Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [1]
The fog was yellow as always, and so thick that the tall, dark slum buildings that surrounded them, the rookeries, where people lived ten or twenty to a room, could barely be seen.Their feet crackled on the cobbles as they turned left away from the tavern and plunged into the fog. Within seconds the fog had swallowed not only the tavern itself, but the welcoming glow from its windows.
For the next ten minutes the men wandered through a maze of alleyways and backstreets, most so narrow that they had to travel in single file. They passed clusters of children huddled together in doorways like sacks of rubbish, disturbed packs of rats, which scampered before them like living clumps of darkness.
Eventually they slipped down an alleyway and emerged into a cobbled courtyard of sorts, surrounded on three sides by the soot-blackened walls of more of the East End's ubiquitous slum dwellings.The fog was so thick here, and the buildings so tall, that the sky could not be seen. Grey rags of washing hung limply on lines that stretched from one side of the courtyard to the other, high above the men's heads, like the pathetic flags of an impoverished nation. In the far corner of the courtyard, smothered by the fog until you got close enough to reach out and touch its nose, stood a mangy horse, tethered to a ramshackle cart covered by a tarpaulin.
The man gave a hiss of satisfaction and hurried to the rear of the cart, slipping past Jack and Albert like a shadow.The two East Enders hung back, Albert pulling a thick rag over his mouth and nose and tying it at the back of his head as though parodying their employer's muffler-obscured features. Jack would have done the same, but was reluctant to show any sign of weakness to the man. Instead he took shallow breaths through his mouth, tasting the sulphur that yellowed the air, feeling it catch in his throat.
Both Jack and Albert were used to bad smells, but this was far worse than the normal day-to-day odours: this was the high, sickening stench of bodily corruption. Their habit when they worked was to rub horse manure into the rags they covered their faces with. Though that in itself was a fetor that could make a man's head swim and his eyes water, it was preferable to the noisome stink issuing from the bodies of the recently dead.
Their top-hatted companion, however, seemed singularly unaffected by the smell that filled the courtyard. Lithe as a monkey, he clambered over the tailgate of the cart and yanked the heavy tarpaulin aside. Though the fog reduced him to little more than a blurred silhouette, Jack sensed the man's eagerness and was glad of it, thinking of the gin he would buy later. He knew all too well what sight the man was presently feasting his eyes upon -
the heaped cadavers of men, women and infants, some still so fresh that the maggots had only just begun their busy work.
'How many?' the man asked, crouched like a ghoul above the grave pickings. 'How many tonight?'
Albert, who did not know his numbers, looked to Jack.
'Seventeen,'Jack said.
'And you were not seen? You left no trace of your work?'
'None,' confirmed Jack.
'Excellent,' the man murmured. He took one last greedy look at his booty, then dragged the heavy tarpaulin across, leapt down from the back of the cart and climbed up on to the seat behind the horse.
Jack stepped forward expectantly as the man reached into the pocket of his dark overcoat. Sure enough, the man's pale hand emerged clutching a fistful of coins, which he tossed on to the cobbled ground as casually as if he were tossing food scraps for hungry dogs. Jack held himself back as the coins chinked and rolled; he wouldn't be seen grovelling in front of anyone.
Albert was not so proud, but he was scared - of both the man and Jack, and so he held himself back too.
'I will see you tomorrow, gentlemen,' the man said. 'The arrangements will be as always.'
'Very good,' said Jack drily.