Fogging Over (9 page)

He saw Georgie go red and added in a gentler voice, “Those are her words, obviously my dear, not mine. Your aunt does not feel for you as I do.”

Georgie nodded miserably.

“I’m sure this house seems very pleasant, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes uncle—” Georgie began but his uncle was still talking.

“Well, let me tell you, when Mrs Scrivener has one of her rages, it is a purgatory, a real Dante’s Inferno.”

“Yes, sir,” mumbled Georgie, though he obviously had no idea what his uncle was on about.

Mr Scrivener shook his head, as if he’d just that minute remembered his nephew’s disadvantage. “How foolish of me. How could you have heard of Italy’s greatest poet? You don’t even go to school. Come, your aunt will not be back for some time. We must have tea together before you go.”

I’ve always adored real fires, so I went to warm my hands at the flames. The spaniel immediately came over and lay down beside me. That’s one cool thing about being an angel; animals absolutely worship you.

While they waited for the tea to arrive, Georgie told his uncle about visiting his mama’s grave.

His uncle’s handsome face flushed. “I believe that your mama’s delicate constitution was fatally weakened by that business with your papa.”

Georgie looked wistful. “How did Papa die, Uncle Noel? Mama would never tell us.”

His uncle swiftly avoided his eyes. “Believe me, it is better that way. We must simply pray that your papa’s fatal weakness has not been passed on to you.”

Georgie looked bewildered. “Yes, Uncle.”

The tea came and Uncle Noel plied Georgie with muffins and seed cake and kept refilling his cup with hot sweet tea. The room was very warm, and once Georgie’s stomach was full, he had to struggle to stay awake. After a while he began to snore, and his uncle sat silently watching him with that same strangely hungry expression. I got the feeling Georgie reminded him of someone, someone completely unlike his scary domineering wife.

A new, darker expression came into Georgie’s uncle’s eyes. He got up abruptly and went to sit at his desk, where he began to compose a letter.

The spaniel couldn’t settle with so many angels in one room. It went trotting over to Lola and Brice now, wagging its stumpy little tail.

“Nice dog,” said Brice softly. “Pity about your psycho master.”

The dog gazed at them, as if they were the most wonderful beings it had ever seen. They smiled at each other and their hands touched as they stroked its silky ears.

I was suffering from serious jealousy, I admit that now. But at the time I totally couldn’t, so I took my feelings out on Brice. “It’s not the uncle’s fault he’s married to some old harpy,” I snapped.

“Mel, just ask yourself how two kids from a well-off family came to end up on the streets,” Brice said angrily.

“Stuff happens,” I said. “You of all people should know that. Anyway, you heard what the uncle said. Georgie’s father squandered the family fortune. Maybe he was a gambler. He obviously had mental problems.” The spiteful words just came out of my mouth. I had no idea why I was defending this guy, especially since I had secretly decided he was a psycho too.

Brice made a sound of disgust. “That’s just what Uncle Noel wants people to think. I can’t believe you fell for it.”

“Even if their dad was a gambler,” he said, turning to Lola, “which I doubt, it’s likely some of the money was put in trust for them. I have a feeling that nice, caring Uncle Noel used his legal eagle know-how to divert their inheritance to his own personal bank account. Maybe he got himself made executor, so he could ‘look after’ Georgie and Charlotte’s dosh until they come of age.
If
they come of age,” he added darkly.

“You mean, Uncle and Auntie Scrivener would prefer it if neither kid survived?” Lola’s eyes widened. “Do you think he’s psycho enough to kill them?”

“I think he’s been hoping they’d just die naturally of hunger and neglect. Sounds like the aunt got impatient and tried to have the kids put in the workhouse. Charlotte wouldn’t last two minutes in there.”

This is so unfair, I thought. I was supposed to be the big Sherlock Holmes fan, not Brice. How come
he
got to play the great detective? And how come he and Lola were talking to each other over my head as if I wasn’t even in the room?

“Well, I think an angel should always give a human the benefit of the doubt,” I said prissily. “Plus you two seem to have forgotten this is only meant to be a field trip. We’re not supposed to get involved.”

Uncle Noel had finished writing his letter. He slipped it into an envelope, sealing it with a blob of melted sealing wax. Then he reached into a money bag hidden at his waist and extracted a shiny silver sixpenny bit. At last, he went to wake Georgie.

“I want you to take another letter to our old friend in Newgate Gaol. Here is money for a cab and sixpence for yourself. You are to hand this personally to Mr Godbolt as usual. Can you remember the message from last time?”

“I am to tell Mr Godbolt that you have not forgotten about him or his sister,” Georgie echoed blearily. He was still half-asleep, but his uncle must have been scared his wife would come back because suddenly Georgie was outside on the doorstep, still struggling to fit his arm into his torn coat sleeve.

He hailed a passing horse-drawn cab and the four of us rode all the way to Newgate Street in unusual style. Obviously familiar with the drill, Georgie just marched up to the prison door and tugged the bell pull.

I’ve never seen such an ominous door in my
entire
existence. The wood was studded all over with iron nails and bound with huge iron bands. The massive bolts were iron too. And this was just the door!

For a moment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. We’re angels, I reminded myself bravely. We can leave any time we like.

I heard heavy footsteps and the jangling of keys. It was a horribly claustrophobic sound which totally explained why Victorian prison warders used to be known as ‘turnkeys’.

A metal grating slid open. “State your business,” growled a voice.

“I’m to take a letter to Mr Edwin Godbolt,” said Georgie.

‘“I’ll see as he gets it.”

“It’s from ‘is brief.” Georgie had quickly switched back to his street voice. “I’m to put it in ‘is ‘and myself, or I don’t get paid.”

The bolts rasped back, and the weary looking turnkey let us in to a grim stone hallway. The only source of light came from the glimmering oil lantern in his hand. He was just a tired bloke in a shabby black suit and an equally shabby broad-brimmed hat, but you could tell that having those keys made him feel seriously in charge.

The turnkey led us down steps and along twisty passages and through a dizzy series of yards, each one guarded by gates with iron gratings. We had to stop at each one, while he put down his lantern, hunted for the right key, unlocked and then relocked the gate after us. The further we went into the prison, the more stale and smelly the air became, as if all the gaol’s actual oxygen had been used up years ago.

At last we came to an immense dank stone room, a cellar basically, with dripping sounds and slimy stuff growing on the walls. The smell was so gross I had to hold my breath. Unbelievably, there was just one toilet bucket for twenty plus convicts to share between them. Some convicts were trying to sleep on thin mats on the floor. The rest paced like caged animals or leaned blankly against the walls. One made coaxing noises to Georgie, as if he was a cute little pet. “Come over here, laddie.” He leered at the little boy, exposing broken yellow teeth, and Georgie hastily backed away.

The turnkey held up his lamp. “Message for Edwin Godbolt from ‘is brief,” he said in a bored voice.

An elderly man moved forward into the light. He was pale and painfully thin, but he had the sweetest expression I’ve ever seen on a human adult. “Georgie, how kind of you to visit me in this fearful place.”

“My uncle sent me. He has written you a letter, sir,” Georgie explained.

I saw a flicker of emotion in the old man’s eyes. “Oh, yes, I should have realised one was due,” he sighed. “I haven’t received one of your uncle’s communications for some time. Thank you, child.” Mr Godbolt quickly slipped the envelope inside his thin shirt.

“Don’t you want to read it?” asked Georgie in surprise.

The old man smiled. “I have all the time in the world to study its contents. But you are here in person, you precious child, and it does me a world of good to see your face.”

‘“E looks a bit young to be a brief though,” someone joked.

Georgie grinned. “It’s my uncle who is a lawyer, not me!”

“No offence to your uncle, nipper, but ‘e can’t be up to much,” said the same joker, “or this old darlin’ wouldn’t be languishing here along with us villains. I’ve been banged up with real forgers in my time and this one don’t have the look, know what I mean?”

‘“E’s like our dear old Granddad, Mr Godbolt is,” said a young inmate unexpectedly.

“Yes, yes, he’s a regular Saint Francis,” said the turnkey gruffly, “and all the mice do little tricks for him on Sundays. Have you finished your business, lad, because I’ve got a nice lamb chop going cold in my office.”

“Oh, just one more thing,” Georgie remembered suddenly. “Mr Godbolt, my uncle says I am to tell you that he has not forgotten about you or your sister.” He smiled at the old man, clearly proud of his uncle’s generosity.

The old man closed his eyes and took a shaky breath, and when he opened them his voice was almost steady. “Thank you very much, child. Take care of yourself, won’t you, until we meet again.”

It should have been a relief to hit the streets, but no matter how fast I walked I couldn’t shake off that icky prison vibe.

No-one in this city is free, I thought. Victorian London is just one big fogbound prison. Normally I’d have squeezed Lola’s hand for comfort, but Brice was in between us. So we just kept walking in grim silence until we’d walked all the way back to Whitechapel.

Then I heard Brice say softly, “I can totally understand you being upset. Newgate kills me every time.” And the creep put his arm through Lola’s.

I’d had about enough of being invisible, so I grabbed Lola’s other arm and started wittering about how the fog was making my hair frizz.

With a swift movement, Lola pulled herself free. “Stop this, both of you!” she blazed. “You haven’t even noticed that Georgie’s upset!”

I’m ashamed to say that at that precise moment I couldn’t have cared less about him. I was totally not in angelic mode. Lollie had just yelled at me, ME, her best friend! Plus she’d bracketed me unforgivably with Brice.

I glowered resentfully at Georgie. He had come to a total standstill under a street light. For the first time I saw that he was clutching a silver locket. He was peering at it in the flickering light with a weirdly intense expression. I’m ashamed to say I automatically assumed that he’d stolen it from his uncle, because of needing money for Charlotte. Then I noticed that Georgie had his back to an alleyway, and I thought, this kid’s way too savvy to check out stolen goods in public. And then I saw a tear tracking down his face, and I thought; Lola’s right. I never even noticed.

The little boy shut his eyes and reverently pressed the cold silver to his lips. That’s when I knew for sure that the locket had to be his. His hand shook slightly as he opened the locket, and when he saw the picture inside, a sob burst out of him.

“I’m trying to be strong, Mama,” he whispered. “I try, but I get so scared.”

At that moment someone came out of the alley and went hurrying past. For an instant I saw a blurred figure, sharply outlined in the gaslight. Then it melted back into the darkness.

Afterwards, the others asked me to describe what I’d seen. Had I seen a surgeon’s bag, or an exotic gold-topped cane, that might have concealed the lethal knife? Did I notice an overpowering scent of lily of the valley? But all I remembered was the shadow of a hat and cloak flowing along the wall, monstrously distorted in the gaslight, and the sensation of something soft and slithering brushing against my energy field.

I immediately reared back. I remember that, but it was pure instinct. I wasn’t consciously paying attention to the stranger in the cloak. I was angry with myself because Lola was right about me, plus I was angry with her for exactly the same reason.

I put my hand to my face. Something was wrong.

Something had disturbed my energy field so badly that I thought I might actually faint.

“Lola,” I began. “I need to sit d—”

Bloodcurdling screams came from the darkness. A girl shrieked, “Get the police!”

Scared faces appeared at windows all along the street. Someone blew several blasts on a whistle and I heard the pounding of feet as Victorian bobbies ran to the scene. There was a babble of voices, inarticulate with horror.

Georgie’s face was suddenly deathly pale in the gaslight. “He walked past me,” he whispered. “Jack the Ripper just walked right past me.”

Chapter Seven

W
hen a defenceless kid has just bumped into Jack the Ripper, the question of breaking cosmic rules doesn’t really apply.