The Red Hand of Fury

London, June 1914. A young man is mauled to death at London Zoo after deliberately climbing into the bear pit. Shortly afterwards, another young man leaps to his death from the notorious Suicide Bridge. Two seemingly unconnected deaths – and yet there are similarities. 

US amazon (kindle) - https://www.amazon.com/Red-Hand-Fury-pre-World-historical-ebook/dp/B07CWWQLLR/

Excerpt

 In this extract we get a glimpse at the workings of DCI Quinn and his team at the Special Crimes Department. As the book begins, the department is having a period of respite after a succession of difficult cases. Quinn appears distracted. To keep his men busy he has told them to ‘be vigilant’. As tensions rise in Ireland, he has charged one of his men, Sergeant Inchball, with the task of ‘keeping an eye on the Irish’…

 Given his somewhat vague brief, Sergeant Inchball was rather more at a loss as to how to proceed. Last night he had spent a couple of unsatisfactory hours lurking outside a notorious Fenian pub in Holloway before finally, and unadvisedly, venturing inside. His attempt to order a pint of Guinness in an Irish accent was still more ill-advised, and had drawn the attention of a number of large, threatening gentlemen whose accents were rather more convincing.

One fella had got his face right in Inchball’s, his massy beard specked with the froth from his stout. ‘Are you a copper?’

‘A copper, I? I not be a copper. Oh, to be sure, to be sure, not. I not be that. A copper, that not I be.’

‘You look like a copper. You sound like a copper. And you smell like a copper.’

Inchball’s accent entirely abandoned him at that point. ‘I, ee, arrr, I, oh . . .’

It was not in his nature to run from a fight. But he saw little point in getting himself killed for the sake of one of the guv’nor’s whims. Because yes, that was what this whole ‘watch the Irish’ thing was, he knew. And so he had made a dash for the door. Fortunately, there was no one blocking his way. It seemed the regulars of the Horse and Groom had no more desire for trouble than he had. He heard their raucous laughter as the door slammed behind him. Soon after, a fiddle started up in a lively rendition of ‘The Minstrel Boy’.

Invited to give a progress report of his investigation, Inchball related an abridged version of the previous night’s adventure. He left out the bit about his bad Irish accent, only saying that the Micks had rumbled him. ‘Well, I can’t show my face there again, can I?’ he complained. It was typical of Inchball that he managed to make it sound as if his misfortune was someone else’s fault. He cast a particularly recriminatory glance in Quinn’s direction.

Quinn sighed but offered no comment.

‘We need a real Mick to go undercover for us. They’ll see right through me if I try that again.’

‘I have a cousin who is Irish,’ volunteered Macadam. ‘Several, in fact.’

‘You and your bleedin’ cousins,’ muttered Inchball. ‘Let’s say you have. Can he be trusted?’

‘He’s an Ulsterman. Of the Protestant sect. He hates the Fenians with a passion.’

‘But could be pass for one?’

Quinn cut the discussion short. ‘We will not involve any amateurs in our operations. It’s too risky.’

‘When war comes, everyone’s involved,’ observed Macadam darkly. ‘Amateur or not.’

‘We’re not at war yet.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, guv, this whole thing is a waste of our time. You mean to tell me that the Secret Service ain’t already got its spies embedded in Fenian cells? There’s a real danger I could go blundering into one of their undercover ops and blow the whole thing wide open. They won’t thank us for that. If you ask me, we’re better off leaving all these political shenanigans to the experts.’

Quinn decided to overlook the fact that he had not asked Inchball. ‘I don’t need to remind you, Sergeant Inchball, that the strategic direction of the Department is not decided by you. Nor, indeed, by me. But by our superiors.’

‘Henry told you to do this, did he?’ Sir Edward Henry was the commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis. It was he who had set up the Special Crimes Department; Silas Quinn reported directly to him.

Inchball’s tone was sceptical. Quinn’s response, evasive. ‘He gave me a broad directive, which I am interpreting.’

‘What was it, this broad directive?’

Quinn answered the question with a distracted frown, and a glance towards the window, as if he had heard a noise he could not identify coming from outside. He trusted Inchball knew enough not to press him any further.

There were times when Inchball’s characteristic bluntness came close to insubordination. But Quinn knew he meant no disrespect by it. If called upon, Inchball would lay down his life for the man he called guv. When it came to it, there would be no more questioning, no more grumbles. He would blindly, unhesitatingly put himself in peril at Quinn’s command. Quinn knew this, because Inchball frequently had.

His loyalty was absolute.

It was just that he was in one of those moods. Quinn put it down to frustration, and the loss of face he had suffered the night before.

They needed a case, something tangible to work on.

‘Well, now, here’s a queer thing. A decidedly queer thing.’

Both Quinn and Inchball turned their heads eagerly towards their colleague. Quinn realized that Sergeant Macadam – unconsciously or not – quite often slipped into the role of mediator between himself and Inchball, diffusing tension and providing a way through any impasse by distracting them from their own positions.

Macadam’s voice was brimming with promise.

‘You remember that fellow I was telling you about? The one who got mauled to death by the polar bear. Well, there’s been another one.’

 

R. N. Morris is the author of eight historical crime novels. His first, A Gentle Axe, was published by Faber and Faber in 2007. Set in St Petersburg in the nineteenth century, it features Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate from Dostoevsky’s great novel, Crime and Punishment. The book was published in many countries, including Russia. He followed that up with A Vengeful Longing, which was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. A Razor Wrapped in Silk came next, followed by The Cleansing Flames, which was nominated for the Ellis Peters Historical Novel Dagger. The Silas Quinn series of novels, set in London in 1914, began with Summon Up The Blood, followed by The Mannequin House, The Dark Palace and now The Red Hand of Fury, published on 31 March, 2018.