A Very Unusual Pursuit by Catherine Jinks Read Free Book Online Page A

in the summer sun. Toiling among the jetties were men too preoccupied to notice a small knot of idlers who were nodding and pointing at the mouth of a nearby drain.
    This drain was a perfect bolthole. It lurked behind a barricade of casks, barges, broken crates and coils of rope. There was enough foot traffic to guarantee a steady supply of food, yet all the business of the riverbank would serve to distract people in the immediate neighbourhood. Frightened screams would be masked by the cries of coal whippers and ballast heavers. Brief scuffles would be concealed by overturned keels or piles of fishing nets.
    Birdie shuddered as she peered at the rank, boggy, cluttered stretch of riverbank. ‘That’s a sad spot to meet yer end,’ she observed to the boy standing beside her, who nodded, but said nothing. His name was Ned Roach. Having been entrusted with the mudlarks’ share of Alfred’s fee, he had tagged along with Bill Crabbe to make sure the money didn’t go to waste. Birdie wasn’t quite sure what to make of Ned. She thought he was probably about eleven. Though plastered with filth and missing a couple of teeth, he was pleasant enough to look at, with his sturdy build and springy brown hair. But he didn’t have much to say for himself. At first Birdie had wondered if he was deaf and dumb – or just stupid. Only after he had corrected one of Bill’s statements about the afternoon tides did she realise that he wasn’t stupid at all.
    He was either afraid of boglers or suspicious of them.
    ‘Did you know the two missing lads?’ she asked him, keeping one eye cocked for Miss Eames.
    He answered with a nod.
    ‘What names did they go by?’
    ‘Dick. And Herbert.’ All at once Ned frowned. Following his gaze, Birdie saw that Bill was making his way down to the mudflats, using a short flight of stone stairs.
    Alfred was following him.
    ‘Them two’ll come to no harm,’ Birdie assured Ned, ‘but don’t you go after ’em, else you might get ate.’ She smiled up at him reassuringly, and was surprised when he coloured. ‘Did you ever see this bogle yerself?’ she queried.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, I seen plenty, but not one that ever got away. Mr Bunce knows what he’s about.’ As Ned moved forward to the edge of the quayside, she added, ‘Mind, now. If you get too close, you’ll spring the trap afore it’s set.’
    She was about to say more when she heard the strains of a distant chorus, chanted by rough voices in a mocking tone. ‘ Abroad I was walking, one morning in the spring, and heard a maid in Bedlam, so sweetly she did sing . . . ’ Convinced that this noise meant trouble for somebody, Birdie spun around and spied the singers almost at once. They were half a dozen coarse-looking youths who seemed to be following a madwoman down the street, towards the river. Two of the men had porter’s knots tied to their shoulders, suggesting that they had just set down a load of wool, or coal, or coffee. Two of them looked like sailors, and two like off-duty pickpockets. Together they lurched along in a jeering cluster, past tumbledown shoe-marts and sailmakers’ shops, trying to tread on the skirts of the woman who stumbled along just ahead of them.
    ‘ Her chains she rattled with her hands, and thus replied she – I love my love because I know he first loved me-e-e . . .’
    It took Birdie a few seconds to recognise Miss Eames, who was dressed in such a motley collection of clothes that she really did look as if she’d just emerged from a madhouse like Bedlam. Because her skirt was much too big for her, Miss Eames kept tripping on its hem. Her wide, old-fashioned sleeves were flapping like wings – and they seemed not to belong to the main body of her jacket, since they weren’t the same shade of purple. Her straw hat, which sprouted a clutch of mismatched feathers, had the squashed appearance of something recently peeled off a busy road.
    Birdie stood for a moment, rooted to the spot, with her mouth