Touched by Angels

by Alan Watts

  Seething, he left the hotel and started making his way back to the house. He was determined that when he got there, he would not only have the key and fob for himself, but also that the bent firm of undertakers he had used for getting rid of Adam King were going to have yet more business to attend to in the morning.

  Bride knew London like the back of his hand, and if he didn’t find them at home, he knew that he would be able to anticipate with a good deal of certainty what their next move would be.

  By now, he had suppressed his anger and embarrassment at having been so easily duped and was determined to be even with them.

  ***

  “Keep your eyes peeled for him,” Lil said, knowing they would have to find a haven for the night.

  They passed the Dog and Duck and could hear a bunch of drinkers singing as they passed. As they turned into the main road, her mind was racing, knowing the first hotel they came to would have to do.

  Bride had taught her the value of concealment and tomorrow, clean and scrubbed, they would visit two of those shops she had only ever dreamed about, a good tailor and a milliner too, for the further disguise a hat would offer. They would also have to change the Gladstone bag for another, as it would look singularly out of place carried by a lady of refinement.

  Only then would they visit the bank, since it was possible Bride could be waiting for them, as he might have prior knowledge from Sir Rupert which bank his brother had used.

  “Where are we, Mum?” asked Robert in a small, rather scared voice.

  “I don’t know,” Lil admitted.

  She was now so confused after having panicked that she would never find her way home, even if she wanted to. She also knew that perhaps they would have been able to reassure Bride that foul play was not their intention after all.

  She also tried to silence the unworthy little voice that kept telling her they were on the plus side of this faux pas, with both the fob and the key in their possession. Another, more laudable, voice told her that as Bride had been out solely to cheat the people who were trusting him anyway, he deserved no better and may have been intending to double cross her too.

  They heard the rumble of a train nearby and could smell its chimneystack. Its whistle piped stridently. When the tables were turned, it happened so suddenly she barely noticed, until she heard a muffled “Mmmmmppphhh!” sound and saw that Robert had disappeared.

  The noise was coming from a dark alley between two buildings.

  Trembling, she walked slowly into it, stepping over a mouldering dead cat, not daring to make any sudden moves.

  As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she made out a hand clamped over Robert’s mouth and a penknife held to his neck. The face was hidden in the shadows. Her heart pounded, as a voice, cracking with rage, hissed, “Do as I say and no harm will befall him.”

  Feeling oddly relieved that it was Bride’s voice, she said, “There’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “Yes. Me being such an idiot to think I could trust you. This little bastard took the key from my pocket at your bidding, didn’t he?”

  “No!”

  “Didn’t he?” he shouted. He held the boy even tighter and pressed the blade harder into his neck.

  Robert started to whimper. His eyes were wide with terror, as the honed steel incised his skin.

  Lil knew that Bride had labelled them as incorrigible thieves without question, so she changed tactic.

  “He was disciplined. On that score, you have my word. I can assure you he will never do anything as stupid again. If you only knew the sort of life the poor little…”

  “No good pluckin’ the violin, lady. You should’ve taken a belt to him before. Now give me the key and the fob and clear off. I’ll take the bag too.”

  He pulled the boy tighter still and the knife drew a bead of blood.

  She saw there was nothing to be gained by prolonging the issue, so she reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled the items out. She felt sick as she held them out at arm’s length.

  “Put them in the bag. Then close it and put it on the ground. Don’t try anything or he’ll end up down this alley with all the other shit.”

  She opened the bag and was about to do as he had told her when she heard a howl of pain and glanced up in time to see Bride doubling up from the impact of Robert’s elbow, which had scored a bull’s eye in his testicles.

  As he went down, dropping the knife, Robert ran forward, grabbing the fob as it fell and tore up the road with his mother clutching the bag to her chest in full pursuit. He darted in and out of the crowd, many of whom assumed he was a pickpocket, his lean legs pumping like pistons. Lil called out to him, ignoring the curious stares as she ran, her petticoats held in handfuls at the level of her knees.

  There was a copper taste of blood in the back of her throat when she finally caught up with him. It took her a few minutes to get her breath back and for her heart to stop galloping.

  They were in Piccadilly Circus. Robert had ducked into the dark doorway of a greengrocer, and although panting, he looked triumphant too, as he held up the fob.

  He was grinning.

  “Are… are you hurt?” she gasped, as she bent with her hands on her knees, wincing against the pain of a stitch. She wiped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve.

  He shook his head slowly from side to side. She could see the nick on his skin made by Bride’s knife, although it didn’t look serious.

  Then she remembered he must be on their tail somewhere. She gingerly poked her head out from the doorway and peered in both directions through the mill of people, but for now could see no sign of him.

  “Shall we go back and get it?” Robert asked, after they had turned their pockets out for the umpteenth time in search for the key.

  “No, he might be waiting for us.”

  “So what should we do?”

  She closed her eyes briefly as she admitted, “I don’t know. Yet.”

  She knew that if they went to the bank and claimed they had lost it, they would probably demand some form of identification and might even summon the police when she failed to show any.

  She knew it was possible that Bride had picked it up, but if so, how were they to take it from him, without him knowing?

  Twenty-two

  At that moment, Bride didn’t care about anything. He was still stuck in that squalid alley, curled up in a sweat-drenched ball, with veins popping out on his forehead. Tears squirted from his eyes as he clutched his crushed testicles, knowing it was touch and go whether or not he threw up.

  To compound his misery, he had rolled in the dead cat and much of it was splattered up his legs and midriff like grey-brown jelly, with clumps of dirty, matted fur smeared upon it here and there. He felt sick as he saw the tail dangling from his knee and plucked it off, throwing it away.

  The stench was terrible.

  As the agony slowly ebbed, a firm resolution began to take hold in his head. He was not going to rest ever again until he got hold of that little weasel and broke his neck with his bare hands.

  Groaning, he saw something glint a yard from his watering eyes. As the pain had now diminished enough for him to relinquish at least one hand from his injured manhood, he was able to reach out and pick it up. He shook off some foul looking muck and grinned.

  All right, they had the fob and the Gladstone bag, but he had the key once more. They would never get the contents of that box without it and he knew they couldn’t acquire a duplicate. So all was not lost after all.

  He dragged himself up, feeling his gorge rise, seeing the semi-liquefied cat covering him from the waist down and an hour later, as he sat with a whisky and soda in his room, after a hot, deep bath, he began to consider how he was going to obtain that fob watch.

  The only way to locate them, he thought, would be by obtaining the name and location of the bank from the King brothers, for he was sure she would make her way there eventually. As they had been so certain their nephew would turn up in Rice L
ane, they had not given him any other information, but Bride grinned to himself as he lit a cigar, knowing exactly how to wheedle it out of them, without, he was sure, arousing the tiniest hint of suspicion.

  Twenty-three

  The next morning, a determined Lil Smith took her son to a ladies’ and gentlemen’s outfitters, Bryant & Sons Bespoke Tailors, in Chelsea, where the proprietor looked at them over his half-moon spectacles as though they were flies crawling along a piece of excrement.

  His valued regular clients were pausing in their browsing to look too, nudging each other and whispering. One, an elderly dowager, even held her stick-mounted glasses to her eyes to get a better look, her mouth open in horror.

  Mr Bryant was a small, plump, soberly dressed man, bald headed, who looked as though he might bounce back up if somebody knocked him over. A tape measure hung about his neck. He eyed them for some time with growing disgust before he spoke.

  “Excuse me, madam, if you please!” He inclined his head towards the door. “It grieves me to tell you that you have entered the wrong establishment.”

  Mr Bryant was looking around embarrassed, and at the skinny urchin in particular with some disquiet. He looked as though he might have vitamin deficiency and there was a scratch on his neck where he was bound to have been in a fight.

  It looked as though the woman had at least endeavoured to bathe him, but still, that odour, characteristic to such people, came through.

  One of his assistants craned his neck to get a better look, so Bryant clapped his hands and snapped, “Ahem! Jones, kindly attend to Lady Devonshire. I will attend to these people,” and then, in a slightly lower voice, “look, what do you want? We are a very high class purveyor of…”

  His words trailed off as he caught a glimpse of the slim wad of pound notes she had clearly meant him to see. He began to sweat.

  There had to be upwards of fifty pounds, more than he could expect to take in a week. He took his tape measure from his neck and mustered up a sycophantic smile.

  ***

  Tom Bride came to a halt before the raised plinth in the Board Room of Marylebone Workhouse. By Sir Rupert’s design, only he and Alistair were here and Bride launched straight into his report, having had plenty of time to doctor it to his own ends.

  “I occupied the house next door to the one where your brother was murdered by that ruffian, for two nights.”

  “And?”

  “Your nephew never showed up.”

  Their faces dropped.

  “It is of course, possible he has already absconded, perhaps even left the country for good.”

  A look of horror spread across their faces and Sir Rupert’s brother spoke.

  “But all the ports are under scwutiny and there is a substantial weward for his appwehension.”

  “Perhaps,” he told them, “but I doubt it would have been beyond the man’s ingenuity to disguise himself. He was not, by all accounts, yours included, stupid. If I am to stand any chance at all of apprehending him, I will require a list of banks and other financial institutions he uses. Also a list of known friends, associates, both business and pleasure, acquaintances, enemies too, and any gentlemen’s clubs he has membership of.”

  They spent the next half hour compiling this farcical list, and one of the entries made Bride’s heart skip a beat when it was mentioned, because he knew he’d coaxed from them exactly what he wanted. The Strand branch of Coutts & Co Bank.

  In next to no time, Tom Bride was trotting down the long driveway to that hideous workhouse, so excited, he had almost forgotten the pain he was in.

  They wanted to see him in three days’ time for an update and had stressed again, in carefully worded phrases, that they couldn’t care less how he accomplished his mission, or how much discomfort might have to be solicited from their nephew to that end.

  He nearly laughed out loud. If all went to plan, they would never see hide nor hair of him again. In any case, he couldn’t bear another ogling from Alistair King.

  There was no time to waste, so he strode off quickly, with Sir Rupert’s eyes tracking him from the window of his study.

  Twenty-four

  When Lil and Robert stepped out of Bryant & Sons Bespoke Tailors, they were, for all the world, two entirely different people.

  Now, they blended more effectively with the refinement surrounding them.

  She had made several other purchases too, a small striped suitcase and a large alligator skin handbag, for carrying the valuables from both the Gladstone bag and the safety deposit box, when or if they acquired access to it.

  After this, they made their way to Mrs Swinglehurst’s Hatters Emporium, where they were greeted effusively by Mrs Swinglehurst herself, the jolliest and fattest lady Robert had ever seen. Lil chose a broad, burgundy velvet hat trimmed with green feathers. They also visited a jeweller’s, where she purchased a gold bar brooch, flanked with leaves and pearls and a slim gold wristwatch, encrusted with tiny diamonds.

  Lil was getting jittery as they made their way to the Strand. She knew Bride might be on their tail and that, even though they were disguised, he would have an eye trained to look beneath any veneer.

  When they arrived at the bank, where she had been considering trying to bluff her way through, they saw a massive clock celebrating the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria over the granite portals. She had never been in a bank in her life.

  As she stood there, dithering, Bride was watching from much closer than they would have imagined.

  He was leaning against a lamppost, pretending to read a newspaper, as he peered over the top periodically. Having already guessed her intention to try and sham her way, he could see her hesitating.

  He noticed though, that while the boy carried a small suitcase, the woman toted a large handbag, in which she clearly intended putting the valuables if she succeeded.

  He grinned with relief when she finally wandered off, trembling with nerves, not knowing that he too was being watched by other eyes from not so very far away.

  ***

  As soon as he had left the workhouse, Sir Rupert had voiced his suspicion that Bride might not be quite as dedicated to their cause as he seemed. He simply could not believe their nephew would fail to show up at that address.

  Was it possible he already had the safe key, and only needed the name of the bank, the piece of information they had been so easily duped into parting with?

  Alistair had been oblivious to this rather unsettling possibility before his brother had mentioned it. To deepen the mystery further, he pointed out that Bride would still need the safe’s number and only the missing fob could supply that, which he clearly did not have, otherwise he would not have needed to get the name of the bank from them.

  Now though, having followed him all the way there, where he had been convinced he would go inside, Sir Rupert King was relieved to see that instead, Bride was loitering outside, appearing to watch a well-to-do woman and child.

  He watched as Bride tucked the newspaper under his arm, before taking off after them. Then he followed himself.

  As King kept pace through the throng of people, he saw Bride flinch several times, as if he knew by instinct the woman would turn.

  He was in a sweat by the time he saw them disappear into one of the cheaper hotels in Piccadilly, one not in keeping with her apparent station, thus deepening the mystery further. Keeping back as far as possible, he watched to see if Bride would follow her in, but he didn’t. He saw him grin to himself and couldn’t for the life of him fathom out what was going on.

  He saw Bride look up at the hotel, as if taking note of its name. He turned suddenly and it was only by a hair’s breadth that Bride didn’t spot him as he ducked into a fruit merchant’s.

  When he had passed, King found himself fighting past a match girl and a gaggle of scamps who had followed him in. By the time he had made his way back to the pavement, Bride was gone, swallowed up in the throng, with a huge horse-drawn cart packed with suffragettes obscuring his vie
w further.

  He stood there frustrated, panting, as he hunted through the sea of shouting faces, hats and banners, but Bride was nowhere to be seen. Shaking, King made his way to the hotel, but checked himself at the last moment from going inside. He realised that if they were all involved in a scam to fleece him, they may have seen pictures of him, with a warning to be on the look out. If they saw him now, they might sense the game was up and if that happened, there was no telling what they might do.

  He wandered back to the workhouse, confused and getting lost several times.

  He would later find his wallet had been lifted, but that was as nothing to his sense of foreboding, as he sat in his study, smoking a cigar and sipping a glass of whisky.

  Who were these strange people? Where did his nephew fit into all of this and where was he? Why was a child involved, unless he served no other purpose than as a front?

  He sat there for the next hour, hoping against all his instincts that everything was more above board than it seemed, because for once in his life, he felt out of his depth.

  Twenty-five

  “How are we going to get that key?” Robert asked later, as they lay in the same bed.

  Lil stared at the ceiling, having thought about that and nothing else for hours on end. She knew that after today’s ordeal outside the bank, where she had completely lost her nerve, they would have to get it back by more devious means.

  “We’ll set a trap for him.”

  “What sort of trap?”

  She told him, and as he listened, he found his mouth gaping.

  ***