Mister Creecher (31 page)

Creecher nodded.

‘Then I wish you well, mon ami. Whatever you think of me. I hope that you and the girl will –’

‘She’s dead,’ said Billy.

‘What?’

‘She’s dead and you killed her.’

‘I never touched her,’ Creecher protested.

Billy turned on him, eyes wild.

‘You don’t have to touch anyone!’ he shouted. ‘You’re like a disease, a curse! She saw you that day at the stones and her poor heart . . . Look at you. You shouldn’t even exist. I wish you didn’t!’

Creecher hung his head for a while, before speaking again.

‘I loved you, Billy,’ he said. ‘I could not have loved a brother more than I loved you.’

‘Well, I never loved you!’ Billy yelled. ‘Not once! Not for one single second!’

He looked Creecher up and down with an expression of disgust.

‘How could anyone love you?’ he asked.

Creecher half opened his mouth to speak, then slowly turned round. Billy did not watch him walk away but when he did finally look in that direction, the giant was gone. This time Billy could sense that he was gone for ever.

Old Thwaite was in the kitchen, sitting in his chair by the range, fixing a boot. He looked up as Billy walked in and nodded.

‘I’m leaving,’ said Billy.

The old man stared at him for a while and then back down at his boot.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Well, you take care of yourself.’

Billy stood looking at the old man, not knowing what to do. He felt as though he ought to mark his parting in some way, but he did not know how.

‘Thanks for everything,’ he said eventually.

‘Aye,’ said the old man, without looking up.

Billy went to the barn and gathered his meagre possessions and put them in his bag. He found a large purse of coins that Creecher must have left, and he took what he needed from it, leaving the rest for the old man.

He paused in the doorway and looked out at the view; a view he had thought he loved. But it did not move him now.

Billy walked into Keswick and booked himself on the night coach to Manchester. Maybe he would try to work the narrowboats on the way back to London.

He ate a meal of chops and gravy in the coaching inn and, after washing it down with a beer, began to feel a little guilty that he had not paid his respects to Jane. He still felt angry with her for dying on him. For once in his life he had dared to look ahead, but the sunlit future he had glimpsed was no longer there; it had been robbed from him.

Checking that he had time, Billy set off through the dimly lit streets and headed towards the church, which lay on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by its graveyard.

The church gate was locked, but he jumped the wall with ease. It was very dark. The church was a silhouette of deeper blackness against the blue-black night, a crescent moon smiling crookedly behind the spire.

Billy lit the lantern he had hired from the inn. He kept low, with the light close to his body. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

It was a small churchyard and it did not take him long to work out where Jane must be buried. But when he reached the spot, he was confused to see a fresh grave, open, newly dug.

He walked on, but returned, sure that he had the right place. He checked the gravestone. There, next to the gaping pit, were the words ‘
Jane Cartwright, beloved daughter
’ newly inscribed into the slate. Then he looked into the blackness of the grave.

Holding the lantern over it, Billy could see the coffin at the bottom. The lid had been prised off and then hurriedly replaced. He could see the gap.

‘No!’ he muttered.

He slid down into the grave pit, taking the lantern with him. He held his breath and pulled open the lid.

There was Jane, pale and beautiful, her long hair loose and flowing round her face. Her white shroud was torn and her chest ripped open. Where her heart would have been, there was now a gaping hole, lolling open like a fool’s mouth.

‘Noooooo!’ screamed Billy.

He staggered back, slipping in the mud and almost falling into the coffin. The lid rattled under his feet as he scrabbled to try to get out. Frankenstein’s words came back like an echo –
‘I only need one more item and then we can go.’
He’d taken her heart! He’d taken her heart for Creecher’s mate!

‘You evil bastard!’ yelled Billy.

His voice travelled in the darkness and, nearby, doors began to open. Billy struggled again and again to climb out of the pit, his clothes getting covered in mud. He just managed to throw himself over the edge as the sexton arrived at the gate with his keys.

Within seconds, the cry of ‘Grave-robbers!’ went up, and a group of men tumbled out of a nearby tavern and ran to the sexton’s cries.

Others began to arrive and they pointed at Billy, who had dropped the lantern as he made his getaway over the churchyard wall. With angry shouts, they were soon chasing him down the street.

His route away from town was blocked and so he was forced to run back into the centre, where more and more people were being alerted to the crime at the churchyard. There was no way for Billy to stop or explain. He was a dead man if he did not escape.

He ran on without looking round. He could hear the crowd shouting and their hobnails clattering on the cobbles behind him – hobnails that he had no doubt would trample him if they ever caught up.

He turned into an alleyway but it was a dead end. There was a door to his right and, without time to pause or think, he tried the handle and it opened.

There was a man standing in the hallway with a look of complete surprise, and Billy rushed forward, shoving him over. The man fell backwards and Billy leapt over him, heading for the back door as the first of his pursuers reached the front of the house.

Billy pelted through the garden and vaulted the fence into another alleyway that headed downhill, back towards the river.

He could hear that the crowd was on his heels once more, some having gone through the stranger’s house, the bulk having gone round. A sideways glance told him that he was going to get cut off if he didn’t change his route.

Billy was out of sight of the crowd just long enough to leap behind another fence, where he huddled down and stayed put, listening to the running footsteps pass and fade.

When it was all clear, he ran and hid under a bridge. The crowd were milling about above. The light from their torches and lanterns glittered in the river. Billy could even hear some of them talking about what they would do to him when they found him.

But they didn’t find him. Billy stayed shivering under the bridge until even the most determined of the mob had accepted that their quarry must have escaped. Then he slunk away into the night.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Billy became aware of a skylark twittering above his head. It seemed to be the only living thing for miles around and the only sound apart from his own shallow breathing. He had escaped from Keswick in the early hours of the morning and was now walking the drover’s track to Ambleside.

Billy was struck by how ridiculous the skylark looked. He had to squint to see it against the blue brightness. And the more he looked and squinted the more ridiculous and hateful the bird became. He wished he had a slingshot to bring it down.

‘Hey! What have you got to be so cheerful about?’ he called out. ‘Why’s your heart so full? Look at you, up there, all high and mighty. Go on! Keep flying!’

He picked up a stone and hurled it skyward. ‘Soar off into the blue! Sing somewhere I can’t hear you! Get off into the sun and burn, why don’t you?’

The bird fluttered away. Billy felt exhausted all of a sudden. He pressed his fingers into his eyes, the tips shoving the eyeballs back into the sockets. The pressure made him lightheaded; stars twinkled in the blackness.

When he finally took his hands away and blinked into the daylight, the scene was blurred, as though he were looking through the bottom of a greasy glass.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. A terrible darkness came upon him and he felt like he was being punched and pummelled by a dozen unseen demons. He had to open his eyes again to convince himself that he was alone.

His vision had returned and, if anything, he seemed to see with a sharper clarity than ever before – as if some filter had been taken away. He was overcome with a sense that he now saw the world as it was, stark and without hope.

He shook his head as if to rid himself of any residual fog from his days of delusion. Creecher, Jane – they were a dream and nothing more. He saw that now. He had been asleep. Now he was awake.

London. That was where he belonged. He would seek out old Gratz’s nephew. He was a tricky cove but a useful one. What was his name? Fagin. That was it.

As he walked along the lane, Billy’s gait seemed to change. He was bigger now. All that walking and heavy work had done wonders. For the first time he felt the new power that seemed to course through his body.

He stretched his neck and thrust out his jaw, setting his face against the world as a sailor might against a hurricane. His arms, heavier now and tipped with meaty fists, swung in rhythm with a walk that had become, by degrees, a swagger.

He turned his nose up at the scents all around as a dandy might baulk at the cesspool’s stink. This landscape was poisoned now.

Billy saw a piece of wood leaning against a wall and picked it up. It was dry but still heavy. There seemed to be no rot.

He felt the weight of it and smiled. This would be his souvenir of the place. A little whittling here and there and he would have a decent walking stick come club. Better than a pistol any day.

Billy continued on his way. The lane curved away from him now as it fell downhill towards a hamlet, whose slate roofs he saw ahead.

Two young men stood talking next to an open gate. They quietened as Billy walked towards them and one of them muttered something as he passed. Billy stopped and turned round, retracing his steps.

‘What was that?’ said Billy.

The man who had muttered did not reply, but looked at his friend and smiled. They were both a good foot taller than Billy and several years older.

‘I asked you a question.’

‘He don’t mean no harm, friend,’ said the other man. ‘Pay no heed.’

The man who had spoken muttered something else Billy could not catch and then spat on the grass at the foot of the wall.

Billy took a deep breath and looked away. A cloud shadow slid down the fellside towards the valley floor and the light dropped. His grip on the wood tightened. He turned back to the two men and shook his head slowly. Then he swung the club and struck the nearest of them a mighty blow to the side of his head.

The man dropped to the ground, his legs buckling under him, his head hitting the earth with a thud. The second man made half a move towards Billy, but one look into his eyes seemed to make him think again. Cursing, he ran away as fast as he could.

The man at Billy’s feet groaned and reached a hand out towards him. Blood was already streaming from a black wound at his temple, red rivulets running down his cheek and neck and filling his ear.

Billy looked down at him. He felt no remorse, no pity. He felt only disgust and anger. Raising the stick above his head, he hit the man again – and saw the face of the sweep looking back – and again – and saw Fletcher – and again – Frankenstein this time – and then one final, mighty blow cracked down on Creecher’s broken, bleeding face.

Billy stood there panting in the horrible silence that followed. He turned the stick about. The handle was now a foul thing, filthy with gore, and he went to the brook nearby and washed it and cleaned his hands and doused his face.

People would come before long. He set off up the channel carved by the brook, staying low among the birch and rowan and bracken. In minutes he had rounded the crag and stood on the fell top.

He did not look back for fear of being seen. He must make the most of his head start and cross the hills to the neighbouring valley.

Billy clambered up scree and bracken-covered fellsides, and up over purple granite crags, rarely stopping, barely acknowledging his aching muscles and blistered feet. He stood atop a rock-strewn ridge, the clouds so close he felt he could pull them down and hold them to his filthy face like a damp rag.