Who Buries the Dead

Chapter 48

Tuesday, 30 March

The next morning dawned cold and misty, with a bitter wind blowing down out of the north. Priss Mulligan was wrapped in a heavy shawl and poking around the jumble of old glass and metal items displayed on a Houndsditch street stall when Sebastian walked up to her.

“I understand you know Diggory Flynn,” he said.

She looked over at him, her lower lip distended by a plug of tobacco, her beady black eyes widening ever so slightly. “Oh? And how ye know that?”

“Deduction.”

“Ain’t ne’er heard of nobody named Dee Duckshun,” she said with a sniff and returned her attention to the secondhand stall.

Sebastian watched her pick up a tarnished old candlestick and squint at it. He said, “You heard Knox is dead?”

“Aye.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “’Tis a pity. He was a good-lookin’ lad, that one.”

“I think Diggory Flynn killed him.”

“Now, what would he want to go and do that for?”

“Because he mistook Knox for me.”

Priss Mulligan stared thoughtfully at Sebastian, then turned her head to shoot a stream of tobacco juice into the gutter. “Aye; ’tis possible, I s’pose. There’s no denying the two of you is as alike as a couple o’ pups out the same litter.”

Sebastian said, “I think Flynn is working for you.” Or Sinclair Oliphant. Or Anne Preston, he thought, watching her carefully.

She used her tongue to shift the wad of tobacco to her cheek. “Sure then, but Flynn ain’t ne’er worked for me. With me, meybe, from time to time. But ne’er for me.”

“And why should I believe you?”

She shrugged. “Ask anybody knows him.”

“I could ask him myself if I knew where to find him.”

Her lips pulled into a wide grin that showed her small, tobacco-stained teeth. “Ho; you think I’m gonna tell you, do you? Not likely.” She winked. “Fact is, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. He contacts me; not t’other way around.”

He watched her set aside the candlestick and reach for a small glass figurine. He said, “You’re Irish, aren’t you?”

The question obviously took her by surprise, because she hesitated and looked up at him again. “What’s that got t’ do with anythin’?”

“Have you ever heard of a Dullahan?”

“Course I have. Why?”

“Tell me about it.”

She dropped her voice low and waved one small, childlike hand through the air like a storyteller conjuring an image. “Keeps his own head tucked up under one arm, he does. Oh, he’s a fright to look at: little black eyes always dartin’ this way and that, with a grinnin’ mouth as wide as his skull and skin like moldy cheese. Carries a whip made from a dead man’s backbone, and when he calls your name, it’s your turn to die. Ain’t nothin’ you can do to stop him. You can try barring your gate and lockin’ your door, but they’ll just open for him, like magic.”

“He rides a horse?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes he drives a carriage.” She sniffed. “Why you wanna know about the Dullahan? He don’t like bein’ watched, you know. You try watchin’ him, and he’ll pluck out your eyes with his whip. That, or throw a bucket o’ blood on you, markin’ you as the next to die.”

“I hear there’s one thing that will scare him away.”

She gave a breathy laugh, her small eyes practically disappearing in the fat of her face as she fished beneath her shawl and came up with a bored gold coin tied around her neck by a leather thong. “Sure then, ’tis gold. Why you think the rich don’t die as often as the poor?”

“Lots of food. A warm fire. A solid roof over their heads.”

“Meybe,” she said with a sniff. “Though I still don’t see what the Dullahan’s got to do with nothin’.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t,” said Sebastian, and walked away, leaving her staring after him, the glass figurine held forgotten in one fist and her eyes narrowed with malevolent suspicion.

Chapter 49

T he little girl clutched the rusty tray of nuts against her thin chest. She was a tiny thing, with spindly arms and legs, a pale, wind-chapped face, and lifeless hair the same dull brown as her eyes. She told Hero her name was Sarah Devon. She was nine years old, and she’d already been selling nuts for three years.

“I didn’t start on the streets till after Papa died,” she told Hero. “He was a whitesmith, you know-sold tin and pewter. For a while, Mama tried to keep us on what she makes selling oranges, but it weren’t enough. So she took to sending me out with six ha’pennies’ worth of nuts. I’m supposed to bring back sixpence.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

The little girl’s gaze slid away. “She don’t usually beat me. Only when she’s been drinking. And she don’t drink more’n once a week. Usually.”

Hero’s sympathy for the struggling widow instantly vanished. “You always sell your nuts here, in Piccadilly?”

“Mostly, m’lady. Although sometimes I goes into the public houses. I like the taprooms; it’s warm in there.”

Hero looked up from scribbling her notes. “You sell your nuts in taverns?” She tried to keep the shock off her face, but she must not have entirely succeeded because Sarah took a hesitant step back.

“I usually only goes into the Pied Duck,” said Sarah, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. “The barman used to be a friend of Papa’s, and if he’s there, he doesn’t let the men be rude to me.”

“Are the men rude?”

The little girl hung her head. “Sometimes.”

Hero’s fist clenched around her pencil so hard she heard it crack.

“Here,” she said, pressing two shillings into the little girl’s hand. “Only, don’t give it all to your mother at once or she’s liable to drink it up.”

Sarah’s fingers closed around the coins, her eyes going wide. “I thought you said you’d give me a shilling if I talked to you. So why’re you giving me two?”

Because you’re so thin and frail it breaks my heart, thought Hero. Because I don’t want you to have to worry about being beaten when you go home. Because little girls shouldn’t need to sell nuts in taverns to survive.

But all she said was, “Because you’ve been so very helpful.”

Sarah tipped her head to one side. “You really gonna write about us costers in the newspapers?”

“Yes.”

She looked thoughtful. “I don’t mind going out in the street to sell, you know. It’s better’n staying inside without a fire and with nothing to do.”

Which was, Hero decided as she walked back to her carriage with the two footmen Devlin had insisted she bring with her, a consolation of sorts.

But only if she didn’t think too much about it.