For my father, Tom Priestley
CONTENTS
Part I.
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Chapter XVI.
Chapter XVII.
Chapter XVIII.
Chapter XIX.
Part II.
Chapter XX.
Chapter XXI.
Chapter XXII.
Chapter XXIII.
Chapter XXIV.
Chapter XXV.
Chapter XXVI.
Chapter XXVII.
Chapter XXVIII.
Chapter XXIX.
Chapter XXX.
Chapter XXXI.
Chapter XXXII.
Chapter XXXIII.
Part III.
Chapter XXXIV.
Chapter XXXV.
Chapter XXXVI.
Chapter XXXVII.
Chapter XXXVIII.
Chapter XXXIX.
Chapter XL.
Chapter XLI.
Chapter XLII.
Chapter XLIII.
Chapter XLIV.
Authors Note
Also by Chris Priestley
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
Billy pulled his clammy coat collar tightly to his throat. It was damp with the fog and felt like the tongue of a dead animal lolling against his neck. His thin body shivered and trembled. He was fifteen but looked eight. A fever sweat glistened on his forehead. His breaths were short; they puffed from his mouth in feeble wisps.
He walked warily out into Finsbury Square. The fog gathered here, undisturbed, ominous. Billy carried a small cocoon of visibility with him, so that, as he walked, it was as if the world outside this bubble were as yet unformed and he invented his part of it at every step.
It was late and the owners of the pocket watches and handkerchiefs that Billy predated were safely home and happy by their firesides, sipping brandy, counting their blessings and their money.
Amber light seeped like honey from upstairs windows, glowing between the heavy curtains and solid shutters that formed a barrier to the cold and to the fear-filled world beyond.
Voices likewise seeped out into the dank night air: the happy hubbub of laughter and good cheer. Then the giddy tumble of church bells rang out across the city and Billy heard the sound of toasts and singing, and the cold gnawed more deeply into his bones. It was January 1st: New Years Day, 1818.
Billy was sick. He had been sick before, but this was different. He grabbed the nearby metal railing for support. It burned his hand with its fierce chill. Tiny forests of white crystals were sprouting over metal and wood, over bricks and cobbles. Minute thorns of ice prickled over every surface. The fog seemed to close in around Billy. Soon it would simply erase him and everything he had been. All would dissolve into that desolate nothingness.
The gilding at the edge of the wooden sign overhead flickered with the light from a nearby lamp. The painted letters spelled out Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones Publishers . Billy had worked the customers at this bookshop. They were easy targets as they left, their faces fixed on the pages of their new books, their minds elsewhere.
The shadow of the sign fell across a body lying against the wall beside the publishers doorway, face down and motionless. Billy knew a dead body when he saw one. The hands were as colourless as rancid meat. There was no sound, no movement.
He looked at it with the cynical detachment that years on the street had gifted him. He did not know this man and did not care how he had lived or how he came to die. Only the rich could afford to be sentimental. He cared for no one but himself. He was alone. Everyone was.
As ill as he felt, Billy could not bring himself to ignore a possible treasure. This body was a resource to be made the most of. This was a tree that might have fruit to be picked.
Billy had already gathered from the briefest of glances that the clothes would be of no use to him at all. The man was huge. Even though he made his coat look small, Billy could see that it would smother him. Time to see what the pockets of that coat concealed.
He looked about him. He had a feeling there was someone watching, but then he always had that. It was what made him sharp, what gave him his edge. He lived his life on the balls of his feet, always ready to run. But he didnt have the strength to run tonight. Perhaps it was Death waiting in the fog.
As he bent down to the corpse, his eyelids became heavy, his vision blurred.
He was shaking now more than shivering. Billy had seen more bodies than he could remember: who could live on the streets of London and not? The dead were just another waste product of this great machine of a city like smoke and sewage.
Old age did not seem to be the cause of death: Billy could not see his face clearly, but his hair was long and raven black. Chances were he had been murdered or had died of some disease or other. Perhaps , thought Billy, he simply died of want . Hunger could kill you stone-cold dead without any hue and cry. Want was a murderer who never swung.
The world seemed momentarily to slither to one side and Billy almost fell, face first, on to the corpse at his feet. He steadied himself, blinking his eyes back into focus.
There were no obvious signs that the man had been attacked: no blood on the ground or on his clothes, no cuts, no gashes. But a cudgel was as deadly as a knife in the right hands. Billy had seen it done. More than once.