The Peculiars

by Kieran Larwood

  ‘Well, it’s nothing to do with the law,’ said Gigantus. ‘We’re just trying to find a missing girl, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, I’m sure you are!’ Sneepsnood flapped his gangly hands and smiled even wider. ‘Very honourable too, I must say. Most public-spirited of you.’

  ‘But what has this got to do with you?’ Mama Rat asked. Sheba could see she didn’t trust the man.

  ‘Well, nothing at first,’ said Sneepsnood. ‘Just an interesting snippet, I thought. Nice to know what my old friends are up to.’ He gave another of his unsettling smiles. ‘But then, as you know, I have a range of clients, from all walks of life.’

  ‘I know that very well, Jeremiah,’ said Gigantus.

  ‘Well, it so happens that one of my patrons, a very well-to-do lady who has sadly lost her own son, had already asked me to keep an ear out for this kind of thing.’

  ‘So you told her all about us,’ said Gigantus. His voice was a few shades short of a growl.

  ‘Well . . .’ said Sneepsnood, ‘I may have mentioned it. But only to help further your enquiries, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anyway, this lady would like to meet with you, and asked if I would request your presence at Christ Church graveyard this very afternoon. At one o’clock, if you please.’

  ‘Why the graveyard?’ Sheba asked. In her curiosity she had forgotten herself, and now found she had drawn the unwelcome attention of Sneepsnood. His gaze was like being slowly covered in grease, and it was all she could do to meet his eyes without shuddering.

  ‘A mutually convenient public place of easily recognisable location,’ he said, in one long sneer. ‘Suggested it myself, in fact.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Mama Rat. ‘We shall consider it. Thank you for passing on the message.’

  ‘My deep and abiding pleasure,’ said Sneepsnood. The man fawned and smiled a bit more as they left the tiny shop, and even followed them out into the street to wave goodbye. The Peculiars waited until they were well out of his sight before pausing beside a coffee seller to discuss what had happened.

  ‘Thank crikey we’re out of there,’ said Monkeyboy. ‘I was about to be sick. That bloke has more slime than a bucketful of slugs.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mama Rat. ‘That was all a bit bizarre.’

  ‘I know he and I go way back,’ said Gigantus, ‘but I can’t deny he’s trouble.’

  ‘What we do about lady?’ said Sister Moon.

  There was much rubbing of chins, fur and tails before Sheba found the courage to speak up.

  ‘I think we should go,’ she said. ‘After all, there’s not much else we can do, and if it helps us find Till . . .’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Mama Rat. ‘But maybe not all of us. We don’t want to give the poor woman nightmares.’

  ‘You and Sheba go,’ said Sister Moon. ‘You know what to ask, and Sheba might sniff something. She very clever at that.’

  Underneath her fur, Sheba blushed. Another compliment. What was the world coming to?

  ‘Very well,’ said Gigantus. ‘But the rest of us will be nearby. Just in case.’

  Christ Church was literally around the corner from Brick Lane. Made from grimy white stone, with a three-tiered tower at the front, it was easily recognisable for miles around. Crumbling hovels clustered around it, almost as if they themselves were bowing down to worship.

  ‘Fascinating places, churchyards, don’t you think?’ Mama Rat said as she and Sheba walked round to the graveyard at the back. ‘Until they built the new cemeteries, there was barely any room here for all the dead. The gravediggers used to have to chop their way down through all the arms and legs to fit the new ones in. There must be thousands and thousands of corpses under our feet right now.’

  Sheba shivered. She had expected it to be difficult to spot the lady, but she was the only person present, seated upon a stone bench amongst the mass of crooked gravestones. From a distance, it looked as though she was hidden in shadow, but as Sheba walked closer, she could see it was how she was dressed.

  She wore very fine clothing, but every last stitch was black. Her skirts were thick velvet, her bodice embroidered with the shadows of twining flowers. A shawl hung over her shoulders, a bonnet covered her pinned-up hair, and a lace veil hid her face. She looked like an absence of light and colour, as if something had come along and snipped a woman-shaped hole out of the world. The only bits of her skin visible were the tips of her white fingers where they poked from the end of her black lace gloves.

  As Mama Rat and Sheba wove their way through the gravestones, the lace veil twitched, then moved as the woman turned her head. Sheba found it unnerving to be watched without being able to see any eyes. Although, she thought, a veil would be a good way to hide your face. If I had one, I could go anywhere, and no one would know I was at all different.

  ‘Good day,’ said Mama Rat, as they reached the bench.

  ‘Good day,’ said the woman.

  Sheba wondered if she should say ‘good day’ too, but generally children were expected to be silent unless spoken to. Instead she took a subtle sniff.

  Besides the smell of the graveyard itself, and the stench of horse manure and rubbish from the road beyond, Sheba picked up a rather cold and sharp smell around the woman – with a trace of something else, a sweet aroma that, for once, she couldn’t place. She frowned.

  ‘Please, do have a seat,’ said the woman, breaking Sheba’s thread of concentration.

  Mama Rat sat beside her on the bench, leaving Sheba room to hop on the end.

  ‘I take it you’re the lady that Mr Sneepsnood has been representing,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the woman. ‘My name is Mrs Crowley.’ She spoke with a strange lisp. ‘I understand you have been making enquiries about lost children?’

  ‘May I ask what interest our enquiries are to you?’ asked Mama Rat.

  There was a long pause, as if the woman were reluctant to speak. Finally, she gave a soft sigh and said, ‘I too am searching for a lost child. My son went missing some months ago. He was playing by the shoreline one morning and never returned. Which is why I contacted Mr Sneepsnood. And several other businessmen up and down the river besides. I thought they might have some news.’

  ‘Surely you’d be better off speaking to the peel . . . I mean the police?’ Mama Rat said.

  ‘Oh, I have tried,’ Mrs Crowley replied. ‘And they have assured me repeatedly they are ‘looking into it’. But I thought . . . if I knew someone else in the same position, we could somehow join forces. Share notes. And to know someone else who felt as I do . . . it would help me immeasurably.’

  ‘It’s clear you fear the worst, if you’ve gone into mourning already.’ Mama Rat gestured with her pipe at the black dress.

  ‘Oh yes, the veil,’ said Mrs Crowley. ‘I know it might be premature, that there still could be hope. But without my little boy . . . it wouldn’t feel right to go about dressed as normal. I’m sure you understand.’

  Mama Rat lit a fresh pipe. ‘We’d like to help, of course, but we’ve only just started looking into the matter ourselves.’

  ‘I see. And is it your daughter that has gone missing? Or a son like mine perhaps?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Mama Rat. ‘Never had any children myself. Oh, besides Sheba here, of course. No, we’re looking into the matter on behalf of some friends.’

  ‘Sheba . . .’ For the first time, the veil turned towards her, and for an instant Sheba thought she saw the glint of an eye shining through the thick lace veil.

  ‘Good day,’ she said, rather belatedly.

  The veil didn’t move for several seconds, as if the lady was examining Sheba closely, then it turned back to Mama Rat. ‘May I ask who those friends are?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s confidential,’ said Mama Rat.

  ‘I understand,’ said Mrs Crowley. ‘But perhaps you could let me know of anything you might discover?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mama Rat
.

  ‘That would be wonderful.’ Mrs Crowley clasped her hands as if satisfied, although without seeing her face it was hard to tell. Almost as an afterthought, she took a calling card from her pocket. She moved to give it to Mama Rat, then at the last moment reached past her and presented it to Sheba. ‘I look forward to hearing some news. Soon, I hope.’

  Sheba looked down at the embossed piece of pasteboard, printed with expensive copperplate font. ‘Mrs N. Crowley, 17 Paradise Street, Bermondsey’, it read.

  With a nod of her shrouded head, the veiled lady rose and left the churchyard.

  Sheba and Mama Rat stared after her.

  ‘Well,’ Mama Rat said eventually. ‘It’s not often you meet someone stranger than us in this city.’

  Before Sheba could reply, Gigantus, Sister Moon and Monkeyboy came dashing around the corner of the church. They looked visibly relieved when they saw the others sitting on the bench, and slowed their pace through the maze of headstones.

  ‘Thank goodness you all right,’ said Sister Moon, panting for breath. ‘We saw strange man follow you. Long coat and big hat. We could not see face.’

  ‘Where?’ Sheba said, looking around the churchyard. ‘We didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘He was walking right behind you,’ said Monkeyboy. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t smell him with that weird nose of yours.’

  Sheba was surprised too. ‘Probably just a passer-by,’ she said, but she felt annoyed with herself. Had she missed something?

  ‘What did you find out?’ Gigantus asked. All three of them were clearly itching to know.

  ‘We’ll tell you back at the house,’ said Mama Rat, with an ominous look around her. ‘Away from prying eyes and ears.’

  Chapter Eight

  IN WHICH ANOTHER MUDLARK IS ALMOST MUNCHED.

  Barnabus Bilge awoke to the nearby bells of St Mary’s striking three in the morning. The chimes had woken him at exactly the same time every day since his very first memory. Years and years of getting up in the middle of the night and I still hate it, he thought, as he wriggled out of the bed he shared with his mother, father and three other children. He stepped over a few more kids sleeping on the floor, and went through into the kitchen.

  He didn’t have time to light a fire to make breakfast; his mother would do that in an hour’s time when she got his sisters up for work. Instead there was a bucket of pump water on the table. He took a scoop and slurped some, then splashed the rest over his face to wake himself up. It was a lurid brown colour and tasted rancid, but at least it didn’t have anything disgusting floating in it today.

  He peered at the piece of cracked mirror standing on the mantelpiece and saw a grubby teenager with eyes that looked much too old for his face. He rubbed at the fluff on his cheeks, wondering when it would ever turn to whiskers so he could grow a nice pair of sideburns.

  There was a pot of cold gruel hanging over the fire, left over from last night’s dinner. Judging by the little footprints all over the cauldron, the mice had been at it again. At least they’d left a bit for breakfast. He swallowed a couple of gloopy spoonfuls, and then headed out.

  The fog was thick again this morning. Out on the banks, the mudlarks were back. Even tales of missing children and river monsters couldn’t keep them away, for they had no choice. Pick from the mud, or starve. If the Thames had been full of piranha fish they would still have been there, trying to snatch as much as they could before their legs were chewed through.

  Barney prided himself on being the best picker on the south banks. He was slightly less scrawny than the rest, thanks to his success, and the others paused to give him respectful glances as he passed. He clutched a pole twice as tall as himself, and it was this that gave him his edge.

  Whilst the other mudlarks had nothing but their own bare feet with which to test for sinkholes and broken glass, Barney Bilge used his pole. He poked it systematically as he slurped through the thigh-deep slop, finding solid footings that could take him out further than any of the others. Every now and then he’d strike something under the surface that he could scoop out, too. He’d found such treasures as a crate of pickled eggs, a silver plate and four human skulls. By mudlark standards, he was a millionaire.

  Low tide had come early today, and Barney was pleased he wouldn’t have to waste time waiting for it. Instead, he waded straight in, trying not to shiver as his bare toes slid into the chilled jelly of the mud.

  Dip, dip, dip went his pole, as if he was some peculiar wading bird. Every now and then he stopped, fished something out and tucked it in his sack. It wasn’t long before he had a pipe, half a pair of spectacles and a leather boot sole.

  The fog folded around him. Step, prod, step, prod. His mind was just beginning to wander into a daydream about being king of England when his pole struck something solid.

  He snapped back to reality, and with a hunter’s zeal, thumped his pole down again. It struck a second time, with a metallic clang. There was definitely something down there, and it was big.

  In a move he very soon came to regret, he began shifting his pole forward, bringing it down hard again and again. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! The thing was directly underneath him, and seemed to be around three metres long. He wormed one of his feet further into the mud to get a feel, and soon met a smooth surface, studded here and there with spikes or bolts. His little toes followed the contours, wondering what on earth it could be. There seemed to be several hard layers, or plates, on top of one another, which meant it probably wasn’t a chest or crate. Almost at the end, he felt a length of pipe or tubing, and then . . . it moved . . .

  Barney froze as the movement came again. The thing had juddered beneath his foot. He quickly looked around to see if any other mudlarks were nearby in case he needed help. That was when he noticed the bright-red tentacles, poking up from the mud all around him.

  At first he thought they might be a bizarre family of eels, but then he noticed a puff of steam escape from the end of one, then another. Soon all of them were gushing hot smoke, just as the thing beneath him began to grind its way upwards more violently.

  One of the things that had kept Barney alive so long on the river was that he was fast. Several times he had felt the mud try to suck him under, and he had managed to pull his feet free and scrabble his way out of danger. Now, his reflexes kicked in again, and he flung himself off the back of whatever-it-was and began pelting his way back to shore.

  Anyone who has ever tried to run through deep mud will tell you it is virtually impossible. The quicker Barney tried to pull his feet out, the harder the river bed sucked them back in. He soon fell on all fours, and began a frantic scrambling that was part crawling, part swimming.

  As he wriggled his way to the bank, panting and choking, with fat gobbets of stinking mud flying into his face and mouth, he heard a great roar from behind him. Something had exploded out of the mud, and was thrashing about on the surface. Barney could hear the clank and grind of metal, the hiss and chuff of a steam engine. When he chanced a quick look over his shoulder, he saw a huge, crab-like beast with a glowing yellow eye. Its tentacles poured smoke out into the foggy air, and two jagged claws waved about, snipping and snapping as they tried to grab his feet. In the glare from its huge eyeball, Barney spotted a movement: a shadow of something inside the beast itself. A bearded face, painted all over with black lines and swirls, floating in the centre of the eye like a diseased iris.

  With a scream of terror, Barney doubled his efforts, slithering through the mud like a demented eel. Luckily for him, some of the other mudlarks saw him thrashing around, and dashed to grab his hands. Just as the monster’s claws clanged shut on what would have been his ankle, Barney was hauled out of the mud and on to the riverbank, where he lay panting and crying at the same time. The mudlarks looked out at the river, faces pale beneath the muck and dirt, as the fog closed in around the clawed creature, and it slowly vanished from sight.

  Chapter Nine

  IN WHICH MONKEYBOY HAS A DISAGREEMENT WITH A
GIANT OCTOPUS.

  The rendezvous with Mrs Crowley was still on Sheba’s mind the next morning. Something about it was bothering her as she sipped her coffee in the kitchen. To take her mind off it, she picked up Mama Rat’s newspaper once more and found herself looking at the small advertisement section. Her breath caught for a moment.

  On these pages there were usually offers of miracle cures – for baldness or flatulence – and requests for new maids and governesses, but she had once seen a notice placed by a mother searching for her child. It hadn’t been a heart-wrenching plea, or a dramatic tale of loss, just a simple ‘Mother searching for daughter given up when three. Blonde hair, blue eyes, answered to Kitty.’ Ever since then she had read the advertisement section with a mixture of longing and loathing. What if she’s looking for you, too? the voice in her head would say. There could be a notice about you in this very paper. She detested that voice, and the way a part of her believed it. Just throw the paper away this time, she told herself. Don’t even bother reading it. So she did.

  Out in the yard, Gigantus was limbering up for his morning’s exercises. Sister Moon sat with her eyes closed, deep in thought. Mama Rat had a saucepan of hot, soapy water, and was trying to coax her rats out of a hole by the kitchen door.

  ‘You’re not seriously going to give those wretched rodents a bath, are you?’ Monkeyboy called down from his perch on the fence.

  ‘I am indeed,’ said Mama Rat, over her shoulder. ‘And if you make any of your stupid jokes, you’ll be next.’

  ‘Not likely. I’ve spent years building up this unique aroma, you know.’ The threat of clean water made him skip neatly along the fence, a safe distance away, before he gave a sudden yell. ‘Visitors again! It’s them mudlark folk back, and they’ve brought someone with them.’