Page 14 of Ghost in the Garden
Maybe she didn’t, though Ida doubted it. A very knowing woman, was Angela Lambert. Plus, she was kind at heart, which Ida had cause to know. Who else would have found a place for a gin-sodden old woman in their home, let alone given her a wage and something to do all day?
Ida liked to cook. She had always cooked the best meals and sweet treats for her little ones, bless their poor, lost hearts. The ache never went away. But with the gin and the cooking and Angela, she didn’t mind the living so much now.
And she could still take care of the new girl, Silver, if she proved to be a problem for Angela. Probably she wouldn’t. She had a good face and a good smile. Yet there was somethingwrongabout her being here. She bore watching. And Angela need never know if Ida had to remove her.
Chapter Four
Leaving Janey incharge of the office once more, Solomon walked round to the site of the collapsed building in St. Giles. Unsure what he expected to learn, he found only rubble. The rest had already been picked over by the desperate and the vultures who always descended on disaster areas.
Gazing at the devastation, he felt the resurgence of anger. This had been a wholly preventable disaster. Negligence by Gregg and his predecessors going back decades was to blame. Along with the overcrowding that had made the building so hard to escape from.
“Going to build a palace out of that, guv?” asked an old woman with a cackle.
Solomon turned to face her. She was carrying a large sack of washing over her bent back. “What on earth happened here?” he asked, in the hope of learning more from local opinion.
She shrugged. “Roof collapsed, didn’t it? Everything was rotten, including the bloody landlord.” She spat on the ground. “Eighteen dead, more crippled. Some reckon they’ll try Huxley Gregg, but he’ll get off—his sort always do. Even if they bang him up, won’t bring the dead back, will it? Won’t stop it happening again, neither. Bad enough dying of cholera without the roof falling in on you to make sure.”
“What happened to those who survived? Where did they go?”
She nodded at the next tenement along. “Some squashed in there. Same landlord. Some didn’t risk it and went elsewhere if they could.”
“Thank you,” Solomon said politely.
“Coo!” She cackled again. “Ain’t you posh.” She went off on her way, and Solomon risked going on to the next doorway. The building looked curiously vulnerable, as if it too might slide to the ground in a heap now that it didn’t have its neighbor to lean against.
A bunch of small, ragged children rushed inside in front of him. One shouted, “Sorry, mister!”
“Here,” Solomon called after them. “You got a caretaker here?”
Either they didn’t hear him or didn’t know or care. Certainly, no one answered. He sighed and turned toward the first door off the passage, where he found a young woman with a shawl over her straw-like hair, regarding him with sardonic amusement in her otherwise dull eyes.
He smiled at her. “Silly question?”
“He don’t take no care, if that’s what you mean. He’s more of a rent collector, but he does live here. Him and his wife.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Lena!” yelled a voice from within. “Where’s my dinner? I got to die of hunger in this dump?”
“Coming, Granddad,” the girl said. She nodded to the door directly opposite and went inside her own place, though not before Solomon had seen the number of people, mattresses, and beds slung all over the floor, some with makeshift curtains strung up to give privacy. How many families were living in that one room?
He walked across the grimy passage, trying not to think what might be crunching under his shoes.
His knock was answered rather abruptly by a youngish, scowling man in his shirt sleeves with yesterday’s stubble darkening his jaw and his hair uncombed. He might have been thirty years old.
Though his mouth was already open to speak, he shut it again in apparent surprise at the sight of Solomon. “Yes?”
“I understand you are the caretaker of the building? Or at least the rent collector.”
“I am,” the man said, bridling as though he expected criticism. “What’s it to you?” He looked Solomon up and down with growing unease. Solomon wore secondhand clothes he had bought specially to blend in with most societies, but judging by the man’s expression, that wasn’t really working. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m interested,” Solomon said, giving up on subtlety, “in the accident next door.” He stuck his hand in his coat pocket and jingled the coins there.
The rent collector’s gaze dropped to the pocket and rose quickly to Solomon’s face. There was calculation in his eyes now, nervous calculation as he glanced over Solomon’s shoulder toward the stairs, from where strident voices and footsteps could be heard.
“Come in,” he said, all but grabbing Solomon’s arm to drag him inside and close the door.
The room was clean, and it was warm enough for its occupant to be comfortable in shirt sleeves in winter. The heat source was a stove burning merrily in the corner. Clearly, there were no leaks or drafts in this room, which was a good size and well proportioned, furnished with a proper kitchen next to the stove, a couple of upholstered armchairs. A table and two hard chairs occupied the middle of the room, with a large bed and chest at the other end.
