by G. M. Best
I nodded my agreement. On Jacob’s Island the wooden chambers of derelict warehouses rise like misshapen monsters out of the stinking water that runs from an inlet of the sewage-filled Thames. All the buildings have walls that are crumbling with decay and are encrusted with filth. Most have long since had their doors and windows removed, leaving behind just dark dirt-smeared black holes. Many lack even a roof. Here, amid the ruins and floating garbage, live only the most destitute in rooms so loathsome they beggar my power of description. It was here that Tommy and the others hoped to hide. They hoped to lose themselves amid the human refuse of the river – the ballast-heavers and coal-whippers, the petty touts and sharpers, the roadsweepers and beggars, the whores and ragged orphans, and the broken unemployed.
‘In addition to Charley and me,’ continued Tommy, ‘there was Bill’s mate, Toby Crackit, and a returned transport called Johnny Kags, who was one of the oldest of Fagin’s associates. I told them all how I had seen the Jew captured and how the police officers had had to fight like devils to prevent the angry crowd seizing him and tearing him apart. I described how at one spot Fagin had fallen and how the police had been forced to make a ring around him and fight their way out. Whilst I was telling them this, you can imagine our surprise when Bull’s-eye jumped through our window and fell panting at our feet. At first we assumed Bill had somehow escaped and had left the dog to make its own way to safety. We saw it was exhausted and we let it curl up at our feet and sleep. Our error was revealed when a couple of hours later Bill pounded at our door, demanding entry. Or rather his ghost did, for his face was ashen white, his eyes deep sunken, his cheeks hollow, and his flesh wasted. Whatever his crimes, we were ready to protect him, although, except perhaps for Toby, more from fear than friendship.
‘At first Bill said little that made any sense. He appeared to be in a kind of daze. He wanted to know if Nancy was buried and, when we told him her body was still held by the police, he cried out that such an ugly thing as her crushed body should yet remain among the living. But gradually the wildness in his eyes grew less. He swore to us that he was innocent of Nancy’s death and that he had returned rather than escaped because he was determined to discover her murderer. He said that he had not been able to sleep for three days because her ghost was haunting him and begging him to revenge her death. We believed him. All that is, except Charley, who had long regarded Nancy as a kind of sister. He screamed out that he’d rather be beaten to death or boiled alive than see Bill escape justice. Opening a window, he blew our cover, yelling ‘Murder! Help!’ at the top of his voice to attract attention before we could stop him. Bill attacked Charley, throwing him to the ground and pounding him with his hamlike fists. But the unequal contest did not last long for we heard the tramp of hurried feet crossing the wooden bridge that crossed the muddy inlet to our wretched house, and then loud knocking at our door and the ever-rising murmur of angry voices.
‘Though badly bruised, Charley would not be silenced but yelled out again, ‘Help! He’s here! Break down the door!’ Bill shook Charley like the bull terrier you saw this evening shook his rats. He repeatedly banged Charley’s head against the wall till I thought it was a wonder his brains did not smear the wooden panelling. He then told us to throw the screeching Hell-babe into another room. Once this was done, he promptly locked the door. But the damage was done. Undaunted, Bill looked down on the ever-increasing mob surrounding the house and told them to do their worst because he’d cheat them yet. I shudder still at the resulting clamour that arose from the infuriated crowd. Some called to set the house on fire and burn us out, others called for sledgehammers to break down the door or ladders to enter through one of the windows. Some of the boldest even attempted to climb up the waterspout. Brave though I am, I don’t mind admitting to you that sometimes I still hear the savage roar of their hatred in my nightmares.’
Chitling shuddered and paused to take a swig from a flask that he drew from his pocket. He offered the flask to me but I declined. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he continued.
‘You know the terrible outcome. Bill climbed out on to the roof, hoping to drop into the Folly Ditch by means of a long rope, and thence make his escape. The mob poured into the surrounding houses and climbed innumerable staircases so they could see him from every window and rooftop, venting their anger by shouting foul obscenities at him. Rich rewards were promised to anyone who could lay hold of him. He set his foot against the chimneystack and fastened one end of the rope firmly round it. Then he made a running noose, which he began to place over his body, but at the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to slipping it beneath his armpits, he lost his balance and tumbled over the parapet. The noose tightened round his neck as he fell for thirty-five feet. Bill yelled out Nancy’s name. Then there was a sudden jerk, a terrible convulsion of his limbs, and there he hung, like a puppet on a string.’
He paused and took another drink from his flask.
‘We listened to the jeering of the mob even as they gloated over his corpse. There was only one creature still faithful to him and that was Bull’s-eye. It jumped after its master and dashed out its brains. Waste of a good dog, if you ask me. I vowed then that I’d seek a different life – one that wouldn’t lead me to the treadmill, the oakum shed, or the hangman’s noose.’
He paused again in his tale, this time because he heard the sounds of the rat-fighting reaching a crescendo below us. He gave me a furtive glance, which made his face even more unattractive, and looked to end the interview, saying he could tell me no more.
‘Do you believe Bill was innocent?’
‘I can tell you, Mr Twist, that Bill died not just yelling his defiance but protesting his innocence. It don’t mean that he didn’t kill her, but, unlike Charley Bates, I believe he was telling the truth. I think Nancy died at another’s hands. Although Bill was dreadfully rough against her at times, especially when he had had too much to drink, he loved her. More than that, in his own strange way he worshipped Nancy. Passionately and wholeheartedly. And I think if he had killed her he would have escaped. After all, he had plenty of opportunity to do so. Ask yourself the questions the police never did. Why did he leave London and then return? Why, if subsequent accounts are to be believed, did he apparently spend hours traversing sections of the city and the surrounding countryside? Why did he enter into conversations about the murder in pubs and streets, risking drawing attention to himself? Why did he again leave the city only to return for a second time? Were those the actions of a guilty man or a man desperately trying to discover who had murdered the only person he had ever truly loved? I think I know which I believe. So you see, Mr Twist, if I’m honest I am as certain as I can be that the real murderer of Nancy escaped the moment Bill died.’
I could tell that Tommy Chitling desperately wanted me to accept his ideas on Nancy’s murder and I could see why he had never told Betsy. Had she heard his story, she would have moved heaven and earth to discover who had killed Nancy. I could see at first he doubted that I could ever see Bill in any but the worst light because he knew the reasons I had to hate the man who had so brutally terrorized me. Yet glancing at me again he was able to judge that I felt his questions had an undeniable validity. The silence between us was only broken by the sound of tables being thumped in the main bar. Tommy Chitling stood up to return to his duties and I accompanied him back into his pub. He grasped my hand and shook it more warmly, saying:
‘If you want to try and verify what I’ve told you, then seek out Toby Crackit. I know he’s still alive because I’ve seen him occasionally, but I’ve no idea where he lives. I am sure he will say the same as me. Bill did not kill Nancy. I suspect it’s time for some different kind of rat-catching, Mr Twist, but you will have to identify your rat first. Mine won’t answer your needs.’
9
CONFIRMATION
For a few days after my meeting with Tommy Chitling I found it hard to sleep. My dreams were filled with images too horrible for
me to describe as I wrestled with my memories of Bill Sikes. He had deliberately terrorized me from the moment we met. I have only to close my eyes and I can see him as clearly now in my imagination as I did in the flesh all those years ago. His broad heavy countenance and scowling eyes, the stubble that frequently covered his chin, the dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck, his black-velveteen coat and soiled drab breeches, his grey cotton stockings and lace-up half-boots. It was his blows and not just Nancy’s lies that secured my return to Fagin’s clutches. It was he who terrified me by threatening to allow his hellhound to tear me apart. It was his fist as well as the Jew’s club that would have punished me had not Nancy intervened and protected me, receiving blows in my stead. Above all, it was Bill Sikes who took me on that terrifying housebreaking expedition that so nearly caused my death. Was I now to believe that this monster was innocent? And, if so, who had killed Nancy?
I am sure you can understand my reluctance to rely entirely on Tommy Chitling’s account and so I determined to do as he said and seek out another witness of the events. Like him, it seemed to me that the obvious person to verify what I had been told would be Bill’s closest associate, Toby Crackit, who was also present at Sikes’s return. However, I knew that having a meeting with him was not going to be easy. How do you set about finding one man amid all the masses that crowd London? As you can imagine, days passed in fruitless enquiries and search. No one to whom I spoke knew anything about his whereabouts or, if they did, they had no intention of informing on him. As I knew to my cost, Crackit was not a man to be lightly crossed and violence was second nature to him.
It was for that reason that part of me was glad at my failure to find him. He was, after all, the man who had joined in the abortive burglary attempt and he had treated me as harshly as Sikes, threatening to murder me unless I did exactly what he wanted. I had all but given up hope of finding him when fate stepped in.
One night I was heading home after another wasted day and I walked along the New Cut, a rather notorious street market that stretches from Waterloo Road to Great Charlotte Street. It comprises hundreds of street stalls. These are lit mainly by grease lamps and it gives the place a strange glare, especially when the mist rises up from the dank streets. That evening as usual the air was thick with the sound of competing costers urging potential purchasers to buy their varied wares: ‘Three a penny Yarmouth bloaters!’ ‘Who’ll buy a bonnet?’ ‘Here’s yer turnips!’ ‘Feel the quality!’ ‘Fine russets!’ ‘Pick ’em out cheap!’ ‘Chestnuts all ’ot!’ ‘What do you think of this here?’ ‘A penny a lot!’ ‘Get yer Lucifers!’ and countless other cries. And amid all this babble I suddenly heard a gruff voice that I recognized shouting ‘Fine warnuts! Sixteen a penny, fine war-r-nuts! Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, bu-u-uy!’ The last time I had heard that distinctive voice the words had been giving me orders to break into a house or else he’d crack open my head.
I looked for the source of the voice and there he was, Toby Crackit, armed this time not with a pistol and crowbar but with an innocuous large basket of walnuts, which he was attempting to sell without, as far as I could tell, much success. He was dressed in a filthy green-coloured coat with large brass buttons, a bright-red neckerchief, a shawl-pattern waistcoat, drab breeches, and unexceptionable boots. His face looked older, but otherwise he had not changed much and the little hair he had was still of a reddish dye and twisted into the long corkscrew curls that I remembered. Putting aside the revulsion that I felt towards him, I moved quickly over to where he was. His black eyes stared unmeaningfully at me but, pleased to have a customer at last, he offered me walnuts from his basket for sale.
‘Don’t you recognize me, Toby?’ I said.
He looked more closely but clearly could not place me.
‘I’m Oliver. Oliver Twist.’
‘Fagin’s lad?’ he muttered in surprise, looking at the quality of my apparel and the smartness of my appearance. ‘You appear to have done well. I always said yer mug would be a fortun’ to ye.’
‘I’ve not done bad for myself.’
‘Down with innocence, eh?’ He leered and gave a noiseless laugh. Then he muttered under his breath, ‘I remember when you were less businesslike. What a dammed coward you were.’ With unnerving accuracy he mimicked my childhood voice: ‘O for God’s sake let me go! Let me run away and die in the fields! O pray have mercy on me and do not make me steal. For the love of all the bright angels in Heaven have mercy!’ Then he spat on to the cobbles to show his disgust. ‘I’m glad to see you’re game enough now.’
I recoiled at his assumption that any money I had must stem from ill-gotten gains and, priglike, I replied: ‘My wealth has nothing to do with crime, and I’m prepared to use it to see justice done.’
His face clouded over at this pompous response and he looked around, fearing doubtless that I had possibly come to ensure his arrest. Sensing that he was about to flee, I firmly grasped his arm and, before he could retaliate, pleaded my case:
‘Believe me, I’ve no interest in you, Toby. What happened in the past between you and me is water under the bridge as far as I am concerned. All I want is justice for Nancy and to know the truth about Bill Sikes’s role in her murder.’
‘There’s no point going over all that. What’s dead is dead. Nancy deserved to die and Bill got no justice.’
‘It may surprise you, Toby, but I have reason to think you might be right. I’ve a little evidence that has led me to believe Bill might not have killed Nancy, but not enough to be certain. You and Bill were mates so don’t you owe it to him to tell me what really happened, especially if he was innocent?’
‘Ay, Bill and I were mates, sure enough. The best of mates.’
He hesitated, struggling with a mixture of emotions, and then, with his usual devil-may-care swagger, he beckoned me to follow him down a nearby alleyway. Regardless of the danger, I followed and soon found myself being led into a far from salubrious small brewing-place at the end of a dark and damp passage. I ordered drinks and we entered its backyard to sit at a table where we could not be overheard. He dropped his basket of walnuts on to the grimy floor, then ran his brown-stained fingers, ornamented with large common rings, through his tangled locks before drinking deeply from his mug. I looked at the beverage in front of me and decided it was safer not to try its contents. He smiled, doubtless remembering how he had tried to force me to drink when I was a child. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Crackit reopened our conversation:
‘Times is bad at present, otherwise you would not find me here. This warnut selling is just to tide me over. Back to me beginnings you might say, because me and Bill were both brought up as plucky coster boys. My father was a wagoner who worked the country roads but he died whilst I was still a young ’un. My mother took up with a new man and, as soon as I could shout loud enough, he put me to work in the markets from four in the morning till nine at night. Today I’ve not managed to sell much but then, on a good day, I could sell twelve bushel of fruit in a day. That’s when I first met Bill. He was dressed flash and up to all the tricks. He taught me quite a few. He’d boil oranges and prunes to make ’em swell and look bigger, put cabbage leaves under a layer of strawberries in his pottles, and mix three sieves of indiff’rent foreign cherries with one sieve of good English ones.’
‘Given what has happened, it’s a pity he did not stick to such minor offences rather than turning to violent crime,’ I replied.
‘You have to understand, Oliver, violence comes natural. You nivver knew Bill’s father but, believe me, he made Bill look soft. And as coster boys, we learnt to work our fists well, ’cos anyone avoiding a fight was laughed at. We was teached to bear pain without complaining or flinching. You might not believe it but anyone without money would say to a pal, “Give us a penny and yer can take a punch at me nose,” and many a time Bill and I have sparred for just a beer or even a lark. We were so good at fighting we could muzzle half a dozen bobbies before breakfast if we wished. If you’ve got a t
alent you have to use it – and that’s wot me and Bill did.’
I had cause to remember how ‘handy’ both men were with their fists and it did not surprise me that they had increasingly turned to criminal activities. ‘Tell me about Nancy,’ I said.
‘What’s there to say that you don’t know? Gals are there for the taking and Nancy was one of the best, even if she was at times a spitfire. Her trade was useful too. If money were tight, she could earn us a few meals by serving others, if you take me meaning. And in Nancy’s case the good thing was she couldn’t conceive any chance children, ’cos she was barren.’
His words should not have shocked me. I know all too well the amoral way of life of costers and thieves. Eating, drinking, gambling, and the occasional visit to a theatre or dance are what usually dominates their lives and they are unrestrained in their sexual behaviour. Why should they know any different? They lack any education and, unless they are fortunate to experience genuine Christian compassion, few have any acquaintance with Christianity other than to be occasionally subjected to some stupid, well-meaning person trying to foist a religious tract upon them – an entirely pointless exercise as virtually all of them are unable to read! In this part of London it is probably fair to say that not three or four in a hundred have ever been inside a church or any place of worship and they know nothing of Christ but to use his name as a swear word. Their lives are in every sense truly godless. No, his words should not have shocked me and yet I could not stop myself recoiling at Crackit’s unfeeling and callous attitude.
‘It’s not my definition of loving a woman to use and abuse her,’ I told him. ‘I keep hearing that Bill loved Nancy but I saw no love in any of his actions. He did not even ever offer her marriage.’
‘What’s the point of wedlock when a pair can be together and no one gives a damn? There’s precious few bother around here. It’s just a waste of money. Bill luvved her and she luvved him. That was enough for them both.’
