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I tightened my own fingers briefly, letting him know that I had seen the sleeping figure, and cleared my throat loudly as we passed the bench. The newspaper twitched. Five minutes later, Billy came around the back of the washroom building.
He looked tired, and I thought his unshaven face was more necessity than disguise. He had been living rough for some days; a darkness about one eye testified to recent physical conflict.
“You can’t stay in Town, and you mustn’t go to Mr Mycroft’s funeral,” he blurted out. His voice was pure raw Cockney, which happened only when he was upset.
“It’s nice to see you, too, Billy,” I said calmly.
“I mean it,” he insisted, stepping forward in what I decided was an effort to intimidate me into obeying him-which would have been difficult even if he was not three inches shorter than I. Goodman put his hands into his pockets, looking more interested than alarmed.
“Billy, what is going on? Why did you tell me to run? And why have all the criminals in Southwark gone to ground?”
“You noticed.”
“It was hard to miss. Are they all under arrest?”
“No, just as you say, gone to ground. I told ’em to hike it.”
“But why?”
“There’s something big up. I don’t know what it is, but there’s coppers in the rafters, sniffing under the dustbins, listening in at the windows.”
“You’re sure they’re police?”
“Nah, that lot’re not police, but they’re not honest criminals either. They’re hard men, that’s what they are, and they’re looking for you and Mr ’Olmes.”
“Is that why you had Randall tell me to run? Because someone was listening at your windows?”
“I didn’t want to be the one to lead you to ’em. I’ve been sleeping away from home for three days now because I was afraid they’d follow me to you. I wouldn’t risk that.”
“You’re a good friend, Billy,” I said, which was both the unvarnished truth and an attempt to calm him down. “But tell me about these men. If they’re not police, who are they?”
“They’re working with the police, but they’re sure as sin not local boys, or even the Yard.”
“So, it’s some kind of a criminal gang moving into new territory?”
“No,” he said in an agony of impatience. “They’re not a gang-or they are, but not criminals.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A criminal gang wouldn’t pick me up for questioning and then let me go. But Scotland Yard wouldn’t threaten my family if I didn’t cooperate. Randy’s the only one left at home, and that’s because he’s decided it’s time to play the man.”
I had to agree, this sounded very wrong. “I see what you mean. When did this start?”
“Thursday.”
“The day after Mycroft was…” It was hard to say the word. Billy’s face went even darker.
“I heard about that first thing in the morning, and they were at my door an hour later. They let me go at tea-time and I bundled my family off to-” He glanced at Goodman for the first time, suddenly aware of a new hazard.
“Sorry,” I said, and made the introductions. The two men shook hands, Billy eyeing the owl feather with curiosity. “Well, Billy, I suggest you collect your son and join your family until we get this sorted. Holmes should-”
He cut me off. “I’ve sent the family away, but that doesn’t mean I’m hiding. This is my town, they can’t pull me in and beat me up and expect to get away with it. When I’m finished for Mr Holmes I’ll go home and sit tight.”
Goodman stirred, putting together the bruises on Billy’s face with the situation as a whole.
I smiled at the irate Cockney. “Somehow it doesn’t surprise me to hear that.”
“And I don’t think Mr Holmes knows about it-any rate, he didn’t on Tuesday. I told him that Mr Mycroft hadn’t been seen of late, but that was all I knew.” The H had returned to Holmes.
“You’ve talked to Holmes?”
“Down the telephone,” he said. “And there’s another thing. He was phoning from Amsterdam-”
“Amsterdam?”
“That’s what he said. And I know I’m probably not up on this modern machinery,” Billy admitted, “but the timing’s dead fishy. Mean to say, he rings me Tuesday, there’s hard men in the neighbourhood Wednesday, Mr Mycroft dies late Wednesday, and I’m picked up and questioned Thursday.”
“So you talked with him before Mycroft…”
“Right. And afterwards he could’ve told anyone that he’d talked to me. Or, Southwark could have nothing to do with Mr Mycroft. But like I say, it’s just… fishy.”
“Well, I expect to see Holmes soon. Certainly by tomorrow. But, why did he ring you?”
“To ask me to look into this Brothers bloke. To see if he had any ties to a criminal gang, maybe a new one making a push into London from the East.”
“Does he know Brothers is still alive?”
“He is? Are you sure?”
“Almost certainly.”
“No, he told me Brothers was dead, but that people might not know yet. Mr Holmes wanted me to look for what the man’s ties might’ve been to a gang, and if they’d want to do anything more than cross him off their books.”
“Revenge, yes. And have you found anything?”
“I put out the word, but people were only starting to get back to me when my usual lines of communication got… disrupted. I did find that the bloke what works for Brothers, Marcus Gunderson-he came into steady employment ’bout a year ago. Got himself a nice flat, stopped associatin’ with his usual friends.”
“When was this?”
“Hard to pin down.”
“Might it have been November? He started working for Brothers then.”
“That lot, it could’ve been last week and they’d be hard-pressed to be sure. Do you think this Brothers might have anything to do with Mr Mycroft?”
“Other than the timing being, as you say, fishy, most of the links are pretty feeble. I know you and I were trained by the same man, but you have to allow that events can be simultaneous but unrelated.”
He looked unhappy, but then, so did I.
“I’m thinking of getting my hands on one of them, asking a few questions of my own,” he said abruptly.
I opened my mouth to object, but then closed it. Memories of brutalising information from Brothers’ man Gunderson two weeks earlier were still strong enough to make me queasy, but the fastest way to find out what the devil was going on in London was to ask one of the villains. However, I definitely wanted Holmes there to supervise. “They’re certain to show up at the funeral. We’ll see what we can do about separating one of them from the pack after-”
But he stepped forward with a look of panic, grabbing my arm. “You’re not going! Promise me you’re not going to stick your head up there!”
“Ow, Billy, stop!” He relaxed his grip, but not his urgency. “Look, I can’t not go to Mycroft’s funeral.” Besides which, if Holmes failed to show up at the bolt-hole-always a possibility-I should have to look for him at the funeral.
“They’ll take you. You’ll be dead as he is, and then what will Mr Holmes do?”
I was touched by the worry contorting his face, and amused at Holmes’ concerns being his priority. And although I was very aware that he could be right about the threat, I could think of one way to mitigate the risk.
“You may be right,” I said, and began to smile. “Do you suppose some of your kith and kin would like to attend as well?”