The Body at the Tower (24 page)

He struggled against the assault. “Stop! Stop it!”

“I’ll stop,” said a voice with cool clarity, “once you wake up.”

With a shudder and a gasp, he was suddenly awake, blinking in the pale glare of what passed as daylight in London. He looked about. He was in his bedroom, of course. It was bitterly cold. And two pairs of eyes stared down at him: Mrs Vine and George.

“Who called me that?” he demanded. He had a sour taste in his mouth.

“What – Jamie? I did,” said George.

“I hate being c-called ‘Jamie’. D-don’t do it ag-gain.” Damn his chattering teeth. Why hadn’t they laid a fire, if it was so cold?

“Yes, I’d say he’s himself again,” said George to Mrs Vine. He heaved a dramatic sigh. “More’s the pity.”

“You were hallucinating, Mr James.” She placed a cool hand on his forehead. “Feverish. I knew it.”

“N-not feverish. F-freezing.”

“Chills,” she said matter-of-factly, sweeping a hand over his sheets. “And night sweats too.”

“Oh Lord – it’s a relapse, isn’t it?” said George, beginning to pace the room. “I’ll send for the doctor. He warned you against this, James.”

“Don’t b-be an ass. I’m n-not having a relapse. I just need a fire.”

“It’s July, not November.”

“It’s still f-frigid. A fire, please, Mrs Vine.”

She shook her head gravely. “Not with that fever, Mr James. You’re too warm as it is.”

He threw back the bedclothes in a gesture he knew to be pathetic and childish. “Then I’ll make it myself.” Each leg was weak and felt heavy as lead. The rug beneath his bare toes prickled and burned and when he tried to stand, his thigh muscles buckled. “Damn it.”

Mrs Vine shifted him to the centre of the bed as if he was still eight years old. “Wiser to lie down, Mr James. I’ll send up a pot of willow-bark tea.”

Why was she always right? He glared at her retreating back. Then as it disappeared through the door, he shifted his attention to George. “Why are you still here, then? I thought you went to church with the Ringleys.”

“When Mrs Vine heard you shouting in your sleep, she thought I’d better know about it.”

“I – what?” Suddenly the room was stiflingly hot, and he threw off the counterpane. “What did I say?”

“A lot of nonsense about wine and forged letters and hyenas.” George’s mouth broadened into a sly, rosy smile. “Or did you mean wine-drinking hyenas who are also skilled forgers?”

Remembrance came flooding back with a speed that took his breath away. Or perhaps that, too, was a symptom of malarial relapse. “I – you’d not believe me if I tried to explain.” He needed to be alone. To think. His temples throbbed with a vicious headache. “I’m sorry you missed the Ringleys, old man.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll call on them this afternoon. If you’re feeling a bit better by then, of course.”

“I’m sure I will be.” The tea tray arrived and James eagerly gulped down a cup of the bitter brew. “You’ve not really sent for Newcombe, have you? The man’s a perfect quack.”

“He’s an excellent physician,” said George with reproof. “You just don’t like his advice.”

“‘Lie in bed all day and play cards. One guinea, please.’ It’s the same for every case – just that the rest of them are old ladies, and so they enjoy it and think he’s a genius.”

“Well,” said George wearily, “malarial fever hasn’t improved your temper, at any rate.”

James was wrong about Mr Newcombe, who did indeed recommend complete bed-rest but charged one pound ten shillings for this advice, as today was Sunday. Yet this verdict pleased George, especially as James offered not the slightest protest.

“You know,” said George, popping into James’s room on his way out to the Ringleys’, “it’s a great load off my mind, knowing that you value your health and want to look after it. I was always against that Indian venture, you know, and it’s done us no good as a company. But once you’re completely recovered, we can look forward to bigger and better jobs right here, in jolly old England. Cheery-ho!”

James offered him a sarcastic wave, the value of which was lost as George returned the salute with pink-cheeked good humour. As the bedroom door closed on his brother, James lay back against his many pillows, encased in fresh new linens. He drank two cups of willow-bark tea. And then he rang for writing-paper, pen and ink, and a portable desk.

Sunday, 10 July

Noon

My dear Harkness,

Having completed my review of the safety of the St Stephen’s Tower building site, I should like to present my findings to you before their submission to the First Commissioner of Works tomorrow. I shall call upon you today at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

J. Easton, Esq.

He composed this letter swiftly and without hesitation, and dispatched it by messenger. Then, arranging a second sheet of paper before him, he dipped his pen and let it hover over the page for a long time. He made several tentative pen strokes, all without putting nib to paper. Frowned. Flung down the pen, then took it up once more. Changed his mind yet again. Ten minutes, then twenty, ticked by. Finally, with a groan of frustration, he packed up the writing-table. It was senseless. Some things simply couldn’t be written.

Twenty-four

Coral Street, Lambeth

R
eid. She had to find Reid – and quickly. Last night, she’d not got as far as telling James about the memorandum book; they’d fallen out before she’d had a chance, and she’d no specific idea how to interpret it, anyway. But it left with her a sense of urgency, and the conviction that whatever Harkness envisaged happening would take place today. Whatever Harkness and the bricklayers were doing, Reid was the key. He was the least hardened, the most remorseful, the most malleable. His love for Jane Wick meant that he had the most to lose. If she could persuade Reid to confess, that was the Agency’s best chance of solving this case. Otherwise, they would be forced to rely on any scraps of evidence Harkness and Keenan failed to destroy.

Mary left by the front door – one of Miss Phlox’s rules was that lodgers had the privilege of the front door on Sundays only – and set off down the Cut towards the baker’s. Collecting a message from the Agency was awkward on Sundays, when so many businesses were closed. But it wasn’t impossible. A small alley ran behind the row of closed shops, and with a quick glance over her shoulder – not that she expected to see anyone – Mary turned into this narrow passage. The baker’s dustbin had, of course, been tipped over. Unsold goods were used by the baker’s family, but things they deemed inedible – stale crusts, floor sweepings, weevilled flour – were still prizes for the very poor, who scavenged through the bins at dusk. Mary had often seen fist-fights break out over the privilege of digging through the scraps. In her long-ago childhood she herself had fought, more than once, over a carelessly discarded bun or trimming.

Beside the back door, the third brick in the fourth layer from the ground was loose. Prising it from its place, Mary ran her fingers around the gap it left. Frowned. Swept the space again. Odd. There’d been a message every day so far. She examined the brick carefully, then the wall, and finally, on hands and knees, sifted the loose earth below. Still nothing. And no indication as to whether it simply hadn’t arrived, or it had been intercepted. Damn, damn, damn.

She had to find Reid, somehow, and didn’t much like her choices, right now.

James was out of the question.

She could return to the Hare and Hounds and try to trace Keenan’s route of yesterday. But, her fear of Keenan aside, such a project seemed foolish in the ever-changing city streets, and anybody still at the Hare would be in no condition to remember anything short of a riot, and perhaps not even that.

Her only option – waiting passively for Monday morning – was impossible, given Harkness’s mysterious deadline. But at the very least, she could send another urgent message to the Agency. Accordingly, she began to walk towards the Pig and Whistle, a newish public house less than a quarter of a mile from Westminster.

She stalked, at first, at her usual brisk pace – modified, of course, to accommodate Mark’s boyish bounce-and-slouch. But as her irritation cooled, she slowly became aware that something felt wrong. Someone was watching her. Following her, even. She could see nobody likely in front or beside her. Yet…

On the Baylis Road, she slowed her pace. Her pursuer remained behind. She continued to stroll, considering who might be following her. James? Unlikely, given the way they’d parted last night. Besides, today he had to finish his report and struggle with his conscience: work enough for any Sunday, without his tagging after her.

If not James, then her pursuer was Keenan – a thought that chilled her even before she acknowledged it. Her chances of evading him were low. She was in a part of London she knew only moderately well. It was neither raining nor particularly foggy. And, in truth, she was bone-weary. Late nights, high tension and a bedmate who snored hard enough to shake the foundations of Miss Phlox’s flimsy house: this was not a recipe for rest. If she was going to face a pursuer, Mary reasoned, she had better do so in this peopled street. Especially if it was Keenan.

She spun about before she could think better of it. Looked straight into a pair of eyes not five yards behind her. Dark eyes. Familiar eyes. After a long, incredulous moment, Mary found her voice. “Winnie?! Why are you following me?”

The girl was quaking, her cheeks a solid pink. “I – I’m sorry.” She tried to gather herself, without much success. “I – I only – I thought—”

“You thought what?” Mary all but shouted her question. Then, at the look on Winnie’s face, she moderated her voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Now there was irony: the prey apologizing to the stalker. But Winnie still didn’t reply – only stared at her in a timid, spellbound way, her colour deepening from pink to red. “You surprised me, that’s all,” Mary said as gently as she could manage.

Winnie nodded. She fidgeted with her sleeve, summoning the courage to say something. She was no longer wearing her usual dress, a brownish affair that was too short in the sleeves. Today she was in Sunday best, a bright, stiff blue that suited her ill. “You going to see your friends?” she asked in a small voice.

“Yes.” Mary hoped this wouldn’t take long. Perhaps she ought to play the callous, cocky boy after all. Gentleness could swallow up another half hour.

“In St John’s Wood?”

“Maybe. I got lots of friends, you know.” She glanced around, as though in a hurry.

“I suppose you have.”

But Winnie looked so forlorn that Mary relented. “You can’t follow me about, Winnie. It ain’t safe.”

“I weren’t following! I wanted – I was going to ask—” Here, she drew a deep breath and rattled out a speech so quickly that Mary scarcely caught it. It was clearly one she’d been rehearsing for some time. “Would you like to come to Poplar with me, for Sunday dinner, at our house? It’s always proper food, Chinese food, not like all that muck at Miss Phlox’s, and my mother, she’s a wonderful cook, and my father, he’s home on shore leave, and – oh, I think you’d like it, ever so much. It’d remind you of – well, of home, and all that.”

For one incredulous minute, Mary thought she might be dreaming. Or perhaps it was a nightmare. The idea of Winnie’s Sunday dinner – a Chinese family, a Chinese meal – made her stomach twist with a complex stab of fear, resentment, inadequacy, jealousy.

Stupid Winnie, who invited strange boys to her family’s home.

Hateful Winnie, who had a family to go home to.

Smug Winnie, who thought her family so superior.

Lucky Winnie, who had a family at all.

Mary looked at the girl’s pink face, her hopeful, timid eyes. And the knowledge of what Winnie had in Poplar – a mother who was a wonderful cook, a father who’d come home from the sea – made Mary go cold and numb. “Can’t. I’ve got things to do.”

And she spun on her heel and walked away.

She was crying. Again.

Mary ducked into another alley and tried to staunch the flow. Sometimes, it felt as though she’d never stopped. But rather than calming her feelings, the luxury of privacy – even in a smelly back alley – seemed to stir up even more, and she began to bawl outright. Curling herself into a ball, she huddled against a dusty stone wall and wept. For her mother, dead and gone. For her father, lost and forgotten. And, mostly, for herself. For Mary Lang, the mixed-race child, daughter of a Chinese sailor and an Irish needlewoman. For the sweetness of her childhood, while her parents lived, and then for its horror, after they died. For the fact that she’d once belonged, and the knowledge that now she never would again. Winnie hadn’t deserved such rudeness, but she would also never understand just how privileged she was.

Mary cried as she hadn’t in years. Perhaps as she never had. And even as she wept, she understood that this couldn’t go on. This was her last such indulgence – a farewell of sorts. Because after these minutes of weakness, she must let go of her Chinese identity. She would deny it, protect it, conceal it at all costs, because the truth was simply too painful and too dangerous. There was no room in English society for half-castes, and her choice was simple: either deny her Chinese blood, or be for ever limited by it. The last thing she wanted was to be defined solely by her father’s race – and so she would have to sacrifice it entirely.

It was a crude choice, a hateful one. But it was better to choose than to have her fate thrust upon her. Gradually, her sobs eased. Tears dried up. She wiped her face as best she could, using the inside of her jacket. Then she took a deep breath, embracing the fetid smell of the river as a means of concentrating her attentions. And she set out once again for Westminster.