Tom All-Alone's Read Free Page B

he says, taking another bite, ‘if this is your definition of consecrated, give me hellfire any day. Looks like the last one they put in over yonder had to be stamped on to get ’im in. The coffin’s rearin’ up out of the ground like the Last Trump’s already blastin’. Though at least ‘e did have a coffin. Unlike these poor little buggers. Any use to you, Chas?’
    Charles sees the other man’s cool and quizzical eye; he’s clearly been wondering all this time what right Charles has to be there, but has decided to say nothing. Charles shakes his head. ‘I doubt it. The last anyone heard of the child I’m looking for was sixteen years ago, when it was taken to an orphanage at three months old. These bodies haven’t been in the ground anything like that long.’
    â€˜You ain’t got a lot to go on, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so,’ says Wheeler, his mouth full. ‘What’s the chance of findin’ one solitary kid in a town this size – dead or alive? You might pass it in the street this very evenin’ and never know.’
    Charles shrugs. ‘I have a picture of the mother, and my client hopes the child may take after her.’
    â€˜Your client,’ says the other man softly, ‘must have money to spare – or a very poor understanding of the likelihood of success.’
    The tone is purposefully neutral, but the implication is clear. Charles turns and looks the man squarely in the face. ‘My client refuses to give up hope,’ he replies coldly, ‘even though I have explained very clearly that our chances are small. I am conducting as detailed an investigation as is possible after all this time, and doing so in the proper professional manner. I resent any suggestion, Constable , that it could possibly be otherwise.’
    He sees Wheeler’s eyes widen and realizes his mistake at once.
    â€˜Last I looked,’ says the other man, ‘my rank was sergeant . And if I were you, Mr Maddox, I would keep a civil tongue in your head and that temper of yours under control. It’s already cost you more than you could well afford. Or so I hear.’
    Charles feels the heat rush across his face under the man’s steady gaze. The bastard knows. Of course – they all know. Charles has never learned the trick of coping with injustice – not as a small child, punished for something he hadn’t done, and not now, as a man of twenty-five, unjustly dismissed from a job he loved. The official charge was insubordination, but he knew, and his superiors at Scotland Yard knew, that his real crime was daring to challenge the deductions of a higher-ranking officer – and challenge them as not just scientifically unfounded, but rationally unsound. Looking back, it might have been wiser to make his views known privately – or keep them entirely to himself – but a man’s life had been in the balance, and he’d felt then as he does still, that he had no choice. It was no consolation, months later, to find that new evidence had come to light; by that time an innocent man hadalready been taken to a place of lawful execution, and hanged by the neck until he was dead.
    The eyes of the two men are still upon him. He turns, as pointedly as he dares, to Wheeler. ‘Tell Inspector Field that I will continue to be grateful for any information he might come across that could have a bearing on my case. I will detain you gentlemen no longer.’
    He is out of sight in five yards, and out of earshot soon after, but all the same he keeps his anger in check until he is back at the Circus, then vents the full force of his fury on a stack of wooden crates outside the Horse-Shoe, sending glasses and bottles spinning and smashing across the cobbles, and spewing rank beer on the already filthy ground. He stands there breathing heavily for a few moments, then straightens his collar and pushes open the inn