Death of a Chimney Sweep (2 page)

Had they been seen?

CHAPTER 3

H
IDING
P
LACE

For a moment the light stayed focused on the boat, lighting up the canvas covering them, but then it moved on and Alfie drew in a sigh of relief. The stench of fish was almost
overpowering, but the solid roof of tarpaulin over their heads gave a sense of security. Alfie strained his ears but could hear no sound. No one shouted; no footsteps approached from the bridge.
Perhaps they had not been seen. Perhaps his luck had held. Sammy moved cautiously and Alfie stiffened, but then heard a muted chuckle.

‘There’s an eel here, a dead eel, just under my hand,’ whispered Sammy and Alfie smiled into the darkness. Although Sammy was only eleven, he was amazingly brave. He had been
blind since he was a small child – blind from the spotted fever, but it was years since Alfie heard him complain. The boys’ grandfather had always impressed on Sammy that he was
cleverer and more talented than anyone else around and perhaps that had given him a belief in himself, a serene courage and a keen sense of humour.

‘Supper,’ Alfie whispered back, but could not stop himself from adding, ‘if we get out of here alive.’

However, as the minutes passed, his confidence grew. Surely, if the man came onto the bridge and shone his lantern in their direction, then they’d see its glow. But no light came.
Everything was as black as midnight and the splash of the water against the bridge was the only sound to be heard.

The only sound to be heard by Alfie, at least.

Sammy sat up suddenly, his head lifting up the tarpaulin.

Alfie waited, holding his breath, not daring even to whisper.

‘It’s going away,’ said Sammy after a minute. ‘The gig is moving. I hear the horse. Listen, you can hear, one wheel is a little loose. Hear it rumble.’

Alfie listened. He could hear nothing, but he trusted Sammy. He was not a boy to speak without being sure.

‘Gone now,’ said Sammy, but he still spoke in a low voice. ‘It’s turned up towards Charing Cross.’

Alfie sat up and moved his legs. He was soaked through and freezing. Now that the tension was over, his teeth began to chatter.

‘Let’s get out of here before we freeze to death,’ he said, but Sammy’s hand fumbled to cover Alfie’s mouth.

‘Shh,’ he said and then added in Alfie’s ear, ‘Someone on the bridge.’

Alfie could hear this now. A loud, confident tread, someone wearing heavy hobnailed boots. Could it be the boatman?

Come back for his eel, he thought. Despite his terror, he found himself desperately trying to suppress a giggle.

The footsteps stopped on the bridge just above the boat. Their owner seemed to pause there, not coming down the steps towards the boat. And then there was a strong smell, a smell of tar, pungent
enough to overcome the stench of dead fish. Alfie sighed with relief. Ten huge pitch torches were stuck into holders along both sides of the bridge. The one above their heads had just been lit. It
would make getting out of the boat easier, but it also meant that they would be seen more easily. They would have to be very careful.

Alfie waited for what seemed like an eternity and then he peered out from under the tarpaulin. The bridge was lit up now and several big boats on the Thames had lanterns hanging from their
masts. The lights were bright at Hungerford market and he knew that once he and Sammy got there, it would be easy to mingle with the crowds. The man in the gig could not have seen much of them down
there by the water’s edge – just a glimpse of two boys, one bending over the body thrown on the ground.

However, there was no one on the bridge and that’s where they would have to be careful. Their two figures would be very noticeable. He thought about wading through the water again, but
could not face it. Already he was shaking with the cold and he could hear Sammy’s teeth chatter.

Getting Sammy out of the boat was agonisingly slow. Usually Alfie directed his brother with words, but now he dared not speak, and kept casting hunted glances over each shoulder as he steadied
Sammy, lifting one bare foot after the other and making sure that the boy was safely on the stone steps before leading upwards. Through it all, Sammy kept a tight hold on the eel and this added to
the difficulties.

Once they were up the steps and on the bridge, Alfie began to breathe more easily. The pitch torches flamed, but they cast black shadows and it was easy to creep from shadow to shadow until they
reached the end of the bridge and were in the open space in front of the rotting old houses by the waterside. Alfie dragged Sammy quickly past these. Many of the men standing around specialized in
fishing out dead bodies from the river – emptying the pockets of the corpses before handing them over to the police for a small reward. It was rumoured that a few of them were not above
killing someone, dumping the body in the river, then fishing it out a few hours later – just so that the reward could be claimed!

No rewards for finding a corpse on the street, thought Alfie as they climbed the short steep hill to Charing Cross. The river, however, was a different matter. A few dead bodies there and
cholera would begin to spread through the city of London. It was worthwhile to pay the riverside characters to trawl through the filthy water to remove drowned men and women before they began to
decay.

‘I’m freezing,’ he said to Sammy as they passed through Hungerford market.

‘Think of the eel!’ said Sammy through chattering teeth. ‘Think of this big, fat, juicy eel roasting above a lovely hot fire.’ He chuckled and swung the creature at his
side.

Alfie laughed. ‘We’ll heat some beer and toast some bread and put chunks of fried eel on top of it,’ he said to Sammy and a woman in a nearby stall gave him a sympathetic grin,
her eyes on the eel swinging from Sammy’s hand. They were all poor too; they knew the pleasure of an unexpected meal.

It felt good to be in the middle of a crowd and it felt good to be able to talk aloud. It would have been much quicker to get to Bow Street by going along the river, but Alfie shuddered with
fear as well as with cold when he thought of the man in the gig driving his horse up and down, looking for him and his brother.

He tried not to think of anything other than the toasted eel, but one thought would keep coming into his head. What was he going to do about the murdered body of Joe the chimney sweep?

CHAPTER 4

A
LFIE
M
AKES
U
P
H
IS
M
IND

Alfie and Sammy, along with their two cousins, Jack and Tom, had lived in a small, damp cellar on Bow Street since the death of their mother over two years before. There were
times when they all went hungry and there were times when Alfie worried about where the rent would come from at the end of each week – but, on the whole, they managed.

There was one thing that they usually had and that was warmth. Twelve-year-old Jack scavenged most days for coal along the shoreline and in the water of the river Thames, picking it up piece by
piece, until he had enough to fill a sack. And then he wheeled the sack back to the cellar and sometimes started again, or sometimes helped one of the other boys with their street performances.

Sammy was the main earner of the gang. He had a glorious voice as well as a quick brain, and such a good memory that, if he heard a song once or twice, he could sing it back perfectly. People
passing in the streets could not resist stopping and listening to him sing, and pennies or even sixpences soon tumbled into the bowl at his feet.

When Alfie and Sammy arrived home, still dripping with river water, the cellar was already lit up by a great fire. With a quick bark, Mutsy bounded across the floor, shaking the heavy fringe of
hair from his eyes. Alfie could hardly see him in the darkness by the door, but he knew that the dog’s brown eyes would be alight with joy. He could feel that long, hairy tail beating against
his legs as Mutsy turned his attention to Sammy, licking his bare legs noisily.

‘You two look like a pair of drowned rats! What happened?’ Tom gave a snigger and even Jack had a grin on his face.

Alfie immediately asserted his authority. ‘Tom, get a towel for Sammy. Get out something dry for him from the clothes box. Doesn’t matter what. Jack, skin that eel, slice down the
back, clean out the innards and then pull the skin off. I’ve seen a fishmonger do that.’

‘I’ll fry it. Got a bit of suet left over. The butcher gave it to me with the sausages when I cleaned out his yard yesterday.’ Jack took the eel from Sammy and seized a sharp
knife from the cupboard. Alfie’s father had been a cobbler and his tools still came in useful.

‘Good,’ said Alfie, pulling out a pair of ragged trousers from the box. They were even worse than the ones that he had on, but they would have to do until his own were dry.
‘How much did you make, Tom, you and Mutsy?’

‘Someone offered to buy Mutsy from me,’ said Tom in an offhand way. ‘Could have got a shilling for him.’

Alfie made no answer. Tom was just trying to annoy him, trying to get his temper to flare. Best to take no notice, he thought, rubbing himself vigorously, venting his anger on his own skin.
Stupid, anyway, with Mutsy sitting there beside me! Expects me to make a fuss and tell him not to do such a thing, I suppose, thought Alfie, determined not to give his cousin the satisfaction of
seeing him worried.

‘Anyway, I got sixpence.’ Tom sounded a little disappointed that Alfie had not risen to his bait.

‘Good,’ said Alfie calmly. ‘You’ll be able to go out now and get some beer and some bread with that.’

When Tom looked away, Alfie bent down to give Mutsy an extra hug. The day when Mutsy had followed the gang home from Smithfield market had been one of the best days in Alfie’s life. The
big dog lived on rats, asked for nothing but affection and had made all of their lives more secure and more filled with fun. Tom was only teasing, he knew, but Alfie could not bear to think what
life might be like without Mutsy.

‘Here’s Sarah. I see them black stockings of hers,’ said Jack, peering up at the small window that showed the feet of the passers-by.

‘Better get your trousers on, Alfie,’ warned Tom. ‘Sammy is decent now. Stick your arms into that coat, Sam. It’ll do you for the moment. Your own things will be dry by
the morning.’

‘I’ll let her in,’ said Alfie, pulling up the trousers and fastening them with his usual piece of rope.

‘What’s that smell?’ Sarah stopped at the doorway, her fingers pinching her nose. She was a small girl for twelve, short and thin with huge green eyes. She was dressed in the
neat uniform of a scullery maid – black dress and white apron – and she worked during the day in a posh house in Bloomsbury and slept in a small room off the back kitchen of the house.
Her evenings, however, were her own. Before the Ragged School had burnt down, she had spent them learning to read and write, but now she mostly came around to see the gang at Bow Street.

‘Sammy and me have been in the river.’

‘You should wash them clothes.’ Sarah eyed the wet heap on the ground. ‘It’s no good just drying them. The stink will stay in them otherwise. Take them up to the pump at
Bow Street, Alfie. Pump plenty of water over them. Squeeze them well out. I’d do it myself, but I daren’t get my uniform dirty.’

Silently Alfie turned the coal sack inside out, shook out some of the coal dust and stuffed the clothes into it. His mind was still on the riverside scene.

‘What happened to the two of you?’ asked Sarah, looking from Alfie to Sammy.

‘You tell her, Sammy, while I swill them things out.’ Alfie moved quickly towards the doorway. ‘Come on, Tom, you come too, and you can have that beer and see if you can get a
nice loaf of newly baked bread to go alongside it. Don’t get cheated by no stale stuff. These bakers are up to every trick.’

He kept on talking busily, either to Mutsy or to Tom, until he was through the door, up the steps and out into Bow Street. He parted from his cousin with a nod and strode down towards the pump,
his faithful dog padding silently beside him. He was glad to be on his own for a while. He needed a little time to think.