Dodger (33 page)

Jem screamed as I released him but he was still dangling with one hand on a spike. ‘Bastard!' he thrashed about below me. ‘I'll kill you for this.' There was a chance, I saw, that he could still climb up and come running after me.

I crouched down on the side of the roof, with my face pointing away to avoid detection, and I let my foot stamp down good and hard on to his fingers. He screamed then and dropped. I heard the peelers groan as his heavy weight landed upon them and then a big cheer went up, as they had got the man they was pursuing the most.

I got to my feet, peered over and saw that he was not hurt. And then I realised I was being watched from the window opposite. I started, fearing it was a peeler what could identify me, but saw instead just the innocent face of young Scratcher. He was staring back at me, his mouth open in wonder at my betrayal.

I raised my finger to my lips, made the shush sign to him and then turned and fled across the rooftops to safety.

I kept running across the rooftops for the whole length of the street, balancing myself along the gutterings where I needed to, jumping across the gaps, not looking down or behind me to see if anyone was in pursuit. The further I scrambled the fainter the shouts and rattles of the peelers became until I at last came to an edge from where I could jump to a lower roof and then shinned a water pipe down to a narrow by-lane. The people of this vicinity was much kinder towards hunted men than the ones I had encountered the day before and if anybody saw me they did not alert the police. As I ran down this lane and into a busy thoroughfare I kept an eye out for either Georgie or Warrigal. I had lost sight of them both after I had remained with Jem, but it was impossible, I reasoned, for either of them to have taken a different path to mine without falling. So I was certain that they too must have headed into this street, what was a rush of people, carts and horses chasing to and fro and would be so easy to disappear into. I crossed the street to where a row of newspaper stalls stood, pinched a copy of
The Times
to shield myself and walked up the road pretending to read it. It was hard to watch where I was going and before long I was tripped up by a beggar what was slumped on
the pavement in front of me. I stumbled and cursed him for not moving before realising that the trip was not accidental and that the man was no real beggar. Warrigal had made himself invisible in the most effective way that a man of his colour ever could, by sitting in broad daylight and asking people for money.

‘Follow me,' he said, getting up and dusting himself down, ‘to graveyard.' He headed towards the direction of Hackney and I followed behind as bid. For some reason, although the city was mine and he had been here less than a week, I felt as though he was more in command of it at this moment. ‘No Jem,' he observed.

‘Jem got took,' I answered as we crossed over towards St Peter's Church. ‘And there was nothing I could have done to stop it.'

Warrigal gave me a quick glance and then pointed towards the churchyard. There a single mourner was crouched over the furthest gravestone pretending to cry. ‘Other one,' he said.

We approached Georgie and I made the sign of the cross and knelt beside him. ‘You need to get out of London,' I whispered. Georgie raised his head and asked where Jem was. ‘Jem got took,' I said again, ‘and there was nothing I could have done to stop it.' Georgie then wailed in what sounded like genuine sorrow and cursed the name of his once-beloved Fanny. As he did this two elderly ladies passed by the gravestone and remarked upon him. I shook my head at them in sadness and pointed at the carving on the stone. ‘His mother,' I explained, and they expressed their sympathies and walked on.

‘They'll hang him for sure,' he sniffed once they was out of earshot.

‘I don't know about that.'

‘They will, Jack. The bastards'll choke the life from him. Poor Jem.' He held his hands up to his face. ‘He ain't a bad lad.'

I had to stop myself from remarking that, considering Jem had
killed a man, was forever burgling houses and was happy to punch the woman I loved in the face, that we would struggle to call him a good lad. But, not wishing to intrude upon private grief, I patted him on the back instead and nodded along. ‘There never was a truer friend,' I agreed with a great sigh.

We knelt there, he and I, while Warrigal looked on from under the shade of a tree, in silent tribute. But after less than a minute of that I clapped my hands together to move things along. ‘Right,' I said, ‘I'm starved. Let's get ourselves out of this district and to a friendly place. We need to work out what is to be done with you.'

*

Mouse Flynn lived in a nice house within a rotten vicinity, not far from Fagin's old place, with a woman named Agnes Dunn. Agnes was ten years older than him and was a gifted pickpocket herself and together they earned good money strutting around the Haymarket at night pretending to be quality and brushing against theatregoers. ‘Sometimes,' Mouse laughed on introducing me to the love of his life, ‘people mistake us for mother and son. But either way, it works.'

Georgie had told us on the way over that their cupboards was always well stocked with vittles and that Agnes was a hospitable sort, ever ready to harbour a fugitive whenever one should happen to drop by. Indeed, I found her to be a kind soul and I could tell, in spite of their age difference, that Mouse had done well to take up with her. He was still a child in many ways – on a small table in their parlour stood a pyramid of playing cards just like the ones he used to try and make when we was at Fagin's – so it was good that he had found himself the mothering sort to live with. She showed great sympathy to the three of us when we appeared on her doorstep and, after I had assured her that Warrigal was far gentler than he looked, she let us in and made us welcome.

‘They're all splitters in Crackity Lane,' she scowled as she poured from a nice china teapot. We was all sat around her kitchen table and had been explaining the day's events to them both. ‘Must be something to do with whatever spouts out of that water pipe they have there. You, Georgie,' she said, placing a biscuit on his saucer, ‘is better off without the lying mop-squeezer. She don't deserve you.'

Georgie sighed all heartbroken and dipped the biscuit into the matching cup. ‘I loved that girl, Agnes, and would have married her,' he sniffed, ‘if I wasn't married already.'

Mouse was getting himself most distressed at all that we had told him, the dead gardener, Fanny's betrayal, the police raid, Jem's arrest, each part of the story seemed to make him more anxious than the last. Agnes sat herself by him and told him it would be all right, stroking his cheeks until he calmed himself. ‘What'll we do without Jem?' he asked. ‘He was our top-sawyer.'

‘Don't you worry yourself about that,' I told him, sipping from my cup. ‘I'm back now. And I say that first order of business is to find a place where Georgie can run to before the traps get him. And if I was you, Georgie –' I looked to him and shook my head in sympathy – ‘and I thank the high heavens that I am not, I would try and book myself passage abroad somewhere.'

‘What?' he cried. ‘You mean another country?'

‘That's what abroad means, yes. England's going to be too hot for you now, my son.' Georgie moaned at the unfairness of this but Agnes reached over and took his hand in hers.

‘He's right, George,' she said. ‘You want to get yourself on a boat over to that Europe. Change your name, start again.' Georgie wailed in protest.

‘America then,' I suggested. ‘They reckon New York is the perfect place for a bright boy such as you to go and make his
fortune. I was thinking of heading off there myself at some point, and I ain't even killed anyone.'

‘
I
ain't even killed anyone,' Georgie said, and got to his feet, knocking the wooden table as he did so and making all the nice china rattle. ‘It was Jem what clubbed his head in. I just happened to be there, burgling the house. I'm an innocent man!' He faced the grandfather clock and placed his hands behind his head. We all went quiet as he pondered his situation and only the sound of the clock ticking could be heard, a reminder to me that I had my own business to attend to. Finally he turned back to us, tears in his eyes, and whined like a kinchin. ‘I don't want to go abroad,' he pleaded.

I considered this and wondered whether he might not need to after all. Fanny Cooper had seen that it was Jem that was the killer and that Georgie was just an accomplice what had helped to hide the body and it was probable that she would have told the peelers this. I knew that didn't mean that they would not hang him but there was a chance, after Jem had swung, that they might consider justice to have been done and would stop searching for the other man. It was even possible, I dared to hope, that Fanny had not ever mentioned her lover's name at all and that Jem might not peach upon him either. If Jem was to betray anyone to the police it would be myself and Warrigal, even before I had kicked him into their arms. And we had only arrived back in England the day before the murder, which Bracken himself knew, so they would have difficulty making that stick. So if Georgie could just lay low somewhere safe for a year or two then perhaps he could come back to London in time. I told the others my thoughts and asked if anyone knew of a safe house on these shores.

‘I have an Uncle Josiah,' said Agnes as Mouse got up and went into the bedroom. He could be seen through the open door
searching through a large chest in the corner of the room. ‘He owns a mill up in Coketown and employs all sorts. If I write you a letter of introduction, tell him you're a friend of the family and give you a false name, you could work under him for a spell.'

‘Forget that,' said Mouse, walking back into the room with a piece of paper in his hands. ‘This is better. A close pal in Northamptonshire what would put you up for free and never ask for no change.' He handed the paper to Georgie, who read the address all slow and with his lips moving. But I had guessed who it was and dared to hope I was right.

‘Charley?' I asked.

‘Yeah.' He smiled as he sat back down again and reached for his cup. ‘That's the address he gave me the night before he scarpered. It's where his relatives live what own the farm where he now works.' Georgie and myself both cheered at this although not for the same reason.

‘He made me promise not to tell anyone,' Mouse continued. ‘He knew the Sikes gang would love to go up there and settle him for peaching on Bill. But he also said that if I ever found myself in a tight situation like the one that Georgie is now in, he would see to it that I could hide out at his place, give me work and shelter.' Mouse grinned at Georgie. ‘I don't see why that offer wouldn't stand for you an' all.'

‘Good old Charley,' said Georgie once this news had set in. ‘He was always the best of us. Safe, honourable and without a treacherous bone in his whole body, I don't care what no one says.' His mood had become so jubilant now that I felt it would not be appropriate to remark upon how this appraisal of Charley's character was in sharp contrast to the words he had used to describe him the night before. Besides, however happy he was to be given
Charley's address in the north, it did not compare to what sweet news it was to my ears.

‘Charley Bates,' I said aloud, and looked to Warrigal to see if he had understood how important this name was to us. He gave me a small nod. ‘And you say you saw him the night he left London, Mouse?'

‘Yeah.' Mouse nodded. ‘That horrible night when Bill Sikes died and they came to take Fagin away. The night it all fell down.' He glanced over to his pyramid of cards. ‘I was there in the den with a few of the younger boys and we was all crying about what would become of us, where would we go, who would have us now, all this. Charley runs in, face red with fear, all of a tremor, and starts packing his things into a bag. Myself and the other boys crowd around him, asking questions. What had he heard? Where was the Jew? Was Bill still on the loose? He was so shaken that we knew he must be not telling us something, but we did not yet know it was him what had blowed upon Bill. He just told us all to go back to bed and not worry about it and then, once he was packed, he dashed out into the night.'

Mouse was beginning to look quite upset at the retelling of this chapter in his life story, even more so than he had been on hearing about Jem's capture. Perhaps it was these memories what had made our morning's tale of doomed criminals so upsetting for him. ‘As I said,' he went on lifting up the saucer and pouring some spillage into his cup, ‘I'm in tears. I chase out into the night after him and I'm running barefoot down Saffron Hill calling out his name. Charley, who at first tries to ignore me and keeps on walking, finally turns and tells me to go back. But my sobbing is uncontrollable. It's all where are you going, take me with you, don't you leave too, this sort of thing. His hands are still shaking with the horror at what he'd seen and done that night, but he reaches
over and gives me a cuddle, saying that he wishes I could come but he can't take me with him, what with it being so dangerous. Bill's gang, he tells me, will want to come after him on account of it being his fault that Bill has died. I tell him that I don't care, that I hated Bill too for killing Nancy, and Charley smiles and reaches into his pocket. Then he writes out that there address with a pencil and says that I can come and visit in time, once he's settled in, but I must promise to never tell no one about it.' Mouse paused in his telling and took a final sip. ‘And I never have,' he said after he had drained the tea. ‘Until now.'

‘What sorts of things did you see him packing?' I asked.