The Black Book of Secrets Read online

  ‘It is what I do,’ explained Joe. ‘I buy secrets.’

  Horatio considered the proposal for a short moment. ‘Then buy this,’ he said.

  Ludlow was already settled at the table, the Black Book open before him, and Horatio began.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Extract from

  The Black Book of Secrets

  The Butcher’s Confession

  My name is Horatio Cleaver and I have a dreadful confession.

  Guilt has driven me to the brink of madness. I cannot sleep. Instead I pace the floor until dawn, going over and over in my head what I have done. I desire only one thing: to be freed of my terrible burden.

  I know people think I am a fool, both as a man and as a butcher. I lack the talent that my father, Stanton, had and I am the first to admit it. He was a true master of his trade. His skill with a cleaver was unrivalled and he won every butcher’s competition in the county for his speed and precision. They called him Lightning Stan. To Pagus Parvians he was the greatest hero since Mick MacMuckle, the one-armed blacksmith who could shoe a horse blindfolded.

  To me he was a beast.

  When my mother was alive I was spared the worst of his excesses, but she died, still a young woman, and I was left at his mercy. He was a sly fellow, you see. To the villagers he was a cheerful chap, always ready to flatter the ladies and joke with the gentlemen. But away from the counter, out the back in the cold store, he was a different man. He was a monster. He beat me every day with anything he could get his hands on: pigs’ legs, rump steaks, even chickens with their feathers still on. All the time he told me I should be grateful to him for teaching me his trade.

  ‘Nobody else would have you,’ he said and I began to believe him.

  I was so nervous that I made even more mistakes and he became angrier. He laughed at my spelling, yet wouldn’t allow me any schooling; he mocked my stammer, knowing that only made it worse. As for my work, I did my best but I’m no carver – I’m all fingers and thumbs, what’s left of them. As punishment, or for a joke, he would lock me in the ice store until my hands were so stiff I couldn’t bend them around a knife.

  My life was miserable. At night I slept on the sawdust behind the counter while he snoozed upstairs in front of a warm fire with a glass of whisky. I wanted to run away, but he had me so scared I couldn’t think straight. So I suffered the lashing of tongue and belt, and inside I seethed like a mountain about to explode.

  And then there was Jeremiah Ratchet. My father saw in Jeremiah a kindred spirit – namely a glutton with an insatiable appetite for money – and the two would sit by the fire in the room above the shop well into the early hours sipping ale and brandy while I waited on their every whim.

  ‘P-p-pour us another p-p-please, Horatio,’ Jeremiah would say mockingly and the two would burst into throaty laughter. Or ‘Remind me, Horatio, how much is your lamb?’

  ‘Twelve p-p-pennies a p-p-pound.’

  One day Jeremiah came in laughing. ‘I see you have a new product,’ he said pointing to a sign in the window, a sign I had written. To my shame it read: ‘Micemeat Peyes – three pense eech.’

  ‘Micemeat pies?’ bellowed my father, grabbing a chicken, his face puce with rage.

  That night I realized I had nothing left to lose. The time had come to fight back. They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold. I served it up hot and steaming.

  The next evening my father sat down as usual to a hearty meal of potatoes and pie, one of my own creations, and Jeremiah joined him as he often did. To see these men at the table was repulsive in the extreme. They ate as if they had only hours to live. Barely was one mouthful masticated before another was crammed in. Gravy dribbled down their chins, piecrust clung to their greasy cheeks and their napkins were spotted with food.

  I watched, fascinated and repelled at the same time, as they tucked in. For they had just eaten a very special pie. Micemeat indeed!

  The next morning I woke to the sound of agonized screams from upstairs. I found my father groaning and writhing on the bed. His face was covered in pus-filled boils, sweat ran from his brow and his breathing was rapid and painful. He was clutching at his stomach and every so often he would let out a screech of pain. I called for Dr Mouldered, but by the time he arrived it was clear to us all that my father was on the verge of death.

  Mouldered seemed perplexed. ‘Well, although I think it is probably a malfunction of the heart, I am a little puzzled by the boils. How peculiar. Has Mr Cleaver been bitten by a rat?’

  I could feel my own face burning and my heart racing. Whatever his illness, it wasn’t from a rat bite, more likely from biting a rat. Possibly the one I had served up to him in the pie the night before. Or maybe it was another of my ingredients. The recipe was simple: if it was dead it went in; hair, fur, paws, claws and all. There was a minced mouse, two fistfuls of hard-back beetles, plump bluebottles and purple juicy worms, not forgetting the toad I found on the road sq uashed by a cartwheel.

  I watched my father for a day and a night, and all the time he moaned in agony I berated myself for my stupidity. I had only wanted to punish him. I didn’t want him to die.

  But die he did.

  He exhaled his last breath as I stood over him. And what did I feel? Everything: remorse, guilt, rage – and relief. I closed his eyes, covered him up and went for Dr Mouldered.

  ‘Heart attack,’ he said wearily without even opening his bag, and left almost immediately.

  Of course, the villagers mourned his passing.

  ‘What shall we do without Stanton?’ they cried. ‘Who shall represent us in the county competition?’

  ‘I could try,’ I said once and they looked at me as if I were a piece of gristle in a cheap pie.

  Well, with my father gone my life should have taken a turn for the better. But I hadn’t reckoned on the guilt that would consume me, or on Jeremiah Ratchet.

  A few days later he paid me a visit. I hadn’t seen him since the night of the fatal meal. He was as white as a leaf starved of the sun and his bloodshot eyes were sunken into his dry flesh.

  ‘I have a bone to pick with you,’ he said sternly. ‘Or should I say foot?’ He held out his hand and there on his palm was a tiny but unmistakable rat’s big toe.

  ‘I found it between my teeth,’ he said. ‘After that pie you served us, the one that made me sick as a pig for the last three days. The same pie that killed your father. I see you buried him q uick enough.’

  My heart froze in my chest but I managed to stammer, ‘Mr Ratchet, what do you mean? If the p-p-pie killed my father then how come you are still alive and well?’

  Ratchet narrowed his eyes. ‘Obviously I didn’t eat the rest of the poisoned rat.’

  He leaned over the counter so I could smell his sour breath.

  ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you,’ he said.

  And he left, but not before helping himself to a couple of fine steaks and a piece of mutton, although he ignored the pies. And because I didn’t stop him Jeremiah knew that he was right.

  What a cruel and fickle mistress Fate is: to kill one and yet to leave the other to torture me. Ratchet comes every week and takes what he pleases: a goose or two, a pheasant, a piece of beef. How long will that satisfy him? What will happen to me if he tells? I know what I did was wrong, but must I suffer on its account for the rest of my life? Is there no respite from this agony?

  I am not a man without a conscience, I am deeply ashamed of what I have done, but I don’t know how much longer I can endure this torture. I have not slept through the night since the day my father was buried.

  Ludlow put down his quill, laid a sheet of blotting paper between the pages and closed the book.

  ‘I can give you respite,’ said Joe and looked into Horatio’s troubled eyes. ‘Your secret is safe in the book now, I swear to you.’

  Horatio sighed deeply and the lines on his brow slowly disappeared. His eyes brightened and he yawned widely.

  ‘I feel better already.’
He stood up, but hesitated to take the coins that Joe offered, a substantial amount.

  ‘Mr Zabbidou, I feel it is I who should be paying you!’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Not at all, Mr Cleaver. It is a fair exchange.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Horatio and made his way to the door, where he stopped for a moment. ‘I swore I would never bake a rodent pie again, but I cannot deny there are days when I am tempted. Every time Jeremiah Ratchet comes in, striding about as if he owns the place, flaunting his posh clothes and smelling like a perfumery, wouldn’t I like to give him one more special.’

  ‘The day will come when you will not have to suffer that man any longer,’ said Joe. ‘Ratchet’ll get what’s coming to him. Just be patient.’

  Joe took Horatio to the door and Ludlow sat silently at the table. Horatio’s story had reminded him of things he wished to forget. Ludlow knew what it was like to have a violent father. What bad luck for Horatio to be born to such a man. But did that mean he been destined from birth to murder him?

  Joe watched as Horatio made his way back to the butcher’s. He waited until he saw him go into his shop and the light go out upstairs. He smiled. Horatio was going to sleep tonight. But there were others who wouldn’t.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Disturbed Night

  While Joe was listening to the woes of the villagers, halfway down the hill Jeremiah Ratchet lay wide awake in his bed. Prior to Joe’s arrival, it was rare to see a light on after midnight in Jeremiah’s house. A man with no conscience often sleeps soundly and Jeremiah would snore hour after hour (keeping Polly awake up in her attic bedroom), blissfully untroubled by the fact that he was the chief cause of insomnia in Pagus Parvus.

  Now Jeremiah spent his nights tossing and turning. He called for Polly at ungodly hours, requesting a warm drink or a book to read or fresh hot embers for his bedwarmer. But nothing worked. Sleep would not come.

  Jeremiah Ratchet lived right in the middle of the street in a house that was five times the size of those he rented out to his unfortunate tenants. He had spent many years filling it with all sorts of treasures, but in the end the effect was similar to his clothing: loud and difficult to miss, and not a pleasant sight. The house had seven bedrooms (though he had never entertained an overnight guest), a marvellous dining room served by a large kitchen (most nights he ate alone) and room for five servants in the attic (his innate meanness meant he kept only two: Polly and a boy to look after his horses, but he slept in the hay).

  Jeremiah used to take great pleasure from wandering the musty, shadowy corridors with his hands clasped smugly behind his back. He contemplated the portraits on the stairs: seven generations of Ratchets watching him with cold eyes and curled lips. He admired the shine on his silver and revelled in the luxury of his imported rugs – hand tied by carpet weavers in an African desert. Sometimes when he dug his fingers into the pile he imagined he could feel the grains of sand under his nails. In fact, it wasn’t his imagination. Polly’s cleaning left much to be desired.

  But this was all before Joe Zabbidou arrived.

  Joe had rattled Jeremiah from that very first morning. Although he had not gone up to the shop since then, not in daylight at any rate, Ratchet knew what was in the window. Polly had been instructed to pay regular visits – although not to enter the shop – and described the display to him in great detail.

  ‘Chipped chamber pots and old boots!’ exclaimed Jeremiah. ‘How can a man make money in such a way? He must be a fool!’

  For generations, the Ratchet family in Pagus Parvus had profited from the poor unfortunates in the village. By stealth, force and inherited duplicity Jeremiah had continued the tradition. He had acquired ownership of cottages and land which he rented out to the villagers at rates that could only be described as criminal. He evicted them periodically, to show them he meant business, and then allowed them back on the understanding that they owed him even more rent. Obadiah was not the only one who had made the mistake of falling into debt to him and in this way Jeremiah’s fortune grew.

  In his own mind it was all down to his skill as a businessman. Of course, it is easy to be a skilled businessman when there is no competition, but Jeremiah was beginning to realize that Joe might be the rival he had never had. Unfortunately for Jeremiah, he did not own Joe’s shop, a fact which caused him immense irritation. What galled him even more than that was Joe’s apparent wealth. He had convinced himself that it was Joe’s money that afforded him his elevated status, especially as he was so generous with it, and that it couldn’t last. Two weeks after the pawnbroker first opened up Jeremiah was surprised to find that Joe’s shop was still in business, and, judging by the number of people who passed Jeremiah’s house on their way up the hill, Joe’s foolish trade in chamber pots and old boots was thriving.

  Jeremiah was further irked when Obadiah Strang had come up to him in the street with a queer look on his face.

  ‘Now, Obadiah,’ Jeremiah had said impatiently, ‘I hope you aren’t going to try to get out of this week’s rent again. I told you—’

  ‘Here,’ said Obadiah triumphantly, ‘take this.’ He thrust a leather bag towards Jeremiah, who took it and opened it curiously. It was full of coins.

  ‘It’s all there,’ said Obadiah. ‘Now my debt is paid.’

  The gravedigger walked away with head held high and Jeremiah stood in the snow, mouth agape. As the passersby began to snigger at him he turned and hurried home. Polly came up from the kitchen and met him in the hall.

  ‘Someone left this for you,’ she said. She was holding the wooden spade. Jeremiah snorted and pushed past her and went into the study. He slammed the door so hard the windows rattled.

  Obadiah wasn’t the only one to have suddenly come into money. At least three other debtors had paid up. ‘Where are they getting it from?’ Jeremiah asked himself and the only answer he could think of was Joe Zabbidou. Jeremiah’s temper was now even shorter and Polly and the stable boy bore the brunt of it. He had never considered that anyone would pay their debts. If business continued in this manner Jeremiah was going to have to find other ways of making money.

  Recently he had heard there was profit to be made from selling teeth, both false and real. Ironically, the rich suffered more than the poor with tooth rot. Doubtless their sweeter, more exotic diet was to blame, unlike the coarse fare of their poorer counterparts. Well-off ladies and gentlemen would pay handsomely for a set of real teeth to fill their gaps, not least because it was an obvious show of wealth. Jeremiah wondered if he could take advantage of this business opportunity. Last time he was in the Nimble Finger he had heard mention of a certain Barton Gumbroot who knew more about these things. Mentally he made a note to meet with him next time he was in the City.

  For now though he had to deal with the pawnbroker. Every time he thought of Joe, that string bean of a character whose hair defied description, he could feel his teeth clamping together and a headache starting at the base of his neck. As for the boy, his skinny, short-legged attendant who went with him everywhere, he seemed a sly little devil. He wore a scarf and gloves that looked suspiciously like his own, the ones Jeremiah was certain the coach driver had stolen. And those big dark eyes. Jeremiah had never once managed to hold Ludlow’s gaze. He always had to look away.

  Ever since their first meeting a creeping sense of dissatisfaction had wormed its way into Jeremiah’s veins. Now when he walked down the street the villagers looked at him sideways and it unnerved him. His ears were filled with the sound of laughter, though the faces around him were grim. There was a change in the village. It was in the very air he breathed. He could feel it in his bones and it made him shiver. And he knew that it was something to do with the pawnbroker.

  It didn’t take Jeremiah long to notice Joe’s nocturnal visitors. Now what was that all about? Lying awake in the middle of the night, Jeremiah tossed and turned in his foreign-made four-poster bed. The slightest noise seemed to be magnified tenfold as he listened out for the footsteps pas
sing under his window. He had tried to ignore them, burying his face in the mattress, but he couldn’t stand the smell of his own breath and had to come up for air. He sat up and frowned and talked to himself and drummed his fingers on the counterpane until he heard the soft crunch of the snow outside on the pavement. Then he would jump from his bed and race to the window. He could see the dark figures going up to Joe’s but he couldn’t make out who they were. Whatever it was they were up to, it could only mean more trouble for him. In his night gown Jeremiah shook his clenched fist at them and pounded the floor in a fury.

  ‘This man must be stopped,’ he shouted into the night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Fragment from

  The Memoirs of Ludlow Fitch

  If Joe was a source of interest to the villagers, then equally I was a source of interest to the younger members – namely Polly and the Sourdoughs. I’d not had friends before and where I came from, people’s only loyalty was to money. But the Sourdough boys weren’t like that. They were good company and made me laugh and I liked them. Except perhaps for the oldest. I always had the feeling that I couldn’t quite trust him. You never really knew what he was thinking.

  Polly, however, was less interested in Saluki and more interested in stories from my past. ‘Tell me about the City,’ she urged. ‘I want to know everything.’

  So I told her: about the dark, enclosed streets with the houses so close together that the sun could never break through; about the broken pavements littered with rotting food, dead animals, dogs and putrefying rats; about the pools of rancid water and the swarms of flies that hovered in clouds above the surface. I told her about the people, sitting in the gutter and begging for money to go into the taverns, or lying drunk, thrown out of the same; and I told her about the unbearable coldness of the winter, when people and animals died and froze where they lay.