The Streets Read online

  Right enough, I thought. And perhaps he’s not the only one. We reverted to silence: her step was purposeful, but I didn’t ask where she was heading, nor why she stopped at a flower stall to buy lilies. As we continued on our way I noted again the proliferation of scaffolding on the houses. Development’s hand, once slow to action in Somers Town, was closing its grip with remorseless intent. Children still played in these fetid streets; women hauled their bundles and baskets to and from the wash house, probably unaware of the day when these tenements and workshops would be reduced to rubble. But it was coming.

  The day was dullish but mild, halfway through September, its mood undecided between the vanishing warmth of the summer and the approaching bristle of autumn. To my surprise, Roma had entered the graveyard of old St Pancras Church and was navigating a path amongst the slanting headstones. She made for the far wall, where a line of tall yews had formed a screen against the hollow clank of the railway works beyond. The gravestones in this corner were of a more recent age, their faces not yet bearded with lichen. She had come to a halt before a simple stone with an arched head, and laid the lilies against it. In Loving Memory of . . . Two names were carved into the granite.

  JOSEPH GARRETT

  GIULIETTA GARRETT

  Her parents. Each carried the dates of their earthly span, though it took me some moments to realise the significance in the latter’s: Giulietta had died, two years after her husband, on 18 September 1872. Ten years gone, to the day.

  ‘It’s a nice spot,’ I remarked, for want of something unpessimistic to say.

  Roma nodded. ‘Didn’t have much of a life. Thirty-three when she died. Consumption – same thing he died of. Tell the truth, I half thought Jo might have had it these past weeks.’ Now I realised why she had looked so relieved.

  I considered the dates again. ‘You must have been quite young yourself – when they died.’

  She shrugged. ‘I was fourteen when our mum went, Jo was nine.’

  ‘So you became –’ I was going to say ‘like his mother’, but instead chose a less poignant designation – ‘the head of the household.’

  ‘No one else was gonna take care of us,’ she said, looking at me.

  ‘How did you manage – I mean, for money?’

  She gave a rueful little snort. ‘We got by.’

  She withdrew into silence, staring fixedly at the headstone. Her preoccupation was so abrupt and enveloping that I supposed she might be praying, and I retreated a few steps to allow her privacy. I could hear rooks cawing somewhere, complaining to each other. She had brought me to a melancholy place, yet I also sensed that she was glad to have my company. Had she not asked me to join her? I wandered along the row of new plots, glancing at this or that inscription, the dearly beloveds, the departed-this-lifes, the pray-for-the-souls . . . and of a sudden I stopped. Passing the previous headstone I had seen a name from the corner of my eye, and it had set off a chime in some remote byway of my brain. I retraced my steps and looked at it again.

  THOMAS BOWLAND-DARKE

  It was freshly carved on the stone. Why did I know that name? I stared at it, trying to grasp at the thread as it wormed inside memory’s labyrinth. Thomas Bowland-Darke. I recognised it, but how, from where? Roma had come up beside me.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘This. This name. I feel sure that I know it, but I can’t think why.’

  She considered the modest inscription. ‘Died 3 June 1882 . . . Alone, by the look of it. No mention of a wife.’

  ‘Thomas Bowland-Darke. Thomas –’ Perhaps it was saying the name aloud that triggered it. I felt in my breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was the page I had secretly torn from the ledger of leaseholdings on my previous visit to the Records Office. I opened it, and listed there, in a formal cursive, were the names of the five leaseholders in Johnson Street, Somers Town, N.

  Annie O’Brien

  Harriet Shepherd

  George Harding

  Edith Arkell

  Thomas Bowland-Darke

  ‘There he is,’ I said, showing her the page. ‘It must be the same man.’

  She pursed her mouth thoughtfully. ‘Don’t s’pose there’d be more than one with a name like that.’

  I looked at the date of the signatories’ purchase. According to this, Condor Holdings had sold the leases on Johnson Street only six weeks ago.

  ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ I said.

  ‘Why? A man dyin’ isn’t uncommon, not round here.’

  ‘No, but a man dying in June and then purchasing a lease in August, I’d say that is uncommon.’

  Now her face reflected my own look of puzzlement. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘It’s written here, look. Thomas Bowland-Darke bought three properties on the 7th of August 1882. But according to this gravestone he was already two months dead . . .’

  ‘Maybe it’s just a mistake,’ she said. Maybe it was – but I didn’t think so. Lines from Jo’s song coursed around my head: For every day, mind what I say, / Fresh fakements you will find . . .

  At that moment, over Roma’s shoulder, I saw a man open the lychgate at the far end of the churchyard. He was carrying a spade. I strode off towards him, with Roma hurrying after, and we met halfway along the flagstone path leading to the church. I hailed him – he was a wiry little fellow with sunken, furtive eyes – and asked about the recently dug plots by the wall.

  ‘There’s one grave of particular interest to me. The deceased’s name is Thomas Bowland-Darke. D’you recall it?’

  ‘Not likely, sir. I digs the ’ole, I buries ’em – ain’t my bisniss to remember ’em!’

  ‘Would you be able to supply some information concerning the deceased?’

  ‘Well, the verger’s got a bill o’ works up at the church. Wot’s it to ya?’

  I explained that I was pursuing a story for Henry Marchmont’s newspaper: the name prompted a nod of recognition. Leaning his spade against a beech tree near by, the man told us to wait ‘half a mo’’ whilst he went off to fetch his records. Roma cocked her head to one side.

  ‘I thought you said Marchmont gave you the boot.’

  ‘He did. But our friend here isn’t to know.’

  She took the page I had ripped from the ledger and studied it. ‘Johnson Street – who’d want to buy a lease there?’

  ‘A dead man, apparently. Something’s amiss here.’

  ‘And these others – Annie O’Brien, Harriet Shepherd . . . who are they?’

  ‘Heaven knows. But they don’t sound like property speculators, that’s for sure.’

  Presently, the gravedigger came scuttling back, an antiquated bound register in his hand. I reminded him of the name as he opened it and riffled the pages. It did not take him long. ‘Here he is. Thomas Bowland-Darke. Born 1805, died the 4th of June this year. Bachelor; no next of kin. Buried him on the 10th of June.’

  I looked at him, waiting. ‘Is that all? I mean, where did he live?’

  The man consulted the page once more. ‘No address,’ he shrugged.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I said. ‘He must have been somewhere when he died.’

  ‘Right enough,’ the man conceded with a grimace, ‘but it weren’t his address.’ He hoisted a thumb over his shoulder at the outline of the tall brick edifice glowering beyond the church. ‘Poor feller’s last home was the work’us.’ And, thrusting the book beneath my gaze, he pointed to the brief entry for Bowland-Darke, Thomas, and the site of his final days on earth: W/H. Workhouse. He had died a pauper.

  Before leaving the graveyard I asked the man about the other four names, wondering if they too had been buried hereabouts. But they were not in his register. As we headed back to the Polygon I confessed to Roma that this business of the phantom leaseholder had me flummoxed.

  ‘I mean, if Bowland-Darke did own property on Johnson Street, what was he doing in the workhouse?’

  Roma shook her head. ‘But he didn’t own it, bein’ as he was, lik
e, dead.’ I had to concede that point.

  ‘So . . . why would Condor Holdings sell off leases to a man known to be dead and buried?’

  She gave a sardonic chuckle at this. ‘Handy for the real owner, I s’pose. You can’t complain to a landlord that ain’t there!’

  I stopped in my tracks. ‘That’s it! You’ve got it.’ I slapped my forehead, aghast at my own slowness. ‘They didn’t sell the leases at all. They kept them, but under someone else’s name – someone who couldn’t be applied to.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ she asked.

  ‘The usual reason – money. Landlords in Somers Town are always trying to shirk responsibility to their tenants. The houses there have been crying out for repairs, and the landlords contrive to obstruct them, either by appealing to the courts or else gambling on a short-term lease that will expire before they have to cough up. But what if the landlord found a way of escaping liability altogether – by filing properties under a false name?’

  ‘But they’d be found out –’

  ‘Not if they attach the leases to names of people nobody can trace – like a pauper, or a derelict. That’s the dodge. When Moyles got found out as a slum landlord – you remember the riot at the Vestry Hall? – he disposed of those leases double quick. A company named Condor Holdings took them on, a company I’ve spent months trying to run to ground. Just when I caught up with them, the leases were moved on again, this time to complete strangers – like Thomas Bowland-Darke. Now most of the houses are going to be destroyed, and the landlords have got away with it – all that neglect.’

  Roma absorbed this in her silent way, and we walked on a little further.

  ‘I must hunt down the other Johnson Street leaseholders,’ I said, plucking the list again from my breast pocket and reading the names. ‘I dare say the simplest thing to do is consult the census. Wasn’t there one taken last year?’

  She nodded, but there was a squint of doubt, too. ‘Mightn’t be easy. I reckon there’s about ’alf of Somers Town would never get near that census. All them as move around dosshouses – you s’pose anyone bothered to count ’em?’

  She was right. There were many ways for the poor to fall between the cracks of public notice, and the most obvious was that of homelessness. They would sleep on the street, or, if they could afford the 2d per night, in a dosshouse, four or five to a room. The itinerant poor by their very nature would be difficult for a census-taker to pin down, and with no sense of obligation on the part of the subject it would be virtually impossible.

  ‘I’ve not spent much time in a dosshouse,’ I admitted.

  ‘You’d never want to, believe me,’ she said.

  ‘Rather a desperate manner of living, I gather.’

  She spoke quietly, and sadly. ‘It’s not livin’, though. It’s just lingerin’.’

  We had reached the top of Ossulston Street when the wail of protesting voices was caught on the air. Turning the corner of Aldenham Street we found a crowd of about two hundred jostling against a picket of police. They were concentrated outside a row of tumbledown terraces which had been earmarked for clearance. A banner held aloft amidst the crush of bodies proclaimed SAVE OUR STREETS, a somewhat belated plea given that a quarter of this one already stood in rubble and ashes. As we skirted the melee we saw an object being flung from a top-floor window onto the police below; a chamber pot crashed and splintered on the flags, causing the nearest constable to jump in fright. Certain of his colleagues were hammering at the house from which the missile had been hurled, but without success: the door had been replaced with a stout shield of metal cladding. I looked to Roma, who only bit her lip, apparently as confounded by the spectacle as I was.

  A moment later I spotted, on the edges of the crowd, a portly figure absorbed in taking notes, and I cupped my hands either side of my mouth to hail him. Paget looked round, and returned my wave. He pocketed his notebook as he dodged his way across the street.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked him.

  ‘An open siege, it would appear. Notices have gone up about compulsory clearances, from here to Barclay Street. The occupants of that house –’ he pointed to the one surrounded by the police – ‘are refusing to vacate it. The bailiffs called in the police about an hour ago.’

  ‘Quite a crowd . . .’

  ‘Once the Rental Reform people got wind of it, they turned up mob-handed. Now the whole neighbourhood’s come out to support ’em. Looks like a hot ’un for the police.’ As if to demonstrate the point a wooden chair came flying out of the window and dropped to the street with a clatter. A raucous cheer went up. Paget, meanwhile, was staring from beneath his brow at Roma.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘Allow me to introduce you. This is Roma Garrett – Clifford Paget, from the Chronicle.’

  Paget, narrowing his gaze, said, ‘Have we – met before?’

  Roma met his stare for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I thought – you seem familiar – have I seen you in a dining room, hereabouts?’ His tone was friendly, but Roma’s shrug of indifference did not seem to welcome the enquiry.

  ‘I’ve worked ’ere all my life, in shops and pubs.’ She perhaps heard her own brusqueness, for she added, in slight concession, ‘I’ve served at tables in dining rooms, too.’

  Paget nodded, and mumbled, ‘Yes, yes, thought so,’ but his imperfect recognition had created an awkwardness, and only the unruly hordes milling about us covered for the conversation’s dead end. Roma looked rather fatigued, and I offered to accompany her back to the Polygon. She declined, however.

  ‘I have to go by the Brill, get Jo his supper,’ she said. I nodded, and went to give her my hand, but she ignored it and did something I wasn’t expecting: she leaned in and briefly pressed her lips against my cheek. It was over and done with in a moment, and I was too startled to respond; she had already turned and walked off by the time I called goodbye.

  Paget was looking at me. ‘Old friend of yours?’

  ‘Not so old,’ I said. ‘I was first friends with her brother.’

  He looked narrowly after her. ‘Thought I knew her – my mistake.’ I was still reflecting upon the kiss she had bestowed. It had not been a frivolous gesture – flirtation was alien to Roma – but seemed to contain in it something more bonding. Like something I had earned. My head felt suddenly, pleasingly light.

  Our attention just then was seized by more ragged cheers from the crowd. A man had appeared at the window of the besieged house, shaking his fist in triumphant defiance. The fracas seemed to be settling into deadlock, with the protesters on the street baulking the police’s efforts to storm the house. Paget took out his notebook, jotted down a few words, then snapped it shut.

  ‘Kenton would have been proud of ’em. I should get this story out for the late edition. Shall we?’

  We began walking away from the crowds towards the Euston Road. Paget only now noticed my scarred nose, and sharply sucked in air through his teeth.

  ‘Good Lord . . .’

  ‘You would have laughed to see it with the bandage on.’ I explained the circumstances that had led to the assault at the Victory. Paget shook his head in dismay as he listened.

  ‘These streets . . . you have to be on your guard, David, I’ve told you that before. Has it occurred to you to go out armed?’

  ‘Armed – with what? A shooter?’

  ‘Not that. But ever since Kenton’s demise I’ve felt a distinct unease as I go about the place. Which is why –’ he stopped, and looked about the street before opening his coat and drawing from it a short black stick – ‘I’ve taken to carrying this in my pocket.’ He passed it to me, and I hefted its mean weight in my hand, imagining its impact upon a skull.

  ‘Looks like a slop’s truncheon,’ I said, handing it back.

  ‘It’s called a life-preserver. A fellow at Smith’s on New Oxford Street sold it to me – said they’ve become quite popular amongst gentlemen seeking to defend themselves against garr
otters.’

  ‘Has there been a fashion for garrotting lately?’

  ‘I’m surprised you’d joke, my boy. One of these might have saved you from those brutes the other night.’ He tested it with a relishing little thwack against his palm, then returned it to his coat. ‘So Moyles got his revenge on you at last . . .’

  ‘I suppose he did. But he seemed far more vexed about Marchmont than anything I’d done. I’ve a notion that all is not quite going to plan with the Bindon Fields project. Before he clammed up he said something about the guvnor “cutting up rough” over a superintendent. That conversation must have got back to Marchmont, because a few days later I was given the boot from the paper.’

  ‘Well, I dare say Henry was alarmed that one of his staff had tumbled to him. He couldn’t afford to have you poking your nose – sorry! – any further into his connection with Condor Holdings.’

  ‘Talking of which, I’ve reason to think they are party to a most egregious fraud.’ I recounted my recent discovery of Thomas Bowland-Darke’s grave in St Pancras Churchyard, and showed him the Johnson Street list I had fortuitously ripped from the Records Office ledger. By now we had reached the choked thoroughfare of Euston Road and had to raise our voices to be heard above the skitter and din of wheel traffic.

  Paget, frowning, said, ‘So they’ve been using paupers’ names as cover until the leases run their term . . . That’s about as despicable a ruse as I’ve heard.’

  ‘I have to find those other names. I thought that last year’s census might give a clue to their whereabouts, but my friend thought not – if they were destitute, like Bowland-Darke, they may have been overlooked.’

  ‘Quite probably. The poor are . . . elusive. No census could take account of them all.’

  ‘But if – if just one of these leaseholders can be located, the entire fakery might be exposed.’

  ‘Yes . . . unless they have all gone the way of Mr Bowland-Darke. Condor Holdings appear not to scruple as to whether their leases are distributed amongst the living or the dead.’