She tasted blood. Why? Must have bitten her lower lip.
"Keenan." The voice came from just above her head.
Schweeeee-THWOCK.
Schweeeee-THWOCK.
"Keenan!" More forceful, now. "Enough, man."
A pause in the rhythm. "Shut it, Reid."
A resumption. Eleven?
Sweat trickled into her eyes, its sting a welcome distraction from her trembling limbs, her panic-squeezed lungs. The pain of the lashing didn"t matter; all she wanted was for her unmasking to be over and done with.
And then a cry, shrill but authoritative: "What the blazes do you think you"re doing?"
What does it look like? Fortunately, the hysterical giggle in her throat didn"t climb high enough to be heard.
Keenan swung the belt one last time but rather half-heartedly, as though acknowledging that the game was over.
"Why are you all standing about? Back to work, all of you! Except you, Keenan a what is the meaning of this!" Mr Harkness was standing before them. Slowly, the other trades melted back towards their tasks.
Keenan looked mutinous. He stared at Harkness for a long minute, his chest rising and falling rapidly. "Why, Mr Harkness, sir," he finally said, his voice velvety and dangerous, "how kind of you to take an interest in a matter of site discipline."
Bright patches of red appeared on Harkness"s cheeks, and on the top of his bald head. "I said, what is the meaning of this?!" His voice was shrill, the twitch going double-time.
Another silence. The only sound now was of Jenkins"s sobbing. Eventually, Keenan said, "The lad"s got to be punished."
"What for?"
"Playing the fool. Damaging materials."
Harkness took a deep breath and turned to Mary. "Is this true?"
From the corner of her eye, she saw Keenan"s face twist with rage. "Yes, sir."
Harkness looked surprised. "You wilfully damaged Keenan"s property?"
"Not on purpose, sir. But between us, Jenkins and I broke a brick."
"A brick!" Harkness turned back to Keenan. "You would thrash a pair of children within an inch of their lives for one damaged brick?"
"I thrashed them for playing the fool. They"ve no business messing about with tools. The damage could have been much worse."
Harkness"s face turned very pale. Through clenched teeth he said, "Unless you wish your entire gang dismissed, you"ll remember who"s in charge of this building site, Keenan. Quinn will no longer a.s.sist any of you. You"ll work short-handed until you find another bricklayer, and I expect to see progress as usual."
Keenan flushed a shade darker but didn"t reply.
"Do you hear and understand?" roared Harkness.
"Yes. Sir." He spat the words as though they tasted bitter. "And I"ll remember this. Sir."
If Harkness was troubled by the threat, he gave no sign of it. "Come then, children." He beckoned to Mary and Jenkins, and she suddenly realized she"d been holding her breath. Although the other workmen made a show of returning to their tasks, they stared openly as the three of them marched past: Harkness in the lead, Jenkins hobbling as best he could, Mary bringing up the rear.
She could feel Keenan"s gaze on their backs. It was nothing like warm sunlight, more like an icy drill through her skull. Her thoughts were all confusion, her legs rubbery beneath her. She was still trembling, although this time it was with relief. But even as she followed Harkness and Jenkins, she began to wonder about the significance of Harkness"s rescue. He hadn"t intervened in time to save Jenkins from a savage beating. But in saving her from a similar lashing, Harkness had safeguarded her ident.i.ty, and thus the entire a.s.signment. She had to ask whether he knew the truth, or any part of it. And if so, what he expected in return.
Eight.
Miss Phlox"s lodging house
Coral Street, Lambeth Coral Street was lively in the evening, with children and women calling to one another across the street and over garden walls. Washing was pegged out on clotheslines, itinerant hawkers stocked their pushcarts for the evening"s sales, an umbrella repairman was at work on a front step. It was a bustling domestic scene of the sort that still, occasionally, gave Mary a pang. Tonight, it made her eyes p.r.i.c.kle. Had her father lived, that could have been her family"s fate: a modest but cosy home, younger brothers and sisters, and supper around the table every night.
Tired as she was, Mary knew the scene in her mind was improbable. Her parents had been very poor, her father away at sea more often than not, her brothers stillborn. Yet she clung stubbornly to the possibility. Her father had been a brave, intelligent, principled man and his death had destroyed all their lives. That was what she knew. Automatically, her hand moved towards her throat to touch the jade pendant he had left her. In the next fraction of a moment, she remembered that it was far away: safe in her desk at the Academy, along with her ident.i.ty as a young woman. For now, she was simply a boy named Mark and if she didn"t want to foul up matters entirely, she"d better remember it.
She entered Miss Phlox"s lodging house by the side door. One step, and she was enveloped by the hot, dense fug of washing day: boiling water, lye soap, blueing and hot starch. Winnie, the maid of all work, was ironing bed-sheets in the kitchen and glanced up as Mary entered. "Supper"s in the larder." Her voice was breathless, making her sound even younger than her twelve or thirteen years.
"Thank you." Mary was suddenly ravenous and it took only a moment to cram down the two thin slices of bread-and-b.u.t.ter that const.i.tuted "supper".
Winnie put the irons back in the fire to reheat and drew Mary a mug of small beer. Her eyes were fixed on Mary"s face. When Mary met her gaze she looked away, but the next moment resumed her staring. She"d been fascinated by Mark Quinn from the moment they"d met.
Mary swallowed her beer and tried to look oblivious. There were plenty of good reasons for Winnie to gawk at her. She was a new lodger, and therefore a novelty; she might have dirty smears on her face; she might be... Mary gave up. She knew very well the reason why the maid of all work looked at her with such a.n.a.lytical curiosity: Winnie was Chinese, like Mary"s father, and thus curious about Mary"s appearance. The dark hair. The geometry of her features. The "exotic" aspect that people so often remarked upon. For Winnie, these things probably added up to something very specific.
Mary cleared out of the kitchen as quickly as possible. She had no idea how to manage Winnie"s curiosity and wanted to avoid all conversation with the girl until she"d decided on a strategy. Should she deny everything? It was true that she didn"t look properly mixed race. Her skin was pale and her eyes round, so that much of the time she pa.s.sed quite easily as black Irish. Even persistent questioners generally wanted to know whether she was Italian or Spanish. And that was just fine with Mary. The last thing she wanted was to acknowledge her Chinese heritage and deal with the questions and hostility it would inevitably invoke. Certainly not yet. She pushed away those thoughts as she climbed the second flight of stairs to her room, steeling herself for the next challenge: a new roommate who"d moved in today.
A man sat on the bed, pulling off his boots and enriching the small room with the pong of sweaty feet. As the door opened, he looked up. His gaze was both wary and weary.
"H"lo," she gulped. She sounded authentically nervous, in any case.
""Lo."
What was the etiquette in situations like this? Later tonight, she"d be sharing a bed with this stranger a an uncomfortable fact of life when lodgings were cheap and beds dear. But how much did men talk among themselves? How would they organize who slept at which end? And how on earth would she guard her secret from him? "I"m Quinn," she offered tentatively.
He nodded. "Rogers."
When it became apparent he had nothing else to say, she hung her cap and jacket on a peg behind the door. At the small washstand, the water jug was partly filled and the scratchy towel carefully used on one half only. She washed briskly, scrubbing her face and neck and wetting her hair to rid it of grime. This was the best she"d be able to do for some time. At Miss Phlox"s, baths cost extra and were available only on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days. But even if she were to have the money, there was no way to manage a bath with privacy.
It was intolerable in here, under Rogers"s steady gaze. It wasn"t a hostile look, she decided a more like the disappointment that came of finding one wasn"t alone. She knew precisely how he felt. She had to do something. Anything, rather than sit here in stifling silence.
The dusky walk back to Westminster felt long this time. All along the streets, yellowy light glowed behind curtained windows. The effect was cosy and exclusive, and Mary felt a sharp, bittersweet longing to be at home at the Academy. Ordinarily, the prospect of an armchair and a cup of tea was dully domestic; tonight, it could not have seemed more appealing. The streets quietened dramatically as she crossed the bridge, pa.s.sing into Westminster. Few lived here, and the area bustled only during the day. Her feet ached. Her muscles felt stiff. And she was so busy yawning that she nearly walked straight into a shadowy figure skirting along the tall wooden fence that divided the building site from the street.
Her training saved her. Before her mind could register the man and form a plan, she"d tucked herself into the shadows and gone motionless. Even so, the man seemed to sense something: he, too, stilled, glancing over his shoulder at the streetscape. After several long seconds he resumed movement but it was stealthier now, and he looked about at intervals.
Mary remained frozen, her back against the fence. The man was tall and powerful-looking in silhouette, although she couldn"t see his features or even make out his profile in the dim light. He wore a jacket and trousers, rather than a suit, but this information was of marginal use: who ever went prowling in his Sunday suit? He could be any of a million working men in London.
He wasted no time on the padlocked gate, instead choosing a section of the wooden fence. Another rapid survey of the scene. After a pause, he removed something small and curved from his pocket and, with a swift, low hand thrust, slammed it into the high wooden fence. It was a short, violent gesture, akin to stabbing a man in the thigh. He scanned the road one more time and, apparently satisfied, appeared to walk straight up the fence panel in one fluid movement. He paused at the top for a moment, then swung himself over and landed with a soft thud.
Mary grinned and slithered out from the shadows to the spot where he"d been. Sure enough, there was a small metal half-moon embedded in the fence. It was only two inches wide by one inch deep, but it offered the experienced user a toehold from which to clamber over the fence. She"d used one herself from time to time, in her past life.
She considered the climbing-grip thoughtfully. Impossible not to follow him. The difficulty was that he was almost certainly headed for Harkness"s office, which lay in direct view of this entry point. She could hardly follow his route and expect to go unnoticed. Neither could she borrow the climbing-grip to use on a different part of the fence; he would certainly miss it. No, she would have to find her own way in. And now that she was fully alert, the challenge was both alluring and energizing.
The first matter was to work out where the night-watchmen were. There were two, she recalled, who reported to Harkness at day"s end. There would be others at different posts around the Palace, guarding the House of Commons and House of Lords, but she would a.s.sume for now that they remained within their separate jurisdictions. Caution struggled with impulse. Caution won a a sign of how far she"d progressed since her early days in training, she thought with a touch of pride. She made a circuit of the building site, listening carefully and looking for the tell-tale glint of the watchmen"s lanterns.
Nothing.
Were they asleep? Gossiping comfortably in some inner sanctum? Whatever the case, they certainly weren"t doing their jobs. Mary"s lip curled with distaste. She disliked sloppiness, even if it might make her task easier. She stopped and listened again. To one side there were the sounds of the Thames: the sticky footsteps and excited calls of scavengers both human and animal; boatmen"s voices and the splash of their oars; someone, somewhere, crying. From the other rose the noises of the city a horseshoes and wheels on cobblestones, voices raised in taverns and houses, the constant murmur of millions of human lives intersecting. But the site itself was eerily quiet.
She chose as her entrance the site"s east wall, feeling her way along the fence until she found a by touch, not sight a the point she wanted. One of the fence planks was loose and it tilted under the pressure of her hand. She smiled. An unsupervised length of fence away from the gaze of the high street was a powerful temptation to boys. Jenkins and his mates had likely worried away at this plank until it became a convenient cat-flap, giving them access to the site away from Harkness"s watchful eye.
She was just small enough to squeeze through the gap. Inside, she stayed low to the ground and listened again: still nothing. It was a good opportunity, too, to scan the site. Places always looked different by night and it was especially true of this building site, which to her was still so unfamiliar even by day. Distance and dimension were distorted. Heaps of building materials and scaffolding frames took on strange shapes, both occult and comical. And St Stephen"s Tower itself seemed higher and more splendid than ever.
A faint sc.r.a.ping noise recalled her to the task in hand and she began to move towards its source, somewhere near Harkness"s office. Oddly, there was no sign of a light burning inside the small hut and the man hadn"t been carrying a dark lantern. The door, however, was slightly ajar and so she edged closer to the door-jamb and peeked through the gap.
The only reason she saw him in the near darkness was because he moved quickly. He took three decisive steps to Harkness"s desk, dipped into the top drawer and pocketed something without pausing to examine it. A slight shiver ran through her frame: this was no ordinary theft.
She had made no noise, but suddenly he was on the alert a as though he could sense her close scrutiny. His movements ceased. Slowly, she eased back slightly. He wouldn"t be able to see her, but all the same...
He pivoted towards the entrance. On instinct, she glided away from the office door and around the corner a and instantly was glad she had. His head popped out a second later, scanning the dark silence. A moment"s hesitation would have meant discovery. Still, his suspicions were not allayed. He moved cautiously but with impressive speed, conducting a thorough search of the area just outside the office. Mary was now on the retreat, keeping an eye on her quarry while in turn becoming his.
The strange, silent pursuit continued. He seemed increasingly certain that there was something or someone to find, while Mary moved faster towards her exit. She rounded a corner and came to a halt, blinking as she considered the solid wall before her. The wall couldn"t have sprung up in a matter of minutes. Had she come the wrong way? Then her eyes adjusted and she realized the "wall" was a shadow cast by some scaffolding in the moonlight.
The moon. It had shown itself while she was outside the office, spying on the thief. While most nights she"d have welcomed it, tonight it hampered her escape. Not only did it make her easier to spot, but it changed the appearance of nearly everything on site. Still, she moved with noiseless speed.
A small, open strip of land now stretched between her and the fence. The man was no longer absolutely silent in his pursuit. Was he less certain of his way? Or was he merely allowing her to hear him, hoping that she"d panic and make an error? Either way, he was close behind now. Had she time to cross the unsheltered patch? She glanced about, looking for hiding-places: a heap of rubble, a lean-to containing lumber, the entrance to the tower. None held out any hope of concealment if he followed; all were dead ends.
She drew one last deep breath, not caring if it was audible. This was her last chance. She sprinted with all her strength across the open stretch, her boots ringing clearly against the paving stones. As she dived for the fence, wriggling and kicking through the narrow gap, the boards snagged her clothes and sc.r.a.ped her hips and shins. She tumbled out into the street, laughing silently now as she heard her pursuer struggling and swearing. The wooden plank slapped down into place, possibly clipping him on its way. An adult would never fit through the gap. Not an adult male, at any rate.
She scrambled up and kept running, knowing she was in the clear but impelled by a surge of energy to keep moving, to clear out, to distance herself from that terrifying, exhilarating escapade. She was nearly back at Miss Phlox"s before she slowed to a walk. It was dark night, now; she had no idea what time. Her lungs tingled. The grazed skin of her hips and shins stung. When she let herself in the narrow gate, a sudden deep exhaustion gripped her. The front step, a wide slab of stone, looked wonderfully inviting; she could have curled up right there and gone straight to sleep. Instead, she stumbled up the two flights of stairs and fell into bed, fully clothed, unheeding of Rogers"s lumpy form and deep snores. Within seconds, she was asleep.
Nine.
Tuesday, 5 July
Mary didn"t sleep for long. Dawn came early, and with it consciousness. Her eyes popped open and she lay, tense and still, wondering just where the h.e.l.l she was and who lay beside her. Then, as memory returned, her tension eased a little. The dingy yellowed wall, the scratchy mattress with a valley in the middle, the clatter of carts in the street below a all these were part of her new life in Lambeth. Or, rather, Mark Quinn"s life.
Beside her, Rogers snored at full bore, rolled snugly inside the greasy blanket they were meant to share. He was welcome to it. Mary lay still, watching the weak light a one could hardly say "sunlight", it was so grey a grow stronger. She felt a knife-like pain deep in her belly. Not hunger, but the desperate need to pa.s.s water. Yet she could hardly do so now, with Rogers in the room. Instead, she forced herself to think about yesterday"s events.
Foremost in her mind was the fate of Jenkins. After that beating, he wouldn"t walk properly for days, and there was a good chance his lacerations would become dangerously infected. Yet Harkness had packed him off with the day"s wages and the bland a.s.surance that once recovered, he would again have a place on the building site. But even a.s.suming that Jenkins healed properly and came back to his job, there remained the question of how he was to live in the meantime. Without a wage, without medicines. It was an outrage. The least she could do was try to help him, if teetotalling, cliche-spouting, church-going Harkness would do nothing else. She would contact the Agency today and find out Jenkins"s address.
Harkness"s duty to Jenkins led to the question of his relations with the other labourers. Although Harkness"s building site might officially be teetotal, in practice, he couldn"t possibly prevent the men from drinking beer or spirits. At dinnertime, they had the chance to nip out to a pub or bring a flask onto the site. That meant he was either terribly naive or rather clever at cost-cutting: most building sites provided men with beer for refreshment and nutriment, and spirits to warm them in damp weather. But if Harkness provided only tea a and cheap tea, and not enough of it a that would leave a small surplus in the budget. It was brilliant: Harkness made a small profit on the drinks supply, and Jenkins made an even smaller profit provisioning the men. It was a perfect exercise in free-market economics, and the only people losing out were the workers themselves.
Was Harkness the sort of man to attempt such a thing? Character was so difficult to read. Apart from that unfortunate twitch, he looked like many a middle-aged gentleman in England, with his neatly trimmed beard and thinning hair. His face was neither benevolent nor stern, and his well-fed cheeks served as a counterweight to the anxious creases in his forehead, the twitch beneath his left eye. He might, he might not, in about equal measure. Besides, there was likely nothing strictly illegal about serving tea instead of beer. Probably the site budget allowed for such small variances.
Her thoughts circled back to the bricklayers a to Keenan"s violence, which prompted a further question about Reid"s bruises. Was he a habitual brawler? The sort who got drunk and became aggressive, and sought out fist-fights as a form of recreation? Or was there more to his bruised appearance? He"d seemed otherwise peaceable, in contrast with Keenan. Reid"s greeny-yellow eye might signify nothing; but it merited consideration, none the less.
Church bells chimed seven o"clock while Rogers snored on. Would he never wake? Mary continued to lie still, listening to the household rustle to life. Creaking floorboards. Violent coughing. Clatter of shoes on the uncarpeted stairs. Outside, somebody pumped the handle of a well, filling bucket after bucket of water. Her bladder throbbed at the taunting sound. Should she risk it? She would be late for work, if he slept any longer. She might be late as it was. But what if Rogers awoke while she was on the chamber pot? She stared at the ceiling for an agonizing half-minute. No. She"d have to take the chance.
As she cautiously swung her legs over the side, he erupted in a fit of snorts and sneezes. Instantly, she lay down again. Closed her eyes. Feigned sleep. Rogers yawned, sneezed, yawned again. Then, finally, she felt his bulk shift as he sat up. Grunted. Sneezed again. Then, with a sigh, he dragged the heavy basin from beneath the bed. It was a long, splashy, hissing sort of p.i.s.s, one that made her own bladder scream in protest. Mary gritted her teeth. Listened to him lace up his boots and clomp about for a few minutes before the door finally slammed behind him. She waited another ten seconds a it was all she could manage a then tumbled from the bed and scrabbled for the br.i.m.m.i.n.g chamber pot.
Lightning wash. Bowl of porridge. Smart pace to Palace Yard. And Mary arrived, breathless and sweaty, to discover that she was among the first on site. Strangely enough, though, she didn"t overhear any discussion of last night"s break-in. Had it gone unnoticed? Harkness"s office generally looked as though it had been ransacked, so any minor disorder was likely to go un.o.bserved. And the man had seemed to know what he was looking for. It had taken him only a few seconds to pocket the item he sought. Mary hoped this was the explanation. The other possibility, which made her much more nervous, was that the men were reluctant to talk while she was about.
As she pa.s.sed the joiners, one of them summoned her with a crooked finger.
"Sir?"
"You hammered out nails before, sonny?"
"No, sir."
"Right. Well, the thing is to take your time and not rush it. Else you"ll smash your finger and spoil the nail, and then I"d have to thrash you, as well." He chuckled at his little joke as he demonstrated the technique. "Like so. Now let"s see you try it."
Mary hefted the hammer he"d given her and attempted to imitate his deft actions. The result wasn"t terrible a she hadn"t actually bent the nail further a but it was far from straight. She frowned. "I"ll get better."
The joiner snorted. "Not holding the hammer like that, you won"t. What d"you think it is a a frying pan?" He showed her how to hold it. "Try again, now."
She tried again. A little better.
"Can tell you ain"t used to proper work," he said, pleasantly enough. "Got hands like a little princeling, you have. Try again."
Mary flushed. The dirt beneath her fingernails was authentic enough, but she couldn"t hide her lack of calluses. She brought the hammer down firmly this time, and quite miraculously the nail unbent.
"That"s it. Now, here"s your lot," said the joiner, jingling a leather pouch. Something about it appeared to disturb him and he peered inside. "But this ain"t the half of it. Cam! Where"s the rest of them nails?"
"In the pouch!" shouted a heavyset man.