by Steven Price
Tunnels and turnings, lightlessness. When the walls had again fallen silent Pinkerton got to his feet, shook out his pant leg. The smell was terrible. Then he unshuttered the lantern and Foole stood and they went on. Some of the lines were dry, wide, others deep and ancient. In great submerged caverns they crept high on the walls across narrow catwalks of rotting wood, the lantern guttering between them. Pinkerton would pause and study the map and then go again on.
They found themselves in an older sewer line and it narrowed as they went until they were stooped and walking slowly. The ancient bricks had rotted over the decades and given way and there were huge glistening lumps of matter deposited in the breaches. Vegetable peelings, the drainings from stables and streets, rotten mortar, wood softened and trailing rags of muck, even the outlines of kettles and pans and stoneware jugs all the one colour and glued together. At one turning Pinkerton lifted the lantern and a huge black rat crossed the spill of light and moved up the tunnel. Then a second appeared and a third and all at once there was a sound of rushing air and the far wall became a roiling mass of rats pouring past, a river of darkness, and they stood unbreathing as the rats flooded past and were gone. Pinkerton ran a grimy hand across his forehead, streaking it.
Wait, Foole said, panting. The air was bad, his breathing shallow. Stop. Wait.
We’re nearly there.
A sound of dripping water, faint, came and went with Foole’s breathing. His heart was labouring. He set his hands on his knees and doubled over, the handkerchief at his lips.
We should keep going, the big detective said. We should finish this and be gone.
Foole straightened, studied the man.
What is it.
Nothing.
Pinkerton nodded, walked a few feet farther. The corona of light receding on the walls and the low ceiling overhead.
I keep asking myself why, Foole called softly to the detective’s back. Why did she jump? What was she so frightened of?
Pinkerton was standing peering up the tunnel and he turned now, and lifted the lantern, and regarded Foole with his black eyes glinting. It wasn’t the jump that killed Charlotte Reckitt, he said. I don’t know what this Saracen of yours is capable of. But whatever she met with that night was a damn sight worse than a broken neck.
Foole blinked sharply.
Forgive me, said Pinkerton.
A moment passed. Another. And then as if by unspoken assent Foole rose and they went wordlessly on. The air worsened. Foole was thinking of Charlotte in the freezing Thames and the water closing over her face and her hair adrift and then he bit hard down on his lip, he cleared his head. He watched the flame in the lantern shrink but it did not go out. At each turn Pinkerton stopped and double-checked the map and marked an arrow in chalk on the wall. They passed under what must have been the public privies, the wood floor rotting above them, and turned left down a narrow passage splashing through a puddle of clean water and came at last to a set of glistening stairs leading upward. Foole could just make out a faint glow of light ahead.
This is the place, Pinkerton whispered. Come.
It was a long wide dry chamber with alcoves in the facing walls enshrouded by darkness and a few solitary stubs of candles burning down at the feet of huddled occupants. A puddle oozed near the door and Foole saw the shrivelled hams of a man squatting over it and he looked away. There was a cough from someplace deep within and then a second answering cough and then the silence of many figures observing. Pinkerton walked slowly the length of the arches holding the lantern aloft at the beggars and mudlarks hunched in their robes, wattled arms clutching their rags to ward off the light.
In the far corner Foole found the woman Mrs. Sharper had described. An ancient crone swaddled in rags, her huge grey feet bare and outsized with the crusted mud of the river. Livid scars stretched from the corners of her mouth up her cheeks, like some grinning cruelty made flesh. Her throat corded with the strain of twisting her face from the light. It was a stone alcove shallow and level with the floor and at one time must have opened onto a drainage line but had since been bricked over and sealed and she had laid out her scavenged goods and filthy straw to make her bed. Her gums moved, chewing at a long strand of grey hair. Her hands were liverspotted and trembling.
Foole crouched. Pinkerton set the lantern down beside him on the slick stone.
Are you the one they call Muck Annie? Foole asked.
She spat out the knot of hair, scowled up.
Muck Annie, he said again. Is that you?
Her face dipped and greasy tendrils of hair obscured her eyes, her nose. Sharp broken teeth, brown in the weak light, great gaps between. Her mouth was open slightly. Her lips were wet.
We’re looking for someone, Foole said. A man that used to sleep here.
What’s he? she demanded suspiciously. She was glaring at Pinkerton. Her voice creaking as if from long disuse.
We can pay you, said Foole.
At this she grinned a weird lascivious grin and the scars twisted and she glanced furtively from side to side and then picked at the front of her dress and leaned forward. She extended a wizened claw. Go on, you, she said. Give it here then.
Foole heard something stir in the blackness beyond. He glanced at Pinkerton but the big man did not seem alarmed. He was studying Muck Annie with a dead expression.
We’re looking for a man you once knew, he said. Jonathan Cooper.
She did not react. The rustling of her rags was like a thing uncoiling from a nest.
He glanced at Pinkerton then back at the woman. Jonathan Cooper, he said again. Do you know him or not?
She licked at her lips. Aye, she said. I knows him. He what took me leavings off to the Lascar an never come back. I got something of his own here, I do.
The Lascar, Pinkerton murmured. What’s the Lascar?
You mean the opium dealer? Foole said. In Wapping?
But she had twisted in her rags to fumble about behind her and then she turned back with a battered tin kettle with the top missing and held it on its wire stem towards them. Go on, she said. Pity a poor maid. Go on, sirs.
How do we find Jonathan Cooper, Annie? Foole said.
She gave them a sly look. You never do.
Is he dead?
She shook her head.
Foole withdrew a shilling from his pocket and held it gleaming before her and all at once she froze, as if transfixed by the coin. Annie, he said.
You never finds him, she whispered fiercely. He finds you.
NINETEEN
William awoke in a fever with his hair hot and plastered to his neck and the sheets sticking to his spine and he shuddered and slept again and when he awoke next the windows were dark and he had kicked clear of his blankets. He stumbled to the dresser and poured a glass of water from a pitcher there and the silver arc of it was like mercury in the faint light and left him light-headed and cold. He fumbled his way back to bed, slept, woke, slept again. Shivering through it as if sick with some bacillus of grief bred of the ditches and the drains.
A spill of lantern shine on slimed walls. The half-crazed leer of Muck Annie. Then came a grey light filtering in through the windows and he opened his eyes and sat up in a tangle of blankets feeling weak with his head aching but with his thoughts, thank god, clearing. He did not know what day it was. He rose and staggered towards his wardrobe and began, shakily, to dress.
No he could not eat. Only twist his spoon in the light of the sitting room windows and watch a blade of light flicker across the ceiling and down the wall’s mouldings. He set it with a click down on his plate and ran a handkerchief over the back of his neck and it came away damp. He felt the floor tilt. Stood again and waited with both hands grasping the edge of the table. When he went at last out he was careful to lock his door and pocket the key and he walked deliberately out of the elevator and through the lobby greeting no one.
At Scotland Yard neither Blackwell nor Shore was in. The desk sergeant scanned his ledger with his crooked knuckles t
hen gave William a street address in Drury Lane for the inspector. Cor, that can’t be right, the sergeant muttered. He flipped back two pages and was quiet then looked up with a shrug of his battered old shoulders. He said that he was certain the chief would be at his club. Did William know the way and all right. Then he frowned at William’s pallor and said, You might want to sit a minute, sir. If you don’t mind my saying.
He minded. There were smudged lanterns screwed to the outer walls of the hansom he flagged down and they rattled as the cab swayed and started off. The driver’s whip came lazily down from above and the beast took no notice but went on at her same steady weary pace and William sat back huddled in the nook feeling the cold wind on his face and he squinched his eyes shut.
The driver shook him angrily awake.
Right, now. Out.
He did not protest. His heart was beating fast and he climbed down from the hansom and peered up at the grim facade of Shore’s club and heard through the blood in his temples a low whistle and when he turned he saw the driver leaning down to him, holding out a cupped hand. The man wore knitted gloves with the fingers cut away and his nails were black with dirt.
He found Shore seated in a high-ceilinged dining room among mostly empty tables, his back to the window. He was eating with two forks and William glanced at the bloody cut swimming in its juices and felt his stomach churn.
Mr. Blunt, he said. Desk sergeant said I’d find you here.
What, eating? Shore grunted, he patted his pale green waistcoat. Should I be offended? Chewing and chewing as he spoke, his cheeks packed. He reached for his wine and took a drink and swallowed and then said, Didn’t I instruct you to get some rest?
This is me resting.
I almost believe it. Shore was pulling apart the soft meat on his plate. Sit. We’ve started teams of two covering pubs in the city, he said, showing the good doctor’s drawing of the woman. It could take a while. I’ve put Mr. Blackwell in charge. If I’ve learned nothing else in twenty years, I’ve learned patience. What. What’s that look?
What look?
Like you’re eyeing up the tastiest bits to bite into.
Of that?
Of me.
William’s head was thick still and it seemed his skull trailed slowly behind him. He took out his pipe and a pinch of tobacco and stuffed its bowl with trembling hands. There’s no look, John, he said. I’m just tired. Is there anything I can do?
You’re the great detective. You tell me.
William looked at him.
What.
Is there a problem between us, John?
Shore sighed. Ah, it’s not you. Jesus. I’ve my bloody hands full. This Fenian mess. A review scheduled next month. A half-dozen crimes with no suspects and a half-dozen suspects with no crimes. Mr. Blackwell’s canvassing his streets without a partner and all I can do is pray he doesn’t slip up. What I want is this to-do with Charlotte Reckitt wrapped up and I can’t say I care too much how it ends. So long as it ends.
But you want evidence.
Well. Evidence is always preferable. Shore regarded him now with a clear expressionless gaze. You look terrible, William. You should get yourself back to your rooms, lie down.
William’s shirt felt damp, it was sticking to his ribs. He wiped at his face. I went into the sewer lines, he said, in a low voice. Into the overflow lines south of Blackfriars. On a tip. I went looking for Jonathan Cooper.
Shore took a long slow sip of his wine. I thought you might do something foolish.
I didn’t find him.
You’re lucky you came back out.
William dabbed at his hot temples. I came back out with a name, he said. The Lascar. An opium dealer. Does that mean anything to you?
Not in relation to Charlotte Reckitt.
William waited.
Shore worked at his teeth with his tongue. At last he said, Lascar Sal is who you mean. Operates down out of Wapping. Wretched area, that. Bloody Chinese box of a place to find, I’m told. He cast a quick glance at the hushed tables nearby and muttered, We let the house operate because it keeps the worst off the streets. It’s an arrangement. Not perfect, I know, but. He paused, studied William. I don’t know what you’re up to, William, but I find it hard to accept as Agency business.
Well.
When did we meet? Seventy-two? When I first sat down with your father I realized the Yard wasn’t even modern in its methods. You know I worked with him for years. There was never this sort of nonsense.
What sort would that be?
Skulking about the sewers. Running grifters off bridges into the Thames.
William smiled tightly. My father had his ways too.
I have some idea what Agency business looks like, William. It doesn’t look like this. It’s mostly background checks and paperwork. This Charlotte Reckitt business you’ve been on about, there’s no client involved, is there? Since when did the Agency start hunting the flash on its own?
William met the man’s stare.
You just be careful, Shore said grimly. I’m telling you that now. I’ve had some comments from the higher-ups wondering about you being here. You know I’m glad to do what I can for you and I’ll leave you to your inquiries. But keep it legal. Or if not legal, at least out of the papers.
William rubbed at his forehead. I’ll do my best.
Shore started to eat again. Scrape and click of cutlery. How did it go with Martin Reckitt? he asked casually. A sly glance up as he asked it.
William shrugged. I gather there’s no love lost between the two of you.
Mr. Blackwell informed me that he was not present for much of the interview.
That was my fault. Reckitt wouldn’t talk with him there.
Well? Anything of interest?
The blood was pressing at the back of William’s eyes. He blinked hard. He said the two of you grew up together. He said you’d taken an interest in him.
Shore paused in his chewing, studied William tiredly, swallowed. Thing about a gifted liar is, there’s always just enough truth to make the lies dangerous. Some of Reckitt’s stories are genuine red-letter jobs.
I know it.
Martin Reckitt’s a liar who nearly cost me my job. That’s the only truth.
William looked at Shore wondering where that truth left off and the lie began. He knew there would be more to it and he thought of Blackwell’s account of Shore’s chippies but he did not care to embarrass the man. The daylight shifted across the ceiling.
Shore was saying something about Blackwell. He’s in the pubs up around Edgware Road today, he was muttering. He thought it might be prudent to investigate the locals. Observed that the sack might have been carried on foot from a nearby location. Makes some sense. Of course I don’t imagine it would be easy to locate him. But if you’re looking for something to do, you can keep him on the narrow for me.
William blinked, confused. Is Blackwell a drinker?
Mr. Blackwell? I should think not.
Then I don’t understand.
He has his limits.
You don’t trust him to handle this.
How many of your operatives do you trust?
All of them, William said. None of them. Why put him in charge then?
Mr. Blackwell’s been useful in the past. Shore pulled the napkin from his lap and dabbed at his mouth with impatience then folded it twice into a clean triangle and set it on his plate and got to his feet. At the cloakroom he took his coat from the attendant and shoved his arms through but did not put on his hat and he regarded William where he swayed. Did you ever get in touch with old Ben Porter? he asked. Did you ever ask him about Edward Shade?
William gave him a quick sharp look. He thought there must be something taunting in the man’s question but when he looked at Shore the chief’s face was quiet, his expression earnest. William shook his head.
Benjamin Porter died last year, John, he said. Sally’s gone too.
Shore paused. What, dead? He banged his bowler softly agai
nst his belly as if to punch it taller and then he set it low on his head. I’ll be damned.
Well.
We didn’t work together much. But I always did like him.
William did not know what to say to that. The attendant behind the polished counter of the cloakroom was studying with great intensity the ruff of a fur coat. The panelled oak walls seemed to pulse and draw back and lean inward. Then the attendant stepped forward and opened the door smoothly and the air from the street felt startling in its clarity, like blown ice. William turned up the collar of his chesterfield.
There was a new brougham set low on its iron wheels at the edge of the pavement and William glimpsed a young woman with blond hair watching Shore. The chief inspector nodded to her, then turned back, a reassuring hand on William’s arm. I’ve an appointment I must take, he said. Go find Blackwell, get this all finished soon. The sooner you get out of my city the better. You have a way of making a man look bad.
I doubt that.
You know my wife thinks you’re a handsome devil. Said so at breakfast this morning.
Well.
I tried to tell her what you were like but she wouldn’t hear it. I guess she’s got her tastes. He winked. But I’ve got my eye on you, he said. He stepped away. Edgware Road, he called.
William raised a hand and smiled with the fever that was in him and his smile felt gluey and hot and too bright in the grey chill of the streets. He watched Shore glance furtively about and then clamber up into the creaking brougham and then a small gloved hand drew the curtains shut. The carriage swayed on its springs, the driver snapped the reins, the roar of the street took over.