1.
The Arethusa stank. Smollet had sailed on it for five years. He’d been told when he first embarked that he’d get used to it. He never had, although now, as captain, his quarters were a little more fragrant than those used by the crew. And the Arethusa was a better vessel than most. It was newer, and had been constructed with ventilation ports built into the sides and between the gun ports to increase the airflow.
The voyage was always the same, and it was always different. The passage taken by the Arethusa was known as the triangular trade. She would start in Liverpool, where she would be loaded with textiles, gunpowder, gin, rum and whisky. She would then embark on the first leg of the triangle. This would take her to the western coast of Africa, known as the Windward Coast or the Gold Coast. Which Smollet chose depended on a number of factors: the weather, the likelihood of piracy, whether there was an agreement in place, and where the most profitable markets were. And, of course, where the best slaves might be found. In the early days, before Smollet’s time, the slaves had all been rounded up by white colonists. Now there were just as many native African slavers who were either slave masters themselves or tribal chiefs selling enemies captured in war or sometimes even members of rival families.
Picking out which slaves to buy required judgment and experience. They had to be tough, not only because the young and strong would command the highest prices, but because the voyage would be difficult. He chose mostly men because they were best suited to working the long days in the cotton fields or on the sugar plantations that their master would require. He’d select some women because the southern ladies liked to have black maids, but they had to be chosen carefully. It was best if they were not showing any signs of pregnancy. If they were very pregnant, that was fine so long as they were healthy, because the baby would be born on board and would probanbly not survive, which meant that they could be sold unencumbered by motherhood. The hardest to spot were those who were only just pregnant, because by the time they reached the American slave market their condition would be obvious and they would be almost worthless.
Timing was vital. Smollet could usually get a good price for his merchandise, especially the spirits and the gunpowder, provided there was not too much competition from other traders. In all his time as a Captain, he had always made more than enough from the sale of these luxuries to buy a good-sized cargo of slaves. The Arethusa would have held three hundred, but Smollet was not greedy and limited himself to no more than two hundred and fifty. He knew that not all of them would survive the journey. Diseases spread rapidly in the close quarters in which the slaves were confined, and with more space and more air there was a better chance of them being avoided. After all, Smollet reasoned, there was no point spending money buying three hundred slaves if fifty of them were going to die of dysentery, smallpox, syphilis, measles, or the other scourges that raged below decks. A smaller number also saved on the provision of food and water, and if the winds were contrary and the voyage longer than usual, that would be a factor.
Smollet was a good seaman. He knew his ship, and he could read the weather. Nevertheless, on the second leg of the triangle, from Senegambia in Africa to Charles Town, South Carolina, the Arethusa stank. It was so bad that the thirty or so crew wouldn’t sleep below decks but preferred to huddle on the fo’c’sle and take their chance with the Atlantic weather. There was no lavatory below, and the slaves were chained to boards, which meant that they had to defecate where they lay, or on the deck beside it. Dealing with the results of this was the job of the shite watch, who would swill the spaces around the slaves with buckets of seawater. It was a chore always given to the youngest members of the crew, but it made little difference because it was unsupervised and therefore rushed and badly done. The crew had no financial interest in the slaves, who, in their view, were barely human, so they had no motive to care for them. Early in the voyage most of the crew would make recreational trips below decks to rape the female slaves, and sometimes the boys, but ten days into the crossing the conditions down there were so bad they were no longer tempted.
Even on the open deck and with a brisk ocean breeze, Smollet couldn’t escape the residual odour. His spirits were brightened by the knowledge that the goods the Arethusa had unloaded had fetched an excellent price, that the slaves he’d bought appeared to be fit and healthy—only three deaths on board so far—and that the money he could expect them to make would enable him to buy good quantities of sugar, tobacco and cotton to take on the third leg of the triangle, back home to Liverpool. It would be a very profitable voyage. Another few like this, and he would be able to retire from the sea and live the life of a country gentleman.
The helmsman drew Smollett’s attention to low black clouds on the horizon. He’d already noticed them and he didn’t like the way they were building. The winds on this part of the crossing were usually from the south, and that made for speedy sailing. These were coming from the northwest. The Arethusa would be heading straight into them. Progress would be slow, and seasickness would add to the problems below decks.
The storm came quickly. The seas rapidly grew worse, and the Arethusa heaved and rolled. Heading directly into the gale was hopeless, and Smollet ordered his helmsman to turn northeast, reckoning that if he could avoid the storm he’d then be able to swing round and go southwest to pick up his original course. His problem was that he didn’t know where his ship was. He had a sextant, and he knew how to use it. It was a fine instrument, recently devised and would enable him to measure latitude. However, because of overcast skies, it hadn’t been out of its mahogany case for four days. He had not yet acquired one of the recently introduced marine chronometers, which were designed to enable the accurate calculation of longitude, because opinion in the Liverpool taverns he frequented when ashore was divided about their usefulness.
The Arethusa was lost, and the storm was getting worse.
Smollet opened the hatch to below-decks. It was like a scene from hell. The men were bound to each other, left leg to right leg, the shackle between them fastened to a teak block. The few women were also chained, but more loosely. It was too dark to see clearly, but there was vomit, and there were faeces. The stench was horrendous. The howls of anguish and the pleas for help were like the cries of demons.
It’s impossible to know exactly what happened and how, but on the 14th of March 1768, the Arethusa sank. Two hundred and thirty-one slaves and twenty-seven members of the crew, including Captain Smollet, perished.
It would be a long time before any relic of the Arethusa surfaced.
2.
Willoughby Crighton was a regular at Lloyds Coffee House in London’s Lombard Street. Most of the time his visits were for company and gossip, and to glean intelligence about where the smart money was being placed. Sometimes he took part in a candle auction, where a commodity—usually a bundle of insurance slips—was offered for sale, the bidding continuing until the candle burnt out. On the whole, though, he found auctions too unpredictable and unmanageable. He liked to be in control, and that was partly the appeal of slavery. Slaves went where they were taken, and they did what they were told. They were cheap to keep and easy to trade, which meant that slavery was financially very rewarding. The main problem was getting the slaves from their homelands to the markets in the Americas. That was where things could go wrong, as they had now, which was why on that particular day, he met with Joshua Slufford.
Slufford made wagers. In those early days, insurance took the form of a bet placed on whether or not something would happen. Crighton had learnt that Slufford’s wagers were more favourable than most, and had bet repeatedly that goods he owned would not arrive at their destinations. If they did, he lost his stake, but he had his cargo; if they did not, he would win, and Slufford would pay him half the value of what was missing. It was a curious position to be in, because in contrast to the gambles he took on the racetrack, these were bets he wanted to lose. Usually, the transactions went smoothly, except not this time. This time, he had a problem. The Arethusa, which had been transporting two hundred and fifty slaves which Smollet had purchased on his behalf, had disappeared.
‘Smollet is an experienced captain and an excellent seaman,’ Slufford was saying. ‘I urge you to be patient and to wait a little longer.’
Crighton was exasperated. ‘So you said last week, and I have waited. I go daily to the merchant of shipping for news, and there is none. I have assurances that the Arethusa left Banjul on the 8th of March. That is more than three months past. If she had reached Charles Town, I would have heard of it by now.’
‘Perchance. But also possibly not. The perils of the sea are many, and it might well be that it is your merchant’s messenger vessel that has been lost, and the Arethusa is safely in port even as we speak. Or at this very moment returning to England.’
‘It is not. There is no news, either, that my slaves have reached the market.’
‘How many were on board?’
Slufford had asked this before, and as he spread a sheaf of bills of sale on the coffee house table, Crighton hoped that he would by now have forgotten the previous answer.
‘Three hundred,’ he said.
It was a lie, but Crighton had rarely made money by telling the truth. There was the delay, the inconvenience, the time he had already spent on this. Compensation for an imaginary fifty slaves over and above the number who had actually boarded would barely cover it.
Slufford sighed. ‘We shall leave it one more week,’ he said.
‘One week it is,’ said Crighton, ‘and no more. If at that time I have neither my slaves nor my wager, I fear your reputation as an insurer could be irrevocably damaged.’
A thousand miles away, the God Jar is lodged in a crack in the Fastnet rocks until it’s shaken loose by a storm. It rolls across the ocean floor, drifting south. Sometimes it is so deep that its glow is the only light. Currents nudge it, fish nuzzle it, and once a rolling octopus wraps a tentacle around it, only to leap back as if stung.
After many years, it comes up hard against the wooden side of a ship, a wreck. Two hundred and fifty-eight imprisoned souls cry out in agony. The jar feels their pain. It gathers them and holds them until, two hundred and fifty years later, it can bring them to the surface.
3.
Nick Firwood puts down his phone, rises from his desk and crosses his office to the window. His shoulders ache, and he draws circles with his elbows to ease them. He cracks his knuckles, a habit he knows some others find annoying. The Zoom call has been long and difficult. He’s often seen how money brings out the worst in people. In honest moments he would include himself in that, but it’s certainly true of the clients he’s been addressing.
The panoramic view from the Canary Wharf offices of Linden Firwood is stunning. It’s a perfect early spring day, the cloudless sky a compass of blues. The tide is in and the Thames shimmers in the afternoon sun. On the far bank, a sightseeing cruise is passing Rotherhithe, carrying tourists upriver from Greenwich. Above, a passenger jet is on a steady descent towards Heathrow. He looks to the middle distance, where the Tower of London squats beside iconic skyscrapers—the Cheesegrater, the Walkie-Talkie, the Lookout. Beside them, the dome of St Paul’s, once the tallest building in London, is a toy. The City premises are statements. They are what money looks like. This is the largest urban concentration of wealth in Europe. This, he tells himself, is where he belongs.
He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t at first hear the buzz of the intercom. Then he does, and it drags him back to his desk. It’s Chloe, his PA. The title belies her actual job, which is really his secretary, but she asked for it, and he agreed.
‘Nick, I have a call for you. Someone called Jacob Stanley from Atherton, Stanley and Brooks.’
‘Never heard of them. Did he say what it’s about?’
‘He said they’re solicitors, in Hull, and that it’s a personal matter.’
A solicitor. A personal matter. Could this be one of the calls he’s been dreading? How could it be? Linden Firwood has no clients in Hull. But it might.
‘Say I’m tied up at the moment. Take his number and tell him I’ll call him back.’
He puts down the receiver and cracks his knuckles again. He needs time to think.
* * *
Vanessa Cooper is making a video she plans to post on social media. Its purpose is to drum up clients for the online tarot readings she offers on her website. The competition has been growing over the past year and some of her followers have fallen away, so it has to be just right. She clicks playback and watches what she has just recorded.
She’s disappointed. The deck of cards she’s using is new, and the glossy surfaces shine under the recording lights. The subject she’s chosen for the video is the Major Arcana, and it’s useless if her viewers can’t distinguish the designs. The Lovers, the Chariot, and Death have come out on the first row, which is a telling proximity that needs to be explored and explained, but how can she do this if the wretched things can’t be seen?
She replaces the pale curtain behind her chair with a black one. That kills some of the light and has the advantage of making the setting look more dramatic. She glances at her reflection on the monitor. She loosens a few strands of her hair, which she thinks creates a more occult vibe, adjusts her cloak, and settles herself on her throne. It’s an old dining chair that she got for almost nothing from a junk shop. Now sprayed gold, it looks the part.
She adjusts the first row of cards and clicks record. She looks into the camera and deals the second row: the Priestess, the Hanged Man, and Justice. Oh my goodness, she thinks. This is amazing.
She begins to talk. The phone rings.
* * *
Nick pulls his keyboard towards him, enters the password for the client vault, and scrolls through the list of files. He compares handling finance to juggling. You don’t hold onto the money, you don’t clutch it in your hand, you have to keep it in the air. That’s when it does the most work, when it’s moved artfully from haven to haven. The problem is that even the best jugglers sometimes let things fall.
His mobile trills. He sighs at another interruption. It’s an unknown number, probably a cold call or a scam, and he’s minded not to answer it, but he does.
‘Hello,’ he says, ‘this is Nick Firwood. Who are you?’
‘Hi, Nick. It’s Vanessa.’
Vanessa? Vanessa? He knows no one of that name. There’d been a woman called Vanessa he’d met on a dating app, but that had been several months ago, and nothing had come of it. The voice sounds firm but tense. And vaguely familiar, although he can’t place it. ‘Do I know you?’
There’s a stunned pause. ‘Vanessa? Your cousin?’
Oh shit. His Aunt Annie’s daughter. Vanessa... what was her married name? Crawley? Craven? Cooper? It’s Cooper. They haven’t had any contact in years. He can’t remember the last time they’d spoken.
‘Vanessa. Of course. I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect it to be you. I thought you were in Australia.’
‘Not any more. I’ve been in the UK for eighteen months.’
‘What, you’re here permanently now?’
‘I guess. There’s no reason for me to go back.’
He dredged up the name of her husband. ‘How’s David? Is he over here too?’
‘No. Just me. I split with David a while back. I won’t go into it now, it’s a long story. But there are no kids and no ties, and what I was doing in Australia wasn’t important, so I decided to come home.’
‘Right. Why didn’t you get in touch to tell me you were back?’
There’s a bewildered silence. ‘But we don’t do that. We didn’t connect for a long time before I went to Australia, and never while I was there. You weren’t on my list, and I guess I haven’t been on yours.’
Nick has to admit that’s true. ‘So how are you?’ It sounds like such a lame question to put to someone he hasn’t seen for such a long time.
‘I’m fine, but I didn’t phone for a chat.’
That sounds to Nick to be terse. Is she annoyed about something? Why would she be phoning? He’s puzzled about what might come next. There’s another pause, and Nick waits.
‘Uncle Gilby’s dead.’
