One Penny Surprise (Saved By Desire 1) (11 page)

“Taking something that’s not yours, are you?” he growled as he lifted the boys hand that was still clutching the fob-watch chain. He turned to look at the chain that dangled from the grubby fingers and sighed deeply.

“Get off me. You can’t do this,” the boy protested. He wriggled and squirmed as he tried to kick Luke hard on the shins but was no match for Luke’s towering strength. Rather than gaining his freedom he merely found himself lifted higher off the ground until he began to grow fearful of how high off the ground he was.

“Call off your friends or I swear I shall have you in front of the magistrate before you can blink.” He glanced over the boy’s shoulder and watched the barrow man realise some of his fruit had been lifted. The accusatory gaze he landed on the urchins warned Luke that he had a few minutes alone before the trader would come looking for compensation in one form or another. The last thing he needed right now was a distraction of any kind and motioned to Barnaby to deal with the man before they were interrupted.

“Drop it.” He snarled, but yanked his chain out of the young boy’s hands before the youngster could release it. 

“Ready?” Marcus asked as he hauled the young girl around to stand beside them.

“What? ‘Ere put me down. I ain’t ready for nothin’,” the boy protested, and redoubled his efforts to secure his release. 

“Oh, yes, I think we are ready,” Luke declared casually as he eyed the young boy dangling from his hand. Now that he had seen him up close, he suspected that the lad was more likely to be fourteen or fifteen. In spite of his age, there was wisdom in his eyes that bespoke of someone who had seen the hardships life could offer, and didn’t expect them to get any better.

“Get off me. I’ll scream I will,” the boy protested.

“Please do. I will make it known to everyone that you have just stolen my pocket watch,” Luke reasoned. “Now, who do you think they are going to believe? A small, grotty thief who has been caught red-handed with something he couldn’t possibly afford to purchase himself, and the barrow man’s apples stuffed in his pockets, or me, a dapper gentleman walking down the street minding his own business? Now, let me think. If I take you to the magistrate you would get lashings and at least twelve months in prison. It is more than enough for someone like you to learn the folly of your crimes, or maybe not.”

The boy’s eyes flashed defiantly but his struggles eventually slowed to a stop and he slumped somewhat dejectedly in his hand.

“Take me to the magistrate then, but let her go. She ain’t done nothin’ to you,” the boy bargained. He nodded toward the young girl Marcus held.

Luke was already shaking his head. “Oh, I think she is your accomplice. Now, I may be wrong, but seeing as I was the one who saw you in the park accosting that woman the other day with at least four of your friends, I think it is safe to say that you are not working by yourself. However, you two will be sufficient for our purposes.”

While the boy and girl looked warily at each other, neither of them spoke.

Both Marcus and Luke braced themselves when a group of at least six other urchins suddenly raced into the end of the street. They slammed to a stop as soon as they realised the predicament their friends were in and looked at each other doubtfully.

Sensing trouble was brewing, and their captive’s help had just arrived, Luke and Marcus wasted no time ushering the children aboard the carriage Barnaby drew to a stop beside them.

Once inside, Luke slammed the door closed but kept one leg across the door while they rode through the streets to a considerably quieter area.

The carriage the Star Elite had chosen was about as nondescript as any they could find and was identical to hundreds currently used by people from all walks of life. Even the horse they had chosen had been selected for having no distinguishing features like odd socks, patches, or anything. That gave them the ability to melt into the traffic, and they stood a better chance of getting lost amongst the crowd. It worked too. The carriage now wove in and out of the traffic with such speed that the pedestrians giving chase couldn’t keep up. Within minutes, they had disappeared to the leafy suburbs without issue.

“Where are we?” The boy demanded once the carriage had rumbled to a stop. When neither Luke nor Marcus told him, he tried unsuccessfully to peer out of the blacked-out windows before he slumped back against the seat with an audible huff.

Rather than answer, Luke dug around under the seat and removed the basket that had been placed there earlier. He heard the young girl gasp when he lifted the lid to reveal an array of food that would whet the appetite of even the most distinguished aristocrat.

“Want some?” he asked blithely. Before either child could refuse he threw a small pie toward the young lad and then tossed another to the girl. He had barely sat back before both children were stuffing their faces avariciously. With his cheeks full, the boy eyed the basket on the floor hungrily. Without even giving Luke or Marcus a second look, he immediately snatched at the bread lying on the top of the pile, and stuffed as much as he could into his mouth before he tore the rest in half and rammed it into his pockets. He had barely swallowed the bread before he began to bite hungrily into the meat pie at the same time that he began to put fruit into his other pocket.

“Let us go,” he mumbled, oblivious to the fact that he was spitting food everywhere. He hunkered protectively over his food as he spoke as if to warn the men that if they carried him out of there they would have to let him take the food with him. Neither man had any intention of taking the children anywhere though. They would discuss just how disturbed they were by the actions of the clearly starved children once they were alone. Right now they needed answers, and these children were able to provide them, Luke was sure of it. If they needed to ease their hunger to become more malleable then the relatively small price of the food was worth it.

“You have tried to steal from me,” Luke murmured as he watched more and more food disappear with astonishing speed. “Why should I let you go?”

“More importantly than that,” Marcus reasoned slyly. “I want to know why we should feed you. You are tucking into food you haven’t paid for.” He watched both children pause momentarily before they shared a worried look. The boy swallowed his mouthful of food and looked warily at Luke.

“I ain’t stolen it. You gave it to us,” he challenged. He looked down at the pie in his hand as though it was a snake about to strike him, then shrugged and bit into it again. It was clear he was going to consume it all to hide the evidence so to speak.

Luke merely nodded thoughtfully. “Looks like you needed it too,” he drawled with a sigh. While the girl was no less ferocious with her attitude toward the food, she was at least looking at them warily rather than being completely focused on the food like the boy was.

“What do you want with us?” she asked with a frown. She began to pick absently at the pie in her hand. “Why
are
you feeding us? We tried to steal from you.”

“Shut up,” the boy warned her. When he thumped her she immediately thumped him back and aimed a well-placed kick at his shins which she accompanied with a dark glare.

“Don’t you tell me to shut up you oaf. Look what mess you have got us in to.”

Sensing trouble was about to start, Luke leaned forward in his seat and coughed meaningfully. “If you two can keep your hands and your feet to yourselves, keep eating. I need to ask you some questions. Then you can be on your way.”

The boy and girl looked at each other in confusion before they turned to scowl at Luke and Marcus. 

“Questions about what?” the boy asked.

He frowned at them in a way that warned Luke they weren’t going to be easy to get information out of in spite of the food in their hands. Luke had an ace up his sleeve though and gave them a few moments to finish their pies and empty their mouths before he began to ask them what he really wanted to know.

“You were both in the park the other morning.” Luke held his hand up when the boy took a breath to argue. “Don’t lie to me. If there is one thing I won’t stand for it is lying. Tell me the truth. You are not going to get into trouble. Trouble already happened by the time you arrived. I just need to know what you saw that morning.”

“What trouble happened by the time we arrived?”

“Murder,” Luke replied.

The word fell into the silence of the carriage, the echoes of which hovered over everyone and heightened the tension to breaking point. Allowing the change in atmosphere to register on the children, Luke leaned back in his seat and waited.

“We ain’t killed no-one,” the girl protested.

“I know, I never said you did,” Luke replied smoothly. “But I think you may have seen something important in the park yet don’t realise it; something that is important to us, and the dead man.”

The boy snorted. “How can it be important to the dead man? He is dead!”

“He has a family,” Luke reasoned. “It is important to the dead man’s family.”

“Why should we help you?” the boy asked curiously.

“You will go to the magistrate to face trial for stealing if you don’t,” Marcus growled in a voice that was laden with menace.

“You kidnapped us off the street,” the girl argued. “That’s illegal.”

“So, who do you think the magistrate is going to believe? Two thieves, or two grown up and well-to-do men with connections in high places?” Luke challenged.

Neither child answered.

“What do you want to know?” the boy asked sulkily after several moments of silence during which he studied the door and considered his chances of escaping without being caught.

“What do you want to know?” The girl echoed as she brushed crumbs off her fingers and folded her arms.

Luke sighed. “I want you to think carefully about that morning I chased you across the park. Did you see anyone else apart from me and the young woman I was with? You must have been there for a while, waiting for someone to happen by. Was there anyone else there?”

The boy and girl looked at each other. The boy shrugged. “There was a man in the trees.”

“What was he doing?” Luke tried to keep his voice calm and steady but was bristling with impatience when the boy appeared to have lost interest and focused on the remainder of the food instead.

“He was standing in the trees,” the girl added. “We thought he was taking a pee.”

“Was he?” Marcus asked carefully.

The girl grinned. “I dunno. I didn’t see.”

“Was he by himself?”

“I didn’t see no-one else there,” the boy replied. He glanced at the girl who shook her head.

“What’s your name?” Luke countered. He suspected that if he wanted to get any answers, he needed to focus on the girl who appeared to be the more easy-going of the two.

“Why?”

“I can’t keep calling you ‘girl’ while you are here, now can I?” He flicked a glance at Marcus. “My name is John. That’s Edward.”

Neither child spoke.

“So, what do we call you?”

“Boy and girl will do,” the boy mumbled around another mouthful of bread he had snatched out of the top of the basket.

Luke closed the basket lid meaningfully, breaking the boy’s avaricious gaze away from the remaining contents in the hope that he would focus on the discussion rather than his stomach.

“Fine, then the magistrate will have to prise your names out of you otherwise you will have to be tried as ‘boy’ and ‘girl’, but you will still be sentenced. You will still receive lashings and still have to remain in jail until you remember your real names. Then you will have to serve extra time for obstructing the magistrate in his duties.”

Luke pretended to lose interest and sat back in his seat to stare at his boots. Once the children had finished their food they studied Luke as though they expected him to tell them what to do next. When Luke didn’t appear to even be aware of them, they turned their attention to Marcus.

The silent interplay between the boy and girl was telling, and indicated that they were either really good friends, or relations. Either way, they knew each other well enough to share a look and understand what they needed to do, or say. Luke allowed them a few moments to decide whether they were going to comply or not. Thankfully, they seemed to realise the seriousness of their situation because the girl shrugged and turned her attention back to Luke.

“We saw a man standing in the trees but he was just waiting and watching. We don’t know why. He looked as though he was waiting for someone. We thought it was another pick-pocket working our patch.”

“He wasn’t with you?”

The boy shook his head. “No, but that’s our patch. If anyone should get that woman it’s us,” he declared somewhat proudly.

“So you saw me, the woman, and the hider in the woods?”

Both the boy and girl nodded.

“Did you see anyone else?”

They both shook their heads.

“Did you see the body in the river?” Luke kept the question as casual as possible but he knew he still scared the children and mentally apologised for it.

“There was a
body
in the river?” the boy gasped. He shared a horrified look with his colleague.

Luke nodded.

“Did the woman kill that man?” The girl demanded clearly enthralled by the notion.

“No!” Luke mentally winced when he realised he had all but shouted and shook his head. “No, she didn’t,” he replied more quietly.

“Did you notice anyone else near the river?” Marcus asked. He threw a cautious look at his colleague for his uncharacteristic outburst but didn’t raise the matter in front of the children.

The boy and girl looked at each other again before the boy shrugged. “I didn’t see anything other than the three of you. You chased us away before we got anything.”

“What about the other man?” Barnaby asked. “You saw him in the trees. Did he have any distinguishing features?”

“Eh?” The girl frowned at Luke as though he was talking a foreign language.

“Was he tall or short? Did he have brown hair or light? Was he fat or thin?” Luke expanded.

The boy studied Luke. “He was shorter than you but taller than ‘im.” He nodded toward Marcus. “Thin, like him but dressed in black. I didn’t see nothin’ else.”

“Did he have light hair?”

The boy shrugged, squinted a bit and stared off into the distance. “Nah. The man I saw had brown ‘air, a bit like ‘is.” Once again the boy nodded toward Marcus.

“And he was thinner?” Luke finished for him, thinking about the man he followed and lost in the street. From the description the children had given him they had all seen the same man. He watched the boy nod. “Did you go back to the park once I chased you off?”

The boy grinned. “You could’na keep up with us,” he chirruped proudly.

Luke shook his head and looked rueful. “Did you hear that God awful racket the woman was making? I had to go back and shut her up. You were lucky, boy.” He straightened a leg and pointed to it. “Mine are longer than yours. I can keep up with you and don’t you forget it.”

When the boy merely grinned unrepentantly and scoffed, Luke smiled back. The jocularity helped ease the children’s wariness, and he was relieved when they began to relax against the seat without even realising it. 

“What about the woman?” Although he kept his face impassive, Luke was aware of being tense as he waited for the children to answer. Suddenly, their reply mattered; more than anything else they could say. A frown marred his brow as he thought about that for a moment. It wasn’t like him to be so hung up on a woman. Just what was it about her that captivated him so?

“What about her?” The boy asked.

“She had a big bag and was dressed nice,” the girl added.

“She doesn’t work with you then?” Luke made the question sound as casual as possible.

“What ‘er? You ‘av to be jokin’,” the girl scoffed.

“So you targeted her?” It wasn’t a question.

The girl grinned unrepentantly. “There was nobody around to see.”

“She didn’t arrive with – say – the man then?”

“I dunno,” the girl shrugged. “I didn’t see her with anyone.”

“So she was alone all the time you saw her?”

“She was walking along the path before you,” the boy added. “I didn’t see her with anyone. Then you turned up.”

“What’s she done?” the girl asked curiously.

Luke sighed but chose not to answer. “Did you see anything untoward at all that morning? Anyone else milling around that area? Anything in the water, the lake, or any other part of the park?”

Over the next several minutes, Luke pushed and pushed for information but both children remained adamant that they hadn’t seen anything or anyone other than Luke and Poppy, and the watcher in the woods. Eventually he had little choice but to accept defeat and allowed the silence to settle over them for a few moments while he contemplated what to do. It irked him to just let them go back to their life of crime, but he could hardly keep them confined in the carriage, and taking them to the safe house left everyone vulnerable to discovery if the children were ‘employees’ of Sayers. If he had to let them go back out onto the streets and be at the mercy of their boss then he could at least give them a few sage words of caution, and do whatever was necessary to ease their predicament a little.

“So, why did you risk mugging me? I mean, my fob watch is really hard to pick given it is tucked into my waist coat. I am hardly likely to miss you tugging on it, now am I?” Luke drawled reasonably. He settled back in his seat to study them and watched the young boy puff his chest out proudly.

“I am the best pick-pocket in the whole of London,” he declared with youthful enthusiasm.

“Not good enough though, are you? I mean, I was on to you. You didn’t get the goods on this occasion. I kept them and got my hands on you.” He lifted his brows challengingly. “Your boss isn’t going to be too pleased when he realises you have not been earning for the last few hours either.” He let the boy think about that for a moment. “What will happen to you when you go back with your pockets empty?”

That was enough to wipe the smug, self-satisfied look off the young boy’s face.

“Going back without the goods will probably get you a beating, won’t it?” His eyes narrowed as he watched a sullen look appear on both children’s faces and knew that he was right.

“We need to get back,” the girl murmured suddenly, and threw a worried glance at the door.

“You will not go anywhere until I get some more information out of you,” Luke snapped suddenly. The atmospheric shift within the carriage swung from being calm and friendly to firm and threatening and made both children squirm in their seats warily.

“I may have work for you that will earn you a pretty penny. The extra money should keep your employer off your back, but will also bring you a bit extra to take home, or keep for yourselves. But, I need to know where I can meet you safely. I can’t keep picking you off the streets. If your boss finds out you will get into trouble so this arrangement has to remain between us. I don’t want your boss knowing about our little meeting today either. He won’t be very pleased, you see?”

“What do you want us to do for you?”

“Do you want us to lift for you?” The boy asked with a frown at the girl.

“No, I do not need you to lift for me. Given your questionable skills I think I can do a considerably better job than you. No. I need you to be our eyes and ears on the streets. First of all I need that man; the one who was hiding in the trees in the park. I need you to keep your ear to the ground and find out who he is and where he comes from. He is in that area somewhere. I think he may live nearby. He certainly knows the streets well.” Luke leaned forward in his seat. “More importantly, I want that woman. I need to know where she disappeared to. Where she lives is important to us because, aside from you, she was the only other person in that park the other morning. She may have witnessed the man’s murder, or seen his killer but just doesn’t realise it, or won’t talk about it.”

The boy suddenly grinned. “Is she yours?”

“No.” Luke shook his head firmly. “We just need to ask her some questions.”

Marcus leaned forward. “Don’t forget that there was a body in that park on the morning you tried to rob her. You were there. The killer was still there too. Needless to say, you need to watch your backs in that park and around those parts. Don’t hang around in that park too long and certainly don’t go there after dark. It’s not safe. He may have seen you watching him.”

“Who was it?” The girl demanded, then hesitated and wafted her hand about. “The dead man?”

“We don’t know yet. The magistrate is working on it. It’s not important right now. Who was in that park alive is.”

“It weren’t us who killed ‘im,” the boy declared flatly, somewhat panicked at the possibility that he was going to get blamed for something he didn’t do.

“I never said it was,” Luke countered. “Do you work in the park often?”

The children shrugged. “Sometimes but only early in the morning, and late in the evening. We mainly stick to the streets.”

“Right, well, where do you call base? If I need to find you, where is best to wait for you, or leave a message for you?”

The boy considered that for a moment then shrugged. He didn’t have any objection to the girl telling them and remained quiet while she spoke.

“The old shoe shop by the bridge in Camden. Someone is there all the time. Leave a message with Leo. He will get it to us,” the girl replied.

“Who are you?” the boy piped up, eyeing Luke’s clothing suspiciously. “Do you work for the magistrate? I don’t want no links with ‘im,” he protested loudly.