The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) (9 page)

The warmer air was calming, but not much. He swam, very cautiously, torch held out at arm’s length, until he saw the eyes again, this time glaring up at the ceiling. They belonged to a small stone gargoyle: huge eyes in a small face, a chin so sharp it could have cut diamond, and eight razor-sharp stone claws at the end of stick-like arms, ready to scratch and tear. The little stone monstrosity was scarred and scratched from its journey, especially around the hands, but now lay on the bottom of the deck staring at nothing with a furious expression, as if about to demand a refund and ticket to a better destination, or else.

There was a sound in the hold that was louder here. It was the sound of ice gently bumping against the walls of the deck, and the whisper of water rushing in and out, like a whale breathing. Lyle followed the drag and push of the water until his hand bumped up against the wall of the ship. He let himself hang in front of the black tear in the ship’s side, running the light round the edges of the torn and shattered wood. It wasn’t a very large hole, but it had clearly been enough to seal the fate of the
Pegasus
for ever. He levered himself down and turned his head this way and that, trying to see clearly the cuts that had broken the wood. He was beginning to feel warm now, a pink warmness all over that he knew was a bad sign. The light was almost out, and giving off a dirty yellow vapour that made the greenish water seem even dirtier and more sickly. In its last glow he reached out and touched the marks around the wood. They were small but deep, and clearly had been administered with some considerable strength to have torn the planks apart.

In the dying light, Mister Horatio Lyle saw, quite clearly against one of the planks, eight tiny claw marks, like the hands of the glaring gargoyle, and in his heart of hearts, he
knew
it was a clue. The thought terrified him. He spun in the water, less aware of his own weight now as nerves started to shut down in the cold; and, as if it wanted to provide an appropriate comment on this discovery, and to make its participation in the affair noticed and appreciated, the torch gave one last hiss, and went out, plunging him into darkness.

For a second, fear was colder than the ice in Lyle’s blood. He had the feeling of being watched, of something else outside peering in, of a consciousness down there apart from the fish and shimmering eels that had crawled through the shattered wood. He felt along the length of the hosepipe, using it to pull himself forward, back towards a distant patch of slightly patchier darkness where the water lapped up from the hold, and though he knew not to fear, there it was, the drumming in his ears, the hammering in his chest, the heavy pulse of the blood under his skin, beating out a tiny rhythm, catching at the senses like a half-heard
Hark, hark
...

He felt something move in the water, and knew he hadn’t imagined it, and thought that he should have. He thought of fish nibbling at bare toes and eels rubbing against frozen skin and the terror was there, bubbling just below the iron vault of his scientific objectivity, and he tugged at the hosepipe now, using it more as a rope than a supply of air, and the pressure was there in the water again, a ripple of displacement behind him where there should have been none and
something closed around his ankle
- oh God, something hard and colder even than he was, clutching at his skin, digging into it, dragging him back with a strength and a grip that amazed him.

He flailed uselessly in the water against it, but it didn’t let go, dragging him down like a stone, pulling his hands free of the hosepipe and its precious air, so that it twisted and bubbled wildly around his face, stinging his eyes as he was pulled back down. He kicked at the invisible, unseen thing, but it didn’t seem to care. The dead torch fell from his fingers, and he felt sorry that Tess wouldn’t be able to keep it as a souvenir, and wondered that he should think of a thing like that at a time like this, with the air burning hotter in his lungs, bubbling out of his lips in its desperation to get out and be replaced, a heavy constriction in his throat, a drying shrinking at the back of his neck, a dull weight in his chest, until his eyes started to burn with it. He twisted, reaching down to his own ankle and prising at the stone-hard things that seemed to have caught at his foot, wrenching at them with all his might, pulling with an instinctive, terrified strength that only emerged when the brain was too busy suffocating to question the acts of the body. He felt something snap, something made brittle and hard by the cold, until with a kick, the heavy thing at his ankle fell away, scratching and tearing thin lines across his flesh, bringing hot blood back to numb skin. Lyle kicked for the surface, trusting entirely to instinct, and his head bumped against the wooden top and for a moment he hammered against it, trying to find a way out in the pitch darkness, trying to find the rope, a stair, a ladder, anything to guide him out of this airless wet tomb, driving his palms against the wood until his ears burned and even the instincts started to fade into dull pink numbness.

For a moment - just a moment - Lyle drifted in the place between entrapment and escape, where thoughts were thought without words, and blood circulated on momentum only. He thought he heard ... he
heard
. . .

 

Hark, hark
...

 

And he heard ...

 

Dapples and greys
...

 

And just a few feet away, the wood above his head shattered, splintering inwards and downwards, an explosion of sound and sensation and
air
into that airless blackness, tearing the water into a thousand drops with light and motion, as Thomas, face beetroot red from the effort, threw his axe aside and pulled Lyle up from the waters of the lower deck.

CHAPTER 5

It took two blankets, a shot of whisky, a large mug of hot pea soup and half an hour by the fireside of the Hanged Sailor - a dockside tavern which had a reputation for frequently storing more bodies in the cellar than barrels, such was the local clientele - before Lyle turned from blue to merely bleached white and the sound of his teeth chattering was no longer loud enough to disturb drunks sinking into oblivion on the other side of the room. It took another half hour, sitting staring into the fire with an expression of determination, before a little colour returned to his cheeks and he announced in the first normal voice of the hour’s wait, ‘I think, perhaps, it might be time to risk a pair of shoes.’

Only when Tess had gone in search of dry socks and Thomas was staring in horrified fascination at the other inhabitants of the tavern did Lyle carefully examine his ankle, red and sore from the thing that had gripped it in the hold of the
Pegasus
, and notice without word or expression the tiny claw-like marks where the same thing had finally let go, like the shallow scratching of a cat, or of fine needles, or even, if he were given over to such imaginative fancies, the claws of a very small gargoyle.

By the time they left the tavern, the streets outside had changed. No longer was the day blue-grey from the thick fog, but had deepened to an almost impenetrable deep bruised black that made light from any doorway into a fuzzy-edged square and framed every window with an uncertain wobble of darkness. The church bells, however, announced it to be no later than three in the afternoon. Already the lamplighters were beginning to drag out their ladders, and the bobbies walked with their shuttered lanterns lit. What light didn’t come from the yellow glow of fires and candles was weak and grey, more like the light of the moon than the sun. Fresh snow piled up against every doorway and down every street, and still it fell, until many of the weaker roofs creaked. In darker corners of the darker houses, icicles formed
inside
the walls. Everything except the blurred light seemed drained of colour, so that the shadows of people moved in a black-and-white world, the sounds of which were muffled by the snow and fog.

The four walked through the streets in silence. Where Thomas stood, to the left of Mister Lyle, he couldn’t clearly see Tess’s face to the right of Mister Lyle, so thick and quiet fell the snow. Tate was just a vague shadow at Lyle’s feet.

‘Mister Lyle?’

Lyle didn’t take his eyes off the road in front of him, as if trying to judge their position by each cobble. ‘Yes, Thomas?’

‘Where are we going?’

Lyle’s hand opened. He was holding a scrap of paper. Thomas recognized it from the boat.

‘To see Captain Fabrio’s housekeeper.’

‘Shouldn’t that paper be with the police and the rest of . . .’ Thomas realized what he was saying, and closed his mouth.

Tess leant round behind Lyle and said, in a tone of awe, ‘The way how you ain’t said what you was about to ’ave said were the smartest thing I ever seen you do, bigwig.’

‘Oh. Thank you, Miss Teresa,’ mumbled Thomas, simultaneously attempting to translate Tess’s words into a language he could understand.

Navigating through the snow and fog was a challenge that made even Tess hesitate and frown at every half-familiar street corner. Thomas grew uneasy, and jumped whenever a shadow overtook them, drifting silently out and back into the fog. Time too seemed to become lost until he found it hard to judge how long his legs, unaccustomed to walking such a distance, had been aching.

When Lyle stopped, it was so sudden that Tess walked straight into him. Tate sniffed the short, narrow door they were standing before, a little beam of wishy-washy yellow light etched round its edges. Lyle knocked, and even that sound was dead in the fog. When no one answered, he slipped the catch and half-opened the door. A single candle burned on a desk, the wax dribbled down around it. A narrow flight of flimsy steps ran upwards. Lyle paused, then started climbing. As they rose, their hands pressed into the walls for support and the stairs bending slightly under their weight, each in turn became aware of a gentle
creakcreakcreakcreak
coming regularly from upstairs. Lyle hesitated, head slightly on one side, by the door from behind which the noise seemed to be coming. The faintest of lights showed from underneath it. He knocked. The
creaking
noise stopped abruptly. A voice said with a strong accent that Lyle couldn’t place, but which certainly hadn’t come from the city, ‘Who’s there?’

‘My name’s Lyle,’ he said in a clear, reassuring voice. ‘May I come in?’

The tortured creaking noise started again. ‘Yes. But leave that dog and the children outside.’

Lyle glanced down at the children. Then smiled, pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it behind him.

The room was small, the ceiling slightly too low for Lyle’s height, though he was hardly a tall man, so that he had to shuffle along with his head uncomfortably bowed. There was the smallest of all possible fires burning in the grate: just a few hot coals that gave out the minimum of heat. A rocking chair sat in front of it, old and flimsy,
creakcreakcreak
, the lady in it with her back turned to the door. Lyle moved closer, but the lady, without turning, said, ‘Please sit in front of me, Mister Lyle, and put another coal on the fire.’

Lyle edged round uneasily in front of the woman and sat down on the single, three-legged stool in front of the chair. Next to the fireplace was a grand total of five coals. He placed one carefully on to the fire. It landed with a dull fizz, and didn’t seem to do anything else. Lyle felt cold just looking at it.

The lady in the rocking chair smiled. She was old, dressed in a patchwork of ancient woollens sewn together with an expert touch, but she wore so many layers that she seemed to bulge out into almost spherical proportions, though her wrists and cheeks were sunk down to the bone. She was, Lyle realized, almost entirely blind.

Quietly, she said, ‘Ask, Mister Lyle.’

‘I can’t place your accent.’

‘My father was English, my mother Italian, and I spent the first ten years of my life following the army and my father across much of the Empire. Is that a good enough answer?’

‘Are you Mrs Milner?’

‘I am.’

‘Is Captain Fabrio one of your tenants?’

‘He is. But what does your tone imply, Mister Lyle?’

‘Ma’am, I suspect you are the kind of lady who can surmise already what my tone implies.’

‘That he is either in trouble, injured or dead, Mister Lyle.’ A faint smile. ‘You are surprised at my bluntness? You must forgive me - I have spent three years with my own company. My social skills have deteriorated.’

‘Ma’am, you do not do yourself justice.’

‘Do not toy, Mister Lyle. Is the good Captain injured?’

Lyle took a deep breath, and Mrs Milner’s head moved sharply at the sound. ‘Ah,’ she murmured, cutting him off. ‘He is dead, then. How?’

‘He was killed last night. I’m trying to find out who killed him.’

‘You do not have the walk of a copper.’

‘I’m not just a copper.’