Ashes To Ashes: A Ministry of Curiosities Novella (The Ministry of Curiosities Book 5)

I
f anyone had been
in Grand View Lane on that freezing December night, for a mere moment they would have seen a shadowy figure hanging from the garret window at the back of the derelict house, before dropping to the second floor window ledge. With the agility of a monkey, the black-clad figure repeated the exercise to reach the window ledge on the first floor, and finally landed silently on the greasy cobblestones below. The phantom-like figure wore no cloak or coat to hinder his movement, and his black shoulder-length hair was tied with a ribbon at his nape. There were no witnesses to this feat, however, and that was the way Lincoln Fitzroy preferred it.

Despite its name, Grand View Lane wasn't grand, and the only views it offered during the day were of damp brick walls and an empty cart with a broken axle, leaning drunkenly against the low wall at the end of the lane. It was difficult to see in the dark, but Lincoln had memorized its position and could make out its shape well enough. There was nobody else about. It was too cold, too dark, and too dangerous to be out in the middle of the night in a part of London that the Ripper had made infamous a year before.

He melted into the shadows and waited. He'd purposefully come an hour earlier than the arranged time. That way he could see if an accomplice entered the lane and hid ahead of Lincoln's informant. Lincoln wasn't taking any chances.

The fog crept in like a slow moving spirit. That's how Charlie had described ghosts to him—misty clouds that formed the shape of their living selves.

Charlie. She would be asleep now, tucked into a warm bed at the School for Wayward Girls many miles away. Safe.

He shoved thoughts of her aside before they took root and became too stubborn to remove. He had to concentrate.

The fog dampened the already frigid air. He breathed through his nose into his upturned jacket collar, to hide his frosty breath, and curled his gloved fingers into fists to keep the tips warm. He shivered and silently cursed the bitter weather. It wasn't lost on him that he never used to feel the cold. He never used to feel anything.

Once again he had to force himself to concentrate. He listened. Mary Dwyer, the prostitute who occupied the garret room he'd just come from, must have found a client. Her over-enthusiastic gasps almost drowned out the drunkard singing in the adjoining street. Lincoln should pay her more next time he needed to use her room as an entrance to the lane. It was too easy for someone to pretend to be a customer but instead use the room as Lincoln had done and attack from above. An hour of her time should suffice.

The singing drew closer, clearer. It wasn't slurred enough for a drunkard. If anyone had been listening as intently as Lincoln, they would have noticed. The singer entered the lane without pausing and his singing stopped altogether. Lincoln rolled his eyes. If his men had dropped their disguises so quickly, he'd have made them do extra work around the house and more training. They hadn't made such an amateurish mistake in weeks.

The informant disturbed the fog, parting it like a sea, only to have it settle behind him again once the flap of his cloak subsided. He wore a cap pulled low to cover his face and didn't lift the brim, even when he stopped near the cart. His breaths were loud in the silence and formed clouds at his mouth.

"You here?" he whispered.

Lincoln waited without speaking or moving. He reached out with his seer's senses but felt no other presence. It wasn't all that reliable. So he listened, too. There were no other sounds. Mary Dwyer had finished and would go in search of another customer soon. She might even catch the singer on his way out, if he was the sort to be tempted by cheap, yellow-haired, toothless hags. Lincoln didn't know. He knew as much about the man as he needed to know, including the fact he went by the name Billy the Bolter. His usual informant had set up the meeting, after telling Lincoln that Billy claimed to have overheard a conversation where one man offered another a large sum of money to kill a third. If there was any chance that Billy could identify the procurer, Lincoln would do whatever it took to get that information out of him, even if it required patience rather than force. He suspected money would suffice, however. Money was easy to give away, and fortunately most criminals spilled their knowledge as soon as Lincoln flashed a few coins. He'd give Billy the Bolter an entire sack full, if it led to the fellow who'd hired the assassin who'd shot dead two supernaturals, Reginald Drinkwater and Joan Brumley. It was that man Lincoln wanted to find before he located more supernaturals to kill.

Before he located Charlie.

Lincoln might not want to be anywhere near her himself, but he felt physically ill when he thought of anyone harming her. He tightened his fist at his side, then said, "I'm here."

Billy the Bolter whipped around. He peered into the shadows near the cart. "Where? Come out so's I can see you."

"No."

Billy was silent, perhaps trying to decide if he could do business with a man who hid in shadows. "You got the chink?"

Lincoln removed a pouch from his inside jacket pocket and held it out. He didn't want to toss it. The coins would make too much noise.

Billy jerked as if surprised to know that Lincoln stood so close. He took the pouch and weighed it in his palm. "It ain't enough."

"You'll get the other half after our conversation."

"Afraid I'll bolt with yer ready, eh?" Billy laughed. Lincoln waited. "They call me Billy the Bolter, see. Bolter. Bolt. It's a pun."

Lincoln didn't move.

Billy sighed. "Jim said you was as much o' a lark as a plank o' wood." After a brief pause, in which the only sound came from Billy's throat as he swallowed, the informant finally got to the point. "Jim said you want to know about that cove who's been lookin' for a shooter."

"You were approached?"

"Nah, not me. I ain't got no barkers. Me mate, now, he's got a revolver. It were him what spoke to the toff, but I were watchin' from the next table. I saw everythin'."

"Toff? He was a gentleman?"

"Aye, real plummy accent."

"What did he look like?"

"Tall, red hair, gray beard, fat, and he had on round specs. Wore a long black cloak, made of fine wool, it were."

Lincoln's heart sank. The red hair and gray beard didn't match the descriptions he'd already gathered from his other informants. One had met a beardless man, another had described the fellow as blond and slender, yet another claimed he was young with brown hair and of average weight. The only thing they agreed on was that the man was tall. A man's height was impossible to disguise. The rest could be changed with wigs, glasses, and padding.

"What about a name?" Lincoln asked.

"Are you bleedin' stupid?"

It was worth a try. "Did he have a conveyance?"

"Black hack, no markings."

"What about the driver and horse?"

"Driver were wrapped to the eyeballs in his cloak, the horse were brown. I didn't follow him, if that's yer next question. I didn't want to make meself known to him."

"You took careful note of these things because you knew I would pay for information?"

"Aye. Jim told me."

How many people had Jim told? "Did your friend refuse the job or did the toff decide to go elsewhere after meeting him?"

Billy's pause made Lincoln frown. "How do you know he didn't take it?"

Because the killer had turned up dead a week ago, most likely silenced by the toff's hand, and Billy spoke as if his friend were still alive. "I just do."

"He refused it. He ain't no killer, see. He just uses the barker to scare folk out o' their jewels and the like."

"Why did it take you this long to approach me?" Lincoln had been speaking to informants earlier in the week, but there'd been no word from them in two days. Billy the Bolter might have delayed because he couldn't decide if lying to collect the reward was a risk worth taking. Jim would have told him what happened to informants who misled Lincoln.

Billy rocked back. "It were only last night."

"Last night?"

"God's truth! I knew you would pay because Jim told me so, but it were only last night that it happened. I spoke wiv Jim today, and he set up this meetin'."

That he had. If the exchange had only happened last night, either someone else was looking for a killer to hire, or the toff who'd commissioned the murders of the supernaturals was going to kill again.

Lincoln wasn't surprised. It had only been a matter of time. Fortunately, with Charlie gone, he could now focus on finding out who was behind the murders and stop them before they killed again.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Lincoln asked.

"Nope." Billy held out his hand and Lincoln placed another pouch onto it.

"There'll be more of that if you can find out anything else of note about the toff, or the gunman he hires."

"Aye, sir. I'll be all ears and eyes."

"Breathe a word about this meeting to anyone and I'll slit your throat."

"You got to catch me first." Billy danced away then turned to run.

Lincoln silently cursed the entire criminal classes for their arrogance and sprinted after him. He caught Billy well before the lane opened up onto the main street. He twisted the scum's arm behind his back and clamped a hand over his mouth. No one would have seen—Whitechapel wasn't known for its working streetlamps—but there was a chance someone had heard Billy's muffled cry of pain.

"As I was saying," Lincoln said with quiet menace, "do not tell a soul. I know where you live. I know where your family lives. No one will be harmed if you abide by my rule of silence."

Billy nodded quickly and Lincoln let him go. "H-how do you know where I live?"

The fellow was audacious to ask. "I make sure to investigate all my informants…William John Hamlin."

Billy rubbed his arm and backed away, almost tripping over his own cap, which had fallen off when Lincoln caught him. "Blimey," Billy muttered. "Jim were right about you. He said you was the devil himself, hidin' in the shadows, watchin' and waitin' for someone to wrong you. And when they do…" He sliced his finger across his throat to mimic a knife cut.

Lincoln picked up Billy's cap, careful to keep the man's feet in his line of sight. Billy didn't move, not even a shifting of his weight. It would seem he had no intention of crossing Lincoln, or he would have taken the opportunity to attack.

"You're not the first person to mistake me for the devil." He handed Billy his cap, but didn't let go immediately. "I doubt you'll be the last." It was difficult to glare at the man in the dark, but hopefully Billy heard the threatening tone and understood the implications if he tattled. Lincoln let go of the cap. "Good evening."

"Er, uh, good evenin', sir." The stutters and the "sir" were a good sign that Billy the Bolter would be complicit.

Lincoln watched as Billy backed out of the lane. When he reachedthe end, he fled. Lincoln didn't follow. Instead, he returned to the back of the lane, hopped into the cart, then leaped over the wall. The yard on the other side was empty, the shabby tenements surrounding it dark. He quickly scanned the area then exited through the archway and onto the street. He ran down another alley, then another so narrow that his shoulders skimmed the walls on either side.

He turned a corner and pulled up quickly as two constables approached from the other direction. Fortunately they had their heads down, bent into the breeze. If Lincoln hadn't been so distracted by his thoughts, he would have been more cautious. He came across another two constables on patrol before leaving Whitechapel altogether. The police had become more vigilant since the Ripper murders. It was too little too late for the victims.

Seth and Gus waited for him with the carriage outside Liverpool Street Station. They both nodded when they saw him but didn't speak. Gus took up his position at the back and Lincoln climbed inside the cabin without bothering to lower the step. Seth wasted no time in driving off and they were soon speeding through the poorly lit London streets to Highgate. They skirted Hampstead Heath and rolled through the iron gates of Lichfield Towers.

Lincoln spared a glance for the house as Seth drove around the side of one broad wing to the stables and coach house, although Lincoln avoided looking up at the central tower, as he always did these days. There were no lights lit in any of the dozens of windows, no smoke drifting from the many chimneys. It was grayer and grimmer than ever, like it was going into hibernation for winter. Some would call it an impressive example of Gothic architecture, a magnificent English mansion, but to Lincoln it was nothing more than a roof over his head. He would have been as satisfied living in the cellar of a burnt out building, as Charlie had done for years before coming to Lichfield.

She
called the great, hulking pile of gray stone 'home'. Women were sentimental about these things, and Charlie in particular had a strong emotional streak that influenced her thoughts and actions. She'd quickly developed an attachment to Lichfield, once she settled in. He'd been warned that would happen. He should have listened.

But Charlie was gone, and he doubted the others who lived at Lichfield saw the place as she did. They were practical men. Emotion didn't rule them. They had come to live there, and work for Lincoln, purely for financial gain. It was time to remind them of that, since they seemed to have forgotten it lately. Only the day before, Seth, Gus and Cook had threatened to leave. Mere months ago, none would have dared.

"What did you learn, sir?" Gus asked, as Lincoln alighted from the cabin outside the coach house. "Did he know anything?"

"Nothing useful," Lincoln said.

"Want to tell us what was said over a drink in the library? We won't be long here."

"No." Lincoln strode off. Even with his back to them, he heard the drawn-in breath of frustration from Gus, and Seth's silence was telling. Of all of them, Seth didn't hold back his opinion anymore. It was probably because he believed in his God-given right as a nobleman to rule commoners, even those who'd saved him from getting his face smashed in at an illegal bareknuckle fight and now paid his wages.