The Sin Eater(73)

It’s the truth I’m telling you, said Declan. And there was one night down by the river . . . The silvery threads of thought stopped suddenly, and for the first time Benedict felt a hesitation and a withdrawal. Then Declan said, Oh, what the hell, you know most of it already . . . Listen now, on the night we found Harold Bullfinch—

‘Who?’ said Benedict, before he could stop himself.

Haven’t you been paying attention to anything? Harold Bullfinch was the abortionist, the black-hearted villain who killed Romilly . . .

Romilly. Romilly, who had red hair and who had run away from Kilglenn after Nicholas Sheehan seduced her in the old watchtower on the Moher Cliffs. How could I have forgotten Romilly? thought Benedict.

On the night we found Bullfinch’s body, the chaunters were singing in the taverns by the river . . . And, oh God, Benedict, it was so cold and dank in those streets, and it was so lonely to stand outside the taverns . . . Wanting to go in and have a bit of cheer and the company of others . . . But we didn’t dare do that, not till we had the jacket back . . .

The river fog was everywhere. It muffles everything – you wouldn’t know that, would you, for you’ve almost got rid of fog in your clean modern world. But when you walked through one of those old fogs you’d feel as if you’d fallen into another world altogether. And it was a frightening world, Benedict, you can’t know how frightening it was . . .





London 1890s


Declan and Colm could scarcely see their way after they left the cab and walked through the fog-shrouded streets to where they had left Harold Bullfinch’s body.

‘But we have to do this,’ Colm said. ‘If anyone finds your jacket they’ll know who you are and half the police in London will be hunting you as a killer.’

‘I didn’t kill Bullfinch,’ said Declan, but he still felt strange and unconnected to the world, which he thought was because of falling down the river steps and knocking himself out. He was not, in fact, convinced that he was entirely conscious yet; walking at Colm’s side, the world had an unreal quality, in which he could only remember fragments of what had been happening during the last few hours.

And then a sliver of very recent memory dropped into place, and he said, ‘Colm, you said you were at Holly Lodge all of today.’

‘I was. With that voracious harpy, Floss Totteridge.’

‘But I saw you,’ said Declan. ‘You were out here. I saw you crossing the road on the corner of Clock Street.’ He stopped and turned to face Colm. The fog swirled thickly around them, but a disc of blurred light from a street gas lamp touched Colm’s face with colour.

‘I went to Bidder Lane,’ said Colm, after a moment. ‘To the house where Romilly lived.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought there might be some of her things there. I wasn’t going to leave them for that harridan to sell. But I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want you to think I was a moonstruck simpleton.’

Declan did not say they had both always been a bit moonstruck by Romilly. He said, ‘Were there any of her things there?’

‘A rosary and a crucifix wrapped in a bit of silk.’ Colm was walking on again, his hands dug deeply into his pockets, not looking at Declan. ‘I took those. Keepsakes.’

Before Declan could say anything else, he pointed to the open door of a tavern on the corner of Clock Street and Bidder Lane. The music Declan dimly remembered hearing earlier was still going on – the jangly piano and voices raised in blurred song. Someone must have thrown open the door, because the scents of smoke and ale and hot food reached them.

‘God, wouldn’t you sell your soul to be able to go in there and be part of all that?’ said Colm, echoing Declan’s thoughts as he so often did.

‘I would. Like Fintan’s Bar at home, where we’d be recognized and welcomed, and it’d be a grand evening. Colm, couldn’t we go in . . . ?’


‘We could not. We have to rescue your jacket from the abortionist’s corpse before anyone finds it.’ Colm spoke sharply, but he put out a hand to Declan’s shoulder as he said it. ‘Come on, now, we’re almost at the river steps. If you pass out now, I’ll throw you in the river.’

‘If I pass out I’ll probably fall into the river without your help.’

The river steps were as dank and eerie as Declan remembered. Here was the ledge stretching out along the quayside wall; even with the fog swirling everywhere he could make out the circular hole with the brick surround. He pointed to it, wanting to delay the moment until they had to approach Bullfinch’s body.

‘What would that be, d’you think?’

‘An overflow outlet of an old sewer, I should think. They’d have the – what is it called? – the effluence discharging into sewer pits inside there,’ said Colm. ‘When it reached a certain level, it’d overflow and gush out into the river.’

‘Effluence being a polite word for a load of shit?’

‘When was I ever polite?’ Colm had turned away from the sewer tunnel, and was looking down the steps. ‘He’s still there,’ he said, in an expressionless voice. ‘Isn’t that a terrible thing for a man’s body to lie sodden and dead by itself. But your jacket’s there as well, that’s one mercy. Are you ready to sprint down those steps and snatch it up? We’ll have to be fast, because we don’t want to be recognized and we don’t know who might be watching.’