Book of Stolen Tales by D. J. McIntosh Page B

him a quid and hastened away.
    London real estate prices had grown so astronomically high, even professionals earning salaries on the lower end couldn’t afford to live there anymore. Wapping too had succumbed. A ramshackle collection of maritime warehouses and sailors’ shacks had been converted to prestigious condominiums and trendy public houses, its seafaring past now a ripe tourist trap.
    The cold drizzle, somewhere between a wet mist and a light rain, hadn’t let up. Lamps cast pools of light on cobblestone squares, interspersed with long stretches of gloom. In the distance I heard the forlorn toll of a church bell. The Thames was just ahead; already I could smell the dank water. I followed the road near the river’s edge in search of a place to get a meal.
    Slanting amber light from the front windows of a pub beckoned me inside. The Prospect of Whitby had an old flagstone floor, blackened wood beams in the Tudor spirit, and a low stone hearth with a merry fire. I felt as if I’d just stepped back into history. At the rear, tall leaded-glass windows opened onto a balcony overlooking the Thames.
    The bar woman was in a chatty mood, and she volunteered that a man called Hanging Judge Jeffries used to like sitting on the balcony to watch convicts he’d just sentenced swing on a noose. She pointed out that a noose still hung outside. More benignly, Samuel Pepys and Charles Dickens were fond of taking a pint here. Learning that Turner may have drawn inspiration for his sublime paintings from his view in the pub impressed me. The bar woman told me that the place used to be called the Devil’s Tavern in a nod to its nefarious patrons. It even had a smugglers’ room upstairs.
    I finished my meal and stepped outside. The street was empty, with the exception of a lone man in the distance. As he walked under a street lamp his long dark coat and hat became visible. He held his left arm perpendicular to his body in a curiously formal stance, as though he were offering his arm to a lady or carrying something fragile. And indeed he was. The golden covers of the book. This far away, the horse was a mere white flash on the cane he swung as he walked. I quickened my pace. Even with my case banging into my thigh I knew I could overtake him.
    Alessio reached a cross street, stepped lightly to the other side, and ducked out of view. I rushed to the corner and saw a space between two buildings blocked off with a wrought-iron partition. I doubted he could scale it and could detect no sign of him through the fancy ironwork or beyond. I slowly scanned the street again.
    Somehow he’d managed to hide because I now saw he’d doubled back and was heading in the direction of the pub I’d just come from. As I gave chase, he turned before he reached the tavern and disappeared once again.
    People didn’t just vanish into thin air and I soon saw where he’d gone. A narrow passageway between the pub and the building next door led to a flight of steps ending at the river. The stairs were slick with spray and I almost slipped before I reached the bottom and set my case down. The gibbet swinging from the pub’s balcony loomed in front of me, its iron fastenings creaking as the noose swung slightly in the wind.
    It was even darker down here. Water sloshed on the pebbles and detritus at the riverside. A rat slipped along mossy rocks. The ghostly outline of a stationary barge floating out in the Thames emerged from the gloom.
    I scoured the line of the river ahead to my right, but could catch no sign of him. Startled by a noise I spun around. Alessio stood beneath the far end of the balcony, leaning on his cane, still clutching the book’s gleaming gold covers in the crook of his left arm. Dim light spilled from the windows of the pub above, casting deep shadows that coalesced around him. The shape of the shadow was unnatural and bore no relationship to the outline of his body. As I ran toward him, I