Touched by Angels (6 page)

Robert sighed as he regarded the page, and yawned.
His idea of fun was not sitting here reading
this
boring drivel, but being out there with his mates, teasing Big Molly, or stealing sweets from the grocer’s, MacPherson’s on Cross Street, not because they
wanted
sweets, but because Mr MacPherson himself would chase them.

He smirked as saw in his mind’s eye that great red face in that mass of white beard, yelling threats as he chased them, unclipping his thick belt as he ran. He always seemed to get one.

Then there was school.

What greater fun was there
than pushing the goody-goodies over in the puddle of piss that never seemed to drain away in the toilets, or stuffing Mr Myer’s cane up the stove pipe, as Dick had done, and watching him go berserk when…?

“
So, what can you tell me
?”

His mother was suddenly at his side, wiping her hands down an apron, and he jumped, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.

“
Well, he killed ’im with a stone from a sling.”

He couldn’t believe that he’
d actually waded through the words.

Perhaps the vivid colour illustration in the upper left hand corner had helped, of a little pansy
in what looked like a frock, standing before a giant. The pansy looked like one of the goody-goodies.

“
Yes
,” Lil replied, as a series of grunts came from the corner of the room, “But what is the
point
of the tale?”

“
Er… dunno.”

“
Everything in the Bible has a point, even if it is not immediately obvious. I’ll tell you how
I
interpret it. I
think it demonstrates that however small and insignificant you may feel, you can still overcome obstacles that seem like mountains. Look around you.”

Robert complied wondering what was the
point
of looking around the same old room.

“
Horrible, isn
’t it?” Lil asked him. “But with monumental effort and endeavour, you can do much better.”

“
What’s endeavour?”

“
Doing your best, trying to rise above, conquering. There
are many other passages in the Bible, from which you can learn, even if you are not religious. That’s why I always call it the book of common sense.”

Lil gave him another passage to read, this time about Samson and Deli
lah, saying that this would demonstrate that even out of something as rotten as their own existence, good could still come.

She
picked her newspaper and finally left him to it when there came a knock at the door. Lil nodded at Robert to open it.

Certain it would be Sergeant Sharp, the only person left, after his mother, who Robert had any respect for, he hesitated.

“
Well, open it then!”
she told him.

He did, with visions of Borstal and the birch, to find Mr King instead, rent book in hand, and felt that same strange relief as a month ago, when he had thought it would be Mrs O’Brien.

King
was alone for once, without the muscle, but as he took his pen from the book’s spine, it was clear that, for whatever reason, rent day had come a day early.

Lil stood
and King smiled a slobbery smile, removing his bowler hat.

She lifted the crystal ball off its ring, handed it to Robert, picked up the money she had hidden beneath and said, “I’ll have the remainder by next Saturday.”

King’s smile vanished, and that soft voice, almost a wheeze, issued forth.

“
The rent, madam, for your tenure, is two pounds…”

“
Yes, I understand, but we have temporarily fallen on hard times. We have never once defaulted, in all the six years we have been here. I am a woman of my word, I will…”

“
Please don’t bandy excuses, madam. The terms of the lease are quite clear…”

Robert snapped, “Look, she ain’t got it! She sez she’ll get it, an’ she will.”

“
Robert, that’s quite enough. Mr King is well within hi
s rights to demand the agreed…”

“
No, he ain’t. This place is a loada shit! He never does a fing to improve it. Lenny’s place ain’t much better.
It’s
so damp, ’is mum’s got the consumption. Gone into a sanatorium. Prob’ly die.”

He looked at the chain to King’s gold fob watch, hanging over his food-stuffed corpulence and added, “Sides,
he’s
so rich, he don’t need…”

“
Your lad would profit from a few good rump cuts, Mrs Smith. Our new children’s overseer will oblige when you come knocking. We’ll make it our first task.”

He walked in to take the money, but Robert stepped in front.

Unused to such defiance, King nearly blundered into him, but Robert stood his ground.

It wasn’t until he was up close that he could see just how repulsive King really was. His greying, plastered down hair looked as though it had been cut round with a pudding bowl. His face was crimson, his lips like sausages and his double chin so restricted by his winged collar, Robert didn’t see how he could breathe, as he glared at him through small, watery eyes.

His breath reeked so badly, Robert winced, feeling sick.

“
Get out of my way, boy,” he hissed, “or, by God, I’ll have my men thrash you and your whore of a mother so hard, you’ll crawl, not walk, for our sanctuary.”

His cheeks had flushed purple.

“
Yeah?
Well, your thugs ain’t ’ere, so what…”

King pushed him to one side, and a short tussle ensued, before he shoved the boy backwards into the wall, winding him, before marching forward. Robert tightened his fingers around the ball and threw it at King with all his might.

When it struck the back of his skull, there was a sickening crunch, like an egg breaking.

It dropped to the boards with a thud, and King seemed to stand still for a long time, though his arms had suddenly become rigid. The rent book fell from one hand, and the bowler hat from the other, rolling in a circle before coming to a halt.

Lil staggered back, her mouth dropping open, as King’s eyes rolled up into their sockets, exposing the whites.

He tottered from side to side
and Robert felt the bile coming up into his throat, as he saw that King had a deep, ball-shaped dent in the back of his head.

As young as he was, he knew
King would die.

King started
moaning, “Gaaah… gaaah!” in between hitched breaths.

Then he dropped like a sack of spuds and crashed in a tangle of arms and legs on the floor. There he lay, bucking and twitching, hands clenching and unclenching.

The “Gaaahhh!”
sound was getting ever louder, as spit ran from the corners of his mouth, while blood snaked its way out of his left ear and dripped onto the floor. Through it all, Bob slept on, still without a care in the world.

Robert stared at h
is mother, taking nothing in but the horror in her eyes. She stood up and clenched her arms around Robert, whispering, “Please God, forgive me for what I am about to do.”

Seeing a shaft of sunlight cutting through the dusty air, she stumbled over the twitching body to close the door before anybody looked in.

She hadn’t anticipated Robert’s reaction,
until he started shaking, though at least King had stopped saying, “Gaaah!” Thank God.

Now, the only sounds in the room were of Bob’s breathing, interrupted every so often by lit
tle burps and farts, and Robert snivelling.

After several attempts to get his mouth working, he whispered, “I fink he’s a goner.”

Lil
watched the spreading puddle of blood and spit, as Robert wiped his streaming nose on his sleeve. A fly was crawling over one of King’s glazed eyes.

Without saying anything, Lil knelt and felt for his pulse. There was none.

Robert’s voice was broken and scared. “I didn’t mean to kill him, ’onest. I only meant to ’urt him, ’cos he was ’urtin’ you. Tryin’ to take all yer money, and, and…”

His voice was rising, becoming hysterical, so she put her finger to her lips, and whispered, “Sssh! Keep your voice down.”

She ushered him into the kitchen, and crouched before him, so they were the same height.

“
I didn’t mean…”

“
Be quiet!
Only the good Lord can be your judge. Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

He looked at her, baffled.

“
You have broken the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not…”

“
I didn’t mean it!
It were an accident,
honest
!”

He was shaking even more, his eyes darting this way and that.

“
I told you to remain silent!”

Scared, she gripped his shoulders and stared into his eyes.

He wiped both them and his nose, and blurted, “They’re gonna hang me, aren’t they? They’ll make me swing for it.”

He tried to pull away, but she held him fast. Tears were pouring down his face.

“
Don’t be silly!
Do you really think I would let that happen? But if you don’t keep your mouth shut, and do as I say, they will probably transport you to the colonies to slave for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?”

His face blanched even more. “No!”

She had meant to scare him, because right now she needed him scared, and to tell the truth, she wasn’t sure what they would do with him, at only nine years old. But that of course, was purely academic. With what she had in mind, the boy was completely innocent, and upset only at the terrible carnage.

“
Now what I want you to do
,” she told him, “is this. You must run off directly and find Sergeant Sharp. This is his patch, so he will be hereabouts somewhere. I don’t want anybody else to come, only him. Understood?”

He nodded.

“
You must tell him to come quickly, as you think your father has
accidentally,
remember that word whatever you do,
accidentally
killed the landlord, by striking him with the ball, as they quarrelled over the rent.”

Shock and disbelief spread across the boy’s face.

“
Can’t we just bury ’im in the yard? That way…”

She shook her head gently
and looked once more into his eyes, glad to still be able to see the innocence. It hadn’t occurred to him that people may have witnessed King entering the house.

“
Just cut along and do as you’re told.”

He backed his way to the door, his eyes not leaving the body for an instant. When he had gone, she sat down to calm herself. She knew it wouldn’t take long before he returned with the Sergeant.

Calm and composed,
she stood up and moving with swiftness and precision, went through the pockets of King’s jacket and waistcoat. She found more money in his purse than she had seen in her lifetime and pulled out the most of it, leaving a decent bundle in, to dampen any suspicion.

The Bible might espouse goodness to others, she thought, as she counted the notes, but in all her study of it, it had neve
r shown her how to survive.

She turfed out his trouser pockets, her palm outstre
tched to catch the loose change. The last thing she needed was Bob to wake up. There was so much, she wondered how the lining had not worn through with the weight. Then, as she frisked him further, his gold fob watch slid out of the little pocket on his waistcoat and swung back and forth on his belly.

She gulped, as she looked at the scrolled engraving on its face. Fully aware of its probable worth, her heart began to thud, as temptation gnawed at her.

She unbuttoned the waistcoat, threaded the watch’s chain out of the button hole and flicked it open, just as she heard Sergeant Sharp saying to Robert, beyond the door, “… fer the ’igh jump lad, any mischief!”

Shaking, she snapped the watch shut, and after briefly fumbling to thread the chain back, and failing, she hid it in her knitting on the mantelpiece.

She was stepping away from it, guiltily, as the door opened and in strode Sharp, who was so big and beefy, he blotted out most of the sunlight.

He was, without doubt, a damn good cop, and known by his superiors and peers as a ‘steady man’. He wasn’t overburdened with brains though, which was precisely why Lil had summoned him.

***

Sharp seemed to be surveying the scene with a knowing look in his eyes, while his nose wrinkled against the reek of the house. He looked at Bob too, remembering what the boy had told him. Then Sharp’s gaze fixed once more upon the reason for his presence, the body of Mr King. Sharp knew he was despised, though it was a flimsy defence, unlikely to save a man like Fighting Bob a one-way trip to prison, or maybe even the gallows.