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‘It concerns them, ma’am,’ I answered, blocking the door.
She glared at me, anger in her keen eyes. There was something uncanny about those eyes: when she laid them on you it was as if she could see your every weakness, every bad thing you’d done.
‘Is Birdie with you, Miss Ockwell?’ asked the guvnor, rising from his seat.
‘Around the corner,’ she replied, turning to him. Her face was quite white except the few strong hairs about her lip. ‘She won’t come now, though. Not with these two here.’
‘But why not?’
‘She doesn’t want anything to do with them, that’s why. They never treated her right. Never wanted her.’
‘It’s a lie!’ cried Mr Barclay, leaping from the table. ‘It’s your family that’s put her up to it! You fetch her here, or there’ll be trouble, I warn you!’
The cabbies had gone quiet, turning on their benches to watch the show. Rena stopped her work and crossed her arms over her great belly.
‘Pray, have a seat, Miss Ockwell,’ said the guvnor in his softest voice. ‘Let’s talk this out.’
‘She wants rid of them.’
‘She does not!’ shrieked Mr Barclay, slapping his hand down hard on the table. ‘You’re a damned liar!’
‘Be quiet, Mr Barclay!’ barked the guvnor.
‘Birdie’s a young lady that needs someone to stand for her and I’m happy to do it, Mr Arrowood,’ said Rosanna. She spoke clear and firm. ‘I promised Birdie to keep them away and that’s what I’ll do.’
‘Oh dear, dear,’ said the guvnor. ‘But there’s some negotiation. Details and so on.’
‘I won’t allow them to talk to her. They only upset the poor girl.’
Mr Barclay jumped to his feet again.
‘Who the blazes d’you think you are telling us we can’t speak to our own daughter?’ he cried. ‘It’s you that’s poisoned her to us, madam. You and your blasted brother. Take us to her now or there’ll be trouble!’
‘Sit down, sir!’ said the guvnor. He turned back to Miss Ockwell, took her arm gently, and led her toward the counter so as the Barclays couldn’t hear.
‘Don’t fight with them,’ he said, his voice low. ‘We’ll never get this business done that way, and we do need her, Miss Ockwell. How about you go and get her, eh? I’ll control Mr Barclay.’
As he spoke, Mrs Barclay rose from the table and crossed the room. She pushed past me, opened the door to the street, and stood holding it for Miss Ockwell, her long face with its three teardrop moles sombre beneath her neat hat.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mr Barclay. ‘We haven’t finished!’
‘We’ll wait for you here, madam,’ said the guvnor to Miss Ockwell.
Miss Ockwell turned to leave, but as she reached the door, Mrs Barclay, quite a foot taller, stepped in her way. For a moment there was confusion as Miss Ockwell tried to get past, first this way, then that. Then, just as suddenly, it was over and she’d left the shop.
‘What the blazes did you do that for, Martha?’ asked her husband.
‘You were making it worse, Dunbar.’
‘Get after her, Barnett,’ said the guvnor. ‘Make sure they come back.’
I was already out the door as he said it. Up ahead I could see the short figure of Rosanna Ockwell, marching quick towards St George’s Circus. I ran after her through the crowds. At the junction she turned down Charlotte Street. I reached the crossroads just in time to see her going into the Pear Tree Tavern, a big place near the corner.
I waited outside for a few minutes in the wet, but it wasn’t a pub I knew and I started to worry there was another way out round the back. Just as I was crossing to go inside, a hansom came out one of the side alleys, pausing to let a coster’s cart loaded with turnips pass on the road. The street there wasn’t too well-lit, and it was only when the cab began to move off that I saw the three figures inside. It was Rosanna and Walter, both staring ahead in silence. A woman sat on the far side of the cabin. Her face was turned to the other window, but I knew it had to be Birdie.
I guessed they must be going to London Bridge station, so I hopped into a passing hansom. When we arrived, I raced up the stairs and saw them ahead making their way to the platform. Walter towered over the two women; though Rosanna could only have been five two or so, Birdie was even shorter.
The train was waiting, its steam up.
‘Oi!’ I shouted, running over to them.
They turned. Birdie’s mouth hung open in her thin face; her old coat and drooping felt hat were made for a thicker woman. In real life she did look like a birdie, like a finch with a tiny, hooked beak and round, innocent eyes.
‘You chased us?’ demanded Miss Ockwell.
‘You said you were coming back, ma’am,’ I said.
‘She didn’t want to, did you, Birdie?’
Birdie looked at me curiously, her eyes deep and brown like her mother. One of her hands was bandaged round and round in a stained rag. In the other she held a grey pigeon feather. She said nothing.
‘I’m Norman, ma’am,’ I said to her. ‘I know your mother and father.’
‘Hello, Norman,’ she said, her voice low. Her mother’s gentle smile appeared on her face.
‘I like that feather,’ I said.
She held it up to show me, her smile lightening up the gloomy station. I smiled back.
‘Your parents really miss you, Birdie,’ I said. ‘They’re only round the corner. Would you like to come see them?’
‘She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want,’ said Walter, his voice flat. He wore a proper collar and tie, a dark suit, a bowler hat over his thin, blond hair. He seemed out of place in the city.
‘Maybe just for a minute, eh, Birdie?’ I asked. ‘Come and say hello.’
Birdie said nothing; still she smiled, but her eyes fell to the floor.
Ahead of us the conductor cried, ‘All aboard!’ and gave his whistle a toot.
‘Come now,’ said Rosanna, gripping her sister-in-law’s arm and marching her towards the train. She must have been pinching real tight as Birdie let out a little gasp.
‘You can get the next one, Birdie,’ I said, following along. ‘Come on, they’re waiting for you.’
‘He can’t tell you what to do, girl,’ said Walter. ‘He doesn’t own you.’
Just as they reached the train, Birdie’s boot caught on a missing cobble. She fell, crying out as her head struck the wet flagstone, but straight away she was up onto her hands and knees and reaching out for her hat. It seemed to me that the little woman was used to falling.
‘Get up!’ ordered Rosanna, taking Birdie’s arm and yanking her hard to her feet. Birdie gasped again.
‘You’re hurting her,’ I said.
‘I’m not hurting her, I’m helping her.’
Birdie’s smile was gone, her eyes full of tears. It was only then, with her hat off, that I saw the scar at the back of her head where her hair should be. It was about the size of an egg, a shocking bright red of sore, livid flesh, the hair above and below gummed with yellow pus. It seemed as a whole patch of her scalp had been torn off.
‘What happened to your hair, Birdie?’ I asked as clouds of steam rose around our feet.
‘Got it caught in the mangle,’ said Rosanna, pulling the hat from Birdie’s hand and fitting it on her head so it covered the scar. ‘Didn’t tie it up right, did you, silly girl?’
Birdie looked at me. Her eyes flicked real quick at Rosanna, then back at me.
‘It hurt, Norman,’ she said, her voice so soft and low.
‘Who did that to you?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t do it,’ said Birdie.
‘It was the mangle,’ said Rosanna. ‘Now, come. Get on the train.’
‘Your mama misses you, you know,’ I said as a couple of men in black overcoats pushed past us to the carriage door. ‘Why not just come and say hello? Just real quick.’
Birdie was opening her mouth to speak when Walter seemed to explode with rage. He smashed his fist hard against the panel of the train, a wild look in his eye.
‘Stop talking about her mama!’ he bellowed. ‘She doesn’t want to hear about them!’
He stepped forward and took hold of my coat, but he was slow and before he’d got a proper grip I swung my arm, knocking his hands away. For a moment he looked surprised, then the fury returned and he started toward me again.
‘Calm down, Walter,’ ordered his sister, getting hold of his arm and pulling him back. ‘Get on the train.’
She pushed him to the door. He did as she told him, like her touch had made him go soft. As he climbed into the carriage, his too-short britches rode up his legs, showing his dirty grey drawers tied at the ankles.
‘She doesn’t want to see them, Mr Barnett,’ said Miss Ockwell, now guiding Birdie aboard the train as well. ‘You’ve given her the chance. She’d have said if she did. Ask Mr Arrowood to send the documents and any questions to our lawyer, Mr Outhwaite, forty-two Rushey Green. We’ll see she signs.’
She climbed into the carriage and slammed the heavy door. I watched them through the window as they took their seats. The train wasn’t fitted with lights, but I could see Birdie sat between them on the bench, her hands clasped on her lap. Her mouth hung open, her eyes looking down on her knees. She seemed so alone. Walter sat by the window nearest me, his elbow rested on the ledge, his eyes shadowed by the rim of his bowler.
The conductor gave two blasts on his whistle. With a great hiss of steam and a clanking of the wheels, the train moved off. At the last moment before they were gone, Birdie looked up at me again. Now she didn’t smile: instead her brow furrowed and her lips tightened. It was the saddest look I’d ever seen.
Chapter Five (#ulink_31efaa96-5576-5cd6-9150-2a9333d00c3b)
As we walked along Blackfriars Road, the guvnor was silent. He tapped his walking stick against the kerb, humming Mrs Barclay’s sad song to himself. I kept quiet, knowing he was pondering our next step.
‘Tell me again what happened at the station,’ he said at last, shaking his head as if to loosen a tangle of thoughts inside. ‘Exactly. Every detail.’
As I went through it, he asked me about their faces and how they stood, how they looked at each other, how they spoke. I knew he’d ask, and on my way back to meet him I’d gone over the details in my mind, describing it to myself lest I’d forget. The guvnor saw people clearer than me, clearer than most people. It was why he was a good detective. He was always trying to improve himself, always reading books on the psychology of the mind and buying pamphlets and papers to follow the big cases as were going on. Lately he’d been into a book by Mr Carpenter about unconscious cerebration, as he was fond of explaining to us, but his favourite for the last couple of years was a book on emotions by Mr Darwin. He’d studied all the pictures in there, learning all the different ways emotion is displayed in the body.
‘It’s clear they control her,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘But more important is why she didn’t answer your questions when she had a chance. Perhaps she didn’t want to disagree with either of you. That would fit with what the Barclays told us about her being meek.’ He ran the tip of his walking stick along the railings next to the pavement. ‘Or she might be unsure of her own mind. It’s likely she’s not used to making decisions for herself.’
‘I wasn’t sure she understood what I was asking.’
‘Her parents said she understands everything. It’s talking she’s not clever with.’
He paused as we reached a pea soup man, his belly gurgling. Then he shook his head and walked on.
‘And Walter said, “He can’t tell you what to do,” did he? That’s interesting. He could have said, “Ignore him, Birdie.” He could have told you to leave her alone. But he chose to say it this way. It suggests he’s concerned about who has the power to tell who what to do. The Barclays say he’s rather slow. Did he strike you that way?’
‘Hard to say, sir. His voice is flat and he seems a bit clumsy. Looked like his sister had charge of him.’
‘I thought the same when we were at the farm. I wonder if he’s concerned about people telling him what to do. And he said, “He don’t own you.” Is that how he sees marriage, I wonder?’
We stepped onto the street to avoid a bent old woman carrying two great sack bundles over her shoulders. A bit of carpet was tied over her head; her filthy overcoat trailed along the greasy street. Behind her wandered a bloke sucking on the bones of a pig’s trotter.
‘Keep up!’ she croaked.
He darted after her, his black suit shining with filth under the gas lamps.
‘Walter’s temper worries me, Barnett. Was he really going to assault you?’
‘Looked like it.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that scar, either. Did Birdie confirm it was the mangle?’
‘She said, “I didn’t do it.” I don’t know if she meant she didn’t tie her hair up or that it wasn’t her fault.’
A boy turned into the street ahead of us, a tray of muffins hanging around his neck. His cap was torn and too big for him; his smock was stained.
‘Lovely muffins!’ he cried at the streams of tired folk trudging along with their carts and sacks.
‘Hello, lad,’ said the guvnor, a great smile lighting his face.
‘Mr Arrowood!’ cried the boy.
It was Neddy, the lad we used now and then when someone needed watching or messages needed taking. He was eleven or so, maybe twelve or ten, and always up for earning a bit of money: his ma liked a drink too much to bring in food regular so it was down to him to feed his two little sisters. Neddy lived on Coin Street, same as the guvnor, but we hadn’t seen much of him that winter. There’d been an arson attack on the guvnor’s building six month before, and him and his sister Ettie had been staying with his oldest friend Lewis as they waited for the builders to repair their rooms.
‘Oh, but it’s good to see you, my dear,’ said the guvnor, giving the lad’s shoulders a squeeze. ‘And how’s your family?’
‘Always hungry, sir. The more I get the more they want, far as I can see. The little one got right chesty over Christmas. Had to get the doctor in for her.’
‘Is she better?’
‘Still cries a lot, sir.’
The guvnor peered through his eyeglasses at the boy’s face. We were just between the light from two street lamps.
‘When’s the last time you had a wash?’
‘This morning,’ said Neddy, wrinkling his nose.
‘Ha!’ laughed the guvnor. ‘Here, give us a couple of muffins, you little imp.’
