Dodger

CHAPTER 14

A lighterman gets a surprise, an old lady vanishes, and Dodger knows nothing, hears nothing and – unsurprisingly – was not even there

THERE WAS SO much that needed doing, he thought as he hurried home. He had to get ready to go to the theatre later on, but first of all and most importantly, what he had to do was pray. Pray to the Lady.

Dodger had been in churches occasionally, but on the whole the street people kept clear of them unless the promise of food was in the offing; after all, a cove could put up with quite a lot of ‘Come to Jesus’ for the sake of a full stomach, so now he was down in his beloved sewers wondering how to go about a prayer.

He’d never seen the Lady, although Grandad had always talked about her as if she was a friend – and he had seen her before he died, and if you can’t trust the word of a dying man then who can you trust? Oh, he’d always half-heartedly asked her for help almost automatically, but he’d never really prayed from the guts upwards, and standing here with the sounds of London overhead and apparently a real assassin looking for him, he needed a prayer.

He began in the time-honoured way by clearing his throat and was about to spit when he hesitated, because at a time like this you didn’t want to offend anybody. Kneeling down was not something you generally did in the sewers, so he straightened up instead and said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say, Lady, and that’s the truth. I mean, it’s not like I’m a murderer, is it? And I promise you that if Simplicity is spared, that poor girl up in the mortuary in Four Farthings will get a place in Lavender Hill; I will see to it, and flowers too.’ He hesitated and continued, ‘And she will get given a name, so that at least I can remember her, and that’s it, Lady, because the world is rather bad and extremely difficult and all you can do is the best you can. And I’m just Dodger.’

There was the tiniest of noises. Dodger glanced down and saw a very small rat run over his boot. Was that a sign? He really wanted a sign. There ought to be signs, and if there was a sign there should be a sign on it to show that it was a sign so that you definitely knew it was a sign. To be frank, a rat running over your boots in the sewer did not, when you thought about it, seem that much like a sign. Was it a sign, or was it just a rat? Oh well, what was the difference? The Lady always had rats around her, and he had half hoped to see a beautiful face magically appear on the dripping bricks of the sewer.

The traffic rattled overhead and the usual punctuated silence remained distinctly empty, and so Dodger added, ‘Grandad, who you most surely have heard of, told me that you always had a pair of shoes on – I mean, not boots but real shoes, so if you would be so good as to smooth my way, I will give you the best pair of shoes that money can buy. Thanking you in expectation, Dodger.’

That afternoon, Solomon pretended to be amazed at how much care Dodger was taking to get ready for the theatre.

Dodger scrubbed out every crevice and corner several times while thinking about the Outlander. He’d never heard of him, but then you don’t get to hear about everybody and it was certainly unlikely that anybody would try anything at the theatre, wasn’t it? But later, in his little private world behind the curtain, as Solomon went through his own ablutions with a considerable amount of splashing and grunting, he carefully took Sweeney Todd’s razor from its hiding place and stared at it.

It was a razor, just a razor. But it was also a fear and a legend. He could slip it into his pocket quite easily. Izzy had done some magnificent work; in fact, the jacket had an inner pocket which just did the job perfectly, and Dodger wondered whether, since this jacket had originally been intended for Sir Robert Peel, Sir Robert Peel had required there to be an inner pocket for those items that a gentleman walking the street might need to get hold of in a hurry – brass knuckles, perhaps.

He sighed and put the razor back in its hiding place. He was uncertain if he wanted to sit next to Simplicity with that so close, and as soon as he had that thought, he felt a little shocked and told himself, Mister Todd killed, but he wasn’t a killer. Maybe if he’d never had to go to that blessed war, he wouldn’t have gone right off his head. But however he looked at it, today at least was not the day for Sweeney Todd’s razor to be on the streets.

Angela had told Solomon to expect a coach that would take them all to the theatre. Dodger found himself looking out for it at least an hour before it was due to reach them, and was gratified that when it did arrive, there were two brawny footmen with it, well spruced up. Their well-set jaws and knowing eyes indicated that they were more than happy to take on anyone in the rookeries who got closer to the coach than they wanted them to.

Solomon got in first. When Dodger stepped in behind him, he was totally crestfallen not to see Simplicity inside, but one of the coachmen poked his head in the coach, gave Dodger an uncharacteristic smile and said, ‘The ladies are still getting ready for the performance, sir, and so we were told to pick you up first. I’m also to tell you that there are refreshments that you may wish to savour during the journey.’ Then, and in a far less nobby voice the footman said, ‘The man that battled Sweeney Todd. Oh my, I can’t wait to tell my old mum!’

While Solomon critically inspected the little well-stocked bar inside the carriage with, as it turned out, great approval, Dodger was thinking hard. Never mind about the Outlander, he thought, but there was something at the back of his mind that was playing over and over again the words that Mrs Holland had told him. Something wasn’t right: what she had told him sounded like, well, a story, rather like Sweeney Todd’s razor, and Dodger knew the truth about Sweeney Todd’s razor, didn’t he? Admittedly, he thought ruefully, he had made up parts of that story so now he was some kind of brave warrior to a lot of people while in his heart he knew himself only as a smart young man.

Swift as a knife, the thought came back. How much of that is the same for this Outlander? Him with all his ladies? Does that sound quite real? he thought. He answered himself: No; even Mrs Holland is pretty well terrified of him, and maybe the Outlander had spun a little spell that made him bigger and more dangerous than he was. Ah yes, that made Dodger feel better. It was like showmanship; it was always showmanship that got you through, and he had a show of his own to prepare.

He reminded himself that he would have to have a very important conversation with Miss Coutts, dear Miss Coutts. He knew that she was a most unusual woman with more money than practically anybody and no husband, and he smiled at himself and he thought, Hmm, a woman with loads of money who isn’t interested in a husband. After all, if you’ve got the money – your own money – a husband is sort of in the way. Solomon had told him that she had once proposed marriage to the Duke of Wellington. Wellington, known to have been a good tactician, had carefully and respectfully declined. Dodger thought, There’s a man that knew there was one battle he would never be able to win!

Solomon put a stopper in a brandy decanter with a happy sigh and Dodger said, ‘Solomon, there’s something I must tell you.’

It was less than fifteen minutes before the coach got to its destination, and Dodger spent a lot of that time looking nervously at Solomon, who seemed lost in thought right up until the old man said, ‘Mmm, well, Dodger, I must say that you are very thorough. You are looking at a man, old and creaky as he is now, who once got out of a jail by garrotting a gaoler with his bootlaces. It is something I regret now, while at the same time reminding myself that because of that act I am now here to tell you about the escapade – and frankly the bastard deserved it because I saw what he had done to others. My people are not known as fighters, but should it be necessary we try to be very good at it. As for your plan, it is bold, daring, and in the circumstances you describe, quite possibly something that will work. Although, my dear friend, do reflect that you will have to get this past Angela, who sees herself at the moment as the protector of our Simplicity.’

The coach was slowing down now, and Dodger said, ‘I know what you mean, but the only person who can order Simplicity to do anything, according to the rules, is her husband, and you must understand that what he says is not going to happen, because he is a pox of a prince. A right royal richard.’

Another flunky opened the door even before Solomon’s hand had touched it, and Solomon and Dodger were shown into a sitting room that contained Angela but, alas, not Simplicity. Angela must have noticed Dodger’s expression because she said cheerfully, ‘Simplicity is taking her time, Mister Dodger, because she is going out to a theatre with you.’ She patted the sofa next to her. ‘Do take a seat.’

So the three of them sat there, in that rather strange silence of people who are waiting without very much to say to one another, until a door was opened and a maid came in, fussing alongside Simplicity, who smiled when she saw Dodger and turned the whole world into gold.

Miss Coutts said, ‘How nice to see you looking so beautiful, my dear, but I think we are going to be late for Julius Caesar if we do not hurry. I know we have a box at the theatre, but I always think it looks so discourteous to be late.’

Dodger was allowed to sit next to Simplicity in the coach; she wasn’t saying very much at the moment, but was apparently somewhat excited at the prospect of the theatre, while Dodger thought things like: A theatre box – that means quite a lot of people in the theatre can see you, oh dear.

But shortly after they arrived at the theatre, in sufficient time not to be too embarrassing, the footmen – or a pair just like them – took their places behind the four of them. It must have been the original two, Dodger thought, because as he turned to look at them he thought he recognized the one who couldn’t wait to tell his mum about Dodger. For just one moment, as he recognized said Dodger, the footman proudly let him glimpse a shining display of brass knuckles, which magically disappeared again into his dressy outfit. Well, that was something.

Dodger had been in theatres before, unofficially, but it took him some time to get the hang of what was going on. Solomon had earlier tried to give him some inkling of what Julius Caesar was all about, and it seemed to Dodger to be about something like a gang fight, except that everybody talked too much. But the words flew over his head and he tried to flap after them, and after a while the play began to enter him. Once you’d got used to the way they were speaking, and all the bed sheets and so on, this was about nasty people, and the moment he thought that and wondered on whose side he should bet, he remembered that these Roman coves had built the sewers and called the Lady ‘Cloacina’.

Although Julius Caesar and the other coves were not actually building any sewers on the stage, Dodger wondered if he should call the Lady by the name they had given her; it might be worth a try. So as the speeches rolled over him, he shut his eyes and trusted his luck to the Roman goddess of the latrines and opened his eyes again as a voice declaimed, ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.’ Eyes wide open, he stared at the players. Well now, if you were going to have a sign, something like this was certainly better than a little rat on your boot!

Miss Coutts, his hostess, was sitting beside him for propriety’s sake, leaving Simplicity chaperoned by Solomon, who being an elderly gentleman could in theory be guaranteed not to think about hanky or panky. Now Miss Coutts nudged him very discreetly and said, ‘Are you all right? I thought you were sleeping, and you nearly jumped out of your seat.’

‘What?’ said Dodger. ‘Oh yes, I just know that it’s going to work, no doubt about it.’

He cursed himself for being stupid then, because Angela whispered, ‘What is going to work, pray?’

Dodger mumbled, ‘Everything.’ And suddenly he paid more attention to the stage, wondering why it took so many Romans to kill one man, especially since he didn’t seem to be a particularly bad cove.

It was what Solomon called ‘a repast’. Which was apparently something much more exciting than a meal. There were glorious potted meats and cold cuts and pickles and chutneys to make your eyes water and Solomon’s eyes gleam. As they finished eating, Dodger said quietly to Angela, ‘Where are your servants now?’

‘Why, in the servants’ hall. I only have to ring if I require them.’

‘Can they hear us?’

‘Absolutely not, and may I remind you, young man, that you already know that they have my full trust. I would not employ them otherwise.’

Dodger stood up. ‘Then I must tell all of you what I hope will happen tomorrow, if you agree.’

The thing about secrets is that they are usually best kept by just one person. That was the special thing about secrets. Some people seemed to think that the best way to keep a secret was to tell as many people as possible; what could possibly go wrong for a secret when there were so many people defending it? But sooner or later he did need to tell it, and the time was now. He also needed an ally, and it needed to be Angela. It seemed to him that a woman who had more money than God, and was still happy and alive, must be a very clever woman indeed. So he told them, quietly and carefully, covering every detail, including what Mrs Holland had told him about the Outlander, and when he stopped there was absolute silence.

Then Angela, not quite looking at Dodger or Simplicity, said, ‘Well, Mister Dodger, much as I admire you, my first inclination was to utterly forbid you to attempt this curious and dangerous scheme. But even as I summoned up the breath to do so, I realized, having seen the looks that passed between the two of you and reminding myself that Simplicity is not a child but a married woman, that the best I can do is to thank you for allowing me into the secret. And frankly, even if I have to pick up the pieces, in truth this matter is one between the two of you.’ She turned to Solomon and said, ‘Will you tell us your thoughts, Mister Cohen?’

After a few seconds there was, ‘Mmm, Dodger has told me of the Outlander, and it is unlikely that he would find Dodger before Dodger’s plan comes to fruition. As a plan it seems to me it does have certain beguiling aspects, because if it works it is unlikely anyone would wish to delve into the matter subsequently. And, of course, my spirits rise when I consider that this plan will take place on a battlefield absolutely familiar to my young friend who, as I am aware, knows every inch of the terrain. In the circumstances mmm, I don’t think Wellington himself could do better with an army.’

Dodger’s eyes had remained on Simplicity through all of this. Once he saw her frown and his spirits had plummeted, rising again when she grinned – not a smile but a grin, quite a saucy one like somebody contemplating a weak adversary.

Angela said, ‘Well, my dear, you are your own woman and will have my support against any man who suggests otherwise. Pray tell me what you think of this hare-brained scheme, eh?’

Quietly Simplicity walked over to Dodger and took him by the hand, sending a quiver down his spine so fast that it bounced up again. She said, ‘I trust Dodger, Miss Angela. After all, look at the things he has done for me already.’

With this ringing in the air, Dodger said, ‘Er, thank you. But now you’ve got to give up your wedding ring.’

Instantly her hand touched the ring, and the silence in the room thundered great peals of absence of sound while Dodger waited for the explosion. Then Simplicity smiled and said, quite softly, ‘It’s a pretty ring, isn’t it? I loved it when he gave it to me. And I thought I was married in the eyes of God. But what do I now know about being married? The poor priest who conducted the ceremony is dead, and so are two good friends, so I think that God was never in this marriage. He was never there when I was beaten, or when I was dragged into that coach, and then there was Dodger. Angela, I trust my Dodger, completely.’ With that, she looked into his eyes, then dropped the ring into his hand and gave it to him with a kiss, and of the two he considered the kiss to be truly twenty-four-carat.

Angela looked at Solomon, who said, ‘Mmm, I think there is no doubt about it, Angela. What we have here is a rather unusual Romeo and Juliet.’

‘So you say,’ said Angela, ‘but as a practical woman, I think we will also need a dash of Twelfth Night. Mister Dodger, you and I must talk about particulars before you leave.’

Angela’s coach carried Dodger and Solomon back to Seven Dials, and they barely exchanged a word until after they had got back from Onan’s late-night run, and even then, still lost in their own thoughts, they spoke little in the gloom. Finally Solomon said, ‘Well, Dodger, I have faith in you, Miss Burdett-Coutts may have some faith in you, but Miss Simplicity has a faith in you which I venture to suggest is greater than that of Abraham.’

In the darkness, Dodger said, ‘Do you mean your friend Abraham, the slightly suspect jeweller?’

And the darkness came back with, ‘No, Dodger: the Abraham who was prepared to sacrifice his son to the Lord.’

‘Well,’ Dodger said, after a moment, ‘we are not going to have any of that sort of thing!’

After that he tried to sleep, seeing as he tossed and turned the face of Simplicity repeating again and again the words that she had said during that last discussion: ‘I trust my Dodger, completely!’

The echoes of it bounced among his bones.

In the morning, he counted what he took to be three plain-clothed policemen, trying to be surreptitious and as ever not doing it properly. He pretended that he didn’t see them, but Sir Robert Peel obviously meant what he had said; two nights in a row there had been someone outside his crib, and now they were here in the daytime too! They were, in a policemany sort of way, trying out new ideas, such as having no man visible near the tenement but putting a couple just round the corner, where he might run into them. Was Sir Robert getting nervous?

Long before daylight, Dodger had already been a very busy boy while the fogs, steams and smoky darkness gave him lots of cover, and now, as the world woke up some little way away, a poor old woman could be seen hobbling past the policemen – if there was anyone about who cared to look at poor old women, who were in reality something of a glut on the market, owing to the fact that they tended to outlive their husbands and generally speaking had nobody who cared about them very much. Dodger thought it was sad; it always was, and sometimes you saw the old girls scraping a living by scrabbling around in the dust heaps and sieving household dust for anything remotely usable.¹ Of course, it was out-doors work but you hardly ever saw one of them in anything like a decent coat. And they were scary; they really were. Terrible bright eyes some of them had as they held out a claw for a farthing; toothless old ladies with that fallen-in look to the face that made you think of witches, and you found them everywhere – anywhere a body could get out of the rain.

But on this occasion, moving through the lanes and alleys, there was a now rather more spry old woman towing a handcart – a vehicle of high status on the streets – and she was fussing over it as elderly ladies did. If there was indeed a watcher on the moon, looking down on London, they would have noticed her zigzagging her way to the embankment, whereupon she hazarded a penny on a boat that took her and her little cart across the Thames, although on this occasion she paid no more than a farthing – not the official sum for the trip, the watcher would have noticed, but the lighterman himself had never seen an old girl in such a sad old dither. Having an old mother himself, he felt a little generous today and even agreed to wait to take her back across the river, only to find that when she came back from her errand, on her cart was strapped a corpse in a winding sheet. This, to tell the truth, was a problem, but then one of his mates stopped on the landing to disembark a fare and, waving vaguely towards the old girl, who was still in such a terrible state, the lighterman got his mate to help him on with the cadaver. Fortunately, it was still bendy.

Dodger – because the old lady was indeed Dodger – felt rather happy about all this. And also slightly ashamed since, after all, the coroner of Four Farthings himself and his officer had come out to help the old lady with the cart and had assured her that the remains of her niece had been treated with veneration at all times. It warmed the cockles of your heart, so it did.

Then, of course, there was the return journey, this way against the tide, and the lighterman could see that he was not, as it were, going to become a rich man in this situation, so he said gruffly, ‘OK, dear, in for a lion, in for a lamb, a farthing each and let’s call it quits.’

The journey across the water wasn’t that long, although it was a bit choppy, and after the man helped the fussy old lady to get the little cart over the cobbles he was amazed beyond belief when the old girl handed him a shiny three sixpences, calling him the last gentleman in London. For a long time afterwards he remembered the incident fondly.

Once back on the right side of the Thames, a watcher would have seen the old lady pulling her cart in a haphazard way along a dark and foggy alley where there was a shadow and a great smell of gin, and a very drunken, very dirty and very nasty-looking man who said, ‘Got anything for me in your bag there, Granny?’

This little tableau was witnessed through the gloom by a bootblack who was sitting down on the kerb to eat his breakfast. Just as he began to think that he should do something about the ambush further on, something very strange eventuated in which the old lady seemed to vanish in a whirl and the man was on the ground while she was kicking him merrily in the fork, crying out, ‘If ever I see you around here again, sonny, I’ll have your giblets on my griddle, just you see if I don’t!’ Then, after adjusting her dress somewhat, the old lady once again became, well, an old lady in the eyes of the bootblack, who had watched with his half-eaten jacket potato neglected in his hand. Then the old dear waved at him cheerily and said, ‘Young man, who’s doing potatoes around here today?’

This led to Dodger continuing his journey with quite a lot of jacket potatoes in his bag, which he distributed to any old ladies he saw sitting pitifully on the kerb; it was a kind of penance, he thought. And God, who must surely have looked kindly on this act of charity, seemed to have arranged it that a lavender girl had set up right in the next street, which meant that Dodger was spared the chore of going out to find one, not a difficult task since in the stink of London everybody liked to buy some lavender now and again. In this case the lucky girl sold all of the stock to the old lady with grateful thanks and went to the pub, while the old lady, smelling far more fragrant, trundled on her way.

Moving a dead body is never easy in any case, but in the murkier part of Seven Dials Dodger treasured an alley with a drain in it that was just the job; and of course, once he was in the sewers he was in his element. He could go about his business unrecognized by the people walking about above, and the chances of meeting another tosher were small. Anyway, as the king of the toshers, he could do as he pleased. In sewers, if you knew where to look for them, there were places that would make a good-sized room – places the toshers had given wonderful names to, like Top and Turn Again.

Splashing his way into one of the tunnels, Dodger set about the nastier piece of the enterprise. This particular stretch had so far never been given a name; it got one now: Rest in Peace. Death was always around in the darker places of London, and it was an unusual day when you didn’t see a funeral procession, so this engendered a kind of pragmatism: people lived, people died and other people had to deal with it. At this point, because he very much wanted to live, Dodger pulled off his disguise to reveal his normal clothes hidden beneath the rags, and pulled on a pair of large, well-greased, leather gloves, just as Mrs Holland had advised, and he was grateful for the advice, and grateful too that he had spent so much on the lavender, because however you looked at it, the dull, heavy, cloying smell of death was something that you didn’t put up with for any longer than you had to.

So with traffic a few feet overhead, he pulled, pushed and levered very thoroughly until he had got things looking just right. All was well right up until when, as he was just positioning the remains of the young lady in her nook, she sighed as her head moved. Dodger thought, If something like that is going to happen it’s a good job you are standing in a sewer. It was nothing; he knew the dead could be quite noisy at times, as Mrs Holland had said. What with gases and so on, corpses might be said to speak long after they were dead. He opened his carefully prepared little bag of camphor and cayenne pepper, which ought to keep the rats away, for long enough at least.

As he stood back to look at his handiwork, he was glad, very glad, that he wouldn’t have to do it ever again. Then there was nothing more to do, apart from packing up his gloves, but he also took great care to leave the sewer at some distance away from the scene of the crime – if such it could be called, he added to himself. Finding a pump, he washed his hands in London water, which he knew was always slightly suspicious unless you boiled it, but good old lye soap was a reliable if caustic companion. Then he strolled back to Seven Dials with the air of a young man just enjoying the sunshine which, in fact, was rather strange today, as if something was going on in the upper air.

He didn’t think very much about this, however, for as soon as he got home two peelers were waiting for him, and one of them said, ‘Sir Robert would like a word with you, my little lad.’ He sniffed at the leftover lavender that Dodger had chosen to take home because it was always welcome around Onan. ‘Flowers for your girl, hey?’

Dodger ignored him, but he had been expecting something like this, since once the peelers had got interested in you, they kept on being interested in you, apparently thinking that sooner or later you would break down and confess to everything. It was a sort of game, and the worst of it was when they tried to seem to be friends. And so, like the upstanding citizen he was, he accompanied the two men to Scotland Yard, but making sure that he went with the swagger of a geezer and everyone in the rookeries could see that this wasn’t something he was in agreement with – for Dodger had a reputation to keep down; it was bad enough to be an official hero, but he would be damned if he was going to be seen to go willingly into anywhere where peelers lurked. It wouldn’t be the first, third or tenth time the peelers thought they had got Dodger and would have to think again.

Sir Robert Peel was waiting for him. Even now Dodger didn’t trust him – he looked like a swell, but had a street gleam in his eye. The head of the peelers regarded him over his desk and said, ‘Have you ever heard of the Outlander, my friend?’

‘No,’ lied Dodger, on the basis that you always lied to a policeman if at all possible.

Sir Robert gave him a blank look and said that the police forces of Europe would very much like to see the Outlander behind bars or, for preference, swinging from the gallows. ‘The Outlander is an assassin. He is a sharp man, Mister Dodger, and so are his knives. We presume from as much information as we can glean that he is very much interested in the whereabouts of Miss Simplicity. And, by association, you. We both know the facts of the matter, and I must assume that someone somewhere is getting extremely impatient, as evinced by the murder of Sharp Bob and his employee. We appear to be running out of time, Mister Dodger. You must understand that the British government would be doing nothing wrong in the eyes of many people if a runaway wife was sent back to her legal husband.’ He sniffed. ‘Distasteful as that would seem to many of us who are cognizant of the circumstances of this whole sordid matter. The clock is ticking, my friend. People in power do not like to be continually thwarted, and can I at this stage also draw to your attention the fact that I am one of them.’

There was a tapping noise and Dodger glanced down at Sir Robert Peel’s left hand, the fingers of which were drumming on a pile of documents which seemed rather familiar.

Sir Robert looked at his face and said, ‘I know, because it is my job to know these things, that a certain embassy was broken into two nights ago, with a great deal of documentation and miscellaneous jewellery stolen. Subsequently it appears that the miscreant, who we are under some pressure to bring to justice, then saw fit to set fire to a coach house.’

Dodger’s face was all innocent interest as Sir Robert continued, ‘Of course, my men had to go to check upon the details of this theft and this wilful vandalism and it seemed that even before the fire one wheel of this coach was damaged, but the perpetrator appeared to have scratched across the crest of this coach the name “Mr Punch”. I must assume that of course you know nothing about any of this?’

‘Well, sir,’ said Dodger brightly, ‘as you know, we were at a jolly dinner party that night. I went home with Solomon, who I am sure will testify should you require it.’ And he thought, I wonder if Solomon would lie for me to a policeman? Swiftly the thought came back: Solomon must have lied to policemen all over Europe, and with God on his side, and would be very unlikely in the presence of a peeler to know if the sky was blue.

Sir Robert smiled, but the smile had no warmth in it and the drumming of his fingers became a little more insistent. ‘Mister Dodger, I am absolutely certain that Mister Cohen would say exactly that. And since we are on the subject, would you know anything about a Jewish gentleman who called in at our front desk this morning with a little package of documents for me? The sergeant in charge said he placed them on the desk and scuttled off at some speed and most certainly without leaving his name.’ There was the unfunny smile again, and Sir Robert went on, ‘Of course, generally speaking, all elderly Jewish gentlemen in their black clothing look very similar to everyone except their nearest and dearest.’

At this point Dodger piped up and said, ‘Indeed, I never really thought of it.’ He was enjoying this and so, in some twisted way, was at least part of Sir Robert.

‘So you know nothing,’ said Sir Robert. ‘You know nothing, you heard nothing and you weren’t there, of course.’ He added, ‘These are very interesting documents, very interesting. Especially in the light of the current discussions taking place. Which is why the embassy want them back. Of course, I don’t know where they are. Surely Solomon must have pointed out to you the worth of what you brought home?’

‘What, sir, sorry, sir. Solomon ain’t mentioned to me anything about any documents and I ain’t seen them,’ said Dodger, thinking, What’s he think I am? A little baby?

‘Ye-e-s,’ said Sir Robert. ‘Mister Dodger, have you heard the phrase, You are so sharp that you might cut yourself?’

‘Yes, sir, very careful with knives, sir, you can be sure of that.’

‘I’m so glad to hear it. You may go now.’ And as Dodger had his hand on the door knob, Sir Robert said, ‘Don’t do it again, young man.’

Dodger said, ‘Can’t, sir, haven’t done it once.’ He didn’t shake his head, except in the privacy of his brain. Yes, they always wait until you think you are out of trouble and then they fly one on you. Honestly, I could teach them a few tricks.

He left Scotland Yard, calling out cheerfully as he did so, ‘Told yuz! You’ll never find anything on me, my lads.’ But he thought, So there are clocks ticking. A government’s clock. The Outlander’s clock. And mine. It will be best for Simplicity if mine chimes first.

As for the Outlander? Here he paused. A man whose only description was that he never seemed to be the same man twice? How could you ever find a man like that? But he comforted himself as he thought, We are so close now, and he’s got to learn all about me and find out where I am. That’s going to be very difficult for him. This didn’t entirely satisfy him, because the thought that came after was that the Outlander was a professional killer, apparently of important people, so exactly how hard would it be for him to wipe a snotty-nosed tosher off of the world?

He considered this and then said aloud, ‘I’m Dodger! It will be very hard indeed!’

1 Sights like this were commonplace. Henry Mayhew’s research is full of details of this level of poverty, nowadays unimaginable in cities such as London.