The Deadly Fire (5 page)

In some strange way, Mutsy seemed to understand what they wanted. He sniffed the tatty cushions which Tom used as a bed and then marched resolutely towards the door.

In a few minutes they were all out on the pavement.

‘What now?' asked Jack, looking hopefully at Mutsy.

‘We'll start at St Giles, in Streatham Street – that's where we saw him last.' Alfie tried to sound more hopeful than he felt.

But when they arrived at the edge of St Giles, his heart sank. Could the dog smell anything here? The foggy air was filled with the choking smell of burnt timber and smouldering plaster. Puffs of smoke still rose suddenly from parts of the old school building. Even though the sun had not yet risen, Streatham Street was full of people, all gazing at the remains of
the fire, some even warming themselves by its heat.

‘Where's Tom, then, boy?' asked Alfie again, but Mutsy seemed puzzled, fixing his large, intelligent eyes on Alfie and then looking at Sammy.

Alfie grimaced. They had never used Mutsy to track anyone other than Sammy, he realised. Now the dog thought he was being asked to find the blind boy, not his young cousin.

‘We're wasting time,' said Jack impatiently after a while. ‘Mutsy don't know what you're talking about. I'm going over there.' He strode towards the ruined school.

‘You stay here, Sam, with Mutsy.' Sammy would be quite safe in the midst of the crowd watching the fire. Alfie did not want Jack to go among the burning rubble by himself. Jack, though shy and silent with strangers, was as brave as a lion – too brave, sometimes – and Alfie had no intention of allowing him to risk his life searching through the ruins.

‘Tom isn't here, Jack,' he said firmly as he caught up with his cousin.

‘I have to be sure,' was all that Jack said. ‘I'm going in there.'

The stone floor of the Ragged School was still clearly visible, but very little else was left. The fire had
licked around the flagstones before leaping up the half-timbered walls and turning them into smouldering piles of ash.

Before Alfie could stop him, Jack was making his way over the floor, almost as though he expected his brother to be hiding somewhere.

‘Don't be stupid, Jack, the fire could flare up again any minute.' Anxiety made Alfie's voice sharp, but Jack, normally so easy-going and obedient to his older cousin, now seemed deaf and he continued to make his way through the smoking heaps. Sighing and uneasy, Alfie followed him.

‘This was my classroom.' Jack's voice was low as he stared up around him.

‘And that was my classroom up there . . .' Alfie stopped in the middle of his sentence. There was something odd lying at his feet, a yellow shape, a bit bigger than a man's foot. He bent down and picked it up. It was hard, now, but he knew what it was. The tinder-dry old cupboard he had put it in was now just a pile of ash, but the clay he had brought from the brickworks was still there, though now utterly changed. It was no longer soft and slimy; it had been baked as hard as any roof tile.

But not before someone had trodden on it.

Stamped into the clay was the impression of a boot.

And beside it were the remains of a tin can, now crumpled by the heat, but once big enough to have held a few pints of oil.

A vivid picture flashed through Alfie's mind. Someone had come in the front door, stepped into the big wooden cupboard, emptied oil over everything, thrust a flaming torch at the paper, then silently stolen out again, allowing the fire to burn inside its hiding place and then to burst out and engulf the whole building.

But did they know that a perfect impression of their right boot had been baked into the clay?

Alfie picked up the piece of clay. He would keep that, he thought. It was too big to slip into his pocket, but he disguised it as best he could by also picking up a fairly unburned chunk of wood. Some of the inhabitants of St Giles were doing the same thing, picking through the remains of the smouldering building to find timber for their fires.

‘Cor,' said a voice over his shoulder. Alfie swung around. Albert, the monitor, was standing behind him and prodding at the hard lump with his finger. ‘Would you look at that,' he continued. ‘It's that clay that you put into the cupboard. Blessed if someone
didn't stand on it. Lumme, it's as hard as iron. What do you want it for?'

‘Do me for a door stop,' said Alfie casually. ‘You haven't seen young Tom, have you? He's been missing since last night.'

He was glad that Jack was not there to see Albert shake his head and look around in a shocked way at the burned building. Alfie wondered if there had been any news of Mr Elmore, but decided to say nothing. His first duty was to find Tom. He felt responsible. He should never have forced the boy to go to the Ragged School.

There had always been a problem between Tom and Alfie. Alfie was the oldest member of the gang, the natural leader, but Tom had never accepted that leadership. He and Jack had been taken in by Alfie's mother, their aunt, on the death of their own mother. When Alfie's mother died of cholera, Tom was left angry and defiant. She had spoilt Tom, Alfie thought, remembering how his mother had fussed over her younger nephew more than any of the other boys, including her own blind son, Sammy. Even after her death, Tom always expected to have his own way and his own privileges.

‘Let's go,' Alfie said. ‘We're wasting time.' Suddenly
an idea had come to him. He remembered seeing Mary Robinson that night. What if she had kidnapped Tom? He turned away from Jack and edged his way through the burning rubble and back to Sammy.

‘Do you think that Mary Robinson could have grabbed Tom and done something to him, killed him or something?' He asked the question quickly, before Jack joined them. Sammy had brains and Alfie relied on him for that.

‘Not likely,' said Sammy decisively.

‘Why?' Alfie was taken aback.

‘Well, why should she?'

‘Well, she hates my guts, and she saw him with us last night on the way to school, didn't she?' argued Alfie.

Sammy shrugged. ‘And what did she see? She saw Tom arguing with you, cursing you, so why should she think that you would care if anything happened to him? Do you know what I think, Alfie? I think he went off with her of his own accord.'

‘What are you talking about?' Jack had just joined them.

‘Sammy thinks that Tom might have gone off with Mary Robinson – just because he was in a temper with me.'

‘He wouldn't do that.' But Jack's face was suddenly hopeful and Alfie hastened to keep those hopes up.

‘I think that old Sam here has got hold of something,' he said. ‘There's another thing, too. When I was talking to Mr Elmore, he showed me a big pile of leaflets about Mary Robinson that he had ready to give out at the other markets. Tom could have overheard us, because he was just outside the door when I came out. And Mr Elmore told me later that all the leaflets had disappeared. What if Tom stole them and handed them over to Mary Robinson? She might have given him some money and he went off and found a night's lodging. You can sleep at Tom-all-Alone's place for a penny.'

‘Or she might have offered him a job,' said Jack excitedly. He had an optimistic nature. ‘A boy like Tom could be useful to run errands for her, or something.'

‘What are we waiting for?' asked Alfie. ‘Let's go and look at Smithfield market.'

Feeling hopeful, he led the way back to the cellar. There was still no sign of Tom, but that didn't seem to matter now that they had an idea to pursue. Alfie put the piece of baked clay, with its imprint of a boot, carefully into the corner and then turned to Mutsy. ‘Smithfield, Mutsy!'

Mutsy wagged his long, furry tail so hard that it was like a piece of rope lashing against Alfie's bare legs. Mutsy loved Smithfield market.

Twenty minutes later they were there. Smithfield was the place where all the meat that was brought in from the countryside was sold. Even the posh shops in Mayfair came there to get their meat. The smell was terrible, but none of the boys noticed it. They were used to smells. Mutsy positively liked them and his nose was twitching vigorously. Alfie took Sammy's arm and let Mutsy go. The dog would be no use until he'd had a chance to catch some of the big fat juicy rats that hid in every crack of the walls around the market, or swarmed under the tarpaulins that covered the carts.

Sure enough, Mutsy made an instant dash at a cart and neatly scooped up a rat from under its wheels. He had a very good technique for dealing with rats. His pounce was lightning quick and his teeth instantly found the back of the rat's neck. After a minute there was nothing left except a long scaly tail.

‘Good dog you have there, lads,' said the butcher, pausing in his loading of his cart. ‘If there's one thing I hate, it's a rat.'

Mutsy wagged his tail as if he knew he was being praised and carefully checked the rest of the cart,
thrusting his wet black nose under the axle and pawing at the ground beneath the wheels.

‘You lads are from Bow Street, aren't you?' asked the butcher. ‘I recognise the songbird there.' He nodded towards Sammy before continuing. ‘Drop into my shop on Drury Lane later on and I'll have a few sausages for you and a bone for the dog. There's four of you, ain't that right?'

‘That's right,' said Alfie. ‘You haven't seen my other cousin, Tom? Looks like Jack here, but younger.'

‘Lots of boys around. Can't say I've taken much notice.' The butcher gave a nod and went back to his job of loading the meat.

Mutsy had eaten three more rats before they reached the north gate into Smithfield market. There was a tremendous din of animal noises, as farmers from the countryside beyond London queued up to get into the market and sell their cows, sheep, pigs and even their baskets of hens and geese to the stallholders.

It was still very early in the morning and many stalls were not yet open. Some stallholders were still walking around, their faces anxious. Alfie's glance sharpened. These must be the ones who had not yet bought their produce from the farmers. And, of course, to do this, they had to have money. Without
money, stallholders could not buy the animals, and, unless they bought and then sold at a profit, they would have nothing to live on. There was one woman who had made a fortune out of this need for ready money on the day of a fair.

‘We'll follow them. This is where we'll find Mary Robinson.' Alfie spoke directly into Jack's ear. It was too dangerous to say anything aloud. Mary Robinson had plenty of men working for her. One of them might be on the lookout at that very moment. Alfie dragged his cap low down over his face, though he knew that with Mutsy and Sammy beside him, he would be instantly recognised by Mary Robinson herself.

‘Here, boy,' he said to Mutsy. Quickly, he tied a long piece of rope to Mutsy's collar. Now was the moment.

‘Find Tom,' he said into Mutsy's large hairy ear. ‘Go on, boy, find him.'

This got Mutsy excited. He loved finding games. He gave one quick glance at Sammy just to assure himself that he was coming with them, and then began to weave his way through the crowds.

Had Mutsy understood at last?

Mary Robinson did not require any stall, or any sign. Anyone who needed money knew exactly where to find her. Already there were about thirty people, lining up, many of them clutching a piece of paper or a docket to show that they had paid her back promptly the week before. A man walked the line of the queue, carefully scrutinising the pieces of paper and putting those with a docket at the head of the line. Alfie glanced at him briefly. No point in asking him anything. These men were probably paid to keep anything to do with Mary Robinson a secret.

‘I hope Tom notices that Mary Robinson's people
can read and probably write, too.'