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“The poor sods who live here have to breathe it all the time,” Rhys said. “You and I can endure ten minutes of it.”
Severin slanted a mocking glance at him. “You’re not becoming a reformer, are you?”
Rhys shrugged. “A walk through these streets is enough to make me sympathize with reformist views. A sin, it is, for a decent workingman to be forced to live in squalor.”
They continued along the constricted street past blackened facades that had turned soft with rot. There was a dismal-looking cook-shop, a gin shop, and a small hut with a painted sign advertising a supply of gamecocks for sale.
It was a relief when they turned a corner onto a wide, well-drained roadway and approached the construction site, where a row of buildings was in the process of being torn down. The scene was one of controlled turmoil as a wrecking crew systematically dismembered the three-story structures. It was dangerous and difficult work: More skill was required to take down a large structure than to build it. A pair of mobile steam cranes mounted on wheels polluted the air with thunderous rattling, whistling, and clacking. Heavy steam boilers counterbalanced the jibs, making the machines remarkably stable.
Rhys and Severin walked behind a row of wagons being loaded with waste lumber to be hauled off and split for kindling wood. The grounds swarmed with men carrying pick-axes and shovels, or pushing wheelbarrows, while masons sorted through bricks to save the ones that could be reused.
A frown crossed Rhys’s face as he saw tenants being evicted from the building that was next in line to be demolished. Some of them were defiant, others wailing, as they carried their belongings outside and set them in heaps on the pavement. It was a pity for the poor devils to be turned out into the street in the dead of winter.
Following his gaze to the distraught residents, Severin looked momentarily grim. “They were all given a period of notice to vacate,” he said. “The building would have been condemned in any case. But some people stayed on. It always happens.”
“Where would they go?” Rhys asked rhetorically.
“God only knows. But it’s no good, allowing people to live among open cesspools.”
Rhys’s gaze rested briefly on a young boy, perhaps nine or ten years of age, sitting alone amid a small heap of belongings, including a chair, a frying pan, and a heap of soiled bedding. The lad appeared to be guarding the pile of possessions while waiting for someone to return. Most likely his mother or father was out looking for accommodations.
“I’ve had a glimpse of the plans,” Severin said. “The new buildings will be five stories tall, with running water and a water-closet on each floor. As I understand it, the basements will house communal kitchens, washhouses, and drying rooms. At the front, they’ll install iron railings to form a protected play area for children. Are you interested in seeing copies of the architectural schemes?”
“Aye. Along with deeds, bills of sale, building agreements, mortgages, and a list of all contractors and subcontractors.”
“I knew you would,” Severin said with satisfaction.
“With the condition,” Rhys continued, “that some of your Hammersmith railway shares are on the table as well.”
Severin’s smug expression faded. “Look here, you sticky-fingered bastard, I’m not going to sweeten the deal with bloody railway shares. That’s not even my building. I’m just showing it to you!”
Rhys grinned. “But you do want someone to buy it. And you won’t find many prospective buyers with all the cheap undeveloped land available in the boroughs.”
“If you think—”
The rest of Severin’s words were drowned out by an ominous cracking sound, a deafening rumble, and shouts of alarm. Both men turned to look as the upper portion of one of the condemned buildings began to collapse. Rotting beams and timbers had given way to gravity, slate tiles sliding downward and tumbling over the eaves.
The abandoned boy, perched on his pile of belongings, was directly below the deadly cascade.
Without thinking, Rhys raced toward the child, forgetting the stiffness of his leg in his haste to reach him. He threw himself over the boy, making a shelter of his body, just before he felt a tremendous blow on his shoulder and back. His entire skeleton quivered. Through the burst of white sparks in his head, some distant part of his brain calculated that he’d been struck heavily—there would be considerable damage—and then everything went dark.
Chapter 8
“WINTERBORNE. WINTERBORNE. COME NOW, open your—yes, there’s a good fellow. Look at me.”
Rhys blinked, awakening slowly to the bewildered awareness that he was on the ground, in the perishing cold. There was a crowd around him, exclaiming, questioning, shouting advice, and Severin was leaning over him.
Pain. He was submerged in it. Not the worst pain he’d ever experienced, but considerable nonetheless. It was difficult to move. He could tell that something was drastically wrong with his left arm, which had gone numb and motionless.
“The boy—” he said, recalling the roof collapse, the tumble of wood and slate.
“Unharmed. He was trying to pick your pocket before I shooed him away.” Giving him a mocking glance, Severin continued, “if you’re going to risk your life for someone, do it for a useful member of society, not a street urchin.” He extended a hand, intending to help Rhys up.
“My arm won’t move.”
“Which one? The left? You’ve probably broken it. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but when a building is falling down, you run away from it, not toward it.”