The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [54]
In the Old Red Lion, he procured a pen and a scrap of paper from one of the pot boys and scribbled a note to Godfrey Bond, instructing his uncle to collect as much hard currency as he could manage, and meet him on the south side of London Bridge at midday.
He didn’t want Godfrey arriving in a thieves’ den like Smithfield or Field Lane carrying a large sum of money. He wanted their meeting place to be public, safe and identifiable, somewhere that even Godfrey would know how to find. And should Godfrey be followed, it was important that Pyke had his route of escape planned. In this scenario, Pyke would see anyone who was following his uncle and would be able to slip off into the labyrinthine streets that surrounded Southwark Cathedral.
Taking a half-crown from his pocket, he placed it into the pot boy’s hand and explained that if he successfully delivered a note to a Mr Godfrey Bond in person, then Bond would give him a whole guinea for his efforts. The boy looked down at the coin in his hand and gave Pyke a toothy grin. Pyke told him Bond could be found at number seventy-two St Paul’s Yard, and if he was not there the boy was to go to the George Inn on Camden Place. If not there, then the Castle in Saffron Hill, or the Blue Boar in Holborn, and if Godfrey was not in either of those places, the boy was to look for him in the New Wheatsheaf at the top of Ludgate Hill or the Privateer on Wellington Mews.
The boy squinted at him and grinned. ‘I take it this friend of yours likes to take a drink.’
But stupidly, Pyke had not thought to take into account the fog, which had thickened throughout the rest of the morning, so that by the time he heard the Southwark bells, less than a few hundred yards away, chiming midday, he could barely see his own hands and feet, let alone the towering cathedral. The fog was thick but patchy, and as it swirled around him he caught glimpses of the new bridge, which was being built alongside the old one, wooden scaffolding supporting the giant granite arches, and beyond that, disembodied masks of tall ships bobbed up and down in the choppy waters like ghostly apparitions. It was bitterly cold, and his new clothes had left him desperately exposed to the elements. He dug his hands into his pockets and scanned the faces of those walking towards him across the old bridge for any sign of his uncle. The fog momentarily cleared and he saw Wren’s mighty dome appear in the distance and then vanish, as though by a malevolent act of conjuring.
The bridge itself was, literally, falling down. There were no houses or shops on it, as there once had been - they had long since been demolished - and more recently the cobbled surface had been widened, to accommodate more traffic, but these changes had not made the bridge any more secure. The fact that a new bridge was being constructed was a testament to its decrepitude. The creaking arches, which housed waterwheels and supported the main crossing, had been badly damaged by the last big freeze, when the river had completely iced over.
Pyke could hear the giant waterwheels turning beneath him, sucking up the river’s dirty water and pumping it across to both banks for human consumption. No wonder people existed on a diet of gin and beer and did not even think about drinking water they knew to be polluted.
Figures appeared ten or twenty yards ahead of him out of the fog. A city clerk hurried past him clutching a bundle of papers, already late for his appointment, followed by a Jewish pedlar whose feigned shuffle belied his hawk-like gaze and a respectably dressed woman who made a point of passing Pyke on the other side of the road. A few minutes later, a sweeper with an unsteady gait and a sweaty visage stopped for a while in the middle of the bridge