shut?”
“What d’yer mean?”
“Percy, I won’t ask again. It’s not too late for me to turn you in—one phone call, that’s all it would take.”
“Okay, okay. Keep yer ’air on. A dead ’un did come in, early Sunday mornin’.”
“Thank you. Was it a cop?”
“’Ow the ’ell should I know? ’E was in ’is birthday suit.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Name?”
“Dunno. They didn’t tell me ’is name. Said they didn’t know it either.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“The two geezers what brung ’im in. And before you ask, I’d never seen ’em before in my life.”
He was lying.
“How old was he?”
“Early twenties, I reckon.”
“Was there a post mortem?”
“Nope.”
“Cause of death?”
“Dunno. Register says hypothermia.”
“Is there going to be a funeral?”
“’Ardly. The body’s bin donated to medical science. Stuck-up students’ll be chopping ’im into cat-meat as we speak.”
“On whose authority?”
“None needed. No next of kin. Barnardo’s Boy, so they said.”
“Very convenient…Go on.”
For a moment, Hughes had been about to say something. He was not usually so reluctant to spill the beans. Seeing how afraid Percy was, Johnny was certain that he must be on the right track. He took out another half-crown. To a lad who earned less than £3 a week, this was significant encouragement. It was a pretty significant amount to Johnny, too; well beyond his usual budget for informants. He prayed that Patsel would sign off his expenses.
“I ’aven’t spoken to yer, awright?”
“Yes, yes. Get on with it.”
“Mr Steadman, I’m serious. Sumfink’s up, but I don’t want to lose my job.”
Johnny suddenly wondered if Percy had a wife and family to support. Probably not. Few women, knowing what Percy did for a living, would want those hands touching their flesh.
Realising that he was still holding the mop, Johnny handed it back.
“Here you are. Don’t worry, I won’t say a word. And don’t you go talking to anyone else either. We’ve got an exclusive arrangement, remember.”
“No danger of me blabbing.” Percy dropped his voice. “As it ’appens, I did know one of the geezers. Don’t get me wrong, ’Arry’s a good lad. Wouldn’t ’urt a fly.”
“Who is this Harry? What does he do?”
“’Arry Gogg’s ’is name. ’E’s a porter at Smithfield. Drinks in the Cock most days.”
“Thank you.”
Johnny glanced at his watch. He had under an hour to get his copy to the subs. As usual, most of it was already written in his head.
Someone was coming down the corridor with a trolley. Its wheels needed oiling.
“What made you decide to tell me?”
“I ’aven’t said nuffink, remember.” Percy was whispering now. “But it’s the only case of hypothermia I’ve seen wiv broken bones sticking out the skin.”
Thursday, 10th December, 5.50 a.m.
Johnny got off the tram in St John Street. It had been clear at the Angel but down here the capital was gripped by a choking, freezing smog. Smithfield appeared as a yellow shimmer straight ahead of him.
Even though daybreak was a couple of hours away, it was busier than Piccadilly Circus. Trucks, wagons, vans and carts jostled for position like pigs round a trough. As soon as one lorry had loaded its cargo of meat, the next was sounding its horn, determined to take its place. Others, on an equally tight schedule, were just as desperate to load up and deliver their new stock to butchers’ shops across London. As he approached, he heard raised voices then shouts and the sound of pallets being overturned as a scuffle between drivers broke into a fist-fight. Most of the market workers barely gave the combatants a glance; flare-ups like this were an everyday occurrence at Smithfield.
Still excited by the lead Hughes had given him the night before, Johnny made his way through the mêlée like a man on a mission. The vast iron-and-glass building was a cathedral of corpses, complete with nave, transepts, and aisles. The interior had been decorated with an almost fetishistic attention to detail: every arch, spandrel and lunette was filled with a swirling mass of ferric foliage painted not green but blue. The nave was lined with stalls that stretched as far as the eye could see. Hundreds of skinned and gutted animals, their carcasses shining dully in the electric glare, swung on rails bristling with giant steel hooks. It was a forest of flesh through which strolled potential buyers, some from the kitchens of the very best hotels, inspecting meat and comparing prices.
There was, however, nothing spiritual about Smithfield; under its roof the “inner man” meant the stomach, not the soul. It was devoted to carnality, its services designed to assuage man’s hunger for beef, pork, lamb and poultry. Money was the religion here.
The Central Markets even had their own men of the cloth: porters, known as bummarees, who acted as intermediaries between buyers and sellers. Their white coats and strange hats—a cross between a havelock and a wimple—made them stand out from the mass of black and grey. They were freelances who got paid for what they did, which was why most of them worked on the run, lugging carcasses on their shoulders or dragging wooden carts behind them. As time was money, they brooked no interruption.
Trying not to get in their way, Johnny hurried to keep up as he asked one after another where he might find Harry Gogg. Those that did not ignore him simply professed ignorance. The market workers were a bolshy lot, only too happy to go on strike. The last one, in February, had cut off the meat supply to the whole capital.
Finally Johnny gave up and wandered through the halls. Although the floor was scattered with sawdust, the dripping blood, melting ice and trudging feet had turned it into a gruel-like sludge. If Smithfield was no longer the filthy abattoir described by Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist, it remained a steaming, swarming hive that reeked of death.
As a reporter, Johnny was used to being unwelcome. Most people looked down on journalists. He’d hear them on trams and in cafés and pubs, tut-tutting whenever the tricks of the inky trade got so bad they ended up making the headlines. But it didn’t stop
