Dodger of the Dials (12 page)

‘If any harm should come to our top sawyer, Mr Slade,’ Tom said, who it seems had decided against using Christian names with him, ‘then you’ll learn just how frightening our mob can be when our backs are up. This place, by way of instance,’ she thumbed the bawdy house behind her, ‘will become an urgent fire hazard if we don’t get Jack back.’

I expected Slade to flinch at this bold threat but instead he just nodded in approval. ‘Oh, Tom,’ he smirked, ‘such flaming passion. I do hope Dodger and I come to some arrangement because you’re someone I would very much like to know better. Off you go then.’

With that, Tom tipped her hat and headed back up the garden and around the house while I steeled myself to continue into the outhouse. The biggest henchman entered first, bobbing his head under the low doorway, and then Bolter followed. Slade held out his hand for me to go next. ‘Very well, William,’ I said as I prepared to enter the dark hovel, ‘let’s meet the Turpins again.’

Candle lamps was lit all around the walls of the inside of this dark dungeon but it still took me some moments before my eyes could adjust to the place. There was a stench of wood shavings and something else unpleasant and the air was thin. The candles
illuminated many sharp metal gardening tools what was hung around the walls and in the centre of the room was two men tied to wooden chairs. These two was the groaners and raspers what I had heard from outside and Slade circled them as the rest of his gang entered the outhouse behind me and shut the door. The bound men had their mouths gagged with these thick foul-looking rags and both of their faces was bleeding and bruised in a way what I could never imagine healing. Some string circled their necks.

‘Don’t pity them, Dodger,’ said Slade in a severe voice. He no doubt saw the look of horror what must have been on my face and stepped towards the small man on the left to reach behind him. ‘They’re your enemies, don’t forget.’ Then he pulled up the bent three-cornered hat what had been dangling on the string and placed it upon the man’s head. ‘This fellow calls himself Dick. But I believe he goes by Fergal when he’s not pointing pistols at brother thieves.’

I looked at the little man what had been so brazen on that afternoon in the Temple when his face had been hidden by a mask. Now he looked more beaten than anyone I had ever encountered.

‘The other men who robbed you,’ Slade sniffed as I stared at the damage what had been done to them, ‘are dead. It’s no more than they deserve I think you’ll agree. These two have taken an almighty punishment but they might still walk out of here alive if you want it. What do you think?’

‘His teeth,’ I stammered in distaste. ‘You’ve smashed them right in.’

Slade looked surprised at this and turned to the big henchman. ‘I don’t think we did,’ he said in an uncertain way. ‘Did we?’

‘No, Mr Slade,’ the man relied like a sergeant-major. ‘His mouth was like that when we found him.’

Then the little man in the chair, this Fergal, jerked towards me
and swore something as more blood sprayed from his mouth. His face was so damaged and his breathing so heavy that only the ‘fecks’ and ‘eedjits’ was intelligible.

‘Ha!’ said Slade who seemed to understand every word. ‘Fergal here said you did that yourself when he took the necklace from you. Hit him with a stick or something.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I said, remembering how I had struck him in the mouth with my bird cane. ‘So I did.’ All of Slade’s henchman laughed at this and Slade himself crossed over to me and patted my shoulder.

‘So you are worth something in a fight after all,’ he said. ‘Good for you.’ Then he leaned into my ear and spoke in a mocking whisper. ‘But even that didn’t stop him from taking your necklace now, did it?’

Then he began to unwrap the brown parcel again and held out the Lady of Stars so we could all see it sparkle under the lamplight. Slade’s own face was shadowed and when he spoke next it was with a cold, hard edge. ’You’re the very worst kind of thief, you know that? The worst kind.’

I could think of nothing to say. I was shocked by this sudden attack against my criminal prowess after all the complimentary things he had been saying about me up in the bawdy house. I was at a loss as to how to retaliate considering how I was all alone in this dismal place and surrounded by only his crew and these two battered Turpins. But when he spoke next I realised that it was not me he was looking at.

‘You listening, Irishman?’ he spat at the hapless Fergal. ‘Crooks like you make me sick. You’re barbarians. Jumping out on superior thieves like Mr Dawkins here who is trying to make a craft of the thing and snatching what he’s earned like a selfish child. You’re just not part of the community, are you?’

‘Community?’ Fergal exclaimed and laughed back with bitterness. He was forming his words better now but there was still plenty of fire in him. ‘What community? He’s a thief, I’m a thief! What’s it to you?’

As soon as he finished speaking, a fist smashed into the side of his head and the chair toppled to the floor. I winced at the sight of it. I had taken some beatings myself in my time – not least during my spell in that Australian penal colony – but it was clear that that experience was nothing compared to the suffering Fergal had been enduring.

‘See what I mean,’ Slade sighed at me as his men then went to prop Fergal’s chair upright again. ‘He just doesn’t see it. He doesn’t understand how greatly things are changing throughout this city and how his sort of behaviour just won’t do anymore.’ Slade turned his back on Fergal and gave me his full attention. ‘London has altered even within our own lifetimes, Dodger. And there is real potential for people in our line of work to advance ourselves if we get organised.’ His men wiped the blood away from the faces of both Turpins as he spoke. ‘After all, the police have sorted themselves out, haven’t they? Some criminals hate the peelers but I don’t. I respect them in all honesty. I’m old enough to remember the old Bow Street Runners and they were a shambles. Different police in different districts, none of them with any clue as to what the others were doing. Nobody paid them any mind and it was chaos out there. Anyone could be a criminal in those days, there was no separating the talented ones – such as us – from the savages – such as Fergal here. It was easy. Not so under the peelers. They’re like an army, an urban army, so much more sophisticated and effective. They have these different divisions but they share information, help each other out. You’ve got your different ranks – with the constables taking orders from the sergeants who take
orders from the inspectors and then there are the superintendents at the top. And it all runs so smooth. I mean, look how scared of them we all are. What I’m getting at is, Dodge – why don’t we do likewise? Join forces. Work together as one for the benefit of all. That’s the thought I’d like you to take away from tonight.’

‘You want us to behave like the peelers?’ I said and in spite of the miserable environment I could not help but be amused at the thought. ‘With me as one of your constables, I suppose? I don’t know about that, Billy. I ain’t one for taking orders.’

‘A constable?’ Slade laughed. ‘No, I wouldn’t insult you with such a lowly station. I brought you here tonight because I thought you’d like to run your own division. The Seven Dials division. Your rank would be more akin to an inspector if anything. You’d be doing everything you do now with your gang, but as part of a wider community of thieves and under my protection. Take this,’ he shook the necklace under my nose knowing full well how much I wanted it back. ‘You stole it. But someone stole it from you. Then I, the wider community, got it back. If you want to take it away tonight and move it on then I’m happy to let you. But I get half. That’s what I mean by community.’

I hesitated before answering but I already knew I would accept that offer. I could not afford to pass up on returning the promised prize to Percival after all, as it would strengthen my reputation as a professional thief, a reputation what had been damaged after the attack of the Turpins. But I hated the idea of giving someone like Slade a share of all my future findings and so was reluctant to enter into a continuing arrangement with him.

‘Well that’s too bad, Dodger,’ Slade replied after I had told him that I was not interested in a long-standing partnership but would be happy to do business with him this one time. He withdrew the hand with the necklace in and his manner became much more
threatening. ‘Too bad, because you’re either agreeing to work under my protection or you’re not under my protection at all. That’s the way of it. I’d be sensible and choose the former if I were you. The Turpins, for example, are not under my protection and things aren’t sweet for them.’

The hint was unsubtle and I could dismiss it no longer. I was on the verge of making a very powerful enemy if I did not make a friend of him first and one look at Fergal’s face was enough to convince me I had no other choice. It was clear that Slade saw himself as some sort of high-ranking thief who should be profiting from all the efforts of those below him and that there was serious consequences for those who refused to play along.

‘So I’d be head of the Dials division?’ I asked trying to make sense of the offer. ‘And I’d be paying upwards to you as my superintendent of sorts?’

‘Oh no, Dodger,’ Slade scoffed. ‘I’m more of a commissioner in this scenario. None higher.’

‘And I get what in return?’

‘You get to be a Slade man, that’s what. Meaning that people like him,’ Slade pointed at Fergal, ‘won’t ever make the mistake of crossing you again. Because in doing that they’d be crossing me. If you agree to these terms then the word will soon get out and you’ll be treated different, I promise you. Respected more. Like I said back in the house, your gang aren’t killers which is why nobody fears you, but that will change if you fly under my wing. Everybody knows what I’m capable of.’

Slade walked over to the bigger Turpin, the one who had been silent all this time, and grabbed his hair.

‘And the other benefit is shared information.’ He shook this Turpin’s head all rough like he expected the neck to snap. Then he held his hand out to Bolter who passed him something as though
he had been waiting for the signal. It was a sharp, gleaming blade. ‘As with the peelers,’ Slade continued as he placed the blade under the man’s neck, ‘we’ll exchange our knowledge between divisions. By way of for instance, this fellow here told us an awful lot earlier on while we were slapping him around. About how his gang knew that your gang possessed that priceless necklace in the first place.’ He scraped the man’s neck with the blade – light enough not to cut. ‘Perhaps you would like to know which of your associates betrayed you, Dodger?’ he smirked as he slid the blunt edge across the man’s throat and watched him tremble in terror. ‘I know.’

‘Tell me then,’ I asked, disturbed by whatever he might be about to reveal. But I was horrified that he might cut the man’s throat in front of my face and just wishing that he would leave him be.

‘No, Dodger,’ Slade said and at last stepped away from his victim. ‘Not while we don’t have a deal. But I’ll say this, you won’t like it much. Your house is in a mess, old son. There is a nasty leak. And leaks need plugging.’

There was no use hiding how unsettled I was by both this comment and by the whole proposal. But I considered what advantages there might be from forging such an alliance and I had to admit it made sense for me. Because Billy had been right earlier when he had said that other criminals did not fear me enough. I was no Bill Sikes and hurting people was not a talent I could boast of possessing. True, I had been in countless street-fights but I was no killer and villains tend to notice weaknesses like that after a time. That’s why the Turpins did what they did and why somebody betrayed me. I was not a man with the reputation of doing the things that Slade had built a whole outhouse for and this was why he was richer and more successful. Here I was, for instance, witnessing the torture of men who I had every reason to hate, and there was still something in me that wished that they would be spared and that we could all
just come to some sensible arrangement and go home. I was most ashamed of this softness I had when it came to matters of blood and if I was going to better myself, to advance as a modern criminal in the new age, then I needed to inspire the sort of fear that only true men of violence are capable of. That was the only way I would ever find myself living the sort of monied life I had always coveted. I needed to ally myself to someone more dangerous.

‘Very well, Billy,’ I said after some moments’ consideration while the Turpins struggled in their chairs some more. ‘I’m in.’

Slade clapped his hands together in satisfaction and chuckled. He turned to Bolter and handed him back the knife.

‘It seems that Fergal and his cousin can leave here alive after all,’ he instructed as he placed his hand around my shoulder again. ‘Because I want them to spread the word about Dodger here. He’s ours now. They need to tell people that.’ Then he raised his good hand again and offered me the necklace. ‘We’ll work out our terms back at the main house, Jack,’ he said as he guided me towards the door. ‘Just you and I. And then, if you find them acceptable, I’ll give you the name of the sneaking traitor within your own division.’

His grip tightened as he said this, and he hissed like a snake as we stepped back into the garden.

‘And you can tell me just what you intend to do about them.’

Outside, as we walked together back up towards the bawdy house, the rain had started to fall heavy.

Chapter 8
Paul Bradley

I take care of my responsibilities

It must have been over two hours later when the carriage I was riding in made it to Bethnal Green. The address I was heading towards at this early hour was near Bill and Nancy’s old crib but I had asked Slade, who was up front and driving the horses, to let me alight along a nearby street where there was no one around to see me get out. I was alone in the cab and full of troubling thoughts about what had passed between him and myself that night and the big promise I had made before leaving. As I travelled through the night I touched the Lady of Stars what was resting in my inside coat pocket and I wondered if I had got it back at too high a price.