"Steady there!" gasped James, relief plain in his exhausted face. "We"re coming to help pull up Harkness."
It took them only seconds to reach the ledge. In that interval, with a single, defiant movement, Keenan threw his hands up. "There! Ain"t that what you wanted?"
The scream that sliced the air was dreadful, shrill enough even to stir a ghostly echo from the bells. It seemed to pierce Mary"s skull. Futile though it was to do so, she stumbled towards the ledge. Scanned the rows of neat shingles, the elaborate Gothic traceries, then craned below to the shadowy cobblestoned yard. At that moment, the sun dropped fully below the horizon and a new, almost tangible darkness fell over the city, cloaking from view the body she knew must be splayed below, broken and b.l.o.o.d.y.
An instant later, she cried out in surprise as a rough hand seized the back of her collar and she was whisked into the air to dangle, like Harkness, over the beautiful slanted roof of St Stephen"s Tower. The seam of her collar bit into her throat, constricting her airway; the tips of her toes grazed the stone of the belfry wall. It was Keenan, of course. What a fool she"d been to come anywhere near him, now that he was safe.
James rushed towards her, only to be stopped by a commanding gesture from Keenan. James stood perfectly still, his expression sick with horror. His lips worked, forming the first syllable of her name.
Alarmed though she was, Mary still had her wits. She shook her head in a very slight movement. He mustn"t reveal her gender now; doing so would only give Keenan more power, more delight in hurting her. She focused on James"s face, tried to project her message using only her eyes.
"Ta for the lift," grinned Keenan. "Sorry about Harkness."
"Bring the boy back inside," said James, his voice vibrating with tension and exhaustion. "Keenan, you don"t know the trouble you"re making for yourself."
"Don"t I, though? Seems to me you"re awful fond of this useless little wh.o.r.eson. Seems as you"d do anything for him."
"He"s a good lad." James"s pulse hammered in his throat.
"Your special little lad, hey?" Keenan looked contemptuous. "You don"t look the back-door sort, but I suppose I don"t know about all that Greek stuff."
She was so close. Every couple of seconds, the toe of one of her boots b.u.mped against the half-wall. She focused on that, at this moment her one sc.r.a.p of hope. Better to think about that than of the choking sensation in her throat, the blood roaring in her ears, the sheer terror turning her limbs to water. If she could just gain half a second"s purchase, a tiny bit of momentum ... if only there were a handhold, a pillar, anything she could use to pull herself forward.
"What d"you want?"
Keenan grinned. "Now you"re talking. What I want, Mr Fancy Safety Engineer, is for you to forget this last couple hours ever happened. You ain"t come here. You ain"t seen Harky. And you most surely ain"t seen me."
"Agreed," said James promptly. "Now bring him in."
"No," croaked Mary. James was entirely a man of his word. Without his testimony, they"d never convict Keenan, and they all knew it.
"Ain"t n.o.body taught you not to contradict?" Keenan raised her yet higher and grinned as her breathing became laboured. "Less you fight, longer you"ll live."
"I"ve already agreed to your terms," said James. "Bring him in."
"Oh, that ain"t all," said Keenan easily. "You"re going to fix your report so whosoever asks, me and Wick got nothing to do with anything. We"s just two harmless brickies minding our own business, and Wick"s death"s a proper tragedy."
"What else?"
As James and Keenan bargained, Mary"s sensitive ears caught a new sound outside the tower. Above the remote babble of urban life, a new sound intruded: a long, shrill whistle, and then the heavy thud of boots on cobblestones. At least two pairs. Running.
James and Keenan seemed oblivious of this new development, near as it sounded. And, dangling in mid-air like a worm on a fishing hook, Mary couldn"t turn to see anything. But she closed her eyes and listened, and the noises began to sort themselves out in her mind, so clearly could she visualize them. A police whistle. A pair of bobbies giving chase. Even, perhaps, the clang of the site gate. The boots kept galloping, and now they changed in sound. They were no longer running flat out, but were instead taking smaller, faster paces. What could cause that? She reckoned she knew. And the thought of it made her open her eyes and smile broadly.
"What you grinning at?" snarled Keenan, jerking her close for better inspection.
It was all the chance she needed. "This," she said, and kicked him in the groin.
A roar of pain. A blow to the chin that d.a.m.n near knocked her unconscious.
Blindly, Mary hung on, and after a few seconds realized she was clinging to the lip of the belfry. The hard pressure against her chin was the stone ledge. A steady trickle of blood seemed to confirm this, although she felt no pain.
"My G.o.d, Mary! Hold on!" James was there, his face white and frantic, wrapping his long hands about her forearms.
"Keenan! Where"s Keenan!"
James didn"t even glance back. "Sod Keenan; he"s run off. Can you hold my wrists?"
She could. A minute later a surely less, although it felt like more a she tumbled over the ledge into his arms. He fell back onto the floor, squeezing her tightly, pressing her against his chest so hard it hurt. His heart was thumping at a furious pace, his chin digging into the top of her head.
"My G.o.d, Mary. Oh my G.o.d. I thought a oh, Mary." He covered her hair and face with fierce kisses, and when she hugged him back, he groaned and laughed at the same time. "You careless, daring, vicious, d.a.m.ned little fool. You nearly died, purely for the satisfaction of kicking him in the-"
"I didn"t," she protested, laughing now, too. "I miscalculated. I thought I was further inside than I was."
"Oh, well, that"s all right, then." He rolled her onto her back. "Idiot."
"Who"s an idiot? You were about to agree to all of his outrageous conditions, just to-"
"To save your life," he agreed, kissing her again, so hard she could scarcely breathe. "d.a.m.ned foolish of me."
"He"d never have kept his word. You"d have sworn all that, and he"d still have knocked me off the ledge, just for the fun of it."
"I suppose you"re going to scold me now for letting him escape."
She examined his face carefully. His eyes were bloodshot, his pulse going far too quickly and his skin hot and dry. Clearly, that dubious "stimulant" he had taken earlier was wearing off and in a moment he would be desperately ill a and grumpy to boot. But despite all this, she could think of no one else she wanted as much as this; no other place she"d rather be. "No," she said thoughtfully. "I"m not."
He feigned shock.
"I think he"s been caught. Listen." They paused then, and through the wide air shaft they heard the echoes of heavy-booted steps, grunts of exertion, a roar of defiance. "The police are on their way up."
"Hmph."
""Hmph"? That"s all you can say?"
"Well, normally I"d be very pleased..."
"But not now?"
He kissed her again, deeply and sweetly. "How long have we? Five minutes?"
"Less, I think." Still, she clung to him and kissed him again.
"b.l.o.o.d.y England a a bobby on every street corner."
"Mmm. And if we don"t sort ourselves out, they"ll arrest us, too."
"Only me, I think. I"m willing to risk it."
She laughed at that, struggling to slide out from beneath him. "And what of me and my spotless reputation?"
A new voice, sardonic despite its breathlessness, sounded in the room. "I"d say it"s rather too late to worry about that, miss."
Mary closed her eyes and groaned. d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n.
James"s head snapped up at the first syllable. Then a broad grin spread across his face and he collapsed back to the floor. "Thank G.o.d," he said, sounding suddenly exhausted. "Take us home, Barker."
Thirty.
He didn"t. Instead, after helping Barker to load James"s shivering, barely conscious form into the carriage, Mary jumped down again. At Barker"s questioning look, she shook her head. "I"ll write." She didn"t wait to hear his response, or bid James a proper goodbye.
Neither did she return to the b.l.o.o.d.y scene at the foot of the tower. She"d seen bodies enough in her time, and she had no place there, besides. Already, even from a distance, she could see a good-size throng gathered about it: uniformed policemen, a police surgeon, detectives from the Yard, probably someone representing the Agency. Even Peter Jenkins. And, unless she was much mistaken, there was a scruffy, fair-haired chap nosing about in a discreet fashion: Octavius Jones. The liar a so much for resting on Sundays.
She didn"t linger. Her task, now, was to return to the Agency and report fully. Physical exhaustion was now overlaid by so much nervous tension that less than half an hour later, she stood once more before Anne Treleaven and Felicity Frame in the austere attic. Anne managed to appear dignified even in a nightgown and robe, with her pale reddish hair swinging down her back in a tidy braid. The effect was startlingly girlish and, for the first time, Mary wondered whether Miss Treleaven wasn"t a good deal younger than she"d always a.s.sumed. Felicity was dressed as for a particularly elegant party, in peac.o.c.k-blue silk and with ornately curled hair. In sharp contrast to her employers, Mary was dusty, bruised and, only now, beginning to shake with suppressed shock.
"Are you certain you"re uninjured?" asked Anne. "Our physician is ready to see you at any time. Perhaps before you report..."
"No, thank you." Mary dropped into a chair and said, "Harkness claimed responsibility for Wick"s death, Reid"s disappeared, I don"t know what"s to happen to Jenkins, and Jones knows I"m female."
Felicity frowned.
Anne blinked. "You may be unhurt, but you"d better have a drink, my dear."
Her stomach churned at the idea, but Anne was insistent. And indeed, after a stiff measure of brandy, Mary felt warmth returning to her hands and feet, and a degree of organization to her thoughts. "I beg your pardon," she said, blushing at her own incoherence. "I"ll begin again.
"According to my source, a labourer"s a.s.sistant called Peter Jenkins, Keenan, Reid and Wick were stealing materials from site stores and selling them on. Harkness discovered their thefts, but was somehow persuaded to overlook them; indeed, in exchange for a share of the income, Harkness began to falsify the site accounts to allow Keenan and Wick to continue their scheme. I"ve seen Harkness"s bank book, and he was seriously overdrawn; I expect he had other debts, too, which he had no means of repaying on his salary alone."
"Indeed," nodded Anne. "We"ve confirmed a number of loans, all on extortionate terms, with one of the more notorious moneylenders in London."
Mary nodded. "This arrangement might have worked. However, Wick a possibly prompted by Keenan a realized he could profit at both ends of this arrangement: he began to blackmail Harkness, threatening to expose his involvement with the scheme. It was a foolish idea: had Harkness called his bluff, Wick would only have put an end to his own illegal earnings. But for some reason, Harkness agreed to pay a possibly because the initial sum Wick demanded was manageable, and because his own debts seemed increasingly urgent. But as Wick"s demands got larger a by the end, Harkness was paying him ten pounds a week a Harkness became increasingly desperate. Keenan"s black-market income was no longer enough to justify paying off Wick, yet he couldn"t extricate himself without getting caught.
"Wick demanded a meeting with Harkness, after dark, in the belfry. It"s a sign of how deeply enmeshed Harkness felt that he agreed to meet Wick at all. But he did. That night, Wick proposed going to Mrs Harkness and forcing her to find the money. He also threatened to force her to have s.e.xual relations with him, as a form of payment."
"This is Harkness"s own account?" asked Felicity.
"Yes. Wick may have wanted only to frighten Harkness, but he went too far: Harkness was incensed, they fought, and, as everyone knows, Wick went over the edge. It"s still unclear whether he fell or was pushed.
"The week following Wick"s death, Harkness paid Keenan one final blackmail instalment. Their arrangement seems to have been for Keenan to take the money himself from Harkness"s desk; at least, I saw Keenan enter the site after hours last Monday night. But that week, the First Commissioner declared his intention to conduct a safety review of the building site. Harkness must have known, at that point, that he was caught. Any competent safety review would reveal the short cuts he"d taken, the low building standards he"d accepted, in order to set aside more raw materials for Keenan to steal. James Easton"s review also uncovered his highly dubious accounting practices."
"James Easton again," murmured Felicity. "What an interesting young man."
Mary had no idea how to respond to this, except by ignoring it. "With his professional integrity and personal reputation destroyed, Harkness believed his only choice was suicide. He decided if possible to take Keenan with him. So he lured Keenan to the belfry for an after-hours meeting.
"Keenan seems to have been close to Wick, and Harkness taunted him with the details of Wick"s death. He successfully goaded Keenan into attacking him. And he might also have succeeded in dragging Keenan over the ledge with him, except that Mr Easton caught them a caught Keenan, at any rate, and dragged him back to safety." Mary swallowed. She could still hear that scream echoing in her ears. "Keenan deliberately let go of Harkness."
After an pause, Anne asked, "How did you and Mr Easton manage the arrest of Keenan? You can"t have had time to send for help."
"That was a lucky accident," said Mary slowly. "I ran into Jenkins on Sunday afternoon, after Reid went missing. I asked Jenkins to check whether Reid had disappeared of his own accord. He had: Reid paid for Jenkins"s lodgings, and on the evening he disappeared, settled with the landlord for the next two months. When Jenkins came to site, as I"d told him to, a couple of policemen patrolling the area saw a boy run into the building site after hours, gave chase, and ended up catching Keenan on his way down the tower stairs."
"Quite ridiculously fortuitous," smiled Felicity.
Mary smiled, for the first time since entering the Agency. "Mr Easton"s coachman was also on the scene and realized that things had become violent. He was ahead of Jenkins and the policemen by a storey or two, and I believe he was able to lend a hand." She released a long, slow breath. "I think those are the most important points..." She was suddenly unspeakably weary. Her eyelids were leaden. Her muscles ached and burned. A thick patch of dry blood on her chin stretched and stung each time she spoke. And an angry red crease along her throat, like a noose, was a stinging reminder of those terrifying minutes she"d hung suspended from Keenan"s grip.
Anne nodded briskly. "There are a few loose ends, of course, but I expect we"ll be able to tie those up tomorrow before we meet with the Commissioner. By the by, his a.s.sessment of Harkness as "reliable" couldn"t have been further off the mark." She turned to Felicity. "D"you think the Commissioner was testing us?"
Felicity blinked, surprised at the question. "I a I wouldn"t have thought so."
"Mmm." Anne"s jaw took on an obstinate angle. "We"ll have to find out. There"s just too much we don"t know about him. About this case, overall."
Felicity"s mouth was stubborn. "We"ll discuss this further, of course." She turned back to Mary. "There"s just one more thing."
Mary froze, half-way out of her chair. "Yes, Mrs Frame."
"James Easton. What d"you intend to do about him?"
"I a I hadn"t a that is, I don"t yet know exactly what I"ll say."
"But you intend to see him again."
"I can"t just run away, or disappear." The twin gazes of her employers seemed to bore through her. "I a I owe him a goodbye, at least." She felt a painful, unexpected b.u.mp of disappointment as the words left her mouth. Was there another solution to their situation? Not likely. Not if she valued her work, indeed her life, here at the Agency.
"You"ll report to us the outcome of that interview."
"Of course."
Thirty-one.
Wednesday, 13 July
Gordon Square, Bloomsbury It was another sticky, soupy, stifling afternoon. The thunderstorm threatening the city all week had yet to materialize, and even by English standards, people talked about the weather a great deal at the moment. As her hansom cab turned into Gordon Square, Mary saw and felt the thick layer of straw coating the cobblestones, damping the sound of hooves along its length. The straw was laid down for invalids, to help them rest, and she hoped it wasn"t for James"s benefit. After all, he hadn"t been too ill to write her a note.