A Christmas Odyssey Page 6

  They spent the greater part of the following night asking discreet questions of pimps, tavern-keepers, barmen, and other prostitutes. Again they bribed, flattered, and threatened. No one admitted to having seen Sadie, and it began to look more and more likely that she, and not Lucien, had been the victim. Unless there had been two corpses, and that was still unclear.

  Some time toward morning the four of them sat in the corner of a public house in an alley off St. Martin’s Lane, eating steak and kidney pudding with a thick suet crust and plenty of gravy. Outside the sleet was falling more heavily. Hailstones rattled on the window behind them. In the yellow circle of the lamplight on the pavement they could see the white drift of them filling the cracks between the cobbles.

  “Cor! Sadie were a blinder, eh?” Bessie said with growing respect at what they had learned of her. “That Shadow Man must be ready ter tear the throat out o’ ’ooever done ’er in.” She shivered. “I’m glad I in’t ’im. I reckon as ’e’s goin’ ter die ’orrible.”

  “I’m afraid you are right,” Henry agreed. “But if it is she who was killed, it is hard to have much pity for him. If he were caught he would most certainly be hanged.”

  Bessie looked at Henry with a sudden gentleness. “It’s a shame, ’cause Lucien were nice. I ’ope it weren’t ’im. But if it were, ’e’ll get worse, yer know. They always do.”

  “Yes, I imagine they do,” he conceded softly.

  Squeaky felt a sudden and overwhelming rage take hold of him. Damn Lucien Wentworth, and all the other idle, idiotic, self-absorbed young men who betrayed the love and privilege that was theirs and broke people’s hearts by throwing away their lives. They had been given far more than most people in the world, and they had destroyed it, smeared filth over it until there was nothing left. It was a kind of blasphemy. He saw that for the first time, and it overwhelmed him. The whole idea of anything being holy had never occurred to him before.

  “Do we agree that it is almost certainly Shadwell who owned her?” Crow asked, eating the very last of his pudding.

  “Accounts conflict,” Henry answered. “But at least some of the lies are clear enough to weed out. Shadwell seems to inspire a great deal of fear in people, which would suggest that he is the ultimate power in this particular world. Whoever is responsible for Sadie’s death will be running from him, and he will be pursuing them.” Without asking he refilled everyone’s glass with fresh ale.

  “But is it Lucien who killed her, or not?” Crow asked, directing his question at no one in particular.

  “We will take Bessie’s advice,” Henry asserted. “We will look for whoever else is seeking the killer, because Shadwell will need to have vengeance for her death, even if only to preserve his own status. His resources will be immeasurably better than ours.”

  Squeaky sighed, his mind searching for an excuse to end this futile chase. Whatever they discovered, it wasn’t going to be good. Either Lucien was dead, and in a way that his father would have nightmares about for the rest of his life, even if that wasn’t long, or else Lucien had murdered the woman who had apparently betrayed him, if you could use that word for such a creature. Only an idiot, or a man drugged out of his wits, would have trusted her anyway. Squeaky had known many women of that sort. He had bought and sold them himself, not so very long ago. Well, none as beautiful as Sadie seemed to have been, but women anyway, some of them pretty enough. But he wasn’t going to offer any advice on the subject because he would much rather Henry Rathbone didn’t know that. Or Crow either, for that matter.

  And if Lucien were still alive, then the situation was even worse. They’d have to lie. They could never tell his father about this. Better he think him dead.

  “You know …” he began. Then he looked at Henry’s face and realized he would be wasting his breath to argue.

  That evening they began to descend even deeper into the world of addiction and despair. The broad streets of the West End of London were glittering bright on the surface. They walked along Regent Street and into the Haymarket, passing theaters of the utmost sophistication. Bessie lagged behind, staring at the notices, the lights, the fashions. Several times Squeaky had to yank at her hand to drag her along.

  The lamps were lit, and the gleam off of them caught the pale drifts of snow, touching it with warmth.

  “Come on!” Squeaky said sharply, but Bessie was watching the carriages clattering up and down the center of the street, or swiveling around to look at people walking arm in arm, men with greatcoats on, women in capes trimmed with fur.

  They turned off Piccadilly into an alley, and within twenty yards there were fewer lights, and in the shadowed doorways prostitutes plied their trade, ignoring those huddled within feet of them, half asleep, sheltering from the icy wind and the sleet.

  Crow led the way down the steps from the pavement into a cellar, and through that into a deeper cellar. He began asking questions, discreetly at first, full of inventive lies.

  “Looking for my sister,” he explained, then described Sadie as well as he could, from other people’s words.

  A gaunt-eyed drunkard stared at him vacantly. “Don’t know, old boy. Won’t care,” he drawled. “Got anything fit to drink?”

  Crow passed by him, and Squeaky, still holding Bessie by the hand, spoke to a fat man with a face raddled and pockmarked with old disease.

  “Lookin’ fer a man who owes me money,” he said grimly, then described Lucien. “I don’t sell my women for nothing.”

  But the answer he received was equally useless.

  They wasted little more time there before going out the back into a half-enclosed courtyard, then down more steps into a subterranean passage leading toward the river. Here there were more rooms indulging darker tastes. Even Bessie seemed disturbed. Squeaky could feel her fingers digging into his flesh, gripping him as if he were her lifeline.

  Henry said nothing, perhaps too appalled to find words. They saw men and women, and those who might have been either, in obscene costumes, practicing torture and humiliation that belonged in nightmares.

  Bessie shivered and leaned her head against Squeaky’s shoulder.

  Patiently Squeaky described Sadie and was greeted with raucous laughter from a man with hectic energy as if fueled by cocaine. His limbs twitched, and he seemed to find it difficult to contain his impatience.

  “You too?” the man said, then laughed again.

  “Someone else looking for her?” Squeaky said immediately.

  “Yes! Oh yes! The long black hair, the beautiful eyes. Sadie—Sadie!”

  “Who?” Squeaky urged.

  Suddenly the man stood still, then he started to shiver.

  “Who?” Squeaky lowered his voice. “Tell me, or I’ll slit yer throat!”

  Henry drew in his breath to protest, then changed his mind.

  “Shadwell,” the man replied very softly. Then he swiveled around, pushed his way between two men sharing a bottle, and disappeared.

  Squeaky looked around at the vacant stares of the opium and laudanum addicts, the rambling half conversations of the drunkards, and gave up. He jerked his hand to direct them onward, and gripped Bessie more tightly as they followed a short, heavy man out into the alley.

  Squeaky saw these people now with deepening disgust precisely because he had seen them all before. He had just forgotten the sheer and useless misery. Suddenly respectability, whether it dulled your wits or not, had a sweetness nothing else could match. It was like drinking clean water, breathing clean air.

  Standing here in this filthy alley, he wanted to turn and run, escape before it caught hold of him again, or before he woke up and realized that everything he had now was just a dream. Hester Monk would despise him if she ever saw this. The thought of that made the sweat break out on his body in a way no physical fear ever had.

  He hurried on, asking questions discreetly, in roundabout fashion, as if looking for pleasure himself.

  It was obvious that Henry Rathbone found it repugnant to see peo
ple’s misunderstanding as to his intent, but he offered no explanation. The distaste, the embarrassment lay in his eyes and the faint pulling of his mouth, almost impossible to read in the garish light of gaslamps. Squeaky saw it only because he knew it was there.

  They did not mention Lucien’s name, only his description, and regrettably there were many young men of excellent family and considerable means, even in the most depraved places, where any kind of sexual pleasure was for sale, the more bizarre the more expensive.

  In one wide tunnel close to the river, laughter echoing along its length, magnified again and again, water dripping down the walls, Henry mentioned Shadwell again, as if it were half a joke. It was met with sudden silence. The blood drained from the skin of the man they were talking to, or perhaps it was a woman. In the flickering light and under the paint it was hard to tell. His naked shoulders were pearly white, blemishless, and without muscles, but his forearms were masked by long pink gloves, up to the elbow. Crow had seen such things before, but Henry was clearly uncomfortable. Still, he refused to let anything stop him in his quest.

  “If you would be good enough,” Henry persisted.

  The man—or woman—froze. There was music playing somewhere, strident and off-key.

  “You heard wrong,” he said. His voice shook. “Someone’s playin’ you for a fool. I have to go.” And with a surprisingly hard shove, he knocked Henry off balance so that Squeaky only just prevented him from falling.

  Crow seized the man by the arm. “No names, just which way?” he demanded.

  But it was no use. The fear of Shadwell was greater than anything Crow or Squeaky could call up.

  They heard word of Lucien in several places, or at least of someone who might have been him. On the other hand, such a person might have been anyone, even Niccolo, Sadie’s other lover.

  “Why yer wanna know?” a short, monstrously fat man demanded, waddling around the bench in a brothel entrance to stare at them. His face was red, with a bulbous nose, crazed over its surface with broken veins. His flesh wobbled as he moved, and Bessie backed away from him, pushing herself hard against Squeaky’s side.

  The fat man looked her up and down, his eyes almost level with her throat. He lowered his gaze to her chest. “What d’yer want for ’er? There’s some as like skinny bints, like they was children.”

  “She’s not for sale,” Henry snapped. “Touch her, and Mr. Robinson will break your fingers.” He said it with perfect seriousness.

  Squeaky drew in his breath to protest vigorously, then realized that perhaps if the man did touch Bessie, he would indeed be delighted to do something like that, or something even more personal.

  The fat man stepped back, his eyes hot, his large hands clenched. Then, moving with surprising speed, he darted behind his bench again. His other hand plunged into the space between it and the wall, and came out brandishing the long, thin blade of a sword. The light glittered on its polished steel. It made a whiplike sound as he sliced it through the air.

  Henry had nowhere to retreat; he was already against the wall. The little color in his face drained away as he realized his situation. Crow moved away, to distract the fat man’s attention, but it was Squeaky who seized the hat stand by the door. Swinging it round like a long staff, he cracked it over the fat man’s head, who crashed down, blood pouring from his scalp.

  Henry stared at the widening pool in horror.

  Squeaky dropped the stand and grabbed Henry by the arm, leaving Bessie to follow. “Come on!” he ordered. “Out of here!”

  “But he’s injured!” Henry protested. “Shouldn’t we …”

  Squeaky swore at him. Ignoring his protest, he half-pulled him off his feet, dragging him to the door and out into the alleyway. It was pitch-dark and he had no idea where they were going. It was important to simply get away from the brothel and the fat man bleeding on the floor.

  They walked rapidly, crowding each other in the dark, ice-slicked alley, tripping over debris, and hearing rats scuttle away. They kept moving until they had gone at least a quarter of a mile, then finally stopped in an empty doorway sheltered from the wind, and well out of the light of the solitary street lamp.

  “Thank you,” Henry said quietly. “I’m afraid I was taken by surprise. A foolish thing to have allowed. I apologize.”

  “It’s nothing.” Squeaky spoke casually, but a sudden warmth welled up inside him. He was ridiculously, stupidly pleased with Henry’s gratitude. For a moment he felt like a knight in shining armor.

  They continued their pursuit. The winter day and the bitter cold of night were almost indistinguishable in the cellars and passages between one smoky, raucous room and another.

  After half a dozen abortive leads as to where Niccolo and Sadie might be, they came to a small abandoned theater. A score of people lay on the floor half asleep. Some gave at least the impression of being together, clinging to each other’s body warmth. One man lay alone, huddled over in pain, his arms wrapped around himself defensively. His dark hair was matted, but still thick.

  Crow picked his way across the floor and bent down beside him. Squeaky saw, from where he stood a dozen feet away, that the sleeping man’s face was gaunt, but still handsome in the dark, sensitive way Niccolo had been described to them.

  Crow shook his shoulder. “Niccolo?” he said sharply.

  The man stirred.

  “Niccolo?” Crow shook him harder and the man pulled away with a gasp of pain.

  Bessie started forward from Squeaky’s side. “It in’t Niccolo, that’s Lucien!” she said urgently. “ ’E’s ’urt.” She clambered over the bodies, some cursing her, and bent down beside Crow. “Yer gotta do summink,” she demanded. “ ’Ere! Lucien! It’s me, Bessie. We come to ’elp yer.”

  Lucien stirred and half sat up, grunting with the effort, holding his left arm to his side. “Who the hell are you?” His speech was slurred but it still held the remnants of his origins, the home and the privilege to which he had been born.

  The eagerness died out of Bessie’s face. “Don’t yer remember me?”

  Lucien groaned.

  “Of course he does,” Crow said with sudden anger. “He’s just half asleep, and he’s hurt.”

  “Yer gonna ’elp ’im,” she urged Crow.

  Without answering, Crow pulled the coat Lucien was wearing away from him and looked at the wound. His shirt was matted with blood on the right side of his chest.

  Lucien winced and swore. “Leave me alone!” he said with a burst of real fury. “Get out.”

  Henry stepped over a couple of sleeping figures and went to Crow and Lucien. He reached down and took Lucien’s arm. “Stand up,” he ordered. “Before we can help you, we need to get somewhere clean, where we can see what we’re doing.”

  “I don’t want your bloody help!” Lucien snapped. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

  “My name is Henry Rathbone. Stand up.”

  Something in the authority of his tone made Lucien obey, but sullenly.

  Squeaky also stepped forward. He could see other people beginning to stir. A lone figure in the farthest archway was standing upright, one arm bent a little as if holding something, perhaps a weapon.

  “We got ter get out of here,” he said tersely to Henry and Crow. “You bring him.” He gestured toward Lucien. “Give him a clip around the ear if he makes a fuss.” He snatched Bessie’s hand and almost pulled her off her feet. “C’mon.”

  They could not go far. Lucien was weak, and they had no idea how deep his wound was or how long ago he had sustained it. It was bitterly cold outside, and a steady, hard sleet was turning back to a soaking rain. Here in the passages and alleys so narrow that the eaves met overhead, the pall of smoke in the air was made worse by the fog blowing up from the river, so even at midday the light was thin and pale.

  “We need to find somewhere to look at this,” Crow said grimly. “And something to eat,” he added.

  They searched for more than an hour, asking for a room, space, anyt
hing private. All the time Crow and Bessie supported Lucien, who was rapidly growing weaker, and stumbling every few yards.

  At last they found a back room in a pub. After a good deal of hard bargaining, threats from Squeaky, and money from Henry, they were shown to one small, dirty room with candles and a wood-burning stove, for which fuel was extra. Squeaky went to buy food and to find the nearest well to fill a bucket of water. Bessie swept the floor after very neatly stealing a neighbor’s broom. She returned it with a charming smile, saying she had found it in the alleyway.

  Crow and Henry did what they could to help Lucien. Crow, who still had his Gladstone bag with him, took out a length of clean bandage and a small bottle of spirit.

  “This is going to hurt,” he told Lucien. “But it’ll hurt a hell of a lot more if you get gangrene in it. That could kill you.”

  Lucien glared at him. “What the hell do you care? Who are you, anyway? Who are any of you?”

  “I’m a doctor,” Crow replied, measuring the spirit out into a small cup.

  “I’m not drinking that,” Lucien told him.

  “You’re not being offered it,” Crow replied. “It’s to clean your wound. It’ll sting like fire.” Without hesitating he jerked Lucien’s protective arm away from the wound and placed an alcohol-soaked bandage on it.

  Lucien screamed. His voice choked off as he gagged and gasped for breath.

  Bessie stared at Crow. Her face was ashen, but she said nothing.

  Henry felt sick. He could barely imagine the pain. He looked at the wreck of a man lying on a pile of rags on the floor, the messy knife wound in his side now exposed, and he remembered the youth he had known a dozen years ago.

  Crow’s dark face was tense, his concentration on the tools of his art: the scalpel, the forceps, the needle and thread. He was an extraordinary young man, not much more than Lucien’s age. Henry realized that he had spent the last four or five days in Crow’s company, and yet he knew almost nothing about him. He did not even know his full name, much less where he came from, who his family were, or even where he lived.