Dodger

Hill left me fairly skint, sir, so I reckon it will take me some time to get the wherewithal for seeing her decent, sir. Do you reckon they will have her at Crossbones?’ 1
    ‘That I cannot say, madam, but I hardly think that your dear niece so fresh from the country was anything like a’ – and here the coroner cleared his throat, embarrassed, and went on – ‘a Winchester goose.’ Most unusually, he took out his handkerchief to wipe away a tear and continued, ‘Madam, I cannot but be very moved by your plight and your determination to do the very best for the soul of this unfortunate young lady. I will guarantee you that – we have no shortage of ice, after all – your young niece can remain here, not for ever, but certainly for a week or two, which I reckon should be enough for me to contact those others that may be able to help you in your plight.’
    He took a step backwards as the old woman tried to throw her rather smelly arms around him, saying, ‘God bless you, sir, you truly are a gentleman, sir. I will turn over every stone, sir, so I will, right away, sir, thank you so much for all your kindness. Got a few friends I could talk to. Might help me write a letter to her mum, on the postage, and I’ll move Heaven and earth not to put you to any trouble, sir. Can’t be said that we will let one of our own go into a pauper’s grave, sir.’ At which point tears actually were pouring down the coroner’s face. And Dodger meant it. The man had been a decent cove; that was something to keep in mind.
    The coroner deputized his officer to assist the old lady back to the wharf, and before saying goodbye pressed into her hand enough money for the waterman, and so the unknown watcher on the moon watched the poor old lady work her way through the naughty city until, as she walked down an alley, she suddenly appeared to drop into the sewers, where the old woman died but was instantly – possibly to do with the Lady – reincarnated as Dodger, and a shaken Dodger at that.
    He was used to playing roles; to be Dodger was to be a man of all seasons and seasonings, everybody’s friend, nobody’s enemy, and all this was fine, but sometimes that all went away and it was just Dodger, alone in the dark. He realized that he was shaking, and down in the hospitable sewers he heard the sounds of London floating through the grating. He carefully packed up the trappings of the old lady into a bundle, endeavouring to memorize the placement of every single wart. Then he set off.
    He was still as upset about the drowned girl as the old lady had been. It was a shame, and he would have to see to it that when all this was over the poor unknown girl did indeed get a decent burial, rather than a pauper’s grave or worse. He absent-mindedly toshed his way across the city, more or less instinctively becoming sixpence farthing richer in the process.
    Well, he’d got the coroner sorted out, but corpses need careful attention and there was nothing for it – he would have to go and see Mrs Holland. That meant going to Southwark, and even a geezer like Dodger had to be careful there. But if ever a geezer was careful, it was Dodger.
    Mrs Holland. She had no other name; well, she was a gang all by herself, and if that wasn’t enough there was her husband Aberdeen Knocker, known to his friends as Bang, who had in all probability never seen the city of Aberdeen, which was somewhere up north, like maybe in Wales. The soubriquet had settled on him as such things did on the streets of London, indeed as the name Dodger had landed on Dodger, but Bang’s skin was as black as your hat and a very black hat at that, and he had been married, theoretically at least, to Mrs Holland these past sixteen years. Their son, known to everybody for some reason as Half Bang, was as smart as a dungeon full of lawyers and really being of use in the family business, which was basically property and people.
    But Mrs Holland was a great organizer with a very fertile imagination. Probably every sailor who had docked in the port of London had gone to Mrs Holland’s League, as they called it, usually to meet the young ladies who adorned the upper floors of the building while Mrs Holland took charge of everything in her office downstairs. Of course, Mrs Holland being Mrs Holland, sometimes it was rumoured those sailors, once they were rascally drunk, were shanghaied and sent on a lovely cruise whose destination might be round Cape Horn, or possibly Davy Jones’