The man hesitated, not sure which was the best answer. He looked at Tellman’s face and learned nothing.
“Yeah,” he said eventually.
“Who was that?”
“You buy ’em from me, guv. I got the best laces in London.”
Tellman held out the appropriate money; it was little enough. “I still want to know where you get them. Police business.”
“They ain’t nicked!” The man’s face paled.
“I know that. I want to learn all I can about Albert Cole, who had this patch before you.”
“ ’im wot was croaked?”
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“Yeah. That’s ’ow I got the patch. Poor sod. ’e were a decent bloke. Soldier, ’e were. Got shot somew’ere out in Africa, or somew’ere like that. Don’t know wot the ’ell ’e were doin’ in Bedford Square.”
“Thieving?” Tellman suggested dourly.
The peddler’s body stiffened. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but yer din’t oughter say that, ’less you can prove it, like. Albert Cole were an ’onest man wot served ’is country. An’ I ’ope as yer find the bastard wot topped ’im.”
“We will,” Tellman promised. “Now, where’d he get the bootlaces?”
“Good man,” the bootlace stockist said when Tellman found him. He nodded his head sadly. “London ain’t safe no more. When a quiet fellow doin’ nobody ’arm can get killed like that, the p’lice ain’t doin’ their jobs.”
“Did he have any money trouble?” Tellman ignored the criticism.
“ ’Course ’e did. Anyone wot peddles bootlaces on a street corner’s got money troubles,” the man said dryly. “You work fer a livin’, or wot? You just do this ’cos yer like it, mister?”
Tellman held his temper with difficulty. He thought of his father, who had left their two rooms in Billingsgate at five in the morning and worked carrying bales and boxes in the fish market all day. In the evening he had relieved a friend driving hansom cabs, often until midnight, all seasons of the year: in the swelter of summer when the traffic was jammed head to tail and the smell of manure filled the air; when the rain made the gutters swim and the rubbish and effluent swilled across the road and the cobbles shone black and glistening in the lamplight; in the winter when the wind chapped the skin and the ice made the horse’s hooves slide dangerously. Even the pea soup fogs had not stopped him.
“I’ve got nothing except what I work for,” Tellman said, the anger edging his voice till it cut. “And my pa could teach you what that word means, or any man.”
The bootlace supplier backed away, frightened not by Tellman’s words but by the well of rage he had unwittingly tapped into. Tellman was mollified. The ache of memory was not healed. He could still see in his mind his father’s gaunt face, worried, cold, too tired to do anything but eat and sleep. There had been fourteen children, eight of whom lived. His mother cooked and washed, and sewed and swept, scrubbed and carried buckets of water, made soap out of lye and potash, sat up at night with sick children or sick neighbors. She laid out the dead, too many of them her own.
Most of the people he worked with now did not even imagine what exhaustion, hunger and poverty really meant; they only imagined they did. And those like General Brandon Balantyne, with his bought and paid for career, they lived in another world, as if they were more than human and Tellman and his like were less. They had more respect for their horses … come to think of it, a great deal more! And their horses had a far better life: a warm stable and good food, a kind word at the end of the day.
But alarmed as he was, the supplier could tell him nothing more about Albert Cole, except that he was absolutely honest in his dealings and worked as regularly as most men, only missing the odd few days through illness. That was until his disappearance, a day and a half before his body was found in Bedford Square. And no, he had no idea what Cole could have been doing there.
Tellman took the omnibus and rode back towards Red Lion Square. He started visiting the pawnshops and asking about Albert Cole. No one knew him by name, but the third one he visited seemed to recognize the description Tellman gave of him, particularly the break in his left eyebrow.
“ ’Ad a feller like that in ’ere fairly reg’lar,” he said with a gesture of resignation. “Always ’ad summink a bit tasty, like. Last time it were a gold ring.”
“A gold ring?” Tellman said quickly. “Where’d he get it?”
“Said ’e found it,” the pawnbroker replied, looking straight at Tellman without blinking. “Goes down the sewers sometimes. Comes up wi’ all sorts.” He scratched his ear irritably.
“Down the sewers?” Tellman said.
“Yeah.” The pawnbroker nodded. “Find gold, diamonds, all sorts down there.”
“I know that,” Tellman said. “That’s why it costs a fair penny to buy a stretch of sewer to patrol. And any tosher’ll knock your head in if you trespass.”
The pawnbroker looked uncomfortable. Apparently, he had not expected Tellman to be so familiar with the facts of scavenging.
“Well that’s wot ’e told me!” he said abruptly.
“And you believed it?” Tellman gave him a withering look.
“Yeah. Why not? ’ow was I ter know if ’e were tellin’ the truth?”
“Haven’t you got a nose on your face?”
“A … nose?” But the pawnbroker knew what he meant. The smell of a sewer scavenger was unmistakable, just like the smell of a mudlark, a man who sifted the river silt for lost treasures.
“A thief,” Tellman said scathingly. “But of course you wouldn’t know that. How often did he come here with stuff?”
The pawnbroker was now extremely uncomfortable. He scratched his ear again.
“Six or seven times, mebbe. I din’t know’e were a thief. ’e always ’ad a good tale. I thought ’e were a …”
“Yes, a tosher,” Tellman supplied for him. “You said. Always jewelry? Did he ever come with paintings, ornaments, or the like?”
“From down the sewers?” The pawnbroker’s voice rose an octave. “I may not be as clever as you are about toshers, but even I know as nobody loses paintings down the bath ’ole!”
Tellman smiled, showing his teeth. “And no pawnbroker buys gold rings from a tosher without knowing that either. No need to fence it if it was fair pickings.”
The pawnbroker glared at him. “Well, I dunno w’ere ’e got ’is things, do I? If ’e were a thief it weren’t nuthin’ ter do wif me. Now, if yer in’t got nuffink else ter ask me, will yer get out o’ me shop. Yer puttin’ orff me proper custom.”
Tellman left feeling angry and puzzled. This was a very different picture of Albert Cole from the one he had gained previously.
He went back and had a late luncheon at the Bull and Gate public house in High Holborn. It was only a few yards from the corner where Cole had had his position selling bootlaces. Perhaps on a cold day he had come in here, even if only for a mug of ale and a slice of bread.
He ordered ale for himself and a good, thick sandwich of roast beef and horseradish sauce. He sat where he hoped to fall into conversation easily with some regular of the place. He began to eat. He was hungry. He had been walking all morning and was glad to sit down. He had not cared a great deal about clothes until lately. He had bought one or two things in the last couple of months, a new coat in good dark blue, and two new shirts. A man should have some self-respect. But boots that fitted were his greatest expense, and had not been skimped on since his very first wage.
He bit into the bread, and thought of Gracie’s cake. There was something about home cooking, eaten at the kitchen table, which sat better in the stomach than the best meat eaten in some anonymous place, and paid for. Gracie was a funny mixture of a person. At times she sounded so independent, even bossy. And yet she worked for Pitt and lived in his house, without any place that was really her own. She was at his beck and call all hours, not only day but night too.
He pictured her as he sat chewing on the beef sandwich. She was very little, nothing really but skin and bone, not the sort of woman to attract most men. Nothing to put your arms around. He thought of other women he had found pleasing at one time or another. There was Ethel, all fair hair and soft skin, plenty of curves there, and nice-
