The Body at the Tower

Fifteen





For someone of her age, Mary’s experience of funerals was slight. There were always funeral processions in the streets, of course: immaculate hearses drawn by glossy black horses and followed by a train of crape-swathed carriages. Depending on the cost of the funeral, there were often mutes – paid mourners – marching stolidly beside the hearse, and precarious heaps of hothouse flowers about the polished coffin. There were humbler funerals, too – perhaps a hearse pulled by a single horse, with only a couple of carriages following. Although such a display was considered meagre, the cost could still bankrupt a working family, consigning its survivors to the workhouse. This happened often, yet the tradition continued. The poor, especially, were reluctant to forgo in death what they could not afford in life.

While some enjoyed taking notes, totting up the cost of a dozen long-faced mutes plus six dozen forced white roses, Mary was not among them. Her mother had refused to give up hope for her father, lost at sea, and refused any ritual that presumed his death. And when her mother’s own turn came, a few short years later, they hadn’t had the means for a coffin, let alone a funeral. She’d been shovelled grudgingly into a pauper’s grave, the site marked only by a pathetic wooden cross made by Mary herself. Back when she thought such things carried significance. So she’d lost both parents and seen hundreds of funeral processions in her life, but had somehow escaped attending a funeral service. It was thus with some trepidation that she slipped away from the building site and towards Southwark. Although the inquest had been adjourned, still awaiting James’s safety report, the coroner had seen fit to release the body. That was fortunate. For although this July was cool, unlike the heat wave last year that led to the Great Stink, it was still midsummer.

The street on which the Wick family lived – for how much longer, now its breadwinner was dead? – looked grimy and diminished in the presence of the rather splendid hearse. To this were hitched a pair of black mares, their bridles a suitably dull black, and an oddly jaunty headdress of black feathers atop each horse’s mane. Behind the hearse waited two large carriages. The door of the house stood open, its crape bow renewed and enlarged for the important day.

The neighbours were all at their windows, of course – she could see curtains twitching all up and down the street – but none would take note of a nosy lad behaving like a nosy lad. The Wick house was already full of women, she could see that much, wearing sombre colours rather than mourning. Friends and neighbours, then, who wouldn’t attend the funeral itself but were there to help with that formidable pack of children. Mary found a spot on the corner that afforded a good view of the house and its approach, and settled in there.

She hadn’t long to wait. In half an hour or so, a small company of men made their way down the street, walking in single file at a dignified pace. Their leader was a tall, angry-looking, dark-haired man whose black suit, a good deal too small, stretched painfully across his broad back: Keenan. Reid followed in sombre grey, his fair hair slicked down with pomade which made it appear much darker. The hod-carriers Smith and Stubbs were, like Reid, not in full mourning.

At the door, Keenan hesitated before stepping inside. He had the air of a man about to enter a new place, where the only thing he could be sure of was danger. It was odd, considering what great friends he had been with Wick. Or so one assumed. Mary realized that Keenan alone, in the brickie gang, seemed affected by the loss of Wick. Reid had his own motives, of course: his obvious affection for Mrs Wick meant he was still the prime suspect in any theory of Wick’s death involving violence. But the hod-carriers seemed little moved by the man’s death – outwardly, anyway. It was possible that in private they were deeply shaken while maintaining a brave façade. But the marked contrast between Keenan’s black mourning and the other men’s Sunday suits suggested otherwise.

The door closed behind them. After another half-hour’s delay, it swung open again and the four men reappeared, this time shouldering the coffin between them. They marched smoothly, in step, as though they’d rehearsed this precise manoeuvre with care. Perhaps they had; perhaps it was the unintentional result of their labouring together every day. They transferred the coffin to the hearse with a minimum of fuss, placing it on something of a dais surrounded by bunches of greenery. Fixed to the top of the coffin was a small arrangement of white roses in the shape of a cross.

Coffin in place, the men returned to the doorway of the house but this time remained outside until the widow Wick came into view. Mourning dress made her appear paler and thinner than ever, and even from Mary’s distance it was clear that she was feeling unwell. She took a few faltering steps, then paused. The sight of the coffin, mounted on the hearse for its final journey, seemed to make an impression upon her. She stared, eyes wide, mouth working. A moment later, she sank soundlessly towards the ground.

Reid caught her before she fell, his arms flashing out to raise her before the other men had even noticed her distress. Keenan’s habitual scowl spasmed with strong emotion – anger? – then smoothed out into a carefully impassive expression. He waited while the neighbours revived Mrs Wick with fans and smelling-salts, taking her from Reid’s arms and supporting her wasted frame against their shoulders.

Then, another attempt. The girlish widow set her face, clenched tight her black-gloved fists and walked to the first carriage, where she was helped up by the hired attendant. Following respectfully, the four men climbed into the second carriage. And that was that. Within a minute, the entire procession was under way.

Following the funeral train was rather more awkward than it sounded. To begin with, the hearse and carriages moved at a glacial pace, much more slowly than other vehicles and pedestrians. There was the difficulty, too, of showing proper respect. Most people turned to acknowledge the passing of the hearse, hats removed and heads bowed. At the very least, they stopped their activity, whether furious or lackadaisical, for the minutes it took the hearse and carriages to pass. And through these motionless tableaux, Mary had to move. It was as well that she was still dressed as a child, a boy who couldn’t be expected to behave properly or empathize with the scene he was witnessing. All the same, she worried about drawing attention to herself. She was bound to be recognized if spotted by one of the bricklayers, and didn’t like her chances of explaining herself to Keenan yet again.

Had it been raining, her task would have been easier: general vision obscured, pedestrians skulking beneath umbrellas. But this afternoon, the dirty grey skies only pressed down upon the roof-tops, promising rain at some unspecified time to come. The horses plodded on, enforcing a relative quiet in the streets through which they passed. Even in Southwark Bridge Road, where the breadth of the avenue dwarfed the coffin, the hearse, its followers and, by implication, its entire significance – even in such a busy road, there was a discernible slowing of activity. Such general courtesy would be rather gratifying, if the mourners were the sort to take note of such matters.

Eventually, the procession wound its way into narrower streets once more. When it halted before a small Methodist chapel, Mary realized with some surprise that they were only a few streets from Wick’s house. Apparently, the procession had been largely a matter of form, to satisfy the desire for proper rites – or perhaps to squeeze some value from the expensive hire of a hearse and two carriages. But they were now outside the church nearest the Wick house. From what she’d learned of Wick, he hadn’t been the church-going type. But perhaps his widow was: any woman burdened with such a family would surely have need of prayer.

Mary watched with genuine interest as the attendants prepared to let down the carriage steps. Although ladies did not view funerals, being too delicate, too emotional, too easily undone, to witness such scenes, working women were different – at least, according to popular wisdom. If Mrs Wick was strong enough to prepare her husband’s body for burial, she was capable of attending his funeral.

However, only the bricklayers stepped onto the pavement, solemnly straightening their Sunday suits, and shouldered the coffin once more. Instead of carrying it into the chapel proper, the four men walked it around the building towards the graveyard. Their smooth progress faltered at the gate. One of the hod-carriers – Mary couldn’t tell which, from behind – seemed to waver a little, and the coffin bobbed slightly, its floral wreath slipping to one side. There seemed to be some hasty muttered conference between the pallbearers, during which Reid glanced back towards the carriages, an anxious expression creasing his face. Then, with renewed solemnity, they marched forward once more.

It wasn’t until they passed through the gate that Mary saw the cause of this disturbance: a portly figure in a dark suit, clutching an umbrella. He stood beside the open grave, a strange, shuttered expression on his broad face. She couldn’t cross to their side of the street without becoming conspicuous. But she could see that no words passed between Harkness and Keenan, despite the compounded rage on the latter’s face. The four men placed the coffin on a sort of table erected for the purpose, then spaced themselves widely around it, allowing for a meaningful gap between them and Harkness. As an attempt to make the group seem larger, this failed dismally. It was pathetically clear that few cared to see John Wick into the next world.

The minister, trotting neatly down the walk with a bible clasped between his hands, seemed struck by the sparseness of the gathering. He slowed and peered for just a moment before resuming his sedate pace, his sombre expression. As he cleared his throat to begin, Reid glanced fleetingly towards the carriages once more. He couldn’t have seen Mrs Wick. It could only have been a nervous reflex, suppressed the very instant it was enacted. But Keenan scowled at him none the less.

The service was brief. A short speech, an even shorter reading – New Testament, judging from the open place in the book – and no hymn. In rather less than ten minutes, two attendants were expertly looping lengths of rope about the coffin and slowly lowering it into the open grave. The four – no, five – mourners watched the first shovelful of earth drop onto the casket, damp and clumpy. There was no echo, of course, but it looked as though there ought to have been. After a suitable pause, the gravedigger tugged his cap and nodded once. This was the point at which the affair ended, leaving him to his solitary task.

The bricklayers seemed to understand this. But Harkness, his eyes fixed on the grave, didn’t seem to notice the brittle atmosphere of expectation surrounding him. His gaze was fierce in its sightlessness, his thoughts clearly miles from this ugly bare graveyard in south London. The seconds stretched out endlessly. It was a full minute before Keenan’s low growl, audible even to Mary across the street, shook him from his meditations. With a rattled look, Harkness murmured something – three syllables, four at most. Mary was practised at lip-reading, but the combination of Harkness’s fulsome beard and the angle of his stance defeated her here. All she knew was that it wasn’t the traditional “God bless you”. A moment later, without looking at the bricklayers, Harkness turned on his heel and marched away.

Expressionless, the four men watched him go. Now that both Wick, their comrade, and Harkness, their common adversary, were gone, they seemed rather at a loss, as though requiring an external reason to stay united. They left the graveyard in a shuffling, disorganized manner far removed from their earlier almost martial discipline, and scrambled into the waiting carriage for the return journey. They didn’t retrace the route of the formal procession, instead returning directly to the Wicks’.

Mary considered what she’d just seen. An expensive but otherwise minimal funeral for a man whose death few seemed to regret. Confirmation of Reid’s tenderness for Mrs Wick. Harkness’s extraordinary attachment to a dead bricklayer, in the face of bristling suspicion from the man’s friends and colleagues. It didn’t amount to much, put like that. Yet something about the charged atmosphere – something unspoken, but lurking behind all those carefully composed expressions – was very wrong. There was a storm coming. An explosion of some sort. And she still couldn’t tell where from.

It seemed daft to stand outside Wick’s house, where the funeral tea was just beginning. She ought really to return to site. Yet she continued to loiter at the street corner, watching the bricklayers and Mrs Wick – helped down from the carriage by Reid, who’d brushed past the waiting attendant – re-enter the house. The female neighbours would be inside, preparing food and keeping the children calm. The meal could go on for ages yet. All the same, Mary prepared herself for a long wait. She could justify it rationally, of course: additional mourners, those who couldn’t afford to forfeit an afternoon’s wages, might turn up. They might, in turn, lead to additional knowledge of Wick’s character. But beyond all that, something like blind instinct told her to wait. And so she did.

It was a good three hours and nearing dusk before something happened, but that something was even more dramatic than she’d imagined. A handful of friends had indeed rolled in through the late afternoon, and the babble of voices and clinking of crockery had increased in volume. But suddenly, there came sharp, distinct voices raised in anger. It was a genuine quarrel between Keenan and Reid, and it escalated for several minutes, despite placating noises from others – mostly female and, Mary guessed, not Mrs Wick. It was truly raucous, now: a vicious-sounding scrap, male voices barking and snarling like savage animals, that made passers-by turn and stare in brief wonderment.

A few minutes later the front door burst open, tearing off one of the hinges, and two bodies tumbled out, already locked together in passionate rage. Mary instinctively stepped back, tucking herself neatly behind a lamppost. The gesture was totally unnecessary. Neither Reid nor Keenan was likely to notice if Queen Victoria herself came strolling down the narrow street.

It was a fight in earnest, no mere display or posturing but a battle between two men who had passed from trust into hatred. Keenan was the larger man and ought to have had the advantage. But Reid fought with grim determination. He seldom missed an opportunity to land a punch, and each blow was placed with care and strategy.

The battle ended only when Mrs Wick ran out of the house, stumbling slightly as she came, and dived between the two men. “Stop! Stop it!” she cried, a desperate expression on her narrow, pale face.

The two men reared back in shock, as though dashed with cold water.

“You call yourselves friends of John’s, and this is what you do?! You come to his house and you fight like dogs, a-shaming me before the neighbours?” She was quite breathless, and held one hand protectively over her belly. “How dare you?”

Reid opened his mouth to protest, to explain, but a sharp gesture from her stopped him mid-breath. Keenan scowled at the road, panting but otherwise silent.

The three figures stood like statues in the dusty road, oblivious of all around them: of the neighbours, young and old, peering out doors and windows with avid hunger; of the friends in Wick’s house, urging them inside; of the frightened tears and babble of the children, clamouring for their mother. All this they ignored.

Finally, Mrs Wick spoke, in a low, trembling voice. “You got no call to be a-quarrelling over Wick’s money. It was his money, and now it’s mine, and I’ll spend it as I like. You—” She stabbed a finger at Keenan, who stood there, sullen and stolid. “You mind your own business. You got your wage and the other money besides, a bigger share than Wick ever got, I daresay, and I ain’t never said a word. And you” – she rounded on Reid, who flinched as from a blow – “you got no call to speak for me.” She was panting as she finished this speech.

By now, Reid and Keenan each had something of the disciplined schoolboy about them, one surly and unresponsive, the other shuffling his feet and not daring to meet her gaze.

Mrs Wick folded her arms, a gesture both protective and defiant. “Get thee gone.” When the two men only gaped stupidly at her, she stamped her foot. “Go on! You got no right to be here, a-spoiling everything, and teaching the children your bad ways.” Reid looked at her, wounded as a puppy, but she stuck out her jaw stubbornly. “Go, then, the both of you!”

In silence, Reid and Keenan made their departures. Keenan moved with care, planting each foot squarely before transferring his body-weight – a walk very unlike his usual gait. He must have had a great deal to drink. Reid followed mechanically, unable to stop glancing over his shoulder to where Mrs Wick stood, arms folded. After a minute, though, he shook his head angrily and sped up, swerving neatly around Keenan and disappearing down the street.

Mary let out a long, shaky exhalation. She’d not realized she’d been holding her breath. Her fingers, too, tingled from being clenched tight. That was what she’d waited to see. What “other money” had the widow meant, precisely? It was clear enough, now, that Keenan, Reid and Wick were all “on the take”; possible, too, that the hod-carriers were involved. No wonder Keenan was slow to engage a replacement for Wick. It wasn’t a simple matter of finding a competent brickie; it meant finding someone they could trust.

Someone bent.

Someone like them.