The Death of the Hurdy Gurdy Boy

By Peter John Cooper

Tommy the street musician is murdered in a London shop doorway one bitterly cold December night in 1882. One hundred and thirty years later his troubled spirit befriends a young violinist, Tamara, granddaughter of Polish refugees and encourages her to help him answer the questions "Who?" and "Why?". In doing so she confronts her own problems with the world. The story is vibrant and funny showing twenty-first century life through the eyes of a Victorian street urchin. The themes are occasionally dark but always emotionally truthful. Accessible to readers from twelve upwards but can be equally enjoyed by adult readers in the style pioneered by J.K Rowling and Terry Pratchett. One adult reader described it thus: "It was dark, as history is dark, but any generation should find something to like in this tale of a boy and the girl who helps him with the mystery of his life."
This is the first published novel by acclaimed British poet and playwright Peter John Cooper who is known for his quirky, humorous and emotionally satisfying work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter John Cooper
• Release date: Nov 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311845900

Peter John Cooper

Peter John Cooper is a British playwright and poet as well as a novelist. His poetry is dramatic and his plays are poetic. He has been a playwright for forty years and has written dozens of plays which have been performed all over the UK. Recently he began putting them online so that people can perform them for audiences all over the world. He reads his poetry in clubs in the town of Bournemouth where he lives and throughout the South of England. He lives in a flat which looks over the cliff to the sea.which joins him to his readers all over the world He started writing stories for his daughters when they were growing up and he’s now happy to be publishing some of them for others to enjoy.

Book preview

The Death of the Hurdy Gurdy Boy

Copyright 2013 Peter John Cooper

Published by Spyway Projects

Bournemouth

Smashwords Edition

The rights of the author to be identified as the Author of this Work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2013

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgements

The original idea for the Ghost Detective came from my daughter Elinor Cooper. Thanks to her and her school friends who read early versions. My daughter Holly Cooper has also contributed ideas and comments at the publication stage.

I must thank Julie Musk from Roving Press who proof read and edited part of the script. However, any outstanding errors are mine alone.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

After Word

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The Death of the Hurdy Gurdy Boy

Chapter 1

It wasn’t a good night to die. If I’d had a choice it would have been a quiet night in summer. Warm and still. All the stars shining above. Strolling home with a few pals having a laugh and a joke after a good meal of steak and onions. Then sort of lying down on a big feather bed and drifting off gently with the sound of music and merriment coming out of one of the pubs. Then I’d dream of kind faces and stuff out of the past. So I wouldn’t know anything about dying at all. Not huddling in a lousy shop doorway with the wind whipping my fingers and ears so that I could hardly bear the pain of the cold any more. My teeth long since given up chattering. They didn't have the strength. And this frock coat with the silk lapels was only thin. Very smart but it didn't give no protection. I banged my hands together to get some warmth going and looked up at the candlestick in the window with all the candles blazing looking warm and welcoming. But not for me. All I could feel was the pain of the cold in my ears and cheeks until suddenly, there was a sort of explosion in my head. A different sort of pain. A shower of golden stars behind my eyes and I was pitched forward out of existence.

Truth to tell, I wouldn’t have chosen to die at all. Not then. My life might have been grim and miserable. It might have been filled with cold and hunger and loneliness. But at least it was life. And there was something making me feel warm inside. Something big. Something good. Something memorable. Why then? Why did I have to die then when things were on the up?

I don’t recall being asleep or waking up. I don’t even remember being dead. Just a long nothing. No dreams. No heavenly choirs. Definitely no harps. Nothing except for that thought. That aggravating thought: that keeps going round and round. Why? Why. It echoes in my empty, dead mind. The sound of it grows louder and louder until it’s such a big question that I’m sort of shot up out of the nothingness. And it carries on echoing until I can’t sleep any more. I ain’t aware of the world yet. Can’t be. I haven’t nothing to be aware with. No hands or eyes or ears or anything like that. Just that stupid thought. And then I sort of comes alive again. As if I’m awake and I can make out things. I suppose I can only sense things rather than see them. But I knows the world is there. A different world from the one I remember. Very different. Bloody different. What’s all that malarkey? Carriages, wagons with no horses to pull them, people in strange clothes and stranger manners. And the noise. The roar all the time. On and on day and night. I’d go back down into the darkness if I could. To the deep place where I’d slept peaceful as if I was wrapped in velvet for all that time. But that thought keeps coming back to annoy me. Like a wasp you can’t get to leave you alone when you’ve been given a ripe plum to eat by some passer-by.

Why? And it’s joined with other thoughts. Why then? Why there? And the really big one: Who?

And the sudden stinging thought that it wasn’t my time to die there at all. Somebody had stolen from me the only valuable thing I owned - my life. I’d been murdered.

And with that idea smacking me around I know I can’t sleep on even if I want to. I got to have those answers. I got to get back and find out what happened. When I said that my life was the only valuable thing I owned, that wasn’t quite true. Near enough, but not quite. My clothes weren’t up to much. Not quite rags but only that evening jacket and a pair of trousers hauled up under me armpits and tied with string and a dandy pair of patent pumps that would have done someone swell for a night up West or for a bit of rowing at Henley, don’t you know, but not much good now they had a blimming great hole right through the bottom of one of them. It was Arkwright who’d given that jacket to me. That afternoon. That very afternoon before I died. Kind of him. He was a jolly old bloke. Always laughing. Sometimes he would shout out across the street for anybody to hear.

There goes our little musical dwarf.

Which didn't seem very funny to me but it made him laugh. And besides he wasn’t no bigger than me himself. That’s how he gave me the evening coat with the silk lapels. When he gave me that jacket that afternoon he got all his mates round and got them to look at me.

Look at him on his way to the Hopera. What a toff. A dwarf musical toff.

And they all laughed and that made me feel funny.Before the posh stuff I just had an old suit. That was very shiny and coming to bits at the seams. Miles too big and all frayed round the trouser legs and cuffs. I had to yank the trousers up under me arm pits and roll them over a bit of string as I said. But it did. The old lady had given that to me. The Mad Woman. The old dear who didn't smile much but who watched out for me and gave me a cup of tea now and then as I hobbled by. Somebody had died she’d said. I knew that was her old man. She didn't say but I knew. I suppose she thought I’d worry about wearing dead men’s clothes. She’d sold the best and let me have the rest.

Smart, I said. And I meant it. They was warm and kept me halfway decent. I think she liked to see me in them. They lasted me for months until Arkwright gave me that jacket.

Yes, she was good for all her acid features. She was probably the last person to talk to me proper. Called me over to her door that afternoon. Held out a cup and said I looked poorly. There wasn’t only tea, in there. Something warming as well. Gave me a bit more strength for the night ahead. Yea, she was a good old soul. Raving mad but kind. Never knew her name though. Never had time to say Ta.

No, it wasn’t the clothes that were valuable neither. It was the hurdy gurdy. Terrible old thing really. Made a shocking din. But I did own it. Mine fair and proper.

Get out of it. We don’t want to hear that racket, people said as I tried to make a few ha'pennies for supper. My Grandad might have wanted to hear that, he’s stone deaf. But not me. Why don’t you get an accordion?

An accordion? I couldn’t afford one of them. Never. I only had the hurdy gurdy because somebody had given me that. The old gent with the shop doorway. I mean the one where I caught it. He was old books and stuff. Clear out people’s houses. He let me stay put in his doorway when he was locked up. Left me alone. Not like some others. Always coming out to shout at you if you set up on their doorstep. Or set the Peelers after you for loitering. No, he wasn’t like that. Funny, I never thought of it when I was alive but there was a lot of kind people about. Trying to help where they could. He comes out one day when he was about locking up

Here, boy, he says in his funny, foreign voice Look after this for me, will you? Keep it with you. Don’t let anybody take it.

Yea, thanks, I said Can I play it? I knew what it was, see. I’d picked up a bit of street busking when I was a nipper

I do not know. He says. Can you?

Course I know how to play it. Well, I can learn easy enough but, I mean, do you mind if I do?

No, no, he says. You make a few pence if you can. Just keep tight hold of it.

Is it valuable, then?

What? No, of course not. He laughed a dry little laugh. It’s only an old hurdy gurdy. Years old. Just you keep hold of it. And when you’ve got a moment, play a tune for me. Down here in the street so I can hear it.

Funny, it must be having all this free time. It’s got me brain working. Well, it would if I had a brain. But you know what I mean. I hadn’t ever thought why the old geezer let me have it in the first place. He said it wasn’t valuable but it must have meant something to him.