A Christmas Odyssey by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online

friends, these two?” Henry asked her with as much patience as he could manage.
    “Nobody’s friends.” She looked at him witheringly. “Particular these two weren’t. After the same bint ter lie with, weren’t they!”
    “Sadie,” he guessed.
    “Mebbe. Long-legged piece, with black ’air.”
    “Where will I find them?” He was blunt at last.
    She cackled with laughter.
    “Where will I find them?” he repeated, with an edge of annoyance.
    She blinked. “Wot?”
    “Where are they, yer stupid mare?” Squeaky interrupted angrily.
    She turned to him, her eyes suddenly focusing. “Go an’ ask Shadow Man,” she hissed. “See if ’e’ll tell yer. Go an’ get ’is soul back fer ’im.”
    There was a moment’s silence. One or two people close to them pulled back a step or two.
    “Who is Shadow Man?” Henry asked.
    “Shadwell, ’is name is. The devil, I call ’im.” She stared at him, then her face seemed to contort into a kind of convulsion, and she started to shiver violently.
    Henry turned to Crow. “Can you help her, man? She’s having some kind of a fit. Can’t you …” His voice trailed off.
    “No one can help her,” Crow answered. “Her demons are inside her own head. Come on. We’ve one more place to try tonight. It’s not far from here.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Had enough?” Crow looked at him with some sympathy.
    Henry lifted his chin a little. “No. If we’ve moreto try, then we’ll try them. Word is bound to spread. How much deeper is there to go?”
    “There are tunnels under the river,” Squeaky answered. “Old ones, before they rebuilt the sewers. Believe me, we’re not at the bottom yet. Although the real bottom may be up a bit from there.”
    Henry stared at him, confused.
    “There’s a bottom of despair,” Squeaky replied. “And a bottom of power, an’ cruelty. We haven’t even touched the places where people do things to each other like some of those paintings by that German feller, or Dutch he was maybe. Pictures of torture, an’ things with animals you wouldn’t even think of.”
    “Lucien wouldn’t …” Henry began, then stopped. “Or perhaps he would. As you said, the real demons are in your own mind. If they conquer, perhaps anything of other people’s pain may be illusory to you.”
    Squeaky was not certain what he meant. The demons he knew were real enough: cold, hunger, disease, fear, and even at times loneliness. That wasn’t illusory.
    “Who’s this Shadwell?” Crow asked, looking at each of them in turn. “Do you think that’s just the drink talking in her?”
    “No,” Bessie interrupted them for the first time, shaking her head violently. “ ’E’s real.”
    “Have you seen him?” Henry asked her.
    She put her hands up to her face, her eyes wide with fear. “No! I don’t look. But I ’eard. ’Is voice is soft, like ’e got summink in ’is throat an’ ’e can’t speak proper. But you can ’ear ’im anyway.”
    Squeaky looked sideways at her. “Yer sure you ain’t making that up?”
    “Course I’m sure! ’E’s real! I’ll show yer where ’e’s bin, but I won’t take yer there.” She put out her hand, and—cursing himself again—he took it.
    She led them through freezing alleys. The steady dripping of eaves left long icicles hanging like glittering daggers above them in the sporadic lamplight. The air was bitter with the acrid smell of old chimneys and open drains.
    They turned into a tiny square and through an archway into a whorehouse. The madame eyed them grimly.
    “I apologize,” Henry said hastily. “We appear to be lost.”
    The woman let out a gale of laughter, and belched from the depths of her huge stomach. “Yer got no money, get out. That way!” She jabbed her fingers to the left.
    They escaped obediently down steps, along a somber passage and up again into a noisy hall that was apparently the entrance to a very large house. It was initially quiet, except for a sudden shout that made