Not a rat-catcher, then. A policeman.
The man seemed very tall and broad, but this might simply have been due to the way he was standing, his back braced, both arms raised, palms out towards the water. He was muttering some kind of prayer, repeating the same thing over and over. After three rounds of the chant Titus thought he had made out the words.
‘Hail, spirits of the sacred river. From one who has passed beyond the lower nature, accept this gift of purity, and in return cleanse corruption from thy servant.’
The prayer stopped. The man reached into his pocket and drew out a jar. Taking off the lid, he scooped out the glutinous contents and threw it out across the river. It sailed in a single languorous strand, to splash heavily in the water.
‘Accept this gift . . .’
Titus dropped to his haunches and crept forward. That smell again: honey.
The man crouched to clean his hands in the shallows then straightened. Now he took something else from his pocket: round yellow flower heads that he crushed in his fist, before letting the petals scatter on the water.
‘Accept this gift . . .’
Finally he drew out an egg. It was a boiled egg, for he bent and gently cracked the shell on a stone before peeling it off and scattering the pieces across the waves.
‘Accept this gift . . .’
Then he turned. Titus flung himself sideways and the policeman’s steps must have passed within inches of his own outstretched legs. He waited a split second then crawled after him.
Eggs. Tansy. Honey.
Did they have some meaning that Titus didn’t understand?
The apothecary had explained that tansy stood for immortality. An egg must surely represent new life. And what of the honey? Aside from its sweetness the only thing that occurred to Titus was that his mother had once applied it to his foot when he trod on a rusting nail.
He followed the crunching sound of the policeman’s feet and soon the huge grey slab of the embankment wall loomed into view. The figure was bending over a dark mass that must be the overcoat. One arc of a pair of handcuffs gleamed in the left-hand pocket. The coat lay on the gravel near an arch from which a muddy stream flowed down the beach to join the river. This must be the Tyburn, the river that flowed beneath Old Pye Street.
Titus had almost forgotten the rat’s mewling but as the policeman approached the wall it began again and Titus realised that it was coming from beneath the coat. At the same moment he realised that the man was not fat at all, but must have been concealing something large beneath the garment.
The overcoat writhed as the footsteps drew closer. The man began to sing a lullaby:
‘Lavender’s green, dilly, dilly, Lavender’s blue,
If you love me, dilly, dilly, I will love you.’
The garment thrashed and the mewling became a strangled scream. The policeman flung the coat aside. A child’s face stared up, eyes bulging. Its mouth was open but filled with something, its hands and feet were bound. It struggled wildly as the policeman knelt beside it.
Titus cried out as a blade flashed in the moonlight and his cry was drowned by the squealing of the child. But the knife swept past its throat and up to its hairline. In the moonlight the grubby hair looked grey but, in fact, the child must have been almost as fair as Hannah. The policeman snipped off a lock of hair and tied it with a length of twine from his pocket then he lifted the child and slung it onto his shoulder.
Titus leaped to his feet.
‘Stop! Murderer!’
The man stopped, his back to Titus. Voices drifted down from the bridge above. ‘Hello down there! Are you having a lark?’
Titus bent and picked up a brick.
‘Put him down or I’ll knock your brains out.’
‘Hello . . . o . . . o!’ sang the voices above. ‘Is someone being murdered down there?’
The figure did not move. Titus took a step forward and raised the fist holding the brick.
‘I mean it. I have a pistol.’
‘Hold up! I’m coming down!’ an upper-crust male voice called down from the bridge.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Simon, we’ll be late,’ a woman complained.
Finally the figure turned.
The brick fell from Titus’s hand and struck him on the shoulder. He barely felt it. Sensing its chance the child gave a final convulsion, flipped itself onto the sand and began to crawl away on its stomach.
Inspector Pilbury glanced down at the retreating child then he turned his gaze on Titus. The eyes that burned into him were full of loathing, frustration and rage, but absolutely no recognition.
Without a word he scooped up his coat and disappeared into the fog.
A man in a tailcoat blundered into view, but caught his foot on a wooden strut and went sprawling onto the beach. He described his mishap to those above, to peals of laughter, and seemed to have trouble getting up.
‘See to the child!’ Titus said, before setting off after Pilbury.
He splashed through the stream and under the bridge, but the fog was so dense and his heavy, oversized boots made him clumsy and slow. He thought he could hear Pilbury’s footsteps ahead of him until the river bent westwards at Vauxhall Bridge, but here the shore became rocky and he sheered his ankle several times until it twisted badly and he could go no further.
And there he stayed on the rocky beach, as the river twisted away from him, rolling silver, rolling black, until the incoming tide covered his boots.
13
Sergeant Samson kicked him hard in the shins.
‘Get up! You stable boys are all alike, lazy tykes the lot of you! The coach is needed in— Good grief,’ he peered down at Titus’s face, ‘what’s the matter with you?’
Titus sat up and began folding away the blanket.
‘You’re a distinctly peculiar colour, boy.’
‘Just a stomach upset.’
‘Stay out of the kitchen, then, we don’t want to go the same way.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The coach needs to be ready by nine.’
‘Yes, sir.’
When Samson left, Titus got up and went into the courtyard. It was a fine day with a light breeze and in the far western corner he found a little patch of sun to stand in and let the sweat dry off him.
He ached all over from shivering. He would leave today, straight after he’d prepared the carriage. Pick up Hannah, get on a train and leave the city. Heaven knew what they would do then. It would soon be winter and too cold to sleep outdoors, but perhaps they could survive for a while sleeping in barns and begging food from farmers’ wives.
The policemen were all in the kitchen tucking into eggs and bacon. Samson said something to the others and they all turned round and grinned at him, then made dramatic puking impressions. Titus raised his hand but could not force a smile to his lips. As he watched, Pilbury entered the room. He must have asked what the joke was, for a split second later he turned to look out of the window. Their eyes met and Titus was fastened to the spot. A smile spread over Pilbury’s face and for a moment Titus’s blood ran cold. But it was not a smile of triumph or threat; it was the same kind, weary smile Inspector Pilbury often wore.
The patch of sunlight disappeared behind a cloud and a chill crept over Titus’s damp skin. And then the door opened.
‘Come in, son! Don’t listen to that old curmudgeon.’
‘N . . . no, sir, I’d better not.’
‘Very well, please yourself, but there’s plenty here if you get your appetite back.’
The door closed, and Titus breathed again. For the next twenty minutes he concentrated all his efforts on ensuring that the carriage was so well prepared that none of the police officers would have cause to speak to him again. After it had left and Pilbury had gone back to his office, Titus slipped out of the gate.
He ran all the way to Little Almonry and pushed his way past the queue already forming outside the porter’s office. Once inside he told the porter that he wanted to take Hannah i
mmediately and, after an agonising wait while paperwork was filled in, Titus was allowed through to the courtyard. Hannah was playing hopscotch with some much smaller girls, giggling as the stone rolled under the skirts of a hatchet-faced female guard.
‘Hannah!’
She raised her head: for a moment her face lit up before she swiftly rearranged it into a scowl. She ambled over, her gaze averted. When she was within touching distance he grabbed her arm and pulled her close.
‘We gotta go,’ he hissed into her ear. ‘Now. Tell the nurse and go get your stuff.’
‘I ain’t got no stuff,’ she said, frowning and pulling away. ‘They burned me clothes. What you done now?’
‘I haven’t done nothing.’
‘Lost your job?’
‘I haven’t lost it. It’s just . . .’
She stared at him, her eyes even wider now that her face had become so thin and drawn.
‘Mr Pilbury’s sick.’
She gasped.
‘How sick? Not . . . dyin’?’
‘No, no. Sick in his mind. I think he might be dangerous.’
He began leading her towards the door to the porter’s office.
‘We can go to the country, maybe try and find some of Mother’s relatives. It’s still warm enough to sleep in barns and . . .’
She stopped and shook her arm free.
‘You’re just gonna leave him?’ she said.
He blinked at her.
‘Didn’t you hear me? He’s dangerous.’
Even as he said it he knew how the words sounded and he straightened his back a little. Sure enough there was disappointment in her eyes.
‘After all he’s done for us?’
‘What d’you want me to do?’ he hissed. ‘I’m not a doctor, am I? I can’t help him.’
But as he spoke he realised the opposite was true. He was the only one who could help. If he left, it wouldn’t be long before Doctor Hadsley called Pilbury to account and the new murders were broadcast to the country. Then it was only a matter of time before he was apprehended and hanged. If Titus remained, perhaps he could somehow protect Pilbury from himself. It was not as if he hadn’t dealt with such outbursts of insanity before, from his father. Whatever happened, Titus had never for a moment stopped loving his father, always knowing it was the sickness of his mind not an evil nature that made him that way. He would never have abandoned him. Was he simply going to abandon his friend in his time of greatest need?
‘If I go back, you’d have to stay here.’
The cries of the children echoed around the bleak walls. Somebody must have cheated at hopscotch, for a fight had broken out. Two of the girls had dragged the bonnet off a third and were clawing at her hair. The guard pounded over and tore them apart, swiping at them with the back of her hands until they subsided into sobs.
‘Very well,’ Hannah whispered.
‘You’ll stay here?’
She gulped and nodded. ‘For Mr Pilbury. If you promise to help him.’
He looked at her poor, thin, bruised face: at the scratches on her cheek, the sores clustering in the corners of her mouth, the tufts of her shorn hair poking out from under the bonnet. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her softly on the forehead.
‘You are the bravest girl in the world,’ he said.
When he pulled away from her there were tears coursing down her cheeks.
‘I will find a way to make him better,’ Titus said, his voice thick, ‘and then I will come for you. I swear it will not be much longer.’
She nodded blindly.
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’
She nodded again, then turned and began making her way back to the little group of children. As she walked away from him she seemed to diminish, until she was as frail and insubstantial as a ghost. One of the other girls cast him a sour look and tried to put an arm around her but Hannah shook her off, picked up the stone and resumed the game.
Since he’d left his gate key in the stable, expecting not to return, Titus had to go back past the main desk. Sure enough, there was trouble.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ snapped the duty officer. ‘Samson’s on the warpath. They couldn’t get the carriage in. Inspector Pilbury himself had to go and find a key.’
Titus ducked his head and hurried down the corridor that led past the offices. Samson stepped out in front of him.
‘Now you listen here . . .’ he began.
‘He’s back then, is he?’
The hair down Titus’s spine prickled as he felt the Inspector’s presence behind him.
‘Wants a damn good hiding, sir, if you ask me.’
Then two large hands gripped Titus’s shoulders and effortlessly turned him.
For a moment he could not look up. His heart was a hammer striking an anvil. He was tempted to whisper – Let me go or I’ll tell – but could not unclench his teeth.
‘It’s not like you to vanish like that. We were worried.’
Samson snorted.
Finally Titus swivelled his pupils up and met Pilbury’s gaze. He opened his mouth and stuttered out a few syllables, then fell silent. He scrutinised the Inspector’s face, looking for some message of threat or conspiracy, but Pilbury’s gaze was troubled only by concern.
‘Come into my office.’
Ah, so that was why . . .
The policeman shut the door behind them and Titus waited, staring blindly at the empty desk, for whatever fate Pilbury had decided for him. A poker lay by the fire. If he could get to it he might be able to defend himself. Although there wasn’t much point. If he killed or injured Pilbury he would hang – what was a slum rat’s word against a police inspector’s? The best he could do was lull Pilbury into a false sense of security then go to Doctor Hadsley. Surely the doctor would do everything in his power to keep his friend from the gallows, although arguably sending him to Bedlam was worse . . .
Finally Pilbury turned.
‘This might seem a peculiar question, Titus, but were you awake late last night?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you happen to recall what time I left?’
Titus swallowed.
‘Your . . . er . . . usual time, sir.’
Titus’s mouth went dry as he waited for the leer or wink that would mean the Inspector knew his game. None came. And now that he thought about it he was sure that last night Pilbury had not even recognised him. That was strange in itself: surely it hadn’t been that dark? Could the mental aberration that had caused Pilbury’s actions come on suddenly and then just as suddenly pass? After the fit had ended was he back to being the same old Pilbury, with no knowledge of what he had done? This made Titus feel considerably better. If this was the case he could try and help his friend without guilt, and surely the authorities would not hang a man for a fit of madness he could not later recall?
Pilbury took a deep breath.
‘Good, good. Thought so. Memory isn’t what it used to be at my age, you know!’
He laughed but it was a hollow sort of laugh.
‘Now, Samson’s cross with you but I’m prepared to give you another chance, so long as my poor memory stays between you and me, eh?’
‘Of course, sir,’ Titus said.
He went back to the stable and lay on his back, staring up at the rafters. A spider was spinning an intricate web in one of the corners. Then it lowered itself down on a strand of silk and scuttled away under a sack.
Silkworms and spiders.
The phrase was from a poem he’d been given at school for reading practice. One of the older boys had told him it was about laudanum. He’d seen plenty of drug addicts in his time. There were several opium dens in the Acre: run by Chinamen, they lent an exotic, almost opulent, air to the shabby little back streets down which their furtive clients crept. Young gentlemen, usually, although if they continued with the habit they soon came to resemble walking corpses. He’d watched with fascinated horror the decline of a pianist from a nearby garret,
whose music became ever more erratic and wild, until finally it ceased altogether when the poor man hanged himself from the rafters. Now he thought about it, Pilbury’s symptoms fitted perfectly with an addiction to the drug: the mood swings, the lack of appetite, the pallor, the personality change, the memory loss. Often the drug use started with a personal tragedy (the pianist’s brother had eloped with his fiancée) – hadn’t Pilbury supposedly lost his wife?
When Titus went back across to the station he found that luck was with him. The senior officers had gone for lunch in a club, to celebrate the birth of Samson’s first grandchild. It was easy enough for Titus to slip inside Pilbury’s office unobserved and close the door behind him. There he began ransacking the place.
He picked the locks of the desk drawers and riffled through the contents, searched in and under the wardrobe and examined the upholstery of the chairs. He delved into the bin but found only tobacco ash, a whisky bottle and the letter from the medium. He tested the floorboards for any loose ones. He even poured out the coal scuttle into the fireplace then replaced each coal one by one. He looked behind pictures and lifted the rug.
But after half an hour of painstaking work, he had discovered no bottle or vial. Though the room was cold he was sweating with anxiety that Pilbury would return at any moment, his mood darkened by alcohol. He turned a slow circle in the middle of the floor and tried to think where he himself might have hidden such a secret.
He thought of the little bundles of hair tucked away behind the brick in the stable.
As he bent to examine the stones around the fireplace he saw immediately a dark outline where the mortar had separated from one of the bricks. He tried to tease it out with his fingernails but it was no good, he would need a tool.
He grabbed a letter opener from the desk.
As he jiggled the blade in the keyhole he heard a hubbub coming from the front of the station. The officers were back.
Stabbing the blade into the crevice he leaned his whole weight on it, praying it would not snap, and the stone finally gave. Samson passed by outside the door and as his drunken bellowing receded Titus could hear Pilbury talking to the duty officer. He had a few moments more. Once the stone had eased a quarter of the way out he withdrew the letter opener and hurried back to the desk to replace it. Returning to the fireplace he could hear Pilbury’s footsteps in the corridor. He drew out the brick and reached into the hole. But instead of a bottle of laudanum, his hand closed around something soft. He drew it out.
The Hanged Man Rises Page 12
