Dodger of the Dials (24 page)

‘I crowed good and hard, Dodge,’ she told me. ‘But those peelers moved fast. They was into the lane and knocking down the front door of Rylance’s house in a blink.’

‘Mouse heard you,’ I said as I felt for where the doll unscrewed. ‘It weren’t your fault.’

‘Didn’t say that it was,’ she snorted. Then she dropped her voice so low I had to rest my forehead against hers to listen. ‘They moved
really
fast though. Didn’t look for no door numbers or nothing. They knew you was in there, Dodge. They expected you.’

‘I know,’ I nodded and reached into my own pocket. ‘At the trial the peelers said they received a telegram from someone telling them that we would be there murdering Rylance. That would have been sent by the real killer, the person whose name Billy Slade wouldn’t tell me.’

I produced a folded up piece of paper on which earlier that morning – before we had gone to chapel – I had written down my side of the story for Slade to read. As I had told Mouse, I was unsure what Slade knew about what had happened in that room but I wanted people to read my version of events. I handed it to Tom and told her that I wanted her to deliver it to Slade so that he and the rest of the criminal community would have no doubt. ‘He must know the identity of the real murderer,’ I explained as I tried to hand it over. ‘So he can make him pay. Be sure to make him understand that I’m innocent so he knows not to trust that guilty person again.’ Tom batted the paper away and looked at me as though I was soft.

‘You think that Billy Slade don’t know full well what happened?’ she said. ‘Jack, Weeping Billy
is
what happened.’

It had, of course, occurred to me too that Slade might have had some knowledge of what his client was intending but it seemed unlikely that he might have orchestrated such events himself. I doubted he would have had the power or the motivation. I held on to the piece of paper for a moment and considered why she might be so much surer of his involvement than I was.

‘You think that Slade himself sent that telegram from the Old Bailey?’ I checked. ‘On his client’s behalf?’

Tom shook her bonneted head. ‘I don’t even think there was a telegram, Jack. I think it was all gammon.’

‘There was a telegram all right,’ I told her. ‘You wasn’t at the trial and you didn’t hear what I did. The peeler what testified – the one who ordered his men to go to the scene – he was high-ranking, a Detective Superintendent. He said he was responding to this telegram and he offered to show it to the judge and everything. Why would he do that if there wasn’t one to show? I’m sorry, girl, but your imagination is getting the better of you again.’

‘I was at the trial if you must know,’ Tom replied in her cold voice. ‘Dressed up like this so nobody would recognise me. I was stood about three spaces down from Lily Lennox in the galleries and I saw all. I saw a lot more than you did from the sound of things.’

‘Oh yeah? Like what?’

‘Judge Aylesbury,’ she replied. ‘The short pug-nosed old man in his silly wig. Didn’t he look familiar to you?’

As she said that I recalled thinking that the old man’s face did tinkle a bit but, at the time, I could not place him. But, hearing that Tom had recognised him also, I searched my memories again. And then – in an instant – I fell upon where I had crossed paths with him before and the surprise of it slapped me awake. He had looked so different without his wig on, sipping champagne and leering at a half-naked harpist.

‘Molly Gay’s,’ I said then and it felt as if I had known all along. ‘He was the old man on the settee when we first arrived. The one who Slade sent upstairs with two girls.’ Tom nodded while I chastised myself for not recognising him sooner. ‘Which means …’

‘… Which means that Slade has power over him,’ Tom finished the sickening thought for me. ‘Maybe he’s blackmailing him or perhaps he just pays him in whores. But it’s no coincidence that he was overseeing your trial, Jack, that I promise you.’

I sat there and thought about Billy Slade for a few seconds. I had never doubted that Slade was a villain out for his own interests but I found it hard to believe he would go out of his way to trap a fellow thief, a brother starling. I looked down at the wooden image of my doomed self what I still held in my hands and tried to make sense of his actions. ‘Where is the profit,’ I asked myself aloud, ‘in seeing me dead? I was his top earner.’

‘The day after you was arrested,’ Tom answered, ‘Slade appeared in the Three Cripples with a mob of those red-hatted boys he surrounds himself with. He came to speak to all of the Diallers present and ordered us to repeat his words to those associates of yours who wasn’t there. He told how you had killed Scratcher for betraying you and now you had gone and killed this Anthony Rylance person. He predicted – and was since proven right – that the judge would make you swing for the Rylance murder. As you can imagine, most of the Diallers turned against you when they heard about what you done to poor Scratcher. He was a very popular lad, you know. Many of the boys was disgusted by it.’

‘But I didn’t kill neither of them!’ I protested not caring if the turnkey was lingering outside the doorway. ‘Scratcher is alive and well and living in Rochester!’ Tom looked surprised to hear that. Once again, I was stunned by what some of my closest friends was
prepared to believe about me. ‘I hid him away so Slade wouldn’t kill him.’

‘Well, either way,’ she shrugged as if it did not really matter, ‘Billy Slade has taken control of the Diallers. He’s our top sawyer now.’ I almost broke the gallows doll in two when I heard that. So that was Slade’s interest from the start – he wanted to steal my entire gang by seeing that I got pinched. There was many evil acts a criminal could carry out but betraying your own kind was the lowest. And after all his talk of community! Tom could see how angry the revelation was making me and she leaped at the chance to make me feel even worse. ‘I tried telling you, Dodger,’ she said, which, in fairness, was true. ‘You was the one what wanted to be a Slade man, remember.’

I let out some well-chosen curse words then and again the turnkey came to the door window to see what was wrong. So I collected myself in case this visit was brought to an early end and went back to whispering so he would move along.

‘You was right then,’ I admitted with bitterness. ‘And so was Lily. You both warned me against him and I wouldn’t listen.’

‘I may have been wrong about her though, Jack,’ Tom said in a begrudging tone. ‘About Lily. I’ll give you that much. Because she’s one of the few what doesn’t think you’re a killer.’

‘That’s because she was the one who helped me hide Scratcher from Billy Slade,’ I told her.

‘I see,’ Tom said and added, ‘so I may have had her character all wrong then. She won’t have a word said against you.’

‘You’ve seen her?’ I asked.

‘I went straight to your crib on the night you was taken and told her what had happened.’

‘How did she seem when she heard?’

‘She weren’t happy.’

‘What sort of not happy?’

‘How many sorts of not happy are there?’

‘Lots of sorts as it happens, Tom,’ I snapped. ‘I’m discovering new ones every minute.’

Tom made herself comfortable on that bench by spreading her legs apart in an unfeminine fashion. She could only play the part of a woman for so long, it seemed. ‘Well, there was tears if that’s what you’re asking me,’ she shrugged as if the subject was already boring her.

‘Then why hasn’t she visited me?’

‘She tried when you was in the police cell before the trial. But those peelers was guarding you close and they don’t welcome visitors here much neither. That’s why I’ve had to get all tarted up.’ She waved her hands over her dress and make up. ‘I feel like a clown.’

‘Is she still at our crib?’

‘No,’ Tom hesitated before telling me this next thing. ‘One of Billy Slade’s first commands once he had declared himself top sawyer of our gang was that he wanted your fancy woman brought before him. But by the time the red hats got to Five Fingers Court she had fled. She ain’t been seen since.’

Again, I felt the anger filling me up as I realised how I had allowed Slade to snatch my life like away this. My love was in danger, my gang had turned their backs on me and history would think me a killer if I couldn’t break out of here in time to set things right. I was innocent of murdering Anthony Rylance but – given the chance – I was more than ready to kill Slade should I ever meet the man again. I was about to start giving Tom a series of instructions about how she should set about protecting Lily against Slade and also avenging myself and Mouse but just then the lock in the door began to turn. Tom was back up into her feminine pose before the door had begun opening.

‘Time’s up, Mrs Dawkins,’ said the turnkey as he entered the Grate. ‘I hope you’ve said goodbye as that is the last time I’ll allow this intimacy before he hangs.’ I was frustrated by his appearance as there was still so much to discuss. But I crossed over to my false wife for a last embrace. ‘That’s enough of that,’ he said, and placed his baton in between us.

I wanted to thank Tom for all she had done today. Not only had she provided me with useful items to escape with but she had shown great loyalty while others had not. Mouse and myself had a true friend in her but it was now impossible now for me to speak free.

‘Thank you for coming to see me … darling …’

‘Mary,’ she prompted.

‘Mary. Give my love to the family and in particular little Lillian.’

‘If I see her I shall,’ she said and curtsied both to me and to the turnkey before another came to lead her away.

‘Don’t feel too glum, sir,’ the turnkey sighed in a rare moment of sympathy as we watched her disappear up the corridor and out of the prison. ‘Gallows dolls never do capture a person’s handsome side.’ I looked down again to the toy – what had been designed to look like me with blood on my hands – and I decided that I did not much care for it after all. In truth, I wondered if I had ever before seen anything so hideous in my entire life.

Chapter 16
Gallows Dolls

In which the dials of the Newgate clocks tick louder by the minute

The bells of St Sepulchre’s, the neighbouring parish church, tolled at dawn on the next day to wake the condemned. They need not have bothered. None of us in that little cell had slept well through the night and morning light had crept through the bars of our window and illuminated an awful stillness.

My thoughts was now even more disturbed by what I had learnt from Tom Skinner’s visit – about the treachery what Slade seemed to have played against me – and all I wanted to do was talk it out it with Mouse so we could plan our revenge on top of our escape. But Mouse and I had not spoken much to one another since we had returned from our visit and this was out of respect to Old Edwards. He had spent his last night alive down on his knees in prayer.

A clergyman was admitted into our cell to administer consolation to Old Edwards soon after the toll and he spoke with him about matters spiritual while ignoring myself and Mouse. It would be our turn to receive such attention on the following Monday and so for now we was to just watch in silence as our cellmate was asked if he was ready to issue a full confession for his crimes once upon the scaffold and in full hearing of the crowd. The old man said that he would do this without hesitation, that he would be glad to do it, and he thanked the prison officials for giving him the chance. I had
never asked Old Edwards for what crime he was set to hang but I could tell from his attitude that, unlike us, he was guilty of it.

Then two turnkeys fettered the arms and legs of the prisoner and, without another word, they placed a bag over his head and led him from the cell for the last time. Mouse and myself was left alone then but still we did not speak. He sat on his stone bed and I sat on mine and it must have been a full minute before I heard his quiet sobbing.

‘Come now,’ I whispered as I got up from my mattress and crossed over to sit beside him. ‘Don’t despair. He was ready to go. You heard him say so. Be brave, Mouse, that won’t be us.’ I placed my arm around him and he leant into my shoulder so he could cry some more. He was starting to quiet himself when we heard a distant roar from the far side of the prison. The crowd was cheering and there was no doubt as to what about. Then the bells of the church chimed once more.

I did not remove my arm from around him as I knew he was not done and sure enough the tears resumed. I kept telling him that it was going to be all right. That our fates would be different to that of Old Edwards and that he should not lose hope. We shall get out of here, I whispered into his ear as his body juddered and rocked, you and me. As I said all that, I knew that it was as much for my own benefit as for his. Witnessing Old Edwards being taken away to the gallows had been terrifying and my own spirit had been very much shaken by the sight.

‘This shouldn’t be happening, Jack,’ Mouse said after some moments silence. ‘We don’t deserve to be killed.’

‘Nobody deserves to,’ I replied. ‘Not even Old Edwards, regardless of whatever he done. It’s a barbarism, plain and simple.’

Then Mouse dropped his face into his hands and as he did so he muttered something. I just about heard the words but was so
amazed by the poison in them that I asked him to repeat what he had said, but louder. He hesitated at first but then he lifted his face up again and turned it towards mine.

‘I said,’ his eyes was still wet from the tears but they was raging too, ‘that this is all your doing!’

The words whipped me and I shoved his small body away from mine so we could have it out. The cheek of him, I thought, as he continued staring at me like he had never done before. Here I was trying to be all paternal to the lad and he goes and he repays me with this wicked accusation.

‘My doing?’ I shouted back at him. I was livid and had to stop myself from battering him, from taking all my own pent-up anger out on the one person I could reach. ‘I never asked you to become a burglar, you know. I never put no gun to your head and forced you into Rylance’s home. Recall, you asked to come out on a crack. You’re your own master, Mouse, don’t go thinking otherwise!’