Robin Hood Yard. Mark Sanderson

go get me a story.”

      Most newspapers used City spies and featured City diaries – published under such pseudonyms as Midas and Autolycus (“a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles”) – to prove it. The City had a tradition of secrecy and worked hard to cultivate its mystique. Attempts to cast light on its activities were viewed askance. Consequently, relations between Fleet Street and Threadneedle Street were often strained.

      In the Square Mile it wasn’t only the streets that followed mediaeval courses. The business of buying and selling remained the same. The exchanges didn’t like change. Profit always came at someone’s expense. It was all a game: beggar-my-neighbour or strip-Jack-naked.

      Johnny shared Dickens’s opinion of bankers. The crooked financier Mr Merdle – who was full of shit – lived down to his name. Was Adler a mutual friend?

      Moneychangers – even before Jesus threw them out of the temple – had never been popular. In a time of hardship though – and when wasn’t it? – Johnny deemed it obscene to be a fat cat while everyone else was tightening their belts. The poor, as Jesus said, were always with us, but that didn’t mean they had to be grist for the City’s satanic mills. Moneymen were routinely demonized in some sections of the press. To counter this, Sir Robert Kindersley, the head of Lazards – aka “The God of the City” – tried to establish a “Bankers’ Bureau” to enhance the image of the Square Mile. However, when the clearing banks failed to cooperate, the talking shop failed.

      The City could only do what it always did: put a brave face on it. The banks conducted their business in imposing buildings, the columns – whether Corinthian, Ionic or Doric – hinting at the figures being totted up by hand-operated machines inside. Tap-tap-tap screw! Tap-tap-tap screw! However, it was all a front. The white stone was hung on steel girders like so much sugar-icing. Inside, the banking halls had their own marbled façades. Behind the mahogany veneers, away from the public gaze, there lay a maze of dark and dingy cubbyholes where the real work was done. No matter how much money was donated to charity, bankers couldn’t disguise the fact that, robbing from the poor to give to the rich, they were the opposite of Robin Hood.

      Which of his informants should he call first? Johnny reached for the phone but then pushed it away. He would speak to them face to face. It would make it easier to tell if they were lying.

      Hughes, no doubt, would be bothering corpses at Bart’s: he wasn’t going anywhere. Culver had switched bucket shops but wouldn’t be free till the evening either. Quicky Quirk, on the other hand, had been released from Pentonville only last week. It was time they caught up.

      Lila Mae would not stop screaming. It was astonishing that such a little thing could make so much noise. Lizzie had fed her, changed her, rocked her and sung to her without success before giving up hope and returning the baby to her cot in the boxroom that Matt had decorated. He had been so proud, and so pleased, when she’d told him she was pregnant. Rampant too.

      Lila’s brick-red face was scrunched up, her tiny fists clenched, her bootied feet kicking the air. Lizzie, sleep-starved and nipple-sore, stared at her daughter. How quickly a bundle of joy became a ball of fury.

      If she cried much longer she would have a convulsion. What was the matter with her? What should she do? She picked Lila up and clutched to her breast. For a second there was silence then, lungs refilled, the caterwauling resumed.

      Lizzie walked round the room, shushing her baby, whispering into one of her beautiful, neat ears.

      “Hush-a-bye baby, in the tree-top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock …”

      The rocking horses on the wallpaper seemed to mock her. Was she going off her rocker?

      Who could she call? Not her mother. She’d offered to pay for a nanny, but Lizzie didn’t want a stranger under the roof of their new home. When she’d said she could manage, her mother had said nothing but smiled as if to say she knew better. Maybe she did. Lizzie wasn’t going to admit it now.

      She couldn’t stay within these four walls any longer. She’d never felt so alone or so frustrated. She had to get out. Perhaps a ride on a choo-choo train would do the trick.

      The incessant rumble of traffic in Holborn Circus came through the ill-fitting window. A draught wafted the thin, striped curtains that shut out prying eyes. The occupant of the top floor room remained oblivious. All the person could hear was a man screaming for his life. Sheer, naked terror. When it came down to it, that’s all there was.

      The freshly sharpened, freshly polished knife reflected the killer’s handsome face. The sealed vial stood to attention on the table. Mask, gloves: just one more thing. How little was needed to take a life!

      If you were lucky, death was instantaneous, a flick of a switch producing eternal darkness. If you weren’t, if the fates were unkind, your last moments could be filled with infinite agonies. Everyone was helpless in the face of death. No one could turn back the clock.

      The past, if you let it, would imprison you. Each man was serving a life sentence. And yet one quick movement, a simple gesture, could change the world.

       SIX

      The last time Johnny had seen Quirk he’d been in the dock at the Old Bailey. The boot clicker turned house-breaker had been given a five-year stretch and yet here he was, free as a bird instead of doing bird, after less than two years.

      The snug of the Thistle and Crown in Billiter Square was empty except for Quirk and an old man nursing a pint at the bar. Johnny had ten minutes before the lunchtime crowd would pack out the pub.

      Quirk’s lantern-jaw was busy chewing a pickled egg. He scowled, swallowed and began to get up.

      “What? Not pleased to see me? Stay where you are.” Johnny pointed at his beer glass. “Another?”

      “You said you’d put in a word with the judge.”

      Bits of yolk flew through the air. Johnny narrowly avoided getting egg on his face.

      “I tried, but your record spoke for itself. Stop sulking. D’you want a drink or not?”

      Quirk sniffed. “Bell’s. A double.”

      Johnny, hiding a smile, went to the bar. What the hell? He’d have the same.

      “So why the early release?”

      “You know me. Made myself useful.”

      “If you were that useful I’m surprised they didn’t keep you.”

      There was no shortage of snitches inside. It was a dangerous business: eyes and ears could be gouged out or lopped off with ease. Then, given Quirk’s previous profession – cutting out shapes of leather for a shoemaker – he was a dab hand with a knife. He’d only got into trouble when he realized how quickly a blade could open a sash window.

      Quirk sipped the Scotch and licked his lips.

      “I see you’ve done all right for yourself. Read the News in Pentonville – before I wiped my arse with it. How d’you hear I was out?”

      “You of all people should know how rumour spreads. What have you been up to since?”

      “Not much. Sitting here. Enjoying the company – till now.”

      Quirk hailed from Seven Sisters but, having worked in nearby East India Street, the Crown had once been his local. It was strange how humans were such creatures of habit. Perhaps, surrounded by warehouses full of textiles, furs, dried fruit and furniture, he found comfort in the ceaseless commerce. Traders were not the only ones who thrived on word of mouth.

      “Anything to tell me?”

      “About what?”

      “Pig’s blood, for starters.”

      Quirk grimaced. “There’s no blood on my