‘In these parts you gotta know what side your bread’s buttered!’ he crowed, then tossed the coin up in the air, caught it deftly and vanished over the wall. ‘Be seeing you, Tight-Arse!’
Titus swore loudly and would have gone after him, but Stitcher knew these streets even better than he did. His cackles rebounded off the walls and cobbles long after the boys vanished into the swirling grey.
‘Come on,’ Titus snapped and for once Hannah did as she was told.
As they pressed further into the maze of alleys, the cobbles gave way to mud and worse. The air was now so thick with smoke they almost missed the turning to their street. When they did find it, the way was blocked by a throng of people. Above their heads Titus could see orange flames licking the black sky. It was the house opposite theirs: he recognised it by the elaborate brick chimney, the only one in the street that hadn’t fallen down.
Luckily for this landlord the pump was on the next street and the house was so overcrowded that there were at least forty people who had an interest in dousing the flames. As he pushed through the jostling backs, Titus recognised the smut-blackened faces of the children from the window opposite theirs. One of them clutched a clumsy wooden doll, naked but for a scarlet ribbon in its wool hair.
‘’Ere, that ain’t your blanket,’ someone said loudly.
A large, red-faced man was squaring up to the skinny father of the child with the doll.
‘Yes it is,’ the smaller man snapped, bundling the blanket to his wife. ‘I saved it from the fire meself.’
‘Like hell you did! You half-inched it on your way down. Now, give it back if you know what’s good for you,’ and he smacked the skinny man on the shoulder, sending him staggering into his wife. She thrust him forwards, bawling, ‘Don’t give it him, Jonas!’
The red-faced man took so long drawing back his fist that Jonas had time to aim a sharp kick at his balls. There were loud ‘oohs’ from the crowd as their attention turned away from the fire and onto the fight. Only Jonas’s daughter seemed uninterested in her father’s fate. She was staring directly upwards. She said something: it was impossible to hear over the din of the fight but Titus thought it might have been ‘bird’.
He followed her gaze.
A single long tongue of flame was stretching out from the burning house to lick the rag flapping at Titus and Hannah’s window. The rag, greasy with dirt and dry after a few days without rain, caught immediately.
Titus thrust his way through the crowd to the door of the house where his landlords, Mr and Mrs Pincher, stood grinning as they watched the fight.
‘Look!’ he screamed, jabbing his finger into the air. Their grins froze as they followed the line of it. They all saw the burning rag tear free of the window frame and waft inside the building. Titus forced them out of his way and took the stairs two at a time.
By the time he made the third floor, acrid smoke was tumbling down the stairs. The fire must have caught his mother’s workpile by the window. She had fallen so behind that the stack of garments for mending and alterations had grown almost as tall as Hannah.
Bursting out onto the top landing he flung himself into the burning room.
The heat was incredible: it distorted the air into rippling spectres that streamed towards him and seared his hair. There was so much smoke, billowing like ink in water. The source of the smoke was the bed. His father slept nearest the window and would be in the most imminent danger if the mattress was on fire.
‘Wake up, Mother!’ he screamed as he found his father’s legs and dragged him off the bed. Crouching beneath the smoke Titus could see that his father was not burned at all, though his eyes were closed and his face was pale. Titus dragged him out of the room then plunged back into the inferno. The heat had intensified and it was now accompanied by a smell that it took Titus some moments to recognise. When he did so, he let out a cry of horror and flung himself at the black maelstrom that had been the bed.
Through the smoke he could see flutters of red. His mother’s hair and right arm were on fire. Bellowing for her to wake up, he batted blindly at the flames then heaved her onto his shoulder. Though she was as light as a child, the mattress was collapsing beneath him and every movement was like wading through tar. All around him the room groaned and shrieked.
And then he felt her arm tighten around his neck.
‘Mother!’ he screamed.
She murmured something into his ear and he was sure he felt, amidst the rush of searing wind and the rain of soot, the brush of her lips on his cheek.
Smoke had clogged his lungs and as he tried to take a breath he was overcome with coughing. At every gasp between coughs his lungs seized up more and he grew weaker.
He fell to his knees and just managed to drag them both out of the room onto the landing before collapsing. As he lay gulping down the cool air coming up the stairs he heard voices and footsteps.
Two boys appeared on the landing, carrying a tin bath. They hobbled along as fast as they could with their awkward load, slopping water as they went, and paused in the doorway to the burning room.
‘Chuck it straight in, then go down for more!’
He knew the voice but his vision was blurred and his eyeballs scraped against his dry lids.
Then someone knelt beside him.
‘Come on, mate. Get up now, you can do it.’
As he struggled into a sitting position he heard the slosh of water followed by a furious hiss.
‘Go on, then, go back! And make room for the boys coming up!’
Titus rubbed his eyes and opened them. The two boys scurried past and down the stairs just as a second pair emerged on the landing, with another tin bath – this one pouring water from several rust holes.
‘We carried your dad outside, now let’s get your ma down.’
The boy had his mother under the arm. His black hair was pasted to his forehead with sweat and runnels of dirt poured down his neck.
‘Stitcher?’
‘Come on. She needs air.’ Titus stood and wrapped her other arm around his neck and the two boys staggered down the stairs.
But his mother needed more than just air. Even as one of the navvies crouched over her, his mouth clamped over hers, forcing his own breath into her motionless chest, Titus knew it was useless. It must have been the smoke. At least she hadn’t burned to death. Hannah clung to her mother, pressing her head into her parent’s stomach, her screams muffled by the burned rags of her dress.
Titus went over to where his father lay, his face covered by someone’s silk handkerchief.
‘There weren’t nothing to be done,’ someone said. ‘His heart must have given out.’
Titus knelt down and took his father’s hand. It was still warm. The line of a purple scar ran horizontally across his palm: from the time his father had taken hold of a bayonet blade as its Russian owner tried to thrust it into the wounded body of one of his friends. This was the only story his father ever told about the war, and only because Hannah kept plaguing him about the scar.
Titus laid the hand palm down on his father’s chest and then placed the other over it.
A couple of women from the street were crouching beside Hannah, murmuring words of comfort. One old lady he didn’t recognise was holding his mother’s hand, patting and stroking it and holding it to her sunken cheek.
An hour too late a little red fire engine finally arrived and several burly men jumped down and began violently pumping their water apparatus. Within a few minutes the flames were out and the street became gloomy once more. Most of the onlookers began to disperse.
And then, in a dying flare from one of the upper storeys, a flash of gold near his mother’s hand caught Titus’s eye. The old woman’s gimlet gaze met his as her bony fingers closed over his mother’s wedding ring.
‘Hey!’ he shouted, lunging at her.
Suddenly she threw herself backwards onto the cobbles, clutching her face.
‘Oh, oh, oh!’ she howled. ‘He hit me! He hit me!�
��
One of the firemen ran over and helped her to her feet.
‘Who did it, lady?’
‘Him, there! The skinny one!’
She pointed a shaking finger with Titus’s mother’s ring glimmering on it.
5
The cell was narrow, damp and ice-cold. Its whitewashed walls were windowless but a small barred aperture in the door looked onto the courtyard. The only furniture was a rectangular wooden block to be used as a bed.
For some time after he’d been thrown in, Titus could do nothing but huddle shivering on the bed with his face to the wall and his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. They had been rough with him because he hadn’t gone quietly. He’d tried to talk to Hannah who was screaming as one of the other firemen restrained her. He’d wanted to tell her to go back into the house and wait for him. He asked the fireman holding him to let him go back and speak to her, that their parents had both died, but all he got was a punch in the stomach which made it impossible to say any more.
Eventually the pains in his stomach eased and he rolled onto his back and straightened out, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling. After a few minutes, Big Ben struck one. Everything was silent. Had all the policemen gone home? They’d told him nothing when they put him in here. The duty officer seemed distracted, almost forgetting to lock the cell, then hurrying away directly afterwards.
He was thirsty but the jug that sat in a bowl in the corner was empty.
What were he and Hannah going to do now?
Shame engulfed him. He’d wasted all that time at the Ragged School to try and ‘better himself’, but if he’d brought in just a few more pennies then there might have been enough food to go round. He had tried. When he was twelve he’d gone round the markets asking for work, but when they found out where he lived they didn’t want to know. Only dirty thieves lived in the Acre. Perhaps the only sensible option left was crime. Why didn’t he get his thumb out of his backside, throw in his lot with Stitcher again?
A sudden commotion from the courtyard made him get up and go over to the window. The stable lad, the one he’d fought with, held open the gates for the prison cart and as it hurtled through the men on top yelled at him to close it as quickly as he could.
The cart came to a standstill in the middle of the yard and the men tumbled off it as if it were red-hot. There were at least six of them and for a moment they stood in little groups muttering to one another. The stable boy fastened the gates and then came over to stand with them.
Inside the cart someone started singing. As the reedy falsetto drifted through the night air the policemen fell silent.
‘Is that what yer all scared of?’ the stable boy jeered. ‘Some drunk old tart?’
The singing stopped abruptly. The stable boy carried his lantern up to the cart and rapped on the metal side.
‘All right, darlin’? Fancy a quickie?’
For a moment there was silence. The stable boy pressed his ear to the metal.
‘Hello . . . o . . . o . . . o . . .!’
One of the policemen hushed him but the stable boy ignored him and opened his mouth to speak again. There was an almighty bang and the lantern went sailing through the air. From the prison cart there came a cacophony of barking and snarling, as if it was filled with a hundred crazed pit bull terriers. The lantern exploded against the station wall in a fireball which momentarily lit up the darkness. The image of the stable boy frozen in mid-air was seared into Titus’s vision before the courtyard went black.
In the darkness that followed all that could be heard were the stable boy’s yelps and a low guttural laughing.
More lanterns were brought from inside the station, and more men. They trooped past Titus’s cell, their faces pale. The last to emerge was Inspector Pilbury. As they joined in a wide circle around the cart each man drew his truncheon.
Pilbury walked around the back.
‘Rancer!’
His voice rang through the courtyard.
‘I have ten armed men ready to bring you down if you put up a struggle. I myself have a pistol. When I open these doors you will come quietly or you will suffer for it.’
The key snicked in the lock and the black door of the cart swung out. Inspector Pilbury took a step back and drew his pistol.
‘Get out,’ he said quietly.
Then there came a child’s voice:
‘Let me go, please! My father’s rich, he’ll pay you whatever you ask, I won’t say who you are I swear.’ The child began to giggle, and then the giggle became deeper and deeper until it was that mocking, guttural laugh again.
Pilbury raised his lantern higher. The shadows in front of him began to blacken and congeal until finally they formed themselves into the figure of a man.
‘Mr Pilbury, sir, are you quite well?’
‘You know my name,’ Pilbury said evenly, though he had to tip back his head to address the prisoner. ‘You are not quite the madman, then?’
He did not take his eyes from the hulk as he called to his men:
‘Jackson, see to the boy. Samson, Harris and the rest of you, take him to cell three. I want to be able to see him from my office.’
He waited until four officers had cuffed themselves to the prisoner before walking rapidly away towards the kitchen. As soon as he had disappeared into the building the prisoner began to struggle. Two of the men were knocked to the floor immediately and more piled on to replace them until they became a heaving mountain of fists and boots and truncheons.
What with all the scuffling, the curses from the officers and the bellowing of their prisoner, Titus was so distracted that it took some moments for him to notice the figures standing in the window opposite the cells.
One was Inspector Pilbury. A little further back from him stood the top-hatted master of ceremonies from the Palace Theatre, his face set into a scowl. Next to Pilbury stood the medium. Tonight she was wearing a pale blue dress: judging by the way the fabric gathered under the sash around her waist he guessed it was several sizes too big for her. He recognised her by her fine black hair but without this it would have been almost impossible, because
something strange had happened to her features. Her eyes had widened, and something in the way the light fell on her face made it seem more rounded, childlike almost. Her delicate hands clutched what looked like a rag doll. Her gaze was fixed on the passage of the felon and as the thrashing body disappeared into the cell Titus saw Pilbury murmur something into her ear. She gave a slow and deliberate nod then slumped into the Inspector’s arms.
When she stood up again it was with the distracted air of someone woken from a dream. Her features were now as Titus remembered them from the séance, and she turned and spoke anxiously to the policeman. Pilbury’s reply made her bury her face in her hands. The policeman vanished and returned with a blanket, which he wrapped carefully about her shoulders, and led her from the room. The top-hatted man, his expression still sour, turned and followed them out.
Titus pressed his cheek to the bars of his door and watched the officers emerge from cell three. After locking the door they slammed shut the metal hatch that covered the bars, but it didn’t silence the noise from inside. Though all the officers had withdrawn to the courtyard it sounded as if cell three was filled with a hundred people: Titus could hear a baby crying, women giggling, a songbird chirruping the very same tune their own poor bird had sung, and over it all the voice of the prisoner bellowing the Inspector’s name.
The men walked quickly to the far end of the courtyard and leaned against the wall for a pipe. Each one held his lantern close and the orange light shivered, casting jittery shadows on the stable walls. One had a bloodied nose and even from here Titus could see that the hands tamping down the tobacco were shaking. The stable boy was helped out of the gates sobbing that his ribs were broken.
After their pipes the men dispersed. Some went out of the gates, some back inside the station. Gradually the lamps went out until only Pilbury’s and the kitchen’s
remained lit. Cell three eventually fell silent.
Big Ben struck two.
Titus went back and sat down on the bed and wondered how Hannah was. If she had been taken back to Stitcher’s at least she’d have Rosie to comfort her. If she’d done as she was told and stayed with the Pinchers she’d be shivering on a hard floor, alone and scared, weeping in the darkness. He was a fool to have told her to remain.
A noise outside brought him back to the window. Perhaps the duty officer was coming to release him.
Inspector Pilbury stood in the moonlight in the middle of the courtyard. A match flared, illuminating his tired face, and then the sweet pipe smoke drifted across in a silver ribbon to Titus’s cell. Titus let him enjoy the pipe for a few minutes before calling quietly:
‘’Scuse me, Mr Pilbury? Can you tell me how long I’m likely to be here? It’s just that Hannah’s all alone and . . .’
‘Titus?’
The Inspector came over and squinted into the darkness.
‘What are you doing here? It’s not like you to get yourself into bother.’
‘My parents . . .’ His voice faltered under Pilbury’s kindly gaze. ‘My parents are dead. There was a fire. An old woman tried to steal Mother’s wedding ring off her finger and when I tried to get it back she said I’d struck her.’
The Inspector gave a long sigh.
‘Where’s Hannah?’
‘Back at the house I hope.’
Pilbury tapped his pipe against the wall and tucked it back into his pocket.
‘I’ll go and speak to the duty officer.’
He set off in the direction of the main building and a few minutes later came back with the keys.
‘The old woman never turned up to press charges so you’re free to go.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I’ll let you out the back gate.’
As they walked down the line of cells a soprano’s voice trilled.
‘P . . . i . . . l . . . berrrrr . . . y . . . y . . . y . . . y . . . y . . . y!’
Pilbury’s truncheon flew out and the door of cell three gave a dull clang that reverberated around the courtyard. The opera singer began to sob theatrically.
The Hanged Man Rises Page 4
