Sweet Things Dying - Chapter V

The sixth instalment returns us to Cole's present investigation...

V

London

December 1887

Bethnal Green was a step north of Spitalfields. A century earlier it had been a haven of country parks and silk weavers’ cottages. Now one of the worst slums of London, it was a jumble of dirty courts wherein thrived workhouses, violent gangs, and the shambling poor. Cole found it little different from many other corners of the East End, at least in appearance. Yet something in the air over Bethnal Green spoke to how rotted the district had become, distinct from the rest of London’s sour decay.

He had steeled himself against the night with a quick supper and a hot rum before, with hands thrust in his pockets and eyes downcast, he’d set out along Brick Lane, his mind buried in thought. It was the occasional gas-lamp and the lit windows of shops and pubs that guided him along the darkened pavement. While the clouds had cleared, the thick smoke from countless chimneys blotted out the starlight. The scent of hot coals that underlay the smoke granted an illusion of warmth, but the cold still bit his ears and made his nose drip. He ran a sleeve across it.

A barefoot child ran past him, down a narrow lane filled with sagging houses, ducking beneath the worm-eaten timbers that propped up the walls. More children followed, their naked feet slapping the stones and echoing off into the blackness of the lane. Did they have somewhere to go? A home? Somewhere to find even a bit of shelter? Cole thought of his own childhood amongst the wilds of Whitechapel – thought of his brother and father – and the narrow lives they’d eked out. While his father had failed them in many ways, he never remembered spending a winter’s night outside, barefoot and freezing. His father had at least been prescient enough to provide some basics – at least until Cole and William, his brother, could manage on their own.

A young boy’s dying scream shattered his memories. Cole gave a start, snapping his head around to see where it had come from. But it was gone the moment he’d pulled himself from his reverie and he realised it had simply been a part of them. Always had been, always would be. He hated his father for the mental scars left carved into his memories.