Mister Creecher Read online

  For my father, Tom Priestley

  CONTENTS

  Part I.

  Chapter I.

  Chapter II.

  Chapter III.

  Chapter IV.

  Chapter V.

  Chapter VI.

  Chapter VII.

  Chapter VIII.

  Chapter IX.

  Chapter X.

  Chapter XI.

  Chapter XII.

  Chapter XIII.

  Chapter XIV.

  Chapter XV.

  Chapter XVI.

  Chapter XVII.

  Chapter XVIII.

  Chapter XIX.

  Part II.

  Chapter XX.

  Chapter XXI.

  Chapter XXII.

  Chapter XXIII.

  Chapter XXIV.

  Chapter XXV.

  Chapter XXVI.

  Chapter XXVII.

  Chapter XXVIII.

  Chapter XXIX.

  Chapter XXX.

  Chapter XXXI.

  Chapter XXXII.

  Chapter XXXIII.

  Part III.

  Chapter XXXIV.

  Chapter XXXV.

  Chapter XXXVI.

  Chapter XXXVII.

  Chapter XXXVIII.

  Chapter XXXIX.

  Chapter XL.

  Chapter XLI.

  Chapter XLII.

  Chapter XLIII.

  Chapter XLIV.

  Author’s Note

  Also by Chris Priestley

  PART I.

  CHAPTER I.

  Billy pulled his clammy coat collar tightly to his throat. It was damp with the fog and felt like the tongue of a dead animal lolling against his neck. His thin body shivered and trembled. He was fifteen but looked eight. A fever sweat glistened on his forehead. His breaths were short; they puffed from his mouth in feeble wisps.

  He walked warily out into Finsbury Square. The fog gathered here, undisturbed, ominous. Billy carried a small cocoon of visibility with him, so that, as he walked, it was as if the world outside this bubble were as yet unformed and he invented his part of it at every step.

  It was late and the owners of the pocket watches and handkerchiefs that Billy predated were safely home and happy by their firesides, sipping brandy, counting their blessings and their money.

  Amber light seeped like honey from upstairs windows, glowing between the heavy curtains and solid shutters that formed a barrier to the cold and to the fear-filled world beyond.

  Voices likewise seeped out into the dank night air: the happy hubbub of laughter and good cheer. Then the giddy tumble of church bells rang out across the city and Billy heard the sound of toasts and singing, and the cold gnawed more deeply into his bones. It was January 1st: New Year’s Day, 1818.

  Billy was sick. He had been sick before, but this was different. He grabbed the nearby metal railing for support. It burned his hand with its fierce chill. Tiny forests of white crystals were sprouting over metal and wood, over bricks and cobbles. Minute thorns of ice prickled over every surface. The fog seemed to close in around Billy. Soon it would simply erase him and everything he had been. All would dissolve into that desolate nothingness.

  The gilding at the edge of the wooden sign overhead flickered with the light from a nearby lamp. The painted letters spelled out Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones – Publishers. Billy had worked the customers at this bookshop. They were easy targets as they left, their faces fixed on the pages of their new books, their minds elsewhere.

  The shadow of the sign fell across a body lying against the wall beside the publisher’s doorway, face down and motionless. Billy knew a dead body when he saw one. The hands were as colourless as rancid meat. There was no sound, no movement.

  He looked at it with the cynical detachment that years on the street had gifted him. He did not know this man and did not care how he had lived or how he came to die. Only the rich could afford to be sentimental. He cared for no one but himself. He was alone. Everyone was.

  As ill as he felt, Billy could not bring himself to ignore a possible treasure. This body was a resource to be made the most of. This was a tree that might have fruit to be picked.

  Billy had already gathered from the briefest of glances that the clothes would be of no use to him at all. The man was huge. Even though he made his coat look small, Billy could see that it would smother him. Time to see what the pockets of that coat concealed.

  He looked about him. He had a feeling there was someone watching, but then he always had that. It was what made him sharp, what gave him his edge. He lived his life on the balls of his feet, always ready to run. But he didn’t have the strength to run tonight. Perhaps it was Death waiting in the fog.

  As he bent down to the corpse, his eyelids became heavy, his vision blurred. He was shaking now more than shivering. Billy had seen more bodies than he could remember: who could live on the streets of London and not? The dead were just another waste product of this great machine of a city – like smoke and sewage.

  Old age did not seem to be the cause of death: Billy could not see his face clearly, but his hair was long and raven black. Chances were he had been murdered or had died of some disease or other. Perhaps, thought Billy, he simply died of want. Hunger could kill you stone-cold dead without any hue and cry. Want was a murderer who never swung.

  The world seemed momentarily to slither to one side and Billy almost fell, face first, on to the corpse at his feet. He steadied himself, blinking his eyes back into focus.

  There were no obvious signs that the man had been attacked: no blood on the ground or on his clothes, no cuts, no gashes. But a cudgel was as deadly as a knife in the right hands. Billy had seen it done. More than once.

  He touched the body’s blue-white hand. It was as cold as a hangman’s heart. He’d probably been dead for hours. A rime of frost was forming on his clothes like a white mould. He had more than likely been robbed already, but Billy owed it to himself to check.

  ‘So,’ said a voice behind him. ‘What have we here?’

  Billy’s heart skipped a beat. He knew that voice anywhere. It was Fletcher. Immediately he looked right and left, trying to size up which gave him the best route for escape, but he could already see the shadowy figures in the mist.

  ‘I never had you down as a killer, Billy,’ said Fletcher, walking slowly forward out of the fog, so that he seemed to materialise out of the blankness like a thought: a nasty, vicious thought.

  ‘I didn’t kill him, Fletcher. He was dead when I got here. Honest.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Billy saw the arrival of Skinner and Tyke, two of Fletcher’s toughest cronies.

  ‘Honest?’ said Fletcher. ‘You? I’m surprised you’ve got the nerve to even use the word. Why don’t we call for a constable and see what he thinks?’

  Fletcher’s boys chortled at this idea, but Billy knew that Fletcher was never going to call a constable.

  ‘You cheated me, Billy,’ said Fletcher. ‘And I don’t take kindly to being cheated.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ said Billy. ‘You know I will.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing of the sort!’ shouted Fletcher.

  His voice cut its way through the fog and skittered across the icy cobbles like a dropped knife. Billy noticed that he had moved a little closer.

  ‘That’s what I was doing, just now,’ said Billy. ‘I thought the stiff might have some goods on him. I was going to bring them straight to you, I swear.’

  ‘Billy, Billy, Billy,’ said Fletcher with a sigh. ‘The time for paying back has gone. Tyke – check the pockets.’

  Fletcher smiled briefly and clicked his neck.

  ‘Truth is,’ he continued in a soft, conspiratorial tone, putting his arm round Billy’s shivering
shoulders. ‘Truth is, I’m going to have to hurt you.’

  Billy whimpered and tried to pull away. Fletcher’s grip tightened. Billy could smell the gin on his breath.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ Fletcher murmured. ‘I like you, Billy. I’ve always liked you. Weren’t it me who looked after you when you run away? But what would it look like if I was to let you show that kind of disrespect?’

  Billy knew Fletcher was blind in one eye, but he could not for the life of him recall which. He was sure it might be some kind of advantage to him if he could just remember, but both eyes looked equally dead and Fletcher seemed to read his mind.

  ‘You looking at my eye?’

  Billy knew that no reply was necessary, so made none. He just wanted Fletcher to get on with whatever beating he was going to hand out. He had been beaten before. As long as nothing broke you were all right. Billy sometimes felt he was one big scar. He was suddenly so very tired.

  ‘I was born with only the one eye working,’ Fletcher went on. ‘Probably on account of my mother being blind drunk when she had me.’ He chuckled throatily at this joke, but no one else was foolish enough to join him.

  ‘You’d think that would have held me back, but no – it’s made me what I am. You see the world clearer with one eye. I’m going to give you that gift, Billy.’

  With one deft movement, Fletcher brought out a huge clasp knife and flicked the blade out in front of Billy, his ashen face reflecting in the pitted steel. But before he could make another move there was a screech of such animal wildness from Tyke that Fletcher, Billy, the whole of London and Time itself seemed to freeze in wonder at it.

  All eyes – including Fletcher’s blank left eye – turned to the sound. The corpse that Tyke had been in the course of searching was now standing up and had him gripped by the arm.

  ‘It’s alive!’ shouted Skinner. ‘It’s alive!’

  If that had not been enough, the reanimated corpse was easily the tallest man Billy had ever seen and certainly the ugliest. This giant must have been nigh on seven feet tall – maybe even eight. His lank black hair fell across his face like trickles of ink, partly, but not wholly, obscuring a face that looked as though it had been hanging at Execution Dock for many days and had had the Thames washing over it, tide after tide.

  His eyes were limpid and, though shadowed by his furrowed brow, still managed to catch what little light there was. They seemed so alive compared to the rest of him.

  ‘Libberrrrerrrr legarrrrrsssonnnn!’ growled the giant, pointing at Billy.

  This gravelly, guttural outburst was greeted by a few moments of astonished, uncomprehending silence.

  ‘What the hell . . . ?’ said Fletcher, his voice sounding thin.

  The giant tightened his hold on Tyke’s forearm, turning it as he did so. Tyke’s scream died in a gurgling croak and the relative silence allowed for a sound like a chicken leg being twisted apart. He dropped to the cobbles and screamed again.

  ‘Layliberrrrrerrrrr!’ growled the giant, without once looking at the writhing Tyke at his feet. Billy felt another wave of weakness wash the life from his limbs and his eyes drifted out of focus. Had Fletcher not still had hold of him, he would have dropped to the ground like Tyke.

  Fletcher seemed uncertain as to what to do next. The first to react was Skinner, who had already pulled a knife from his coat pocket and now lunged at the giant.

  The giant barely seemed to move, but Billy saw the knife fall to the ground as the stranger grabbed Skinner by the throat and, holding him at arm’s length, began to lift him slowly into the air.

  Skinner enjoyed his pies. He was not your normal skin-and-bones street urchin. He was big. He was heavy. Billy stared in disbelief. What kind of man was this?

  The stranger flung Skinner away as though he were nothing but the stinking clothes he was wearing. The boy landed with a sickening clang against the nearby railings and lay in a motionless heap.

  Billy could sense the conflicting emotions in Fletcher: should he leap to attack this giant while he had the chance, should he run – or should he carve a piece out of Billy before he went?

  Billy felt sure he had decided on the latter and shut his eyes, waiting for the cold kiss of the knife blade, but opened them immediately as he heard the giant, with a speed and agility that belied his size, come rushing forward.

  Before Fletcher had time to move or cry out, the giant grabbed his right arm. Billy heard the wrist bone snap and Fletcher’s knife fell to the pavement.

  Fletcher was tough if nothing else and, broken wrist or not, he fought back. He kicked and lashed out with his good arm, but it was to no avail. The giant struck him with a fearsome blow to the side of the head and he dropped like a sack of flour. He did not stir.

  When Billy turned away from Fletcher, he found himself staring straight at the giant’s chest. He looked up. The giant looked down. His skin had the almost translucent look of a drowned man Billy had once seen by London Bridge. Perhaps this is what Death looks like, thought Billy. Or his death, at any rate.

  The giant leaned forward, staring at Billy with the bemused look of a snake about to strike. The fog seemed to rush forward suddenly, and then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER II.

  Billy was flying, floating a few feet off the ground. His head lolled back and forth. When he opened his eyes, the world lolled queasily along with him, as if he were bobbing on a boat adrift on ocean waves.

  The scene was blurred, as though viewed through greasy glass. His eyelids flickered, never fully open, never fully closed. Everything he saw seemed determined to slide away and out of sight; all solid objects had lost their moorings.

  Noises washed across his ears but Billy could not identify them. They merged and surged, sometimes echoing loudly inside his head, other times faint and barely audible.

  He felt chilled to the marrow. The air was cold on his clammy face and he became aware of being pressed up against something even colder.

  ‘Where now?’ came a voice near his ear.

  Billy lifted his head and peered into the distance. He was dreaming. He must be. He could see features he recognised – a shop sign, a crooked railing, a shabby courtyard with an alleyway beyond.

  ‘That way,’ said a voice so faint and far away that it took him a few moments to realise it was his own.

  Billy was inside now – he was sure of it. Warmer: the air was warmer, but he still felt cold. He shivered and found that once he started he could not stop.

  The shivering rattled his jaw and joints and seemed set on dislocating every bone in his body. His teeth chattered and the harsh noise clattered horribly in his head.

  Billy blinked, and blinked again, screwing up his eyes, trying to focus on something, anything. But the world seemed resistant to all his attempts to make it solid.

  Maybe I’ve died, he thought. Maybe this is what the world looks like when you die. But if he was dead, then where was this? He was fairly sure that he wouldn’t gain entry through heaven’s pearly gates, but it didn’t look much like hell either.

  Maybe he was in that other place: the place where you waited to have your fate decided. He tried to remember its name but could not recall it. Perhaps this was all there was.

  Billy now became aware that there was a large shadow some feet away. Or at least it seemed as dark and formless as a shadow. He strained his eyes, trying to will some clarity into the black smudge in front of him, but instead of becoming clearer, it merely grew and shifted its shape.

  The shadow grew and seemed to flood the room with darkness, swirling like a cloud of smoke, and then, out of this inky vagueness, a terrible face loomed towards him. Billy cried out and covered his face with his arms, cowering on the floor, not daring to look back and see if it had gone.

  Sleep overtook him. It was a chill, comfortless sleep, but still it came, pulling him down into oblivion. He opened his eyes but the darkness remained. He could taste the soot in his mouth and knew that he was a climbing boy once more,
wedged inside a chimney.

  The sweep was barking orders into the fireplace below. His sharp tone carried the threat of a beating to come. Billy took a deep, gasping breath and gagged on the soot as it rushed into his nostrils and throat.

  The chimney was narrow, but Billy was skinny – deliberately starved by the sweep. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t want to get stuck halfway, do ya?’

  His feet were jammed against the brickwork of the chimney, his elbows finding purchase on a small ledge. He felt so tired, so very tired. He wondered if he would be able to hold on much longer.

  Looking down, he saw the tiny, vague shape of the hearth way below. How could it be so far? He guIlped with fear, gagging on the dry soot. A fall now would be the end. All he needed to do was let go and it would all be over.

  Billy looked up and saw daylight above him, visible through the chimney-pot opening like a full moon in a black, black night. He dropped his brush, letting it clatter far below, and began to climb towards the light.

  CHAPTER III.

  Billy woke with a start, as he always did. He was catlike: almost as alert in sleep as he was awake. But he was drowsier than usual. He tried to concentrate. A dream . . . A strange dream . . .

  Lemon-coloured light was raking the gloom with long beams, illuminating galaxies of dust motes swirling in infinity in front of his waking eyes. At the far edge of this universe sat the giant who had made such a mess of Fletcher and his gang.

  Billy jerked back, scrabbling with his feet until his back hit a wall and he came to a sudden halt. The movement had been a mistake. His head reeled and he felt sick. Where was he?

  ‘Rrrrest,’ growled the giant.

  ‘What?’ said Billy groggily. ‘You can talk?’

  The giant nodded. Billy tried to get up, but the dizziness overcame him and he sank back down.

  ‘Fever,’ said the giant.

  Billy’s mind seemed to be filled with the same tumbling dust motes as the room.