‘What’s that?’
‘They could sell the information to Peter and Paul Skillen.’
‘God forbid!’
‘That’s the last thing we want.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Hale, ‘though we must remember that the Home Secretary did call on the Skillen brothers instead of us.’
‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ said Yeomans with asperity. ‘It’s one of the many mistakes made by the Doctor.’
It was the nickname of Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, and it was not a flattering one. The son of a physician, he’d spent his entire career at the mercy of his critics. His ill-fated reign as Prime Minister came in the wake of William Pitt’s administration and the two men were compared in a cruel epigram devised by George Canning. ‘Pitt is to Addington, as London is to Paddington.’ Though the judgement hung thereafter around Sidmouth’s neck like an invisible albatross, he bore it with great fortitude. The Runners were well aware of the low esteem in which the Doctor was held by his political enemies and by some wicked cartoonists. Whenever the Home Secretary exasperated them, as now, they joined the ranks of his detractors.
‘The Doctor is a blockhead,’ said Yeomans, irritably.
‘He never takes our advice.’
‘No, Alfred, he’d rather listen to those abominable twins.’
‘What do they have that we lack?’
‘Nothing,’ said the other, ‘except good fortune.’
‘Maybe they pay their informers more than we do.’
‘Gully Ackford holds the purse strings. He knows who and where to bribe.’
‘There was a time when you did, Micah.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ snapped Yeomans, thrusting the tankard at him, ‘and refill this for me. Anger makes me thirsty and I am furious.’
Glad to escape his companion’s rage, Hale went across to the bar. Yeomans was left to brood on the situation. It was vital to convince the Home Secretary that the Runners were far more competent than two brothers with no sanctioned position in law enforcement. Yeomans saw it as a battle between hardened professionals like himself and rank amateurs like the Skillens. While he was wholly committed to the task of policing London, they were mere dabblers.
When he felt a touch on his arm, he thought that Hale had returned with the tankard of ale. Instead, he saw that he was standing next to a chimney sweep whose sooty hand was on the Runner’s sleeve. Yeomans shook it off at once.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ he said, scowling.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Stand off before some of your filth gets on me.’
‘I’m told I could find Mr Yeomans here.’
‘Well, you’ve found him and I don’t want my chimney swept so you can get out of here before I kick you out.’
Donal Kearney took a precautionary step backwards and held up black palms.
‘I mean you no harm. Mr Yeomans. I’ve come to help you.’
‘And who says that I need help?’
‘They should be arrested, sir.’
‘What are you babbling about?’ asked Yeomans with a sneer. ‘I’ve got better things to do than to listen to the tittle-tattle of a chimney sweep.’
‘My youngest son told me, you see.’
‘I don’t care a fiddler’s fuck what the little runt told you.’
‘I set him on to one of Fallon’s brats,’ said Kearney with a sly grin, ‘and he got the truth out of him. It’s them, Mr Yeomans.’
The Runner glowered. ‘You’re asking for trouble, aren’t you?’
‘It’s them two Americans what escaped from prison.’
Having raised his fist to strike, Yeomans froze in position.
‘Could you say that again?’ he asked.
‘Those prisoners who escaped – I know where they are, sir.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I live in the same tenement.’
Yeomans lowered his arm. ‘And where’s that?’
‘It’s behind Orchard Street, sir. There’s lots of us Irish there.’
‘And you’re telling me that Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg are hiding there?’
‘I’d swear it on the eyes of my children!’ vowed Kearney.
Yeomans looked at him more closely and decided that he was in earnest. At that moment, Hale came back with a full tankard in his hand.
‘Go back and buy another one, Alfred,’ said Yeomans, taking the drink from him. ‘I’m sure that our friend here would like a sup of ale as well. Unless I’m very much mistaken, he’s just brought us the intelligence we sorely need.’
When he left the offices of Rendcombe and Spiller, he was in high spirits. Peter Skillen had the names of two likely suspects, both of whom had worked for respected lawyers and been unable to find the same level of employment elsewhere. When he called at the first of the two addresses he’d been given, he was distressed to learn that he’d come to a house of mourning. A neighbour explained that Peter would be unable to speak to Adam Tate because the man had died a few days earlier.