Alex Grecian - The Yard

“Am I?”

“The only one.”

Day kept one hand up in front of him and reached into his pocket with the other. He pulled out a penny and held it out to the dancing man.

“I’d like to borrow your milk crate, if I may.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. He was clearly confused, accustomed to having people pay him to go away, not ask for anything more than to be allowed to ignore him.

“My…?”

“Your platform? The crate you dance on? I’d like to borrow it for the night.”

The dancing man looked down at his meager pile of belongings, partially covered by the cast-off blanket.

“You want my stage?”

“It’s just for the evening, and I’ll return it. And tomorrow I’ll give you another penny for doing nothing at all but trusting me for a few hours.”

“That’s the rub, ain’t it? Don’t trust no bluebottles nohow.”

“Not even the one who gives you money?”

The dancing man stared at Day for a long moment and then nodded, dropping his knife hand to his side. His other hand came up, palm out, thrust in Day’s direction.

“You gimme that coin first.”

Day held the penny up so that the beggar could see it clearly in the gaslight and then placed it in the man’s hand.

The dancing man sidled over to his belongings without taking his eyes off Day. He moved behind the crate and scooted it to the inspector with his foot. Day bent and picked up the crate. He straightened up, holding the wooden box in front of him like a shield.

“You’ll give it back?” the dancing man said.

“I’ll leave it outside the door when I leave tonight, and it will be there in the morning when you arrive to … well, when you arrive at your post tomorrow.”

“It’s too short for the bodies. The long dead ones won’t fit on there. Not with their legs on.”

The dancing man stared at Day, waiting for a response. Day nodded as if he understood and took a step backward.

“Ain’t crazy, you know.”

“I’m sorry?” Day said.

“I ain’t touched in the head like some folk out here is.” The dancing man nodded in the direction of the street behind Day, in the direction of all London. “Don’t got nothin’ else, is all. Don’t wanna go to the workhouse.”

Day nodded and turned to leave.

“I was there already. The workhouse. I was there and they sent me to work for you lot.”

Day turned back. “For the Yard, you mean?”

“For the long dead. I worked for the long dead. Like you.”

Day felt suddenly tired. Only a week into the job and the amount of crazy was already swamping him. He felt a momentary twinge of homesickness for the narrow lanes of Devon, for whitewashed storefronts and bicycles and birds.

“They brung the bodies to the place, the place where the long dead wait.”

“The morgue?”

“That’s what they called it, but weren’t nothing but tables on tables rowed up through the place, and all too short for them long, long bodies. Their legs all hung down over the edge. Hung down to the floor, but they didn’t walk out of there and they didn’t dance no more. They never did dance for me.”

“I can’t imagine Dr Kingsley would allow you anywhere near his work.”

“Weren’t no doctor there. Just us as was rounded up from the workhouse, and we cut on them bodies and they was still.”

Day looked at the man. The knife hung at his side, as if forgotten. The energy Day saw in the dancing man every morning was absent. The man’s effort to find a connection to his life and memories had drained his spirit.

“Rest,” Day said. “In the morning you’ll dance and this fever dream will be forgotten.”

“I’ll dance for you, bluebottle. I dance for ’em all, all the dead. Just like you do. Just like you. You and me.”

“You’re nothing like me. Go to sleep.”

“I got a choice, is all. Keep me out of that workhouse and I’ll show you how to dance. You watch me and you’ll learn. See if you don’t. Dancing’s good. And you gotta do it now ’cause the dead don’t remember how.”

Day turned and trotted back up the street as quickly as he could, but he could still hear the dancing man behind him long after he returned to the Yard.

“Dance, bluebottle, dance.”

Day was only a quarter of the way through the enormous pile of papers on his desk when Inspector Michael Blacker swung open the gate and entered the detectives’ warren of the common room. Blacker had his topcoat draped over an arm, and he stopped at Day’s desk on his way to the coat hooks at the back wall.

“Still here or returning?” Blacker said.

“What time is it?”

“Coming up midnight. I’d have been back here sooner if there were any police wagons to spare tonight. Always a shortage of those, it seems. What about you? Thought you had a pretty young wife to go home to.”

“I do. I mean…” Day sat back and tossed a sheaf of papers at the larger stack on the desk. The impact made a few of the topmost pages slide off the desk onto the floor. “There’s so much here.”

“Little’s files?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why I came back. Couldn’t sleep knowing someone’s out there killing detectives.”

“I had no intention of being here this late. I thought I’d move Little’s papers over here and perhaps organize them so that I could start in on it all tomorrow morning, but I had no expectation that there would be so much to deal with.”

“No shortage of crime around here, Day. And no extra time in the day to deal with it all. Never any extra time in the day.” Blacker waved a finger at Day and grinned. “Your name is a blessing, Day. I’ve made a crack without even realizing it.”

Day sighed and bent down to pick up the fallen papers while Blacker finally hung up his coat and hat. Blacker came back to Day’s desk and pulled a chair up to the other side of it.

“You want some help with this?”

“Well, I wouldn’t turn it down.”

Blacker sat and pulled a folder from the stack.

“You’re still assuming Little came upon something in an investigation and that it led to his death, then?”

“I have no idea. This is a place to start. I thought I’d give his family the day to mourn before I call on them tomorrow.”

“Good of you.”

“They may know something, but it would be indecent to intrude upon them today.”

“Of course. What about the scene?”

“The train station? Kingsley seemed quite certain that he wasn’t killed there. I doubt very much I’d find anything more than the doctor already did.”

“If we could determine where he was killed…”

“Yes. Or who did it.”

Blacker smiled and nodded. “Point taken. This is a place to start,” he said.

He opened the folder and began to read. Day rummaged through the papers until he found the sheaf he’d been looking at and resumed where he’d left off. Little’s filing system seemed to be completely random. His case files had been shuffled together in no particular order. Day skimmed through case after case, trying to impose order on them, trying to find some possible connection between Little’s job and his death.

“What is that stench?”

Blacker was sniffing the air in the closed room.

“I didn’t want to sit at his desk, so I moved the files over here.”

“Right.”

“But I couldn’t find a box to do it. There’s so much here, I didn’t want to spend the night going back and forth. There are no boxes anywhere in this building.”

“Sir Edward likes to keep a clean workplace.”

“Clearly. I had to borrow a box.”

He pointed to the milk crate on the floor.

“How can a box stink up the entire room?” Blacker said.