Unseemly Science (12 page)

“Another spy?”

“Yeah.”

“Has he seen you?”

Tinker grinned. Oh, the pride of the boy. If I had not been so alarmed by his revelation, I might have smiled.

“Where is he?”

But Tinker had heard something. I saw his eyes jump around the room, looking for a way to escape. Before I could stop him he’d snatched his apple and was off. The slam of the door was still ringing in my ears when it was opened again by Julia, a man’s shirt draped over her arm.

“Was that… in the corridor?… I thought…”

“Yes,” I said. “He’s gone. It was the threat of new clothes.”

Smoke is never thick enough nor mirrors so perfect.

The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

I related to Julia all I had learned. She wanted to go out to the front of the hotel immediately and search – a naive response. She had no idea how difficult it is to observe and remain unseen. If Tinker was correct and someone had been watching, he must be exceptionally good at his job.

“You won’t find him,” I said.

“Then let’s play the same trick we used to catch the boy. I’ll walk from the hotel dressed in your clothes.”

“If he’s out there, he’ll have seen what we did. He won’t fall for the same trick.”

The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked laboriously towards one in the morning. I could hear no other sound in the hotel, guests and staff being sound asleep.

A few minutes earlier I had stood in the empty lobby, scanning the keys hanging behind the desk, memorising the numbers of vacant rooms. Now I worked to pick the lock of one of them, kneeling, eyes closed, probing the mechanism through the twisted wire in my hand. Feeling the resistance starting to give, I increased the pressure and the lock clicked open.

The room smelt of soap and polish. The curtains were closed. In stockinged feet I stepped across the floorboards and sank down next to the window. I then took the small mirror I had been carrying and slid it slowly behind the curtain, bringing it to rest on the sill. With my head pressed to the wall, I could now see the reflection of the houses opposite. And with a fractional twist of the mirror I could scan the street.

The gas lamps had been put out at this late hour. Although that meant less light, it left the shadows softer and as my eyes grew accustomed to the scene I started to be able to see into the doorways and side passages.

We use our eyes to see the world. But, as every conjurer knows, it is the mind that makes meaning. Thus, as I stared into the mirror I tried to lay my preconceptions aside and observe the reality of the shapes and shadows. But all I could make out were the angles of empty spaces.

Perhaps there never was a man watching. Or perhaps he had given up and gone away. I waited, listening to the heavy tick of the clock outside the room. It was not long before the mechanism whirred and a bell chimed the hour.

I listened.

The entrance to the hotel was directly below me but the click of the bolt being drawn was so faint that I would have missed it had I not been holding my breath. The door did not creak but I saw, through the mirror, a bar of lamplight opening onto the cobbles. For a moment it was obscured by Julia’s shadow. All was as we had arranged. Then the shadow was gone and the crack of light closed once more.

I had positioned the mirror to take in a wide area of cobbles opposite, where a small street branched off from the main road. The angles there were deceptive and I thought there space for a man to hide. Also, to the right of the window was a narrow passage between a half-timbered house and a brick building. I stared into these places. My eyes stung for want of blinking. There was no movement. I heard the door bolt slide closed again below me. Julia would be returning to our room to await my report. The tension began to drain away. There was no one waiting on the street. I reached to take the mirror back but stopped mid movement.

I had seen something. A glint of light from an upstairs window of the half-timbered building opposite. I had not noticed before, but there was a small mirror resting against the inside of the glass. It was black but for a fraction of a second it had blinked silver. It was a thing so small as to be of no consequence. Indeed, the movement could have come from the wind shifting a curtain. But now I knew where to look.

I watched until my limbs were going numb. The clock struck two. Several times I imagined I had seen another movement, only to be convinced I had been mistaken.

When the movement came, it was nearly three in the morning. This time there was no doubt. I saw a hand inching from behind the curtain and twisting the angle of the mirror. While it was still there, I slid my own mirror away from the sill and clutched it to my heart.

My legs were an agony of pins and needles as I stumbled back towards our room, thinking every shadow an assassin poised to strike.

On the wharf I had felt that I was being watched. But here I had felt nothing. This spy was an expert. A different proposition to the man Tinker had described making notes about my movements. That man had stood in view – for Tinker at least.

But to keep watch and not be seen, not even suspected, over a period of days in a busy town – this required focus, experience, talent and detached intelligence. Not to mention the stimulants needed to stay awake and the skill to use them without pushing yourself into madness. It was a dangerous combination of talents.

The man at the wharf must have been working for the Duke of Northampton. I could see no other possibility. But this watcher had to be different. Had he been from the Duke, I would be arrested already and back at the internment camp awaiting deportation. The man spying on me now could not know my identity. That meant he had picked up my trail since I left Mrs Raike in Derby. And that suggested he was watching because of the investigation into the ice farmers. Spies like this one were not cheap. I could see no reason why his rare talents would be directed to a matter so trivial.

I remembered also my question about Mrs Raike. Her interest in this obscure case had never made sense to me. She had done her research, discovering Julia’s connection to a private intelligence gatherer. She had specifically invited my friend to come in order to secure my brother’s services. Something had elevated the ice farmers in her eyes above the masses of the deserving poor.

I tapped my knuckle on the door of our room, three times quietly. Then I turned the handle and stepped inside.

The gaslight had been extinguished. I could see Julia’s form under the bed covers. As the door clicked closed she sat up bolt upright. In the same movement she held out her arm, pointing my gun towards me.

“It’s me!” I hissed.

Her arm wavered for a moment then dropped. I rushed to her and eased the pistol from her fingers.

“I didn’t know what had happened to you!” she said. “You were supposed to come back.”

“And so I have.”

“When you didn’t come… I found the gun in your travelling case.”

I held it up for her to see. “Next time pull back the hammer. It won’t fire unless it’s first cocked.” I showed her the movement then un-cocked it again and put it in her hands. “Now you.”

I made her do it three times before I took it back. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to load.”

It is not in the entrails of doves that the fall of empires can be read, but in the breeding of secrets and the multiplication of lies.

From Revolution

We did not sleep that night. I propped a chair under the door handle by way of a barricade. Then we sat with our heads close to each other and I whispered to her my reasoning and my fear.

She would not at first accept the conclusion, so foreign did the idea seem. But her logical brain could not deny it. If the watcher had known my identity, he would have reported me to the constables. Or, more likely, he would have tried to capture me himself and claim the bigger reward. I would already be sitting in the internment camp awaiting deportation. But if he didn’t know who I was, there could be no reason for him to follow me.

“You don’t mean…” Julia wafted her hand close to her face, as if fanning away a sudden heat. “But he can’t be… Why would anyone want to follow me?”

“We should find out, don’t you think?”

There was no value in alarming her further, so I didn’t unpack my fears. The man following was an expert in his trade. He would not be hired cheaply. Whoever had set him to follow Julia must have a powerful reason. My mind kept returning to Mrs Raike and her strange obsession.

“When you arrived in Derby, had any work been done on the case of the ice farmers?”

“There was a list of names,” she said. “People to be questioned. And a ledger of numbers – an account of deliveries of ice to Derby during February. The number of boats, the size of each cargo.”

“Who wrote the numbers in the ledger?”

“I didn’t think to ask. Why is it important?”

I had no way to answer.

At
five
o’clock, with the sky turning from black to grey, I slipped out from the back door of the
Green Man and Black
’
s Head
carrying a hunk of cheese and the end of a loaf of bread, stolen from the kitchens.

I stood in the middle of the cobbled coach yard and turned slowly, searching the deeply shadowed corners. Tinker had made his way to the wharf to hover just beyond my view. And now he did the same in Ashbourne. I couldn’t look after him. Nor had he asked me to. But an unfamiliar feeling had begun to ensnare me – the responsibility for a life more piteous than my own.

I wanted to run.

Instead I clicked my tongue. Something moved on the roof of the outhouse. I stepped closer and whispered: “I need your help.”

He landed lightly on his feet, dropping immediately into a crouch. His face was smeared with dirt, though not
as
evenly as it had been. I held out the food to him. At first he seemed suspicious that I might be trying to trick him into a new set of clothes. Only as I started to explain did he relax enough to nibble the bread. By the time I’d finished, his white teeth were a shining grin.

“Easy,” he said.

“No. It’s dangerous,” I said, feeling the snare tighten its grip.

At midday, having packed away every trace of our presence, Julia and I locked up the hotel room for the last time. We carried our cases to the lobby, handed over the key, paid the balance and left. The doorman ran to call a cab for us and then loaded our things. For once I did not begrudge him the tip.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

“The coach station, if you please,” said Julia, keeping her voice low, as I had instructed. We didn’t look up to the window opposite until we were in the cab. And then only a glance. Any more would have seemed staged, as indeed it was. Even though he was a man of great skill, our spy would have no way of reaching the coach station ahead of us.

On the short journey, I pulled the curtain across the window and positioned the wig on my head. I had been wearing my hair up under my hat that morning. Julia helped me to pin the wig in similar fashion. I’d only just got my hat back in place when we drew up at our destination. The driver showed no sign of having noticed the change.

Once Julia had bought us two tickets for Derby, we walked swiftly to the waiting room, which was conveniently empty, and positioned ourselves out of view of the window. I then removed my hat and let down the wig, knowing that I would not be able to go about without it afterwards. Nor would I be able to return to the hotel or any other place where I had been seen with dark hair.

As for the spy – he would be following. But such a man would never make the mistake of putting his head around the waiting room door. He would observe from somewhere in the distance, anonymous, patient for our next move. Or perhaps, having asked at the ticket office and learned our destination, he would check the timetable and board our coach at its next stop.

Thus, when he did reveal himself it shocked me to the core. We had been sitting perhaps five minutes when the splash of sunlight on the waiting room floor was interrupted by the shadow of a man, his image strangely foreshortened by the angle of the sun. Such was the distortion that I couldn’t say if he was stocky or slim. I watched the shadow move its hand and raise its bowler hat, as if in greeting. The gesture was unnaturally slow. Mocking, I thought. Then he tapped his fingertips on the glass, leaving no doubt that the message was intended for us.

In a blink he was gone.

“He knows we know,” said Julia.

“Good,” I said managing a bright smile, though my stomach churned.

At a quarter to one the Derby coach rolled to a stop outside. We could hear the rattle of wood and brass and the clop of hooves as the horse team was changed. The station master shouted instructions. Porters called to each other as they started unloading.

The waiting room door swung open and a man in a bowler hat looked in. “Tickets for Derby?” Then he was gone. The door creaked closed on its spring. It could have been him. But so could half the men in Ashbourne.

We stepped out onto the platform. Julia handed her case to one of the porters who hefted it up to a second man, perched on the high rack. When he reached for my case, I shook my head.

I kissed Julia on the cheek. We held each other’s gaze for a moment. There was no need to put on an act. The anxiety we felt would pass for the significance of a parting. Then I turned my back and walked away, hoping we had been correct and it was Julia he would follow. Hoping also that she would be safe.

I looked out of place sitting on a park bench with my suitcase next to me. But still more out of place was Tinker. An elegant couple taking the air startled as he dodged past them. Having kept to the shadow of the tree line like an insect afraid to be scorched by the sun, he arrived at my side, panting and conspicuous. Aware of disapproving looks, I dipped into my purse as if rummaging for small coins.

“Hold out your hand,” I whispered. “No. The other way up – as if you’re begging.”

He did as he was told, though I had the impression he would have preferred people to think he was stealing than asking for a handout.

“Did you manage it?” I asked.

“Course I did!”

“Did he see you?”

Tinker shook his head vigorously. “Soon as you’s off, he’s chasing on a pedal cycle. Found the back way in. Then I’m up the stairs to his room. Door’s left half open.”

Tinker dipped inside his ragged shirt and extracted a handful of scrunched papers.

“From the waist bin?” I asked.

“Under the mattress.”

From which I gathered that the scrunching had been all Tinker’s work. The boy was illiterate. Paper was just kindling to him. He would surely have ignored it but for my explicit instructions.

“I’m going away now, Tinker,” I said, taking a golden Guinea from my purse and trying to place it on his palm. He snatched back his hand as if the metal had burned him.

“Take it! Hide it in your shoe. You won’t be able to follow me.”

“I can follow!”

“Not any more. I want you in Derby. Go to Upper Wharf Street. You remember the place? You followed me there, I think. But go in the daytime.”

“Better at night,” he said.

“Didn’t you see the man who followed me there – snarling and drooling?”

“Yeah. And more like him.”

“Well then.”

Tinker tilted his head like a confused puppy. “What d’you want with me in Derby?”

“Mrs Raike’s Charitable Foundation feeds poor orphans. And there’s a school and–...”

“Nah,” he said. “Best stay with you.”

“It’s too dangerous. I can’t look after you.”

He grinned then, as if I’d made a joke. I tried to grab his arm but he twisted and scampered away. When I looked down, I saw the gold coin still in my hand.

It was a short walk to the Buxton Road, where I easily found the stables which were just as Julia had described them. The stable-master was a man who seemed more accustomed to using his mouth for chewing tobacco than speaking. He wore the peak of his flat cap low, making his emotions hard to read, but I felt comfortable enough in his presence. There were many of his type on the North Leicester Wharf.

His wife offered the use of the parlour in their cottage. Such a small room should have had less china on display. I doubted any of it had been used. She brought me a pot of tea and a cup of more ordinary design.

Alone at last, I retrieved from my travelling case the papers that Tinker had stolen and laid them out on the floor in front of the fireplace. First were air and coach tickets. Some I noted used, others remained open. Taken together they described a journey – first class from Liverpool to Nottingham in early March, then from Nottingham to Derby where he stayed a week before catching the coach to Ashbourne. That final ticket was dated close to the day when Julia had taken the same trip. There was also an open airship ticket for a return to Liverpool, which seemed good for travel from any major terminus.

I slipped the tickets into my purse and moved on to the next sheets – pages cut from the
Nottingham Post
. I flattened them out, searching for a mark that might indicate which articles he had been reading. There was nothing. I held the papers up to the window, looking for the pinpricks of a secret message. Again, nothing. Yet they must have significance – since the man had kept the pages hidden.

The final two sheets were messages printed on notepaper. The same hand had written each, though with different pens. Fold marks suggested they might have been enclosed in envelopes. As for what they said – this I could not tell, for they were written in code.

It was mid- afternoon before Julia arrived.

“He was with me in the carriage!” she exclaimed as soon as we were alone. “I’m sure it was him. He wore a bowler.”

“As do half the men of England.”

“But he smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.” She pulled back her lips in imitation.

Julia had led a sheltered life. I wondered if experience had yet equipped her to recognise lechery.

“Were you alone with him in the carriage?”

“Quite alone.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “He had no luggage.”

I considered this. Lack of luggage was a stronger indication. We had given our spy no time to prepare for his journey. But I was not convinced that a man of such ability would show his face.

“Did anyone join the coach at the first stop?”

She nodded. “But they wore top hats. I stepped out the other door as they entered. To take some air, I said, as if coach sick. But then I whispered my request to the driver and passed him money for his trouble. It worked, - just as you said it would. He drove on without warning, leaving the men no chance to follow me. The next stop was Brailsford! They’ll be miles away by now.”

I wasn’t so confident of her identification. How difficult was it for a man to change his hat? Indeed, showing a bowler might have been the very reason he had allowed his shadow to fall on the waiting room floor. The permutations were endless. Double bluffs. Triple bluffs. Thinking about it made my mind feel tangled. However, I did believe we had now thrown him off our trail.

“Did you meet anyone as you walked back into town?” I asked.

“I came directly to you.”

“Our spy will be heading this way by now. And your travelling case will be in Derby. If you don’t claim it within the month, they’ll auction it off to the highest bidder.”

She grinned at that. The beige case had been a gift from her mother. Someone might pay well on a gamble that the contents were as pretty as the calfskin exterior. Their reward would be a stack of towels embroidered with the name of the
Green Man and Black
’
s Head Hotel
. A brown paper parcel containing Julia’s things had been waiting at the stables when I arrived.

“Was it worth it?” she asked. “Did the boy do his job?”

I fetched the papers and laid them out on the rug. She blanched when she saw the coach ticket from Derby to Ashbourne. Retrieving her own ticket, she laid the two side by side. The date and time of travel were identical.

“Can you remember any of the passengers?” I asked.

“I wasn’t really looking.”

“And no one on the coach today seemed familiar?”

Seeing her distress, I put the tickets to one side and laid out the coded messages. They were composed of letters and numbers arranged in groups. I cast my eye over the first line, reminding myself of the conclusion I had drawn.

C 7 3. D 1 9. A 22 3. E 31 1. E 8 7.

“I fear we've little chance of unscrambling it,” I said.

She picked up the first sheet and scanned it. I had been using a pen and paper, scrawling notes in a vain attempt to work it out. Julia now took the pen and began making a tally of each letter and number used.

“Properly speaking, unscrambling isn't the correct word,” she said, her tone sounding somewhat superior.

“It couldn't be more scrambled if it were an egg!”

“No,” she said, seeming to have missed my irritation. “The letters will have been substituted rather than mixed.”

In my several years of intelligence gathering, I’d never studied codes. From afar the subject had seemed overly mathematical, which had perhaps put me off. And it had not previously impinged on my investigations.

“Some letters are more commonly used in English than others,” Julia explained, as if to a child. “These are likely to come up more often in the message. I’m looking for patterns in what
’
s been written. It could be the individual letters and numbers or–...”

“I don’t remember discussing codes with you,” I said.

She blushed. “Oh... this wasn’t from our lessons.”

I wondered at her words. And at why she hadn
’
t mentioned the subject to me before. She usually found it hard to contain her enthusiasms. But as I watched her work, I began to understand how the subject might resonate with her nature. The mathematical aspect of encryption had deterred me. But she would be attracted by it in equal measure. An uncompromising logic characterised her approach to life. Often it disadvantaged her but here it might work the other way.