Read The Black Book of Secrets Online
Authors: F. E. Higgins
The Black Book of Secrets (9 page)
The Black Book of Secrets
My name is Horatio Cleaver and I have a dreadful
confession.
Guilt has driven me to the brink of madness. I cannot
sleep. Instead I pace the floor until dawn, going over
and over in my head what I have done. I desire only
one thing: to be freed of my terrible burden.
I know people think I am a fool, both as a man
and as a butcher. I lack the talent that my father,
Stanton, had and I am the first to admit it. He was
a true master of his trade. His skill with a cleaver
was unrivalled and he won every butcher’s competition
in the county for his speed and precision. They
called him Lightning Stan. To Pagus Parvians he was
the greatest hero since Mick MacMuckle, the one-armed
blacksmith who could shoe a horse blindfolded.
To me he was a beast.
When my mother was alive I was spared the worst
of his excesses, but she died, still a young woman, and
I was left at his mercy. He was a sly fellow, you see.
To the villagers he was a cheerful chap, always ready
to flatter the ladies and joke with the gentlemen. But
away from the counter, out the back in the cold store,
he was a different man. He was a monster. He beat
me every day with anything he could get his hands on:
pigs’ legs, rump steaks, even chickens with their
feathers still on. All the time he told me I should be
grateful to him for teaching me his trade.
‘Nobody else would have you,’ he said and I began
to believe him.
I was so nervous that I made even more mistakes
and he became angrier. He laughed at my spelling, yet
wouldn’t allow me any schooling; he mocked my
stammer, knowing that only made it worse. As for my
work, I did my best but I’m no carver – I’m all fingers
and thumbs, what’s left of them. As punishment, or
for a joke, he would lock me in the ice store until my
hands were so stiff I couldn’t bend them around a
knife.
My life was miserable. At night I slept on the sawdust
behind the counter while he snoozed upstairs in
front of a warm fire with a glass of whisky. I wanted
to run away, but he had me so scared I couldn’t think
straight. So I suffered the lashing of tongue and belt,
and inside I seethed like a mountain about to explode.
And then there was Jeremiah Ratchet. My father
saw in Jeremiah a kindred spirit – namely a glutton
with an insatiable appetite for money – and the two
would sit by the fire in the room above the shop well
into the early hours sipping ale and brandy while I
waited on their every whim.
‘P-p-pour us another p-p-please, Horatio,’
Jeremiah would say mockingly and the two would
burst into throaty laughter. Or ‘Remind me, Horatio,
how much is your lamb?’
‘Twelve p-p-pennies a p-p-pound.’
One day Jeremiah came in laughing. ‘I see you
have a new product,’ he said pointing to a sign in the
window, a sign I had written. To my shame it read:
‘Micemeat Peyes – three pense eech.’
‘Micemeat pies?’ bellowed my father, grabbing a
chicken, his face puce with rage.
That night I realized I had nothing left to lose.
The time had come to fight back. They say revenge is
a dish best eaten cold. I served it up hot and
steaming.
The next evening my father sat down as usual to
a hearty meal of potatoes and pie, one of my own
creations, and Jeremiah joined him as he often did.
To see these men at the table was repulsive in the
extreme. They ate as if they had only hours to live.
Barely was one mouthful masticated before another
was crammed in. Gravy dribbled down their chins,
piecrust clung to their greasy cheeks and their napkins
were spotted with food.
I watched, fascinated and repelled at the same
time, as they tucked in. For they had just eaten a
very special pie. Micemeat indeed!
The next morning I woke to the sound of agonized
screams from upstairs. I found my father
groaning and writhing on the bed. His face was covered
in pus-filled boils, sweat ran from his brow and his
breathing was rapid and painful. He was clutching at
his stomach and every so often he would let out a
screech of pain. I called for Dr Mouldered, but by the
time he arrived it was clear to us all that my father
was on the verge of death.
Mouldered seemed perplexed. ‘Well, although I think
it is probably a malfunction of the heart, I am a
little puzzled by the boils. How peculiar. Has Mr Cleaver
been bitten by a rat?’
I could feel my own face burning and my heart
racing. Whatever his illness, it wasn’t from a rat bite,
more likely from biting a rat. Possibly the one I had
served up to him in the pie the night before. Or
maybe it was another of my ingredients. The recipe
was simple: if it was dead it went in; hair, fur, paws,
claws and all. There was a minced mouse, two fistfuls
of hard-back beetles, plump bluebottles and purple
juicy worms, not forgetting the toad I found on the
road sq uashed by a cartwheel.
I watched my father for a day and a night, and
all the time he moaned in agony I berated myself for
my stupidity. I had only wanted to punish him. I didn’t
want him to die.
But die he did.
He exhaled his last breath as I stood over him.
And what did I feel? Everything: remorse, guilt, rage
– and relief. I closed his eyes, covered him up and
went for Dr Mouldered.
‘Heart attack,’ he said wearily without even opening
his bag, and left almost immediately.
Of course, the villagers mourned his passing.
‘What shall we do without Stanton?’ they cried.
‘Who shall represent us in the county competition?’
‘I could try,’ I said once and they looked at me as if I were a piece of gristle in a cheap pie.
Well, with my father gone my life should have taken
a turn for the better. But I hadn’t reckoned on the
guilt that would consume me, or on Jeremiah Ratchet.
A few days later he paid me a visit. I hadn’t seen
him since the night of the fatal meal. He was as white
as a leaf starved of the sun and his bloodshot eyes
were sunken into his dry flesh.
‘I have a bone to pick with you,’ he said sternly.
‘Or should I say foot?’ He held out his hand and there
on his palm was a tiny but unmistakable rat’s big toe.
‘I found it between my teeth,’ he said. ‘After that
pie you served us, the one that made me sick as a
pig for the last three days. The same pie that killed
your father. I see you buried him q uick enough.’
My heart froze in my chest but I managed to
stammer, ‘Mr Ratchet, what do you mean? If the
p-p-pie killed my father then how come you are
still alive and well?’
Ratchet narrowed his eyes. ‘Obviously I didn’t eat
the rest of the poisoned rat.’
He leaned over the counter so I could smell his
sour breath.
‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you,’ he said.
And he left, but not before helping himself to a
couple of fine steaks and a piece of mutton, although
he ignored the pies. And because I didn’t stop him
Jeremiah knew that he was right.
What a cruel and fickle mistress Fate is: to kill one
and yet to leave the other to torture me. Ratchet
comes every week and takes what he pleases: a goose
or two, a pheasant, a piece of beef. How long will
that satisfy him? What will happen to me if he tells?
I know what I did was wrong, but must I suffer on
its account for the rest of my life? Is there no respite
from this agony?
I am not a man without a conscience, I am deeply
ashamed of what I have done, but I don’t know how
much longer I can endure this torture. I have not slept
through the night since the day my father was buried.
Ludlow put down his quill, laid a sheet of blotting paper
between the pages and closed the book.
‘I can give you respite,’ said Joe and looked into
Horatio’s troubled eyes. ‘Your secret is safe in the book
now, I swear to you.’
Horatio sighed deeply and the lines on his brow slowly
disappeared. His eyes brightened and he yawned widely.
‘I feel better already.’ He stood up, but hesitated to take
the coins that Joe offered, a substantial amount.
‘Mr Zabbidou, I feel it is I who should be paying you!’
Joe shook his head. ‘Not at all, Mr Cleaver. It is a fair
exchange.’
‘Very well,’ said Horatio and made his way to the door,
where he stopped for a moment. ‘I swore I would never
bake a rodent pie again, but I cannot deny there are days
when I am tempted. Every time Jeremiah Ratchet comes
in, striding about as if he owns the place, flaunting his posh
clothes and smelling like a perfumery, wouldn’t I like to
give him one more special.’
‘The day will come when you will not have to suffer that
man any longer,’ said Joe. ‘Ratchet’ll get what’s coming to
him. Just be patient.’
Joe took Horatio to the door and Ludlow sat silently at
the table. Horatio’s story had reminded him of things he
wished to forget. Ludlow knew what it was like to have a
violent father. What bad luck for Horatio to be born to such
a man. But did that mean he been destined from birth to
murder him?
Joe watched as Horatio made his way back to the
butcher’s. He waited until he saw him go into his shop and
the light go out upstairs. He smiled. Horatio was going to
sleep tonight. But there were others who wouldn’t.
While Joe was listening to the woes of the villagers, halfway
down the hill Jeremiah Ratchet lay wide awake in his bed.
Prior to Joe’s arrival, it was rare to see a light on after midnight
in Jeremiah’s house. A man with no conscience often
sleeps soundly and Jeremiah would snore hour after hour
(keeping Polly awake up in her attic bedroom), blissfully
untroubled by the fact that he was the chief cause of insomnia
in Pagus Parvus.
Now Jeremiah spent his nights tossing and turning. He
called for Polly at ungodly hours, requesting a warm drink
or a book to read or fresh hot embers for his bedwarmer.
But nothing worked. Sleep would not come.
Jeremiah Ratchet lived right in the middle of the street
in a house that was five times the size of those he rented out
to his unfortunate tenants. He had spent many years filling
it with all sorts of treasures, but in the end the effect was
similar to his clothing: loud and difficult to miss, and not a
pleasant sight. The house had seven bedrooms (though he
had never entertained an overnight guest), a marvellous
dining room served by a large kitchen (most nights he ate
alone) and room for five servants in the attic (his innate
meanness meant he kept only two: Polly and a boy to look
after his horses, but he slept in the hay).
Jeremiah used to take great pleasure from wandering
the musty, shadowy corridors with his hands clasped smugly
behind his back. He contemplated the portraits on the
stairs: seven generations of Ratchets watching him with
cold eyes and curled lips. He admired the shine on his silver
and revelled in the luxury of his imported rugs – hand tied
by carpet weavers in an African desert. Sometimes when he
dug his fingers into the pile he imagined he could feel the
grains of sand under his nails. In fact, it wasn’t his imagination.
Polly’s cleaning left much to be desired.
But this was all before Joe Zabbidou arrived.
Joe had rattled Jeremiah from that very first morning.
Although he had not gone up to the shop since then, not in
daylight at any rate, Ratchet knew what was in the window.
Polly had been instructed to pay regular visits – although
not to enter the shop – and described the display to him in
great detail.
‘Chipped chamber pots and old boots!’ exclaimed Jeremiah.
‘How can a man make money in such a way? He must
be a fool!’
For generations, the Ratchet family in Pagus Parvus had
profited from the poor unfortunates in the village. By
stealth, force and inherited duplicity Jeremiah had continued
the tradition. He had acquired ownership of cottages
and land which he rented out to the villagers at rates that
could only be described as criminal. He evicted them periodically,
to show them he meant business, and then allowed
them back on the understanding that they owed him even
more rent. Obadiah was not the only one who had made
the mistake of falling into debt to him and in this way Jeremiah’s
fortune grew.
In his own mind it was all down to his skill as a businessman.
Of course, it is easy to be a skilled businessman
when there is no competition, but Jeremiah was beginning
to realize that Joe might be the rival he had never had.
Unfortunately for Jeremiah, he did not own Joe’s shop, a
fact which caused him immense irritation. What galled him
even more than that was Joe’s apparent wealth. He had convinced
himself that it was Joe’s money that afforded him his
elevated status, especially as he was so generous with it, and
that it couldn’t last. Two weeks after the pawnbroker first
opened up Jeremiah was surprised to find that Joe’s shop
was still in business, and, judging by the number of people
who passed Jeremiah’s house on their way up the hill, Joe’s
foolish trade in chamber pots and old boots was thriving.
Jeremiah was further irked when Obadiah Strang had
come up to him in the street with a queer look on his face.
‘Now, Obadiah,’ Jeremiah had said impatiently, ‘I hope
you aren’t going to try to get out of this week’s rent again.
I told you—’
‘Here,’ said Obadiah triumphantly, ‘take this.’ He thrust
a leather bag towards Jeremiah, who took it and opened it
curiously. It was full of coins.
‘It’s all there,’ said Obadiah. ‘Now my debt is paid.’
The gravedigger walked away with head held high and
Jeremiah stood in the snow, mouth agape. As the passersby
began to snigger at him he turned and hurried home.
Polly came up from the kitchen and met him in the hall.
‘Someone left this for you,’ she said. She was holding
the wooden spade. Jeremiah snorted and pushed past her
and went into the study. He slammed the door so hard the
windows rattled.
Obadiah wasn’t the only one to have suddenly come into
money. At least three other debtors had paid up. ‘Where
are they getting it from?’ Jeremiah asked himself and the
only answer he could think of was Joe Zabbidou. Jeremiah’s
temper was now even shorter and Polly and the stable boy
bore the brunt of it. He had never considered that anyone
would pay their debts. If business continued in this manner
Jeremiah was going to have to find other ways of making
money.
Recently he had heard there was profit to be made from
selling teeth, both false and real. Ironically, the rich suffered
more than the poor with tooth rot. Doubtless their sweeter,
more exotic diet was to blame, unlike the coarse fare of
their poorer counterparts. Well-off ladies and gentlemen
would pay handsomely for a set of real teeth to fill their
gaps, not least because it was an obvious show of wealth.
Jeremiah wondered if he could take advantage of this business
opportunity. Last time he was in the Nimble Finger he
had heard mention of a certain Barton Gumbroot who
knew more about these things. Mentally he made a note to
meet with him next time he was in the City.
For now though he had to deal with the pawnbroker.
Every time he thought of Joe, that string bean of a character
whose hair defied description, he could feel his teeth
clamping together and a headache starting at the base of his
neck. As for the boy, his skinny, short-legged attendant who
went with him everywhere, he seemed a sly little devil. He
wore a scarf and gloves that looked suspiciously like his
own, the ones Jeremiah was certain the coach driver had
stolen. And those big dark eyes. Jeremiah had never once
managed to hold Ludlow’s gaze. He always had to look
away.
Ever since their first meeting a creeping sense of dissatisfaction
had wormed its way into Jeremiah’s veins. Now
when he walked down the street the villagers looked at him
sideways and it unnerved him. His ears were filled with the
sound of laughter, though the faces around him were grim.
There was a change in the village. It was in the very air he
breathed. He could feel it in his bones and it made him
shiver. And he knew that it was something to do with the
pawnbroker.
It didn’t take Jeremiah long to notice Joe’s nocturnal
visitors. Now what was that all about? Lying awake in the
middle of the night, Jeremiah tossed and turned in his
foreign-made four-poster bed. The slightest noise seemed
to be magnified tenfold as he listened out for the footsteps
passing under his window. He had tried to ignore them,
burying his face in the mattress, but he couldn’t stand the
smell of his own breath and had to come up for air. He sat
up and frowned and talked to himself and drummed his
fingers on the counterpane until he heard the soft crunch
of the snow outside on the pavement. Then he would jump
from his bed and race to the window. He could see the dark
figures going up to Joe’s but he couldn’t make out who they
were. Whatever it was they were up to, it could only mean
more trouble for him. In his night gown Jeremiah shook his
clenched fist at them and pounded the floor in a fury.
‘This man must be stopped,’ he shouted into the night.
