Death at Hungerford Stairs (2 page)

The inspector came over with his lamp. ‘Could be the work of children – the place is not secure, as we have seen. It looks childish. Still, I won't forget it.'

Outside, there was a thin wind sneaking along the water. It was nearly dusk; the sun was setting over the river. The sky was a curious green, marbled with red, purple and orange lines like the cover of a book, and the brown river took on a greenish hue like poison. As they stood watching, the colours changed, the marble lines shifted, and the green began to change as the sun sank. The wind created ripples on the river and the colours there broke into splinters, the water darkening and moving restlessly under the sky.

‘Ominous sky,' said Dickens, shivering as the wind reached them, and flecks of rain spat at them. ‘I wonder if that sketch meant anything – it did not seem like a child's drawing to me – it looked sinister, somehow, deliberate.'

‘I know what you mean – if it were the work of a child, one might expect more scrawls, more carelessness in the drawing, but there's not much we can do about it. The case belongs to Inspector Harker.'

‘Poor lad. I wonder if he did drown.'

‘Looks like it. It's not uncommon. These boys and girls, the mudlarks, take risks, go too far out, especially when they see something floating on the surface – might be a piece of wood, a cask, a piece of cloth – something unusual that they might be able to sell, and I have known it before – that the body is dumped somewhere because it's too much trouble to report it, and if there is no name, no parents, then who cares? Too often, no one.'

‘We do – we care about Scrap – and we want him back. What do we do, Sam?'

‘I don't know what we can do. I have Rogers and the other constables on the lookout in the alleys by Crown Street and over Holborn. He can't have gone too far. Where would he go? And why?'

‘Unless he was taken – but, then, what has happened to Poll? He must have gone after her. He would, you know.'

‘I know – and when he finds her, I'll bet he comes back.'

‘And if he does not find her?'

Dickens's question hovered on the bleak wind which snatched it away, leaving them silent and miserable. There really were no answers to their questions. They would have to possess themselves in patience, and wait, and hope. They turned away to go up the stairs. Dickens looked back at the warehouse rotting into the river. He thought about the lost boy who lay there in the mud. Had he drowned in that terrible water, sucked under by some freak eddy which whirled him to his death? Had he known that it was all over, and that he would never come up again into the light? His heart twisted with pity. What a place. The shadows were lengthening now; that curiously green sky had darkened as the thick clouds gathered like a threat; the cold was biting.

Superintendent Jones began to ascend with Dickens behind him when a man started to come down, an old white dog at his heels. They waited for him, the steps being narrow and slippery with weed and slime. As he approached, they saw that he looked like a seafaring man with his cap and pea coat, and his red belcher handkerchief round his neck. His hazel eyes were clouded with anxiety as he stopped to look at them.

‘Do you know about the boy?' The question was urgent. ‘I heard a dead boy has been found.'

‘Yes,' said Sam. ‘Do you know of a missing boy?'

‘I do – my grandson is missing – I came to see – I hope –' He broke off, uncertain. It was clear he wanted to go and see. The dog looked up at his master, sensing his agitation.

‘We are looking for a boy and a dog, but the boy there was not the one we seek. I hope he is not yours,' said Dickens.

‘Thank you, sir. I hope you may find your boy – now I must –'

On impulse, Dickens handed him his card. There was something about the man which appealed to his sympathy. ‘If you need help, you might wish to come to see me.'

The man took the card, and without looking at it, pushed it in his pocket. He nodded at them, and went away towards the old factory. The white dog followed closely at his heels. The man stopped and both looked out across the darkening river. They watched as the man squared his shoulders and then walked towards the black hole where the door had been.

Dickens and Jones turned to climb the steps which would take them into the passage by two inns, the
Old Fox
and the
Swan
. Dickens remembered how he and his fellow worker Bob Fagin would sometimes buy a glass of ale and bread and cheese from the miserable old
Swan
. He could see now in his mind's eye, Bob in his ragged apron and paper cap with his hand curled round his glass, the nails encrusted with the blacking, and he remembered scrubbing at his own hands trying to take away the stain. He had thought he would die and be buried in blacking.

As they passed the inns, a ragged boy, in the act of transferring a heel of grubby bread from hand to mouth, stared at them curiously before turning down a squalid alley where he vanished from sight. Another lost boy. Too many to count but two, at least, were wanted.

Dickens and Jones parted on the Strand, the superintendent bound for Bow Street and Dickens turning from Charing Cross to Regent Street, its vast linen-drapery establishments a world away from the rat-infested warehouse. He passed the plate-glass windows dressed with elaborate costumes, rich velvets, glistening silks, lace, golden fringes and tassels, and he could not help but think of the ragged boy with his chunk of dirty bread.

He crossed Oxford Street and made his way through Cavendish Square where he saw a well-dressed lady walking her dog, a little spaniel which made him think again of Poll, the dog who was lost and Scrap who might have gone to find her – and the Brim family, the children who owned Poll and loved her.

Mr Brim owned a stationer's shop; it was there that Dickens had first encountered Scrap, who had helped him pursue the man with the crooked face wanted in connection with a case on which he had worked with Superintendent Jones. Mr Brim had been very ill at the time – still was, though not so bad as then – and Scrap, the street boy, had become his children's unofficial protector before being promoted to delivery boy, for Mr Brim's business had flourished from the many customers Dickens had pointed his way. Elizabeth, the superintendent's wife, had looked after them all and still assisted in the shop when Mr Brim was sick. A most satisfactory outcome for all, Dickens had thought – until Scrap and Poll the dog, had vanished. Where was Scrap? The question had tormented Dickens for three days now; Mr Brim's children, Eleanor and Tom, were inconsolable and Elizabeth Jones was equally upset. Dickens felt that he must restore all their happiness by finding Scrap and Poll. What he wanted was to appear at the shop door producing Poll from under his coat as he had once produced a guinea pig from a box of bran to delight his children.

He found himself in Wimpole Street just by number fifty, once the home of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who had married his friend Robert Browning; they were in Italy now. He remembered meeting her outside this house, a slender woman with a shower of dark curls framing her face, large expressive eyes with thick lashes. Her spaniel, Flush, had been with her, and she had told Dickens that the beloved dog had been kidnapped three times – she had paid a ransom, despite her father's and Robert Browning's opposition. He remembered the dog, and how it had looked at her with eyes like her own, wise and loving – he would think about Flush when he invented Jip, Dora's dog.

Dickens stood stock still. Stolen! Poll had been stolen – that could be it. That must be it. Scrap would have gone after her. That was how the children had met Scrap – he had saved Poll from a thief. Soft you now, he told himself, let us think. Admittedly, Poll was not a pedigree like Flush – there was a trade in pedigree dogs; ransoms of as much as ten guineas had been paid, and there was profitable business in the export of stolen King Charles Spaniels to Holland and Belgium. But Poll had a collar – had some opportunist thief snatched her? If so, however, when would the demand for a ransom be made? Why not immediately? His questions died in his throat. It could be worse – dogs were often sold on at country fairs and markets, having been clipped, sometimes even dyed to disguise them. Many, and he shuddered for Poll at the thought, were killed for their skins. And his own dog, Timber, the small curly white-haired Havana spaniel that he had brought back from America all those years ago, had been stolen once from the kitchen at Devonshire Terrace. Timber had been brought back by the coachman, Topping, and a very large policeman. It happened – often.

Would he pay a ransom for Poll? Of course he would, just as he had been prepared to pay a ransom for Timber. He could not have borne the thought of loyal Timber tied up in some dank cellar. And a ransom for Scrap? Yes, and he would pay a ransom for any of his own children, for anyone he loved and who needed to be rescued from some dank cellar, for someone whose life might be set at naught. He knew the counter-arguments that in paying a ransom he would be encouraging the trade, increasing the wickedness, putting money in the hands of blackmailers. But he felt driven to his wits' end. And, what would Sam say? He, too, was distressed by the disappearance of Scrap and the dog, but he was a policeman; he could hardly be paying money to thieves. But this was Poll who had to be saved. Dickens thought he would have to do it without the superintendent, and without telling Elizabeth – he could not compromise her, a policeman's wife. But then, he checked his racing thoughts, how to find a dog thief?

Occy Grave! The very man. Occy, whom Dickens knew well, was the crossing sweeper whose pitch was at the junction of Drury Lane and Long Acre, convenient for the pedestrians coming and going from Lincoln's Inn, Bow Street Police Station and the magistrates' court. He had been there for twenty years, and knew everyone, even their cats and dogs which he returned to their owners if they had strayed. Sometimes he delivered letters and parcels to augment his earnings. He never forgot a face. He might have seen Scrap, Dickens thought; he might have seen Poll, and he would certainly know a dog thief – a dog thief in what might be called a small way. Dickens knew that there were those who were organisers in a big way; a certain Mr Taylor could be paid to get a dog back – no questions asked. Chelsea George was famed for his ingenious, if repulsive, method of dog capture; he smeared his hands with a paste of cooked liver and tincture of myrrh then seemed to caress the dog's nose and hey presto, he had a faithful follower. No, thought Dickens, Poll was not valuable enough for a Chelsea George.

It was too late now to see Occy – too dark. His business was finished for the day. Mornings were the best times. He made his way home out of Wimpole Street and on to Devonshire Terrace. It was quiet here behind the high brick wall but he could hear the hum of the teeming city. Dickens went through the iron gate and into the garden. The clouds had fled and he stood looking at a sky clear as black glass, cracked here and there with the splintering stars.

That restless night he dreamed a familiar dream, of a long staircase up which he went, feeling his way in the shadows to a landing where there were closed rooms. Somewhere a child was sobbing, but all the doors were locked. In the dream, a dog howled and he woke. He heard it again and went to the window to look out at the empty night, and into the garden where the bushes hunched like beggars, and the black trees reached down to them as if to pluck them from the dark. He heard the clip clop of a horse, and a hoarse cry suddenly shut off as if an unknown hand had stopped it. The night seemed threatening – out there, he thought, were terrors. Those living in the mansions and grand houses of York Gate and the elegant squares thought they were safe, but the alleys and courts were too near and out of them came menace – the sly thief, the mug-hunter with his cosh, the assassin with his garrotte and the dog stealer. Somewhere a dog howled again, the lonely, haunting, hollow sound of something bereft.
Where were they?

The morning brought no news from Superintendent Jones, but there was a letter from Mrs Georgiana Morson, matron of Urania Cottage, the home for fallen women Dickens had established at Shepherd's Bush. She was reporting on the insubordination of a girl called Isabella Gordon and her partner in mischief, Anna-Maria Sesini who called herself Sesina. The rules of the Home were not harsh; the girls were allowed out, although always accompanied; they wore plain dresses in different colours rather than the institutional garb of the prisons, the workhouses or reformatories. They were taught to read and write, to cook and sew, because Dickens intended that these girls should be instructed to desire a better life. They would find new lives in Australia where he advised them they might marry and go on to lead useful lives. That was the plan; in most cases it succeeded, but there were some for whom any rule was chafing, and for whom a quiet and orderly life was stifling. One girl had simply vanished over the wall one day and another had been expelled for drunkenness.

Isabella Gordon was full of life, restless, witty, intelligent but rebellious. He had liked her, but had wondered very often whether she would last. When Sesina came, they formed an unholy alliance – Mrs Morson had suggested that their relationship might have been more than a girlish friendship, and that, he thought, was dangerous to the stability of the Home, but he could hardly have dismissed her on the suspicion that she was sexually involved with Sesina, and, in any case, Mrs Morson was not sure if their conduct were not just deliberately provocative, simply to get attention. Now, it seemed that they were conspiring against Mrs Morson, breaking the rules, fomenting dissatisfaction and quarrels. It was time for Isabella to go; perhaps Sesina would settle down without her friend. Dickens doubted it; he could well imagine them departing together in a flurry of indignation and accusation. He would have to go to Shepherd's Bush, and the committee would have to meet to deal with these two girls.