by Alex Grecian
Hammersmith shrugged and took a drink. The water burned his throat going down, and still unable to breathe through his broken nose, he felt a sudden panicky sensation, as if he were drowning. He set the glass down on the table and left it there.
“Where can I find him?” he said. “The chimney sweep. Where is he?”
“You don’t wanna go where he is, Mr Hammersmith.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Oh, no doubt of that. But you’d be outnumbered afore you got two words out, and I don’t like yer chances.”
“You go with me, then.”
He watched Blackleg size him up, taking in the ripped and soiled clothes, the broken nose, the eyes that wouldn’t focus properly. At last the criminal nodded.
“Aye, I guess I’d better go along, hadn’t I? Come with me.”
51
He knows.”
“He don’t know.”
Liza and Esme were in the alley behind their favorite pub. It seemed to be deserted except for dozens of broken crates stacked against the wall behind them.
“But that’s two times we seen him.”
“Did you hear his name?”
“I heard the other one call him it. I walked right by their table.”
“He’s on the beat, is all. Or havin’ a drink afore he goes home.”
“He ain’t drunk nothin’, though,” Esme said. “And Jonny’s on the beat round here, not him.”
“Could be Jonny’s ill.”
Esme gave Liza a look that said she was through arguing about it.
“Fine, then,” Liza said, “if he knows, he knows.”
Esme threw her hands in the air, clearly exasperated. She opened her mouth to speak.
“How much?”
Liza turned to see a man shambling out of the shadows behind the crates. He smelled like rye, and the four front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, leaving a gaping pink maw of need.
“I said, how much?” the man said.
Esme’s lip curled and she turned away, leaving Liza to deal with the potential customer. The man didn’t have a beard or mustache.
“We’re done for the night,” Liza said.
“Can’t be. It’s early yet.”
“We’re done when we says we is.”
“When I says you is, is when yer done.”
He reached out and Liza slapped his hands away.
“Hard to get, eh?” the man said.
But then he suddenly backed away from Liza, his hands up, and Liza turned to see Esme holding a pistol. The man tried to smile, his lips quivering, the black hole of his mouth twisted in a leer.
“No need for that, little lady. I was innerested in yer friend, anyhow. Don’t go in for big scars like the one you got there, not that you ain’t fetching. Let’s all be friends.”
“I have enough friends,” Esme said.
She pulled the trigger.
The three of them stood for what seemed a lifetime, waiting for the echo of the gun’s report to fade down the stone walls of the alley. When they could hear silence again, the man blinked at the two women and then collapsed, his knees buckling under him. He fell gradually, straight down and from the bottom up so that he appeared to be shrinking in on himself. When he had reached the ground, he finally slumped back, and Liza could see the blood flowing from his gut faster than his clothes could soak it up. The black fluid spread out, free of the flesh. The man sputtered once and did not move again or make another sound.
“You didn’t have to shoot, Esme. He was harmless enough.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Well, accidents happen. We’d best move on afore Jonny comes runnin’.”
Liza took the gun and shoved it to the bottom of her bag, and then she grabbed Esme by the elbow and dragged her through the door back into the pub. The back passage was empty, nobody running to investigate the sound of a gunshot. Liza let go of Esme’s arm and turned to face her.
“I really didn’t mean to shoot him, Liza.”
“I know, love. It don’t matter. Lord knows we done worse.”
“He didn’t have no beard like the others. Like—”
Esme closed her mouth, bit off the next word. It didn’t matter. Liza knew what she was going to say. Like him. Him. Saucy Jack, the great bearded beast of Whitechapel. He had left his mark on Esme’s face and on her chest, and she still waited for him to return and claim her.
“He was a man, wasn’t he?”
“Aye. He was.”
“Then the beard don’t matter, whether it’s there or not.”
“The other ones, the ones we done up, they had the beard.”
Like him.
“The bluebottle don’t have it, neither.”
“Are we gonna do him up, too?”
“If we don’t wanna get caught we will.”
“He might not know.”
“You’re the one said he does.”
“That was afore I kilt that man back there. I don’t wanna kill no more, Liza.”
“We started somethin’.”
“I think it’s enough. None of ’em with beards was the one. And I don’t feel so mad no more.”
“What if I still do?”
“Oh, Liza.”
Esme stepped in close and put her hand on the back of Liza’s neck. She drew her in and Liza breathed the smell of her, sweat and smoke and mint, and Esme’s mouth was on hers and her body pushed in close. Warmth radiated out from Liza’s core. Her face flushed and she shut her eyes to contain it.
Esme broke the kiss and stepped away. Liza took a moment before opening her eyes. She smiled.
“All right, love,” she said. “Unless someone else gets in our way, the bluebottle will be the last one.”
“Only ’cause he knows it was us done the others.”
“Only ’cause he knows.”
“Good. Liza?”
“Yes, love?”
“What’s his name? The bluebottle, I mean. You said you heard the other one say his name.”
“Hammersmith. The other one called him Hammersmith.”
Esme nodded. “Then he’ll be the last one. We’ll kill Mr Hammersmith and be done with it.”
She smoothed her dress and led the way back into the pub.
52
We’ve come to see Inspector Little.”
Sergeant Kett looked up at the couple standing in the door of the back hall. The man had his hat in his hands and the woman had clearly put on her Sunday best to come round to the Yard on a Wednesday afternoon.
“Inspector Little’s unavailable,” Kett said. “What’s this regarding?”
“Our son,” the man said. He stepped forward just a bit, half a step. “Inspector Little was trying to find our missing son. We just wanted to know…”
The man broke off and smiled, but there was no warmth in it. That smile was the last vestige of hope on an otherwise thoroughly disappointed face.
“He’s our only boy,” the woman said.
“We got three girls,” the man said. “Only the one boy. We been waitin’ to hear, like the detective said to, but we need some news, sir. It’s got us torn up.”
“Inspector Little was moved to the Murder Squad not long ago,” Kett said. “That might be why you never heard nothin’.”
With so many missing in London every year, there was virtually no chance their son would be found. They hadn’t received news because the overworked detectives rarely had any news to report in cases like theirs.
“Murder squad? Is our boy murdered?”
“Nothin’ to do with your boy.”
“Who do we talk to, then?” the woman said.
“I’ll take you back there.”
Kett rose and came around the desk. He gestured for the couple to follow and led them down the short corridor. Off to his left, at the end of the hall, the Murder Squad room was mostly empty. Oliver Boring sat munching on a biscuit and reading a file, but the place was otherwise empty, everybody away looking fo
r Little’s killer. Kett pointed at the bustling hive of detectives in the bigger room to his right.
“You’ll be wantin’ one of them,” he said.
“But…” the man said. “But who?”
Kett led them to Inspector Gerard’s desk. Gerard was one of the better detectives who hadn’t been tapped for the Murder Squad. Kett made introductions all around.
“You’ll need to ask Inspector Day for the file,” Kett said. “He’s got all of Mr Little’s things.”
“Why’s that?” the father of the missing boy said.
“We’re reshuffling a bit,” Kett said.
If they hadn’t read the papers and didn’t know that Little was gone, Kett saw no reason to alarm them. Learning that the detective was dead might kill their spirits. And their spirits were all they had.
He left them with Gerard, who had taken a pen and was writing down information about their boy. The only word Kett heard was Fenn, but he didn’t know if that was a name or a marsh where the boy had disappeared. He shook his head and returned to his desk just inside the door of the Yard.
53
That’s him there.”
The bartender pointed to a short man who was just now drawing one of two chairs up to a low table in the corner of the room near the fireplace. Hammersmith thanked the bartender and followed Blackleg to the man’s table.
“You’d be Sam Pizer?” Blackleg said.
The man drew a blunt used cigar from his shirt pocket before looking up at them.
“And who’d you be, then?” he said.
“Never mind who we are.”
“Well, I can guess at your game. And that one’s a bluebottle.” He pointed at Hammersmith. “I’ve no business with either of you.”
“Could be we’ve got business with you.”
Blackleg pulled up the other chair for himself and left Hammersmith to find his own chair, which he did by dragging one over from a nearby table.
“What’ya want, then?” Pizer said. He chewed on the end of his stubby cigar.
“Where were you three days ago?” Hammersmith said.
“Who knows? Where were you?”
“I suggest you treat this seriously.”
“Why? You gonna arrest me? For what?”
“Where’s your climber?”
“My what?”
“You know very well. The boy you employ to climb chimneys. Where is he?”
Pizer made a show of looking around the room. “Don’t look like he’s out for a drink.”
He laughed and fished a small metal device from his pocket. It looked like a miniature pair of scissors. One end resembled a pair of tongs. There was a rivet in the center. At the opposite end from the tongs were two crescent-moon-shaped cutters. Pizer snipped the end off the old cigar with the sharp end and turned the device around. He gripped the short cigar with the tong end and held it to his lips. Blackleg produced a match, struck it, and held it to the end of the cigar. Pizer leaned forward and puffed until the cigar was lit. He leaned back. “Thanks.”
Hammersmith pointed at the device. “Had that long?”
“Got it off a sailor. Handy little cigar cutter, ain’t it?”
Hammersmith jumped from his chair. His hand shot out like a snake and grabbed Pizer’s arm. Pizer dropped the cigar and the cutter clattered on the table. Hammersmith snatched it up with his free hand.
“I’ve seen this shape.”
He held the crescent blades under Pizer’s nose. The chimney sweep looked at him, his eyes wide, a crumb of tobacco stuck to his bottom lip.
“You branded that boy with these, didn’t you? There was a scar on his arm this exact shape and size. You heated it up in the fire and you burned it into his skin.”
Pizer shook his head. He pulled away from Hammersmith and pushed his chair back. Standing, he was a full head shorter than Hammersmith.
“Don’t know whatcher talkin about, bluebottle.”
“You left that child to die in the chimney. You walked away and left him.”
“Did no such thing.” Pizer’s eyes narrowed. “And if I did, you got no proof of it. Nothin’ you can do to me, bluebottle, so why don’t you go aboutcher business?”
He straightened his shirt, pulling it back down over his ample belly.
“You’re under arrest,” Hammersmith said.
He clasped Pizer’s wrist. Blackleg cleared his throat and Hammersmith looked over at him. The older man shook his head.
“You can’t,” he said.
“No, you can’t,” Pizer said.
Hammersmith let go of Pizer’s wrist and took a step back. The two criminals were right. They knew the law and they knew its limits. Pizer had done nothing illegal and nothing provable.
Pizer picked his cigar up off the table, brushed it off, and stuck the wet end back in his mouth. He grabbed his cigar cutter and grinned.
“Tell ya what. You seemed to like this well enough. You have it. A gift from yer old friend Sam. So you don’t forget me.”
He took Hammersmith’s hand, pressed the cutter into his palm, and closed Hammersmith’s fingers around it. He winked and walked away. The door of the pub slammed shut behind him.
Hammersmith threw the cutter into the fireplace and turned on Blackleg. “You didn’t help.”
“What should I have done, bluebottle?”
“I don’t know, but…”
“The law can’t touch someone like that. He’ll eventually end up dead, and it won’t be pretty, but it won’t be the law what does him in.”
Hammersmith pulled up Pizer’s chair and sat down hard. The poison was still working on him, although it seemed to be slowly dissipating. He felt tired and frustrated and the adrenaline rush of anger was fading. He looked around at the other people in the pub, the bartender, the waitress, four other men deep in their drinks. Nobody was paying attention, nobody cared that the chimney sweep had escaped justice.
“He can’t just walk away like this. There must be something someone can do.”
“Oh, there is,” Blackleg said. “But you needed to see that he’s outside yer reach, Mr Hammersmith.”
“What are you implying?”
“You can’t do anything to him, but that don’t mean he can’t be touched, do it?”
“You mean you can do something, even if I can’t?”
“I didn’t say that exactly.”
“What would you do?”
“I would do what needs doing.”
“I can’t condone that.”
“Didn’t say you needed to.”
“What if I stopped you?”
Blackleg chuckled. “Shame you threw that cutter in the fire. It was a nice one. You coulda give it to me, if you didn’t want it fer yerself.”
“I want to be the one who brings him to justice, Blackleg.”
“You can’t.”
“I know.”
“Best you can do is know it was done without knowin’ how. ’Cause yer still the law and that scum ain’t worth losin’ yer job and yer freedom.”
“I want more than that.”
“Thought you might feel that way. Could be there’s one way you can be a part of what needs to happen.”
“How?”
“Be a part without bein’ involved, I mean.”
“How?”
“Hire ’im. Give ’im a chimney to clean. I don’t got a chimney, but you do.”
“How did you know that?”
Blackleg smiled, but didn’t answer.
“My chimney’s small,” Hammersmith said.
“Size don’t matter. He won’t get a chance to actually clean it.”
“But if he knows it’s small to begin with, he’ll press some other child into service to bring with him. We don’t want that.”
“Well, we don’t need to tell ’im it’s small, do we?”
“And when he comes, we’ll be on hand. I can have my flatmate there, too. He’ll help.”
“What then? He’ll laugh in yer face again. N
o, you don’t need to be about and neither do any other bluebottles.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“Can you live with not knowin’, but knowin’ anyways, Mr Hammersmith?”
“I don’t know.”
“I s’pose you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Why?” Hammersmith said. “Why do you care enough about the death of a child to involve yourself in this?”
“You said it yerself: It’s the death of a child. Someone’s gotta care. Hell, we should all care.”
“Use my flat.”
“I thought I would.”
“But how do I hire him? Put an advertisement in the Times?”
“I’ve already taken the liberty,” Blackleg said. “The notice is runnin’ in the morning’s edition.”
54
When Hammersmith left the pub, he kept a hand on the outside wall and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. He walked carefully toward a taxi stand and never looked behind him. If he had, he might have seen Charles Shaw leave his shadowy post beside the pub’s front door.
Shaw trailed Hammersmith down the street and hovered near the stand until Hammersmith had boarded an omnibus. Hammersmith made his way to the back of the bus and Shaw jumped on, heading for the top deck, where he’d be able to see Hammersmith disembark.
Like Hammersmith, Shaw never looked behind him, and so he didn’t see the two women who were already following Hammersmith at a discreet distance. Shaw was climbing the ladder to the top of the bus when the prostitutes paid their ha’pennies and found seats near the front, behind the horses.
When everyone was safely aboard, the driver shook the reins and the bus rumbled off in the eventual direction of Hammersmith’s flat.
55
She answered the door herself and so he assumed that she was the housekeeper. She was very young and very pretty, but she had a haggard air about her, as if she had been worked to the bone by a harsh mistress.
“Is the lady of the house in?” he said.
“I am the lady of the house, sir.”
“Oh, my. I do apologize.”