by Alex Reeve
Jane bent down. ‘You must be Ciara. And this fine young man is Aiden, I presume.’ She licked her gloved finger and wiped a smudge from his nose.
Ciara looked up at me with big, round eyes. There was no panic in them, no anxiety about being taken by a stranger. I realised she had lost the ability to fear. I could remember how that felt, as if you’re staying still and the world is revolving around you, faster and faster. You can’t step in any direction without being whisked away, so you stand and watch until it’s all just a blur.
‘Aiden doesn’t say much, but he’s not being rude, it’s how he is,’ I said quietly to Jane. ‘And Ciara is sickly. She’s prone to fitting at night. She doesn’t seem to hurt herself and remembers nothing of it afterwards, but you have to stay with her until she falls asleep.’ I handed the packet of bromide to Jane; the same one I had sold to Dora Hannigan. It seemed like a hundred years ago. ‘Dissolve exactly half a teaspoon in water per day. Buy some more if it runs out.’
She took it without comment. She had never been concerned by illness and had sat with me day and night while I sweated and scratched with scarlet fever.
Aiden picked up the carpet bag, ready to go. ‘Is it my fault?’ he asked. ‘Is it because of what I did at the orphanage?’
‘What?’
His chin was curling, but he was resisting it. ‘Is that why we’re being sent away, because I didn’t go with that gentleman?’
I was aware of a lump in my own throat. I shook myself and pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger hard, aiming to raise some blood. I mustn’t weep. It was unmanly. My sister had brought it upon me with her cloying regard for our father.
‘No, of course not. You were being a good brother, doing your best for your sister. Now I’m trying to do my best for you. Mrs Hemmings has children of about your ages, and you’ll enjoy their company, I’m sure.’
My nieces and nephews. I didn’t know them. Two of them, I had never so much as laid eyes upon.
At least Aiden and Ciara would be cared for, I thought. For a little while. Jane had many flaws, but she was a good mother and a Christian woman with a charitable nature. She would feed them and clothe them and tell her nursery maid to pick the nits from their hair, and she would take them to church and make sure they said their pleases and thank yous. They would be safe, and she would be gratified; she loved to gather around her the vulnerable and needy and instruct them on how to lead better lives.
Nevertheless, as they disappeared along the pavement, I felt as if I’d lost something precious. I couldn’t explain it.
Perhaps I was being silly, preoccupied by my impending arrest or the thought that, if I somehow avoided that fate, I would soon be meeting my father for the first time in eleven years. I didn’t know which was worse, though I supposed any conversation with my father would at least have the virtue of brevity. He would never accept me as Leo and would throw me out the second he realised who I was.
It was almost a shame. Before I had left home, my father had known Sir Reginald quite well, and he might know the answers to some of my questions.
I actually felt a pang of disappointment that I would never get the chance to ask him.
13
The following morning, half an hour after midday, the police finally arrived.
I had sent the lad Tommy with a note to my foreman informing him that my fever was worsening, and I wouldn’t be able to come to work. I could ill-afford the loss of income, but what other choice did I have?
After that, I stood in the doorway of the pharmacy for a while, until Alfie told me to remove myself lest his customers thought some damn fool was preventing them from coming in. Since then I’d been sitting on the stool, from which I had a good view of the black police coach drawing up. Hooper climbed out, followed by the same constable I’d seen before, with receding hair and expansive girth. Hooper squinted up at the sunshine and spoke to the driver who, I noted, waited for them. No, for us.
‘Mr Stanhope,’ said Hooper, removing his bowler as he entered. ‘We need a word.’
I led them through to the back room.
I had one faint hope.
‘They ran away,’ I said.
Hooper folded himself into a chair. ‘What did you say?’
‘The Hannigan children. They ran away. I don’t know where they are now.’
It sounded implausible even to me, and I doubted it would be enough to keep me out of prison. After all, I had kidnapped two children. I was guilty.
Hooper exchanged a look with the constable.
This is it, I thought. I am saying goodbye to this life, this name, these clothes. These are my last moments of truly being me.
Hooper shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sir Reginald Thackery assured me they’ve been taken care of. That’s what great men do, Mr Stanhope. They have big hearts to go with their big wallets.’
I could hardly comprehend what he was saying. Sir Reginald must not have carried out his threat to have me arrested for kidnapping. But why? Certainly not to save my skin. He must have reasons of his own, though I couldn’t fathom what they might be.
What was he hiding?
Unless, of course, Mr Ramsden hadn’t admitted that he didn’t have custody of Aiden? He had received payment in advance, plus presumably a bonus, to give the boy a new name and ensure he would never be found. He might have decided to keep his silence and the bribe. But that wasn’t likely. Not only was it, at best, a short-term gain, but he didn’t seem the type. He was far too subservient.
My brain felt like sludge. I wished everyone would leave me alone for a few hours to actually think.
‘When did you last see John Duport?’ asked Hooper.
‘We met at …’ I couldn’t remember whether I was supposed to lie about meeting John or not, and my thoughts wouldn’t run fast enough for anything but the truth. ‘We met at a pub, the Marquis of Granby. The Friday before last, I think it was.’
He pulled out his notebook and peered over his spectacles at it. ‘Right. That makes you the last person to see him. No one else knows a thing about the man. No family, no previous address, no anything. Why do you suppose that is?’
‘I couldn’t tell you. We aren’t close.’
‘That’s what everyone’s been saying. Apparently, he has no friends at all, aside from you and Miss Hannigan herself.’
‘That doesn’t make me guilty of anything.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ Hooper raised his eyebrows and stayed silent, presumably hoping I would babble incontinently and incriminate myself. It was the same trick he’d tried last time, but he had no idea who he was dealing with.
The constable, who had been picking dirt from under his fingernails with one of Alfie’s knives, piped up: ‘You might as well tell us.’
Hooper rolled his eyes and glared at the fellow, but he was already back at his fingernails.
‘Think of it this way,’ Hooper said, leaning across the table towards me. ‘The victim had your name and address on her person, didn’t she?’
‘I can’t explain that.’
I was feeling light-headed and reckless. Having expected to be arrested and imprisoned, this mere interrogation felt almost playful.
Hooper scratched his beard. ‘So you keep saying. But, how I see it, without Mr Duport, your alibi’s disappeared. Puff of smoke. So, if he shows up, you’ll be sure to tell me, won’t you? It’s in your interests. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Good.’
As he stood up to go, he caught sight of Ciara’s tooth on the saucer on the floor. He stooped to pick it up.
‘Whose is this?’ he asked.
I almost said it was Constance’s, but she was twelve and it was some years since she’d last lost a tooth. Thankfully, my brain found one last teaspoonful of coherence. ‘My landlord does dentistry as well as pharmacy. It probably came from one of his customers.’
‘I see.’
Hooper pu
t it into his pocket, and I wondered whether he viewed it as evidence or was thinking of adding it to the set in his own mouth.
Once they’d gone, I sat in the back room in a daze, listening to the scratch of Alfie’s pen on his ledger and the clink and rustle of coins and notes being counted and scooped into bags. Such commonplace sounds, I barely heard them any more.
This was what I had wanted, wasn’t it? Routine. Ordinariness. A quiet life where I was responsible for no one, and no one was responsible for me.
I despaired at how easily that resolve had been broken. All it had taken was two children I’d never even met three weeks before.
And now, for their sakes, I was lying to the police and risking arrest.
I needed help. Fortunately, I knew of someone who might be willing, and who always had an insight different from my own. She had stood by me in my darkest moment.
I left the pharmacy and began the walk to the pie shop thinking: I hope you’re at home, Rosie. I need you now.
As I opened the door, I was, as ever, assailed. There were bigger shops on grander streets, selling more expensive pies with finer-sounding ingredients, but there were no better pies.
The heat carried with it an aroma that was, for me, more than just a smell. Contained within that pastry, meat and fruit was comfort and peace and the memory of a kitchen, long ago, where Bridget was preparing our breakfasts and chitter-chattering to herself, or perhaps to me, it was hard to tell which.
In addition to Rosie and her three children, the premises was shared with an elderly couple, whose names I habitually failed to remember. It was the female half who greeted me today, her face discoloured and shiny like polished leather; the result, I assumed, of a lifetime spent peering into ovens.
‘Mr Stanhope!’ She brushed her hands down her apron. ‘We ain’t seen you around here for quite a while.’ She indicated the somewhat depleted racks of pies on the counter. ‘We don’t have much left, I’m afraid. All the kidney’s gone, and the lamb too. Couple of chicken and bacon, and these, which not everyone likes but I think are the best of all: beef cheek and parsnip, with a tiny drop of marmalade to sharpen the taste. I don’t know how she came up with that, but it’s like rising up to heaven, every mouthful. Rising up with the angels singing. All for sixpence.’
I barely had enough in my wallet for the rent, and had already decided not to spend Sir Reginald’s guinea as he would certainly want it back, after I had failed to follow his instruction. Nevertheless, a pie might buy some cooperation, as well as appease my growling stomach.
‘I’ll take one. Is Rosie here?’
I could hear sounds from the back; a chair leg scraping and a child’s voice. I had never been beyond the shop. I imagined a room much like Alfie’s, with a table for their evening meal, chairs for them to sit on, pictures on the walls and cupboards for their personal things. And upstairs, a bedroom which Rosie and her husband Jack had once shared.
The leather-faced woman handed me the pie in a paper bag and pursed her lips harder, as though suffering from a toothache. ‘I’ll caution you to be mindful, Mr Stanhope. Last time you was here, it was most disruptive. Most disruptive. She came back soaked to the skin and was in bed for three days afterwards with a fever. And her recently widowed and all. I know it had something to do with you, and the trouble you got her into.’
‘I assure you—’
She dropped her voice. ‘You never thought to visit, did you? To see how she was getting on. Not once. You should have visited, Mr Stanhope, and that’s a fact.’
But I couldn’t, I thought, not after what Rosie had done. But of course, Rosie didn’t know what she’d done and hadn’t intended it. What must she think of me now?
The leather-faced woman went into the back and I could hear their conversation, which sounded as if it might have become heated towards the end. Then Rosie herself came through, her hands white with flour.
She glowered at me. ‘What do you want?’
I could feel the heat of the pie through the paper bag.
‘Can we talk please? I need some help.’
‘Is that the only reason?’
I nodded, not wanting to admit that I regretted how we’d parted at the zoo. She surveyed me, rubbing her chin.
‘Very well, I suppose. Can you manage to be polite this time?’
We slowly circumnavigated the municipal conceit of St Paul’s Cathedral, its pale stone walls and decorative columns casting shadows over the orderly shopfronts, listless beggars and gatherings of stray dogs around it.
I explained everything that had happened. The one detail I left out was my first lie to the police. I was too ashamed to tell her that.
Afterwards, she spent several seconds deep in thought, the mist of her breath dissipating in the chill air.
‘You’ve had a lucky escape, Leo.’
‘I know. Sir Reginald hid the truth about where the children were, even from the police. I have no idea why.’
‘Some men like to control things. Most men, actually.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘My guess is he didn’t want to admit his plan had failed.’
‘What plan?’
She breathed deeply, glancing up at me with a strange expression as if wondering how to break bad news.
‘The way I see it, if you’d left those kids at the orphanage as you were supposed to do, no one except you and Sir What’s-his-name would’ve known where they are. Or who they are.’
‘Exactly.’
She turned to me, her hands clutched together. ‘Don’t you see, Leo? That means if someone had gone looking for them at that place … what did you call it? The halfway house? Well, they wouldn’t have found them, would they? And who was the last person to see them? Who took them away and never brought them back?’
Such a sharp pivot on which our fates had balanced. Rosie was right. If Aiden hadn’t objected to being separated from Ciara, I wouldn’t have seen Mr Ramsden’s piece of paper. I would have left them at the orphanage as Sir Reginald had instructed. The children would have disappeared, and I would be the person who had taken them from Mrs Downes’s halfway house and never returned them.
‘I’d get the blame for their disappearance,’ I said. ‘I could be accused of selling them or even … even murdering them!’
My legs were feeling weak. I leaned against a metal rail, looking south towards the river. From here, I could smell the oil and hear the creaking of the cranes unloading the ships. Such industry they had, such purpose, while I was like a toy boat bobbing in the bath, waiting for a splash to sink me.
‘And at the same time,’ continued Rosie, ‘his son has scarpered, and your alibi’s gone with him. What a coincidence. Seems to me they’ve tried to make you look guilty of the murder of the mother as well. These rich families, they always stick together against the likes of you and me.’
It took me a moment to untangle what she meant. ‘You think John and his father are in cahoots?’
‘In cahoots?’ She grinned, despite her awful conjectures. ‘If you mean together, then yes I do. No matter how much they disagree, a parent will always help their child. And a son born rich doesn’t turn his back on such help when he has need of it.’ She faced me, squaring her shoulders. ‘There’s nothing else for it. You have to tell the police that John Duport and John Thackery are one and the same person.’
‘Why?’
‘How will it look if you don’t? You’re keeping a secret for a man who’s trying to incriminate you. You don’t owe him anything.’
But of course, I did owe him something. Or not him exactly, but the boy he’d been: my model, my exemplar. If I gave away his secret, how could I ever object if someone gave away mine?
‘No. I won’t do that. We don’t know he’s guilty of anything.’
She shook her head, despairing of my foolishness. ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’
I felt embarrassed that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. ‘No, I can’t involve you in this. You might be arrested too.’
<
br /> ‘I’ll take my chances. You’ve obviously got yourself into a muddle and I’m going to have to help you out of it.’
I thought of her shop and her children, her care of them as unconscious as breathing.
‘You can’t be a mother and go hunting for murderers, Rosie.’
‘I don’t see what one has to do with the other.’
‘Yes, you do.’
She folded her arms, reminding me of a firework that has failed to go off and that one shouldn’t approach. ‘No, I don’t. I’ll tell you what. I’ll absolve you of blame right now.’ She crossed herself in the Catholic manner and flicked her hands as if tossing away any responsibility I might bear for her well-being. ‘Some man killed that poor woman and orphaned her children, and he deserves to pay. It makes me so angry I could spit. Now, will you come to the shop tomorrow, so we can make a start? I’ll give you a pie for your dinner, half price.’
‘It’s not safe, Rosie. It’s not what I intended.’
We had almost gone right round St Paul’s and were heading back the way we’d come. She quickened her pace.
‘It’s been my experience, Leo Stanhope, that you rarely have the slightest idea what you intend.’
As I reached the pharmacy, I could see a figure hovering outside it. I almost convinced myself it was a policeman come to take me into custody after all and was dumbfounded when I realised it was John Thackery, with his hat pulled low over his forehead, his coat collar up and a scarf wrapped around his neck, obscuring much of his face. Indeed, I only recognised him by his nervous stance, hopping from foot to foot.
‘We need to talk, Leo,’ he said, in an urgent tone. ‘Not here, though.’
‘The police are looking for you.’
I wasn’t sure if I was warning him or just enjoying telling him.
‘I know. That’s what we need to talk about.’
We walked three hundred yards to the churchyard at St Anne’s and sat side by side on a bench, much as we had all those years before. I swished my feet, imagining autumn leaves piling up around us. I used to love kicking them, watching them scatter and swirl, but hated having to sweep them up afterwards. I felt a brief surge of jealousy for my younger self, who had no idea what horrors were to come.
