The morning brought Toby Tallis, who came breezily into Phin’s study.
‘I’ve found a promising hunting ground for our book,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean your academic one, I mean the one we’re doing on ballads and news-sheets and related spin-offs. It’s a pub near Marble Arch – I was there last night as a matter of fact.’
‘I heard you come home,’ said Phin, then, in case Toby wondered what else might have been audible, he hastily added, ‘I mean I heard your door open and close.’
‘She’s a physiotherapist from the hospital,’ said Toby, apparently feeling clarification was required. ‘I’m still on rotation – three months in osteology, so I’m meeting quite a few new people. It’s a subdiscipline of anatomy, really, and it’s not compulsory, but I thought I’d take it in, because you never know, and it’s actually rather an interesting area of medicine. Bones and a bit of archaeology and forensic stuff.’
‘And an interesting physiotherapist in the mix?’
‘She is interesting, as it happens. Very good company. And somebody had recommended this pub – it has a bit of a theme, you know how they do these days – and it makes great play of the fact that it was on the site of the old Tyburn gallows. Well, the general area of the gallows, because nobody seems able to agree on the precise spot.’
Phin observed that Toby certainly took his girlfriends to the best places.
‘Don’t mock,’ said Toby. ‘It was a very lively pub and we enjoyed each other’s company, and …’ He paused, and then, with unusual awkwardness, said, ‘Well, you know how there are some girls you feel really proud to be with when you walk into a public place …? Yes, of course you do, you’ve walked into enough public places with Arabella these last few months, and she certainly makes people look at her twice.’
‘Twice and usually three times,’ said Phin, smiling and knowing exactly what Toby meant. To smooth over Toby’s moment of near-embarrassment, he said, ‘What was the pub like?’
‘Very good. We had a very nice meal, too. But the evening wasn’t all given over to pleasure, because I was looking out for material for our book.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Odds and ends,’ said Toby. ‘They don’t have framed stuff on the walls like Linklighters – but they’ve got huge scrapbooks of the pub’s history and the history of the area. They’ve been put together over the years – a bit here and there; people contributing old newspaper cuttings from attics, and ancient photographs and woodcuts. It’s an ongoing project. The bar staff let me make a few notes, and they said they’d be happy to photocopy anything I wanted. Did you know people used to buy what they called execution ballads – the printers churned them out by the ton. And when there was a hanging, crowds would gather round the gallows to sing them – very Les Misérables, isn’t it?’
‘I expect it was a day out for most of them,’ said Phin.
‘Yes. And nowadays terrorists post videos of live executions on Facebook and YouTube,’ he said, his cherubic face suddenly serious. ‘Human nature doesn’t change so very much, does it?’
‘You’re unusually philosophical this morning. Is that the physiotherapist’s influence?’
‘Well, it might be. But,’ said Toby, ‘I do think we could use some of the ballads. I only glanced at a few, but they all looked very solemn.’
‘So we’d need to find lighter ones for balance.’
‘Yes. You get the impression that whoever wrote or distributed most of them was trying to convey a sense of bells tolling and of people watching in awed and respectful silence. Whereas probably everybody was cheering and shouting rude comments and blowing raspberries.’
‘And scoffing pies and jellied eels from street vendors between times,’ agreed Phin.
‘Anyhow, I did find this, though, which is nicely quirky,’ said Toby. ‘I think it’s about London’s underground rivers. Listen …
“Never be lured to the ghost river beds,
Only sleep in a bed where you’re safe.
In a ghost river bed, you could end up quite dead.
On some terrible night, you’ll be Pigged in the Dyke,
Or Kilned in the Lime – what a terrible crime,
You’ll be Cocked in the Pie and then left there to die,
You’ll be Tied in the Burn or Sluiced by the Earl –
And that is a fate that will make your toes curl.
“You’ll be chopped, you’ll be strangled, or fed to the mangle,
And most of your guts will be left in a tangle,
Your bones will be spread on the dark cobblestones
And you’re too deep below to make heard your moans.”
‘That,’ said Phin, ‘is possibly one of the most macabre things I’ve ever heard.’
‘It is grim, isn’t it? There’s a bit more,’ said Toby, with a grin. ‘Listen again.
“And there’s really no use
To try raising the sluice.
Street grids and street grilles will not help your ills,
For you can’t reach the grilles when you’re dead.
So the bed of a friend – whether new, whether old
Is safer by far than the grue and the cold
Of the ghost river beds down below …”
‘It’s a play on all the old river names, isn’t it?’ said Toby.
‘Is it?’ Phin took the verses from him and re-read them. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘And all bawdiness aside, the Cock and Pye – spelled pye – is the old ditch, or a river tributary, that runs under Harlequin Court. Loretta Farrant told me about it. She used the term ghost river, too.’
‘And Tied in the Burn’s got to be Tyburn, hasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. Was there an underground river there?’
‘Bound to be. London’s veined with them,’ said Toby. ‘Is your computer on? Oh, good.’ He sat down at Phin’s desk and typed in a search request. ‘Yes, here it is. Apparently the Tyburn runs directly beneath Buckingham Palace – and if that isn’t good material for our book, I don’t know what is. I bet we could get several pages on royalty wading through sewage when there was an overflow. We’ll call the chapter, “The Night Edward Vll Caused the Loo to Back Up”.’
‘Did he? Cause the loo to back up?’
‘Hasn’t everybody at some time? Anyway, nobody could prove he didn’t.’
‘What about being Sluiced by the Earl?’
‘It sounds like a polite term for getting rat-arsed with the aristos, doesn’t it, but … No, here it is,’ said Toby, still at the computer. ‘Earl’s Sluice. An old waterway near the Old Kent Road. I expect the other references will check out, too. Fun, isn’t it?’ he said, getting up from Phin’s chair. ‘Sort of Victorian crossword clues. Anyway, I thought we might go back to the pub tomorrow night – thee and me, I mean – and see what we can turn up. I can’t do tonight, because I’m on a late ward shift.’
‘Tomorrow would be fine. Yes, let’s,’ said Phin, pleased.
After Toby had gone, in deference to Professor Liripine’s wishes, Phin set about tracking the details of Franz Liszt’s soberer years in the monastery. He drafted a possible timeline for Liszt, including what Liszt had termed his ‘vie trifurquée’ – the threefold existence he had pursued in later life, when he had travelled between Rome, Weimar and Budapest, giving master classes in piano playing. This was all fine and could be expanded. The trouble was that he could not escape the feeling that Scaramel and Links were eyeing him reproachfully from the shadows. In the end, immediately after lunch, he put Liszt away and went out. Linklighters would be closed at this hour of the afternoon, but there was Thumbprints to explore.
Thumbprints, when he got there, had a pleasingly old-fashioned air. Phin enjoyed it very much, and he wandered along the bookshelves until he found himself in a small section displaying framed paintings and prints. This was what he had really come to see. There were a number of sketches and prints on display – several more in the shop’s windows – and there were also large pocket folders hanging from racks, containing unframed prints and sketches. It was not very likely that any of Links’s work had survived, apart from the occasional reproduction in old books, but Phin wanted to make sure. This seemed as good a place to start a search as anywhere.
There were some nice old sketches in the portfolios – mostly prints, but a few originals, with several of the immediate areas around Harlequin Court. Phin thought Arabella might like one of the originals for her flat – it was her birthday next month. There was a particularly nice one of a pub in Covent Garden called Ben Caunt’s Head, which apparently had stood on the site of what was now the The Salisbury. Phin remembered Loretta saying something about the freeholders of Harlequin Court being the Salisbury Trust or the Salisbury Estate, and he set this sketch aside and went on looking through the rack.
And then he saw it. It was almost at the end, and it was behind a larger print of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
It was not a sketch of Harlequin Court this time but, even to Phin’s untutored eye, it was from the hand that had drawn the menacing figure by the streetlight. It was not signed, but when he looked more closely, there was a scribbled L in the bottom right-hand corner. It looked as if it had been hastily done – almost as if, having finished the sketch, it had not mattered to the artist about adding his name, and as if somebody had nudged him to at least initial it. But it’s Links, he thought. I’m sure it is.
He laid the sketch carefully out on a small display table, and studied it more closely. It was fairly large; in today’s measurements, it was probably about double A4 size – perhaps it was A3. It was longways on – landscape rather than portrait. But it was disturbing in the way that the Liszten sketch had been disturbing.
This one showed a long, bleak, windowless room, with sections partly divided by iron bars that almost, but not quite, reached the ceiling. They’re rudimentary cages, thought Phin. In one corner were two troughs, presumably containing either food or water. In another corner of the room was a pile of straw. Anonymous debris was littered elsewhere on the ground – tattered fragments of paper and shreds of rags. But it was not the room that tore at Phin’s emotions; it was the room’s occupants.
They were ragged and wretched, and in the main it was impossible to know if they were men or woman. They were chained, the ends of each chain embedded in the wall. But the chains were long enough to allow them to reach the troughs and the straw with its all-too-obvious purpose. Some of the figures seemed to be staring straight at the artist, but others sat in huddles, looking hopelessly at their hands or staring uncomprehendingly at the ground. A gaol? thought Phin. A workhouse? No, it’s more likely to be a madhouse. Links, he thought – and I’m positive this is your work – where on earth did you find your subjects?
He bought the sketch. He did not even look at the price tag on it – he would not have cared if it had cleaned out his current bank balance. He bought the Covent Garden pub sketch as well, leaving it with the manager to be framed for Arabella’s birthday.
The manager also turned out to be the owner of the shop. He introduced himself as Gregory, and seemed interested in Phin’s purchases. Asked about any books relating to the history of Harlequin Court, he said he would see what he could find. No, it would be no trouble at all; in fact he would enjoy the search. This was an interesting part of London, wasn’t it? His family had owned this bookshop for nearly two hundred years, so he always felt very much part of its past.
‘Of course, there’ve been a good many changes since then,’ he said. ‘But people still like books, you know, no matter the format. Once it was clay tablets or papyrus scrolls.’
‘And now it’s iPads and android screens,’ said Phin, smiling.
‘Life changes,’ said Gregory, philosophically. ‘This is a curious subject for a sketch, isn’t it?’ He was studying the madhouse drawing. ‘I wouldn’t mind knowing who the artist was – it’s only signed with that single initial.’
‘Yes. There’s something written in that other corner, though,’ said Phin. ‘It’s just about readable. It simply says, “Thrawl”. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘Not offhand,’ said Gregory. ‘Although I think there’s a Thrawl Street in the East End, if that’s any help.’
‘It might be.’
‘I’d be interested to hear if you turn anything up,’ said Gregory. ‘And I can certainly let you know if we find anything that looks as if it’s by the same artist.’
‘I’d be very grateful if you would,’ said Phin, handing Gregory his card.
‘The framed one of the Covent Garden pub will be ready midweek – is that all right?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘We’re open until six most nights, and every Thursday we have a book discussion group. Six thirty to seven thirty. My great-grandfather – maybe one more “great” – started it, and the tradition’s stuck. You’d always be welcome to come to that.’
‘Thank you.’ Phin thought he might very well look in on one of the Thursday night meetings.
He went back to his flat where he propped up Links’s sketch on his desk, and looked at it for a long time. Then he opened the book with the Liszten for the Killer sketch, and set it alongside. Both so dark. Both so filled with menace and sadness and fear. At some stage in your life, something dark entered it, he said to Links in his mind. But what was it?
Had ‘Thrawl’ been a real place? It could only have been an asylum or a workhouse, or possibly a gaol. But if so, what had Links’s connection been to it? People did not wander in and out of asylums or workhouses or prisons, and set up an easel or sit unchallenged with a sketchbook. Could Links have been an inmate? Phin’s mind flinched from the possibility of Links being insane or a violent criminal. Could he have been visiting someone? Working there, even? Or, again, had the place not actually existed – had it been a dark fantasy from Links’s imagination?
He put a pan of pasta on the cooker, stirred in a ready-made cheese sauce, and while it was all simmering searched for the card that Loretta Farrant had given him.
‘Is there,’ he said, carefully, when she answered, ‘any chance that I could be allowed a second look at those old papers in the restaurant?’
Loretta sounded pleased to hear from him. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Have you found out anything useful?’
‘I’m not sure yet,’ said Phin, noncommittally. ‘One or two small things have cropped up – probably they won’t turn out to be important or relevant, but if I could have half an hour or so to look through those boxes again, I’d be very grateful. I’d be looking for different information, this time, you see.’ He did not want to say he would be looking for Links and an old asylum or workhouse.
‘Could you manage a Sunday morning? We’d be closed then and I could get the boxes out ready. We could go down to the office, and you could take as long as you wanted.’
‘Thank you. This coming Sunday?’
‘Why not?’