The Year of the Gun

Book 0: The Irregular

by H.B. Lyle

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Mystery

Synopsis

1912. Released from the Secret Service, Wiggins sets out for New York and his lost lover Bela. But after an altercation on board, he finds himself among the low-life of Britain's poorest city, Dublin.

Wiggins falls in with gangster Patrick O'Connell and is soon driving the boss's girlfriend around town. Molly wants O'Connell to support her Irish nationalist cause - a cause needing guns to defeat the British - and then they go to find them in America.

Finally, Wiggins can solve the mystery of Bela - and meet his old mentor, Sherlock Holmes in a story of escalating intrigue, danger and violence.

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Release date: November 5, 2020

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 256

Sample

Tyrone wished they’d let him carry a piece. But Meath said no way, and Little Patsy had just laughed in his face. He hated running errands without a gun.

He came out of the bar onto the street. It was nearly midnight. He looked about him, saw no one. The sounds of laughter, singing, drunkenness filtered out of the door behind him. Still serving, and they would for a while yet – especially now Patrolman Hennessy had stopped by for a few. He shivered slightly against a sudden chill. It was warm, but something about this errand had got into his bones. Little Patsy had been jumpy all evening and when he’d ordered him out to the neighbouring Hudson River docks to pick up a package, Tyrone had initially felt relief. Just to get out of that bar, with that Meath tapping his feet and snorting off the table, and Little Patsy pointing and laughing and red-eyed, was enough to make him nervous. But now, out on the street, the relief dissipated and the fear returned. Working for Little Patsy Doyle was all about the nerves.

He set off at a jog. He did not look around, like an act of faith or something. It was strangely quiet. He expected the death train down Tenth any minute, but he couldn’t see or hear it in the midnight black. He hurried across the wide road and out towards the docks. A number of unlit warehouses were ranged along the street, and he headed towards a gap between two. It was even darker down here, dark like he imagined the countryside to be, though he’d never set foot outside of Manhattan, save one or two trips to the Bronx with his mama when he was knee-high. When he looked up, he could even see the stars. It felt like it must be the only place on the island this dark. He knew every inch of the island and little else besides.

His heart began to race. He could sense someone at the end of the alley, behind him, but he didn’t want to look. He stopped instead at the address Meath had given him for the Little Patsy pick-up. A small wooden door cut into the side of the alley, it looked like it hadn’t been opened in years. He raised his hand to knock—

‘Tyrone,’ someone shouted, in an English accent.

A shape appeared at the end of the alley – the Englishman for sure. Tyrone made out the raised hand, the aggression in the voice, and he ran.

The alley opened out onto a wide pier and Tyrone hurtled across it, his heart beating fast. He could outdistance the Englishman, but in that instant he ran straight on – away from any exit and out onto the long, empty pier. It was a cargo pier, not for the big liners that docked upriver. A smugglers’ pier, dark as death and just as frightening.

His mind raced. ‘Right, left, right, left?’ he chanted to himself, looking for a gap in the cargo. The Englishman shouted again, closer than he thought.

Suddenly, the pier ran out. He glanced out quickly into the darkness of the Hudson River, then back around, and wheeled to the right-hand edge. He thrust his hands into the air and whispered, ‘Don’t shoot.’

The man came closer. He moved like a cat. A cat with a gun.

‘Don’t do it, Englishman,’ Tyrone said.

‘Speak up!’

‘Please, don’t kill me,’ Tyrone shouted. He wailed and hollered into the wind-whipped night. ‘This … this ain’t your battle. Please help. Help, Lord, help,’ he cried at the top of his voice, along the pier to the warehouses, the choppy river-sea at his back. ‘Please, Englishman, have mercy.’

The Englishman nodded slightly. ‘The name’s Wiggins,’ he said, and fired twice.

‘Unsinkable, my arse.’

‘It’s got the ballast, so it has, John Coffey. The good ship Coffey’s Arse.’

‘Wheesht, you, and pour another.’ The young man laughed and pointed at the bottle.

Wiggins sat in a circle of six or seven men playing cards around a table improvised from luggage. They were in the mixed third-class saloon of the RMS Titanic as it steamed north from Cherbourg to Ireland on its second night at sea. Someone played a violin. A bodhrán marked the beat. Men and women danced. Drink ran free.

A rat-faced man sat next to Wiggins. He had sharp eyes and a scorched cheek. He threw his cards down in anger, then turned to the winner, Coffey.

‘What-the-hell-you-know?’ Ratface said. He strung his words together at speed. Wiggins didn’t have a handle on American accents, but he guessed New York. ‘This ship’ll never sink. It’s in all the papers.’

‘Ach, I’m not saying it will sink. But it might.’

‘And who are you?’ the American scoffed.

Wiggins leaned forward. ‘You’re one of the engineers, ain’t you?’

Coffey looked up, surprised. ‘True, I am. But only until Queenstown.’

‘Are we playing cards here?’ The American scowled as he tossed around another hand. ‘Because some of us here aren’t by way of enjoying being taken for money.’ He glared at Wiggins, who had a handy pile of coins to his name.

Wiggins pointedly ignored him. Instead, he eyed Coffey. The young man was broad, almost fresh-faced, but he had calloused hands and the beefy upper arms of a manual labourer, not an engineer. Wiggins had said that to flatter the man, for it was clear he worked in the furnace (coal splatter all over his trousers) – he was a fireman, off shift. Still, he did work on the ship, and knew more about it than anyone there.

‘Why do you say it’s sinkable?’ Wiggins asked.

‘Any ship is sinkable. It’s a question of physics. If it takes on enough water below decks, it will go down.’

‘But what about the isolation system?’

Coffey shrugged. ‘It’s not going to sink, surely. But if the water gets in … Look, if you put a hole big enough into the hull, say here or here …’ he gestured with his hands ‘… then it doesn’t matter what all else you’ve got. Same principle for a skiff, a yawl or a dinghy. You’re going down into the deep and you don’t come back.’

Coffey’s friend raised his eyebrows. ‘It would have to be a pretty big hole.’

‘Ach, now you’re being filthy.’ Coffey flicked a cigarette at his friend and laughed.

They settled down to play the hand. Wiggins’s mind drifted, what with the bottled beer and the half-empty flask at his hip. The saloon heaved with people, even at this late hour, still jolly, excited. Young children ran wild, their mothers smiled, their fathers drank. They were all going to a better life in America, they thought. The great capitalist experiment out West: no kings and queens and emperors to take the spoils, no aristocracy to bleed the workers dry. Wiggins wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know much about New York, but he knew the only solution to poverty was money. And that was never free.

New York. He guessed she was there. It’d been almost three years since he’d seen her in London, his Bela, his love, his life, his betrayer. Bela, killer of his best friend, Bill, architect of terror, breaker of his heart. Bela—

‘Whoa!’ CRASH!

The rat-faced American had launched himself at Coffey. ‘Cheat!’ he cried, upending the table. He grasped Coffey by the lapels, pulled him up. The saloon was in uproar. Shouts and screams, smashed glass.

‘See here,’ Ratface pulled cards from Coffey’s sleeve, ‘that pot’s mine. It’s all mine.’ As if out of nowhere, Ratface now had two or three friends. Large men, in American clothes, crowding Coffey, blocking the view.

Wiggins put his hand on Ratface’s shoulder. ‘Watch it, Ratty.’

Ratface swivelled. Wiggins glanced at his heavies, reset his feet. ‘Jack of spades, three of clubs, ace of hearts? You should know – you had them all in there.’ He tapped the man’s breast pocket.

Ratface glared, then tilted his head.

Wiggins met the first heavy’s chin with the flat of his palm. He jammed his foot into the knee of the second man, then turned, only to find a revolver in his face.

‘I’ll take your money, too.’ Ratface showed his teeth, just above the Colt’s sight. ‘Welcome to America.’

Wiggins raised his hands slowly. ‘We ain’t there yet. No need for a shooter here, mate.’

‘There’s always need for a gun.’

Wiggins took a breath. Coffey and the other players had slithered off into the crowd. Ratface had a gun and three heavies. And he looked like a man who would use it. On the other hand, all the money Wiggins had in the world was sewn into his waistband. Ratface would know that, too. He’d have to take care to get it right, to—

‘Aahh!’ BANG BANG.

Wiggins grasped the gun muzzle in his left hand while flooring Ratface with his right. Gunshots peppered the ceiling as he wrestled for control of the weapon.

Finally, he staggered back, gun in hand. ‘You want some?’ Wiggins shouted theatrically at the prone Ratface. ‘Then use your bloody hands.’ Bullets clattered to the floor as he emptied the gun. ‘Come on, then! And no bloody gun— oomph!’

A great force smashed into his back. He flew to the floor, pinned by the weight of at least three men.

‘Gun gun gun!’ someone shouted.

The gun was pulled from his grasp. Handcuffs pinched his wrists.

‘It ain’t loaded,’ Wiggins said.

‘To the master-at-arms, now!’ The voice, a bass Lancastrian, boomed close by.

Wiggins was lifted to his feet by two burly sailors, twisting his arms behind him as they did so. A startled crowd watched, mothers herding away their children, men looking on in fascination. The gunshots had rattled around the saloon with such shocking loudness that a hushed awe had settled on the people in the packed saloon. They looked at Wiggins with surprise and pity. There was no sign of the rat-faced American or his people, or Coffey. The entire game – the cards, the coins, the improvised table – had disappeared and all that remained was Wiggins, holding a gun.

The Lancastrian and his two heavy-handed helpers hustled Wiggins through the crowd, then down narrow, tilting corridors.

‘It ain’t what it looked like,’ Wiggins said, once he’d been pulled into the master-at-arms’ cabin.

‘You stink of booze, lad,’ the Lancastrian said.

‘I always stink of booze.’ He grinned. The Lancastrian did not.

‘No use. The King’s on duty. Baily’d be a different matter.’

Wiggins found out what this meant shortly afterwards, when a short, clear-eyed man marched into the cabin.

‘You were armed?’ he said to Wiggins without preamble.

‘Who are you?’

‘Master-at-Arms King. You were armed?’

‘Like I said, it weren’t mine. I fucking hate those things.’

‘Language! You filthy beast.’ King turned to the Lancastrian. ‘Put him off at Queenstown.’

‘You tossing me over?’ Wiggins gasped.

‘As per the ship’s regulations. We drop anchor in three hours. Make sure he’s on the quay – with your own eyes, Anderson, you hear me?’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

The great ship, a city of the sea, anchored far out of Cork Bay. Master-at-Arms King had deemed Wiggins dangerous and had shackled his wrist to the bed. When it was time, Anderson pulled him from the cabin and marched him, like a criminal, through the crowded corridors and out onto a tender bound to the Titanic by great swaying cables.

Anderson pushed him onto the deck of the small steamboat and held him firm. A few other passengers stood about, looking towards the coast. Not many getting off the most famous ship in the world. A buzz rippled through those that saw him, as if he was a cricketer, or a famous actor.

‘You’re notorious, lad,’ Anderson muttered. ‘The man that lost his berth on the greatest-ever ship, all for carrying a gun. Small cock, is it? Like to handle a hard piece?’

‘Is that a proposition?’

Anderson scowled and spat into the sea. Wiggins glanced along the rail. John Coffey, the card-playing fireman, caught his eye, then turned away, hiding in his coat. The boat chugged around the headland just then and a town came into view. Streets zigzagged up a green hill above the dock, topped off by a large church. The quayside thronged with people waiting to board. A Union flag jagged red, white and blue against the dark grey sky. Bunting fluttered like a string of stamps. ‘Queenstown,’ Anderson said.

‘You’re wasted below decks. You should be on the bridge.’

‘Shut it.’

On the Titanic, Wiggins had become a celebrity. But here, on the packed White Star quay, no one gave him a second glance. Bodies hustled to get aboard two small steamboats that waited at the quay amidst a mountain of luggage and cargo. Excitement, almost glee, radiated from the throng. A young man scampered past him and onto the deck, carrying nothing but a set of bagpipes.

Wiggins looked back to the tender and wondered whether it could get any worse. The young man started to play.

‘You wanting a bed?’

Wiggins turned. John Coffey stood before him, shielding his eyes. ‘I’m wanting to earn a passage to New York.’

Coffey shook his head. ‘I am sorry, so I am. That Yank was a sore loser.’

Wiggins shrugged a canvas bag over his shoulder. Some passengers started to sing along to the pipes.

And Ireland, long a province, be

A nation once again.

‘Christ,’ Wiggins muttered.

‘This is the rebel county, Englishman.’

‘I ain’t English. I’m London.’

A nation once again,

A nation once again.

And Ireland, long a province …

‘There’s nothing here for yous, man, all the same. Yous best get yourself to Dublin if you want work.’

‘Do they sing there and all?’

Coffey laughed. ‘Not as grandly as us Cork men.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Listen, I owe you.’

‘Ten quid’s worth?’

‘I thinks I know a man as could give you a lift.’

‘To New York?’

‘To Dublin.’

Green leprechauns danced down Sackville Street. Jaunty yokels called out ‘to be sure, to be sure’. Emeralds fell from every tree and nestled among the shamrocks. Nuns tutted, priests grinned. Dark and devilish swains kissed the Blarney Stone and made their sweethearts swoon. Oh for Ireland, green and bonny land.

Wiggins had not kissed the Blarney Stone. He did not see leprechauns, or jaunty yokels, or even the hint of an emerald. He kissed the top of his pint, a thick yeasty cream, and drank deeply. The whiskey chaser on the bar represented almost the last of his money. He reasoned that when he was low on cash, best to save the last of it for drink – who wants to be sober when they meet their maker? He downed the short.

The clock above the bar read 11:55. ‘Is that right?’ Wiggins gestured at the barman.

‘In a hurry, are you?’

‘Time for a short before noon, I reckon.’

Another whiskey appeared. Wiggins took it in one swift shot. John Coffey had set him up on a cargo train to Dublin from Cork. He’d also given Wiggins an introduction of sorts, to a man named Lynch. ‘He’s got fingers in a lot of pies, I am thinking, Mr Lynch. But he was a Cork man once, and I hear he does well now, up there in the big city. He is not afraid of the English,’ Coffey had said with a smile. ‘And he is not afraid of the law either, so I am hearing. But tell him John Coffey knows you – that’s the Coffeys of Chapel Street.’

Wiggins had got the train up to Dublin, squished into the guard’s van thanks to Coffey’s cousin. He’d arrived earlier that morning and had taken a walk along the Liffey. Long, wide quays stretched all the way into the city, culminating in the bustle and industry of the Guinness Brewery quay and its jetties. Fat barges drifted off the quay laden with barrels, men stripped to the waist rolled many more across the cobbles, dray carts and lorries driven to and fro, all sloshing and banging with porter. A few folk – tourists, Wiggins guessed – looked on at the sight of the enormous brewery doling out its beer to Ireland and the world. The big barrels, easily up to Wiggins’s hip when on end, bumped and rattled across the cobbled quay. The draymen hauled the barrels up onto motorised lorries or carts, or left them waiting for the next barge to draw close. It was enough to make a sober man thirsty, and Wiggins was not a sober man.

Which was why he found himself at the pub, with no intention of finding the Lynch fellow, or starting work at all, any time soon. Wiggins always reasoned that the best place to take the temperature of a town was to take a taste of its beer – certainly in Britain – and if not beer, then whatever it was the locals drank to make them forget where they were. That was how to know a place. Besides, Wiggins had spent the last year trying to escape work. Captain Vernon Kell, head of the Secret Service Bureau, was all work. He didn’t need another boss in a hurry.

Bottles ranged the shelves behind the bar, like shells. A large sign read: Finest Old Dublin Whiskey 20/- a gallon. Cigarette and pipe smoke clouded the ceiling. The wooden bar smelled of wax. Outside, church bells rang. ‘I thought you said that was right?’ Wiggins glanced at the clock.

‘It will be by the time St Paddy’s has finished.’

He worked at the rest of his black pint. Work. For the last year, Kell had ballooned the Bureau’s activities and personnel. But it had become nothing but administration. All paper and files and starched collars. Kell had begun compiling dossiers on everyone he could, and in the end Wiggins had wanted no more of it. He was done with starch and uniforms.

A year earlier, Kell had promised him the price of a berth to New York, on condition he would return to fight the Germans, should it come to war. Kell was convinced that war with Germany was inevitable, though no one else – as far as Wiggins could see – took any notice. For his part, Wiggins had not told Kell why he wanted to go to New York. He hardly knew himself, other than a name – a face – he couldn’t forget.

‘Again.’ Wiggins tapped a coin on the bar.

‘The large or the small?’

‘Funny.’

The doors burst open behind Wiggins and a man marched up to the barman. ‘Have you got it, Rooney?’

‘Good day to you, Mr Hannigan, I’m sure.’

Hannigan stretched his mouth in a grin. His eyes stayed steady. ‘Ach, don’t be carrying on all hysterical. The OC is on the walk, that’s all. I’d hate for him to give you the black mark.’

Rooney ducked behind the bar. Wiggins wasn’t fooled by the banter. He felt Hannigan’s eyes on him and turned.

‘You buying?’ Wiggins said.

Hannigan hadn’t taken off his cap. He wore a long coat that almost tipped the ground. His skin was smooth and brown, impervious to rain and sun, beaten and unyielding. He stared at Wiggins with a bright, dark intelligence. He reminded Wiggins of a Limehouse Lascar. As Wiggins spoke, all the fake levity of the exchange with the barman drained from Hannigan’s face.

‘Ha!’ he barked. ‘An Englishman taking money from an Irishman? Who’d have thought?’

‘Not money. Drink.’

Hannigan stared levelly once more, but said nothing. Rooney the barman reappeared. He handed Hannigan an envelope. ‘Will himself be coming by?’

‘No.’ Hannigan hadn’t taken his eyes off Wiggins until this point. But then he nodded at Rooney. ‘He’s walking with Fitz today. I’m needed for a barntackle.’ He turned back to Wiggins. ‘That’s Irish for a friendly conversation. With violence.’

‘And there was me thinking you was just a shit shoveller.’

The barman gasped. Hannigan clenched his fist, leaned forward, then stopped himself. ‘I haven’t done that in a long time, Englishman. I deal with shit of an entirely different kind now. And if you’re not out of Francis Street by tonight, I’ll deal with you too. See-ho?’ He walked towards the door then, slow and boiling.

The barman said nothing. Wiggins sipped his drink. His glass gently tapped the hardwood bar. Two old men sat at the far end of the pub, gazing at their pints in silence.

Eventually, the barman spoke. ‘How are you knowing that about our man there?’

‘His history in shit?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t … Well, yes.’

‘If the cap fits …’

‘You shouldn’t be talking to Hannigan like that. I’d say that was enough for you here.’

Wiggins tipped the last of the whiskey down his shirt front as he teetered. He looked at the clock, and nodded.

He swayed out of the pub and along Francis Street. Small, dirty alleyways opened off either side of the road. They stank of poor. Wiggins knew that stink, back from the East End of London, from his home in Paddington back in the eighties, down the Jago, but he hadn’t felt it this bad in years. Dublin was poor.

He checked his watch again just as he reached the corner of Coombe Street, then began a slow promenade. He felt a bit drunk. The fusty grey air didn’t help, nor the poverty stink, the piss and the shit, mingled with the high, yeasty, malty, hoppy stench of the big beer factories that dominated the horizon to his left. It reminded him of the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, only more so, much more so, what with the shit in the Liffey and the mouldy, damp, misty air that wasn’t rain but wasn’t clear and made your very bones wet under the skin.

The weather hadn’t deterred the traffic – booze carts, trams, a general busyness that reminded him of parts of London on a Sunday. But as he turned away from the river, the traffic stilled. He checked the street signs and ambled on. A man selling Lipton tea from a wooden box on wheels veered towards him until he saw Wiggins’s glare.

Just then, coming south, a brisk man in a tweed suit and green felt hat walked down the street towards him. He barked commands at a young man by his side. The tweed man waved his hands this way and that. His cufflinks shone brilliantly against the grey, his shirt dazzled white, the three-piece as sharp as a crease. The boy shambled beside him, a scrap of a thing, wearing his clothes like a bag. Wiggins swayed out of their way.

‘I tell you, Fitz, it’s business, you hear?’ the tweed man said. He flicked his eyes at Wiggins as he said this but didn’t break stride. Wiggins glanced back and hesitated.

As the two reached the corner, three large men with hats pulled low stepped out in front of them.

‘Hey, what are you about?’ the tweed man said, stopping.

Another two men came rushing across the street towards them, clubs drawn.

‘What’s this then?’

The first three grabbed him about the shoulders. Another punched down the younger man’s protests.

‘Off me now. You know who I am? Fitz, Fitz! Get Vincent,’ the tweed man cried, holding up his fists.

He took a heavy slap around the face, and a punch to the gut. The men began to haul him away, leaving one to boot the younger man, Fitz, on the floor.

As the thug drew back his boot for a second go, he reeled away with an agonised cry. Wiggins’s knuckles sang with pain. He didn’t need to punch him again. As the thug tumbled to the floor, Wiggins wheeled and smashed his p. . .