The Silk Thief (43 page)

‘Yes, we do. The George Inn, on Market Street.’

‘How do you know that?’

Leo tapped his nose. ‘Anyway,
we
are not looking for Bennett bloody Leary.’

‘We have to! Char—’

‘No, you won’t be doing anything. I’ll do a bit of asking around. Go and talk to your man.’

‘He’s not my man.’

Leo sighed. ‘Harrie, why are you making this so hard for yourself? Talk to him, go on. Be a good lass.’

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Harrie thought. I’m not good.

Leo had deliberated all day over what he was about to do. If it turned to shit, there could be bloody serious consequences, but if it worked, his plan could go a long way towards getting rid of Leary.

Turning off George Street into Market, he pulled his hat lower onto his forehead against the stiff but warm evening breeze gusting up the hill from Darling Harbour, bringing with it dust and grit from the street and the smell of the sea, cesspits, and a nearby tannery. The sun had only just dropped behind the hills on the far side of the harbour, forcing him to squint against the line of liquid flame burning along the horizon, until a bullock team hauling a precariously overloaded wagon crested the hill rising from Market Wharf and blocked the fiery glare. The skinny little bullocky, arse off the seat and his whip cracking like a musket going off, shouted and swore, urging the beasts over the summit, breath shooting from flaring nostrils as though they were a team of lumpy, misshapen, shitting dragons.

Leo watched from the footway, unconsciously leaning with the bullocks, urging the loaded wagon up and over until at last they made it, to cheers and applause from the open windows of the George Inn at his back. He turned and went in.

The publican confirmed that Jonah Leary had been renting a room upstairs for the past week and had just paid for another, and no, he didn’t know if he was in or not. Leo thanked him, had a quick look around the public room to see if he could spot Leary among the drinkers, couldn’t, and made his way up to the first floor.

Clearly the publican was the parsimonious type, Leo thought, as although sconces were attached to the walls, the candles themselves were missing. He walked to the end of the corridor, his boots making a hell of a noise on the uncarpeted floorboards. Which was fine — he had no intention, after all, of sneaking up on Leary.

Reaching the farthest door, he knocked purposefully.

‘Who is it?’ a voice called.

‘Leo Dundas.’

The door opened slightly; Jonah Leary peered out. ‘Have you found him?’

‘No. But I’ve been thinking about how you could get a heads up on whether you will find him.’

Scowling, Leary opened the door another few inches, keeping, Leo noticed, his boot firmly wedged behind it. ‘What?’

‘I know a woman who reads the cards. She has a very good reputation. She can tell you what your future holds, and maybe even where your brother is. She can at least tell you whether he’s definitely here.’ Leo spread his hands and shrugged. ‘I mean, he might not be. He might be in Van Diemen’s Land. You don’t know. There’s no point any of us looking for him if he isn’t in Sydney, is there?’

Leary gave him a long, suspicious look. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Serafina Fortune. You’ve heard of her?’

Leary nodded and asked, as though sensing a trap or a swindle, ‘How well do you know her?’

‘She reads the cards for me every six months or so,’ Leo said truthfully, but not quite answering the question — Serafina did poke around in his future now and then, though of course he saw her a lot more frequently than every six months. Anyway there was no trap. He hadn’t spoken to her at all about Leary. Either the cove’s brother was in Sydney or he wasn’t, and if he was, hopefully Serafina, with her fey and alarming gift, would be able to discover where, then Leary would leave him and Harrie alone.

‘Where is she, this Fortune woman?’

‘Essex Street.’

Leary shut the door. Five minutes passed and Leo thought his plan had failed before it had even got under way. He swore under his breath and turned to leave, but then Leary emerged from his room dressed for the street.

‘We’ll go now.’

Disconcerted, Leo said, ‘You don’t have an appointment. It’s after hours.’ Serafina was likely to tell him to fuck off if she wasn’t in the mood for reading the cards without warning.

Leary dug in his pocket and flapped a ten-shilling note in Leo’s face. ‘I don’t need an appointment.’

Arrogant prick, Leo thought. ‘I should warn you, I gather she’s not known for her good temper.’

‘Neither am I,’ Leary said, and strode off down the corridor.

Leary said little as they walked down to Essex Street, except to recount the experience of an acquaintance, a convict with a ticket of leave, who had engaged Serafina Fortune’s services to find out whether he would marry a woman over whom he was lovesick — Leary’s sneering interpretation of the situation — and whom he’d been avidly courting. Serafina had apparently read the man’s cards and told him he had a choice; he could either forget about the woman, or marry her and live under a long shadow of misery. The man had dumped his sweetheart, which had been fortunate as she’d been carrying some other cove’s brat. That was how he’d learnt of Serafina Fortune’s talents.

Hoping that Serafina was in a reasonable mood, because quite often she wasn’t, Leo knocked on the blue-painted door of her cottage. She took so long to open it that he thought for a minute she might be out, despite the light in the window. When she did, he shook his head once, almost imperceptibly, as she gazed at them in silence, hoping to convey via the tiny movement that she was not to let on how well they knew each other, and fairly confident that she’d understand. Perhaps she was expecting them anyway. Who knew, with her?

‘Good evening, Miss Fortune,’ he said. ‘We’re sorry to disturb you. This is Mr Leary. He’d like a reading, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Mr Dundas,’ Serafina said, her expression inscrutable. She turned her attention to Leary, taking her time assessing him. ‘Mr Leary. The fee is six shillings after hours without an appointment.’

Leo bit his lip. She never charged more than four.

‘Six! Christ,’ Leary said.

‘If that’s beyond your means …’ Serafina stepped back, her hand on the door.

Leary said, ‘No, wait, I’ll pay. But I’ll expect me money’s worth.’

‘Oh,’ Serafina said, ‘I’m sure you’ll get that.’

Inside she sat him down at the oval table, turned up the lamp positioned in the centre, and opened the wooden box that held her cards. While Leo made himself comfortable at the far end of the table, she took her money tin out of the box, unlocked it and looked at Leary expectantly. ‘Fee in advance, if you don’t mind.’

With obvious reluctance, Leary gave her his ten-shilling note. She placed it in the tin, handed him four shillings in change, and locked it again.

‘Do you have a specific set of cards you prefer?’ she asked.

‘Dunno. Never done this before,’ Leary said. ‘I’ve heard about you, though. I’m looking for —’

‘Hush!’ Serafina raised a long-fingered hand. ‘Please say nothing about yourself or what you seek, Mr Leary. The cards will do that.’

Leary sat back in his chair hard enough to make the legs scrape on the floor, and folded his arms belligerently across his chest.

Serafina took a pack of cards from the box and shuffled them expertly. Then she set them before Leary, asked him to touch the pile, shuffled again, cut the deck and laid out five in the shape of a cross.

‘This is a general reading reflecting where you’ve been and where you are now,’ she said.

‘I know where I am. Sydney Town.’

‘I mean where you are in your life,’ Serafina said, not looking up but making it very clear by her frosty tone that she knew he was being a deliberate smartarse. ‘The next spread I’ll do will answer the questions you have.’

Leaning back in his own chair, Leo looked at Leary through half-closed eyes. The man was frightened, or at least visibly on edge. Sweat had popped out on his forehead and his leg was fidgeting under the table. Was it Serafina and the cards unnerving him, or was he worried he’d discover his brother wasn’t in Sydney after all? Or something else altogether? Leo shifted his gaze to Serafina, staring intently down at the spread. He knew the cards were just a prop. She had the sight and could see the future, and the past, by just letting her mind drift. It scared the shit out of him, actually.

‘Mmm,’ Serafina said at last. ‘A port city. Not London. Bristol? Liverpool? Liverpool, I think. You come from a large family, more sisters than brothers. Four sisters? And — forgive me for being blunt — you’re all as crooked as they come. What were you transported for, Mr Leary?’ She glanced up: he was staring at her, his eyes comically round. ‘Your father is dead. Your mother is a strong woman, a matriarch. And very, very smart. Perhaps even smarter than you realise. There isn’t a lot of trust in your family, though, is there? You certainly don’t trust anyone. You’re always looking over your shoulder. But then, you’d need to, in your line of work. Your brothers … oh, I see one has recently passed over. Did you know that?’

Leary nodded.

Leo was surprised; Serafina wasn’t pulling her punches. He knew that normally she didn’t pass on bad news to customers, unless they specifically asked to be told.

She looked at the cards again, and frowned. ‘I’ll come back to the other brother. This one …’ she tapped a card illustrated with ten brightly coloured pentacles ‘… is interesting. It represents the accumulation or laying away of wealth over a period of time. Did your family, or a member of your family, make an investment of some sort at some time in the past?’

Leo, who knew Serafina very well, noted the tiniest of smirks on her lips, but doubted Leary had. Obviously not wanting to give anything away concerning his financial affairs, Leary said nothing.

‘If so,’ Serafina continued, ‘it may be about to come to fruition.’ She studied the cards a moment longer, then her gaze lifted and settled on a point somewhere behind Leary’s head.

Leo knew she was seeing far, far beyond the confines of her little house and anything the cards might be telling her now, and the hairs on his arms rippled.

‘Streets,’ she said. ‘A tapestry of old city streets running down to the dirty river. Saints in the fields. The bewigged on one side and the poor on the other. Oh, the dirty little children. Books and coffee and a long, long strand. The market and churches with graveyards and spires made tiny. Oranges and lemons, ringy bells at —’

Leo slammed the flat of his hand on the table, the sound a pistol crack in the little room, his gaze on Leary, whose mouth had fallen open, an expression of shock on his face. He shot an angry, fearful glance at Leo.

Serafina started, and blinked. ‘What?’

Leo was horrified. Had she been seeing the location disclosed by all three of the Leary brothers’ tattooed maps? Or even worse, the secret they revealed? Whatever that was, it was plain Leary wanted it very badly. If he suspected she had seen, she could be in real danger.

‘You drifted off,’ he said, forcing himself to sound calm.

‘Did I?’

‘What did you just say?’ Leary demanded.

‘When?’

‘Just then, about rivers and churches.’ Leary waved his hand angrily. ‘What did you mean?’

‘I really don’t know,’ Serafina said. ‘Sometimes these things just come to me. They come through me. I’m barely aware of what I’m saying. Do you know what it means? It’s your reading.’

Leary remained silent.

Leo stared at him; Leary glared back. It was clear from his clenched jaw and the vein pulsing in his forehead that he did have a good idea of what Serafina’s vision meant, but also that he was furious that Leo, and probably Serafina, had shared it. It occurred to Leo that Leary might think he’d brought him here to deliberately delve into his secrets for his own gain. Shit.

Serafina gathered up the cards, shuffled them once more, asked Leary to think of the question he wanted answered, and laid a spread of seven.

She frowned again.

‘Your brother’s here,’ she said.

‘Which one?’

‘The one who still lives.’

‘Bennett?’

‘The cards don’t give names,’ Serafina said.

Leary stood to lean across the table. ‘Where? Where is he?’

Staring intently at the spread, Serafina said, ‘In Australia somewhere.’

‘Where?’ Leary’s hand shot out and grabbed Serafina’s wrist.

Leo leapt out of his chair, knocking it over with a clatter. ‘Hoi! Get your hands off her!’

Unperturbed, Serafina calmly dug the fingernails of her other hand into the flesh of Leary’s palm until he let go. ‘That is not going to dispose me to tell you anything further. Either sit down or get out.’

Leary glared at her for a moment, then tugged at the hem of his jacket and resumed his seat.

‘I can’t tell you exactly where,’ Serafina said. ‘The cards are not that specific. Sydney, perhaps. Van Diemen’s Land? But I can tell you he’s not incarcerated, and by that I mean not behind bars or in irons.’

‘So he could be assigned?’

Serafina shrugged.

‘Or have a ticket of leave?’

Nothing from Serafina this time.

‘I need more than that if I’m going to find him,’ Leary snapped.

‘When was he transported?’ Leo asked.

Leary started, as though he’d forgotten Leo was there. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for ten years.’

‘Could he be free by now?’ Leo said.

‘I doubt it. He’d’ve got fourteen years, or even life.’

Serafina gave him a thoughtful look. ‘Really? Why do you think he was transported?’

Leary’s face hardened. ‘None of your business.’

‘Well, at least now you know he really is here in Australia,’ Leo said.

‘Only according to a didikai fortune teller.’

‘Excuse me.’ Serafina’s voice was icy. ‘I have no Romany blood in my veins whatsoever.’

‘And that being the case,’ Leo went on, ignoring both Leary’s and Serafina’s comments, ‘you can stop terrorising Harrie Clarke.’

‘I can’t see why I should,’ Leary said. ‘I still don’t know where the fuck my brother is.’