Dodger (18 page)

‘I'm sorry, Warrigal,' I said. ‘I really thought the jewel was in that doll and that is the truth with no lie. But if it ain't there, then, you got to believe me, I can find it.' I was thinking aloud as I spoke, going over the possibilities. ‘Shatillion wrote that Fagin gave the jewel to a child, his favourite. There weren't that many of us. If it ain't me, there are only two other possible boys that he could have meant. We'll find them together and get the jewel. It's the clever thing to do. Much cleverer than killing me.'

Warrigal was listening now and I could feel the violence lifting away from him. I began lowering my knife-hand in a show of trust. There was a silent moment while he thought about this and so I decided to press my luck.

‘Why should the likes of Evershed set you and me against each
other like we was two rats in a pit to be bet on? Convicts and natives have more in common with each other than we do with him. If we're going to survive his wicked game then we need to work together.'

I could see I was starting to get through to him. He became stiller, his breathing softened but he still held that knife as though ready for business.

‘If you kill me,' I went on, ‘and come home empty-handed then what is to say he won't carry out his threat anyway. A high-born man like him expects satisfaction and my head on a plate won't be enough.' I placed my own weapon down on the table now, but with my hand still on it in case he pounced. ‘Better to help me find the real stone instead. It's the best chance we got of saving your people from getting slaughtered and, be sensible, you ain't gonna find it without me.'

He looked to my hand and, still slow, I removed it from the handle of the knife. Then he looked to the long blade he held in his own. If he made a move now I would be helpless against him, but I had a feeling the storm what raged inside him was passing. He looked back to me as I stroked my stinging neck.

‘Put the knife down and let's work this out. We've come too far, you and me, to have it end like this. And, you know, killing me won't help matters.'

There was a pause and he eyed me hard. At last he nodded. A small but clear nod and he twisted his hand so the knife pointed away from me before he too placed it on his side of the table.

‘Before Christmas,' he said at last.

I nodded back. ‘That's it. Yeah. We'll have it by then. No need for—'

Then, with one swift kick, I sent the entire dining table crashing towards him. The food, crockery and stabbing implements was all
scattered across the floor and Warrigal stood surprised. My hands was on the back of the small wooden chair and I charged with it towards him, meaning to smash it into the side of his face, but he, with sudden quickness, darted away in time. The chair leg swung past him, missing his head by a hair, and I tried to swing it back again to catch him the other way. Only this time the weight of the chair was against me and Warrigal caught it with his hand. We wrestled over it in the centre of the room, with the rug getting bunched underneath us, before one of us must have hurled it away to the other side of the room. I saw it land straight into the fireplace and by the time my head turned back to Warrigal his clenched fist connected with my right cheek. I staggered back as his other fist hit into my left and I almost tripped on the rug. I do not know if Warrigal had ever been inside a boxing ring in his life but this two-punch assault suggested that he would have been good at it.

However, I had always fancied myself as an amateur pugilist myself and so the sharp, strong uppercut what struck into Warrigal's chin probably came as a shock to him. My knuckles stung as they connected, telling me that they must have done him some harm, and as the rug shifted beneath his feet I seized my advantage, grabbed him by his nightshirt and charged with him over to the corner of the room where the bath screen was. The screen, one of them thin zigzag pieces of work what is meant to hide a lady's modesty, was made out of this light wood and it offered no resistance as I pushed Warrigal into it. It collapsed around him as he fell to the floor and I lost no time in finding something to hit him with while he was down.

Beside the fireplace was these three tin buckets of water what we was meant to heat over the grate before bath time. I decided that one of these would be ideal for striking a cove with until he
could not get up but first they needed emptying. So I got hold of the biggest one, stood over my fallen opponent and tipped the contents all over him. He wriggled on to his back as the water splashed upon him and he looked so sad and soggy that I decided that I did not have the stomach to beat him with the bucket after all. I decided instead to just leave him, wet and hopeless, as I made my sharp exit. There had been enough violence for one night, I told myself. I would be merciful in victory.

Then he kicked me between the legs. The pain was like no other and I doubled over, the bucket dropped and I fell on to my side. ‘You rat!' I said to him, my voice an unmanly squeak. ‘That weren't sporting.' I could hear him getting to his feet and so in an instant began struggling to mine in spite of the agony. But Warrigal was up before me and I steeled myself for a hefty killing blow. It did not come and instead I watched as he walked, dripping water all across the floor, over to the door at the other end of the chamber. The key was in the hole, and he turned it and took the key out. There was no escape for me that way.

He walked over to the overturned fainting chair and lifted it back on to its feet. ‘Sit,' he said, and stepped away from it. ‘We talk.'

I stood to my full height, not easy considering the bruise to my bollocks, and told him it was about blooming time.

‘
That's what I been telling you!
' I said to him, as though the part where I had tried to smash his head open with a chair had never happened. ‘A good chat solves everything. Not fisticuffs.'

‘Sit,' he said again.

I did not want to as I was certain it was a trick and he would run me through with his knife as soon as I was comfy. That blade was still on the floor, the same distance from each of us, but Warrigal no longer seemed aware of it.

From the room underneath ours there was still the tremendous noise of the wedding revelry. A piano was playing, as was competing fiddles, dancers stamped about, drunks was singing as loud as they could. The racket Warrigal and myself had made would have gone unheard by everyone around and the sound from below set a queer background noise for our tense scene above.

I rubbed my neck and felt the deep raw cut left by his wire. I saw the garrotte curled on the rug amid the smashed crockery and next to it the severed top of the wooden prince.

‘You near took my head off with that thing,' I complained. Warrigal said nothing. He had moved over to the far wall and his arms was crossed. ‘I dare say I've got a nasty mark now thanks to you.' Warrigal nodded. There was a looking glass above the fireplace and I stepped towards it, careful not to turn my back upon him. I lifted up my chin and saw a long streak of red circling my neck. It looked even worse than it hurt. ‘Ouch. That'll never heal. I shall have to start wearing a thick neckerchief now, you rotten abo.'

Warrigal mumbled something I did not catch. I asked him to say it again. Then he ran a finger across his neck.

‘Red tomorrow,' he said. ‘Sorry.'

This was a surprise. He had never said anything of that sort before. His eyes was still watery from all the sneezing but I looked into them to see if he was lying. I had known him long enough to know that he was no kind of actor. He could not even play my valet without giving off an air that I worked for him. In truth, I thought as I searched his face and saw some regret looking back at me, I had never seen him lie before. He was artless in that way.

‘So you should be,' I answered, my voice still wheezy from the attack. ‘Disgraceful behaviour, coming up from behind me like that.'

His chin raised and the hardness was back. ‘Two boys?' he demanded. ‘Who?'

To have sat in that long, low chair would have placed me at his mercy and so, to show him that I was ready to talk but also to keep my distance, I instead crossed over to the bed and sat at the end of it. He then moved round to the chair and we began to discuss our problem like two sensible fellows.

‘There was a lad called Eddie Inderwick,' I told him. ‘Steady Eddie, we called him. He was older than me and had moved out before I went to live with the old man, but he would come and visit often. Fagin used to hold him up as an example to the rest of us; it would make me good and jealous listening to these praises. We'll track down this Eddie and see if he has what we need.'

‘And?'

‘The other boy is my best pal, Charley Bates. He was the only other what I could recall Fagin liked as much as me, on account of how jolly he always was. He was a delight of a boy was Charley and I could see him being Fagin's favourite because he was my favourite too.'

‘If not?'

‘If it's not with either of them then he could have hidden it anywhere, but I know his old haunts and I've more chance of finding it than anyone. I know how Fagin thought.'

Warrigal pointed his chin towards the pebble on the floor and tutted.

‘All right, I admit that was a bit of a poor surprise,' I said, and shook my head. ‘It seems my confidence in being Fagin's favourite was ill-judged. Never mind.' I got to my feet and paced around the bed. I might have allowed myself to get good and gloomy thinking on this disappointment. I was his favourite, his top-sawyer,
he had told me often enough. So how could he have given the jewel to another?

But I did not dwell on this for long. I have never seen where the profit is in self pity and I had no use for it now. Instead I started telling Warrigal what our next move would be.

‘First thing tomorrow,' I said as I began to pull back the big quilt what he had been lying under earlier, ‘we head back into town.' Warrigal shivered. He was still ill from this afternoon's river trip and looked unwilling to repeat the experience. ‘Only this time we shall take the train.' I began fluffing the pillows, making it clear to him that it was my turn to crawl into the big bed. It was only fair, I felt, considering he had just near choked the life out of me. ‘And we shall go straight to see Jem.'

‘Jem?'

‘Ruby's fella, my oldest pal. Or leastways he was once. One of them. Ruby said him and her now live in Bill and Nancy's old crib and I know the very place.'

‘Where?'

‘I'll take you there tomorrow. We shall head off after we have given this place a good clean.' The table was still overturned, our dinner on the floor. ‘We can't leave it looking like this. We're not animals.'

I went over to the small wardrobe and pulled out the bedding and walked it over to him. As I drew near I felt him stiffen as though readying himself for another sly strike but I placed the bedding at the end of that long settee and told him that he should find it comfortable. My boots was under the chair. I longed to reach for them but dared not to.

‘You can have that beef if you don't mind eating off the floor.' I yawned and began reaching for my nightclothes. ‘But I for one am getting an early night. Much to do tomorrow. Much to do.'

*

But of course I did not sleep. The noise from the wedding celebrations below still thumped up through the floorboards with no signs of abating and I just lay there and thought. Soon after I had rested my head, Warrigal walked about the chamber pinching out the candles and I peeped through my covers and watched his dark shape bed down upon the chair. His sneezing and coughing had been replaced by a quiet sniffle but his breathing was still heavy. I watched the blankets what covered him rise and sink, rise and sink, and after a time I thought I heard snoring. It was hard to make out anything above the downstairs din but the more I listened the more confident I became. I then rolled over away from him and looked to the large window what overlooked the Thames. It was now, I reasoned, while the sounds of carousing would still cover any noise made, that I would have to make my escape.

I may have convinced Warrigal that he needed my assistance to track down the Jakkapoor stone but I could not think of any good reason as to why I should keep him – a fellow who was under orders to kill me and had just proven that he was ready to do so at the drop of a stone – around me. I knew where Jem and Ruby dwelt and he did not and that was to my advantage. They was the only people whose address in London I did know, so it made sense for me to head there without him. I would just leave him here in Greenwich and he would have to explain things to Timothy Pin without me as I hunted for the jewel alone. Because there was a strong chance that neither Eddie nor Charley had the Jakkapoor stone either and if that proved to be so then I needed to do a disappearing act before Warrigal or anyone else working for Evershed could get to me. Perhaps the lives of the people at Honey Ant Hill was in jeopardy but that was not my problem. I had my own neck to consider.

Warrigal lay next to my hat, boots and coat and I did not have
the courage to try to snatch them back before leaving. He still had the key of the door about him so I could not have exited that way either. However, I had noticed that the window was still unlatched from where he had opened it earlier and it was close enough to my bed for me to slip out without him noticing. I moved under the bed covers, like a snake under sand, and poked my head out of the lower part of the bed. I was an arm's reach from the window and I lowered myself to the floor as soundless as I could. I turned my head back to Warrigal to make sure he was still sleeping. I could see, from under the far side of the four-poster bed, that there was no movement, so I dared to lift the window enough to make a large enough opening for me to squeeze out through. There was a squeak as I did so and I snapped my head back to Warrigal. He did not stir. I lifted the window up a few more inches and my knuckles, raw from the punching, felt the sharp air of the late November night sting them in a warning not to proceed. I chose to ignore it. It was a choice between facing the outside chill hatless, shoeless and wearing nightclothes, or staying here with a murderer. I wasted no time and pulled my body through the thin gap and out into the night. Once I was out on the veranda I shut the window behind me and every bone within me rattled with the cold. I looked about me and wondered what to do now.