Beloved Poison (24 page)

Will seized me by the arm and pulled me to a halt. ‘Who did she see? Who stopped her from going in? It was a man, wasn’t it? You said it wasn’t a woman but you
didn’t
say it wasn’t a man.’

‘Think, Will,’ I said. ‘Who is the only man who could make a deranged wife hesitate about entering her lover’s front room?’

He stared at me. And then all at once his look of irritated perplexity vanished. ‘Of
course
!’ he cried. ‘Why, it has to be – oh, well done, Mr Flockhart.’ He seized me by the hand. ‘Well
done
!’

‘D’you see?’ I said.

‘It’s obvious!’

‘We don’t know who Dr Bain’s late-night lady visitor was, but we
do
know who Mrs Catchpole saw. It could be none other—’

‘—than Dr Catchpole.’

Where was Joe Silks? I had not seen him outside the infirmary that morning. If he had gone to ground, hiding somewhere in the great rotting hulks that made up the rookeries to the east of St Saviour’s, then we would never find him. Still, we had to try. We turned out of Fishbait Lane into St Saviour’s Street. The sun was warm now. The vapours were putrid, and there was no breeze to drive them away. I began to wonder whether Will’s utopia of sewers and drains might well be beneficial to the outlook and disposition of the city. I could feel my mood darken as the atmosphere thickened.

The stretch of wall above the gratings where Joe Silks and his gang usually sat was unoccupied. No doubt the ragged children were somewhere about the city, picking pockets or sliding their skinny arms through pantry windows. But I knew where Joe Silks lived when he was not on the grating. We would look for him there, though the fact that he preferred to spend his nights shivering beneath a pile of sacks outside the hospital said much about the place he came from.

The streets leading in the direction of Prior’s Rents grew narrower and darker the further we walked from the infirmary. The houses were ramshackle, crooked tenements thrown up to house the poor. Over time they had been divided and subdivided to accommodate more and more people, until it seemed as though the fabric of the buildings themselves was shored up with humanity. Men loitered in doorways, pipes in their mouths and bottles in their hands; women squatted on steps, babies half forgotten in their laps. Packs of children ran in and out of the filthy refuse-choked alleys. The usual flotsam of straw, manure, dog shit and vegetable matter littered the ground. We skirted a pool of brown, lumpy water, and turned into a dismal court.

The sun seemed to vanish as we entered the place. Windows without glass punctuated the black edifices that reared on either side of us – some boarded over, others bearing a fluttering pennant of ragged grey curtain. Flies hummed in the air. Voices – a crying baby, a shouting drunkard, a pair of women arguing – were audible, and below this, a constant underlying clamour. No one who was not a resident had any business amongst those foul, narrow streets, and I felt eyes – hostile and predatory – staring at us from windows and doors. I glanced from side to side at the slimy black walls. Were the shadows creeping closer?

‘We’re being followed,’ said Will.

‘I know.’

‘Since we left Wicke Street.’

‘Do you think it’s time to find out who he is?’

‘He? Are you certain?’

‘Undoubtedly.’ I took Will’s arm and bundled him into a doorway.

For a moment, we could see nothing at all. The place stank like a sewer – indeed, it may well have been used as such for beneath our feet the ground was sticky and gave off a fearful stench. Our footsteps echoed off black walls, iridescent with moisture. I stopped. Will slithered to a halt beside me. His face was visible in the darkness like a painted mask, his features set into an expression of such mingled alarm and disgust that I almost laughed. Behind us, further up the passage and somewhere out of sight, there came the sound of grunting and rustling.

We stood, side by side, just beyond the reach of the light at the passage entrance. All at once a shadow appeared. For a moment it stood there, outlined against the light, a tall hooded figure. And then it was gone.

‘Quickly!’ I bounded back towards the main thoroughfare, my feet skittering on the muddy cobbles. He couldn’t have gone far. I sprang over the fly-blown corpse of a dead tom-cat and plunged down the street.

‘Where is he?’ Will was at my side. ‘Where did he go?’

‘Look!’ I pointed. Moving swiftly along in the deep shadows on the north side of the street, a cloaked figure was gliding away from us.

I tore after him, Will close behind. Clouds of furious flies rose about us. ‘Faster!’ I said. ‘We mustn’t lose him!’

We were heading into unfamiliar territory now, moving further away from the reassuring noise of St Saviour’s Street and deep into the twisting maze of slums. Even Dr Bain, with all his familiarity with the area, his fearlessness and audacity, had not ventured down these streets. Would we be able to find our way out again? The figure ahead had a long and confident stride. Behind me, I could hear Will panting.

‘Jem,’ he said. ‘D’you know where we are going? D’you know the way back? Jem!’ He sounded worried and afraid. I knew he would follow me wherever I went, that he would not let me head off alone into such evil streets, no matter how anxious he was. But I would not ask that much of him. I would not have to – we were sure to catch the man at any moment. I ran faster, my arms pumping.

Ahead of us, the street narrowed, the houses on either side tall and black, leaning towards one another as if eventually, one day, they would slump together, and the thin strip of sky would be blotted out completely.

‘Come on!’ I cried. ‘We almost have him!’

Our quarry turned right, sprinting up a flight of steps and beneath a crumbling archway of blackened bricks. I followed, heading deeper into that dark, uncharted labyrinth of streets and courts. All at once we emerged onto the crumbling edge of a narrow waterway, a filthy canal tributary, no wider than a barge. It was barricaded at one end by a giant wooden lock-gate, its sheer walls some twenty feet deep, brick-lined and coated with green and black slime. The filthy waters at its foot had a thick, lumpy texture, like boiled mince. Here and there the bloated flank of a dead animal broke the surface. The smell was intolerable.

Hardly visible in the shadows, the cloaked figure raced along the slippery stones of the canal bank, heading towards a single narrow plank that traversed the chasm in a makeshift bridge. He dashed across, and plunged towards the warren of tenements on the opposite bank. And yet if we were quick, if we ran that bit faster – I bounded after him. The plank bridge was barely wider than the sole of my boot. I felt it bow beneath my weight, but I did not hesitate and was across in an instant.

Behind me, I heard Will cry out. I muttered a curse and turned to urge him on. If he could just keep up—

Will was standing, motionless, in the centre of the slimy plank. His arms were outstretched, his knees bent, his gaze fixed in terror on the stretch of brown water some twenty feet below. ‘Jem!’ he screamed, his arms windmilling. I stopped. Up ahead, the figure in the cloak stopped too, and looked back. For a moment, he stood there, watching us, his face hidden in the shadows. He knew, as I did, that the chase was over. Who was he? I
had
to know. I took a step towards him.

‘Jem!’ Will screamed again. I could see the plank rocking beneath his feet, no more than two inches of rotten wood balanced on the lip of the canal-side. When I looked back, our quarry had vanished. We had lost the game – for the moment, at least.

I stood on the great stone slabs at the edge of the canal and held out my hand, trying not to look down at that yawning pit and the ribbon of effluent at its foot. ‘Take my hand, Will,’ I said. ‘Two steps and you’ll be safe.’

‘I can’t,’ whispered Will. The plank rocked violently as his knees trembled. ‘I can’t move.’

‘Stop looking down,’ I said. ‘Looking down makes it worse.’ He looked up at me. His face was frozen in terror, his eyes staring, his breathing shallow. I held out my hand. ‘Now,’ I said, gently this time. ‘Just walk forward. Two steps.’

And then I realised that he was not looking at me at all. Instead, he was looking at something over my shoulder.

Behind me, where the buildings throttled the street into a narrow passageway, two dark figures had appeared. They were short, wiry men with dirty caps and ragged greasy coats. Between them, a scrofulous, one-eyed dog bristled and growled. One of them pulled an iron bar from behind his back and held it like a cudgel in his hand. The other swung his arms, ape-like.

I turned back to Will, still poised and trembling on that rotten plank above the stinking stretch of effluent. ‘Go back,’ I said. ‘I’ll follow.’

‘Go back?’ cried Will. He was looking down again now, trying to turn, slowly inching his feet around. The slimy wood beneath his feet bowed and rocked as he moved. His arms flailed. All at once he was crouching down, holding onto the rotten timber with both hands. ‘I can’t!’ he screamed. ‘I can’t move.’

‘Will,’ I said. ‘You have to.’ The dog was barking now, the men coming closer. They might kill us and rob us and fling our bodies into the canal and no one would ever know. I took one look at them, and stepped onto the plank.

‘You have to move, Will,’ I said. I tried to sound calm, as though we were merely standing on a pavement having a conversation. ‘Stand up. Keep your eyes on the other bank, and walk over to it.’

What happened next is fixed in my mind like a series of random photographs. I can remember Will’s terrified face, and the yawning pit at our feet. More clearly than anything, I can recall the strip of blue sky visible between the black, crooked rooftops, bright and hopeful, like a child’s ribbon fluttering overhead. I know there was movement – a footstep, a stumble – and then Will was across and I close behind him. And then I slipped, and the world dropped away beneath my feet.

I remember rushing air, a shriek, the clawing of hands as I fell . . . I flailed my arms, trying to grip something – anything – and then I was hanging there, my fingers scrabbling to hold on, my feet scraping impotently against the slimy bricks of the canal wall. The smell of shit and decay was all about me, the metallic taste of blood on my lips was the taste of fear. I dangled there, clinging to an iron ring fixed into the canal-side, my legs kicking, the air about me echoing with the bark of a dog and the shouts of men. I looked down. Beneath me, far below, the plank was already sinking out of sight beneath the reeking brown sludge. I heard screaming, and with the ragged pain in my throat realised it was my own voice. And then Will was gripping my hand, his fingers clamped about my wrist as he hauled me upward.

We lay there for a moment, side by side on the greasy refuse-strewn paving slabs beside the canal. I could taste blood from where I had bitten my own tongue. My arm felt as though it had been almost torn from its roots, my knuckles were bloody where I had grazed them, and my coat was smeared all over with black slime. Will’s arms were around me, his grip still tight as though he feared I might slip out of it. I could hear his heart racing, thudding wildly against his ribs in counterpoint to my own. But we were in no place to linger. We had run deep into the rookeries and I hoped we could find our way back out again. Without a word to one another, we got to our feet and began to retrace our steps. To the left, I heard a low whistle. Up ahead, another answered. I looked back. The two men and the hideous dog had walked along the canal and were making their way across the lock-gates at its head. They would soon be upon us, and from the sound of it there were others just like them lurking all around.

‘Keep walking,’ I hissed.

‘Look!’ Will bent down. He plucked something from the thick layer of slimy refuse that covered the ground, and held it up.

‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Did he drop it? The man we were following?’

‘He must have,’ said Will. ‘It’s clearly been on the ground for only a moment.’

‘What is it?’ I said again. I could not make it out. ‘Let me see.’

Will didn’t answer. He looked at me strangely, and then held out his hand. On his palm was a small piece of lump sugar.