Belle - Lesley Pearse [46]
Alf lived in the Core. The man was around seventy and he shared a room with several others in a similar plight to himself. If it wasn’t for the kindness of inn keepers like Garth who let him wash a few glasses and sweep the floor in return for a hot meal and a shilling or two, he wouldn’t be able to survive.
‘Do you know this man they call the Falcon?’ Jimmy asked as he dried some glasses for Alf.
‘Aye, and a nasty piece of work he is too,’ Alf said, then looked over his shoulder as if the man might be there. ‘You don’t want no truck with him, son.’
‘Why are you scared of him?’ Jimmy asked.
Alf pulled a face. ‘When you’re my age and a man can throw you out on to the street because he doesn’t like the look of you, it’s as well to be scared of him.’
‘He’s your landlord?’ Jimmy asked, hoping Alf would tell him more.
‘I don’t know if he actually owns the place, but he certainly sends out the slimy bastard who comes to collect the rent. He’s got his spies everywhere, anyone gets in another person to help with the rent, and next thing you know you’ve got to pay more. I didn’t have the rent one night and he said if I didn’t take it to the office the next day I’d find myself out on the street.’
‘Did you get it by then?’ Jimmy asked. Alf was so thin and frail that he looked as though a gust of wind would blow him over. He usually smelled bad, but he couldn’t help that when he lived in such an awful place. And Alf was a good man, honest as the day.
‘Yeah, I got it to him.’ Alf rolled his eyes. ‘He was sitting there with his feet up on the desk, lording it over me. Bet he’s never done a real day’s work in his life.’
‘So where is his office?’ Jimmy asked.
Jimmy could hardly contain his joy at finding out that Kent’s office was in Mulberry Buildings in Long Acre. Knowing his uncle wouldn’t approve of him breaking and entering, not even the office of a murderer, Jimmy waited until the bar was closed for the night and Garth gone to bed, then he crept out the back way.
Long Acre was near Covent Garden market, a street which was mainly offices and small businesses rather than homes. Because the market was at its busiest during the night, and there were many young lads working there, Jimmy felt confident he wouldn’t look suspicious being around that area. He found Mulberry Buildings easily, and when he looked at the signboard outside it, he noted that most of the tenants were printers and allied tradesmen. Hoping this meant the security would be lax as the premises were hardly likely to be attractive to burglars, he went round to the back alley to try to find a way in.
He couldn’t believe his luck when he found a window open just a crack on the ground floor. But sadly, once he was inside the printer’s, he found the internal door that led to the rest of the building was locked. He had taken the precaution of bringing his uncle’s spare bunch of keys with him, but although he tried them all, none would open the door, so he had to climb back out through the window and try elsewhere.
When he reached the second floor by shinning up the drainpipe he saw a small transom window open within easy reach. He climbed over on to the sill, put his hand in the small window and opened the larger one beneath it.
He found himself in what seemed to be a storeroom. When he lit the candle he’d brought in his pocket he saw hundreds of boxes of printing paper stacked in piles all around the room. He wriggled through them to the door, and to his delight this wasn’t locked.
The storeroom led on to a narrow landing on which there were five other doors and as he walked along the landing he saw a small sign on the one at the end to the front of the building. Holding his candle closer, he read, ‘Kent Management’.
The door was locked and he had to put his candle down to try the keys on his bunch. To his disappointment, again none of them worked. But as he bent down to pick up