Dodger (14 page)

He didn’t like this place. He hadn’t liked having to spend some time in that rattling coach with a blindfold over his eyes and a man with a foreign accent sitting opposite him who had threatened to do him a mischief if he tried to take it off. He didn’t
like
working for men with foreign accents, when it came down to it. Not to be trusted. Not like doing business with a good, honest, God-fearing Englishman – Sharp Bob knew how to deal with
them
. He didn’t like the way the journey here had been all around the houses either, doubling back and constantly changing direction like a thief on the run. Nor did he like the fact that after this interview he would have to go through the whole business again.

This place was plush – that was certain; it even smelled plush. Occasionally people walked past behind him and that made him angry too, because he dared not turn his head. Creepy stuff. He had been here for ten minutes, waiting for whoever it was who had just walked silently over to a chair on the other side of the flames – a fact he knew only because the padded leather chair had complained with that little farting noise that only the very best padded leather chairs gave off when sat upon. Sharp Bob knew a good chair when he heard it, for he had been in the houses of the mighty before, though not on business such as this.

Now there was a stirring, and the someone behind the flames who was anxious not to be seen was about to talk. At this point Sharp Bob realized that the really anxious one was himself, and he had a terrible premonition that he would sooner or later have to pass water.

He nearly did when the hidden voice said: ‘Also, Mister Sharp Robert, I believe you told us that your men would have no difficulty in dealing with one simple girl. And yet, my friend, it would appear that she has twice escaped you and you were only able to catch her once. This does not, I am sure you will not blame me for pointing out, appear to be a very good record, wouldn’t you say?’

There was something in the voice which disturbed Sharp Bob.
It
was English, but not quite English; as if a foreigner had learned English absolutely perfectly, but hadn’t been able to include all the little usages that a native-born speaker would have picked up. In fact, as English, it was too good. Too perfect. Lacking the slurs and imperfections that the native users sprinkled on their conversations. He sat in his puddle of darkness – and fortunately nothing else at the moment – and said, ‘Well, sir, we expected a girl, but that lady had a punch on her that knocked out one of my boys. And one of them’s been in the ring, sir! She was fast and clever, sir, fighting like anything, and you did say that you wanted her back and on the boat in one piece. Unfortunately my boys, quite frankly, sir, also wanted to get home in one piece. They say there never was a girl like that who kicked and spat and punched like a good ’un, and I’ve got one lad now who walks funny and is sporting a black eye, and another who had two of his fingers torn off. I mean, the first time she took us by surprise, but that time she just ran and they got her back in and tied down in your coach. Of course, after that we were too late for the boat, which is why we were bringing her back to you.’

Sharp Bob was feeling on very shaky ground at the moment because, after all, it had hardly been his fault.

‘Just as I told your colleague earlier, sir,’ he went on, ‘everything would have been all right on the second try, but she kicked the door out and jumped off in the middle of that terrible thunderstorm. Your coachman couldn’t stop the horses, sir, not in that rain. Very unusual circumstances. Difficult to predict.’

In the silence there was the sound of a page turning and a voice said, ‘And apparently, Mister Sharp Robert, a person called’ – the pages rustled – ‘Dodger actually wounded your two men, very
nearly
drowning one in a gutter. It seems to me that we should perhaps have employed him instead.’

The man who liked to think of himself as Sharp Bob but wasn’t feeling all that sharp right now said, ‘I can still be of some help, sir, bearing in mind that you already owe me quite a lot for having tracked her down in the first place. I believe you have had my bill for that for some time . . .?’

The speaker ignored the latter part of this statement, saying instead, ‘I would like to assume that you have some news pertaining to this little difficulty. I understand there was something further about this troublemaker? Do be so kind as to enlighten me, will you?’

Sharp Bob said, ‘He has been asking around, sir, and being very what you might call methodical about it, sir.’

Sharp Bob was satisfied with ‘methodical’ as a description, but not pleased when the voice said, unnecessarily sharply in his opinion, ‘Good heavens, man, surely you can use your own initiative, can you not?’

Sharp Bob knew what an initiative was, but right now he was certain he hadn’t got one. Hopefully he said, ‘The body asking the questions ain’t just any nobody, if you get my drift; he’s got
contacts
on the street, which makes things a little more difficult.’

The voice sounded angry, and that did not sit well with Sharp Bob’s bladder. Things got no better when, out of the dark, the voice came back with, ‘Is he working for a policeman . . . what you call, I believe, a peeler?’

A peeler! What a word to use to a troubled gentleman of fortune. The bloody, bloody peelers. You couldn’t bribe them, you couldn’t make friends with them – not like the old Bow Street runners – and mostly the new boys were war veterans. If you had
been
in some of the wars lately and come back with all your bits still attached to your body, then that meant you were either a hard man or very, very lucky. Bloody Mister Peel had sent them scurrying about like busybodies and no mistake, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer, and mostly they wouldn’t take any answer at all from anyone unless it was: ‘It’s a fair cop, I’ll come quietly, sir.’ You cried uncle, you cried aunt, you cried your eyes out the moment you fell foul of the peelers, and the bleeders wouldn’t even help you put them back, and they drank like fish and roared like the Devil, and weren’t friends with anybody – and that, amazingly, included the nobs. It
certainly
included those on the fringes of the legal business, like himself, who had relied on the old Bow Street boys who were, well . . . understanding, especially when money jingled.

What could you do with men like the peelers, who respected nobody except Sir Robert Peel himself? The very thought of them was just another problem for Sharp Bob’s bladder to cope with. A certain amount of fear trickled down his leg as he said carefully, ‘No, sir, not for the peelers, sir. He’s a bloke, sir, although he is really more of a geezer, sir, if you catch my meaning?’

This led to a frosty silence, which was followed by, ‘I do not intend to catch anything of yours, Mister Bob. What is a geezer?’ The word was said as if the speaker was pulling a dead mouse out of their soup, or more accurately, half a dead mouse.

Sharp Bob, who in these circumstances now realized that only half his name was accurate, was struggling now. Didn’t everybody know what a geezer was? Of course they did! Well, every Londoner did, anyway. A geezer was . . . well, a geezer! It was like asking: What is a pint of beer? Or, What is the sun? A geezer was a geezer; although it did occur to Bob that he would have
to
do some work on the definition before he answered the dangerous voice in the darkness.

He cleared his throat again and said, ‘A geezer, now, well, a geezer is somebody that everybody knows, and he knows everybody, and maybe he knows something about everyone he knows that maybe you wished he didn’t know. Um, and well, he’s sharp, crafty, um, not exactly a thief but somehow things find their way into his hands. Doesn’t mind a bit of mischief, and wears the street like an overcoat. Dodger now . . . well, Dodger’s a tosher as well, which means he knows what’s going on down in the sewers too – a tosher, sir, being somebody who goes down there looking for coins and suchlike which may have been lost down the drain.’ This mention of drains seemed to make Sharp Bob somewhat more uneasy as he continued to move uncomfortably and added, ‘What I’m meaning to say, sir, is that he is a central kind of cove, you might say – makes the place a bit more interesting, if you know what I mean? And he’s been seen mixing with some nobby types recently.’

Sweating hard and still squirming on his seat, Sharp Bob awaited judgement. Above the frantic beating of his heart he thought he could hear faint whispering beyond the wall of fire. So there was more than one person in the room with him! He squirmed even more – this was not going well.

Eventually, the voice said, ‘We do not have any interest in interesting people; they can be dangerous. However, if this Dodger is asking questions about the girl then he might either find her, or know where she is now, and so therefore I require you to make certain that he is watched at all times, do you understand? And, of course, it goes without saying that there should be no way that he can know that he is being spied on. Do I make
myself
clear, Mister Robert? Because I generally do. This is a very delicate matter, and we will be
extremely
disappointed should matters not be brought to a happy ending. I don’t intend to expand here, but I’m sure you will understand what an ultimate failure ultimately entails. We want that girl, Mister Bob. We want her back.

‘Incidentally, Mister Bob, one of my associates will now take you gently by the arm and lead you to a place where you can, as it were, find some relief. You may take the sovereigns as a token of good faith and we rely on you to deserve them.’

A foreigner’s gold, Sharp Bob thought, was as good as anyone else’s, but you could get into trouble with foreigners, and he would be glad when all this was over.

After taking up the sovereigns and being allowed the blessed relief of the jakes, Sharp Bob was bundled back into the wretched coach, which by the feel of it trundled him all around London again before he was rather rudely pushed out close to his office, his mind busy with what he knew about the lad called Dodger.

One of the invisible gentlemen who had been sitting in the dark leaned down and, switching to his native tongue, said to the interlocutor, ‘Are you
quite
sure about this man, sir? After all, we
could
get the Outlander? I have made enquiries and he is free at the moment.’

‘No. The Outlander is sometimes very messy, dangerous; it might become . . . political, if it was known that we had called him in. We would prefer to avoid causing an . . . incident. No, the Outlander is the last resort. I have heard about what he did to the family of the Greek ambassador – it was entirely uncalled for. I won’t dream of sending for the likes of him until every other avenue has been fruitless. If this troublemaker persists in his
trouble
-making, or brings others into the affair . . . well, then, we may need to reconsider. For now, however, let us continue to use this Mister Robert Sharp. It surely can’t be all that difficult, can it, for him to find a girl for us? To follow a grubby little guttersnipe? We can always get rid of him later if he becomes an . . . embarrassment.’

CHAPTER 7

Dodger gets a close shave and becomes a hero (again!); Charlie gets a story – and a pair of ruined trousers

DODGER GOT BACK
home and cleaned his face and hands while Solomon dished up the pork casserole; Solomon never said much about his time wandering around other countries, but he had certainly learned cookery on the journey, using spices and herbs that Dodger had never heard of.

Dodger had once asked Solomon why he had chosen to come to England, and Solomon had said, ‘Mmm, well, my dear, it seems to me that in the pinch most governments settle for shooting their people, but in England they have to ask permission first. Also, people don’t much mind what you’re doing as long as you’re not making too much noise. Mmm, I like that in this country.’ He had paused. ‘Once, when I was running away, as usual, I recall I met a rather hairy
young
man who told me that one day all that sort of thing would be swept away. We were hiding from Cossacks at the time. Occasionally, I mmm wonder what happened to young Karl . . .’

After the meal, which was delicious, Solomon and Dodger took Onan for his walk while the sun chased the horizon. It was an education to see Solomon locking up. The steps to the attic were narrow and rickety, just like the rest of this place and more or less like everywhere else, but it was when you got inside the attic you noticed the differences – the steel reinforcement around the door, the lock that looked simple but was very complicated indeed, having been made by Solomon himself. It would have taken a small army to break in, and Dodger himself even had to give a special knock before Solomon would open his door. He had asked Solomon why he went to all this trouble, and the old man had said ‘A lesson learned, my friend,’ and left it at that.