Wild Boy and the Black Terror (15 page)

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I
t seemed almost impossible that the squalour of the Rat’s Castle, where dead bodies were left where they fell, existed just a few streets away from this – the most exclusive road in the richest city in the world. Here were London’s poshest clothing boutiques selling mink muffs, fox-fur mantles and beaver-pelt opera hats. Footmen in powdered wigs stood like dusty statues by coaches that were decorated with crests of dukes and counts and viscounts and marquesses. Behind jewellery shop windows, breathtaking displays of gemstones reflected the midday sun in the colours of the rainbow.

The sweep of shops was broken halfway along the street where one building stood detached from the others, and two floors taller. Plasterwork columns climbed its façade, and sculptures framed its tall windows: twisting stone wreaths and fat-cheeked cherubs blasting bugles. While the other buildings had been scrubbed of the green-black grime that encrusted most of London’s buildings, this one had been left to its mercy, so that the cherubs appeared as demons clinging to withered leaves.

“That’s it,” Gideon said. “That’s Oberstein’s place.”

Wild Boy had guessed as much. It was the only building here that matched the killer’s description.
Dangerous
.

They watched from the roof across the street. Gideon had led them here by breaking into the shop below and sneaking up the service stairs. That had been the easy part of their plan. Now they had to get into Oberstein’s building, steal a black diamond and get out alive.

It had no shop sign and nothing on display. The windows were hidden behind steel shutters. The only door, bolted and made of iron, looked as if it was designed to guard offenders at Newgate rather than greet the shoppers of Mayfair. Two burly guards stood by it; they had long leather coats and arms as thick as their necks.

Clarissa stood beside Wild Boy, balancing on the edge of the roof. “You sure that’s Oberstein’s place? Don’t look like no jeweller.”

“That’s because it
ain’t
like no jeweller,” Gideon replied. He lit his pipe, blew a cloud of smoke. “From what I’ve heard, Oberstein used to cut stones for the most powerful folk on the planet: kings and queens. Indian maharajas, Chinese emperors, even old Bonaparte himself. Every toff in the world wanted to be seen in that shop.”

“So what happened?” Wild Boy asked.

“No one knows. Around a decade back, the place just went dark. The shutters were closed and the door bolted. See them guards? Those are Swiss mercenaries. They make Lucien’s Black Hats look like toddlers.”

Wild Boy wondered how Gideon knew so much about the guards’ military pasts. Then he remembered the tattoo on his arm, the army symbol.

“What are they guarding?” Clarissa asked.

“Can’t say,” Gideon said.

“A black diamond?”

“Can’t say that neither. All I know is stories. Some say the place is haunted, or rigged with traps. Hard to know what’s true. Place has become a legend among crooks. A spook story, bit like you two.”

“We ain’t scared of traps,” Clarissa said. “Wild Boy can spot ’em a mile off.”

Wild Boy wished he was so confident. The truth was, that building gave him the creeps. It seemed unreal. Every bit of ice and snow had melted from its ledges. Water trickled down the bricks, mingling with the grime and dripping darkness onto the pavement. A faint haze around the walls quaked the air.

“Marcus spoke of a feller once,” Gideon said, drawing on his pipe. “A thief who tried to get into that building. Wanted to prove he was the best at his job. Marcus thought he was too.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Clarissa said. “He was never seen again, right?”

“Oh no, he was. In lots of places. His head was found on top of St Paul’s Cathedral. Sawn off at the jaw.”

Clarissa stepped back from the edge. “What… What about the rest of him?”

“His arms were found in Notre Dame, in Paris, his legs outside a mosque in Constantinople, and the rest of him turned up in a temple in Calcutta, I think. Could just be a story though.”

Wild Boy noticed some drivers whip their horses harder as they rode past Oberstein’s building, and how a few shoppers crossed the street rather than pass its shuttered windows. Had they heard the same stories as Gideon?

“I ain’t so sure about this,” he muttered.

Gideon grabbed his wrist. “You ain’t got a choice,” he growled. “If you don’t get that black diamond, Marcus dies. Ain’t no risk we won’t take.”

He let go of Wild Boy’s arm. “Besides, what happens to you if he dies? Think about that, eh?”

Wild Boy had thought of little else. That was what scared him. He knew he wasn’t doing this for Marcus. Marcus would never want them to help a killer. He was doing this for himself.

“Let’s get on with it,” he said.

Gideon dropped a canvas bag by Clarissa’s feet. For the first time, Clarissa didn’t scowl at him. She simply nodded, a begrudging acceptance that, for once, they were on the same side.

“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” Gideon said, trudging back to the door to the service stairs. “You’d better be ready too.”

Clarissa opened the bag. It was filled with items Gideon had brought from the palace – a rope, candles, a tinderbox and a pronged tool like four butcher’s hooks welded together.

Clarissa tied the end of the rope to the tool’s base. “Grappling hook,” she said, swiping it through the air.

Wild Boy searched her face for any hint of a smile. Usually Clarissa lived for this sort of thing, a chance to cause some trouble. But right then he saw nothing in her expression other than a fierce determination to save Marcus.

He wished they could talk more, but there was no time. A wind was rising, whipping snow across the roofs. Clouds began to dapple the buildings in shade. Their plan relied on bright sunshine, to dazzle the guards. It had to happen now.

He peered over the edge of the roof. Below, Gideon had begun to ride his carriage along the street. He yanked the reins with deliberately clumsy jerks and bellowed at the shoppers as if he was drunk.

“Look out, toffs!” he yelled. “I’m coming through.”

As he neared Oberstein’s building, he turned the horses. The carriage slammed against a lamp post, sending him tumbling from the seat to the pavement.

That was the cue.

“Now!” Wild Boy said.

With a sweep of her arm, Clarissa sent the hook high into the air, carrying the rope across the street. It disappeared over the top of Oberstein’s building, from where they heard the gentle
clink
of it landing.

She pulled the rope until the tool’s claws caught the parapet of Oberstein’s roof. Rushing back, she lashed the other end around a chimney stack, forming an uphill tightrope across the street.

She jumped up and stood on the rope as easily as if it were a foot-wide beam. She strapped Gideon’s bag over her shoulder. “Ready,” she said.

On the street, the guards shouted at Gideon and tried to pick him up. But he just grinned and rolled his eyes, acting too drunk to understand. The distraction was working. The guards hadn’t seen the tightrope.

“Go!” Wild Boy said.

Clarissa was already off, so fast she was almost running. Her silk dress shimmered as she raced up the sloping line.

Wild Boy watched, holding his breath as if breathing might somehow knock her off balance. Clarissa vanished onto Oberstein’s roof and then reappeared holding the grappling tool. She hooked its claw onto her dress, fixing herself to the line, then swung her legs over the edge of the roof and climbed down. Her fingers dug into cracks in the stone while her boots sought footholds on the cherubs’ cheeks.

A shout came from the street.

Wild Boy’s breath finally came out in a stream of curses. One of the guards had seen the rope. The man charged across the road and into the building below.

“We can still do it,” Wild Boy muttered, trying to convince himself. But he couldn’t help wondering if that was the guard that had sawed the thief’s body to bits.

“Hurry, Clarissa…”

She was going as fast as she could down the building, like a spider. The rope slackened with her descent, then grew tight again as she climbed to the windows on the next floor down. She hooked the grappling tool around the rivet where the shutter met the wall. Now the tightrope sloped downwards to the third-floor window.

Clarissa forced the window open and climbed inside. She signalled to Wild Boy to follow.

Wild Boy peered again over the edge of the roof. The ground rushed up at him and his knees turned to jelly. The stitches in his head began to throb again. He felt dizzy and weak.

Footsteps stomped up the stairs. The guard would be here in moments.

Crouching, he pulled off his coat and draped it over the rope. He had to jump and let it carry him, but his arms shook so hard that the whole line quivered.

The guard stumbled onto the roof, coughing and wheezing. He saw Wild Boy and his face flushed an even deeper red. Veins bulged in his temples. He reached for a weapon in his coat.

Wild Boy closed his eyes and jumped.

He expected to start sliding, but instead he hung from the line. He filled the freezing air with more curses, wiggling his arms. “Come on,” he urged. “Come on!”

The coat jerked and he began to slide. Cold air rushed at the hair on his face and chest. His shriek of fear turned into a cry of victory as he shot towards Oberstein’s building. “It’s working,” he yelled. “It’s bloomin’ working!”

But now Clarissa’s face changed from a smile to a scream. She reached from the window, pointing to something across the street; something terrible.

On the roof, the guard cut the rope.

The line sagged, and for a second Wild Boy felt as if he was floating. Momentum carried him forward and he slammed against the wall. One hand scrabbled at the brickwork, hoping to hold on. The other gripped his coat tighter, praying it might still somehow save him, even as it slid from the rope.

And then it did.

Instead of falling he remained against the wall, dangling from the sleeve of his coat. Above, Clarissa clung onto the other sleeve. Her hair hung down and her freckles looked as if they might pop off her cheeks.

She began to pull him up. “Stop screaming,” she grunted.

Wild Boy hadn’t realized he
was
screaming, but now that he did he screamed even louder and didn’t stop until he had clambered through the window and tumbled to the floor inside Oberstein’s building.

“Well,” Clarissa said, “they definitely know we’re here.”

Wild Boy lay on his back, trembling as much with fear as relief.

They were inside.

Now came the hard part.

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