Mister Creecher (14 page)

Billy took a moment or two and then held out his hand. There were tears in Creecher’s eyes as he took the hand in his and pulled Billy to him, hugging him.

‘All right, all right,’ said Billy. ‘You trying to kill me?’

‘Thank you, mon ami,’ said the giant, letting him go. ‘You will not regret it.’

Creecher clapped Billy on the shoulders and Billy felt a little overwhelmed by the giant’s gratitude.

‘I’m going to need some more money, though, before we go,’ he said after a while.

Creecher smiled.

‘Perhaps we will meet some generous dandies on our way to the coach?’

It was Billy’s turn to smile.

‘You never know,’ he said. ‘We just might.’

CHAPTER XIX.

Having liberated the purses and belongings from a couple of stout, ruddy-faced gentlemen farmers, Billy and Creecher made the journey to Clerkenwell and to Gratz’s den for the last time before leaving London.

Creecher knew the way now and strode off, filling the alleyways with his enormous bulk. Billy was amazed at how quickly the giant had memorised the dense maze of London lanes. Creecher seemed to know them as well as Billy himself now, and he was happy to trust the giant’s sense of direction and follow in his wake.

‘The old man about?’ said Billy as Gratz’s nephew stepped out to meet them.

‘Oh dear,’ said the nephew. ‘Oh dear me. I did send one of the lads looking for you, Billy . . .’

‘What?’ said Billy.

The nephew took a deep breath and puckered his lips as though suddenly tasting something sour.

‘Uncle died,’ he said. ‘Last week.’

Billy could think of nothing to say. He turned to look at Creecher, who stared down at him from under his hat brim.

‘Oh yeah?’ growled Billy. ‘Funeral, was there?’

‘A very small one,’ said the nephew. ‘He didn’t have a lot of friends.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘We’re leaving London,’ said Billy, without looking at him.

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ replied the nephew quietly.

‘Are you?’ snarled Billy.

‘You’ve been good business,’ said the nephew, with a smile.

‘Yeah, well.’ Billy could hear his voice getting more and more aggressive. ‘I could get him to pull your stinking head off, you know.’

The nephew looked from Billy to Creecher and back again, his eyes flicking back and forth as he tried to weigh up who was the greater danger at that moment.

‘I mean no one any harm,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for violence.’

Billy cursed, but forced himself to calm a little.

‘Good riddance,’ he muttered. ‘Good riddance to him. We’re leaving London.’

‘So you said,’ the nephew replied. ‘So you said.’

Billy kicked out at the counter and turned to Creecher, who stood in silence in the doorway.

‘But when you come back –’

‘Who says we’re coming back?’ Billy snapped.

‘But
if
you come back,’ said the nephew, with a smile, ‘I would be honoured to carry on in business with you. Think about it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Billy with a sniff. ‘We’ll do that. Meantime, just give us a decent price on this stuff and we’ll be on our way.’

Billy and Creecher began to unload their takings on to the battered and scratched wooden counter, and Gratz’s nephew gave each thing his expert attention, his professional detachment being occasionally broken as he spotted a particularly choice item.

‘Nice,’ he said approvingly, as he totted up the value of the goods. ‘Very nice. We’re going to miss you, my friends. We shall miss you terribly.’

‘Course you will,’ muttered Billy.

‘Don’t be like that,’ said the nephew. ‘You have to know who your friends are in this game.’

Billy grabbed him by the collar.

‘I ain’t got no friends,’ he said. ‘Understand? Only him.’ Billy indicated Creecher with a flick of his head. ‘I spent my life trying to stay alive in this stinking town, but now I can do what I want, go where I like. I don’t need you or your uncle. I’m done with feeding off scraps and sleeping in doorways.’

The nephew flinched as Billy let him go.

‘You’ve certainly done well for yourself,’ he said, taking the opportunity to move a little further away.

‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ said Billy. ‘You and your poxy uncle. You don’t know what it’s like to have everyone despise you and look at you like you was dirt.’

‘No,’ said the nephew coldly. ‘How could we?’

Billy nodded, not noticing his tone of voice or the bitter smile that accompanied it. He stood, agitated, flexing and clenching his hands.

‘I have some more books for you, if you’d like,’ said the nephew, turning to Creecher.

‘How much?’ said the giant.

‘No, no. On the house. Call it a farewell gift.’

Billy cursed again and stormed outside into the night air. Creecher emerged after a few minutes, having closed the deal, a purse of coins in his hand. He stood and looked up at the sky, waiting for Billy to speak.

‘I hated him,’ said Billy, his face lined with the trails of tears. ‘Gratz, I mean. Most of the time I hated him. Why the hell am I bothered that he’s dead?’

‘Because he was once all you had,’ said the giant.

Creecher slowly, tentatively, reached out a hand and placed it on Billy’s shoulder. Billy flinched but did not move away.

He stood for a moment, the storm of emotions gradually dying away. Then, taking a deep breath, he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve, took one last look at the rickety hovel they had just left and walked away, with Creecher a stride behind.

PART II.

CHAPTER XX.

Billy and Creecher made their way to the Strand as the lamps were being lit. The fog was as thick as sea-coal smoke and Billy was glad of it – it could only work in their favour.

Billy told the giant to hang back in the shadows while he went and had a word with the driver and bought their tickets – outside tickets. There was no way that Creecher could ride inside.

Just as the coach was about to move off, Billy whistled to Creecher, who moved with his usual silent swiftness to stand beside him. They climbed up on to the roof of the coach and grabbed the metal hoops provided, trying to get comfortable.

An old man cried out from the pavement below and someone yelled for him to hurry up. He had barely grabbed the side of the coach before the driver flicked the reins and they lurched forward. Creecher leaned over, grabbed the old man and pulled him up on to the roof.

He was panting and turned to thank Creecher, but his mouth seemed to lock open as he stared in awe at the giant. Billy chuckled to himself. He was sure the old chap would have thrown himself off had the coach not been moving.

The old man grabbed the hoops in his gnarled hands, white as bone. Having seen Creecher once, he seemed determined not to make the mistake again and hunched himself over, collar turned up against the cold.

‘Where are you headed?’ shouted Billy over the noise of the wheels, as the coach rumbled out of the courtyard and into the street.

‘Windsor,’ shouted the old man.

‘Same as us!’ shouted Billy in reply.

That seemed to exhaust the conversation. The old man hunched himself even more and closed his eyes. Billy looked at him with a kind of cold pity.

It was night-time now and they were heading away from the theatres and ballrooms of the city, along the Oxford Road. The great highwaymen and robbers of the past, like Jack Sheppard, had made their last journey down here, rolling along in the tumbril cart, the road thronged with people, making their way to the Hanging Tree at Tyburn. But no one had been hanged there for over forty years now.

Billy wondered if the old man had ever gone to Tyburn. That was the way to go: thousands of people standing at your feet as you gave your last dying speech and waved your fist at the justices of the peace and the marshal and all his men. To die a famous death – what Billy would not give for that!

More quickly than he could ever have imagined, they were plunged into a moonlit world of small houses and cottages, fields and copses. Billy had known that this strange smoke-free, building-less, open world existed, of course, but he had never even thought about it, much less seen it.

It was bitterly cold, and he muttered under his breath, cursing the giant. If it was not for him, Billy could have been inside the coach instead of stuck on the roof, freezing to death.

At one stop they were joined briefly by a younger man carrying a violin case. He took a moment to notice Creecher, but could not thereafter take his eyes from the giant and, when the stagecoach next stopped, he jumped off, even though Billy was sure he had intended to go further.

The cold was not the only hardship of travelling on the roof. Every jolt of every pothole went straight through to Billy’s spine, and his arms were aching with the effort of stopping himself from falling off. He wondered at how well the old man held on, despite seemingly being asleep.

Creecher seemed unconcerned by the cold or the movement. His great form sat silhouetted against the night sky, as inscrutable and immovable as a statue, and Billy experienced a twinge of the old fear he had felt when he first met the giant.

But it was a brief moment only. Billy’s dread had all but disappeared and been replaced by a sense of awe. Creecher was a wonder – a fearsome wonder, to be sure, but a wonder all the same.

Everything about the giant was extraordinary, and nothing more so than the story of his creation. But Billy had to know the rest of the story. It was a need, a compulsion. He was sure he had not heard the whole truth. And anyway, he was part of that story now.

By the time the stagecoach eventually arrived at Windsor, Billy’s whole body felt numb with the cold and the vibration. He stretched and tried to get the blood flowing in his legs.

Creecher crouched a little and leapt from the roof of the coach, landing catlike, with barely a sound on the cobbles below. Billy shook his head in amazement as the giant melted into the shadows of the courtyard. Within seconds, even he would not have known Creecher was there.

The old man was still sitting. Billy tapped him on the arm.

‘Come on, old fella,’ he said. ‘We’re here. You don’t want to miss your stop, do you?’

The old man did not move. Billy tapped him a bit harder, then grabbed his coat and shook him.

‘Hey!’ he called down to the driver. ‘Come here. Quick!’

The driver gave Billy a long look, and then sauntered towards the coach and climbed on to the roof.

‘I think he’s dead,’ Billy told him.

The driver felt the old man’s hands and gave his face a couple of slaps.

‘I think you’re right,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘George! Get up here. We got another dead ’un.’

Billy watched as the man called George climbed up beside the driver and the two of them forced the old man’s bony hands to loosen their grip on the hoops. There was a crack as one of the fingers snapped.

‘Hey,’ Billy cried. ‘Watch out!’

‘Sorry, lad,’ said the driver. ‘It’s got to be done. Can’t very well leave him up here. It happens from time to time. Friend of yours, was he?’

‘No,’ said Billy.

‘Do you know where he was heading?’

‘Just Windsor.’

‘Well,’ said the driver. ‘He’s here. And it looks like he’s here for good.’

‘Maybe he has relatives,’ said Billy.

‘Maybe. Look, we’ll check his pockets and see what’s there. That’s all we can do.’

Between them, the driver and his colleague carried the old man down. Billy followed and watched them as they disappeared into a stable block. Creecher was suddenly at his side.

‘You are upset about the old man?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Billy, his voice catching a little. ‘Why would I be upset? He’s nothing to me.’

‘And yet –’

‘Look, I ain’t upset,’ said Billy, walking away. ‘Shut up about it, won’t you?’

He turned his back on Creecher and stared into the darkness ahead. The driver and the guard were coming out of the stables.

‘Hey!’ said Billy. ‘Wait up.’

He took out his purse and offered the driver a handful of coins.

‘Make sure he gets buried properly,’ he said.

The driver took the money.

‘That’s uncommon decent of you. That’s Christian, that is. I’ll make sure the old man get’s the best. Bless you.’

‘All right, then,’ said Billy, already turning away.

‘But what if his family turn up?’ said the driver. ‘How will I get the money back to you?’

‘It don’t matter,’ said Billy. ‘You keep it.’

He returned to Creecher and they walked away from the lights of the inn and into the shadows.

‘That was very kind of you,’ said Creecher.

Billy shrugged.

‘Yeah, well,’ he muttered.