‘Is that a problem?’
‘We parted rather… unfriendly,’ I answered.
‘We have to agree on one location quickly now, Anna. It cannot be a public place, for we might have to change our disguises. I have a few hiding holes distributed throughout the city, but you wouldn’t be able to find them, even if I gave you the addresses.’
‘Good, Garret, then. If he doesn’t welcome me, he’ll certainly take a message for you.’
‘Excellent,’ he said, bent down and extracted a revolver, ammunition, and a few bills from the bag. ‘The second revolver and some twenty more bullets are in the side pocket…’ His face fell. ‘Why did I never show you how to properly use a revolver?’
I laughed. The one time he had seen me using a gun had resulted in me throwing it at him. ‘Cock, point, fire,’ I said. ‘You can introduce me to the fine art of shooting later.’
Littlehampton’s church bell banged twice. The ferryman was pulling his vessel towards us. Moran’s and Parker’s backs disappeared towards the small town. Next to me, Sherlock was vibrating with impatience. Without a farewell, we parted as soon as the ferry docked.
— ten —
From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.
Dr S. Freud
I woke up early the following morning, aching to leave. Two hours later, the train took me from Worthing towards London.
Once at Victoria Station, Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. With my bonnet pulled down low to conceal my face, I stepped out of the last wagon, left the luggage with a porter, and told him it would be picked up tomorrow. Then I pressed through the bustling crowd and out of the station.
Trying to detect familiar faces among the masses of people, their refuse, luggage, chatter, and hotchpotch while adapting to London’s overwhelming variety of odours and noises, demanded all my attention. So much, I almost stepped into the first cab I hailed. I let the hansom drive away without me, walked around a corner, and took another one to Bow Street.
The hansom rattled over cobblestones while the wind slapped my face. I inspected my dress, my shoes, picked at a few threads on my sleeves, and decided I appeared worn enough to be safe in St Giles for a few hours. How many people would recognise me? Would Garret roll his eyes and close the door in my face? Barry was twelve years old now. Most likely, because he was only guessing his age. Children came in large numbers, most of them unwanted and unplanned. One had sexual intercourse, one got pregnant, one gave birth. Then the circle started anew. Two thirds of all the slum children died before reaching the age of three. There were no reasons to celebrate birthdays.
The cab came to a halt. I paid the driver and stepped onto the pavement. Everything looked just as it had when I’d left it. The streets were covered with the same amount of dirt. Mule droppings here and there, limp cabbage leaves with caterpillar holes, undefined mush, and rivulets of wastewater and chamberpot contents.
How long would it take to pull sewers through the slums, I wondered. Would the slums still be home to the poorest when the government decided to gift the people with a way to rid themselves of their own refuse? Probably not. Streets would be torn open, houses gutted, grime and beggars removed. London would look different.
I found Garret’s house and was surprised that even the door looked as it had long ago. The brown paint was rubbed off in several places; naked wood peeked through. It had only been a bit more than year. Not enough time for a door, a house, or a district to change all that much. I wondered how much Garret had changed. He and Barry would probably hate me for having left them without even saying goodbye.
I pushed at the door and, as expected, the nonfunctional lock clicked open. I walked up the stairs, the familiar creaking accompanied each step. When I knocked at Garret’s room, a child began to wail.
‘What is it?’ a woman barked through the closed door.
‘Could I speak to Garret O’Hare, please?’
‘Don’t know that fella.’
My heart sank. For a moment, I had believed he was a father. Now it seemed that he would be hard to find.
I went downstairs and knocked at the door to the landlady’s quarters. Or whatever she was. I doubted she owned this house. Only kept it in a somewhat orderly state of decomposition.
‘What?’ she demanded, flinging the door wide open. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while.’ Her arms went akimbo, her eyebrows slid to a V-shape.
‘Hello, Mrs Cunningham. Have you seen Garret?’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Germany.’
‘Ah. On the continent. Fancy that. Well, your friend is in Newgate. Since two months, I believe.’
My knees wobbled. ‘Newgate? Do you know why?’
She laughed. ‘What do you think?’
‘They caught him burgling a house.’
Her lips crinkled. She produced a nod.
My hand clapped over my mouth. ‘He’ll be hung.’
‘Pretty much. Don’t take it to your heart, dear. He’s a thief. Getting hung is what thieves usually do.’
I coughed. ‘Yes. Thank you. Have a good day.’
Several gulps of air later, I found myself on the street again. Barry! was my only thought. I hoped desperately the boy was alive and well. Comparatively well, at least.
Three blocks farther south I walked up the rotten stairs to the room he had been living in the previous year. The stink of urine, rotten potatoes, fetid cabbage, and excrement waved hello. And although I knew that stink all too well, I brought up the little breakfast I had eaten, hand on my knees, stomach cramping and nostrils burning. No need to worry about cleanliness; the rats would soon take care of my porridge.
‘Barry?’ I shouted, wiped my mouth, and entered a dark room. Something on the floor moved. A cry of surprise fled up my throat as a set of teeth came flying towards me, barking and growling.
‘Shit!’ a young voice called. The dog stopped, turned around, and left me standing in the doorway.
‘His name is Shit?’ I huffed, trying to get my bearings back together.
‘What do you want, mum?’
‘I’m looking for Barry.’
‘What for? Who are you?’ Hostility seeped through every crack in his voice.
‘A friend. We used to roam St Giles together.’ What an un-ladylike choice of words.
‘I’ll let him know you are looking for him.’ His tone was mocking and I had the impression he lowered his voice and made himself sound older than he was.
My eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Dim light oozed through cracks in the barricaded windows. The dog must be lying somewhere amid the rubbish littering the floor.
‘Bollocks!’ I shot at the silhouette hunching in a far corner. ‘You didn’t even ask for my name. I doubt you know the boy very well. You probably ate him.’
A throaty laugh rocked the walls. Almost a man’s laugh. Then the voice changed again and I finally recognised it. ‘Anna, you have some nerve showing up here.’
‘I couldn’t come earlier. I need your help, Barry.’ I stepped closer, trying not to fall over the refuse. ‘Garret is in Newgate. They’ll hang him.’
He didn’t move. ‘And what do you want to do about it? Break in and hoist him over the wall?’
His arms wrapped around his knees as he compacted himself against the wall. There didn’t seem to be much flesh on his bones. I kneeled down and dimly saw his face. How could he look so much older than the last time I’d seen him? The boy was only twelve! ‘Barry, let’s go to the pieman.’
‘I’m not six anymore.’
‘No, you are almost a man. But you are hungry and I need to talk.’ I held out my hand. The familiar grin with four missing front teeth blinked up at me. ‘Thank you, my friend.’
‘That will cost you,’ he said.
‘Yes, I thought so.’
We walked along the street and he steered me to an inn. ‘No pieman?’ I asked.
‘I changed my mind. I want trotters.’
Seven Dials, S
t Giles, London, 1886. (7)
The landlord greeted us with an ‘Oy!’ and then brought the demanded food and drink.
While Barry sucked the fat off his sheep feet, I talked. ‘I don’t know Newgate. But I see two possibilities. The first involves a lot of money. The second involves your skills. If Garret had his trial already, there isn’t much time until his execution.’
The latter was a most unrealistic plan. Newgate was a stronghold. But it gave Barry the impression that his help was badly needed. He wouldn’t come with me if he got the feeling I was on a charity mission.
He chucked the bone under the table, wiped his hands on his shirt, and bent closer to me. ‘Is that why you carry more than fifty pounds, a revolver, and ammunition?’
‘You got quicker. I’m impressed.’
When we had walked down the stairs of his decrepit house and onto the street, he had stumbled against me. I had felt his swift hands search the folds of my skirt and I wondered whether he had extracted money.
‘Yes. I’m a great pickpocket; I work alone. I don’t need anyone. And I don’t have to feed anyone. I’m free.’ His shoulders broadened and his eyes flared.
‘What about your mother?’
‘Got the French gout. Died two weeks ago.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said and reached out to touch his hand.
He pulled it away, almost appalled by the gesture, and said, ‘So. You have a bun in the oven. Congratulations.’
‘Unfortunately.’ I avoided his gaze.
‘Yeah. That’s what my mom said when she had me.’
‘It’s the child of the man who abducted me.’
‘I am the child of a man who paid my mom to let him fuck her, right after hundreds of others fucked her, and right before a hundred more fucked her. She didn’t even know what lucky prick produced me. Never even knew who made her sick,’ he spat. ‘Have you got an idea how it ate the flesh off her face? Have you got any idea how my mom died?’ he shouted and pushed away from the table. The clientele threw us annoyed looks.
‘I know how syphilis kills.’ I was about to say that even if I had been there to help his mother, there was little I could have done. Yet another disease without a cure. But what would it help to say so? It wouldn’t make his heart lighter, only mine. But had I been there, I could at least have taken care of him. ‘I’m sorry I left you alone.’
‘You idiotic do-gooder nurse,’ he mumbled and sat back down. ‘I didn’t need you. And still don’t.’
‘I have never been a nurse, Barry. I worked as a medical doctor and masqueraded as a man for twelve years. No one knew.’
His second trotter dropped from his hand onto his plate. He snapped his gaping mouth shut. ‘Holy balls of Jesus! Shit, Anna, you never told me.’
The dog emerged from underneath the table, wagging his tail, lolling his tongue. ‘Down!’ said Barry and used his foot to push the furball back into hiding.
‘Why did you name him Shit?’
‘He’s brown, dirty, and he stinks. So. When are we burgling Newgate?’
I smiled down at my hands. ‘We begin our preparations as soon as you have eaten.’
He took that as an invitation to hurry, gulped down all the ale, grabbed the last trotter, and jumped to his feet.
I steered us to the Strand and into a tailor’s. The man took Barry’s measurements with reluctance and with both his small fingers strutting out as though to ward off contamination. He seemed to have fewer problems running his ruler over my limbs. I gave him sixty minutes to fit the clothing we had chosen. Next was a bath house and a barber.
Without the multiple layers of dirt, Barry looked like a newborn piglet. Scrubbed clean and pink, he smelled of soap and fresh laundry. The new haircut, with Macassar oil, his new suit, waistcoat, and top hat, made him look like a tiny gentleman shrunk from too hot washing.
‘That’s how you ran around all these years?’ he asked once we entered a cab. He had been grinning ever since I slid into my trousers, buttoned my waistcoat, stuffed fabric above my stomach to make it appear more like a potbelly, and put the top hat on my head. The tailor had seemed less amused, but my explanation that we were performers took the edge off his alarmed expression.
‘Yes.’ I grinned and had to hold myself back to not lift his hat and ruffle his hair. It almost felt like the days of mischief and do-gooding a long time ago.
The hansom stopped; we alighted, and walked up to the club.
‘I speak. You don’t,’ I said and rang the bell. A man with a solemn face, sharply pressed suit and trousers, and a perfectly starched shirt and collar opened the door. ‘May I speak to Mr Mycroft Holmes? He’s expecting us, although I’m not quite certain under which name.’
The butler didn’t even twitch an eyebrow. We were beckoned in. He offered to take my package, but I declined. We placed our hindquarters on the offered seats in the parlour, slightly nervous from all that stiffness surrounding us. The silence was so heavy that my neck began to ache.
I hoped Barry would be able to control himself, but his hands were already roaming, about to pick at a few lilies in a crystal vase.
‘Barry,’ I growled and he stopped, then sat on his hands to prevent them from trailing off in all directions. The butler returned and waved at us to follow him. We went up the stairs, along a corridor, and into a room far in the back. Mycroft sat at a desk, cigar smoke enveloping his large figure.
‘Mr Holmes.’ I stepped forward and held out my hand. He turned it and breathed on my knuckles. Barry choked.
‘How did you know she’s a woman?’ he blurted.
‘Hands, feet, and chin too delicate, as is her entire physique, and when she walks, the sway of her hips betrays the child she’s with,’ he commented in a somewhat offended rat-tat-tat. ‘Fairly obvious, even if we didn’t know each other.’
‘Is Sherlock safe?’ I asked. ‘He hadn’t been at Victoria Station and the alternative meeting place was… What happened to him?’
‘Of course he is safe. At present, he’s at your late husband’s solicitors. We have been waiting for you.’ Mycroft threw a gaze of mistrust at Barry, obviously unwilling to share any more information.
‘My apologies,’ I said and turned to my friend. ‘This is Barry Williams, a dear friend of mine.’
‘Are all your friends pickpockets?’
‘Of course not. Most of my friends are prostitutes or burglars.’
‘How… how did you know?’ Barry stuttered. His mouth got stuck at the “ow” and wouldn’t close.
‘You scanned every single valuable item in this room. Your hands and eyes are quick, as are your feet. Pickpocketing is your second nature.’
‘What’s my first nature?’
‘Eating sheep trotters, judging from the odour emanating from your mouth. Snap it shut, if you will.’
‘Mr Holmes,’ I interrupted, ‘if you could tell me where I can meet your brother, I’d be most grateful.’
‘Certainly. And I’ll even bring you there.’ Expelling a huff of smoke, he rose to his feet and extinguished the cigar in a crystal ashtray. ‘I assume this is a respectable dress?’ He pointed at my package.
‘Yes.’ I removed my hat. ‘Barry, I’ll need your help buttoning it. If you wait outside the door until I call you?’
Barry made round eyes, then retreated together with Mr Holmes.
The dress hid my stomach to some degree, owing to a number of useless frills and buffs. I pinned up my hair and called for Barry, who let his swift fingers trail up my spine, sending all those small buttons into their holes. He picked at the veil until it fell into place and then we stepped out of the room.
Mycroft led us to the waiting brougham. ‘I recommend that the young gentleman remain in the carriage once we reach the solicitors’ office.’
I looked at Barry, who nodded obediently. ‘Mr Holmes, I have a problem and hope money can solve it. I need to buy the freedom of one of Newgate’s prisoners. If I’m not mistaken, he is waiting for the gallows.’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t considered burgling it,’ he said, his voice slightly acidic.
I cleared my throat. ‘In fact, I have,’ I lied. ‘That’s why I brought my friend. I’m far from being an accomplished cracksman.’
I hadn’t picked a single lock, aside from the ones Garret had used in his attempts to teach me lock-picking. He had called it entertainment.
‘You will need a considerable sum,’ Mycroft said.
‘I do hope to inherit it very soon. If necessary, I’ll buy the whole damn prison.’
‘How amusing,’ he said and cocked his eyebrows.
The Bank of England, London, 1896. (8)
We arrived and were received by a servant, who led us into a large office with windows spanning from floor to ceiling and furniture that indicated an income significantly higher than the average solicitor. Two gleaming mahogany desks formed the centre of the office and bookshelves adorned the walls, together with a picture of a grumpy-looking Queen Victoria. Seeing Sherlock’s face hidden behind a bush of black mutton chops lifted a weight off my shoulders I hadn’t known existed.
Two men rose from their seats, approached me with outstretched hands, and introduced themselves as Messrs Palmer and Miller.
‘Our most heartfelt consolations,’ the older said while the younger muttered, ‘Indeed, indeed.’
Sherlock clapped his hands, a canon shot that split apart the solicitors’ pretence. ‘Let us begin, gentlemen. My client is in danger and the longer she remains in London, the greater the chances are her pursuers will find her.’
‘Certainly, Mr Wright—’
‘And let us not forget the terms of our agreement,’ Sherlock cut across.
‘Absolutely not, my dear sir! We are deeply saddened by the death of our esteemed client and are, of course, bound by honour to carry out his widow’s wishes. Had we known that she was still with us…’
‘Yes. You mentioned that already.’ Sherlock rushed to my side as though I was about to faint and offered me a seat. I did my best to sort the elaborate mourning dress into the chair, together with myself, without appearing like the non-lady I was.
The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) Page 7
