‘I suppose so, but why are the stories always so ghastly?’
He laughed at me. ‘Put it this way – how does it make you feel when you hear about something really terrible happening to someone?’
‘It makes me sorry for them, of course,’ I said.
‘And afterwards?’
‘Well . . .’ I thought about it. ‘Well, it makes me feel lucky not to be them, I suppose.’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘You’ve got it. Life isn’t exactly a bed of roses around here. So hearing a good, grisly story – especially one set in Tumblewater – makes you appreciate what you’ve got.’
I remembered how much I’d wanted the story to start so I could forget my own predicament for a moment. Jed was right. But now that I thought about my problems again I realized I had to go. I thanked Jed wholeheartedly for taking me in at the moment when I most needed it, and feeding me, and treating me like a human being. I promised I would be back.
As I walked back towards my lodgings, I couldn’t stop thinking about the stories I’d heard and Jed’s insistence of how many more there were. I had always loved stories, listening to them, telling them and reading them whenever I had the opportunity. Grown-ups told me that no use could ever come of it, so I had given up dreams of writing tales of my own, and settled on surgery as my future career. Now, as I trudged back to my lodgings with nothing in front of me but the most dismal prospects, I couldn’t help but be excited by these grisly tales, and the idea that there were many others to discover in Tumblewater, possibly more than I could imagine. Was there something about living here that made people more imaginative, more gory, more grotesque?
One of my faults was (and still is) that once I’m interested in something I can’t leave it alone. As I mused, I wondered whether the Slumgullion (from listening to the children it seemed to have lots of names – the Creature, the Beast, the Slurgoggen) could be true, and most of all realized I wanted to know more about this man Caspian Prye as well as the girl I had seen in the window, especially if there was a chance they might be connected. I was surrounded by stories on all sides, and although I was penniless it made me more determined to stay here, find some way to survive, and find out what would happen next. And then I told myself to stop being so blooming overdramatic, and to concentrate on remembering Jed’s directions and finding my way home.
When I arrived, a short man was leaning against the railings outside Turvey House, his back bent uncomfortably. He looked pained, as though he had tied himself in knots working out the odds and angles to this or that and had got his body twisted up in his calculations. When he saw me, he unwound to his full height, which was still quite short, and approached cautiously.
‘You are Mr . . . ?’ he said uncertainly.
There was something in his expression that was pleading but shrewd as well, and I didn’t answer. His eyes were a very pale green and disconcertingly beautiful, but otherwise he was dirty, and there was something slick about him, as though he was a creature that lived in the water, but was walking on dry land. I waited for him to speak.
‘You are,’ he tried again, ‘a young gentleman who has some . . . medical instruments?’
‘Yes,’ I said, startled. ‘How did you know that?’ He squirmed and smiled shyly. Three of his teeth were missing.
‘A friend told me, sir, and I heard you might sell them, that’s all.’ Then, as though he was sickened by his own ingratiating smile, he became all of sudden impatient, looking over my shoulder and jumbling out the rest of his words. ‘You would consider selling them, I think? Then follow me – I know someone who will buy them.’ And he began walking away at quite a speed. I ran to catch up.
Yes!’ I said. ‘I do need to sell them, as it happens.’ I was mystified that such a small piece of news could travel so far and fast.
After we had walked for a few minutes he led me down a cold, quiet street of closed shops.
‘Who is it you’re taking me to?’ I asked.
He turned and gave me a compassionate smile, and the twisted hunch of his back made him seem humble once again. ‘You’ll get a good price, lad, don’t worry. We’ll get you some money.’
He had led me down a narrow alleyway to a tiny enclosed space behind four buildings, with dirty forgotten windows looking down at us from each side and small backyards filled with rubbish, piled up over our heads.
Switching his attention to a locked door, which was reinforced by a heavy iron grille, the green-eyed man took a strange instrument out of his pocket. It looked like a long and twisted metal finger with a sharp end and he wedged it between the door and the frame with a great squeaking, wrenching noise. He worked it down into the lock, which after several heavy twists snapped open. As he did this, his look became intensely fierce, and I realized again how quiet and dark it was around here, and how the windows looked so empty you couldn’t believe anyone had looked out of them for years and years.
The door swung open and the man gave his awkward, pleading smile again. ‘I always have to do that,’ he said. ‘I really must get this door fixed; it is a pain.’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked suspiciously.
All the cunning and craft disappeared from his eyes at once, and he let go of the door. He bowed his head. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ he said, most politely. ‘Pisk. Mr E. H. Pisk. Your humble servant, sir. Now let me show you in, and see about these items you want to sell.’
I was shocked by my own rudeness. What had got into me? Here was a man who had sought me out to perform what might be a life-saving favour, and I seemed to be accusing him of something!
Inside the dim and dusty shop, Mr Pisk lit a lamp, and blew the dust off the till drawer where the pennies were kept. We were surrounded from floor to ceiling by a multitude of strange or unusual objects. Swords and helmets, a stuffed pelican (the beauty of the creature marred somewhat by the pipe someone had glued in its mouth) and two judges’ wigs on a crystal ball were the first things I saw. It was a pawnbroker’s shop, meaning whatever money I got for my instruments I could buy them back, if my fortunes changed. I felt even guiltier for having doubted Mr Pisk – this was better than I had hoped.
As he searched through some drawers beneath the counter, my eye was drawn to a big, ungainly shape that hung in the middle of the wall above me. In the gloom I could just make out that it was a very large and ugly cuckoo clock. The second hand was elaborately carved and above its ticking I saw that the door where a cuckoo would usually appear was much larger than normal. On a scroll above the wooden gates was carved ‘THE ANIMOUL .
For some reason (it being a couple of minutes to the striking of the hour) I wanted almost desperately for ‘the Animoul’ not to appear, and to get out of the shop as soon as possible.‘It’s a shame the owner’s not in,’ Pisk was saying, ‘but he lets me transact business in his place. I’m a close friend of his. Now, let’s have a look at your things.’
Only recently lit, the lamp was still just glimmering weakly, so it was in the semi-dark that I put my satchel on the counter in front of him and carefully removed my instruments. He handled each one roughly before putting it to one side.
‘One scalpel, one stethoscope. A glass syringe and a bone-saw,’ he said, writing them down.
‘Now, these items are quite commonplace,’ he said, returning to his former impatient manner. ‘You’d be lucky to get more than a shilling for each, from anyone.’ And he backed up his words with a very hard and knowing look, as though ready for my arguing back.
I felt my heart rising up my throat in desperation. ‘I beg to differ, Mr Pisk,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘I believe they cost two whole pounds, together, when new. Which they still are – they’ve not been used.’
‘I know,’ said Pisk, ‘but the very fact of you owning them makes them second-hand and almost worthless. Why would a reputable surgeon buy a bone-saw secondhand, when it might have any number of diseases hidden between its teeth?’ and he gently rubbed the tip of his finger against the new blad
e to illustrate his point.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, and felt confused and angry with myself at not being able to think straight. ‘What can you give me, then?’
He shrugged again. ‘Maybe I can stretch to two shillings a piece. So that’s eight in total.’ He grabbed the lantern and took it towards the back of the shop, where we had come in. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to pop round the corner to fetch the money, as I don’t have a key to the safe. I’ll just be a second.’
Heyanked the door open and slammed it shut behind him before I could say anything, and I was alone with the ticking of the foreign clock. My heart, which had been racing anyway, now began to pound even faster. There was something wrong about this. Panic began to itch inside me, and I crept towards the door he had closed. Heavily built to protect against burglars, with the massive iron grille on the other side, I could hardly imagine that it would move for anyone, let alone me, as I twisted the handle. It didn’t turn. How had Pisk made it open? My panic worsened as I started to feel trapped.
Then I heard a voice on the street outside. ‘Thief!’ it cried. I wondered whether someone had just escaped from one of the shops nearby, and tried to peer out but the window was made of clouded glass and only shapes were visible. ‘THIEF!’ came the shout again, and I recognized the voice, bewildered. A figure ran past, hard to make out, still shouting. ‘A robber in the shop! Come quick! Police!’ It was Pisk.
I didn’t move, still totally mystified, thinking perhaps he didn’t mean me. But the walls of the shop closed in around me, and the Animoul clock sounded like it was tutting at my stupidity. Of course he was talking about me. But – but what had I done? As I remembered the costermongers’ stories of false arrests, I realized that I had to get away fast. Then a noise stopped me. It was the gentle creaking of wooden wheels coming to a halt. I was already near the back of the shop, but I looked again at the front window.
A carriage had pulled up outside. It looked oddly out of place and it took me a second to notice in what way it was unlike any other I had seen: it was white, and so were the horses that were pulling it. A figure climbed out of it quite slowly and at leisure, ignoring Pisk’s cries, which still rang loudly down the street, and walked up to the glass.
Nothing could be seen clearly through that shop window, misted as it was and thickly grimed on the outside. But the face came closer until its two pale eyes, pressed to the glass, were almost distinguishable. There was a faintly detectable strangeness about the features, as though they had been stretched or the face’s whole shape had been twisted, which made me think I knew who this was. My heart stood still. The man peered in at the glass for several long seconds, trying to see me in the gloom of the shop, so I held my breath and didn’t move, watching the indistinct movements of the eyes as the dark pupils flitted left and right, searching for signs of life.
Pisk’s voice grew louder as he came back towards the shop. At this the man’s face withdrew, he walked calmly to his carriage, and it pulled quietly away before Pisk arrived back with half a dozen shouting men, all hungry to catch a thief.
Everything was crashing in on me. I turned and stared up at the back door. Above it was a semi-circle of dirty glass. Already I could hear footsteps coming and see light flickering against the walls from lanterns being held against the front window. To my side was a ladder used to reach the higher shelves, and I pulled it away from the wall and moved it to the door. I ran up it and found my legs were still weak with nerves after seeing the strange-faced man, so I took a deep breath and forced myself to get control, then climbed until I was level with the little window. I steadied myself and kicked as hard as I could, but my foot slipped against the thick dirty glass with a squeak and I nearly lost my balance.
More lanterns were shining light into the shop now, making me visible, and one by one the men began to shout louder as they caught sight of me. Gripping harder, I swung with all my weight and stamped at the glass. This time it shattered and fell away in chunks. I kicked out the sharp teeth left in the frame. The front door was being opened behind me and one of the voices sounded more in charge of the others, like a policeman’s. I crouched on the top of the doorframe and ducked through the gap, kicking away the ladder and hearing it crash to the floor. Above me was a drainpipe, which I clung on to, and to my side the roof of an outhouse built against the back of the shop.
One thing I had always been able to do was climb, ever since I’d first learned how to walk. I could find my way up the side of a building almost as easily as I could a tree (no matter how often I was told not to). Now I didn’t think twice about it, springing and grabbing and hauling myself upward between window ledges and pipes, finding cracks in the brickwork for my hands and feet, past the dead-eyed windows, until my hands were on the tiles of the roof and I could pull myself up to safety.
I was lucky: the roofs were all roughly the same height, not too steep and quite easy to run across. I was already three houses down before I looked back and saw a few people in the tiny yard behind the shop, searching for me. They thought I had vanished into the streets, and it didn’t occur to them to look upward. I climbed carefully behind a chimney pot and watched them for a few seconds, until they drifted back into the shop. Then I crawled carefully to the front edge of the roof and peeped down into the street.
People were gathered around the shop entrance, but beginning to disperse now that they were denied the excitement of a capture. A policeman stood sentry at the door. It was only when I looked directly beneath me, however, that I saw Mr Pisk. He was crouched in a doorway, and as I saw him he backed away, carrying my satchel of surgical instruments close to his chest. My heart started beating wildly again, and I struggled hard to stop myself from shouting out. Without taking my eyes off him my hand found a loose tile, held it above his head and let go. Then I got up and ran as fast as I could, not even waiting to see it shatter on his head, or hear the satisfying roar of pain.
Eventually, far enough away to feel at least half safe, I climbed carefully down on to the roof of a shack that had once been a blacksmith’s shop, now shut up like most of the buildings in this sad, deserted part of the district. No one saw me except two beggars on the other side of the street who were so fascinated by my movements that they fell asleep straight away.
As I looked down from this lower roof to work out how to get to the ground, I was grateful to see a familiar figure coming down the street. Uncle was walking with a much shorter, fatter (but equally shabby) man, and when they saw me they came forward to help me down. Uncle introduced his friend as Mr Codger. I shook his hand and asked them both if we could walk away as quickly as possible. They didn’t ask any questions, but agreed at once.
Within a minute or so we were three short streets away and winding still further on a route as complicated and unpredictable as I could make it, without slowing. As we walked, I told them of the day’s adventure. They were sympathetic when it got to the part where I was swindled by Mr Stamps in his apartment made of paper, and listened with smiles on their faces when I said I’d decided I wanted to collect and record the stories of Tumblewater. But the smiles faded swiftly when I mentioned my narrow escape, and they listened in silence, looking grave and unhappy. When I had finished, they said nothing. I couldn’t believe they weren’t outraged.
‘Isn’t it awful?’ I said. ‘Is there no one we could report this to?’
Instead of answering, Uncle guided me with one hand into a side alley and sat me on a barrel, where a coffee seller handed us cups of hot coffee through his window. When he saw Uncle, he became deferential and took extra care over our drinks and refused to take any money. He nodded to Uncle instead and said:
‘You looked after my cousin, sir, when the police came for him. You remember Saul Matthews? My wife and I are indebted to you – three cups of coffee doesn’t cover it,’ and he disappeared back behind his hatch. Uncle smiled awkwardly at being the centre of attention, and Mr Codger changed the topic of conversation.
<
br /> ‘Now,’ he said quietly, sipping his drink. ‘In answer to you: no, there’s no one to tell. You’re wanted by the police now, don’t you see? The law reports to Prye.’
A nasty chill wriggled up my spine. ‘How could he have known I was there, though?’
‘Daniel, it’s sad to say but Prye has made people all around so hungry and miserable that some are forced to act as his spies just to get enough food to live. His “men” are not just men, but women and children too, and they are everywhere, just trying to survive. Hardly a fly buzzes in Tumblewater that he doesn’t know about. That’s why we have to be extra-cautious in everything we say, and when we have the chance to help each other out we must – like poor Saul Matthews, who was as innocent of his charge as any of us.’
‘Us?’ I thought. Had Uncle been accused of something too?
Codger took up the refrain. ‘The only thing you can do is keep out of trouble and hope he forgets about you. Daniel, you must try to understand who you’re dealing with. Caspian Prye is not a normal man. But if you catch his attention, even though he has no reason to single you out that we know . . .’ Uncle paused, giving me a chance to contradict him. I felt again the shameful pang of holding my secret back from him – yet it was my business and mine alone, and my proud heart wouldn’t let me share it with anyone (not even you, just yet, but I will come to it, I promise). I avoided his eye.
‘Then,’ he went on, ‘you have to become invisible and wait for his attention to wander away. Which it will, and soon – Prye’s anger is provoked by someone new every day or so. Every few hours, it sometimes seems.’
Grisly Tales from Tumblewater Page 7