The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) (10 page)

‘Of course. You are . . . what shall I call it? An expert? In murder?’

‘No, ma’am, that would be a murderer; I’m an amateur if anything. When did you last see the Captain?’

‘Last night.’

‘What time?’

‘The
Pegasus
arrived in port yesterday morning, almost first thing. I sent to him to know on his arrival if he wanted his old rooms. In the afternoon he came in person and said he would be honoured to have them back; a charming man, Captain Fabrio. In the evening he arrived here, then was joined by another man at about eleven; a tall man by his footsteps, who banged his head against the ceiling repeatedly and wasn’t comfortable in this place. A well-bred voice, but utterly cold. They quarrelled. The Captain wasn’t expecting him; I heard raised voices.’

‘Did the Captain know him?’

‘I do not believe so. I suspect that the Captain was rather afraid of him, though. I certainly was. When he entered the room I felt a chill right through my bones, and I don’t really feel the cold. A powerful man, I think. He almost knocked my door off the hinges with banging.’

‘Did he have a name?’

‘Stanlaw. I do not know if that is of any use to you.’

Lyle had frozen. Mrs Milner put her head on one side, listening to his sudden silence. Finally she said, ‘Mister Lyle, is there something else you wish to tell me?’

‘Stanlaw was also found murdered at the scene of the crime.’

Very, very quietly. ‘I see.’

Silence while Lyle assembled his thoughts. ‘Did they leave together?’

‘No. Mr Stanlaw left at around eleven thirty. The Captain left half an hour later. He seemed quieter, subdued - something he never was. The Captain was, I might say, one of those swashbuckling types that we warn our children to keep away from. But charming.’

‘Was he religious?’

‘Yes, indeed; but I do not know if you would approve of his religion.’

‘Ma’am,’ said Lyle with firm politeness, ‘there are slabs of granite yet uncut which have more interest in theology than I do.’

‘An atheist?’

‘Worse. A scientist.’

‘I hope you recover. It won’t offend you, then, to hear that the Captain was a devout follower of the Roman Catholic faith.’

‘Did he take employment from a priest?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did he give any indication of . . . a recent change in his fortune? ’

She put her head slightly on one side. ‘Recently? He said no matter what happened, he would always board here out of “fondness”.’

‘What did you take that to mean?’

‘That he didn’t need to board with me, but would.’

‘Was he wealthy?’

‘No, not at all. Do you think anyone would board with me if they had a choice?’

‘There are worse places. Did he speak of a place called Isalia, ever?’

‘The Captain rarely conducted business in this place. It wouldn’t have suited a man of his character.’

‘You don’t seem very upset by his death.’

‘Do not think I am heartless, Mister Lyle. I am practical. I will save my grief for the time when I am alone, and when it will not cause inconvenience to others. I am by myself enough to have that opportunity. Do you have any more questions?’

Lyle was silent again, but this time his eyes were fixed on her face. She smiled faintly. ‘You are pitying me, Mister Lyle. Please; I have no desire for pity.’

‘Ma’am, it is not pity, it is concern. Pity implies something directed at another person with a hint of your own superiority. Concern, however, is just a perfectly natural reaction at seeing another human in distress. It implies a desire to change something. Pity is passive. Can I look at the Captain’s room?’

‘You may.’ The faintest of smiles on the old lady’s face, pleased.

‘And may I send my companions in search of more coals for the fire?’

The smallest hesitation; then the smile again. ‘You may.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Mister Lyle.’

 

The sun is setting, slightly sheepish, knowing it hasn’t made much of an impact on the day, and hoping people won’t mind.

Gradually, spreading from sunset to seashore, the Thames is turning hard as stone.

The ice begins under the bridges and under the wharves, where the meagre light hasn’t dared penetrate. It begins furthest away from the ships, mud banks and salt of the Thames estuary, creeping east from Hampton Court Palace where thin glass on water grows pale and white and the freezing wading birds coming in to land find their legs suddenly skidding out from under them. It crawls past the village of Richmond where the fishermen and eel-catchers burn holes in it to let their prey breathe a deadly last breath; clings to the mud and reeds of Hammersmith; settles under Westminster Bridge; and bumps against the side of the barges sleeping in the river.

Although, as Mister Lyle would have pointed out, if he had bothered to check his thermometer and make a few simple calculations, it’s not yet quite cold enough.

But he hasn’t. So he won’t find out until after it’s all over.

 

And finally, the sun sets. Its departure is hardly noticed - it is just a deepening of the dark, rather than a fading of the light.

And somewhere in the deep dark, eyes open.

And a voice like warm marble says, ‘Is all well?’

‘His grace is here, just as the father promised, m’lady.’

‘Good. And the holy father?’

‘Is in the garden.’

‘Excellent.’ A swish of silk on a polished stone floor.

‘M’lady?’

‘Yes, Henton?’

‘The father . . . has left a number of loose ends.’

The swishing sound stops abruptly. ‘Which loose ends?’

‘A couple of individuals who may threaten us.’

‘You believe that the police may be capable of tracing us by them?’

‘It is not the police that concern me, m’lady. You spoke of the storm at St Paul’s . . .’

‘Lyle?’

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘They said Lincoln might send him. You were wise to inform me.’

‘Thank you, m’lady.’

Marble eyes burning in a cold darkness. Marble voice edged with fire. ‘
I
will deal with the situation.’

 

And in the gloom and the fog, footsteps clatter through the docks, and a voice mutters rebelliously, ‘“Get this, get that, find coals, find
sulphur.
” ’Ave you ever gone an’ looked for sulphur in this parta town, bigwig?’

‘Well, I can’t say that the situation has ever -’

‘An’ if he wants coals for the lady why don’t
he
go an’ find coals an’ let me rest my feet?’

‘If you want I could go on by myself . . .’

‘An’ then Mister Lyle’d kill me for lettin’ you get all killed! You just do what I say, right, an’ it’ll be all right when it’s done.’

‘Well, as the older party, not to mention the gentleman of this expedition, I feel it is in every way my duty to ensure that . . .
ow
!’

‘Sorry. Was that your foot?’

 

In the darkness of the settling night, Horatio Lyle struck a match in a small, dingy room and lit a small, dingy lamp hanging from a small, dingy hook nailed into a low, leaking ceiling.

There was a bed in this room and a wooden crucifix. Nothing else gave it even the suggestion of being inhabited. It smelt of mould, dust, dirt and the faint aroma of tobacco; and from outside the window, the stink of the refuse pile in the courtyard of shed-like tenements rose up until it seemed to seep through the walls, despite the covering of snow and ice trying to shutter down the smell. Lyle looked round, feeling more depressed as each sense reported its dismal findings.

Only one thing in the room caught his eye, and even then he almost missed it. He knelt down and reached cautiously under the bed, imagining - or maybe not - the scuttling of ratty claws as he did.

Lyle unscrunched the note, and read it.

And it too terrified him, though he would never have admitted it. He already knew there was too much at stake.

 

In the darkness and the night, a man wrapped in a burgundy scarf looked up at the dim light of the room that had once housed Captain Fabrio, and saw the shadow of Horatio Lyle against it, head bowed, clearly reading something. And the man smiled, and thought,
Don’t be afraid yet, my friend. I will see that everything is all right.

As if to seal this silent bargain, he held up in salute to the shadow a hand that had something clasped in it and, with the reverence of a priest taking a sacrament, he carefully ate the ginger biscuit.

Voices rose out of the fog, and the man retreated into the darkness of a doorway.

‘Wait, Miss Teresa!’ A breathless voice.

Behind the burgundy scarf, the man smiled, with a strange fondness.

‘Yes, bigwig?’

‘I just need ... to catch . . . my breath . . .’

‘You make it sound like you’re carryin’ too much!’

‘It’s just . . . I don’t usually carry coals myself.’

‘Oh, that’s typi . . . typic ... that’s just like you bigwigs what all ’ave people what do your carryin’ for you. You oughta carry things, now that I’m a lady an’ it’s your
duty
,’ the malevolent grin was almost visible in the darkness, ‘it’s your
duty
to do the carryin’.’

Whatever answer there might have been was lost in a breathless wheeze. The voices drifted on into the fog. Something, however, lingered. Tate, ears trailing in the snow, slowed, turned, sniffed the air, sniffed the ground, nose wrinkling up in dismay. Two immensely large, deep brown eyes turned slowly on a black doorway. The tail twitched. Tate started to whine.

A gloved hand emerged out of the darkness, holding half a ginger biscuit. Tate sniffed the hand, sniffed the biscuit, then ate the biscuit, tail wagging happily. The hand scratched Tate behind the ears, and faded back into shadow.

Tate trotted on, knowing full well that since everything would probably sort itself out, none of this was worth his worrying about.

CHAPTER 6

‘Is everything satisfactory, your grace?’ A voice like maple syrup. ‘Her ladyship has assisted most generously in gathering together everything possible. Sandstone, Portland stone, marble, granite, flint, slate, Caen stone, limestone, sarcen, serpentine, Bedfordshire, Staffordshire and Suffolk clays; and of course, the all-important London clay. This is what the city is made of, your grace. Every street, every house contains some of these. It is said that the very cobbles themselves remember the land they were once torn from; so many parts to make up a whole, so many disparate characters coming together. Remarkable, don’t you think, your grace? This city is made up of so much melding into one, ancient personality. Now degraded, of course.’

Silence. Then a clink, as of stone rubbing against stone. A faint breath.

‘The city is sick, your grace. Sick in its soul. The people are not people any more. They live like animals, think like animals, and it is this city, this ancient monster squatting on the bones of its own past, which has made them this way. Together, your grace, we can change it. Everything that made the city is here for you to see, to master, according to our bargain.’

The silence of consideration.

‘Your grace? We have found everything.’

Somewhere in the distance, a carriage rattles, a long way off. Glass tinkles on glass. Someone laughs, giggles, the sound carried by the wind crawling through the fog. There is the dead quiet of snow falling on stone.

‘Your grace?’

The voice that answers is a roar, shattering the fog and the night, although neither moves for the breath that utters it.

The echoes bounce from stone to stone, wall to wall, humming with a sympathetic power; ripple through the fog, tearing at it, as if it weren’t there, and fade gently into shadow.

 

A few miles away, Lyle jerks out of his contemplations. At his feet Tate whimpers, as if having a bad dream. The hansom cab rattles on, across the sleeping cobbles of London.

Mister Lyle’s house, which had in recent months undergone extensive restoration following an embarrassing incident involving a small mob and an exploding furnace, was a thing far too large for him, and far too small for both him and Tess. Arguably, it could have accommodated several large families. But no number of compressed people could possibly have made the same amount of noise Tess did when faced with such horrors as, say, a bath. Or indeed that Lyle did when faced with, say, a positive current through an electrolyte solution, and a consequent rapid and unexpected, if not downright messy, ionisation induced by the potential difference between two terminals, which in itself was of such an embarrassingly exothermic nature as to cause rapid combustion of all local products and the subsequent but essential purchase of a new pair of trousers.