Page 22 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
“Your accounts of the comings and goings at the Hart,” he demanded.“Back in 1813, when it was raided.Were they burned in the fire?”
The woman’s dead eyes closed in a slow blink.“Now, Tommy lad, why would you come sniffing all the way over here asking me about an old thing like that?”
“It’s a simple query, that’s all.A polite yes or no would suffice.”
She tilted her head to one side.“What’s in it for me?”
“Blunt.The exact amount depends on what information is on offer.”
Money conversed in a broken, impoverished language; Tommy and Ma Duggan spoke it fluently.She moistened a cracked sore on her lower lip with her tongue while her busy brain weighed up the odds.
“They burned, all right.Along with everything except the clothes I was stood up in.”She tapped her head twice.“But this in here wasn’t so smoke-addled.”
“And you’ve recently shared that information with someone else,” Tommy stated.
“Mebbe I have,” she countered with another shrug.“Visitors are the sort of thing that slips out the mind ever so easy-like.”Making the universal sign of rubbing her knobbly forefinger against her thumb, she said sharply, “My memory needs to see the colour of your coin first.”
“And it shall,” interjected Rossingley.“You have my word.”
The air was stifling in the cramped room as if the unhappy spirits of those less fortunate than Tommy loitered in its dim and dusty corners.
He reached for his purse and extracted five sovereigns.“A taste of what’s on offer.Perhaps that might poke it.”
In a blink, the coins disappeared into the folds of the woman’s dress.
“A gentleman came calling, fishing about.Too much of a nob to be a runner.He pretended to be a madge.”
“And?”Tommy prompted, his pulse quickening.
“And so we came to an agreement.All respectful-like.He gave me some dough, and I gave him what he wanted.”
“Which was?”
“Not any of my young sodomites.Not even you flashing your arse would have tempted him.”
Her poor joke landed flat.Tommy waited, and after a beat, she added, “He wanted a list of who was here the night of the raid.”
Whilst Tommy digested this piece of information, Rossingley paced towards her, stopping a couple of feet away.
“Humour me, Mrs Duggan,” he said, hands clasped behind his back.“And you shall be even more handsomely rewarded.Would you be a dear pet and run down all the names on that list?”
His long fingers tapped on his wallet.
“He was on it, of course.”She cocked her head in Tommy’s direction.“And his pal, Sidney.Don’t know if he ever got out of Newgate.I’d be surprised after what they did to him.Bloody heathen he was anyhow.Good riddance, I say.”
Tommy congratulated himself on leaving Sidney to guard the carriage.Otherwise, Ma Duggan might well have uttered her last words ever, and Tommy would be none closer to discovering the identity of their mystery blackmailer.
Rossingley smiled at her, baring his teeth.“Do go on, pet.”
“Then there were the two Jimmy’s.‘Sally’ was what we called one of them so we could tell them part.Both dead now.One the pox, the other starved in the workhouse.Young Will Thompson—I think he’s pushing up daisies too.And my own boy Dickie.He’s still going strong.Thick as a barn door but strong.”
“Very good.”As Rossingley rustled the folds of his wallet, she was almost salivating.“And now the names of the paying customers, if you will?”
“One was a bloke called Edward—didn’t ever know his other name, but he turned up like clockwork every Thursday.Mr Simms, the night watch over at the docks, old Mr Tennant, and some out-of-town merchant used to call himself Smith.Nice fella, not his real name of course.And Tommy’s handsome young lordling.Fancy Fitzsimmons, we called him.The marquess of somewhere or other.He was too stupid—too led by his prick—to come up with summat false.”
Too naïve, thought Tommy, with a pang.Too sheltered.Too much in love.
Concluding her work was done, Ma Duggan sat back and folded her arms.“I reckon that’s the name this nob was after.He handed the blunt over as soon as he heard that one.Wasn’t interested in the others at all.”Again, she rubbed her yellowed finger and thumb together.“I’ll have the rest of yours now, Tommy lad.Cough up.”
