“So, who fetched you in here?” he asked her as the nurse left to perform her duties.
“A policeman brought me in,” she said, swelling her chest with pride.
“Police? What had you done?” he asked. In Billy’s experience you only saw the police if you were in trouble, he couldn’t remember hearing of them actually helping anyone before.
“Nothing, I was at home asleep, not very well. I didn’t know where you were. Then a policeman knocked on the door. He says you told them I wasn’t very well, and they’d had a...clecshun. Least ways that’s what I think he said. They wraps me up in one of ma’s best blankets and carried me here. After that, I think I must have slept a lot and then I felt better, better than I was any road. The blankets in there, you best take it back to her, she’ll kill me if it goes missing.” She pointed to a small wooden table with a door on the front, when Billy looked there was a blanket folded up inside.
“So when are you coming home?” Billy asked.
“I don’t know, they said I can stay another couple of days to make sure I’m all better. I had three meals yesterday Billy, and I had spotted dick afterwards! And they said I can drink as much water as I like, and it’s clean,” she smiled and it broke Billy’s heart. She looked happier here with all these sick people than she ever did at home. He wanted her to come with him now, but it would feel cruel to take her away.
“I know where you are and I’m coming for you!” Lily said, but her voice had changed. It was a deep male voice, and he knew where he had heard it before. The ward disappeared and he was back in the tunnels, underground and in the dark.
He got up and backed away from the bed, Lily was looking at him, staring at him with hatred in her eyes. “You don’t get away from me so easily,” she said in the same rumbling voice.
“Who..? what..?” he tried to say something, anything, but the words were echoing in his head and the darkness surrounded him once more. He hadn’t escaped at all, he was back in the cage, waiting to become one of those monsters he had seen down there. Bird had just been a figment of his imagination, she wasn’t real, she never had been.
The voice that came from his sister laughed, it was a deep and threatening sound that made him cringe with fear.
“I’m coming for you Billy, Billy, Billy...Billy are you okay? Billy what’s wrong? Somebody help my brother, please!” Lily shouted, her lighter voice rising out of that of the man in the tunnels. He opened his eyes and he was sitting in the chair in the hospital ward.
“Are you okay, young man?” the nurse asked him. She turned his head toward her and looked into his eyes. Then she put a hand to his forehead before she seemed satisfied.
“Sorry, I think I feel asleep,” he said. “I’m very tired.”
“You look worse than your sister,” she said but in a kindly voice, a smile crept onto her lips.
“I’m coming for you,” an echo, from a long way away that faded in to laughter, then gone.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Really,” he assured Lily as he turned to her and saw the worry on her face. He got up and stretched. It felt false and exaggerated, even to him. He leaned over and kissed Lily on the forehead, something he had done every night since their father had died. This did more to put a smile on her face than anything he might have said.
“I’m tired and it’s getting late,” he said. “I better get back and feed the rest of them, and put everyone to bed.”
“Kiss them from me, and come see me in the morning?”
“You try to stop me,” he said. His stomach was still fluttering from his scare but pretending everything was okay had somehow made it feel like it was. He kissed her once more and turned from the bed, deciding not to notice the look of concern that still held on the nurses face. He walked down the ward on legs that felt like water. He saw every face turn to watch him go, sure that he was behind every set of eyes.
When he was outside the door he rushed down the stairs, taking them two and even three at a time. He ran along the ground floor corridor, which was still busy but not as much as it had been. He weaved between doctors and visitors until he reached the foyer. He almost bumped into an elderly woman in the entrance before he tumbled out into the street, gasping for fresh air.
By the time he had walked a few steps from the hospital, Billy was beginning to wonder if he had just imagined it all. The voice had seemed so real, but how would the man from the tunnels have known where he was or even who he was? Nobody else had heard the voice, Lily certainly hadn’t.
He followed Brownlow street, then turned toward home, feeling a little better for putting some distance between himself and the hospital. The darkness of the street didn’t seem so scary since his days trapped in the tunnels. The oil lamps did not give off much light but it was all he needed.
A voice cut out of the crowd, making Billy stop in his tracks. It was a young man’s voice, a real voice, not like the one he had heard in the hospital. He was talking to his friends on the corner up ahead, the group was standing around a brazier, keeping out the chill of the spring night. Billy ducked into the doorway of a closed shop.
“He’s going to find out, he always knows,” the speaker was the boy who had chased Billy out of the tunnel. It was hard to see because he was standing sideways on to the doorway but it looked like he might have a black eye. Billy hoped he was walking with a limp after the kick he had given him too.
“You should have told him,” one of his friends added.
“I know, I know. I panicked, I chased that little runt for ages, but he was like a whippet. He gave me this for my troubles.” He turned so that his friends could see the black-eye in the light of the brazier. Billy ducked back into the doorway just before the boy would have looked straight at him, his heart missing a beat.
“You said two escaped, is that right?” The same friend asked.
“The other one was a girl, they were both just kids. I don’t even know which of the cages they came from.”
Billy suddenly had a sick feeling in his stomach. In all the excitement and confusion. The time he had spent searching in the dark for the way out, he had not thought of all the people in the cage.
His mind had been taken up with the men in the tunnels, and the creatures he had seen appear where people had been moments before. Then he had thought about Lily and his mother. It seemed so long ago that he was in that cage that he had put it out of his mind, but he had done the same for the people who were still there.
A sick, guilty feeling made his stomach feel hollow and empty.
“So what are you going to do about it?” one of them asked.
“I’ve got two choices, I guess,” the boy said. “I find the little bastard and pay him back for kicking me in the privates, then put him back in the cage, or I run away from Liverpool and don’t ever come back.”
“You don’t really think that’s going to work, do you?” his friend asked. “You know Davidson knows everything. He’s probably waiting to see if you come clean, right now.”
“If he knows, I’m already finished. The way I see it, I go back to him with the boy and admit I messed up, or I don’t go back at all.”
Billy decided he’d heard enough. He slipped from the doorway and into the nearest shadow. Heading back the way he had come, he found a new route home, keeping his eye out for all the things that could waylay a young boy on a dark Liverpool night. The moon was just a sliver in the sky and that was fine by him. Just at the moment he didn’t want to be seen.
He reached his front door and let himself in. He was about to tell his mother about Lily but something heavy hit him in the back as he was closing the door. He felt his arms pinned to his sides and once again felt panic overtake him.
“Billy!” a voice squealed in his ear. A familiar voice, a wonderful voice, Birds voice. She released him and he spun around to look at her. He was about to speak, to tell her how scared he’d been, how guilty he felt for not telling anyone what had happened to them. He wanted to tell her a thousa
nd things that only she would understand, then she stepped toward him. It was brief but firm, and before he understood what was happening, he was on the far side of his first real kiss.
Chapter Twenty Two
It was the first day of rain since the day that Tanner had taken the late Micky Flynn and his brother in to custody. The wind was blowing it in horizontal sheets off the Mersey and turning a spring day in to a nightmare. Tanner and Templeton moved through the streets, water pouring off the heavy overcoat and top hat Tanner wore. Templeton on the other hand had his usual suit on, and didn’t seem to be suffering more than a mild wetting. A man of potential, Tanner thought, not for the first time.
The day had been a waste, or a washout if that suited you better. They had started at midmorning, with Tanner’s head still thick from the drink he had shared with Templeton the night before. The older man had seemed unaffected both this morning and the previous night, now the light was leaving the day prematurely because of the weather.
They had gone from house to house, speaking to every informant, thief, and vagabond that Tanner knew. Some he had arrested, others he had shown leniency to, in every case the result was the same, nobody knew of, or was willing to talk about Davidson. In one or two places, Tanner had the impression that he might have found out the information he needed, but fear of the newcomer was much greater than fear of the law.
There was finally only one place Tanner could think of, but it already seemed like a waste of time. He stepped into a doorway, out of the wind and rain.
“We may as well go back,” he said to Templeton.
“If you say so, Nelson. Is it really so futile an endeavour that you would admit defeat before even attempting the task?” the older man asked. It was a nonchalant question, but it was loaded in a way that only Templeton seemed to be able.
“The Flynn’s are not going to speak to me,” Tanner said.
“Granted. I very much doubt that they would confide in any officer of the law, especially at the moment. You say their son went to the gallows recently?”
“Two days ago, there are another two of them in custody, both will swing the same way if I’m any judge,” the pun was deliberate, and Templeton smiled dutifully. A single drop of rain ran from the brim of the taller man’s top hat and Tanner wondered again at a man who seemed impervious to the worst that even nature could throw at him.
“Bobby and Patrick? Am I right?”
“Is there anything you aren’t privy to, Mr. Templeton?” Tanner asked, deliberately misusing his partners name and almost goading a response.
“Information is one of the most valuable assets a man can own, Detective.” Templeton replied, slipping back into the use of Tanners title.
“What are you thinking?”
“The largest rock can be moved with a fulcrum and a lever, Mr. Tanner, the Greeks taught us that. It is a lesson worth remembering.”
“A what?” Tanner asked. He had spent little time in school, and had not learned the lesson that every man who worked loading ships on the docks could have explained to him.
“Leverage, detective. Simple leverage. Shall we?” the older man said, stepping back out into the driving rain. Tanner followed, his face turned down into his collar to avoid the worst of the rain.
It didn’t take long to reach the only address he knew off for the Flynn family. It was a dark secluded courtyard that was surrounded on all sides by tenement houses. On a normal day Tanner wouldn’t dream of going near the place.
A young boy of five or six years was sitting beneath a covered archway that framed the only entrance to the courtyard. He scuttled away as the two men walked toward him, a warning already forming on his lips.
“Peelers! Police!” they heard the boy cry as he reached the interior of the yard.
By the time they had followed in the lookout’s footsteps, lights were going on in some windows and out in others. They stepped into the centre of the square, which had thankfully been covered over with large tarpaulins to protect it from the worst of the weather.
“You have some nerve coming here, copper. You must have a death wish,” a voice called from out of the shadows. Tanner didn’t bother trying to see who had spoken, they wouldn’t allow themselves to be seen.
“Maggie Flynn!” he shouted, the sound coming back to him from the high walls of the three story slums.
Nothing happened, but Tanner could feel eyes boring into him from every window. He turned to Templeton, if the older man was concerned for his own safety, he certainly didn’t show it.
“Maggie Flynn, I’m here to talk about Bobby and Patrick,” Templeton tried. There were a few moments of interminable silence that felt like a battle of wills. Templeton simply stood, waiting with the look of a man who is perfectly comfortable, and can wait all day.
Finally, a woman appeared on a wooden balcony on the second story of one of the houses in front of them. She was a mountainous woman with prodigious thighs that looked like they might be able to blot out the sun. Tanner wondered at whoever had built the balcony, and her own bravery for having trusted it the first time.
“You don’t want to talk about Micky? My boy, Mickey?” Her voice was booming, how else could it be, coming from such a colossal chest? Her accent was so strong that Tanner had to concentrate on every word. If Templeton had such trouble, he didn’t let it show.
“We can talk about him if you wish, Maggie,” Templeton agreed.
“You swung him from a rope, didn’t you Tanner? Just like you always wanted to.”
Tanner allowed a small smile to escape him before shutting it away, “Come on Maggie, you know he hung himself. I’m surprised he was the first of your boys to see the gallows. He won’t be the last either.”
“Because of men like you, my boys can’t keep their family in the way they deserve, Tanner. You should be ashamed of yourself, leeching off your own, betraying the common man.” She thundered with out rage, shaking the balcony. It was all they needed, thought Tanner, to come here and be blamed for the death of Maggie Flynn. They would be lucky to get out of this yard in one piece, never mind see out the night.
“I protect the common man, Maggie, you know that. I defend them from people like you,” Tanner said. He kept his voice calm, not rising to her anger.
“Costing my boys their lives to protect weak people, you mean!” she thundered.
“If that’s how you choose to see it, there’s nothing to be said here,” Templeton said, taking up the discussion. “Shall we?” he said to Tanner. The two men turned to leave. They got all the way to the alleyway out of the covered yard before Maggie spoke again.
“I thought you wanted to talk about Bobby and Patrick, Tanner.”
“You’re ready to listen now?” Tanner asked, but a look from Templeton stilled him.
“If we are all a little calmer, I have a deal for you, Maggie.”
“I don’t make deals with men like you,” she said, but she remained where she was and looked interested.
“Tell us what we want to know and I will get Patrick freed by the end of tomorrow,” he said.
“What about Bobby?” she asked, light coming into her eyes.
“Patrick was caught outside the pub, Bobby was caught red-handed. I’ll have to stop at prison time for him, Maggie.” Tanner noticed that Templeton kept using the woman’s name, over and over. It was hypnotising, even for someone listening, he wondered what might be going on in the Irish woman’s head.
“Prison? No deal. Whatever you want, you can whistle for it,” she replied.
“You’re in no position to bargain, Maggie. I can walk out of here now, and two more of your boys will be dead by the end of the week.”
“Okay, tell me this, how can you promise these things? Why should I trust you?” She asked.
“He has friends in very high places, Maggie. I’d trust him if I was you. I’ve never known him to lie,” Tanner wasn’t exactly sure if this was true, but he found that he did trust Templeton. The man was straight,
at least as straight as he presented himself to be.
The woman on the balcony paced backward and forward, staring at Templeton. The target of her interrogation stood as easily as a man enjoying a spring day. Finally she stopped and said, “What is it you want from me?”
“Information about the man called Davidson,” Tanner said. He was ready for a lot of responses but not the laughter his request elicited from the mother of this rough Irish family.
“You’ve come to the wrong place, copper,” she said. “We don’t grass on anyone.”
“Think about your boys, Maggie,” Tanner said but he could see this wasn’t about honour among thieves, she was scared.
“I am thinking about my boys, Tanner. I’ve got four more than the ones you’ve laid your hands on,” she said. “Now, I’m going to count to ten, I suggest you’ve vacated my home by the time I get there,” with that said, she turned from the balcony and was gone.
Tanner turned to Templeton, wordlessly signalling that they should leave. They followed the same passage by which they had come to the yard, and out under the archway. The rain was still falling steadily but the wind had died down so that it wasn’t blowing directly into their faces.
As they passed a dark doorway, a hand snaked out and took hold of Tanners arm. In his shock he nearly turned the wrist and snapped it, a move he had learned in his first few months on the force, and one that had served him well in the years since.
“Maggie wants to talk to you,” a male voice hissed from the shadows. He pulled at Tanner’s arm and led him into the house. With the door closed, a lamp was lit to reveal Maggie sitting in a chair. For a large person, she had moved unnaturally fast in order to get down and across the space before them. The inside of these tenements must be like a warren, Tanner thought. They had be at least six houses away from where she had been standing on the balcony.
“If they find out I’ve spoken to you, my entire family will be dead in a week,” she said with no preamble.
Mersey Dark Page 19
