The Death Collector

Chapter 4

Gloucester Road was busy and noisy. Horse-drawn carriages clattered across the junction with Cromwell Road. Pedestrians struggled through the crowds. Shopkeepers watched from under their awnings and called out to any passer-by who looked like a potential customer.

The secret was to keep moving. Eddie knew the area better than the cabbies — all the side streets, all the possible escapes. He walked slowly, pausing only briefly before running across the road. A cart driver shouted at him to mind out of the way. Eddie didn’t care about that, but he did mind that the man he had been following heard the warning, and stepped briskly aside. It meant that Eddie missed him, missed the opportunity to brush past and slip his hand into the man’s jacket.

The man had seen him now. Just a glance, no notion that Eddie had been about to relieve him of his money or watch. But there was a chance he might remember if he saw Eddie again — might remember and realise the boy was following him. Time to move on.

Looking round as he kept walking, Eddie’s practised eye lighted upon someone else who might be worthy of his attentions. The man had probably been tall and imposing, but was now bent with age and obviously frail. He wore a heavy coat, fastened tightly round his neck. But as he moved there was heaviness in the material at his chest that might signify money, or perhaps a silver cigarette case he could pawn …

Eddie matched his pace to that of the elderly gentleman, but kept several steps behind and to the side of him. Only now did he see that the man was not alone. There was a young woman with him. She was wearing a plain, pale green dress, and carrying a small bag. Eddie wondered if the bag might be a better target, but dismissed the idea almost at once. No, the man would have the money, and the woman would notice immediately if he took her bag. She might not be able to run as fast as Eddie, but he preferred that no one noticed him at work.

The pavement ahead was more crowded as several people came out of a shop. A carriage with an advertisement for Champion’s Vinegar swept past. The sound of its wheels masked the sound of Eddie’s running feet. As he approached the gentleman, Eddie could see his clerical collar inside the coat. He almost shied away then. Not that he had any qualms about robbing a clergyman, but the shape in his coat was probably a prayer book. Eddie had no use for prayers unless you could sell them.

But at that moment the man turned to say something to the young woman, and as he did so his coat fell slightly open. It was an opportunity too good to pass up. Eddie’s hand dipped inside the coat as he bumped against the man, muttered an apology, lifted out the contents of the man’s pocket, kept walking briskly. It was a wallet, Eddie could tell — the leather was warm and comforting in his hand, the shape bulged nicely as he stuffed it into his own trouser pocket. Perfect.

Except that the man had noticed. Perhaps he had checked his pocket, perhaps he had felt the light touch of Eddie’s fingers. Perhaps he just knew from the way Eddie had collided with him. Whatever the case, he was shouting, pointing after Eddie. A glance back was sufficient to reassure Eddie that the man could never catch him. Soon he would be lost in the crowd, and no one would know who the clergyman was pointing at or shouting after. Eddie knew better than to run, and let everyone know for certain. Better to walk briskly, not look back, pretend it was nothing to do with him.

But there was another voice now — shrill, angry, determined. In spite of himself, Eddie did look back — to see the young woman racing down Gloucester Road after him. In that split-second he saw her knocking past several people, her dress gathered up so she could run more quickly, her eyes locked on Eddie in grim determination as she charged after him in a most alarming and unladylike manner.

She was quick. He could hear the slap of her shoes on the pavement behind him as he ran. He pushed aside anyone in his way, and pulled people into her path as he raced down the street. But whenever he stole a quick glance over his shoulder, she was still there. And every time she was slightly closer. It would not be long before she caught up with him, assuming no one grabbed hold of him first.

Eddie turned and raced across the street. A horse reared up in surprise. A cab lurched sideways. Shouts, gasps, the rattle of wheels close to him. His own blood thumping in his ears. But still the constant rhythmic sound of the woman’s running feet close behind Eddie’s own.

Eddie kept running, though he was slowing now. He turned into Stanhope Gardens, then immediately again into the street that led back up towards Cromwell Road where he hoped to lose her again in the crowds. He risked one more look back.

There was no one there. The street was empty, and Eddie drew a great gasping breath of relief as he slowed to a brisk walk. Almost immediately, he realised his mistake.

The woman was not behind him, because she had caught up with him and was running alongside. He caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of his eye. But before he could react, he was pushed suddenly up against the wall close to the side entrance to a mews. Close, but not close enough to wriggle free and duck inside. She had him.

‘What do you want?’ Eddie demanded. ‘I ain’t done nothing.’

The woman was more composed than Eddie had expected, and she was not going to be fooled. ‘I want my father’s wallet back,’ she said. ‘And then I think we’ll find a policeman.’

‘Not the peelers,’ Eddie protested. ‘They’ll send me away, they will. Off to the workhouse or worse.’

‘They’ll tell your parents,’ she said levelly. There was no trace of pity in her face, and she was holding him to the wall with one hand while the other was held out for the wallet.

‘I ain’t got no parents,’ Eddie said. He watched for any flicker of a reaction to this. She blinked, but nothing more. ‘No home,’ he added. ‘Nothing. I live on the streets and wherever I can find shelter.’

The woman smiled thinly. ‘Then perhaps the workhouse would be preferable. At least you would have a roof over your head.’

Eddie said nothing. Instead he produced a leather wallet from his trouser pocket and slapped it into the woman’s outstretched hand. She glanced at it, then put it inside her bag, which Eddie noticed was looped over her wrist. To do this, she had to let go of Eddie, and he almost ran off.

He stayed where he was partly because he was still out of breath, and partly because he was intrigued by the woman. Now he looked at her, she was not that much older than him really. Eighteen at the most, and possibly younger. Her face was red from running, but it was, Eddie thought, a pretty face beneath her anger. Her eyes were as startlingly green as her dress.

The wallet safe in her bag, she looked up at Eddie and to his surprise she smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She stood looking at him for several moments, and Eddie guessed that she was deciding if she should try to march him off to find a policeman. He doubted she could hold him for long, but he was unwilling to find out.

‘My father, Horace Oldfield,’ she said at last, ‘helps at a hostel in Camberwell. People go there when they have nowhere else to sleep. I can give you the address, you’d be welcome there.’

Eddie shook his head.

She sighed. ‘You can get help, you know. So why do you do it?’

‘Because I have to,’ he blurted. He had not meant to say anything to her, but now it was easier to keep talking than it was to stop. And there was a policeman walking past the end of the street — he was sure that the woman had noticed.

‘My mum died,’ Eddie said, the words coming out in a rush. ‘When I was twelve. She fell down the stairs. My father found her when he got in from the pub. Then there was just Laura and me and him. She’s my sister. He didn’t care much about me, but he loved Laura. She couldn’t leave or he’d have come after her. But I did.’

‘You ran away?’

He nodded, biting his lip at the memory.

‘You can always go back. Remember the prodigal son. Even after all this time I’m sure your father would welcome you home.’

‘I haven’t got a home,’ Eddie told her, wondering whose son she was talking about. He pulled away from the wall and stuffed his hands into his pockets, head down. ‘Anyway,’ he admitted, ‘I did go back. A month after, I went back home.’

‘What happened?’ she asked gently.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. The house was empty. They’d gone. Moved away. Dunno where.’ She wasn’t going to call the peelers now, he could tell. ‘So I’ve got no home, like I said. And I don’t care.’ He turned and walked away down Woodstock Street, leaving the woman standing alone.

Her father was waiting where Elizabeth Oldfield had left him, outside Grosvenor’s Mourning Warehouse. The shop specialised in clothing for the bereaved, and it seemed appropriate that an aged clergyman should be spending his time looking in at the window.

‘There are so many of these shops nowadays,’ he said distractedly as Elizabeth joined him. ‘Death, it seems, is always with us.’

‘So are the pickpockets,’ she told him. ‘At least I got your wallet back for you.’

‘Thank you, my dear.’ He smiled and shook his head as they continued their interrupted journey along the Gloucester Road. ‘Although there’s very little of value in it, it was given to me by your dear mother. I should be sorry to lose it.’

‘There’s the principle too,’ Elizabeth said. She opened her bag and retrieved the wallet. She handed it to her father, who inspected it with interest.

‘What is this?’

‘It’s your wallet,’ she said gently. He was getting so very vague these days. ‘Remember? The one mother gave you.’

‘No, no, no.’ He was shaking his head and offering it back to her. The dull brown of the leather was scuffed and well worn. He nodded back at Grosvenor’s where he had waited. ‘My wallet, the wallet she gave me, is as black as their mourning suits.’

Elizabeth just stared. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Well, I ought to know my own wallet. Here, you have it.’

She took it, feeling the colour rush to her face as she realised what had happened. ‘That urchin,’ she hissed. ‘He gave me the wrong wallet. He’s kept yours. He didn’t have time to take the money out, so he kept it. This is some other poor soul’s.’

‘Hmm, that’s possible,’ her father agreed. ‘Relieved of its contents earlier, no doubt.’

‘No doubt. All that talk about his mother dying, and running away from home …’ She was breathing heavily, getting angrier by the moment at how he had tricked her — how he had played on her emotions. As she fumed she opened the wallet, knowing it would be empty.

Or almost empty. Certainly there were no notes or coins inside. But there was a handwritten card with a name and address, presumably the owner. Tucked behind the card, carefully folded in half as if to protect and preserve it was a small slip of paper. It looked as though it had been taken from a notebook. One edge of it was torn, leaving a tiny hole where the string of the binding had been threaded through. There was writing on the paper, faded black ink that started in mid-sentence, and was lost at the other side of the paper. The other edge was not torn, but ragged and charred, where it had been burned away.