The Strangler Vine (36 page)

The still, quiet shop was a blessed shelter from the biting cold. She had risen at four to walk the six miles to Hackney Road and back, and all the way she had hung on to that half-hour when she would creep in, fall gratefully into a dark corner, shut her eyes and cast aside her cares. Just for a short while, before he came down. Sometimes she thought it was the place she liked best in the world, not just for the physical refuge it provided, but because the old familiar smells and tools – the smell of ink, of lampblack and linseed oil, the musty dry scent of paper, the boxes of type and gravers and burins – were so comforting.

She did not like to come too often, for she did not want him to grow tired of her, and so she had waited and stored up this morning’s visit. He had never seemed to mind finding her there though, not even when at the start she had taken things – not much, just a bit of paper, or a storage box, or a piece of type, a tiny perfect ‘x’ or ‘m’ that she would rub between her fingers. He had shown her how to get in so no one could see, and sometimes, when he was opening up, he would send her out to the coffee stall and have her buy one for herself.

The street was quite empty. Even the coffee seller wasn’t out yet – he would still be serving the late-nighters and early-morning comers on the Strand. She made her way past the darkened shopfront, into the narrow alley around the side, behind the outside steps. Under them, and out of sight of prying eyes, she cleared away the old bricks from in front of the small square door that barely came up to her waist, took the small key tied to a bit of string from out of her skirts, placed it in the old rusted lock and turned it.

Squatting down on her haunches, she edged through. She avoided crawling as it messed her skirts and her basket and she was selling today. There
was a small cavity between the little door and the print room where they stored boxes and type and, having inched through the gap, she came out into the room at last.

It was very dark. She stood, brushing herself down. Dawn would not come for a little while, the front was shuttered and the cracked window in the back had been blacked out; he had taken to doing this recently, claiming that it stopped the cold coming in at night, but she reckoned he was working on something he wished no one to see. She knew the room well so she was not concerned, and it was a relief to be out of the wind. She could hear it whistling outside, trying to find its way through the cracks. Arms outstretched, she began to walk across the room to the far wall, taking care not to disturb any boxes or piles of paper. To the right of her, she could just make out the silhouette of the press. In the darkness it seemed to loom even bigger than usual.

Then her boot slid from under her and for a moment she lost her balance and thought she would fall. She swore quietly as she righted herself and clung to her basket. The floor was wet. She lifted her skirt, took another big step and grimaced. It was slippery here too. Perhaps a cat or rat had knocked over some ink. No. He would not have been so careless. Maybe one of his old workers had broken in to sleep off the night’s excesses and knocked over a bottle, or spewed up, or worse. He hadn’t had anyone in recently, but it had happened before. The writers and illustrators were all soakers and topers, the lot of them.

‘That you, Seymour?’ she said. ‘You drunk?’ But there was no answer. ‘Mr Wedderburn? Nat?’

Standing there in the dark she began to feel uneasy. She was, she realized, holding her breath. Some instinct told her to lay her hands on something solid and she took a quick step back, feeling for the wall. But she lost her balance again and went down, one hand going out to break her fall, the other grasping the basket. She cursed again. Her hand was wet, and the stuff was all over her skirt. She rubbed her fingers together. Sticky, slightly thick even. Not piss then, nor booze either. She sniffed and pulled herself up quickly, keeping clear of the great piece of machinery in the middle of the room. The sense of foreboding deepened, and the thought came upon her that there was someone else there, in the dark. She could hear nothing, but even so fear rose in her. As quickly and quietly as she could – though it was
too late for that, she knew — she made herself feel her way around the walls to the back window. She found the tool bench next to it and put her basket upon it. She stretched up to pull the piece of old blanket away from the window frame. The sky was just beginning to lighten and the room was suddenly a good deal brighter. Her fingertips and palms were stained with something black like ink. But she knew it was not ink. She did not want to turn around, but she forced herself to do so.