by Mark Morris
‘Oh, God,’ I breathed.
‘I tried to fight the flames, sir. We all did. But it was hopeless. Insensible with fury and grief, I targeted the last of the mob, turning to confront those who had remained behind on the periphery of our camp to watch, perhaps to gloat. As I ran towards the men they scattered before me, but I pursued one of them along several streets and finally into an alleyway. The man was swift, but I was an acrobat, in the peak of condition, despite the beating I had suffered – added to which, the alleyway ended in a brick wall that was twice the man’s height.
‘I caught the fellow trying in vain to scale the wall, and I dragged him back to the ground. And then I… there is no pretty way to say this, sir… I put my hands around his neck and I strangled the life out of him. I was like a man possessed. I wanted nothing more than to make him suffer as my poor family had suffered… my wife, Marta, and my four children…
‘When the deed was done, I felt the strength drain out of me. I cast the man’s body aside, and I sat on the ground and wept. I had lost everything in a single night… my wife, my beautiful children… I felt as though my life was over just as surely as theirs was.
‘I was still sitting beside my victim’s body when the police found me. There is little more to tell. I was arrested, thrown into Newgate Prison, condemned to hang. It transpired that my victim was not a ruffian, but a more “superior” type of fellow – the son of an aristocrat no less!’ He smiled grimly. ‘I was resigned to my fate, sir. I cared not a jot for my own life. And then, the night before my execution, I awoke, and miraculously there you were, standing beside my cot in my stinking cell, the cockroaches and rats scuttling around your feet. At first I thought I was dreaming. Then I wondered whether you were an angel – or a devil. You were holding the obsidian heart, sir. And it was… moving in your fist, perhaps glowing… yes, I believe it was glowing…’
His voice had dropped to a murmur.
‘You said, “You must come with me, Abel. It’s time.” Those were your exact words.’
I filed them away in my mind for future use. Later I would write them down.
‘Before I could respond, you reached out and took my hand. And suddenly… here we were. And my life began anew.’
He fell silent. Lifted his glass and took a sip. His hand was completely steady. The story had been a hard one for him to tell, but he was calm again now, composed.
‘Hawkins,’ I said, leaning forward, elbows on knees, ‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea…’
He turned his head aside to stare into the flames, raising a hand as I had done earlier.
‘Please, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Let us speak no more about it.’
It was hard, but I swallowed the sympathy, the compassion I was feeling, and leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking beneath me. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you want. But you’ll have to give me the date I appeared in your cell, so that I can make it happen. You realise that, don’t you?’
He nodded. ‘I do, sir.’
The circularity of time. Cause and effect. The chicken and the egg. Hawkins was only able to tell me his story because two years ago a future version of me had rescued him from his condemned cell on the eve of his execution. But the only reason I was able to appear in his condemned cell, the only reason I knew of his plight, was because he was telling me this story now.
I snatched up my glass and threw more port down my throat. Dulling the senses with alcohol was sometimes the only way to cope with it. I was about to suggest we continue with our game when, from below, came the rat-tat-tat of the door knocker. I glanced at the clock on the mantel, then at Hawkins, my heart leaping.
A midnight caller! Surely that could mean only one thing?
As Conan Doyle might have said, the game was afoot!
THREE
BLACK DOG ALLEY
One thing (among many) that had surprised me about Victorian London was how many theatres and music halls there were. Even in the poorer areas you could barely walk three streets without stumbling across some establishment dedicated to providing entertainment for the masses.
Thinking about it, I suppose it was understandable. TV had yet to be invented, the rise of commercial cinema was still a few years around the corner, and there were only so many nights a family could sit indoors reading by candlelight or singing songs around the piano before going stark staring mad.
Our midnight caller was a messenger boy, shivering in the cold, his feet frozen and wet from the snow, which had soaked through the holes in his battered boots. Clover, alerted by his knock, astonished him by opening the door and greeting him with a warm smile. The boy was even more astonished when she exchanged the scrap of paper he was clutching for one of Mrs Peake’s rabbit pies from the kitchen. Eyes alight with joy, he scampered off as if he’d just received the best Christmas present he’d ever had.
The message was from Horace Lacey, owner and manager of the Maybury Theatre, which was tucked down a narrow road colloquially known as Black Dog Alley, just off Brewer Street in Soho. Brewer Street was close to Piccadilly Circus and its relatively new addition, the Statue of Eros, around which flower-sellers displayed their wilting blooms by day and prostitutes offered passing gentlemen the chance of a ‘threepenny upright’ by night.
Although Christmas Night had been clear, a brown, choking smog had descended over the city on Boxing Day afternoon and showed no signs of shifting as the day drifted into evening. At this time of night, and in these conditions, it was almost impossible to find a hansom cab – which was why I’d paid to have one at our constant beck and call from a nearby stable yard. As Hawkins hurried off to rouse the owner, a muffler over his mouth and nose keeping out the worst of the acrid fumes, Clover and I bundled ourselves up against the elements. Waiting in the entrance hall, listening for the slow clatter of the approaching cab, I looked at Lacey’s message again. In sloping, crabbed handwriting it read:
My dear Mr Locke
Apologies for the lateness of the hour, but I am responding to instructions to inform you without delay of any unusual occurrences within the vicinity of my establishment, The Maybury Theatre (address supplied above). One such, which you may wish to investigate – a singularly grisly murder, no less! – has taken place this very evening in the small courtyard behind this building. I shall await your arrival for two hours beyond the stroke of midnight, though please do not feel obliged to attend if you adjudge the incident to be beneath your consideration. I have sundry tasks to occupy me upon these premises, and so shall not be inconvenienced if you decide to forego this invitation and remain at your domicile.
Your faithful servant
Horace Lacey (esq)
A singularly grisly murder? What did that mean? Poverty and desperation ensured that murders were ten a penny on the streets of Victorian London, so what was so different about this one that it had prompted Lacey to call me out at such a late hour on Boxing Day?
Although I felt a tingle of anticipation I tried not to get my hopes up. I had followed enough dud leads in the past few months to last me a lifetime. Although my ‘watchers’, as I called them, came from all walks of life, I did employ a large number of the dissolute and the dispossessed – vagrants and vagabonds, mudlarks, prostitutes, even pickpockets and cut-throats. There were a couple of reasons for this. One, the majority of them spent most of their time on the streets, and therefore tended to be the first to know what was going on. And two, because they operated below the radar of ‘normal’ society, they could keep their eyes and ears open without attracting undue attention.
I paid each of my watchers a small stipend – as much as I could afford – for their services. But in order to motivate them to stay vigilant and pass on anything useful that came their way, I also promised a sizeable bonus to whoever might provide me with information that would ultimately lead to the recovery of the obsidian heart.
While this was a decent enough system, it did mean that, because many of my watchers were desperate fo
r money, I received a lot of intel that was dubious at best and useless at worst. My problem, though, was that because I was paranoid of overlooking something that might turn out to be vital, I ended up following more of these leads than was probably good for me, which, as the weeks had turned into months, had become a demoralising and exhausting exercise.
What made me more hopeful about this particular lead, though, was not only that Lacey was one of the more affluent of my watchers, but also that, as far as I could remember, he hadn’t contacted me before.
As if reading my mind, Clover put a hand on my arm and said, ‘Try not to get your hopes up, Alex.’
I gave her a smile, which felt skewed and tight. ‘I never do.’
‘Yes you do. Every time. And it’s eating you up.’
I knew she was right, but even so I couldn’t prevent a hint of sharpness from creeping into my voice.
‘Well, what do you expect?’
‘Nothing less,’ she said soothingly. ‘But… look, I know it’s pointless me saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway… try to stay calm. Focused. Try not to despair. We’ll get there eventually. I honestly believe that.’
‘Women’s intuition?’
She locked my eyes with hers as if trying to instil some of her belief into me. ‘I know we’ll get the heart back because not getting it back is too horrible a prospect to contemplate.’
We’d talked about this already – about the implications of what might happen if we failed, of how things might unravel. I sometimes felt as though we talked about nothing else, as though our conversations just went round and round in a never-ending spiral, our own personal time loop.
I sighed wearily. ‘Yeah, I know.’
We were saved from further conversation by the faint sound of the approaching carriage, the rumble of wheels and the clop of horse’s hooves partly muffled by snow.
Clover briefly tightened her grip on my arm, giving me a reassuring squeeze, then she leaned forward and planted a kiss on my cheek. Her breath smelled warmly and sweetly of cloves, which I knew she chewed, along with mint, to keep her breath fresh.
‘Once more unto the breach,’ she said. ‘You never know. Maybe you’ll get a late Christmas present.’
‘I thought you told me not to get my hopes up?’
‘I also said I believed we’d find the heart sooner or later. Who’s to say you won’t get the breakthrough you’ve been looking for tonight?’
When we stepped outside we were met with a wall of smog. Instantly I felt it trying to crawl down my throat, and I pressed my scarf to my face as I trudged along the path of compacted snow towards the wrought-iron gate set into the high hedge. I knew the hansom was there only because we could hear the creak of its wooden frame and the snorting and shifting of the horse. The smog was so dense we couldn’t even see the gates until we were almost upon them, beyond which the carriage was a vague patch of darkness in the murk. The soft clang of the gates as I closed them was answered with a creak as Hawkins pushed open the door of the hansom from within. I saw his hand emerge to help Clover climb aboard, then I stepped up into the carriage myself.
Hansom cabs were designed for two passengers, so it was a tight squeeze with three of us crammed in. What made it more uncomfortable was that, despite our best efforts, tendrils of smog continued to creep in through the crevices around the doors and windows, turning the air pungent. As the cab set off with a lurch, I thought of the poor driver on his sprung seat at the back of the vehicle, fully exposed to the elements. I thought too of the ever-present coterie of men watching the house (not that they’d be able to see more than a metre in front of their faces in these conditions), who were no doubt even now stamping their feet to ward off the cold and trying not to choke to death on the noxious fumes.
And they were noxious. That was no exaggeration. I’d known even before coming here that Victorian smog was basically a big ball of toxins – sulphur dioxide and soot particulates from the huge amount of coal that was burnt both domestically and industrially – that gathered together in the sky, became mixed in with low-lying clouds of water droplets, and were then squished back down onto the city as the air cooled, but I’d never realised quite how lethally pungent they were until I’d been given the dubious honour of experiencing them first-hand.
People died from inhaling London smog. Lots of people. In this age respiratory problems and cancers were rife – and here was I, putting lives at risk for my own selfish purposes. The driver of the hansom; the men guarding my house; every single person I employed as a watcher – they were all at risk because of me, for one reason or another. At risk from the elements; at risk from the Wolves of London…
Which made me what? A selfish bastard? Or something worse? Was I, in my own way, as ruthless as my enemies?
I continually told myself I was fighting the potential for chaos, that I was doing this for the greater good, that the end would justify the means – but did I really believe that? Was my battle really bigger than me? Would it really have far-reaching effects if I lost it? Or was it nothing but a personal skirmish? Something that would affect my timeline, but barely touch anyone else’s?
Although it was less than three miles from my house in Kensington to the Maybury Theatre, the smog and snow meant that the horse could move at little more than a snail’s pace. Yet even though the journey took well over an hour, we endured it mostly in silence. Admittedly the conversation was limited by the fact that we kept our mufflers over our faces, but I doubt we’d have talked much even if the air had been clear. I was too pensive to chat, Hawkins – never a big talker at the best of times – seemed lost in his own thoughts, and Clover, who was squashed between us and seemed to sense our joint mood, simply rested her head on my shoulder and took the opportunity to have a snooze.
Eventually we halted beneath the fuzzy orange glow of a street lamp. The driver rapped on the roof and we clambered out, Clover blinking sleepily. As Hawkins spoke to the cab driver, Clover and I, still holding our mufflers over our faces, climbed the short flight of wide, semicircular stone steps to the theatre’s main entrance.
Although The Maybury was intended to be the proud centrepiece of a row of squat redbrick dwellings that stretched into the smog on either side, it wasn’t a particularly impressive structure. The architecture was basic, devoid of elaboration, and the brickwork itself was blackened by a crust of soot. I rapped on the double doors, which were panelled in small, individual panes of glass – though they might as well have been painted black, so thick was the grime that coated them.
After a few seconds I heard the patter of approaching footsteps followed by the grating squeal of a key in a stiff lock. The right-hand door was plucked inwards, and a man all but leaped into the widening gap, brandishing a yellow-toothed scimitar grin.
It wasn’t the grin that made me step back, however, but the smell that gusted from his body. It was eye-wateringly pungent – even more so than the yellow-brown smog, threads of which were now sliding around my feet, preceding me into the theatre’s entrance lobby. I held my breath as the man’s stench rolled over me like the first blast of heat from a steam room.
What he smelled of wasn’t body odour, but perfume, which he obviously applied with wild abandon. Used sparingly it might have been pleasant – a welcome change from the sweaty stink that most people exuded – but his was a reek that clawed at the throat and stung the senses; it was like drowning in a vat of rotting lilies.
‘Mr Locke, I presume!’ the man exclaimed. ‘This is a veritable honour, sir! Please! Come in! Come in!’
I cleared my throat and managed to croak, ‘Thank you.’ Then, bracing myself, I stepped past him, followed by Clover and Hawkins.
As the man turned his back on us to lock the door, I glanced at Clover. She responded by screwing her face into a squinty-eyed expression, like a dowager duchess presented with a dead mouse in a box. Trying to conceal a smile, I looked at Hawkins, who studiously avoided making eye contact with me.
Tugging the key from its lock and pocketing it with a theatrical flourish, the man swung to face us, side-swiping us with yet another waft of his cloying odour. Clover and I stepped back, and even Hawkins shuffled his feet. The man spread his arms, fingers extended as though he was cupping a pair of invisible crystal balls.
‘Welcome to the Maybury Theatre!’ he declared.
He was small and prissy, his black, wavy, slightly overlong hair and handlebar moustache carefully oiled and sculpted. He wore a red velvet tailcoat, floppy green cravat, silver waistcoat, striped trousers and gleaming, pointy-toed boots, complete with spats. He looked like Willy Wonka, or at least like someone trying too hard to be eccentric.
‘Thank you,’ I said again, and introduced my companions.
Once our host had finished simpering over her, Clover glanced around the gas-lit lobby. ‘Charming place you’ve got here.’
It wasn’t. It was shabby and grubby, the woodwork chipped, the carpet threadbare, the wallpaper, once ruby and cream, now dulled to sludge brown and urine yellow. Even the sagging red rope, which stretched across the bottom of the stairs between the newel posts, resembled a skinned snake.
The little man beamed at Clover. ‘Thank you, my dear. It is too sweet of you to say so. I do confess that I regard the Maybury as my own little corner of paradise, though I expect you shall think me a fool for doing so.’
‘Not at all,’ said Clover silkily; she hated being called ‘my dear’. ‘I think the theatre suits you very well.’
As the little man simpered, I stepped forward and extended my hand, glad I was wearing gloves.
‘You are Mr Lacey, the manager?’
‘Manager and owner, sir,’ he corrected me, grabbing my hand like a bulldog snapping at a morsel of food and shaking it vigorously. He puffed out his silvery chest. ‘Manager and owner.’