The Lights of London (29 page)

‘Well, would you mind hurrying up about it?’ grumbled the driver, who wasn’t all that thrilled to have his vehicle within missile-throwing distance of the
gangs. Not that he expected
gentlemen
like these three to be bothered by his opinion.

He was right. The men took no notice of him.

‘Respectable England has no place here,’ Hunton went on, as he looked along towards the Minories, the road that led to the safety of the City and beyond, terrified that he might come face to face with the crowds who were making such blood-curdling noises. ‘You know why they’re so ugly and deformed, I suppose?’ Now he was gibbering. ‘I was reading a paper in one of the journals just the other day and …’

Tressing didn’t look at him, but simply asked, ‘You consider them ugly, do you?’

‘Yes, I do. Of course. According to the author of the monograph, the one I was reading, it is the result of them coupling with their own children. They all do it, you know.’

Tressing turned slowly to face him. ‘And you think such behaviour wrong?’

Hunton’s monocle popped out of his eye, and bounced up and down on its cord against his chest. ‘Of course I do!’

Tressing said nothing, he merely raised his top hat, turned on his heel and walked determinedly towards Rosemary Lane, leaving the two men standing by the cab, apparently not caring that he would have to negotiate his way through the crowds they could all clearly hear, if not see.

‘He’s behaving strangely, you know,’ Hunton said with a shake of his head.

‘Strangely?’ muttered the driver to himself. ‘Barmy, more like.’

‘Not that I know him as well as you, Mayerton. Although I’d heard a lot about him at the hospital, of course, but I only actually became acquainted with him
when I approached him about joining his Eastern Occultist Study Circle.’

Lucian considered his words for a moment, then said, ‘They have some interesting parties, so I’ve heard.’

‘I don’t know about that, old fellow,’ Hunton said hurriedly, screwing his monocle back in. ‘I simply expressed a healthy interest in taking part in an improving pastime, studying ancient philosophy and so on, as I believe it to be a fascinating amusement, a diversion, something to occupy the long evenings when Lavinia is in the country.’

Mayerton smirked knowingly. ‘Of course it is, old fellow. Maybe the next time Marjorie is in the country I should come along for a bit of studying myself.’

Embarrassed, Hunton merely grunted in reply.

Mayerton lit a cigarette, took a long slow draw and smiled thoughtfully into the darkness. ‘I can’t help wondering what goes on in that mind of his, you know.’

‘I agree. He’s brilliant, of course, no question of that. But his enthusiasm at times makes him seem quite …’

‘Mad?’

‘I never said …’

‘You didn’t need to. I’ve known him for years and I can tell you he’s becoming gradually more eccentric by the day. He suffered, of course, when he lost his family. But the opium pipe and the morphine needle have become rather too good friends to him, if you understand me.’

‘A temptation for all too many in our profession I fear.’

‘But not all of us succumb,’ Mayerton said disdainfully.

‘No, no, of course not. Of course not.’

Throwing his almost unsmoked cigarette to the ground, Mayerton opened the cab door. ‘Come on,
Hunton, let’s be off. I feel a bit too much like a target at the best of times when I walk past these alleys. No point tempting fate, eh?’

Mayerton hauled himself up, with the immensely relieved Hunton following fast on his heels. ‘St James’s, driver,’ he said up into the hatch. ‘And don’t take too long about it.’

With a click of the driver’s tongue and a jingle of harness, the hansom pulled away.

‘Won’t Tressing mind us going off and leaving him alone like this?’ asked Hunton, unable to disguise the relief in his voice. ‘It feels quite awfully dangerous out there.’

Mayerton rested his head against the studded leather interior and smiled knowingly to himself. ‘Nothing scares Tressing, old boy.’

Ten minutes later Tressing was rapping on the door of the Old Black Dog with the end of his walking cane, apparently oblivious of the jeering crowds that were circling him menacingly. He felt the sharp whack of a rock hitting his shoulder and calmly turned round to face his assailant. As he did so, he slowly and deliberately drew the handle of his stick from the main shaft of his cane, exposing a long, thin stiletto blade.

His attacker, a lad who had moments before been so brave, was, like most bullies, a coward when confronted. He reeled back with a muttered insult regarding Tressing’s sexuality and disappeared into the fold of the now howling mob.

With the slightest of sneers, Tressing returned to the task of making himself heard.

After what seemed to him an annoyingly long time, Jack eventually opened the door and took the doctor firmly by the arm. ‘Quick, inside.’

Tressing, amused by the man’s obvious concern for him, but not very happy with the informality of being dragged in, looked down his nose at Jack. ‘Thank you so much for your concern, Mr Fisher,’ he said, brushing at his sleeve, ‘but I assure you I do not allow hooligans to worry me. What does bother me, however, is that I have invested in your theatre, but I see there is no show this evening. I must say I am disappointed.’

‘There’s been trouble, Dr Tressing.’

The doctor’s brow pleated into a disbelieving frown. ‘If you consider this slight disturbance to be trouble …’

Jack, coming from a long line of mine workers who prided themselves on their manhood, felt wrong-footed by this toff impugning his courage. He felt his throat flush scarlet. Damn it, he was blushing. He cursed his redhead’s colouring, as he tried to think how he could restore his reputation with this strangely aggravating man.

The answer came to him almost immediately, one that would solve another problem into the bargain. ‘I’m not talking about those idiots out there,’ he said boldly. ‘I’m talking about a different kind of trouble. The girls are being threatened.’

Tressing’s frown deepened. He wasn’t a man who tolerated anybody interfering with his property. And as far as he was concerned his investment in the show meant that the girls were exactly that. ‘By whom?’

Jack considered his words. ‘Tibs’s previous employer.’

Tressing didn’t need any further explanation. ‘And what do you propose to do about him?’

Jack was thinking on his feet, but he was doing all right. ‘I wondered if you could put a few more pounds on the table. A bit extra, so I can pay for some muscle. We’ve got the young barman and Archie, of course, but as nice a feller as he is …’

‘Give me a few more details, then leave it to me. I’ll speak to some people I know.’ Tressing reached inside his beautifully cut topcoat – worn regardless of the evening’s increasingly sultry heat – and took out a silver case.

Despite the din coming from just the other side of the door he lit himself a cigarette and tossed the match to the floor with dismissively casual languor. ‘Well?’ he asked, blowing a stream of lavender smoke from his haughtily arched nostrils.

Jack flashed a wary look at the door as though it might shatter at any moment and let in the now doubtlessly alcohol-fuelled mob. They’d be capable of a sight more damage than a disgruntled audience. And then there was Marie to worry about. She was still stuck upstairs in his room. He could only hope she wasn’t thinking about going into the bar to find him. That was the last thing he wanted, especially as he’d been sure that when he’d gone into the street to fetch Kitty and the child he’d seen more than simple gratitude in her eyes.

‘I’m becoming bored, Mr Fisher.’

‘Let’s go upstairs and talk about it.’

‘No. Tell me now. I don’t like to wait around. If there’s a job to be done I like to get on with it.’

Jack’s eyes widened. ‘You’re planning on going back out there?’

Tressing snorted dismissively. ‘And why not?’

Jack shook his head. This man was crazier than he’d thought.

Upstairs, Kitty had given up looking out of the window. It was all too depressing to see the pleasure the gangs were taking in the simple, mindless destruction of whatever they could get their hands on – including each other. Although the men still seemed fascinated by it all
and were offering running commentaries, full of bluff and bravado.

‘I wish we could go next door, Tibs.’ Kitty sighed wearily. ‘I’ve had enough of all this. I’d like to climb into bed and pull the covers up over my head, go to sleep and forget all about it.’

‘I don’t think I’ll get much sleep tonight.’

‘I was forgetting all about poor Archie. I wonder how he’s getting on out there with young Flora.’

‘Kit, I want to ask you something.’

‘What?’

‘Look, what with Albert turning up and with all this bother, I’m that unsettled. It’s got me really worried. I’m gonna go and check on Polly tomorrow and I wondered if you’d come with me.’

‘You want
me
to go with you?’

‘If you don’t fancy going out on the streets, ’cos of the trouble …’

‘No. It’s not that. I’ll do whatever I can to help. It’s just that I thought you never liked anyone knowing where she was staying.’

Tibs took Kitty’s hand in hers. ‘Kit, you’re my friend and if anything ever happens to me I want someone I trust knowing where she is.’

Bartholomew Tressing was just passing the pedestrians’ entrance to St Katherine’s Dock, having suffered no more than verbal abuse as he had kept his sword stick drawn, when a woman stepped from out of the shadows of the gateway.

It was Lily Perkins.

He swiftly sheathed the blade and raised an enquiring eyebrow at her.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said, astonished by the luck of coming across a toff during a street riot. Although, it
had to be said, if she hadn’t needed the money so desperately she’d much rather have been getting her head down having a kip somewhere; her body was still screaming with pain from the beating that Albert had given her. ‘Fancy doing business with the only girl brave enough to work on the streets tonight? ’Cos that’s me. Game for anything I am, lover.’

Tressing looked her up and down. She was an addled mess: dirty and fat, and even though she was painted with so much powder and rouge that her wrinkled face and throat were clogged with the stuff he could still see that she was covered with bruises.

The idea of taking her amused him.

He seized her by the arm and jerked her towards him.

‘Here, you’re right excited, ain’t you, ducks? All this fighting got your blood up, has it?’ She smiled, showing stained and broken teeth. ‘I’ve met gentlemen like you before.’

Tressing narrowed his eyes and carefully placed his stick against the wall. ‘Not like me, you haven’t.’

‘Aw, I have, darling. Believe me. Take my friend, Albert, he likes a bit of rough stuff.’

‘How rough?’ His voice thick with lust, he put one hand to her throat, shoving her viciously against the unforgiving bricks, while he hurriedly dragged open his fly buttons with the other.

‘You’re hurting me,’ she complained half-heartedly, her mind more on the money she’d be getting than on the grip he had on her throat. But when her gaze dropped to his open fly, to see if she needed to give him a hand to hurry him along a bit, she couldn’t suppress a sneering giggle. ‘Is that the best you can do, darling? You ain’t gonna be very rough with a Johnson as limp as that, now are you?’

Had Lily not been so busy staring down at Tressing’s
flaccid penis and making comments about his inadequacy, she might have seen him snatching up his stick and drawing the sword from its shaft. But, what with the injuries she’d suffered during Albert’s attack, she probably wouldn’t have been able to get away from him anyway.

The sparrows were barely beginning to clear their throats when Tibs gently lifted the bedclothes, making sure she didn’t disturb Kitty, and got up.

They’d only been in bed a little while – since Archie and Jack had escorted them back to their room, once they were all satisfied that the rioters had packed it in for the night – but sleep was out of the question and she was far too agitated to lie there staring up at the cracks in the ceiling.

No matter how she tried she just couldn’t stop fretting about how far last night’s rioting might have spread and whether Polly had been in danger. Then there was the worry of what on earth use Jack and Archie would be in keeping Albert away from her, and then, from sheer desperation, she began to wonder if she shouldn’t just pack it all in, go and get her little girl, clear off somewhere where nobody knew them and just wait and see what happened next.

Unfortunately, she had a very good idea what would happen next: near starvation, then the workhouse.

She stepped into the dress that she’d tossed over the chair only a few hours before, twisted her thick blonde curls into a tight knot and pinned it neatly at the back of her neck.

She went to the wash-stand and splashed some water over her face, then stared unseeingly at her reflection in the glass.

Jack was physically strong enough to fight off a
woman-beating coward like Albert, Tibs had no doubt about that; and Archie, even with his bad arm, was a big man and could probably give him what for in a fair fight. The trouble was, Albert didn’t fight fairly. And Tibs really wasn’t convinced that either of them was any sort of match for his malevolent brand of cunning.

Checking that Kitty was still asleep, Tibs peered round a corner of the curtain and saw the beginnings of a beautiful summer’s day. But although the sun was rising in a clear, blue sky, it was shining down on a street littered not only with the usual steaming piles of horse shit, but with broken bottles and an assortment of other grim reminders of the mindless battles of the day before.

She sighed and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

A bit of fresh air and a cup of tea was what she needed. But first she’d see to the pretty young marmalade cat that Archie had got them to see off the rats.

At least that was one little girl she could take care of.

Out in the tiny yard at the back of the house Tibs took down one of the wooden skewers of cat’s meat from the hook outside the door, just about able to summon up enough energy to brush away the swarm of buzzing flies and bluebottles. The cat materialised as if by magic, winding itself round and round her legs, and purring like a clockwork toy.