by Sarah Rayne
So it was up to Daisy.
Pa would be going to the Cock & Sparrow tonight, of course. He could go across Fossan’s Yard, along by the flat, bleak wall of The Thrawl, or he could take the towpath leading off Canal Alley. There was nothing in it for actual distance, but most people avoided Fossan’s Yard because of it being overlooked by The Thrawl.
Pa was some way ahead of her, walking unsteadily, which might be because he had already been partly drunk, or because of the kick Daisy had landed. Would he turn left for The Thrawl or right for the canal? Turn right, turn right …
He did turn right. Daisy’s stomach lurched with nervousness, but the memory of Joe’s small, scared face – and of those nights when Pa’s body had rammed deep into hers, leaving her sick and trembling and sometimes bleeding – was stamped on her mind. She kept her distance, but she kept Pa in sight, dodging back if he looked like turning round, pressing into the shadows of the tall old buildings.
She could see the faint glimmer of the canal now, and she could smell its putrid stench. There were old warehouses along this bit of the path; most of them were abandoned, because the canal made everything so damp that people had given up trying to store anything in them. Windows had fallen out, and rats scuttled to and fro in the derelict buildings. Occasionally someone who did not have the price of a night’s lodging would get into one of them for a bit of shelter, but they were bleak, unfriendly places, and you had to have a strong stomach to go in. But the path itself was a good shortcut to the tavern.
Daisy waited until Pa had reached the part of the path where not even the blind windows of the warehouse overlooked it. Then she ran forward, as fast as her feet would take her, and reached out, pushing him as hard as she could.
It took him completely by surprise, and he gave a cry, falling back, his hands flailing at the air. Then he went over the edge, all the way down into the canal. The muddy water churned and rippled, and Daisy, gasping and shaking, fell back against the warehouse wall.
Ma and the girls said they were shocked, and Ma cried a bit, but Daisy thought they all knew it was relief they were feeling.
‘I won’t never forget what he did to us,’ Lissy told Daisy, much later. ‘That first time – I bled so much, I thought I was going to die. Didn’t dare tell anyone though.’
‘You could have told me,’ said Daisy, wanting to comfort Lissy, knowing little comfort was to be had.
‘No, I couldn’t,’ said Lissy. ‘Not then. I’ll never stop hating him, though.’
‘Nor will I.’
No one in Rogues Well Yard and the surrounding streets was particularly shocked to hear about Pa’s death. Pissed as usual, said most people, and he’d tumbled into the canal. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
They did not say this very loudly, though, from respect for his wife, poor soul, and they passed round the hat for her in the saloon bar of the Cock & Sparrow and also the Princess Alice and the Ten Bells.
TWENTY
1890s
When the twins were coming up to their seventh birthday, Cedric Thumbprint offered to give them piano lessons. He told Madame he thought they were very musical – particularly Morwenna. He could try them with one or two simple exercises to see if they took to it, he said. It was only an idea, of course.
‘He’s being very kind,’ said Rhun, indulgently.
‘It makes a change from him being a silly old fool,’ said Madame, not realizing Daisy was in earshot. ‘I caught him writing a bank draft for £2,000 to the Baskerville creature last week, did I tell you about that?’
‘No!’ Rhun was horrified.
‘It was the money that came to him from that grandfather who founded the shop. Baskerville told him she wanted it for a sick brother. Doctor’s fees and a stay by the sea for his health, she said. Sick brother and stay by the sea my backside,’ said Madame angrily. ‘I was so furious I tore the draft up and I went straight round to see the Baskerville; she’s got the most horrible set of rooms you ever saw – grubby pink satin cushions and simpering dolls lying on couches, and a sort of sleazy feeling, as if none of the beds are ever made. I threw the pieces of the draft in her face and I told her what I thought of her in no uncertain terms. Then I said she could find somebody else to suck blood from.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She called me a string of names, and threw a scent bottle at me. Fortunately I dodged in time,’ said Madame, ‘but the bottle smashed against the wall, so Baskerville lost an entire bottle of Otto of Roses, all over the carpet. The place’ll stink to high heaven for days. Anyway, Thaddeus is going to make sure she doesn’t come to the house again.’
‘Poor old Cedric,’ said Rhun, rather sadly.
‘He’d have been very poor indeed if she’d cashed that £2,000,’ said Madame. ‘Still, if he can teach the twins how to play the piano, even in a basic way, it would be useful to them later on. I shall insist on paying Cedric a proper fee, of course. And it might take his mind off being lovelorn.’
The lessons went well. Mervyn had declined to learn to play, but he liked to go to the Thumbprints’ flat and listen to his sister playing. The twins liked the Thumbprints, who gave them afternoon tea as if they were grown-up, pouring it into perilously fragile china cups which they were terrified of dropping and breaking, and serving warm scones and jam. There were books everywhere, because books were their world.
Daisy liked the Thumbprints, too. Thaddeus often talked to her about the straits to which his grandfather had been put in order to come to England and to London, and begin the bookshop. Cedric told her about Belinda, and how he had been taken in by her.
‘I’d thought she was a shy, sensitive soul,’ he said, sorrowfully. ‘But in fact she was simply after the bit of money our grandfather left to Thaddeus and to me. She didn’t have a sick brother who needed sea air – she didn’t have a brother at all, in fact. So I’m very grateful indeed to Scaramel for stepping in. But I shall think of it as a lesson learned – part of life’s rich tapestry. And as Vanbrugh wrote, “Love, like fortune, turns upon a wheel, and is very much given to rising and falling”.’
Daisy had no idea who Vanbrugh might be, but whoever he was, his words seemed to give Cedric some comfort, which was all that mattered.
The twins ransacked the trunks in the flat to find their mother’s old song-sheets and music scores, and carried bundles of music up to the Thumbprints’ flat, to try them out under Cedric’s tutelage. Cedric enjoyed this; he said they were embarking on a musical odyssey, and Rhun went off to write an ode about it.
Most of the squirrelled-away music was lively and a bit saucy, and bounced along. But one afternoon, when rain was darkening the street outside, and the Thumbprints had gone out to collect some food for a little supper party they were giving that evening, Daisy went up to the top landing to put up some lace curtains she had rinsed for the Thumbprints. While she was clambering onto the windowsill, she heard music from their flat that sent such a chill through her entire body; she almost fell off the sill.
It was obviously Morwenna who was playing – she had permission to go into the upstairs flat to practise any time she wanted. But it was also obvious that this was unfamiliar music she was trying to play, because it was hesitant and stumbling, as if she was feeling her way through unknown notes. Daisy stood absolutely still, clutching the folds of curtain, her heart thudding against her ribs. There was no need in the world to suddenly feel this thrumming fear, but she did feel it, because she recognized the music, and she had prayed never to hear it again.
Then Mervyn’s voice said, a bit uncertainly, ‘I don’t think I like that very much, whatever it is.’
‘I don’t think I do, either. There’s words to it, as well, though.’
Don’t sing them, Daisy thought, standing on the shadowy landing. Oh, Morwenna, please don’t sing them, because it’ll bring it all back …
But Mervyn must have joined Morwenna on the piano stool, because when Morwenna began playing again, the two small young voice
s rang out.
‘Listen for the killer for he’s here, just out of sight.
Listen for the footsteps ’cos it’s very late at night.
I can hear his tread and he’s prowling through the dark.
I can hear him breathing and I fear that I’m his mark.’
‘That’s scary,’ said Mervyn, after a moment.
‘I know. I don’t know what it’s meant to be, not really, do you? I’ll play the rest, though, ’cos if I don’t I’ll wonder what it was like.’
‘All right. But then we’ll stop.’
The twins’ voices came again.
‘Now I hear the midnight prowl,
Now I see the saw and knife.
Next will come the victim’s howl.
So save yourself from him, and run …
… run hard to save your life.’
Silence closed down, then Mervyn started to say, ‘Don’t let’s ever play that again …’ Before he could say any more, Daisy had tapped at the door of the flat, and had stepped inside, calling out.
The door to the room that the Thumbprints used as a study was open, and she saw the twins seated at the piano, staring at the music score propped on the stand.
They had turned at the sound of Daisy’s voice, but for both of them the smile had a puzzled look.
Daisy said, ‘I heard you playing from outside.’
‘Did you? It was this – something I found in one of those old trunks,’ said Morwenna, a bit uncertainly. ‘It’s quite old. I don’t know what it is, but we don’t like it very much.’
‘We’re going to burn it,’ said Mervyn.
Daisy went over to the piano. ‘I think it’s something your mother found or was given – oh, years ago, it was. She didn’t like it very much, either.’ She noticed Morwenna was shivering slightly, but she said, carefully, ‘I don’t think we’ll burn it, though.’
‘Why not?’
Daisy thought: because once upon a time, it was written by a very famous composer … And once upon another time, it was used to fight back evil and madness … And that evil madness might have died in a dark old river tunnel, but it might not …
But she only said, ‘Well, one day it might mean something to somebody. It might even be worth money. Let’s just put it back where you found it.’
They nodded, and the three of them went back down to their own flat. Mervyn pulled out the trunk in which they had found the music, and Morwenna knelt down and placed the music at the bottom of the trunk. Mervyn reached in to pull a bundle of other other papers over it, to cover it.
Then the door to the flat was pushed cheerfully open, and Madame was calling out to know if anyone was at home, and if so whether anybody had thought to put a kettle to boil for a pot of tea, because it was as cold as a nun’s embrace outside.
The twins did not mention the music again, and nor did Daisy. None of them told Madame or Rhun about finding it.
TWENTY-ONE
Phin had spread both of Links’s sketches out on his desk, and he was examining them minutely. There were times when, if your research hit a brick wall, it could be helpful to go back to your original sources. He did not think he had missed any clues in the sketches, but he was going over them again anyway.
The Liszten for the Killer sketch with the macabre figure under the lamp in Harlequin Court did not seem to contain any secrets. Admittedly it was a reproduction and the book it was in was an old one, but the details were quite clear.
He turned to The Thrawl sketch. Now that he knew that such a place had existed and that it had indeed been an asylum – a ‘tunnel house’ according to the group in the Marble Arch pub – he could recognize the madness in the faces Links had drawn. He looked back at the terrified figure in the Harlequin Court sketch, whose imploring eyes seemed to be beseeching the artist for help. The figures in The Thrawl sketch had the same look, and Phin set about examining the details through the magnifying glass.
He was not really expecting to find anything, but the debris sketched on the floor came more sharply into focus under the glass. The outlines would not yield anything, of course; they were obviously meant to convey the general dereliction of the place, and there were only anonymous, tattered fragments of paper and cloth. But …
But some of the debris was not anonymous at all. There were scraps of newspapers. Newspapers. And Links, faithful as ever to detail, had drawn in tiny pieces of actual newsprint, so that on a few of the pieces it was possible to make out words. Maddeningly, none of the words made complete sentences, but at the top of two of them was a complete and just-legible heading. It said, Fossan’s Journal.
Fossan’s Journal. It sounded a bit like something from a Victorian novel – or the kind of name someone might conjure up to lend a Dickensian flavour to a story. It was a place that would have its offices in a dingy backstreet, with the proprietor sitting at a high desk, wearing fingerless gloves, grudgingly counting out the meagre payments to his underlings. On the other hand, it could be the name of a real newspaper or a magazine. A local one, perhaps? But local to where? The East End? Might it even be still in business? Phin swivelled his chair round to the computer, and opened a search engine, typing Fossan and Thrawl as search requests.
The first results were mostly dictionary definitions, explaining that thrawl was an old term for a stone slab in a larder, intended to keep food cool in pre-refrigerator days. But further down the screen was a reference to Thrawl Street, which was indeed in London’s East End.
The street’s chief claim to fame seemed to be twofold. The first was that by the end of the nineteenth century, it had typified extreme poverty and dereliction. There had been lodging houses of the cheapest, most basic kind, and the street, and its immediate environs, had been the haunt of, ‘Thieves, loose women and bad characters of all kinds’. Police had refused to venture there unless in the company of a brother officer. There was a grim photo of the street from around 1900, showing the grey hopelessness of the buildings with a few inhabitants peering suspiciously at the camera.
The other notable fact about Thrawl Street was its connection to Jack the Ripper, who had chosen one or two of his victims there. Again, Phin remembered the Marble Arch trio referring to this. He could not see that the Ripper’s appearance on the scene was relevant, however, and he scrolled down to read about the street’s history.
Originally built by Henry Thrall (or Thrale) c.1656, Thrawl Street ran east–west from Brick Lane, as far as George Street, across a former tenter field owned by the Fossan brothers, Thomas and Lewis.
Fossan, thought Phin, staring at the screen. Fossan. Had some long-ago magazine or newspaper proprietor wanted to give a nod to the area’s past – to the brothers who had originally owned the field on which the houses stood – and named his paper for them? Or had Links simply known the area and its history, and made use of the slender connection for his sketch?
This was worth checking, though, and Phin started with the British Newspaper Archive, whose vast collection he had occasionally scoured when tracking down obscure information. The website provided various links, and if there could be a link to a small site with archives relating to the East End, or a local archives centre …
There was a link. There was Tower Hamlets library, which apparently had extensive archives of the area. Again, he remembered the Marble Arch pub trio mentioning this. Was Tower Hamlets close enough to Thrawl Street? Phin checked the map, and thought it was. The library was in Bancroft Road, which was a part of London he had never visited, but there was a phone number, and he dialled it.
Certainly, they were open today, said the helpful voice who answered. They opened every other Saturday, and today was one of those Saturdays. Mr Fox would be asked to kindly complete a registration form for a first visit, and to provide ID, but from there he could have the run of the collection, so to speak. Did he know exactly where …? Ah, then Stepney Green was the nearest tube station, or the Number 25 bus went along the Mile End Road. They were just along from Queen
Mary University main campus in the Mile End Road, if Mr Fox knew that? Anyway, they would look forward to seeing him.
Phin said, ‘Thank you very much. I’ll be in later today.’
He liked the Tower Hamlets library. He liked its air of believing it important to preserve the minutiae of the past, and of considering that the past could be relevant to the present. But even as he was finding himself a place at a small desk, he was keeping in mind that he was probably chasing rainbows or will o’ the wisps, and also that it was Franz Liszt he was supposed to be researching, not obscure music hall performers and enigmatic artists. Still, Professor Liripine and Dr Purslove were true academics for whom the world moved at a slow and gentlemanly pace. They would not mind – they would probably not even notice – if Phin took an extra week or so to produce the information they had commissioned.
The library’s archives were extensive. There were records of the borough and its predecessors going back to the sixteenth century, and there were deeds showing transfer of properties and land. There were minutes of meetings held by numerous organizations and churches and companies.
There was also something called the Cuttings Collection, which included newspaper and periodical cuttings – articles and printed ephemera. The description helpfully explained that a substantial amount of this material dated from the nineteenth century, but added warningly that searchers should be aware that the collection ran to more than 400 boxes.
It would take Phin at least a fortnight to work through 400 boxes, and it was not time he could allow himself. But it seemed that local newspapers from the mid-1850s were on microfilm and could be viewed, and staff assured him that printouts could be made and photocopies taken. No, there was no actual charge, but they tended to suggest that if library users felt a suitable donation might be made, that was always gratefully received. Phin resolved to make a donation, whether he found anything about The Thrawl or not, typed in a search request for Thrawl and for Fossan, and began patiently to scroll through the screen.