The Winter Rose (92 page)

"Your compassion is very touching," Freddie said acidly. "And so
unusual in such a wealthy man. It wouldn't have anything to do with
courting your voters, would it?"

"No, it wouldn't. And for your information, Freddie, I'm not a
wealthy man. I'm a poor man with a lot of money. Big difference. I've
never forgotten what it's like to be hungry and cold, and I never will."

"If we give you this money," Campbell-Bannerman asked, "will you call off the dogs?"

"Yes."

"And if we don't?"

"I'll let the whole bloody kennel loose."

"I'd almost say you were blackmailing me."

"For Christ's sake, Henry, I am blackmailing you!"

"What, exactly, do you want?"

"I want one hundred thousand pounds to establish five clinics and
five schools in my constituency. That's ten thousand a project--to build
or renovate, supply, and endow." He threw a thick folder onto the
table. "That's how I'm going to do it. It's a comprehensive proposal on
suggested sites, builders, and costs."

Campbell-Bannerman had made promising noises, but no promises, and
Joe had left Downing Street smoldering. He'd returned to his office,
bellowing at Trudy to get Jacob Riis here on the next boat.

So far, Jake had run only three stories--two in the Clarion, one in
The Times--and already the Central Lobby at Westminster was noticeably
more crowded, noticeably noisier. The postmaster of the Commons post
room had told him he had roughly double the number of incoming sacks of
letters. Joe expected to be summoned back to Downing Street any day now.

He had to pass by old St. Patrick's church, with its walled
graveyard, to get to the food shops. As he approached it, he saw that a
smart black carriage had stopped near the gates. It was unusual to see
such an expensive conveyance in this part of town. He rolled closer,
then realized with a start that it belonged to him. It was one of two
broughams he owned, the one Fiona used. He knew that her parents and
sister were buried here and that she tended the graves herself. She must
be here now, he thought. He knew where the graves were and headed
through the gates down a curving dirt path toward them.

He spotted her amid the headstones. Daffodils and bluebells bloomed
all around them. She had raked debris from the grass and was now on her
knees, clipping spent leaves. Her movements were awkward and slow
because of the baby. He saw her brush dust off her father's headstone,
then stretch her hand out to one marked Charlie Finnegan. The real Sid
Malone--the lad who had attacked the young Charlie Finnegan, and whom
Charlie had killed--was buried there. When Fiona had discovered the
truth, she'd refused to change the name, worried that it might provoke
unwanted questions. Joe saw her touch the letters of her brother's name,
then cover her face with her hands and lower her head. She was weeping.

He sped down the path as fast as he could push the wheels of his
chair. The sound of the wheels crunching over the gravel startled Fiona.
She looked up.

"Joe?" she said, hastily wiping her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Working with Riis. What's wrong, Fee?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I just..."

"Fiona, I saw you. It's all right, luv, you can tell me."

They were both aware of the damage her pursuit of Sid had done to
their marriage. Since the day he'd come out of his coma--and told the
police and the press that it was Frankie Betts, not Sid Malone, who had
shot him--Fiona had talked about her brother only once, to tell Joe he'd
come to their house, and that she and Seamie had helped him get out of
the country. She had never mentioned him again after that.

"I try not to think of him too much," she said now. "But it's hard
not to when I come here. It's knowing he can't come home that upsets me.
Ever. If someone recognized him and went to the police, he'd be
arrested. Alvin Donaldson and Freddie Lytton would still like to see him
hang for Gemma Dean's murder. I wish he could come back, Joe. I wish I
could see him again someday."

Tears came again. Joe wiped them away. It hurt him to know that she
had tried so hard for so long to hide her pain from him. And it hurt him
to see that she was still suffering. And yet he didn't know what to do
to ease her grief. When he'd come out of his coma, and heard that Sid
was said to have had shot him, he was able to say that he had not. Gemma
Dean, however, had been in no such position.

As soon as Alvin Donaldson learned it was Betts who'd shot Joe, he
pulled out all the stops to find him. Eventually he did, in Deptford.
Donaldson had interrogated him about Gemma Dean's death as well, but
Frankie denied he'd had anything to do with the Dean murder. Suspicion
had fallen back on Sid Malone, where it had remained. Joe knew that
Fiona was right. Her brother could never come home.

When Fiona's tears had subsided, Joe insisted that she leave St.
Patrick's and go home. "The churchyard's no place for you, Fee. Not now.
It's not good for you and it's not good for the baby. Go home and sit
in the garden and I'll come as soon as Jake finishes."

She finally relented and he accompanied her back up the path and to
her carriage. He kissed her goodbye, guilt pricking at his conscience.
As the carriage pulled away, he thought of how hard he fought on behalf
of total strangers while his own wife cried alone in a graveyard. It
wasn't right. He must do something for her. He must try to clear Sid's
name. He didn't know how, but he knew it would involve getting to the
bottom of Gemma Dean's murder.

He would start tomorrow. With the man who had nearly killed him.

He would pay a visit to Mad Frank Betts.

"Bloody hell," Willa swore.

"Again?"

She nodded, put her pencil down, and trotted off behind a boulder.
Seamie, busy taking sightings of Mawenzi's west face from a quadrant,
could hear her retching.

"All right?" he shouted.

"All right," came the reply.

A few minutes later she was back, standing at the stove. Snow was
melting in a pan on top of it. She swished some of the water around her
mouth and spat it.

"What's doing it? Altitude alone?" Seamie asked.

"It's not altitude. It's the Chaggas' angry mountain god. His name is Vomitus and he's mad as hell," she said.

Seamie laughed out loud, bumping the quadrant and wrecking his reading.

At the village of Taveta, where they'd stopped to top up their
provisions, they'd found two Chagga tribesmen. It had taken some doing,
but Seamie and Willa had persuaded them to guide them through the dense
forest that circled the mountain. The Chagga, who had named the mountain
Kilema Kyaro, which means That Which Cannot Be Conquered, believed that
an angry god lived inside Kili and would punish any who dared climb it.
Willa had had to offer them a lantern, a small mirror, a knife, and her
gold signet ring before they would agree to guide them. Tepili, who
didn't trust the Chagga, had been unhappy and silent throughout the
forest trek. Peter Boedeker had cautioned them to be wary of the Chagga,
too, but neither Willa nor Seamie had had any difficulty with them, and
thought both Boedeker and Tepili had exaggerated their ferociousness.

"Drink some of that water," Seamie said to her now. "Don't just spit it."

"Ugh."

"Drink. You have to. If you don't, it'll get worse."

"Don't see how it could."

Ever since they'd reached twelve thousand feet, Willa had been
plagued by altitude sickness. Their plan had been to climb to the
saddle--a long slope of land that stretched between the Kibo and Mawenzi
peaks--and set up camp close to Mawenzi. From there they would explore
the peak's west face from the ground, using the surveying and navigation
tools they'd brought to get a more accurate idea of heights, distance,
and hazards before they started climbing.

Their initial difficulty had been staying on course through the dense
forest at Kili's base, but their Chagga guides had helped them,
bringing them out of the hilly forest and onto the mountain proper
without once consulting a compass. Seamie had marveled at the primeval
feeling of the forest after days spent trekking on the hot, arid plains.
Camphor, fig, and padocarpus trees had shaded them on the climb.
Curious colobus monkeys had followed them, swinging along on hanging
vines. Hornbills and red-striped turaco birds fiew overhead, squawking.
And once a leopard dashed snarling from a clutch of giant ferns.

Higher up, the forest had given way to alpine moorland, then cliffs,
ridges, and scree, and then to the high-altitude desert of the saddle.
The first signs of altitude sickness--pounding headaches--had hit them
just past nine thousand feet. Nausea and fatigue followed. Keeping to
their plan to climb high and sleep low, they'd taken five days to carry
their gear up from the alpine moors over the glacier ice, deposit it at
the Mawenzi camp, then climb back down below three thousand feet to
sleep. Their Masai porters, unequipped for ice climbing, had stayed
behind on the moorland to wait for their final descent. It had been hard
work carrying a tent, a stove and fuel, sleeping bags, lanterns, food,
clothing, cameras, and tools in rucksacks over the ice. Their ice-axes
had been helpful, but the crampons had proved invaluable, performing
better than their hobnailed boots. Willa said she'd felt as if she were
positively glued to the ice in them.

It had taken Seamie only three days to acclimatize. He still had the
odd headache, and his energy level wasn't what it had been on the
plains, but he was improving. Willa wasn't. He worried about her, and
said so, but she shrugged off his concern. She was suffering, he knew
she was, but she made no concessions to her symptoms, keeping up with
him in every aspect of their reconnaissance--from trekking and climbing
to surveying and photographing.

Willa crumbled a lump of snow into the pot on the stove to replace
what she'd drunk, then walked over to Seamie and the small drafting
table they'd set up. She looked at the map they were still roughing out,
at his jotted readings, then at the mountain face itself. Their
reconnaissance was nearly done. By the end of the day, they would have a
working map of the west face. She had taken all the photographs she
needed for her book. In a day--two at the most--they would start their
ascent.

"Still thinking of the couloir?" she asked.

Seamie nodded thoughtfully.

"Could be tricky."

Seamie knew that it would be tricky. Couloirs--gullies that were
steep and angled--often provided the best access to the summit.
Unfortunately, they also acted as chutes for debris. Chunks of ice and
rock, loosened by the heat of the sun, could come crashing down them
without warning.

"If we're on the couloir early, before the sun's warm, we might be
all right. See where that buttress meets the ridge? We climb by that
northwest corrie to reach it, bivouac under the ridge for a night, then
make a start on the couloir at dawn, clear it, take the summit, and get
back down to the ridge. If we need to bivi again, we do. If not, we grab
our gear and descend the same way, via the corrie."

Willa was frowning at the snowy face.

"It's not without risk," Seamie added. "We'll have to move bloody fast."

Seamie knew that Willa would understand his meaning--that no quarter would be given to altitude sickness.

She frowned up at the forbidding, snow-covered peak. She was quiet
for a few long seconds, then she said, "We'll be the first to summit
Mawenzi."

He was struck by the tone of her voice, by the determination in it,
the sheer bloody will. It signaled there would be no compromises, no
negotiation, only victory or defeat. He'd heard it before--in
Shackleton's voice, in Scott's, in his own.

Willa was driven, competitive, ambitious, eager to make a name for
herself. It inspired him. And unsettled him. Not because she was a
woman. He was used to fierce women--he'd been raised by Fiona, after
all--but because he loved her.

One paid a price for winning and sometimes that price was high. The
trekking they'd done, even the ice climbing on the glacier, though
arduous, was nothing compared to free-climbing a sheer rock face in
subfreezing temperatures while straining to pull oxygen into one's lungs
in thin air.

He'd have to be able to forget who she was when they were scaling
Mawenzi, to forget his feelings for her. He wondered if he'd be able to.

"The route's good," she said suddenly, decisively. "As long as we're
off the couloir before the sun's hot, we'll be fine. Let's just hope the
angry god isn't too angry that day."

Seamie squinted up at the long icy sweep of the couloir again. He
looked at the jagged peaks of the summit and the snow clouds crossing
them and said, "Let's hope he's not even miffed."

Charlotte Lytton gazed at the creature at her feet, lying limp and
crumpled, blood seeping from its slack lips, flies feasting at its eyes.
The porters

had placed it there, thinking she would want to see it. She didn't.
She didn't understand why anyone would want to do this, to destroy
something so beautiful. She raised her head and looked at the man who
had shot the lion--her handsome, laughing father. He was being made much
of. Lord Delamere slapped him on the back and Sir James Hayes Sadler
handed him a glass of champagne. Watching him, she did something she'd
done for as long as she could remember. She whispered, "You are not my
father. You are not. You're a thief. You've stolen my real father and
put yourself in his place. Just like in a fairy story."

She could smell the lion's blood now. It made her feel dizzy and
sick, but she knew that to faint would make her father angry. So
instead, she took his hand and said, "Congratulations, Papa."

He turned to her, smiled briefly, and patted her head, which was what
he always did when he wanted to appear loving in public. She knew,
however, that he did not love her. It was all right, for she did not
love him. She never had. They both pretended. Though she was better at
it.