In Lonnie's Shadow (19 page)

HEAVY LEATHER BELT

Item No. 4273

Found in cesspit. Heavy duty, working man’s belt.

A short time later, Lonnie stirred, more alert to his surroundings and the events that had brought him to the Big House. From the room below he heard a great crash. Thumps came in heavy succession. Bang. Bang. Bang. There was a roar of laughter and shrill squeals. Lonnie wondered if Mrs B had employed a vaudeville troupe from the Princess. After a raucous rendition of tar-rar-rar-bump-te- day, a voice like a parrot shouted, ‘Parlee-a-mint is cawled, old chums! Moved tem-po-rare-re-lee down the road to this upper-tee establishment! Sit down, yer fat cow, before I deck you.’ More laughter and applause followed.

All that popping of fine French wine and gin, the sporting and the entertainment, made Lonnie more miserable, especially when all he was fit for was to lie here and chalk up his injuries. He rubbed the grazes on his nose and chin. They stood out like volcanic lava. His lips were swollen. He opened his mouth, expecting teeth to tumble out and was mightily re- lieved when they didn’t. His shoulder and leg ached. Red snake welts lay in wait on his stomach like an- cient cave paintings. A vague image of an oak coffin appeared in the back of his mind, which he hastily tossed out. Why am I feeling sorry for myself? he thought. I could have come out of this a lot worse. I could have not come out at all.

The door creaked open. A dark-bearded gent tottered into the room, carrying along with him the unmistakeable and pleasant aroma of Havana cigars. He pulled in a curly-haired woman and lifted her dress to her thighs. Lonnie rolled his eyes at the sight of her bloomers.

‘Not in here,’ the woman objected, tugging down her dress and nudging the gent playfully with her knee.

‘Poppycock,’ he slurred. His breath was beery and he was having great difficulty unbuttoning the front of his trousers.

She protested again. ‘This room’s too dingy.’ Lonnie gave a deliberate cough, which startled the

man and gave the girl a chance to run off giggling. Turning towards him, the man tried gallantly not to sway. ‘Sorry, old chum, no idea someone was in here already.’ With great formality he secured his front, apologised once more, and hastily vacated the room.

Lonnie shook his head. These toffs were a breed of their own. With the door closed and the room blackened again, he struggled into a more comfortable position. The night was going to be a long one. He listened to the merrymaking. It soon outlasted his efforts to stay awake.

When he opened his eyes again the house had fallen silent. By his side was a generous helping of currant cake and a jug of ginger ale. Some fattening up from Pearl, he guessed rightly. He managed to get some of the food past his lips and swilled it down with the warm, sharp-tasting drink.

It may only have been his mind, but the bite to eat made him feel a little stronger. He decided the cuts and grazes were only surface wounds, looking worse than they felt; although the same couldn’t be said for his shoulder and leg, they hurt worse than they looked. That applied to his embarrassment as well. Since making a chump of himself with his misguided declarations to Pearl he figured he’d have to smooth things over face-to-face when next they met. No point in hanging around here then. Better to be home in his own bed.

He stood up slowly, straightening his legs. After testing them for broken bones, he opened the door a smidgeon and peeped out. There was a wide carpeted corridor with doors coming off to the left and right. At the far end an oak staircase curled its way downwards. One foot was out when he overheard the voice of Mrs B coming clear as day from the neighbouring room.

He ducked back into his hidey-hole. Mrs B was midway through an argument and he could make out every word.

‘I’m sick of you asking. She knows nothing and she never will.’

‘I’m not risking the law sniffing around.’ The second voice was Burke’s. ‘It’s my neck they’ll be after.’

‘That I won’t forget. It was a hot-headed thing you did, getting into a fight and throwing him down the stairs. We both know I’m in as deeply as you. Look, I asked her the other day and I believe her. She’s a godly girl. She doesn’t remember a thing.’

‘From now on, I’ll be keeping an eye on that Daisy

Cameron myself, see if I don’t.’

‘Don’t you touch her unless I say. I mean it, Burke. If you interfere I’ll send you packing. You know as well as I do the girl was only a snivelling child at the time. She’s erased the night from her memory. I’m telling you once and for all, Daisy Cameron does not recall how her father died. Now get out of here and leave me to my business.’

Lonnie tried to sort out the story he’d just heard. So Daisy’s missing pa had been killed in a fight with Burke. And Mrs B was involved, too. It was a shock to him. More so that Daisy had seen them do it. Only she didn’t remember. It dawned on him what

Postlethwaite had said that day in the phrenological shop about fear and he fingered the back of his neck. At last it was all starting to make sense. Daisy couldn’t remember by day because her memory of the murder was locked away at the base of her skull, only somehow it was forcing its way out at night in the form of a nightmare.

After Burke left, Madam Buckingham paused for a while by the window, looking out onto the lamp-lit street. She recalled the events of that night, when upon hearing a torrent of filthy abuse and heart- wrenching cries that even she found disturbing – and it took a lot to make her cringe – she and Burke had stormed up a flight of steep grey steps into the cesspit that Samuel Cameron called home.

‘Stop yer thrashing, you cowardly sot.’ Madam Buckingham remembered how the reeking, gut- wrenching, drunken excuse of a man had wobbled to his feet at the sound of her commanding voice and the sight of Burke’s huge bulk beside her. From across his knee the bundle of rags that was his little girl fell to the ground. The thick leather belt was raised above his head, the momentum of the swing almost causing him to fall over backwards.

As the girl struggled to cover her bruised buttocks with her hands and pulled at her threadbare pinafore, her father’s foot kicked out viciously and she rolled across the floor like a skittle ball. It was a sight enough to melt even Madam’s own hardened heart.

The man wrapped the heavily buckled belt more tightly around his right fist. It was the same one he had been using on poor Daisy when the two interrupted him and he intended giving them some of the same. He staggered towards the two intruders, so drunk he could barely walk, let alone be of any real threat to the giant of a man facing him.

Sharp as ever, Madam Buckingham sized up all the danger signs and took a step to the side. At the same time Burke moved forward, grabbed the drunk by the shoulders and lifted him from his feet in a single movement, tossing him head first. Daisy’s pa tumbled head over heels down the stone treads until he came to rest at the bottom of the stairwell with his skull well and truly caved in.

On Madam’s orders Burke bundled the girl into his rough arms. They stepped over the rapidly spreading stain that was encircling her father’s head, its colour the only relief to the drabness of the house. He carried the senseless child to the safety of the Leitrim, as gently as it was possible for a lumbering thug to do.

From that time until the other day, Daisy Cameron had asked no questions, simply accepted her home address as the Leitrim and her placement as seam- stress, without so much as a murmur. Hadn’t they, after all, done a good deed by ridding her once and for all of that wretched, gut-of-the-devil father of hers? Madam Buckingham remained convinced that the God-fearing sprat remembered nothing more about the events of that night. But if she did hear any different, she couldn’t guarantee Burke would be as gentle with Missy Cameron the next time round.

JAR LID

Item No. 955

Ceramic jar lid from a popular cure-all for the skin, scalp and blood. Advertised as curing torturing, disfiguring, itching, scaly and pimply break-outs of the skin. For use from infancy to old age.

With the place to himself, Lonnie set up for a day of rest and recreation in his mam’s armchair. Things were looking up. His grazes were already starting to scab over, thanks to the soothing lotion, and the swelling was subsiding.

It didn’t take long for the first of his visitors to come knocking. Not that Carlo bothered to signal his arrival. He sauntered in without saying a word. He was hardly through the door before he pulled out the race purse he had been keeping safe, sprawled out on the rug and flung a fistful of the notes into the air, letting them fall like feathers on his head and face.

‘How’d you pull up this morning?’ he finally asked.

‘Never felt better, mate,’ Lonnie wisecracked.

‘So fill me in. You’re lassoed, dragged through the streets, kicked in the ribs, cut to smithereens. Anything else I missed?’ Carlo gave him a sideways glance. ‘You know, I felt sick on race night when I touched the scar and realised it was Trident you were riding. And there I was thinking you’d swapped them back.’

The blunt edge of the remark wasn’t lost on Lonnie, who took a deep breath, knowing full well some explanations were overdue. ‘See Carlo, it wasn’t as much that I did or didn’t swap the horses, only I didn’t need to. Remember Crick asking me if I’d ever galloped a horse at breakneck speed, but I never got the chance to finish telling you the story?’

‘You mean when he made you ride Trident as a pacemaker?’

Lonnie nodded. ‘Crick didn’t know I’d galloped him a few times before. It was always in the dark or when no one was around. One day we were going like the wind and I got a bit excited. I hit him with the whip, not hard mind you, just to keep his mind on the job, but he pulled up short and lost all interest. Hard as I tried I couldn’t get him back into full stride again. This all ties into when I dropped my whip at the very start of the race.’

Carlo said, ‘Yeah, when it slipped out of your hand, I tell you my heart sank a fathom or two.’

‘It was no accident. I dropped the whip on purpose. Don’t touch Trident and he’ll ride like a champion, but you whip him and he’ll stop trying. If Crick had half a brain he would’ve cottoned on. The only reason I never went past in track work was because I was holding him back. Crick would never’ve let me ride him again. The point is, Carlo, I could’ve won on whichever horse they gave me. I was always going to be on the winner. It’s a good feeling to have outsmarted Thomas Crick.’ He sat back. Sweet revenge, he called it. A crowd of onlookers to witness Crick’s defeat, not to mention taking his money, too. Well worth waiting for.

‘So what’s going to stop Crick whipping Trident from now on?’

‘Nothing if they still own him.’ Lonnie hoped with all his heart the Glen had gone through with the sale.

Carlo wasn’t as impressed as Lonnie had hoped he would be when he told him. ‘You still shoulda told me which horse you were on.’ With a sweep of his hand, he peevishly swiped up the money that lay scattered on the floor, straightened the ears of the notes, stacked up the coins and surveyed the amount in front of them. ‘So how did you manage to win all this?’

‘I put all I had on myself.’

Carlo’s face registered surprise. ‘And a bit more besides! Come on, you’re not worth that much. Where did you find the extra dosh to wager?’

‘Besides all the bets you put on me earlier, you mean? The truth is I put on a heap more later.’ That was another detail he’d kept quiet about which he now explained. ‘A few friends at the stable who knew I was mates with Bookie asked me to place some bets

on Crick for them. And that night at the Eastern Market, Rose Payne gave me something to bet on us both. That sort of thing.’

‘But Crick lost,’ pestered Carlo. ‘So how does that win us all this money?’

A brief flicker of guilt washed over Lonnie’s face.

‘I put it all on me to win.’

‘All the bets? Even those you shoulda put on

Crick?’

‘I couldn’t stand to lose all that money.’

‘If Crick won and you didn’t pay up, they would’ve been lining up to murder you.’

‘But he didn’t win.’

‘You were nearly killed because you did! And there’s me, thinking I had my own troubles.’

Lonnie could sense the friction in the air.

‘You didn’t let slip to Slasher that he should bet on

Crick by any chance, did ya?’

This remark knocked Lonnie for six. He never even saw it coming. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘He’s vanished with Annie’s takings.’

Although Lonnie had fully expected to hear the news sooner or later, the knowledge that George had repaid the favour hung heavily on his conscience. He prayed the Push had done nothing more than scare him off.

‘Are you going to let him get away with it?’

Carlo was pressing him but Lonnie couldn’t seem to focus. ‘Who?’

‘Crick! He must have had you beat up. I’m up for a bit of payback if you are.’

What was Carlo asking? To wait in the shadows ready to beat the living daylight out of Crick? Slice his throat with a bit of broken bottle? Belt a knuckle duster into his face? Slip a knife into his heart? Lonnie had seen enough violence. He was through with it. All he knew was he had to see George as soon as possible and find out what was going on. ‘Let it go, mate,’ was all he could manage to say.

‘Suits me fine, then.’ Carlo replied, put out. He knew Lonnie was keeping something else from him. And he was dead right.

BILLIARD BALL

Item No. 4169

A well-used, chipped billiard ball.

Murder was on Lonnie’s mind in more ways than one. As soon as Carlo left, Lonnie made it his business to search out George Swiggins, knowing desolately he should have asked him one question much earlier – how do you go about warning someone off ? He needed an answer; he needed reassurance to bury this feeling of doom. He hobbled over to Mackinerny’s Billiard Hall where a loafer who was playing for sixpence a game mentioned he’d seen George heading for the skittle saloon.

‘Hey, George,’ Lonnie yelled, closing in on him,

‘wait up.’

Making every effort to catch his breath, Lonnie faced the Push leader. ‘What did you do to Slasher?’ George reached out to touch the healing scabs on

Lonnie’s face.

Shying away from the contact, Lonnie jerked his head back.

‘Geez, me old pigeon, it’s me who should be asking what someone’s done to you. Think you should really be joining us. There’s safety in numbers. As for Jack, we sorted him.’

‘How?’

George gave Lonnie an indifferent look then pulled him up close. Lonnie found himself staring at the scrapes and nicks from where George had been too rough with the razor that morning. ‘I’m begin- ning to think you’re my lucky charm,’ the leader of the Push said cryptically. ‘You seem to keep doing me favours. Easiest money I ever made without stealing.’ Lonnie looked at him in bewilderment. ‘What money?’

‘My little wager. Knew you had it in you.’

The last thing on Lonnie’s mind was the race. This was not what he had come to hear about. He pressed George for an answer about Slasher. ‘Tell me what you did with him!’

‘Don’t you go worrying about that mad vulture. Once the Push took over the business it weren’t your concern anymore.’ He flashed Lonnie a thin-lipped smile. Everything about his expression was stretched tight. ‘Only Push know Push doings. If you want to know more, join us. Otherwise, shut it. We don’t want no blabbering.’ George flicked a spot of dust off his lapel as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

‘Ever seen a body wrapped and prepared for burial at sea?’

Lonnie felt a strong wave of revulsion. It was true then. George had gone ahead and killed Slasher. Dumped him overboard in the bay without ceremony, leaving the devil to claim his lost and low soul as he sank, and George not even working up a sweat as he admitted to the deed. Here he was, without a hint of a worry, slipping Lonnie a purse, as if they were the best of friends and not accomplices in a murder. He tried to take in what else George was saying.

‘Make sure Annie Walker receives this. Tell Pearl she’s straight with her. Not a word about the Push, the glory’s all yours. Between you and me it’s a direct gift. Because I’m telling you, Jack was in no fit state to argue when we relieved him of it. Serves the mad bugger right.’

Lonnie’s body gave an uncontrollable shudder at the vision of Jack’s murder, his muscles and nerve ends seeming to expel the very last ounce of good- ness in him. He’d got his answer all right. Slasher Jack was dead and he was to blame. He could already hear the hangman draw the bolt, the floor fall from beneath him and his neck snap.

It tickled George Swiggins to see him squirm. If McGuinness believed he was somehow to blame for Jack’s disappearance, so much the better. Always wise to keep the upper hand. As for George, he had never experienced guilt over his own misdeeds. Supposing he ever had the misfortune to be afflicted by self blame, he would crush the emotion to pieces, ram his hard-knuckled fist into its cheekbone. All business settled as far as he was concerned, the leader of the Push idled off down the street, his hands in his pockets and whistling a tune.