‘Noble work, Ettie.’
‘It isn’t easy. The men don’t like them to be saved, so there’s trouble sometimes, but the poor are our burden and our responsibility. Such it says in the good book, Norman. The war is here. The war is in our backstreets and alleys.’
Her chest heaved with passion beneath the black bodice of her dress. Her forehead was red, and I was pleased when she hesitated and drew a slow breath. I didn’t want to hear any more about the people of the court, my people, for all the bad things they did I had done myself, or watched, or encouraged. I knew everything she described, but I knew it from the other side.
‘But now I worry for my brother. You know where he is, you say?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back.’
‘Very good.’ She turned to the stairs. ‘And tell him to bring some muffins. Hot ones, mind. Tell him to pay the full price.’
There was only one other punter in the Hog that morning, a great lascar with a knife in his belt and his hair tied back like a pirate. He lay asleep on a bench by the fire, snoring, his mouth hanging open. A fat woman stood by the counter, rinsing out glasses in a tin bucket. The place stank of tobacco smoke and the spilt beer that lay like a slick over the stone floor. The guvnor was sat upright at a table in the corner, his back to the door. In his clasped hands was a bottle of porter. It was only when I got up close I could see that his eyes were closed. I lay my hand on his shoulder and shook him. He groaned and protested.
‘I’ve instructions from your sister to return you,’ I said.
He opened his bleary eyes for a second to look in my direction, then immediately let his head fall onto the table.
I put my arm under his and hauled him up. He was heavy. He was heavier each time.
The woman tutted and sighed as I struggled with his leaden carcass.
Slowly, his feet began to shuffle in irregular steps. He groaned again and wiped his mouth; his eyes opened to slits; his red face puckered up. He belched in my ear. But at least he was walking, after a fashion.
‘Lovely making your acquaintance, Hamba,’ he mumbled at the sailor, who continued to snore on the wooden bench.
‘Take him with you, why don’t you?’ said the woman with a laugh.
The guvnor turned and bowed loosely at her.
‘A pleasure, my petal,’ he burbled.
‘I hope you ain’t thinking of leaving before you give Betts the crown you owe her, Mr Arrowood. She made me promise to collect it from you.’
‘Ah,’ he spluttered, fumbling in his waistcoat for his coins, ‘of course, yes.’
The coins spilled onto the floor. I scooped them up, gave the woman a crown, then stuffed the rest into his pocket.
Without letting go of my arm, he bowed once more. When we gained the street he grunted at the sudden light and covered his eyes.
‘Carry me, Barnett.’
‘Walk on.’
‘I’m suffering.’
‘As am I, but I don’t deserve it.’
We plodded and swayed through the busy streets. When we reached his rooms behind the pudding shop, Ettie was sitting upright darning a sock in his favourite chair. A look of great disappointment crossed her face.
‘Do you need help getting him upstairs?’
‘I’m fine, Sister,’ he grunted, only now letting loose my arm and standing by himself. ‘Help me up the stairs, Barnett.’
It was a struggle to get up the narrow staircase, but finally we gained the top and he fell onto his mattress, panting and clutching his forehead. I was breathing heavy myself now.
‘Barnett,’ he slurred as I turned back to the stairs. ‘Is Nolan out of prison?’
‘Out last week.’
‘Go see him.’
I’d decided the very same myself the night before when I guessed the guvnor would be sloping off to the Hog after leaving me, but I didn’t tell him that. It wasn’t our way.
‘Get me the chamber pot,’ he mumbled.
‘Get it yourself,’ I said as I set off down the stairs.
He was snoring before I reached the bottom.
Ettie watched me in despair.
‘One moment, Norman,’ she said, as I reached the door. ‘Did you get muffins as I asked?’
‘I’m sorry. I had my hands full.’
‘Quite so.’
Her mouth turned down in sadness: Ettie enjoyed her food just as much as the guvnor.
‘You must ask Mrs Barnett to come to a meeting,’ she said. ‘Reverend Hebden is always looking for new recruits. She’d find it enriching, I’m sure. I shall tell you the time of the next one.’
‘Thank you, Ettie.’
Her eyes narrowed as a queer noise came from her stomach. Next moment, a light flush came to her cheeks.
‘That’s arranged, then,’ she said, picking up her darning again. We both pretended we hadn’t heard the gurgle in her innards.
Nolan lived in two rooms of a lodging house on Cable Street. He was an old friend of mine from Bermondsey days. His business had always been just the other side of the law, and we often went to him if we wanted to know about things as were happening in the Irish parts of town. A few days ago he’d come out from fourteen moons’ stir for the theft of an overcoat from a Chinaman on the Mile End Road. Now he was back in his old life, fencing carriage clocks and cooking pots to the good women of Whitechapel.
‘You ain’t looking so good,’ he said, as we sat at the table. His wife Mary, his mother, and two cousins had been dispatched to the front room to allow our conference. Despite the sunshine outside, the back room was cold, the light from the window cut out by a taller building not five yards behind. He wore broken spectacles on his nose, one of the arms being a chewed pencil tied on with a thread of hairy string.
‘Apologies for not visiting you in the nick, mate,’ I said. ‘I’ve an aversion to criminals.’
‘Forgiven, Norman. How’s the old boy?’
‘Suffering after a night in the Hog.’
He laughed and slapped his thigh.
‘He never could absorb it. Weak body, that’s his problem. Weak stomach. Now, me old mate, what is it you’re after this time?’
‘You heard anything about a gang of Irish or Americans? Thieving from the big houses in the West End?’
He got up and closed the door. When he came back his smile was gone.
‘I’d leave that one alone, my friend. The two of you don’t want to be asking after them lot.’
‘It’s connected to a case.’
‘Well it might be, but you don’t want anything to do with them. Stay well away.’
‘The guvnor won’t do that. A girl’s been killed. He’s taken it personal. It seems as this gang is connected to—’
‘Don’t tell me any more!’ he barked, his spectacles falling from his face. ‘Did I say I wanted to know?’
I shook my head.
‘Right, here it is.’ He leaned over and collected