‘Why me, Owen?’ he said in his reedy voice.
‘Why not, George?’
‘You need someone strong and skilled with a sword.’
‘I need you.’
‘Bankside frightens me.’
‘That’s why I’m taking you.’
‘But you say we are on the trail of a killer.’
‘That is so,’ confirmed Elias.
‘If he has killed once, he may kill again.’
‘You will be safe from harm, boy.’
‘Will I?’
‘Maggs would never lay a finger on you.’
‘Why not?’
‘He would not kill his own son.’
George Dart gulped. ‘His son?’
They were on the bridge now, picking their way between the shops and houses, and dodging the occasional horse and cart that rattled along the narrow gap between the various buildings. Owen Elias explained that they were picking up a trail already abandoned by the officers of the law. Until he was caught up in the Brinklow murder, Maggs was a denizen of Southwark, well-known in its darker haunts and in its most disreputable company.
‘They were as arrant a pair of knaves as any in London,’ said Elias. ‘Freshwell and Maggs. Freshwell was the roaring boy and Maggs was a sly little rat of a man. You should have chosen your father with more care, George.’
‘My father?’
‘I see only faint resemblance to him in you.’
‘But I have never met this Maggs.’
‘You have something of his fierceness,’ teased Elias.
‘My father worked for a fishmonger in Billingsgate!’
‘Not tonight. You play a different part.’
‘Why?’
‘It keeps us both alive.’ Owen Elias chuckled as Dart’s face whitened. ‘Be ruled by me, George, and you will see the wisdom of my device. We rub shoulders with true villains. They would steal the clothes off each other’s backs but they have a code of loyalty. If we barge in there and demand to know where Maggs is, we will finish up in a ditch with out throats cut. My trick protects us.’
Dart was terrified. ‘What must I say?’
‘Nothing. Leave all the talking to me.’
‘What, then, must I do?’
‘You are already doing it.’
Elias let out another chuckle and pounded him between the shoulder-blades. They were soon leaving the bridge and heading for the sinful streets and lewder lanes of Bankside. The Welshman strode along with the sure-footed confidence of a man who knew the area well but his companion trotted nervously along beside him like a fawn in a forest of lions. The first few taverns they visited yielded nothing more than curses at the mention of the murderer’s name. One innkeeper confidently claimed that Maggs was dead, another that he had fled the country. Nobody spoke of Maggs or Freshwell with affection.
As the brothels became fouler, the trail became warmer. They eventually began to meet with some success. Maggs was definitely still alive. Several people vouched for that. One man boasted that he had actually seen him though he would not disclose where. It was in the most revolting place of all that they finally got some real help. The Red Cock was an unashamed den of vice, a dark, filthy, smoke-filled hole of a place, where constant drinking, gambling and debauchery were interrupted only by the occasional brawl.
George Dart began to retch when he inhaled its fug and he jumped a foot in the air when a bold female hand caressed his trembling thigh in the gloom. Owen Elias was unperturbed by the sordid surroundings. He ordered beer, found a table in a corner and invited the oldest and fattest punk to join them. A trawl through the stews had taught him something of his quarry’s taste in women. The diminutive Maggs liked to spend his nights on top of huge mounds of flesh.
Her name was Lucy and she had a rich cackle that made her whole body shake violently. When the massive powdered breasts leaped free from their moorings, George Dart covered his eyes with his hands. Elias spent some time working his way into her friendship before he dropped out the name he had brought with him to Bankside. Lucy became defensive.
‘I may have known such a man,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Because we have good news for him.’
She snorted. ‘For Maggs? What is it-a royal pardon?’
‘No,’ said Elias, ‘but it is a pardon of a kind. From beyond the grave, as you might say.’
‘What mean you, sir?’
‘We have a small legacy for him.’
‘Legacy?’
‘Part of it sits beside you,’ he said, pulling Dart’s hands down from his eyes. ‘This is his son.’
She was sceptical. ‘Maggs? A son? He never married.’
‘A bastard child. Born out of wedlock.’
‘He had enough of those, I daresay,’ she said with a cackle. ‘Maggs was a lusty little rogue. I miss him.’ She peered at George Dart. ‘So this is his son, is it? He’s as skinny as Maggs for sure, with the same mean face, but I doubt that he could stand to account in a woman’s arms like his father. Maggs had a pizzle the size of a donkey’s. Does this lad have anything between his legs at all?’
‘Yes,’ said Elias. ‘He’s no gelding.’
Cheeks like beetroot, Dart put his hands over his ears this time. Lucy was the most frightening woman he had ever met in his life. Her vivacity was overwhelming.
‘What is this legacy you speak of?’ she asked.
Elias dropped his voice. ‘From the boy’s mother. She died of the sweating sickness. Poor wretch! She had cause to hate Maggs yet she still loved him. And she doted on his issue here. Did she not, George? On her deathbed, she made her son promise to take a small sum of money to Maggs as a token of her love. Thus it stands.’
‘If that is all,’ she said obligingly, ‘I’ll save you the trouble. Give me the money and I’ll see that Maggs gets every penny of it. You have my oath on that.’
Elias shook his head. ‘We would happily do that, for I am sure that we could trust you, Lucy, but there is a solemn oath involved here. George is compelled to hand over the bounty himself. How else can he get to meet his father?’ He put a familiar arm around her shoulders. ‘Tell us where he is and we will be more than grateful. So will Maggs.’
She eyed them for a moment, then let out another cackle.
‘I know where his father dwells but it would not help the lad to know. This dribbling booby would not get within a hundred yards of Maggs.’
‘Why not?’
‘He would be eaten alive as soon as he ventured there.’
‘Where, Lucy?’ coaxed Elias. ‘Where is Maggs?’
‘The Isle of Dogs.’
***
Darkness had fallen on the house in Greenwich but Valentine was still moving stealthily around the garden. It was his true home. Plants and flowers blossomed under his ugliness. Trees gave forth their fruit without recoiling from his touch. Nature accepted him in a way that human beings could not. Valentine lived alone in a hovel nearby but he often neglected it for days in summer months, curling up instead under a bush in the garden with one eye on the house itself. His vigil was sometimes rewarded with the sight of Agnes, the maidservant, coming to her window at the very top of the house to close the curtains or to tip a bowl of water out on to the grass far below. Moonlight once gave him a fleeting glimpse of her naked shoulders. It kept him below her window every night for a month.
As he looked up at the house now, light was showing in various rooms. Through the windows of the buttery, candles were throwing a ghostly glow out on to the ruins of the laboratory. Agnes would still be at her duties and it might be hours before she was allowed to retire to her own room. Valentine would wait. She might despise him but she gave him an enormous amount of pleasure, albeit unintended. It was enough. Night under the bushes brought rich compensation.