The Quickening and the Dead

by J C Briggs

  ‘I’ve a murderer to catch, Michael O’Malley. If you’ve any idea of seeing Bridie, then I suggest you take a bath. There’s a bath house just along the New Road opposite Lisson Grove. You know it?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Tuppence for a first class hot bath with towels. Get yourself some new clothes from somewhere. Here’s a half sovereign. Don’t spend it on drink, or Bridie will show you the door. The door is at thirty-three Back Lane, the first left turn off Shorts Gardens, just above Brown Street where the old house was. Do you remember?’

  ‘Engraved on me heart, Sammy. Do ye think I’d forget where Bridie O’Malley, the dream of me life, was livin?’

  ‘Right. Get out of here — you’ve met a murderer and he might be back. Tell Bridie you saw me.’

  ‘Deed I will, Sammy, and may God give ye a bed in heaven — sure why should he not?’

  ‘I can’t think, Michael — let’s hope that Bridie’ll give you a bed at Back Lane.’

  Jones went out. Dickens turned back to Mr O’Malley. ‘I’m obliged to you. I’ll tell Mr Thackeray what you said about Barry Lyndon.’

  ‘Tell him all the best from an Irish reader. Grand to have met ye, Mithter Dickens, grand.’

  They went into the lane and made their way back to the Brimstone house.

  ‘Michael O’Malley — who’d have thought it? I wonder where he sprang from?’ said Dickens.

  ‘As your Mr Peggotty would say, I’m gormed. Lord knows and he won’t tell us. I wish I’d had time to see Bridie — to warn her, but we’ve too much to do now.’

  ‘She’ll be gormed,’ Dickens said, grinning.

  ‘She will — not that I want to be there to see it. Let’s get off to the chop house to meet Stemp.’

  ‘Not Mrs Plume’s?’

  ‘No, we’ll have a try at finding that boy. It’s not what I wanted — getting dark already, but it’s more than urgent now. I’m not hopeful, Charles, after seeing what was done in here.’

  They went back into the yard. Arthur Brimstone had been taken away to the mortuary. Rogers and Johnson were waiting for them.

  ‘Rogers, I want you to come with us to the alleys. Let’s have a look for that poor Italian lad. Johnson, when Semple comes back, you and he can search these alleys for any trace of our murderer. Name of Will, so Michael O’Malley tells me. Any news, get back to Bow Street — I’ll be back later.’

  Dickens and Jones stood at the yard door, Jones contemplating the handprint.

  ‘Will?’ said Dickens.

  ‘I don’t know. Michael O’Malley — fuddled with drink and sleep, I daresay. Perhaps the man was just going to ask a question, as in “Will you tell no one I’ve been here.”’

  ‘He didn’t say anything else?’

  ‘No — just went.’

  ‘Then, perhaps he regretted saying his name — wanted to get out of there.’

  ‘Could be — well, they’ll ask about. We might have a piece of luck.’

  ‘The luck of the Irish, Sammy Jones, is what’s needful — will I ask Michael O’Malley for a piece of shamrock?’

  Jones laughed. ‘I think I might be avoiding Bridie for a while. What she’ll say when she sees him I don’t want to think about. Now, let’s get on.’

  Chapter 25: Labyrinth

  It was after three o’clock and the November dark was descending. You could see the darkness staining the walls of houses, pouring down, creating shadows which unrolled in front of them, pointing the way, leading them on. Their own shadows unfolded, grew monstrous at their sides, strangers to them, sometimes leaning down as if to smother them.

  Jones and Scrap led the way, followed by Rogers with his bull’s eye lamp. Dickens, then Stemp. They had passed the burial ground as they had gone through Bones Alley, descending some steps, down which Dickens and Jones had seen the crippled boy disappear, and which Jimmy Brady had pointed out to Scrap. It was if they had gone down into the underworld. No light came here. The air was thick and the ground wet. And there was a stench of cess pit. The houses huddled together in the shadow of the taller buildings which imprisoned them.

  They moved out of the court into a winding labyrinth of more passages. Scrap stopped at various corners, looking this way and that, getting his bearings. It was odd, thought Dickens. Scrap and Stemp had been right about that unearthly quietness. The alleys were narrow and the houses and buildings loomed over so that it was like walking through tunnels. He noted the crazy leaning buildings and patched windows where sometimes a light flickered. Occasionally, a face appeared pressed up against dirty glass, distorted and flattened like a thing from a nightmare. There was a sense of eyes watching, and sometimes, glancing down an offshoot, he thought he saw a shadow darting — some watcher vanishing into the thick darkness. There was clotting mud beneath their feet and foul vapours seemed to wind round them so that the three figures in front of him seemed to shiver and dissolve, and he hurried forward, terrified of losing them, but reassured by the sound of Stemp’s breathing behind him and the little streaks of light that came from Stemp’s bull’s eye lantern.

  Deeper and deeper into blackness they went, turning back on themselves. Sometimes it seemed that they were just going round in circles. Every alley looked the same. Dickens fancied that even the grotesque faces were the same. He looked at a doorway and something looked back — a mask with a horrible long nose. He almost cried out. He looked back for Stemp with his light, but there was no light, only darkness and a sense that something had moved behind him. He looked ahead and thought he saw a figure disappearing round a corner. Rogers, surely. He hurried on, his feet sticking and sliding in the treacherous filth. Follow, follow. Which way?

  Stemp kept his eye on Mr Dickens’s back. He could see him in the light of his lamp and further ahead were Mr Jones with the lad and Sergeant Rogers. He felt uneasy, though. Somethin’ not right. Too quiet. He saw Mr Dickens turn his head and seem to recoil. Then something, a black shape seemed to slide from a doorway. He couldn’t see Mr Dickens. He held up the lamp and all the shadows reached for him. He made to hurry forward, his mouth opening to cry a warning.

  Too late. He felt the strong hand over his mouth and his arm was wrenched, twisted up his back. He saw the shape in front of him. And the nose. Then it vanished and he was dragged into another tunnel — before he had chance to make any noise.

  Rogers thought he heard something. He whipped round. A face, a terrible thing with breath so foul that he jerked his head back. But he felt the nose on his mouth and the breath in his throat. Suffocating. He couldn’t make any sound, could hardly breathe. It was forcing him against the wall and down, two hands pressing on his shoulders and still that foul nose in his face. When he was down on his knees, a hand grabbed at his lamp. Then it was gone. Only its rancid breath seemed to hover in the air.

  Light extinguished, as if a hand had closed the bull’s eye lamp. It was so sudden. Then Jones heard the retching sound and turned. Rogers was down. ‘Scrap, stay —’ but Scrap was gone.

  ‘Alf, what happened?’ Rogers was getting to his feet.

  ‘Dunno — thought I heard something. And then a face came at me — great big nose. Pushed me down — an’ took me lamp.’

  ‘Stemp?’ Jones looked back down the alley, but there was no sign of Stemp. He looked to the place from which he had come. There was no one, only the fleeting impression that the darkness had stirred, that something black, a cloak, perhaps, had fluttered away, leaving just this deadly stillness and silence behind.

  ‘Mr Dickens, Scrap, where are they?’ Rogers squinted into the darkness beyond.

  ‘Vanished like Stemp. What the hell is happening?’

  ‘What’ll we do, sir?’

  ‘Stay together, Alf, that’s what — wait until we get our bearings. Still got my lamp on my belt.’

  Rogers lighted the lamp with a lucifer match struck on sandpaper. At least they could see a bit more now. They walked back down the alley a few paces and saw the narrowest of passages leading off. The
y looked down into the pitchy black — nothing to be seen.

  Rogers thought for a moment. ‘Suppose in the dark, Mr Dickens turned down here by mistake — mebbe that thing that came at me got between me an’ Mr Dickens an’ he turned off — lost his bearings like.’

  ‘Makes sense — what about Stemp? I wonder if the same thing happened. Let’s go back a bit, see if there’s another passage.’

  There was. On the other side of the alley, another narrow passage led into equally pitchy darkness.

  ‘Shall I use my rattle — might bring a constable from his beat.’

  ‘No, I’m thinking we’d better do this quietly — if we bring more police, we don’t know what might happen. We might make it even more dangerous for Mr Dickens —’

  ‘And Scrap.’

  ‘That Jimmy Brady is the only person who knew Scrap was looking for the Italian boy. There was something about that lad — something very nasty. Has he a master? Has he told whoever it is?’

  ‘The one they call Satan, sir — sounds like some sort of gangmaster. He’d not want strangers on his patch — mighta guessed we were police.’

  ‘Then they are in danger. Let’s have a look down here for Stemp — but we need to be quick. Dear God, Alf, we could do without this — we’re supposed to be investigating Plume’s murder, not getting caught up with some criminal gang.’

  They went down the narrow alley, but there was no sign of Stemp. Jones could only hope that he had simply lost his way, and that he would find his way back to the chop house. He’d know to meet them there. Stemp was tough. Dickens and Scrap were more vulnerable, but he’d bet on Scrap to run for his life — if it were not for Jimmy Brady. Still, Scrap had sharp wits. No, he was most worried about Charles — and he didn’t want to think about what might have happened to him.

  Chapter 26: Satan

  Lightless like the end of somewhere — life itself. Perhaps the end was just this void, this silence, this darkness so suffocating that it seemed to be crushing him like the clamping on of an iron mask. Tightness in his chest. He wasn’t breathing. He turned round. Got to get out. But there was only a blank wall. He looked up but the thick roof of the night pressed down. He turned again, putting out his hands like a sleepwalker. He felt like one who had risen in the night and found himself in a room made strange by the dark.

  Dickens peered into the darkness ahead. It seemed to move. It was as if someone behind a stage curtain had parted it to stand suddenly, as if by magic, upon the apron of the stage. Someone was there. He could hear a noise like hissing — a sort of whistle — s-s-s-s-s, came the sound. A light leapt up that made darkness visible, and he saw again the mask and the nose. The plague doctor’s mask he had seen in Venice once, its wearer flitting through a gloomy archway. Darkness again and that dreadful whistling.

  This is hell and I am in it, he thought. This is the Satan of whom they spoke. Hell to pay. The devil to pay. Am I to sup with the devil? Devilish sharp, then.

  Flames flared up again and another figure stood there. The gleam of a knife. The flames died down to a red glow and he saw that the figure was standing in front of some kind of brazier. By some devilish magic, he had caused the flames to leap up and die down. Beyond the red glow, the figure was still in shadow, but he could see the thin silver of the blade cutting the darkness over and over again. It was like watching the blade being sharpened, and that whistling hiss went on.

  The figure came nearer the fire and Dickens could see that it was a gypsyish, young man with a face dyed red by the glow of the coals like the devil in a pantomime. But frightening. He saw the glint of an earring and a jewel flashed on a finger. But there was no sign of injury on either hand. Not Will, then.

  ‘S-s-s-s,’ the voice hissed. Then, ‘Signor.’ It was human. Dickens breathed, he thought, for the first time since he’d seen the mask in the doorway. Italian. No devil, not the murderer — a lad in a pantomime of his own devising. Ask then.

  ‘Prego — I —’ he struggled to find the words. He’d practised what he was going to say to the Italian family, but now, he could hardly remember — ‘cercando — un ragazzo, un ragazzo che —’ He wanted to say that the boy played the barrel-organ, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he just said the name — ‘Guiseppe —’

  A glitter like lightning. The knife came through the air, the hissing, swishing sound of something wet on hot coals.

  Something, someone pulled at him. He felt the knife — it passed like a wind. He heard the thud as it embedded itself in something wooden. He was being dragged into a tunnel.

  ‘Gotter gerrout, Mr D.’

  Scrap.

  He blundered after the boy into all sorts of ginnels, alleys, tunnels, courts — through the maze. He thought they’d never get out. He didn’t know if Scrap knew his way. Perhaps he was just improvising. But he followed, and they ran, skidding on the thick mud, turning round corners into impossibly narrow passages, bouncing off walls; Dickens catching his scarf on a piece of jutting iron, tossing it away; Scrap tripping, falling, scraping his knees, but up again, shaking the water off him; doubling back when they came to a dead end; stopping for a moment in a broken down doorway; glancing back to see if they were followed; pushing through a door ajar, and finally coming to rest in what seemed like an old stable where they flung themselves into a loose box, where something very large and warm seemed to fill the space. It moved in the dark and they shrank back against the wall, their feet finding straw. And then it let out a low, mooing noise. A cow — just a cow. Dickens could see it looking at them with mildly inquiring eyes.

  ‘Blimey,’ Scrap said. ‘If it ain’t an old cow.’

  ‘Blimey, indeed,’ Dickens whispered back, sharing Scrap’s relief.

  They stayed where they were, crouching by the wall, listening, hoping that no one had followed them. The cow shifted again and they heard its feet on the cobbled floor. But there was no sound of anything human.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ whispered Dickens.

  ‘Not a clue,’ Scrap answered.

  ‘Well, we can’t stay here all night.’

  ‘Nah, but I don’t know which way ter go — don’t wanter go back where we came from. Yer coulda bin killed, Mr Dickens.’

  ‘I know — you saved me. In the nick of time. My thanks, Scrap.’

  ‘We’re quits now, Mr Dickens — you saved me last time.’

  ‘But how did you come to be there? I don’t know what happened. I thought you were all in front then I was somewhere else entirely and Stemp was gone, too.’

  ‘Dunno — lost Mr Jones an’ Mr Rogers — it’s like they just vanished — creepy it woz. Thought somethin’ moved down the alley so I went that way. Thought there woz a light. ’Eard yer speakin’ an’ then I looked round the wall an’ saw the knife. Gawd, Mr Dickens, ’oo woz it?’

  ‘Italian — I asked about the boy and then I saw the knife coming at me. But it’s worrying — where are Mr Jones, Mr Rogers and Stemp? They can’t have vanished — it’s impossible.’ He said so, but he felt a chill of terror. Down there in the alleys — like no place he had ever been, and he’d been in plenty of slums. A nightmare place, unreal, a place you fell into from out of the world.

  Scrap echoed his thoughts. ‘’Orrible place, Mr Dickens — like something yer’d dream of, a place where anythin’ could ’appen.’

  ‘Well, I think we’re out of it now — that cow somehow reassures me.’ They looked at the cow and the cow looked back, its warm, low breath like a sigh. ‘Just a minute, I’ll have a look over this wall.’ Dickens peered over. He was looking into another sort of loose box. Two more cows. It was a dairy then. Probably safe to have a look. ‘I’m going to have a look round. More cows next door. Wait here.’

  Dickens crept out into the yard and followed the line of the old horse boxes where more cows moved restlessly as they sensed him. High up on the wall of a taller building there was a gas lamp and he could make out the words painted on the wall: Jos. Evans Dairy. He knew where he
was. It was where his milk came from, brought on the cart to Devonshire Terrace. The front of the dairy was off Paradise Street — down a lane where other passages led to the burial ground and Dab Lane. Somehow, they had woven their way to safety. If they turned left when they went out of the yard, they would get into Paradise Street and thence into the busy High Street. What then? He thought of Jones, Rogers and Stemp — and a man with a knife glittering in his hand.

  Jones and Rogers turned into the alley down which they thought Dickens must have gone — and Scrap. Jones had stopped just a few paces beyond the opening of the alley. Scrap had been a step behind him. Then the light went out and Scrap had disappeared. He could only have gone down the passage. Jones would have felt it if Scrap had passed in front of him.

  The alley seemed to be a dead end. They could see a blank wall ahead, but Rogers saw the little turning which brought them into a yard of some kind where there was a smoking brazier with the embers of a fire glowing in the dark. Behind the brazier they could make out a shed of some sort. They went to look but there was no one there. On the floor there was something black. Jones picked it up. It was mask, black with a long nose.

  ‘What Scrap and Stemp saw, and what came at me,’ said Rogers.

  ‘Not a ghost then — whoever’s in these alleys, whether they call him Satan or whatever, he’s real and he went off in a hurry.’

  ‘With Scrap and Mr Dickens?’

  ‘Maybe not — if he was cool enough to take them, he wouldn’t have dropped this, and, why not keep them here? It’s secret enough — we wouldn’t have found it if we hadn’t had a light or if we hadn’t been looking for someone. Let’s have a look round — I want to be sure that our friend, Will, hasn’t been about.’

  ‘You don’t think that Will’s the one that’s hauntin’ these alleys?’

  ‘No, I don’t — what’s going on here is separate, I’m sure, apart from the Italian boy, but I just want to be certain there’s no tell-tale blood from his injured hand.’