The Sin Eater(72)

Very slowly she turned her head to the door that led to the drive and out to the street. Even the light was different. And if she could reach that door and open it, what would she see?

Open it, Nell . . . Take a look at my world . . . Just a glimpse, where it’s trickling into your mind from mine . . .

The final shards of fragmented memory dropped into place and Nell turned to look at the stair. Declan, the man of shadows and mystery, who had somehow compelled her to come here.

He began to move down the stairs and, as he reached the lower stairs, he stepped into the edge of the light from the lamp. He drew back at once, putting up a defensive hand, but it was too late. Nell gasped, because his face, oh God, his face . . . What had done that to his face?

She managed to scrabble a couple of feet towards the door, because surely if she could open it and call for help, someone would hear her. Someone in that alien street? The street that was filled with the sound of horses’ hooves and wooden wheels clattering over cobblestones and people shouting in a form of English that no one in the twenty-first century had heard . . .

But Declan’s hands were reaching for her, and his eyes were no longer the piercing blue she remembered; they were black, huge, like the eyes of some monstrous insect . . .

He came down the last few stairs, and bent over her. As he pulled her to her feet, severe pain twisted through her injured foot, and Nell tumbled all the way down into complete unconsciousness.





TWENTY-ONE


Benedict had intended to be back at the flat to see Nell before she set off for Holly Lodge, but on the way back from buying his newspaper he had looked in at a second-hand bookshop, where he had become absorbed in several books about Victorian street life. Among them was a dictionary of Victorian colloquialisms, titled ‘Slang, Cant and Flash Phrases’, which he thought might be useful for his essay on Victorian crimes. It was battered and foxed, but it was full of what appeared to be genuine nineteenth-century jargon, and Benedict bartered happily with the bookseller, whose day would have been ruined if a customer paid up without challenge, then walked slowly back to the flat, thumbing through the pages.

It meant Nell had left when he got back, but Nina was there, still putting together her Silver Wedding dinner. She told Benedict she was disgustingly behind schedule, and if he had nothing else to do, could he possibly lend a hand, because at this rate the duck à la Montmorency would not be ready for the clients’ Golden Wedding, never mind the Silver one.

It was twelve o’clock before Nina finally bore the duck portions off, and Benedict switched on the laptop to work on his essay. Most of what he had written so far was still in note form, but he thought it was a fairly good outline of what he meant to do. As he started to type, he wondered how Nell was getting on at Holly Lodge and if she had found anything valuable. Like tell-all diaries signed by Declan and dated c.1898? his mind said cynically.

But he was not going to think about Declan. He was becoming convinced that the medical explanation was right, and that it was probably better to suffer from multiple personality disorder – and have proper pills to keep it in its place – than to suffer from some peculiar form of possession by a set of ghosts. Declan had existed, of course, and Benedict might some day track down the registration of his birth or death. But apart from finding Flossie Totteridge’s name on the Title Deeds of Holly Lodge, there was nothing to indicate that anyone else in that wild tale had ever lived. And most likely Benedict had seen Flossie’s name written down somewhere – probably in Holly Lodge that day of his parents’ funeral – and it had lodged in his subconscious.

With last night’s conversation with Nell still fresh in his mind, he set about describing the backdrop to the crimes he would be examining. How England in general and London in particular would have looked and sounded; how people would have talked. He reached for ‘Slang, Cant and Flash Phrases’ again, and began delightedly typing in the colourful phrases from the 1880s and 1890s, wondering what the cracksmen and magsmen and dollymops would make of today’s expressions. What would they think if they heard us saying it was a night when many stars were present? thought Benedict. Or talking about emailing on a BlackBerry, or texting somebody? He smiled, and worked on, enjoying the vivid language of the Victorian streets, and the famous rhyming slang, traces of which were still around today.

And the chaunters and the penny gaffs and mobsmen, Benedict . . .

Chaunters. Benedict had come across references to penny gaffs which seemed to have been low-class theatres, and also of mobsmen – well-dressed swindlers. But chaunters? He reached for the book again, but the expression was not listed. Then he must have seen it or heard it somewhere else. Research was magpie-ism and serendipity anyway. He typed another couple of paragraphs, but he was feeling as if something invisible had plucked lightly at strings in his mind, and as if his mind was still thrumming gently.

Chaunters. He would do a web search in a minute. It sounded as if it might be singing.

Singing, for sure, Benedict . . . They sang for money, the chaunters . . . The first time we heard them was down by the river, with the fog like diseased smoke so a man couldn’t see his way. And we thought we were hearing the voices of the Sidhe who’d call to you from beneath the sea, but it was chaunters, inside a tavern, earning their supper . . .

‘Will you just sod off?’ said Benedict out loud, and felt Declan’s ruffle of amusement.