When the Devil Drives (21 page)
Read When the Devil Drives Online
Authors: Caro Peacock
âSo how are we going to find out who they are?'
She'd taken it for granted that we were going to do that, as simply as we might set out to find somebody's missing silverware.
âI don't know,' I admitted. âI don't think there's any use telling the police.'
âNah.'
Her rejection was instinctive. I decided not to tell her that I might have no choice in the matter. I'd expected to find a police officer waiting for me when I came back to Abel Yard. I'd given the sergeant Mr James's name and Islington address. Surely by now they'd have sent a man to investigate. If they were even reasonably conscientious, they'd have made the journey out to Essex and drawn the same blank as we had. At the very least, I had things to explain. The question was, how much if anything should I tell them about my theory? I had no shred of proof and it would sound like hysterical imaginings, worse than housemaids' tales. No, I didn't look forward to the arrival of a police officer, but there was a prospect that worried me even more: his non-arrival. If nobody came to question me, that would mean the police were not investigating Dora Tilbury's death. If so, this labyrinth had an even darker heart than I'd feared.
THIRTEEN
L
ate that afternoon, with dusk not far off and the yard sunk in Sunday quiet, apart from the low clucking of the hens, Tabby called up that there was a gentleman come to see me. I called back that he should walk up, expecting the top hat and blue coat of a police officer to rise into view. He'd taken only a few steps up the stairs before I knew I was wrong. When he was no more than a broad silhouette rising tread by tread against the dim light, I sensed that this man had the confidence of a statue come to life. The heavy and measured steps said that what he wanted was what mattered and the rest of us who did not happen to be walking on legs of stone must accept that as the order of the universe. I went out onto the landing and the evening light from the open door of my room fell on his face. He was possibly in his fifties, or older, clean-shaven with grey hair close cut, eyes pale, head like a Roman emperor's. There was somehow a public look about the face, as if it was accustomed to being recognized. The stare he gave me as our eyes met would have been impolite, if politeness or the lack of it had ever played any part in his life.
ate that afternoon, with dusk not far off and the yard sunk in Sunday quiet, apart from the low clucking of the hens, Tabby called up that there was a gentleman come to see me. I called back that he should walk up, expecting the top hat and blue coat of a police officer to rise into view. He'd taken only a few steps up the stairs before I knew I was wrong. When he was no more than a broad silhouette rising tread by tread against the dim light, I sensed that this man had the confidence of a statue come to life. The heavy and measured steps said that what he wanted was what mattered and the rest of us who did not happen to be walking on legs of stone must accept that as the order of the universe. I went out onto the landing and the evening light from the open door of my room fell on his face. He was possibly in his fifties, or older, clean-shaven with grey hair close cut, eyes pale, head like a Roman emperor's. There was somehow a public look about the face, as if it was accustomed to being recognized. The stare he gave me as our eyes met would have been impolite, if politeness or the lack of it had ever played any part in his life.
âMiss Lane?'
âYes.'
I stood back in my doorway to let him go in. By the time I'd closed my door and joined him he was sitting in the larger chair that I usually keep for myself, leaving me no alternative but to take the one meant for clients. His clothes were expensive but unremarkable: black coat and trousers, white shirt and high stock, sleek black shoes. He'd placed his tall hat and white gloves on my note pad. I made him wait while I lit my lamp.
âYou evidently know my name. May I ask yours?' I said.
âMy name is not relevant.'
The voice was cultivated and resonant. He made no attempt at sounding polite and the pale eyes that met mine were as hard as cobblestones. Then they slid away from me to the door.
âThere's a person listening outside.'
I stood up and opened the door. Sure enough, there was Tabby.
âMy assistant,' I said.
âWhat I have to discuss with you is confidential.'
âTabby, will you leave us please. I'll see you tomorrow,' I said.
Her footsteps went reluctantly downstairs.
âSo you're not going to tell me your name?' I said.
He didn't even trouble himself to shake his head. I didn't insist because he could simply have given me a false name and I could see no point in adding another one to our collection.
âThis is a matter of the utmost secrecy.' He spoke as if men were standing ready with chisels to record his words on marble. âNothing that I discuss with you is to go outside this room.'
He didn't ask for any promise or assurance from me. If he wanted something, it would happen.
âI suggest you tell me the nature of your problem, then I can decide whether I shall take it on or not,' I said.
He wasn't pleased. There was no change in his expression, but the air round us seemed a few degrees cooler.
âThere is no question of your taking on anything.'
âThen perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell me why you're here,' I said.
âI want to know who's paying you.'
âHow dare you?'
I didn't need to pretend indignation. I felt like standing up and slapping the man, and the slightest flicker in the cold eyes showed he knew that.
âAm I wrong, then, in suggesting that you accept money for certain services?'
He made it sound disreputable.
âI am an investigator,' I said. âAnd I'm choosy about my clients.'
His hand went into his pocket and came out holding a chamois leather bag. The leather was new and clean, but he held the bag by its edge between his fingertips as if the touch might contaminate him. It clunked accurately onto the middle of the table between us.
âFifty sovereigns,' he said.
I looked him in the eye and repeated what I'd said. âI suggest you tell me the nature of the problem, then I can decide whether I shall take it on or not.'
Silence. From next door, I heard Mrs Martley moving around in our parlour and smelt onions frying.
âI know that you are being paid to spread some deeply unpleasant and scandalous rumours,' he said. âI doubt if your paymasters are being as generous as I am prepared to be. I want to know their names and the details of what you have agreed to do for them.'
I began to have a suspicion where this was heading.
âI have clients, not paymasters,' I said. âAnd I don't accept payment to spread rumours.'
âI believe otherwise. I know very well that you're not the only person involved. You're in very disreputable company, you know.'
âAm I? Suppose you tell me what you're talking about?'
His expression didn't change but the chair creaked under him. The man of stone was annoyed.
âYou're simply wasting your time and mine in trying to keep up the pretence,' he said. âPerhaps I'm doing you too much kindness by assuming you do not realize the dangerous nature of what you're doing. If you persist, you are heading into serious trouble, and you won't be able to rely on your friends to extricate you.'
I wondered what friends. Did he mean Disraeli? We stared at each other. His eyes were so pale that the pupils were more silver than grey.
âSo are we agreed?' he said. âFifty pounds for the names of the people employing you?'
âMy clients' confidentiality is not for sale. In any case, you've already told me I'm keeping disreputable company. That implies you know what company I keep.'
âIn this case, women of no reputation, men with too much of the wrong kind and scandal-mongering journalists.'
The words were all the more offensive for being spoken in that graven-on-stone voice. His eyes went down to the chamois leather bag, then up again to my face. I knew I should have played him at his own game, to drag some information out of him, but I couldn't keep a hold on my temper for much longer. I picked up his top hat and held it by the brim.
âI suggest that you leave,' I said. I stood up. He remained seated. I turned his hat upside down, picked up the moneybag with my other hand and dropped it inside. âI also suggest that you leave now of your own free will. The carriage repairer in the yard likes nothing better than a chance to throw people downstairs.'
This was a gross slander on peaceable Mr Grindley. Stone man stood up, his lips a sharply chiselled line. I handed him his hat. Automatically, his hand came up and took it. He now had a dilemma. Either he could place the hat on his head with the moneybag inside, or he'd have to face the distasteful business of handling it again. I watched as he took it out of the hat like a housewife holding a dead rat at arm's length by its tail and put it back in his pocket.
âI believe you will regret this, Miss Lane.'
He turned to go.
âDon't forget your gloves,' I said.
He grabbed them and put them in his other pocket, with a force that looked likely to split the lining. I followed him downstairs and watched him stride stiffly across the cobbles and through the gateway into Adam's Mews.
I didn't bother to watch whether he turned left towards Park Lane or right towards Bond Street. There was no need. Before Mrs Martley and I had finished our steak and onions, a high-pitched whistle came from the yard. When I went down, Tabby was waiting in the dark.
âThere was a little carriage with a brown horse waiting for him down the road by the church. They went off like he had a bet on it. I kept after them as far as Park Lane, then I lost them.'
âNever mind, you did well. Was there any crest on the door?'
âCouldn't see none.'
I gave her the hunk of bread and piece of steak I'd grabbed from my plate. She started chewing at once.
âHe's trouble that one, isn't he?' she said through crumbs.
âProbably, yes.'
But then so were they all.
That night, after Mrs Martley had gone to bed, I sat by the fire in the parlour and re-read a cheerful letter from Robert Carmichael that had arrived the day before from Ireland.
Dear Liberty,
Many apologies for not writing since our arrival in Dublin. It has taken five days to travel from there to the home of the Fitzwilliam family, a distance which I expected us to cover in two at the most. I had not realized the magnetic attraction of the Irish family, which transforms a journey between two points into something like an attempt at web-spinning by a demented spider. On the way, we have visited three separate lots of cousins. Stephen has had to endure some heavy-handed pleasantries about letting his younger brother marry first, so I am glad to be here to support him but I confess I am missing you. At least a dozen times a day I'll see some especially fine view, or hear an amusing remark, or even pat an amiable dog and think: how Liberty would like this. So, at long last, here we are at the castle. Already friends and relatives are arriving, although the wedding is still more than a week away. With many of the bachelors having to double up, I am lucky to have been given a small room of my own, apart from a pigeon which seems to live in here and is cooing on top of the wardrobe as I write. I have no notion when the post goes from here, if indeed it goes at all, so shall end this letter and make inquiries. Take good care of yourself, my dear. Your safety is more important than perhaps you realize to somebody who hopes you will permit him to describe himself as your very affectionate friend, Robert.
I tried to write an answer, in the same light-hearted vein.
âI wish you could have been with us at the opera on Saturday night, even though flat-footed and flat-toned fairies might not be to your taste . . .'
âI wish you could have been with us at the opera on Saturday night, even though flat-footed and flat-toned fairies might not be to your taste . . .'
Only, the words wouldn't come. And suppose I'd written him the truth:
âMy dear friend, I am confused and so very scared. Two young women have died and it's part of something worse which I'm only just beginning to understand . . .'
âMy dear friend, I am confused and so very scared. Two young women have died and it's part of something worse which I'm only just beginning to understand . . .'
It would bring him rushing back from Ireland with, quite possibly, an invitation that was almost an ultimatum.
âFor heaven's sake, Liberty, marry me now and forget all this.'
âFor heaven's sake, Liberty, marry me now and forget all this.'
And if he did, I might even do what he said and fall into his arms. But a hard, stubborn part of me resisted and the argument in my head wouldn't let me write one way or the other. So I gave it up and, rather than risk waking Mrs Martley, went upstairs to sleep on the daybed under the patchwork quilt in my own room.
Perhaps that cheerful letter I couldn't write worked its way into my dreams, because instead of the nightmares I'd half expected, sleep took me back to the evening at the opera, the box in the interval by soft gas light, friendly faces, Calloway's entertaining chatter. It even re-created the sharp coldness of raspberry ice on my tongue. And yet the dream wasn't entirely cheerful. There was an insistent quality about it, as if there were something important that I'd forgotten trying to nudge its way into the scene. If I'd gone on dreaming, that something might have managed to break through into consciousness, but it never had the chance. I woke, deep in darkness, smelling smoke and knowing something was wrong. Smoke itself was nothing new. Mr Grindley often fired up his forge before daylight in winter but there were always sounds first: screech of hinges as he opened the workshop door, clank of coal buckets on the stone floor. There were no sounds this time and the smell of the smoke was wrong too, not from cheerful and familiar hot coals but something harsh and acrid.
I jumped up and looked out at the darkness, but my window overlooked rooftops, not the yard where the smell was coming from. Without bothering to light the candle, I grabbed my cloak off the hook, wrapped it round me and stepped out on the landing. The smoke hurled itself straight into my lungs and backwards against the wall. It was like being hit by a dark wave. The stink of tar was part of it. I was coughing, choking, but when I opened my mouth for air more of the foul smoke forced its way in. I had just enough sense left to know that my only chance of safety was to go through the smoke and downstairs and took a step towards the cloud roiling up towards me, blacker than the darkness. Whether I'd have found the resolution to go on through it and down I don't know, but my cloak saved me. It must have fallen off my shoulder and tangled round my foot, because I slipped and went head first, with a yell that was instantly transformed into another fit of choking.
The door at the bottom of my staircase was unlatched, so I rolled all the way down the stairs, out into the air and hit the cobbles of the yard with my shoulder. Flames now, sunset-coloured among more black smoke, in the space under the stairs where the pump was, and a smell of tar like the entrance to hell. The strange thing was the silence in the yard, apart from my coughing and a
huff, huff
from the flames under the stairs, like a lion breathing between mouthfuls of meat. I scrambled to my feet, took a breath of air and yelled âFire'. For what seemed like a long time nothing happened, then a window opened in the Grindleys' rooms and Mr Grindley's voice asked what was happening. I shouted, âFire,' again. But I couldn't wait for him before doing something about Mrs Martley. The black smoke clotting my staircase must be doing exactly the same to our other staircase a few yards away. Mrs Martley, a heavy sleeper, would be snoring in her bed two floors up.
huff, huff
from the flames under the stairs, like a lion breathing between mouthfuls of meat. I scrambled to my feet, took a breath of air and yelled âFire'. For what seemed like a long time nothing happened, then a window opened in the Grindleys' rooms and Mr Grindley's voice asked what was happening. I shouted, âFire,' again. But I couldn't wait for him before doing something about Mrs Martley. The black smoke clotting my staircase must be doing exactly the same to our other staircase a few yards away. Mrs Martley, a heavy sleeper, would be snoring in her bed two floors up.
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