Death at Hungerford Stairs (21 page)

‘Don't mind us,' said the superintendent cheerfully as they made their way to the makeshift bar presided over by a sour-looking landlady whose coal-black hair appeared as a coating of lacquer on her narrow head. Feak and Rogers separated to look in the nooks and crannies of this tumbledown wreck while Sam addressed the hard-faced woman.

‘Looking for a gent, Mrs Brine,' said Sam. A vinegary name, thought Dickens. Suited her. ‘Slight, fair hair, very young face,' Sam was saying. ‘Gone missing – family want him back. Could be a reward. Name of Theo. Know anything?'

Mrs Brine obviously did; her shrewd eyes gleamed for a moment at the mention of a reward. She weighed up the risk – to tell or not to tell. She looked appraisingly at the policeman's companion, a younger man with a serious, almost severe expression. Religious, pr'aps, she thought – do-gooder, most like. Dickens read her thoughts and arranged his face into a suitable expression of piety. Sam had to turn away.

‘We gets the toffs sometimes – lookin' for a good time when the girls are willin' – can't get no such at 'ome.' She winked, grotesquely and laughed, opening a mouth revealing blackened teeth and he smelt the gin – and decay – on her breath, but Sam steeled himself not to recoil. He waited. Don't push. She'll tell. ‘Your young man – girlish, ain't 'e – dint come 'ere for Miss Laycock, yer know what I means.'

Sam nodded. He knew who – or what – Miss Laycock was; the phrase was aptly descriptive, but he kept a straight face. Dickens managed not to laugh, contorting his face into an expression of what he hoped was incomprehension. It was a new one on him – the collector of street slang.

Mrs Brine went on. ‘Likes boys, I 'spect, but we don't 'ave none o' that sort 'ere. Tell yer wot, though –' She poured a glass of gin. ‘Want a glass? Good stuff – not dilute for me best customers.'

Dickens declined. ‘Temperance, ma'am.' He arranged his lips into a line of disapproval.

Sam almost choked. Dear God, it was strong whatever it was – vitriol added perhaps? It was not uncommon and, by the look of them, Mrs Brine's customers liked their drink strong. Still, needs must – if Maggie Brine were to talk. He drank, feeling the blood rush to his face. With heroic strength of character, he suppressed his urge to cough, confining himself to a wheezy splutter.

‘Good, ain't it?' Maggie drank another. ‘Well, I'll tell yer – that boy, 'e came wiv some bloods – yer know the type, flashin' their money, noisy, drunk as eels writhin' on a slab, but 'e, yer lad, if it is 'im – I 'eard the name, I think. Teasin' him they woz – 'e was wiv 'em and not, if yer gets me, on the edge of it all.'

‘What about?'

‘Dunno – abaht the girls, I think, cos 'e dint wanter go wiv Dolly over there.'

I don't blame him, thought Dickens as they looked at the girl Mrs Brine had pointed out. She had the build – and complexion – of a coal-heaver and looked as though she might have consumed Theo with the same relish with which she was drinking her gin. She winked at Dickens and licked her lips. He lowered his eyes modestly and turned away to see Mrs Brine looking at him mockingly.

‘Too big fer yer, Mister Parson – good girl is Dolly – do yer good – yer look a bit bloodless ter me an' –'

To Dickens's relief the piano accordian started again and the singing resumed. Mrs Brine's words were lost.

Sam continued. ‘Were they here last night?'

‘Nah, sorry, Mr Jones, wish I could 'elp yer.'

Sam leaned towards her, knowing that she would not want his words overheard. ‘So do I, Mrs Brine, but if you do hear anything, remember, there's a reward – you could slip down to Bow Street – discreetly – on your way to market.'

She understood. He knew she would not want to advertise her going to Bow Street, but the reward might tempt her.

‘Temperance, forsooth,' he said to Dickens as they went out. ‘Lucky for you – I nearly choked to death.'

‘I know – I saw. You are a man of heroic proportions, Sam. Saved me from Doll Tearsheet there. I might have been eaten alive.'

Out in the alley, Scrap was waiting. He had news. He had heard talk about a boy called Nose – cos he hadn't got one – so the urchins said. The boy was missing, taken by the giant, some said, but there was no talk of his being seen with a toff – nothing at all. One night he was there and then he wasn't. Though, they all knew about the fire. One lad thought he'd seen Nose there, but then he was gone. Interesting, thought Sam, that there was no suggestion of his being befriended by a toff. Perhaps the death of Nose was, as they had thought, an angry reaction to his appearance. He was not what the murderer wanted – though, as yet, they did not really know what he wanted.

Zeb Scruggs and Occy Grave came to meet them at St Giles's. They had been at Rats' Castle where no one had anything to tell them though Zeb had met their old friend Weazen, looking, if anything, filthier than before. He had been ill, he had told them, sick with fever. Nevertheless, he had promised to keep a look-out and good-hearted Zeb had given him sixpence on account.

‘Poor devil,' said Zeb. ‘I have to feel sorry for him, though more than a minute or two in his company turns my stomach.'

They carried on, splitting into pairs, searching the alleys, the lanes, the little tomb-like courts, the whistling shops – illegal drinking dens, the common lodging houses, empty houses, and yards where men, women and children crouched like wild beasts under broken-down sheds and outhouses with rats for company. Scrap disappeared down cellar steps, found urchins to ask who were playing football with a ball of rags in a ginnel, talked to women sitting on front steps, asked the pieman whose stand was near the church, questioned the baked potato seller while warming himself by the little four-legged tin stove, resisted the temptation to buy one even though the smell sent his taste buds reeling, and caught up with Rogers and Feak in Dulcimer Street near the alley from where Rogers was coming, having looked again at the burnt-out house and squeezed his way out of Harry Sutch's shed.

Meanwhile, Dickens and Jones were making their way up a set of broken stairs in a tumbledown building situated in a miserable rain-flooded court. The sound of shouting and a woman's scream had caused them to turn into the alley that led to the court. They heard the sound of running feet. Whoever had screamed had gone. They were about to walk away when the sound of breaking glass stopped them. Something was hurled through a window and landed with a smash on the stones. A bottle. Sam raised his bull's-eye lantern. In the yellow light thrown up on the window they could see the figure of a man. He seemed to be pushing at the broken glass. A slight figure – young, perhaps. Then he was shouting.

‘No, no, let me go. He's there, I see him. Let me go to him.' The voice of a gentleman. Theo Outfin?

Someone pulled him back. Someone smaller – possibly a woman. Dickens and Jones made for the door. But they had to go gingerly up the worm-eaten stairs, Dickens holding on to the rickety bannister, Sam shining his light downwards where they could see the holes in the treads. They could hear voices, muted now, the shouting over. A door crashed open. A sudden glimpse of light, but flickering and shadowy. A clattering of feet and then someone shot down the stairs, stumbling, almost falling. Sam seized Dickens by the arm and thrust him against the wall. In the light of his lamp, they saw briefly a white face, two black holes for eyes and a snarling, dog-like mouth. And the glint of a knife.They felt the figure's passing. The figure fell down the last few stairs, picked itself up, and vanished through the open door.

‘Sorry,' whispered Sam. ‘You all right?'

Dickens nodded, shaken by what he had seen and how close he had been to collision with whatever had passed them.

They stood still, listening to the darkness above. Someone had closed the door.There were voices again. Someone shouted. A man. The sound of madness, Dickens thought. Then a lower voice, trying to soothe.

Sam signalled to Dickens that they should go on. He shone his lamp upwards, so that they could see where they were going. A few more steps would take them up to the landing. They stood outside the door. It was quieter now, the voices barely heard. Sam turned the handle.

They found themselves in an opium den, filled with a kind of brown fog, where they looked upon two somnolent forms lying on their filthy cots, murmuring and chattering in whatever nightmares the drug had induced. They could feel the cold air coming through the broken window, but those on the beds seemed not to notice.

Under the window, on a bed, lay a young man. Sitting on the bed with his head in her lap was a young woman in a ragged shift which hung off her thin shoulders, exposing her breasts. Sam lowered the lamp, but she didn't seem to care, only looked at him with dull eyes.

The young man began to shout again. ‘No, no, not yet, not yet!' The girl looked down at him, her black, matted hair covering her face, but she stroked his face with surprising tenderness as if he were a child in a bad dream.

What fear possessed him? Dickens wondered, gazing at the tortured face. The face was young, fine-featured and his clothes, though terribly rumpled, were those of a young man of means. What had brought him to this pass? But, and he felt a relief that made his knees weak, it was not Theo Outfin. Sam heard him breathe out and saw him shake his head. Not the man they wanted.

In the corner by a curious-looking screen, a Chinese man was blowing at a kind of pipe. They could see a pinpoint of red light which swelled as he blew then died down again. The slanting eyes looked at them and the pale, thin-lipped mouth grinned as he offered the pipe. Sam shook his head. No point in saying anything. They just looked at the occupants of the cots – only four, two Chinese, the Englishman and the girl. This was a small concern, not like the packed, sweating dens near the docks. And, thought Sam, he would have it closed down. The Chinaman could go back to Wapping with his customers, and one of his constables could escort the young man home – if he had not gone already. And the girl? They'd have to bring her to the station. She'd have no home, that was certain.

They went out, back down the stairs and heard the nine strokes of St Giles's clock telling them that the case was hopeless. They returned to the churchyard where Rogers and the others would meet them. Nothing – not a word, not a sign. Theo Outfin had vanished. Or not – they could not look everywhere. Their search had concentrated on the small area around the scene of the fire but he could easily have gone further afield. Why not? He might be asleep in a bed in a grand house belonging to one of his set. He might be asleep in some foul lodging in a hidden yard. They might have passed it. He might be dead.

It was time to call a halt. Sam would have some men look about tomorrow if Theo were still missing. Rogers and Feak went back to Bow Street, Zeb and Occy back to the shop, promising that if they heard anything they would let Sam know. Dickens and Jones would take Scrap back to Crown Street and then walk home. Dickens noticed Scrap gazing hungrily at the pieman. He nudged Sam.

‘A pie apiece, I think,' said Sam, handing threepence to Scrap who darted to the pie stand.

‘One thing,' said Dickens, ‘Mrs Brine – she described Theo as on the edge of the group of toffs. Not belonging – it fits my impression of his loneliness. I wonder, you know, if he has reached the end of something. Could he have –?'

‘Killed himself? God forbid. I hope not – I hope it would not mean that he is our killer.'

‘Tomorrow, I will take Kip to Mrs Morson. At least we'll have done some good for one lost boy.'

‘And I'll go to the Du Cane house to question Mattie Webb about that shawl and Theo Outfin.'

Scrap came back with the pies on which they blew to cool them down. Impatient, Scrap almost burnt his lip. Dickens lost his appetite suddenly. Scrap obliged him by eating a second.

‘Waste not, want not, me ma used ter say.'

‘Me ma,' thought Dickens. It was the only time Scrap had ever mentioned her. There was a pa somewhere but Scrap rarely went home. It was easy to think that Scrap had just materialised in the world, fully formed as the boy he was with all his smartness and good humour. Who was she, this woman whose precept Scrap remembered? The few words conjured for Dickens a sensible, thrifty woman, strict with her offspring, but something in Scrap's voice suggested that he remembered her fondly. Dead, he supposed. Pity – her son was a credit to her.

They left him at Mr Brim's shop and walked back up Crown Street, across Oxford Street, then up to Norfolk Street where Sam lived. Dickens walked on to Devonshire Terrace. The rain had stopped but the sky was still heavy with cloud. No stars tonight. No moon. How right Thomas Hood was about November:
no warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease.
Just the dripping of rain on the bushes in the garden, and a pain in his side, the old disorder that had begun in childhood and flared up at times of exhaustion and overwork. But the lights were on upstairs in the drawing room and there would be a fire, dappling the room, and Catherine and her sister Georgy sewing in the golden lamplight. Home.

‘Mrs O'Malley, sir, says she wants to see you – got information – for your ears only.' Rogers grinned at the superintendent's raised eyebrows. ‘Won't take no for an answer an' I didn't fancy tryin' to get rid of 'er – not in front of the lads, anyways. She's a bit too big fer me to 'andle.'

Bridie O'Malley was an old friend of Sam's. They had grown up together, as it were, having met when the superintendent was just a lad like Feak, and Bridie was a pretty, slender Irish girl whose mother had kept a respectable house where Sam had lodged. They had both risen in the world and Bridie now kept the lodging house – girls only, though men did visit – and Sam became a superintendent of the police. Bridie had more than a soft spot for the superintendent which was why he grinned back at Rogers. She would stay outside all day, immoveable as a mountain, until she got into Sam's office. And it was only nine o'clock. He had too much to do to be distracted by the knowledge of Bridie anchored in the corridor like a battleship. Battleaxe Bridie. He smiled. He would have to see what she wanted.