The Candle Man by Alex Scarrow Read Free Book Online Page B

thing pulling that item out of his pocket as proof he’d found what he’d found. Far better to turn up at their meeting without it. To describe it in
detail as best he could and assure the man it was being looked after elsewhere before moving the conversation on to how much the gentleman in question was going to have to pay to get the thing
back.
    Bill smiled. He could be so very, very shrewd when he tried. As cunning as a fox.
    ‘Well?’ said Annie. ‘You ain’t sayin’ so much about what I just said.’
    He sat forward. ‘Polly? Why don’t you go an’ get yourselves a coupla cups of mecks, an’ a pint o’ gatter for me? I need to talk a moment with Annie in
private.’
    Polly’s eyes flashed irritation, but she got up. ‘S’pose.’
    She slid out from the wooden booth and weaved through the pall of pipe smoke towards the bar.
    ‘Annie . . . ’ow long we known each other?’
    Annie took a match, struck a light and touched it against the nest of tobacco in her clay pipe. ‘Years, Bill. Years.’
    ‘And you can vouch for Polly?’
    ‘She’s not tapped as many cot-rats as me. But she can do it. She’s—’
    ‘I’m asking if you can trust her?’
    Annie cocked a head. ‘She’s a mate. I’d trust her more than I fuckin’ would you,’ she replied with a dry, wheezy laugh. She meant it, though.
    ‘All right, then.’ His fingers played with the locket, turning it over and over. ‘I’m seeing our pay man tomorrow night.’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘I’m gonna be asking for a lot more swag than we settled on before.’
    Her eyebrows arched. ‘Oh, and ’e’s goin’ to pay up, is ’e, Bill? Just ’cause you’ve decided to ask for more?’
    Bill smiled. ‘Our pay man will cough up, love, because I found summin’ special on the girl.’
    ‘Special?’ She pulled the stem of her pipe from her lips. ‘What?’
    ‘Summin’ that I don’t think ’e even knows she ’ad on ’er.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Summin’ nice an’ shiny . . . a keepsake.’ He was tempted to ease it out of his pocket, flash her a glimpse of it. But the public house was chock full of pocket dippers,
cly fackers, petty crooks whose magpie eyes would more than likely pick out the faint glint of polished gold in the gas-lit gloom of their nook.
    ‘It’s a whatcha call it . . . a locket. There’s a portrait in there. Portrait of a chap with the dead woman. A penny to a farthing tells me that’s the gentleman who
can’t keep his pecker behind his buttons.’
    Her eyes widened. ‘Serious?’
    ‘Oh, yes. And I’m quite certain it wouldn’t take a person too much ’ard graft to find out the name what goes with the face.’ He was going to add that he actually
recognised the face; just couldn’t work out where he’d seen it before. Yet.
    She looked at him with hooded, sceptical eyes. ‘Now, see, I would’ve thought you’d keep summin’ like that all to yerself. It’s not like you to share out unless
somebody’s got their fingers wrapped round yer curlies.’
    ‘You’re gonna look after it, Annie. Keep it safe for me while I go and have me chat with our man tomorrow night.’
    ‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘So you do trust me, Bill?’
    ‘I trust you not to be a silly bitch and cross me. How about that?’
    Annie looked over her shoulder at the bar. ‘And Polly?’
    ‘She follows yer lead, don’t she? If yer trust her, then that’s good for me. But,’ he said, sitting back on the bench, ‘either of yer mess me around, and
you’ll both find yerselves bobbing in the Thames.’
    ‘So? Where’s this locket, then?’
    Not here . . . not now.
    ‘I’ll give it you tomorrow before I go see the man. And you be sure to find a safe place for it. Very safe.’

CHAPTER 7

    15th September 1888, Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, London
    H is dreams seemed to know more about him than he did. They filled his restless sleep with stories that made no sense but promised him glimpses of
things he might have seen. He saw a