Annie Sorrell’s sentence was delayed until she had been delivered of the child she was carrying. On the Sunday preceding her execution she was taken to the church inside Newgate Prison where, in sight of her fellow prisoners, she was seated beside her coffin in the condemned pew inside a black pen. Her face was white, the coffin sharply black but not one tear did she shed.
The following day a large crowd gathered for her execution and rooms overlooking the prison courtyard were rented for vast sums of money. Annie Sorrell wore a simple muslin dress and her last words were, ‘I am innocent.’
Her fiancé was present and was so disturbed by the sight of her hanging that he ran amok, attacking officials, and was arrested and brought to trial. He was sentenced to deportation.
AJ scrolled down the document in hope of finding the fiancé’s name but there was nothing more. He stared vacantly into space. Annie Sorrell hovered over him, a leaden angel.
Chapter Twenty-Five
They say travel broadens the mind. If that was the case AJ’s mind had expanded to the size of a planet. His brain was a puzzle factory. If Annie Sorrell didn’t kill his father, who did? And why? Could Annie Sorrell be Miss Esme’s mother? Nonsuch, he knew, was her father and he’d said that Lucas Jobey was his best mate. It wasn’t so far-fetched to conclude that he’d met Annie.
Miss Esme had said that Mrs Dalton had helped women prisoners in Newgate and Annie Sorrell’s baby was born in Newgate. Yes, he thought, it sort of fitted. And if Mrs Dalton had taken the baby home to save her from the workhouse, it would go some way to explaining why Samuel Dalton was such a mean monster. Especially if he’d never wanted the child – the child of a convicted murderess. But it was Dalton’s will that worried AJ. It was cruel and didn’t make any sense.
All miserable families are wasps’ nests, AJ thought to himself. Only bees make honey. Next time he went back he would ask Ingleby what else he knew about Annie Sorrell and the murder of the Jobey family.
But before he could return he had to concentrate on finding Leon, and that meant tackling Dr Jinx. If the past had taught AJ anything, it was not to be frightened of the future.
Dr Jinx’s place of business was a derelict house near the Prince pub. As long as AJ had known the dump it had been covered in scaffolding and plastic – a building site without builders.
Dr Jinx opened the door and tightened up when he saw AJ. AJ gripped the key in his pocket. The rusty iron gave him courage.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ said Dr Jinx.
‘I’m looking for Leon.’
‘Awa’ an’ bile yer heid.’ Dr Jinx was about to close the door but AJ put his foot in it. ‘I said, wee man, scooby doo.’
‘When did you last see him?’ said AJ.
‘Don’t make me lose ma rag. Your friend, laddie, is in deep shit. He’s taken money that should by rights be mine and if that little toerag doesn’t return it, he’ll be dead meat.’
AJ pushed his whole body against the door and to his surprise Jinx let him in. Apart from the stink of skunk, the graffiti-sprayed walls and the electrical sockets, the house could well belong to 1830.
‘You’re asking for trouble, laddie,’ said Dr Jinx.
‘No, I’m asking, where is Leon?’
Upstairs music was playing. AJ could hear laughter, though he couldn’t imagine anything funny happening in a dump like this.
‘Jinx, baby … ’ a voice whined from one of the rooms.
Dr Jinx’s mobile rang. He looked at it and turned it off.
‘I heard he’d come into some money. The little scrooge bag should ha’ paid me back. He should ha’ done it because he’s upset some very important people and they don’t take kindly to anyone taking the cream off the top of their milk.’
‘So I take it you haven’t seen him, then?’ said AJ.
‘No. If you run into him tell him he’s a marked man. Now bugger off and dinna come back.’
AJ walked down Edwards Lane, thinking about the deep shit Leon was in and Slim’s problem with Moses. He wished he didn’t feel so obligated to protect his friends. He was being selfish resenting them, yes, he knew that, but he wanted a chance to find out the truth about his murdered family. Maybe, just maybe, by doing so he would find his own destiny.
If he had been concentrating on the here and now he would have paid more attention to the gang waiting by the gates of Bodman House. In the orange of the street light he noticed one of them had a brand new motorbike. He must have nicked it, thought AJ. Then he saw that in the middle stood Moses.
AJ thought for a moment about turning round. He pulled up his jacket collar but, too late, Moses had seen him. There was nothing for it but to keep walking, avoid eye contact, look like a lion though he felt like a sheep.
‘Where he hiding, the fucking coward?’ said Moses. ‘Where Slim?’
Three of his gang had already blocked the entrance to the flats. A grey cat squeezed past them, meowing.
‘How should I know?’ said AJ. ‘I’m not his keeper.’
‘But you his friend and you know. I see in your eyes, you lying.’
One of the gang had Moses’s dog, a Staffy, on a chain and he was not doing a very good job of controlling it.
‘Shall I let it go?’ he said to Moses.
AJ understood why Slim was so scared of the dog. It looked as if it hadn’t been fed for days and was just waiting for a Slim to come along to feast off.
It was then he realised he was surrounded. Over the road he saw Alf from Flat 82 walk past, looking straight ahead. He’d fought in the Second World War, fought for a better country than this – well, that’s what he used to tell AJ. He had no more fight in him.
‘Give us your mobile,’ said Moses.
‘No,’ said AJ.
‘You give it him now, man, no messin’,’ said another of Moses’s men.
Moses grabbed the phone from AJ before he had even retrieved it from his pocket. He read through the messages.
‘See, you lie to me. You seen Slim.’
Close up and personal, Moses was a big man. As far as AJ was concerned he was most probably made of prehistoric bone with a dinosaur of a brain.
‘No one lies to Moses,’ he said, shoving AJ while the rest taunted him.
If this was Moses’s game, AJ refused to play. He tried to push past into Bodman House but Moses grabbed at him.
‘You tell Slim, if I see him again I will kill him. I will not forget him. I will kill him for what he done.’
‘What he’s done?’ said AJ, making mistake number one and quickly following it with mistake number two. ‘According to your bird he was incapable of doing anything so why are you causing so much trouble?’
‘No one messes with Moses’s girl, no one.’
Mistake number three was that AJ didn’t stop there even though it was obvious that Moses was out for a fight.
‘Slim told me,’ said AJ, ‘that you are welcome to her. Sicknote is a fucking nightmare. It strikes me that you and her are a match made in hell’s boudoir.’
He saw Moses’s face, and something in the glint in his eye had changed. Moses said quietly, ‘Let the dog go.’
AJ hated fighting, had never been that good at it. His stomach did a lurch and before he even had a chance to raise his fists, Moses had hit him hard on the side of his head. He saw stars, felt himself fighting to stand upright. The third punch felt as if it had a dog attached to it somewhere down in his leg. Then he was lying on the pavement, the dog chewing his arm. Moses’s face loomed over him and he pulled AJ up for another round of punches. AJ felt the cold of the pavement hard beneath him again, thought he saw Leon and tried to say, it’s all right, bro, stay out of this, but there was too much blood in his mouth. Then everything stopped. He saw trainers running away, smelt petrol from the bike lying abandoned in the road, the fuel running into him. He heard the whining of the dog and he thought, I just need to stand up. It’s too cold to lie here.
‘He’s dead,’ Alf said.
&nbs
p; No, I’m not, AJ wanted to shout. He was shouting, wasn’t he? Don’t light a fag, Alf, whatever you do, don’t light that fag. There were more people now.
Someone else said, ‘Terrible … ’
I’m alive, thought AJ. What is wrong with everyone? Why couldn’t they hear him? The last thing he remembered were blue lights flashing on the inside of his eyelids.
Chapter Twenty-Six
AJ was conscious of lying in bed, tubes coming out of his nose, his mouth, his arms. If I’m dead, he thought, no one would bother with this, would they? He vaguely wondered if it was embalming twenty-first century style. There was a clinical clank of machinery and the comforting sight of a nurse. She was fiddling with monitors, his bodily functions appearing in ziggly lines.
He drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point he saw his mum. She sat next to him, tears running down her face. Later he wondered if he’d imagined that. Time ran into a sluggish puddle.
‘They don’t like to keep you in for too long,’ said Elsie. AJ had been taken from the intensive care unit and put into a side ward. ‘I would think you’ll be out of here before you’re ready, dear.’ She handed him a bag of Brazil nuts. ‘Hope you don’t mind, love, but I sucked the chocolate off them. I washed them afterwards so they’re as good as new.’
‘Thanks,’ said AJ, making a mental note not to eat them. ‘Auntie Elsie, what happened to Moses?’
‘Haven’t they told you, love? A bloke in a hoodie pushed Moses and his dog off you. They say he probably saved your life. Alf finally collected what’s left of his marbles and called the police. Moses ran for it. Not before that dog of his had made a meal of your arm and leg. They arrested Moses an hour later.’
‘Did they arrest the dog too?’
‘It was put down. It was a pit bull cross – it’s illegal to own one.’
AJ looked at his bandaged arm. A souvenir from a dead dog.
AJ was playing chess with a two-faced man.
‘You can’t have it both ways,’ he said. ‘An open door is an open invitation. I should know. I am Time’s bouncer. I keep the riff-raff out.
He must have fallen asleep because when he woke Auntie Elsie had gone. His reality seemed to come in bite sizes, punctuated by the roaring of vivid dreams.
AJ’s doctor scanned his chart. AJ tried to sit up. That was a mistake. He couldn’t feel his right leg.
‘Three broken ribs and concussion,’ said the doctor.
‘Have I still got two legs?’
‘Yes. One is rather mauled but with rest and physiotherapy you should be all right. Where do you live?’
‘Bodman House in Stoke Newington.’
‘Is there a lift?’
‘No. That would make life much too easy for everyone.’
‘Which floor do you live on?’
‘The fifth.’
‘Without a lift?’
AJ nodded. He could see the doctor struggling to imagine what that might be like.
‘The police want to ask some questions. Are you up to it?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said, sleep threatening to kidnap him again.
Detective Poilaine must have been waiting outside as she came in as soon as the doctor had left. AJ hadn’t expected to see her. Surely she was too high up to be bothering with a gang beating.
‘I’m sorry to see you in such a state, Aiden,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a rough time of it.’
He leaned back on the pillows.
‘I’m not here about the attack on you – that’s being dealt with by Stoke Newington police,’ said Detective Poilaine. ‘I am here for an altogether different reason. Last night my colleagues raided premises in Hatton Garden belonging to a fence. He’s known to deal in antique jewellery, watches, that sort of thing. Among many other stolen items an extremely valuable eighteenth century snuffbox was found. Here, have a look.’
She showed him a photo on her mobile phone. He recognised the snuffbox he’d given Leon. A second photo showed an inscription inside the lid. It floated in and out of focus for a moment or two before he was able read it.
Lucas Jobey
Shit.
‘It’s an unusual surname, Aiden. Was there a Lucas Jobey in your family?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll ask my mum.’
‘The fence said it had been brought to him about three weeks ago by a young man wearing a hoodie’. She sighed. ‘That description fits nearly all the youths in London. He said he wasn’t white.’
Please, thought AJ. They haven’t arrested Leon …
Something attached to him started to sound alarm bells and as the nurse rushed in, AJ passed out.
He dreamed he was standing outside a house set among darkly gathered trees. One window was ablaze with light and through the proscenium arch of the curtains he could see cardboard cut-out figures seated at a table. They were his father and his grandfather. On the table a cut-out magpie stood, flapping its cardboard wings.
His mum came to visit him and brought Roxy with her. She had made a card with a giant slug on the front. Inside she’d written Miss You.
‘They said they wouldn’t let you out of hospital,’ Jan said, ‘because of the stairs and the injury to your leg.’
‘I don’t want to stay here. I am definitely not staying here for Christmas,’ said AJ.
Jan smiled, and her hard face softened.
‘I’ve told the doctor you’ll be staying with Elsie. As she lives on the second floor and there aren’t that many steps, they agreed you could come out tomorrow as long as you rest up.’
AJ knew that his mum’s pride must have taken a tumble to agree to let him stay at Elsie’s.
He did something he’d never done before. He took hold of his mum’s hand and although it hurt him, he squeezed it a little.
Roxy was fiddling about, looking in the bedside locker. Jan took out her purse and gave Roxy some money.
‘Go to the shop and buy yourself a bar of chocolate,’ she said.
AJ waited until she had gone.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Thanks for coming.’
Jan had a tear in her eye.
‘Stop it,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t want to go through an emotional car wash.’
The following day he was taken home in an ambulance. Not the kind with flashing lights, but the kind in which rows of ill people sit looking sorry for themselves, and he was definitely one of them. He had been given a walking stick and assured that, with physio, in no time at all he would be as good as new.
Elsie had made a big effort to make the flat look nice and, it being near Christmas, she had even gone so far as to hang up some paper chains. AJ slumped onto her sofa. On the side table sat a purple urn containing Leon’s mum’s ashes. Elsie had put a little wreath of plastic flowers around the top and it looked like a strange shrine.
AJ must been staring at it for some time because when Elsie brought in tea and biscuits she nodded at it and said, ‘Looks a little brighter, doesn’t it? And I’m getting used to the colour. I think she quite likes watching TV.’
‘You are kidding,’ said AJ, trying not to laugh.
Laughter and broken ribs weren’t a good mix.
It was a few days before Christmas Eve when Morton paid a call. AJ, who had taken to watching children’s television, mainly because his brain couldn’t concentrate on reading, nearly jumped up in surprise when he saw Morton standing there.
‘Tea?’ said Elsie.
Tea and buttered toast was Elsie’s solution to everything that didn’t look too serious.
AJ had been dreading this. He knew it was coming. He just wondered why Morton hadn’t written to tell him that he was out of a job.
‘How’re you feeling?’ said Morton, handing AJ a well-wrapped package.
‘What’s this?’ asked AJ.
‘Open it,’ said Morton, seriously.
Inside AJ found three pork spare ribs.
‘I thought you might be needing them,’ said Morton.
AJ burst out
laughing. He couldn’t stop laughing and the pain in his side was something terrible but the laughter felt so good.
Elsie came in with the tray of tea. ‘We’ll have them for supper,’ she said and took them away, leaving Morton and AJ alone.
Morton drank his tea.
‘Nice flat. Homely,’ he said. ‘Reminds me of where I grew up.’
‘Are you here to fire me?’ said AJ, battling to think of another reason for Morton’s visit.
‘No. I’m here to bring you three spare ribs and to tell you that Stephen has left to go to another chambers.’
‘Oh. Thanks,’ said AJ, though he couldn’t for the life of him think why he was expected to care one way or the other what happened to Stephen.
‘No,’ said Morton. ‘Of course I’m not here just to tell you that. I’m here to offer you a permanent job as junior clerk.’
After Morton had gone, AJ sat, stunned. He had been offered a job – a full-time, paid job with a future. Then why wasn’t he hopping round the flat with joy? Simple. As crazy as it sounded, he was beginning to wonder which century he belonged in. He had until January to decide – perhaps time enough to find out who killed his father. And maybe find the documents that authenticated the snuffboxes. Mr Baldwin had been sure that with them he would win the case.
AJ smiled. If he went back to the past they would be a thank you present for Morton. If he stayed in the present they would give him a boost in his new position. And anyway, he liked the idea of Ms Finch winning. He liked the idea a lot.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The key.
Where was the key? The sudden realisation that he no longer had it hit AJ bullet-hard. It was his only connection to his father and it was gone, his talisman lost.
Desperately he tried to retrace his steps, in his mind at least, which wasn’t easy. For the first time ever, thinking hurt his brain. He knew, logically, that he’d had it when he saw Dr Jinx. Logically, that meant he must have had it when Moses attacked him. He felt sick. Perhaps it had fallen on the pavement. It would have been kicked aside, swept up, thrown away.
Breathe, he told himself, forgetting he had three broken ribs. Shallow breaths then, but breathe. Think slowly. If only he could make his brain work.