It is the 19th of August 1905. Outside a row of shops in Limehouse, East London, a group of

children are playing on the street. Some skip over a hopscotch grid chalked out on the pavement,

noisily counting aloud. Others are embroiled in a raucous game of marbles. The Greengrocer's son,

just six years old, watches from a doorway, making no effort to get involved. He lives in a world of

his own. A crow flying, unusually low, catches the boy's eye.

He ducks as it swoops, mere inches above his head to rest on a wall.

It tilts his head, staring directly at him, until in a flash it flaps away again. The boy follows the crow's flight as it flutters, in bursts along the length of some tram

lines, coming to rest on the roof of a tram stop.

Distracted again, the boy picks up a fallen branch and drags it along the steel rails.

He's so lost in his own world that an approaching tram driver is forced to blast his horn to get him out of the way.

As he jumps back, he finally looks around.

Without realizing it, dusk has fallen.

Worse than that, he has no idea where he is.

His mother had warned him not to get lost again, and yet here he is, alone and confused,

in the warrens of the East End, blinking in the smock.

Panicking now, he turns and starts to retrace his steps, following the tracks back in the direction from which he came.

Eventually, he begins to recognize his surroundings.

He races past the row of shops to the door of the greengrocers.

His mother sags with relief as she lets him in, but his father is stony-faced. He thrusts a folded piece of

note paper into his son's hand and tells him to take it right away to the police station nearby.

When he arrives, the boy hands the note to the first officer he sees.

The constable reads it and raises an eyebrow before leading him down the corridor to a holding cell.

...