by Y. S. Lee
He wasted no time on the padlocked gate, instead choosing a section of the wooden fence. Another rapid survey of the scene. After a pause, he removed something small and curved from his pocket and, with a swift, low hand thrust, slammed it into the high wooden fence. It was a short, violent gesture, akin to stabbing a man in the thigh. He scanned the road one more time and, apparently satisfied, appeared to walk straight up the fence panel in one fluid movement. He paused at the top for a moment, then swung himself over and landed with a soft thud.
Mary grinned and slithered out from the shadows to the spot where he’d been. Sure enough, there was a small metal half-moon embedded in the fence. It was only two inches wide by one inch deep, but it offered the experienced user a toehold from which to clamber over the fence. She’d used one herself from time to time, in her past life.
She considered the climbing-grip thoughtfully. Impossible not to follow him. The difficulty was that he was almost certainly headed for Harkness’s office, which lay in direct view of this entry point. She could hardly follow his route and expect to go unnoticed. Neither could she borrow the climbing-grip to use on a different part of the fence; he would certainly miss it. No, she would have to find her own way in. And now that she was fully alert, the challenge was both alluring and energizing.
The first matter was to work out where the night-watchmen were. There were two, she recalled, who reported to Harkness at day’s end. There would be others at different posts around the Palace, guarding the House of Commons and House of Lords, but she would assume for now that they remained within their separate jurisdictions. Caution struggled with impulse. Caution won – a sign of how far she’d progressed since her early days in training, she thought with a touch of pride. She made a circuit of the building site, listening carefully and looking for the tell-tale glint of the watchmen’s lanterns.
Nothing.
Were they asleep? Gossiping comfortably in some inner sanctum? Whatever the case, they certainly weren’t doing their jobs. Mary’s lip curled with distaste. She disliked sloppiness, even if it might make her task easier. She stopped and listened again. To one side there were the sounds of the Thames: the sticky footsteps and excited calls of scavengers both human and animal; boatmen’s voices and the splash of their oars; someone, somewhere, crying. From the other rose the noises of the city – horseshoes and wheels on cobblestones, voices raised in taverns and houses, the constant murmur of millions of human lives intersecting. But the site itself was eerily quiet.
She chose as her entrance the site’s east wall, feeling her way along the fence until she found – by touch, not sight – the point she wanted. One of the fence planks was loose and it tilted under the pressure of her hand. She smiled. An unsupervised length of fence away from the gaze of the high street was a powerful temptation to boys. Jenkins and his mates had likely worried away at this plank until it became a convenient cat-flap, giving them access to the site away from Harkness’s watchful eye.
She was just small enough to squeeze through the gap. Inside, she stayed low to the ground and listened again: still nothing. It was a good opportunity, too, to scan the site. Places always looked different by night and it was especially true of this building site, which to her was still so unfamiliar even by day. Distance and dimension were distorted. Heaps of building materials and scaffolding frames took on strange shapes, both occult and comical. And St Stephen’s Tower itself seemed higher and more splendid than ever.
A faint scraping noise recalled her to the task in hand and she began to move towards its source, somewhere near Harkness’s office. Oddly, there was no sign of a light burning inside the small hut and the man hadn’t been carrying a dark lantern. The door, however, was slightly ajar and so she edged closer to the door-jamb and peeked through the gap.
The only reason she saw him in the near darkness was because he moved quickly. He took three decisive steps to Harkness’s desk, dipped into the top drawer and pocketed something without pausing to examine it. A slight shiver ran through her frame: this was no ordinary theft.
She had made no noise, but suddenly he was on the alert – as though he could sense her close scrutiny. His movements ceased. Slowly, she eased back slightly. He wouldn’t be able to see her, but all the same…
He pivoted towards the entrance. On instinct, she glided away from the office door and around the corner – and instantly was glad she had. His head popped out a second later, scanning the dark silence. A moment’s hesitation would have meant discovery. Still, his suspicions were not allayed. He moved cautiously but with impressive speed, conducting a thorough search of the area just outside the office. Mary was now on the retreat, keeping an eye on her quarry while in turn becoming his.
The strange, silent pursuit continued. He seemed increasingly certain that there was something or someone to find, while Mary moved faster towards her exit. She rounded a corner and came to a halt, blinking as she considered the solid wall before her. The wall couldn’t have sprung up in a matter of minutes. Had she come the wrong way? Then her eyes adjusted and she realized the “wall” was a shadow cast by some scaffolding in the moonlight.
The moon. It had shown itself while she was outside the office, spying on the thief. While most nights she’d have welcomed it, tonight it hampered her escape. Not only did it make her easier to spot, but it changed the appearance of nearly everything on site. Still, she moved with noiseless speed.
A small, open strip of land now stretched between her and the fence. The man was no longer absolutely silent in his pursuit. Was he less certain of his way? Or was he merely allowing her to hear him, hoping that she’d panic and make an error? Either way, he was close behind now. Had she time to cross the unsheltered patch? She glanced about, looking for hiding-places: a heap of rubble, a lean-to containing lumber, the entrance to the tower. None held out any hope of concealment if he followed; all were dead ends.
She drew one last deep breath, not caring if it was audible. This was her last chance. She sprinted with all her strength across the open stretch, her boots ringing clearly against the paving stones. As she dived for the fence, wriggling and kicking through the narrow gap, the boards snagged her clothes and scraped her hips and shins. She tumbled out into the street, laughing silently now as she heard her pursuer struggling and swearing. The wooden plank slapped down into place, possibly clipping him on its way. An adult would never fit through the gap. Not an adult male, at any rate.
She scrambled up and kept running, knowing she was in the clear but impelled by a surge of energy to keep moving, to clear out, to distance herself from that terrifying, exhilarating escapade. She was nearly back at Miss Phlox’s before she slowed to a walk. It was dark night, now; she had no idea what time. Her lungs tingled. The grazed skin of her hips and shins stung. When she let herself in the narrow gate, a sudden deep exhaustion gripped her. The front step, a wide slab of stone, looked wonderfully inviting; she could have curled up right there and gone straight to sleep. Instead, she stumbled up the two flights of stairs and fell into bed, fully clothed, unheeding of Rogers’s lumpy form and deep snores. Within seconds, she was asleep.
Nine
Tuesday, 5 July
Mary didn’t sleep for long. Dawn came early, and with it consciousness. Her eyes popped open and she lay, tense and still, wondering just where the hell she was and who lay beside her. Then, as memory returned, her tension eased a little. The dingy yellowed wall, the scratchy mattress with a valley in the middle, the clatter of carts in the street below – all these were part of her new life in Lambeth. Or, rather, Mark Quinn’s life.
Beside her, Rogers snored at full bore, rolled snugly inside the greasy blanket they were meant to share. He was welcome to it. Mary lay still, watching the weak light – one could hardly say “sunlight”, it was so grey – grow stronger. She felt a knife-like pain deep in her belly. Not hunger, but the desperate need to pass water. Yet she could hardly do so now, with Rogers in the room. Instead, she forced herself to think a
bout yesterday’s events.
Foremost in her mind was the fate of Jenkins. After that beating, he wouldn’t walk properly for days, and there was a good chance his lacerations would become dangerously infected. Yet Harkness had packed him off with the day’s wages and the bland assurance that once recovered, he would again have a place on the building site. But even assuming that Jenkins healed properly and came back to his job, there remained the question of how he was to live in the meantime. Without a wage, without medicines. It was an outrage. The least she could do was try to help him, if teetotalling, cliché-spouting, church-going Harkness would do nothing else. She would contact the Agency today and find out Jenkins’s address.
Harkness’s duty to Jenkins led to the question of his relations with the other labourers. Although Harkness’s building site might officially be teetotal, in practice, he couldn’t possibly prevent the men from drinking beer or spirits. At dinnertime, they had the chance to nip out to a pub or bring a flask onto the site. That meant he was either terribly naive or rather clever at cost-cutting: most building sites provided men with beer for refreshment and nutriment, and spirits to warm them in damp weather. But if Harkness provided only tea – and cheap tea, and not enough of it – that would leave a small surplus in the budget. It was brilliant: Harkness made a small profit on the drinks supply, and Jenkins made an even smaller profit provisioning the men. It was a perfect exercise in free-market economics, and the only people losing out were the workers themselves.
Was Harkness the sort of man to attempt such a thing? Character was so difficult to read. Apart from that unfortunate twitch, he looked like many a middle-aged gentleman in England, with his neatly trimmed beard and thinning hair. His face was neither benevolent nor stern, and his well-fed cheeks served as a counterweight to the anxious creases in his forehead, the twitch beneath his left eye. He might, he might not, in about equal measure. Besides, there was likely nothing strictly illegal about serving tea instead of beer. Probably the site budget allowed for such small variances.
Her thoughts circled back to the bricklayers – to Keenan’s violence, which prompted a further question about Reid’s bruises. Was he a habitual brawler? The sort who got drunk and became aggressive, and sought out fist-fights as a form of recreation? Or was there more to his bruised appearance? He’d seemed otherwise peaceable, in contrast with Keenan. Reid’s greeny-yellow eye might signify nothing; but it merited consideration, none the less.
Church bells chimed seven o’clock while Rogers snored on. Would he never wake? Mary continued to lie still, listening to the household rustle to life. Creaking floorboards. Violent coughing. Clatter of shoes on the uncarpeted stairs. Outside, somebody pumped the handle of a well, filling bucket after bucket of water. Her bladder throbbed at the taunting sound. Should she risk it? She would be late for work, if he slept any longer. She might be late as it was. But what if Rogers awoke while she was on the chamber pot? She stared at the ceiling for an agonizing half-minute. No. She’d have to take the chance.
As she cautiously swung her legs over the side, he erupted in a fit of snorts and sneezes. Instantly, she lay down again. Closed her eyes. Feigned sleep. Rogers yawned, sneezed, yawned again. Then, finally, she felt his bulk shift as he sat up. Grunted. Sneezed again. Then, with a sigh, he dragged the heavy basin from beneath the bed. It was a long, splashy, hissing sort of piss, one that made her own bladder scream in protest. Mary gritted her teeth. Listened to him lace up his boots and clomp about for a few minutes before the door finally slammed behind him. She waited another ten seconds – it was all she could manage – then tumbled from the bed and scrabbled for the brimming chamber pot.
Lightning wash. Bowl of porridge. Smart pace to Palace Yard. And Mary arrived, breathless and sweaty, to discover that she was among the first on site. Strangely enough, though, she didn’t overhear any discussion of last night’s break-in. Had it gone unnoticed? Harkness’s office generally looked as though it had been ransacked, so any minor disorder was likely to go unobserved. And the man had seemed to know what he was looking for. It had taken him only a few seconds to pocket the item he sought. Mary hoped this was the explanation. The other possibility, which made her much more nervous, was that the men were reluctant to talk while she was about.
As she passed the joiners, one of them summoned her with a crooked finger.
“Sir?”
“You hammered out nails before, sonny?”
“No, sir.”
“Right. Well, the thing is to take your time and not rush it. Else you’ll smash your finger and spoil the nail, and then I’d have to thrash you, as well.” He chuckled at his little joke as he demonstrated the technique. “Like so. Now let’s see you try it.”
Mary hefted the hammer he’d given her and attempted to imitate his deft actions. The result wasn’t terrible – she hadn’t actually bent the nail further – but it was far from straight. She frowned. “I’ll get better.”
The joiner snorted. “Not holding the hammer like that, you won’t. What d’you think it is – a frying pan?” He showed her how to hold it. “Try again, now.”
She tried again. A little better.
“Can tell you ain’t used to proper work,” he said, pleasantly enough. “Got hands like a little princeling, you have. Try again.”
Mary flushed. The dirt beneath her fingernails was authentic enough, but she couldn’t hide her lack of calluses. She brought the hammer down firmly this time, and quite miraculously the nail unbent.
“That’s it. Now, here’s your lot,” said the joiner, jingling a leather pouch. Something about it appeared to disturb him and he peered inside. “But this ain’t the half of it. Cam! Where’s the rest of them nails?”
“In the pouch!” shouted a heavyset man.
“I got the pouch!”
“Then that’s all there is!”
The man frowned. “’S funny. I could have swore there was a fortnight’s worth in here.” He stared once again into the canvas pouch, his forehead wrinkled. Then, with a shrug, he handed the pouch to Mary. “Give us a shout when you’ve finished – maybe them other nails will have turned up by then.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a fascinating insight into so-called “unskilled” labour. Her time was worth almost nothing – certainly less than the cost of the bent nails – but she still had much to learn, even in these most menial tasks. The joiners seemed content to ignore her and let her do her best. It was a pleasant change from yesterday and Mary was reminded, once again, of how dramatically the experience of work depended upon one’s employers. It was a sensation of helplessness that she disliked intensely, and she was called upon only to play at it; to tolerate bad behaviour for the sake of a larger purpose. What must it be like to be so powerless all the time?
The joiners were only a short distance away. As Mary worked, she picked up scraps of their conversation – mainly querying one another about supplies and passing idle comment as they organized their day’s work. At one point, she heard the man called Lemmon say, “Harky’s in a right tizz this morning.”
His friend smirked. “Ain’t a mystery why.”
“Sshh.” A third carpenter jerked his chin significantly in Mary’s direction.
Lemmon glanced over at Mary, who was frowning at a bent nail with great concentration. “You think…?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
The three men squinted at her for a long moment, then Lemmon shook his head decisively. “Nah. Just a kid.” But he was speaking in an undertone, now.
“Turned up two days ago? Harky’s pet? Don’t know his arse from his elbow?” The third man raised his eyebrows significantly, leaned in, and delivered the final, undeniable piece of evidence: “And don’t forget – Harky rescued him from Keenan, though the Jenkins kid got it bad enough.”
“Aw, no kid ought to be thrashed like that.”
“Yeah – Jenkins neither, for all he’s a nosy little whoreson.”
Lemmon snorted. “All right
, then. What’s Harky want a pet for?”
The suspicious carpenter sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you lot notice anything? Harky’s lost control of this site. First that malarkey about the ghost. Then Wick. And yesterday, one of the glaziers said some bigwig’s coming to check on Harky’s work. It ain’t regular.”
Lemmon considered that for a moment. “But what’s that got to do with anything? What could a kid like that do for Harky?”
“Listen. Carry tales. Get a man sacked…” His voice trailed off suggestively.
The three men stared at Mary once more. She tried not to look self-conscious; to appear utterly absorbed in her task. When the joiners had begun muttering, her first worry had been about her gender. Could they possibly imagine that “Mark Quinn” was anything other than a twelve-year-old boy? Yet when talk switched to her being Harkness’s spy, she felt no relief. They were still too close to the truth.
The carpenters weren’t alone in their suspicion of her. This became clear as the morning wore on and Mary made the rounds, collecting money for the rum ration. The men paid up, of course, but with much less of the good-natured teasing she’d heard yesterday. Some trades simply found their pennies and handed them over, preserving a circumspect silence while she was within earshot. During the tea break, the men accepted refreshment from her but then retreated into their separate groups to talk. And was it her imagination, or were their voices more hushed than they had been yesterday? It wasn’t just Jenkins’s absence that dried them up. Of that she was increasingly certain.
Ten
James arrived at Palace Yard on foot. Barker didn’t know this, of course; he’d deposited James at the site entrance half an hour earlier and driven off, secure in the delusion that his young employer was going straight inside. Instead, James had taken the opportunity to walk around the Houses of Parliament. He examined the buildings, assessed the pace of work, noted the general atmosphere on the job. This would be his last chance to poke about the place anonymously and he intended to take full advantage.