Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

‘My God!’ whispered Rashim. ‘I never imagined it would be quite so busy!’

‘It’s only ten,’ said Liam, pointing to a clock on a nearby building. ‘People stay up even later in my hometown, Cork.’

He stopped himself from correcting that. Not his hometown… of course. But it was a constant, unsettling inconvenience for him and the girls, continually self-correcting statements like that, that he’d finally stopped giving a damn about it. As Maddy had told him, It doesn’t matter if they’re second-hand memories, Liam — we ARE the sum of what we remember. And that’s how I’m dealing with this.

Denial. It was as good a way as any of dealing with the knowledge that your whole life was a lie.

‘This is really quite fantastic,’ Rashim uttered.

‘Glad you like it. Which way now, Bob?’

‘This is Farringdon Street.’ He pointed up the busy thoroughfare. At the far end a low bridge arched over the wide street. Along the top of it were glowing orbs of light of a different colour, more of a pale amber, almost a vanilla colour. And a steadier, more resilient glow than the occasionally flickering, shifting illumination coming from the gas lamps.

‘And that is the Holborn Viaduct.’

‘Those lights…?’ Liam nodded at them.

‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob. ‘They are electric lights.’

The three of them picked their way up the broad pavement on the left-hand side of Farringdon Street. It was busy with pedestrians, a mixture of smartly dressed gentlemen and ladies taking the air after a show, and costermongers and hucksters of various goods packing up and making their way home for the night.

‘Come on! Make way there, lads!’ barked a thick-shouldered man with a handcart laden with pigs’ heads and trotters as he pushed his way past them.

An elegantly dressed woman walking with a whippet-thin man in a top hat curled her lips in disapproval as the cart wheeled past her. ‘Oh really!’ she muttered.

Liam and Rashim shared a grin. The noises, the smells — the acrid smell of burning coke, horse manure, the sight of such churning, shoulder-to-shoulder life — seemed reassuring, life-affirming. After all that time alone in the abandoned school it felt good to be back among so many people.

Liam caught the faintest whiff of it first: the smell of coffee beans roasting in a skillet. Parked up in the dirt at the side of the road was a large four-wheeled cart. Wooden steps unfolded down on to the pavement invited them up to a wooden deck where several tables and stools were occupied by gentlemen and ladies taking coffee and a slice of cake. At one end of the cart a woman and a man in aprons were serving cups of freshly roasted coffee from large tin urns that steamed over small skillets. Candles lit the small tables. Mini oil lamps were strung across the top, like Christmas lights.

‘Just wait till Maddy sees that,’ Liam laughed. ‘A horse-drawn Starbucks!’

A few minutes later they were standing beneath the viaduct, looking up at the thick ribs of glossy green-painted iron arching across the broad street. Overhead, alongside the road that crossed over the viaduct, the orbs of electric light at the top of tall iron lampstands bloomed proudly.

‘London’s first public, electric-powered street lights.’ Liam nodded approvingly. ‘Not bad.’

‘We have used half an hour of our allotted time,’ said Bob.

Liam stopped gawking at the lights and turned his attention to life beneath the viaduct. The underbelly was a row of hexagonal stone columns on either side of the street from which the arches of iron branched out to meet each other. On both sides of Farringdon Street there were pedestrian walkways lit by yet more electric globes. The walkways were flanked by stone columns on one side and rows of brickwork archways on the other, each archway seemingly occupied by one sort of business or other.

As they watched, on the far side of the busy street the thick oak doors of one of the archways swung open and several men worked together, rolling casks of beer out, across the pavement and on to a flat-backed cart.

Liam craned his neck to get a better look through the open doors to the interior beyond. He could see archways and alcoves, all seemingly stuffed with barrels, crates and boxes of all different sizes.

‘Let’s go over and get a better look,’ he said. They crossed Farringdon Street, dodging and ducking between horse-drawn vehicles that showed no intention of stopping or slowing for them.

Closer, Liam watched the three men working quickly, furtively even, as they loaded the cart up. ‘Stay here,’ he said then made a show of looking casual, whistling tunelessly as he strolled past the wide-open oak doors. He paused. Ducked down on to one knee and made as if he had a bootlace that needed tying up, all the while craning his neck to see through the open doors, getting a glimpse of the receding maze of archways and alcoves inside.

‘Hoy!’

He turned to find one of the men standing over him.

‘Hoy there! You get enough of a look inside, did ya?’

‘I… was, I’m just…’ Liam stood up.

‘Pokin’ ya nose in where it’s likely to get broken!’ A thought suddenly occurred to the man and he grabbed Liam’s arm roughly. ‘You a snitch for them bluebottles? Is that it? For the bleedin’ coppers?’

The man was short and tubby, with owlish bug eyes that bulged beneath wiry brows. Liam found himself looking down at him. He suspected the little chap was actually tougher than he looked — that or he was all bluster.

‘What? No! I’m… just… I’m…’

‘Cos I’ll get me lad, Bertie, to shank you good if you — ’

‘Actually,’ replied Liam, ‘I’m looking for business premises.’

‘Business premises? Likely story!’

The stocky man turned to look at Rashim approaching to help Liam out. He did an almost comical double-take at Rashim’s dark skin. ‘Good God!’ he blurted. ‘You with this lad?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course I am.’

Rashim’s carefully enunciated, alien-sounding English seemed to impress, or perhaps intimidate, the stocky man. He cocked his head as if flexing a stiff neck. ‘Well, all right, then.’

The man released his grip on Liam’s arm. ‘He your boy?’

Rashim’s eyes met Liam’s and he struggled to stifle an amused smile. ‘No, not really.’

‘I’m not anyone’s boy,’ sniffed Liam indignantly. ‘We’re uh… we’re business partners, so we are.’

The stocky man pulled a face. ‘Business partners, is it?’

‘Uh… yes, he’s quite right,’ said Rashim.

‘We want to rent one of these… archway places.’ Liam glanced at the open doorway. The other two men had finished loading the last cask on to the cart and one of them climbed up on to the running board and coaxed the horses to life. Their hooves clattered on stone and the wagon pulled away.

‘You seem to have a lot of space inside there,’ said Liam. ‘Could we rent a bit?’

‘Well, what I got inside ain’t none of your beeswax, lad!’

Bob emerged out of the gloom. ‘Are you OK, Liam?’ he asked, striding towards the stocky man. His voice reverberated beneath the iron and stone viaduct. A deep boom that made heads on the other side of Farringdon Street turn their way. A lamb shank of a hand reached out and grabbed one of the man’s upper arms in a vice-like grip. The stocky man’s bulging eyes widened still further. He looked like a tree frog in a waistcoat.

‘Oh, I’m all right, Bob.’ Liam grinned at the man. ‘There’s no harm done.’

‘Bertie!’ the man gulped, alarmed at the giant looming over him. ‘ Bertie! Get over here and help me!’

His colleague, ‘Bertie’, took one look at Bob and then backed up several steps into the gloom.