Toby felt the warmth—or the sudden lack of a storm—soak through his thin shoes and he shivered inside his wet woollens. Around them the stable rested gloomy and dark; sweet-smelling with the familiar tinge of dung and must and dry, neglected things. Although the boy looked sharp, he could see no puddles of melting snow nor feel a draught that proved the barn really was unsafe. Drifts of snow piled upon the foundations, closing in air and some heat.
Mr. Lestrade scowled as he pulled at the oilskin canvas from the nag's broad back. "Roof's sound," he muttered. "They were lying about that, but there aren't any horses about. Doesn't make sense…"
He didn't know Toby could hear him, and that his voice sounded odd and rattle-y in the emptiness of the barn, but Lestrade never liked the sound of his own voice in the best of times, and he trailed off, melting into the whisper and clink of the tasks it took to suit up a skittish horse for the night. The nag had opposing notions; the two wrestled with each other in the back while Toby tried to bring warmth to his frozen body.
The boy was putting things together. There were poisons a man could take…poisons that wouldn't kill you if you were careful. His father had taken one in particular when he had the itch to run the night upon the nearest colony of game-birds.
The poison had come in small waxy balls, and his father would take one before going to bed. He would sleep all day and rise at dusk with large, dark eyes to take another grey ball. With only a can of tea he would leave their rooms and he wouldn't come back until dawn.
The first morning or two would be well. The pheasants or quail or whatever his father had snared would be tucked away in his coat and off they would go, selling them to the trusted contacts on the street. They would get a little money—a lot if the birds were collected around holiday—but there was never enough money about, so the two days would lead to a third…and then a fourth.
Each day, Mr. Irish would grow young as his face un-lined; his cheeks plumped under his whiskers and his hands would begin a tremble. His eyes would glitter and grow large. And with the changes to his sight and his face, came the changes to his manners. Instead of warm and gruff he would turn harsh and sharp, impatient with his children and short with his wife—the same wife he kissed in church and danced with in the centre of their rooms while the parades passed through the streets.
"Never you mind, love." His mother would say to him. "You'll have your own father back soon."
Toby liked the money the Deadly Nightshade had brought the family. He disliked what the poison had done to his father. He hadn't realised until now that the potion came in other forms. Mr. Lestrade was taking a liquid, not a ball, but the signs were the same.
Unaware of the boy's swirling thoughts, Mr. Lestrade looped the lead to the nag on a near post and had to be satisfied with his compromise. He muttered and pulled a packet of waxed paper from inside his coat, handing the contents over to Toby without a word. "Not enough to brag about, lad." He apologised. "But enough to get us through the night. There's a little stall just off the canal we can visit on the morrow. They sell a hot cheese pie in a buttered crust just big enough for your fists—" He made a size with his hands and Toby's eyes widened. "—and they serve it with a decent schooner1 of hot ginger-beer." His smile was thin and forced. Toby's smile was too long in coming, and the dark eyes turned black. "What is it?" He asked sharper than he meant, and Toby flinched.
Heart in his throat, Toby was glad he wasn't expected to speak. He just shook his head and swallowed.
Their hearts beat in the heat of the barn, poundings at odds with the uneasy stamp of the old horse as it paced its dislike of the place. Man and boy locked eyes, each one trying to read what the other was thinking.
Mr. Lestrade's eyes broke first. There was a tiny white spark as something crossed his mind, and his lips tightened in distaste. Toby's heart sank like a stone in the mudflats.
"I've never struck anyone smaller than myself, lad. I've got more control than that."
No. But his father hadn't. Toby looked down. He studied the shriveled boards, the toes of his drying, thin shoes of shredded leather, and the cuffs of the wool stockings on top. His throat felt tight. He heard Mr. Lestrade heave his breath out in a long sigh.
"Remember him for the good that was there, for there was a lot of it." Wet cloth rustled and Mr. Lestrade put his hand over Toby's right shoulder. Steam curled off the wool. "He took the poison because even though he was a good man, he didn't know a life outside his trade. You do. That's what matters."
Toby finally nodded. He was afraid to think of these things—especially here and now. The darkness of the barn pressed about them, shrinking the light of the candle-lantern into a pin-prick scarce larger than the burning in the copper's eyes. Mr. Lestrade had known his father, he remembered. He and Mr. Gregson, although Mr. Gregson was much coarser in his bearing and for every one sighting of Mr. Lestrade, there was five of Mr. Gregson! After the funeral the two had begun their cruel conspiracy to watch his every move and alert all the new Uniforms to his street-work.
At least it felt cruel. Toby mulled it over his bread as he sat cross-legged before the skinny candle. True to what Toby remembered of the poison, his companion picked at his food but gulped at the watered tea in his drinking-bottle. It must have been awful (Toby couldn't fathom drinking cold tea any more than any Englishman). No, Mr. Lestrade had more control than to strike at a boy for being slow. He couldn't imagine Mr. Gregson being different, though his words cut sharp as shears. But Toby hadn't minded the bite of Gregson's words—he minded being noticed. Being pointed out in the crowd. Simple buzzing2 would soon be impossible. By spring he would be pushed out of all the gangs who let him in. The police knew him too well. He was putting his friends at risk with his own face.
Toby choked down more bread and pretended to pay great interest in his share of the sausage. It was sweet with fennel and nutmeg and clove, almost like a Christmas pudding.
The coppers wanted him on straight tracks, unlike his father. When he thought of it he couldn't think of a single Bobby that wasn't watching him on the street—it wasn't just the Yarders. Why him? He didn't know but knew it was unfair. Christmastime last year and he would have been swimming in coins—there were that many gulls walking about with unprotected purses. But with all the eyes on him—there was no chance but to run respectable jobs like errand boys.
Errand jobs like the one starving him when he ran into Mr. Lestrade in disguise. He supposed he was lucky it wasn't Mr. Gregson—he would have found a job over at the chapel and thrown a bloody full sermon in with tea.
Soft snow collected outside the eves and collapsed with a feather-pillow sound. The horse flinched but no longer paced. There was dull-eyed acceptance in those brown eyes, and Toby knew as well as Mr. Lestrade there would be trouble if they couldn't get the third member of this party to calm. The nag was waiting for an excuse to bolt, and would do it at the first chance.
On the other side of the candle-flame, Toby Irish looked too small and frail. Two years ago this had been a healthy, ornery little street urchin in the bloom of dirty health. Now he was scarce larger and his form had shrunken inward from want. To Lestrade's eyes (which burned painfully from the affect of the drug against the candle) the boy was badly under-nourished. He should have grown more this year, but there was no man in the house (worth mentioning) to stand up to the children.
He wasn't hungry, but he ate his half mechanically. Toby was no fool and he was chafing at what he perceived as coddling and cruelty. Coddling for seeing that he ate more than once a day, and cruelty for putting him in a venture that took him away from his illegal means of working.
Well, they were quite used to that. Crime was bitter and it was always hungry. Children like Toby were quickly snatched up but Toby was a unique case.
"He'll be the man now." Gregson growled from the other side of his penny-smoke. Anger snapped in the other's eyes because Gregson hated recognising a responsibility outside his comfortable paths. "God help him, for it'll take His help to get the boy out of this bit of a mess."
Losing a father was a 'bit of a mess' was it? Lestrade sewed his lips tight against his displeasure and busied himself with crouching down, toying with something in the tuft of brave grass struggling through the pave-stones of the church. They were surrounded in ivy—long, drowning lengths of it, and in the summer air the leaves whispered and whistled as they rubbed against each other. The men were both spooked to be outside of "their" London in inside one of these fey little pockets of savage jungle.
The summer heat pounded against their heads through their bowlers, wilted their collars to disgrace and dug nails into their shoulders. Their natural resentment thrived in this discomfiting environment. Lestrade wondered again why he had been forced to endure further tests of life in the form of Tobias Gregson. Being put on the same floor as the man was punishment enough…
…A lesser man would suggest that Gregson's appalling lack of compassion to a small boy might stem from a feeling of guilt. Lestrade might not be a greater man…but he wasn't fool enough to voice such a thing to the much larger man. Gregson was built like a tow-headed bull, but he was by no means as slow or clumsy as one. He allowed his rare moments of rage with great calculation, and Lestrade wasn't about to give him such a moment.
The smaller man leaned back on his heels, wilting like his collar and cuffs under the heat while Gregson tried to cool his blood with more tobacco. "I'm wondering if Irish ever told his family what he was doing." He said at last. It was a pathetic attempt at fishing, but that was the nice thing about Gregson's low estimations: He would believe Lestrade was being stupid again, instead of looking for information.
"Hah." Gregson puffed frantically off his cigarette of cheap blond paper. "You think he would?" He crowed. "The man had enough troubles working the other trade…if anyone breathed word he was helping the police someone would've cut his throat just for a sense of civic duty among the other rascals."
Lestrade struggled to ignore Gregson's ugly contempt. It was true enough. Irish might have told someone he was helping watch the woods for things more suspicious than a few poachers…and if he had, the circumstances of his death would be more than a hot day and a fatty heart.
Someone, one of Irish' nameless backers, had put a fear into the man, forced him out into the heat and out of season to push himself to death. Easiest way to kill a man is to let himself do the work for the assassin. Debts? Not even Irish would have shown the police his debts. Nothing to prove, nothing to say…just a cheap coffin to show for it. Children were fatherless and a woman was without her man, and the Yard was without one of the best informers they'd ever had in three generations. Lestrade felt plenty of pity for himself and the rest of the Yard, but he reserved the lion's share for the widow and orphan. Unlike Gregson, who was thinking of the bloody long view again—and how this lonely death inconvenienced the Yard.
There were times when he hated Gregson with a passion. Gregson didn't care about anyone. His fellow Yarders were means to the end and little more. He could turn off his duty and put it on his hat-hook when he got home. If he thought about Lestrade—or any of the Yarders—it was in the "we" versus "they" category—"they" being all of London. If Lestrade died tomorrow, it would be the same as this moment, right now, with Gregson smoking and wondering how to recover from the inconvenience.
Lestrade forced his mind to the present. He rather enjoyed dwelling on his reasons for despising Gregson. Gregson made it easy for him too.
It said something about that Dr. Watson (who seemed a decent enough fellow if crippled by his fine sensibilities), appeared to be put-off at Gregson's elephantine skin. Watson was in a large crowd.
Lestrade took a deep breath, pulling it in through his nose. Toby had curled into a catlike little ball on the other side of the painfully bright lamp. He was asleep or close to. Lestrade attempted to keep quiet. He knew the child needed sleep. He also knew he needed to think without help.
Christmassers garroted for at least half their Christmas money. Missing Christmas-men. There was a tie there, and it was all a chancy, disturbing thing. He didn't like it. The fact that Gregson didn't like it either…well…that meant Lestrade wasn't imagining things. Gregson didn't let a tender heart get in the way of a case.
The nag shuffled and stamped her hoof against the boards; the pocket-lamp shivered and jostled Lestrade out of himself again. Without thinking he rose to his feet, and tired as he was, didn't think of how the horse was rolling her eyes until he was too close for comfort. An iron-shod projectile whistled through the air and the small man stepped back with a stifled curse.
"What is the matter with you?" He whispered under his breath. He didn't want to wake the lad for several good reasons—his sainted mother swore that children didn't grow unless they were asleep, and he didn't want to see Young Toby achieve no better than his Regulation Height.
Thump.
Stomp.
The old nag lifted her grey head, and what was left of the candle-light shone silver streaks against her muzzle.
Lestrade set his mouth and rested his hands on the velvety flank, waiting until the trembling body calmed—one degree at a time. It took a long time and he was worn to the nub when she was quiet enough to step away.
"Never you mind, gel." Lestrade slipped into the Gipsy Cant while he spoke to her—horses seemed to like that way of talk. Not for the first time, he wondered if Gips talked the way they did for the sake of the horses. "I'll see to it." He slipped the feed-bag over the elderly horse's nose and stroked it until the large, delicate lips found the oats and treacle inside. He took a deep breath, for until the poor thing had scented food she had been ready to run.
Treacle was a godsend to those who worked with horses, he thought for not the first time. It was a small trick his father had taught him, but Lestrade worked very hard to avoid thinking of his father at every opportunity.
Treacle smells of iron. They'll smell that and be calm, because there's sweetness in it.
Lestrade was weary and his eye-lids were bearing sand-grains to judge by the feel. But he remained standing where he was, stroking the broad old nose as whufflings and chewings filled the boarded space.
The whole time, she'd never stopped staring at the space above their heads against the back of the room.
Lestrade wasn't smart enough to be too suspicious at this point. He was crippled by a responsibility to a young boy and now that he didn't have to be afraid of his freezing to death in the snow, his own sense of relief was crushing him. He wasn't thinking much further than rest for himself. After a short soothing period he gave a final pat and went to that pool of darkness. It was a small hay-bin, and smelled sweet and comforting to his own childhood memories. To burrow into those dry stalks meant warmth and safety. Toby needed better warmth than what he was getting by the candle.
Lestrade huffed softly as he heaved his body up to the top of the nailed-in ladder at the door. His nose tickled at the scent of dry sweet hay and ripe seed-heads. It wasn't until the hay-stalks danced before his eyes that he realised the depth of his fatigue and he stood there unmoving, wondering what his best action would be.
Move the hay to Toby, he decided. He couldn't move a boy Toby's size if he was dead-weight, but he could move the hay and pack it around him, keep him warm.
No man was perfect. Men achieve imperfection most assuredly when they are measuring their actions against their peers. Lestrade was concentrating on his goal and not on the possibility that his mind was muddled by opium and exhaustion. He managed this phantasy up to the point where he climbed to the short wooden ladder's top of the hay-crib, and scooped up a one-armload of crackling hay.
A moment later he was falling backwards and trying everything he could to keep from falling on top of his thick neck. Toby stirred in his sleep and mumbled but otherwise never noticed how his benefactor clutched the rungs in his hands and tried to breathe and tried equally hard not to curse or scream.
Long minutes passed through a metronomic eternity as Lestrade fought for discretion. In the light of his pocket-lamp the first of twelve dead men stared back. Not all of them had shut eyes against their deaths.
Twelve.
Twelve men.
The missing Christmas-men…and then some. Men who hadn't been reported missing.
He would have known them anywhere, these thin old men with withered up flesh about their finger-bones, the years of privation drawing taught bowstrings of skin against their skull-cheeks. These were poor men, with the look of the outdoors on their stamp.
It was a damned gallery of murder inside a small stable, and a young boy had fallen to sleep not ten feet from the nearest corpse.
Stamp. The nag had her opinion.
Lestrade finally collected his breath. In the overwhelming nature of the murders it was not easy. There were no Constables to command. Nothing but themselves. He struggled to the bottom floor-board and reached out with shaking hands.
"Toby." He rasped like a dying man—yes, he knew what that sounded like. "Toby," He urged. "Wake up."
1 One-third of a pint. A measure known to women, children, and the moderate.
2 Pick-pocketing