‘What did God say?’ Dodger had asked.
Solomon had sighed theatrically, as if he had been put upon by the question, and then smiled and said, ‘Mmm, God said to me, “I understand, Solomon, let me know when you change your mind,” and I was really pleased with that, because I’d had my say and the world was better, and now I sit in a place that is rather dirty, but I am free. And I am free to eat pork, if God so wills it that pork comes my way.’
Now Solomon turned back to his work. ‘I am making sprockets, my boy, for this watch. It is engrossing work requiring considerable coordination of hand and eye, but also in its way the work is very soothing, and that is why I look forward to making a sprocket or two. It means I’m helping time know what it is, just as time knows what I will become.’
There was silence after that, apart from the reassuring noises of Solomon’s tools, and that was just as well because Dodger didn’t know what to say, but he wondered whether all that was because Solomon was Jewish or because Solomon was quite old, or both, and so he said, ‘I want to do a bit of thinking, if that’s all right with you? I’ll get changed, obviously.’
This was because Dodger was certain he did his best thinking on the tosh. It had rained a bit last night, but not too much, and now he wanted some time with nobody else in it.
Solomon waved him away. ‘Take your time, boy. And take Onan too, if you would be so kind . . .’
A little while later, a little way away, the lid rose on a grating and Dodger dropped comfortably into his world. It wasn’t too bad, because of the rain, and because it was still daylight there were echoes, oh yes, the echoes. It was amazing what the drains picked up, and voices could echo along for quite a way. Every sound left its dying ghost, bouncing who knew how far?
Then, of course, there were the noises from the street; sometimes you could follow a conversation if it was near a drain, people talking away totally oblivious to the tosher hiding below. Once, he had heard a lady get out of a carriage, stumble and drop her purse, which opened. Some of the money, as the luck of the tosher would have it, rolled into the nearest drain. Young Dodger had heard her cries, and the curses to the footman who she said hadn’t been holding the door properly, and he followed the sound already down in the sewer to where, falling like manna from heaven, one half sovereign, two half crowns, a sixpence, four pennies and a farthing dropped almost into his hands.
At the time he had been quite indignant about the farthing; what was a grand lady with a coachman doing with one farthing in her purse?! Farthings were for poor people, and so were half farthings!
You didn’t often get days as good as that, but it was night time when the sewers became strangely alive. Toshers liked nights with a bit of moonlight. If they went down there then, they sometimes carried a dark lantern – one of the ones with the little door so you could shut off the light if you didn’t want to be seen. But those came expensive and were cumbersome, and the tosher sometimes had to move fast.
It wasn’t only good honest toshers down there in the dark, though, oh no and dearie! There were rats too, of course – it was their natural home, and they didn’t particularly want to meet you and you didn’t want to meet them – but after the rats came the rat-catchers, trapping rats for the dog fights.
And then you got down to the really dreadful things . . .
There were still plenty of places in the city where the sewers were open and above ground, and where some of them were pretending to be rivers; this meant that anything that could float or anything that could roll could be dropped or trapped in them in the dead of night. A sensible tosher stayed away from those areas, but there were other people who used the privacy of the sewers for purposes of their own – they were the kind of people who normally wouldn’t go out of their way to do a horrible thing to a tosher, but on the other hand they were the kind of people who might just do so if the mood took them, just for a laugh.
They liked a laugh . . .
Dodger’s thoughts shot back to what Marie Jo had told him. Someone who looked like a lawyer was asking after somebody called Dodger. And Marie Jo was a very shrewd lady; otherwise she wouldn’t have survived.
These thoughts spread out in his brain like the incoming tide (always a nuisance to toshers near the Thames). And an answer sprang back at him.
This was his territory; he knew every sewer in the length and breadth of the city, every little hidey hole that could barely be seen lest you knew where to look, the places that were half blocked off and nobody knew they were there. Honestly, he could navigate by the smells themselves and he knew exactly where he was right now. If someone is looking for me, he thought, if I’m going to have to fight someone, I must see to it that it’s on my patch. I’m Dodger; I can dodge down here.
Right now, the air in the tunnel was more or less sweet – well, in comparison to the things that weren’t sweet at all, with the possible exception of Onan who had, of course, brought his own particular odours with him. Dodger gave the two-tone whistle that every tosher knew, and listened for a reply; there was none, and so, at least for now, he had this area all to himself, as he so often did.
Almost without thinking he picked up a tie pin and a farthing within a couple of yards; luck was with him, and he wondered if it was because he had just done a good deed. As he thought this, Onan began to snuffle and whine and worry at something in a broken-down pile of old bricks. Dodger suddenly heard a clink as Onan’s nose knocked something loose. Now the dog had something golden in his jaws – a gold ring with a big stone in it! Worth at least a sovereign!
Good old Onan! And thanks to the Lady. But things happened, or didn’t happen, and that’s all there was to it, Dodger knew. You could drive yourself mad thinking otherwise.
In the gloom, listening to the sounds of the world above, hunting through the tunnels, Dodger was in his element and Dodger was happy.
Elsewhere, others were not . . .
There were many candles in this room, but none of them illuminated the face of the man seated by the tapestry. This considerably disconcerted the man known to his special clients as Sharp Bob – most certainly not the name he used when dealing with more ordinary legal affairs. He always liked to see whoever it was who was employing him; on the other hand, he also liked gold sovereigns, and they didn’t worry him at all – he was always pleased to see them. He could see two of them now; a lamp in the darkness before him showed them shining on a low table. He hadn’t picked them up yet, because he thought, If I pick them up before that incredibly toffish voice tells me to, for a certainty I might just have my knuckles rapped, or worse.
He didn’t like this place. He hadn’t liked having to spend some time in that rattling coach with a blindfold over his eyes and a man with a foreign accent sitting opposite him who had threatened to do him a mischief if he tried to take it off. He didn’t like working for men with foreign accents, when it came down to it. Not to be trusted. Not like doing business with a good, honest, God-fearing Englishman – Sharp Bob knew how to deal with them. He didn’t like the way the journey here had been all around the houses either, doubling back and constantly changing direction like a thief on the run. Nor did he like the fact that after this interview he would have to go through the whole business again.
This place was plush – that was certain; it even smelled plush. Occasionally people walked past behind him and that made him angry too, because he dared not turn his head. Creepy stuff. He had been here for ten minutes, waiting for whoever it was who had just walked silently over to a chair on the other side of the flames – a fact he knew only because the padded leather chair had complained with that little farting noise that only the very best padded leather chairs gave off when sat upon. Sharp Bob knew a good chair when he heard it, for he had been in the houses of the mighty before, though not on business such as this.
Now there was a stirring, and the someone behind the flames who was anxious not to be seen was about to talk. At this point Sharp Bob realized that the really anxious o
ne was himself, and he had a terrible premonition that he would sooner or later have to pass water.
He nearly did when the hidden voice said: ‘Also, Mister Sharp Robert, I believe you told us that your men would have no difficulty in dealing with one simple girl. And yet, my friend, it would appear that she has twice escaped you and you were only able to catch her once. This does not, I am sure you will not blame me for pointing out, appear to be a very good record, wouldn’t you say?’
There was something in the voice which disturbed Sharp Bob. It was English, but not quite English; as if a foreigner had learned English absolutely perfectly, but hadn’t been able to include all the little usages that a native-born speaker would have picked up. In fact, as English, it was too good. Too perfect. Lacking the slurs and imperfections that the native users sprinkled on their conversations. He sat in his puddle of darkness – and fortunately nothing else at the moment – and said, ‘Well, sir, we expected a girl, but that lady had a punch on her that knocked out one of my boys. And one of them’s been in the ring, sir! She was fast and clever, sir, fighting like anything, and you did say that you wanted her back and on the boat in one piece. Unfortunately my boys, quite frankly, sir, also wanted to get home in one piece. They say there never was a girl like that who kicked and spat and punched like a good ’un, and I’ve got one lad now who walks funny and is sporting a black eye, and another who had two of his fingers torn off. I mean, the first time she took us by surprise, but that time she just ran and they got her back in and tied down in your coach. Of course, after that we were too late for the boat, which is why we were bringing her back to you.’
Sharp Bob was feeling on very shaky ground at the moment because, after all, it had hardly been his fault.
‘Just as I told your colleague earlier, sir,’ he went on, ‘everything would have been all right on the second try, but she kicked the door out and jumped off in the middle of that terrible thunderstorm. Your coachman couldn’t stop the horses, sir, not in that rain. Very unusual circumstances. Difficult to predict.’
In the silence there was the sound of a page turning and a voice said, ‘And apparently, Mister Sharp Robert, a person called’ – the pages rustled – ‘Dodger actually wounded your two men, very nearly drowning one in a gutter. It seems to me that we should perhaps have employed him instead.’
The man who liked to think of himself as Sharp Bob but wasn’t feeling all that sharp right now said, ‘I can still be of some help, sir, bearing in mind that you already owe me quite a lot for having tracked her down in the first place. I believe you have had my bill for that for some time . . .?’
The speaker ignored the latter part of this statement, saying instead, ‘I would like to assume that you have some news pertaining to this little difficulty. I understand there was something further about this troublemaker? Do be so kind as to enlighten me, will you?’
Sharp Bob said, ‘He has been asking around, sir, and being very what you might call methodical about it, sir.’
Sharp Bob was satisfied with ‘methodical’ as a description, but not pleased when the voice said, unnecessarily sharply in his opinion, ‘Good heavens, man, surely you can use your own initiative, can you not?’
Sharp Bob knew what an initiative was, but right now he was certain he hadn’t got one. Hopefully he said, ‘The body asking the questions ain’t just any nobody, if you get my drift; he’s got contacts on the street, which makes things a little more difficult.’
The voice sounded angry, and that did not sit well with Sharp Bob’s bladder. Things got no better when, out of the dark, the voice came back with, ‘Is he working for a policeman . . . what you call, I believe, a peeler?’
A peeler! What a word to use to a troubled gentleman of fortune. The bloody, bloody peelers. You couldn’t bribe them, you couldn’t make friends with them – not like the old Bow Street runners – and mostly the new boys were war veterans. If you had been in some of the wars lately and come back with all your bits still attached to your body, then that meant you were either a hard man or very, very lucky. Bloody Mister Peel had sent them scurrying about like busybodies and no mistake, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer, and mostly they wouldn’t take any answer at all from anyone unless it was: ‘It’s a fair cop, I’ll come quietly, sir.’ You cried uncle, you cried aunt, you cried your eyes out the moment you fell foul of the peelers, and the bleeders wouldn’t even help you put them back, and they drank like fish and roared like the Devil, and weren’t friends with anybody – and that, amazingly, included the nobs. It certainly included those on the fringes of the legal business, like himself, who had relied on the old Bow Street boys who were, well . . . understanding, especially when money jingled.
What could you do with men like the peelers, who respected nobody except Sir Robert Peel himself? The very thought of them was just another problem for Sharp Bob’s bladder to cope with. A certain amount of fear trickled down his leg as he said carefully, ‘No, sir, not for the peelers, sir. He’s a bloke, sir, although he is really more of a geezer, sir, if you catch my meaning?’
This led to a frosty silence, which was followed by, ‘I do not intend to catch anything of yours, Mister Bob. What is a geezer?’ The word was said as if the speaker was pulling a dead mouse out of their soup, or more accurately, half a dead mouse.
Sharp Bob, who in these circumstances now realized that only half his name was accurate, was struggling now. Didn’t everybody know what a geezer was? Of course they did! Well, every Londoner did, anyway. A geezer was . . . well, a geezer! It was like asking: What is a pint of beer? Or, What is the sun? A geezer was a geezer; although it did occur to Bob that he would have to do some work on the definition before he answered the dangerous voice in the darkness.
He cleared his throat again and said, ‘A geezer, now, well, a geezer is somebody that everybody knows, and he knows everybody, and maybe he knows something about everyone he knows that maybe you wished he didn’t know. Um, and well, he’s sharp, crafty, um, not exactly a thief but somehow things find their way into his hands. Doesn’t mind a bit of mischief, and wears the street like an overcoat. Dodger now . . . well, Dodger’s a tosher as well, which means he knows what’s going on down in the sewers too – a tosher, sir, being somebody who goes down there looking for coins and suchlike which may have been lost down the drain.’ This mention of drains seemed to make Sharp Bob somewhat more uneasy as he continued to move uncomfortably and added, ‘What I’m meaning to say, sir, is that he is a central kind of cove, you might say – makes the place a bit more interesting, if you know what I mean? And he’s been seen mixing with some nobby types recently.’
Sweating hard and still squirming on his seat, Sharp Bob awaited judgement. Above the frantic beating of his heart he thought he could hear faint whispering beyond the wall of fire. So there was more than one person in the room with him! He squirmed even more – this was not going well.
Eventually, the voice said, ‘We do not have any interest in interesting people; they can be dangerous. However, if this Dodger is asking questions about the girl then he might either find her, or know where she is now, and so therefore I require you to make certain that he is watched at all times, do you understand? And, of course, it goes without saying that there should be no way that he can know that he is being spied on. Do I make myself clear, Mister Robert? Because I generally do. This is a very delicate matter, and we will be extremely disappointed should matters not be brought to a happy ending. I don’t intend to expand here, but I’m sure you will understand what an ultimate failure ultimately entails. We want that girl, Mister Bob. We want her back.
‘Incidentally, Mister Bob, one of my associates will now take you gently by the arm and lead you to a place where you can, as it were, find some relief. You may take the sovereigns as a token of good faith and we rely on you to deserve them.’
A foreigner’s gold, Sharp Bob thought, was as good as anyone else’s, but you could get into trouble with foreigners, and he would be glad
when all this was over.
After taking up the sovereigns and being allowed the blessed relief of the jakes, Sharp Bob was bundled back into the wretched coach, which by the feel of it trundled him all around London again before he was rather rudely pushed out close to his office, his mind busy with what he knew about the lad called Dodger.
One of the invisible gentlemen who had been sitting in the dark leaned down and, switching to his native tongue, said to the interlocutor, ‘Are you quite sure about this man, sir? After all, we could get the Outlander? I have made enquiries and he is free at the moment.’
‘No. The Outlander is sometimes very messy, dangerous; it might become . . . political, if it was known that we had called him in. We would prefer to avoid causing an . . . incident. No, the Outlander is the last resort. I have heard about what he did to the family of the Greek ambassador – it was entirely uncalled for. I won’t dream of sending for the likes of him until every other avenue has been fruitless. If this troublemaker persists in his trouble-making, or brings others into the affair . . . well, then, we may need to reconsider. For now, however, let us continue to use this Mister Robert Sharp. It surely can’t be all that difficult, can it, for him to find a girl for us? To follow a grubby little guttersnipe? We can always get rid of him later if he becomes an . . . embarrassment.’
CHAPTER 7
Dodger gets a close shave and becomes a hero (again!); Charlie gets a story – and a pair of ruined trousers
Dodger Page 10