Supply and Demand Read online

  ‘We could go back to that tavern we passed on the way up?’ suggested Randall. ‘The Six Bells, weren’t it? Wait it out a while. Come back in a couple of hours?’

  A tall pendulum clock ticked lazily in the corner and said it was five minutes past eleven. The wind moaned down the chimney breast and Shanklin stepped nearer to the window, staring out as the rain streaked the greasy glass. There was a fog rolling in, a thick, grey wall wrapping itself around the house and giving him the feeling he was trapped here. ‘And risk missing him again?’ he said. ‘Or getting lost in that out there? No, we wait. At least till the weather lifts.’

  Randall sighed. ‘Well there’s bound to be some clank lying around here. ‘We could have a better look and see—’

  ‘We’re not here for the silver,’ Shanklin said, ‘even if there was any, which I very much doubt there is, judging by the state of the place.’

  Randall raised his eyebrows. ‘Right, well, we’d better just make ourselves at home then.’

  Shank’s gaze returned to the fog outside. ‘Before you get comfortable,’ he said, ‘bring the horses round the back so they’re out of sight. I want to give this prick the surprise of his life when he walks in.’

  The cabinet door Shanklin tugged at for the second time in two hours still wasn’t budging; locked tight just like it was earlier. Just like it would be until he found a key that’d fit, which was as likely as finding anything helpful in this place. The thought of shooting a hole in the lock had crossed his mind of course but that’d put an end to any bottles that might be nested inside, and besides, they’d already left a gaping wound in the kitchen window. Unlike the house itself, Shanklin liked to keep his work tidy. The owner may have fallen out of favour with Mr. Ditchwater but that wasn’t licence to go smashing the place up.

  But Christ, he was thirsty. There was the river feeding the barn’s wheel of course but, given the stench down there, Shanklin would sooner trust to licking the moisture from the inside of the windows than risk drinking that. Randall’s suggestion of finding an alehouse had its appeal but that’d give him the satisfaction of having had a good idea of his own. Above that, the surprise element they now had over their mystery bootmaker was too tempting to throw away. So, Shanklin would wait for his drink and he’d enjoy it all the more when it finally came.

  He dropped himself into a tatty armchair after adjusting his pistol so he wouldn’t shoot his cock off as he sat down. Things might’ve been a little stale between him and Sarah but there were other women out there and the day may yet come when he’d get to use it again.

  Randall sat on the other side of the room, settled so far back into a battered, red velvet sofa he was practically lying down. He had a boot propped on the lip of a low table like he was about to scrape the mud from its sole, clicking his teeth like he usually did when he had something to say. Shanklin could almost hear the cogs grinding in his skull, louder than the damn clock wedged in the corner. Randall wasn’t the type to appreciate a bit of quiet. Always had to be talking. Filling a silence with something, especially when it was as heavy as the one in the room now.

  It seemed the silence finally broke him.

  ‘Did I ever tell you about the first time I did a job for the Butler brothers?’ Randall asked.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘So, I must’ve been fourteen, if that,’ Randall went on, regardless of Shanklin’s obvious disinterest, ‘and they ask me to run an errand for ’em. Nothing heavy, they just want me to nip over to Covent Garden and pick up a pistol from an associate of theirs. Some lunatic called Horace. They tell me to be at his place the next morning, 10 o’clock, sharp.’

  Shanklin closed his eyes but the voice continued.

  ‘So I’m all keen to prove myself, ain’t I?’ said Randall. ‘I don’t think I slept a wink that night. I’m only collecting a gun, it’s not like I’m robbing a coach, but my stomach’s hopping like a fucking flea circus. I mean, it’s the Butlers, ain’t it?’

  Shanklin shrugged. He’d known them well enough. Both upright men. And when the Butler brothers asked you to fetch something, you fetched it, no questions.

  ‘So, it’s a scorching hot day,’ Randall said, ‘and I’m down there for dead-on ten o’clock and I make sure I’ve got the right address. I’m checking the note they’d given me twenty times before I grow the tallywags to go knock on the door. And I’m standing there, sweating like a horse and wishing I hadn’t pulled on a coat just to make myself look bigger than the Duke of Limbs I really was, and this stunning mort of about two and twenty opens the door and my tongue rolls out of my pimpled head. She’s to die for. Ruby lips, eyes green as summer meadows, and these tumbling, golden locks that drape her shoulders. And the tits … the most perfect heavers you ever saw are bulging out of this dress she’s laced into. And I’m thinking: Jesus, I’m in love. And she’s just looking me up and down and wondering what a little sapskull like me is doing standing on her doorstep, gawping. So she asks:

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  ‘And for one moment,’ said Randall, ‘I can’t even remember. My brain’s gone blank. But, stuttering like a ninnyhammer, I manage to tell her that I’m here to pick up a gun from Horace and, after a glance up and down the street, she ushers me inside and slams the door shut. She says that Horace is her boyfriend and he’s out and that I should come upstairs and wait and before I know what I’m doing, I’m following her up this narrow, worn staircase and my panter’s beating like a widow on her dead husband’s coffin. Her rose perfume is in my nose and my prick’s swelling fast as she leads me into a room and tells me to sit down on the bed.’

  Shanklin stifled a grin. He still had the ache with Randall but, though it was a rare thing to hear one of his stories for the first time, he had an idea where it was going.

  ‘So, my mouth’s bone dry,’ Randall went on, ‘and I’m praying all my future errands are gonna be like this one. And I ask if Horace is gonna be long ’cause I’ve gotta get the pistol back to the Butler brothers, but she just mumbles that he’ll be a while yet so I’d better just relax while she goes and fixes us both a drink. Then she’s gone. Well, this bedroom I’m in is like a French fucking boudoir. There’s more frills to it than the dress she’s wearing and it smells of lavender and there’s this huge wardrobe up against one wall and a long mirror propped in the corner. And I catch a glance of myself in it, beaming like a baby with a new rattle. I’m wondering why the hell we ain’t waiting downstairs for her Horace to return but then part of me’s thinking: I couldn’t care less right now! Except it’s hot and stuffy as hell and she hasn’t opened a window yet, so I shrug my coat off and before I know it she’s back in the bedroom with a tray on which there’s two glasses and a bottle of Lady Geneva and she’s complaining about the heat and asking if I’ll help her out of her dress!’

  Shanklin smiled as he fidgeted in the armchair.

  ‘Well, that smile of mine’s run right out the fucking door now!’ Randall said. ‘I’m fourteen years old and shaking like a newborn lamb as she turns her back to me, lifting up her hair for me to help her and I’m just following orders now, ain’t I? I stand up and my knees are knocking and my fingers are fiddling with hooks and buttons and God-knows-what and I’m wondering why she doesn’t just open a fucking window but my tongue’s as fat as innkeeper Tom after a six-course meal and eventually, somehow, everything she’s wearing falls to the floor. She steps out of those layers and she’s got nothing on underneath. Nothing. And she turns to me and I’m gazing at this perfect body of hers with a bone in my breeches so hard I’m near to passing out and she bites softly on her bottom lip and says:

  “You’re a pretty lad, ain’t ya? Why don’t you slip out of those warm clothes too?”’

  Shanklin was shaking his head. ‘Barely off his mother, you little …’

  ‘So now I’m wondering what the hell to do,’ said Randall. ‘Play it like the professional I’m clearly fucking not and tell her she’s got the wrong idea and I’m only he
re for the gun and what if her husband comes home? Or get my own shooter out and see if she wants to have a go? I mean, I hadn’t been with anyone since that first fumble with Imogen Daley and even then I wasn’t sure if I was in or out. So this is my chance, ain’t it? But before I’ve got a minute to think it through, she’s straddling me and pulling my damp shirt over my head and then my boots are off and my breeches are next to go and this pile of clothes is growing on the floor and then she’s kissing my neck and I’m so close to springing a leak it’s nearly all over before it’s begun when … I hear the door bang downstairs! And I freeze! And she freezes. And this horrible, animalistic growl goes:

  “Alice! It’s me!”

  ‘And my guts fall out of my arse right there.’

  Sometimes Shanklin hated Randall for his knack of taking the edge off his temper. ‘What happened?’ he asked, grinning.

  Randall leaned forward. ‘I’ll tell ya what happened: Alice is back on her feet and flying around the room so fast I could feel the breeze on my face. She’s muttering that Horace is home and she wasn’t expecting him back for at least half an hour and I’m stuck to the bed like a limpet on a rock with a cock the size of a dried pea and … I can’t believe what’s happening! Those green and pleasant eyes of hers are filled to the brim with terror and she stops flapping for one moment and she looks at me and she hisses: “Get … out … now!”

  ‘So, somehow I find my legs and I’m fumbling to get my twisted breeches back on while I hear these boots thumping up the stairs. I mean, this bastard sounds like he must weigh eighteen stone with no clothes on, except it’s me and her that’s naked and no matter how hard she tries my delightful, fucking Alice can’t get back into that dress quick enough, and I’m realising that Horrible Horace is on the landing now, right outside the damn door. So I give up on attempting to get dressed and I dive across the bed, scrambling for the window and I’m tugging at the latch, which of course won’t budge, ’cause why would it? And then I hear a scream and it goes: “Heeeeelp, Horaaaaaace! Heeeeelp!”

  ‘So I spin round only to find she’s holding a knife at arm’s length in two trembling hands and Alice’s eyes are wild, I mean insane, and I’m thinking: No, no, you bitch! I’ve been royally done here. And I watch that doorknob turn like time’s slowed down and my fourteen years on this terrible earth are about to come to an end, when the door swings open and … Billy ‘The Bastard’ Butler is standing there laughing about as hard as my cock once was but will never be again. And I’m frozen to the spot. My mouth’s hanging open like a drawbridge, I’ve got a bundle of clothes under one arm and I’m still shitting bricks big enough to build a house. And then his brother, Daniel, jumps out of that huge bloody wardrobe and gives me a shock which nearly sends me through the window regardless of whether it’s open or not. And I see that Alice is laughing too, still holding the knife, while I’m standing there, bare as a plucked chicken and feeling about as brave. And then a couple of other morts stick their little heads in the door and everyone’s having a giggle at my expense. And then I realise … I’m in a brothel, ain’t I? It’s a vaulting school and I’m the one being fucked!’

  ‘Ha! Where?’ asked Shanklin.

  ‘Madam Topham’s.’

  ‘Old Toe Jam? I’m surprised she signed up to a prank like that. Miserable Mackerel she was. I had to laugh when that place burned down. Shame she wasn’t in it at the time.’

  ‘Well, the room was on fire that day, I can tell ya,’ Randall said. ‘It got very hot for me very quickly. I’m blushing bright red all the way down to my boots, which were the only things I’d managed to pull on in time, and Billy comes over, clamps his big hand on my bare back so hard it stings, aims a finger at my shrivelled prick and asks, in between bouts of coughing and laughing: “I hope that ain’t the gun I asked you to collect, ’cause that thing looks about as useful as a child’s toy shooter!”

  ‘To which Alice tells me I couldn’t even take someone’s eye out with a pistol like that!’

  ‘You got away lightly,’ Shanklin said. ‘I’ve heard some tales about the brothers that’d make your toes curl.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t feel too light at the time,’ said Randall. ‘But, to be fair to ’em, Daniel threw Alice the socket money to finish me off. I think she felt sorry for me in the end. “Don’t get too carried away though,” Daniel had said before she went to work on me. “She doesn’t feel anything for your skinny arse. It’s just supply and demand, lad, that’s all it is.”’

  Randall eased himself back into the sofa and gazed up at the damp spots on the ceiling as if they were stars in heaven. ‘And shit, did she supply,’ he said. ‘Alice was as good as I ever imagined. Best four seconds of my life that.’

  ‘Did you go back?’ asked Shanklin.

  Randall winked. ‘Every time I could afford it.’

  ‘Y’know, for such a small sugar stick it’s gonna get you into very big trouble one day.’

  Randall jabbed a finger. ‘Oi! I might not have much to aim with but I always aim to please.’

  ‘And Alice was pleased was she? When you rolled off her, shuddering like a whippet in winter?’

  ‘Y’know, for a ruthless rogue, you’re a proper bell-end,’ said Randall.

  ‘Bigger than the one between your legs anyway,’ Shanklin said, standing up and walking over to the window. He was bored now. Bored of waiting. Bored of hearing that pendulum clock ticking. Two minutes to one. Half the damned day wasted.

  ‘I was at Tyburn the day they hanged the brothers,’ Randall muttered. ‘Side by side they were. Died like men they did.’

  Shanklin wasn’t so sure about that as he watched the rain patter on the window. ‘I was there too. They died pissing their breeches like everyone else who dances for the hangman.’ He’d been doing some thinking of his own lately. Thinking about how it might soon be time for another line of work. ‘You ever wonder why they let you stop for a final drink on the way to the gallows?’ he asked as he observed the grey fields stretching away into the fog. ‘It’s not so they give you a chance to enjoy one last ale, it’s ’cause they want you to dampen yourself in front of an adoring crowd. Doesn’t matter how brave you think you are going to your death in that cart, when the cap goes on your head …’

  Shanklin noticed the reflection of himself in the smeared glass. He wondered if he’d ever see an old man gazing back one day. ‘Supply and demand,’ he said. ‘Just like Daniel Butler told ya. The mob demand the entertainment, the gallows supplies it.’

  Randall puffed out his cheeks. ‘Your faith in humanity is remarkable, Shank. Remind me why I work with you again?’

  Beyond his reflection in the window, Shanklin spotted two horses and a carriage appear from the fog, black as night, trundling down the track towards the house. The bell on the pendulum clock chimed, once.

  ‘Looks like someone’s home just in time for tea,’ he said.

  Randall stood up and clicked his neck to one side. ‘About time. I can’t be sitting here listening to your optimism all day.’

  ‘You lock the front door earlier?’ asked Shanklin.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Good. Then let’s give our friend Mr Grave a warm welcome home.’

  The men retreated into separate corners of the sitting room, deep in the shadows, pistol hammers clicking to full-cock. And they waited. And they listened to the sounds of the coach squeaking to a stop outside and the rain tap-tapping and a carriage door snapping shut before a whip was cracked and hooves clopped away into the distance. Shanklin heard the ramblings of a drunk followed by clumsy footsteps. Randall was just a silhouette in the other corner but when their eyes met, Shanklin saw enough to know they were both thinking the same thing: two men, not one.

  A key rattled in the front door before it whined open, a cold breeze sweeping down the hallway and into the sitting room, papers fluttering on the low table Randall had used to rest his feet.

  ‘Steady now,’ a man said. ‘Take it slow.’ It was a deep voice and well sp
oken with a Caribbean twang. More stumbling followed, shoes scraping and bumping into the already bruised wainscoting.

  Shanklin’s finger eased onto the trigger of his pistol.

  Two shapes staggered into the room, one of them a heavy-set white man with a bushy, grey beard beaded with raindrops. He had a thick arm wrapped around the other’s neck for support and he was dripping wet, dressed in cheap, hole-peppered clothes, filthy as a beggar.

  The black man couldn’t have looked more different. Tall and of slight build, well turned-out in fine boots and a long coat that shimmered from the soaking he’d received outside. The pale light from the window caught his chiseled features and the rim of his round spectacles, and he froze, as still as a statue.

  The man looked at Shanklin, submerged in the shadows. ‘May I help you?’ he asked, nervously.

  Randall and Shanklin came out from the dark, guns low but in plain sight.

  ‘Seems like it’s you who needs the help,’ Shanklin said. ‘He looks heavy. Put him down somewhere and we’ll explain, eh?’

  The man’s eyes brimmed with fear as they slid towards the pistols in his uninvited guests’ hands. He then attempted to drag his drunken friend over to the sofa, dropping the near dead-weight into its embrace. Relieved of the burden, he straightened up, pulling his shoulders back so that Shanklin now saw this was someone who possessed a certain quality. The same couldn’t be said for the scraggy lump he’d just left on the couch. The West Indian man might’ve been on the slim side but he clearly had some strength. Yet despite his best efforts to appear composed he looked more than a little worried, as he had every right to be - there were two strange men with guns standing in his sitting room and they’d not even had so much as a cup of tea.

  Silently approaching the mantelpiece, the black man struck a long match and began lighting three tall candles. ‘So explain,’ he said with a quiver to his voice, ‘if you’d be so kind. Because if you intended on robbing me I think you’d have done it by now and I’m afraid that, although there is much to trip over in this old house, there is very little of value here except candles.’