Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [92]
‘The object of the raid is to frighten people into telling us where she’s being held,’ he began. ‘Shout, push, but hold back on using your cudgels, they are only for those standing in our way, not the poor sods who live in the hovels.
‘They’ll be reluctant to tell us anything. They may be down and out but even they have a code of not squealing. They are out in the alleys at all hours, though, so some of them must have seen Beth brought there.
‘Finally, watch out for the children. There’ll be hundreds of them; it will be like stirring up an ants’ nest. We don’t want hurting one of them on our consciences.’
‘Are we all to go in at once?’ Karl, the big blond Swede, asked.
‘No. I’ll go in with Pasquale and Dieter, to make sure the Italians and Germans understand what we want. The rest of you block the door to stop any escaping. I’ve got some money to offer as a bribe, so keep your eyes and ears open for anyone who acts or looks like they know what we want.’
Jack handed Sam a spare cudgel, knowing he wouldn’t have thought to bring any kind of weapon. He noted that Theo had a stout walking stick, which surprised him; he had expected the man to produce a knife.
Jack led the way, Sam beside him, and the others followed close on their heels.
It was odd seeing the alleys so empty and peaceful after the crowds and noise on the previous day. They passed many drunks lying insensible on the frosty ground. Jack wondered fleetingly how many of their number would never wake up, for he’d heard that the death rate in winter here included many who’d frozen to death.
But it wasn’t entirely silent. They could hear snoring and babies crying, and there was the inevitable rustling of rats going about their business.
They began with Blind Man’s Court, and Pasquale lit the lantern he’d brought with him. As Jack had expected, there was no lock on the front door, nor even any on the door of the first room they charged into. As Pasquale held the lantern up they saw there were at least fifteen people huddled in together on the floor like sardines in a tin.
‘Where’s the girl?’ Jack yelled, prodding bodies with his cudgel. ‘Come on, tell me where she is!’
One by one heads lifted, blinking in the light of the lantern. A woman screamed, a man swore at them, but Jack persisted. ‘Someone brought a girl here by force yesterday,’ he said. ‘It was around six in the evening. Did you see her?’
Pasquale repeated the message in Italian when he heard some of his countrymen’s voices. That brought forth a torrent of words and Jack looked questioningly at Pasquale, for though he’d learned a few Italian phrases, he couldn’t understand them.
‘They say to go away, they haven’t seen anything. They are upset you woke them up.’
‘D’you believe them?’
Pasquale nodded. ‘We’d best try the next room.’
They went through the house systematically, and although they saw some two hundred people, ranging from babies to old folk, they learned nothing. Some of the younger men escaped from them and ran outside, where the others stopped them and questioned them. But they had run not out of guilt, just sheer force of habit. It seemed that a raid on that house usually meant some of their number being sent to the Tombs.
By the time they were ready to move on to the next house, the noise they had created had alerted most of the residents in the little court, and Jack’s men had their work cut out to keep everyone contained within it. Fortunately, as it was still dark and bitterly cold, most were so frightened by the sight of the cudgels that they soon disappeared back inside.
‘She wasn’t brought here, Jack,’ Theo said when they’d been in every house, searching from the cellars up to the attics. ‘I’ve never seen such a pitiful bunch. You saw how hopeful they looked when it got around there was a reward for information! They are half starved — if they knew something they’d have been falling over themselves to tell us.’
‘Let’s hope we find something in Bottle Alley then,’ Jack said wearily.
∗
The situation in Bottle Alley was a repeat of what