A Very Peculiar Plague (7 page)
‘Mebbe,’ said Alfred. But Jem didn’t want to sell flypapers. He wasn’t about to walk around London with a loaded flypaper tied around his cap, singing, ‘
Catch all the nasty beetles and flies, catch ’em from teasing the baby’s eyes.
’
‘I ain’t no hawker!’ he snapped. ‘I’m a bogler’s boy, now!’ Appealing to Alfred, he continued, ‘We killed a bogle today. Don’t that make me a bogler’s boy?’
‘Not if I ain’t a bogler,’ Alfred replied shortly.
‘But you are!’ Jem exclaimed. ‘How can you sit there with a bogler’s bag on yer knee and claim you ain’t a bogler?’
‘I’m a
retired
bogler.’ Alfred frowned at Jem. ‘That’s what you’re to say, next time anyone comes to you with tales o’ missing scullery maids and such. D’you hear?’
After a moment’s hesitation, Jem nodded. He didn’t have much choice. He was wet, tired and hungry, with no shoes, no job, and barely a penny to his name. He wasn’t in a position to argue with Alfred.
‘And if you’re to stay with me, you must pull yer weight,’ Alfred went on. ‘First thing you can do is sweep the place out, since you left yer broom there. If you don’t know how to cook, Ned’ll teach you. Aside from that, there’s water to haul and a fire to keep stoked.’ Before Jem could say that he would be happy to do all these things, Alfred warned, ‘But if you ever bring home another prospect like you done today, you’ll be out o’ there faster’n a swift can fly. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ Jem mumbled.
‘The
last
thing I need is you pointing me out to every stray barmaid as comes along. Why, I moved halfway across London to prevent it!’ Leaning forward suddenly, Alfred glowered at Jem. ‘And another thing – I’ll not have you chasing Sarah Pickles.’
‘But—’ ‘It’s too dangerous.
She’s
too dangerous, living or dead.’ Something about Alfred’s tone made Birdie shiver and Miss Eames wince. ‘If she’s dead, then those as killed her won’t take kindly to you nosing about,’ Alfred continued. ‘And if she’s living . . . well, I’ll not have you vanish into thin air, like all them other poor souls as crossed Sal, over the years.’
‘But she sold me as bogle-bait!’ Jem protested.
‘Aye, and you’re lucky to be alive,’ the bogler agreed. ‘Which is how I want you to stay.
Alive
. Else I ain’t got no use for you.’
He waited as Jem swallowed, clenched his fists and finally said, ‘All right.’
‘Long as you’re under me roof, you’ll not chase Sal?’ Alfred pressed.
‘No,’ Jem answered. And he was telling the truth – up to a point. How could he chase Sarah while he was under Alfred’s roof? It wasn’t as if she lodged there.
Jem knew that, when he
did
find Sarah, it would be somewhere else in London . . .
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
A knock on the door awakened Jem the next morning. For an instant he didn’t know where he was. But then he raised his head, rubbed his bleary eyes, and realised that he was in Alfred’s room, under a pile of old clothes.
‘Ned?’ he squawked, as the rapping continued.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Judging from the pale light creeping through the window, it was still very early – yet Ned Roach was nowhere to be seen. His boots were gone. There was no one on his palliasse.
It occurred to Jem that a coster’s boy like Ned might have to rise before dawn if he wanted to reach Covent Garden Market in time to grab the choicest fruit.
Rat-tat-tat-tat.
‘Whassarr . . .?’ Alfred grumbled, from somewhere deep in a nest of grubby bedclothes. Jem pushed back his own covers and stood up. He was still wearing his canvas trousers and blue shirt, but had carefully washed his feet upon crossing Alfred’s threshold the previous night.
Alfred had insisted on it.
‘I’m a-coming,’ Jem growled. He staggered over to the door, dodging strips of flypaper on his way. When he lifted the latch and pulled the door open, he found himself peering at a total stranger. ‘Who are you?’ he asked crossly. ‘What do you want?’
‘Hugh Purdy’s my name.’ The stranger tipped his cap, which was made of leather. He also carried a leather toolbag, and wore leather pads tied to the knees of his trousers. ‘I’m looking for Mr Alfred Bunce,’ he said. ‘Miss Lillimere sent me.’
Jem grimaced. He glanced over his shoulder at Alfred, who was sitting up in bed, running his hands through his hair.
‘There’s a cove here wants to see you,’ Jem told him. When Alfred groaned, Jem turned back to Hugh Purdy. ‘A little early, ain’t it?’
‘I got a job this morning,’ Purdy replied, ‘and I’m afeared to go up there without Mr Bunce comes along.’ As Jem hesitated, conscious of Alfred grunting and coughing in the room behind him, Purdy took off his cap. He was a wiry little man with an angular, clean-shaven face, a thatch of mouse-coloured hair, and skin as leathery as his toolbag. Jem judged him to be about thirty years old.
‘I’m a plumber and glazier,’ the man continued, ‘and I lost my apprentice on a roof, yesterday morning.’ Seeing Jem blink, he added, ‘Billy didn’t fall, I’d swear to it. For I searched until nightfall, but there weren’t no trace of him thereabouts.’ Purdy shook his head in bewilderment. ‘When it got too dark to keep searching, I stopped for a pint at the tavern nearby – and that’s when Mabel told me about the bogle in her basement.’
By this time Alfred was more or less upright. He had pulled on his trousers and was dragging his old green coat over his nightshirt. Jem also noticed that the neighbours were beginning to show an interest in Alfred’s unexpected visitor. One or two doors had opened in the passage outside. Several pairs of eyes were watching Hugh Purdy’s every move.
‘You’d better come in,’ said Jem, having decided that Alfred would probably prefer to discuss his bogling business in private. He ushered Purdy over the threshold, then pulled a grotesque face at the nosy old woman across the hallway before slamming Alfred’s door shut.
‘I’m sorry to rouse you so early, Mr Bunce,’ Purdy was saying. He had fixed his bemused gaze on the flapping strips of paper overhead. ‘I’m putting lead on a roof, see, and must have it done by the end o’ the week. But I can’t do it without a boy, and won’t take another boy up there till I discover what happened to the first . . .’
Alfred coughed, hawked, and spat. He wasn’t looking very well.
‘Why d’you think a bogle’s to blame?’ he asked. ‘Could the boy not have run off?’
‘Not Billy,’ the plumber replied. ‘Billy’s a stouthearted lad, as keen as mustard. He had no cause to run, and no desire to.’
Reaching for his pipe, Alfred studiously ignored Jem, who was kicking his bedclothes tidily into one corner. ‘You sure he weren’t taken? There’s some folk do that, when they need boys for thieving, or begging. They grab ’em where they find ’em.’
‘On a rooftop?’ Purdy’s tone made it clear what he thought of
that
idea. ‘Billy’s a big boy, sir. Ten years old, and sturdy as a stump. Yet I didn’t hear a sound – not a single cry or clatter. One instant he were fetching sheets o’ lead, and the next . . .’ Purdy trailed off, shaking his head again. But Alfred said nothing.
He was busy packing his pipe with tobacco.
‘I ain’t never heard of a roof-bogle,’ Jem observed at last, to break the lengthening silence. Still, however, Alfred didn’t speak.
It was the plumber who finally said, ‘I once heard tell of a chimney-bogle taking kids from a mill near Sheffield. So when Mabel mentioned your visit, Mr Bunce, it crossed my mind that—’
‘—Billy might have bin took by a chimney-bogle,’ Alfred interrupted. He had pulled a box of matches from his pocket.
‘Exactly!’ The plumber sounded relieved that Alfred hadn’t scoffed at the notion. ‘For there’s any number o’ chimneys up there, and precious little else.’
Alfred heaved a sigh. He struck his match, lit his pipe, and greedily filled his lungs with smoke. Then he sat on his bed and asked the plumber, in a voice tranquillised by tobacco, ‘Have the folk in the house bin troubled at all?’
‘No, sir, for it’s empty. All but brand new. Once the flashing is done, everything inside is to be painted.’
‘Where
is
this house?’ said Jem, as Alfred pensively puffed away.
‘On Holborn Viaduct,’ Purdy replied. ‘Near the railway bridge.’
Alfred frowned. ‘Is that—?’
‘Near the tavern? It is.’
Jem was pleased to see Alfred frown. It meant that the bogler was interested enough to be disturbed – or perhaps confused. It meant that he was hooked, Jem thought.
Like a fish.
‘That’s very strange,’ rasped Alfred. ‘You’ll not see bogles so close together, as a rule. They tend to be solitary creatures . . .’
Purdy shrugged. ‘You’d know best,’ he said. ‘I ain’t had no experience with bogles.’
‘What about the chimneys in the house?’ was Alfred’s next question. ‘Do
they
draw well?’
‘That I can’t tell you. Far as I know, they never was lit. Some of ’em don’t yet have mantels.’
Alfred gave a grunt. Purdy watched and waited. Then Jem, who was very hungry, decided to poke at the fire. Though it had been reduced to a heap of glowing embers, he felt sure that if he rearranged the coals and blew on them hard enough, he might be able to boil a kettle.
‘I ain’t a young man, Mr Purdy,’ Alfred said at last. ‘How tall is this house o’ yours?’
‘Five storeys. Including the basement.’ When Alfred grimaced, Purdy assured him, ‘I’ve a sturdy ladder and ropes aplenty, and the slates up there is clean as a whistle. No moss or birds’ mess on ’em.’
Alfred still looked unconvinced. So Jem, who was now squatting in front of the fire, poker in hand, said, ‘
I’m
spry enough.
I
can go up there.’
‘Not without me, you can’t,’ Alfred retorted.
‘I’ll pay extra.’ Though Purdy wasn’t begging, exactly, there was an urgent edge to his voice. ‘Mabel parted with eight shillings – I’ll pay ten.’
‘Ten!’ It was a princely sum. Jem stared at Alfred, wide-eyed.
The bogler smoothed his moustache thoughtfully.
‘Billy is the son of an old friend,’ Purdy went on. ‘He’s the best boy I ever had, and has lodged with my family these six months past. It makes me heartsore to think . . .’ He stopped suddenly, then swallowed a few times before proceeding. ‘If a bogle took him, I’ll not rest till it’s dead. Billy deserves nothing less, poor lad.’
Jem knew that Alfred wouldn’t have the heart to resist this plea, but decided to grease the wheels a little, regardless. ‘Even if there ain’t no bogle,’ he told Purdy, ‘you’ll still have to pay costs. A shilling down, and a penny for salt.’
‘Sixpence,’ Alfred interrupted. He shot Jem a reproving look. ‘
Sixpence
for a visit. And a penny for salt.’
‘I’d be happy to pay the shilling,’ Purdy began, before the bogler cut him off.
‘I ain’t in the habit o’ speeling me customers. It’s sevenpence all up, if the bogle don’t show.’
‘And the ’bus fare on top o’ that,’ said Jem.
Alfred scowled as Purdy gave a surprised laugh. ‘He’s a downy one, ain’t he?’ the plumber observed, eyeing Jem with reluctant admiration. ‘The lad bargains like a Thames waterman.’
‘He weren’t raised right,’ said Alfred. Then, having resigned himself to the inevitable, he added, ‘Could you wait for us downstairs, Mr Purdy? I need a minute or so to make meself decent.’
‘Of course! Anything you want, Mr Bunce.’ The plumber’s face creased into a wide, relieved smile. He had very good teeth, Jem noticed. ‘There’s a baker’s shop around the corner. What if I was to stop in and buy us a couple o’ Bath buns for breakfast, while you’re dressing? We could eat ’em on our way.’
Jem didn’t even have to nod; his stomach spoke for him. Alfred muttered something about being very much obliged. Then Hugh Purdy left the room – and Alfred made sure that the door was firmly shut before rounding on Jem, saying, ‘I’ll have no more o’ that, d’you hear?’
‘More o’ what?’
‘Them gammoning, griddling ways you garnered from Sal Pickles. If you can’t be honest, there ain’t no place for you here.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jem was deeply offended. ‘I never tried to gammon nobody! I were haggling, is all.’ ‘You was driving up the price and speaking out o’ turn,’ Alfred snapped. ‘I’ll
never
take advantage of no desperate soul that’s a-grieving for some lost child. Sal might have, but I ain’t her. And neither are you!’
Jem was assailed by the sudden memory of how he had once helped to rob a woman’s house while she was making her regular, weekly visit to her dead child’s grave. It was a sour and shameful recollection, but he told himself, as he always did,
It were Sarah as made me do it. She’s the one as led me astray.
And she deserved to suffer the consequences.
‘Besides which, you ain’t here to talk. You’re here to listen and to learn,’ Alfred was saying. When Jem opened his mouth, the bogler immediately cut him off. ‘Ned’s smart enough to know that he don’t know
nothing
. Birdie’s the same. You’d better follow their lead, or we’ll be parting ways by nightfall. I don’t want you saying one word to that plumber without leave from me. Understand?’
Jem swallowed hard. Then he nodded.
‘Good.’ Alfred picked up one of his boots. ‘Now take that jug next door and see if Mrs Ricketts can spare us a drop o’ hot shaving water . . .’
Though Jem had heard of the Holborn Viaduct, he’d never been there. He knew that it had been built, quite recently, across the valley lying between Fetter Lane and Newgate Street. He also knew that it was supported on the back of a remarkable bridge. But when he finally reached this famous bridge, he could see very little of it. From the top, it was just a wide stretch of busy road flanked by iron balustrades and bronze statues.
Jem particularly liked the statues of the four winged lions. The other four statues were of gigantic women wearing bedsheets. They didn’t interest him much. He preferred to look at the women hurrying past them, wrapped in sensible coats and shawls.
He was hoping to see the same woman he’d glimpsed the previous afternoon, near the omnibus stop down the road. He was convinced that, if he spotted this woman again, he’d be able to put a name to her face.
