The Lights of London Read online

  ‘Get your hands off me.’ The words hissed through the man’s teeth as he shoved Tibs hard in the chest.

  Unusually, for Tibs, she hadn’t seen the blow coming and her head hit the wall again, making her eyes roll and her ears ring. It took her only a moment to recover, but it was time enough for the man to disappear out of the alley.

  Even as Tibs recovered, he was swaggering along the Highway in search of a pint of thick, creamy porter and a steaming-hot beef and oyster pie – another slummer’s treat he enjoyed – before returning to the more salubrious surroundings of his home in Belgravia.

  Tibs was incensed both at him and at her own stupidity. ‘You bastard,’ she hollered pointlessly into the night.

  Ordinarily, she would have hitched up her skirts and given chase, but what with her aching head and the fog which was now so bad that the whole of Tower Bridge had disappeared into its folds, she knew there was little point. He could be anywhere in the maze of rat-infested streets, courts and alleys surrounding the Ratcliffe Highway.

  She spat noisily and expertly, imagining the man to be her target, then dug her hand deep into the secret pocket she’d stitched into one of her layers of flannel petticoats.

  Having pulled out her total wealth, she counted it with mounting disbelief. ‘A tosheroon?’ she wailed. ‘Half a sodding bloody crown?’

  Squatting down on her haunches, Tibs ran her hand over the mucky cobbles of the alley floor, frantically searching in the dark for the rest of her money, but knowing in her heart that she’d been robbed and that her efforts to find it were in vain.

  What made it worse was that she knew it couldn’t have been that posh old bleeder who’d done it. He might have been a heartless, sneery bastard, but he wouldn’t have had the skills to flimp her without her noticing. No, it would have been one of the other tarts and, as clear as a summer’s morning in the Essex countryside, she knew exactly when it would have happened.

  The brides had all been standing outside the Hope and Anchor, up by the Minories, before they started their night’s work. All of them eager to hear the latest rumours as to the identity of the madman who’d slit the throat, carved up and murdered the girl who’d been found dumped near the Royal Mint opposite the dock gates. They didn’t show it, but most of them were really scared and were making all sorts of excuses to work close to one another. It was the third similar murder in the past year, but nothing was being done. The police weren’t interested in a few dead whores. Just as they wouldn’t have given a damn about one of them being robbed.

  But while Tibs knew there wasn’t one of those tarts she’d been talking to who wouldn’t take the opportunity to earn a bit extra by dipping the marks they’d picked up, flimping one of your own kind was definitely not acceptable. That was only done by someone low. Someone as low as they came. And that, as far as Tibs was concerned, could mean only one person.

  ‘Blast your eyes and damn you to hell, you stinking, rotten tea-leaf, Lily Perkins,’ growled Tibs. ‘You know I have to pay Mrs Bowdall, you swindling, low-life whore. I’ll kill you stone dead if I get hold of you. I bloody swear I will.

  She was going to have to go back to work after all.

  As weary and wretched as she felt, Tibs hauled herself out of the alley and back towards the alehouses that lined the notorious dockside streets.

  She rubbed her hands over her face with a groan of self-pity. ‘Ne’mind no bed in no common lodging house for the night, Tibs girl, or being scared of some murdering maniac on the loose. If you don’t earn some money a bit lively, Mrs Bowdall’s gonna say she can’t help you out no more, and worse than that, Albert’ll get hold of you and knock your block clean off your shoulders, and you won’t be needing no bed not ever again. And poor little Polly won’t have a flaming mother. Not even a useless, stupid, careless whore like me.’

  Slowly, Kitty opened her eyes and blinked uneasily. Was she going mad? It looked and felt, from the swaying and rocking, just as though she was on the floor of some sort of boat.

  A boat?

  Warily, she ran her fingers about her and probed the rough but unmistakably soggy texture of overlapping wooden planks.

  It was a boat.

  If she hadn’t actually lost her mind, then how on earth had she got here?

  She blinked again, more wildly this time as she realised she wasn’t alone.

  Gradually, bit by awful bit, it dawned on her that not only had she failed to end her miserable disaster of a life, but she was in a tiny bucketing craft, squeezed between two strange men – both drunk by the stink coming off them – with her soaking-wet clothes steaming in the heat of what looked like a brazier full of red-hot coals.

  She didn’t have time to consider whether she was actually relieved to find herself alive; her bodily reflexes took over and she was far too involved with physical reactions even to consider such philosophical matters. Just in time to avoid vomiting all over herself, Kitty stuck her head over the side and choked up what looked like several gallons of Thames water, back into the river from where it had come.

  Buggy watched, fascinated, actually leaning over her to get a better look. Teezer, on the other hand, was interested in more than the projected contents of Kitty’s stomach.

  He gripped Buggy’s shoulder. ‘What d’you reckon, Bug? Not a bad-looking sort, is she? Too skinny and a bit on the lanky side maybe, but some fellers like ’em tall, don’t they? Makes a change, like, from the little ’uns.’

  ‘Eh?’ Buggy said absently, his attention now fixed on Kitty’s struggle to stop retching.

  ‘You see,’ Teezer went on, grimacing with the effort of keeping his purl-addled thinking on track, ‘I saved her life, didn’t I? So I reckon in return, like, she owes me some sort of a favour.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ Buggy asked vaguely.

  ‘She could be the first of my girls, couldn’t she? The start of my …’ Teezer paused for effect, then added grandly, ‘my harem. Come on, let’s get her back on dry land and see how she cleans up.’ He nodded at Buggy. ‘Play your cards right, mate, and you can be in on this with me. I might even make you a proper partner.’

  Buggy, suddenly interested, flashed him a lop-sided grin. ‘You know, Teeze, maybe you ain’t as stupid as you look.’

  Teezer winked and raised his chin triumphantly. ‘Me mother didn’t just keep the pretty ones, now did she, Bug.’

  Tibs stood in the shadow of one of the huge bonded warehouses – a storehouse packed full of riches that the likes of her couldn’t even begin to imagine, let alone dream of ever owning. She sighed loudly, leaned back against the soot-covered wall and massaged her aching calves. Despite the cold her stiff, leather-cramped toes felt as hot and as damp as a plateful of steaming saveloys. At least in the summer she could pull off her boots, stuff her stockings down into the toes and dangle them round her neck by the laces.

  She loved that feeling, having her feet free. Especially when she took ten minutes to get herself down to the river at low tide and walked along the edge, letting the mud ooze and squidge up between her bare toes.

  She’d get herself a decent pair of boots one day, ones that really fitted her, and a pot of Elliman’s Embrocation to rub into her legs, and a nice basin of water with Epsom Salts to soak her dogs in. Yeah, and she’d get herself a new tiara and all, while she was about it. You could hardly keep turning up at Windsor Castle in the same old gear every time. …

  When she saw people, like the bloke who’d just diddled her, being able to spend so much on fine clothes, just because they liked the look of them, just for the sake of it, it really amazed her how much money there was in the world. Especially when all she needed was probably no more than a fraction of what they’d throw away on a new bonnet for their fat, lazy wives, that would be worn no more than a few times and discarded for the next fashionable style or colour.

  That money could change her life.

  And Polly’s.

  Still, it was no good dreaming. Life wasn’t fair now, and it probably never had been and never would be.

  She puffed out her cheeks and blew noisily. Where was the nearest likely gaff to find a mark at this time of night? By now, most of them would have picked up a girl already, or else they’d be too pissed to give a damn about having a bit of the other. And because the crossing sweepers didn’t exactly queue up to ply their trade in this part of London, the streets were that mucky by this hour it was like wading through a swamp made up of dung. Especially when the air was so damp.

  Maybe there was a boat just in.

  The thought of trailing down to the dock gates and fighting for customers with all the other brides was even more depressing than admitting she’d been stupid enough to let herself be robbed.

  ‘Bloody, rotten bastard, thieving off me like that,’ she muttered angrily. ‘If there was any thieving to be done it should have been me doing it. Off of that posh geezer. Not Lily pissing Perkins, and definitely not off of me. Sodding cheeky …’

  ‘Hello, Tibs, me old love.’

  The sound of the gruff, tobacco-thickened voice coming out of the fog had Tibs straining to see who it was who had spotted her without her even realising she was being watched.

  She must be getting soft. First Lily, then the bloke, now this. She’d have to get her wits about her or she’d really be in trouble.

  The voice spoke again. ‘That is you, ain’t it, sweetheart?’

  The figure of a heavily built woman in her late thirties stepped towards Tibs out of the mist.

  A smile of recognition lit up Tibs’s pretty, if dirt-ingrained, face. She stretched out and took the far less attractive, smallpox-scarred face of the woman in her little hands and kissed her, smack, on her cracked, dry lips.

  ‘One-eyed Sal, you old bugger,’ Tibs gree
ted her, as she leaned back to get a better look at her friend. ‘How are you, me darling? I ain’t seen you for weeks.’

  ‘This is how I am. Cop a load of this.’ Sal whipped off her shawl and affected an ungainly pirouette, showing off the full, heavy swirl of her black-trimmed scarlet dress. ‘Not been this well off in years, have I, ducks? Proper swanky, ain’t I? Not even this bloody fog’s getting me down. Well, not much, but it’s still good to see a familiar face. Bit of company never comes amiss in this weather, eh, girl? You never know who you might run into. And what with that poor girl getting done in …’

  As interested in avoiding the dangers of working alone in the London fog as any other bride in the area Tibs, for the moment anyway, was more concerned with how Sal had managed to earn enough to pay for such luxury. ‘What the hell you been up to? That ain’t no fourth-hand rubbish off a barrow.’

  ‘It certainly ain’t. Look, leg-o’mutton sleeves, neat little bustle and it’s hardly been worn,’ Sal informed her proudly. ‘No darns or nothing. Well, not many. In fact, if it hadn’t been so foggy I’d have been twirling me little parasol what matches the hat. But I don’t wanna go ruining it.’

  Tibs fingered the thick woollen cloth and the stiff black frogging trim. She was flabbergasted. It wasn’t only beautiful, it was as good as clean. And so warm. Wearing it must be like being all wrapped up in a big, soft blanket. ‘Blimey, Sal, you got yourself a fancy man or something?’

  Sal threw back her head and roared with laughter. ‘One-eyed Sal with a fancy man?’ she spluttered, her hand instinctively going to the black patch that covered the empty socket of her left eye. ‘He’d have to have one more of his minces missing than I have to bother with an old haybag like me.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Sal,’ said Tibs, flinching as she remembered how Albert, who ‘looked after’ Sal, as well as her and half a dozen other tarts, had taken the boat hook to her face for daring to answer him back that night. ‘You’re still a good-looking woman.’

  ‘Yeah and I was such a success at her Diamond Jubilee the other year that Queen Victoria’s asked me round to tea again, to show off me drawers to all her fine friends. Her parties’d be nothing without me.’

  ‘Sal …’

  ‘I don’t kid meself, Tibs. I know I’m almost fit for the knackers.’ She chortled wheezily to herself as she reached under her skirt and pulled out a short, squat flask. ‘Here, have a drop of this nerve tonic to warm your cockles, me little love.’

  Tibs took a pull of the liquor, screwing up her eyes as she waited for it to hit the back of her throat. But then she realised that her mouth wasn’t burning and her eyes weren’t watering either.

  She examined the gin bottle in disbelief. It was proper stuff, not the sort of rot-gut that was brewed up in a bucket in someone’s backyard. ‘It’s good gear, this,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Right nice stuff.’

  ‘It’s that all right. And how about this.’ She scratched purposefully at her tightly corseted waist. ‘I might still be cootie, but look.’

  Sal affected a mad grimace, showing a wide gap where her front teeth had once stood like rotting tree stumps. ‘I even got myself enough to go and see the dentist. Mind you, I ain’t never been before. That cocaine lark he gave me was a bit frightening. Made that seem like water,’ she said, pointing to the gin that Tibs was still holding. ‘I don’t think I’ll be going back to get the rest done.’

  ‘So where’d it all come from then? The bottle of jacky’ – Tibs held up the flask – ‘all the new clobber.’ She frowned with concern; they both knew Albert’s views on girls who made private arrangements with their punters. ‘Here, you sure you ain’t got no one on the quiet? I wouldn’t say nothing, Sal, you know me, but you’d better watch yourself if you have.’

  One-eyed Sal had a swallow of gin, put the bottle back under her skirt, leaned forward and pinched Tibs’s cheek. ‘I’ve got better than that, my little pet, I’ve got a new hall I’m working. And you know how the halls attract the posh sorts out slumming. They’re always on the look-out for business. And this one, well, even old crows like me are getting plenty of custom.’ She slapped Tibs playfully on the shoulder. ‘Specially from the ones what’ve been to fancy West End parties and have spent all night staring at their friends’ wives’ titties bulging out of them fancy frocks, and all without getting even a little squeeze of ’em. By the time they get down here they’re bloody screaming for it. Us brides are well away.’

  ‘Where’s this hall then, Sal?’

  ‘You know, down the Old Black Dog.’ Sal took a pipe from her pocket, tried and failed to light it. ‘Bugger this weather. It’s colder and damper than a witch’s tit. If this fog don’t …’

  ‘They’re putting on turns at the Dog? The one in Rosemary Lane?’ Tibs broke in impatiently.

  ‘Yeah, Jack Fisher, the new landlord there, he’s opened up that big room upstairs. The one old Mary Fishguts used to …’

  ‘Mary who?’

  Sal chuckled deep in her throat. ‘I forget, Tibs, you’re just a youngster, ain’t you. Wish I was. You know, when I was your age …’

  ‘So how long’s it been open then?’ Tibs interrupted again. She didn’t want to be rude to her old friend but she had to find out more. This could be the answer to her prayers.

  ‘Been going for almost a fortnight, it has.’ Sal sniffed loudly and wiped her nose along the back of her hand, leaving a trail of silvery snot that traced its way up and along her scarlet sleeve. ‘They can try all they like with their licensing nonsense, but I’m telling you, they’ll never close down the halls. Never. They can …’

  ‘Look, Sal, I know I’ve been working more over towards Aldgate,’ Tibs said a bit more sulkily than she’d intended. ‘Trying to keep out of Albert’s way to tell you the truth. That old cow Mrs Bowdall stung me for more money over the last fortnight and I sort of owe him a bit. But someone could’ve mentioned it to me.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, love. No one who knew about it reckoned it was gonna last more than a week. See, it ain’t exactly Drury Lane. I mean, brides like me don’t usually get a look-in at the better sort of halls. You have to be done up like a sodding duchess even to get your foot through the door at the Empire or the Alhambra. But down the Dog …’

  ‘What? What about the Dog?’

  Sal chuckled. ‘The turns really stink, but ’cos it’s new it’s still a bit of a novelty. That’s how it’s managing to pull in the punters. But they don’t hang around for long. They start looking for other distractions, if you know what I mean.’

  Suddenly there was a distant look in her eye. ‘You know, Tibs, I really thought I was ready to start walking the parks of a night. Doing Gawd knows what for all them strange ones with their funny ideas and that. But now the Dog’s come along.’ She grinned broadly, showing her few remaining back teeth to be as brown and broken as a set of ill-kept railings. ‘It’s not only brought a lot of that mob back who’d moved on to the boozers down Shadwell, it’s brought in all these toffs and all. For now, anyway. But wait till it gets around what a load of old shit Fisher’s putting on every night and the novelty of having a laugh at all the old tripe wears off.’ She winked gleefully. ‘You wanna get yourself down there with me, young ’un. And make it a bit sharpish and all. Make hay while the sun shines, as they say. But don’t let on about it to too many others, eh, ’cos it’s got what I think you might call a very limited potential for any sort of a run.’

  Tibs pinched Sal’s crêpey cheek gently between her fingers. ‘You are an angel from above, sweet Sal, a genuine angel of mercy.’

  Sal laughed coarsely. ‘I’ve been called some things in me time, darling, but it’s the first time I’ve ever been called that.’

  Despite being a tall, country-bred young woman, with shoulders almost as broad as a boy’s, Kitty was no match for Buggy and Teezer. What with having been half drowned, and with her sopping-wet clothes and soaking boots weighing her battered body down like lead, they were able to push and shove her up the flight of waterman’s stairs with no more effort than it would have taken to shift an uncooperative five-year-old.

  She tripped up the final step, coughing and panting, and stumbled along the shoreway – one of the shadowy narrow walkways that ran between the massive warehouses – that led from the river to the Ratcliffe Highway.