Billy strode into the greenhouse. 'Well chuff 'em! It belongs to Mister Eadon, and he says we can come here. So that's that.' He immediately wrote something on the MOM board. The other two pressed close to read it.
Spring Heeled Jack.
Seeing that he had their full attention he added question marks – three of them.
'What's it mean?' Kick stared at the words as if they might suddenly explain themselves.
'I don't know,' said Billy. 'That's the point.' He eyed the pair solemnly, and then chalked a fourth question mark on the board. 'D'yer remember the old bloke at the cemetery?’
They nodded.
‘Well, I met him on the tram. We only talked for a bit because he had to gerrof. But he said, "Spring Heeled Jack knows," or sommat like it.'
'Who is he? Why didn't he go inside t'church wi' the others?' Yvonne asked.
'I asked him. All he said was, "Some go to remember, some go to remind.".'
Kick made a ghostly hooting sound. 'Oooooo, spooky. Remind 'em of what?'
'I don't know. It's a mystery. But I know where to find him. He's gorra gym near the relish factory. He wants me to go there.' He gave them an eager glance. 'That shows he must 'ave got sommat else to tell us.' He turned to Kick. 'He wants me and thee to go.'
Yvonne reared up indignantly. 'What about me?'
'Lasses can't go. It's a gym club. They do boxing. It's for lads,' Billy explained.
'Way, I could flatten thee, any-road-up.' Yvonne pawed the air in front of his nose.
Billy ducked and danced back a step. 'Thaz no chance,' he said, trying to look tough. 'And it's not about who can flatten who. It's for lads only and tha 'rt not one.'
Yvonne flopped into her deckchair. 'I could've been,’ she cooed, 'but I chose brains instead.'
Kick ignored her. 'We could look in t'library,' he said. 'They might have sommat about Spring Healed Jack.'
Billy was astonished to hear such a sensible suggestion from him. He’d assumed Kick's experience of the library was limited to his ejection for making farting noises during the Story Time Reading Circle. 'That's a very good idea,' he gasped.
*
Doctor Clarissa Fulton-Howard eyed her junior despairingly. 'Hadfield, do you possess a wristwatch?' She had summoned him to her consulting room, which she now paced with menacing deliberate strides, bouncing on the balls of her feet as if testing the floor.
Hadfield knew perfectly well that he owned a rather nice Omega, a graduation present from his father, yet he clutched at his wrist as if to confirm the fact. 'Yes ma'am.'
'Does it work?'
Puzzled, he put the watch to his ear and listened. 'Yes ma'am, it works fine.'
'Then what am I to assume, Doctor Hadfield?'
She had him with that one. He gaped, wondering what avalanche of grief and effluent was about to engulf him.
'I trust you can tell the time? Or is it that you don't care to interrupt your busy schedule of tomfoolery with anything so mundane as your duties to your patients and colleagues?'
'But I had the afternoon – err - off.' His protest punctured, leaking certainty as he uttered it.
'Really? So our conversation yesterday evening, when you agreed – nay promised –you would forego your afternoon off, so that I could do the measles' round, was all pure fantasy, was it? Did I dream it – make it up – imagine it?' She prowled her office, moving as if through treacle. An untimely memory of her bicycle saddle flashed through his mind.
The doctor wore her hair pulled into a tight bun at the back. It shone like a pewter helmet. Through thick framed spectacles, her gaze flitted about the room as if shooting flies. She reminded him of some sort of Wagnerian praying mantis.
He felt sick as he recalled the conversation and realised his error. The memory of it flooded back to him like a nightmare. He had indeed agreed to stand in for her. There were dozens of measles cases. Oh my God, she had every right to be annoyed. 'I – I was at the err - pathol – look, I'm so sorry. I completely messed up. You're absolutely right. I don't know how I could …'
She glared at him, seeming to swallow her bottom lip. 'Were you about to say - pathology? Why would you go there?'
'Oh, nothing, just something personal. Nothing to do with here.'
Suspicion furrowed her brow. She stomped around her desk and took her seat without releasing him from her steely glare. 'I'm not happy about this. In fact to be frank, Hadfield, I'm not happy about you at all. You're lazy, careless and you seem to think life is some sort of playtime. Huh fun! Ask the mothers I saw this afternoon if they're having fun, with their distressed and squalling infants.'
'I'm sorry, Professor – er - Doctor. I am utterly in the wrong, and again, I apologise. I don't know what … I can't say more, but if you do have other specific issues about my work here, then perhaps you should tell me what they are – er - so I can address them.'
She continued to stare at him, her thumbs rapidly winding the air beneath her tweed-encased bosom. 'The matter is closed, for now. We'll speak of it at the end of the month when you've had chance to show me a considerable improvement.'
She waved him away and reached for a telephone directory. 'Now, I'm very busy. I have much to catch up on.'
Hadfield backed out of her office, furious with himself for giving her the ammunition to shoot him down so comprehensively. He had only himself to blame. He had armed her and even taken aim for her. All she had had to do was pull the trigger.
Doctor Fulton-Howard watched the door close on her junior before running her finger down the columns of names and numbers in the phone book. She quickly found the listing for the Pathology Department and dialed. As the call rang out, she eased back in her chair. 'Doctor Amos Longden, please.'
After a few clicks and buzzes, a confident voice came on the line. 'Longden.'
'It's Clarissa. What was my junior doing there this afternoon?'
'Who? Here? What?'
'Hadfield. He's an idiot. There's no reason for him to have been there. If he wasn't seeing you, Amos, who the devil did he see?'
'Umm yes, gosh, I see. Leave it with me, Clarry, old girl. I may know exactly what this is about.'
*
Yvonne and Kick insisted on accompanying Billy to Walkley's library. A sneezing librarian, smothered in a pink woollen cardigan and smelling of eucalyptus took their enquiry. She led them to a battery of little oak drawers. Each had a brass pull handle incorporating a hand written label bearing cryptic abbreviations. She pulled one open and began searching for references to Spring Heeled Jack. Billy opened another, almost losing a finger as the librarian snapped it shut. 'Leave that, young man,' she said glaring at him through red-rimmed eyes.
Her fingers riffled through dozens of cards, disturbing dust to spiral slowly in shafts of sunlight spearing the room's charged silence. She found a reference, withdrew a card and read it to herself. The pals waited in rapt anticipation.
'There's a carving of him on a building called the Queens Head. It’s a pub. It says here it's thought to be the oldest secular building in Sheffield.' She looked up from the card, wiped her dripping nose and nodded at them. 'I know where it is. I've seen it. It's a beautiful old beamed building near the bus station.' She stifled a sneeze. 'It says here it was built in 1475 as a hunting lodge. Spring Heeled Jack is carved on a beam end.'
'We'd best go an' have a look at it,' Billy said, and turning to Yvonne eyed her sheepishly, 'Ayup Wy, can tha gi' us a lend o' tuppence for me tram fare?'
'Pay thee own tram fare. I'm not yer mam.' Yvonne produced a purse from her pocket and ostentatiously hugged it to her chest. She smiled as Billy stormed off in a huff.
The librarian turned out a second card from her index, and began reading it aloud. 'It was called the Queens Head because of Mary Queen of Scots who was imprisoned in Sheffield.' She beamed at Kick and Yvonne. 'What a story. Isn't that wonderful, children?'
Yvonne thanked her politely and trotted outside to catch up with Billy. She found him skul
king in the Pikelet shop doorway. He was watching a tram parked at the terminus.
Walkley library's main entrance overlooked the tram terminus. Trams from the city centre and beyond rolled up there to wait a while before setting out on their return journeys. Tramcars could be driven from either end. They did not need to be turned around for their return trips. The driver would wind the blind-box handle, with furious energy, to change the destination display. Next, he'd remove the drive lever, and uplift a bell striker pedal from its slot in the floor. He would carry these through the car to the other end of the tram where he'd install them for the return trip.
Meanwhile the conductor flipped the backs of all the seats to face them in the new direction of travel. He or she would then go outside, and, with a long pole with a hook on its end, reach up and snag the trolley wheel on the overhead power line. Holding it off the wires, the conductor would walk round the tram with it and connect it to the return direction power-cable. The tram was then ready to go.
Regular passengers were familiar with his ritual. Billy Perks certainly was, and being unable to pay for a ticket, he seized upon its diversions to sneak aboard and hide under a seat while the driver and conductor were distracted.
Yvonne and Kick boarded and paid their fare. After a few stops, when the tram had filled up a bit, Billy crawled out of hiding and joined them. To make it look, at a glance, as if he had bought a ticket, he picked up a discarded one and stuck it behind his ear.
A few minutes later the pals dropped off the tram in High Street in front of the blitzed, art deco shell of Burton's Tailoring store. Their route to the bus station and the Queens Head would take them through Fitzalan Square, a large Edwardian quadrangle favoured by picnicking office workers, pigeons and random sermonisers. Variously bounded by stone balustrades, cloister-like tram stops and a taxi rank, the square was constantly awash with a tide of travellers and shoppers beneath the stern gaze of a statue of King Edward VII. Out of sight, beneath the royal feet lay subterranean public conveniences, which led some wags to say “the king was on the toilet”. These facilities were spotless with pristine, gleaming ceramics, brass and copper plumbing, and dark mahogany woodwork, their mosaic floors endlessly swabbed by rightfully proud attendants.
The buildings on two sides of the square lay in ruins, destroyed by Nazi bombs. The north and west sides however, boasted an architectural treasure trove, including gothic banks, the city's main post office, and an art deco cinema. Billy pointed out the bombed site of The Market Street Wine Vaults, commonly known as "Marples Hotel". A screen, made of old domestic doors, surrounded it. The three pals peered through the redundant keyholes and letterboxes to view the extent of the Marples’ devastation.
Down the hill passed the princely General Post Office, the Queens Head Inn huddled in the shadow of taller buildings including iron foundries and a factory where an old lead works with a massive water wheel had once turned.
Despite its neighbours, the Queens Head Inn was a striking sight; a black and white beamed, crooked roofed building, standing incongruously amidst its sooty surroundings. Like a puppy dog seeking adoption, it seemed to beg to be carried away to sunnier pastures, far from the ground shaking forges, foundries and soot black railways. Not all the old pub's walls and beams were accessible from the gloomy street. Billy felt uneasy as he and his friends self-consciously searched the ancient facade for Spring Heeled Jack, an image they had never seen and might not even recognize if they found it.
Flicking her head sideways and arching her eyebrows, Yvonne tried, surreptitiously, to alert the boys to a middle-aged woman peering suspiciously from one of the pub's crooked windows. They backed off and tried to pretend they were not remotely interested in the pub. They did not fool the woman, who rushed out wanting to know their business.
Billy gulped and stared at her. She was wearing a low cut frilly blouse, a tight pencil skirt and black high heels. She wore her long bleached hair curled over one eye like the actress Veronica Lake. Billy gawped, thinking how beautiful she looked.
Yvonne dug him in the ribs and prompted him to answer. He stumbled over an explanation. Unexpectedly, it met with the woman's approval and she happily pointed out the carving to them. Unfortunately, they could not get near enough for a clear view, and had to take her word for much of its appearance.
Yvonne scribbled a description into her exercise book. A figure with a wide, cruel mouth, arms raised ready to pounce. He's wearing a Tudor style doublet - legs hidden - no sign of sprung heels. 'What's he supposed to be?' she asked.
The woman's face took on a look of pantomime horror. She hunched her shoulders and raised her hands, splaying her fingers like claws, as if about to pounce. 'Ooooooh Spring Heeled Jack - he's a real bad 'en lovie,' she said, her eyes rolling and flicking about as if terrified. 'He lives underground in the old castle tunnels and leaps out on folk when they're just laikin about or doodling. He can jump o'er a house, or even a church steeple. He chops folk’s heads off and sucks out their juices.'
'Tunnels? What tunnels?' asked Kick gazing adoringly at the woman.
The woman gave him a hard stare. 'You don't know much do you?' She pointed to the road branching off opposite where they were standing. It was a straight lane between industrial buildings, and ran away to disappear under an arch carrying a main road and tram lines. Billy could see the tops of tramcars rattling over it. 'You see that road? That leads to Castle Market and Castle Gate. Once upon a time, all round here was a great stone castle.' The three pals gaped, following the direction indicated by her red polished fingernail. 'It's all gone now, of course, or has it?' she asked suddenly, startling them. 'Right underneath us could be dungeons and cellars. Some folks say there are secret passages going all the way out to Beauchief Abbey and the Manor Castle, where they imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots. D'you know that she probably lived in Sheffield longer than she lived anywhere. This pub's named after her.'
'Only her eeyad,' argued Kick.
The woman stared at him as though watching a slug froth in salt. 'He's a cheerful soul isn't he? He's like somebody's cranky old granddad.'
'Where do you think the tunnels go?' Billy asked.
'Truth to tell, lovie, nobody knows. They keep finding bits of 'em when they're clearing bombsites and such.'
A man's voice interrupted angrily. 'Ayup, Ruby! Does tha still work in this chuffin pub or not? We've gorra bar full of thirsty blokes and tha'rt out here chatting to daft kids.'
Billy looked passed the woman to the man leaning out of the pub's front door. 'I'm sorry missis. It's my fault. Will tha get the sack?'
She laughed out loud, throwing her head back. 'He'd berra not, love. He's me hubby. If he did, I'd bloody kill 'im.'
Yvonne thanked her, and headed back to the Walkley tram stop in High Street. The boys thanked her too, grinning sheepishly as she turned on her high heels and tottered back into the pub, swinging her hips.
Billy slipped an arm on Yvonne's shoulder, 'Ayup Wy, gi' us a lend o' tuppence.'
0o0o0
Chapter Eleven
'It's no good moaning. Nowt comes of it,' Yvonne chided. The two lads looked at her and raised their eyebrows, sensing she was not yet about to stop lecturing. They had gathered in the greenhouse to review progress. The boys were saying they hadn't made any, but Yvonne disagreed. She was pacing the dusty aisle between dead tomato plants, shifting and weighing invisible points of evidence and circumstance from one hand to the other as she argued her case. 'We know a heck of lot more than we did a couple of days ago,' she insisted. 'We just don't understand it yet.'
Kick frowned at her and glanced at Billy inviting his views. 'What's she going on abaht?'
Yvonne picked up the MOM board, flipped it over impatiently, and propped it up against a rickety stack of terracotta plant pots, almost knocking them over. Kick dived from his deck chair and caught the wobbling tower before it tumbled spectacularly.
'Watch it!' he cried. 'Tha'll topple 'em o'er.' He steadied the stack and adju
sted the angle of the MOM board. 'I've only just gorrem straight again. I think somebody's been mucking abaht wi 'em.'
Yvonne sighed impatiently and waited for him to stop fiddling and sit down again. When she had their attention she said, 'Let's look at what we know, and see if owt's connected.'
Billy got the idea right away. 'Yeah, I were just gonna say that.'
Yvonne's fiery glare pressed him back in his deck chair. 'We've got Mary Scott and the bombing that killed her – or did it?' She wiped the back of the MOM board with her palm, looked around to locate a stubby chalk-stick and wrote: Mary Scott / Marples bomb / old man at cemetery …'
'Walter Mebbey,' Billy reminded her. 'That's his name.'
'And why did he leave a fag packet on that grave?' asked Kick.
'Maybe it's not about the fag packet, but the gravestone he put it on,' Billy suggested. 'He wanted us to notice that particular grave, and read worrit said.'
Yvonne nodded agreement. 'Yes, and we have Spring Heeled Jack.' She wrote as she spoke, her animation unleashing a tumble of dark curls across her face.
'I think Walter said, "Spring Heeled Jack knows that realm.", or sommat like it, any road.'
'What realm?' Kick asked.
'We don't know yet, do we? But it was searching for Spring Heeled Jack that led us to the Queen's Head pub,' said Yvonne, chalk poised. 'The pub woman said Spring Heeled Jack lived in the old tunnels.' Her face suddenly lit up with excitement. 'That's his realm – the old tunnels.' She dropped her shoulders and frowned. 'But what's next? I'm stuck.'
'I don’t think Spring Heeled Jack's got owt to do with it,' Billy said. 'He chops heads off. He dunt drown 'em in swimming pools.'
Kicks face lit up. He spluttered, trying to speak through his sudden excitement. 'Mary Queen of Scots!'
Yvonne and Billy gaped at him.
'She's called Mary Scott – on the gravestone - and the pub's named after Mary Queen of Scots.'
Yvonne scowled at him. 'Are you nuts? Mary Queen of Scots was hundreds of years ago. Mary Scott is just some poor woman who was killed in the blitz.'
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