Under the Dragon's Tail Read online

  He manoeuvred carefully through the front door. Outside, the dreaming street was hazy in the grey light of dawn. Suddenly, a cat yowled. Its rival answered and they both dashed across the road in front of him. The leading cat was black and thin, the other animal, a big marmalade, looked better nourished. Murdoch watched them disappear into the shrubbery of his neighbour’s front yard. The eternal conflict he thought, then grinned to himself. Liza had often chided him about finding allegories everywhere he looked.

  He tugged his cap tight on his brow, mounted his wheel, and pushed off from the curb.

  “Hear me, Varley, I intend to be the cock of this race.”

  George Tucker opened his eyes. As usual, his nightshirt was drenched in sweat. He always blamed their small, stuffy room, which retained the heat better than the Gurney did. In fact, he sweated nightly from a terror his survival depended on denying. He sniffed. There was a bad pong. Freddie had wet the bed as he always did when he was afraid. He’d moved as far to the edge as he could but George could feel the heat from his body, smell the stink of the other boy’s breath. Viciously, he kicked out with his heel, connecting with a crack on Freddie’s shinbone. With a cry the boy awoke and clutched his leg.

  “You pissed again,” said George, and Freddie’s hands flew to protect his privates, where retribution was usually exacted. He didn’t say a word, knowing from long experience it would do no good and was more likely to worsen George’s ire.

  “Get up, you stinking darkie fice. It’s late. She’ll have our arses on a bandbox.”

  He sat up and scratched at his ankle, where a rash of new bites had come up in the night. It was impossible to eliminate the voracious bedbugs in the old house, and with the heat they flourished.

  “I don’t hear nobody,” said Freddie.

  George felt like kicking him again. He always did when the boy spoke so timidly. But he was right. Lily’s bedroom was directly across from them but he couldn’t hear her. When she washed herself in the morning she made strange humming noises, tuneless sounds the way an old deaf dog might still bark at silent shadows. Not that Lily was old yet. Not young either but still with firm diddies and a round arse. George was considering trying out his sugar stick on her. Although nobody celebrated, he’d claimed July the thirtieth for his birthday and he thought this might be a present to himself.

  “Where’s Mrs. Mother?” asked Fred, who was sitting up in bed but waiting for George to move first.

  George listened. The parlour was directly beneath them and they could usually hear Dolly moaning in her sleep, shouting at a bad dream, breaking wind noisily. She was always in a bad skin when she first got up and they were careful to stay out of her way.

  “D’you think Lily’s gonna get it?” asked Freddie.

  “’Course she is.”

  In spite of his scoffing tone, George felt a pang of fear. The punishments that Dolly exacted on her daughter were fearsome to behold.

  He got out of bed and went over to the slop pail to pee. Then he splashed tepid water on his face from the tin bowl on the washstand and pulled off his grubby nightshirt. Last week, Lily had washed his one shirt, a brown holland. He’d sat bare-chested until it was ready, arms hugging his bony ribs. George was ashamed of his size and yearned for the day he would grow taller and heavier. He slipped the shirt over his head. It smelled of carbolic soap and sunlight, a smell he liked. His plaid woollen trousers, however, were filthy, torn at the knee and too big. He’d acquired them last year on one of his hunts along the riverbank. Didn’t matter that the owner was in swimming. George just walked away with the trousers over his arm, casually and calmly.

  Underneath the clothes, his body was dirty and smelly but he didn’t care. He never went to school, never associated with anybody who was clean enough to notice the difference. As long as he could remember he had lived with Dolly, although she was not his mother and never ceased to remind him of the fact. His own mother was a tart, a doxie who had kissed the devil’s behind which was why he looked the way he did and why she had abandoned him to Dolly’s care when he was an infant.

  “If it wasn’t for me you’d have ended up in a pauper’s orphanage,” she said, and George often thought his life might have been better if he had.

  “Get a move on,” he said to Fred, who was watching him with dark, nervous eyes. Their first job was to scavenge along the river, then go down to the lakeshore. They searched mostly for firewood to keep the stove going, but they could expect a cuff from Dolly if they didn’t come back with something she could use or pawn. She’d actually smiled at him once when he found a woman’s earbob of silver filigree buried in the sand.

  He listened again but there was no sound at all from the room below. He couldn’t let go of the tight knot of fear in his stomach. They were all going to get it as soon as she woke up, not just Lily. And he knew for sure it would be bad.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Murdoch, thinking weighty and melancholy thoughts about the capriciousness of life, watched two flies crawl around the lip of the saucer. One succumbed to temptation and fell into a sweet, sticky death, the other flew away. Because the stables were adjacent to the police station, it was impossible to keep the fly population anywhere close to bearable. However, Mrs. Kitchen had assured him the best way to catch flies was with a mixture of egg yolk and molasses and he’d placed two full saucers on his desk. So far he’d only netted four carcasses. It was more efficient to swat them. He despatched two in quick succession, both unfortunately crawling across the portrait of Her Majesty which hung behind him and which was now pocked with tiny blood stains. The matching portrait of Chief Constable Grasett was even more defaced but that was probably because Murdoch pursued the flies on that picture with more vigour.

  He stretched his arms above his head and rubbed hard on his brow to wake himself up. He would have given a day’s wage for a short kip, but he knew that if Inspector Brackenreid found him asleep it would be truly costly. The problem wasn’t only his sleepless night. The cubicle that passed as his office had only one small, high window that let in plenty of flies and dust but not much air or light.

  Yet another yawn rippled up his throat. The morning had been quiet and the only report he’d had to do was complete. A cabbie was charged with galloping his horse along Queen Street. He said he hadn’t, that the horse had got the bit between his teeth, but two witnesses swore they’d heard him crack his whip. The case would go before the courts.

  There was a tap on the wall outside the cubicle. Because the space was so small he’d done without a door and the entrance was hung with a reed curtain. He could see the outline of Constable George Crabtree looming on the other side.

  “Yes?”

  Crabtree pushed aside the clacking strips.

  “There are two ragamuffins out front, sir, with some story about their mother being dead. They can’t rouse her they say.”

  “Dead drunk?”

  “It’s possible, sir, but they do seem quite ascared. Say she’s gone stiff.”

  Murdoch stood up, welcoming the diversion.

  Number-four police station was not the largest or busiest in the city but it maintained law and order over a diversified area. To the west and north were gracious homes on wide, tree-lined streets such as Church and Gerrard. To the east and south were run-down row houses, workmen’s cottages, small businesses, and manufacturers’ properties. Most of the crimes that elicited charges were for petty theft or drunk and disorderly conduct. Without exception these misdemeanours occurred in the east side.

  Murdoch followed Crabtree to the main hall of the station. A high counter divided the room in half, on one side the upholders of the law, on the other their uneasy charges. Two boys were sitting close together on the wooden bench that ran around the far side of the room. They were barefoot and dirty.

  “Hello, young masters, what’s the problem?” Murdoch asked.

  “She’s dead, sir, stone dead.” The older boy who spoke was scrawny, smelly, and ill-dressed. His ey
es were badly crossed and this inability to meet a direct gaze made him seem shifty. His words tumbled out. “She didn’t get up in the morning, see. No sign of her. I thought she might just be feeling under the weather so I took her in some tea. There she was on the floor, stiff as a poker.”

  “Hold on. Who’re you talking about? Who’s dead?”

  “Our mother, Mrs. Dolly Shaw. You’d better come see, sir.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the parlour. She’s stiff as a board,” he said again.

  “Your mother, you say?”

  “She’s not really our mother, I mean not blood, but we’ve always bin with her, haven’t we, Freddie?”

  He nudged his companion, who nodded vigorously. This boy was a quadroon, with dusky skin and light brown curly hair, very tangled. He kept his eyes to the ground except for quick anxious glances at his companion.

  “And what’s your relationship to each other?”

  The older one looked puzzled. “I dunno, sir. I suppose we’re brothers.”

  Murdoch didn’t think that was biologically possible given how different they looked, but he didn’t comment. He took out his notebook and pencil from his pocket.

  “We’ll come take a look. Where do you live?”

  “Over on River Street, corner of Wilton. Number one-thirty-one.”

  “Your names?”

  “I’m George Tucker, this is Alfred Locke.”

  Murdoch squatted down in front of the quadroon boy.

  “Cat got your tongue, Alfred?”

  He shook his head, shrinking back into the bench.

  Murdoch straightened up.

  “Let’s go and see what’s up, Crabtree.”

  “Shall I fetch the coroner, sir?”

  “Not yet. We’d better find out what’s happened first. I’ll ride on ahead on my wheel. You bring the boys.”

  “Please, sir, can we come with you? We can run real fast, can’t we, Freddie?”

  Murdoch gazed at their worried faces and relented.

  “All right. Come on. But I warn you I’m a scorcher.”

  They both smiled a bit.

  In spite of what the boy had said, Murdoch had doubts that the woman was really dead. More likely passed out from too much jackey.

  Annie could hear her sister moving about in the next room and she opened her eyes reluctantly. Sleep was a warm cocoon she wanted to stay in, and as consciousness returned the memory of the previous night inched closer like a poisonous spider that had been waiting for her to move.

  She sat up, squinting her eyes against the bright sun trying to squeeze around the edges of the old velvet curtains at the window. There was a band of dull pain pressing behind her eyes.

  “Mildred? Millie? What are you doing?”

  Her sister answered from the kitchen. “I’m making tea.”

  “Good. I could do with that.”

  “There isn’t enough for two.”

  Selfish tit, thought Annie.

  “I don’t mind if it’s weak. Add more water.”

  Tentatively she swung her legs out of bed and waited, testing the level of pain in her head. A whet would be far better than a spot of cat-pee tea but there wasn’t any. She had finished the bottle last night when she got home. She’d sat in the dark kitchen while Millie snored softly in the bed. She would have drunk herself into oblivion if there’d been enough gin but there wasn’t.

  Moving slowly, she pulled the chamber out from under the bed and squatted. Millie came in carrying a tin tray. She didn’t look at Annie but plunked the tray on top of the washstand, pushing aside her sister’s stays, which were draped there.

  “Tea’s finished, so’s the bread.”

  “Can’t you–”

  “No. There’s no more tick.”

  Her face was sullen and Annie could feel her own anger rising. Ungrateful bint. She got up from the pot and Millie handed her one of the cracked cups, took the other, and sat on the one chair by the bed. Annie inspected her cup, half-filled with insipid tea, held it in both hands, and took a cautious sip.

  “Ugh, what’d you do, wave a tea leaf at it?”

  “Don’t drink it if you don’t like it.”

  “What’s up with you?”

  “It’d be nice for once to have a bit of money. You took all of it.”

  “Sod it, Millie, I had to pay for the medicine, didn’t I?”

  “What medicine?”

  “What medicine? My ear lugs must be plugged up.”

  She put down her cup, and opened the drawer of the washstand.

  “Here.” She thrust a brown paper bag at Millie.

  Reluctantly Millie opened it.

  “What is it?”

  “Those are special herbs.”

  “Where from?”

  “A woman of my acquaintance.”

  “How d’you know they’ll work?”

  “They will, believe me.”

  For the first time, Millie looked directly at her sister, caught by her tone.

  Annie shrugged. “Never mind that now. Come on. No sense in dawdling. You have to stew the whole lot in boiling water for half an hour, then you drink two cups every two hours until–well, until it works.”

  Millie put the bag on the washstand and averted her head.

  “I’m not going to do it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘I’m not going to do it.’ Do we have a choice, my lady?”

  Her sister began to weep, sniffy infuriating cries.

  “I want to keep the baby.”

  “Then what? You’ve already bin warned. One more day off and you’ll get canned.”

  “I was sick. I couldn’t help it.”

  “And when the kid’s sick and can’t help it, do you think the boss’ll understand? Bloody hell, Millie, you’re a nickel girl, if that. They won’t hold no job for you. And don’t think you can count on me to watch the squawler.”

  “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t consider it.”

  “What then?”

  Millie swallowed hard.

  “I could put it up for adoption. There are lots of decent people who haven’t been able to have a baby of their own. Rich people.”

  Annie slapped her hard across the face and Millie screamed out.

  “What’s that for?”

  “To wake you up, you stupid tart. It’s easy to say that now when the thing is just gas in your stomach. Wait until it grows and moves and then comes out, a sodding flesh-and-blood baby. See if you want to let it go then. You might as well try to cut off your arm or your leg and give that away.”

  “Annie!”

  “I never thought you’d be this stupid, Millie.” She grabbed up the brown bag. “Here. Go and make the brew. I’ll stay with you while you go through it even if I have to cut work.”

  Millie was sobbing in earnest. “I can’t…it’s him inside me, Annie. I’m carrying John. I can’t get rid of his baby.”

  Annie grabbed her sister by the arms, and started to shake her.

  “You nocky bint. Do you think he cared a piss where he dipped his beak? Do you? Answer me. I want an answer, you mardy tit. Do you think he cared which doodle sack he put it in? Carrying John my arse. He’s bunked off, hasn’t he? Like they all do.”

  Mildred’s hair was coming loose with the violence of the shaking, and although she didn’t fight back she was shocked into some semblance of backbone.

  “He might be ill. That might be why he hasn’t come to church. You don’t know, Annie. You think you know everything but you don’t.”

  Annie let her go in disgust.

  “I know he’s like any other flash man, lots of glib-glab, pushing to have a bit, and before you know there’s a bun in the basket and no husband to be seen.”

  “He loves me, Annie, I know he does.”

  “Good. Good. If that’s the case he’ll marry you, won’t he?”

  Millie shook her head. “I told you it’s not possible. He’ll lose his job. His employer is very strict.”

 
“You’re a little liar, Millie Brogan. That’s not the only reason. He can get another job. What is it? Is the sly arse married already?”

  “No!”

  “What then?”

  “I can’t say, you’ll think the worst.”

  Annie raised her hand. “Tell me!”

  “He’s betrothed.”

  Annie snorted. “Ha. Well that’s one engagement that’s meant to be broken.” She pulled off her nightgown and reached for her stays. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “We’re going to have a chat with John–what’s the sod’s name again?”

  “Meredith.”

  “Merry Dick?”

  “Annie!”

  “Where does Mr. Merry Dick live?”

  “Annie, we can’t go there.”

  “We can and we will.”

  Millie lowered her head stubbornly but Annie yanked her hard by the hair, forcing her to look up.

  “Would you rather I have a whisper in Reverend Jeffery’s hairy ear? What would your good friends think about that?”

  Her sister flinched, then said, “He’s in service but I’m not sure where–a big house on Jarvis Street. He showed me once after church.”

  “Too bad it wasn’t the only thing he showed you.”

  She let her go, then picked up the corset.

  “Here, help me with this.”

  She held her breath while her sister laced her up.

  “Give me my hairbrush.”

  Millie opened the drawer of the washstand and scrabbled through the jammed contents.

  “It isn’t here.”

  She started to look in the cupboard below, but Annie called out.

  “Stop! It’s not in there.”

  However, Millie saw the album that was stuffed at the back of the washstand. It was a deep blue colour with gilt letters that spelled Friends. Before Annie could prevent her she took it out.

  “What’s this?”

  Annie snatched it away.

  “Never mind. It’s mine.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I said never mind.” She thrust it under her pillow. “Now come on. Find that brush else I’ll do something to make you hurry.”