A Very Unusual Pursuit

by Catherine Jinks

  Birdie turned her attention to the vest, which had once been quite a handsome garment, made of plum-coloured silk. Like the rest of the clothes, it was stained black and coated with slime.

  ‘Whatever that stuff is, it won’t be cleaned off. Or burned up. Which is why I’ve come to think it might be the devil’s work.’ Sarah leaned forward, fixing her eyes on Alfred’s face. ‘If a bogle ate them boys,’ she said, ‘and coughed up their dunnage like we’d cough up a nutshell, would its spit be rank and green?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you,’ Alfred gravely replied.

  ‘But you’re a bogler!’ Sarah snapped. ‘You must know!’

  ‘I only once lost a child to a bogle,’ Alfred retorted, ‘and that bogle didn’t live long enough to cough up nowt. I killed it straight after.’

  Birdie swallowed. She didn’t like to hear Alfred talk about his third apprentice, whose name had been Henry. Jack had gone to sea, Patrick had returned to Ireland, Tom was working on the railways, and Adolphus had been gaoled for theft. But Henry had fallen to a bogle – and Alfred preferred not to discuss it.

  Sarah narrowed her eyes. ‘Well, well,’ she murmured. ‘Now that ain’t summat I ever knowed.’ And she glanced at Birdie.

  ‘One thing I can tell you is this,’ Alfred continued. ‘If a bogle coughed up them rags, then it’s living in the rubbish heap where they was found. Either that, or someone moved ’em there. For no bogle would shift clothes from place to place.’

  ‘Mmmph.’ Sarah nodded in a meditative fashion. ‘This feller as found ’em – he’s one o’ them coves they call “skippers”. He sleeps in sheds and privies and the like. So one night he climbed over a locked gate and saw them rags piled up against the privy wall.’ After studying Alfred for a moment, Sarah said evenly, ‘Seems to me, if they was moved, they must have come from inside the house.’

  ‘Or inside the privy,’ Birdie piped up. Bogles were like rats; they favoured old privies and earth closets. Birdie had helped to kill at least three privy-bogles during her career as a bogler’s girl. ‘Mebbe that’s where it lives.’

  ‘But the skipper said as how he slept all night in that privy, and weren’t troubled, save by rats,’ Elijah unexpectedly volunteered.

  Alfred frowned. ‘Is he a child, this moocher?’

  ‘No,’ said the old man.

  ‘Then he’d be safe from most bogles. It’s kids they like.’

  Sarah pondered this for a moment, as Elijah began to push the garments, one by one, back into his bag. Birdie watched Alfred, wondering what he was going to do next. She had to admit that it all sounded very odd. On the one hand, she and Alfred had never before encountered anything that resembled bogle leavings. On the other hand, killing bogles often did involve a lot of slime and stench – even though these traces tended to vanish pretty quickly, once the creature had died.

  Birdie tried to imagine a bogle coughing up the silk vest and striped shirt, but her blood turned cold at the thought of it. So she decided to concentrate on what Sarah was saying, instead.

  ‘I told you how Nolly were snatched by someone as looked like police,’ Sarah reminded Alfred. ‘Now his coat turns up in someone’s garden. Could it be the same someone, I ask meself?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Alfred agreed cautiously.

  ‘And could that someone be feeding a pet bogle?’

  Birdie gasped. Elijah grunted. Alfred sniffed and said, ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘Because bogles ain’t canaries,’ Alfred rejoined. ‘I’d sooner keep a bear.’

  ‘Bears can be taught to dance,’ Sarah pointed out.

  ‘Aye. That’s why I’d sooner keep one.’ Alfred shook his head wearily. ‘I couldn’t catch a bogle, Sal. Not without killing it. No one could.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ She stood up. ‘If I was to have that house watched, now, what would the boys be looking for? Aside from a lurker dressed like police.’

  Alfred shrugged.

  ‘Smoke? Smells? Green lights?’ she pressed.

  ‘I don’t know, Sal.’

  ‘Salt, mebbe,’ Birdie suggested, before she could stop herself. She then cringed as Sarah’s flinty gaze swivelled towards her.

  ‘Salt?’ Sarah echoed.

  ‘By the barrel.’

  Sarah nodded, as if well-satisfied with this contribution. To Alfred she said, ‘I’ll not rest till I’ve an answer, and I know you feel the same. If I was to ask for more help, you’d not be charging me for it, would you, Fred?’

  Alfred heaved a sigh. ‘No, Sal,’ he muttered. ‘I wouldn’t take no chink from you.’ Though he didn’t say as much, Birdie knew that he wouldn’t dare.

  A smile cracked across Sarah’s face. ‘You’re a fine feller, m’dear, and straight as they come,’ she declared. ‘Rest assured, one day I’ll return the favour.’

  Then she blew a kiss at Birdie, tucked her arm through Elijah’s, and shuffled out the door.

  After she’d gone, Birdie said ‘Mebbe them boys did get lagged. Mebbe they was caught thieving, and put in a lock-up, and it’s a lock-up with a bogle inside.’

  ‘That don’t explain the clothes,’ Alfred replied brusquely.

  ‘Unless someone working at the lock-up lives in that house.’ Birdie was thinking hard. ‘A trap or a jack or a beak—’

  ‘Stow it, Birdie.’ Alfred swung around on his stool, so that he was once more facing the fireplace. ‘Ain’t nothing to do with us.’

  And he refused to discuss the matter again that day.

  11

  THE SPIKE

  George Hobney introduced himself in a hushed voice as he admitted Alfred and Birdie into the Hackney workhouse. At first sight he looked like a typical night porter, gruff and burly, with a square jaw, a straight back and a solid frame. But close up, Birdie could see that Sarah Pickles had left her mark on George Hobney – or was it the bogle making him so anxious? His mouth kept twitching. His small eyes jumped around nervously as he ushered his guests through the lobby of the main administrative block, which was a three-storeyed brick building with windows set so high that Birdie couldn’t see out of them.

  She and Alfred had already spent several minutes trying to find the right entrance. The workhouse itself was a large collection of buildings, ringed by high walls and spread across several acres of land. In the dusky half-light, among a tangle of unfamiliar, mean little streets, it had been hard not to get lost.

  ‘The master don’t know nothing o’ this,’ George murmured, ‘so mind you keep quiet.’ He went on to explain (very softly) that the master was upstairs in his quarters, and that almost everyone else had gone to bed. ‘But Mrs Gudge is in the kitchen. It’s down that passage, third door on the left.’

  ‘Who’s Mrs Gudge?’ asked Alfred.

  ‘She’s the cook. She’ll show you where Fanny saw the . . . um . . .’ George hesitated, rubbing his small, neat, gingery moustache. ‘That thing,’ he finished, grimacing.

  ‘It’s fivepence in advance,’ Alfred said flatly. ‘And a penny for the salt.’

  While George fished around in his pocket, Birdie eyed her gloomy surroundings. The entrance hall in which they stood had whitewashed walls and no furniture. A dark flight of stairs vanished into the shadowy realm above her head. An invisible clock ticked somewhere close by.

  ‘There’s a lady coming to join us,’ Alfred observed. ‘Name of Eames.’

  ‘She’s already here.’ George handed over six pennies. ‘In the kitchen, with Mrs Gudge.’

  So Alfred and Birdie made for the kitchen, leaving George at his post. The kitchen door was standing open, unlike most of the others that Birdie passed on her way down the passage; all Alfred had to do was steer towards the strip of light that lay across the floor ahead of him. Sure enough, when he reached the door through which the light was spilling, he met a woman on the threshold. She was tall and gangly, all elbows and neck, with untidy hair and a scarred face. Her dress looked like a brown paper bag tied round the middle with string.r />
  ‘Oh!’ she yipped. ‘Is that – are you—?’

  ‘I’m Alfred Bunce.’

  ‘And I’m Birdie.’ Peering past Mrs Gudge, Birdie saw that Edith Eames was sitting near the kitchen hearth, which was huge and sooty and cavernous. In her subdued grey outfit, complete with kid gloves and a small felt hat, Miss Eames cut a far more respectable figure than she had at her last meeting with Birdie.

  ‘Hello, Birdie,’ she said. ‘Hello, Mr Bunce.’

  ‘Hello, miss,’ Birdie replied warily, as Alfred set down his sack.

  ‘I have been talking to Mrs Gudge about the bogle,’ Miss Eames went on, her eyes sparkling, her expression keen, ‘and everything she said confirms me in my opinion. I believe the creature in question is either a knucker or a hobyah.’

  Alfred and Birdie exchanged glances.

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Alfred muttered.

  ‘According to my research, knuckers are water spirits known for attacking livestock, as well as people. They live in “knuckerholes”, and are native to Sussex. I have been unable to determine whether they prefer hunting at night or during the day.’ Miss Eames spoke rapidly, as if she sensed that Alfred and Birdie weren’t very interested in what she had to offer. ‘Hobyahs, on the other hand, are nocturnal in their habits. They are from further north and eat children, though I’m not sure if they attack livestock. I also don’t know where they usually live.’

  ‘Aye. Well. That’s very interesting,’ Alfred remarked. ‘But—’

  ‘What I have found out,’ Miss Eames quickly added, without letting him finish, ‘is how each of these creatures has been captured and killed. And in neither case, Mr Bunce, was a little girl used as a lure.’

  Birdie scowled. Once again, her livelihood was being threatened. Before she could protest, however, Miss Eames continued.

  ‘According to tradition, the knucker at Lyminster was killed by a huge poisoned pie, which was left beside its knuckerhole. Then its head was cut off. The hobyahs, on the other hand, are vulnerable to dogs. They have been known to fall victim to large dogs, and to flee from the sound of barking.’ Miss Eames suddenly addressed the cook. ‘Is there a workhouse dog, Mrs Gudge?’

  ‘Ah . . . no.’ Mrs Gudge was looking flustered. She kept wiping her bony hands on her apron. ‘We’ve a lot o’ chickens, see.’

  Miss Eames shot a triumphant glance at Alfred, who was growing more and more irritable.

  ‘We ain’t got all night,’ he said gruffly. ‘Birdie’ll tire if we don’t start soon.’

  ‘Yes, but I wanted to tell you that I have brought a pie with me,’ announced Miss Eames. Stooping to pick up a basket from the floor beside her, she explained, ‘Though it’s not a poisoned pie, I thought we might use it to test my theory about alternative baits for your trap.’

  Birdie could restrain herself no longer.

  ‘You want to put a pie in my place?’ she squawked, flushing bright red. ‘You think a pie will draw a bogle out of its lair?’

  ‘It’s freshly baked,’ said Miss Eames. And as she flipped back the linen towel that covered her basket, a heavenly aroma filled the kitchen.

  Even Alfred seemed impressed.

  ‘That smell’s enough to raise the dead,’ he admitted, ‘but I don’t know as how a bogle’s got the same appetite we do . . .’

  ‘I’ll pay you two more shillings,’ Miss Eames blurted out. ‘A crown in total. Would that be fair?’

  Birdie glared at Alfred, who removed his hat, ran a hand through his hair, and said hesitantly, ‘Aye. That would be fair, on account o’ the risk.’

  ‘It’s too big a risk!’ Birdie objected, so loudly that Mrs Gudge winced and peered anxiously at the smoke-blackened ceiling.

  ‘Shh! Someone might hear you upstairs!’ the cook warned.

  Obediently, Birdie lowered her voice. ‘You kill bogles the way boglers always have done, and it works every time!’ she hissed at Alfred. ‘Why change now?’

  ‘Because the old way isn’t necessarily the best way, Birdie,’ Miss Eames broke in. ‘Certainly not for you.’

  ‘It is the best way for me!’ Birdie snapped. ‘What do you know? You’re not a bogler!’

  ‘Nevertheless, I believe that I can help Mr Bunce shoulder his burden in a more scientific way—’

  ‘Bogles ain’t steam engines!’ Birdie interrupted furiously. ‘Bogles ain’t got nothing to do with science!’

  ‘Please will you all stop shouting?’ Mrs Gudge begged. She sounded desperate. ‘You’ll have to go if you don’t!’

  ‘Our apologies, ma’am.’ Rounding on Birdie, Alfred fixed her with a warning look, his bloodshot eyes hard and cool. ‘You shut yer mouth, now, or I’ll shut it for you.’

  Birdie subsided. But she sniffed and folded her arms, making it clear that she wasn’t happy.

  ‘Now, ma’am . . .’ Alfred turned back to Mrs Gudge. ‘Would you tell me more about this bogle in yer well?’

  ‘I-I’ve not seen it,’ the cook stammered. ‘Someone else did.’

  ‘Where?’ said Alfred.

  Mrs Gudge went on to relate that the four missing children had all left their beds late at night. Though the master was stubbornly insisting that they must have decamped from the workhouse, no one else believed it because the children had been sick, and on their way to the infirmary when they vanished.

  ‘The master claims they was never really ill, but that ain’t so, for how can you fake the flux?’ Mrs Gudge said in a high, breathless, troubled voice. ‘It’s our belief – mine and Mr Hobney’s – that them children passed too close to the old well near the laundry. For that’s where Fanny Tadgell saw the shape. And since the well’s bin abandoned, it might harbour a shellycoat or some such thing.’

  ‘A shellycoat?’ Miss Eames repeated, with great interest. Then Alfred frowned at her and she fell silent.

  ‘How long has the well been abandoned?’ Alfred asked Mrs Gudge.

  ‘Oh, for years. Since the new workhouse were built over the old, and that happened before my time.’ The cook’s taut face relaxed a little as she dredged around in her memory. ‘They say the old cesspit fouled the well, or else some forgotten grave, but why blame a cesspit thirty years old? I say it’s from the manufactory next door, which is where they boil up skin and bones to make gelatine—’

  ‘Who’s Fanny Tadgell?’ Birdie interrupted, because she saw that Alfred was getting impatient.

  ‘Fanny?’ echoed the cook. ‘She’s one o’ the paupers as helps with the sick children. We ain’t got more’n two paid nurses, but they’re allus so busy with the old folk, there’s mortal need for extra hands.’

  ‘And where exactly did Fanny see the bogle?’ This time it was Alfred who cut her off. ‘How far from the old well?’

  Mrs Gudge seemed thrown by this question. ‘That I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.’

  ‘Ask Fanny?’ said Alfred. ‘Now?’

  ‘She’s in the infirmary. She took a late shift, in case she were needed.’ Hearing Alfred grunt, Mrs Gudge remarked, ‘I’ll not stay much longer meself, for they expect me back here early tomorrow, and how am I to cook all them breakfasts if I ain’t slept?’

  ‘But can you show us to the infirmary, before you leave?’ Miss Eames requested, in a briskly confident manner that infuriated Birdie. ‘And perhaps introduce us to Fanny Tadgell?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that, Miss. You cannot be left to wander about on yer own at night.’ Mrs Gudge cast a worried glance around the kitchen, as if checking that every dish was washed and every flame extinguished. Then she picked up a glowing oil lamp, clumsily knocking against a shelf as she did so. ‘I’ll take you to meet the girl,’ she said, ‘and when you’re all done, Mr Hobney will let you out.’ On her way to the door, she stopped suddenly and asked Alfred, ‘It’ll not . . . there’ll not be too much noise, I hope?’

  Alfred shrugged. ‘Bogles ain’t loud, as a rule,’ he replied. ‘Which is why they escape notice.’

  ‘Stealth is their greatest weapon,’ Mis
s Eames concurred – almost, Birdie thought crossly, as if she had a right to say anything.

  Alfred pretended that he hadn’t heard Miss Eames, even though his eyes flickered. ‘I’d not be surprised if the lass had to sing,’ he told the cook, much to Birdie’s delight, ‘but she’ll do it soft, and wake no one.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Mrs Gudge sighed, before throwing a feebly apologetic smile in Miss Eames’s direction. ‘Could you see yer way to covering that pie, Miss Eames? A smell like that could wake the whole men’s ward, never mind any bogle hereabouts.’

  ‘Of course,’ Miss Eames murmured, tucking the linen towel back over her pie.

  Then she followed everyone else out the door, down the adjoining passage, and into the garden.

  12

  AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

  It was still damp outside. Though night had fallen, there was just enough light from Mrs Gudge’s lamp – and from one or two upper windows – to give Birdie a vague sense of how large the workhouse grounds were. The back door of the administrative block opened onto a very spacious garden, which was flanked by two three-storeyed wings projecting from the rear of the main building. And though at first Birdie couldn’t see what lay further to the south, a few glimmers in the distance told her that something did.

  ‘That’s the men’s ward to yer left, and the women’s to yer right,’ Mrs Gudge whispered. ‘Keep to the paths, or you’ll trample on our carrots.’

  So it’s a kitchen garden, Birdie thought, peering at a wide expanse of dim, feathery shapes. The shadow cast by a ragged scarecrow made her start, then shudder. She felt very uneasy. For as long as she could remember, the workhouse had loomed large in her nightmares. It was the fate that had threatened her since birth. One misstep – one stroke of bad luck – and she would be off to break stone in the workhouse. Birdie had heard all the workhouse stories, and believed every one of them. She had heard that workhouse children were starved and flogged; that they were marched in straight lines like soldiers; that they laboured from dawn till dusk.