Death of a Chimney Sweep (8 page)

‘This place is like hell on earth!’ shouted a man flying from the crowds. His hat was grabbed by one of his pursuers. Already his fancy coat had been snatched from him, his trousers
were torn and lace from his shirt had been ripped off. One side of his face was bleeding and one eye was swelling up and already beginning to close from the bruise.

‘Good business going on here tonight,’ said a man in a cloth cap with a casual air. He looked closely at Jack. ‘Seen you down by the river, collecting coal, ain’t that
right? Mug’s game, that is! You should get into my way of business. I could use a strong lad like you. I’ve got my own boat, but you need two people – one to row and one to pull
the bodies on board. Give you ten pence for every sovereign that I make from the stiffs. There’s many of them have ten pounds in their pockets and then there’s the false teeth – I
can always get a good price for them at the markets.’

‘No thanks,’ said Jack awkwardly. ‘I’d be no good at it. No offence,’ he added. The idea of spending his days pulling dead bodies from the Thames turned his
stomach, but it was better not to make enemies.

‘None taken,’ said the man grandly. He seemed very drunk and swayed as he spoke. ‘I’d get out of here soon if I were you – get that little girl away. The cracksmen
are in town tonight and things could get a bit rough. They’re celebrating. Did a nice lot of jobs in the last few days. Cleared out a dozen houses, I heard . . .’

Jack followed his gaze towards a crowd of flashily dressed men and women outside one of the public houses – they must be the burglars the man was talking about.

And then suddenly everything changed. There was a clatter of horse hoofs on the paved surface of Monmouth Street. Another clatter from Queen Street, one from St Martin’s Lane. Three cabs
filled with policemen swept onto the square. A shot was fired in the air. Everyone scattered, screaming, and the cracksmen and their women friends moved hastily, some running into the public
houses, others hurling glasses and tankards into the faces of the police. One pulled out a pistol and fired back at the police, and a man and woman raced towards a gig tied to a lamppost.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ Jack seized Sarah by the arm and began to run.

Tom ran ahead and the other two followed him as fast as they could. There was another shot from behind them. Sarah turned to look over her shoulder and to her horror she saw the
cracksman’s gig coming after them, the woman wrapped in a shawl which went right across her face, the man, who wore a mask, cracking the whip, and the horse racing as fast as it could go.

‘Get in to the side, Tom!’ screamed Sarah. Jack was already heading towards a shop door, but at that instant, a button broke from Sarah’s shoe. She wobbled unsteadily, her
ankle was wrenched. She looked back over her shoulder again quickly. The shawl had fallen from the woman’s face and Sarah shrieked, ‘Mavis!’

For a moment, she thought that the parlour maid had been abducted by the thief, but then Mavis looked straight at Sarah and screamed, ‘Run her down, Arthur! She’s seen me!’

And the cracksman drove his gig straight at Sarah.

CHAPTER 14

D
EVIL’S
A
CRE

The fog was dense as Alfie, Sammy and Mutsy walked down towards Westminster. They walked side by side, Sammy holding tightly to the knotted rope, Mutsy carefully steering him
past obstacles and around people, and Alfie stumbling and peering as the fog grew thicker. Eventually he gave up trying to see and took his brother’s arm; they would just have to trust to
Mutsy to lead them safely.

‘Should have left you at home, Sam,’ he said eventually. ‘Didn’t realise that the fog was this thick.’

‘Don’t make no difference to me,’ said Sammy with a chuckle and Mutsy wagged his tail. Alfie could feel it beating against his bare ankles like a wet rope.

‘In any case,’ went on Sammy, ‘you probably have an idea in your head. Never knowed you when you didn’t have an idea, Alfie.’

Alfie smiled in the dark mist. Sammy could always read his mind. ‘That’s right,’ he admitted. ‘I just thought these fellows, these chimney sweeping boys, might be willing
to talk to you a bit. People sometimes do and these fellows are like scared rabbits.’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Sammy thoughtfully. ‘People are mostly sorry for me and that’s why they don’t mind chatting to me. These boys will only be sorry for
themselves. I’m better off than them. Where are we now, Alfie?’

‘Blessed if I know.’ Alfie screwed up his eyes tightly and peered through the fog. He could only see a few yards ahead of him. The one good thing was that there didn’t seem to
be any traffic on the road – no sound of horse hoofs, no wheel noises from cabs, gigs, carts or carriages. He half wondered whether to give up and try to find the way home, but the heavy bag
in his hand reminded him of the good opportunity that he had of getting those half-starved boys to talk – and they knew something, he was sure of that.

‘It might be better to go along beside the river,’ he said. ‘There’s usually some boats with lights on at night and they’ll light up the water a bit.’

‘Easy enough to find the river,’ said Sammy cheerfully. ‘Go on, Mutsy, river! Use your nose, boy. Smells extra bad tonight, don’t it?’

Alfie sniffed. The fog did make the smell worse – it would be nice to get a wind, he thought, but at least it wasn’t freezing. He wasn’t wearing the boots; he had decided that
they had to be kept for special occasions. In any case, they were not very comfortable as he had bought them far too big so that they could also fit Jack if he ever needed to look smart.

Alfie was right: the river was quite visible. The pitch torches burning alongside it gave more light than the gas lamps and their red glow was reflected in the water. He let go of Sammy’s
arm and stuck a hand into the bag and touched the can of soup. There was a faint warmth coming from it and the bread smelt appetising.

‘There’s the abbey ahead. Bit clearer now, too,’ he said with relief. ‘I can see the windows lit up.’ He had been dreading coming to this place in the fog, as the
area all around Westminster Abbey was marshy. ‘This way, Mutsy!’

‘What are you doing?’ asked Sammy.

‘Just borrowing a torch,’ said Alfie. ‘All right for you: you can listen to the boys. I want to see them.’ It was an offence to remove one of the pitch torches, but he
hoped that no policeman would want to wander around Devil’s Acre in the dark.

The Mitre & Dove public house was doing good business and the light spilt out across the pavement in front of it and from the kitchen into the yard behind. Alfie skirted it carefully,
keeping in the shadow of the old crumbling wall.

‘We’ll feed them first and then ask the questions,’ he murmured to Sammy as he steered his brother away from the large pool of stagnant water.

There was no sound from the stable when they approached it. Alfie went ahead, holding the torch high, and stopped at the crumbling doorway. No wood was left, but someone had hung a filthy sack
up to keep out the worst of the rain. Alfie pushed it aside and peered in.

‘Come on, boy, in you go,’ he said encouragingly to Mutsy. He removed Sammy’s hand from the knotted piece of rope. He didn’t fancy going into the place until Mutsy
checked it for rats, so he stayed at the doorway with Sammy, pointing the pitch torch in to light up every detail of crumbling, rotten plaster, leaking roof, putrid growths of fungi, and piles of
filth where the boys had not bothered going outside to relieve themselves.

Sure enough, Mutsy pounced and the next moment a large rat that was just about to scuttle away met its death with a loud squeal. The boys sat up hurriedly, the youngest one bleeding from where
the rat had just bitten him on the arm. He began to cry hopelessly and Alfie quickly opened his bag and shoved a bun into the boy’s hand. For a moment it almost seemed as though he was too
dazed to know what to do, but then he crammed it into his mouth and stared at Mutsy who was munching the rat noisily.

‘Plenty for everyone.’ Alfie decided to give out the buns first to relax them all, then he could share out the soup. He opened the can and even in that stinking stable the delicious
smell of beef soup rose up.

But that was a mistake.

The three boys were not the only hungry creatures in Devil’s Acre.

CHAPTER 15

M
URDER
I
S
E
ASY

The horse reared up just beside Sarah. For one terror-filled moment, she could see the horse’s wild eyes and its red nostrils, hear its panting, feel its hot breath on
her neck, the iron-shod hoofs glinting within a few inches of her head.

It would crush her skull, she thought. She had seen something like that once, where a child at St Giles had escaped from her gin-sodden mother and had run beneath the feet of a horse.

For a second she was paralysed by the thought; then she dropped to the ground, crouching with her knees at her chest, her arms around her head.

A stunning blow hit her on the back of her ribs. The pain was so bad that she felt as if she would die. She couldn’t breathe. Her muscles cramped. Sweat ran down her forehead, into her
eyes and down her cheeks. A sudden feeling of heat swept over her; then she was icy cold and shivering, teeth chattering, odd ripples and trembles going up her back.

And then she heard a familiar voice. ‘Whoa, boy, whoa, easy now, boy, good boy.’ It was Jack, soothing, praising, coaxing, talking to the horse, calming him down.

And then another voice, harsh, belligerent, full of fury with a note of fear in it. ‘Get out of my way! Don’t you touch my horse! Let him go or I’ll kill you! Take that and
clear off.’

‘Jack!’ screamed Tom’s voice.

Then the gig went right over her head, the nearside wheel rolling right in front of her arms, miraculously missing her by less than an inch.

Sarah stayed very still. Jack bent over her and she screamed when he lifted her awkwardly under the arms. She sat up, pushing her hair out of her eyes and looking down at her black dress. It was
covered in mud and for a moment that mattered more than the pain in her ribs. She tried to get up, but the pain flared again and she sank back gasping.

‘Just hold my elbows, the two of you,’ she said through gritted teeth.

They helped her up and to her amazement Sarah found that she could walk. The terrible pain was becoming bearable, though she still gasped and sweated. When she reached the doorway of a shop, she
leant against it, closing her eyes. She was still alive, and not crushed beneath the horse’s hoofs, or sliced in two by the wheel of the gig.

Tom was saying, ‘My God, Sarah, I thought you were a goner. That horse was within an inch of trampling you when Jack grabbed him.’

Sarah looked at Jack. By the light of the gas lamp overhead, she could see that his face was slashed from eye to chin. It was bleeding, but Jack was grinning.

‘Bad-tempered fella like that shouldn’t be allowed to own a nice horse.’

Sarah laughed shakily. ‘All horses are nice to you, Jack.’ He had saved her life, but she knew him well enough to understand that it would embarrass him terribly to be thanked. She
took a clean handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to him. ‘Keep that over your cheek for now, then wash that cut as soon as you can – and make sure that you boil the water first.
I’ll get some salve from the cook and bring it along tomorrow night.’

‘Why did that fellow want to run you down, Sarah?’ asked Tom.

Sarah shivered. ‘It wasn’t him, it was Mavis. The parlour maid from Number Four Goodwin’s Court. I saw her with the cracksman and I called out her name, then she told him to
run me down.’ But what was it that Mavis had called the cracksman? Arthur, that’s what she had said. It couldn’t be Mr Leamington – or could it? The voice had seemed
different, rougher, but then it could have been faked and in any case the mask over his face would have muffled the sound.

‘But why? You could have been killed!’ said Jack.

Sarah was quiet for a moment, remembering the moment when her eyes met Mavis’s. ‘I was a fool to call her name out. No one would want a servant of theirs to be associated with
burglars. And a parlour maid is a very responsible position. A parlour maid gets paid more than double what a scullery maid like me gets. She knew she’d lose her job if I told anyone. The
easiest thing would be to get rid of me – and she nearly did.’ She shuddered a little. ‘Murder is easy; getting a new job is much harder.’