have our word,’ said the guvnor. ‘But tell me, Harry. How long has your wife’s drinking been a burden?’
Harry’s mouth fell open.
‘Her . . .’ he began, but seemed unable to continue.
‘You tolerate her so far?’ continued the guvnor, then left his special silence that I knew well enough by now not to fill. He looked kindly at the thin man, who shifted from foot to foot. Finally, Harry cracked.
‘But how did you know? Somebody tell you, did they?’
‘Nobody told me, my friend. I saw it in you.’
‘It ain’t easy, sir. I don’t get no sleep, what with the youngsters. But I work such long days, she got no one to discipline her. And the old crow next door leads her astray.’
The guvnor stood and grasped his hand. ‘Such things are sent to test us. I know you have the strength to pass the test, Harry, but you must nourish yourself. You’re too weak to be a proper father. You must eat more.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Harry, his eyes on the floor, ashamed.
‘Thank you for your help.’
When he was gone, we stood and wrapped ourselves up in our coats. The sky was clear, but though it was summer the air was cold. Mrs Willows cleaned and swept and turned out the lamps.
‘How did you know about his wife?’ I asked as we stepped out onto the pavement. On the other side of the road a copper walked his beat.
‘I sensed it, Barnett.’
‘Give over. How did you really know?’
‘How much do you think a junior cook makes? Thirty shillings a month? Forty? It’s enough to feed his family and pay for their room without him starving himself. Yet he steals food and risks a job that he badly needs. It must mean his money’s going elsewhere. He doesn’t have the money to go drinking himself, he told us that much. So where?’
‘Plenty of other places,’ I said. ‘Gambling debts, maybe.’
‘Too sensible for that. He was very careful in what he told us until we gained his trust. That doesn’t speak of a gambler. But did you see how he looked away when confessing his wife was alive? Did you notice how he changed the subject when I asked if she fed him?’
‘She might have been bed-bound. She might have been put away.’
‘He would have told us if she was ill. There’s no shame in illness – half of London is ill. Drinking was a guess, Barnett. I admit it. But this city is drowning in drink. It was a good guess.’
‘A lucky guess.’
He laughed.
‘I’m a lucky man, Barnett. In some respects.’
As we wandered back through the early morning streets, past the piles of bodies wrapped in rags outside the workhouse and the cab station where an old fellow swept up a great pile of horse manure, he laughed again. His hollow laugh echoed in the quiet street like a thunderclap.
I arrived the next morning to find Ettie in a considerable fury.
‘Were you out drinking with him?’ she demanded. ‘He hasn’t been home since yesterday!’
‘No, Ettie. I wasn’t.’
It seemed as if the room had grown in size since the last time until I realized that all his stacks of newspapers were gone.
‘Did he go to a woman? Is that what he did?’
‘We met a man about the case around midnight. I parted with him at the corner of Union Street, not five minutes from here. He said he was going home.’
‘The truth?’ she asked sternly.
‘The truth.’
She looked me steady in the eye, her nostrils flaring with each intake of the fresh London air.
‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘Perhaps he’s been garrotted, then. It would serve him right.’
I shook my head. ‘There’s a place he goes when he’s upset. An all-night oasis, he calls it. I think he’ll be there.’
Ettie raised her eyes and sighed.
‘What’s upset him this time?’
‘He blames himself for the death of the serving girl. The man we questioned last night said as much. I reckon he wouldn’t have taken it half as bad if the girl didn’t remind him of Isabel, though. You know, he held her off the ground until the police surgeon arrived – wouldn’t leave her on the wet path. He near enough wept in front of the crowd.’
She thought for some time.
‘Has he been drinking since Isabel left?’
‘Not constant. Occasional. Not constant at all.’
She shook her head with impatience. ‘This city is awash with drink. Bottles and jugs are the soldiers of Lucifer, Norman. The poor are in its thrall, according to Reverend Hebden. The working men drink up the children’s food and batter each other and end up standing in the dock. The women scream and fight. They lose their husbands and walk the street. The Ripper was God’s punishment for the drink, there can be no doubt about that. Chinese gin is the latest thing, did you know? And good men like my brother fall into its arms at times of vulnerability. You do not drink yourself, I hope?’
‘In moderation.’
She nodded, stooping to pick up a feather from the floor.
‘We have a fight on our hands, Norman. I’m with Reverend Hebden. The city’s been a monster to the poor. Have you read the accounts of Charles Booth?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘He says it all. We’re currently ministering to a filthy place called Cutler’s Court. Have you heard of it?’
I shook my head. We stood in the middle of the room, facing each other. She held her back straight, her arms crossed. Her face was solemn as she explained:
‘Over four hundred people living in twenty small houses, and on each side a slaughterhouse. Ten souls asleep in each room. One standing pipe for water and two latrines. Can you imagine? And everywhere you look are piles of oyster shells and bones.’
I could imagine. I had lived in such a place myself not twenty years before. I knew this city. I knew all its evils and all its games.
‘All the dirty trades surround these quarters,’ she went on. ‘The waste from the slaughterhouses sinks into a ditch which runs through the centre of the court. And this is where they empty their toilet pans. The stink’s an insult to Jesus, Norman. The whole court is owned by one man who refuses to install more sanitation. One landlord. But we are there.’
Ettie spoke with passion, and for the first time I caught sight of the spirit which drove her. I felt I understood her a little better for it. She looked at me in silence, expecting an equally strong reply, but I knew that on this subject I’d have to fail her. Though I’d left the court-dwellers behind long ago, I couldn’t talk of them as strangers.
‘What do you do there?’ I asked instead.
‘We campaign for improvements. We help. We pray for guidance. There’s a programme that our organization follows across London – we teach basic hygiene; we hold prayer meetings and provide medicines. The Ladies’ Association for the Care and Protection of Young Girls work closely with us. Do you know them?’
‘I’ve seen the women about town.’
‘I had little sense of the scale of the problem before I came here. You know that William and I were raised in . . .’ She hesitated,