The Shadow in the North (21 page)

Finally, and not without audible curses, the cabdriver gathered his reins once more, and his horse moved on. The quiet one-two-three-four clatter of its hooves and the iron trundle of the wheels lasted a long time before they were lost in the general blur of sound from the busier streets beyond the square.

And still the girl walked on. . .. She'd almost

completed the circuit of the square. Earlier in the evening, and unobtrusively, Mr. Brown had explored the house around the edge and the streets between them, in order to be sure of a way out. He knew that opposite her now there was a narrow close—an alley, almost—between two of the tall, severely handsome, old brick houses.

He saw her look across at it and step into the road. Surely she wouldn't go down there—it was perfect, even better than the darkness under the trees. .. .

But she did, hesitating a moment and then letting the great dog pad ahead of her into the alley. And now Mr. Brown moved. He took the pistol in his left hand, the knife in his right, concealing them under the thickness of his cloak, and came silently out of the trees and crossed the road. Without a glance to either side, he slipped into the alley and listened.

Silence. They hadn't heard him.

He could see them ahead, against the dim light coming from the other end. The alley was narrow and the dog was ahead of her: very well.

Knife first.

He pushed the cloak back, freeing both his arms. Then he sprang forward, thumb on the blade, and was on them before they had time to turn.

She heard him at the last moment and twisted aside. But he struck and hit home, and she gasped as if all the air had been punched out of her lungs and fell at once.

Change hands. Quick! The knife was stuck!

He slapped the gun into his right hand and tugged the knife free from her with his left, and then the dog— an explosion of snarling—^jaws, teeth, whirling movement—

It slammed into him as he fired. They fell together, and he jammed the barrel into its hot black side and fired again, the shots like cannon fire in the tiny alley.

It had him by the left arm, and its teeth crushed flesh and bone. He fired again, twice more, but he hadn't bargained for the weight of it, the way it shook him against the wall like a rat—two more shots, right into it! Into its very heart—and he heard his arm snap. It could kill a horse, a bull, this terrible strength, it was awesome—

He dropped the gun and snatched the knife from the nerveless fingers of his left hand.

Where was he, for God's sake? Upside down?

Banged from side to side—it was like a hurricane. He'd fired into its body time and time again and still it came on—

He drove the knife up into it, again, again, again, grating on bone and slippery with blood and it made no difference; the dog wasn't feeling it—it still had its teeth in his arm—it felt as if they'd met in the center of it! The pain—the fear. He drove the knife up again, again, again, again, driving, thrusting, hacking—no craftsmanship now, this was panic—and the snarling md the thrashing worsened. He felt dizzy with

weakness and still he stabbed, driving the knife into throat, belly, back, chest, head—and then it let go.

Blood—so much blood.

His arm screamed. It hung down uselessly beside him.

And then with a surge like a wave of the sea the dog was at his throat, tearing—

Something spilled. A terrible gush, spilling out.

And a weakness came over the dog. Its jaws loosened and it trembled, and the snarling diminished to a sigh, and it stood away and shook itself, almost in puzzlement. Drops flew from it. And it sank to a sitting position and then slumped clumsily forward.

Mr. Brown dropped the knife and dragged the cloak, sopping, up to his throat. He was lying against the wall with his legs under the body of the dog, and the life was gushing out of him. The sound it made appalled him.

But he'd done it. He might not survive the dog, but the girl was dead. He reached out dimly and his hand met her hair, wet on the stone beside him.

Then a voice spoke from the entrance of the alley.

"Chaka?" it said.

He twisted and knelt up in a moment of final terror. She was there, holding a lantern. Bareheaded— blond—that face, that lovely horrified face, those ty^%\

It wasn't possible—

He looked down and snatched aside the cloak that hid the dead girl's face.

A huge birthmark spread across it from jaw to forehead.

The wrong girl—and he—^his craftsmanship— He bowed his head and fell forward into everlasting horror.

Sally rushed in and flung herself down in the narrow space beside the girl, setting the lantern on the cobblestones by her head.

"Isabel—" she said. "Isabel— "

She laid her hands on the other girls cheek and saw her eyelids shake, and then open wide. She looked crazed, like someone waking from a nightmare.

"Sally," she whispered.

"Did he—" Sally began.

"He stabbed me—but it didnt—the knife caught in—in my stays. Oh, how silly—I fainted—but Chaka—"

And Sally felt as if some god had struck her a great blow over the heart.

She caught up the lantern again. Its quivering light danced over the body of the man, over the streams of blood on the stones, and lit the dark head and dim eyes of the dog.

"Chaka," she said aloud, with all her love in the shaking of her voice.

And the dog heard, at the edge of death, and lifted his head to her and thumped his tail on the ground, once, twice, thrice, before his great strength left him.

She threw herself full length and held his head and kissed it again and again, sobbing, her tears mingled with his blood as she cried his name.

He tried to answer, but his throat was mute. Darkness was everywhere. Sally was with him. It was safe. He died.

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The ordinary kind of time stopped then, and or half the night another kind took over: a phantasmagoric shadow show filled with police and onlookers and a doctor for Isabel (cut along her ribs) and then a

rumbling man with a cart summoned to take Chaka iway. But Sally wouldn't allow that; she paid him to take the body into her landlord s garden instead, and

ave him half a crown for a tarpaulin to cover it with. Chaka would be buried where she chose.

Isabel went to bed as soon as the doctor had left— dazed and trembling now, and beginning to hurt. Sally mswered questions: yes, the dog was hers; no, she didn't enow why Miss Meredith had been attacked; no, she didn't recognize the man; yes. Miss Meredith lived here; ^es, she usually walked the dog at that time; no, neither »he nor Miss Meredith had received any threats. . . .

In the end the police seemed to accept that it had 3een a chance attack by an opportunist, though she :ould tell that they were puzzled. He was too well u:med for an ordinary street robber, and to take on anyone accompanied by a dog like that when there were

plenty of easier targets—^well, it was odd. They left, shaking their heads. It was after three o'clock when she got to bed, and no matter how many blankets she piled on, she couldn't stop shivering.

First thing next morning she went to her office—and found it empty.

It had been ransacked.

Her files, her careftilly arranged correspondence, the folders on all her clients, the details of their shareholdings and savings—it was all gone. The shelves were empty; the drawers of the cabinet hung open.

She felt light-headed, crazy, as if she'd walked into the wrong office. But, no—there were her table and chairs, there was the sagging divan. .. .

She ran down to the office of her landlord's chief clerk, who managed her rental.

"Where are my files? What's happened?"

For an instant, pure shock passed over his face—as if he'd seen a ghost. Then it closed into tight-lipped coldness.

"I'm afraid I cannot say. And I must point out that I have received information about your use of this office that is most disturbing. When the police came this morning, they—"

"The police? Who called the police? What did they want?"

"I did not think it proper to inquire. They removed certain documents, and—"

"You let them take my property from my office? And did you get a receipt?"

"I am not going to stand between a police officer and his duty. And do not take that tone with me, young lady."

"Did they have a warrant? On whose authority did they enter my office?"

"On the authority of the Crown!"

"In that case they will have had a warrant. Did you see it?"

"Of course not. It was none of my business."

"Which police station did they come from?"

"I have no idea. And I must—"

"You allowed police officers into my room to take away my property—^you didn't ask for a receipt—^you didnt see a warrant. This is England, did you know that? You have heard of a search warrant, I suppose? How do you know that these men were really police officers?"

He banged the desk and stood up, shouting, "I will not be spoken to like that by a common prostitute!"

The word hung in the sudden silence.

He was staring fixedly at the wall behind Sally, unable to look her in the face.

She looked him up and down, from the red spots in his thin cheeks to the papery knuckles clutching the desk.

"I'm ashamed of you," she said. "I thought you were a businessman. I thought you could see straight and

deal fairly. Once, I'd have been angry with you—but now I'm just ashamed."

He said nothing as she turned and left.

The sergeant on duty at the nearest police station was an elderly, avuncular soul, who frowned and tut-tutted in a concerned way as Sally began the story.

"Your office?" he said. "You've got an office, have you, miss? That's nice."

She looked at him carefrilly, but he seemed to be listening. She went on. "Did the policemen come from this station?"

"I don't really know, miss. We've got a lot of policemen here."

"But surely you'd know what was going on? They took some documents. They must have brought them back here. Has no one come in with paper or files or letters brought from an office in King Street?"

"Oooh, hard to say. There's a lot of paper comes in and out of here. You'd better give me the details."

He licked his pencil—and then she saw him wink at the constable behind the desk nearby, and saw the young man turn away to hide a smirk.

She didn't answer.

She had suddenly realized something about people like this—^whether they were businessmen, policemen, civil servants, hotel proprietors, landlords, or what: it was that they didn't mean what they said. They never told the truth. What they seemed to be doing—catch-

ing criminals, buying and selling, banking, administering, making things—^wasn't the real business of their lives at all. It was a cover. They were only playing at it, and they didn't even do it well, because they didn't believe in it. The real, secret business of their lives lay in keeping power for people like themselves. That was all they really cared about, and they were desperately serious about it, because the thought of losing the little power they had was terrifying to them; and they didn't mind what damage they did to truth or honesty or justice in the struggle to hang on to it.

"On second thought," she said, "don't bother." She put her hand out for Chaka and looked down for the warmth of his love and his goodness, but there was nothing there, because they'd killed him. The tears spilled over her cheeks and she left.

She reached Burton Street only ten minutes after Frederick got back from the north. He was tired and disheveled and unshaven, having spent the night on a slow train, and he'd eaten nothing since lunch the previous day, but he pushed aside his coffee and toast, listened intently to what she told him, and then called Jim.

"Job for Turner and Luckett," he said. "Sally—finish my coffee for me. ..."

An hour later a removal van drawn by a lean gray horse pulled up outside Baltic House. Two men with

green baize aprons got off, put a nosebag over the horses head, and walked in past the stout commissionaire.

"Load o' files," said the taller man (a lugubrious fellow with a large mustache) to the porter. "They come in earlier, or something. They got to be moved to Hyde Park Gate."

"That's probably where Mr. Bellmanns gone, then," said the porter. "I dunno where they put 'em. I better ask the chief clerk—I think he was handling 'em."

An office boy was sent to find out, and five minutes later the removal men were carrying the first load down and stowing them in the back of their van. As they came in for a second load, the porter said, "You got a letter, have you? I better have a look. And I'll need a receipt."

"Oh, yus—here you are," said the removal man. "You go on up, Bert—start on the next load."

The more slightly mustached removal man went ahead while the porter scrutinized the letter authorizing the removal. When the files were all in the van, the first removal man wrote out a receipt on his firm's stationery and gave it to the porter before climbing up onto the box. The younger man removed the horse's nosebag. The commissionaire saluted as they drove away.

When they were around the corner and out of sight of Baltic House, the younger man spoke for the first time.

"Well, Fred," he said.

"Well, Jim," was the reply.

Jim pulled at his mustache, wincing as the spirit gum clung to his lip.

"Don t pluck at it nervously," said Frederick. "A good manly tug's all it needs."

He reached across and yanked it free with a sharp tearing sound. A fusillade of oaths followed from Jim— enough, as Frederick said, to make the horse blush.

"Tell you what," he said when the tirade had abated. "I'll turn in here and you jump down and turn the sign round. And we'll take oflF these aprons—^just in case anyone wakes up and gives chase. ..."

Two minutes later, with their flat caps changed for bowler hats and the sign on the van reversed to read WILSON BROS., WHOLESALE GROCERIES, they were on their way back to Burton Street.

Oh, Fred, —I don't believe it!"