, but Kitty saw a shadow of doubt cross his face. And something else, too. Relief?

  ‘I’ll overlook it just this once,’ he said, and gestured towards the waiting room.

  Kitty went in and sat down, feeling sick. Not because she’d nearly been caught, but because of the lies she’d told the sergeant. He was a kind young man, who’d clearly taken a fancy to her, and she was using him.

  Sergeant Royce left them alone in the room upstairs, saying he had something he had to do and would be back shortly. Kitty handed the goods over to Avery Bannerman, not even flinching while he watched interestedly as she dug the receipt and pens out of her bodice. She did, however, turn her back when she retrieved the paper hidden under her skirts.

  ‘How will you manage with the guards and the other inmates around?’ she said. ‘You can’t have much privacy.’

  ‘There’s more privacy in here than you might imagine,’ Bannerman said. ‘It comes in handy for all sorts of things.’

  Kitty ignored his last comment, and the unpleasant feeling it gave her. ‘When do you think it might be ready? We have to have it by Monday afternoon at the latest. Rian goes in front of the magistrate on Tuesday morning.’

  ‘Monday morning, then. Don’t worry, I always deliver on time.’

  ‘What time shall I come to collect it?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  Kitty looked at him. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’ll have it delivered. Less risk. Give me the address of your lodgings.’

  It was then that Kitty realised what an extremely powerful man Avery Bannerman really was, and how amateur and incompetent her cloak and dagger attempts must seem to him.

  ‘It’s 4 Caraher’s Lane.’

  Sergeant Royce returned then, and if he noticed that there was neither a jar of oysters nor one of pickles sitting on the table, he didn’t comment.

  Avery Bannerman was as good as his word. The forged customs receipt arrived at half past nine on Monday morning, delivered by a snot-nosed boy about ten years old, who loitered on Kitty’s doorstep until she realised he wanted paying. She gave him sixpence.

  The receipt was a work of art. She didn’t know how Bannerman had done it, but he’d not only copied the style of the original they’d given him exactly, but had also managed to somehow weather the paper so that it looked like it had been issued months ago and had been lying around in someone’s bookwork ever since.

  Sharkey was ecstatic.

  ‘See, what did I tell you? The man’s a bloody genius! Right on the nail!’

  Kitty found herself unable to share the others’ delight because the most challenging part of the whole undertaking was still to come.

  The plan had been to deliver the document to Rian’s barrister, a Mr Clement Prentice, to produce in court so that he would be acquitted, and, they hoped, give Walter Kinghazel a conniption at the same time, which would be an added bonus. But enquiries had revealed that Prentice had gone off to Campbelltown for several days on business, which everyone thought was rather cavalier given the seriousness of Rian’s predicament, and was not expected back at his residence until after his Tuesday court commitments. Rather than accosting him in full view on the steps of the courthouse, they decided that it would be safer to give the receipt to Rian himself, inside Sydney Gaol. That way he would be certain of being able to produce it in front of the magistrate.

  The problem was that whoever gave Rian the receipt would have to get physically close enough to pass it to him, as the prison guards were notoriously difficult to smuggle anything past. That excluded the crew of the Katipo, none of whom, although loyal to Rian to a man, were willing to embrace him in public with the required level of intimacy. Enya couldn’t do it as she’d already announced herself as his sister during a visit, and no one thought Wai should be placed in such danger, given her condition. The only person left was Kitty, who, against her better judgement yet again, had agreed to pose as Rian’s wife.

  It wasn’t the danger that worried her—she was becoming quite accustomed to putting herself at risk of late—it was the wife bit. She had deliberately kept Rian at arm’s length since the day she’d discovered Enya was his sister and not his lover, and she was afraid that if she found herself physically close to him once more her determination would be compromised. It was her heart that threatened to let her down—her heart and perhaps even her soul. She yearned for him in ways she couldn’t describe even to herself, and it frightened her badly.

  She sat at the bare table in the mean, windowless little room, deliberately refusing to meet the eye of the man standing just inside the door. Guards seemed cut from a different quality of cloth here. At least those at the barracks had been polite to her; this one just leered.

  She tied and retied the ribbons on her bonnet, desperate to give her shaking hands something to do until Rian appeared.

  Mercifully, he wasn’t long in coming. Escorted into the room by another guard, he sat down opposite her and smiled.

  Kitty smiled back. He didn’t look much different. She had thought he might look defeated and somehow reduced, but he was the same Rian he’d always been. His grey eyes remained bright, the laughter lines still bracketed his mouth, and his hair was, as always, somewhat untidy. He was still wearing the clothes he’d been arrested in and, she couldn’t help noticing, could have done with a good wash.

  ‘Hello, husband,’ she said, horrified for a second that she might have said ‘uncle’. She was relieved to see that he appeared to be all right, but still felt sick with nerves at the thought of what she had to do next.

  His right eyebrow went up a fraction, the only indication of his surprise. ‘Hello, mo mhuirnín.’

  She frowned.

  ‘My sweetheart,’ Rian mouthed.

  Kitty flushed, remembering the last time he had said that to her. Rather too loudly, she asked, ‘Are you well?’

  Rian shrugged. ‘As well as can be expected, given the rubbish they serve in here for food.’ He glared at the guard, who looked away. ‘How are the lads?’

  ‘They’re well, although they’re worried,’ Kitty replied.

  ‘What about the Katipo? How’s the refit going?’

  Kitty could hardly say that almost nothing had
been done in the last week as they’d all been too busy scheming to get Rian out of prison. ‘Coming along.’

  There was a short silence, during which Rian stared at her intently, presumably trying to fathom whatever it was she had come to tell him. She felt something touching her foot and started as she realised he was stroking the inside of her ankle with the toe of his boot.

  She cleared her throat. ‘I am in receipt of something that I think—’

  The guard stepped forward and kicked the leg of the table, shunting it several inches across the floor. ‘No passing of information,’ he growled.

  There was another silence, longer this time. The guard’s stomach rumbled.

  ‘Will you come to court tomorrow?’ Rian asked.

  ‘I…I don’t know,’ Kitty said, and began to cry.

  Rian ferreted in his pocket and passed her a handkerchief. It was very grubby but she took it anyway and blew her nose loud enough to make the guard jump.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’m so worried for you. I should leave, I’ll only upset you.’

  Rian nodded gravely, but didn’t try to dissuade her.

  ‘I want to go,’ Kitty announced to the guard, who nodded.

  She stuffed the handkerchief down the front of her dress, hastily making sure that the receipt hadn’t slipped down too far. She stood up, her eyes never leaving Rian’s, warning him to be ready. He rose to his feet as well, his chair scraping across the floor.

  At the door Kitty gave a loud sob. She turned and launched herself at Rian, kissing him passionately and feeling genuinely comforted as his arms closed around her and pressed her tightly against his solid chest. It occurred to her, very disconcertingly, that she could quite happily stay like this forever.

  ‘Oi! That’s enough of that!’ the guard cried, striding across the room and yanking them apart.

  Kitty stumbled against the wall, banging her head. The guard flicked his hand at her. ‘Go on, away with you!’ he said, his grip still firm on Rian’s arm.

  Kitty nodded, gave Rian one last glance and scurried out. Her right ear stung where she’d connected with the wall and the sleeve of her dress was torn. But none of that mattered because the forged receipt was now tucked safely inside Rian’s shirt.

  They were glad they’d arrived early, as the courtroom was already packed.

  ‘They can’t all have come to see Rian,’ Kitty said to Mrs Doyle, who was squashed onto the bench beside her.

  ‘No, but it’s an entertainment, isn’t it?’ Mrs Doyle said, breaking off a piece of the bap she held in her lap and popping it into her mouth. ‘There’s always this many folk.’

  The noise was considerable, with people chattering and calling out to each other as though they were at some jolly public event. Glancing up at the rather magnificent clock on the wall above the dock, Kitty saw that proceedings were running late: Rian’s appearance had been set down for half past ten, and it was five minutes to eleven already and the magistrate hadn’t even put in an appearance yet. Below her, she could see Mr Kinghazel sitting on a pew at one of the long tables facing the magistrate’s dais. On the other side of the floor sat another man wearing dusty black robes and a wig. She called out to Hawk, who was sitting three people along next to Sharkey.

  ‘Is that Clement Prentice?’ she said, pointing down at the man in black.

  Hawk nodded.

  ‘Is he any good?’

  Hawk’s face split into one of his rare but sunny smiles. ‘Does it matter now?’

  Kitty laughed and sat back, looking forward to what could be a thoroughly entertaining session.

  Finally, a man appeared through a side door and called out officiously, ‘All rise for Justice Roper!’

  ‘Who’s that man?’ Kitty asked as she stood.

  Mrs Doyle stayed sitting and didn’t even look up from her bap. ‘Officer of the court.’

  A moment later Justice Roper himself entered, a small man in black and red robes, spectacles and a top-heavy grey wig, who looked very jaded and grumpy even from Kitty’s vantage point.

  Then Rian, his hands and legs manacled, was escorted into the courtroom by a guard and guided into the dock. He looked sober, but not particularly worried, which Kitty took to be a very good sign.

  The officer of the court stood and read out the charge. There was only the one—failing to pay customs and excise duties—but it still elicited an ‘oooh’ of anticipation from the crowd because of the potential severity of the punishment for such a misdemeanour.

  Mr Kinghazel, apparently, was prosecuting the case he’d brought himself. He stood up and began to describe to the magistrate what he’d discovered when he’d boarded the defendant’s schooner, known as the Katipo, unannounced in Sydney Cove on the seventeenth day of November last year—namely, a hundredweight of close-packed Virginia tobacco and a dozen hogsheads of whiskey and the same of brandy.

  At this, the courtroom observers gave a loud cheer, causing the officer of the court to stand up and yell, ‘Order!’

  Kinghazel went on with his story. Unfortunately, he related, he had neglected to take with him the accoutrements he needed to issue an official receipt for the duties he had assumed Captain Rian Farrell was going to pay, and had to row all the way back into shore to collect them. When he returned to the schooner, however, not very much later at all, he found to his consternation that both the tobacco and spirits had vanished into thin air.

  ‘Trumped-up charge!’ Sharkey bellowed.

  ‘Order!’

  The magistrate waited for the noise to die down then enquired in an unexpectedly robust voice, ‘And why is it that you have left it so long to bring this charge against Captain Farrell, Mr Kinghazel? It has been—What is it now? The eleventh of May?—it has been nearly six months since that particular visit to the defendant’s schooner. Surely you could have issued a warrant for his arrest before now?’

  ‘I could not, my lord.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because when I returned to shore yet again to seek the assistance of the constabulary, Captain Farrell upped anchor and scarpered—’

  Laughter this time.

  ‘—and has not been seen in Sydney Cove since, until this most recent, and I have to say, given his current predicament, very ill-advised, visit.’ Kinghazel smirked up at the dock. Rian ignored him.

  Judge Roper made a steeple out of his fingers. ‘And because the defendant, as you describe it, scarpered, you haven’t issued a warrant until now. Is that right?’

  ‘Correct, my lord.’

  ‘Mmm. Mr Kinghazel, what do you think happened to the contraband you allegedly discovered on Captain Farrell’s vessel last November?’

  ‘Where did it go when I went ashore, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I believe Captain Farrell had someone nearby in a rowboat, waiting to collect the goods. In fact, I suspect I interrupted that very procedure, my lord. If I had been even fifteen minutes later I would have missed the transaction completely.’

  ‘Could he not have just tipped the lot over the side while you were retrieving your, er, receipt-making accoutrements,’ Judge Roper asked, ‘thereby avoiding the problem entirely? The problem of having to pay customs duties, I mean. In which case you will have charged Captain Farrell erroneously and brought him to court for nothing.’

  Kinghazel said, ‘Two dozen hogsheads, my lord. Would you sacrifice that?’

  ‘No, I suppose I would not.’

  More laughter.

  ‘I rest my case,’ Kinghazel said. ‘I saw the tobacco and the liquor with my own eyes, and when I returned to Captain Farrell’s vessel it had gone. I have every reason to believe that he had it taken off, and profited from subsequent sales without paying customs duties. Hence the warrant for his arrest.’ He sat down, still smirking.

  Kitty sensed movement to her left; Pierre was climbing onto a pew.

  ‘This charge is trumped!’ he yelled. ‘Monsieur Kinghazel est un morceau de merde de chien!’<
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  ‘Get that Frenchman out of my courtroom!’ the judge barked, banging his desk viciously with his gavel. ‘Guards!’

  But Pierre beat them to it, jumping down from the pew and, to a chorus of hoots and laughter, scampering up the aisle to the back of the room where he hovered just outside the door, making sure he could still see what was going on.

  Kitty winced; this could quite possibly turn into a shambles.

  Judge Roper sighed and pointed at Clement Prentice, who was wearing a pained expression. ‘Mr Prentice, what do you have to say in defence of your client?’

  Clement Prentice rose to his feet, shuffled through the papers spread on the table before him, and cleared his throat. ‘My lord, it is my intention today, here in these hallowed halls of justice and adjudication, and my personal privilege, in your honourable presence—’

  ‘Get on with it, man,’ the judge growled.

  Chastened, Mr Prentice tugged at the front of his gown. In the dock, Rian whispered something to the guard standing near him, who came down from the dock and approached the lawyer.

  The crowd hushed: this was a potentially interesting departure from the usual order of things.

  Prentice then crossed the floor himself, standing in front of the dock while Rian said a few words to him, then handed him a folded piece of paper. Prentice took the document, opened it and nearly fainted. Even from halfway up in the observers’ gallery Kitty could see that his face had paled.

  There was a moment of complete silence, during which the heels of Clement Prentice’s highly polished shoes resounded on the floorboards as he walked over to the magistrate’s dais, hesitantly at first, then with considerable confidence. He handed the document up to Judge Roper, who read it once, and then again.

  ‘This,’ the judge announced, ‘is a receipt for customs duties paid on a hundredweight of Virginia tobacco and two dozen hogsheads of whiskey and brandy by Captain Rian Farrell on the seventeenth day of November, 1839. Mr Kinghazel? I would very much appreciate it if in future you did not waste my time.’ He brought his gavel down hard. ‘Case dismissed.’

  The predominantly ex-convict crowd erupted. It wasn’t often the underdog triumphed over the might of the English judicial system, and when it happened it was always a cause for celebration.