Cheetham Hill

Sebastian Gloom
Part Five

“So,” said Sebastian Gloom in his whispery voice. “If we put what we found on our separate endeavours together, we're looking for a chap called Gideon who may live somewhere in the Cheetham Hill area.”
“Or Gideon may have nothing to do with Cheetam Hill,” replied Benson. “Or Cheetham Hill may be a random place Father Anthony picked to hide where his contact really lived. Or my villain may have made up Gideon and his description because he was afraid of his employer and didn't want him coming after him for revenge for betraying him.”
“Any of those things may be true,” conceded Gloom. “But looking for a man called Gideon living in Cheetham Hill is the best chance we have, I think. It’s either that or follow up both leads separately. There must be a great many men called Gideon in this country, though, and a great many people living in Cheetham Hill. I don't really think we have much chance that way.”
They were back in Gloom's museum, sitting in the study. Doreen had made them both a nice cup of tea and was now cooking a hot meal for Benson. Gloom had eaten while waiting for his manservant to return. He had a copy of the Manchester Business Directory in his hands and was leafing through it looking at everyone called Gideon, just in the off chance, but he didn't really think a villain for hire would advertise so openly. He put the book aside with a sigh. “I think our best hope might lie with the postal service,” he said. “They know the names of everyone on their rounds. Maybe one of the fellows who deliver to the Cheetham Hill area can be persuaded to help us in return for a financial reward. I shall pop over there right away.”
“Is there really any point in hurrying any more?” asked Benson, though. “They’ve had plenty of time to interrogate Philip Cranston’s soul by now. We've still got to recover the bottle, of course, but we must have lost any chance of saving his secrets from falling into the hands of his enemies.”
“We don't know that,” replied Gloom. “Genuine human clairvoyants capable of communicating with a soul trapped in a Solomon Bottle may be very rare. They may have trouble locating such a person.” There was a look on his face as he said it, though. A look Benson recognised. He knew, or suspected, something that Benson hadn’t guessed yet. He waited for Gloom to tell him what it was, but the investigator remained silent.
“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “The postal service. When do we leave?”
“You don't,” said Gloom, however. “You haven't slept for over twenty four hours. I had a bit of sleep while I was waiting for you to return, but you must be bushed. I'll take young Jake again. He's more than capable of taking me for a trip into town.”
Benson began to argue, but he couldn’t deny how tired he was, and it would only get worse as the day progressed. “Very well,” he said therefore, “but promise me you won't go anywhere near Cheetham Hill without me. Promise me, Sebastian!”
Gloom smiled. “I promise,” he said. “Now go get some dinner, and then go upstairs and get some sleep. The sooner you're rested the sooner you can come help me.”
Benson nodded and made to leave the room, but then he hesitated. “Did you know that the Cranstons still have slaves?”
“No, but I'm not surprised. Many of the wealthier families still see them as a status symbol. It's only a matter of time before that despicable practice dies out altogether, though.” He chuckled. “It's funny. Wilberforce tried so hard to get slavery abolished, but the church was just too strong. They only had to say that the Bible condones slavery and that was that, the end of the argument. But then the industrial revolution comes along. Steam engines can work longer and harder than any slave. Slavery has become uneconomic, and most of them got sent back to where they came from, where they still don't have steam engines yet. One day, though, as we spread civilisation around the world, slavery will end everywhere. Not even the church will be able to stop it.”
“Can't come a day too soon for my liking,” said Benson, and he went off to find his bed.

☆☆☆

Gideon walked into the church on Market Street to find Father Anthony polishing one of the silver candlesticks that stood on either side of the large, ornate altar. He walked up the aisle to join him and the priest looked up to see who was approaching. He gave a start of alarm when he recognised his visitor. “What the... You can’t be seen here!” He looked around to see if there was anyone else around to overhear, but apart from them the church was empty. “Someone could come in at any moment...”
“Relax, priest. What would they see? A priest speaking to one of his parishioners.” He joined him at the altar and glanced at the huge bible that lay open there. “Ah, one of my favourite passages. Psalm 137. By the rivers of Babylon. One of the all time favourites, someone should write a song about it. The last couple of verses always seem to be left out, though. The delight of he who seizes the infants of his enemy and dashes them against the rocks. How spiritual. God really doesn't like children, does He?”
“It may seem unnecessarily violent, but it is justified in other parts of the bible,” replied the priest. “Deuteronomy 5, 9-10 ‘I the Lord am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.’”
“But doesn't Deuteronomy also say, in 24, 16, ‘Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers, each is to die for his own sin.’”
“You didn't come here to discuss the bible. Have you got the bottle?”
“It's safe. You'll get it when we come to an arrangement.”
“We had an arrangement! One thousand pounds to obtain the bottle and deliver it to us. You've been paid.”
“I had to hire a couple of lads and it cost me a lot of money. I want another thousand, and something else as well. We had to kill a guy. A butler. I don't want to go to Hell because I did a job for the church. I want absolution.”
“That is easily obtained, my son. You can confess to any crime and be forgiven, so long as you are truly penitent.”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn't it? I ain’t truly penitent. The guy got in the way and I had to snuff him. I'd do it again if I had to. No, what I want is what you got. A license to kill, backdated to take into account all my past crimes as well. I want to go to heaven when I die. I reckon I’ve earned it.”
“You are referring to the Benefit of Clergy,” replied the priest. “As a man of the church I am sometimes required to commit acts that are against the laws of man, and so we are exempt from the jurisdiction of secular authorities...”
“I ain't worried by secular authorities,” said Gideon, though. “I'm talking about the judgement of God. I don't want to go to Hell for doing a job for the church.”
“Unless you repent there's nothing I...”
“Yes there is. I know some of you Exercitus Dei fellows are given a free ride from God. You can kill, steal, anything you like and it don't count. You don't get judged for it.”
The priest started at him. “I don't know what you mean...”
“Yes you do! I know things about you, About the Church. There's all kinds of people in my business and some of them are priests. We talk to each other, so I know what Benefit of Clergy really means. Deny it one more time and see what I do! Come on, Father, you can tell me. Who's going to believe me if I tell anyone?”
Father Anthony sighed. “What you are referring to is called Clerical License,” he said. “It can only be granted by the Holy Father himself. It would, of course, be wrong for me to be punished for acting in the best interests of the church, and so the Holy Father has granted us license to commit certain acts without having to fear retribution from God. The acts are not written into the Books of our Lives.”
“Right, and that’s what I want. Clerical License.”
“That's impossible. Clerical License is for members of the priesthood only, and even then has to be authorised by His Holiness himself. If you want to save your soul from Hell you’ll just have to genuinely repent of your sins and confess.”
“Give me what I want or you’ll never see that bottle.”
“You'll destroy it?”
Gideon laughed. “I'm not that stupid. I’ve seen bottles like that before. I know what it is, I know what's in it. Give me what I want or I'll post it back to the Cranstons. No, you'll just get someone else to steal it. What I'll do, I'll hire passage on a ship and drop it in the deepest part of the ocean. Philip Cranston and whatever secrets he has that you want will remain there until the Day of Judgement, when the seas give up their dead.”
“You would defy the church?”
“Why not? I'm already damned. What have I got to lose?” He turned and headed back to the door.
“Wait!” Gideon stopped and looked back, grinning. “I'll talk to my superiors, explain the situation. Even if I convince them, though, this has to go all the way to the top. All the way to Rome. It'll take time.”
“You've got a week...”
“It normally takes years! I had to wait five years before I was granted Clerical License.”
“One week, priest. I live a dangerous life. I could get unlucky and lose a fight with some sixteen years old snotnose at any time. I need my license to kill as soon as possible.”
“You realise that, even if you get what you want, you’ll still be answerable to the secular authorities. If they catch you, you’ll still hang.”
Gideon laughed again. “Once I get my license, the hangman's noose will send me straight to paradise. Imagine that, a man like me going to Heaven. You get in touch with your people and get me what I want or you’ll never see that bottle. And I want my money too. Another thousand pounds. Make sure you don't forget that bit.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
Gideon examined his face. “You really will, won't you? Whatever Philip Cranston knows must be really important to you, to do something like this. You must be really desperate. The whole church must be really desperate.”
“That is none of your concern. I assume you can still be contacted in the usual place?”
“I'll be there. I'll be going now. You've got work to do.” He swaggered his way out of the church, humming a tune, and Father Anthony said something blasphemous under his breath.

☆☆☆

Bribing someone was something of an art, Sebastian Gloom had always thought. If you were lucky enough to find a genuine crook, he could usually be persuaded to do anything for you in return for a suitable financial reward. Contrary to popular opinion, though, most people were honest and would react with hostility to any implication that they could be bought. Even they could be dealt with, though, if you approached them in the right way. Don’t call it a bribe. Pretend that you're in desperate straits and that only they can help you, then offer the money as a show of your appreciation. This was a method that Gloom had used successfully many times in the past, and it paid off again during his visit to the central postal office.
Twenty minutes after arriving, therefore, Gloom was leaving again with the address of one Bartholomew Gideon esquire who was probably the most upright pillar of the community that Manchester had to offer and had had nothing whatsoever to do with the invasion of the Cranston house. Nevertheless he was a gentleman who had to be checked out and eliminated from their enquiries before they could pursue other leads.
Gloom had promised Benson that he would not go anywhere near Cheetham Hill without him, but he couldn’t resist just going past Gideon’s house, just to get a look at it. He wouldn't be stopping there, or even slowing down. He would just be passing down the street on his way somewhere else and he would be looking at all the houses as he passed them by, not just Gideon’s. If he happened to take a longer, more careful look at that house than any of the others, nobody who saw him would be able to tell.
Cheetham Hill had once been a town in its own right, Gloom knew, before having been swallowed by the spreading Borough of Manchester some years earlier. Even now there was a sparsely built strip of land between it and Central Manchester in which fields of crops and acacia trees could still be seen, although this was the place where new housing estates were always built when new homes were needed. The central part of Cheetham was slowly turning into an industrial district now, providing labour for the Irishmen who had come fleeing the Great Famine and jews fleeing persecution in central europe.
Gloom saw evidence of its multi-ethnic nature as he drove along the pavement of Cheetham Hill Road and saw both catholic and protestant churches, synagogues, mosques and even a Hindu temple. People of all skin colours watched with interest as the steam wheelchair chuffed its way past them and he heard many different languages being spoken, some of which even he didn't recognise. He kept his eyes open for a Cheetham Hill home for Waifs and Strays, just in case there really was such a place and he just hadn't noticed it before. The discovery of such an institution would throw his whole investigation off track and reveal Father Anthony to be an honest man whom Gloom had unjustly maligned in his mind. He failed to spot any such place, but just to be sure he stopped someone, an elderly Irish woman whom he hoped had been living in the area long enough to be thoroughly familiar with it, and asked her for directions to the place. To his relief, she could only shake her head and say that she'd never heard of it.
He turned a corner into Progress Road, Jake walking beside him, and entered Manchester’s largest industrial district. To his left was a huge charcoal factory to which endless cartloads of acacia wood were being taken to be converted into fuel for steam engines, and next to it were other factories. Steel mills, cotton mills, refineries, chemical and munitions plants, all churning out the raw materials upon which the Empire depended and all dependent in turn on the charcoal factory that produced fuel for them. A little to one side, like a nervous child who wasn’t sure if the big children would let him play with them, was an electricity generator in front of which was a small group of protesters carrying signs that said “Electricity is the work of the Devil” and “God hates sparks!” Gloom mused that he’d never heard a priest of any denomination denouncing electricity, and supposed that it was just the usual human habit of opposing change of any kind.
He heard the sound of engines and looked up to see an airship passing overhead, travelling west. Either to Ireland or all the way to the American provinces. It was one of the smaller ones, he noted. No more than fifty or so passengers and crew in the ornate, stately gondola rich with gold painted gothic detail. It had a balcony at the rear end on which he could see expensively dressed passengers relaxing on chairs, and railed walkways ran along both sides as far as the bridge from which the crew controlled the craft. Its underside, he noted, was fashioned into a ship's keel, complete with rudder, so that it could survive an emergency landing on water, and he supposed that somewhere were masts and sails that could be raised to allow it to make headway to a friendly port. It was supposed to reassure passengers, he mused, but only the direst need would induce him to board a vessel slung below such a huge balloon of flammable hydrogen.
The turning into Stephenson Road was just past the cloth mills, and Gloom found himself passing through the residential district that housed the workers for all the factories. It also contained schools whose yards were filled with grubby children screaming and running around and rows of small shops with stalls of small, misshapen fruit and tables covered with poor quality merchandise. The wives of the factory workers drifted in and out of the shop and thronged about the covered market that filled a large open area beside the street between a pub and a dog racing track. The women were dressed in threadbare shawls and were bent over and aged before their years. Gloom knew that they worked almost as hard as the men, some in their own homes getting calluses on their fingers sewing rugs and carpets to sell in the markets, others in factories of their own where they were deafened by the sound of the machinery. Two incomes were essential in most homes, though, in order to make up for the low wages paid by the factory bosses.
The residential buildings were huge and blocky, each containing forty soulless apartments, and Gloom had trouble picking out the one in which Bartholomew Gideon lived. Number 836, the helpful man in the postal office had told him. Presumably each apartment had its number beside its front door, but Gloom couldn’t see them from the street. Then he saw a sign in front of the nearest housing block that was labelled “561-600”, and he saw that every block had a similar sign. He drove along the street until he found the one that read “801- 840” and looked up at the block to which it belonged.
If the apartments were labelled in a logical manner, then Gideon’s would be on the topmost of the four floors, in the middle. Furthest from the stairs that switchbacked their way up the building on either side. Gloom frowned. It would be impossible to get up there in any wheelchair, steam powered or not. He would either have to get Benson to carry him, or trust the manservant to search the place himself and hope that his less perceptive eyes didn't miss some detail that he would have seen. Once again he cursed his useless legs, but then he checked himself and instead gave thanks for his brain, far sharper than that which had been gifted to most of God's children. He wondered whether he would swap his brain for that of a normal man if that were the price for getting a working pair of legs, but that was a question he couldn't answer.
He realised that he was receiving a great deal of attention from the street's grimy workmen. Some of them were no doubt taking note of his expensive clothes and wondering how much cash he was carrying on his person. Gloom pushed the lever that made the chair pick up speed, and reflected that there was a very good reason why Benson had warned him against coming here without him. He was armed, it was true, and the chair had defenses built into it, but he nevertheless breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a policeman standing by the street corner, his stern gaze making the workmen turn and go about their business. The policeman nodded at Gloom, who nodded back, and then Gloom turned into another street that he knew would take him back to Progress Road and then back to the more respectful parts of the city. He'd had his look at Gideon's home. Now it was time to return to his own.

☆☆☆

Gideon was nursing a glass of beer in the pub when his two henchmen edged their way nervously towards him. “So there you are,” he said, gesturing for them to take two empty seats beside him. “Where have you been?”
The two men glanced nervously at each other. “Now, look Bart. There's nothing to get upset about...”
Gideon looked up sharply. “Who said there should be?”
The first henchman fidgeted uncomfortably. “There was an inspector. He came to our lodgings...”
Gideon leapt to his feet and grabbed him by the collar. “What did you tell him?” All around, the pub’s other occupants carefully averted their eyes and minded their own businesses. Gideon grabbed the two men and dragged them out into the street, then around to the back of the building. “What did you tell him?” he repeated.
“Nothing, Bart! I swear it! We didn't tell him a thing! He already knew that it was us who stole the bottle. He wanted to know about you but we didn't tell him a thing!”
“Tell me what happened. Everything!”
“This inspector came, with a copper. They tied us up and asked questions but we didn't tell ‘em anything! Doris led ‘em to us, they tricked her into leading them to us.”
“How did you get away?”
“After they left we managed to get free. We got out of there before they could get back with more men.”
“You idiot! That wasn't an inspector! An inspector would have had more men and would have taken you in straight away! That was an investigator, working for the Cranstons! Now what did you tell him about me?”
“Nothing! I swear it!”
“So they don't know about me?”
“They know your name, the name Gideon, but that’s all. Relax, Bart, they don't know your first name or anything else about you! There must be loads of guys called Gideon in the country!”
“How did they learn my name? You told them, didn't you?” He grabbed the man and shook him. “You told him!” He threw the man away from him, making him stumble and fall. The other man backed away in terror. “You stupid fools! An inspector turns up, he knows nothing, nothing at all, but you sing like birds and you give me up!” The first henchman picked himself up and the two men stood trembling, but Gideon could see that they were preparing for violence. Their safest course of action might be to kill him before he could kill them...
He made himself relax, therefore. “Oh well, what's done is done. Maybe we can turn this to our advantage. If this investigator does somehow track me down, we can lay a trap. Catch him when he comes snooping around. From now on, you live in my place, with me. One of us stays awake and on guard at all times. When he comes, we catch him and find out what he knows, then make him wish he’d never been born.” The two men relaxed, greatly relieved, and then followed him down the street towards his apartment.


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