Shanghai Sparrow (27 page)

“My mama’s alive,” she said, and her voice sounded like a little girl’s voice, a little girl in a clean pinafore, her hair lovingly brushed. A little girl who still had a mother and a father, a sister and a home.

A banshee wail roused her from her stupor. Shift-change at the biscuit factory. She should be out by now, should have been out before.

But...
Mama. Alive, and locked away.

Had Harriet known? Had she known all along?

It hardly mattered now, though there was a growing, roiling fury in Eveline’s belly that demanded
someone
pay, for the years of lies and the fear and the belief that they were completely alone. And for Charlotte. Someone owed Charlotte a life. Uncle James should pay, it had been his lie, but Uncle James was dead.

Bedlam. She had to get to Bedlam, and find Mama.

But first she had to get out of this vile house.

No, first she had to think. All the staff – except for two new maids – were still here, which probably meant Uncle James hadn’t died long ago. They must be waiting for whoever had inherited. Perhaps whoever it was was already there – not that it meant anything to Eveline. What did, what
might,
were Uncle James’s papers. If any of them were still in his office, there might be something there to help Mama, or to confirm or deny what Harriet had said.

She had even less time now, and more to do.

She remembered where Uncle James’s office was. Locked, but a hairpin dealt with it – and
his
door had been oiled and properly hung. No squeaks for Uncle James.

There was a desk she didn’t recognise – bigger and glossier, with ball-and-claw feet. Fancy, but worth less than it looked like – she knew cheap masquerading as expensive when she saw it, it had been one of Ma Pether’s first lessons.
Don’t let Fancy take yer eye. Quality’s what’s there, or ain’t. Fancy’s just the stuff on top. Dress a rat in a lace collar and it’s still a rat.

Not much in the drawers. Expensive writing paper, ink dried to a scum in its bottle, sealing wax. Nothing she could find relating to Mama.

She paused, one hand on the leather top. Where might he have kept such things? Or would the lawyers have it all? She knew about lawyers. Enough, at least, that she trusted them as much as she would a starving dog.

Nothing. Eveline felt a sudden hard, brutal desire to set the house alight. Burn it all up, every stick and scrap of it. If she couldn’t punish James, or Harriet, she’d punish the house.

But that would do no-one any good. And she’d already been here too long.

One more place... if it hadn’t been cleared out already.

The dressing room still smelled like Uncle James: pomade and sweat and Gentleman’s Hair Tonic. The chaise still stood in the corner. She dropped to her knees.

Yes. The case was still there. The case where Uncle James kept the things he didn’t want anyone to know about.

The corsets lay there, thick pink cotton ribbed with bone, like the corpses of some strange animals desiccated by the wind. Wrinkling her nose with distaste, Eveline reached underneath them.

There. A flat leather case, bound about with red lawyers’ ribbon. She opened it just long enough to see her mother’s name written on the top page, and shoved it into her bag with the tin.

Eveline unlocked the bedroom door, and peered around it. The corridor stood empty and quiet... except at the far end, where the door to the servants’ stairs was just closing on the glow of a candle, a flicker of black skirt showing as it did.

Arse and damnation, she’d left it too long. The servants – or one, at least – had given up on any more sleep and made for the kitchens to get a start on the day. Now what? Follow her down, and try and slip past? Or down the front stairs, banking on no-one coming out that way for another two hours? But then she’d have to get out of the front door, with the risk that anyone coming up to lay a fire would see her clear as day as she fadgetted with the lock. And she’d have to leave Beth’s contraption, which would make it clear, along with the broken window, that someone had been in.

Her rapid shallow breathing caught, hooked in her throat.
The window.
If whoever had gone down went into the pantry... no time to wait.

Swift and light, she padded along the almost pitch-black corridor, and through the servants’ door. She left it open behind her for what little light there was and headed down the stairs, horribly steep and narrow in the dark. She was going too fast and her foot slipped, she caught herself with one hand on the wall, hearing a faint ‘chink’ from her bag where something – maybe the metal bar – hit the tin.

She stood in the dark, crouched, heart pounding. No sound but her own breathing. Moving more carefully, she went on, a faint flush of light beginning to show the treads as she moved downwards.

Whoever it was had left the bottom door open a crack. Lantern-light. The
chug-clonk
of the pump, water splashing into something, the clink of crockery. Setting up the tea things, probably. Which meant the woman would have to go into the pantry for the tea.

The sound of a match, muttered curses. She was lighting the oven, or trying to. She’d have her back to the door. Humming, some soft romantic tune.

Eveline fled across the kitchen in her stocking feet, clutching her bag to her chest so it wouldn’t rattle, not sparing a glance at the hunched shape by the fire. Into the pantry, bag out of the open window, a faint
thud-clank
as it dropped.

The humming stopped.

Eveline boosted herself onto the sink, hands slipping and scrabbling on the enamel, grabbed the frame, flew through like a circus acrobat, landing on her hands, rolling. Scooped up the bag.

There was a red line in the sky.

Down the garden, skidding on wet leaves, she realised she’d left her boots under the window, looked over her shoulder. No light in the pantry, no cries of alarm, and dammit, they were good boots. She scooted back up the path. Where the hell were they? There, over to the left. She grabbed them by their laces.

She was about to rise from her crouch when she heard Harriet exclaim, directly over her head.

Arse.

“Who left this open?” The creak of the hinges as she pulled the window shut. “No wonder it was cold. Oh, and look at that, the pane’s gone. Wind must’ve took it...”

Don’t look closer. Don’t notice the treacle on the frame, or the way it broke so neat with all the glass outside...

The window-shaped glow of the lantern on the path faded. Without pausing to put her boots on, Eveline fled.

“W
HERE HAVE YOU
been?
” Beth said. “Oh, never mind. Get in, do, or we’ll never get back in time.” She hauled Eveline into the machine by her arm, and began turning levers. The
Sacagawea
started to purr, as though she were happy to be leaving. “Did you get them?”

Eveline half-fell onto the hard wooden bench. “What?”

“Your mother’s
notes!
The thing we
came
for!”

“Oh, yes,” Eveline said. “Yes, I...” She started to shove her wet, numb feet into the boots, and that made her think of Charlotte, her poor little soaking feet, and she began to shake, and then to cry, ridiculously, noisily, a great storm of tears as though they had all been saved up from that single dreadful year.

Beth tried to steer with one hand and pat Eveline’s shuddering frame with the other. “What is it? What happened?”

But Eveline could only shake her head and cry harder than ever, great brutal sobs like someone breaking stones in her chest.

“Eveline, I don’t know what happened, but please,
please
try to calm down,” Beth said, keeping her voice calm and staring straight ahead. “Because there are people now and they’re looking, and whatever’s wrong, it’ll be worse if we’re caught.”

Whitehall

T
HADDEUS
H
OLMFORTH WAITED
in the corridor, which smelled of pipe smoke and the nervous sweat of supplicants. Thin-legged chairs with creaking seats stood along the wall, but he declined their uncertain support.

The door of Rupert Forbes-Cresswell’s office opened and he ushered out a flushed, well-fed looking man accompanied by a cadaverous, sickly one; it was as though during their meeting with him one had fed off the other. Forbes-Cresswell, as usual, looked as glossily healthy as a prime racehorse.

“Ah, Holmforth, dear fellow. Sorry to keep you waiting about.”

Holmforth gave a stiff nod, and followed his beckoning hand.

“Sherry?” Forbes-Cresswell said, lifting the gleaming decanter.

“No, thank you.”

“A little early? Quite right, too. So, how are things? How is your little protégée?” The shadow of a wink passed across Forbes-Cresswell’s face.

“My... oh, the girl. I have not visited the school yet.”

“Indeed? Perhaps you are wise. Showing too great an interest...”

“Oh, I intend to. I believe she may be useful. That is what I wished to discuss with you.”

“Indeed?” Forbes-Cresswell sat down and motioned Holmforth to a chair, which he took, sinking into a marshy embrace of leather cushions. “Useful how?”

“In Shanghai, I discovered something I believe to be of great importance.”

Forbes-Cresswell looked bemused for a moment. “Shanghai? Of course, you’re posted there, aren’t you? This thing you discovered, you couldn’t write to me? It’s a dreadfully long journey to take, after all.”

“I did not feel confident in committing it to paper, in case it fell into the wrong hands.”

“Oh, don’t tell me one of our brethren has been caught doing something untoward? Really, can’t they sort themselves out? Besides, it is Shanghai. Hardly up to us to drag some businessman out of the mire, they usually seem to manage quite well without troubling us.”

“It isn’t anything of that nature. It is a weapon.”

“A weapon?” Forbes-Cresswell looked startled.

“A hugely powerful weapon that uses Etheric science, and with which, I believe, it will be possible to conquer the Folk.”

“Conquer the... I see.” Forbes-Cresswell steepled his fingers before his mouth.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you won’t take a sherry?”

“Thank you, no.”

Forbes-Cresswell sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “You know, Holmforth, I’ve every confidence in you. However, this business... there’s no evidence, old chap, none whatsoever, that ‘Etheric science’ is anything other than a combination of natural ability, like... oh, singing at perfect pitch, say – quite apt, that – and myth.”

“I have reports I consider reliable that the machine is effective.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” They had made uncomfortable reading, if one was inclined to be upset by that kind of thing. But the subjects were not human, after all. “Here.” He passed the papers across the desk.

Forbes-Cresswell flipped through the pages, paused, flipped through again. “You had this from one of the locals?”

“Yes.”

“Reliable, you say.”

“I have found him so. I pay him extremely well. And other reports he has brought me have proved accurate.”

Forbes-Cresswell went back to the report. “Hmmm. Well, I must say, this Chink seems to have something, what? I’d better keep this,” he said. “Is there any more?”

“No. Everything is there.”

“Good. Well, well.” Forbes-Cresswell clasped his hands on the desktop and leaned forward. “I have to say, Thaddeus, I’m impressed.”

Holmforth flushed. Forbes-Cresswell had never used his given name before.

“I really think you’ve found something here. However, this must be handled with the utmost discretion.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t just mean where foreign powers are concerned. I mean within the department. Does anyone else know?”

“No, I came straight to you.”

“Good man.”

“You don’t think there are foreign agents within the department?” Holmforth said.

“Spies? It’s always a possibility. But also, one must take into account simple incompetence, lack of impetus – there are those who consider the Folk a spent force, not worth the trouble of invading, for all their riches. There is also, I regret to say, a certain personal pettiness. I’ve been putting your name forward for promotion, though of course I should be sorry to lose you, but...” He tailed off, with the faintest of shrugs.

“I appreciate that you’ve taken the trouble,” Holmforth said.

“Not at all. But your, shall we say, your particular connections in
this
matter might be seen as interfering with your judgement.”

“This is nothing to do with any personal campaign, I assure you,” Holmforth said, forcing the words out past the stiffness in his throat.

“I understand entirely. But it might be
seen
that way, you understand? And there are those who would be more than happy to take this out from under you – dismiss it, and then steal your discovery for themselves. We need conclusive evidence, solidly backed up. I suggest you keep this absolutely under your hat for now. You mentioned the girl...”