The School for Thieves, page 3
“There it is,” said Tom, leaning down to speak into Bernie’s ear. The rain was drumming on their precious oilskins, and Tom had to speak loudly to be heard.
They took shelter under the arches of the bridge directly opposite the Guttknot. High walls rose up on either side of the wrought-iron gates, topped with iron spikes, just like the perimeter wall of the Rawlock.
“Why are we here?” whined Bernie. He was cold and confused and, staring up at the imposing building beyond the walls, absolutely terrified.
“You need to understand what’s at risk,” said Tom, placing a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “Being out here, as tough as it is… is a thousand times better than life in there. Trust me on this. So you need to start sharpening your wits. You can’t miss a snatcher van. Or a snatcher out on the hunt. Or anyone watching us going to and from the warehouse. If you ever get sloppy, this is where you’ll end up. Where we could all end up.”
Bernie looked forlornly at the low, watery light glowing behind the narrow windows.
“What a couple of funny little scarecrows you are,” came a sardonic voice behind them.
Bernie yelped in fright, and Tom thought he was going to have a heart attack. Maxine was leaning casually against the wall behind them, shaking out a battered umbrella.
“So,” she said, striding past them. “This is the Guttknot, eh? Horrible-looking place.”
“You can say that again,” said Bernie, before exclaiming, “What’s that?” as shadows moved behind a window.
“Guards,” said Tom. “They’ll be doing the rounds, checking that the cells are secure, that no one’s talking. Everything will be closely monitored to make sure no inmates can get together to plan an escape or a coup against them.”
“Is this what the Rawlock was like?” asked Maxine.
Tom was going to reply but found that he couldn’t. A thick lump had hit his throat. He nodded in answer and stared up at the dark walls, the narrow windows where the guards patrolled, the dark ones below that were barred with iron rods. The cells. There would be hopeless wrecks like Morris in there. And kids. How he would love to get them out.
He imagined climbing the wall and sawing through the bars. Or tunneling into the yard and opening up a hole while the inmates were out for their daily exercise. Or zip-lining onto the roof and unpicking the tiles to open the place up like a tin can. Or just smashing down the gates and the main door with a bus…
There was a roar of an engine down the street, and the three kids instinctively stepped back into the shadows beneath the arches.
A moment later one of the parish’s snatcher vans—the same kind as they had seen that morning—splashed past them, its single windscreen wiper frantically waving back and forth, its driver’s nose pressed to the glass as he tried to peer through the rain.
“Did he see us?” hissed Bernie, grasping Tom’s hand.
“I don’t think so,” breathed Tom. But it had been close. A swell of anger rose in his chest. What an idiot he’d been bringing Bernie here. They were risking everything—coming right into the lion’s den. And for what? To give Bernie a fright? To make him feel foolish for believing in his amulet? Bernie was just a small, scared child. Like they all were. He probably didn’t actually believe that the amulet would be able to protect him, but it gave him some comfort—so where was the harm in it, really? Tom felt a shudder of shame at the way he had dealt with the whole situation.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s head back—”
There was a screech of brakes, and the wet cobbles glowed red as the van skidded to a halt down the street. There was a pause and then a crunch of gears followed by a squeal from the engine as the van began to reverse back toward them. The driver stuck his head out the window, elbow crooked over the ledge as he stared back in their direction, his ratty features set in a grimace, the van lurching from side to side as he steered. Tom was horrified to see that it was Borthwick.
“Stay where you are!” he shrieked as the kids disappeared into the dark beneath the bridge. He swung the van around, crunched the gear stick into first, and accelerated after them, the headlights just picking out their heels as they ducked down an alley at the other end of the tunnel.
Twisting their way through the streets, ducking left and right and keeping their ears bent for any sound of the van’s engine, Tom, Maxine, and Bernie stopped for a rest only when they reached the river. Bernie collapsed in a heap on the steps outside a slaughterhouse.
“Come on, mate, we have to keep going,” panted Tom, checking back down the Thames Embankment behind them for any sign of their pursuer. “It’s not far to home now.”
“I’m too tired,” gasped Bernie. “I need to rest for a bit.”
“We can’t stay out here,” said Tom. “It’s not safe!”
“Whose fault is that?” said Bernie sulkily. “I didn’t even want to—”
“Let’s take a rest in here,” interrupted Maxine. She pulled out a small pouch that Tom had never seen before, which turned out to be full of spindly little metal rods. She ducked down and inserted a couple of the rods into the lock on the slaughterhouse door and worked away at it for a few moments before there was a clunk and the heavy door swung open.
“How’d you do that?” Tom asked, amazed, as she secreted away the pouch again.
Bernie stared inside. “Dunno if I wouldn’t prefer staying out here, to be honest.”
“Don’t be a baby,” said Maxine, shoving him inside.
They found themselves in a cavernous room with white-tiled walls and a concrete floor that was crisscrossed with drainage canals beneath wide porcelain tables. Butcher’s hooks hung in the dark above them like skeletal bats, and Tom could feel Bernie shivering beside him as Maxine slammed the door. Having abandoned her umbrella as they ran, Maxine looked as if she’d been swimming in the river, but she seemed as laid-back as ever and totally unperturbed by how drenched she was as she led them up a flight of iron stairs to an upper gantry, where she peeked through the high windows at the Embankment below and across the river, checking for Borthwick.
Tom leaned against the pane next to Maxine, his breath steaming the glass. He wiped it with his hand, leaving a long smear. “No sign of him.”
He could feel Bernie relaxing.
“What would he have done if he’d caught us?”
“Taken us straight to the Guttknot,” Tom muttered.
Bernie said nothing for a while as he imagined the consequences. “Is it really as bad inside them workhouses as you say?” he asked eventually.
In answer, Tom peeled off his raincoat and then lifted a corner of his shirt. It was very dark in the slaughterhouse, the heavy rain clouds obscuring the moon, but the low glow from the gas lamps outside gave just enough light for them to see the scars of old beatings that crisscrossed his torso.
“Oh my goodness…,” breathed Bernie in horror.
Tom was surprised to feel the tips of Maxine’s fingers on his skin, gently tracing several of the long white scars. “What’s this?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper as she circled a deep purple lump of scar tissue beneath his ribs.
“The Pitbull burned me with his cigar once.” It had been a punishment for wetting the bed—but he didn’t want to tell them that. “I tried to escape,” he lied. “He caught me. This was the punishment.”
Tom could see how pale Maxine suddenly was, her eyes wide as she studied his body. Feeling uncomfortable, Tom dropped his shirt back down and shrugged on the raincoat.
“Best to try to avoid life in a workhouse is all I’m sayin’,” he muttered, embarrassed again by his rash decision to come out that night. If he’d wanted to scare Bernie, all he’d needed to do was show him the scars.
* * *
As awful as life in the Rawlock was, it had one benefit for the child inmates. Thanks to the Poor Law, they had to receive an education. So it was that each child learned to read, to write, to do math, and to master some rudimentary French, the mother tongue of the Empire.
In mid-April of Tom’s seventh year, John Sargant, their teacher, had contracted the Crimson Flu and was rushed into quarantine in the infirmary, where he died two days later. The flu epidemic was at its peak in those days, and teachers—like many other professionals—were in short supply. The Pitbull would have preferred to simply send the children back to work full-time, but the Rawlock was undergoing an inspection and so he needed a temporary replacement. Wonderfully, Morris had been the man selected.
He had traveled the world as a magician, he told the children, his fast hands and clever fingers the stuff of legend. He had performed for royalty in Asia and had even taken part in a show for the emperor at Versailles. All had been stunned by his skill and his showmanship. The children had loved the stories, even if they doubted any of them were true. How could a man with such a history have ended up in a hellhole like the Rawlock?
But there was maybe some truth in the boasts he made about his clever hands, and maybe even something in his claims to have traveled to Asia, for he showed them how a piece of paper and some careful, precise folds could create animals or people or beautiful, elegant shapes. The children marveled at the tiger he had conjured, as if by magic, before their eyes. He had grinned and given the tiger to the youngest child there, a girl called Camille Roberts, who had treasured it like it was made of gold.
In class, his readings of Le Morte d’Arthur, Gulliver’s Travels, and Moby-Dick also transported the children to a world far beyond the walls of the Rawlock. Tom later took comfort in the knowledge that those books had given his friends a chance to escape, for a while, as the Crimson Flu continued to sweep through the workhouse—taking each of his classmates with it. By the autumn of that year, he was the only one left.
There was an image of Morris from this time that Tom often thought of. It was late October and Morris was sitting on the edge of the desk in the classroom, a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo held limply across one knee. Tom was the only child left to teach, but still Morris came every day to do it. The copy of the book was battered and worn. Hanging out, around halfway through, was a bookmark—a small square of card, ragged and partly torn, with faded printed lettering that Tom could only just make out “… and the fearless. Must be willing… death daily. Fortunes available… daring and capable. No one…”
They had been studying The Count of Monte Cristo for several weeks. It was one of the few books in the Rawlock library and, by chance, Morris had his own copy, so he and Tom were able to read along together. It was the story of Edmond Dantès, a young man framed for a crime he didn’t commit, who was imprisoned on the desolate island jail of Château d’If. After years of captivity, Dantès escaped by concealing himself in a body bag, and then, assuming the identity of a wealthy aristocrat—the Count of Monte Cristo—he exacted revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment.
“Revenge is a powerful thing,” Morris had said softly. He was staring out of the barred window of the classroom. It was this image that Tom always recalled: glasses perched on the end of Morris’s nose, a light blue tint to the lenses, and behind them, a faraway look in his eyes. “It drove Edmond Dantès to greatness. But it can consume you. You will never find peace. Not even if you exact retribution on everyone who has ever wronged you. Your soul will be darkened and broken forever.”
Tom picked up his own tattered copy of the book and flicked to the final page. “But the last line…,” he said, holding it up.
Morris took the book and looked at the words for a long time. “ ‘All human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.’ ” He looked around the empty room. “Wait and hope,” he repeated. “We’re about to do that all right.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t heard?” Morris frowned at Tom, his brow a field of deep furrowed lines. “They’re putting the whole workhouse into solitary confinement. We’re going to be locked in our cells until the sickness passes. They think it’ll stop it spreading, but we’ll just be sitting in those boxes until it takes us.”
“When does the confinement start?” asked Tom, panic rising in his voice.
“I heard it’s tonight. The Pitbull’s clearing out all his valuables as we speak, and then, when they shut us in this evening, that’ll be it. They’ll send some poor sod in to feed us and to slop out our cells—if we’re lucky—and then we’ll just wait it out. Waiting to see when our suffering will end.”
Tom felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
Morris noticed. He slipped his copy of the book into his jacket pocket. “Do you remember what Old Morris did before he got himself blind drunk and without a centime to his name and so desperate he ended up at the Rawlock?”
Tom was grateful for the distraction. “You were a magician,” he said, putting down his pencil.
“One of the best around.” Morris tossed Tom’s copy of The Count of Monte Cristo down on the desk behind him. “Then, when things got a little tight, I was also a pickpocket. And sometimes more than a pickpocket.”
He turned around, and Tom saw that he had a pencil behind his ear. Tom looked down at the desk in front of him—his pencil was gone.
“How did you—”
“The alcohol numbed my fingers, though,” continued Morris as if he hadn’t heard. “Made them clumsy. But it was wonderful stuff….” He drifted off for a moment, as if he were taking a long swig from some invisible bottle. His eyes closed. Then they snapped open. “But I’ve dried out in here. And my fingers have been able to dance again.” He held up his palms to Tom, then clapped them together and slammed one down on the desk. He slid his hand back, revealing a key.
“To the infirmary,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “The doctors have all gone—like rats from a ship. I managed to nab this as the last one scarpered. There’s no one in there now. But do you know what is?”
Tom shook his head, but he could guess.
“Bodies,” said Morris, confirming Tom’s fears. “Bodies that are bagged up, waiting to be taken away for burning. People always say there’s no way to escape the Rawlock—well, that will be truer than ever once the quarantine starts. But how is there a way out, Tom?”
Tom swallowed. “Through the grave,” he whispered.
“Through the grave. And that’s how we’re going to do it. Just like Edmond Dantès. Are you with me?”
Tom’s memories were clouded by what happened next, and he never tried to dig through them too closely again.
They had entered an infirmary stacked high with body bags and clouded with flies. Morris found two spare bags and tied Tom into one before hiding him at the back of the pile of corpses, then followed him into his own bag. Their hope was that they would be the last two bags carried out, and so placed on top of the other bodies as they were loaded up.
Tom held his breath and tried to make himself as limp and lifeless as he could as hands eventually grabbed the bag at his feet and head and carried him out into the cool October air. There was a sway back and forth, a cry of “Hup!” and he was sailing through the air. It took all his effort not to make a sound as he landed on the pile of other bags, all his will not to gag at the feel of the bodies below and around him. The sun was still on his face, so he knew they were on the back of a flatbed truck. Thank the stars, there was air.
The truck rumbled to life and then began to lurch as it set off out of the Rawlock yard, through the high wrought-iron gates, and into the streets.
They had been going barely two minutes when he heard Morris calling to him, and Tom rustled his body bag in signal. Morris tore it open and dragged Tom clear.
“Don’t look at the others,” instructed Morris, keeping his hand pressed against Tom’s eyes. They clambered awkwardly over the heap of bodies as Morris guided Tom to the back of the truck and climbed onto the lip of the rear door. Fortunately, the driver was going deliberately slowly so as not to unbalance his cargo.
“Jump on three,” said Morris, and he took Tom’s hand. He counted them down, and they leaped, stumbling into a messy roll as they hit the cobbles. Morris grabbed Tom by the scruff of his shirt and pulled him into a side street. He peered back along the road toward the truck as it continued on its way, the driver oblivious to what had just happened. The street was deserted. No one had seen them.
“We’ve done it,” whispered Tom, a joyous quaver in his voice, barely able to believe they had pulled off the escape so smoothly.
Morris ruffled Tom’s hair and set off down the street. Tom had no idea what to do. He’d never been in the outside world before. How was he going to survive out here on his own?
Morris, suddenly realizing that he was walking alone, turned around and looked at the little boy—seven years old, standing there in his gray workhouse shirt, its hem reaching down to his skinny knock knees, his large dark eyes staring out under a mop of wild hair, his tawny skin pale with fear. “Come on, kid,” he said with that familiar smile of his. “Let’s get going. I’ll look after you.”
* * *
Bernie nudged Tom on the arm. “I reckon I can probably manage the run home now,” he said.
Tom blinked away the memories of Morris and rose stiffly to his feet.
By the time they got outside again, the downpour had relented to a fine drizzle. The air tasted of salt and low tide and chimney smoke. A fog had rolled in off the water, obscuring anything more than thirty yards away. Perfect conditions to get back to the warehouse unobserved.
As they set off at a quick canter, they didn’t notice a figure standing in the shadows on the edge of the Embankment. Wreathed in mist and as still as a statue, Borthwick had stopped for a cigarette, furious that his quarry had escaped him. And then, out of nowhere, they had just dropped into his lap. He grinned, tossed the cigarette over the parapet, and set off in silent pursuit.
Chapter Four UP IN SMOKE
Tom was woken by a punch to his stomach that made him gag bile. He had barely time to catch a breath before a sack was shoved over his head. A boot slammed into his side, rolling him onto his front. His hands were tied behind his back with thick cord, and then he was dragged away by his ankles, his face bouncing off the hard floor.
