MICK FINLAY was born in Glasgow but left as a young boy, living in Canada and then England. Before becoming an academic, he ran a market stall on Portobello Road, and has also worked as a tent-hand in a travelling circus, a butcher’s boy, a hotel porter, and in various jobs in the NHS and Social Services. He teaches in a Psychology Department, and has published research on political violence and persuasion, verbal and non-verbal communication, and disability. He now lives in Brighton with his family.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

Copyright © Mick Finlay 2017

Mick Finlay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008203207

Version: 2018-01-22

To Anita, John and Maya

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Read On

Chapter One

South London, 1895

The very moment I walked in that morning I could see the guvnor was in one of his tempers. His face was livid, his eyes puffy, his hair, least what remained on that scarred knuckle of a head, stuck out over one ear and lay flat with grease on the other side. He was an ugly sight, all right. I lingered by the door in case he threw his kettle at me again. Even from there, I could smell the overnight stink of gin on his foul breath.

‘Sherlock blooming Holmes!’ he bellowed, slamming his fist down on the side-table. ‘Everywhere I look, they’re talking about that charlatan!’

‘I see, sir,’ I replied as meek as I could. My eyes tracked his hands as they swung this way and that, knowing that a cup, a pen, a piece of coal might quick as a flash get seized and hurled across the room at my head.

‘If we had his cases we’d be living in Belgravia, Barnett,’ he declared, his face so red I thought it might burst. ‘We’d have a permanent suite in the Savoy!’

He dropped to his chair as if suddenly tuckered out. On the table next to his arm, I spied what had caused his temper: The Strand magazine, open at the latest of Dr Watson’s adventures. Fearing he’d notice me looking, I turned my attention to the fire.

‘I’ll put the tea on,’ I said. ‘Do we have any appointments today?’

He nodded, gesturing in the air in a defeated manner. He’d shut his eyes.

‘A lady’s coming at midday.’

‘Very good, sir.’

He rubbed his temples.

‘Get me some laudanum, Barnett. And hurry.’

I took a jug of scent from his shelf and sprayed his head. He moaned and waved me away, wincing as if I were lancing a boil.

‘I’m ill,’ he complained. ‘Tell her I’m indisposed. Tell her to come back tomorrow.’

‘William,’ I said, clearing away the plates and newspapers scattered across his table. ‘We haven’t had a case for five weeks. I have rent to pay. I’ll have to go work on Sidney’s cabs if I don’t bring money home soon, and you know how I don’t like horses.’

‘You’re weak, Barnett,’ he groaned, slumping further in his chair.

‘I’ll clean the room, sir. And we’ll see her at midday.’

He did not respond.

At twelve o’clock sharp, Albert knocked on the door.

‘A lady to see you,’ he said in his usual sorrowful fashion.

I followed him down the dark corridor to the pudding shop that fronted the guvnor’s rooms. Standing at the counter was a young woman in a bonnet and a billowing skirt. She had the complexion of a rich woman, but her cuffs were frayed and brown, and the beauty of her almond face was corrupted by a chipped front tooth. She smiled a quick, unhappy smile, then followed me through to the guvnor’s rooms.

I could see him weaken the moment she walked in the door. He began to blink and jumped to his feet and bowed his head low as he took her wilted hand.

‘Madam.’

He gestured to the best seat – clean and next to the window so there was a little light thrown onto her handsome physique. Her eyes quickly took in the piles of old newspapers that lined the walls and were stacked in some places to the height of a man.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘It is my brother, Mr Arrowood,’ she said. It was clear from her accent she was from the continent. ‘He’s disappeared. I was told you can find him.’

‘Are you French, mademoiselle?’ he asked, standing with his back to the coal fire.

‘I am.’

He glanced at me, his fleshy temples red and pulsing. This was not a good start. Two years before, we’d been thrown into the clink in Dieppe when the local magistrate decided we were asking too many questions about his brother-in-law. Seven days of bread and cold broth had crushed all the admiration he had for the country right out of him, and to make it worse our client had refused to pay us. The guvnor had held a prejudice against the French ever since.

‘Mr Arrowood and me both have a great admiration for your race, miss,’ I said before he had a chance to put her off.

He scowled at me, then asked, ‘Where did you hear of me?’

‘A friend gave me your name. You are an investigative agent, yes?’

‘The best in London,’ I said, hoping a little praise would soothe him.

‘Oh,’ she replied. ‘I thought Sherlock Holmes . . .’

I could see the guvnor tense again.

‘They say he is a genius,’ she continued. ‘The best in all the world.’

‘Perhaps you should consult him then, mademoiselle!’ snapped the guvnor.

‘I cannot afford him.’

‘So I am second best?’

‘I mean no offence, sir,’ she replied, now noticing the edge to his voice.

‘Let me tell you something, Miss . . .’

‘Cousture. Miss Caroline Cousture.’

‘Appearances can be deceptive, Miss Cousture. Holmes is famous because his assistant writes stories and sells them. He’s a detective with a chronicler. But what about the cases we never hear about? The ones that do not get turned into stories for the public? What about the cases in which people are killed by his blundering mistakes?’

‘Killed, sir?’ asked the woman.

‘Are you familiar with the Openshaw case, Miss Cousture?’

The woman shook her head.

‘The Case of the Five Pips?’

Again she shook her head.

‘A young man sent to his death by the Great Detective. Over the Waterloo Bridge. And that isn’t the only one. You must know the Case of the Dancing Men? It was in the newspaper.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Mr Hilton Cubitt?’

‘I do not read newspapers.’

‘Shot. Shot dead and his wife almost killed as well. No, no, Holmes is far from perfect. Did you know he has private means, miss? Well, I hear he turns down as many cases as he accepts, and why do you think? Why, I wonder, would a detective turn down so many cases? And, please, don’t think I’m envious of him. I am not. I pity him. Why? Because he’s a deductive agent. He takes small clues and makes large things of them. Often wrong, in my opinion. There.’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘I’ve said it. Of course he’s famous, but I’m afraid he doesn’t understand people. With Holmes, there are always clues: marks on the ground, the fortuitous faggot of ash on the table, a singular type of clay on the boat. But what of the case with no clues? It’s commoner than you think, Miss Cousture. Then it’s about people. About reading people.’ Here he gestured at the shelf holding his small collection of books on the psychology of the mind. ‘I am an emotional agent, not a deductive agent. And why? I see people. I see into their souls. I smell out the truth with my nose.’

As he spoke, his stare fixed on her, I noticed her flush. Her eyes fell to the floor.

‘And sometimes that smell is so strong it burrows inside me like a worm,’ he continued. ‘I know people. I know them so badly it torments me. That is how I solve my cases. I might not have my picture in the Daily News. I might not have a housekeeper and rooms in Baker Street and a brother in the government, but if I choose to accept your case – and I don’t guarantee that until I hear what you have to say – if I choose to accept it, then you’ll find no fault in me nor in my assistant.’

I watched him with great admiration: when he got into his stride, the guvnor was irrepressible. And what he said was true: his emotions were both his strength and his weakness. That was why he needed me more than he sometimes understood.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Cousture. ‘I do not mean to insult you. I know nothing of this detective business. All I know is how they talk of Mr Holmes. Forgive me, sir.’

He nodded and harrumphed, and finally sat back in his chair by the fire.

‘Tell us all. Leave nothing out. Who is your brother and why do you need to find him?’

She clasped her hands in her lap and composed herself.

‘We are from Rouen, sir. I come here just two years before to work. I’m a photographer. In France, they do not accept a woman as photographer, and so my uncle he helps me gain employment here, on Great Dover Street. He is a dealer of art. My brother Thierry worked for a patisserie at home, but there was a little trouble.’

‘Trouble?’ demanded the guvnor. ‘What trouble?’

She hesitated.

‘Unless you tell me everything, I cannot help.’

‘They accuse him of stealing from the shop,’ she said.

‘And did he steal?’

‘I think yes.’

She glanced humbly at him, then her eyes brushed my own. I’m ashamed to confess that even though I was married more than fifteen years before to the most commonsensical woman in the whole of Walworth, that look stirred up an urge in me that hadn’t been stirred in a while. This young woman with her almond face and her single chipped tooth was a natural beauty.

‘Continue,’ he said.

‘He had to go very quick from Rouen so he followed me to London. He found a job in a chophouse. Four nights ago he comes back from work very scared. He begs of me some money to go back to France. He will not tell me why he must go back. I’ve never seen him so much scared.’ She paused here to catch her breath and dab at her eyes with the corner of a yellowed handkerchief. ‘I say no to him. I could not let him go back to Rouen. If he returns he will be in trouble. I don’t want this.’

She hesitated again, a tear appearing in her eye.

‘But perhaps more I wanted him here in London with me. This is a lonely city for a stranger, sir. And a dangerous one for a woman.’

‘Take a moment, mademoiselle,’ said my employer nobly. He sat forward in his chair, his belly hanging on his knees.

‘He left in a great anger. I have not seen him since. He’s not been at work.’ The tears began to flow properly now. ‘Where does he sleep?’

‘Now, my dear,’ said the guvnor. ‘You don’t need us. Your brother’s no doubt hiding. He’ll seek you when he feels safe.’

She held her handkerchief over her eyes until she had control of herself. She blew her nose.

‘I can pay, if that’s what concerns you,’ she said at last, pulling a small purse from inside her coat and withdrawing a handful of guineas. ‘Look.’

‘Put them away, miss. If he’s that frightened, he’s probably back in France.’

She shook her head.

‘No, sir, he is not in France. The day after I refuse him I come from work and see that my clock is gone, and my second shoes and a shift I bought only this winter last. The landlady says to me he was there that afternoon.’

‘There! He’s sold them to pay his fare.’

‘No, sir. His papers, his clothes, they are still in my room. How he enters France without the papers? Something has happened to him.’ As she spoke, she dropped the coins back into the purse and withdrew some notes. ‘Please, Mr Arrowood. He’s all I have. I have nobody to turn to.’

The guvnor watched as she unfolded two five-pound notes: it was some time since we’d seen banknotes in that room.

‘Why not go to the police?’ he asked.

‘They will say what you say. I beg you, Mr Arrowood.’

‘Miss Cousture, I could take your money, and no doubt there are many private agents in London who would happily have it. But it’s one of my principles that I never take money if I don’t think there’s a case, particularly from a person with limited means. I don’t mean to insult you, but I’m sure that money you have there is either hard saved or borrowed. Your brother’s probably holed up with a woman somewhere. Wait a few more days. If he doesn’t return, then come back and see us.’

Her pale face flushed. She rose and stepped to the grate, holding the banknotes to the glowing coals. ‘If you do not take my case I put this money in your fire,’ she said sharply.

‘Please be sensible, miss,’ said the guvnor.

‘The money’s nothing to me. And I think you prefer it in your pocket than your fire?’

The guvnor groaned, his eyes fixed on the notes. He shifted forward on his chair.

‘I will!’ she said in desperation, moving them down to the flames.

‘Stop!’ he cried when he could bear it no more.

‘You will take my case?’

He sighed. ‘Yes, yes. I suppose.’

‘And you will keep my name secret?’

‘If that’s what you wish.’

‘We charge twenty shillings a day, Miss Cousture,’ I said. ‘Five days’ payment in advance for a case of missing persons.’

The guvnor turned away and began to fill his pipe. Although he was usually short of money, he was always uncomfortable receiving it: it was too open an admission for one of his class that he needed it.

Once the business was conducted, he turned back to us.

‘Now, we need the details,’ he said, sucking on his pipe. ‘His age, his appearance. Do you have a photograph?’

‘He’s twenty-three. Not so well-grown like you, sir,’ she said, looking at me. ‘In the middle between Mr Arrowood and you. His hair’s the colour of the wheat and he has a long burn on the ear, on this side. I have no picture. I am sorry. But there are not many in London with our accent.’

‘Where did he work?’

‘The Barrel of Beef, sir.’

My heart fell. The warm five-pound note I held now felt cold as cabbage. The guvnor’s hand, holding the smoking pipe, had dropped. His eyes gazed into the fire. He shook his head and did not reply.

Miss Cousture frowned.

‘What is it, sir?’

I held the money out to her.

‘Take it, miss,’ I said. ‘We cannot take the case.’

‘But why? We have an agreement.’

I looked at the guvnor, expecting him to answer. Instead, a low growl came from his lips. He took the poker and began to stab the glowing coals. As I held out the money to her, Miss Cousture looked from me to him.

‘There is a problem?’

‘We have a history with the Barrel of Beef,’ I said at last. ‘The owner, Stanley Cream, you’ve probably heard of him?’

She nodded.

‘We came up against him a few years back,’ I said. ‘The case went badly wrong. There was a man who was helping us, John Spindle. A good man. Cream’s gang beat him to death and we couldn’t do nothing about it. Cream swore to have us killed if ever he saw us again.’

She remained silent.

‘He’s the most dangerous man in South London, miss.’

‘So you are afraid,’ she said bitterly.

All of a sudden the guvnor turned. His face was glowing from staring so intensely into the fire.

‘We will take the case, miss,’ he declared. ‘I do not go back on my word.’

I bit my tongue. If Miss Cousture’s brother was connected to the Beef, there was a good chance he really was in trouble. There was a good chance he was already dead. At that moment, working on the cabs seemed like the best job in London.

When Caroline Cousture had left, the guvnor fell heavily onto his chair. He lit his pipe and stared into the fire as he thought.

‘That woman,’ he said at last, ‘is a liar.’

Chapter Two

We were just finishing the pie and potatoes I’d fetched for our dinner when the door from the shop burst open. There on the hearth, carrying a carpetbag in one hand and a tuba case in the other, was a woman of middle age. She wore grey and black; her bearing spoke of a well-travelled soul. The guvnor was immediately struck dumb. I jumped to my feet and bowed, quickly wiping the grease from my fingers onto the back of my trousers.

She nodded briefly at me, then turned back to him. For a long time they looked at each other, him with a look of surprised shame, she with a righteous superiority. Finally, he managed to swallow the potato he held in his mouth.

‘Ettie,’ he said. ‘What . . . ? You’re . . .’

‘I can see I’ve arrived just in time,’ she replied, her noble eyes travelling slowly over the pill jars and ale flagons, the ash spilling from the fire, the newspapers and books piled on every surface. ‘Isabel hasn’t come back then?’

His big lips pursed and he shook his head.

She turned to me.

‘And you are?’

‘Barnett, ma’am. Mr Arrowood’s employee.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Barnett.’

She returned my smile with a frown.

The guvnor eased himself from his chair, brushing the flakes of pastry from his woollen vest.

‘I thought you were in Afghanistan, Ettie.’

‘It appears there’s much good work to be done amongst the poor of this town. I’ve joined a mission in Bermondsey.’

‘What, here?’ exclaimed the guvnor.

‘I’m going to stay with you. Now, pray tell me where I shall sleep.’

‘Sleep?’ The guvnor glanced at me with fear on his face. ‘Sleep? You have a nurse’s quarters of some kind, surely?’

‘From now on I’m in the employ of the good Lord, Brother. It’s no bad thing, by the look of this place. These mountains of papers are a hazard, for a start.’ Her eyes fell on the little staircase at the back of the room. ‘Ah. I’ll just see the space now. No need to accompany me.’

She put her tuba on the floor and marched up the stairs.

I made tea for the guvnor, while he sat staring out the murky window as if he was about to lose his life. I broke a piece of toffee from my pocket and offered it to him; he put it greedily in his mouth.

‘Earlier, why did you say Miss Cousture is a liar?’ I asked.

‘You must watch more closely, Barnett,’ he said as his teeth worked on the toffee. ‘There was a point in my speech when she flushed and refused my eye. Only one. It was the moment I told her I could see into a person’s soul. That I smelled out the truth. You didn’t notice?’

‘Did you do it deliberate?’

He shook his head.

‘It’s a good trick, I think,’ he said. ‘I might use it again.’

‘I’m not sure it is. Lying’s a way of life where I come from.’

‘It is everywhere, Barnett.’

‘I mean they won’t flush if you accuse them.’

‘But I didn’t accuse her. That’s the trick. I was talking about myself.’

He was making hard work of that toffee, and a little juice escaped the side of his mouth. He wiped it away.

‘What was she lying about, then?’

He held up his finger, grimacing as he tried to work the toffee off his molar.

‘That I do not know,’ he replied when he’d freed it. ‘Now, I must remain this afternoon and find out what the deuce my sister intends to do here. I’m sorry, Barnett. You’ll have to visit the Barrel of Beef yourself.’

I was none too pleased with this.

‘Maybe we should wait until you’re able to come,’ I suggested.

‘Don’t go inside. Wait across the street until a worker comes out. A washerman or a serving girl. Someone who could do with a penny. See what you can find out, but do nothing that’ll put you at risk. Above all, don’t let Cream’s men see you.’

I nodded.

‘I’m quite serious, Barnett. I doubt you’d get a second chance this time.’

‘I don’t intend to go anywhere near his men,’ I said unhappily. ‘I’d as soon not be going there at all.’

‘Just be careful,’ he said. ‘Come back here when you have something.’

As I made to go he glanced up at the ceiling, where the scrape of furniture being moved could be heard.

The Barrel of Beef was a four-storey building on the corner of Waterloo Road. In the evenings it was patronized mostly by young men arriving in hansom cabs from across the river, looking for some life after the theatres and political meetings had shut down for the night. Downstairs at the front was a pub, one of the biggest in Southwark, with two floors of supper rooms above that. The rooms were often booked out by dining societies, and on a summer’s night, when the windows were open and the music had begun, it could be like walking past a roaring sea. On the fourth floor were gaming tables, and these were the most exclusive. This was the respectable face of the Barrel of Beef. Around the back, down a stinking lane of beggars and streetwalkers, was the Skirt of Beef, a taproom so dark and so fugged with smoke you’d start to weep the minute you stepped in.

It was a cold July so far, more like early spring, and I cursed the chill wind as I set myself up on the other side of the street, slumped in a doorway like a tramp aside the warm cart of a potato man, my cap pulled low over my face, my body covered in an old sack. I knew too well what Cream’s men would do if they discovered me watching the place again. There I waited until the young men got back into their cabs and the street went quiet. Soon a group of serving girls in drab grey clothes came out and marched down eastwards towards Marshalsea. Four waiters were next, a couple of chefs behind. And then, at last, just the kind of old fellow I was looking for. He wore a long ragged coat and boots too big for him, and he hurried and stumbled down the street as if in urgent need of a crapper. I followed him through the dark streets, barely bothering to keep hidden: he’d have no reason to suspect anyone would be interested in him. A light rain began to fall. Soon he arrived at the White Eagle, a gin palace on Friar Street, the only drinking place still open at that late hour.

I waited outside until he had a drink in his hand. Then I strode in and stood at the counter next to him.

‘For you?’ asked the fat bartender.

‘Porter.’

I had quite a righteous thirst and downed half the pint in a single swallow. The old fellow supped his gin and sighed. His fingers were puckered and pink.

‘Troubles?’ I asked.

‘Can’t drink that stuff no more,’ he growled, nodding at my pint. ‘Makes me piss something rotten. Wish I could, though. I used to love a drop of beer. Believe me I did.’

Sitting on a high stool behind a glass screen was a man I recognized from the street outside the Beef He wore a black suit, rubbed thin at the elbows and ragged at the boot, and there was not a hair on his head. His match-selling business suffered on account of his habit of exploding into a series of jerks and tics that made people passing him jump back in fright. Now he was muttering to himself, staring into a half-pint of gin, one hand grasping the other’s wrist as if arresting its movements.

‘St Vitus’s Dance,’ whispered the old man to me. ‘A spirit got hold of his limbs and won’t let them go – least that’s what they say.’

I sympathized with him about drinking beer and we got to talking about what it was like to get old, a subject about which he had much to say. Presently I bought him another drink, which he accepted greedily. I asked him what was his occupation.

‘Chief sculleryman,’ he replied. ‘You know the Barrel of Beef, I suppose?’

‘Course I do. That’s a fine place indeed, sir. A very fine place.’

He straightened his beaten back and tipped his head in pride. ‘It is, it is. I knows Mr Cream as well, the owner. You know him? I knows all of them as run things down there. He give me, last Christmas this was, he give me a bottle of brandy. Just comes up to me as I was leaving and says, “Ernest, that’s for all what you’ve done for me this year”, and gives it to me. To me especially. A bottle of brandy. That’s Mr Cream, you know him?’

‘He owns the place, I know as much as that.’

‘A very fine bottle of brandy that was. Finest you can get. Tasted like gold, or silk or something like that.’ He supped his gin and winced, shaking his head. His eyes were yellow and weepy, the few teeth left in his mouth crooked and brown. ‘I been there ten years, more or less. He ain’t never had one reason to complain about my work all that time. Oh, no. Mr Cream treats me right. I can eat anything as is left at the end of the night, long as I don’t take nothing home with me. Anything they ain’t keeping. Steak, kidneys, oysters, mutton soup. Don’t hardly spend any money on my food at all. Keep my money for the pleasures of life, I do.’

He finished his gin and began to cough. I bought him another. Behind us a tired-looking streetwalker was bickering with two men in brown aprons. One tried to take her arm; she shook him off. Ernest looked at her with an air of senile longing, then turned back to me.

‘Not the others,’ he continued. ‘Only me, on account of being there longest. Rib of beef. Bit of cod. Tripe, if I must. I eat like a lord, mister. It’s a good set-up. I got a room over the road here. You know the baker’s? Penarven the baker’s? I got a room above there.’

‘I know a fellow who works down there, as it happens,’ I said. ‘French lad name of Thierry. Brother of a ladyfriend of mine. You probably know him.’

‘Terry, is that him? Pastryman? He don’t work with us no more. Not since last week or so. Left or given the push. Don’t ask me which.’

He lit a pipe and began to cough again.

‘Only, I’m trying to get hold of him,’ I continued when he’d finished. ‘You wouldn’t have a notion where I can find him?’

‘Ask his sister, shouldn’t you?’

‘It’s her who’s looking for him.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Truth is it might do me a bit of good if I help her out, like. Know what I mean?’

He chuckled. I slapped him on the back; he didn’t like it, and a suspicious look came over him.

‘Bit of a coincidence, ain’t it? You happening to talk to me like that?’

‘I followed you.’

It took him a minute to work out what I was saying.

‘That’s the way it is, is it?’ he croaked.

‘That’s the way it is. You know where I can find him?’

He scratched the stubble on his neck and finished his gin.

‘The oysters is good here,’ he said.

I called the barmaid over and ordered him a bowl.

‘All I can say is he was very friendly with a barmaid name of Martha, least it seemed that way to anybody with their eyes open,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they left together. You ask her. Curly red hair – you can’t miss her. A little beauty, if you don’t mind Catholics.’

‘Was he in any trouble?’

He drained his glass and swayed suddenly, gripping the counter to steady himself.

‘I keep my nose out of everything what happens there. You can find yourself in trouble very quick with some of the things as goes on in that building.’

The oysters arrived. He looked at them with a frown.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

‘It’s only as they go down better with a little drain of plane, sir,’ he replied with a sniff.

I ordered him another gin. When he’d just about finished off the oysters, I asked him again if Thierry was in trouble.

‘All I know is he left the day after the American was there. Big American fellow. I only know ’cos I heard him shouting at Mr Cream, and there ain’t nobody who shouts at the boss. Nobody. After that, Terry never come back.’

‘Why was he shouting?’

‘Couldn’t hear,’ he said, dropping the last oyster shell on the floor. He held onto the counter and stared at it as if he wasn’t sure he could get down there without falling over.

‘D’you know who he was?’

‘Never seen him before.’

‘You must have heard something?’ I said.

‘I don’t talk to nobody and nobody talks to me. I just do my work and go home. That’s the best way. That’s the advice I’ll give my children if ever I have any.’

He laughed and called over to the barmaid.

‘Oi, Jeannie. Did you hear? I said that’s the advice I’ll give my children if ever I have any!’

‘Yeah, very funny Ernest,’ she replied. ‘Shame your pecker’s dropped off.’

His face fell. The barman and a cab driver at the end of the counter laughed loudly.

‘I could give you a few names to swear as my pecker’s attached and working very well, thank you,’ he croaked back.

But the barmaid wasn’t listening any more; she was talking to the cab driver. The old man stared hard at them for a few moments, then finished his drink and patted his coat pockets. His skin sagged from his bristling chin; his wrists seemed thin as broomsticks under the sleeves of his thick overcoat.

‘That’s it for me.’

‘Could you find out where he is, Ernest?’ I asked as we stepped onto the street. ‘I’d pay you well.’

‘Find another fool, mister,’ he replied, his words slurring in the chill air. ‘I don’t want to end up in the river with a lungful of mud. Not me.’

He glanced bitterly through the window where the barmaid was laughing with the cabman, then turned and stomped off down the road.

Chapter Three

The guvnor’s room was transformed. The floor had been swept free of crumbs, the bottles and plates had vanished, the blankets and cushions straightened. Only the towers of newspapers against the walls remained. He was in his chair with his hair brushed and a clean shirt on. In his hand was the book that had occupied him over the last few months: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by the infamous Mr Darwin. Some years before, Mrs Barnett had become quite enraged by this fellow on account of him seeming to suggest, or so she said at least, that she and her sisters were the daughters of a big ape rather than the generous creation of the good Lord above. She’d never read his books, of course, but there were people at her church very against the idea that the good Lord hadn’t made a woman from a rib-bone and a man from a speck of dust. The guvnor, who hadn’t come to a decision on this matter as far as I knew, had been reading this book very carefully and slowly, and letting everyone know that he was reading it along the way. He seemed to think it held secrets which would help him see past the deceptions that were the everyday part of our work. I couldn’t help but notice, too, that another of Watson’s stories lay open on the side-table next to him.

‘I’ve been waiting all morning for news, Barnett,’ he declared, looking as uncomfortable as a hog in a bonnet. ‘I had breakfast many hours ago.’

‘I didn’t reach home until gone two.’

‘She had me up early as she wished to clean the bed somehow,’ he continued with resignation. ‘Very early. But what did you discover?’

I explained what I’d found out, and immediately he had me send the lad from the coffeehouse to find Neddy. Neddy was a boy who the guvnor had taken a shine to a few years back when his family had moved into a room down the street. His father was long dead, his mother a quite disastrous washerwoman. Her earnings weren’t enough for the family, barely enough to pay their rent, so Neddy sold muffins on the street to support her and the two youngers at home. He was nine or ten years or eleven perhaps.

The lad arrived shortly after, carrying his muffin basket under his arm. He was sorely in need of a haircut, and had a rip in the shoulder of his white jerkin.

‘Have you any left, boy?’ asked the guvnor.

‘Just two, sir,’ replied Neddy, opening the blanket. ‘Last two I got.’

I quite marvelled at the magnificent thick black dirt that framed his little fingerbits, and beneath his brown cap could see distinctly the slow crawl of livestock. Oh, for the carefree life of the child!

The guvnor grunted and took the muffins.

‘You’ve eaten, Barnett?’ he declared as he bit into the first. With his mouth full of dough, he gave Neddy his instructions. He was to wait outside the Beef that night until the waiting girl Martha came out, and then to follow her home and bring back the address. He made the boy promise to be extra careful and not to speak to anyone.

‘I’ll get it, sir,’ said the boy earnestly.

The guvnor popped the last bit of muffin in his mouth and smiled.

‘Of course you will, lad. But look at your dirty face.’ He turned to me and winked. ‘Don’t you prefer a boy with a dirty face, Barnett?’

‘I ain’t got a dirty face,’ protested the boy.

‘Your face is caked in dirt. Here, take a peek in the looking glass.’

Neddy scowled at the glass hanging on the wall.

‘It ain’t.’

The guvnor and I broke out laughing; he took the boy to his chest and hugged him tight.

‘You get off now, lad,’ he said, releasing him.

‘Are you going to pay him for those muffins?’ I asked.

‘Of course I’m going to pay him!’ snapped the guvnor, his forehead taking a flush. He pulled a coin from his waistcoat and threw it in Neddy’s basket. ‘Don’t I always pay him?’

The boy and I looked at each other and smiled.

When Neddy was gone, and the guvnor had brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat to the floor, I said, ‘She’s made a good job of this room, sir.’

‘Mm,’ he murmured, looking morosely around him. ‘I must say, I’m not hopeful of a happy solution to this case. I fear what might have happened to the French lad if he’s found trouble with Cream.’

‘I fear what might happen to us if they find we’ve been asking questions.’

‘We must be careful, Barnett. They mustn’t find out.’

‘Can we give her the money back?’ I asked.

‘I’ve given my word. Now, I need a nap. Return tomorrow, early. We’ll have work to do.’

By the time I arrived the next morning, Neddy had returned with the address. The boarding-house that Martha lived in was just off Bermondsey Street, and we were there in twenty minutes. It wasn’t pretty: the white paint on the door was flaked and grubby, the windows were misted all the way up the building, and a terrible black smoke poured out the chimney. At the sound of shouting inside, the guvnor winced. He was a gentleman who did not like aggression of any flavour.

The woman who opened the door seemed none too happy to be disturbed.

‘Second floor,’ she rasped, turning away from us and marching back to her kitchen, ‘room at the back.’

Martha was every bit as beautiful as the old man had made out. She came to the door wrapped in two old coats, the sleep still in her eyes.

‘Do I know you?’ she asked. The guvnor drew in his breath: she had a resemblance to Isabel, his wife, except younger and taller. The long bronze curls were the same, the green eyes, the upturned nose. Only her slow Irish drawl was unlike Isabel’s fenland lilt.

‘Madam,’ replied the guvnor, a quiver in his voice, ‘apologies for disturbing you. We need to talk to you for a moment.’

I looked over her shoulder into the room. There was a bed in the corner and a small table with a looking glass on it. Two dresses hung from a rack. On a chest of drawers was a neat pile of newspapers.

‘What is it you want?’ she asked.

‘We’re looking for Thierry, miss,’ replied the guvnor.

‘Who?’

‘Your friend from the Barrel of Beef.’

‘I don’t know no Thierry.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he said in his friendliest voice. ‘We know he’s a friend of yours, Martha.’

She crossed her arms. ‘What do you want him for?’

‘His sister employed us to find him,’ replied the guvnor. ‘She thinks he might be in trouble.’

‘I don’t think so, sir,’ she said, and made to shut the door. I managed to get my boot in the way just in time. Her eyes dropped to my foot, then, seeing we weren’t to be budged, she sighed.

‘We only need to know where he is,’ I said. ‘We aim to help him, is all.’

‘I don’t know where he is, sir. He don’t work there no more.’

‘When did you see him last?’

A door slammed above and heavy footsteps began to come down the dusty stairs. Martha quickly pulled her head back into the room and shut the door. It was a tall man with a prominent, bony jaw, and by the time I recognized him it was too late to turn my head away. I’d seen him hanging around the Barrel of Beef when we were working on the Betsy case four years before. I never knew what his job was – he was just there, all the time, lurking and watching.

He glared at us as he passed, then stamped on down the stairs. When finally we heard the front door open and shut, Martha appeared again.

‘I can’t talk here,’ she whispered. ‘Everyone works in the Beef. Meet me later, on my way to work.’

Her green eyes glanced up at the stairs and she paused, listening. A man began to sing in the room along the corridor.

‘Outside St George the Martyr,’ she continued, ‘at six.’

With a final worried look upstairs, she shut the door.

I’d reached the first landing when I realized the guvnor wasn’t behind me. He was still staring at the closed door, deep in thought. I called his name – he started and followed me down the stairs.

When we’d gained the street, I broke the silence.

‘She’s a little like—’

‘Yes, Barnett,’ he interrupted, ‘yes, she is.’

He didn’t speak again the whole walk home.

They had only been married a short time when I first knew Mr Arrowood. Mrs Barnett always wondered how such a fine-looking woman had married a potato like him, but from what I saw they seemed to get on just fine. He made a reasonable living as a newspaperman working for Lloyd’s Weekly, and their household was a happy one. Isabel was kind and attentive, and there were always interesting visitors around their home. I met him at the courts, where I was earning a living as a junior clerk. I would sometimes help him gain certain information for stories he was writing, and he often invited me to his lodgings to have a bite of mutton or bowl of soup. But then the paper was sold to a new proprietor, who installed a cousin in the guvnor’s position and ejected him onto his uppers.

Mr Arrowood had by then some renown for digging up the sort of truths as others would like to have remained buried, and it wasn’t long before an acquaintance of his offered him a sum of money to solve a small personal problem involving his wife and another man. This young man recommended him to a friend who also had a small personal problem, and that was how the investigational work began. A year or so later I found myself also out of work on account of losing my temper at a particular magistrate who had a habit of jailing youngsters who needed a helping hand a good deal more than they needed a spell in adult prison. I was out on my ear without so much as a handshake or a pocket watch, and when the guvnor heard what had happened he searched me out. After an interview with Mrs Barnett, he offered me work as his assistant on the case he was working on. That was the Betsy bigamy case, my baptism of fire, where a child lost his leg and an innocent man lost his life. The guvnor blamed himself for both – and rightly so. He shut himself in his rooms for the best part of two months, only coming back out when his money was used up. We took a job, but it was clear to anyone he’d taken to drink. Since then, cases were irregular and money was always short. The Betsy case hung over us like a curse, but what we’d seen bound me to him as sure as if we were brothers.

Isabel put up with his drinking and the irregular work for three years before he came home one day to find her clothes gone and a note on the table. He hadn’t heard from her since. He’d written to her brothers, her cousins, her aunts, but they wouldn’t tell him where she was. I once suggested he use his investigative skills to find her, but he just shook his head. He told me then, his eyes shut so he shouldn’t see me looking at him, that losing Isabel was his punishment for letting the young man die in the Betsy case, and that he must endure it for as long as God or the Devil pleased. The guvnor wasn’t usually a religious man and I was surprised to hear him say it, but he was about as raw as a man could be after she left and who knows where a man’s mind will go to when he’s left heartbroken and turning it all over night after night? He had been waiting for her to return since the day she left.

Chapter Four

We were late. It was a dirty afternoon, with rain and wind and mud in the streets. St George’s Circus was busy at that time, and the guvnor, whose shoes were too tight, was hobbling along with many grunts and sighs. He’d bought the shoes used and cheap from the washerwoman and complained almost the very next day on account of them being too small for his bloated feet. She wouldn’t take them back so the guvnor, being careful with his coppers, had resigned himself to wearing them until such time as they split open or lost a heel. It was taking longer than he’d hoped.

When we finally got to the church we could see our Martha up ahead, wrapped in a black cloak and hood. She was holding onto the churchyard railing, just inside the gate, her eyes sweeping up and down the street. She was clearly anxious to find us, so the guvnor pinched my arm and hurried on. A crowd was gathered outside one of the cookhouses; as we fought our way through, a shortish man pushed past us from behind and darted away before us, the tails of his old winter coat flapping in the wind, his hat sitting back on his head.

The guvnor swore and grumbled as a coalman dumped a sack from his cart onto the pavement in front of us.

Just then there was a shriek up ahead.

A woman with a baby stood by the church gate looking around frantically as the short man who’d shoved us ran off towards the river.

‘It’s the Ripper!’ she screamed.

‘Get a doctor!’ someone else called.

We both began to run. By now there were many others also rushing to the church gate to see what had occurred. We pushed our way through the crowd and saw Martha lying curled on the wet ground, her hair spread across the flagstones like a spill of molten bronze.

The guvnor let out a groan and fell to his knees next to her.

‘Get after him, Barnett!’ he called back at me as he lifted her head from the path.

I took off, winding and ducking through the crowds. The short man ran across the street ahead of me. His coat, much too big for him, billowed behind, his bandy legs moving at full pelt. He sped to the next intersection. As he turned down Union Street, I caught the side of his face, his oily grey hair stuck to his forehead, a nose with a prominent hook. A minute later, I reached the same corner but was brought up short by a teeming wet mass of people and horses. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I hurried on, my eyes searching frantically for his dark coat in the crowd, my way checked all the time by carts and buses and street vendors, further and further down the road.

I ran blindly, on my instinct, until I saw a flash of black coat turn down a side street up ahead. I pushed my way between the carts to the junction. Ahead of me was an undertaker knocking on a door. There were no other men in the narrow lane. My chest heaving, I turned back to busy Union Street, not knowing which way to go. It was no use. I had lost him.

When I got back to the churchyard the crowd was still there. A gentleman paced up and down the path, shaking his head. The guvnor was kneeling on the floor, Martha’s head cradled in his lap. Her face was ashen, the tip of her tongue resting at the side of her mouth. Beneath the thick black cloak, her white serving blouse was a slick claret.

I knelt and checked her pulse, but could see from the way the guvnor shook his head, by the desolate look in his eyes, that she was dead.

At that moment a constable arrived.

‘What’s happened here?’ he asked, his voice booming over the noise of the crowd.

‘This young woman’s been killed,’ said the gentleman. ‘Just now. That fellow there chased the man.’

‘He ran off down Union Street,’ I said, getting up. ‘I lost him in the crowds.’

‘Is she a streetwalker?’ asked the copper.

‘What has that to do with it?’ replied the gentleman. ‘She’s dead, for pity’s sake. Murdered.’

‘Just thinking about the Ripper, sir. He only did streetwalkers.’

‘She was not a streetwalker!’ barked the guvnor, his face burning with fury. ‘She was a waiting girl.’

‘Did anybody see what happened?’ asked the constable.

‘I saw it all, I did,’ said the woman with the baby, important and breathless. ‘I was standing here, right here next to the gate, when he comes up and chives the lady through her cloak like that. One, two, three. Like that, poor girl. Then he runs off. He was a foreigner, I’d say, by the look of him. A Jew. I thought he was going to do me for afters, but he just run off like they said.’

The constable nodded and finally knelt to check Martha’s pulse.

‘He didn’t have human eyes,’ she continued. ‘They was shining like a wolf, like he wanted to rip me as well. Only thing stopping him was all the people coming over when she screamed. That’s what frightened him off. Too late for her, though, poor little thing.’

The constable stood up again.

‘Anybody else see the incident?’

‘I turned when I heard the girl cry,’ said the gentleman. ‘Saw the chap hurtle off. He looked Irish from where I was, but I couldn’t be sure.’

The constable peered down at the guvnor.

‘Were you with her, sir?’

‘He come along after,’ said the woman.

‘I recognize her from the Barrel of Beef.’ The guvnor’s voice was grey and flat. ‘I don’t know her.’

The policeman took a description from the woman and the gentleman, who agreed it must have been a foreigner but couldn’t agree whether it was a Jew or an Irishman, and then from me. Once he’d sent a boy to the station for the police surgeon, he dispersed us.

‘What do we do now?’ I asked as we trudged back.

The guvnor cursed, ignoring me.

‘Damn Cream to hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’ll kill whoever he wants.’

‘We don’t know he was behind it.’

He cracked his walking stick hard against the kerb, a look of utmost misery on his face.

‘We’ve led that dear girl to her death. That cur from the Beef saw us at the house. We might as well have killed her ourselves.’

‘We didn’t know they all worked in the Beef.’

‘Damn it, Barnett. It’s starting again. The whole cursed Cream business.’

‘Perhaps we should leave it to the police,’ I suggested.

‘That idiot Petleigh will never find the killer.’

The guvnor glanced back at the church. When we’d turned the corner he held out a small, twisted handkerchief.

‘This was gripped in her hand,’ he said. ‘I’m sure she held it for us.’

He opened the handkerchief. Inside was a single brass bullet.

Chapter Five

We arrived in Great Dover Street later that evening, where a row of milliners, dress shops and shoe shops all had their lights on for the evening trade. At the end was a coffee grinder, and the breeze carried the rich smells of the roasting beans. There was only one photographer’s studio, called ‘The Fontaine’. A man in a green velvet jacket with hair reaching his collar stood at the desk constructing a picture frame. He held a small hammer in his hand and a pin in his mouth.

‘Good day, sirs,’ he said with an insincere smile. ‘How may I help you? Is it a portrait you’re after?’

‘We’re looking for Miss Cousture,’ said the guvnor, glancing around at the photographic portraits on the walls. ‘Is she here?’

‘She’s at work,’ the man replied, pulling back his long head disdainfully. ‘I’m the proprietor, Mr Fontaine. Do you want to book a portrait?’

‘Did you take these?’ asked the guvnor, indicating the pictures. ‘They’re very good.’

‘Yes indeed. All my own work. I could make a fine image of you, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. Your profile is quite wonderful.’

‘Do you think so?’ asked the guvnor, his chest inflating. He smoothed the hair around his crown. ‘I’ve been thinking of commissioning a picture for some time. I think my sister would very much like a portrait above the fire.’

I looked at him, unable to suppress a smile at the thought of such a gift.

‘We can book it in now, sir. Shall we say Monday morning? Eleven o’clock?’

‘Yes . . . Ah. Wait. On second thoughts, I’d better wait until I’ve taken possession of my new suit. But might we speak to Miss Cousture now? On a personal matter.’

The artist looked down his long nose at us for some time.

‘It’s important, Mr Fontaine,’ I said, growing impatient. ‘Is she here?’

With a theatrical sigh and a shake of his lank black hair, he disappeared behind a curtain at the back of the store. A moment later Miss Cousture appeared.

‘Good day, Mr Arrowood,’ she said quietly as she swept through the curtains. She was wearing a high-waisted black skirt, a white blouse rolled to her sleeves, her hair pinned up on her head. She nodded at me. ‘Mr Barnett.’

Mr Fontaine appeared behind her and stood by the curtain, his arms crossed.

She flicked her eyes at her employer as if to warn us not to talk. There followed a silence. Her pale cheeks coloured. She looked at her boots.

‘Would you mind if we have a private moment with the lady, sir?’ asked the guvnor finally. Noticing that his tie had blown over his shoulder from the breezy street, I stepped forward and flipped it back. He took a quick backward swipe at me.

‘This is my studio, sir,’ said the man with a sniff. He rubbed his long nose quickly. ‘The name above the door is mine, not the lady’s. If you have something to say, get on and say it.’

‘Then will you come outside, madam?’

‘Oh, putain, Eric!’ she cursed, turning to her employer. ‘One moment, that is all!’

On the lips of this fine woman, the profanity turned the air cold. Fontaine threw his head back and ducked behind the curtain. We heard his angry footsteps on the stairs.

The guvnor pulled a chair from behind the counter and lowered himself down with a wince. He rubbed his feet through his tight boots. For some time he didn’t speak.

‘We need to ask you a few more questions, miss,’ he said at last.

‘Of course. But I tell you all I know.’

‘We must know what trouble your brother was in,’ he said, a pained smile on his red face. ‘Any small thing he might have said. Please be quite open with us.’

‘Of course.’

‘Did you know his friend Martha?’

She shook her head.

‘His sweetheart. You didn’t know about her?’

‘I never heard the name.’

‘Well, Miss Cousture, I’m afraid to say she was murdered this afternoon.’

We watched as her face turned from surprise to sadness. She gripped the counter and lowered herself onto the stool.

‘We had an appointment to meet but someone got to her first,’ explained the guvnor.

She nodded slowly.

‘We also discovered there was some trouble in the Barrel of Beef just before Thierry disappeared. The only clue we have is that it might involve an American. Did Thierry mention any such thing to you?’

‘An American?’ she said, a disappointed tone in her voice. ‘No, never. What is the name?’

‘We don’t have a name. All we know is that the day your brother disappeared there was an argument involving an American. We don’t even know for sure Thierry was involved. But please think again. Did anything happen before he disappeared? Was there any change in him?’

‘Only when he comes to me for money. The last time I see him, I tell you he’s scared.’ She paused, her eyes travelling quickly from the guvnor to me and back again. ‘Do you think he’s dead? Is that what you mean by “trouble”?’

The guvnor took her hand and held it.

‘It’s too early to think of that, miss.’

She was about to speak again when Mr Fontaine swept back through the curtain. This time he would not be budged.

We walked back towards Waterloo. The air was still and a fog had descended.

‘Barnett,’ said the guvnor at length. ‘Was there anything that struck you as odd about what we’ve just seen?’

I thought for a bit, trying to guess what he’d noticed.

‘Not as I could say,’ I said at last.

‘Tell me, if Mrs Barnett had disappeared without taking her clothes or her papers, and you’d appointed a detective, and let’s imagine that two days later the detective came to see you. You’re quite mad with worry, remember.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What would be the first thing you would say to him?’

‘I suppose I’d ask if he’d found her.’

‘Exactly, Barnett.’ His brow tensed. ‘Exactly.’

The guvnor continued home to ponder this development, while I returned to the White Eagle. I had myself a bowl of oysters and then a plate of mutton as I waited, and then a glass of porter, and then another. It was a noisy night, and I was happy enough to sit in the corner and watch my fellow citizens larking about under the great looking glass as stretched the length of the ceiling. Later on, the match-seller trudged in. He looked at no one as he made his way across the syrupy floor, but held his face in a rictus in case he should launch into some anarchic pantomime. He paid, took his glass, and went to hide in his usual corner behind the glass panel.

When the crowd began to thin, Ernest stumbled in and stood at the same place at the bar as before. He took himself a gin and drank it quick, his back hunched over the counter. He wore the same thick clothes as before, and didn’t appear to see anyone around him except the barmaid, who slammed his drink before him as if he’d insulted her mother.

‘Good to see you again, my friend,’ I said, placing a second glass before him. ‘Come sit at my table. I could do with a bit of company.’

He looked up with confusion in his eyes. He glanced at the gin, then back at me. A trickle of blood from his gums ran down his single remaining front tooth.

‘Eh?’ he said at last.

‘We met the other night, Ernest. Here. Two nights ago.’

Slowly, his watery eyes cleared and he seemed to remember me. He pulled himself upright. Then he became suspicious.

‘I ain’t got no money,’ he declared, before quickly swallowing the whole glass in one.

‘Come over. I’ll get you some oysters.’

‘What is it you want?’

I lowered my voice. The cab driver I’d seen before was leaning against the bar in the corner, talking with the barmaid.

‘I want some information is all.’

He shook his head.

‘I don’t know nothing. I should never have spoke to you the first time.’

He turned away from me. From behind the glass partition an arm flailed, followed by an irritated growl. A group of young men, their faces and hands black with coal dust, came over to look at the source, and the sight of the tortured match-seller trying to suppress his mania made them laugh. They returned to their table, but the ruckus went on for minutes. From behind the screen came another strangled yowl and a foul curse from the ticcing man, which made the young men burst into a second, louder round of laughter.

‘Let me get you another drink,’ I said to the sculleryman. Before he could refuse, I gestured to the barmaid and placed a nice mug of gin in his raw fist.

‘Let’s sit. You look like you need to get the weight off your feet. You’ve been working hard, Ernest.’

He followed me meekly to the table.

‘Did you ever see Thierry’s sister at the Beef?’ I asked when we were sat down. ‘Good looker, dark hair? French, as you might suppose.’

He breathed in sharply, then quickly swallowed his gin.

‘Not as I ever saw. Never saw him with any woman but Martha.’

‘What about the American? What did you hear about him?’

‘You said oysters?’ he said, folding his arms over his matted coat.

I went to get him a bowl and another mug of gin. He’d got through half of it and survived a short burping fit before I asked him again.

‘Mr Cream has plenty of business acquaintances,’ he replied. ‘They was in day after day. Some of them you’d recognize, but this one I never seen before. Bald, with black hair around the crown. Black beard. Blue eyes that pierced you. I took them up some coffee and he almost stared right through me. There was an Irishman with him. I seen him in the place a few times before. Little fellow with a big voice. Stringy yellow hair. One of his ears was cut off. Horrible-looking he was.’

‘And you don’t know his business, I suppose.’

‘They talk business in the office, not the scullery.’

‘I need to know anyone else Terry was tight with, Ernest. Who did he talk to? Give me some names.’

‘I give you a name last time. Martha. Ask her.’

‘I need another name.’

‘I’ve given you a name!’ he protested, chafing now that he was flushed through with gin. ‘Ask Martha. If anybody knows anything, it’ll be her.’

I leaned in to him and whispered, ‘She’s dead, Ern. Murdered on her way to work this evening.’

His mouth fell open; he stared at me with his rheumy eyes. It seemed as if his pickled brain couldn’t absorb what I’d told him.

‘Did you hear me? Murdered. That’s why I need to talk to somebody else.’

Slowly, fear took him over. His arm trembled, his eyes blinked fast. He swallowed his gin; I gestured for another.

When it arrived he shook his head.

‘I got to go, mister,’ he said. His voice was strained. ‘I don’t know nothing.’

He made a move to rise; I held his wrist fast.

‘A name, Ern. One name. Someone he might have talked to. Who did he work next to? Who in the Beef did he spend most time with?’

‘I suppose Harry.’ He was talking quick now, looking around him at each noise. ‘You could try him. One of the junior cooks. He worked in the same part of the kitchen.’

‘And what does he look like?’

‘Very thin. Unnatural thin, he is, and his eyebrows are dark but his hair’s yellow. You can’t miss him.’

I let go of his wrist.

‘Thank you, Ernest.’

In a flash he was up and scurrying out of the gin-house. As I rose, I felt someone’s eyes on me. I turned. The bald head of the match-seller had appeared around the side of the glass partition, and he was staring at me with curiosity. He sniffed, his shoulders twitched, and he disappeared back into his hole.

Chapter Six

The next morning, I found the guvnor alone in his parlour. His face was red and had a peculiar shine to it as if he’d been buffed by a cleaning maid.

‘She’s out,’ he declared the minute I stepped in from the shop. ‘She’s at an organizing meeting with the others.’

‘Organizing? What’s she organizing?’

‘They’re to visit the poor. Now, what did you discover last night?’

I told him about the junior cook, Harry. Since neither of us had any particular inclination to show our face in the Barrel of Beef, he summoned Neddy and instructed him to take a note. The note was signed ‘Mr Locksher’, the guvnor’s usual alias, and promised a reward of a shilling for ‘a very quick job indeed’. Harry was to come that night, after his work was over, to Mrs Willows’ coffeehouse on Blackfriars Road, the only one open until such a late hour. ‘Your friend from across the Channel suggested your name’ was all the explanation offered. Neddy was under instruction to hold tight to that note and not to give it to anyone other than the fellow called Harry. We told him to look out for the thin man with black eyebrows and yellow hair, and to walk direct into the kitchen and not to tell anybody who had sent him.

The boy scampered off while the guvnor refilled his pipe. When he had it lit again, he looked at me sadly.

‘What do you think about the girl’s death, Barnett? Do you think it was Jack on the prowl again?’

‘It doesn’t seem like it.’

‘Indeed. This murder wasn’t Jack’s work. His killings were all of a similar character. He did his work in solitary places. He preferred to butcher the bodies, and this takes time.’

I waited, knowing from the way he stared into the air that there was more to come.

‘I’ve been thinking about this man,’ he continued. ‘First, there’s his precision. He hurries to the church, delivers three deadly blows and runs into the crowd. He leaves nothing, no clues, no knife. He’s rapid and careful, so we can assume it isn’t an act of passion. Neither was it robbery. A robber wouldn’t choose a poor girl as his victim, not in daylight, and not on a busy street.’

‘He wouldn’t have time to search her pockets.’

‘Quite so.’ He puffed on his pipe and thought. ‘And his clothes. He wears a winter coat when it’s summer. It’s too big for him. Therefore he’s either a man of little means or in disguise. Tell me, as you chased, did he look back?’

‘Not once. I had my eyes on him all the time until I lost him. I only saw the side of his face as he turned the corner.’

‘He didn’t turn his head once to determine whether he was pursued?’

I shook my head.

‘Tell me, if you’d murdered a person on a busy street and fled, how would you feel?’

‘My blood would be up, I suppose. I’d be anxious not be caught.’

‘Yes, yes, and would you turn your head to see if you were being pursued?’

‘I reckon so.’

‘You wouldn’t be able to stop your head turning, Barnett. Your strong emotions would make you do it. This man isn’t like you. He’s used to controlling his emotions. So what is he? A hired assassin? A police officer?’

‘A soldier?’

He nodded, placing his pipe in the ash dish and pushing himself out of the chair.

‘That’s a start. And now we’ll go and visit Lewis. I don’t want to be here when Ettie resumes her reorganization of my life, and you’d better not be here either else she’ll begin on yours.’

Lewis Schwartz was the proprietor of a dark weaponry shop not far from Southwark Bridge. It was where people came with pistols and shotguns they desired to sell; it was where people came when they needed to buy some self-protection. It wasn’t a business I’d have wished to be in: I could only imagine the criminals who came and went from this boutique, but Lewis was as solid and unaffected by the danger of his trade as the river walls that seeped their yellow pus into the bricks of his dark shop. He was a fat man with one missing arm and stringy grey hair that fell onto his grimy collar. The guvnor and him were old friends. He used to go to Lewis when he needed information for the newspaper and, since we’d become private agents, he continued to help us from time to time. The guvnor always brought a packet of mutton or roasted beef or a bit of liver from the cookshop, which he would slap on the little table foul with grease. I was in the habit of standing back on these occasions, just as I did now, my mind imagining all the diseases whose traces could no doubt be found on the mud-black hands of our friend.

Today, Lewis ate carefully, chewing on one side of his mouth only.

‘You got tooth problems?’ I asked him.

‘One of the devils is playing me up.’

‘Let me see,’ demanded the guvnor.

Lewis opened his mouth and tipped back his head. The guvnor winced.

‘That tooth is black. You must have it pulled.’

‘I’m mustering my courage.’

‘Sooner the better,’ said the guvnor.

It was only when the beef was finished, and the fingers wiped on the trousers of these two old friends, that the guvnor fished in his waistcoat pocket and pulled out the bullet.

‘Any idea who might use a bullet such as this, Lewis?’

Lewis put on his eyeglasses and held it under the lamp.

‘Very nice,’ he murmured, turning the bullet this way and that, rubbing its shaft with his fingers. ‘It’s a .303. Smokeless. But how did you come by something like this, William?’

‘A dying girl gave it to me,’ said the guvnor. ‘A young innocent girl, murdered before our eyes. And we mean to find out who killed her. Do you know what type of gun it’s from, Lewis?’

‘The new Lee-Enfield repeating rifles.’ Lewis handed the bullet back. ‘Military rifles, only issued to a few regiments so far. This is no huntsman’s rifle. She must have got it from a soldier. Did she have a sweetheart?’

‘He was no soldier.’

‘Then another man. Was she a whore, William?’

‘She was not a whore!’ cried the guvnor.

Lewis looked at him in surprise.

‘Why are you angry?’ he asked. ‘Did you know her?’

‘I don’t understand why everyone assumes she was a whore. She worked in the Barrel of Beef.’

‘She might have been given it by a customer,’ I said, understanding that the guvnor had attached the same purity to Martha as he attached to his wife.

‘Why would a customer give a girl a bullet?’ asked Lewis, his nose twitching. ‘A tip, now that would be one thing. But why a bullet?’

The guvnor shook his head and stood.

‘That’s what we have to find out,’ he said.

As we reached the door, a match flared. The guvnor turned back. Lewis sat hunched in his chair at the back of the shop, surrounded by boxes of bullets and sheaves of gunpowder, a glowing pipe in his mouth.

‘One day you’ll blow yourself up,’ the guvnor said to his friend. ‘I’ve warned you about this for years. Why do you never listen?’

Lewis waved him away.

‘If I started to worry now I’d have to sell up this shop and become a potato-man,’ he said. ‘You should see some of the individuals I have to deal with. One spark and they would explode themselves. Next to them, this is nothing.’

*

Late that night, we waited in Mrs Willows’ coffeehouse. I watched the street outside ebb and flow in the mud and the brown rain, the night-time people stagger and shriek, the horses clop by, their heads low and weary. Midnight passed and the dark new day took its place outside the grimy window. The guvnor read the newspapers like a glutton. He started with Punch, stowing Lloyd’s Weekly and the Pall Mall Gazette under his thighs. On the next table, a thin fellow with the uniform of an undertaker ate a packet of whelks and watched him unhappily, waiting for the chance of a read before he wandered home. But the guvnor took his time, reading every column, every page, then just when it seemed he was finished he went back to the beginning and began scanning the columns again.

‘Look at this, Barnett,’ he said, holding up a cartoon. It was of a tall Irish peasant holding a knife over a cringing English gentleman. The caption read: The Irish Frankenstein. ‘They’re printing these cartoons again. You see what they do? The Irish have monkeys’ faces, covered in hair. The Englishman is defenceless. Good God, why does this never change? Why will they not see our own aggression?’

‘I suppose they don’t want to see it, sir.’

The undertaker cleared his throat and nodded at the paper. The guvnor lit his pipe, then without a word thrust the paper at the man, before lifting his leg and continuing on to the Gazette.

Finally, the door swung open and in walked our man. He stood in the doorway, his long thin arms protruding from a brown woollen coat that was too long in the body and too short in the limbs. His yellow hair was tucked into a grey cloth cap pulled down over his ears. He looked at the undertaker, at Mrs Willows standing in the door to the kitchen, then at us. His black eyebrows twitched.

‘Mr Harry,’ I said, standing. ‘This is Mr Locksher. Have a sit down. You want a coffee?’

He nodded and sat on a stool.

‘What’s the job?’ he asked.

‘We have a parcel for your friend, Thierry,’ said the guvnor softly, leaning across the table. ‘Only we can’t find him.’

Harry stood.

‘You said a job. That ain’t no job far as I can see.’

‘We’ll pay you for the information.’

He looked back and forth between us for a moment, chewing his lip.

‘No.’

He was turning to leave when I grasped his arm.

‘Let go,’ he demanded, his bristly face pinched. Under the thick wool of his coat, I could feel the bones of his arm: he was thin as a workhouse pensioner. His skin was grey, the rims of his eyes red. The bones of his jaw were sharp like a skull.

It was no trouble to shove him back down on the stool. He was a good few inches taller than me but weak as a sparrow.

The undertaker quickly rose, shoved the remains of his whelks into his pocket, and made his exit. Mrs Willows brought over the coffee, her face calm like nothing was happening.

‘You be nice, Mr Barnett,’ she murmured.

‘We intend to be very nice to the gentleman, Rena,’ said the guvnor.

‘I don’t know nothing,’ said the man. ‘Honest. I can’t help you. He’s gone. Went off a few days ago now. Probably gone back to France. That’s all I can think.’ He glanced up at me. ‘That’s all I can say, sirs.’

‘You’re a thin man for a cook,’ the guvnor observed.

‘Cook’s helper. I do the peelings mostly. Pull the bones out the fishes. I ain’t no big cook.’

The guvnor leaned over the table suddenly and shoved his hand in the man’s coat pocket. Before Harry could respond, he pulled out a greasy packet and dropped it on the table.

‘It’s a pudding,’ said Harry, his tone defensive. ‘Half a pudding.’

‘What’s in there?’ asked the guvnor, indicating the other pocket.

‘Couple of spuds. Bit of a ham bone. They was going to throw it.’

‘I doubt that,’ I said, having a bit of a look in his pocket. ‘Ain’t nothing wrong with that food. Even if it was on the turn, they’d sell it in the Skirt or outside to those as sleep in the alley.’

‘Don’t tell him, mister. Please. I’ll take it all back. Last thing I need right now is to be out of a job.’

‘No need for that, sir,’ said the guvnor. ‘We’re not on friendly terms with your employer.’

‘Why are you so thin?’ I asked. ‘Are you sick?’

‘If six children be called a sickness. And one of them only two this month.’

‘But you’ve a regular job,’ said the guvnor. ‘Is your wife alive?’

The man nodded, his eyes twitching towards the window where a hansom trotted past.

‘Doesn’t she feed you?’

The knuckle in Harry’s gullet rose as he swallowed.

‘I can’t help you,’ he said.

‘We do mean to give you a shilling, Harry,’ said the guvnor, his voice gentle. ‘We’re investigative agents, working for Mr Thierry’s family. They say he’s gone missing. They’re worried.’

Harry continued to stare out the window, unsure whether to trust us.

‘We couldn’t come to the Beef because Mr Cream has a particular dislike for us,’ continued the guvnor. ‘That’s why we sent the boy.’

For another minute, Harry considered it. Then he rose.

‘I can’t help you. Thierry just left. I ain’t heard from him since, and even if I did know something I don’t know as I’d tell you. I don’t want to be mixed up in what ain’t got nothing to do with me.’

Yet he didn’t leave. The guvnor looked at him in silence, his face puckered in thought.

‘We were there when Martha was stabbed, Harry,’ he said at last. ‘She was waiting to meet us. I held her until the constable arrived.’

The cook froze. His eyes filled with brine. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he let me support him as he sat back down.

‘We think that had something to do with Thierry going missing,’ the guvnor went on. ‘We’re going to find out who killed her. But we need information.’

‘You were there?’

‘She asked us to meet her. She wanted to tell us something.’

All of a sudden Harry began to talk quick. He leaned across the table, his voice low as if not wishing Mrs Willows to hear. ‘Something was happening at the Beef,’ he said. ‘Not the usual. Something bigger. I don’t know what for sure, but there was a gang of them in and out of there. Mr Cream asked Terry to go and get a delivery for him last week. I told him not to go but you never can say no to Mr Cream. Not if you want to work there, you can’t. One day they come in, two of them, up to Mr Cream’s office and start wrecking it. We could hear it from the kitchen. Not a one of Mr Cream’s men went up to stop them. Not Mr Piser, not Long Lenny, not Boots. They all stands down next to the front bar, quiet as mice.’

‘Who were they?’

Harry shook his head.

‘Were they American?’

‘And Irish, but that’s all I know. It was secret. They come in and go straight upstairs, never a word to anybody, like they was in charge.’

‘Come, Harry,’ said the guvnor. ‘Think. You must have heard something about them.’

‘There was some talk of them being burglars. You know Mr Cream’s a fence, I suppose? Somebody reckoned they was doing the big houses up in Bloomsbury and so on. The big houses around Hyde Park as well, the ministers’ houses, the embassies too. Jewellery and silver. You know, things easy to move on. That’s where Mr Cream comes in. That’s the whisper I heard. Didn’t hear any names.’

‘Why did they turn over his office?’

He shrugged. ‘Could of been any reason. He swindled them. Let slip something to the coppers. Made a promise he couldn’t keep. Could of been anything.’

‘What did Martha have to do with it?’

‘Nothing, far as I know. Except Mr Piser was always sweet on her. That’s the only connection far as I can see. But she was sweet on Terry. Mr Piser, well, he didn’t like it.’

‘Did they have an argument?’ asked the guvnor.

‘Mr Piser never had an argument with no one. Doesn’t talk enough to argue.’

‘Why do you think she was murdered, Harry?’

He drained his coffee and straightened his back.

‘Probably on account of going to meet you,’ he said, holding the guvnor’s eye. ‘That’d be my guess, sir.’

The guvnor looked like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. I don’t know why. He knew it as well as I, knew it the minute we saw the girl lying on the church path. Sure as day we’d gotten her killed.

‘Tell us about Terry’s friends,’ I said. ‘Know any of them?’

‘I only know him from the kitchen. Don’t know what he does outside.’

‘You never talked about his life?’

‘I know he went out drinking, but I couldn’t say who with. Never had the money myself to go out for a spree.’

‘Where did he go? Which pubs?’

‘Sorry, sir. I don’t recall him ever saying.’

I gave Harry his shilling along with a little ticket with the guvnor’s address on it.

‘If you hear anything else.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, standing. He pointed at the pudding. ‘Can I take it?’

‘Course you can. Take it all.’

‘And you won’t tell no one you talked to me, will you?’

‘You have our word,’ said the guvnor. ‘But tell me, Harry. How long has your wife’s drinking been a burden?’

Harry’s mouth fell open.

‘Her . . .’ he began, but seemed unable to continue.

‘You tolerate her so far?’ continued the guvnor, then left his special silence that I knew well enough by now not to fill. He looked kindly at the thin man, who shifted from foot to foot. Finally, Harry cracked.

‘But how did you know? Somebody tell you, did they?’

‘Nobody told me, my friend. I saw it in you.’

‘It ain’t easy, sir. I don’t get no sleep, what with the youngsters. But I work such long days, she got no one to discipline her. And the old crow next door leads her astray.’

The guvnor stood and grasped his hand. ‘Such things are sent to test us. I know you have the strength to pass the test, Harry, but you must nourish yourself. You’re too weak to be a proper father. You must eat more.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Harry, his eyes on the floor, ashamed.

‘Thank you for your help.’

When he was gone, we stood and wrapped ourselves up in our coats. The sky was clear, but though it was summer the air was cold. Mrs Willows cleaned and swept and turned out the lamps.

‘How did you know about his wife?’ I asked as we stepped out onto the pavement. On the other side of the road a copper walked his beat.

‘I sensed it, Barnett.’

‘Give over. How did you really know?’

‘How much do you think a junior cook makes? Thirty shillings a month? Forty? It’s enough to feed his family and pay for their room without him starving himself. Yet he steals food and risks a job that he badly needs. It must mean his money’s going elsewhere. He doesn’t have the money to go drinking himself, he told us that much. So where?’

‘Plenty of other places,’ I said. ‘Gambling debts, maybe.’

‘Too sensible for that. He was very careful in what he told us until we gained his trust. That doesn’t speak of a gambler. But did you see how he looked away when confessing his wife was alive? Did you notice how he changed the subject when I asked if she fed him?’

‘She might have been bed-bound. She might have been put away.’

‘He would have told us if she was ill. There’s no shame in illness – half of London is ill. Drinking was a guess, Barnett. I admit it. But this city is drowning in drink. It was a good guess.’

‘A lucky guess.’

He laughed.

‘I’m a lucky man, Barnett. In some respects.’

As we wandered back through the early morning streets, past the piles of bodies wrapped in rags outside the workhouse and the cab station where an old fellow swept up a great pile of horse manure, he laughed again. His hollow laugh echoed in the quiet street like a thunderclap.

Chapter Seven

I arrived the next morning to find Ettie in a considerable fury.

‘Were you out drinking with him?’ she demanded. ‘He hasn’t been home since yesterday!’

‘No, Ettie. I wasn’t.’

It seemed as if the room had grown in size since the last time until I realized that all his stacks of newspapers were gone.

‘Did he go to a woman? Is that what he did?’

‘We met a man about the case around midnight. I parted with him at the corner of Union Street, not five minutes from here. He said he was going home.’

‘The truth?’ she asked sternly.

‘The truth.’

She looked me steady in the eye, her nostrils flaring with each intake of the fresh London air.

‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘Perhaps he’s been garrotted, then. It would serve him right.’

I shook my head. ‘There’s a place he goes when he’s upset. An all-night oasis, he calls it. I think he’ll be there.’

Ettie raised her eyes and sighed.

‘What’s upset him this time?’

‘He blames himself for the death of the serving girl. The man we questioned last night said as much. I reckon he wouldn’t have taken it half as bad if the girl didn’t remind him of Isabel, though. You know, he held her off the ground until the police surgeon arrived – wouldn’t leave her on the wet path. He near enough wept in front of the crowd.’

She thought for some time.

‘Has he been drinking since Isabel left?’

‘Not constant. Occasional. Not constant at all.’

She shook her head with impatience. ‘This city is awash with drink. Bottles and jugs are the soldiers of Lucifer, Norman. The poor are in its thrall, according to Reverend Hebden. The working men drink up the children’s food and batter each other and end up standing in the dock. The women scream and fight. They lose their husbands and walk the street. The Ripper was God’s punishment for the drink, there can be no doubt about that. Chinese gin is the latest thing, did you know? And good men like my brother fall into its arms at times of vulnerability. You do not drink yourself, I hope?’

‘In moderation.’

She nodded, stooping to pick up a feather from the floor.

‘We have a fight on our hands, Norman. I’m with Reverend Hebden. The city’s been a monster to the poor. Have you read the accounts of Charles Booth?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘He says it all. We’re currently ministering to a filthy place called Cutler’s Court. Have you heard of it?’

I shook my head. We stood in the middle of the room, facing each other. She held her back straight, her arms crossed. Her face was solemn as she explained:

‘Over four hundred people living in twenty small houses, and on each side a slaughterhouse. Ten souls asleep in each room. One standing pipe for water and two latrines. Can you imagine? And everywhere you look are piles of oyster shells and bones.’

I could imagine. I had lived in such a place myself not twenty years before. I knew this city. I knew all its evils and all its games.

‘All the dirty trades surround these quarters,’ she went on. ‘The waste from the slaughterhouses sinks into a ditch which runs through the centre of the court. And this is where they empty their toilet pans. The stink’s an insult to Jesus, Norman. The whole court is owned by one man who refuses to install more sanitation. One landlord. But we are there.’

Ettie spoke with passion, and for the first time I caught sight of the spirit which drove her. I felt I understood her a little better for it. She looked at me in silence, expecting an equally strong reply, but I knew that on this subject I’d have to fail her. Though I’d left the court-dwellers behind long ago, I couldn’t talk of them as strangers.

‘What do you do there?’ I asked instead.

‘We campaign for improvements. We help. We pray for guidance. There’s a programme that our organization follows across London – we teach basic hygiene; we hold prayer meetings and provide medicines. The Ladies’ Association for the Care and Protection of Young Girls work closely with us. Do you know them?’

‘I’ve seen the women about town.’

‘I had little sense of the scale of the problem before I came here. You know that William and I were raised in . . .’ She hesitated, and a flush came to her cheek. ‘That is to say, our father had means.’

‘Yes, I knew that, Ettie.’

‘Of course. Anyway, half the women in the court work as prostitutes. In some families both mothers and daughters earn money this way. We try to help the younger ones. There are sanctuaries they can go where they’re taught to do useful work. We try and save them before it’s too late.’

‘Noble work, Ettie.’

‘It isn’t easy. The men don’t like them to be saved, so there’s trouble sometimes, but the poor are our burden and our responsibility. Such it says in the good book, Norman. The war is here. The war is in our backstreets and alleys.’

Her chest heaved with passion beneath the black bodice of her dress. Her forehead was red, and I was pleased when she hesitated and drew a slow breath. I didn’t want to hear any more about the people of the court, my people, for all the bad things they did I had done myself, or watched, or encouraged. I knew everything she described, but I knew it from the other side.

‘But now I worry for my brother. You know where he is, you say?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back.’

‘Very good.’ She turned to the stairs. ‘And tell him to bring some muffins. Hot ones, mind. Tell him to pay the full price.’

There was only one other punter in the Hog that morning, a great lascar with a knife in his belt and his hair tied back like a pirate. He lay asleep on a bench by the fire, snoring, his mouth hanging open. A fat woman stood by the counter, rinsing out glasses in a tin bucket. The place stank of tobacco smoke and the spilt beer that lay like a slick over the stone floor. The guvnor was sat upright at a table in the corner, his back to the door. In his clasped hands was a bottle of porter. It was only when I got up close I could see that his eyes were closed. I lay my hand on his shoulder and shook him. He groaned and protested.

‘I’ve instructions from your sister to return you,’ I said.

He opened his bleary eyes for a second to look in my direction, then immediately let his head fall onto the table.

I put my arm under his and hauled him up. He was heavy. He was heavier each time.

The woman tutted and sighed as I struggled with his leaden carcass.

Slowly, his feet began to shuffle in irregular steps. He groaned again and wiped his mouth; his eyes opened to slits; his red face puckered up. He belched in my ear. But at least he was walking, after a fashion.

‘Lovely making your acquaintance, Hamba,’ he mumbled at the sailor, who continued to snore on the wooden bench.

‘Take him with you, why don’t you?’ said the woman with a laugh.

The guvnor turned and bowed loosely at her.

‘A pleasure, my petal,’ he burbled.

‘I hope you ain’t thinking of leaving before you give Betts the crown you owe her, Mr Arrowood. She made me promise to collect it from you.’

‘Ah,’ he spluttered, fumbling in his waistcoat for his coins, ‘of course, yes.’

The coins spilled onto the floor. I scooped them up, gave the woman a crown, then stuffed the rest into his pocket.

Without letting go of my arm, he bowed once more. When we gained the street he grunted at the sudden light and covered his eyes.

‘Carry me, Barnett.’

‘Walk on.’

‘I’m suffering.’

‘As am I, but I don’t deserve it.’

We plodded and swayed through the busy streets. When we reached his rooms behind the pudding shop, Ettie was sitting upright darning a sock in his favourite chair. A look of great disappointment crossed her face.

‘Do you need help getting him upstairs?’

‘I’m fine, Sister,’ he grunted, only now letting loose my arm and standing by himself. ‘Help me up the stairs, Barnett.’

It was a struggle to get up the narrow staircase, but finally we gained the top and he fell onto his mattress, panting and clutching his forehead. I was breathing heavy myself now.

‘Barnett,’ he slurred as I turned back to the stairs. ‘Is Nolan out of prison?’

‘Out last week.’

‘Go see him.’

I’d decided the very same myself the night before when I guessed the guvnor would be sloping off to the Hog after leaving me, but I didn’t tell him that. It wasn’t our way.

‘Get me the chamber pot,’ he mumbled.

‘Get it yourself,’ I said as I set off down the stairs.

He was snoring before I reached the bottom.

Ettie watched me in despair.

‘One moment, Norman,’ she said, as I reached the door. ‘Did you get muffins as I asked?’

‘I’m sorry. I had my hands full.’

‘Quite so.’

Her mouth turned down in sadness: Ettie enjoyed her food just as much as the guvnor.

‘You must ask Mrs Barnett to come to a meeting,’ she said. ‘Reverend Hebden is always looking for new recruits. She’d find it enriching, I’m sure. I shall tell you the time of the next one.’

‘Thank you, Ettie.’

Her eyes narrowed as a queer noise came from her stomach. Next moment, a light flush came to her cheeks.

‘That’s arranged, then,’ she said, picking up her darning again. We both pretended we hadn’t heard the gurgle in her innards.

Nolan lived in two rooms of a lodging house on Cable Street. He was an old friend of mine from Bermondsey days. His business had always been just the other side of the law, and we often went to him if we wanted to know about things as were happening in the Irish parts of town. A few days ago he’d come out from fourteen moons’ stir for the theft of an overcoat from a Chinaman on the Mile End Road. Now he was back in his old life, fencing carriage clocks and cooking pots to the good women of Whitechapel.

‘You ain’t looking so good,’ he said, as we sat at the table. His wife Mary, his mother, and two cousins had been dispatched to the front room to allow our conference. Despite the sunshine outside, the back room was cold, the light from the window cut out by a taller building not five yards behind. He wore broken spectacles on his nose, one of the arms being a chewed pencil tied on with a thread of hairy string.

‘Apologies for not visiting you in the nick, mate,’ I said. ‘I’ve an aversion to criminals.’

‘Forgiven, Norman. How’s the old boy?’

‘Suffering after a night in the Hog.’

He laughed and slapped his thigh.

‘He never could absorb it. Weak body, that’s his problem. Weak stomach. Now, me old mate, what is it you’re after this time?’

‘You heard anything about a gang of Irish or Americans? Thieving from the big houses in the West End?’

He got up and closed the door. When he came back his smile was gone.

‘I’d leave that one alone, my friend. The two of you don’t want to be asking after them lot.’

‘It’s connected to a case.’

‘Well it might be, but you don’t want anything to do with them. Stay well away.’

‘The guvnor won’t do that. A girl’s been killed. He’s taken it personal. It seems as this gang is connected to—’

‘Don’t tell me any more!’ he barked, his spectacles falling from his face. ‘Did I say I wanted to know?’

I shook my head.

‘Right, here it is.’ He leaned over and collected his eyeglasses from the wooden floor. ‘Those lot are Fenians. You remember them?’

I nodded. Who in the country didn’t remember the Fenians? Ten years ago the city was in a panic for bombs exploding all over the shop. There were stories every day of new targets and plots foiled by the police. Explosives had been planted in the underground railway, London Bridge, even the Houses of Parliament. People were so scared they stopped using the trains. The guvnor himself had written many a story for the paper on the hunt for the skirmishers and the Irish Americans behind it all. They’d brought the fight for Ireland to the heart of England, and all of us who lived here knew it.

‘But I thought they’d given up?’

‘Most of them did, but a few of them went their own way, like. Them as still believe the only thing the British will listen to is war. I heard they were connected to the burglaries in some way. And that’s all I heard.’

‘Names?’

‘I only ever heard one name. Fellow called Paddler Bill. One of the Invincibles, they say. You remember them?’

‘The assassins?’

‘That’s them. He was one that got away, never even named at the trial. Big, red-haired fellow – not as I ever seen him myself. They say he carries the executions of those men with him still. That’s why he keeps up the fight. Killed his brother for informing, so they say. Killed him in a sweet factory. Boiled him up in toffee.’

I shivered.

‘Christ, Nolan. I don’t like this case.’

‘These are people you don’t want to anger,’ he said. ‘Stay well away.’

He watched me as I thought about it, as I wondered if I could persuade the guvnor the case was too much for us. But I knew that was a fantasy: once he gave his word he’d never give up.

‘Why housebreaking?’ I asked at last. ‘What’s that to do with the campaign?’

‘For the money, I shouldn’t wonder. Costs money to fight a war.’

‘And you don’t know any other names?’

‘Don’t know nothing about the others. And before you say anything, I ain’t going to ask around neither. Those lot ain’t afraid of tying a person up and dropping him in the river on a cold night and that’s a fact.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, Nolan.’

He shook his head, jamming his hands in his pockets. A cat appeared from behind the oven and padded up to him, rubbing its side on his trouser leg. He kicked it away.

‘Mary’s Irish, too, ain’t she?’ I asked.

‘She was born here. Her mother and father, they come over after the famine, but they don’t know nothing about these Fenians. Most of them lot’s American.’

‘What does she think of them?’

‘Her cousin Kate’s the one goes to all the land reform meetings. But the whole lot of them’s for a free Ireland. Father was too, before he croaked.’

‘How couldn’t they be, living with you?’

More than once, Nolan had bent my ear on self-government. He’d come over himself during the depression twenty years ago; his brother who stayed behind was thrown into Tralee gaol for helping tenant farmers resist eviction. The more he’d told me about what was happening over in Ireland the more ashamed I was at what my people were doing. The guvnor was with Nolan on this, and that was one of the reasons they’d grown to have such respect for each other.

‘A lot of yours see us as no more than filth,’ said Nolan, nodding. ‘There are plenty of law-abiding Irish round here, mate. Not me, of course, but plenty of others, yet any crime that’s done, they says it’s us. If there’s work we’re the last to get taken on. Our people got good cause to take against you. But listen, Norman. I’ll be for the liberation of my country till I die, but I don’t go along with the bombs. Never have done.’

He crossed his arms and shook his head, and from the look on his face I could see he was about to start up on some more serious talk. But just then the door squeaked open and his Mary’s head appeared. ‘Potboy’s here, lads,’ she said.

Nolan made a noise like he’d been holding his breath. He smiled.

‘You want a drop o’ porter with me?’ he asked.

I had a bit of porter with him and Mary, and then she went out for whelks. Still I couldn’t persuade him to make any enquiries. He was frightened of these Fenians. And Nolan wasn’t usually frightened of anything.

Chapter Eight

There had been an accident outside The Fontaine when we arrived that evening. A horse had fallen over and died, pulling its carriage onto its side. A lady was sitting on a step howling, blood all over her face and a posy of flowers in her hand, while the cabman tried to uncouple the carriage from the horse’s corpse. A crowd had gathered to poke at the horse and stare at the howling woman. The guvnor bent down to her as we passed.

‘Are you hurt, miss?’ he asked, holding out his handkerchief. ‘Here, take this.’

Her crying calmed as she peered through her teary eyes at the guvnor, then at the tattered red cloth. Seeing the tobacco stains and the dangling threads crusted with who knows what, she shuddered and turned away.

He quickly pocketed his rag.

‘Can I send for someone?’ he asked.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she hissed, covering her face with her hands. ‘I don’t need your help.’

He tapped his stick against his boots and nodded, a look of sadness on his face. He didn’t seem to know what to do.

‘Come along, sir,’ I said, taking his arm. ‘Cabman’ll sort her out.’

Eric stood in the window of the studio, watching the crowd. As we pushed open the door he stepped quickly behind his counter. He wore a spotted cravat and a high-collared shirt of some yellow fabric. He recognized the guvnor immediately.

‘Ah, sir, you’ve come to make an appointment for your portrait. I’m so pleased. I’d absolutely relish the opportunity to record your noble features for posterity. You’ve precisely the profile that I’m in this business for.’

‘Well, yes, indeed,’ burbled the guvnor, blown off course by this rare flattery. I’d never heard anyone describe his great potato head in such a way before. Never before.

‘When did you have in mind?’ asked Fontaine. ‘Mmm?’

He had opened his appointments book and taken up his quill.

‘But first, we’d appreciate a short meeting with Miss Cousture, sir,’ said the guvnor. ‘If that’s not too much trouble. Only a brief meeting.’

Fontaine’s firm lips drooped, revealing two front teeth that overhung his bottom lip like a hare.

‘She isn’t here. She went out for soup several hours ago and didn’t return. And if you see her you can tell her I’m very close to finding another assistant. You know, sir, I hired a woman because I believe in the emancipation of the female species.’

‘My sister, also,’ said the guvnor firmly.

‘Well, this is how I am treated.’

He had got irked, just for a moment, and it was then his accent slipped. I could distinctly hear a flavour of Irish in his vowels. The guvnor shot me a glance.

‘It certainly does you credit, sir,’ replied the guvnor. ‘How long did you say she’s been working here?’

Fontaine sighed and raised his quill.

‘You said an appointment?’

The guvnor nodded and looked around the portraits on the wall. ‘You have a very fine eye,’ he said, scratching his chin. ‘I see such spirit in these people.’

‘That is my goal as an artist,’ replied Fontaine seriously. He pointed to a portrait of a soldier that hung behind the counter. ‘This one is my finest.’

‘Ah! It is indeed a work of art,’ declared the guvnor.

Fontaine gazed at it for some time.

‘You have a good eye yourself, sir,’ he said, turning to the guvnor.

‘I wonder if perhaps you might have time now for my portrait?’

‘Why, yes! I believe I do. Just enough time before my next sitting, I believe. Come, come.’ He gestured for the guvnor to go through the black curtain. ‘Enter! A man like yourself should absolutely have a representation of his fine visage for his hallway, or his drawing room, or perhaps his library – absolutely!’

He was still talking as he disappeared behind the heavy curtain. I waited a moment or two before taking the opportunity to explore the drawers of his counter. They were full of screws and plates and bulbs. In the bottom drawer, I found his accounts book, from which I learned that he’d begun to pay Miss Cousture in January of this year – not four months previous. I hunted for an address and eventually found it written on the back leaf of a small notebook.

The guvnor appeared twenty minutes later, his side-hair combed and greased down, his whiskers trimmed, his cravat tied neatly at his neck.

‘Yes, sir,’ Fontaine was saying. ‘One week. And your address?’

‘Fifty-nine Coin Street. Behind the shop.’

‘I’ll put a small frame around it, the same one as around the soldier’s portrait. Your sister will be most taken with the picture, I assure you.’ He held open the door. ‘No doubt at all, sir.’

‘Well, that was interesting, Barnett,’ said the guvnor as we turned the corner at the end of the street. ‘It would appear that our client was not introduced by her uncle the art dealer as she says. According to Mr Fontaine, it was a minister of the church who approached him – last Christmas, if you will. The minister offered the lady at half the wage Fontaine would have to pay anyone else. She knew nothing about the art of photography, it seems. Nothing at all. But, you know, a pretty face and the soft persuasion of the Church can make up for much.’

‘And the cheap labour.’

‘Indeed.’

‘He only began to pay her in January,’ said I. ‘Least that’s what his account book says.’

‘I see you’ve been busy too. And something else: Miss Cousture has turned down Mr Fontaine’s intimate advances, and yet he will not give up the possibility of bedding her.’

I laughed.

‘I’m amazed what people’ll tell you, sir.’

‘Oh, he didn’t tell me. I read it in him.’

‘You read it in him?’

‘Yes, Barnett. It seems that her disappearances are quite regular and unexpected. He told me as much. More regular than one would tolerate from an employee. Yet still he doesn’t dismiss her, despite his obvious anger. Why? As Mr Darwin tells us, we need look no further than man’s essential animal nature. It is because she’s beautiful and he yearns to find himself between her thighs, as I’m sure many men do. No doubt, given his position, he believes it’s his right. It isn’t his fault. It is the lion’s right to take the females of his pride, and Mr Fontaine is his own little lion. I’ve no doubt many shopkeepers on this street bed their assistants. The city is awash with little lions. It must stick in his craw that she doesn’t offer herself. It’s as if he’s purchased a beautiful cake, which sits all day on his counter. Yet he cannot eat it.’

‘Perhaps he’s married.’

‘Oh, Barnett, you’re quite sweet sometimes.’

‘How can you be so sure he desires her?’

‘Because she’s beautiful. I desired her. You desired her.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did, my friend. I saw you lose your usual brute composure in my room. Despite your commitment to the formidable Mrs Barnett, even you were taken by her.’

We had to stop as a costermonger pushed a wide cart piled with coats across the pavement and into an alley.

‘Your deductions are more like Sherlock Holmes than you think,’ I said when we were walking again.

‘No, Barnett. I decipher people. He deciphers secret codes and flowerbeds. That man and I are not alike, and frankly I’m getting tired of your jibes about him.’

I laughed to myself as we walked.

‘Why did she lie to us?’ I asked as we passed under the railway bridge.

‘I don’t know. And since Mr Fontaine wouldn’t agree to tell me where she lives, we’re going to have to wait until she reappears to find out. Another job for you, Barnett, tomorrow. Pray the rain doesn’t return.’

I held out the scrap of paper on which I’d scribbled the address.

‘Lucky I found this, then, sir.’

A smile broke over his ruddy face. He clapped me on the back.

‘Excellent, Barnett. Let’s hope she’s in.’

I noticed the fellow as we turned into Broad Wall. He wouldn’t have been a noticeable man ordinarily except he had a piece of torn, brown paper stuck to his trouser leg. I’d seen it earlier in the coffeehouse, and wondered as I drank my brew if it was stuck on there by a smear of treacle or somesuch. And there it was again, attached to the same man who was walking along the other side of the road looking up at the high windows.

‘Shall we turn down this alley, sir?’ I asked as we approached a narrow lane on our right.

‘But why?’

‘There’s a man might be trailing us. Don’t look back. He’s on the other side of the road. Medium size in a grey coat.’

The guvnor clenched his hands and bit his lip, itching to have a little peep as we made our way forward.

‘No, don’t,’ I said. ‘Don’t look.’

‘Yes, yes, Barnett,’ he replied, chafing against this restriction and trying hard to keep his eyes on the way ahead. He was limping with his tight shoes and puffing with his weight. ‘I heard you the first time.’

‘You were about to look.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

Presently, we reached the alley. It was a narrow, dark track, the workshops and factories on each side built high and leaning in towards each other as they rose to the grey sky. Most were closed for the night but a few had faint lights behind their grimy windows. Tired people trudged past us, their clothes thick and frayed, their eyes cast down. The ground beneath us alternated between gravel and mud. Up ahead, a cart was being loaded with crates. We continued past it, then turned again into an even smaller passage. We didn’t look back, and at the end turned into another alley, this one darker still. I pointed at a bend in the road ahead where a small wall jutted out.

‘Yes, ideal,’ said the guvnor.

We hurried towards it and concealed ourselves there, myself peeking out the way we’d come, the guvnor behind me, leaning against a door, catching his breath.

Very soon the man appeared, walking quick towards us.

‘He’s coming,’ I whispered.

‘Hold tight,’ murmured the guvnor.

There was a sudden noise behind us. The door the guvnor was leaning on was wrenched open and there stood a woman in rags holding a chamberpot full to the brim with a filthy stew. She looked taken aback to see two gentlemen standing on her doorstep awaiting the delivery of her family’s ordure. Perhaps unable to stop her muscles from doing what they were surely accustomed to doing at such a moment, she swung the pot back as if to chuck it into the street.

The guvnor, startled, backed away quick from the woman and straight into full view of our pursuer. Seeing him, the man turned and ran back the way he came.

‘Curses!’ exclaimed the guvnor, and as he spoke he received half the woman’s delivery on his trousers.

I set off after the man. As I turned the first corner I saw him running up ahead, dim against the black brick. All the way down I was gaining on him, so that by the time he reached the next alley I was sure I would catch him. He turned right, leading us further away from the lamps of Broad Wall, further into the maze of damp buildings. I was slowed by a cart trying to turn, the horse blocking my path.

‘Hold up, hold up,’ whined the deliveryman. ‘You’ll spook him.’

I scrambled over the empty cart.

‘Bloody prick!’ shouted the man, taking a swipe in the air with his whip.

The alley ahead was empty. I ran on, soon coming to a junction. On an instinct, I turned left again, seeing the lamps of a proper street some way up ahead.

It was as I was noticing this that I felt my legs swiped from under me and came crashing down hard onto the gravel. And right when my hipbone hit the ground another blow fell on my spine. I cried out in pain, just managing to twist my head to see the man, his narrow eyes burning in his bearded face, raising his truncheon to strike me again. My eyes fixed on his hand clasping the truncheon, on the bruised and crushed fingernail of his first finger, and in that moment the ruined nail seemed angry and vengeful, as if the man himself was only its tool. I held out my hand to stop the blow, receiving it instead on my forearm. Immediately, a great wave of nausea came over me and the strength flew from my body. My ears were ringing like the bells of Christ Church; my eyes were full of tears. I was helpless. I wrapped myself up tight in a ball, clenching, clenching even my eyes, readied for the next blow.

It didn’t come. Afraid to turn my head in case I was smashed in the mush, I listened. Slowly the bells faded and I could hear a woman’s voice talking from inside one of the buildings. I got my courage up and turned my head. The man was gone.

I sat up, not sure I could stand. Every little movement made me jerk with pain. I looked up and down the alley until I was sure he was gone, then, leaning against the wall, pushed myself to my feet.

A mighty ache in my back caused me to sit down on the floor again, where I rested, rubbing my arm, waiting for the sick feeling to leave my belly.

A woman came round the corner ahead, a heavy cooking pot in her hands.

‘You fall over, mate?’ she asked.

‘Just a bit, mum,’ I said, trying to make my voice sound normal. ‘Tripped myself up.’

‘Want a lift?’

She put her pot down and helped me to my feet. She was as well built as Mrs Barnett, and her presence alone made me feel stronger.

‘You pass a short man with a beard up there?’ I asked her. ‘Would have been running, most likely.’

‘He was in a right hurry,’ she replied, picking up her pot. ‘He rob you, did he?’

‘You might say that.’

‘Well, you don’t want to bother with the police, less you want to waste half a day or more.’

‘Did you see what he looked like?’

‘Not much in this light. Thin little eyes, though, suspicious-looking, I’d say. But like I say, you don’t want to bother with the police this time.’

We walked along side by side. With each step I had a jarring pain in my back.

‘Ask me why,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘’Cos he had a police truncheon in his belt. And it was a police belt, mate. Wasn’t wearing a uniform, though. Just the standard copper’s boots.’

‘You know a lot about copper’s clothes, do you?’

‘My old man was a constable,’ she said. ‘Before he croaked. I was the one used to polish up those boots each day. You married?’

I nodded. We walked together until we reached the main road, where she waddled off towards the bridge. When she was out of sight, I lowered myself down onto the steps of the Home and Colonial to give myself rest from the pain. It was an hour before I had the strength to go on.

Chapter Nine

When I reached the guvnor’s rooms, he was sitting with a tankard in his hand. Ettie was in the chair by the window, her hand flat on her forehead. She acknowledged me briefly then shut her eyes. The guvnor shook his head as if to warn me off, then, still shaking his great turnip, took a long swallow of his ale. He looked guilty for what had happened but, as was his way, gave me no apology.

I lowered myself down onto the small sofa with care, sure there must have been a great bruise across my spine. The guvnor noticed my swollen hand.

‘Good heavens, Barnett! What the blazes happened to you? Shall I call the doctor?’

‘I suppose that’ll come out of my money again, will it?’ I replied, more sharply than I intended.

He looked hurt.

‘I’m only bruised,’ I said more gently.

I did wonder if Ettie, being a nurse as she was, might have taken a look, but she didn’t stir from behind her hand.

‘You need some attention,’ he insisted. ‘I can get the doctor to see to Ettie at the same time. It’ll be cheaper that way.’

‘I don’t need one,’ she said quickly, her eyes still closed.

‘Nor me,’ said I. ‘Though a drink would help my nerves.’

He passed me a small blue bottle.

‘Chlorodine,’ he said. ‘A quite magical medicine. It will help.’

I took a draught while the guvnor poured me a mug of ale. Feeling the good medicine warm my throat, I told him how I’d been beaten in the alley.

‘Oh dear, Barnett,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘This case becomes more complicated by the day. I’ve been sitting here puzzling over why Miss Cousture would lie to us. She was here while we were out, you know. My sister spoke to her. It appears she’s suddenly impatient to know if we’ve made any progress. But she hasn’t left an address. Doesn’t that seem queer, Barnett?’

‘There’s nothing about this case as doesn’t seem queer.’

‘And now a constable follows us, gives you a beating, but doesn’t attempt to question you.’

Ettie let out a sigh and shifted in her chair, a grimace on her pale face.

‘What ails your sister?’ I whispered.

‘She’s come over weak and unwell.’ The guvnor’s voice rose in volume as he spoke. ‘She will not go to bed. She just sits there.’

I detected a slight flicker in her eyelids. It was clear she was listening but was resolved not to respond.

The guvnor raised his eyes to the ceiling. He tapped out his pipe.

‘We’ll visit Miss Cousture first thing tomorrow, before she leaves for work. We’ll search her room for clues.’

‘You think she’ll let us?’

He laughed.

‘I’m sure she won’t, but it might at least provoke her to tell us the truth.’

The shop bell began to tinkle. With some pain, I rose and went through to find Inspector Petleigh at the door. Behind him was the young constable with the booming voice who had taken charge of the murder scene at St George the Martyr. I led them through to the parlour where the guvnor now sat alone. The creaking boards above told me that Ettie had retired.

‘Are these the men?’ Petleigh asked the constable.

‘They is the men, sir,’ bellowed the young man. ‘Him and him.’

‘I knew it,’ said the inspector. ‘The moment you described them, I knew it was these two.’

He laughed unkindly. We’d had plenty of dealings with Inspector Petleigh over the years, some of them good, some of them not so good. He didn’t approve of the work we did, but he knew that there weren’t enough police to look into all the crimes as were happening around our parts. He wasn’t a bad sort, though you’d never get the guvnor to admit that.

‘The tall one is him who gave chase,’ said the constable. ‘The other was holding her head. They knew her. They said they did.’

Petleigh sat without being invited and addressed the guvnor. ‘I’m disappointed with you, William. Most disappointed. I thought you’d learned your lesson. You agreed to stick with pilfering servants and infidelities. Now I find you on the scene of a murder again.’

He twizzled his moustache and stretched out his legs. He wore new leather boots, the soles wet with fresh mud. I noticed that the young constable, who stood by the door gripping his helmet by his side, hadn’t wiped his feet either. I went to the cupboard for the broom.

‘I am glad they’ve put such a keen mind as yours on this case,’ said the guvnor, relighting his pipe. ‘Tell me, have you caught the devil?’

‘We’re investigating. It looks like a street robbery gone sour, although the girl hadn’t much to steal. There’s also the possibility that the Ripper is back. The Commissioner is keeping an eye on that one.’

‘Oh please, Petleigh!’ cried the guvnor. ‘That’s ridiculous. Jack never worked in daylight in a crowded street.’

‘Quite so. We’re working on some various leads. But we’d be nearer our solution if information were not being withheld from us.’

‘May I ask what these leads are?’

Petleigh sighed and shook his head. A pained smile drew wide his thin lips.

‘Do you take me for an idiot?’ he asked.

‘Not at all, sir. I take you for an imbecile.’

Petleigh’s nose flared; he spoke sharply:

‘You know, sir, I can take you before the magistrate for obstructing us.’

‘I’ve done nothing, Inspect—’

‘You’re working on a case connected to the murder,’ interrupted Petleigh loudly. ‘Am I wrong?’

‘No.’

‘Therefore, you have information which you didn’t tell us about at the relevant time. Several days have now elapsed, enough time for the culprit to get away. A magistrate might say you were protecting the murderer.’

‘We don’t know who the murderer is,’ replied the guvnor. ‘He brushed past us. Barnett gave chase but lost him.’

‘What case are you working on?’

‘We’re trying to find the girl’s sweetheart. We were due to meet her at the church.’

‘She hired you,’ declared Petleigh.

‘No.’

‘Then who?’

‘I cannot tell you,’ replied the guvnor, shaking his head. ‘Our client requested privacy.’

‘Tell the inspector!’ barked the constable. ‘Otherwise we’ll haul you off to the clink for the night.’

Petleigh held up his hand to the young man.

‘We can help you catch the murderer, Inspector,’ said the guvnor.

‘You’ve a very high idea of yourself, Mr Arrowood,’ said Petleigh, crossing his legs. ‘Who do you think you are? Sherlock Holmes?’

The guvnor snorted.

‘Let me make this plain. We are the police. We deal with murders, violations, robberies. Dangerous men. You look for lawyers who have doctored their contracts. You search out husbands who have run off with the maid. We don’t give you information – you give it to us. So, once again: who are you working for, and what do you know about this murder?’

‘I’ll tell you what I can if you find out the name of the officer who gave Barnett a hiding this afternoon,’ said the guvnor.

They looked at me.

‘He was following us, Inspector,’ I said. ‘I wondered if maybe it was you put him up to it?’

Petleigh looked at the constable.

‘Did you know about this?’ he asked.

The constable shook his head.

I showed him my swollen arm, then lifted my shirt to reveal the bruise on my back.

‘Ow!’ exclaimed the guvnor, shifting in his chair. ‘What a corker! That must smart. It’s the colour of kidneys, Barnett. I think we will call that doctor after all.’

‘No, sir. I cannot afford him.’ I tucked my shirt back in and addressed Petleigh. ‘He was a copper, though. And you didn’t answer the question. Did you put him up to it?’

‘No, Norman,’ said Petleigh. ‘I swear it. Tell me what happened.’

When I’d explained and described the man as best as I could, he said:

‘Are you sure he was an officer?’

‘He wore a police belt, and it was a police truncheon that damaged me.’

‘I don’t recognize the description. Constable?’

‘There’s one works over Elephant and Castle way who fits the picture,’ replied the young man. ‘I don’t know his name. But I can’t think one of our men would do such a thing as this.’

‘If this is an officer – and we don’t know that for certain, mind - but if it is, do you wish to raise a complaint?’ asked Petleigh.

‘We want the name,’ said the guvnor, looking at me. ‘That’s all at the moment.’

Petleigh considered this for a while.

‘We’ll make enquiries. Now tell me what you know.’

The guvnor filled him in with all the facts we knew. Petleigh scribbled in a notebook as he talked, trying again and again to get the names of our client and our informants. The guvnor resisted.

‘The girl had this in her hand,’ he said, fishing the bullet from his waistcoat. ‘I believe she meant it for us.’

Petleigh held it under the lamp and inspected it. Then he placed it on the table.

‘Could be a sweetheart gave it to her. Or she might have picked it up from somewhere. I don’t think it’s important.’

‘Oh, really?’ said the guvnor. ‘Well, I suppose we must trust your judgement on that. What’s your theory then, Inspector?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ said Petleigh in a tired voice. ‘You tell us yours, Arrowood.’

The guvnor cleared his throat and sat forward.

‘The simplest story is that the French boy was involved in some business between Cream and the Fenian gang. Something went wrong and the boy either fled or was killed. Martha was murdered because she was about to give me information, which means it’s a serious business. More serious than we realized when we took the case. That’s my best guess. Now, what have you found out?’

Petleigh stood, brushing some imaginary dust from his jacket.

‘Much the same,’ he replied as he examined his sleeves. ‘Or similar.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. Petleigh’s face soured.

‘I need the names of your informants,’ he insisted.

I stepped to the grate and began to rouse the last embers of the fire. The guvnor tutted and fiddled in his pockets for matches. He said nothing.

‘You cause me much annoyance, Arrowood,’ said Petleigh at last. He placed his hat carefully on his head. ‘Leave this to the police, sir. If Cream or the Fenians chose to dispose of you, they’d smash you like a . . . like a . . .’ He stood before us, his mouth open, the weight of his warning lost in his inability to find a suitable idea. ‘Like a cow on a dumpling,’ he said at last. He turned to me. ‘That goes for you also, Norman.’

‘Also like a dumpling, Inspector?’

‘They would break you like a biscuit.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I’m serious!’ cried Petleigh in a fury. ‘You’re no match for them. We know Cream’s men are behind a wave of deaths in the last few years, and it sounds like we can add this girl’s murder to the list. You don’t know the half of it, Arrowood. Drownings, beatings, arson – anything you can think of. The most appalling things. They’ll kill anyone who gets in their way and they’ve people so afraid that we can’t get anyone to testify against them. I don’t have to remind you of the Spindle case, do I? You saw what they did to that man!’

The guvnor nodded.

‘Do you want that to happen to you?’ demanded Petleigh.

The guvnor sat thinking, his hands clasped on his belly, his eyes on the fire.

‘You’ll send me the name then, Petleigh?’ he asked at last.

‘Yes, I’ll send you the name,’ replied the inspector with a sigh. ‘But leave the murder of the serving girl to us. If you learn anything, you must tell me at once. Send the muffin boy with a message. Do not follow that trail yourselves. I’m warning you.’

When they’d gone and we were sitting in the warm parlour drinking another mug of ale, the guvnor let out a humourless laugh.

‘Much the same!’ he declared. ‘Much the same, Barnett! Idiot. He knows without us he’s no chance of solving this murder.’

‘What of tomorrow, sir?’

‘Tomorrow we see what the French lady is all about.’

Chapter Ten

I didn’t sleep much that night, though I was tired enough and badly in need of rest. I couldn’t get comfortable with the bruise on my back, and my arm was burning like a little beggar. All night my thoughts went round and round, and every way they turned there were men ready to kill us. If it was up to me, we would have handed the money back as soon as Miss Cousture mentioned the Barrel of Beef, but now we had the Fenians to worry about as well. A girl had already died and I’d had a beating. There was only one way it could go: the deeper we got into this case the worse it was going to get.

As we walked down the Old Kent Road, past the people hurrying off to work, the omnibuses full to bursting, I laid it down plain:

‘We’ll most probably get ourselves killed before this case is over.’

‘Not if we’re careful,’ the guvnor replied.

From the way he spoke, I wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

‘You must be worried about the Fenians, William,’ I said.

His face darkened. Even though he argued fierce for Irish self-government, the Fenian bombing campaign we’d gone through ten years before had terrorized him. He’d covered the dynamitards for his newspaper, and sat through the trials of the Invincibles, the Mansion House bombers, the Dynamite Sunday plotters. He’d investigated the Skirmishing Fund and the Triangle and the tangled connections between Clan na Gael and Parnell. He became a changed man in those years, and it was maybe this that lost him his job in the end. Before then he was fearless, chasing up a story wherever it led. But the years of panic in the city affected him. He stopped taking milk in his tea, believing the stories of the Fenians poisoning the urns with strychnine. After the underground railway plot was discovered he wouldn’t go in the tunnels no more, and to this day he’ll only travel across town by bus. For a whole year, like so many other fearful people, he bought his water off a cart from the countryside in case they’d tainted the pumps. I’d never seen a man so badly feared from something. It was this partly as drove Isabel to run off, and it took him some years before he started to regain his old self. But some of that fear still remained, and you could see it round the edges of him sometimes, mixed in with the tantrums and the kindness and the jumble of other qualities that made up his character.

‘What do you say we get out now?’ I said. ‘Give the lady back her money. Something else’ll come up in time. As soon as Cream or the Fenians find out we’re interested, we’ll end up in the river. And now we’ve got a bent copper. How do we know anything we tell Petleigh isn’t going to get back to them?’

He was silent. No doubt he was remembering the Betsy case, when John Spindle was beaten to death by Cream’s men. It seemed a simple job when we took it on. Mrs Betsy wanted a watch on her husband, a stevedore on the docks, on account of how short his wages had got. She reckoned he was gambling, though it turned out the money was going on a second wife he was keeping down near Pickle Herring Stairs. It was a few bob’s easy work for us, we thought. A couple of days following him when he finished at the docks of an evening, then on to the next case. And it would’ve been, except for the guvnor taking a shine to Bill Betsy’s other wife, and her tricking him into helping her cousin out of some trouble he’d gotten into. It was through that we’d caused John Spindle’s death. Without knowing what we were doing we’d exposed him, then hadn’t arrived in a cab to pick him up as we said we would. We’d left him in the hands of Mr Piser and Boots, to be clubbed to death in the coal cellar of the lodging house we’d hidden him in. The guilt had lain heavy on us ever since, and so far we’d kept our promise to steer clear of jobs that could turn bad. For four years, we’d kept to that resolution, yet still the memory of the case could make us feel the most wretched men in London.

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