The Body in the Fog (14 page)

Then something pulled him further down into the water. It seemed as though Sammy was dragging him to the bottom of the river. Alfie struggled. That ghostly voice was still in his ear so he never
relaxed his grip on Sammy’s arm. But with his free hand he clawed desperately at the water that was drowning him.

It was no good, though. They were sinking further and further down into the muddy depths of the Thames.

And then, quite suddenly, they shot up again. They were free of the heavy wooden boat and ahead of them were the lights of the houses on the north bank of the river. Alfie gasped for air and
Sammy was doing the same. Something was towing them along. No, not something, but someone – Jack.

Jack was a great swimmer. Even with only one arm free, he managed to pull Alfie and Sammy several yards closer to the shore before diving underwater again. Alfie realised that their safety
depended on keeping hidden so he took in a deep breath and dived also, towing Sammy with him.

The next time they surfaced, they were quite near the north shore. Sammy was gasping and spluttering, but he was alive.

Well done, lad,
Alfie seemed to hear, in his grandfather’s voice. He took in a deep breath and looked around. A pitch torch flamed from a metal holder, lighting up the water. Jack,
swimming vigorously with one arm and holding Sammy with the other, steered away from this, going upstream towards the Tower of London. Alfie followed, doing his best to keep up with his
cousin’s strong strokes.

When Jack next paused they were not near to any gas lamp or pitch torch. A few lights came from houses where candles were burning on window sills, but that was not what Alfie focused on. It was
something far more puzzling.

A faint ghostly light seemed to be coming from a hole below the river bank. Its grey illumination spilled out over the water – just a glimmer because of the fog – but enough for
Jack. Immediately he began to swim in that direction.

It was not easy to swim that way. A slight current seemed to be pushing them in the opposite direction – forcing them back out into the centre of the river. It was not much, but Alfie was
so exhausted that for a moment he was angry with Jack. What did it matter where they landed? Why swim against a current?

And then suddenly he understood. Water was flowing out of a tunnel on the bank. This must be another one of those underground rivers that the sewers drained into. Alfie felt new life flood into
his legs and he kicked out energetically. With hope giving him courage, Alfie was surprised how quickly they reached the tunnel. It was quite shallow in there and after a few strokes, they all
stood up in the tunnel entrance.

‘Next time you want to pull my arms out of the sockets, just ask politely,’ said Sammy amiably, rubbing his shoulders.

‘Think yourself lucky that you’re not feeding the fishes,’ retorted Alfie and then remembered that he had last used the expression before Charlie died.

‘Poor Charlie – he’s dead,’ said Jack sadly. ‘That bullet blew a hole in his head. I just looked around and saw it, just a second before the boat overturned.
I’ll miss him. He was a very nice man. Got a family too. A wife and three children.’

‘We’ll get the men that done it,’ said Alfie angrily. ‘Let’s get to Inspector Denham as fast as we can.’

‘Where are we now?’ asked Sammy.

‘I’d say that it’s the Walbrook River,’ said Jack after a moment’s thought. ‘Old Jemmy told me about it – it’s the one that comes out near to the
Tower of London.’

‘Let’s get moving,’ said Alfie impatiently. ‘We’ll freeze to death if we hang around here. We’ll go up it as far as we can and with a bit of luck we can get
out somewhere.’

‘According to old Jemmy,’ said Jack, ‘a man could go anywhere in London and never show his face over ground. The old buried rivers and sewers are like lanes – they all
join into each other – that’s what old Jemmy used to say, poor old fellow.’

‘Funny, wasn’t it, Alfie,’ said Sammy, wading through the sludgy water as confidently as he walked down Bow Street, ‘that story of Mick’s. Mick thought he saw the
dead body of Jemmy pop up from a sewer!’

‘Mick the Drink – that’s what Grandad used to call him! Who cares what he . . .’ said Alfie impatiently and then stopped. A sudden idea had come to him. He turned it over
in his mind as he sloshed through the water, his arm firmly holding Sammy’s elbow.

‘Jack,’ he said slowly. ‘Do you remember when you was telling me that Jemmy never drank? Why was that again?’

‘Because he used to drink too much when he was younger.’ Jack sounded surprised at Alfie’s sudden interest.

‘No, the bit about his aunt and about his twin brother.’

‘That’s right, his parents died when he was only seven and one of his mother’s sisters took him and the other aunt took his brother Ned. He never saw his brother again. He used
to say that he, Jemmy that is, had terribly bad luck. It was the wrong aunt that adopted him, that’s what he used to say. Very bitter about it, he was.’

‘No, he didn’t have much luck, did he, poor old Jemmy,’ observed Sammy.

‘That man from the post office seemed to think that it wasn’t the raiders killed him,’ said Alfie, plodding on down the tunnel. It was funny how after a while you got used to
the stink and to the slime under your feet, he thought philosophically. You got used to the darkness, too. He had begun to make out the roof and the walls of the tunnel. ‘Did you hear him,
Sam?’ he asked. ‘Bristly Eyebrows, I mean. Did you hear him say that?’

‘I heard him,’ said Sammy.

‘But —’ began Alfie.

‘Let’s turn to the left here,’ interrupted Jack. ‘This looks a good big tunnel and it might bring us out near the Tower of London. There’s bound to be a manhole
somewhere near there so we can climb out.’

‘I vote we keep down here as long as possible,’ said Sammy. ‘It’s warmer here than outside. My clothes are beginning to dry a bit and the water don’t seem too deep.
I’m getting used to the stink now.’

‘Why not? If we just keep going straight ahead we should get to somewhere around Drury Lane,’ said Jack. ‘Should take a couple of hours – it’s slow walking in these
places but it’s not somewhere the raiders will be searching. People don’t like these sewers – don’t mind them myself. They’re nice and warm and they’ll be even
warmer later on when all the rich folk have their baths and the scullery maids throw down the scrubbing water. Beats going out in a boat, Bert the Tosher used to say. I don’t suppose
I’ll be going out in a boat again, with poor old Charlie dead,’ he added in a low voice.

‘But what did you think about what Bristly Eyebrows said, Sammy? Do you think that he was telling a lie when he said that the raiders had nothing to do with Jemmy’s death?’
persisted Alfie. He didn’t want to think about Charlie too much at the moment. It was better to keep his mind on the puzzle of Jemmy’s death. ‘You heard the man. Did you think
that he was telling the truth?’

Sammy was silent for a moment and then in a posh voice he said, ‘
No, nobody touched Jemmy
.
I saw him myself, after the raid, when I was going home
.
He was talking to one
of the engineers from Birmingham, the fellows that were examining the pump for the fountains
. That’s what he said, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s it,’ said Alfie with a grin. Sammy had got the man’s voice just right. Alfie had forgotten how startled he had sounded, and how his voice had become quite
definite when he said that Jemmy was still alive after the raid was over. ‘But then,’ said Alfie, puzzled, ‘how come we found Jemmy’s body
before
the raid on the post
office?’

There was one other little bit of information at the back of his mind, but somehow he could not locate it. It was something significant, something that happened when he and Jack were hiding in
the inn’s cellar. He tried to uncover it, but then he decided not to think any more about it for the moment. His first job was to get to Inspector Denham and report what had happened to
Charlie and where the robbers – no,
murderers
– were to be found. He was impatient to claim the reward and then . . .

And then he could put all his energies into solving the mystery of Jemmy’s death.

CHAPTER 22

After Tom and Sarah returned from the river that night, the boy was in such a state that she hesitated to leave him alone in Bow Street. They stood in Trafalgar Square under a
gas lamp with Mutsy at their feet, while Sarah tried to decide what to do.

‘They’re all dead,’ Tom kept saying despairingly. ‘They’re all dead. Jack and Alfie and Sammy, they’re all dead. I’ll be on my own for the rest of my
life. I might as well kill myself now and get it over and done with.’

For a while Sarah wondered whether she should offer to stay with him, but that might mean losing her job. Dora could only cover up for her for a short time. If she wasn’t at the inn first
thing in the morning, questions would be asked. Her absence during the night would be discovered and she would be dismissed.

‘Come back with me,’ she said eventually. ‘I can hide you and Mutsy in the cellar at the inn. No one goes near it in the morning.’

It was lucky, she thought, as she silently ushered him down the passageway to the cellar door, that she had taken the bunch of keys with her.

She managed to find some sacks for Tom to lie on and she left him curled up beside Mutsy, looking very young and very lost. ‘Don’t you dare stir until I come for you!’ she
said, and she stole upstairs to bed feeling sick with worry about the three missing boys.

‘No one missed you,’ said Dora reassuringly as Sarah got into her nightdress. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah, feeling thankful that Dora sounded so sleepy. In a few minutes the girl was snoring and Sarah was free to think her thoughts and worry about what she was going to
do when morning came.

When Dora woke her at seven, she was still half asleep as she scrambled into her clothes and went down the stairs, rubbing her eyes. The Birmingham engineers had not yet appeared but there were
a few travellers who wanted to get the early morning stagecoach to Dover and she served them as quickly as she could.

‘You take that tray up to the fellow who’s supposed to be sick,’ she whispered to Dora. ‘He gives me the creeps.’

Sarah hardly knew what she was doing as she went up and down the stairs to the kitchen, carrying tray-loads of eggs and rashers of bacon and steaming teapots. She couldn’t stop thinking
about the missing boys. In a way, they had taken the place of the family that she had never known. They were more like brothers to her than just friends.

Sarah’s mother, whoever she was, had dumped her at Coram Fields Foundling Hospital, placing the tiny baby in the crib provided by the charity outside the main door, ringing the bell
provided and then disappearing quickly before anyone came to the door.

Most of the babies that were abandoned at this door had been left with something which would identify them if ever the mother was able to reclaim them, but Sarah had nothing – not even
clothes. The naked baby had been tucked into the blankets in the crib and left there like an unwanted piece of rubbish. Sarah had no hope that she would ever be retrieved by a mother who seemed to
care so little for her daughter.

Sometimes, Sarah envied the boys with their memories of parents, of the grandfather who had loved them all and given them such pieces of wisdom to remember throughout their lives. Mostly,
though, she did not allow herself to think about the past, but focused firmly on the future. This morning, however, what with the anxiety about Jack, Alfie and Sammy, and her own exhaustion, she
felt near to tears.

‘You don’t look well, Sarah, girl,’ said the innkeeper. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed? Dora will manage the breakfast – I’ll give her a hand if she
needs it.’ He spoke roughly but he had a very kind heart.

‘I’m all right, Mr Pennyfeather,’ said Sarah, trying to make her voice sound natural. ‘I’ve just got a bit of a headache. If Dora can manage, would it be all right
if I go for a walk in the fresh air?’

‘You do that; nothing more for you to do until we start serving lunches. That Birmingham crowd were up so late that they won’t show their faces until noon,’ said Mr
Pennyfeather. ‘Stay out as long as you like, or else have a good lie-down on your bed. This has been a hard week with the hours these fellows keep.’ And he jerked his thumb upwards
towards the bedrooms where the engineers were sleeping.

‘Thanks, Mr Pennyfeather,’ said Sarah. She almost felt like crying because she was so grateful for this kind treatment. She would definitely stay working at the inn, she thought.
None of her mistresses in the fine houses had ever been as kind to her.

Quietly she stole down to the scullery. Kitty was hard at work so Sarah was easily able to take a few cold rashers of bacon and a few uneaten slices of bread from the dirty plates and conceal
them under her apron.

Then she went down to the cellar, candle in hand, to release Tom.