A Very Singular Guild

  Ned thought about Sarah Pickles as he stepped into the smaller ring of salt. He’d met her just once, having helped to capture her while she was escaping from the police. Now she was sitting in Newgate Prison, no more than a few hundred yards from where he stood, awaiting trial for the murder of sixteen infant children.

  Her good friend John Gammon was also close by – only he wasn’t in gaol. Ned wondered if he might be circling Newgate Market at that very moment, making plans to silence Jem. It was a chilling thought. Ned felt certain that, given a choice, Alfred would have turned down the Newgate job entirely. But because Alfred was now on the municipal payroll, he’d had no choice. He couldn’t pick and choose his jobs anymore – not when they came from a municipal officer like Eugene Wardle.

  ‘Ssst!’ Alfred had stationed himself against one side of the wooden tank. In his right hand he carried a short spear; in his left, the leather bag. He nodded at Jem, who was already waiting inside the larger ring of salt with his back to the bogler. Between them, the drain yawned like a mouth; it was the size of a manhole, but any cap that might once have rested on top of it was now gone.

  Ned decided that Alfred had chosen his hiding-place well. Though the tank provided excellent cover, it also gave Alfred a clear view of the drain – and of Jem, too. Ned found himself wondering what the tank had been used for. Blood, perhaps? Had freshly slaughtered sheep been laid across its metal grill?

  Suddenly Jem began to sing.

  Ten or a dozen cocks o’ the game

  On the prigging lay to the flash house came,

  Lushing blue ruin and heavy wet,

  Till the darkey, when the downy set.

  All toddled and began to hunt

  For readers, tattlers, fogles or blunt.

  Jem’s husky voice sounded like a cricket’s chirp in that big, hollow space. Would the bogle be able to hear it? Ned was glad that he didn’t have to sing. It was hard enough simply breathing the foul air, let alone shaping it into a tune. Besides, Ned wasn’t much of a singer. During his six months as a coster’s boy – before Alfred had finally hired him for bogling work – Ned had strained his vocal cords by touting his wares on busy street corners. ‘Ripe damsons!’ ‘Potatoes, full weight!’ ‘American apples, round and sound!’ Ned knew all the cries, but couldn’t hold a tune.

  Jem could. He piped away gamely, his gaze riveted to the mirror in his hand, which framed a small, murky image of Alfred’s shadowy form.

  As I were crossing St James’s Park,

  I met a swell, a well-togg’d spark.

  I stopped a bit: then toddled quicker,

  For I’d prigged his reader, drawn his ticker;

  Then he calls, ‘Stop thief!’ Thinks I, my master,

  That’s a hint to me to toddle faster.

  Ned understood that he was quite safe inside his ring of salt. There wasn’t a bogle on earth that could break through the magic circle protecting him. Yet he felt weighed down by a peculiar sense of dread, which grew stronger and stronger as he thought about John Gammon, and Sarah Pickles, and the hole in the floor. What if two bogles emerged from that hole? Or three?

  What if a whole pack of them appeared; what was he supposed to do then?

  In his entire life he’d only ever laid eyes on three bogles, and although he had personally killed one of them, he still wasn’t properly trained. Compared to Jem, he was just a raw recruit. Suppose he made a mistake? Suppose something went wrong . . .?

  Suddenly Ned gasped. This black despair wasn’t natural. He recognised it from previous bogling jobs. And Jem must have recognised it too, because his voice began to shake as he launched into another verse.

  Whatever swag we chance for to get,

  All is fish as comes to net:

  Mind yer eye, and draw the yokel,

  Don’t disturb or use the folk ill.

  Keep a lookout, if the beaks is nigh,

  And cut yer stick afore they’re fly.

  When Ned first heard the underlying noise, it was so faint that he couldn’t quite make out what it was. A draught? A sigh? Gradually he identified it as a kind of whispering gurgle, and he licked his lips as he peered at the drain.

  But he couldn’t see any movement in its depths. Though the air seemed to thicken, no bogle emerged from the sewer. It wasn’t until Ned glanced towards Alfred, seeking guidance, that he spotted something black and shiny spilling over the rim of the tank.

  At least a dozen long, boneless arms were unrolling like wet streamers, clinging to whatever surface they touched. The bulk of the creature soon followed, hauled out of the tank by its own straining arms like cargo winched from a ship’s hold. It was covered in jagged spines that waved about as it dropped towards the floor, dragging itself along as silently as a snail.

  Horrified, Ned opened his mouth, then shut it again. He didn’t know what to do. Alfred had told him, over and over again, not to speak except in an emergency. But surely this was an emergency? Alfred hadn’t yet noticed the bogle; he was too busy staring at the drain. When Ned shot a quick glance at Jem, he saw the mirror shaking in Jem’s hand. Clearly Jem knew what was happening.

  In fact it might have been the sudden catch in Jem’s voice that caused Alfred to look up. For an instant he froze, wide-eyed, as the bogle slid down the front of the tank, barely a foot away from him. Luckily, however, its wet, slithering shape passed him by.

  It seemed anxious to reach Jem, who was still bravely singing.

  B-but now the beaks is on the scene,

  And watched by moonlight where we went –

  Stagged us a-toddling into the ken

  And was down upon us all, and then

  Who should I spy but the slap-up spark

  What I eased of the swag in St James’s P-Park?

  Slowly the creature advanced. It had a gaping maw lined with spine-like teeth, and glowing yellow eyes with no pupils in them. Alfred was edging forward, adjusting his grip on the spear. Ned could hardly breathe. Jem was faltering; his voice was now just a hoarse squeak, and nearly failed altogether when the bogle’s reaching arms slipped through the gap in the ring of salt. They fastened themselves to the floor like suckers, then tightened until the rest of the bogle surged forward, leaving a slimy trail in its wake.

  There’s a time, says King Sol, to dance and sing;

  I know there’s a time for another thing:

  There’s a time to pipe, and a time to snivel –

  I wish all Charlies and beaks to the—

  ‘Go!’ yelled Alfred.

  He jumped out of the shadows. There was a white flash as he tossed a handful of salt. At the very same instant, Jem threw himself into a forward roll, bowling along like a hoop. Alfred raised his spear. The bogle reared up, frothing and hissing, its tentacles writhing, caught in the glittering trap—

  BANG! It exploded like a giant grape, releasing a geyser of black liquid.

  There was a long, shocked silence. Then Mr Wardle reappeared at the stop of the stairs.

  ‘Mr Bunce?’ he murmured. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Aye,’ Alfred said hoarsely. He shuffled forward and stooped to retrieve his spear, which was lying in a sticky black puddle. His green coat was dripping with goo. Even his shaggy, salt-and-pepper hair was splattered with the stuff.

  ‘That weren’t so big,’ Jem croaked, climbing stiffly to his feet. Ned saw that he, too, had been sprayed with slime.

  ‘Nay,’ Alfred agreed. ‘I’ve seen bigger.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and began to mop his face. ‘You’d best get that off you,’ he told Jem. ‘Though it don’t burn none, I doubt it’s summat you’d want on yer skin.’

  Meanwhile, Mr Wardle was advancing down the stairs. ‘Uh – Mr Bunce?’ he asked. ‘Was there a bogle?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Alfred.

  ‘And you killed it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Um . . .’ Mr Wardle hesitated. His gaze drifted towards the puddle of fluid on the floor. ‘I should tell you that there may be
another close by,’ he said at last.

  Alfred frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Again the inspector seemed lost for words. Finally he cleared his throat and explained, ‘I just had a young lad wander up to me, saying there was a bogle in his father’s house. Somehow he knew that I was with a bogler – perhaps he’d heard me speaking to the barmaid at Mother Okey’s. But when I asked him for an address, he grew very anxious. He asked why you couldn’t come directly. And as soon as I pressed him, he ran off.’ Seeing Alfred wince, Mr Wardle blurted out, ‘He was in such a state that he made me nervous!’

  Ned swallowed. He caught Alfred’s eye, then looked away. Jem was grimacing as if he’d just caught his hand in a door.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Alfred declared. He thrust his spear towards Ned, who took it obediently. (It was Ned’s job to clean the spear.) ‘There ain’t no saying who sent that boy. Or who might decide to follow him here.’

  ‘D’you think—?’ Jem began, but Alfred cut him off.

  ‘I don’t know what to think. All I know is, I ain’t taking no risks.’ Alfred went to pick up his sack, which lay under his hat near the dark lantern. ‘Come on,’ he told the boys. ‘We’ll go straight home and clean up there. I’d sooner take me chances with a crusting o’ bogle innards than I would with John Gammon.’

  By the time he’d finished speaking, Jem and Ned were already on their way upstairs.

  3

  THEATRE FOLK

  Alfred Bunce lived with his two apprentices in a garret off Drury Lane. The crowded room was six floors up – a very long climb with a bucket of water. So when they finally arrived home, Ned wasn’t surprised to discover that the jug on the washstand was empty.

  ‘I’ll fetch another pail,’ he offered, since he was the only one not covered in smears of dried bogle. Unfortunately, Orange Court didn’t have its own water supply. It didn’t have anything much; it was just a narrow alley full of costers’ carts, cabbage leaves and drifts of grubby children. To reach the nearest pump, Ned had to head down Drury Lane, towards Covent Garden Market. But this didn’t worry Ned, who regarded Orange Court as the height of luxury, despite its lack of water. After years spent sharing beds in cheap boarding houses, he felt very, very fortunate to have a palliasse all to himself. And he was profoundly grateful to Alfred Bunce, whose generosity had transformed his life.

  Baiting bogles was a small price to pay for a roof, a fire and a full belly.

  Ned was on his way back from the pump when he spotted a knife-grinder, parked outside a coal merchant’s shop. Ned loved to watch knife-grinders at work. This one was bent over his machine, sharpening a pair of scissors. As he pedalled away furiously, a wooden wheel on his cart turned the circular whetstone by means of a leather belt.

  Ned couldn’t help admiring the smooth, efficient way the mechanical parts interacted. For a moment he stood entranced, forgetting that he had to hurry home.

  ‘There he is! The barrow boy!’ a loud voice suddenly exclaimed. ‘Hi! Ned Roach! We’ve been looking for you everywhere!’

  Startled, Ned spun around. He saw a knot of people surging towards him, all young and handsome and well-groomed. The oldest was a man of perhaps twenty-five, with a thick moustache and curly hair parted in the middle. He wore striped trousers, a silk cravat, and a coat with a velvet collar. Accompanying him were three girls who looked very much alike. They had huge, pale eyes under finely arched brows. Their heads were crowned by masses of brown ringlets, which tumbled out from beneath frivolous little hats sprouting knots of ribbon and tufts of lace. The youngest, who wasn’t much older than Ned, wore violet taffeta. The other two were dressed in gold-braided, brass-buttoned Garibaldi coats.

  ‘Hold up there!’ cried the young man. ‘Do you know me? Frederick Vokes? My sisters and I have bought fruit from your master’s barrow.’

  ‘Y-yes, of course,’ Ned stammered. He knew the Vokes family very well – at least by sight. They were actors from the Theatre Royal, which lay just down the road, and they had always been highly visible. What surprised Ned was that they recognised him. For although he had worked as a coster’s boy for several months, he hadn’t exchanged a single word with the Vokes siblings during that time. ‘But I ain’t on a fruit barrow no more . . .’

  ‘We know that!’ said the youngest girl, whose name was Rosina. She had a very loud voice for such a little person. ‘We were at Covent Garden Market, searching high and low, until we discovered that you were no longer to be found there!’

  ‘That’s right.’ Ned found himself edging backwards as the family closed in on him. ‘I’m a bogler’s boy now.’

  The Vokes sisters gasped, then burst into squeals of excitement. By this time they were all gathered around Ned, striking poses and waving their hands about, while rougher, dirtier, busier people swerved to avoid them. Some of these passers-by briefly slowed down, because the girls were worth a look. But none of the Vokes siblings seemed conscious of the curious stares that they were attracting. Instead they fixed their attention wholly on Ned – who felt dazzled, like a mouse caught in the glare of a miner’s lamp.

  ‘Why, what a fortunate thing!’ Rosina trilled. ‘We were told that you lodged with a Go-Devil man, but not that you worked for him!’

  ‘We wish to engage him, you see,’ Frederick explained.

  ‘And here you are, placed in our path, just when we’d given up hope!’ said the eldest sister, whose name Ned struggled to recall. The middle one was Victoria; he remembered that. He also knew that they were renowned for their dancing, and that after every show they would eat a late supper (or early breakfast) at the Tavistock Hotel, near Covent Garden Market, before picking up a handful of fresh plums or grapes on their way back home.

  But they weren’t on their way home now. Ned decided that they must be heading for the theatre.

  ‘Who told you I lodged with a Go-Devil man?’ he asked, unable to imagine why the Vokes family would be discussing him with anyone. But then Frederick briskly related how he and his sisters had been lamenting the loss of ‘poor Noah’ while they passed through Covent Garden Market that morning, and were overheard by a fat, bald coster with a ginger moustache. ‘He said that if we wanted to hire a bogler, you were the person to find,’ Frederick concluded, with a very theatrical flourish. ‘And now – voila! We’ve found you!’

  Ned still didn’t understand. ‘Who’s Noah?’

  ‘He is a boy from the ballet,’ the eldest sister replied. ‘He’s missing.’

  ‘And he was last seen near an underground tunnel,’ Rosina said eagerly, ‘so he might have been taken by a bogle – don’t you think?’

  ‘Unless, of course, he’s tucked away in the Nell Gwynn public house, drinking himself witless,’ Victoria drawled. ‘That tunnel leads straight from the theatre to Mr Cooper’s tavern, does it not?’

  ‘Oh, Vic!’ Rosina shot her sister a reproachful glance. ‘How can you be so heartless? The poor boy’s only nine years old!’

  ‘Besides, the passage to Mr Cooper’s has been bricked up for years, if it ever existed,’ Frederick pointed out. But Victoria didn’t seem convinced.

  ‘Has it? Truly?’ Her tone was sceptical. ‘I’ve been hearing about some very odd smells down there. And you know what the cooking is like at the Nell Gwynn.’

  Her eldest sister laughed. ‘That smell isn’t cooking, dear, it’s drains. I heard Mr Todd say so himself.’

  Ned stiffened. A missing child was one thing. But when a child vanished near a tunnel, directly over a sewer pipe, in the presence of a mysterious stench . . .

  He didn’t like the sound of it.

  ‘Of course, that smell could be a rotting carcass,’ Frederick suddenly remarked, with a wicked glint in his eye. ‘Mr Chatterton has been threatening to kill any number of theatre critics. Perhaps he’s been hiding the corpses backstage.’

  ‘Oh, do stop joking!’ Rosina bristled at him. ‘I like Noah! And he isn’t the first – why, what about that poor littl
e lost girl?’

  ‘What poor little lost girl?’ asked her eldest sister.

  ‘Oh, you know, Jessie!’ Rosina cried. ‘The little girl who came to watch Tom Thumb! She wandered off into the crowd, and her mother made such a fuss . . .’

  ‘But she was found again, surely?’ Frederick objected.

  ‘I don’t think she was.’ Rosina glanced at Victoria, who shrugged.

  By this time Ned was thoroughly confused. Listening to the Vokes family was like watching a team of jugglers tossing balls. ‘So there’s two missing kids?’ Ned interrupted. He was trying to get things straight in his mind. ‘A boy and a girl?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. And a lot of talk about something in the tunnel beneath the theatre,’ Frederick replied. ‘That’s why we need your bogler, Ned.’

  ‘At once,’ Rosina added. ‘Or what will befall all the other poor children?’

  ‘Like our darling Rosie . . .’ The eldest Vokes sister flung her arms around the youngest. ‘How can we risk losing our dearest and daintiest?’

  Ned doubted very much that Rosina was young enough to tempt a bogle. She looked at least sixteen. But instead of pointing this out, he said, ‘Mr Bunce can’t do nothing for you now, Miss. He’s due at the Board o’ Works in an hour.’

  ‘The Board of Works?’ Rosina echoed. ‘Goodness me!’

  ‘Are there bogles at the Board of Works?’ Frederick asked, with real interest.

  ‘No, sir, but Mr Bunce is hired by the Sewers Office, now. On a regular wage, like.’ Seeing the three sisters blink in astonishment, Ned suddenly remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be telling people that the Sewers Office had hired a Go-Devil man. So he quickly did his best to change the subject. ‘That’s why I don’t know as how Mr Bunce can help you. He ain’t taking on private jobs no more, see.’

  ‘Oh, but he’ll help us, I’m sure,’ Frederick declared, in ringing tones. ‘You could hardly describe us as private people. We’re very, very public.’