The Whitechapel Wharfinger

A wharfinger dead at the foot of his iron stair at low water. Skull fractured, pocket-book untouched. The barge crew slept ashore.

Section I

The Scene

Setting: Pearl Wharf, Wapping, on the north shore of the Thames; the foreshore at low water
Time: Sunday afternoon, 10 May 1896 - the death having been at or before six in the morning
Weather: A clear, breezy spring day; the river silver under the noon sun
Atmosphere: The peculiar Sunday quiet of the docks, broken only by gulls; the smell of pitch, hessian, river-mud, and the spices in the bonded shed.

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