Hunter's Moon (15 page)

‘No,' broke in the beggarwoman. ‘Not the police.'

‘But I have to tell …'

‘
You
might have to,' she said, firmly, ‘but
we
don't. Or they'll come after us.'

Confused for a moment, I began, ‘No, the police have been trying to …'

‘I'm not talking about the police,' she said. ‘I'm talking about
them
. Those
devils
.' A tremor shook her, and she looked up and down the alley. ‘If we go to the police,
they'll
know. They can find out anything.'

‘I don't have much choice. If we don't go to the police, I can't think of another way to stop them,' I said, quietly. ‘Is that what you want?'

‘What we want is to be safe, as far away from Lepmest as possible,' she answered, fixing me with a steely glare.

‘And I
can
take you somewhere safe, far away.'

‘Who are you?' she said. ‘Why are you doing this?'

I hesitated, then plunged in with, ‘My name is Snow White, and I work for the Prince.' The words had come unbidden to my lips.

She blinked. ‘What?'

‘The Prince of Outlaws. You've heard of him?'

She nodded. ‘I've heard rumours. I thought it was just wishful thinking.'

‘No. He's real. They're real. The havens.'

‘I see.' She didn't look convinced.

‘We'll go to a safe house first, and then I'll arrange safe passage to haven.' I looked at her. ‘Do you trust me?'

She looked me in the eyes for a long moment. Then she nodded. She held out a hand. ‘My name's Tollie.' She jerked her head towards the young man. ‘He's Hugo.' She nodded towards Margy. ‘And you know her.' It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes. I'll explain later. Come on.'

Master Kinberg was alone, hard at work in his tailor's shop. Casting a quick, wary glance over the three beggars who hovered in a corner of his workshop like ragged shadows, he told me in a low voice that he could make arrangements for them to go to haven that very night but that meanwhile, we would have to wait in the safe house and not show our faces at all. When I asked if I could leave the others there while I went to the nearest police station, he shook his head firmly and to my surprise repeated what Tollie had said.

‘The police are not to be trusted; there is much corruption in their ranks. I will go now and get a message to the Prince. He knows who can be trusted within the police, and he will deal with it much more quickly and effectively than you or I could.'

And with that I had to be content, though inwardly I chafed at being treated as though I was as helpless as the people I'd rescued.

Not that Tollie and Hugo looked nearly as helpless any longer. I made some food for them and they wolfed it all down in a trice. But not Margy. She sat bolt upright on the floor, not looking at anyone, not saying anything, refusing to eat.

‘You said you knew her,' said Tollie, swallowing the last mouthful of the stew and rice.

‘Yes,' I said, quietly. ‘She was one of my childhood friends. Margy and her brother Rafiel. But they and their parents … they … they left our neighbourhood. I … I lost touch with them years ago.'

She looked at me. ‘I see.'

Her tone was impassive, but I felt a squirm of shame. ‘I … I was only a child … I had no way of finding out where –'

‘Then you don't know,' she said. ‘You don't know what happened.'

I shook my head.

‘Margy … when she first fell in with us, we didn't know her story. It was only later that we learnt that her whole family was dead. A house fire …'

A clenching pain gripped my chest. I whispered, ‘No … No …' My gut twisted as I remembered Margy's beautiful mother and her father, a gentle giant of a man. And Rafiel … teasing, patient, kind, clever Rafiel. ‘They can't all be gone … They can't be …'

‘I'm afraid they are,' said Tollie. ‘And Margy blamed herself for it.'

‘She was unhappy in that place where they were living,' broke in Hugo. ‘It was a miserable spot, and she missed her old home, and her old friends, no doubt, too …'
Here he looked at me, and a great pang of sadness went through me.

‘I missed her, too,' I cried. ‘I missed Margy and I missed Rafiel. I so wished that they hadn't been made to leave …'

‘Margy decided to run away,' said Tollie, ignoring my outburst. ‘That night, she wasn't in her room, as she should have been. She had crept out of the window, into the streets, planning to somehow make her way back to where she used to live. But she changed her mind and went back to her family, for the streets were dark and she was scared and she missed her brother and her mother and her father. But when she got home, the fire brigade was at her house – too late, too, for the fire was fierce and had already burned everything – and everyone – to cinders …'

‘Dear God,' I whispered, stricken with horror.

‘A kind stranger found her wandering aimlessly through the streets the next morning – speechless, like she is now. They took her to an orphanage. She stayed there a year and got better but then she ran away again. Eventually she found her way to us. She's been with us for the past fifteen months or so and until the time we were snatched, we all thought she was doing just fine – she would speak to us and though she never said much, she wasn't like she is now.' Her mouth twisted a little. ‘She was good for us. She brought in good money, begging. It was her smile, you know. It's so lovely …'

‘Yes,' I said sadly, looking across at the still figure of Margy crouched on the floor, and remembering old times. ‘Whenever I was cranky or out of sorts, her smile made me feel like the sun had come out – it made me feel better …' She had often smiled at her brother, I thought. She adored
him. Followed him around everywhere. A sharp pain gripped my heart again as I thought of Rafiel. Gone, and in such a dreadful way … I could hardly bear thinking about it.

‘Yes,' said Tollie, softly. ‘That smile of hers – it was beautiful. But in a way, it was her undoing. And ours.'

‘What do you mean?' I asked, the breath catching in my throat.

‘We'd done all we could
not
to draw their attention,' she said, ‘but in the end it was her smile that did it. We were on a street corner, begging, and he …'

‘Wait a moment,' I said. ‘You knew about these killings. Why did you stay in Lepmest, then?'

‘But we weren't in Lepmest,' she said, staring at me. ‘We were in Mormest. Of course we knew about the killings here, and we'd made ourselves scarce. There'd been no abductions in Mormest. We thought we were safe there. Until that day …'

‘What happened?'

‘It was a few days ago – a little under a week, I think,' she said. ‘We were, as I said, on a street corner – me, Hugo, Margy and poor Simeon and Tomas, God rest their souls,' she added, and I knew she must be referring to the man Drago had killed in front of our eyes, and another, who must have been killed earlier. ‘A man came up to us and gave us money and then Margy smiled at him and he smiled back and asked if we wanted to earn some really good money … It had been a hard few weeks, the pickings were small, and Margy would only go with him if we went, too, and we figured that there were five of us against one of him, so it would be all right – especially because straight
after that he took us to an inn and bought us a square meal and a cup of wine … and besides, there was something about him that made us feel safe.'

‘Drago made you feel safe? I mean, the man who … who killed Simeon and Tomas?' I added, when she looked puzzled.

‘No. Not him. This was another man, younger. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Small moustache. Kind voice.'

‘Oh.' The description did not evoke any echoes in me. ‘Would you know him again if you saw him?'

‘I'd know him anywhere,' she said, grimly.

‘The man today, the one who killed –'

‘We only saw him later, when we woke up in a coach, gagged and trussed up like chickens.' Her mouth twisted. ‘The wine – it had been drugged. We were taken in the coach to that place where you found us. We never saw the other man again. He – the man today – he was the one there, most days. He brought us food, drink, blankets. It might seem strange to say this, for he killed our friends, but he did not treat us cruelly. It was as if he just saw it as … as a job.'

‘We thought at first we might be able to move him to mercy,' put in Hugo, ‘so we tried. But nothing worked. It was strange, too, because Margy wouldn't help at all. She didn't try to move him with her smile – she wouldn't even look at him. Every time he was in that place, she kept her head down and she trembled like a leaf.'

Because she'd recognised Drago, I thought, uneasily. She'd recognised him from the past, remembered my stepmother's taciturn servant, and known that whatever was going on, my stepmother must be involved. The only good
thing I could think that came of it was that with her face down, Drago wouldn't have recognised her, or else he'd have told Belladonna and Margy would have been killed right away.

‘Was anyone else taken there?' I asked. ‘Besides those two men, I mean?'

I saw the quick glance that passed between Tollie and Hugo. ‘We heard a woman's voice, once,' said Tollie. ‘But we didn't see her. That man – he blindfolded us at first.' She paused. ‘We got the feeling she was in charge.'

I nodded without speaking. It could only have been Belladonna.

‘And we also got the feeling that she was there more than once,' added Hugo. ‘Only, aside from that first time, she wasn't
really
there. There would be a strange sound – a kind of whistle – it was as if it were some form of communication, from her to him. As if it were a signal to do something. We heard the whistling right before Tomas was killed. And Simeon … Simeon is the poor one who you saw killed.'

So the dummy was used as some sort of telegraph machine, in a manner of speaking. It was an intensely creepy idea, and I could not imagine how exactly it might work.

‘But also, other times we would hear the whistling and the man would leave right away,' added Tollie, ‘as if it were a summons.'

I thought back to the whistles I had heard earlier: the first must have been to command Drago to take his next victim. But there had been a second one: Belladonna must have been trying to summon Drago, just before we'd
left. If she didn't hear back from him soon, would she go and see what the problem was? Perhaps not, had this happened a few days earlier. She would have sent one of those in her employ. But things had changed since then. I was willing to bet she would have seen ‘Syrena's' story of ‘The Queen and the Magic Mirror' and would have been growing more and more suspicious, more and more on edge. Would this be the slip-up I had been waiting for? What if, instead of sending a minion, she went herself to see what the problem was, to see why Drago hadn't answered her summons? What if she did go, and I was able to trap her in that place along with Drago? She would be caught red-handed! She would not be able to talk her way out of that so easily!

‘I must go out,' I said, getting up. ‘You'll be all right here. Don't go anywhere until Master Kinberg comes back.'

‘Where are you going?' said Tollie, her eyes narrowing. ‘You heard what I said – what
he
said – about the police …'

‘I'm not going to the police. I'm going to get evidence.'

They stared at me.

‘You're going back
there
?' whispered Hugo.

I could see the terror on his face and I knew that they would try to talk me out of it – especially if they knew I was planning to wait and trap the powerful woman they'd heard of.

‘I'm going to take photographs of the crime scene,' I said, improvising quickly. I didn't want to give them a chance to talk me out of it. And it actually wasn't a bad idea. If I could get hold of a camera, I would be able to take
some photographs while I waited for Belladonna. ‘It's the only way I can think of to preserve the evidence for sure, and in a way that doesn't drag you into it. I just don't want them to have a chance to get away with it. Do you?'

‘No,' they chorused, and then Hugo said, ‘But Master Kinberg said that the Prince would …'

‘I can't wait for the Prince to investigate,' I said. ‘By that time, Belladonna or the police who are in her pay would have disposed of all the evidence, and then all that would be left would be you as witnesses, and even if you do agree to speak, who's going to believe the word of a beggar over that of a high-born society lady?'

It was harsh but it was also the truth, and they knew it. I was sure they could tell, too, that for me, this was personal. They did not remark on it, but only nodded gravely.

‘Wait here for Master Kinberg,' I went on. ‘He won't be too much longer, I imagine. You'll be in haven before the night is out. And when you see the Prince, tell him …' I paused. What I was about to do was, perhaps, the riskiest thing I had done yet. Would I ever see the Prince again?

‘Yes? Tell him what?' asked Tollie, giving me a shrewd glance.

‘Tell him I know he'll be able to take care of my friend Margy,' I said, quietly, ‘and give him my warmest greetings.'

I left them there and went away swiftly, before I could change my mind, for I realised my weakness, the longing that would sap at my purpose if I let it. If I'd gone to the haven with the others I'd have seen the Prince again, and part of me wanted that so much. But another part – the stronger, the righteous, the honourable part – knew I must
push my feelings aside until I had fulfilled the mission I had vowed to complete.

On the way to the alley, I made a detour to a funny little shop that my father had taken me to once, long ago. It was a shabby, ramshackle affair, but like an Aladdin's cave for a child, as it sold toys and novelties of all sorts. Father had bought me a little camera there, for my ninth birthday. It hadn't been a professional's camera, with glass negatives and levers and buttons, but it had a little box with a pinhole lens and thin cellophane paper for the negatives which Father helped me to develop in some special fluid. It was a child's toy, but it would be cheap and it would take basic photographs. I could only hope they still stocked such things.

I was lucky – the store did still sell those toy cameras. Armed with my weapon of sorts I set off again.

Shortly after, I reached the alley. I looked up and down the street, but could see no sign that anyone had been there since I had left with Tollie, Hugo and Margy. I still had the keys, so quietly unlocked the door to the ‘house of horrors', as I thought of it. I closed it behind me but left it unlocked, in case I needed to make a quick escape, and swiftly went down the stairs and straight into the elevator. As the elevator doors opened then closed and I descended, I felt all my nerves tensing, my heart clenching. What if Belladonna was here already and was lying in wait? What if Drago had awoken and somehow freed himself, and
he
was lying in wait?

I looked out cautiously. Nothing. No-one. The place was deserted. It was silent. The cages stood empty, their doors flung open, as we'd left them. Creeping to the door
at the opposite end of the room, I opened it gingerly. Nothing seemed to have changed. Drago lay trussed up, unmoving, and poor Simeon lay dead, under his blanket, while the two-pronged weapon lay gleaming with that faint, evil phosphorescence.

I took photographs of the scene, then a close-up of the weapon. Should I take the weapon with me, too? I wondered. Gingerly, I put my hand close to it, but recoiled as the phosphorescence grew brighter and I felt a stinging pain in my fingers. I'd have to leave it for the investigators to handle, I thought, half-relieved, half-ashamed.