James Blaylock - The Aylesford Skull

Finn had wandered through most of the markets in Greater London in his time, and had no particular regard for the organized markets of Covent Garden or Portobello Road. What he wanted tonight was the lowest sort, particularly a stall selling worn out clothing, of which there were many stalls to choose from, one of them lit by a single candle thrust into a cored-out turnip. He considered a shabby frock coat made of threadbare velvet that had once been dark green. It still sported three mother of pearl buttons and had the honor of being hung in the stall on an ill-fashioned tailor’s dummy contrived from sticks. The rest of the apparel that was recognizable as such was laid out on the street. Unrecognizable apparel was heaped up in piles and sold by the bundle.

Finn looked through the offerings, finding an elbowless shirt with frayed cuffs that would do, and an old balaclava that had perhaps been through a fire. There was a down-at-heel pair of shoes, middling small, but with the toe-ends conveniently lopped off or perhaps chewed off. He found a pair of leather trousers, out at the knees and precariously thin behind, and decided impulsively to buy the old frock coat, which was long enough for decorum if the trousers betrayed him. The coat reduced the overall effect of poverty just slightly, but wasn’t flash enough to put him at particular risk. He bought two other shirts that he could tie up into a four-armed bundle and use to hold the clothes he was wearing. Square Davey would keep them safe for him, although he would have to be quick getting them back to Billingsgate, for the evening was wearing on.

Finn paid for the goods, the owner of the stall being a boy not much older than he, undersized and underfed, with a wide, pimpled face.

“Ball crackers, six the penny?” the boy asked him in a low voice, raising his eyebrows. “You won’t find them this cheap till Guy Fawkes, I’ll warrant.”

“I’ll take a dozen,” Finn said, it seeming like a good idea for half-formed reasons, and left moments later with the clothing and a bag of crackers.

It was an hour later that he found himself in Spitalfields, carrying the balaclava, slouching up and down the byways and alleys, getting to know the place as best he could in the short time he had. Despite Davey’s warnings about the rookery, Finn found that he had no real fear of the place. It was true that the narrow streets were populated with thieves and prostitutes, but he had lived among down-and-out people before, known some right hard cases, and he knew how to keep to himself. It was also true that the face of the Crumpet dwelt in the back of his mind. Although the knife had come into Finn’s hand quick enough under the bridge that night, when he hadn’t time to think, he had done a lot of thinking since, and he didn’t relish using it in that way again. He was in a practical mood, and preferred running to fighting.

The fog was intermittent, although settling in now as if it meant to stay. He could scarcely be expected to find a man whom he couldn’t see for the fog, and so he hurried now. He found Smith’s Lodging House, which recommended itself only because of the even more hideous squalor of the lodgings on either side. He considered going in to ask about Sawyer, but he hadn’t the time now, and he went on past instead, studying the building and the street while the night was clear so that he would know it again if there were trouble.

An alley opened on his right, from which sounded the vicious barking and growling of dogs and the shouts of unseen men. He stepped into it, looking down its length and seeing beyond it a courtyard milling with people. Overhead, he was surprised to see a bridge, built of three-or-four-inch line and boards, held steady with lengths of taut rope that acted as stays, the line affixed to rooftops and the sides of buildings. He couldn’t make out where it led – or where it started, perhaps the same thing – but he liked the look of the bridge, standing high above the reek and turmoil of the street. He had been an acrobat in Duffy’s Circus, and a wirewalker for a time, and there was something in the bridge’s rigging that recalled those years to his mind.

Then it occurred to him that the bridge would provide a first-rate view of things, if only the fog didn’t spoil that view, as it surely would quite soon. But the fog would hide him, too, if it came to that. It was slightly strange that the bridge stood empty: clearly it wasn’t a well-traveled avenue. The neighborhood was a moldering ruin, but the bridge, curiously, was newish, or appeared so from where he stood. He walked down the alley toward the courtyard, passing an open area where a dozen men surrounded a waist-high enclosure, shouting encouragement at a small, growling dog that was busy killing a rat. Other dogs stood waiting in kennels, and rats in cages. In the courtyard itself, people were strangely subdued, talking in low tones among themselves, many of them looking at an old pump that stood in a pool of filthy water. He wandered in among them as if he were at home, saying, “Four a penny crackers!”

“Here then,” said a man, who held out a penny. Finn dug four out of his pocket and handed them over, noticing that there was an odd atmosphere in the yard, as if people were waiting for something to happen.

He noted an old woman sitting on an overturned zinc tub, an enormous black cat lying asleep in her lap. Behind her stood a tall, very thin boy, with a long face and teeth like a horse. His hair, startlingly white, stood up atop his head as if he’d been in a hurricane. He was younger than Finn by a year or two, and he eyed Finn with a look of vast surprise that made Finn look over his own shoulder to see if something were coming up behind him. He saw that there was a lopsided cast to the boy’s eyes that had something of the village idiot in it.

“Good evening, grandmother,” Finn said to the woman, who nodded at him pleasantly enough. He showed her the coin and said, “I’ve just found a lucky penny. Perhaps it would buy supper for your cat. He reminds me of a friend of mine, old Hodgepodge, who I hope to see again some day.” He petted the cat, who didn’t complain, but raised one eyelid and looked at him without much appreciation.

“I thank you, young sir,” she said. “I’ll take the penny, since you’ve asked so pleasantly. The cat’s name is Lazarus. He’ll have a bit of fish tomorrow with that penny.” She dropped the coin into a pocket in her apron and gestured behind her with her thumb. “Allow me to introduce Newman, one of my boys.”

Finn put his hand out, and Newman shook it, his own hand long and narrow, like his face. “Finn Conrad,” Finn said, “at your service.”

“It’s a good name for a cat, is Lazarus,” Newman said. “He was brought back from the dead, like the cove in the Bible. Drownded in the scuttle and dead as a pie.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Finn said. “What is this place? I’m from down Jacob’s Island way.”

“Angel Alley, it’s called,” Newman told him. “There’s a ghost afoot.”

“I thought there was something in the air tonight.”

“Aye,” the old woman told him. “Newman speaks the truth. It was a ghost, clear as you’re standing before me. Carried in on the fog, and carried off the same way. I saw him plainly there by the pump, as did many of us.” She gestured in that direction, keeping an eye on the pump in case the ghost should return.

“A ghost, ma’am? In a winding sheet, like? Laden with chains, like the spirit in the play?”

“A boy, clothed in the old fashion, looking alive as you or me, although he’d been hanged.”

“You could see the mark of the rope on his neck,” Newman said. “Plain as you’re a-standing here.”

“Do you fancy a cracker?” Finn asked him, and when Newman nodded, Finn handed him four of them, holding on to four more – the last of the lot. “No charge among friends,” he said. Newman stared at the four balls in his open palm as if they were gold sovereigns.