Free The Body in the Fog by Cora Harrison Page B

police’s way in minutes and be running along a roof, or down a cellar. Once they get into St Giles or Devil’s Acre they’re safe. No one in those places
would dare to squeal to the police.’
    ‘I’ve thought of something else,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t think that hole in Jemmy’s forehead looked like it were done with a stick. More like something really
heavy rammed into him. I remember seeing the bones pointing backwards.’
    ‘Well,’ said Alfie, ‘we’d better get to work. The thought of that ten-pound reward makes me hungry. Even a quarter of it would make us rich. We need all the information
that we can get about how Jemmy spent the day – who he talked to and all that sort of thing. Jack, you do the fish market, Sammy and I will have a chat with as many of the other beggars in
Trafalgar Square as we can find. Tom, you try the street sweepers. They often know something.’
    ‘What about the place that he dossed down in?’ asked Tom.
    ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Alfie. ‘As soon as it’s dark I’ll go down to Opium Sal’s place and have a few words with her. I have a feeling that the
solution to the mystery is there.’
    ‘Don’t go down to that opium den on your own,’ said Sarah with a shudder. ‘You never know with people who take opium. They’re fine when they have it and then after
a few hours they need it again and they turn violent. They say Opium Sal would rob or murder to get the money for it. A girl I knew at the Coram Fields place – her mother took opium; she had
to have it or she got the shakes, or else started screaming. Patsy told me that it costs more than a week’s wages to buy a thimbleful – imagine that!’
    Alfie could imagine. His father had owned a thimble to fit over his finger when he was stitching the heavy leather of shoes and the boys’ grandfather used to tell Sammy stories about it
being a cup for the fairies. It would only have held a half-teaspoon of the powder.
    ‘Take Jack with you,’ said Sarah. ‘Opium Sal’s place could be dangerous.’

CHAPTER 16
O PIUM S AL

    When Alfie set off that evening, once the supper of steak and kidney pie had been eaten and reports had been made, it was Sammy, not Jack, that he took with him.
    Alfie was fond of Jack, but Sammy was his brother and Alfie had a good opinion of Sammy’s brains. And, of course, Sammy could hear things that were left unsaid, could reproduce any voice
that he heard, remember the exact words said, and analyse things afterwards. So far they had made little progress in this puzzling matter. Alfie hoped that tonight would give them some new
leads.
    Alfie would have liked to have taken Mutsy, as well – he always felt safer when the big dog was with him – but that was impossible. Opium Sal would be terrified of him and some of
her customers might be out of their minds and see the dog as a demon or some creature of their nightmares.
    The church bells were ringing nine o’clock when the two of them set out, walking down St Martin’s Lane, across Trafalgar Square, and then turning into Hungerford Lane.
    Apart from the prosperous fish market opposite Trafalgar Square, Hungerford was a terrible place. There was a network of narrow, badly-lit lanes, and between them were dozens of small courts,
each lined with tumbledown houses.
    Alfie knew the place well and led Sammy without hesitation through the rabbit warren of lanes until they came to a narrow gateway leading to a courtyard that looked even worse than the
surrounding ones.
    ‘Terrible place,’ he said to Sammy in a whisper. ‘Worse than any of the others. Covered in filth and rusty old pots and pans. And Opium Sal’s house is the worst of the
lot. Don’t know why old Jemmy dossed down here.’
    ‘Never could keep a civil tongue in his head,’ said Sammy. ‘No one else would have him. I wonder why Opium Sal let him stay. Jack said he heard her cursing him one day as she
passed and Jemmy cursed her back, even