Sebastian Gloom

Gideon's Lodgings

     Benson changed into some dirty working clothes before leaving the museum, so that he’d blend into the area he was going to. He waved down a cab and settled into the back seat while the driver slapped the horse’s reins and they clattered off down the road. The driver chatted amiably to him as they went, explaining exactly what the Prime Minister had to do to put the Empire to rights, and Benson grunted his agreement in all the right places while looking out the window. At one point he realised that the driver had asked him a question and was waiting for a reply. “Probably,” he said, hoping it would fit the question, whatever it had been. The puzzled look on the driver's face as he looked around at him told him that it hadn’t been.

     He had the driver drop him off on Progress Road, partly to get away from him but mostly because he wanted to get an idea of the lay of the land while he walked the rest of the way. He went into the pub, bought a beer and went outside to drink it while he examined the apartment block in which a man called Gideon lived. A man who may or may not be the man they were looking for. He examined the narrow road going past the building and the even narrower pavement in front of it. He examined the iron frame stairs going up the sides of the buildings, the walkways along the front of the building going past grimy doors and windows and all the people, mainly children, walking, running and playing in all these areas. When he’d finished his beer he got up and walked around the building, finding a gloomy, rubbish strewn alley around the back separating it from the apartment block in the next street. Two sheer walls of moss-covered brick went up and up to a narrow crack of daylight far above. Dozens of washing lines crossed the gap, each line shared, he presumed, by two families in opposite apartments who would take turns to use it, reeling the washing in like a flag up a flag pole.

     After twenty minutes or so he was as familiar with the area as if he’d lived there all his life. There was no point in delaying any longer, therefore, and he made for the stairs that climbed up the side of Gideon’s apartment block. Each step clanged noisily under his feet, and other people using the stairs stared at him suspiciously as he passed. Benson kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on his feet. Enclosed in his own little world. Unknowing and uncaring of the wider world around him. He gave the impression of a man whose entire world consisted of labouring in a factory, drinking most of his money away when the whistle blew and going home only to eat and sleep, perhaps having sex with his wife if he felt like it and clouting the kids if they annoyed him. He knew that not all working class men were like that, but enough of them were that his disguise worked and the people he passed paid no further attention to him.

     At the top of the stairs he walked along the iron walkway, and when he came to number 836 he paused beside its window to light a cigarette. Children screamed and laughed as they chased each other up and down the walkway, and a few doors further along a woman with a shawl around her shoulders was busy scrubbing the front door step with a scrubbing brush that she occasionally dipped into a bowl of water. Benson couldn't see that her step was any dirtier or cleaner than any of the others, though.

     As he took a deep drag on his cigarette he turned a little to bring the window into his line of sight, without making it too obvious that he was looking that way. It was dark inside, so that most of the room was hidden by the reflection of the sky, but he could see enough to see a man's back, sitting in a chair. He listened for the sound of conversation coming from the apartment but heard nothing. Hopefully that meant that the man in the chair was alone but Benson wouldn't take any chances. He would have to take the man down fast before any other possible occupants could come to his aid.

     He got ready to burst in through the door. He took one last look around first, to make sure there were no concerned neighbours who might come to Gideon's aid, and he froze as he saw three men just arriving at the top of the stairs, turning to come in his direction. Father Anthony, dressed in a normal working man's clothes, and two others dressed similarly. Benson cursed and walked casually away from them until he reached the door to the next apartment. Without hesitating, acting as if he lived there, he opened the door and went in.