The Deadly Fire (9 page)

‘That's what I'll have to do, then,' said Alfie resolutely. ‘I'll just take Sarah home now and I'll have a look at the place so that I know what I am doing when I go there after midnight.'

He didn't like the thought of making his way through St Giles after midnight when Joseph Bishop was abroad, engaging in his body-snatching activities, but he owed it to Mr Elmore to do everything possible to catch his murderer, even if it meant placing a piece of clay under Joseph Bishop's right foot.

Alfie was too tense to sleep after he returned from seeing Sarah home, so he just sat by the fire until he heard the bells from St Martin's Church sound the hour of midnight.

In a flash, he was on his feet. Moving silently, he picked up the large key from the mantelpiece and pushed it into his pocket and then, by the dim light of the banked-down fire, he searched around for a sack to carry the clay.

There was no moon, but the gaslights still burned as he made his way down Long Acre and a few carriages and cabs still passed down the road,
bringing the rich of London back from their night's entertainment at theatres and eating places. Two constables from Bow Street police station strolled along, their eyes watchful and alert. From time to time, one of them shone the blue lantern in his hand into some dark corner. When this happened, the other stood behind him, alert, with a heavy cudgel in his hand.

Monmouth Street was a different matter. No police constables walked there. It was very dark, and the stench of cesspits mingled with the raw sulphuric smell of fog laden with coal smoke. Most of the gas lamps there had been deliberately extinguished; men and women lurked in doorways, hoping that some adventurous toff with good clothes, a fine watch and money in his pockets could be tempted to come down to have a look at the celebrated Seven Dials. Alfie made sure not to look from right to left, but to stare steadily ahead, keeping to one side of the liquid filth that ran down the middle of the road.

Seven Dials, the point where seven streets met, was famous for heavy drinking. A man called Hogarth had even drawn pictures of it. Alfie had seen them in Mr Elmore's office. Tonight it was in its usual state of uproar. With gin selling for a few pence a measure,
most of the inhabitants of St Giles were by now roaring drunk. It seemed that nobody was asleep. With a shudder, Alfie saw one woman sitting on the window-sill of an upstairs room, carelessly dangling her baby by one leg. He stood very still underneath, knowing that it was impossible that he could be sure of catching the baby and that he would probably see its brains dashed out on the cobbles before him if she dropped it.

‘Give him here, Jenny,' said another woman, leaning out and grasping the baby's arm. Alfie let out his breath and walked on rapidly, his heart thumping hard. He felt sorry now that he had not accepted the offer of Jack's company. He would have done, if he had not had a lurking fear of Joseph Bishop sneaking into the cellar, perhaps knifing Mutsy and bearing off Sammy. Jack was strong as well as immensely brave. Alfie knew that he could trust the safety of the gang to him.

‘Not sure that I fancy doing this again,' he muttered to himself as he left Seven Dials, resolving to take plenty of clay and to make this his last midnight journey.

By the time that he reached Bloomsbury, his courage had come back to him and he strolled along in a nonchalant manner, looking at the gleaming windows and well-scrubbed doorsteps of the posh
houses and imagining the army of servants, in their attic rooms, who were needed to keep each of these houses in that state of cleanliness.

Alfie reckoned that it must be about half-past midnight by the time that he reached the brickworks. Already half-built houses rose up all around it. The gas lamps worked well here and, despite the fog, it wasn't long before Alfie discovered the gap in the board fence. He looked all around carefully and then noticed a gleam of blue in the distance. A couple of peelers coming his way, he thought, recognising the distinctive lanterns of the police constables. Quickly he made up his mind. If he were to hide, they might discover him and then they would arrest him on suspicion of loitering to commit some theft. Boldly, he marched straight up to them.

‘Can you tell me the way to the Cock & Pye public house?' he asked, trying to imitate Charlie's slightly country accent.

‘What do you want with the Cock & Pye public house?' asked one of the constables, eyeing him severely.

‘Me ma sent me to get me da out of it and send him home,' explained Alfie with an innocent face.

They both laughed at that and pointed the right way, strolling on without a backward glance.

Alfie gave them a few minutes to disappear and then ran back, moving quietly on his bare feet, until he reached the fence. The fog had got worse and it was no longer possible to see the small gap. Alfie moved carefully along it, running his hand against the slats of wood until he came to the missing piece. With a feeling of relief, he slipped inside and tried to remember exactly what Charlie had said.

First you should come to the kiln, then to the saggers – that's the trays with the wet bricks on them. Then you come to the wedged clay – that's the stuff where all the air and the water bubbles has been thumped out. Don't you touch that – anything taken from that will be missed, and someone will get into trouble. But at the end of the yard you'll find the dug-up clay, just out of the hole. Keep away from that hole – it's deep. And keep away from the shed beyond the hole – that's where the apprentices sleep. They always put the shed with the door just near the hole to stop anyone who might get the lock open and sneak out at night. In the morning they put a board across the hole to allow the apprentices out. One fellow who was stiff with the cold staggered a bit and he fell down the hole and broke his neck.

Easier said than done to keep away from that hole, thought Alfie. Charlie had only been at the brick-works
during the day, or at night when torches would have burned to allow the work to go on. He stood very still for a while to allow his eyes time to get used to the darkness and the fog.

And then there was a sudden scream. It rang out, piercing through the fog and the murk. Alfie shuddered. There was something uncanny about it. A vague memory flashed into his mind of his grandfather's tales of banshees who shrieked whenever a death was about to occur. This sounded like a banshee, but then to his relief he heard a chorus of angry yells and shouts and he grinned in a slightly shamefaced way. One of the apprentices had had a nightmare and the others were shouting at him.

Still, it had been fortunate for him. Now he knew where he was and he could avoid the lethal hole in the ground. Quickly he moved around the edge of the brickworks, finding, by a piece of good luck, the wet blocks on their saggers, cautiously exploring the rounded lumps of wedged clay and at last, to his great relief, he came to the great mound of rough clay.

Rapidly he stuffed the sack with as much as he could carry, his heart thumping in his chest. He squeezed his way out through the gap in the fence again, hitched the sack over his shoulder and marched
along rapidly. Now he felt full of confidence and planned the good story he would make of this in the morning. He might even wake everyone up and they could have a midnight feast and finish the sausages. He looked forward to telling Charlie all about his adventures.

Alfie decided to avoid St Giles – he'd had enough of that, so he struck out confidently down the broader, well-lit streets. He planned to go down Drury Lane, then cut across to Bow Street through Broad Court.

But somehow or other Alfie made a mistake.

By the time he reached Drury Lane he was yawning. The fog was worse and everything looked unfamiliar.

With a prickle of fear, he realised he had made a mistake. The stench hit him first: that terrible smell of decomposing bodies which had not been buried deeply enough. And then he saw the tall, pointed railings, enclosing a small area of ground. And a pair of gates, not closed, but standing slightly ajar.

Alfie had missed the turning for Broad Court. Instead he had gone down Crown Court and now he was outside the burying ground of Drury Lane.

And there was a figure approaching him from the graveyard. A figure carrying a bulging sack.

Alfie wanted to run, but somehow he felt the strength go from his legs. He clenched his teeth and willed courage to come back to him. If Joseph Bishop were guilty of the murder of Mr Elmore, he wanted to see him arrested and convicted. He stayed very still, watching the approach of the man. He strained his ears, but the ground was soft, oozing with filth, and no footstep could be heard.

‘Out late.' Joseph Bishop had a hoarse, croaking voice, like the noise of a rusty inn sign creaking in the wind. ‘What you got in that sack of yours?'

Alfie had not survived in the hard world of the
slums of London without having quick wits and these worked well now.

‘Clay,' he said. Rapidly he threw a handful on the ground between himself and the man. Perhaps he would stop and examine the clay.

But Joseph Bishop kept coming. Alfie felt paralysed with fear. This was the man that everyone dreaded. Even the hardened men of St Giles drew aside when he passed them on the street. A collector of dead bodies, a murderer of children: that was Joseph Bishop's reputation. Alfie had been avoiding him for weeks. Now here he was in this dark and desolate place in the middle of the night, face to face with this man.

And there was no one else around.

Why did the police patrol the wide, well-lit streets of Bloomsbury and leave these dark courts unattended?

Now Alfie could just see Joseph Bishop's face by the solitary gas lamp above the gate of the burying ground. It was a strange face, quite square with a broken nose twisted to one side, a toothless mouth, grey spiky eyebrows and the deep scars of smallpox pitting the surface of his filthy skin. He took a step nearer to Alfie. His footstep made no sound – had he trodden on the clay? Alfie dared not look down. The man stared at him. There was something strange about
Joseph Bishop's eyes. They were a very pale grey and they glittered in the white light of the gas lamp. Alfie stared back at him and felt that he was unable to move away from the uncanny power of those eyes.

‘Got something to show you,' the rusty voice creaked on. ‘Something you'd like to see. Why don't you come in here with me? Come on; you know that you would like to see it.'

‘What?' breathed Alfie. The word seemed to be pulled out from the bottom of his chest. He felt one leg move forward, then moved it back. His leg felt very heavy. Almost as though it were not part of him. ‘What is it?' he repeated.

‘That would be telling, wouldn't it?' There was a sneer in the man's voice. Once again he held out his hand. ‘Come on,' he repeated. ‘Got something to show you. Something that sparkles. Something gold. You come and help me to dig it out. You'd like to be rich, wouldn't you?'

‘Yes,' breathed Alfie.

‘Treasure, that's what you can find in these burying places.'

‘Treasure,' repeated Alfie. It was a strange feeling to have words come from his mouth, almost as though they were spoken by someone else, almost as
though his voice no longer belonged to him.

‘And you've got a little blind brother, haven't you? You'd like him to be rich, too, wouldn't you?'

The fog in London could hang around for days, and even weeks, but a strong east wind might suddenly blow in from the river Thames and in minutes the fog would be gone. Something like this was happening now to Alfie's brain. One minute he was standing there almost paralysed, his eyes held by the strange grey eyes of the man in front of him and the next, the old, sharp-witted Alfie was back.

It was the mention of Sammy that had done it, he thought afterwards, but now he was just conscious of being himself again. He glanced around him furtively and then looked into the burying ground. There was no grass there, only the slimy earth – but in one corner some strange substance, almost like silver moss, gleamed in the light of the gas lamp and attracted his attention. The railings there were broken by rust – some lay on the ground, but one was still upright, just held by one thread of corroded metal. The rest of the metal looked all right, though, and it still had a spear-shaped top attached to it. It wasn't a perfect weapon, but it might be enough. Alfie gave it one lightning glance and then turned back to Joseph Bishop.