The Devil's Mask (6 page)

Regaining the deck, I found myself blinking and sucking down deep draughts of air. The stink of the port had never tasted so good. I lifted my face to the sun and felt the weight of another shadow pass across it: the crane boom swung from ship to shore where the crate it carried was swiftly unhooked.

‘They're making short work of it,' Addison said with satisfaction. ‘Mind you, they need to. The Venturers took five years to erect proper lifting gear when it was needed two decades ago. As with the lock, too little, too late. Still, they're not entirely stupid. With just the one crane they can command an exorbitant price for its use.'

‘I'm sure.'

The Captain's face seemed too mobile again in the bright sunshine. ‘Yes, well,' he said. ‘If you'll wait here I'll fetch the necessary.' He turned on his heel and made for his cabin.

The chain drifted back high above the deck trailing its empty hook. That Addison had volunteered to give me a guided tour of his ship was clearly an aberration; his
hotfooted
errand to retrieve the ship's log seemed so out of character as to be faintly absurd. Now that I was on deck again and feeling better, I suspected I'd made a mistake in not accepting the invitation to enter the Captain's cabin; I might have spotted something in it, something useful. I watched a stevedore catch the hook as it swung to the deck and stab it
nonchalantly into the tangle of ropes above a pallet stacked with casks. Still, if there had been anything untoward in his cabin, Addison would hardly have offered to take me there. The chain rattled itself straight and took the strain and jerked the casks up off the deck to swing immediately sideways in an arc that again cut the air above my head. I stepped back instinctively, before the hook tore through the webbing and one half of the pallet dropped and the casks slid sideways and fell the thirty feet to the deck. One of the barrels smashed a section of the ship's rail; another – filled with rum – exploded as it punched a dent in the ship's deck. And a third cask hit the man who had attached the hook in the first place. He was bent double over a block and tackle when the barrel struck him. In snapping the man's back as it fell, the cask's route to the deck was softened: it did not break open but rolled away lazily across the planks, and as the sound of its rolling died, I realised that the deck-hand had been whistling before he was struck.

One minute a tune, the next nothing.

Instantly, the hot smell of rum swam up from the deck.

I ran forward to the man's side. I had never seen a dead body before, much less a man killed, but I had seen both now, I knew that for sure. There was no blood, and the colour beneath the man's skin had not faded, but the ugly
awkwardness
of the accident was reflected in the utter stillness of his face. It hadn't even had time to register surprise, much less pain. The blow had been fatal: there was nothing anyone could do. Why then was I working with another of the deck hands to straighten the corpse into a more natural position? Who was I trying to comfort?

Addison was swiftly back up on deck. He broke in upon
the circle and his barked questions sounded like accusations. He swore at the stevedores and summoned the crane driver and cursed the ship's surgeon, Waring, for not being there, though the Captain, too, appeared to understand at once that the man was beyond medical help. I retreated a few paces. The crisis, either in itself or because it had eclipsed me, seemed to have given Addison back some of his authority. Within minutes the body had been removed from the deck and the work of unloading the ship began again. A boy – of no more than twelve – set to work clearing the broken casks away.

When Addison turned to me again, his voice was gruffer than it had been before.

‘It's all in here,' he said, thrusting a leather satchel into my chest.

I took the bag.

‘The log, the ship's documentation. Etcetera.'

‘It was the man's own haste that did it,' I said.

‘Hmm?'

‘The accident. The hurt man (somehow ‘dead' would not come out of my mouth) hitched the load to the crane. Hastily. In case you were wondering if anyone else was to blame. Not the crane driver, or another hand, just the man himself. Though perhaps if he'd been allowed to work at a more measured pace …'

Addison regarded me a while, a yellow incisor working to still his lower lip. ‘Perhaps,' he said eventually, but could not stop himself from going on. ‘Perhaps pondering, ruminating and whatnot are of use in lawyering. But I can't see that dallying would have helped here. No, Sir. On board a ship,
sloth
does everything but sharpen a man's instincts.'

Amidst the rush of the quay, I sat on a bollard to eat a minced beef pasty I had bought from Cousins, the baker. Today more than usual, the warm and wholesome smell of the place, in contrasting so vividly with the docks, had been irresistible. I flicked my foot at a gull. It cocked its head and swaggered just out of reach.

It wasn't the Captain's apparent callousness in the aftermath of the accident which troubled me, but the truth in what Addison had said. Sloth, or drudgery, or thoroughness – call it what you will – did indeed blunt a man's instincts. Poring over documents in search of accounting discrepancies had dulled my own eye. If the Captain had not pricked me with his jibe about lawyering, I might not have noticed. But now, on the quay, I could see every detail, the boy's bare feet, the depression in the deck (like the flattened skin of a bruised apple) where the barrel had hit it, the shard of wood the boy was about to sweep up, branded with a letter: W. And there, beyond the broom, the rest of the barrel's lid, with the remainder of the stamp. I took a bite of pasty and blinked back the initials: TC.

There was nothing untoward about the
Belsize
, owned by the Western Trading Company, unloading a cargo of barrels stamped with the Company's logo. Nothing untoward at all, not when considered rationally. But to have seen a man killed
by such a barrel cut through rational thought. It was an omen. My instinct told me that although the documents in the satchel across my knees were no doubt all present and correct, Captain Addison was covering something up.

The seagull had tacked up to within kicking distance again. You've got to admire these birds: nothing short of a blow will warn them off. I stood up and tore the remains of my pasty in two – I was less hungry than I had thought, anyway – and tossed it at the gull's webbed feet.

Kitty didn't want to go in the first place but her brother Edmund said it would be worth their while if she did. He needed somebody to help carry the buckets. Full, they'd be heavy. The track from Leigh Woods to the river's edge was steep. Going down wasn't a problem; you could hop, skip and slide down
empty-handed
, but the gorge was a trial coming back up, never mind lugging a load.

Edmund was convinced they could make some money out of worms. He always said ‘We' when he wanted her help. Kitty didn't care about money anyway; she was more interested in colours. It was autumn so the woods were full of golden trees, but she still preferred the yellow a buttercup made if you held it against your forearm. Edmund said he liked gold, too, so long as it was real. He didn't have any of his own yet, but he would, because he was a businessman. Their father laughed when he called himself that. ‘You mean busybody,' he said.

Anyway, Edmund knew you could pull worms out of the mudflats when the river was low. They could sell them to fishermen. It wasn't the money Kitty was interested in, but the walk through the woods at sunset. That was when low tide was today, so that was when they went, and the yellow leaves and red rocks she'd seen on the way down the side of the gorge had been like looking through your fingers at a fire.

Which didn't make up for the fact that she was knee deep in
grey mud now, with a bucket digging into the crook of her forearm, wet and bored and cold and tired.

‘I'm going home,' Kitty said.

‘Just five more minutes.'

‘You said that twice already.'

‘Yes, well. It's an investment. We came all the way down here and we can't go back until we've made it pay. It's a golden opportunity …'

‘It's sludge and worms,' Kitty replied.

‘You need to envision.' Edmund squatted to prod at the mud again with his special stick. There was an oval of slime on his backside. Kitty had an urge to kick it.

‘Well, I'm going even if you're not,' she said. ‘It'll be dark soon anyway.'

As she said this she realised Edmund would know that she didn't want to walk back up through the woods in the dark alone, and sure enough he turned to grin at her. He was infuriating. ‘How do you think that lot got where they are?' he asked her, jerking his thumb at the fine buildings which crested the other side of the gorge.

‘I don't care.'

‘Well I do and I can tell you it wasn't from going home early. A proper merchant doesn't give up on his profits when they're already half made.'

‘I'm not a merchant. I'm cold and I'm covered in mud.'

‘That's exactly it. You can't be afraid of getting your hands dirty if you want to succeed in business. Just a few worms more and that will do. The tide is coming back in anyway.'

‘I'm going,' she said, and although they both knew it wasn't true, she walked off along the curve of the river bank to make it
seem like it might be. The glimmer had gone out of the water, now; it looked the same flat grey colour as the slime. Only it wasn't entirely flat because up there was something half afloat nudging the mud-bank a little way round the curve. Maybe it was something worth having. Kitty was filthy and sopping wet anyway, so she decided she might as well wade out to investigate, and that seemed a good idea right up until it turned into a bad idea, and by then it was too late, because by then she knew what the thing was, and even though it made her want to turn and run back to Edmund, her legs kept taking her towards it, daring it to change into a valuable sea-trunk or a rotten log or anything normal; it didn't have to be anything good any more, just so long as it wasn't a drowned body.

At first Kitty thought the darkness cloaking the corpse was the fault of the river or the approaching night, but by the time Edmund had reached her – he had heard her shouting although she hadn't heard herself – she realised it wasn't silt or the dusk that had turned the woman black. Edmund drew her away and told her to mind the buckets, which was maddening, since worms couldn't matter now. Then he astonished her further by dragging the body, inch by horrid inch, clear of the high water mark. When she asked him why he'd done that, he said that even though it was a blackamoor there might still be a reward.

The springs on Carthy's coach were definitely shot. Even the worst of the town's hackney carriages gave a smoother ride. I had tried to persuade my employer to walk the short distance to the Dock Company's headquarters, but Carthy, whose attachment to his carriage is as unwavering as it is unfathomable, insisted otherwise. The man is cross-stitched with perverse streaks. Although the cobbles were relatively smooth, the coach gave them square edges. Carthy used the journey as an excuse to update me about Anne's ‘frankly phenomenal' progress with her reading; I signalled my awe with a grunt. By keeping my mouth shut, I hoped to stop my teeth from jolting loose in my head.

‘What are you going to tell Orton?' I asked when the carriage finally jerked to a stop.

‘Me? Nothing. I've done my share of the talking this morning.' Carthy folded the step back on to the running board with ridiculous care. ‘You tell him what's what.'

I ground my teeth, but said nothing. Although I hadn't had a chance to plan what I'd say, the uncertainty principle by which Carthy generally led meant I was prepared to feel unprepared.

We were shown into a room with tall, grand windows, whose grimy panes admitted little light. Our client, John Orton, was already seated behind a French-polished table.
His face shone dully in its surface. Two heads. The facsimile was smoother than the original. Although in his early middle years, the real Orton was creased as an old man. When he rose to shake hands his palm felt papery. There was something the matter with his skin, I saw: it wasn't wrinkles so much as cracks that crazed Orton's brow and cheeks.

Before he'd finished greeting me, Orton was addressing my master. ‘Adam. A pleasure. You're in good health I trust?'

‘I'm bearing up well enough. As, I hope … How are the … rocks?'

Orton gave what passed for a smile. ‘Multiplying. I was out collecting just this weekend. Down towards Dorset. These fossils are God's own fingerprints. They will afford us a view of life as far back as the flood.'

Carthy's ‘Fascinating!' was warm enough to convince the Dock Company official to go on, but to my ear it rang hollow. Prod a man along a route he's already set upon travelling, however, and he'll continue well beyond the next milestone. Orton began expounding about sediment and alluvial deposits and natural history's own picture-book as the three of us took seats around the big table, and he continued to talk long enough for me to collect myself in advance of presenting our findings. A tongue of fire, tiny in the yawning mouth of a grand hearth, underscored the room's chill. It was warmer than this outside. Fossils: dry bones. There was an odd smell in this room, of lemon zest cut with something noisome. Finally, the man's droning stopped.

‘So, how have you got on?' he asked Carthy after a pause, with what sounded like a note of resignation in his voice.

My master turned to me.

‘Well, we've made progress …' I began. And on I went, carefully outlining the work we had done, the sound of my voice in my head measured and professional and, it appeared, of no interest at all to my client. As soon as I began speaking, Orton started picking at his fingernails, absently at first, but with increasing intent. He was soon ripping off bits of cuticle and flicking them under the table. The conviction drained from my voice. With a look of relief, Orton turned back to Carthy.

‘And your conclusions?'

‘Oh, Inigo's drawn those,' Carthy said lightly. He nodded at me again. ‘Such as we've been able to make.'

Although my master's flippant tone unsettled me further, I had no choice but to continue. Yet the discrepancies in the Western Trading Company's duty payments seemed suddenly petty as I spelled them out, and in the deadening quiet of the meeting room my deeper misgivings about the
Belsize
came across as more or less groundless. Orton just sat there scratching at his wrists. If the matter was of this little consequence to our client, then why was I allowing it to trouble me? Three faces stood reflected in the sheen of the table, ghosts swimming beneath ghosts. What in God's name was I doing here? There was a whole world of flesh and blood beyond this one. I had a sudden vision of Mary, the waitress from Thunderbolts, her rounded forearm and the swell of her hip. I was still giving my metronomic account of the matter, but what I wanted to do was shout an obscenity, kick a hole in the table, and walk out. If I was going to have such thoughts about a woman, then oughtn't Lilly to be the one to spring to mind? I stopped talking.

‘Very interesting. Thoroughly … thorough. Thank you.' Orton's palms, turned up on the tabletop, were a raw pink. ‘And you've nothing further to add, Adam?' he deferred to Carthy again.

‘No. There's the matter of the Company's backers, which I can detail if you so wish …' Carthy's knowing look made my heart quicken. I did not want to have to concede Bright & Co.'s involvement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the seat of an occasional chair beside the fireplace bulge and settle with the shape of a tortoiseshell cat. That was what the lemon zest was intended to mask, the smell of cat piss. Mercifully, Orton's lack of interest extended to those who had shares in the Western Trading Company. He waved away Carthy's suggestion with a flick of his flayed hands.

‘A summary for the file, with your … findings set down, will suffice,' he said quickly, and then, visibly more animated again, he began regaling Carthy with a further account of his weekend's fossicking for rocks. Ammonites were the new old thing, he explained, his hands fluttering at one another with pleasure.

My temper wasn't improved by Carthy's insistence that we climb into his wretched coach again for the return journey. To avoid the appearance of fuming in silence, I eventually asked, ‘What was all that about?'

‘I know!' Carthy shook his head. ‘Frittering his time away in the mud. I once made the mistake of telling him I'd collected shells as a boy. But that's a world away from a grown man, of his authority …'

‘That's not what I'm talking about.'

‘No?' replied Carthy disingenuously.

‘No. What's really going on?'

Carthy took a long look at the shop-fronts rattling past. ‘Hard to say. This job seemed like a perfect opportunity to make a difference. Heaven knows the mess the Dock Company presides over needs clearing up, for the good of the city. That's why Orton instructed us, I assumed. He's the new man there. I understood we were to present him with results he could act upon. There was no mention of the wretched fossils when he dropped off the documents. Evidently, I misjudged the man's intentions. He needs something on the file, but it certainly doesn't look like he's planning on waving it in anyone's face. Insurance of some sort, I'll wager that's what he's after. A note of our findings will give him leverage to shore up his position within the Company. It's a missed opportunity.'

The coach had slowed up in the throng of Corn Street. A horse's head, hanging momentarily beside the open window, exploded in a sneeze: tendrils of snot swayed from its nostrils just inches from my face. I flinched; the apparition drifted from view.

‘But it doesn't make any difference,' Carthy went on. ‘Though Orton's softened for now, our brief is unchanged. You must finish your analysis and write it up and send it over for the man to file. Who knows, maybe the wind will shift again and he will enjoy a change of heart.'

I nodded, placated by the note of confidence in Carthy's voice, even if what he was saying oppressed me further. That's the trouble with lawyering. Though it gives the appearance of being necessary, vital even, too often the work is adding braces to belted trousers, or is entirely for show. I hung on to the sill
of the carriage as it slewed and clattered over a rutted stretch of road.

‘Keep digging,' Carthy muttered. ‘But carefully. Orton told me he uses a brush to uncover his precious fossils. We must be as subtle. Now's not the time for a spade.'