Unseemly Science (16 page)

The way back out of the ice factory proved considerably less interesting. Once we’d left the giant warehouse the tunnel ran on for half a mile before we came to an elevator cage. Our guide ushered in the student with the lamp. The other students followed as did the elderly ladies and the newlyweds. Julia stepped in after them and I was poised to follow when our guide held out his arm to stop me.

“She’s full,” he said. Then he slid the metal door closed with a crash. “The topside foreman will be there to help you out,” he called. Then he pulled a lever on the wall. A bell chimed and the cage juddered upwards. Within a second it was out of view and we were alone.

He stepped closer. I wanted to keep my distance but the tunnel wall was directly behind me.

“Don’t know what your game is,” he said. “But you’ll do no good messing with men’s business–...”

“Are you threatening me?”

The words just blurted out. As soon as I heard them I regretted it. His fists clenched and unclenched. The hum of the winches stopped. Far up the shaft I heard the door clang as it was slid open.

“We don’t threaten,” he said. “Not in the ice factory. Got to stick together down here. There’s too many accidents waiting with all the machines and the ice. It’s Mrs Raike isn’t it?”

The winches hummed to life again. I could hear the cage rattling down the shaft towards us. He bent closer.

“Answer me, girl!” he growled. “Was it Mrs Raike sent you?”

“No.”

He stared. I stared back, as no Republican woman should ever do. The moment stretched. The rattling grew loud. Then he looked away.

“Women!” He fairly spat the word.

The door slid open. Inside the elevator cage stood Julia, her expression alive and intense. She held out her hand as if to grab me. I jumped in beside her, expecting him to follow. But he remained in the tunnel.

I slid the door closed. The bell chimed and we lurched upwards. Only then did I release the breath I had been holding. “Thank you,” I gasped. “Thank you! Thank you!”

“For what?”

“For coming back to rescue me.”

She looked puzzled. “I came back because I couldn’t wait to share the news. I know how to break the code!”

That man is rare who will feel enriched on learning the workings of a trick.

The Bullet Catcher’s handbook

“What’s the first sequence?” Julia asked.

I read from the coded message: “C 7 3”

She was kneeling on the floor next to me with the two pages from the
Nottingham Post
spread out in front of her. “I’m going to try column C, line seven, word three.”

I watched her trace the page with her first finger, repeating with the other page. “That gives us ‘Was’ or ‘January’. Write them down.”

I did as instructed. “The next sequence is D 1 9.”

“That’s ‘Which’ or ‘Bad’.”

“Doesn’t sound right,” I said.
“
No sentence starts ‘Was which’.”

“So we eliminate that.”

But the words from the other page gave us an equally unlikely opening: ‘January, bad, the, and’. Julia sat back on her heels. She bit her lower lip. Then her frown dropped away and she turned the pages over.

“Try again,” she said.

“Write down ‘The’ and ‘Returned’.” Her finger traced the pages again. “Now write ‘What’ and ‘Nottingham’.”

“That’s it,” I said. “The second side of the second page.” I read out the sequences one after the other. She called the words: “Returned. Nottingham. Late. Your. Message. Waiting.”

“It’s actually working!” I said, grinning with the unexpected victory. Her eyes were wide and seemed brighter than I had seen them before. “It was in front of us all the while,” she said.

“How did you work it out?”

“I just thought about something else. Like you told me. It popped into my mind. Now read the rest of the numbers. I want to know what it says!”

Returned Nottingham late. Your message waiting three days. Will send this reply first post.
N
ame y
ou gave for target A previously unknown
. Sudde
n increase security Mrs Raike Charitable Foundation makes
membership records inaccessible.
Pursue
new target
B
. All expenses will be met.

Addendum.
Have this morning le
arned of possible identity target A living
North Leicester. Dispatched intelligence gatherer with description from your message.
Fox.

After I finished adding punctuation as best I could, we read it through again. Alarm had replaced our excitement.

“Am I target A?” asked Julia.

I nodded. “It’s most likely. And I’m target B.”

“My parents...”

“... Are in no danger. Intelligence gatherers work quietly. He probably just went to the pub and bought a drink or two for the local gossips.”

“And Fox?”

“A name perhaps?”

The word had come from an article describing a meeting of the South Nottinghamshire Hunt. It seemed unlikely that the writer would add a name to a coded message since the recipient would know already who had sent it.

“Let’s do the next one,” said Julia.

Knowing the system, it took little time to unlock the second message. Using the other newspaper page as key, we transcribed the words:

Confirmation.
North Leicester
intelligence gatherer reports target A
signed up
Mrs Raike
three weeks ago
. Will send
message indicating disapproval.

Your description
woman target B too vague. Determine
identity
. H
ighest priority.
May require intervention as before. Usual bonus. Hal
f payment on collection. Half
on autopsy.

After Julia had read the message out loud, we took turns at reading it silently. There was no name at the end of this one. But I could find no article containing the word fox on the second page.

I’d just been handed the transcription for a third time when I was jolted from my focus by a heavy knock on the door. Julia clasped a hand to her chest. The knock came again and a boy’s voice called from outside. “Message for Miss Swain.”

Neither of us answered. There was a pause before he called through the door again: “He said to put it in y’r hand.”

The floorboards creaked as Julia stepped across to the room. I positioned myself next to the wall so I would be out of sight. But when she pulled back the bolt and opened up, I found I could see through the crack of the door jamb.

“You Miss Swain?” asked the boy.

“Yes.”

“He said you’re to have this.”

She accepted a small parcel.

“He? Who?”

“Dunno.”

“Tall? Short?”

“Tall,” said the boy, illustrating by stretching a hand above his head.

“Bearded? Shaved? What kind of hat?”

“Shaved, Miss. And it were a bowler.”

He scampered away.

I held the package while Julia re-bolted the door. It was cold to touch, the brown paper damp with condensation. Julia cut the string and opened it up to reveal a grey metal box. I prised off the lid. A quantity of crushed ice lay within. And resting in the middle of it, a woman’s severed finger.

Allow the audience time to anticipate what they are going to see. The longer the moment of uncertainty, the greater will be their applause.

The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

I understood what it was on first glance. But realisation grew more slowly for Julia. The horror of the object seemed to stop her mind from grasping its reality. Seeing her face whiten, I tried to take the box from her but she wouldn’t release her grip. I peeled back her fingers one after the other and set it down on the small table.

She drew in a sudden breath and, with both hands clutching her heart, stepped backwards until she half fell into a chair. I walked directly to the window and looked out.

“Is that...?” she managed.

“A finger,” I said. “Yes.”

I could see no one watching on the street, so returned to the table. There was water in the base of the box. Not much though. The ice could not have been in it for long else more would have melted. I guessed the time at between ten minutes and half an hour.

Tipping the box, I spilled the water, ice and the finger onto the table.

“What are you doing?” Julia cried.

“Looking for clues.”

I turned the box searching for markings or writing but found none.

“The thing itself is the message,” I said.

“Does he mean to do the same to us?”

“If you want to cut someone’s fingers off, you don’t tell them first. It’s a warning. Worse will happen unless...”

“Unless what?”

“We’re supposed to know the answer.”

Clenching my jaw against revulsion, I picked up the finger and dropped it back in its box. Then I marched to the washstand and scrubbed my hands until they were sore. Even then they felt unclean. Julia got back to her feet and approached the box. As I dried my hands, I saw her peering into it. “Whose finger was it?”

“I fear we’re supposed to know that as well. Unless we do as they wish, more fingers will follow. They have this poor woman a prisoner. They assume we know it already. And they believe we care deeply. This was meant to shock.”

We both stared at the finger. It had belonged to a delicate hand, unscarred and without calluses. The owner had lived free from physical labour. The nail was long enough to project beyond the finger tip – another indication that she did not work. Though manicured in the past, the end was chipped in one place. I brought my head down low to examine the wound where the finger had been cut from the hand. It had been removed at the middle joint. The end of the finger bone peeked from the surrounding flesh, unmarked, as if it had been cut free with the delicacy of a scalpel rather than the brute force of a cleaver.

“They know where we are,” Julia said, the obvious truth hitting her at last. “They know!”

“The question is how. We’ve been in the mountains for days. I can only think it was Peter. No one else knew where or when we’d return.”

Julia’s hand went to her mouth.

“What is it?”

“I sent a letter,” she said. “A report. Those were my instructions – to keep Mrs Raike informed. You don’t suppose...”

“You gave an address?”

“I’m not such a fool!”

“We’ve not been near a postal office. How did you send it?”

“Downstairs. At the reception. I paid the desk clerk.”

Understanding rushed at me and I felt sick. “He franked the envelope for you?”

“Yes. I didn’t have a stamp.”

“The franking machine will print the name of the inn. Anyone looking at the envelope would know where we are.”

“But the only person to read the letter would be Mrs Raike.”

I had no means of explaining my mistrust of the woman. It would lead to an argument just when there was no time to talk.

“Pack,” I said. “Do it now. Somehow we have to get out of here without being followed.”

But before either of us could move, the door rattled under the impact of another heavy knock. I grabbed a towel and threw it over the metal box and the pool of melting ice. Then I took up my position, flattened to the wall.

Julia stood trembling. “Who is it?” she called.

The knock sounded again, louder this time.

“Who is it?”

“Open the door, girl!” A woman’s voice.

Julia fumbled with the bolts. In strode the unmistakable, bombazine- clad figure of Mrs Raike, followed a step behind by the housemistress who swiftly closed the door.

Julia flustered, moving first one way and then the other until she had the room’s two chairs arranged for the guests. I sat next to her on the bed.

Immediately Julia stood again. “Would you like tea?”

“Sit, girl!” said Mrs Raike, in that crackly voice that I knew to be part of her disguise.

Julia obeyed.

“What have you to say for yourself?”

“I... That is, we...” Julia’s eyes darted to the table, on which the severed finger lay concealed.

“Well?” demanded Mrs Raike.

“What is it you want to know?” I asked.

“Why did you announce yourselves as working for me?”

“We didn’t,” I said. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“Don’t speak in that tone!” said the housemistress.

I caught Mrs Raike’s eye. The shared look was a mere flicker of a glance, but enough to remind us of each other’s vulnerabilities. She gestured for the housemistress to back down.

“We received a complaint,” she said, her voice more measured. “The Ice Factory state that you visited. You were there?”

“What did the complaint say, exactly?” I asked.

“That two women working for the Foundation used deception to gain access to the factory. Staff were questioned. Aggressively so. Other visitors in the party were distressed.”

“Just that?”

“It would have been sufficient on its own. But then you announced your connection to the Foundation. You brought us into disrepute!”

“We didn’t!” Julia’s protest came out as a squeak.

“You were there, girl?”

“Yes, but–...”

“Did you make an appointment?”

“We went as tourists, but–...”

“And you asked questions?”

“We... I mean Elizabeth–...”

“Were questions asked, girl?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t intervene. The decoded message was echoing in my mind.
Target A
signed up
Mrs Raike
three weeks ago
. Will send
message indicating disapproval.
I had always known that petty ice theft did not merit the urgency given to the case. Picturing the neatly severed finger, I understood.

I had drifted into my own thoughts, losing track of the conversation. Now I became aware of it again. Julia was still being interrogated.

“I... it wasn’t like that,...” she said.

“Then explain!”

“He asked for questions. We just–...”

I stood. Everyone looked at me.

“We’ve received a complaint about
your
conduct,” I said, stepping to the table.

“How dare you...” the housemistress began, but then faltered as I held my hand above the table.

I waited until both women were watching. Then I whipped the towel away. They leaned forwards trying to see into the box, but were seated too low. I picked it up and, with a showman’s flourish, placed it in Mrs Raike’s hand.

“This is the message we received.”

At first Mrs Raike seemed to be having a convulsion. She threw the box onto the floor, spilling its contents. She staggered from her chair. Her reaction was quicker than Julia’s had been and so much more powerful.

“You expected this,” I said. “You were waiting for it.”

Mastering my own revulsion, I picked up the finger. “You see the cut? Look closely. See how fine the work?”

Mrs Raike had backed away as I advanced. But now she had reached the wall. “It came packaged in ice. To keep it fresh, it seemed. But everything was part of the message. The finger, the ice, and the way it was severed. Look.” I held it close to her face. She was crying.

My wrist was grabbed from behind. The housemistress pulled me sharply. I dropped the finger.

“Stop!” she cried. “Stop it! Stop it! Can’t you see what you’re doing?” She knelt and picked up the finger, holding it in both her hands as if it were a wounded bird.

Julia was on her feet, her mouth opening and closing as if she couldn’t cope with the rapidity of unfolding events. “What’s happening?”

“The message wasn’t meant for us,” I said. “And it was never about ice, though ice was part of it. It’s about death and bodies. And kidnapping.”

Mrs Raike stepped back to the chair as if in a dream. The act of walking like an old woman had been forgotten, though Julia was too beset by other revelations to notice the slip in her disguise.

“Her name’s Antonia,” said the housemistress. “Sweet natured and quick. When the ice farmers asked for help, she was the perfect choice. She didn’t go to the mountains as you did. She watched the boats as they came to the ice factory. For weeks she kept tally, counting the blocks being unloaded. Each day she sent a letter to say the number. At the end of the month, if the factory made short payment we were ready to present the evidence. The ice farmers would have their redress. But then...”

Here the housemistress faltered. For a moment there was silence. Then Mrs Raike spoke.

“The letters stopped.”

“Didn’t you contact the police?” I asked.

“We had decided to,” said Mrs Raike. “Three days had passed. Then a letter did arrive. This one unsigned. The writer said he had taken Antonia and was holding her safe but if we told anyone she would be harmed.”

“He?”

“No woman would do such a thing.”

Her assertion of female virtue seemed ill-founded but I let it pass.

“Why didn’t you say before?” I asked. “In the name of all that’s sacred, why?”

Mrs Raike and the housemistress shared a look, as if this was a question they had wrestled with. I hoped she was sweating under the layers of makeup. Flush with anger, I hoped she was suffering.

“You’ve risked Julia’s life! Did you not think she might be taken also?”

“She wasn’t to admit a connection to me,” said Mrs Raike.

“And that would help, how?”

“She was instructed to be discreet to the utmost.”

“It’s true,” said Julia.

“No!” I gripped Julia’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “They knew the danger. They wanted my brother to help. And me. They’d read reports of our activities last year. We’d be easy to control. That’s what they thought. In case we found anything inconvenient.”

Mrs Raike looked away.

“We refused to help,” I said. “But it was my brother and I they wanted. So they took you – my dear friend – and sent you out, expecting you to be taken. And once you were, I would have no choice. They knew I’d travel through hell to find you. And in doing so, I’d find the lost Antonia.”

Julia was shaking her head. “They wouldn’t.”

But Mrs Raike would not contradict my story.

“Why didn’t you ask directly? If not us then some other intelligence gatherer. It isn’t as if the Gas-Lit Empire’s poorly provided with spies!”

“We did ask,” said the housemistress. “We asked five. Three said no. One said he would do it, but asked an amount of money we couldn’t access. And one agreed – the youngest of them all. A man we later discovered had no experience. He ran away with the money.”

“Disappeared or ran?”

“What’s the difference?”

“What’s the difference? Do you really not understand? And then you sent my friend into danger!”

“There’s no need to raise your voice.”

“I’m angry! You sent a woman to investigate and she’s been taken. Then you sent a man, who’s now most likely buried in a shallow grave. And then you send Julia in the expectation that she’d be taken too – so that my brother and I would descend into the same pit of snakes! Why does this Antonia’s life play on your conscience more than ours?”

Mrs Raike was crying silently, tears running over the makeup, which had begun to smear. For a moment she seemed paralysed. Then she ran to the door. Only after she was gone did the housemistress answer.

“Antonia is Mrs Raike’s daughter,” she said.

The housemistress got to her feet and brushed down her skirts. “I’m sorry for your trouble,” she said. “But you’re safe now. And I trust you’re not out of pocket.” She held out her hand to Julia. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?”

“If you wish, you can go back to North Leicester. I’d understand. But before that you have to walk out of this inn in plain view and return to Upper Wharf Street with us. You have to be seen.
They
have to see. Whoever they are.”

She was right. Even through my anger, I knew it. The spy had been following Julia. She was known to be working for Mrs Raike.

Julia was on her feet. “I won’t go!”

“You must,” I said. “However badly we’ve been treated, there’s a woman’s life at stake.”

“Then you’ll come too.”

“I’m a fugitive, remember. I can’t retrace my steps.” Then, turning to the housemistress, I said: “Mrs Raike made a bargain with me – do you know what it was?”

Her eyes flicked to Julia then back to me. She nodded.

“If I track down these people, would she honour her promise?”

“I’ve known her since we were children. I’ve never seen her break a promise. Bring back her daughter and she’d give you the world, if that was in her power.”

“What promise?” asked Julia.

“To help me stay in the Kingdom. It’s that or I travel north and try to lose myself in Scotland or beyond. I’m furious that she risked your life. Unspeakably furious. But I’ve got to give it a try.”

“How can you find them? You don’t know anything about them.?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” I took the metal box from the housemistress and turned it to show the cut where the finger had been separated from the hand. “The coded message said:
Hal
f payment on collection. Half
on autopsy
. This is hardly a butcher’s work. More a surgeon’s, don’t you think? And then, what did it say:
r
eturned Nottingham late
? So a surgeon based in Nottingham, who needs quantities of ice but can’t be seen to be buying it. Someone who’ll go to any lengths to keep his activity secret.”

If it were possible, the housemistress became paler still. “You don’t mean body snatchers?”

That was exactly what I meant. “Please tell Mrs Raike that our agreement stands. Nothing has changed. I’ll keep to my side of the bargain. She must keep to hers.”

With the housemistress waiting outside, I said goodbye to Julia, charging her to see that the horses were returned to Ashbourne. She gave vent to her distress. I held mine back. But when the door was closed between us, I sank to the floor and wept.