Free A Very Peculiar Plague by Catherine Jinks

out,’ he begged Alfred, who had joined him at the window.
    But Alfred shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t be safe.’
    ‘Yes, it would! I’m a good climber!’
    ‘That ain’t here nor there.’ As Jem opened his mouth to protest, Alfred growled, ‘It’s the bogle as worries me, not the climbing. We don’t want to lay our bait afore we set our trap.’ Having silenced Jem, he turned to the plumber. ‘Where did you last see yer boy? Can you show me the exact spot?’
    ‘I can,’ said Purdy, dropping his toolbag. Next thing he was out on the roof, tying a length of rope to the balustrade. Once this rope had been attached to Alfred’s waist, the two men began to inch their way along the gutter, while Jem lay across the windowsill, straining to see as much as he could without actually setting foot outside.
    ‘Last time I saw Billy, I were up there, working,’ Purdy explained, pointing at the roof’s peak. ‘He came down the ladder to fetch more lead. Then his singing stopped, and when I next looked up . . .’ He trailed off with a sigh.
    Alfred stiffened. ‘You heard him singing ?’
    ‘I did. He had a fine voice.’
    The bogler frowned. Jem knew that the bogle would have been drawn to Billy’s voice.
    ‘So he didn’t go nowhere near that chimney?’ was Alfred’s next question.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Where was yer lead?’
    ‘I left it there. In a box.’ This time Purdy indicated a spot halfway between the ladder and the window. Alfred squinted at this patch of gutter. Then he asked, ‘Are you sure the boy didn’t go back inside?’
    ‘He had no cause to. I checked the box later, and saw lead enough in it.’
    ‘But would he have gone to relieve himself?’
    Purdy hesitated. At last he said, in a slightly sheepish tone, ‘There’s gutters for that, or we’d be up and down all day.’
    Alfred gave a grunt. Jem wanted to inquire about solid waste, but didn’t dare; not after the way he had been scolded for speaking out of turn that morning. Instead, he peered around at the gleaming expanse of grey slate, the half-finished flashing, the narrow chimneypots and the little turrets on the balustrade, wondering where a bogle could possibly have hidden itself. Had the missing apprentice really been eaten? It seemed so unlikely – and not just because there were no obvious boltholes on the roof. Jem found it hard to believe that a bogle was lurking nearby, because he didn’t feel gloomy or hopeless. Even under such low, brooding clouds, the roof seemed like a peaceful spot, far removed from the dirt and clamour of the street.
    Jem had slept in far worse places.
    ‘Besides, Billy wouldn’t have gone off without asking,’ Purdy was telling Alfred. ‘And if he did, where is he now? I looked in the cellar. I looked in the coalhole. He ain’t in this house , Mr Bunce.’
    ‘What’s that?’ Alfred said suddenly.
    His wandering gaze had snagged on something. Jem leaned even further out of the window, desperate to see what had alarmed the bogler. Only by craning his neck and shading his eyes was he finally able to make out a kind of grating, which was set into the thick wall that divided the house beneath them from the one next to it.
    ‘That ain’t no downpipe,’ Alfred continued, steadying himself against the balustrade. ‘What’s it for?’
    ‘Oh, that,’ said Purdy. ‘That’s a ventilation shaft.’
    ‘A what?’ Alfred didn’t sound any wiser, so the plumber tried to explain.
    ‘It troubled me too, until I mentioned it to a friend o’ mine. He’s a flusher in the sewers, and told me there’s a great tangle o’ pipes and tunnels built into the viaduct. That there . . .’ Purdy nodded at the grating. ‘. . . is a shaft as lets out sewer gas from under the street.’
    ‘ Sewer gas? ’ Alfred echoed. He glanced at Jem, who grimaced.
    ‘There’s one in every party-wall built along here,’ Purdy related. ‘My friend tells me there’s gratings set into the road, as well. And shafts in the