The Thief Taker (10 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Charlie passed from dense streets to the wide expanse of Moor Fields. In the cloying summer heat the green moors had turned to yellow hay.

This was where London’s laundry women usually laboured away in the sweltering sun, manhandling cumbersome water butts and pounding clothing.

But since wealthy households had left London the fields were now mostly filled with a carnival influx of stands and handwritten banners.

Chemists, apothecaries and quack doctors had crowded in with their pitches and were vying enthusiastically to sell plague cures.

Charlie caught sight of his brother. Rowan was barefoot but wearing a battered tricorn hat and standing by his own small stall of remedies.

As he drew closer he heard his brother’s familiar voice shouting out a sales patter.

‘Good people! The plague is one of the easiest diseases in the world to be cured. Take this physic within four hours of the first invasion and it will drive out the distemper before it can take
a hold
!’

The key had always separated them, even as boys. And sometimes Charlie thought that the resentment struck deeper than he realised. Rowan had always preferred to wallow in his abandonment rather than make a real attempt at fending for himself. He oscillated from tavern to money-making scheme, borrowing cash from whoever would lend it and bleeding dry any woman unfortunate enough to fall for his charm.

Rowan was similar in appearance to Charlie, with the large brown eyes, rounded nose and dark eyebrows which tapered expressively around the full arch of his sockets. But his dense hair sprang chestnut brown rather than dark blonde. He had not shaved the thick crop but let it grow long to conceal where he’d lost an ear in a knife attack.

Charlie had for a time covered his own dusty-blonde hair beneath a wide-brimmed hat, which he’d found only slightly damaged in a gutter. He fancied the headgear had given his soulful eyes a gentlemanly quality. But the headgear attracted fleas and he preferred going bare-headed than itchy.

‘Charlie!’ Rowan hopped down from his little stand.

Charlie smiled slightly as his brother slapped his shoulder.

‘I’m in trouble,’ admitted Charlie, speaking in Dutch, the code language they had used since they were children.

Understanding immediately, Rowan gestured they should step back from the main drag.

‘I heard you and Lynette have parted ways,’ he said, as they moved away from the crowds.

Charlie nodded.

‘She’ll come back for you and fool you again,’ said his brother. ‘Once a whore always a whore.’ Charlie flinched. Rowan and Lynette had always hated each other.

‘It is not Lynette that is the trouble,’ said Charlie continuing to speak in Dutch, though they were now out of earshot.

He quickly outlined his status as a wanted man.

‘So it is finally you who comes for my help,’ said Rowan with a little smile.

Charlie nodded. ‘I have no Health Certificate, and I need to move around the city to gather information.’

‘I would give you the one you gave me, but I sold it last week,’ admitted Rowan with a shrug. Then catching his brother’s expression he added, ‘You need not fear for me. This a good place for selling. People come from all over London for remedies, and the laundry women are always looking for fresh piss no matter
how slow their trade is. That one pays me a groat a day to fill
her barr
el.’

He gestured with the cone of paper he held for the purposes of broadcasting a sales pitch to the wider audience of Moor Fields.

Charlie glanced back towards his brother’s little stand. Selling quack cures to those dying from plague was dangerous. He felt the usual fear rise up, that he would one day find his older brother imprisoned or beaten to a pulp.

Rowan thought for a moment. ‘You should think about
fleeing
the city,’ he said. ‘The villages outside the city fear Londoners will bring plague. Vigilantes have begun rising up to block passage. If you wait much longer you could find it is impossible to get o
ut at all.’

‘I want to solve this crime and prove I am no murderer,’ said Charlie. ‘I have a good lead on the villain. But there is not much time. I think he means to kill again. And soon.’

Rowan scratched his chin. ‘What do you know of this man?’

‘He is a plague doctor Rowan. And if my guess is right he may be carrying a caged bird – a raven. I can hardly think of anything more conspicuous. If I ask the right people he should be easy
to fin
d.’

His brother shrugged at the truth of this.

‘But I need to find him soon,’ added Charlie. ‘Or he will kill again, and the clue will be lost.’

‘How could you get information Charlie? You say you are wanted.’

‘I was hoping you might find it out for me,’ admitted Charlie.

‘Are there other clues?’ asked Rowan, reluctantly.

‘I could likely have traced the brand to the blacksmiths, but they are all fled.’

Rowan was shaking his head.

‘Not all the blacksmiths Charlie.’

‘What do you mean?’

But Rowan twitched suddenly, staring into the middle distance.

‘That is the signal,’ he muttered.

Charlie groaned inwardly. Rowan was always in some kind of trouble. Though at least he took precautions. Spanning his daily operations were an orbiting cloud of street boys and informants, who reported any approaching danger.

‘Come with me,’ Rowan began dragging Charlie away from the little stand and back towards the hedgerow.

‘There are a few people in the city who think I owe them money,’ he explained, ‘Best we get out of sight.’

Chapter Twenty

Charlie and Rowan lay concealed behind a large row of lavender bushes towards the back of Moor Fields.

‘Rich folk pay extra to have their clothes dried on these,’ explained Rowan. ‘They make perfect hiding places. For we can see
out through the branches, but with the sun in front none can see us.’

‘Which men are looking for you Rowan?’

‘You do not need to worry Charlie. I will soon pay them off.’

A tiny boy, around seven years old, ducked into the bushes w
ith them
.

‘He has the sharpest eyes of them all,’ said Rowan proudly, slipping the boy a coin.

The boy mumbled something. Charlie strained to hear.

Rowan turned to face him. ‘You must find this villain with the bird before he kills again?’ he asked.

Charlie nodded.

‘Then things have turned worse for you. For he has already struck.’

‘There has been another murder?’

Charlie felt a twist of despair. He had been sure the murderer would at least wait until sunrise.

‘The boy says there are men from Adders Club, here about one of their girls who was killed. A girl named Antoinette. She was stuck with feathers and branded with the symbol same as the first. Some dreadful thing was done to her head, but the boy knows not what.’

Rowan put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

‘I am sorry Charlie. It seems you would be best to flee the city. Those men are here to question me about your whereabouts. Rest assured they will never find me out to do so. But if Adders sent them he will not rest until they find you.’

Charlie closed his eyes, feeling a pang of terrible guilt. Another girl murdered.

‘Listen Charlie,’ added Rowan. ‘This might not be such bad fortune. There is talk that the King might flee the City. If he does all will be chaos. There will be no order at all. Likely you can wait it out in the country for a few months, and this business will be forgotten.’

A surge of anger shot through him. He was determined to bring this man to justice.

Charlie addressed the facts as they now lay. Based on this recent killing the man was an inexperienced witch. Or a poor one. From Charlie’s understanding, observing the right conditions for a spell was important.

Perhaps something had happened to force the murderer to move more quickly than he’d have liked.

And what of his choice of victims? Antoinette and Maria’s sister. A prostitute and a middling sort of woman. Did they have something in common?

He turned it in his mind.

Earth and air. North and East. South would be next. Fire.

Charlie pushed away the creeping despair. Air had been his best clue. If the murderer meant to use fire there were tinderboxes and candles and fireplaces everywhere in the City. He could think of no clear way to track him that way.

The he remembered Rowan’s remark about the blacksmiths.

‘Why do you say there are still blacksmiths in the city?’ Charlie asked, clinging to this fresh hope.

‘Some of the blacksmiths work in naval contracts,’ said his brother. ‘It is treason for them to leave the city. I would bet my purse a few work at Thames Street still – unless they are all dead of the plague.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I lived at Thames Street for a month or so,’ said Rowan. ‘When I was with the shrimp-seller girl.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘It was a pity it turned sour,’ he added.

Charlie thought about this new information.

‘A naval blacksmith might not know anything,’ he said. ‘The blacksmith who made that brand did intricate work – not anchors and ship nails.’

‘Those fine blacksmiths would have long fled or died,’ said Rowan.

‘Yet it is the best clue I have,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps I will have a little luck, and a naval blacksmith will know something. It is worth going to Thames Street,’ he decided. He would need to plot a careful route, away from the checkpoints.

‘You cannot get in,’ said Rowan. ‘Thames Street is closed. By royal decree.’

‘I have heard.’ Charlie peered carefully out through the bushes. He recognised the two Adders men, making their way slowly around the stalls.

‘Then you have not heard it told strong enough,’ Rowan was saying. ‘It is death to go there. The district is gripped in infection so foul that not even dead-carts go there. I spoke to a searcher only today who refuses to do his duty in the area. He told me of dreadful sights. Suicides. Stinking corpses stacked by the roadways.’

Charlie’s fingers moved to the key on his neck.

‘I think this crime could tell us something of our mother,’ he said, his eyes pleading.

Rowan’s face instantly shut down. He had never quite forgiven Charlie for having the key.

‘Why should you want to do that?’ His brother’s eyes had already veiled themselves.

Charlie shrugged helplessly as he watched the wall between them descend. They’d had the same conversation in different ways a hundred times. ‘I just . . . I just would like to find her that is all,’ he said. ‘To know her.’

‘Nothing to know,’ said Rowan shortly. ‘Likely she found some maid’s work and left us to hang. Or took up with some rich man and we were a burden to her new ways. I would she is dead now of disease. If you wish to go to Thames Street and chance your life for such a woman then good luck to you.’

‘
What of the lady-in-the-hidden-room?’ pressed Charlie. ‘Would you not know more of her?’

The lady-in-the-hidden-room was the single pre-orphaned memory on which Charlie and Rowan both agreed. The boys had often been in a large house, or something like it. Charlie had a shifting, uncertain picture of a big stairwell.

Somewhere in the house Rowan had found a lady, secreted away in a dark chamber. Not a prisoner, but sad and frightened. They had visited her. Maybe many times. She had been kind to them.

‘The lady is a lovely mystery,’ admitted Rowan, ‘but I like to keep her like that. I have so few memories I would not risk tainting them with the cold facts of truth.’

Rowan paused for a moment, his voice softening. ‘It is most dangerous Charlie. Watchmen have been hired to guard Thames Street. Even if you manage to get inside, if they catch you they will imprison you in the nearest house for six weeks – if you do not die of plague first.’

Rowan sighed, seeing his brother resolved. ‘Wouldst you have me go along with you?’

Charlie smiled. In his perpetual annoyance with Rowan he often forgot his brother’s loyalty.

‘There is no reason for both of us to risk our health. Point me out some good protection instead,’ he added, trying to sound braver than he felt.

The men from Adders’ club had headed away now. Their receding figures were moving in the direction of Bishops Gate.

Rowan pointed across the tumult of sellers. ‘Him over there. The chewing tobacco. It is the real thing he sells, but will soon run dry and he means to leave town today, so go quickly.’ He rummaged in his purse and pushed a few coins into Charlie’s hand. ‘Or the husband and wife to the back of the field sell very good Venice
Treacle
. Strong. You can smell it from over here when the wind is right.’

‘What is in the Treacle?’ Charlie was intrigued. He had only heard of plague water sold.

‘Viper flesh, opium. They put iron filings in it also.’ Rowan began to tick the ingredients off on his fingers. ‘It is sold for a shilling, but that is cheap if it keeps your life in your body.’

Chapter Twenty-One

The last time Charlie had walked along Thames Street it had been a hive of industry. Thick-skinned blacksmiths sweated over their fires, throwing out so many sparks that horses had to be blinkered. But today was eerily silence. Everything was locked, boarded and deserted.

A hastily erected barricade was made of a rope and hessian sacks. On one of them was scrawled:
Lord Save Us.

The blacksmiths had expanded their trade from the back alleys of Blacksmith Lane to Thames Street during the Civil War. Large forges made pikestaffs and anchors, and smaller works were hammered out in the alleys alongside.

Between the forges were half-timbered houses in various states of disrepair. They ran back into greater disarray in a labyrinth of grim alleys, punctuated by mouldering lock-ups.

Now the only people were hired watchmen, ensuring no one went in and no one got out.

Charlie took careful stock of the building frontages. Though Thames Street’s half-timbered residences all looked to be domestic, some were stables, with haylofts which provided easy access to the streets behind.

The watchmen had been recruited from poorer districts, and Charlie doubted they knew the difference between a stable and
a house
.

He watched the men on duty for a few minutes. He was right. Several of the stable fronts were out of eye-line. All he need do was climb up into the hayloft above and drop down into the warren of alleys beyond.

Flattening himself against the nearest building he cut a quick and silent path across the building shadows.

Then he hauled himself up using the blackened half timbers of the building and slid into the hayloft at the top.

A watchmen strode past on the street below, and Charlie tucked himself quickly out of sight, in amongst the piles of straw.

Once assured the danger had passed, he slipped carefully out the other side and landed in a dark alleyway.

Charlie paused to gain his bearings. A disused forge and a boarded up house. Everything was smaller than he remembered.

His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he caught his breath. Red crosses ran like a rash across all the little doorways.

Charlie tore off a thick strip of his only shirt and wrapped it so tight around his head that his nose was pushed flat. He took a tight breath, staring ahead at the empty street. Then he pulled up his collar, twisted his head into it and stepped quickly into the grimy backstreets.

The houses behind Thames Street were built with overhangs, closing alleys below into gloom. Ordinarily urchins offered flaming litter for a groat. Whilst soup-sellers added light from woodstoves.

Today not a soul was in sight. All ahead was black.

And then from deep in the tangle of dark alleys came a long moan.

Charlie’s heart picked up to a drummer’s pace. The darkness would make navigation difficult. He’d been in the district a handful of times but always paid one of the barefoot children to lead him.

He crossed himself, raised the key to his lips and made a fervent prayer. Then he closed his eyes briefly, pushed his head further into his collar and pitched forward into the dark alleyway in a run.

The fetid gloom coiled around him. With nothing and no one to light the way the putrid odours of the alley took on an extra dimension. He was moving in a shambling half-jog, arms tight against his body, breathing shallow in his terror. But the hot weather had dried out the mud road into jagged ruts. He staggered, crashed into the nearest wall and frantically brushed at the dust where his shoulder had touched.

Another low agonised howl of anguish went up suddenly, echoing like a siren along the forsaken alley. For a moment Charlie was a lump of pounding heart and pulse of static brain. Then his stomach took on its own thudding beat.

As he tracked deeper the ground became soft again and his throat tightened. The streets seemed deserted but the damp earth told a different tale. There must still be people in these houses throwing their refuse onto the street, hidden away in the throes of death. He tried to remember what the alleyway looked like under fire and lamplight and marry it to the changing consistency of sludge beneath him.

Something heaved itself over his feet and jerking in reflex
Charlie
recognised the winking red eyes of a rat. He kicked it away. The bloated creature lolled, belly exposed before slowly righting itself.

Charlie watched it lope away. He remembered the plague protection he’d brought with him. Groping for the pouch of tobacco he rammed a tight plug into his dry mouth. Then willing his pounding insides to calm he stumbled on.

He turned into the next lane and in the gloom picked out the soft shape of a person. The first he had seen since setting foot in the district. It was a man. A broken figure sitting in a doorway. Charlie froze, and then he recognised the outline of a cloak and hood.

It was a watchman.

The man was sat on the muddy ground, his upper half propped against a doorframe.

A ragged wheezing sound echoed through the alley, to the time of the watchman’s rapidly beating chest. He looked injured.

Charlie fed in a cautious extra few strands of tobacco. ‘Do y
ou sle
ep?’

As Charlie crept closer the head turned up. The lower face was swathed in grubby bandages. Two bottomless eyes were the only visible expression.

Charlie was close enough now to pick out a few features. The man had been badly beaten.

A shattered nose was joined by one eye, closed up and shining. Yellowed skin was scattered with deep bruises.

The makeshift face mask was soaked with a black stain. It was through his own blood that the man issued his rattling gasps. He must have been attacked, Charlie realised.

He paused for a moment. Watchmen usually worked in pairs to protect each other. His second must be nearby.

‘Could I bring help?’ asked Charlie, risking a few steps closer.

The man shook his head.

Charlie dropped to his haunches so as to be level with the cowed shape.

‘Does your other man come?’

Again the watchman shook his head. ‘He died. Few days ago.’

‘Do you guard a household in there?’ Charlie gestured to the doorway on which the watchman lounged.

‘They escaped.’

It was a young voice which didn’t match the heavy hood. ‘Broke my face and arm both.’ The watchmen took in a shuddering breath. ‘But I shall wait here until the relief comes, and with some luck I shall still have my shilling.’

Charlie looked into the depths of the alley, wondering if the escapees were still roaming around.

‘I am in search of a man,’ he said, ‘a criminal. Dressed as a plague doctor. He has murdered innocent girls, and I seek information to find him out.’

‘You had better get off these streets, unless you want to be shut up,’ croaked the watchman, giving no indication he’d understood. ‘If they find you they will lock you in one of the houses and leave you to rot.’

Clearly the young guard figured himself long removed from such enforcement duties.

‘Do any blacksmiths still work here?’ asked Charlie. ‘Do any still live?’

The watchman shook his head. ‘They are all dead. You should not be here, roaming around,’ he said. ‘This district is closed. Go back into the city.’

He paused to issue a wheezing cough. ‘In the finer parts of town they shoot themselves, those as have the means,’ he confided in a whisper. ‘But here they throw themselves from the windows. It is a fearful agony that would see a man chance his immortal soul.’

Charlie looked along the dark alley, assessing his next move. Clearly there was no information to be got from this poor watcher. And others could arrive at any moment.

Feeling for the injured man, he reached for his tobacco pouch and pulled out a generous handful.

‘Here,’ he said, kneeling to push it into the man’s bloodied
fingers
. ‘Take some tobacco. It will help protect you from the foul air, until they find you.’

The watchman nodded his thanks, and Charlie rose, trying to stop his legs from trembling.

‘God save you,’ Charlie muttered, wondering what he should do. It looked as though Thames Street was a dead end. And a dangerous one at that.

‘Wait.’ The watchman was holding the hem of Charlie’s naval coat with limp fingers. ‘There was a man,’ he grunted, ‘dressed as a plague doctor. We heard rumours that he visited the torturer’s blacksmith.’

Charlie knelt down again quickly.

‘What is the torturer’s blacksmith?’ he asked urgently.

‘Hidden.’ The watchman coughed again, a disconcertingly liquid sound. ‘The blacksmiths are a good sort of men,’ he managed. ‘None of them think well of the dreadful things that are done to men in the Clink and the Tower. The blacksmith who makes tools for torture hides his identity from the others.’

‘And this plague doctor visits him?’ Charlie gripped the watchman’s hand.

‘I do not know for certain,’ said the watchman. ‘But there has been talk. A devil man. Dressed as a plague doctor. He visits with the torturer’s smithy, and they say he carries death with him.’

‘Do you know where this torturer’s blacksmith may trade?’

The watchman shook his head. ‘He was hidden. They say his shop may be in Swan Court.’

Charlie brought his London map to mind. Swan Court was small, but it was rammed full of smithies. Twenty or thirty at least.

‘Thank you,’ Charlie patted the watchman sincerely and rose to leave.

The watchman grunted. ‘If you are fool enough to go there, then you will not last long. Swan Court was one of the first to get plague. It heaves with infection. If this torturer smithy was ever there, he is long since dead.’