A Little Knowledge (22 page)

“How? He’s my husband. He owns me. He can do what he likes to me.”

The words chilled Cathy. That was how everyone else saw her in relation to Will, but not how
she
saw herself. Snippets of the conversation with Will about Sir Iris, about the need to slow down, go carefully, protect
his
power in Londinium flickered through her mind, mixing with the sight of Wilhelmina’s bruises. The rage roiled within her, inexpressible, useless and exhausting. It was like she was constantly stretched taut between explosive ranting or total emotional implosion.

Now, seated across from another woman who was being abused as she had been, Cathy knew she had to do more than just hold herself together. Wilhelmina had reached out, making Cathy responsible for her future safety. She had to step up.

“No, your husband
can’t
do what he likes to you,” Cathy said. “I won’t let him. I want you to pack a bag and leave with me. Right now.”

“But he’ll be angry! He’ll—”

“I don’t care how he feels,” Cathy said, standing up and holding out her hand. “I care about you. I know you don’t want to make a fuss or make it worse, but I’m not going to let him hurt you ever again. And until I change the law in this city, you’ll have to stay as my guest where you will be safe and cared for. And I don’t care if he comes banging on our door or who he shouts and screams at. He won’t hurt you again.”

Wilhelmina looked hopeful, but then she crumpled. “I couldn’t possibly stay at your house! It’s just not the done thing.”

“Neither is speaking in the Court, and you know what I think of that.” Frustrated, Cathy took a moment to put herself in Wilhelmina’s place. She’d never tasted an independent life, had never had the opportunity to imagine herself as anything but at the mercy of the men in her life. As the previous Marchioness she would have friends, rivals, all manner of people who would devour any gossip about her. No wonder she was afraid. “I want you to come and be my guest,” Cathy said. “I won’t tell a soul about the reason why, if that’s what you want. I might have to tell Will if he starts making a fuss, but only if I must. Okay? I won’t humiliate your husband publicly. I’ll just keep you safe until I can change things. I promise.”

Wilhelmina took her hand and stood. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“Don’t tell any of your staff that you intend to stay longer than a few hours and only bring the essentials. I can give you whatever else you need. Tell them you’re packing for…”

“Lawn tennis,” Wilhelmina said. “It’s all the rage, apparently.”

The pin was replaced and the Charm restored, hiding her injuries but not the fear and hope that waxed and waned with every moment. Cathy followed her out of the room. “Mrs Lutea-Digitalis will be returning to Lancaster House for lunch, Carter.”

“Very good, your Grace.”

Cathy was all too aware of the butler standing nearby, listening in. “And afterwards, she’s promised to show me how to play lawn tennis.” The butler wasn’t to know that she had as much interest in lawn tennis as Bertrand Viola had in the rights of women.

Carter’s eyebrows twitched with surprise but he said nothing. Wilhelmina returned to them shortly afterwards, holding a small carpetbag. Even though she looked nervous, it was nothing that couldn’t be explained by the fact the Duchess had taken an interest in her.

“Ah, ready to go?” Cathy asked her.

“I think so.” Wilhelmina looked at the butler. “I’ll send word when I’m on my way home. Tell my husband to eat without me if I’m not back.”

“Don’t look so worried!” Cathy said as they left, deliberately light for the butler’s benefit. “I’m sure you’ll win.”

• • •

When Max finally had a chance to actually look for the address listed as the source of his father’s photo on the journalist’s computer, he started to suspect it was false. He couldn’t visualise it, which was unusual, considering his knowledge of the city. New buildings were being constructed at the edges of the city all the time and he might have missed it. When Kay found him wrestling a large ordnance survey map in the office that morning, she offered to help.

“We can Google it,” she said, and then laughed at his lack of response. “Come over here, I’ll show you.”

He and the gargoyle watched over her shoulders as she tapped the keyboard and then moved the thing he’d been told was a mouse, even though it didn’t look much like one at all. She’d made a map of the city appear and with each movement of the mouse, made it zoom into the supposed location of the house in the address.

“Doesn’t look like Google knows about anything being there, map-wise.”

“Who is this Google?” the gargoyle asked. “How does he know all these maps?”

“Okay, tomorrow, I’m going to give you a tour of the twenty-first century, starting with Google. It’s more than just maps. Let me change the view.”

She clicked on something and the drawn lines of the map changed into something that looked like an aerial photo of a field right at the edge of the city. He could see a small building tucked near the hedge.

“Looks like a farm, maybe? Not really big enough for a house. Maybe there’s a farmhouse further up the hill or something. Google can still be a bit rubbish when it comes to rural locations. This photo may be out of date, too. There’s something at the address, at least. Are you following up on the Peonia thing?”

“No. This is something I discovered before that. A journalist has been Charmed to forget something, and I’m investigating why.”

“Awesome. That the only address you’ve got for them?” When Max nodded, she said, “Want me to see if I can find out about the farm? It’ll only take a few minutes. It’ll give you time to make me a cup of coffee.” She grinned at him.

By the time Max hobbled back from the kitchen with the coffee, she was collecting a couple of sheets of paper from the printer. “It used to be a farm, ages ago, but not anymore. The plot of land and the original house is listed in the Doomsday Book—how cool is that? There used to be a forge there too, but it’s not in commercial use. That might be what that outhouse was—it’s listed as being at the bottom of the hill.”

“You learned all this from Mr Google?”

“Max, you are adorable. Sort of. It was in the press a couple of years ago. Housing developers tried to buy the land but the owner refused, apparently. That owner is a Mr Ferran. Is that the name of the person you’re hoping to find there?”

Ferran? Max was certain that was one of the names for Lord Iron but it had been a long time since his Chapter briefing on the topic. “No. I’m looking for a Robert Amesbury.”

Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “The only reference I can find to a Robert Amesbury in Bath is a police officer in the 1990s who won the George Medal for gallantry. Stopped a kidnapping, according to this. I can’t find anything else, and nothing tying him to that address.”

Now Max appreciated why Rupert had recruited her. “Thank you. That’s very helpful.”

“Have you seen Rupert?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t been in yet? I’ll get on with what he told me to do yesterday, then. Wanna take a look?” She did something unfathomable and the screen changed to show another map of Bath, this time the centre and its more familiar streets. “I’m making a map of the Fae-touched properties with a backend database that stores everything we know about who lives there, tied in with the sensors Rupert has already put around the city. When I’ve finished it, it’ll give us real-time information about whether they’re in Mundanus and doing anything dodgy.”

The gargoyle peered at it. “I thought you did English Lit.”

“I did. Everyone knows how to use computers now, though. This isn’t uni-level stuff. I did a project similar to this at school and whatever I don’t know about, I just Google or look on YouTube. When this is done and tested, we’ll roll it out over the whole country and then when something happens, we can direct you to the exact location. Much better than patrolling.”

The gargoyle was staring at her. “You’re like some sort of wunderkind.”

She snorted. “Nah. You’re just really out of touch. I’ll print out that map for you if you need to go and check that place out.”

Less than an hour later, Max stood at a gate at the edge of the field in the printed photograph. Behind him there was a row of new houses, and the field to the left was being churned up by diggers. By the look of things, once the development was finished, the field in front of him would be the only one left in that square mile.

The building shown in the photo was a ramshackle stone outhouse that seemed to grow out of the hillside. He could barely see it through the brambles that had grown between it and the edge of the field. There was smoke curling up from a corner of the roof, however, so he assumed someone was there. He opened the solid metal agricultural gate and trudged through the mud towards the building.

He could hear someone singing as he approached. He didn’t recognise the song, but the man’s voice was strong and tuneful. As he got closer, the building looked sturdier. The walls were made of stone and although some small stones had tumbled from a few places, the walls were so thick that it didn’t make much difference to the structure. Thick bands of iron had been attached as if to keep the rest of the stones in place, and it had a corrugated metal roof that looked like it had been nailed over old slate tiles. The smoke was coming from the top of a pipe protruding from the corner of the roof. There was only one window, tiny and covered in cobwebs, through which a warm yellow light shone into the dank January gloom.

Max went round to the other side of the building and found a door with peeling green paint and a horseshoe nailed to it. Even though the paint had seen better days, the huge iron hinges that also held the wood together were well oiled and rust-free. Max rapped on the door and the singing stopped. When the silence lingered, Max knocked again.

“Go away! Don’t want anythin’ you’re sellin’!” The voice was deep, with a broad, west country accent.

“I’m not selling anything.”

“Be off with yer!”

“I need to talk to you about the photos you gave to the journalist at the Bath
Herald
.”

“Piss and sawdust! Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about! Bugger orff!”

“Are you an amateur historian? Is that how you pieced it all together?”

“If you don’t get orff my land, I’ll call the police on yer!”

“But it’s not your land, Mr Amesbury.”

There was a pause. Max looked at the article Kay had printed out for him. The Robert Amesbury in the photo was dressed in a police uniform with gleaming buttons, smiling with pride as he accepted his medal. The voice coming from inside the outhouse sounded more like an irate farmer. “I’m assuming you’re Mr Robert Amesbury. The one who won the George Medal.”

There was the sound of a bar scraping across the door from the inside, and then it opened, just a crack. A man in his sixties with a shock of wild white hair and a beard squinted through it. “Who are you?” The accent wasn’t so thick this time.

“My name is Max. You gave some photos to a Bath
Herald
journalist and a feature was written about it.” He pulled the newspaper page from his coat pocket and showed it to the man.

The man’s eyes widened when he saw it. “I didn’t think she believed me.” He frowned at Max. “I told her to keep me anonymous. Fat lot of good that did. So what do you want?”

“I went to see her about one of the people in the photos. She couldn’t remember writing the piece.”

He was expecting confusion, but instead the man closed his eyes. “Not again. Wait there.” The door closed and was then opened again after a minute or so. “You’d better come in, then.”

Max entered to find the interior surprisingly warm. A fire blazed in a large hearth at the far side of the room, a huge set of bellows mounted next to it that had seen better days. There was a stone sink in the corner, a makeshift bed, and a few piles of clothes. The floor was nothing more than uneven flagstones with an old tea crate overturned and set in the middle of the room to form a table. The space was lit by several lanterns hung from hooks in the wooden rafters. On the far wall an old blanket had been hung up. Max suspected it had just been used to cover something up.

Amesbury dropped a wooden beam back into iron brackets on either side of the door to brace it shut and looked at Max, hands in his pockets. He wore several layers of clothes, all with holes and frayed edges, along with an old pair of boots.

“You won the George Medal for preventing a kidnapping. Did that case lead you to uncover the other people who’ve disappeared over the years, detailed in that article?”

“Now, just wait a moment,” Amesbury said. “I’ve no idea who you are. ‘Max’ isn’t much to go on. Who sent you? Are you with another paper?”

The broad accent was gone and Max could see it was just an act, maybe to keep the developers away. “I’m an investigator, Mr Amesbury. I’ve been working on disappearances from the city of Bath and surrounds for many years now. I was hoping we could work together on one of the groups detailed in the article, the trade unionists from the foundry on Walcot Street.”

“Long time ago, that one. Would’ve thought you’d be more interested in something recent.”

“I’m very interested in why the journalist forgot about an article she wrote days before. And why that didn’t seem surprising to you.”

“What sort of things do you investigate? Only disappearances?”

Max shook his head. “Anything unusual.”

“One of those Forteans, are you?”

“No. Am I right in thinking that you’re Robert Amesbury?”

He nodded. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m living here, seeing as I used to be one of the golden boys on the force.”

“I am.”

“I’d tell you, but you’d laugh in my face.”

“I definitely won’t, Mr Amesbury. Were you hoping someone would come forward with more information, or an offer of help?”

“Something like that,” Amesbury muttered.

“The article had a result, and that’s me. I suspect I can help you, but unless you tell me more, that won’t be possible.” He waited as Amesbury considered his words. “For what it’s worth,” Max added, “it isn’t the first time I’ve come across somebody who has forgotten something that just happened to them. And not just a misplaced memory. It’s like it never happened at all.”