Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel Read Online Free Page B

those who came to him in their woe. Records that could be used to map London. A volunteered map of who had the choicest property.
    Wild was shrewd. It had not gone unnoticed to him that London had begun to put more stock in paper than weight and glitter and it was far easier to lift a gentleman’s pocket-book than his furniture.
    Pieces of paper could hold a man’s entire fortune. Nowadays, when the quality turned up at his offices, they did not bemoan their wife’s sobbing over some lost stones. Instead they sweated and begged and paid handsomely to get back their precious paper. The madness of the South Sea stock, where the fortune could change in hours, made his customers even more desperate. Jon Wild capitalised, and the fees for his services for finding certificates went far above that of a sedan chair or diamond necklace.
    The genius of the man was to not deny his station or past. He had been there. He was one of them. He knew all the dregs and could wring them dry, and to keep them in his pocket he would occasionally take one of them before the beak and see him hung, and his children orphaned, just to show those who had elected him to his purpose the power he held over their very lives.
    Puzzled by the sudden increase in highway robbery and house-breaking, the courts asked Wild what could be done. He motioned that the fee for finding the stolen goods needed to be increased as his rappers had gotten greedy now his enterprise was successful. They failed to connect that his success rate had increased along with the burglaries. They nodded and quadrupled his fees. After all, he did deliver them so many villains.
    That very morning, for instance, he had brought into Newgate a thief and murderer no less. One John Coxon who had killed one of Wild’s own assistants when they had tried to take him. Wild had already been to Paternoster to report it – the power of the press one of his most useful tools.
    He sat at his table, in his doorway afore his stairs, his door always generously open to the street so his people could see him and doff their hats as they passed. There he counted the sailor’s money in full view. He could leave his purse on the doorstep overnight if he wished.
    The leather bag was a strange mixture of coin from every realm, cast in gold and silver, the waft of sand and rum on some of it, some broken into small change. He weighed it in his hand. This was either all a man possessed or a taste of what he promised.
    He sat back and thought on the body now lying in the hold across the street in Newgate at the corner alongside the sessions house. He did not notice his assistant George Wattle bounding towards him.
    ‘Jon! Jon!’ He blocked Wild’s sight of the grim prison stones. George had been at the taking of the sailor, had pulled a knife, seen his partner killed. They had not spoken of Arthur since.
    While Wild divvied up their coin George had been sent to the sessions house to see if there were any warrants against their latest taking, or at least any that could fit. Nailed to a wooden board inside the entrance were the reward notices for highwaymen and those notorious pirates who had not taken the king’s grace and therefore defied pardon. George waved one such black framed bill at Wild.
    ‘It’s him, Jon, look! That sailor!’
    ‘What you rattling, George?’ He took the page. On it was the visage of a young man with black hair and no beard. His height, known ships, known familiars and known crimes. A long list. ‘Could be anyone.’
    ‘See there though, Jon! Says he was the ungrateful boy of Cap’n John Coxon! He called himself Cap’n Coxon!’
    That was there, sure enough. It would make sense that the pirate might assume a name and the description duly fitted better in Wild’s eyes.
    ‘Patrick Devlin, eh? The Pirate Devlin.’ He jiggled the bag in his hand.
    All a man possessed or a taste of what he promised.
    ‘What’s a pirate doing in my city, George?’
    ‘I don’t know about that