The Body at the Tower by Y. S. Lee

Author:Y. S. Lee [Lee, Y. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780763656430
Publisher: Candlewick
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Her final stop this evening was Peter Jenkins’s cellar. As she picked her way through the stinking cesspools of Bermondsey, the air grew thicker and more humid, coating her throat with dust. The weather-beaten door was slightly ajar tonight, and no one answered her knock. She rapped again, then pushed the door open. “Hello?”

No reply. Inside was still and quiet, sticky and fetid. She let her eyes adjust to the dim light before advancing. Still nobody. She made her way to the cellar hatch, half-holding her breath. The hatch was already propped open and she stared down for a moment into the cellar’s murky depths. “Jenkins? You there?”

Again, no reply. With a sigh, she prepared to climb down the rotting ladder. She hoped that this would be the last time. The Academy should surely help Jenkins’s father meet the cost of clean, safe lodgings. Her foot was on the top rung when somebody shrieked in her ear, “Get out of my house!”

“Gah!” Mary jumped, nearly tumbling down the ladder. Something swiped at her face – something foul and prickly – and she batted it away, spitting in disgust. It was the straw end of a broom.

As it clattered to the floor, she saw the hunchbacked old woman who’d opened the door to her last time. She was clearly terrified and now she flew at Mary, gnarled claws seeking to tear out her eyes. “Get out! Get out!”

“I knocked!” shouted Mary, twisting away from those cold, crooked fingers. “I’m here to see Jenkins!”

“Get! I ain’t got naught to steal, nohow!”

“I’m not here to steal! Nobody answered when I knocked!”

Eventually, the old woman stopped her feeble attack, exhausted. “Young man,” she croaked, a terrible, helpless expression on her face, “I ain’t got nothing. You see for yourself. There ain’t nothing for to take.”

Mary shook her head. “I’m not a thief,” she said again, enunciating clearly. “I’m here to see Peter Jenkins.”

“Eh?”

“Peter Jenkins!” shouted Mary. She pointed to the cellar. “The boy!”

The old woman shook her head. “Ain’t nobody lives down there, lad.”

“Peter Jenkins lives there,” insisted Mary, “with his family.”

The old woman shook her head again. “The lad Jenkins moved out, yesterday morn. Took the babies with him.”

“Where did he go?”

The woman shrugged. “Somewhere better, I suppose. Ain’t much worse out there.”

Mary privately agreed. “You don’t know where he went? Was it nearby?”

“He just upped and went. Didn’t say nothing.”

That couldn’t possibly be good news. Yet… “What about his father? Did he go, too?”

“His pa?” The woman looked at Mary, confused. But her eyes were clear and alert, and her mind certainly didn’t seem to be wandering. “He ain’t got no pa.”

“Yes, he has. He’s a joiner or something, isn’t he?”

She shook her head. “He ain’t nothing. Jimmy Jenkins been dead these past two years.”

Friday, 8 July

Coral Street, Lambeth

Despite her concern for Peter Jenkins, Mary slept better that night than she had since arriving at Miss Phlox’s. It was a combination, she decided, of exhaustion and experience. Even Rogers’s bed-shaking snores hadn’t spoiled her rest.

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