Alex Grecian - The Yard

Blacker sighed. “I owe you an apology.”

“No, not at all.”

“But I do. Perhaps I should have waited for your arrival before launching inquiries within the ranks here.”

“No, you were right to set things in motion. I’m struggling to find a foothold here, and you’re already firmly established. I suppose there’s a touch of envy in me this morning. That’s all it is.”

“No need for envy. You’re off balance. Let me tell you a secret: That feeling never goes away. We’re in the dark here, utterly hated by the people we’re trying to help and blindly seeking things we’ll absolutely never find. It’s a miserable experience that I wouldn’t wish on my most intimate enemy.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because it’s the only game in town, old man. This is the best and only way to feel you’ve got the inside track. Because what you’ll eventually come to realize is that everyone out there is groping around in the dark, too, but in here we know it. Gives us a leg up.”

He winked at Day, and after a long moment, Day laughed.

I was outnumbered.”

“’Course you was. Otherwise you could’ve handled Big Pete, eh?”

“Well, he was rather fierce.”

“Fierce. That’s Big Pete.”

“Thank you for stepping in when you did.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Pete seemed to calm down as soon as you spoke up. I’m curious, why did he let us leave so easily?”

“Don’t fret about it.”

“He seemed a bit frightened, really.”

“I have a reputation, is all.”

“A reputation?”

“I’ve been known to do a bit of violence in my day.”

“Oh.”

“Best if you don’t know much about that, being as you’re a bluebottle.”

“Why help me at all?”

“Don’t know, really. Strikes me you might be a different sort than the bluebottles I run up against. You coulda pinched me at that posh house yesterday, but you didn’t. You cared about that chavy more’n you cared about lookin’ the big man and impressin’ me. S’pose that meant somethin’ to me.”

“I see.”

“I’ll let you go on about your business, now you’re not gettin’ yerself killed.”

“Wait. Are you looking for the chimney sweep? The one who left that boy?”

“I put out the word I’m lookin’ fer ’im. Somebody’ll point ’im out soon enough.”

“Don’t approach him yet. I want to be there.”

“Stay out of trouble, bluebottle. And getcher nose fixed up or it’ll heal crooked like mine.”

“Did you hear me?”

“No worries. I’ll find you again when our friend shows hisself.”

Walter Day took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He glanced to his left where Michael Blacker shifted from foot to foot. Neither spoke.

After a pregnant moment, Day heard shuffling footsteps behind the door and the metal-on-metal rasp of a chain being drawn. The door opened a crack and dull brown eyes peered out at them from a woman’s heavy grey face. Day thought of raisins pressed into a lump of clay. From somewhere in the flat behind her, a strange wailing sound drifted out to them, rising and falling, like an animal crying out in pain. It was accompanied by the more familiar din of a baby crying. The wailing noise would occasionally stop on an up note and then begin again.

“What is it?” the woman said. “Got some more dead you wanna tell me ’bout?”

Her lips barely parted when she spoke, her mouth an unmoving slit.

“Mrs Little?” Day said.

The woman nodded. “Yeah.”

“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs Little,” Blacker said.

“Yeah? Well, you lot done your duty by me. That one-arm bloke come an’ tole me last night, so I got nothin’ I need from you an’ yours.”

Day held his hands up in a gesture of peace and calm.

“We’d like to ask you some questions if we may, ma’am.”

The Widow Little turned from the door and it opened wider, but she held on to the edge of it, not letting them in yet. Ropes of loose skin and fat swung from the underside of her arm and slapped against the jamb.

“Gregory, I tole you already you better see to yer brother. That singin’s just made the baby worser. You see to him right now, you unnerstan’ me?”

“Yes, Mama.”

It was a boy’s voice, followed by the patter of small feet on wood. Mrs Little turned her attention back to the two detectives in the hall and pursed her lips as if trying to remember who they were.

“What’s in it for me I answer these questions you got?”

“Could we come in, ma’am?” Day said.

Blacker widened his eyes and shook his head at Day. He was on the other side of the doorway, his shoulder pressed against the outside wall of the flat, and thus was out of Mrs Little’s line of sight. Day had no way to respond to him without Mrs Little’s seeing. He had no more desire to enter the flat than Blacker did, but he smiled at her and nodded as if she’d already agreed to let them come in.

She shrugged and turned and they followed her inside. Her grubby housecoat ended well above her thick ankles. Day looked up at the water-stained ceiling.

The stench of old food and human waste hit them like a physical force as soon as they entered the dingy flat. The floorboards were worn so smooth and colorless that the men could have skated across them but for a faded threadbare rug in the center of the front room. A battered, dun-colored sofa, buttons dangling like fruit from its back, hunched against the wall under a curtainless window where a single ray of sunlight fought its way through the smeared glass. Three chairs stood upright, grouped around a barrel. A large pearl-colored doily was draped over the barrel in a vain attempt to disguise it as a table, and peanut shells and dust were scattered across it. Day recognized a cigar box in the center of the table as the same one Sir Edward had brought to the squad room. A fourth chair was tipped over on the floor, its upholstery unraveled from the top, cotton batting spilling out. A baby lay on the chair back, its arms and legs stretched out toward the ceiling. It hiccuped and coughed when it heard their footsteps, then began to cry again.

A naked moon-faced boy was strapped to a wooden chair in the corner of the room. Drool ran in rivulets over the boy’s chin and down his chest. He rocked back and forth, the leather straps digging into his flesh, his eyes rolling wildly in their sockets as he gibbered and howled at the baby. A smaller child, wearing nothing but a filthy pair of knickers, was attempting to silence the monster boy, patting his arm and clucking at him. Day realized that the boy in the chair was singing to the baby in some strange, unrecognizable language.

Day drew back. “Good Lord,” he said.

The woman chuckled and her black eyes sparkled. “Hard to look at, ain’t he?”

“Let that child free from there right now.”

“I undo ’im and he’ll fall straight onto his face, see if he don’t.”

“But this is barbarous.”

“Only looks to be. He’s a happy boy, ain’t you, Anthony?”

At the sound of his name, Anthony let out a fresh wail and bounced up and down in his seat. The other boy, Gregory, whooped and danced around his brother’s chair, which excited Anthony even more. The baby fell suddenly silent. Day and Blacker stared, entranced and disgusted, as the two boys worked themselves into a contained frenzy, colonial natives dancing for rain.

“’At’s enough,” the woman said. “Enough, I say. Gregory, you settle ’im down now.”

The smaller boy stopped hopping about and laid a hand on Anthony’s head, which seemed to calm him. In the fresh silence, Day could hear the baby wheezing.