Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  ‘Four then, four children from Foulsham. They’ll wish they hadn’t took the trouble.’

  ‘And some run off.’

  ‘Escaped?’

  ‘We shot one. I did not like to do that.’

  That was Molly, I thought, that was Molly Porter that you shot.

  ‘No, Constable Jones, not children. They are not children, you can’t think like that. They’re rats. Got it? Rats, Jones. Say it, Jones: rats.’

  ‘Rats, sir.’

  ‘Should step on all their heads, Jones.’

  ‘Rats, sir, yes.’

  ‘We have orders, we’re fighting a war, man, a war against filth and disease.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I see that, sir, shan’t happen again, sir.’

  ‘See that it don’t. And the others? What of the others?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘Find them, do it fast.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And have these ones penned before the hour’s out.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I want the missing ones too, mind.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What were you thinking? To let them free.’

  ‘Didn’t mean to, sir, terrible rush it all was. There was one, a redhead, terrible vicious she was. Great red hair she had, all of a mess, like she was wild as an animal, shocking to see it. Shan’t forget that in a hurry, how she came at me. How she kicked my own nose into a tap of blood!’

  ‘Pen these ones fast. Then go back out. Find the children, find your redhead. Move it whilst they’re still close. I want no excuses.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Running again, gates shut, echoes down the lane, the sounds of the boots hammering against the wall, the prison wall. Suddenly it was quiet again. Shivering in the mud, like some animal, like some wretched dog. Like I was dead already and somehow floating in that hard cold, like I was almost lying above London, like some dead spirit.

  London.

  Clod.

  Clod?

  Binadit?

  Where’s your whereabouts?

  Are you here, either?

  Are you about the streets?

  On London ground?

  I’d like to see you.

  I’d like some company.

  A familiar face.

  In all this strangeness.

  In all this London muck.

  London: cold, cold place. Colder here than even any pole, North or South, cold are the London hearts, hard and mean. And sharp.

  Well, London.

  Well then, London.

  My name is Lucy Pennant.

  This is my story.

  Make it a long ’un.

  Won’t you?

  ‘Come on,’ I whispered, snapping to and heaving myself up, pushing the others around me. ‘We shouldn’t linger here long, this is the worst of it. Some sort of prison. Not the place for us. Well then, scrape yourselves down. They went this way and so we shall choose the other. Quiet as anything, and on we go. Silent. Silent.’

  ‘They had Tess,’ said Colin. ‘I did see her, she was with them constables.’

  ‘Then she’s alive, isn’t she? And that’s got to be something.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose.’

  ‘Course it is.’

  ‘What’ll they do to her?’

  ‘Well, Colin,’ I said, ‘I don’t know. But they’re keeping them and that’s something, isn’t it. They’ve taken them in. But I think, all in all, we’d better be our own keepers and so on we go, a little further. We must try and find somewhere before it gets lighter. Somewhere to keep us covered and safe as we may be. I bet we can, we’ll just help ourselves. And well done. You’re doing so well. Stick together, that’s the crux of it.’

  We crept out and turned away from the Thames wall, keeping in the shadows, heading in the other direction into darker streets away from the horrible flicking light of Foulsham. Rat children, we were, and I loved us every one.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Jen was beside me.

  ‘Step by step,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t have a clue, do you?’

  ‘Not much,’ I said.

  ‘We might be shot at any moment.’

  ‘We might,’ I said. ‘But also, consider this, we might not.’

  ‘Them’s the options?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Not a lot, is it?’

  ‘Not a ton, no. But then don’t forget that they did just walk by us, those idiots, and so maybe they’re not so smart. And maybe then we’ll be all right. Maybe.’

  ‘They walked right past us,’ some girl echoed and laughed.

  ‘Dunces.’

  ‘Dumb as leathers.’

  ‘No brains in their casings.’

  ‘Dummies, every one.’

  There was some laughing through that. It was funny, and I was laughing along with them. Stupid bloody policemen.

  ‘Bloody idiots, aren’t they?’

  ‘Idiots!’

  ‘All we have to do is blend in,’ I said. ‘All we have to do is look like London children, don’t we, and then they’ll never find us, they’ll never know us. Can’t be that hard, can it?’

  ‘Nah, we can do it.’

  ‘We’ll filch some togs, that can’t be hard. We’ll steal a little here and there, I know about that well enough. Come on, pick us up, if we can laugh we’re not dead.’

  ‘And Tess, and the others?’ asked Colin.

  ‘We shan’t forget them,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how just yet, but we shall find a way to get them out. We’ll see them again. Shan’t we, Colin?’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Yes, we must.’

  There was some spirit then among us. Like we’d won a battle or something. But there was more war ahead of us.

  ‘Come on then, my dears. Let’s try just around this corner.’

  And just around that corner, all very suddenly, there were several people and they had lit torches, which they shone very roughly towards our faces, and a sharp voice shouted out, ‘Well, well, well and what have we here then?’

  Inspector Frederick Harbin

  15

  HER MAJESTY’S RATCATCHER

  Report from Inspector Frederick Harbin,

  Marylebone ‘D’ Division

  6th February 1876

  6 p.m.

  It is certain that a number of them had been hiding in the relative seclusion of Connaught Place. The unfortunate little male – I shall not call him a man, this creature we had captured who named himself Timfy Iremonger and held pathetically to a broken whistle – was obliging, under certain force, and after some small struggles, to offer up the address:

  ‘Eighteen Connaught Place.’

  I readied a force with all haste and we surrounded the location with great speed and quietness, the better to catch them. But before we were quite ready some figures were seen running out into the night. We shouted warnings at them but the figures kept running directly at us. Fearing for themselves my First Class Constables Ainsley and Brock shot and brought them down. They swore there had been people running at them, but what they found in the street were mere bags of rubbish, some sort of sacks filled with dirt, but got up in human clothing. They must have been some decoy, scarecrows of some nature, to slow us down.

  Enough time had been wasted.

  I blew my whistle. And in we rushed.

  But we were too late already. Too late by then; somehow our plans were suspected, it may have been due to the prolonged absence of their kin Timfy; it does not surprise me that his family members knew that the uncanny thing would squeal, indeed the creature has ‘squeal’ written all about him. In any case by the time we arrived, the Iremongers had all fled the house or what was left of it.

  In 18 Connaught Place this evening was the most appalling scene of rot and decay, unspeakable filth in every room, with gross discolouration, as of some strange animal’s inhabitation. Terrible stench, and every object within left somehow bent and deformed. Indeed in many cases
it was impossible to understand the original shape and purpose of the object. The whole place was in such a state of horrific neglect and disorder that I can only conjecture that the house had been most singularly and deliberately abused. It is in this house, with a certainty, that they had housed themselves. Whither they have gone can not at this moment be judged, though I must remain confident that they shall be found, and quickly too.

  7.15 p.m.

  We shall call for witnesses. We have barricaded the street at both ends, none shall pass now without our say-so, and presently we must begin the process of calling from house to house in the hope that someone here has some information.

  7.45 p.m.

  I am sorry to continue in such a negative vein. We have not, as of this moment, been able to find any witnesses. Let me further explain: we have not yet been able to find any trustworthy human beings. No one has come to their doors in answer to our entreaties, as if all life has vanished from the street. I have called out that we are the police and explained our purpose, but still no one comes forward.

  I commanded that a front door be broken down, to encourage communication.

  I chose the door of the neighbouring establishment to 18, number 16. At first the house seemed in quiet order but marching through it we found not a living soul. There were various incongruous objects sat in chairs: an oboe, for example, was found bobbing in a lavatory bowl; we found a garden rake in a leather armchair and a footstool floating in a bathtub; there was a carpet beater in a gentleman’s study and a filthy looking petticoat on an elegant chair in the morning room. Elsewhere the scene made as little sense: no servants up or down the house but, again, in the servants’ stations were various surprising objects. In the kitchen, amongst the pans and saucers, there was a soldier’s uniform and a lady’s nightgown, a billiard cue in the wine cellar and a large ship’s figurehead of a foreign type taking up a good portion of a storeroom.

  My men, at first bewildered, began to complain about the oddness of it all. I told them to pull themselves together, to bang on the door of number 14 and so on until they came upon someone. But nowhere, nowhere was a person to be found, only again, the same strange objects positioned here and thereabouts, as if they, the objects, were the owners of these homes, as if they were the sole residents of these addresses, and the world had turned quite inside out.

  ‘Every house,’ I said. ‘Every single house. Search, find me a person!’

  So my men scattered at opposite ends of the street and were to work their way down towards the middle. Again the houses seemed as before, no person present but many objects in peculiar places, most confusing and distressing. The more this continued the more my men were put off, dispirited by the whole scene; some began to vomit and all were white and sweating.

  ‘Buck up, try another house. Be thorough, find me a person.’

  But they never did, they never could. It was only when two of my men, although whistled for and called to report, failed to materialise, that I myself began to be disquieted. These men had gone into different houses and neither of them afterwards came out. We searched the places thoroughly, momentarily calling off our larger search of the other houses, but nowhere were my Constables (Second and Third Class) James Pickford and Richard Storr to be seen. One of my force swore he’d found something but all that he had to explain my men’s absence was a fish kettle, strangely warm.

  I sent for backup then; I was myself beginning to feel unwell.

  ‘Keep out of the houses,’ I called. ‘Keep out. There is something amiss, I do credit it, for certain it shall be easily explained by the correct officials and then we shall all be in the light, but for now, I am most confused. Search the street, but do not go into any house, I repeat: the street only, stick together, always be at the very least with one fellow officer. We shall not enter any further premises until our backup is here.’

  On my orders, we have done a roll call of names.

  8.30 p.m.

  If ever there were any need to know what horrors these people are capable of, if there was ever any doubting, it is only necessary to see the terrible lifelessness of Connaught Place. Where have the people gone, I know not, I cannot ever say. Only that they have gone. That they have surely been cruelly stolen from this life.

  Think on it: there is a street in London, in London, the biggest, the greatest city in all the world, the metropolis that is crammed full of human beings, where there are more human souls than in any other city in all the globe, where we all shove and hustle amongst one another; there is in that place of maximum congestion, a street that is empty, a dead street, a peopleless street.

  As if mankind had been quite finished with.

  As if London had become a museum, and there was no one left to visit it.

  9.15 p.m.

  Our backup arrived. They began smashing down the doors of the houses we had yet to enter. All was as before. I saw in one child’s bed a rowlock, a simple rowlock from a rowing boat, but this rowlock seemed most unnatural to me, I cannot explain it, as if the rowlock had bullied the child out of the place and now had it for its own and lay there in selfish comfort. In the bedroom of a married couple I saw a coal scuttle and a tuning fork. In a servants’ room I found, barely covered by a blanket, a writing desk. I felt a fear inside me in those rooms that I have never felt before, and hope never to feel again. It is unholy. It is some kind of evil.

  10 p.m.

  Five houses left to search and then the whole street will have been seen to.

  10.30 p.m.

  There can be no doubting that these Iremongers, through their own malignity or through the disease they carry about them, have caused a terrible absence of humanity.

  If we are not most cautious and vigilant now, I do fear, I do fear absolutely for the people of my city.

  11 p.m.

  Only two houses left to search now.

  Each time a roll call has been performed. We have lost no more men.

  11.15 p.m.

  The Iremonger family of Foulsham are with us, they are about London, and where before they were contained in one abode, it now appears most likely that they are scattered about the capital, and that any chance of finding them, of finding all of them, has become tenfold, a hundredfold more difficult. It may be that every house in the city must be searched, every person questioned. I do not know where next to tread, I only know that all Iremongers must be found, quick or dead, and with the utmost swiftness.

  11.45 p.m.

  Detective Superintendent Rudley-Griffin has been to the street. Again a roll call has been performed. One further man cannot be accounted for. I do my best to explain myself but, strangely, Rudley-Griffin does not seem all that surprised, as if he has seen behaviour of this type before. He is a special officer, one I have not met previously.

  ‘Harbin,’ he said to me, ‘it is best to keep this sort of thing as little known as possible.’

  ‘Yes, sir, certainly, sir.’

  ‘There was once a trouble like this before, concerning some illness spreading about the populace. During that time a certain man came forth who said, if he was sufficiently paid, he would help us in our troubles. No one knew who he was, or where he came from, but he was most particularly capable, most unusually so, in sorting out the problem. He disappeared after it was dealt with, and no one knew whither he had gone. But word has come to us from him this very evening. His name, at least the name he uses when he communicates with us, is John Smith Un-Iremonger.’

  ‘Is he of the family?’

  ‘No, no, I cannot think so. If anything, somehow the very antithesis of it. I know nothing more about him, only that he has been most useful before.’

  ‘Well, sir, let us hope this gentleman solves this nonsense.’

  ‘Only thing is, Harbin.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I shouldn’t call him a gentleman. Not exactly.’

  ‘What should you call him then?’

  ‘I cannot exactly say. Not a gentleman; there, I’ll
leave it at that. Carry on then, Harbin, see the search through.’

  Superintendent Rudley-Griffin seemed most eager to leave. By then there were new noises up and down the street, doors opening and closing though no one was there to operate them, strange cracks and creaks coming from the houses, as if the whole address were trying to come to life.

  12.17 a.m.

  One house left to go.

  Link Boys of Mill Bank

  16

  MOVING STREETLAMPS

  Continuing the narrative of Lucy Pennant

  ‘Well, well, well, and what have we here then?’

  There were torches all around us, circling us, no way out. I couldn’t see the people holding them, the light was too bright. I could feel the heat of them burning into us. We’ve been taken – somehow it happened, swift as anything. Like we could count the breaths left to us now, so close to the end. Have at us, why don’t you, I thought, but by heaven I’ll take one or two of you with me. I’ll kick and punch you and you’ll remember me in the morning in your bruises and your swellings, in your teeth gone missing.

  ‘Who are you?’ some torch asked. ‘And what’s your business here?’

  That wasn’t right, that wasn’t the right question, was it? That didn’t sound police at all. The police knew who we were, rats, they called us. And now that I looked beyond the flaming light, it seemed the people weren’t wearing the same top hats of the policemen, that perhaps they weren’t in uniform even.

  ‘We can be here if we like,’ I said, trying it on.

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘I do,’ I said, growing sharper, standing as tall as I may. ‘Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.’

  ‘Speaking of pipes, do you have matches, do you have a light on you?’

  Matches, I thought, don’t talk to me about matches. I had a matchbox once, called Ada Cruickshanks, so Clod believed. I saw her in my dreams, that woman, that thin, grim governess. She wanted life just like I did.

  ‘Go on and mind your own,’ I said.

  ‘We shan’t be trifled with. We mean business.’

  ‘Like you frighten me,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll bloody make you frightened.’