The Mercury E-Book

Michael McCarthy

• Herausgeber: Grosvenor House Publishing
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 786

Beschreibung

Liverpool 1818. It was time for Liverpool's leading newspaper The Mercury to recruit a 'young investigative journalist' who it would it train and steep in its reformist outlook. Fighting for social and economic justice in England's 'port of empire.' On his way to interview, Edwin Kearney had taken a shortcut through storm-battered Old Dock. What occurred that morning would shape his life and affect those of all about him. In the aftermath, he would encounter dark forces feverishly at work in this hectic, tumultuous place. Across its quays and warehouses. On its streets and in its shadows. Forces and their instruments, locals and their out-of-town allies, devoted to unrelenting crime, privation and misery. The lives and circumstances of its people little more than a commodity to be weighed, bartered and discarded. The brutal physical removal of one community and to enable the imposition of another. Civic dispossession and the pre-emption of rights. An assault on the undefended by the indefensible. In their way, stood the town's fearless newspaper The Mercury, its remarkable owner and the young man who had unwittingly crossed into Liverpool's netherworld and now found himself at the very heart of The Mercury's proposition that 'the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law.' Lives and communities were at stake, the forces against them -native and imported - vicious and formidable- led by one of London's most ingenious and elusive criminals and bolstered locally by his feared Liverpool counterpart. The very existence of Liverpool's crusading newspaper in jeopardy, until a remarkable group of friends and allies also emerged from the shadows.

Leseprobe

For my family

Rosalind

Lewis and Liberty

Contents

Dedication

The Author

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Liverpool: 1818

1: Late!

2: Suited and Booted

3: Old Dock

4: The Mercury

5: The Proprietor

6: An Invitation

7: Lost and Found

8: The Welsh House

9: Stanley Street

10: Printworks

11: Extraction

12: South Side

13: Almost like Londoners

14: The Saracens Head

15: Blackstone Row

16: From Our London Correspondent

17: Composition

18: The Overcoat

19: A Revelation

20: Piecing the Jigsaw

21: Phaetons

22: Down to Business

23: Among Friends

24: Request

25: In the Courts

26: London Enquiries

27: Lord Street, South Side

28: The American Hotel

29: Old Petey

30: Dislocation

31: Rake

32: The London Hat Warehouse

33: A Discovery

34: Progress

35: The Circle Closes

36: Further Enquiries

37: The Admiralty

38: Shoreditch

39: In Plain Sight

40: Thief Taker

41: A Matter of Insurance

42: Atlantic House

43: Return to Old Dock

44: Defence of the Realm

45: Paradise Lost

46: Hidden

47: Bridgewater Dock

48: Summons

49: A Plan

50: The Break In

51: Aftershock

52: Delivered!

53: Martham

54: Red Tidings

55: An Alliance

56: A Father’s Son

57: A Lesson Taught

58: Belle

Copyright

The Author

Michael McCarthy PhD was born and raised in Liverpool and has a continuing association with the city. He is the author of 3 non-fiction works in Politics and Political History. His most recent book ‘Citizen of London’ is a detailed biography of medieval London’s famous four times mayor, Richard Whittington. Cited as one of The Financial Times ‘Books of the Week’ February 2023, and the subject of a BBC History Extra Podcast. He has also written ‘The House That Trust Built -William Brown and the Rise of Brown Shipley in 19th Century Liverpool’ a short, commissioned history to mark the 200th anniversary of Brown’s arrival in the city. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Liverpool History Society. The Mercury is Michael’s fiction debut.

Author’s Note

The Mercury is a work of fiction set in the early months of 1818 and developed around the real The Liverpool Mercury co-founded in 1811 by Egerton Smith who became its first and defining editor. Under Smith’s stewardship, it quickly became one of England’s leading provincial newspapers and was also distributed in London. It continued to trade independently until its closure in 1904 and eventual merger with the Liverpool Daily Post in 1911. With the exception of Smith himself, all characters are fictional as are the dialogue and stories in the book.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Melanie Bartle and the production team at Grosvenor House Publishing for their advice, their enthusiasm and their support in bringing this long held aspiration into the light of publication.

Liverpool

1818

‘For the first time, the view towards the river was unrestricted, unblemished. Awe inspiring. Even the gasps of acrid smoke that spewed from the buildings on the dock road could not diminish the revelation. In its’ own way, it too was breathtaking, and he knew that wealthy people would pay for such a view. A ‘premium’ the lawyers now called it. He dwelled on the compressed irony of it all. The brutal physical removal of one community to enable the imposition of another. Was redevelopment no more than civic dispossession, the private pre-emption of rights, and an assault on the undefended by the indefensible? Even more to the point, who was behind it?’

1

Late!

‘Williams! Williams! Where are you man?’

‘Here Mr Smith, coming sir, a moment only.’

‘Well hurry, I do not have all day!’

Joshua Williams, the Deputy Editor felt the panic overwhelm him for the second time this morning. He scooped up his untidy sheath of scrawled notes, much of them obliterated by hurried erasing and careless blotting, as he sought to conjure an explanation for the unexplained absence of the subject of his employer’s wrath. In truth, he had no idea. It was his quiet manner, his equanimity, which made him like this. Or the limitations of his physical stature that caused him often to turn the other cheek.

In such moments, he contemplated the deep creases in his much-repaired boots which advertised where he had stretched repeatedly to reach the sixth tier of haphazard shelving that housed the newspaper’s indexing system and archives. It fell to The Deputy Editor alone to retrieve and update every issue of The Mercury, as it was known by its avid, burgeoning readership. Its’ full and encompassing title, The Liverpool Mercury or Commercial, Literary and Political Herald was a little too expansive for the casual reader, even if it were intended to capture all interests that its’ ambitious proprietor could think of. The Mercury had first appeared on 5th July 1811, a Friday, which seemed entirely appropriate for a ‘weekly’. The booming voice now demanding his immediate presence had calculated that its’ readers would return to its cornucopia of lively news, enterprising advertisements, formal announcements, and faithful reportage over the course of the weekend and again mid-week and would be wanting for more by its’ end. Create interest, sustain demand, generate revenue.

Almost seven years on The Mercury was firmly established as the favoured reading of 7,000 of Liverpool’s citizens and deemed an essential social and commercial reference by its’ professional elites. Valued most by those who frequented the esteemed salons and libraries of The Lyceum, The UnionNewsroom and The Athenaeum, where Smith’s pleasing orthodoxy that every single issue should be indexed, archived, and bound into green leather volumes, brought joy to those with a predilection for dates, for copious referencing and for literary good order.

The literary classes drooled over that luscious word ‘copious,’ while hard-nosed businessmen and their cashiers smirked at the prospect that an entire year’s supply of this weekly treasure trove could be purchased, ‘in advance,’ for just 29s and 6d. A meagre saving of just ten-pence, yet much admired as a device for accruing early and full payment up front. Smith was a merchandiser after their own heart. He had also been astute in designing a masthead that asserted the paper’s’ liberal and steady principles,’ a medium for progressive thought, bristling with independent commentaries on parliamentary business, foreign affairs, international trade, shipping and merchandising and on social and economic reform. Each a nod to those who regarded their town as having no equal save London, or ‘The ‘Metropolis’ as it was now frequently referred to. For its avid promoters, Liverpool was indisputably the ‘second city’-though still officially a town- and the first port of Empire. A far sighted and far-reaching programme of expansion and classical renewal confirmed it so, and it fell to its leading newspaper to trumpet the claim. Everywhere.

****

Impelled by competition and by collaboration and sharing a common interest in the enterprise and politics of the United States, it was only a short matter of time before a London Correspondentwas taken on. An American, as it happened. Liverpool was bound to America, its’ inglorious past and its’ thrusting commercial future woven inextricably. The Mercury’s outlook was necessarily transatlantic and its’ content, both prosaic and nuanced, brandished that message. In ways both intended and insinuated. It amplified the commercial and reformist outlooks quietly traded within the confines of its’ splendid gentlemen’s clubs. The latest of these the newly opened Liverpool Royal Institution, where a few months earlier, Joshua Williams, a short, be-whiskered Welshman of little physical presence and a perennial fish out of water, had found himself hobnobbing with the elite. For no other reason than he was Deputy Editor of their favourite newspaper and was expected to adorn both the occasion and some of its’ dignitaries with a salutary mention. It was also an opportunity to discover how its’ architect Edmund Aikin and his associate the Greek ‘revivalist’ Thomas Rickman, had transformed Thomas Parr’s former house on Colquitt Street for its’ present purpose. Williams was thrilled, the building was on his way to work, and he had followed its’ progress religiously every day for 2 years. Now he was inside.

He nodded to the greeters and smiled at people he did not know. At first, he thought he might mingle, establish contact, make chit chat. Acquire useful gossip. Perhaps even meet Aikin himself. To his chagrin, only three of those he buttonholed had even heard of the architect whose magnificent accomplishment they were here to celebrate. He concluded that his fellow guests, brimming with wealth, glistening with status, and armoured with self-belief, were hardly in need of a passing allusion in The Mercury’s social columns. An opportunity missed, Williams mused to himself as he meandered in his unseen bubble of splendid isolation into the sumptuously furnished library, having decided that if no one would pay him attention then he would have to pay it to them.Recording who among the good, the great and the conspicuously aspiring, were worthy of a place in Smith’s precious archives. His proprietor would expect nothing less.

Williams recognised some of the first by sight and was able to identify a few of their superiors by leaning in close to the tight knots of hangers-on strung about them. As for the third group, those who wished to advertise themselves as ‘on the up’ and who sought the remark of his newspaper for that very reason, he could delineate them simply by asking the cloakroom manager to work through the guest list and point to the carriage drivers drawn up on the cobbles outside. As ever, the coachmen and valets proved to be far more forthcoming. It seemed that everyone who was anyone, or had ambitions to be someone, was here.

All three floors were crammed with wealthy shipowners and well-travelled captains who always had an investment to table or a tale to tell. Fellows who had established a singular community of extravagant houses in the refined heights above the port, where their expensively crafted Dollond telescopes could be trained on the movements of their vessels entering the river and shipping in and out of the new docks. He recalled being told some years before that Dollond was a genius who could make to order any seafaring spyglass. Specify and manufacture any set of military binoculars and design and contrive the large, mounted telescopes posing as fine furniture, so favoured by Liverpool and London shipping merchants. It had stuck with him that the maker’s premises, just off London’s own Strand, were marked by the sign of the Golden Spectacles and Sea Quadrant.

He had once visited the premises and had been attended by an intense, unkempt young man sheathed in a busily scratched and serrated leather apron, sewn with frayed pouches that holstered all manner of tiny precision tools and instruments. The fellow had described himself as an ‘oculist’ and had weighed Williams instantly as someone without the means to purchase even the least expensive manufactures stored on the shelves to the rear, let alone one of the exquisitely conceived naval contraptions displayed proudly in the bowed shop window. Yet, to his credit, he was engaged by Williams’ keen interest and gentle persistence and had spent a quarter hour or more giving him an annotated tour of the workshop before agreeing to sell him a second-hand pair of miniature binoculars at barely a third their worth. He had treasured them to this day.

****

At that moment a distinguished older man, with a young blonde companion attached firmly to his arm, bumped into him as a bell rang and the assembled guests surged in a spontaneous surrender of decorum, towards the exquisitely laid silver service in the adjoining dining room. The man offered a barely discernible harumph, while the young woman made a point of stopping briefly and apologising for the mild collision before twinkling her unusually blue and orange flecked eyes and moving off. His mind returned to The Mercury’s wider readership. Of course, the newspaper’s following was not confined to the wealthy and cultured elite whose skirmish line, judging by the scraping of chairs, the shuffling of cutlery and the tinkling of crystal, had already advanced within two yards of their tables. The main force was closing so fast behind that within a couple of minutes he stood virtually alone among the moody paintings and the mahogany shelved ranks of overbearing maroon and navy tomes. He consoled himself that that there was a far less precocious world outside.

The Mercury numbered a large swathe of readers among the industrious hard-nosed importers and exporters who based themselves in the ramshackle sheds that lined Old Dock and its’ crumbling outlying streets. Premises that not only suited the immediacy of their business arrangements but also enabled them to bear the soaring overheads of Liverpool’s burgeoning economy. People driven by survival rather than fortune, scraping a living from day to day. Those who would contest you to the last ha’penny or summon someone to do it for them. It takes all kinds, Williams reflected, but having looked about him could only identify a solitary group of three fish out of water and their flamboyant ladies who fitted the bill. As they cackled and cursed excitedly, their physical isolation and loud uncouth banter minded him of another of his employer’s favourite epithets. What was it now? Ah yes, ‘standing apart but running ahead.’ The Mercury, Smith insisted, must be diverse, inclusive, open to all, as he also believed its’ town and community must also be. Those who had already ‘made it,’ those in the process of ‘making it’ and even those one might describe as ‘on the make.’ He was right, of course and it was the Deputy Editor’s job to ensure that its pages had something of interest for everyone. Grow first, refine later.

****

So it was, that The Mercury had been quick off the mark in cultivating a strong affinity with the emerging profession of shipping and fire insurance which, in the short lifetime of the newspaper, had become one of the port’s fastest growing and most lucrative businesses and which had come to value The Mercury’s ‘insider’ reporting on who was investing in what, why and where, while not always realising that it was they who were its chief and casual informants. Then there was ‘King Cotton’ and fine Irish linen, global manufacturers and traders who claimed to know the Delaware and the Mississippi as well they did the Mersey. Men who frequented the best watering holes in New York and Philadelphia as much as those of Liverpool and London. Commercial ‘frontiersmen’ who promoted a noisy, uncompromising fidelity to transatlantic trade, matched only by Liverpool’s tea and coffee merchants and the town’s sizeable American community, with whom they and everyone else had forged so many diverse and mutually dependent links. It was here, on the banks of the Mersey opined one of their number, that the New World was truly rooted. Did not the celebrated arrival of James Maury in Liverpool in 1790 as Britain’s first US Consul prove it so?

Ultimately, The Mercury’s roll call of readers, subscribers and advertisers was not complete without the most irrepressible tribe of all, the owners of and investors in the exponentially expanding manufacturing hulks and warehousing that now staked every inch of dry ground at King George’s Dock known locally as ‘Georgie’s Puddle.’ A suitable name for a monarch already in the 80th year of his span, the 58th of his reign, the 10th of his mental decline and the 8th of The Regency he had handed down to his son on the worsening of the royal health. The Mercury’s esteemed proprietor, though a died in the wool liberal, would rebuke such impertinence in close company. Yet the pages of his assimilative newspaper were threaded with carefully nuanced pieces on political reform and social progress. Subtlety must be the watchword, in all we say and do, Smith insisted. There were no strident editorials, no atavistic propounding of party-political tracts and positions. That would be presumptuous, too partisan, more likely to offend than attract. Egerton Smith’s way was layered, iterative, preferring a well-chosen remark here or an oblique reference there, to someone or something once removed. Influence through inference and osmosis.

****

So it was that The Mercury, now an established and popular fixture in the town’s cultural and commercial landscape, at a moment when the promise and the potency of reform was in the air, that its’ proprietor decided that his newspaper could be more populist, more challenging, more radical. Provided, of course, that he could carry his readers and his subscribers with him. He would make plain his ardent support for free trade, his belief in the rights of the individual, promote freedom of association and throw his full weight behind the cause for electoral reform. Rightfully so, in a place which had become enormously wealthy and even more sharply polarised through its fading but in some quarters still entrenched association with the abominable slave trade. He would choose his words and his ground carefully. His political appetite was growing but should The Mercury feed it? He would skirt the edges and slip in and out of the fray, scoring hits here and there.

There was also the matter, or rather the imperative, of keeping close those with whom he served on the boards of leading commercial houses and within Liverpool’s numerous charitable foundations. The self-perpetuating overseers of its’ civic and cultural norms, the drivers of its relentless financial vigour and, uncomfortably for him at least, the prime beneficiaries of its polarising prosperity. As he frequently reminded himself, the full title of his newspaper was The Liverpool Mercury Or Commercial, Literary and Political Herald. Did that not give him the platform and the legitimation he sought to promote conscientious liberal reform? Of course, it did! Salus Populi Lex Suprema- ‘The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law. What he required was a renewed impetus. He would recruit someone he could train, someone with a keen investigative mind. Someone to mould.

‘Joshua! Good god man what is keeping you? Get up here at once!’

The Deputy Editor froze for a second. About him, a pair of labourers moving stores into the print works, and half a dozen porters, shoulders drooping under the weight of rolls of newsprint, lowered their heads in silence. If Joshua Williams did not skip the treads of the metal staircase immediately then the proprietor’s rising impatience would subsume the entire building. William’s deputy Hywel ‘the Jones,’ a heavily built, luxuriously bearded Welshman from Llandudno jerked his head towards to the stairs.

‘Hurry or we will all catch it. Any excuse to buckle us down when he’s in this mood.’

He was already half-way up and in sight of his employer when Smith thundered again.

‘Well, where is he?’

‘I am here sir.’

‘Not you, Williams. The boy.’

‘The boy sir?’

‘You mean Edwin Kearney sir?’

‘Is there any other boy currently delaying me Williams?’

‘No sir, I do not believe so.’

‘Then, where is he? 7.30 sharp you told me. It is now turned eight. You heard the bells?’

‘St Peter’s, Church Street.’

‘Indeed. Which reminds me, I require some fine parchment from The Gentleman’s Scriptorium in Church Alley. Please have someone attend to it. Today that is.’

‘Of course.’

‘And Williams.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Have the carters clean up their dreadful horse mess! This is Liverpool’s leading newspaper not some bucolic farmyard on the Wirral. The stench of manure hangs in every corner of this place.’

Joshua Williams paused for a moment to allow Egerton Smith to add further to his customary ‘and another thing’ shopping list. To his great consternation there was still no sign of ‘the boy.’

_____________

2

Suited and Booted

Edwin Kearney had risen 15 minutes before 6am. It would give him time to ready himself, scoff his breakfast and to complete, at a leisurely pace, the 20-minute walk to the small civic garden just up the street from The Mercury office and printworks in Pool Lane, where he intended to pause and gather his thoughts. He aimed to be there by 7am giving a precious half hour to compose himself, read his notes and ready the questions that his mother insisted were important to have to hand should the proprietor seek to ambush him with that favourite dislocation ‘now do you have anything to ask me’. He had told her during supper the evening before, that he could not for one second imagine someone as important as Mr Egerton Smith, not only the newspaper’s proprietor and editor in chief, but also one of the most esteemed figures in Liverpool, allowing him the time or having the inclination to answer a prospective employee’s own questions.

It was he who was the supplicant not the other way round. But Martha Kearney said that he must be prepared for every eventuality and seize even the smallest opportunity. For what? He queried. To present yourself in the best light of course, she had replied, to demonstrate that you have a fine enquiring mind, that you are clear thinking like your blessed father and that you present well to those you represent and to those you will meet on their behalf. What else did he think!

She turned to pour him a cup of thick black tea and slid a chipped bowl of mutton stew to him across the slatted pine table. The intricate black and white glaze had crazed through inferior firing and overuse, the last of the Herculaneum creamware his father had presented to her on their marriage. Edwin Kearney thought about him for a few seconds, recalling what he could of his thick red beard and strong feathery arms, his long thin fingers discoloured by his artistry as a potter and illustrator at the acclaimed pottery works. Tomorrow, he would pass by on his way to what he feared would be not only an examination of his capabilities but also of his manner and comportment. He must remember to hold his sleeve across his mouth to ward off the plumes of white acrid smoke that settled above the rooftops of Toxteth’s narrow cobbled streets, many now under redevelopment to meet the aspirations of those with deeper pockets and higher prospects.

He flinched at the thought. It was only a matter of 2 weeks before his mother would be served formal notice and then a further 2 weeks to pack what was left of their belongings and get out. Their neighbours on either side had been given just half that, but the elderly landlord, now retired across the river at Heswall, held a kindly disposition towards his mother and had known and liked his father. He had waived 2 weeks rent on her husband’s premature death and was now offering this second relent. What had seemed a reasonable time to prepare was now closing like a speeding carriage and bound to produce casualties. ‘Making Way for Progress’ the hoarding at the bottom of the hill proclaimed. The very place where the smoke from the kilns collected most densely. Recently someone had daubed over it in crimson ‘May the Lord Prevent Our Ruination’! Too late, Kearney thought to himself, the fight was over before it could begin. On returning recently from an errand to the haberdashers in neighbouring Paradise Street, he had stopped to tie a lace and now reminded himself that he must bring his only pair of serviceable shoes to a presentable shine. He was about to ask his mother where she kept ‘the essentials’ when a light prod reminded him that she still awaited a response, that he had grasped the importance of always being prepared for opportunity to present itself in the most unlikely circumstances. He nodded in agreement. She was always right, the wisest, most generous spirited person he knew.

Edwin Kearney searched for a spoon to stir the treacly tea. She had sent him last week to purchase a quarter pound at Foundlers, the tea merchants on Castle Street. The honey-coloured Chinese large leaf she favoured on the few occasions she could afford it. Good for the digestion she insisted. He was hopeless at remembering such worldly detail and had returned with what his mother described as the flaked residue at the bottom of a kerosene lamp. It would have to do, but he offered to drink the lion’s share. It would be easy to ‘stir it thin.’ She gave a weary look and pointed behind him. He rummaged in the top draw of the leeched oak sideboard for the last of their fine silver teaspoons, another wedding gift, from her family, who had held themselves a cut above the man she had married. She was better educated, more cultured, she could do far better they had insisted. And they could do better, or so they believed, until her father finally relented and accepted that her personal happiness outweighed any social or professional uplift, they had sought for her.

Edwin’s forefinger alighted on the first of the spoons. Only three now remained of the original set, thirty-six pieces designed for six placings. He rubbed all three and plucked out two. Leaving the last in the drawer, feeling sorry for it, an almost familial transfer he invested in inanimate objects. He had done so since he was a small child. They were not sentient, he knew that, so it must be the memories he associated with their origin, the occasions of their use or the feeling of loss he attached to them. They were old friends, comforters, objets de vertu. It troubled him that his parent’s few remaining chattels had been sold or exchanged piece by piece to see them through the spartan years immediately after his father’s death. Thank God he had secured a long tenancy, but that too was now to be parted from them. Martha Kearney smiled at him, lips fastened, no words, eyes searching gently. She sensed when her son dwelt on the past and what might have been. She recalled the blows and setbacks that she had endured since her husband’s demise. There had been no other children, the boy was five when his father had died in 1802 and the promise of further children had passed with him. There was just Edwin and she had invested all she had in him, including her own displaced ambitions. He must be ready to grasp the opportunities that she knew would come his way. She drilled it home. He would be the measure of their family.

****

He rose early and drew the short curtain across its’ string, using the back of his hand to wipe an icy glaze of condensation from the window. It rattled as he did so. He shivered at the sight of the fine drizzle and the clinging mist drifting up from the river, dousing the feeble efforts of the anaemic sun to offer anything more than slender spokes of pallid light in the advancing haze. Martha Kearney had already left at 6am for work far up the hill in the village of Everton. The incline was a hard slog, especially in the rain, and she must keep her skirts clear of the constant spattering of mud coughed up by the carriages charging downward to the distended perimeters of England’s fastest growing town. A breakneck expansion, severely cramped by the very topography which had done so much to encourage it in the first place, its’ outward looking, inward forcing river. Liverpool’s giver and taker.

Edwin Kearney had gazed with wonder at the arrangements she had put in place for his big day. Neither he nor his mother could afford to purchase a suiting of the new fashion for short-fronted tailcoats complemented by a fitted waistcoat worn typically over a plain white or cream chemise. However, his mother, a skilful seamstress, had laboured for six or seven evenings adapting his father’s barely worn full length black coat. He was astonished and relieved. She had somehow achieved a faithful representation of what Liverpool’s young bucks were wearing these days. The essentials were to ensure that the tailcoat was drawn into the waist, the front cut inwards towards the hips and the shoulders padded to enhance the male silhouette. The tail must splay a little below the buttocks and most important of all the finished article should ideally be of a black or charcoal hue. His mother had accomplished the transformation to a tee and had even managed to acquire and handful of old nickel buttons from a ship’s chandler on Wapping, to give a subtle flourish to the jacket’s otherwise sedate overture. They were six in all, set in two columns of three.

As she had cleared the table and ushered her son to bed, she had reminded him that he must have a story ready if someone examined the trimmings too closely and enquired of his non-existent naval career. She had no idea whether they were associated with a particular rank or company, so he resolved that if asked he would simply say that they had been handed down in his family to his deceased father who had kept them in an old shaving box intending to pass them on to his son. He would say that a distant, unknown relative had somewhere served with valour and that he now sought to honour the memory of that person and salute his own father. That would do it. He did not need reminding that the king’s press gangs were rampant in the port at the present time, so it was wise to be cautious and not give any truth to the lie that his was a seafaring family.

He took some reassurance from the fact that, in fashion at least, restraint was the order of the day. No boasting or flaunting of the expensive, garrulous concoctions that had so marked the courtly ‘dandyism’ of George Brummell. It was two years since the former favourite had fled to France. Gaming debts and various other instances of licence widely reported as the cause. And with him fell the vogue for precocious self-advertisement. The new measure of a gentleman was conservatism in fashion, sobriety in manner. His mother had caught the mood, achieved the ‘cut’ and had, without him realising it, begun to tailor his ambitions. He contemplated both as he dressed. Beneath his waistcoat he sported a second-hand high collared linen shirt scrubbed and starched to a pristine off-white, set off by the obligatory grey necktie she had exchanged with a departing neighbour for two of her home baked loaves. They matched well with the full length light grey trousers he had worn a few times to formal lectures at Trinity. Fine boots however were much too expensive, a quite unaffordable luxury. Instead, he would make do with a pair of old scuffed square-toed shoes that he would black to a highly glazed polish with a combination of soot from the hearth, a couple of teaspoons of lanolin and a sprinkling of ancient French vinegar his mother had retrieved from the back of a cupboard. It would, he hoped, mark him as a young man respectful of those about him. As he lingered before his father’s cracked shaving mirror, turning it this way and that to gain an overall appreciation of his mother’s efforts, he concluded that he did indeed look the part. He wished he had told her so before she had left that morning.

****

As he pulled the door behind him and took the first step of what he hoped would be a propitious day, Edwin Kearney’s thoughts turned to how he would appear to those who might review him at Pool Lane. He was no longer concerned about his attire, but how his physical appearance might be received. Would his looks weigh for or against him? He recalled a drunken evening in a tavern on Grafton Street or was it in one of the fine houses that faced on to the park at St Stephens Green, during his first term at Trinity, when some of the more worldly students had regaled the party with their successes and failures at various introductions and interviews. It was agreed that while clothes could most certainly ‘maketh the man,’ his manner and gait might not. ‘If a fellow looks like a pig’ said the boorish Henry Cavendish, ‘then he will most certainly be regarded as such.’ At which point, all eyes had turned on Kearney, the impoverished Englishman.

The spirited repartee had terminated abruptly, the room falling utterly silent as each of his drinking partners turned as one to survey him, from head to toe. Cavendish, their self-proclaimed leader and two others of his vaguely patrician ilk had pressed Kearney to the wall, lifted his chin, ransacked his longish hair, peered dismissively into his face, then bid him stand erect and turn round before one of them gave him a sharp kick in the arse that almost sent him sprawling. In that moment, he might have turned and struck out at whoever it was but as he regained his composure and looked at the assembled faces, they each fell into a wide grin, then raucous laughter before Cavendish seized his right hand and raised it above his head, honking to his fellows ‘Gentlemen, Mr Kearney will do, his appointment is won.’ The room descended into squalls of drunken laughter. He had been admitted to the club, yet strangely he had not encountered any one of them since. More than two years had passed since that first week, and he could barely remember their ebullient leader. Yet Cavendish’s words that day lingered. How did he really look? Was he someone with sufficient presence to excuse his other shortcomings, not least his origins and upbringing? Was he fit for the purpose?

****

As he made his way down to ‘The Pool’ the blistering cold drizzle had turned to hard-edged, lashing rain. Head down, he began to answer his own question. Despite his impecunious circumstances, which he now hoped to improve, he reassured himself that he was properly attired and well-turned out. He would describe himself as of medium height, with luminous deep brown eyes set evenly apart in a pale, rather anaemic face framed by a fine shock of still longish wavy chestnut hair, which his mother insisted would win and break many hearts. True, he was narrow shouldered, though he preferred to express this as slender or wiry, and he was certainly stronger than he looked. As he stepped unwittingly into a fast-filling puddle, instinctively shaking the water from his right shoe, he asked himself what he might reply if Mr Smith pressed him on his qualities.

Well, he might say that he was alert, attentive and hard- working; that he had been taught to hold himself erect and convey an air of confidence and application in all that he did. Then, after further thought, he concluded that would be too much, too self-proclaiming. Better to say, that in the right employ and under the skilful mentoring he would doubtlessly receive in this exciting post, he would acquire and develop the personal and professional skills required of someone aspiring to be an investigative reporter. Yes, that was it. And, if asked to describe what these might be, he would reply that he would strive to become capable of getting close to a subject or to a confidant without threat or undue inquisition. He would learn to make his enquiries and report on his findings without fuss, without suspicion, without attracting undue attention. And would do so equably, in a balanced manner that would inspire confidence in his subject and in his employer. Utmost, he would become an ardent seeker and defender of hard-won truth.

Edwin Kearney adjusted his cap, lowered his head into the rising wind and rain and headed to his interview charged with confidence.

_____________

3

Old Dock

On the spare of the moment, he decided to make his way along Park Street, intending to descend from there towards the river. As the wind became a gale, sweeping in from the Irish Sea, he broke occasionally into a run, only to then pull up and remind himself that he must retain his composure, take in everything about him, and accumulate any useful titbits he could draw on, should Egerton Smith prove to be interested in hearing the views and opinions of a not fully formed, enquiring mind. This was the reason for attending today, to acquire, notowin, a much-sought opportunity. To gain exceptional experience and learn by osmosis. Trinity had only partly prepared him for the world outside, now he must test himself. The downpour was already forming pools in the ruts left by the weight of the carriages pressing down on the unmade streets. He would need to find cover quickly to avoid looking like a drowned rat.

He would head in the direction of Wapping, hoping to avoid a thorough drenching by cutting through the tight backhouses and find shelter among the energetic knots of new enterprises that were springing up around the quayside. There would be doorways he could lean into if the downpour threatened to breach his father’s overcoat. He turned left and headed for the goods yards that lined the Old Dock. He could spurn the worst of the rain and present as someone who kept his eyes and ears open, witnessed the awakening of trade at first hand, his finger on the port’s early morning pulse. It would cost him no more than 5 minutes and he surely could not get any wetter. In the distance, he could hear the bell of St George’s strike for 7am. The weather had slowed him, he would have to quicken his pace.

****

As he entered the dock, he realised his mistake. The rain was sweeping across the heaving black water, driven by strong gusts of wind that raced up the gaping mouth of the river. Flushing the remnants of gutted fish, slops of over ripe fruit, rivulets of copper coloured molasses and crushed coffee beans through the loose crevices that chequered the cobbled quays of the world’s first, purpose-built enclosed dock. A perilous mosaic of glistening treachery. Squinting to see ahead, he estimated as many as thirty vessels moored in ‘the Pool.’ Heaving and groaning as the wind surged from rush to gallop, the curvature of their highly varnished oak timbers oscillating and creaking like cheap floorboards in a back-street music hall. The inpouring raw force of the Irish Sea impelling the Mersey against the adamantine harbour walls, lofting even the sturdiest vessels up and down as if they were unbottled corks. He raised his right arm across his face to deflect the rain and to shut out the barrage of discordant noise; the deafening ache of twisting chains, the squeal of rigging stretching beyond its limits, of un-battened hatches alternately slamming and banging, ropes lashing and snapping. Aboard, the deck hands were barely able to stand or see, cupping hands over mouths hopelessly bellowing unheard instructions and failed warnings as the Empire’s early morning commerce was brought to a thundering halt by the riotous storm. He ducked into the embrace of a narrow doorway, the sign above sneering at his misjudgement, ‘Mersey Wet Fish est. 1804’. Soaked through, utterly bedraggled, his mother’s labours harshly undone. His prospects already washing away, when he was startled by a sharp booming crack as the spar of the nearest clipper, barely thirty yards away, sheered from the main sail. The stays giving way to an avalanche of calico that unravelled and thundered to the cargo-laden deck far below.

The sheer fright caused him to jump forward and lose his footing, his right kneecap striking the unyielding rim of an iron capstan. Instinctively, he clasped at the pain and ended up on his backside, his leather satchel loosed from his shoulder. He watched it skid across the iridescent oily surface of the puddled sets as if it were an oversized skipping stone. He heard a scream and turned instinctively towards the unseen source. Then another, followed by a volley of urgent indeterminate shouts and exhortations tossed this way and that by the building force of the gale. The rain now so engulfing that he could barely make out the direction of the commotion, until he caught a misted glimpse to his left of a cluster of hazed figures gesticulating wildly at something beyond the dock edge. He set aside the pain, hauled himself upright and cuffed the precipitation from his eyes. As he did so, he took in the torrid ringing of the hand bell. Someone was in the water.

There was no alternative but to limp quickly towards the outcry. In seconds, he was among them. A group of dishevelled, saturated spectators, quite evidently inebriated, loose of tongue and weak of limb. Incapable of providing any help whatsoever to whoever had fallen into the dock. As he pushed his way through, other people, better dressed and far better spoken, were volleying their own entreaties from the railings on the street above. In the enclosing murk he caught a bleary fleeting sight of an unfamiliar and strangely painted carriage stationed a short distance away, only to be distracted by the spiralling urgency of further shouts before he could pay it close mind. This time, the cries came from two sailors who had scaled the broken masthead and lashed themselves to the rigging. Kearney cupped his ear to decipher their calls, but they were lost to the wind until one of the mariners managed to snatch at a loose timber and jab it repeatedly in the direction of the wind-whipped water, twenty yards or so from where he had come to a halt. Desperately trying to peer through the gloom.

****

The crowd, fifteen or more and growing, had raised the level of consternation with each single addition to their number, but were either incapable, ill equipped or simply unwilling to do anything other than watch events unfold. Kearney scanned the group closest to the edge, looking for someone to assist but realised they could not. Wharf rats, hopelessly drunk, of use to none but themselves. Barely emerged from their nightly binge in the stinking arches. Lives hidden behind the sodden stacks of blue-stamped bales. ‘Charleston and Savannah Cotton Corporation-USA.’ Agitated, helpless and rooted to the spot, save for a toothless fishwife who, entertained by the spectacle, retrieved a bottle of amber liquid from her shawl, took a gulp and passed it to a large, dishevelled fellow who did the same before she snatched it back and placed it from whence it came. Whoever was down there was one of their number, Kearney thought to himself. Precious seconds lost. It was then that he caught sight of the dark green overcoat, floating spreadeagled on the murk, a single vapid arm rising feebly. Up then down. A pristine pair of screeching gulls skimmed the swell, dipping in and out as if they were the appointed surveyors of life and limb.

*****

He looked upwards and saw that the tiny rain blurred figure of the sailor was now vigorously shaking the pole, directing, and urging him towards the body. He at least had made up his mind that only Kearney could help. With no further hesitation, he tore off his sodden shoes, already leaking their hard-won shine, and threw his jacket and overcoat to one of the more composed observers, who gave him an affirmatory nod and for a few seconds teetered at the dock edge striving to fix the exact position of the green overcoat. Then, without further thought or reckoning, jumped into the heaving murk six feet below. He gasped sharply as the brutal shock of the chilling cold and the pounding rise and fall from the heaving ships washed over him. He could see little, but somehow, beneath the full force of the wind, he heard his quarry cough and splutter and began to propel himself through the opaque water, turning his face from side to side as the storm whipped up mud and debris from below. He barely took in the long plank wrenched from the deck of a battered ship as it slew towards him, before changing direction at the last moment. Surfing past, barely a yard away. In those frightening seconds he told himself that someone was looking after him, urging him to succeed. He summoned his strength and pushed on. From the decks of the ships nearest him, but too distant to offer help, figures had begun to collect on deck and were cheering and exhorting him. More poles appeared, more pointing at the figure in the water, 5 or 6 ropes hurled in his direction, but each falling short. He fought against his waistcoat and best woollen trousers tugging him below, maintaining his shape and rallying every ounce of strength and determination to propel himself the final few yards to the depleted figure now ominously still. Moments later he was struck by a quite different swell. A large clipper, oblivious of the scene unfolding ahead, was fighting to enter the duplicitous haven of the heaving dock. Twice, a ridge of hard water slapped him full in the face, the second tilting him over, its’ undertow dragging at his trousers as he fought and managed to kick on. As he lifted his head, he saw that the green coated figure had slipped below the surface for a third time.

****

Edwin Kearney mustered whatever strength he had left and somehow reached his quarry, sensing strangely that both were saving each other. Hooking an arm under the figure’s right armpit he was able to haul it a few inches above the water and kicked hard to turn it about. In that moment of apparent salvation, the body gave in to panic, spluttering uncontrollably and resisting its’ rescuer’s efforts to propel them both towards the cheering onlookers on the quay. Then the worst of it, suddenly it gave up all sound and movement, more comatose than cathartic. Adrenalin, sheer unfathomable will power and the wall of encouragement ringing in his ears enabled the desperate, exhausted Kearney to cover the last few yards to the half-submerged iron safety ladder attached to the dock wall. Sailors and stevedores were now at the edge. Frantically lashing the lifeless form in the dark green overcoat and its’ exhausted rescuer to the dubious safety of the corroded, flaking rungs. A small skiff approached to haul them aboard and land them at the slipway. As they glided silently during those endless few minutes the crowd hurried to the landing point, craning their necks as they ran. Nearly falling in themselves. The body was still inert, its identity still indeterminate as the stevedores lifted it onto a low painted cart, J Geller, Fruiterer, Dale Street. Commandeered and cushioned with empty flour sacks.

****

Shivering violently, physically, and mentally exhausted, Edwin Kearney barely glanced at it, deeply grateful to be relieved of its’ care. About him, two dozen people had congregated to get a look or even a snatch few words with the hero of the hour. Others were also making their way towards the commotion. A fellow bearing the tunic and insignia of the East India Company, from the Prince of Calcutta, enquired attentively of his health, patted him on the shoulder and handed him a grey linen sheet to dry himself. As best he could. A sailor ran up and offered him brandy from a flask, but he was too exhausted to take more than a single sip. One of the inebriates, who had been among the first to join the commotion, brought his jacket. Offering no words, just staring vacantly at him without a flicker of comprehension of what had just taken place. A young barrow boy had retrieved his shoes and had attempted to restore the streaks of blacking to something approaching their former state and had done a commendable job. He thrust out a tiny, calloused hand and very carefully held the tips of Edwin’s wet fingers until the hero let go and thanked him. ‘No sir, thank you…from all of us for what you did’ at which everyone broke into applause. A curious incident followed, which took him back to the very moment before he had jumped into the dock. The fish wife approached him aggressively, as if she wished to contest him. She looked him up and down and snarled, then pressed a finger on her left nostril, lowered her head to the side and rid herself of a volley of sputum. She then reached into her shawl and withdrew the amber filled bottle from which she had been drinking earlier.

‘Ere yer go young sir that’ll restore yer to rude ‘ealth. Get a swig down yer.’

Thankfully, her offer was deflected by the arrival of two formally dressed gentlemen, the elder darkly suited, serious of countenance, sporting a well-groomed grey beard and grasping a silver-handled cane. His companion, a gimlet eyed, clean shaven young toff, cut in and shooed her away.

‘Thank you, madam but you may put that aside. We will take care of the young man. Keep your tipple and be on your way. Now!’

She gave a derisory scowl, aimed another volley of orange phlegm at the cobbles and without a backward glance, began shouting and waving her half-emptied bottle in the direction of the cotton bales from where her burly drinking partner once more loomed into view. Edwin Kearney was spent. Utterly so. Saturated to his very bones, he could barely move or speak. At least a dozen people, the human flotsam and jetsam of Old Dock, remained clustered about him on the debris-sluiced quay, but they now parted with instant deference to allow the two late arrivals to come forward. He looked up at them, managing to muster only his second words since thanking the East India man for the dry sheets which now shrouded his shoulders and head. His mind oscillated between what had just occurred and where he was meant to be. Had he done the right thing and to what end. The body was surely dead or so when they landed. And why was it in the dock in the first place. Kearney attempted to raise himself to properly acknowledge their intercession, but they motioned him to remain seated. He was indeed a sorry spectacle; his hair matted and flattened, his collar and shoulders mired in slime; trousers bloated and torn, the grey necktie lost to the river. His only decent pair of shoes were still leaking dye despite the valiant efforts of the boy with the tiny hands. It hardly mattered. He lacked the strength to put them on in any case. He leaned his head to one side and coughed, expecting to expel a barrelful of the Mersey but was surprised to find his mouth quite dry and able to shape a few words.

‘Thank you, gentlemen, I believe you may have saved me from a fate worse than the river.’

The older, more distinguished of the pair drew closer and held out his hand as his sharp faced companion produced two umbrellas to ward off the rain, now retreating to its’ early steady drizzle. But only after it had entirely capsized Edwin Kearney’s day. His life.

****

‘The very least we could do my dear fellow. It is not every day one sees such unexpected drama, a life risked and a life saved. A quite remarkable act of heroism. No doubt, your selflessness will mark the lives of all involved here today. And many more when they are more widely known.’

The younger man stepped alongside. Kearney sensed he was not local.

‘Well done sir, such bravery and heart. Now tell us, do you feel robust enough to rise and sit down somewhere warm and dry. Do you feel nauseous? The dock is notorious for its effluent and grime. And for such mishaps of course. Lives are easily lost and forgotten in such places. You tremble and shiver. How can we best assist you?

Edwin Kearney shook his head. ‘I am recovered thank you. Perhaps a few minutes more to dry out and compose myself. Then I must make haste to my appointment. I was due there at 7.30 but fear we are well beyond that.’

‘I regret so, the bell has just struck 8.’

‘Oh dear. What am I to do? I have been in the water much longer than I realised. It has undone me.’

The older man surveyed him closely.

‘I would say that your ordeal in the water and your recovery have lasted a good half hour or more. May I ask, where is your appointment?’

‘At The Mercury, on Pool Lane. With the proprietor Mr Egerton Smith. Have you heard of him?

The two men looked at each other. The elder resumed with another question.

‘The Mercury you say?’

‘Yes, I hope to become a journalist there. However, that is now in ruins. And a man’s life lost.’

The older man stooped a little to be sure Kearney could hear him.

‘Well, I daresay they may well be writing about you. As for a life lost, the headline will be more uplifting, for some of course.’

‘I think you may have misheard us sir, a life saved’ …his younger companion interjected curtly.

Kearney was befuddled. It took a couple of moments to absorb what they were saying. His lips were still blue, and his teeth chattered faster and more noisily, as much with emotion as the freezing cold, on hearing this extraordinary news.

‘Saved. Alive you mean? I have rescued them from drowning?’

‘From an otherwise certain death it would appear. You are a hero sir. Now tell us, what is your name so we can address and assist you more properly.’

‘It is Edwin Kearney sir.’

‘And your address Mr Kearney?’

‘It is 4 Blackstone Row, Toxteth. Half-way up the hill.’

The younger man took a small notebook from inside his coat, rested himself against a pile of crates and scribbled the details as the older man patted Kearney gently on the shoulder.

‘Let us get you to my carriage, warm you with dry blankets and deliver you to your appointment.’

Edwin Kearney pinched, expressed, and smoothed what he could of the river from his waistcoat and trousers and took great comfort from his good fortune in having left his shoes on the quay though much penetrated by water, and that someone had not only returned his jacket but had shown profound sense and courtesy in keeping it dry. He winced as he drew himself into the sleeves and the heavy cloth squelched down on his linen shirt. He thought of his mother. What would she say? His clothes ruined, his coveted opportunity lost, his prospects beyond recovery. He decided in that moment that he must at least show his face, honour his appointment, explain to Mr Egerton Smith what had befallen him. Apologise and hope that if a similar opportunity arose in the months ahead that he would still consider him. The older man, who had still not introduced himself, was still waiting a reply to his offer.

‘Thank you, that is most kind of you sir. I am in a state and would quite understand if you preferred that I do not contaminate your carriage. Do you think Mr Smith would still wish to meet me? In this condition and an hour late.’

****

The crowd was thinner now, just seven or eight in addition to the two well-heeled strangers whose arrival had culled the field of the hopelessly inebriated and the wantonly curious. The older man had walked on ahead, turning to direct him towards the street above where two customised black-green carriages were stationed. Drivers and two muscular footmen at the ready. He caught sight of an unusual insignia on the panels, a roaring flame bursting through a gate. Or something more formidable. A portcullis? In his present state he was bound to be mistaken, so thought no more of it. The rear carriage accommodated two women, one the wife of the older man, the other a striking young woman, with blond hair. Mother and daughter, he presumed. The younger offered him a brief a smile before a gloved hand drew her back.

The older man pointed to the forward carriage.

‘Well Mr Kearney, let us have you quickly on to your appointment and let whoever you saved be very thankful for your most timely intervention.’

Edwin struggled for a moment, before coughing profusely and eventually finding his voice.

‘Thank you, sir. The body was so lifeless. When I managed to propel it back to the quay, all I could think was that I am too late.’

‘No, Mr Kearney you are not. In my world it is never too late. For anything.’

_____________

4

The Mercury

Egerton Smith’s restive mood had deepened, his prospective new employee was now forty -five minutes late. Fair-minded and progressive as he was held to be, Smith did not tolerate any form of poor time keeping. As for excessive lateness, well that was unimaginable. Time was short and expensive. It made matters worse that Joshua Williams had now apparently disappeared after a succession of shrill chimes at the main entrance and was already gone a further ten minutes. He consulted his timepiece. 8.25 am. It simply would not do. William’s recommendation had not proved supportable. They were at one on most things, but not this time. Smith had professed his doubts, Williams had parried them, but this proved they were well-founded. The Mercury’s proprietor rose from his chair and looked out of the window onto Pool Lane. Nothing! No one to be seen. The carriage he thought he had heard a little while ago had obviously come and gone. Unlike his deputy, Egerton Smith was tall, self-possessed, fashionably tailored and fit through endless perambulation of his adopted town. To his formal superiority as proprietor and editor he also exerted a natural supremacy in that he towered above his ill-fed fellow Liverpolitans.

This was why he took such progressive interest in their needs and aspirations. He saw himself as an unabashed champion of social reform, pleasing the greater part of the town on the one hand and promoting himself and his newspaper as a torch bearer for free enterprise on the other. Within the industrious confines of the Pool Lane print works Smith would often shout, occasionally berate but never bully. Raising one’s voice in premises where the thrum of the presses and other machinery was constant and often ear-deafening, was a practical necessity. One needed to make oneself heard and understood above the relentless, unforgiving din. In any case, remonstration was evidence of passion, and Egerton Smith was exceedingly enthusiastic about his newspaper and its fulfilments. Delay and disruption were enemies to an ordered mind. So it was, that when Joshua Williams finally returned after an absence that had grown to twenty-five minutes since his last update, he found his employer swivelling impatiently in his reclaimed mahogany captain’s chair. Drumming the freshly polished surface of his imposing desk with the blunt end of a silver double-sided letter opener. He could not have imagined the reasons for the delay, nor for that matter could his Deputy Editor.

When Williams had been called to the front entrance, he had caught sight of Edwin Kearney for the only second time. He had been impressed by Kearney’s lengthy response to the advertisement, it was confident, ambitious, and had demonstrated a good deal of research. The young fellow even had his own ideas, entirely unsolicited, about the future direction of The Mercury