Y. Lee: The body at the Tower

The man looked up. His good humour seemed at odds with his face, which bore the souvenirs of a fist-fight: one eye puffy and discoloured, lip split. "What's that?"

"Mr Harkness sent me to help out."

"Ah. You want Keenan – dark chap over there." He pointed to a tall, thickset man a little way off. He was scowling, but even without the surly expression Mary would have recognized him as the man who'd snarled at her not half an hour before.

She sighed inwardly. Of course the bad-tempered bricklayer would be the foreman. Still, perhaps that was relevant to Wick's death, too. She approached him reluctantly, as he was clearly preoccupied.

"You're awful small," he said in response to her explanation.

"I'm stronger than I look."

"Aye? I hope so." Something happened when he spoke which made words sound like threats, even when they were simple instructions. He wasn't generous with them, either: he simply nodded at a pole lying on the ground. "You're Reid's hod-carrier today." Then he strode away.

Mary struggled to make sense of the contraption, a long stick topped by three wooden planks that together formed three sides of a box. Unfortunately, she had no idea what to do with it, or whom to ask for assistance. The cheerful young man, perhaps? But when she looked around, he'd disappeared with his trowel and mortar board.

When Keenan came back to her a few minutes later, his face was flushed with temper. "Still mucking about? I told you to get moving."

"I'm sorry. I don't know how to use this."

His face darkened some more. "Useless brat. Never seen a hod before?"

"N-no, sir."

"Then what you doing working on a building site?"

"I want to learn, sir."

Keenan cursed. "Not with me for a bloody nursemaid, you won't. I got bleedin' work to do." He looked about for a moment, then bellowed, "Stubbs!"

Another youngish man, with curly ginger hair and an astounding number of freckles, appeared. "Mr Keenan?"

"Show this brat what's what."

Once Keenan was at a safe distance, Stubbs looked at Mary. "What's he want you to do?"

"Be Reid's hod-carrier." Mary spoke the strange words tentatively. "This is the hod?" She hefted the pole and box.

Stubbs laughed, a single brief snort. "Aye. You hold it like this." In a single deft motion, he swung the stick over one shoulder so that the three planks were behind him. "You fill it with bricks – at your size, not many, maybe three or four – and carry it to your brickie. You said Reid, did you? He's over that way, round the corner."

"That's all?" It seemed absurdly straightforward.

"You fetch whatever he tells you to. You can carry mortar and trowels in it, or anything else he needs."

He gave her the hod and she hefted it experimentally. Not bad, but… "Why not use a wheelbarrow?"

"Sometimes you climb with the hod – up scaffolding, like." He grinned at her expression. "Not today, though – I'm doing the tricky bits while we're short-handed."

"Oh. You missing a hod-carrier?" Mary followed him towards a large pile of bricks.

Stubbs frowned down at her. "You new?"

She nodded. "Started this morning."

"Oh. Suppose you ain't heard, then." He paused and his round face turned sombre. "One of ours, a brickie, died last week. Until Keenan finds a new one, the other hod-carrier, Smith, is filling in. Not that he's a proper brickie, or nothing. But he can lay a simple wall while Keenan and Reid do the rest."

Mary frowned. The explanation was almost as confusing as the situation. So bricklayers and hod-carriers worked in teams, and it sounded as though this was a disrupted team of five: three bricklayers, Wick, Keenan and Reid, supported by the hod-carriers Stubbs and Smith. With Wick's death, it was up to Keenan to find a new bricklayer to join his permanent team, rather than for Harkness to hire another solo bricklayer. Like the hod itself, it seemed strange but made sense once you thought about it. The men were accustomed to working with one another and would have their own efficient habits and systems. Hire a gang of brickies and, she supposed, they would work together smoothly from the start.

"Here." Stubbs stopped by the brick pile. "Hold steady, now." Mary braced her shoulders as Stubbs loaded three bricks onto the hod. "All right, there?"

"I can take another one."

He looked at her critically. "Best not. Save your strength, lad; you'll be doing this for hours."

It was good advice. The hod itself was not light, and with three bricks on it the combined weight was as much as Mary could manage while dodging through the yard. Stubbs's directions were approximate but she soon spotted the blond man, Reid, squatting on his haunches, whistling again as he sized up his day's work. Despite his propensity for fist-fights, he seemed as good-tempered as Keenan was hostile, and this made her all the more grateful not to be working directly under Keenan.

"Three bricks?!" he exclaimed, as she set down the hod.

Mary flushed. "Sorry, sir. I'll try to bring more next time."

"Don't hurt yourself," he said, amiably enough. "But Lord love me if you ain't the tiniest hod-carrier I ever seen."

"Still growing, sir," she mumbled.

"If you don't grow no bigger, be something else," he advised. "A glazier, maybe."

Mary nodded and fled back to the brick pile. As the morning wore on, she became more skilled at loading bricks onto the hod and carrying them efficiently. Some time later – she couldn't have said how long, but hours rather than minutes – she became aware of another boy watching her. He stood about twenty yards off, hands in pockets, staring at her openly.

Mary straightened from her task – sweeping up mortar dust and brick rubble – and stared back. After several moments, she nodded a brusque acknowledgement. But instead of responding, the boy merely continued to stare aggressively. Mary kept at her work.

After a few minutes, he finally spoke. "Suppose you's Quinn."

Mary looked up again. He was closer, but no less truculent. She nodded once and went on with her sweeping.

"You don't look so posh."

So it had come to haunt her already. "I'm not."

"'F you's so posh, why'd you steal my job?"

"What – this job?" She was genuinely surprised. "You've still got a job, haven't you?"

"Don't be stupid – I mean the tea round."

Ah: the teetotalling tea round. "So you're Jenkins."

"Yeah, and you stole my job."

What was it with building sites and fist-fights? First Reid looked as if he'd been brawling, and now this little fool was clearly frantic for a scrap. She turned her back and kept sweeping.

He circled around and shouted, "Think you's too good for to talk to me?"

"No."

"Well, then? What you got to say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing except lies."

There was only one way to end this. She looked straight at him and said, "You calling me a liar?"

"A liar and a thief!"

She snorted. If he wanted a fight, he'd get one. And she would win: her years on the street had taught her this, at least. "Of all the stupid…"

"Don't you call me stupid!" He marched towards her, stiff with outrage. He was a small boy, no taller than she and scrawny to boot, and he looked utterly ridiculous – a bantam rooster defending his turf. He'd never won a fist-fight in his life, she'd wager. Still, he hurled himself at her, arms windmilling furiously.

Mary dodged his fist with an economical twist to the left and tapped him sharply on the chin, sending him stumbling.

He stopped short of falling, spun about and flew at her again.

She skipped aside and he tripped himself with his own momentum.

Screaming with outrage, he picked himself up and came back for more.

It was no contest. Mary wasn't even fighting; merely defending herself and keeping him at bay, waiting for him to exhaust himself. Her restraint only inflamed Jenkins further. He fought with passion and energy and utter lack of skill, and this combination made what ought to have been comical seem tragic, instead. If Mary chose, she could finish him in half a minute. As it was, their fist-fight dragged on and they attracted a casual, jeering ring of labourers who shouted advice and insults in equal quantity.