“There’s been stories lately of children disappearing off the streets,” Nick continued. “Talk of a Mother Poison. They say she’s got eyes in the back of her head, can see you even if you’re behind her. So when the girl on the Piazza says about her eyes, I guessed it was her. Sparrer says you fall into her clutches and it’s all up with you. I asked if they knew anything and one of ’em says he’d been talking with someone who knew someone who said he’d seen Mother Poison on Cow Lane carrying a child. But it wasn’t no street child, it was proper dressed. And they knew the nabbers were looking for a Runner’s child, and even despite it being a Runner they says it’s a shame for she’s the very devil, and then I says it’s Mr Foster’s and he’s been good to me, and Sparrer thinks a bit and says, ‘It won’t fadge.’ So I says will you tell me how to find Mother Poison and he sends out the word and after a bit word come back from Bungey that she’s got a ken at Smithfield. And Sparrer’s outside waiting to show us the way.”
“What’s the creature talking about?” demanded Caroline. “How could he know where Alex is? Why doesn’t he say?”
Nick’s gaze flicked towards her, his face tight with dislike. “I am saying.”
“And that’s your idea of helping, is it?” Caroline said. “Running off to play with a bunch of street arabs, then coming back here to spin some stupid tale about a bogey woman you probably saw in the bottom of a gin bottle. Mother Poison!”
“She ain’t no bogey. And she’s got Alex.”
“He’s trying to help,” Dan said. “But look, Nick, we used to tell stories like this when I was a boy, about baby-eating beadles and witches who turned children into slaves, and God knows some of those stories weren’t far from the truth if you got taken up by the parish and put out as an apprentice. The woman you call Mother Poison is probably just some parish nurse minding babies from the workhouse. We both know there are plenty of her kind you wouldn’t want to be left with, but that doesn’t mean she’s got Alex.”
“But it all fits with what the doxy said,” Nick said.
“For God’s sake, Dan, get him out of my sight or I’ll swing for him, I swear I will,” Caroline said.
“The boy could be on to something,” said Noah. “We should take a look. It’s not as if we’ve any other leads to follow.”
“Sparrer’s outside,” Nick prompted.
“For heaven’s sake,” Caroline said, “Alex is missing and you’re going to follow this – this – idiot to the other side of town?”
“We are,” Dan said. “Tell Carpmeal and the others to follow on to Cow Lane when they get back. We’ll keep a lookout for them.”
Chapter Thirty
If Mother Poison didn’t kill you, Dan thought it likely that the filth of Smithfield would. The streets radiating out from the empty pens, warehouses and market halls were a morass of animal droppings, mud and offal. The reek of terrorised cattle and stale blood rose from the gutters and cobblestones. A miasma gathered in the alleys where the decaying houses added the stench of overcrowded rooms and overflowing privies.
They passed a beer house from where, despite the lateness of the hour, came the sound of voices shouting and cheering, intermingled with the desperate snarling of fighting dogs. A man lay on the ground outside, where he had fallen or been thrown. Noah almost stumbled over him, but Dan strode by without giving him a glance.
Sparrer and Nick led them by little-used byways: narrow, foul tracks linking dens of drinkers, opium eaters, murderers, beggars and thieves. None interfered with them; their pistols gave them indisputable right of way. Rat eyes and human eyes, indistinguishable in their cunning and viciousness, glinted at them out of the shadows.
Their only light was the occasional gleam of moonlight which managed to penetrate the smoke and fumes, with every now and again a grudging glow escaping through a grimy window or from beneath an ill-fitting door. They squeezed after the boys into a gap between the blank walls of small warehouses. The children disappeared, their footsteps plashing through the muck. Instinctively Dan and Noah lightened their tread. Each put out a hand to feel the wall on their left, kept his right hand close to his pistol.
A small space opened out where a building had collapsed, its bricks long since carried away, leaving an overgrown, rodent-infested gap dotted with midden heaps. Ahead stood a ruinous house with a sagging roof and cracked walls. Smoke rose from its broken chimney. A foggy patch of light drifted from a front window. There were no lights in the upper rooms, and, since many of the windows were broken and there were wide cracks in the brickwork, it appeared they were not inhabited.
They gathered in the wide, deep doorway of a storage shed opposite. The door had not been painted in years, but the padlock on it was new. Under other circumstances, Dan might wonder what was inside that was worth hiding away in this desolate place. Nothing legal, he’d guess.
“Mother Poison’s is over yonder,” Sparrer rasped in his husky smoker’s voice. “Bungey, give us the lay.”
A sandy-haired, lantern-jawed boy emerged from the shadows. “The room wiv the oldest childer is at the front, next to the one wiv the glim. Mother Poison sits in the one wiv the glim, the babbies’ cot at back of it.”
Dan looked over at the house. The room with the light was on his left. “I wonder if there’s a back door.”
“Yers,” Bungey said. “One winder at back ’as a rotten frame. Took a peep earlier,” he added. He held out his palm. “That’s me done.”
Dan handed over some money. “I’m grateful to you, Bungey.”
The boy glanced at the money, whistled softly. Sparrer took his coins with a nonchalant air.
“Shall I take the back?” asked Noah.
Dan took out his pistol. “I’m going to have a look first.”
He crept up to the house, his boots sinking into deep puddles which released a stagnant, rotting smell. The front window was shutterless, cracked and dirty. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim and dusty light, but gradually the room came into view.
It had bare floor and walls, was furnished with a rickety table covered in a muddle of dirty dishes alongside a pile of clothes, most likely stolen. It was too dark to see if Alex’s blue frock was amongst them. There was a trestle table at the back of the room covered in jars, herbs and potions representing the trade in herbal remedies that gave Mother Poison her name. Dangerous cures for syphilis, crabs, the itch, unwanted pregnancy.
A pair of candles burned low on the mantelpiece over a sinking fire. Beside it sat a woman, legs straddled, warming her feet on the ash-covered hearth. She wore a ragged russet-coloured dress with a filthy apron, shabby slippers, a dirt-coloured shawl. Knots of grey hair hung down from a plain cotton cap. She was fast asleep, snores shaking her frame, her slumbers steeped in gin from the bottle on a low stool at her side.
A man sat opposite her, his back to the window. All Dan could see of him was the top of his head, flung against his chair, and a huge pair of hob-nailed boots stretched out in front of him. On the floor beside him was a frying pan from which he had eaten his supper. A mangy cat nibbled at the remains.
Mother Poison’s son or husband? Or accomplice – perhaps even the man who had taken Alex? Whoever he was, Dan sensed he wasn’t there just to keep the old woman company. He was her bully, might be armed with a cudgel, even a pistol.
Dan scanned the darkness beyond the fireplace. A line of her infant charges lay in a cot at the back of the room, still and quiet. He crept back to Noah, was surprised to see the boys were still there.
“She’s in there, sleeping on a chair by the hearth,” he said. “There’s a man with her, also asleep. Both dead drunk.”
“And Alex?” asked Noah.
“There’s five or six babies in there. Can’t tell if he’s with them. But I can tell one thing. Those children aren’t staying there.”
Noah nodded. “What’s the plan?”
“That’s it,” said Sparrer. “Me and Bungey’ll go round the back in case the old bitch tries to hop the twig that way.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Dan said.
“We knows it,” Sparrer said. “But this is ’istory, ain’t it, Bungey?”
Dan would have felt the same in Sparrer’s place. The downfall of Mother Poison would indeed be a major event in their world. The boys would live on the legend for many a day. It would not do Sparrer’s position as a leading light in his community any harm either.
“Yers,” Bungey said in answer to Sparrer’s question. He did not look all that excited at the prospect of his part in an epoch-making battle, but knew he faced ruin if he backed down in front of Sparrer.
“Then I’m glad to have you with me,” Dan said. “Carpmeal should have got the message at Russell Street to follow on with some men by now. Nick, you go and keep watch for them and guide them here.”
“Should we wait for them?” asked Noah.
“I’m not leaving my boy in there a moment longer than I have to.”
“If he’s there.”
Dan ignored this. “Nick.”
Nick hesitated. He would have preferred to stay with Sparrer and Bungey, but Dan was in no mood to have his orders questioned. Besides, the other boys could not go. They might make an exception for Dan, but ordinarily nothing would get them within a mile of the Runners. Nick jumped up and disappeared into the darkness.
“Off you go then,” Dan said to Sparrer and Bungey.
They sped off, gave the house a wide berth, circled back and disappeared behind the ramshackle structure. Dan did not fancy Mother Poison’s chances if she ran into them. But that was up to her. She could take her arrest calmly, or she could try and bolt.
A few minutes later Dan and Noah positioned themselves on either side of the front door. Dan held up his hand. For ten seconds they stood there, guns at the ready. Then Dan lowered his hand, stepped in front of the door and kicked it open. He sprang into the room, Noah close behind.
“Bow Street Officer! You’re under arrest.”
Mother Poison’s bleary eyes shot open. She screamed. Her companion jerked awake and leapt cursing to his feet. He threw himself at Noah. He was the bigger, heavier man, had swollen, fight-scarred fists, but Noah had the better of him and nimbly delivered a right to his jaw that sent the drunk tottering back. He stumbled on the hearth and fell, cracked his head on the mantelpiece as he went down. That was him out for the count. Noah hauled him away from the fire and shoved his inert body against the wall.
The woman went for Dan, feet and fists flying. He raised his arm to beat her off, but before he could make contact two screeching shapes rushed past him. Sparrer jumped on to her back, wrapped his arms around her neck, kicked her sides with his heels. Bungey laboured her about the face and body with his sharp little knuckles.
“Get ’em off me! Get ’em off!” Mother Poison squealed. Dan left it to Noah to sort out. He grabbed one of the candle stubs and hurried over to the cot.
There were five babies tightly tucked under a rough, flea-ridden blanket. Two were almost starved, had evidently been there some time. The next two had a bit more weight on them, though one was flushed and feverish, ill from all the flea bites he had suffered. One was still clean, plump and healthy, but his round face was stiff and pale and he lay like the others in a deep, unnatural sleep. Dan snatched him up. He was wrapped in a coarse length of cloth, but was otherwise naked. Dan clutched Alex to his breast, showered his solemn face with kisses.
“It’s him, God be praised!” Noah cried. “Shut up, you.” The last was addressed to Mother Poison, whom the boys had got back into her chair. They were cheerfully engaged in tying her to it with lengths of fabric and anything else useful they could find. Dan threw a pair of cuffs at Noah, who used them to manacle the bully as he groaned back to consciousness.
This done, Noah came over to the cot, looked down at the babies. “What’s she done to them?”
“Laudanum,” Dan said. “What about the other children?”
“Bungey, go and let ’em out,” ordered Sparrer.
Bungey hurried out of the room. They heard the sounds of bolts being drawn back, Bungey’s imperious voice.
“Go in there.”
Partly because they were used to doing as they were told, partly because they did not know what else to do, the released children filed across the cold passageway into Mother Poison’s kitchen and cowered together. There were seven of them, ragged, thin, the bruises on their skin barely distinguishable from the grime. Dan guessed the oldest, a girl, was about sixteen, the youngest ten, possibly older but stunted by hard labour and want.
Their dull eyes flicked from the sight of Dan with the baby in his arms, Mother Poison being turned into a maypole by Sparrer as he capered around her chair and wrapped her in makeshift bonds, Noah with his gun in his hand. Then they lit on the man sprawled on the floor and into their misery flickered a glimmer of delight. Their tormentor lay powerless, his hard hands shackled, his feet in their great boots twitching weakly.
“I think she’s safely trussed,” Dan said.
Sparrer stepped back to admire his handiwork. The old woman, her cap gone and the bald patches on her head exposed, cursed him soundly. He laughed, mimicked her cries.
“Take him,” Dan said, handing Alex over to his father. Noah pulled his scarf from around his neck, wrapped Alex in it.
Dan stood in front of Mother Poison. She aimed a gob of spittle at him. It landed at his feet.
“Who brought you that child?”
“Go and fuck yourself.”
“I asked, who brought you that child?”
She tried to outface him, failed, dropped her eyelids and muttered, “His mother asked me to take him in.”
“I told you to have nothing to do with a rich man’s child, you stupid bitch,” the cuffed man cried. “You might have known someone’d come looking for him.”
“You didn’t argue when you were drinking the daffy,” Mother Poison snarled back.
Dan grinned. “Now this is something I always enjoy: villains turning on one another. So which of you is going to tell me the truth and save themselves from the rope?”
“The rope?” Mother Poison wailed. “When I’ve taken these waifs in out of the goodness of my heart, clothed them, fed them, treated them like my own?”
“Your heart is open for all to see,” Dan said. “You’ve snatched these children off the streets, sold them, made them work for you, starved and beaten them. But that one is no street child, is he? So I’ll ask you again. Who brought you that child?”
“I had nothing to do with it,” the man put in. “It’s all her doing.”
“I expect these children have a different story to tell,” Dan answered. They gazed at Dan, too frightened to so much as nod their heads. It would be a long time before their stories could be coaxed out of them.
“All I know,” the man said, “is that she went out to meet a man and came back with that child. I told her it wasn’t no good. That one would be missed.”
“He was missed. Not by a rich man. By me.”
“God in heaven!” the man cried. “He’s a Runner’s child. You stupid cow, you’ve only gone and taken a Runner’s child. We’re fucking done for now.”
The network of broken veins under the old woman’s skin glowed red against her white face. She gabbled, “I never knew, I swear it. I thought he was some rich woman’s mistake he was helping her get rid of. It’s the God’s truth, I didn’t know he’d been stolen away.”
“I doubt you and the truth have been friends for a very long time,” Dan said. “What’s the man’s name?”
“Smith. That’s what he told me.”
“I’ll bet he did. What did he look like
?”
“I never got a good look at him. He sat in the shadows over there, away from the fire, kept his face covered. A big man, scrawny, like he’d lost flesh too quick. The skin around his eyes was sunburned, like a sailor’s, but he didn’t walk like a sailor.”
“He came here? How did he know how to find you?”
“He never said. One of the girls told him maybe.”
Mother Poison’s services would be well known to the women who worked the streets.
“When did he come here?”
“Night before last. Told me to meet him this morning outside Lovejoy’s bath house on the Piazza and take the child off him.”
The door shot open and Nick appeared in the doorway. “Carpmeal and half a dozen men headed this way.”
“That’s us out of here,” Sparrer said. “Come on, Bungey!”
The boys scrambled out at the back of the house as Carpmeal, Townsend and the other men came in at the front. Sam Ellis was with them. He and Dan clasped hands, the gesture standing for all that could be said at such a time.
“You haven’t left much for us to do, Foster,” laughed Carpmeal when Dan had given an account of the raid.
Dan pointed at the pile of clothes on the table. “Stolen clothes there. Haven’t searched the rest of the place. These children were kept prisoner. They need feeding and clothing.”
“You can leave it to us. You get home to your wife.”
Dan took Alex off Noah, tucked him inside his coat. Followed by a chorus of cheers and congratulations, they left. On Holborn Hill they took a cab. Caroline and Eleanor already had the front door open by the time they climbed out. They tumbled into the house, Caroline clinging to Dan, who still had the baby in his arms. The couple came to a halt in the kitchen.
“He’s safe!” said Eleanor, giving Noah a teary embrace. “Oh, Mr Foster, he’s safe!”
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