Mister Creecher (5 page)

Creecher lurched forward until his terrible face was only inches from Billy’s. His dry, parchment-like skin seemed unable to contain the workings of his body and appeared slightly too large, gathering here and there in wrinkles. Billy could see the blood coursing through his veins.

‘You do not know what you are dealing with,’ the giant growled. ‘You must believe me.’

Must I?
thought Billy. What had he done to deserve his very own demon? Was Creecher really going to protect him from Fletcher? It was beginning to feel like, rather than being relieved of one peril, he was now placed between two.

‘Why not kill them, then?’ he said quietly, almost to himself.

‘What was that?’ asked Creecher, though Billy was sure the giant had heard him.

‘If they’re so dangerous,’ said Billy more forcefully, ‘why not kill them? You’d be doing us all a favour, wouldn’t you? Why not kill them and be done with it? You obviously hate them.’

‘Hate . . . ?’ said Creecher, shaking his head. ‘No. If he had shown me but one drop of kindness, one tiny crumb of understanding – oh, then I would have loved him. No son would have been more loving.’

Billy frowned at Creecher, who seemed lost for a moment in the rapture of these thoughts. Who was he talking about? Billy strained to make sense of what it all meant but he could not.

‘But no,’ said Creecher. ‘I was shunned. He treated me as though I were some sort of abomination, as if I am the one to blame. He recoiled from me in horror, yet it was he who made me as I am.’

‘What?’ said Billy. ‘What do you mean?’

Creecher suddenly seemed to come to his senses.

‘Enough!’ he snapped. ‘I have told you enough.’ He slammed his fist into the floor, making Billy jump.

Billy knew when to hold his tongue and stared sullenly at the new crack in the floorboard in front of him. A spider emerged from the hole, as if it had been waiting for a lull, and took the opportunity to scurry away.

‘Please,’ said the giant quietly. ‘I am sorry about losing my temper. There are things I cannot speak of. If the world knew what kind of man Frankenstein was – what he had done – then he would be arrested, and I do not want that. He must remain free.’

‘Frankenstein?’ said Billy. ‘That’s one of the men?’

Creecher nodded.

‘Victor Frankenstein,’ said the giant. ‘The taller one. The other is Henry Clerval. He is harmless. It is Frankenstein you must watch closely.’

‘All right, then,’ said Billy.

‘So tomorrow you will follow them?’

Billy nodded.

‘Bon,’ said Creecher with a smile.

Yeah,
thought Billy.
I’ll follow them for you, you murderous freak, until I can figure out some way of getting rid of you.

CHAPTER VII.

Billy’s stomach flipped nervously as he stepped through the door. A place like the British Museum presented lots of opportunities for a thief and there were certainly plenty of wealthy and distracted people milling about.

But Billy had always made a point of never working inside. Montagu House was congested, and Billy needed a clear escape route should he be spotted. There were just too many unknowables here.

He had been on the trail of Frankenstein and Clerval for two days now. That morning he had followed them from their lodgings and now shadowed them as they wandered round the museum.

The two men seemed to find something called the Rosetta Stone inexhaustibly fascinating, but Billy could see nothing of interest in this great slab etched with rows of chisel marks. Educated people were impressed by the strangest things, he mused.

The foreigners moved on to studying a room full of broken sculptures. Billy listened to someone nearby and heard that the stone figures came from Greece and were very old.

He was embarrassed at first. Many of the figures were naked and, even when there was clothing, it clung to the bodies as though it were wet, revealing the form beneath.

Two fashionably dressed young women were standing in front of a scene showing a fight going on between a man and a creature half man and half horse. On closer inspection Billy saw that the women were not that much older than him. Their accents betrayed them as out-of-towners, up in London for the season.

‘So I was, as it were, “How dare you talk to me in that insolent fashion!” And she was, as it were, “I’m very sorry, madam, it won’t happen again.” But they always say that, don’t they? And then it does happen again and they are all, “I’m so sorry, madam,” all over again. I told Mama. You can’t be soft with servants. They only take advantage.’

‘Oh my stars. You are so right, sister.’

‘Incontestably.’

Billy shook his head. Rich girls. Some of them were pretty enough, until they opened their mouths. What was the point of all that education if at the end of it you came out speaking such drivel? He wanted to knock their silly bonnets off.

Frankenstein and Clerval had moved on and Billy followed them. He found them standing in front of a huge statue. Or rather it was a fragment of a huge statue brought back from Egypt.

The statue was of an ancient king of those parts. He was called Rameses II. He was stripped to the waist and wore an odd kind of headdress.His head had a sizeable piece broken from it, as if a great sword had sliced from crown to ear. His face was intact, smooth and handsome in a girlish way, with a strange scabbard-like beard stuck to his jaw. He seemed to be quietly pleased with something.

Billy could see that this was no bust. This was the remains of a whole figure, snapped at the waist, one arm taken off at the shoulder, another at the elbow. There was a hole near his right shoulder. A great crack arced up through his chest, as though a surgeon had opened him up.

Billy wondered who this strange king was and what he was like. He’d heard of Egypt – England had fought the French there – but this was from ancient times. How different he seemed to mad King George and his odious son, the Prince Regent. But perhaps he was just as bad as they were. Maybe he had not even looked like this.  Maybe he had really been a fat old letch, like the Prince.

Whatever he was like, he had probably thought his statue was going to stand for ever, and now here it was, snapped and cracked and gawped at by tourists in London. Billy smiled at this idea. It was pleasing to see the mighty laid low, even if they were from another country and another time.

There was a man standing nearby. He was young, fashionable, but unkempt in the way that only the upper class could ever be. He had the soft-skinned look of a man who had never worked a day in his life.

He was pale and thin and his hair was long and a little wild. His eyes were like those of a bird, bright and intense. He was staring at the statue and muttering to himself under his breath, as though chanting some kind of spell. Then suddenly he seemed to snap out of his trance, and he turned to walk away, crashing straight into a stout woman. He apologised profusely before continuing on his way. Billy chuckled to himself.

‘Run along now,’ said an old man, looking down his nose at Billy. ‘Go on. I simply can’t understand why they would let a boy like you in here.’

Billy scowled at him.

‘I got as much right to be here as you have,’ said Billy.

‘Such insolence!’ said the man, grabbing Billy by the arm. A small crowd began to drift towards them. ‘How dare you speak to me in that manner? I’ve a good mind to have my man flog you.’

‘The boy is doing no harm, I think.’

Billy and the old man both turned at the sound of the voice and Billy was taken aback to see Clerval standing beside him.

‘I would thank you, sir, to look to your own affairs,’ said the old man briskly.

‘I meant to cause no offence, sir,’ said Clerval with a small bow. ‘But surely it is to be welcomed that a boy such as this would come and spend his time looking at things of beauty?’

‘Pah!’ said the old man. ‘Beauty? Beauty? He’s here to thieve, like all his kind. Perhaps where you come from, sir, you take a more lenient view of scum like this, but this is England and we know how to deal with his type.’

There were murmurs of agreement among the onlookers at this outburst. Billy saw Clerval’s usual smile leave his face.

‘With respect, sir,’ said Clerval. ‘I saw this boy myself not ten minutes ago, staring in wonder at the Parthenon sculptures. I noticed because it seemed so moving that a boy of his kind would come to a place like this.’

‘Ha!’ said the old man. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes in this city with that attitude, sir. God bless you for your good nature, but kindness will cost you dearly in London.’

The small knot of listeners muttered and nodded. An attendant arrived but Billy was already walking towards the door.

‘And I don’t want to see you in here again!’ the attendant called after him.

Billy strode away and did not look back. He was annoyed with himself. He had allowed himself to become distracted and now Clerval – and maybe even Frankenstein – had noticed him. Following them would become harder.

He stepped out into the courtyard, blinking in the sharp sunshine, and walked towards Great Russell Street. He would simply have to wait outside for Clerval and Frankenstein to emerge.

Despite the sunshine, it was cold and Billy hugged himself, shivering, opting to walk up and down the street rather than freeze in one place. The sun was still low and the shadows long and dark. The street muttered with the usual morning chorus of horses’ hooves and creaking handcarts. A delivery boy whistled at a maid and she blushed and quickened her pace.

The minutes ticked away and, though Billy had no watch, he felt he could hear their dull and tedious passing inside his head. And even if he could have shut that out, the church bells were there to remind him of just how long his wait had been.

Billy’s boredom soon gave way, as youthful boredom will, in time, to frustration and annoyance. When Creecher was with him, Billy could see no alternative other than to do as he said. But here in the dazzling sunshine on a busy street, Creecher seemed more like a bad dream: something that belonged to the fog of sleep and nothing more.

What purpose was there to be served by Billy watching two tourists on their sightseeing expeditions? Sooner or later – whatever Creecher said – Fletcher or one of his cronies was going to find him.

Besides, it was just plain unnatural for a thief of Billy’s skill to watch so many opportunities go by. It was a kind of torture.

Then, just as Billy walked past the entrance to Montagu House, who should appear from the museum but the same eccentrically dressed toff he had seen earlier by the statue of the Egyptian king. It was just too tempting.

Billy strolled nonchalantly by and reached out towards the man’s purse. In his mind he had already pocketed the purse and so it was a great shock when he felt a hand grab his wrist.

Billy was about to kick the man in the shin and run for it, when to his surprise the man smiled and let go of his arm.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I have no intention of arresting you.’

Billy backed off to a safe distance in case the man changed his mind. He was intrigued.

‘Why not?’

‘I would not be the cause of your suffering,’ said the man with a kind smile. ‘It would bother my conscience.’

Billy raised his eyebrows.

‘You religious, then?’

‘Oh, dear me, no. Did you hear that, Mary?’

A woman walked forward.

‘Yes, I did, my dear,’ she said with a chuckle.

She was so different from the bonneted girls in the museum, though she could not have been any older. Thin and pale, like the man at her side, with a high forehead and long nose, she was pretty, but in a cool way, like a marble bust.

‘So our French friend was right?’ said the man. ‘You are a thief.’

‘He’s not French,’ Billy replied. ‘He’s from Swissland.’

‘I told you he sounded Swiss,’ said the woman called Mary.

‘I’m intrigued that a boy like you has such an acute ear for accents,’ said the man. ‘Do you know him?’

Billy muttered something under his breath and began to walk away.

‘Wait!’

Billy turned and the man opened his purse. He took out a coin and tossed it to him.

‘That should stop you picking pockets for the rest of the day, at least!’

‘Shelley,’ said Mary, ‘you are as soft-hearted as an old woman.’

‘Come,’ he replied. ‘What harm can kindness do? Would you have me be hard-hearted, then?’

‘Of course not, my love.’

Billy stood there looking at them, not knowing what to say. From the corner of his eye he saw Clerval and Frankenstein emerging from the museum gates. He began to move away.

‘Do you see?’ he heard the woman say. ‘He doesn’t even thank you for it.’

‘He thanks me in his heart,’ said Shelley, with a chuckle.

‘In his heart he thinks you are a fool.’

‘Ha!’ said the man. ‘You are probably right, dear wife. You usually are.’

‘Only usually?’

‘Always,’ he replied.