Jackdaw (8 page)

“There was an artist, back at the station, in September. He said he was illustrating a novel.”

“They’d planned it all.” Jonah’s shoulders were slumped, defeated. “God knows how far in advance. We never had a chance, did we? Anyway, they showed me they had you, and then he went to work on the cat again, until I said, yes, I’ll do whatever you tell me, and Lady Bruton smiled at me, and she said, ‘I know.’”

“God. But—”

“I wanted to tell you,” Jonah overrode him. “Say goodbye. I begged her to let me, and she said I could, but I had to meet them in Hemel Hempstead at noon on Thursday. This was Tuesday night. She said I could have a day, but Newhouse would start work on your picture at noon on Thursday if I wasn’t there. And that would have been fine, except for the bloody justiciary.”

“They were on your tail.”

“Yes, they were,” Jonah said resentfully. “They caught up with me Wednesday afternoon. I got away, just, but I was running all night. I didn’t want to lead them to you. I shook them off eventually and lay low in the timber yard. By then I’d realised that the important thing was to get to Hemel Hempstead in time, even if I didn’t see you, so I was going to have a couple of hours’ rest and get over there. But the sods found me.” He shuddered. “I fought, Ben, really I did. It was Thursday morning. I knew what was going to happen at noon. I’ve never fought so hard in my life. But I lost, and they got me down, and then…”

“The carriage.”

“I told you,” Jonah whispered. “I said you had to let me go. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You could have told me something,” Ben said. “Surely. You could have trusted me—”

“But you didn’t trust me. I was a thief who’d lied to you for months. If I’d started babbling about you being in danger— And it was eleven o’clock, Ben, I heard the bells, I had to get miles over open ground… So I did it. You know what I did.”

“Did you use magic on me?” Ben’s voice was thick and gritty. “To make me kiss you?”

Jonah’s smile was painfully sad and twisted. “I tried, but I had iron on me, it stops the power. So I don’t think it worked. I think that was just us, Ben. Just you.”

Ben tried to speak. He couldn’t find words.

“But I tried to,” Jonah said. “And I left you there, on your own, and you went to prison for it, and I am sorry, Ben, so sorry, but… I got to Lady Bruton three minutes before noon, and you weren’t dead.”

There was a long silence. Jonah was breathing hard. Ben found it hard to breathe at all.

“Then?” he managed.

“Two months working for the Bruton bitch.” Jonah tipped his head back, contemplating the ceiling of the compartment as the train rattled along. “Newhouse tore your picture at the edges every so often, to keep my mind on the task in hand. So I stole and impersonated and carried messages, and helped them kill policemen and entrap justiciars. I did try to get out. I even talked to Day, but it didn’t go very well. I don’t like justiciars, and they don’t like me, and I was so angry all the time, it felt as though I was going mad. And mostly I couldn’t
say
anything. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about the painter, you see. Bruton would fluence me every now and then, and ask me questions, and if they found out I’d talked about him, they’d have killed you. Day was no help, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to turn, so I just kept doing what I was told, right up to the end.”

“How did it end?”

“Oh, God, it was horrible. Newhouse had done a sketch of Crane, and they used that threat to capture Day. Then I had to fetch Crane so Lady Bruton could use Day to threaten him. Turn and turn about. She had it all worked out but…” He shuddered. “That man, Crane, he frightens me. He seemed to plan everything in the time it takes me to decide what to have for luncheon. He brought down the whole gang of them, all practitioners. Decapitated one with his bare hands.”

“That isn’t possible,” Ben said, hoping he was right.

“Maybe not, but I saw him do it. I tell you what, there’s something really
odd
about him. Anyway, he took the man’s head off, and his henchman, who is the most appalling brute, cut the painter’s throat. So all I had to do was be sure your picture could no longer hurt you, and then I ran like the devil was at my heels, because he was.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” Ben demanded. “Explain yourself? You were acting under duress, Day must have seen that. Surely he’d have understood you were forced to it.”

“Maybe I should have.” Jonah looked rather awkward. “The problem was, I didn’t know if the power to hurt lay in the painter or the painting. Whether only Newhouse could rip the sketch and kill you, or if anyone could. So even when Newhouse was dead, I didn’t know if you were safe. And I didn’t know where your picture was, and Lady Bruton was still fighting, with Day in iron, and I had no reason to suppose Crane could beat her, and I wasn’t going to help him if that risked you. It was an impossible situation. I didn’t have any choice.”

Ben had a distinct sense of impending doom. “What did you do?”

“I tore up Crane’s picture.”

“Tore…”

“The painter had it in his hand,” Jonah explained. “And I thought, if I tore it and it didn’t kill him, that would prove
you
were safe. So I did.”

“Did Day see you do that?” Ben asked, without much hope.

“Both of them. Day and Crane. And, uh, I tore it a bit enthusiastically. It was all rather tense. If you must know, I ripped it in half, but it was fine, Crane didn’t die. There’s no point putting your face in your hands like that. There was a pitched battle going on and people being killed left, right and centre, and Saint had kicked me in the head which really hurt, so I’d have liked to see you handle it better. Oh, be reasonable.”

“Do you think Day’s going to be reasonable about it?” Ben enquired through his fingers.

“It’s not Day I’m frightened of. Crane’s a sod, and his pet murderer would cut my throat without blinking and
he
…this isn’t very good, Ben…he’s going to marry Saint.”

“Saint,” Ben repeated. “Miss Saint, who I knocked off a roof.”

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

“So, we’re now on the run from the justiciary, the Metropolitan Police, a rich and ruthless man that you tried to kill, and the extremely dangerous fiancé of the woman that
I
tried to kill. Is that right?”

“‘Tried to kill’ is overstating it,” Jonah objected. “It’s more ‘might have accidentally killed, but didn’t’.”

Ben let his head drop back against the seat. “God almighty. Day was right. You’re a catastrophe.”

“You don’t have to stay.” Jonah hunched up, face darkening. “You can have the money I stole and get off at the next stop. They want me, not you.”

“They want both of us. Trust me, Jonah. I’ve upset Day and the Met as much—well, not as much as you but quite enough.”

The train rattled on.

“I’ve made a mess of this, haven’t I?” Jonah sounded defeated. “I kept thinking I could keep going and find a way out. I couldn’t let Newhouse kill you, and I couldn’t let you go back to prison. But every time I’ve just got you in more trouble. God, Ben, maybe you should go. I’m not doing you any good.”

“I looked for you when I came out,” Ben said. “When they let me out of prison, part of me thought you’d be there. Waiting.”

“I didn’t even know you were inside.” Jonah gave him a miserable smile. “How could I have? I can’t read, I can’t write, and even if I hadn’t been slaved to Lady Bruton, I couldn’t have shown my face in Hertfordshire to look for you. Eventually, when it was all over, I found someone I trusted to ask some questions for me, and that was when I learned that you’d been gaoled. I came back to London because…well, because I thought you might want to find me.”

“I did. I wanted to wring your neck.”

“I know. I don’t blame you. If you still do, I’ll understand. I don’t mean I’ll let you,” Jonah added quickly. “Just that I’ll understand if you want to.”

Ben sighed. “No. No, I don’t. Day showed me the picture.” Jonah looked up, startled. Ben shrugged. “I wanted to hear your side. But he told me you’d been trying to save me. They do know that.”

Jonah cocked his head, the familiar birdlike motion. “Do you think that means they might be a little more sympathetic?”

“No.”

“I suppose not. Is that why you warned me in the park, because you knew about the picture?”

“Yes. Maybe.” Was it? “I…I don’t know. I told them where you were, after they told me all that. I helped them set that trap.”

“You mean, Day fluenced you?”

“No. I wanted them to catch you.”

“Oh.” Jonah hunched his shoulders. “Well. Why did you—”

“I don’t know.”

They stared helplessly at each other, across the compartment, across the chasm between them.

“What are we going to do, Jonah?” The question came out without planning, propelled by Ben’s confusion and unhappiness. “What now?”

“I don’t know.” Jonah gave him a hopeful flicker of a smile. “Could we, well, is there a way for us to start again, do you think? Not now, I don’t mean that, but when you’re ready—”

“We can’t start again.” Ben said that too loudly and gave a hasty glance at the closed compartment door, knowing this could not be overheard. “
We
never started in the first place, because you were lying to me the whole time.” He felt a stab of irrational guilt at the slight sag in Jonah’s shoulders, and spoke a little more gently. “You’re not the man I thought you were. And even if you were, I’m not the man I used to be.”

Jonah huddled on the seat opposite. “Does it not…does it not count at all that I was doing those things with Lady Bruton for you? Doesn’t that matter?”

“It matters.” It mattered so much. One of the iron clamps round Ben’s heart had loosened ever since he’d seen that pencil sketch of his own face, a dreadful thorny knot untangling at last. “I understand why you left me. I—God, Jonah. I hated you so much, for so long, and now I know you were thinking of me, you cared—” He stopped, voice suspended, hand over his eyes.

“Ben.” Jonah sprang close to him, hand out, hovering. “Ben, listen—”

“No.” Ben forced control on his voice. “Because, if you weren’t a thief, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“It would,” Jonah insisted. “Lady Bruton needed a windwalker, she’d have come and got me.”

“But you wouldn’t have been arrested first. I wouldn’t have been there at all. You could have appealed to the justiciary. I could have helped you. Don’t you see that?”

Jonah made a strangled noise, shoved himself back onto the opposite bench and turned away, staring out of the window as the train slowed, entering Reading Station. Drifts of steam rolled past the glass. “All right. Fine. It’s all my fault, I brought it on myself. I know. Well, what now? You get off the train, and go and live your life somewhere else? Doing what?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’re bad for each other,” Ben said. “You lied to me. I betrayed you.”

“You didn’t.” Jonah spoke urgently, trying to make it true, or to make it better, eyes wide with sincerity. “Ben, you did
not
.”

And that, suddenly, was it. Too much. Far more than Ben could bear. “I can’t do this any more. I’m going.”

“Ben?” Jonah asked, bewildered, and then, “Ben!” as he stood, jerkily, and pushed his way out of the compartment.

No more. No more of the misery in Jonah’s face, his uncomprehending, stubborn hope. No more of the ridiculous longing to kiss it away and make him happy again, or to bury his face in Jonah’s chest and lose his own misery in the warmth and scent of him. No more being dragged from disaster to disaster in the wake of Jonah’s chaotic, irresponsible progress—because he would be, he could feel the pull that made him want to stop thinking once more and slip back into happy, false, lethal ignorance to the sound of Jonah’s laughter. No more of any of it, because it all hurt too much to be borne, and the thing that hurt the most was to know that Jonah wanted to spare him pain.

Chapter Eight

Ben blundered off the train, not looking forward or back. He shoved his ticket at the inspector, made his way blindly out into the unfamiliar town, and, with no idea where to go or what to do now, began to walk. Long strides, moving without thinking, trying to outpace the storm of memory and unhappiness and wishing that raged through him, and failing.

After a while, he wasn’t sure how long, he stopped for a rest. He was hungry, he realised. He should have eaten something on the train—

That was when Ben realised that he was destitute.

Jonah had the stolen money, and the food they hadn’t eaten. Ben had nothing in his pockets—he searched them now, to be sure, hoping for a few pennies, but they were empty. He had nothing to sell, having pawned his watch months back. He knew nobody in this town. The train was long gone. He was alone.

Ben stood, staring blankly, trying to understand what he’d done to himself and to think what to do now. There would be a workhouse, if he could beg for a place, but that was a last resort for desperation. He was able-bodied, strong still. Surely he could find a few pennies’ worth of labour.

There was a policeman on the street corner. Ben plucked up his courage against the shame of poverty and went over to him.

“I beg your pardon, Constable. I’m looking for work. Can you tell me—”

“No begging, no soliciting.” The constable folded his arms.

“I’m not begging,” Ben said, as evenly as possible. “I want to work, and I don’t know this town. If you can tell me where to go—”

“I said, no begging.” He was a big man, and he leaned down over Ben with an officious loom, taking in his dishevelled, dirty clothes, the ugly scar. “Are you a vagrant?”

Vagrancy was a legal offence. To have no home and no money, while being able-bodied, made Ben a criminal by his very existence, one of the undeserving poor. He knew that well enough; he’d picked up plenty of men for it in his time.

“I’m not a vagrant,” he said stubbornly. “I’ve somewhere to stay. I just want to find work.”

“Well, you’d better get on and look, hadn’t you?” the constable told him. “Because it’s three of the clock now, and if I find you loitering after dark…” He gave Ben a significant look, leaned back and returned to doing nothing on a street corner.

Ben’s hands were shaking as he walked off. He’d have liked to believe that the man was just a single bully, but he doubted it. The parish funded the workhouses, and they would have made their feelings known to the local force. This would not be a sympathetic town.

He looked. He did his best, asking anywhere that looked likely with more and greater urgency, but it was too late in the day, and he was filthy and unshaven after the night and the rooftop escape. Five refusals turned to ten, and twenty. He sounded more and more frantic as the gnaw of hunger turned painful, and his need repelled anyone who might have helped. There were enough willing men out there; nobody had to trust in a desperate one.

A few long, humiliating hours later, Ben was standing on the town bridge, stomach as empty as his heart, staring into the dark water below.

This would be a cold and hungry night, at best. There were no beggars huddled up under the bridge, which probably meant that he’d be moved on, or arrested, or beaten, if he tried to sleep there. They would have somewhere to go; there were always beggars. But Ben had no idea where they would be, where to go for a safe place to sleep, how to ask. He had no idea what he would do tomorrow.

The icy wind slashed through his thin coat. Beneath him the river water was swift, turbid, sweeping everything away in its rapid passage. It would sweep him away as quickly.

Every part of this, he had brought on himself. Every choice, every action and reaction, every decision to do with Jonah had led him to this place, and the worst of it was, all he could think about was Jonah’s face as he’d walked out of the compartment, and the lost, abandoned expression in his eyes.

He wished he had said he was sorry, that would have been only decent. He should have said goodbye.

The wind whipped at his hair. Ben rested his arms on the cold iron of the railings, bowed his head and tried to find the strength for one last act.

A deep voice cut through the quiet. “Oi! You. You, there.”

Ben looked up, a slight movement of vague curiosity, and saw the police constable from earlier, with another copper by his side. They came hurrying over, bull’s-eye lanterns in hand. Perhaps they thought he might run. That wouldn’t happen. He turned and stared back over the river, too weary to care any more.

“Oi,” repeated the constable. “What’s your name?”

God, did they have to go through this? “Spenser.”

“Spenser?” The constable’s voice betrayed eagerness. He lifted his lantern, shining the light on Ben’s face, the distinctive scar. “Benedict Spenser. That’s right, ain’t it?”

Of course, Ben thought wearily, through the greyness. Of course the justiciary had followed somehow, traced them to Paddington and on from there. People had doubtless remembered a scarred man and another with a streak in his hair. The Met would have telegraphed to stations on the line. Of course they had. Of course Ben could not have escaped the consequences of his acts. Nobody ever did.

“Yes,” he said drearily. “That’s me.”

“Told you, din’t I?” the constable said to his colleague, with satisfaction. “I told you I saw him, and now we’ve got him. Feather in my cap, that’ll be. All right, Spenser. You’re going to come with us, now, sunshine. No trouble, understand?”

Ben couldn’t summon up the strength to move. It didn’t matter; they’d take him anyway. A cell, a train, back to the vengeful Met or the justiciary. He wondered vaguely, as if tackling a problem of logic, whether he could vault the railings and jump, but there was no resistance left in him.

“I said come with us. Right now.” The big man’s threat was clear: Ben would obey or be made to. His hand closed hard around Ben’s upper arm, jerked roughly.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” said Jonah.

Ben’s eyes snapped open. He swung round, disbelieving, but there he was, a few yards away: Jonah, hatless and windswept.

He didn’t look at Ben. His attention was fixed on the two constables, and Ben had never seen him look as he did now. There was a wildness about him, a feral anger in his face, a quivering readiness to strike.

This was the Jonah Pastern who lied and stole and sent others to their deaths. This was Jonah fighting.

“No need to interfere, sir,” began the second copper, but the first had sucked in a breath, staring at Jonah’s piebald hair. He nudged the speaker, said as quietly as he could, “It’s the other one,” and cleared his throat.

“Best if you both come along with us, I reckon.”

“Do you?” Jonah asked, with wide-eyed over-sincerity that made Ben’s skin prickle. He took one light, almost dancing step forward, body taut with coiled power under pressure. “You think that’s best? How sweet of you, thinking of us. You’re
lovely
.”

“Jonah,” Ben said. “Don’t hurt them.”

“Would I?” Jonah’s grin was all teeth. “Would I do that?”

“I mean it.
Don’t
.”

The second policeman retreated a step. Ben didn’t blame him. “Now, you listen—”

“Let go of him.”

The policeman’s grip on Ben’s arm tightened. He began, “This man is under arrest,” and Jonah moved. Not the spring of a fighter, leading with a knife or a punch, but an acrobatic leap, bouncing off the air, spinning, and landing a booted foot squarely in the man’s face, so hard Ben heard the crunch of cartilage. The big copper went staggering down and back, letting go of Ben in his shock. The second, with panicked courage, lunged forward, and Jonah vaulted right over the top of the six-foot man’s head, came down on the other side, thrust a foot between his legs and sent him stumbling forward over his colleague. As the two coppers tried to regain their feet, Jonah was over them, hands slapping on each man’s neck.

“Listen to me.” Jonah’s eyes were burning blue in the moonlit darkness, his voice savage. “You don’t know who we are. You don’t know what happened here. You don’t want him, and you don’t want me. What you know is…you need to run. You need to run now, because there is something on this bridge that is going to rip you apart if you don’t. Your worst nightmares are right here, waiting for you, coming for you, if you don’t run
now
. Go!”

The constables broke, scrabbling to their feet with sobs of fear, and ran, boots pounding on the bridge. Ben stared after them, back at Jonah. He was watching the fleeing policemen, face startlingly grim. The magpie streak of his hair shimmered in the moonlight, white against black. Ben had always loved the mobility of his face, the vivid life of it, even when Jonah’s rapid flitting from thought to thought had driven him to laughing distraction. Now he saw a stranger, still and intent and ruthless, with powers he didn’t understand, and he was frightened.

“Uh,” he managed.

Jonah looked round with quick concern, the implacable look dissolving as though it had never been. “Are you all right?”

“Why are you here?” Ben blurted out.

“You went away. You walked off and left me on my own—both of us on our own—and I got about three miles out of Reading and decided, I don’t care.” Jonah took a step closer. “I don’t care if you don’t love me now, or if you never love me again. I’m not going to leave you alone, and that’s all there is to it. Let’s just
go
somewhere.” It was a plea. “There’s a train going west at half past nine. We’ll sneak onto it and go where it takes us, and go somewhere else from there, and stop when we’ve gone as far as we can. And I promise I don’t expect you to forgive me, or anything else. But I’m so tired of not being with you. Come with me. Please?”

“We’re not good for each other,” Ben repeated, mostly to himself. He had to hold on to that, he knew, though he wasn’t sure why any more, or what it meant.

“Perhaps not,” Jonah said. “But we’re not doing very well apart.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” Suddenly, Ben felt as though he could barely stand. He sagged back, using the parapet for support. “I— Oh, God, I’m so tired. I don’t know what to do.”

Jonah was in front of him then, pulling Ben forward, and he let his head flop onto the strong shoulder because he could no longer hold it up. “So come with me till you do know. You can change your mind when you’re ready, but for now—” His hands gripped Ben’s upper arms, holding him up as much as anything, because the exhaustion and despair had sapped all Ben’s strength, and it was as much as he could do to hold back weak, hopeless tears. “Jesus Christ, Ben, my Ben, what happened? What did they do to you? Come on, lover. With me. We’re going together.”