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Blackjack Page 13

by Tom Becker


  After a pause, the voice told him. The detective’s face went pale.

  “You?” he breathed. “It can’t be! It’s been so many years. How on Darkside did you find me?”

  As the voice began to explain, Carmichael sat back in his chair, a faint smile dawning upon his face.

  “Incredible,” he murmured. “All this time, and you’ve been right here. I’ll come right now. Stay where you are.”

  Carmichael put down the phone and banged his fist on the table in celebration. Perhaps the day could be salvaged after all.

  19

  With the weather having brought the Darkside Canal’s sluggish waters to an icy halt, a rowdy congregation of boatmen and lock keepers had gathered on its banks, warding off the cold with coarse stories, arguments and generous helpings of rum. One navvy was halfway through a particularly crude joke when he halted abruptly and stared at the two figures approaching them.

  Women of any kind were a rare sight on Darkside Canal; well-dressed ladies, such as the one currently picking her way through the muddy slush on the towpath, a parasol protecting her from the snowflakes swirling in the air, were unheard of. Only a combination of sheer surprise at her presence – and the sizeable frame of the unkempt footman accompanying her – prevented the boatmen from deluging her with unwelcome offers of company. Instead they stared, open-mouthed, as the lady walked past them, politely bidding them good day. A couple of navvies even took off their hats.

  It wasn’t until the canal workers had been left far behind that the woman turned and hissed at her companion, in a most unladylike tone: “You’re going to pay for making me dress up like this, wolfman.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on coming with me, Marianne,” Carnegie replied, in a low growl. “And with that bounty on your head, everyone in Darkside is going to be looking for you. At least dressed like this, no one’s going to recognize you.”

  With her newly dyed orange hair pinned up beneath a small hat and a veil masking her distinctive pale skin, Marianne knew that the wereman was right. She wasn’t entirely ready to concede victory, however.

  “I insisted on coming with you because I had to make sure you didn’t mess this up. If Magpie and Jacobs did take the Crimson Stone from Sam, then it’s vital we retrieve it. It may be the only way we can take Blackchapel back from Lucien!”

  “I’ve chased this stone before,” Carnegie retorted. “More than likely this is a waste of time. Though given the fact that Lucien’s beaten you once in combat, I can understand it if you’re scared.”

  “Scared?” Marianne’s voice was laced with acid. “I’ve never feared anything in my life. Don’t forget that I’ve seen you fight my brother. If I recall, you were lying on the floor half-dead when I stepped in and saved your life. How long did it take for those wounds to heal?”

  Carnegie didn’t reply. They walked in fractious silence along the towpath until they came alongside a ramshackle barge that clung to the side of the bank by a frayed mooring rope. Carnegie nodded towards it.

  “This is the boat we want.” He bowed, with a wolfish grin. “My lady.”

  Casting the wereman a baleful glance, Marianne stepped gracefully aboard the barge, lifting up the hem of her dress to prevent it touching the filthy wooden decking. At the sound of her footsteps, a terrier raced out from the cabin and began bouncing around her ankles, yapping enthusiastically. The bounty hunter ignored it, brushing past the animal to explore the boat. It was Carnegie who got down on to his haunches and greeted the dog, a craggy smile dawning on his face.

  “You’re looking hungry, little guy,” he muttered. “Someone not been feeding you?”

  From the other side of the barge, Carnegie heard Marianne call out his name in an exasperated tone.

  “Put the mutt down and come and look at this,” she called out.

  Reluctantly leaving the dog, Carnegie padded over to the stern of the boat, where Marianne was looking down on to the icy wastes of the canal. A battered shoe was sticking out of the frozen water like a small, dirty iceberg.

  “I’m presuming there’s a body on the other end of this,” the bounty hunter mused.

  “So why don’t you pull it out and have a look?”

  “What,” said Marianne, gesturing at her outfit, “dressed like this?”

  Muttering an oath, Carnegie reached over the edge of the boat and grasped the shoe. The wereman gritted his teeth and began to pull. There was a loud crack, and a body exploded from beneath the ice. Carnegie lifted it up and dumped it on to the deck with a thud. The corpse’s face had turned grey and puffy, whilst his mouth had frozen open in an expression of shock, revealing a solitary tooth sticking out from his gums.

  “Handsome devil,” Marianne said wryly. “Recognize him?”

  “That’s Jacobs,” Carnegie rumbled. “Looks like he had a falling out with someone.”

  “Magpie?”

  The wereman shrugged. “Perhaps. But by all accounts, the two were as thick as thieves. Quite literally.”

  Marianne lifted up Jacobs’ chin, revealing a set of bruises ringing the man’s neck.

  “Well, he didn’t throttle himself. I’ve had a look around the barge – there’s no Crimson Stone here, and there’s no sign of Magpie.”

  “And finding him is another problem entirely.” Carnegie paused. “What are you doing?”

  The bounty hunter had stooped down and was fishing about in Jacobs’ pockets.

  “Searching for clues,” she replied, with a grimace. “That’s what detectives are supposed to do, isn’t it?”

  With a small sound of triumph, Marianne prised open Jacobs’ fingers, freeing a circular token, the initials “W.O.” etched into the battered metal next to the number 425. She held it up.

  “This mean anything to you?”

  Frowning, the wereman inspected the token. “I’m guessing it’s some kind of identification tag – the ‘W.O.’ could be the Wayward Orphanage down in the Lower Fleet. Not sure what our friend Jacobs is doing with it, though. Perhaps he’s paid the orphanage a visit recently. We should go and find out.”

  Marianne smiled brightly. “This private detective business is easier than it looks, you know.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” Carnegie growled.

  An hour later, they walked through the Wayward Orphanage’s main entrance into a small courtyard dominated by a giant elm tree, its bare branches stripped by winter. Children ran and dodged around its trunk, screaming with excitement as they chased one another. At the sight of the newcomers, the children stopped as one and stared at them, their pinched faces betraying their inadequate diets.

  “Don’t mind us,” Marianne said breezily, picking a path towards the archway on the other side of the courtyard. As Carnegie followed her beneath the elm tree, a child swung a hand down from the branches and snatched the stovepipe hat from his head.

  “Hey!” the wereman snarled. “Give that back!”

  Thumbing his nose at the wereman, the child scampered higher up into the tree. Carnegie grabbed the trunk and began shaking it fiercely, trying to dislodge the boy from his hiding place.

  “For Ripper’s sake, Carnegie,” Marianne said, laughing. “Just go up there and get it.”

  Carnegie glared at her. “I’m a wereman, not a monkey.”

  “Oi! Robbins! I saw that!”

  They turned to see an elderly man striding across the courtyard, his face blanketed in a thick grey beard and moustache. He was wearing a long scarlet coat with a sword strapped to his side, and moved with the clipped gait of a military man. He glared up into the tree.

  “You return this gentleman’s hat this second or I’ll get the matron to give you a month’s worth of ice-water bed baths. You hear me?”

  There was a muttered expletive from amongst the branches, and then Carnegie’s hat dropped to the floor like a giant black conker. The wer
eman brushed it down, still balefully eyeing the boy.

  “Sorry about that,” the man said briskly. “I’m Colonel Yardy. I run the orphanage.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Marianne said sweetly. The Colonel went crimson, clumsily shaking her gloved hand. “A good job you intervened when you did.”

  “I should say,” Carnegie said darkly. “The aptly-named Robbins was in for a short, sharp shock.”

  “Shall we go inside?” asked Yardy. “The children don’t get many visitors here, and the excitement tends to make the little blighters even more trouble than usual.”

  He led them through the archway and along a dank corridor to a large door covered in heavy locks and chains. After the Colonel had carried out a complicated unlocking process, he pushed open the door and led them into a cosy sitting room, where a fire was crackling merrily in the hearth and a fug of pipe smoke hung in the air. The walls were covered in sepia-tinted photographs.

  “So then,” he began, clapping his hands together. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m a private detective,” Carnegie said. “Found this on a case I’m working on. Wondering if you could tell me anything about it.”

  He handed the Colonel the token, who took one glance at it and gave it back to him.

  “This would belong to Magpie.”

  “Very impressive,” said Marianne. “Can you do that with all the tokens?”

  The Colonel smiled ruefully. “Only two, my dear. Number 425, Master Magpie. Number 439, Master Jacobs. Difficult to forget those scoundrels. Somewhere here there should be a photograph of them. . .” He glanced around the room, tapping his chin. “Now, where would it be? Aha!”

  Seizing upon a photograph on the wall, Yardy took it down and showed it to Carnegie and Marianne. A group of Wayward children were pictured in the orphanage courtyard – the ground was covered in snow, and their thin linen dresses and bare legs offered little protection against the wind. The children looked freezing cold.

  “That’s Magpie there,” Yardy said. “And his partner in crime.”

  A fresh-faced Jacobs and Magpie were loitering towards the back of the group, their faces wreathed with mischievous grins. They were a head taller than the other Wayward children, and the only ones smiling.

  “As I said,” the Colonel continued, “I am unlikely to forget those two. They were a pair of terrors from the cradle to the day they left here. One time, I remember, they were caught with a stolen polecat and a hundredweight of horse chestnuts—”

  “Hang on a minute,” Marianne said, a note of excitement in her voice. “Isn’t that the Lightside policeman who keeps chasing after Jonathan?”

  Carnegie peered at the photograph. Even though the photo was decades old, Horace Carmichael was instantly recognizable by the hunch on his back. He was standing apart from the other children, his face wary and old beyond its years. By his side stood a young girl, who was even smaller and more frail than he was.

  “Ah, Horace,” said Yardy. “Nice enough boy, but I can’t pretend he was happy here. Children can be very cruel to one another. I’ve no idea what happened to him in the end. Some of us are just destined for an unhappy life, I fear.”

  “Carmichael’s not the only familiar face here,” Carnegie growled, pointing at the young girl standing beside the hunchback. “Recognize her?”

  Marianne let out a low whistle. “Unbelievable! She never said she knew Carmichael. What on Darkside is she up to?”

  “I don’t know,” Carnegie replied darkly. “But I’ll wager one thing: Jonathan’s walked straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

  20

  The Starlings’ carriage had only just crossed back into Lightside when Alain let out a cry of anguish, and began twitching violently.

  “Alain!” Theresa cried out. “What is it?”

  “He’s having a darkening,” Jonathan replied. “The crossing’s been too much for him.” He banged on the roof of the carriage. “St Christopher’s Hospital,” he called out. “And fast!”

  A whip cracked in response, and the carriage surged forward. As Jonathan wrestled with his father’s flailing limbs, Alain babbled incomprehensibly, a frenzied look in his eyes. Spittle foamed from his mouth.

  The carriage hurtled through London, reaching St Christopher’s Hospital mercifully quickly. Attendants rushed out of the entrance as Jonathan hauled Alain out of the carriage, his father still thrashing around. The attendants exchanged a meaningful look with one another, then strapped Alain down to a trolley and quickly wheeled him along the corridors.

  They went out through the back doors of the hospital and crossed a small square, making for a forbidding wing distanced from the rest of the hospital. Jonathan had spent countless grim days inside this building, waiting for his dad to wake up. Though he had never heard anyone call it the Darkside Ward, he was convinced that the lost, bewildered souls who roamed its hallways had all spent time in the rotten borough. This was where everything had started for Jonathan: in some ways, this wing was where he had first crossed over to Darkside.

  They crashed into the reception area, where the nurse sized up the situation with one efficient glance.

  “Alain Starling, isn’t it?” she said. “Take him up to Room Three.”

  Jonathan was grateful she had recognized them. This was the only place in Lightside where people seemed to remember him. They headed upstairs, through the open wards where patients cowered and whimpered beneath their sheets, and into a private room. Once the attendants had manoeuvred Alain into bed and left the room, Jonathan’s dad calmed down, his arms dropping by his sides and his fists unclenching. It wasn’t long before he slumped into unconsciousness.

  “Phew,” said Jonathan. “It’s only a mild attack.”

  Theresa looked shocked. “Mild?”

  “This one’s nothing. He should be all right in a couple of days. The bad ones lasted for months. He nearly died.”

  “Oh, my boy,” Theresa said, her eyes filling with tears. “It must have been so hard for you.”

  “I got used to it. Did the crossing hurt you too?”

  Theresa shook her head. “Not this time. I used to have the same pain here that Alain has in Darkside. But I’ve spent twelve years in a very dark place, a place that changes you. After the Bedlam, both Darkside and Lightside feel like heaven to me.”

  “Mum,” Jonathan began hesitantly. “When we were looking for you in the Bedlam, we heard these voices in our heads. Saying horrible things. You heard that kind of thing for years. How come you didn’t go mad like all the other prisoners?”

  “I had something that the others didn’t have.”

  “What?”

  She squeezed him, smiling. “You. Your father. The hope that one day I’d see you again. The loudest, nastiest voices in the world couldn’t have taken that away from me.”

  Unwilling to leave each other, Theresa and Jonathan stayed the night and the next day in Alain’s room as he slept, talking quietly and munching on stale canteen sandwiches. Jonathan’s mum asked him question after question, as though she was trying to learn everything about the last twelve years in a matter of hours. It was the happiest time of Jonathan’s life.

  Night was returning when a wave of tiredness suddenly overcame Jonathan. He failed to stifle a face-cracking yawn.

  “You look dead on your feet,” Theresa said, giving him a critical look. “When was the last time you had a proper night’s sleep?”

  “I can’t remember,” he replied truthfully.

  “Right. Time for bed, then.”

  “I want to stay here!” Jonathan protested.

  “You’ve already spent one night in that chair. You need proper rest.”

  “I suppose I could go back to Mrs Elwood’s,” Jonathan said reluctantly.

  “Who?”

  “Lily Elwood. You know, your frie
nd from Darkside. She’s been living near us for years.”

  Theresa looked confused. “I don’t remember . . . so much I have forgotten. Too many years in that place.”

  “It’s all right,” Jonathan said comfortingly. “It’ll all come back.” A thought occurred to him. “Listen, why don’t you stay here with Dad?”

  She glanced down at her husband’s now-peaceful face. “It would be nice – I’d like to be here when he wakes up. But I don’t want to leave you either.”

  “Stay with him,” Jonathan said again. “I’ll be fine for one night!”

  “Can you get home all right?”

  Jonathan laughed. “It’s Lightside, Mum. No Rippers. No vampires. No Bow Street Runners. I think I’ll be OK.”

  As the bus followed the familiar route home, Jonathan realized that his mum was right: he was shattered. He spent most of the journey drifting in and out of consciousness, until he wasn’t sure what was a dream and what was reality: wraiths stalked down Oxford Street, their spectral fingers reaching out towards horrified late-night shoppers; carrion birds swooped down on joggers outside Regent’s Park; a creature wrapped in tatty bandages wrestled with three policemen on Kilburn High Road. In a daze, Jonathan nearly missed his stop, only just slipping through the doors as they swung shut.

  Back on his street, he glanced cautiously over towards his house, but there was no sign of anything untoward. If Department D were staking it out, they were well hidden. Still reluctant to take any chances, Jonathan hurried up the driveway towards Mrs Elwood’s house. There were no signs of life inside, no shafts of light peeking out from behind the drawn curtains. Jonathan frowned – Mrs Elwood wasn’t usually out this time of night. He tried the handle on the front door. It yawned open into a pitch-black hallway.

  “Hello?” he called out. “Mrs Elwood?”

  He flicked a light switch, but the hallway remained dark. The power was out. Jonathan shivered, suddenly uneasy. The house was freezing cold, radiators icy to the touch. He crept into the kitchen, his breath forming clouds in the air. A clock ticked loudly in the silence. Rummaging through the drawers beneath the sideboard, Jonathan pulled out a handful of stubby red candles.

 

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