Tom All-Alone's (22 page)

‘So no witnesses at all,' says Charles with a sigh.

‘I didn't say that. Though I'm not sure “witness” quite covers it neither.' He starts coughing, and specks of cake splutter down his uniform.

Charles can barely contain his impatience; he seizes the lad by the shoulders and pounds his back. He's so thin Charles can feel his shoulder-blades, even through the thick layers of cloth.

‘When I arrived at the scene,' Walsh says eventually, his voice still strained, ‘first thing I saw was this young lad running away down the alley. Shabby little urchin he was. Anyway, it was pretty dark down there, but as far as I could see this lad'd been bending over the body – we found out after there were at least two rings missing on her left hand. Anyways, I tried to catch 'im but he was too quick for me, and I thought I'd seen the last of 'im, but as luck would have it I came upon 'im again a few days later, when I was on me way home. Turns out he's a
crossing-sweeper
on one of those streets off Holborn. Newton Street, if I remember rightly. I saw a man talking to the sweep from a distance, and naturally I thought the boy might be importuning the gentleman, so I approached 'em both, and that was when I recognized it was the same lad I'd seen in the alleyway.'

‘And what did he tell you – the boy?'

‘Not much. Claimed he “never saw nothink” and “never done nothink” and he was going to “hook it, just like 'e was told to”.'

‘What do you mean – “like he was told to”?'

‘That's what I wondered. Sounded to me like someone had put the frighteners on 'im, but whoever it was, he weren't telling. I tried to press 'im but the man stepped in and told me not to be harassing the lad, who had to battle all day to clear the mud and got but a pittance by way of exchange.'

‘You don't know who the man was?'

‘Refused to give me 'is name. Said he was nobody. And he certainly looked no better – scrawny hair, matted beard, filthy coat. Though I do recollect thinking there was something in 'is manner that suggested 'e'd 'ad a fall in life.'

‘Have you seen either of them since?'

‘The man, no. But I did see the lad again, only yesterday as it 'appens. It reminded me that I 'adn't heard anything for a good long while about the Cass case, so I went and 'ad a look at the files. Just out of interest, you know 'ow it is. But there was nothing there.'

‘The file was missing?'

‘No, the file was there all right. It's just that all the details – the doctor's report, all of that – it were all gone. There was nothing to say it wasn't just the usual sort of street robbery the sergeant told you it was. No different from the rest of 'em.'

‘And that's not all,' he continues, leaning forward and lowering his voice. Charles realizes suddenly that the lad's not unnerved by what he saw after all, he's positively revelling in it. As a more celebrated novelist than I once said, “We can sometimes recognize the looks of a century ago on a modern face, but never those of a century to come”. And this lad – had Charles but known it – is the very model of a modern teenage geek.

‘This boy,' he whispers, ‘the crossing sweeper – he's mixed up somehow in whatever it is that Inspector Bucket's investigating. I can't tell you what it is, 'cause none of us at Bow Street know anything about it, 'e keeps it so close to his chest. But there's one thing I do know. I saw a messenger come for 'im last night, and I recognized 'is face. His name's Knox, Jeremiah Knox, and he's—'

‘Chief clerk to Edward Tulkinghorn.'

‘Oh,' says Walsh, evidently disappointed, ‘so you already know 'im then?'

‘I know him,' says Charles.

His voice is firm, but for the first time in months – and certainly for the first time since he started this case – he's beginning to feel afraid. Afraid enough to be glad he can now fire a gun with reasonable accuracy, and that he has it about him, even now. Afraid enough to go straight back to Buckingham Street and issue Stornaway strict new instructions on bolting the doors front and back, even during the day. But not afraid enough – yet – to think again about the wisdom of what he's doing.

Or change his mind.

An hour later he's been to Newton Street and found the crossing-place occupied not by a lad, but by a thin faded girl. Everything about her from her straw bonnet to her coarse wool cloak to her wan skin seems bleached and colourless. She's sweeping the street rather erratically with a series of odd juddering movements and cannot be persuaded to leave off, though she is – eventually – coaxed into revealing that ‘Toughy' did indeed once sweep here, but she has only the vaguest notion of the passing of time and cannot say for sure how long it was since he left or where he might be now. Thankfully Abigail Cass proves a rather easier quarry. The constable has furnished him with an address, and within the hour Charles finds himself at the entrance to a narrow cul-de-sac near the Foundling Hospital. It's so narrow, in fact, that a coster's cart can only just negotiate it and the inhabitants on opposite sides of the road can talk comfortably to each other by looking out of their windows. One house has a heap of mussel shells by the kerb, another a soggy pile of yellowing vegetables. There are strawberry baskets hanging by some doors, and grocers' sieves and barrels of herrings at others. Long poles stretch above his
head and lines of old patched sheets hang drying in the damp air. Four old men are sitting on the ground near the junction playing cards, seemingly oblivious to the vehement row taking place a few yards further down, where a woman with slicked black curls is leaning out of her first-floor window and yelling abuse at a chimney sweep in the road below.

‘That villain dragged her in 'ere by the hair,' she cries at the crowd gathered round him, ‘and then 'e kicked her till she was black an' blue! You should see 'er face! Make 'im show you 'is boots – I'll wager there's blood on 'em still!'

A woman in the crowd shouts at her that she's a ‘vicious old cat' and shakes her fist at her, while people in the windows all around the court applaud and whistle.

Charles skirts past the crowd to a house at the far end of the yard, where the door's opened by an old Irishwoman with a black eye and a nightcap tied tight around her head. She looks at Charles with some suspicion at first, but a shilling soon gains him entry. The room she shows him into has a sloping roof, with little black-framed pictures round the walls. Most are too fogged to make a guess at their subjects, but there's one of a sailor smoking a pipe, next to Jesus with a bright red bleeding heart, and a portrait of Daniel O'Connell. There's a flypaper hanging from the ceiling and in one corner of the room a recess with a bed pushed flush against the wall. A stout lad is asleep on top of the bed, still clad in his outdoor clothes. The blue-striped shirt is missing one sleeve and the black trousers look as greasy as tarpaulin.

‘What happened to your eye?' says Charles, not much to the point.

The old woman puts a hand to her face. She's wearing grey fingerless mittens and there are pulls and snags in the dirty wool.

‘T'at blackgeyard t'ere gave it me, shame on him. It's t'e liquor I blame – he's not such a bad lad when he's sober. And I canna turn him out. I need t'e money.' Her fingers close more tightly round the coin Charles gave her, as if apprehensive he might demand it back.

‘I'm here about Abigail Cass,' he says. ‘I think she lodged here. About a year ago?'

‘Ah, what a nice lady!' says the old woman. ‘Such a dridful thing as happened to her. Nice God-fearing widow woman like her. And no-one on hand to pay for a decent burial.' She shakes her head. ‘It's not right, it's not right at all.'

‘How long had she been living here before she was killed?'

‘Oh, not long. A week or two, no more. She said when she came it was just for a short while, until she found a new position. People like her, they get t'eir lodgings t'rown in. Not like t'e rest of us.'

‘I'm not sure I understand you.'

‘To be sure, I t'ought as you were a friend of hers? She was a nurse, wasn't she – only t'e place she was working at let her go, and she had to find anot'er situation. I told her she might be better off going home, to her own people, but she said t'ere was no work to be had t'ereabouts, and in any case she had not lived t'ere for many years and had no family left to speak of. Apart from her brother, of course.'

Charles has wandered to the window in the course of this, but turns now and stares at the old woman, who's started to fiddle fretfully with the mismatched plates and cups stacked on the tiny chest of drawers.

‘Abigail Cass had a
brother
?'

‘Oh yes. Very nice man, if a bit rough round t'e edges for my taste. Came here a few mont's a'ter she was killed but I couldn't tell him anyt'ing he didn't already know. Poor man, he'd only
just found out she was dead – dead and buried in a pauper's grave and too late for him to do anyt'ing about it. But t'en he was a fearsome long way away when it happened, and t'at's the trut'.'

The lad on the bed turns over heavily on to his back and starts snoring loudly. The old woman comes closer to Charles and looks up at him. ‘Seems Mrs Cass had written to him just before she died, only t'e letter was mislaid and he only got it weeks later. Poor man was cursing and crying and taking on so, it weren't easy to follow what he were saying.' She sighs. ‘I've seen it take people t'at way before – t'ey lose a loved one unexpected and look for someone else to blame. Most often t'ere's no trut' in it, and I'm sure t'at's what poor Mr Boscawen realized in t'e end.'

Charles sees it coming, but only just, and it's a shock all the same. The final definitive connection he's been searching for.

He puts his hand in his pocket and takes out half a crown. It's bright. New-minted.

‘This hospital where she worked – where did you say it was?'

She flutters a mittened hand. ‘Oh I couldn't tell you – I don't t'ink she ever mentioned it. Or at least not in my hearing.'

‘And she said nothing about why she left?'

‘We-ell, not exactly—'

The old woman turns away and starts to tinker with the crockery again. Charles moves a step closer, ‘Mrs O'Driscoll?'

She glances up at him and then at the figure prone on the bed, but whatever it is she's so hesitant – or so fearful – to confide, he is surely in no fit state to hear it.

‘I'm no listener at keyholes, sir, I can assure you, but t'e rooms here are so small and t'e walls so thin—'

‘I quite understand. I'm sure that if anyone raised their voice in here you could hear it the other side of the court.'

‘Ah, but t'at was just it. He didn't raise his voice at all. Mrs Cass – she was quite distressed – angry even – but for all t'e
noise he made you might'a been forgiven for t'inking she was talking to herself.'

So much, thinks Charles, for not listening at keyholes, but he lets no trace of the thought appear on his face.

‘Was it an aristocratic voice? A gentleman's voice?'

‘Oh I couldn't tell you. It were too low. Little more t'an a whisper, but it was a strange one, t'at's for sure. Sent cold shivers right down my back. I told Father Conor, it reminded me of what it says in t'e Bible about a voice “going like a serpent”. T'at's what it sounded like, and no mistake. A serpent.'

‘But you didn't hear what he was actually saying?'

Mrs O'Driscoll shakes her head. ‘No more than a word or too. Not'ing as made any sense. Mrs Cass, now, t'at was different. She was defending herself, t'at was clear enough. I remember t'ere was something about a girl having been cruelly used, and cruelly wronged. It had such a ring to it, it stuck in my mind. And t'en she said she knew what was going on, and all t'e noble rank and money in London would not be enough to conceal it, not if she had anything to do with it.'

The expression is more eloquent, but the meaning is just the same:
I naw what yow did. I will make yow pay.

Charles takes a deep breath; his heart is beating faster now. ‘But you have no idea who the man was?'

‘I never saw him. But t'ere was one thing that stuck in my mind. T'e door was a little ajar, and t'ere was a smell like baccy, only sweeter somehow.' She shakes her head again almost wistfully, and pulls distractedly at her shawl. ‘Lovely it was – I'd never smelt anyt'ing like it before.'

So, thinks Charles, she may not be able to identify a gentleman's voice, but she can identify a gentleman's tobacco all right.

‘And when was this, Mrs O'Driscoll?'

‘Last September. I remember exactly, because it was less than a week later t'at she was killed. Poor, poor lady.'

‘Did you tell the police about the man you heard?'

She looks offended. ‘But of course I did. T'ere's some round here as wouldn't hold out a hand to a policeman to save him from drowning, but I'm not one of t'em. I told t'at nice inspector everyt'ing I just told you and he said it was – what was the word, now – not
relevant
.' She folds her hands. ‘Not relevant to t'e investigation. T'at was his exact word. Not
relevant
.'

How very interesting, muses Charles – what's an inspector doing coming round here, when there are any number of constables to take on such a menial task? He can make a pretty shrewd guess who it was, too, but he needs to be certain. Absolutely certain.

‘Do you remember the man's name? The inspector?'

She beams at him. ‘To be sure! It were such an odd one, I could hardly forget. Didn't sound like a real name, if you take my meaning. Bucket. T'at was his name. Inspector Bucket.'