Arrowood

‘I followed you.’

It took him a minute to work out what I was saying.

‘That’s the way it is, is it?’ he croaked.

‘That’s the way it is. You know where I can find him?’

He scratched the stubble on his neck and finished his gin.

‘The oysters is good here,’ he said.

I called the barmaid over and ordered him a bowl.

‘All I can say is he was very friendly with a barmaid name of Martha, least it seemed that way to anybody with their eyes open,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they left together. You ask her. Curly red hair – you can’t miss her. A little beauty, if you don’t mind Catholics.’

‘Was he in any trouble?’

He drained his glass and swayed suddenly, gripping the counter to steady himself.

‘I keep my nose out of everything what happens there. You can find yourself in trouble very quick with some of the things as goes on in that building.’

The oysters arrived. He looked at them with a frown.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

‘It’s only as they go down better with a little drain of plane, sir,’ he replied with a sniff.

I ordered him another gin. When he’d just about finished off the oysters, I asked him again if Thierry was in trouble.

‘All I know is he left the day after the American was there. Big American fellow. I only know ’cos I heard him shouting at Mr Cream, and there ain’t nobody who shouts at the boss. Nobody. After that, Terry never come back.’

‘Why was he shouting?’

‘Couldn’t hear,’ he said, dropping the last oyster shell on the floor. He held onto the counter and stared at it as if he wasn’t sure he could get down there without falling over.

‘D’you know who he was?’

‘Never seen him before.’

‘You must have heard something?’ I said.

‘I don’t talk to nobody and nobody talks to me. I just do my work and go home. That’s the best way. That’s the advice I’ll give my children if ever I have any.’

He laughed and called over to the barmaid.

‘Oi, Jeannie. Did you hear? I said that’s the advice I’ll give my children if ever I have any!’

‘Yeah, very funny Ernest,’ she replied. ‘Shame your pecker’s dropped off.’

His face fell. The barman and a cab driver at the end of the counter laughed loudly.

‘I could give you a few names to swear as my pecker’s attached and working very well, thank you,’ he croaked back.

But the barmaid wasn’t listening any more; she was talking to the cab driver. The old man stared hard at them for a few moments, then finished his drink and patted his coat pockets. His skin sagged from his bristling chin; his wrists seemed thin as broomsticks under the sleeves of his thick overcoat.

‘That’s it for me.’

‘Could you find out where he is, Ernest?’ I asked as we stepped onto the street. ‘I’d pay you well.’

‘Find another fool, mister,’ he replied, his words slurring in the chill air. ‘I don’t want to end up in the river with a lungful of mud. Not me.’

He glanced bitterly through the window where the barmaid was laughing with the cabman, then turned and stomped off down the road.

Chapter Three (#ulink_2c77e02d-54a5-56de-b381-4554e18ae3c7)

The guvnor’s room was transformed. The floor had been swept free of crumbs, the bottles and plates had vanished, the blankets and cushions straightened. Only the towers of newspapers against the walls remained. He was in his chair with his hair brushed and a clean shirt on. In his hand was the book that had occupied him over the last few months: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by the infamous Mr Darwin. Some years before, Mrs Barnett had become quite enraged by this fellow on account of him seeming to suggest, or so she said at least, that she and her sisters were the daughters of a big ape rather than the generous creation of the good Lord above. She’d never read his books, of course, but there were people at her church very against the idea that the good Lord hadn’t made a woman from a rib-bone and a man from a speck of dust. The guvnor, who hadn’t come to a decision on this matter as far as I knew, had been reading this book very carefully and slowly, and letting everyone know that he was reading it along the way. He seemed to think it held secrets which would help him see past the deceptions that were the everyday part of our work. I couldn’t help but notice, too, that another of Watson’s stories lay open on the side-table next to him.

‘I’ve been waiting all morning for news, Barnett,’ he declared, looking as uncomfortable as a hog in a bonnet. ‘I had breakfast many hours ago.’

‘I didn’t reach home until gone two.’

‘She had me up early as she wished to clean the bed somehow,’ he continued with resignation. ‘Very early. But what did you discover?’

I explained what I’d found out, and immediately he had me send the lad from the coffeehouse to find Neddy. Neddy was a boy who the guvnor had taken a shine to a few years back when his family had moved into a room down the street. His father was long dead, his mother a quite disastrous washerwoman. Her earnings weren’t enough for the family, barely enough to pay their rent, so Neddy sold muffins on the street to support her and the two youngers at home. He was nine or ten years or eleven perhaps.

The lad arrived shortly after, carrying his muffin basket under his arm. He was sorely in need of a haircut, and had a rip in the shoulder of his white jerkin.

‘Have you any left, boy?’ asked the guvnor.

‘Just two, sir,’ replied Neddy, opening the blanket. ‘Last two I got.’

I quite marvelled at the magnificent thick black dirt that framed his little fingerbits, and beneath his brown cap could see distinctly the slow crawl of livestock. Oh, for the carefree life of the child!

The guvnor grunted and took the muffins.

‘You’ve eaten, Barnett?’ he declared as he bit into the first. With his mouth full of dough, he gave Neddy his instructions. He was to wait outside the Beef that night until the waiting girl Martha came out, and then to follow her home and bring back the address. He made the boy promise to be extra careful and not to speak to anyone.

‘I’ll get it, sir,’ said the boy earnestly.

The guvnor popped the last bit of muffin in his mouth and smiled.

‘Of course you will, lad. But look at your dirty face.’ He turned to me and winked. ‘Don’t you prefer a boy with a dirty face, Barnett?’

‘I ain’t got a dirty face,’ protested the boy.

‘Your face is caked in dirt. Here, take a peek in the looking glass.’

Neddy scowled at the glass hanging on the wall.