The Chemickal Marriage (8 page)

Both men reached for her legs but Miss Temple kicked at their hands.

‘He will die if I do not help him.’

‘He is dead already!’ called Phelps.

‘Celeste,’ whispered Svenson. She was too high to pull down without causing her harm. ‘It is a trap. Think – you render Brine’s sacrifice without purpose –’

‘But we cannot go back!’ she hissed.

‘Celeste –’

‘
No
.’

‘You are being stubborn.’

The fence seemed higher from the top than it had from below. Brine’s strategy to reach the other side would not work for her – she’d not the strength, nor would her dress clear. She grasped the base of two spikes and called down.

‘You must support my foot.’

‘We will not,’ answered Phelps.

‘It is the simplest thing – one of you climb beneath and let me rest a foot on your shoulder – and then I will step over as if the spikes were daisies.’

‘Celeste –’

‘Or I shall fling myself like a savage.’

She felt the fence shake and then Svenson was below her, gritting his teeth.

‘I will shut my eyes,’ he said, then looked up directly beneath her legs and began to stammer. ‘For the height, you see – the height –’

‘The danger is on the
other
side,’ called Phelps. ‘You will set off the trap!’

‘A moment,’ she said to Svenson. ‘Let me gather my dress …’

Somehow his shyness gave her a confidence she had not had. She raised one knee and slowly settled it on the other side, digging her toes between the bars. The line of spikes ran straight between her legs, but she did not hurry, shifting her grip and gathering the dress to swing her second leg.

The small platform behind the gate floated in a sea of dark space. The only way off it was a ramp – Brine had clearly missed it in his fall – descending into shadow.

‘The shooting smoke,’ said Svenson. ‘It may have been bullets, or darts … can you see where they came from?’

Miss Temple eased her body lower. The metal plate that covered the platform … it sparkled.

‘There is
glass …’

To either side of the gate stood tall, thin posts, each with a vertical line of dark holes, as if they were bird houses, all facing the platform and anyone trying to break in. Miss Temple measured the distance to the ground and the
width of the metal plate. She gathered her nerve, quivering like a cat. She flung herself towards the darkness.

‘
Celeste!
’

She landed on the ramp and rolled, scrabbling with her hands to stop herself sailing off the edge. She rose with a sudden urgency and scuttled to the top of the ramp.

‘Celeste – that was incredibly foolish –’

‘Be quiet! You must either climb over after me or hide.’

‘Is there no lock?’ asked Phelps.

‘I cannot reach it without being killed – the metal plate, when one treads upon it, the trap is sprung – you will see for yourself. You must leap past it. The task is nothing, a girl has done it before you. But you must hurry – someone is coming from below!’

Phelps reached her first – spraggling and damp at Miss Temple’s feet. He motioned Svenson on with both hands. The Doctor had cleared the spikes with only a minor catch on his greatcoat, but clung uncertainly.

‘I do dislike high places,’ he muttered.

Beams of light stabbed up at them. Svenson jumped, clearing the metal plate by an inch, and lurched into their arms. Miss Temple put two fingers over his mouth. A voice rose in the darkness, harsh with amusement.

‘Look at this one! Right in the chops. You lot see if he’s alone …’

Their only exit was the ramp, exactly where a gang of men was approaching behind a raised lantern. Miss Temple took hold of her companions, pulling them down.

‘Lie flat – do not move,’ she whispered. ‘Follow when you can!’

She pressed her green bag into Phelps’s hand and then started down at a trot. She reached a landing and turned into bright lantern light.

‘Where is Mr Brine!’ she cried shrilly. ‘What has happened? Is he alive?’

The man with the lantern caught her arm with a grip like steel, the light near enough to burn her face.

‘What are you doing here?’ he snarled. ‘How did you pass the gate?’

‘I am Miss Isobel Hastings,’ she whined. ‘What has happened to Mr Brine?’

‘He’s had a bit of a fall.’ The man wore an unbuttoned green tunic, the uniform of the Xonck militia. The others with him were similarly dressed – all sloppy and unshaven.

‘My goodness,’ cried Miss Temple. ‘There are
five
of you, all come to rescue me!’

‘Rescue?’ scoffed the leader. ‘Take her arms.’

Miss Temple cried out as she was seized, doing her best to shove forward. ‘I am looking for my – my fiancé – his name is Ramper. He came here, for his work – Mr Brine told me – I paid him to help me –’

‘No one comes here, Isobel Hastings.’

‘He did! Ned Ramper – a great strapping fellow! What have you done with him?’

The leader looked past Miss Temple, and made to aim the lantern at the ramp above. She kicked his shin.

‘Where is he, I say – I insist that you answer –’

The man’s backhand struck her face like a whip, and she only kept her feet for being held. The leader marched down the ramp and barked for the others to follow. She could not place her steps. After the first few yards they simply dragged her.

She was dropped to the floor in a cold room fitted with gas lamps.

‘That one on the table.’

Men crossed in front of her and carried the deadweight of Mr Brine to a table of stained planks. Brine’s eyes were shut and his jaw was mottled and crusted with blue, like a French cheese from a cave.

‘And the sweetmeat on the throne.’

Miss Temple rose to her knees. ‘I can seat myself –’

The men exchanged a laugh and shoved her into a high-backed seat, made from welded iron pipes and bolted to the floor. A chain was cinched below her breasts and another pulled across her throat. Behind her came the creak of a door.

‘Who did you find, Benton?’

The voice was thin, as unhurried as swirling smoke. The lantern man – Benton – immediately dipped his head and backed away, ceding any claim.

‘Miss Isobel Hastings, sir. Says Ned Ramper’s her fiancé. Came with this great lump to find him.’

‘Can she speak?’

‘Course she can! I wouldn’t – not without your order –’

‘No.’

Miss Temple sensed the thin-voiced man behind her, though the chain stopped her from turning. ‘Tell me, Isobel. If you will forgive the impropriety.’ A finger insinuated itself into a curl of her hair and gave a gentle tug. ‘Who is your friend on the table?’

‘Mr Brine. Corporal Brine. He is a friend of Ned Ramper.’

‘And he led you here? Did you pay him money?’

Miss Temple nodded dumbly.

‘Benton?’

‘Six silver shillings in his pocket, sir. No one touched it.’

‘Does six shillings pay a man to die, I wonder? Would it be enough for you, Benton?’

‘Way things are now, sir … I’d call it a decent wage.’

‘And who paid Ned Ramper, Isobel?’

‘Is that important?’

He pulled her hair sharply enough to make her wince.

‘Leave what’s important to me.’

‘A woman. She lives in a hotel. I don’t like her.’

‘What hotel?’

‘Ned would not tell me. He thought I would follow him.’

She felt his breath in her ear. ‘But you
did
follow him, didn’t you, Isobel? What hotel?’

‘She lives at the … the St Royale.’

Benton glanced suddenly at the man behind her, but when Miss Temple’s captor spoke his voice betrayed no care.

‘Did you see this woman yourself?’

Miss Temple nodded again, sniffing. ‘She had b-black hair, and a red dress –’

‘And this fellow here –
Brine
– she’d hired him as well?’

Miss Temple nodded vigorously. Her captor called softly to Benton.

‘Empty his pockets. Show me.’

Benton leapt to the table. Miss Temple quickly counted – there had been five on the ramp … here she saw Benton and three more, digging at Brine’s clothing like vultures. The fifth man must have gone to collect their master. Was he standing guard at the door behind her? The hand tugged at her hair.

‘And what of
your
pockets? Have you no purse or bag?’

‘I lost it, climbing over the gate. When Mr Brine fell, I was so frightened –’

‘Not so frightened that you died.’ He called behind him. ‘See if it’s there.’

Footsteps signalled the fifth man running for the ramp. Miss Temple’s blood froze. If he discovered Svenson and Phelps –

‘He had this.’ Benton held the clipping from the
Herald
. ‘ “-grettable Canvases from Paris”. Don’t know what “-grettable” is, not speaking French.’

The paper was snatched from his hand as Miss Temple’s captor stepped forward. She glimpsed only a shining black coat before he was off without a word.

Benton watched him go, his posture lapsing back into feral comfort. He turned to Miss Temple with a satisfied smile.

‘Maybe I should search your pockets too … every little pocket you possess.’

A footfall in the darkness did not shift his hungry gaze. ‘Find her bag, then?’ Benton drawled.

‘Step away from the woman.’

Doctor Svenson strode into the light, the long Navy revolver in his hand. Benton swore aloud and reached in his tunic. The pistol roared in the echoing room like a cannon and Benton flew back, shirt-front spraying gore. Another shot shattered the leg of a man near the table. Two more, rapidly snapped from Miss Temple’s smaller weapon, drilled the back of a fellow dashing for the door. Mr Phelps came forward with Svenson, their guns extended towards the fourth man, his hands in the air.

‘Down on the floor,’ growled the Doctor. The man hurried to comply, and Mr Phelps bound his limbs. Doctor Svenson looked to the open door, then to Miss Temple.

‘Are you hurt?’

Miss Temple shook her head. Her voice was hoarse.

‘Is he – is Mr Brine –’

‘A moment, Celeste …’

Svenson knelt over the man with the shattered leg, then stood and tucked the gun away, stepping clear of the blood.

‘It is the artery,’ he muttered. ‘I meant to wound …’

Even as he spoke the heavy breathing fell to silence. Had it been even one minute? The Doctor crossed to the table, saying nothing. Miss Temple cleared her throat to get his attention. She nodded at Benton.

‘The key to these chains is in his waistcoat.’

Phelps returned Miss Temple’s revolver, with her bag, and helped himself to the unlamented Benton’s.

‘They will have heard our shots.’

‘They may assume their own men did the shooting,’ replied Svenson. He turned to Miss Temple. ‘We heard some of your interrogation.’

Phelps frowned. ‘Their leader’s voice – I’m sure I ought to place it, but the circumstances escape me.’

‘Whoever he is,’ said Svenson, ‘they have taken Mr Ramper – and who knows what he told them.’

‘It cannot have been much.’ Miss Temple straightened her jacket. ‘Not if they believed the Contessa to have hired him. But I must look at Mr Brine.’

Svenson stood with her. ‘His neck was broken in the fall. It is perhaps –’

‘A blessing,’ she said. ‘I know.’

Blue glass had been driven into Brine’s jaw, each spike sending out veins of crystallized destruction, like the limbs of embedded blue spiders. Svenson indicated a spot on Brine’s chest, then others on his abdomen and arms. In every case, peeling away his clothing revealed the hard, mottled skein of penetration.

‘Glass
bullets
?’ whispered Phelps.

Svenson nodded. ‘I cannot see the purpose. I doubt they alone would have killed him.’

Miss Temple dug in her bag for a handkerchief and walked to the door. ‘We cannot get back over the wall. We must go on.’

‘I am sorry for your man, Celeste,’ said Svenson. ‘He was a brave fellow.’

Miss Temple shrugged, but did not yet face them.

‘Brave fellows arrive by the dozen,’ she said, ‘and fate mows them flat. My own poor crop did not last at all.’

At the end of an echoing tunnel they met a metal door.

‘This explains why no one came,’ said Svenson, tugging on it. ‘Thick steel and entirely locked. We will have to return to see if one of those villains kept a key.’

‘Already done,’ said Phelps with a smile. ‘Courtesy of the late Mr Benton.’

He spread the ring of keys on his palm, selected one and slipped it in. The lock turned. Phelps stepped back and readied his pistol.

‘Do we have a plan, as such?’

‘Quite,’ offered Svenson. ‘Discover what Vandaariff has done here – find Mr Ramper – glean what we can about the Contessa – then manage our own escape.’

Miss Temple simply pulled open the door.

If the works above ground were a broken honeycomb, spread before them now was the hive itself: cages of iron, walls of blistered concrete, great furnaces gone cold, assembly tables, dusty vats, and staircases near and far, extending to the shadows.

‘Ought we to divide our efforts?’ whispered Phelps. ‘The ground is so large …’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘Even separated we could not search it in a week. We have to think: where would they locate themselves –
why
would they? In a foundry? With the ammunition stores? What serves them best?’

Phelps abruptly sneezed. ‘I beg your pardons –’

‘You have a chill,’ muttered Svenson. ‘We must find a fire.’

‘We must find that
man
. Perhaps if we climb the stairs we may see more.’ Phelps sighed and finished his own sentence. ‘Or
be
seen and get a bullet. Miss Temple, you have not spoken –’

She was not listening to either man. She had clearly never seen this place before … and yet …

She opened her bag and removed the glass square. Selecting a row of high
columns as a touch point, she looked into the glass. For a moment, as always, her senses swam … but then the same columns were there … and wide circles that must be the chemical vats … and a furnace whose slag she smelt from the door. Still, recognizing the map did not tell her where they ought to go …