The Five Bells and Bladebone

PART I
: Two sticks and an apple, Say the bells of Whitechapel.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

PART II
: You owe me ten shillings, Say the bells of St. Helen’s.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

PART III
: When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

PART IV
: When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

To my editor, Ray Roberts,

who keeps Jury out of the gutter;

and to Kit Potter Ward,

who saved him from the slush

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement’s.

Brickbats and tiles,

Say the bells of St. Giles’.

Halfpence and farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin’s.

Two sticks and an apple,

Say the bells of Whitechapel.

You owe me ten shillings,

Say the bells of St. Helen’s.

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

Pray, when will that be?

Say the bells of old Stepney.

I’m sure I don’t know,

Say the sweet bells of Bow.

—Old nursery game

Contrary to Lady Ardry’s conviction that she is wholly responsible for any invaluable information contained in this book, I would like especially to thank Alan Webb for the Limehouse–Wapping walks; Harry Webb for the Thames information; and Diane and Bill Grimes for the
secrétaire à abattant
.

W
HAT ELSE COULD
you think of but getting your throat slit?

Whitechapel, Shadwell, the Ratcliffe Highway: images of the bloody East End flashed like knives in and out of Sadie Diver’s mind each time she heard the sound of footsteps behind her on the dark walk from Limehouse. She was still thinking of it as her heels clicked wetly on the fog-draped pavements of Wapping. Never caught him either, did they? So much for police.

The sickly yellow sign of the fish and eel shop ahead glowed through the drapery of fog.
LIVE EEL’S. COOKED EEL’S. JELLIED EEL’S
. In the last two months Sadie Diver had learned more writing and reading than she had in all her twenty-eight years. She knew the mark shouldn’t have been between the
L
and the S. Probably the only one walking about Wapping that does, she thought.

It was a twenty-minute walk from the flat in Limehouse to the Town of Ramsgate, and she was irritated that he’d decided on what he called a “dress rehearsal.” My God, but hadn’t they been over it and over it? And she didn’t dare tell him that Tommy was coming in tomorrow night. He’d have killed her.

When she was abreast of the eel shop, they simply walked up to her: there were three of them, but they managed to
look like a wall of punks, coming out of the shadows of the alley by the shop, one spitting into the gutter, one smiling crazily, one stony-faced.

There were the usual
’ello, luv
’s, the usual salacious remarks, as they stood planted firmly in her path. Anything behind her made her nervous; anything in front of her she could handle. Sadie was used to it. She had got so used to it, in fact, that she simply slipped her hand in her shoulder bag and brought out the flick-knife. Seeing it there so unexpectedly, dimpled by the watery light of the sign, they disbursed quickly, calling back over their shoulders and then disappearing down the alleyway behind that curtain of fog.

She stopped to check her watch beneath a streetlamp that seemed to smoke in its nimbus of light. Stuffing her hands in the old raincoat, something she’d not be caught dead in ordinarily, she felt the handle of the knife as she kept walking. He’d wanted her to wear what she’d worn before at their meetings and what she’d be wearing on that last day. At least, she liked to think of it as the last day of her old life. In these clothes and no makeup, she was surprised the bunch back there were interested.

It had been a long time since she’d seen such a layering of fog. And here it was the first of May. Spring. Cold as a convent wall; cold as a nun’s . . . She pulled her collar close around her chin and smiled, thinking of the Little Sisters of Charity. She considered herself a good Catholic, but she’d not had it in mind to be a better one. Her a nun. What a laugh.

She turned off to her left and then to her right, taking the narrow street that ran by the river. Why had he wanted to meet at Wapping Old Stairs, and why now, after the pub was closed? A wall of warehouses loomed through the darkness, shrouded in mist coming off the Thames. A person felt like brushing it away, like cobwebs. Still, it clung. As she passed Wapping headquarters, she smiled. The
police station was all lit up, about the only sign of life after eleven.

When she reached the pub called the Town of Ramsgate, once again she heard footsteps behind her. They couldn’t have been the same ones; she’d lost them back there at the eel shop. Nevertheless, she was almost glad to step off the road into the shadows of Wapping Old Stairs. There were two sets of stairs, the very old ones moss-covered; below was a small slipway and an old boat, tarpaulin-covered.

A dull tread of feet went by above her; she craned her neck upward and saw nothing but the hazy light cast by a lamp hanging from a wagon. She went down a step or two and stopped suddenly when she heard wood scraping against stone, the creak of oars against metal. Her eyes widened at the sight of the figure in the little boat. The long coat against the black background of the Thames made it impossible to see clearly. It was a rowboat or wherry that someone must be working on; she couldn’t make it out and wasn’t about to stand there on the steps waiting to find out.

Sadie started walking backward up the steps, slipped on the wet stone, caught her heel, and nearly lost her balance. There was really no way to gain purchase. When she slipped her hands could grab only at the slick, cold mossy steps so beveled with age they had all but lost the outline of steps.

The person who had emerged from the boat was standing on the step below, facing her now.

Sadie couldn’t believe her eyes.

An arm came out from the long black coat, holding what looked like a blade far more devilish than the one Sadie herself carried. If she tried to fly up the stairs, it would land in her back.

So she threw herself down, the figure reeling above her, and went sliding down the stair and halfway into the Thames. The long knife sliced through the thick, rancid
air, missing her by so little, Sadie heard the swish as it streaked downward.

Snatching her own knife from her pocket, she clambered into the boat. She was good with boats, like Tommy. Out there was the black hulk of what was probably a sailing barge that would be making for the Essex brickfields. Still farther was a patchwork of lighters. In her shaking fright to get at the oars, and with that figure coming down after her, she dropped the flick-knife into the bilge water that had collected in the boat.

But she found it, and as her fingers curved round it, she looked up to see the white hands dragging at the boat’s side.

 • • • 

Tommy Diver stood on the dock looking off toward the lighthouses of Gravesend and Galleon’s Reach. Over the estuary a ragged stream of orange and red made the mist smoke like the aftermath of cannon-fire. Docks, wharves, and warehouses stretched for miles up the Thames to London Bridge and the Isle of Dogs. Not so long ago, as many as eight hundred ships might be on their way to London’s dockland; now, nothing went much farther than Tilbury.