chapter 13
The clock is ticking as a mysterious old lady crosses the river
SOLOMON WAS SILENT until the growler was well on its way, and then he said, ‘Rather a forward young lady, I feel, and so there must be something in the saying that “like attracts like”, and mmm, you, Dodger, were Dodger, which I believe is a skill unto itself. But you must be careful; you are in the centre of things now, if you did but know it. Although there are agents of other powers in this country, I suspect they would think twice before doing any harm to Mister Disraeli or Mister Dickens, but I think the life of a tosher is one they would snuff out without a second thought.’
Dodger knew Solomon was right. After all, tangled up in this there was politics, and where there is politics there is money and power, which probably can be considered more important than a tosher and a girl alone.
‘Tomorrow,’ Solomon was saying, ‘remember, you must be smart and in your best clothes again when you go to the theatre. Incidentally, what is that piece of paper rolling up in your hand? Unusual for you to try to read . . .?’
Dodger gave up the unequal struggle and said, ‘Tell me what this means, Sol, ’cos I think this one is important. I think these people are the people what mean Simplicity harm.’
The speed with which Solomon drank information off a page always seemed wondrous to Dodger, and the old man said, ‘It’s the address of an embassy.’
‘What’s an embassy?’ said Dodger.
It took a minute or two for Sol to explain the concept of an embassy to Dodger, but by the end of the explanation Dodger’s eyes were ablaze and he said, ‘Well, you know me and writing. Can you just tell me where it is?’
‘I wonder if I dare,’ said Solomon, ‘but I know you will not be satisfied until you find out. Please promise me, at least, that you won’t kill anybody. Well, unless they try to kill you first.’ He added, ‘A remarkable woman, Angela, isn’t she?’ He glanced out of the window and continued, ‘As a matter of fact I think I might be able to persuade the growler to go past the address.’
Five minutes later, Dodger was staring at the building like a pickpocket fixes his gaze on a lord’s trouser pockets. He said, ‘I’ll come back home with you right now to see you get in all right, but then don’t wait up.’
He itched with impatience all the way to Seven Dials as they rumbled through the darkened streets, and as they arrived home he apparently took no notice of the single man lurking in the shadows and the man paid them no apparent attention as they climbed up the stairs, a grumbling Solomon complaining about being so late for bed. Dodger spent some time feeding Onan and taking him for his usual nocturnal walk. When that was over, the dog followed him upstairs, and very shortly after that the watcher down in the street below saw the solitary candle go out.
On the other side of the building, Dodger – now dressed in his working clothes – climbed down the rope he utilized whenever he wanted to get back to ground level without being noticed. Then he slid round to where the watching man was still watching, silently tied his bootlaces together in the darkness and then kicked the man’s feet from under him, saying, ‘Hello, my name’s Dodger, what’s yours?’
The man was at first startled, then extremely angry, saying, ‘I am a policeman, you know!’
‘I don’t see no uniform, mister policeman,’ said Dodger. ‘I’ll tell you what, ’cos you have a nice face I’ll let you go, OK? And tell Mister Robert Peel that Dodger does things his way, all right?’
But he was, he thought, if not exactly in trouble with Scotland Yard, nevertheless certainly in a stew of sorts, and it was bubbling, wasn’t it just! Once the peelers from Scotland Yard got a hold of you they tended to hang on, and if the news got about that he had spoken to the peelers – especially the big Peel himself! – then the street people would think he was getting into bad company, and might be likely to peach on them.
Even worse, he was being spied on. Plain-clothed policemen! There ought to be a law against it; everybody said so – it was, well, it was unfair. After all, if you saw a peeler walking around, well, maybe you would think once or twice about dipping into someone’s pocket or dipping into something that didn’t really belong to anyone really, when you came to think about it, or just possibly knocking off something from a barrow when the owner wasn’t looking. After all, seeing policemen around kept you honest, didn’t it? If they were going to lurk around like ordinary people they were basically asking you to commit crimes, weren’t they? It was entirely unfair in Dodger’s opinion.
It had been a long night already indeed, but there were things that had to be done quickly, or else he would burst. So he ran through the dark streets until he came to the abode of Ginny-Come-Lately.
She answered the door on the third knock, and in something of a bad temper until she said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Dodger, how nice. Er, can’t invite you in quite yet, you know how it is, don’t ya?’
Dodger, who certainly did know how it was because it was always what it was, said, ‘Nice to see you, Ginny. You know that little package of tools I once asked you to keep for me when I promised Solomon I wasn’t going thieving any more? Still got it?’
She smiled at him for a moment, then ducked back in and came out with a small package wrapped in oilcloth. She gave Dodger a peck on the cheek and said, ‘I’m hearing a lot about you these days, Dodger. I hope she’s worth it!’
But at that point Dodger was already out of the door and running at speed; he had always liked running, which was just as well, since a thief who couldn’t run fast was soon dead, but now he ran like he had never run before. He was running through the streets in what seemed like a frenzy of acceleration, and occasionally an alert peeler, noting that someone was running, would shout or blow his whistle and then feel rather stupid since Dodger was a rapidly dwindling bit of darkness in a city full of the stuff. He didn’t simply run; he sped, legs pounding much faster than his heartbeat. Disturbed pigeons flew away. A man who tried to waylay him as he ran down a useful alleyway was punched and then trodden on, and Dodger kept going, not looking behind him because, well, by now everything was behind him as he channelled rage into his legs and simply followed them . . . and then, suddenly, there it was again. That building.
Dodger slowed down and disappeared into darkness and spent some time in getting his breath back; after all, now he was here, he would have to take his time. By the light of his dark lantern, he unrolled the green baize parcel wrapped in the oilcloth, and the light glistened on all his little friends – the half-diamond pick, the ball pick, and the torsion bar – but of course there were the others; there was always some lock or other which was slightly different, and he had spent many a happy hour with the rakes and picks, bending and filing them into exactly the right shapes. It seemed to him that they were saluting him, ready for combat.
Shortly afterwards, darkness moved within darkness and this particular darkness found, on the more insalubrious side of the building, a metal cover to a cellar. When he had given it just a little bit of oil and a little tinkering, Dodger was in at the enemy’s throat. He grinned, but there was no fun in the grin; it was more like a knife.
The building was mostly in shadows and Dodger just loved shadows. He was pleased to see that there were carpets – not really a sensible choice if you were running an embassy and might like to know if there were some unwelcome people walking about, because marble floors were much to be recommended, as Dodger well knew; sometimes if you stepped on them in the night time they could ring like a bell. Whenever he’d found them, he had always got down and very carefully slid himself over them, so that no sound could be heard.
Now he listened at doors, he stood behind curtains, and he made sure not to go too near the kitchens, as you never knew when a servant might be up. And all the time he stole. He stole in the same methodical way that Solomon made beautiful small objects, and he smiled when he thought that, because now Dodger was making small beautiful things disappear. He stole jewellery, when he found it, and he opened every lock and riffled through the contents of every drawer, in every boudoir. On two occasions he robbed rooms in which he could just make out people sleeping. He didn’t care; it was as if nothing could stop him, or maybe it was as if the Lady had made him invisible. He worked fast and methodically and everything was wrapped up in its own little velvet bag, within the main bundle, so that nothing would ever go ‘clink’ just at the wrong moment because if there was a clink then the clink was where you spent your days until they hanged you. It was a little joke among thieves.
At one point, in the middle of the building, in a large desk which took one hell of a long time to yield its secrets to his busy fingers and their little friends, he found ledgers and a series of little books. They had a complicated look about them, and manuscripts and scrolls with red wax on them, which always looked expensive. He recognized the crest on some of the documents, he surely did.
As he stood in this busy, important room, he thought, I wish I could do something, so that they would know. And then knew what he would do. I’ll let them know who it had been, he told himself, because, well, I could have brought the place down in flames. After all, all those oil lamps around? All those curtains? All those stairs and all those people sleeping up there? He was so angry but, in the warm darkness of the room, what he was not – whatever else he had been – was a murderer. I shall make them pay in my own way, he decided, and at that moment all of them were saved from a fiery death, if they only had known it, and were only living because Dodger, silent in this sleeping world, allowed them to.
Put like that, it made him feel a little better. Padding away silently, he thought, I’ve always said I wasn’t a hero, and I ain’t, but if I’ve ever been a hero, then as sure as Sunday I’m a hero now, because I’ve stopped an embassy full of people being burned alive.
And so at last, not long before the first crack of dawn, he was down and outside and into the mews by the side of the embassy. He knew there would be ostlers and grooms hanging about here any minute soon but nevertheless, moving even more stealthily, he found the coach house, and yes, there was a coach there with a foreign crest painted on the side. Dodger carefully knelt down beside it and felt around near the wheels. Close to one wheel it seemed that a length of metal had been thrown up on one occasion and got stuck, scraping on the rim of the wheel. Dodger tried to pull it free, but without any success until a very useful little crowbar caused it to spring out, and Dodger caught it in the air whereupon he straightened up, went to the coat of arms on the coach and scratched, as deeply as he could inscribe them, the words: MR PUNCH.
Then, with his face dark and his purpose iron-clad, he walked from loose box to loose box, driving the occupants into an adjacent mews and carefully shutting the gate behind them, because everybody knew that horses were so stupid that if there was a fire they would rush into their stables because that’s where they thought they would be safe, a habit that showed you why horses didn’t rule the world. They wandered about aimlessly while Dodger struck up a light and dropped it into a large bale of hay and then walked in earnest down the nearest alleyway with the virtuous feeling of having done something right, by virtue of not doing something wrong. He jogged his way towards the river, where the crackling of wood and the shouting of humans grew louder in the distance behind him.
Of course, Solomon shook him awake not long after the usual time, with the certain allowance for the fact that Solomon himself had slept in somewhat, after that wonderful meal. Solomon had also decided to let Dodger sleep on, and meanwhile had taken a look at the contents of Dodger’s useful bag, because he wouldn’t have been Solomon if he wasn’t inquisitive. So that when Dodger did in fact find himself shaken awake, and he came round the curtain, he saw a beaming Solomon sitting at the table with the jewellery in one neat pile on a velvet cloth and some of the books and ledgers beside it.
‘Mmm, Dodger, I do not know for certain what you think you were doing last night, but I think I can perceive, because as you know Solomon does himself have a certain wisdom of his own, that you thought you had a score to settle with somebody. Though you know that I do not mmm tolerate thievery of any kind, I’ve had a word with God and he agrees with me that in the circumstances you might have wanted to set fire to the place.’
Dodger looked embarrassed for a moment and then said, ‘Actually, Sol, I did torch the stables, because the bloody coach was in there.’
Solomon’s brow wrinkled in distress. ‘Mmm, I trust you let out all the horses.’
‘Of course,’ said Dodger.
‘And, mmm, after all,’ the old man continued, brightening, ‘what is jewellery? Just shiny rocks. And you have an excellent eye. Quite excellent. But I dare say that some of these ciphers and code books might be of considerable interest to the government; there are things here in several languages which would do a great deal of damage in some quarters, and cause a great deal of rejoicing in others.’
All Dodger could find to say at that moment was, ‘You . . . don’t mind?’ And, ‘You could read them all?’
The old man gave him his most supercilious look. ‘Mmm, I can read in most languages of Europe, with perhaps the exception of Welsh, which I find a tad difficult. One of these documents is a copy of a message about the Tsar of all the Russias, who mmm apparently has done something quite naughty with the wife of the French ambassador – oh dearie me, such goings on; I wonder what would happen if more people knew about it. Dodger, if you don’t mind, I think it would be a very good idea if somebody like Sir Robert was privy to this startling information, which is only one of the many things which Her Majesty’s government would be very interested to know about. I will see to it that he gets them in a mmm covert way.’
He paused. ‘Of course, I see no reason to mention anything to him about the jewellery. Incidentally, it’s worth a king’s ransom, even for the rubies alone. Or perhaps a gift from a prince and his father, mmm? As you know, I am not a fence, but I think I know one or two associates who might take the stuff off our hands, and I am sure I will be able to negotiate an acceptable price. Indeed I shall, because they go to the synagogue as I do, and sooner or later every man has to bargain with the Devil, and in those circumstances God is inclined to help him achieve a good price. You won’t, of course, get the full value, but I believe that after I have negotiated, you will have a second fortune. As a dowry for your young lady, perhaps?’
He plucked one of the documents from the pile. ‘And, mmm all I will ask from you, my friend, is that I am allowed to take this document concerning the Tsar, and quite possibly make some use of it one day, when the occasion ever presents itself, especially if my young friend Karl is still alive . . . Mmm, and incidentally, in another one of these packages is a scurrilous piece of information about a member of our own royal family. I suppose I should throw it into the fire . . .’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘But perhaps I will just keep it in a place of safety mmm, so that it never comes to the attention of unfriendly eyes.’ He grinned again. ‘And, of course, gentlemen like ourselves would have nothing to do with such things, but nevertheless there are times when a little leverage is worth having.’
With that, the old man carefully stowed away both the jewellery and the precious information somewhere inside his voluminous jacket, and turned to his workbench while Dodger sat and stared at nothing. He thought, If you put Solomon in a room full of lawyers, how many would come out, and in what condition would they be as they crawled along the floor?
He took this opportunity. ‘Solomon,’ he asked, ‘could you do a little job of work for me, please? Could you melt out some gold from this haul and make a gold ring? With a decent ruby maybe? And possibly a sprinkling of diamonds to set them off?’
Solomon looked up. ‘Mmm, I would be delighted to do that for you, Dodger, and at my very best price.’ He laughed at Dodger’s expression and said, ‘Honestly, my friend, what must you think of me? You must understand that was just my little joke, and I do not make many of them.’ He added, ‘Mmm, by any chance would you like an engraved inscription?’ His expression looked sly as he went on, ‘Perhaps something relating to a young lady? We can agree the exact wording later, yes?’
Dodger blushed and said, ‘Are you a mind reader too?’
‘Mmm, of course! And so are you, the only difference being that I have had far more chances to read them than you have, and some of the minds that I have fathomed were very tangled and convoluted minds indeed.’
Dodger stood back and said, ‘I have never asked you this before, but you know so much and you can do so much. Why then do you spend most of your time fiddling with bits of old jewellery and watches and so on down here in the rookeries when there are many other things you could be doing?’
And Solomon said, ‘That in itself is a convoluted question, but surely you know most of the answer, mmm? I enjoy my chosen trade and receive good remuneration. That is to say, for your benefit, money for doing something that gives me great pleasure.’ He sighed and went on, ‘But I suppose the main reason is that I can no longer run as fast as I once could, and death is, well, so final.’
This last piece of information caused Dodger to sit up straight. But it was a call to arms, the starting of a clock, which meant Dodger wasn’t so free as he had been because now time itself was his master, so he got dressed in a hurry.
He had to be careful about this; there were quite a number of people whom he could trust, but there were, as it were, several stages of trust, ranging from those he could trust with a sixpence to those he would trust with his life. There weren’t all that many of the latter, and it was probably a good idea not to trespass on their goodwill, because: a) goodwill, if trespassed on too often, might have a tendency to lose some of its bloom; and b) because it didn’t do for anyone to know too much about Dodger’s business.
Now he made his way once again to the stall of Marie Jo, who probably wouldn’t be too busy at this time of day, since most of her customers would be out there on the streets, begging, stealing, or – when all else failed – earning enough for their dinner. But she was there, as reliable as the peals of the Bow bells – and Dodger made sure he was reliable too, and paid her the promised few sixpences more for the children’s soup – and then there were not many around to hear them so he lowered his voice and told her what he wanted.
When she laughed and said something in French that he didn’t understand, he said, ‘I can’t tell you why I need to, Marie Jo.’
She looked at his face and laughed again, giving him the expression that a certain type of woman has when they are dealing with a saucy young gentleman such as Dodger, and he recognized this as he had spent a lot of time analysing this in the University of Dodger; it was accusing and forgiving wrapped up together in a complicated parcel, and her eyes twinkled and he knew that she would do anything for him. But knowing that, he also knew that he shouldn’t ask for too much.
Looking him up and down, she said, ‘Cherchez la femme?’ Dodger knew this one, and very carefully looked embarrassed. She laughed, that laugh which somehow came from her childhood, and she insisted that he run the stall and chop up some onions and some carrots while she ran this little errand for him. How embarrassing! In the full light of day, passers-by could see Dodger – yes, Dodger – working on a stall; he was glad that there weren’t too many people about.
Fortunately, Marie Jo soon came back with a small package which he carefully stowed away, and in good faith he spent half an hour cleaning and chopping vegetables and welcomed it, because the attention to detail meant the inner Dodger could think about what he was going to do next, which was to take a walk among the shonky shops and pawnbrokers. He knew what he needed, but was careful not to get it all from one single shop, although he was particularly fortunate in one old shop smelling of not quite properly laundered clothing to find just what he wanted, and the proprietor smelled of gin and appeared not to know Dodger at all.
But the clock was still ticking and he was short of time.
By mid-afternoon, though, after a trip to the Gunner’s Daughter and a couple of pints of porter with a few mates, and one in particular – good ol’ Dodger, never forgot his friends now he was in the money after his exploits with the Demon Barber – he was ready, though Solomon chuckled rather too much for his liking.
Dodger had heard that God watches everything, although he thought that around the rookeries, He tended to close his eyes. If God wasn’t available today, and since people didn’t look too much, just in case they saw anything, possibly only a watcher on the moon would have seen an elderly lady – an extremely pitiful one, even by the standards of the rookeries – shin down a length of rope, land like an athlete and then, very slowly, hobble away.
Dodger wasn’t particularly bothered about this bit; there were only a few places you could stand to see the rope in any case, but being an old lady meant that you couldn’t travel fast. Regrettably, little old ladies – rather unwashed ones, at that – didn’t often have enough money to hire a growler, but since he would be damned before he hobbled all the way to the river, the old lady did manage, by the frantic waving of her walking stick, to hail a cab. Unusually, given the pitiful condition of the old girl, who seemed to be a jolly playground for warts, thanks to the theatrical help of Marie Jo, the growler captain, thinking about his old mum, carefully helped the old girl up and didn’t short-change her.
Indeed, she was a very pitiful old lady; she smelled six days away from a good wash. And warts? Never before had he seen such terrible warts. She wore a wig, but that wasn’t unusual knowing the sensitivities of old ladies, and goodness, he thought, it was a terribly bad wig even so, about the worst a shonky shop could offer.
He watched her walk away, and it looked as if her feet were in a terrible way, and this was true because Dodger had put a piece of wood in his boot which hurt like the blazes. By the time he reached the nearest wharf, his feet were killing him. Once upon a time, Marie Jo had told him that with his skills, he should be on the stage, as she had been, but since he knew that actors didn’t get paid very much he had always reckoned that the only reason to be on a stage would be to rob it.
A waterman, coincidentally one whom Dodger had chatted to earlier in the day – Double Henry, a regular at the Gunner’s Daughter – gave a lift to the dear old lady with the warts and terrible bad teeth, and kindly helped her out quite near the morgue at Four Farthings, London’s smallest borough. Possibly somebody on the moon watching the old lady from that point on would have watched her progress all the way to the coroner’s office. It was pitiful, absolutely pitiful. So pitiful, in fact, that an officer in the morgue, generally not well disposed to living people and with something of a temper, actually gave her a cup of tea before directing her to the coroner’s office, some distance away.
The coroner was a kind man, as generally the coroners were, which was quite remarkable given that so often they saw and knew things that decent people should neither see nor know, and this one listened to the old lady, who was in floods of tears about her niece, who had gone missing. It was a familiar tale, a tale just like one Dodger had heard from Messy Bessie: the sweet girl had come up from somewhere in Kent, seeking to improve herself and get a better job in London. A dreadful engine, if she did but know it, that took the hopeful, the innocent and ultimately the living, and turned them into . . . something else.
The coroner, hardened though he was to this sort of thing, was overwhelmed by the tears and the lamentations on the lines of, ‘I told her, I said we could manage, we could run along all right.’ And, ‘I told her not to talk to any gentlemen on the street, sir, I certainly did, sir, but you know how it is with young girls, sir, ever the prey of a dashing gentleman with money to spend. Oh dear me, if only she had listened. I shall always blame myself.’ And, ‘I mean, the country ain’t like the city, that’s for God’s certainty. I mean, generally, if a lad and a lass got to grips and she started to swell around the waist, then her mum would have a word with her, wouldn’t she? And then her mum would talk to her dad and her dad would talk to the boy’s dad in the tavern and everyone would sigh and say, “Oh well, but at least it shows that they can have kids.”’ According to the old lady, the young couple would very quickly then go and see the vicar, and all in all there would be no harm done.
The coroner, not only a man of this world but in some sense of the next one too, was not certain it was always as easy as that, but he took care not to say so. Eventually, the old woman explained about the girl running out of the house and how she had gone as best she could from bridge to bridge in search of the runaway. The coroner nodded gloomily at that point, because this was the same old tragic story. He knew that there were always Christian people who patrolled the London bridges at twilight, looking out for these unfortunate ‘soiled doves’. Generally, they were given a pamphlet and urged not to do it; sometimes this even worked, but then it was going to be the workhouse, and most likely after the birth the poor girl would never even see the child for more than the time it took to be delivered.
You had to develop the hide of a rhinoceros to deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis and, alas, he found himself not very good at it, but he listened to the old woman’s description of her niece with a glum countenance. In between sobs were the words, ‘A blue dress, sir, not very new, but very nice underthings, sir, very good with the needle, so she was . . . Just an iron ring made out of a horseshoe nail like the blacksmiths make, ’cos it’s a ring, you see. Ain’t got no jewels, but a ring is a ring, ain’t it, sir. Maybe this is important, sir; she had yellow hair, lovely yellow hair. Never cut it, not like the other girls who would cut it every year or so and sell it when the wigmakers’ man came round. She wouldn’t have none of that, sir, she was a very good girl . . .’
After hearing all this, the coroner brightened a little, and so did Dodger on seeing his expression. It had been worth the time spent to locate Double Henry and the two pints of porter had got every single detail out of him.
The coroner said, ‘It would be invidious of me to use the word “luck” in this context, madam, but fortuitously it may just be the case that your niece is even now lying in our mortuary and has been there for a few days. She was drawn to my attention when I visited there yesterday morning, and indeed the officer on duty and myself were much taken by the wonderful colour of her hair. Alas, all along the lower Thames this sad tableau is re-enacted far too often. In the case of this lovely young lady, I must say that I was beginning to despair that anyone would claim her as their own.’
At this point the old lady broke down, whimpering, ‘Oh dear, whatever am I going to tell her mother! I mean, I said I’d look after her, but young girls these days . . .’
‘Yes, I fully understand,’ said the coroner hurriedly, and continued, ‘Do let me give you another cup of tea, my good woman, and I will take you to see the corpse in question.’
There was another wail at this, and another flow of tears, and they were real tears, because by now Dodger was so wrapped up in the drama that he might have had a fainting fit but he, or strictly speaking at this point she, carefully drank the proffered tea, taking great care not to knock off a wart. Shortly afterwards, the coroner, having taken so much pity on her dreadful state, led her by the arm to the mortuary. One glance from the old lady at the girl on the slab, who had been cleaned up a little to the point where she looked as if she was sleeping, was enough. There was no more acting now, or perhaps the acting was so good, so perfectly in the role that there should have been a gallery of theatre-goers cheering to the rafters.
The old lady turned a face lined with hairs, snot and tears to the kindly coroner and said, ‘I ain’t rich, sir, really I ain’t. Seeing my Arthur neatly away on Lavender Hill left me fairly skint, sir, so I reckon it will take me some time to get the wherewithal for seeing her decent, sir. Do you reckon they will have her at Crossbones?’1
‘That I cannot say, madam, but I hardly think that your dear niece so fresh from the country was anything like a’ – and here the coroner cleared his throat, embarrassed, and went on – ‘a Winchester goose.’ Most unusually, he took out his handkerchief to wipe away a tear and continued, ‘Madam, I cannot but be very moved by your plight and your determination to do the very best for the soul of this unfortunate young lady. I will guarantee you that – we have no shortage of ice, after all – your young niece can remain here, not for ever, but certainly for a week or two, which I reckon should be enough for me to contact those others that may be able to help you in your plight.’
He took a step backwards as the old woman tried to throw her rather smelly arms around him, saying, ‘God bless you, sir, you truly are a gentleman, sir. I will turn over every stone, sir, so I will, right away, sir, thank you so much for all your kindness. Got a few friends I could talk to. Might help me write a letter to her mum, on the postage, and I’ll move Heaven and earth not to put you to any trouble, sir. Can’t be said that we will let one of our own go into a pauper’s grave, sir.’ At which point tears actually were pouring down the coroner’s face. And Dodger meant it. The man had been a decent cove; that was something to keep in mind.
The coroner deputized his officer to assist the old lady back to the wharf, and before saying goodbye pressed into her hand enough money for the waterman, and so the unknown watcher on the moon watched the poor old lady work her way through the naughty city until, as she walked down an alley, she suddenly appeared to drop into the sewers, where the old woman died but was instantly – possibly to do with the Lady – reincarnated as Dodger, and a shaken Dodger at that.
He was used to playing roles; to be Dodger was to be a man of all seasons and seasonings, everybody’s friend, nobody’s enemy, and all this was fine, but sometimes that all went away and it was just Dodger, alone in the dark. He realized that he was shaking, and down in the hospitable sewers he heard the sounds of London floating through the grating. He carefully packed up the trappings of the old lady into a bundle, endeavouring to memorize the placement of every single wart. Then he set off.
He was still as upset about the drowned girl as the old lady had been. It was a shame, and he would have to see to it that when all this was over the poor unknown girl did indeed get a decent burial, rather than a pauper’s grave or worse. He absent-mindedly toshed his way across the city, more or less instinctively becoming sixpence farthing richer in the process.
Well, he’d got the coroner sorted out, but corpses need careful attention and there was nothing for it – he would have to go and see Mrs Holland. That meant going to Southwark, and even a geezer like Dodger had to be careful there. But if ever a geezer was careful, it was Dodger.
Mrs Holland. She had no other name; well, she was a gang all by herself, and if that wasn’t enough there was her husband Aberdeen Knocker, known to his friends as Bang, who had in all probability never seen the city of Aberdeen, which was somewhere up north, like maybe in Wales. The soubriquet had settled on him as such things did on the streets of London, indeed as the name Dodger had landed on Dodger, but Bang’s skin was as black as your hat and a very black hat at that, and he had been married, theoretically at least, to Mrs Holland these past sixteen years. Their son, known to everybody for some reason as Half Bang, was as smart as a dungeon full of lawyers and really being of use in the family business, which was basically property and people.
But Mrs Holland was a great organizer with a very fertile imagination. Probably every sailor who had docked in the port of London had gone to Mrs Holland’s League, as they called it, usually to meet the young ladies who adorned the upper floors of the building while Mrs Holland took charge of everything in her office downstairs. Of course, Mrs Holland being Mrs Holland, sometimes it was rumoured those sailors, once they were rascally drunk, were shanghaied and sent on a lovely cruise whose destination might be round Cape Horn, or possibly Davy Jones’ locker. But when not giving sailors nice long holidays, Mrs Holland arranged things.
Around the docks Mrs Holland was Queen, and nobody questioned the fact when Bang was by her side. It would be difficult to pinpoint her actual occupation these days, though Dodger was well aware that once upon a time she had been both a nurse and a midwife, and apparently had made a living by causing things to turn up or more often to disappear. If you were the kind of person who would come seeking more definite information about her activities, you were the kind of person who was likely soon to be inspecting the Thames bridges from underneath.
Dodger got along with the family, of course – especially Bang, who had once fascinated a young Dodger by showing him the scars where his shackles had chafed him most cruelly, and the place where he had been branded by the slavers like an animal. Despite his history, he was a gentle and very amiable person, although right now, answering Dodger’s knock, he was holding back the growling slathering dog of Satanic proportions that was the family’s front-line security. They also had a blunderbuss the size of a French horn and famed to be packed with black powder and rock salt and, on occasion for very special customers, miscellaneous nails as well for the hard of understanding.
There was Mrs Holland herself, all chins and smiles, and that meant a lot of smiles above the blunderbuss. Mrs Holland had bright blue eyes which, Dodger had often noticed, twinkled with sincerity every time she told you an outright lie. As she put down the blunderbuss, she said cheerfully, ‘Dodger! As I live and breathe! Welcome! Welcome!’
Very shortly afterwards, in her little private room, with the dog, name of Jasper, lying there peacefully in front of her but nevertheless ready to leap and snarl on command, she listened to Dodger’s story. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, ‘Ah well, it’s amazing how lively a corpse can be after it is dead. Stiff one day, and playful as anything the next. What you are suggesting ain’t no journey for the unprepared, but I have the knowing, oh yes indeed. I ain’t no stranger to corpses, as you are aware. So just you listen to your favourite aunty, right? Well, first of all, what you are going to need is . . .’
Dodger learned things quickly, and after a few minutes said, ‘I’m in your debt, Mrs Holland.’
She smiled at him and said, ‘You know, I always thought you were one of my smart boys, Dodger. As for being in my debt, well, who knows? One day you will have an opportunity to pay me back. And it’s all right – I know you are not a killer, so you wouldn’t be my chosen in that respect, but in other matters. Well, as they say, one hand washes the other.’
Dodger glanced down at her podgy hands; it looked as if neither of them had been washed in a week, but he understood the meaning and accepted it. Favours were currency down here, just like they were on the street. He also knew she always had a twinkle in her eye for Dodger, although it didn’t do to rely on a twinkle.
Just as he was leaving, she suddenly went all solemn and said, ‘I reckon you’ve been stirring things up, my little lad. And there’s some people that I don’t like the stink of the moment I hears about them, and one of them is a cove by the name of the Outlander – ever heard of him?’
Dodger shook his head and Mrs Holland began to look uneasy. She glanced at her husband and then back at Dodger and said, ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever met him, don’t know what he looks like, but by all accounts he is your dyed-in-the-wool, stone-hard killing cove. I think it might be his first time in England, but I’m getting word that he’s been asking questions about “somebody called Dodger” and some girl. Don’t know much about him. Some say he’s a Dutchman, sometimes they say he’s a Switzer, but always they say he is a killer, who comes out of the dark and goes back into the dark and gets his money and disappears. No one knows what he looks like, no one knows him as a friend, and the only thing that anyone knows is that he likes the ladies. They say that he will always have a girl on his arm, never the same one twice.’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘Don’t know as why I ain’t seen him here yet, given that liking. Maybe we will. But no one can tell you what he actually looks like. I mean that: sometimes they say that they’ve met him and he’s tall and thin, and other times that he’s a fairly short cove. From what I understand, I reckon he must be a master of disguise, and if he wants to talk to you he sends one of his ladies with a message.’
Mrs Holland stared down at the small and smoky fire in the grate and looked unusually troubled. ‘I cannot say he is in my league, the Outlander; he’s more like a nasty dream. Mostly, of course, he stays in Europe where they deserve people like him. I don’t like the idea that he’s turning up here. I quite like you, Dodger, you know that. But if the Outlander gets on your tail, you’re going to have to order up a whole new bag of smarts.’
Dodger checked his face was as cheerful as he could make it. ‘And no one’s ever really seen him, yes?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Holland. ‘Like I said, lots of people have seen him, but they never seem to see the same man.’
Her concern was palpable; Dodger could feel it pouring off her, and this was a woman who would have no great compunction about sending a drunken sailor to, quite probably, a watery grave. Now it seemed that there were some things that even she got nervous about, and she said, ‘It might surprise you, my boy, that a nasty old creature like me has got some standards, and so if I was you, I’d keep my eyes open even if I was asleep. Now give me a great big kiss, ’cos it may be the last one I’ll ever have off of you!’
Dodger did so, much to the amusement of Bang, and he was careful not to wipe his face until he was well away. Then he went back home via the sewers, as much as that was possible.
So somebody that you couldn’t really describe was out there after him and/or Simplicity . . .
Well, they would have to wait in line.
1 The Crossbones cemetery in the borough of Southwark was known as the single women’s churchyard, after the single women in question plied their single women’s trade under licence from the Bishop of Winchester, who owned that part of the riverside, which was why they were humorously named ‘Winchester geese’. Delicacy, of course, prevents the author from describing what exactly they were trading. Although it does suggest that the Church of the time had an understanding and, one might say, very forward-thinking approach to the matter.