by Andrew Lane
‘What are these places?’ Sherlock asked.
Unexpectedly it was Matty who replied. ‘Tenements,’ he said. ‘I remember ’em from the last time I was here. Find ’em all over the place, you do. They’re cheap places for poor people to live, but you end up with only two rooms to call your own, stacked up with other people’s rooms like birdhouses. Everyone’s rooms look the same – same front doors, same plaster, same window frames. The people who live there try an’ make ’em individual-like, with curtains an’ flower pots an’ stuff, but it’s like decoratin’ one beer crate in a pile of crates wiv a bit of ribbon. Just draws attention to how borin’ it is.’ He sniffed. ‘An’ they all end up smellin’ of rottin’ rubbish and boiled cabbage.’
‘The place looks deserted,’ Rufus observed. ‘A perfect temporary base of operations for our transatlantic captors. I wonder how they heard about it.’
‘I ’eard a rumour,’ Matty continued, ‘last time I was ’ere, that the local authorities was tryin’ to move people out of the tenements. ’Parently they wanted to sell the land off to build factories on, or posh mansions or somethin’. People I talked to told me that the authorities would start a rumour that some illness, like consumption or the plague, had broken out in a tenement. They’d move everybody out to the workhouse, then they’d knock the tenement down an’ build on the land. Make a lot of money that way, they could.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I ’eard that sometimes, if there weren’t any places left in the workhouse, they’d brick up the alleyways in an’ out of the tenements an’ leave the people inside to starve, but I don’t believe that.’
‘The trouble is,’ Rufus said thoughtfully, ‘that we don’t have any idea where we are, we have no way of getting out and there’s nobody to ask for help.’
Sherlock looked around. He had the map still in his pocket, but it was no use. ‘I think we were carried from the cart to the block from over there,’ he said, pointing to an alleyway between two of the blocks. ‘We didn’t turn any corners, and that’s the only straight route.’
‘Cart’ll be gone by now,’ Matty observed darkly. ‘That bloke who was askin’ the questions will’ve taken it.’
Rufus shook his head. ‘He had his own carriage. That’s how he brought me here. Just him and a driver. The driver stayed in the carriage.’
‘With the two men who kidnapped us from the park still in the tenement block,’ Sherlock finished, ‘the cart should still be here.’
The three of them looked at each other for a moment, then rapidly headed for the alleyway that Sherlock had pointed out. The alleyway opened out on to a dirt road that led away into the distance. On the other side of the road was a stretch of unkempt ground where a handful of bony, hollow-eyed horses were grazing on thistles and weeds. Sherlock couldn’t help but compare the scene with Amyus Crowe’s cottage back in Farnham: a beautiful, rustic location beside a field where Virginia’s well looked-after horse grazed contentedly. Here, everything seemed to be a dark inverse of that familiar place: rows of identical prison-like blocks next to a patch of wasteground where horses that might be Sandia’s forgotten siblings had been left to die.
Glancing into one of the tenement doorways, Sherlock caught sight of a movement. He squinted, trying to see what it was. A curtain fluttering in the wind? A pigeon or a seagull roosting?
Something white moved against the darkness inside the doorway. More quickly this time, Sherlock realized that it was a skull. The deep sockets of the eyes, the hairless surface of the head, the sharp edges of the cheekbones and the sinister grin of the teeth – another dead man was staring at him!
The figure moved back into the shadows before Sherlock could point it out to Matty or Rufus Stone. He scanned the row of doorways frantically. Was he going mad? Most of them were empty, but – yes, there! Another thin white figure stood half in shadow, watching him. It moved back into darkness as soon as it realized it had been seen.
Were these creatures connected with the Americans who had kidnapped the three of them, or was this some kind of hallucination born out of a breaking mind?
He gazed over at Matty, and saw that the boy was staring at the tenement doorways as well. Matty turned his head to look at Sherlock.
‘Did you see them?’ Sherlock asked desperately.
Matty nodded. ‘They’re dead men walking, aren’t they? They’re following us. They want us.’
‘I don’t believe that dead men can walk.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ve seen dead rabbits on butchers’ slabs, and dead fish in costermonger’s?’
‘Yeah. So?’
‘They never move. Not ever. When you’re dead, the vital spark has gone from you. Vanished. The only thing left is flesh, and that decays. Dead animals don’t come back to life, so dead people don’t come back to life.’
Matty looked unconvinced. ‘I ain’t got time to argue wiv you,’ he said.’
‘Come on!’ Rufus called. ‘We need to get out of here before they come back!’
On the side of the road a cart had been left, its horse tied to a stunted tree. The animal looked in considerably better condition than the ones in the ground across the road.
‘That,’ Rufus said, ‘is our ride home – if we knew which way home was.’
‘I memorized the route out,’ Sherlock said. ‘I can just reverse the times and the turns, and we can work out the way back to our hotel.’
‘But we’ll have to put a sack over your head,’ Matty murmured. He looked up at Sherlock and smiled. ‘So the conditions are the same as on the journey out. Otherwise you might get it wrong.’
Sherlock and Matty climbed into the back of the cart while Rufus clambered in the front. He flicked the reins experimentally and the horse started off as if someone had fired a gun. It didn’t seem to like being near the tenements.
Sherlock stood up behind Rufus’s shoulder, clutching on to a wooden bar, and tried to reverse the route that had brought them there. He assumed the cart was travelling at about the same speed, so all he had to do was remember the turns and the rough times in his head and then start the list at the bottom and work upward. Of course he had to change the turns around. A right-hand turn heading from the city centre to the tenements would be a left-hand turn heading back.
His neck was throbbing, and his ankles had been scraped raw by the rope. Whenever he took a breath he could feel a catch in his throat, as if the cartilage had been pushed in. Worse than the physical damage, however, was the feeling of helplessness that had flooded over him when he was hanging there, in the tenement room. He’d been close to death before, but he’d always felt that there was something he could do, some way he could fight. Before he had remembered the knife in his pocket – Matty’s knife – he had been completely at the quiet man’s mercy. He had been moments from a painful and protracted death.
If he hadn’t kept Matty’s knife, if his friend hadn’t told him to hang on to it, then he wouldn’t have had any way out. He would be dead by now.
On such trivial things survival can rest. The thought made him feel uneasy. He looked at Rufus, who was also injured, and wondered if he felt the same.
It took half an hour, and two wrong turns, before they were back at the park near Princes Street.
‘Right,’ Rufus said. ‘Where now?’
Sherlock looked at Matty. ‘Do you want to tell him?’ he challenged. ‘After all, we worked it out.’
‘Nah.’ Matty smiled. ‘You go ahead.’
‘They’re hiding in a place called Cramond. I’ve looked on the map, and I know the way. It’ll probably take us an hour or so to get there.’
‘We’ll grab some food first,’ Stone said, ‘and clean ourselves up. I don’t know about you lads, but I’m starved.’
After they had done both, Matty purloined a scarf from somewhere, and Sherlock used it to cover the marks on his neck. Then, with Sherlock directing, Rufus steered the cart out of the city. It took a while to get past the houses and out into the countr
yside, and for the first half-hour or so Sherlock was aware of the dark shape of Edinburgh Castle looming over them, perched on its massive crag of rock. The low grey skies matched Sherlock’s mood. What had started as an adventure to find his friends now seemed like something much darker and more unpleasant. There were people out there who wanted to hurt Amyus Crowe, that much was sure. The question was, why? But whatever the reason, it looked as if Sherlock had unwittingly led them right to him. All he could do now was to get to Amyus Crowe before his enemies could work out where he was.
Sherlock looked back along the road as they moved. He was looking for carts or carriages or horses keeping their distance but not dropping too far back. He couldn’t see anything, but he felt that he had to do more to identify possible followers. Twice he got Rufus to pull off the road and hide the cart behind a barn for twenty minutes while he carefully watched every vehicle and rider that went past. He didn’t recognize anyone, and nobody looked confused at the fact that the people they were following had suddenly vanished.
At one point, while they were waiting, Sherlock leaned across to Rufus. ‘I thought you might have been taken by the Paradol Chamber, back on the train,’ he said.
‘Why would you think that? We haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since Moscow – apart from that attempt they made to have you diagnosed insane and locked away.’
Sherlock grimaced, remembering. ‘I thought I saw Mr Kyte at Newcastle Station. He was standing behind a pile of luggage, and he was staring straight at me.’ He paused, aware of a tightness in his chest. ‘I thought maybe the Paradol Chamber had decided to take some kind of revenge against us for messing up their plans. I think they still want to get even with me, and with you.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Rufus said, shrugging, ‘I didn’t see Mr Kyte on the station. If I had, I would have taken that great red beard of his and shoved as much of it as I could as far down his throat as I could reach. Take my advice, Sherlock – never trust a red-headed man, or a red-headed woman. They’re born for trouble.’
‘Virginia has red hair,’ Sherlock pointed out.
Rufus turned to fix Sherlock with a warning expression. ‘In that case, my friend, you have a problem.’
Uncomfortable at the way the conversation had turned back to him, Sherlock said quickly, ‘What do you think these people want with Mr Crowe?’
‘The same thing you seem to think the Paradol Chamber want with us – revenge.’
‘But what’s Mr Crowe done to them?’
‘Amyus Crowe is a complicated beast,’ Rufus replied. ‘On the one hand he’s civilized and fair-minded and very genteel. On the other . . .’ He paused. ‘Let’s put it this way – I think if we knew more about Mr Crowe’s past we might not like everything we found.’
‘He told us that he used to be a spy for the Union against the Confederacy during the War Against the States,’ Sherlock protested. ‘And after that he was responsible for tracking down Confederate criminals who had looted and pillaged civilian towns during the War.’
‘Yes,’ Rufus admitted, ‘he did tell us that. But he didn’t tell us the lengths he went to in order to recover those criminals, and he didn’t tell us how many of them he managed to bring back to face trial and how many happened to die in shootouts before he could take them captive. Remember, Sherlock, the man is a bounty hunter. He hunts men for money.’ He sighed. ‘Except that in this case it would appear that men are hunting him, and not for money. They want payback.’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’
Rufus smiled. ‘Ah, you picked up on that, did you? No, he’s not the kind of man I would choose to sit with over a tavern table, with beer in our glasses and tobacco in our pipes. I don’t think we would have much to talk about, but I think we would have a lot to argue about. I have a strong respect for the sanctity of human life, whereas I think Mr Crowe would have no problems in taking another man’s life for little provocation. What’s worse, he doesn’t like music.’
Sherlock was quiet for a while, digesting what Rufus Stone had said. He couldn’t find fault in his logic or his description of Amyus Crowe, but neither could he square the harsh words with the genial smile that he had seen on Mr Crowe’s face or the way he had taken Sherlock under his wing and looked after him. Were all people like this – complicated, not easily understood? If that was the case, what about Rufus Stone himself? Or Mycroft?
Or himself.
He thrust the thought aside. He would rather believe that what people displayed on the surface was what they really were.
‘How many of these Americans do you think are over here in England, hunting Mr Crowe?’ he said eventually.
‘Impossible to say,’ Rufus mused. ‘There were three in the tenement room. Add that to the driver of the leader’s carriage – assuming he was part of the gang, and not just someone hired for the day – and we get two left that we know of. Trouble is, there might be others we don’t know of.’
‘There were two carrying me,’ Sherlock said.
‘And two carrying me,’ Matty added.
‘So that’s at least four people still at large. Problem is, if the man in charge came over here with money, then he could just hire whatever support he needed of any nationality. There’s people in every major town and city in the British Isles that would murder their own grandmothers for an evening’s drinking and gambling.’ He sighed. ‘There’s no end of bad men out there, and a precious shortage of good men to fight them.’
‘That’s all right,’ Sherlock said. ‘One good man is worth ten bad ones.’
Matty snorted, and Rufus eyed him sceptically. ‘If only the world worked that way, things would be a lot better.’
‘When I grow up,’ Sherlock murmured, ‘I’m going to make them better.’
‘You know,’ Rufus said, smiling at him strangely, ‘I think you just might. You and your brother between you, but in radically different ways.’
‘But I’m not going to work for the Government like Mycroft does.’
‘Why not?’ Matty asked.
‘I don’t like taking orders,’ Sherlock said darkly. ‘Not from anyone. I know that sometimes I have to, but I don’t like it.’
When they got back on the road there was nobody in sight. It looked as if they had got away from the city without being spotted.
The landscape was a mixture of rough patches of scrubland and outcroppings of rock. The terrain undulated such that they were never on a level road for more than a few minutes, and their path detoured to get around some of the bigger rocky areas.
Cramond was on the coast: a collection of granite cottages with thatched roofs. Virulently green moss erupted from between the stone blocks of the cottages, looking like some kind of seaweed that had been deposited on shore by a storm and was not only clinging on to life but thriving. The air smelled of salt, and seagulls cried out like abandoned babies.
As the cart rounded the side of a hill Sherlock suddenly saw the sea laid out beneath them. The sun caught the tops of the waves and made them glitter in a hypnotic pattern, points of light dancing on a grey-green background. Closer to the shore, waves broke in parallel lines of white foam that appeared from nowhere, ran for a while and then vanished again.
‘Well, this is Cramond,’ Rufus said as they began the descent into the village. ‘Any idea where we go now?’
‘We could always ask if anyone’s seen a big American bloke with a white suit and a white hat,’ Matty piped up.
‘I think he would have dumped the distinctive clothes,’ Sherlock observed. ‘And we’ve both been with him when he’s gone into taverns and other places to ask questions, and done it in an English accent so good that he might have been brought up a few miles from London. No, he’s got the hunter’s skill of being able to blend with the background so well that you just don’t notice him until he wants you to. By now he’ll have picked up a Scottish accent so perfect that you would think he was born in Edinburgh.’
‘So I repeat the question,’ Ruf
us said. ‘Any idea where we go now?’
Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘We know that he wants to be found by us, because he left a coded message for us. So he’ll have left a trail that only we can follow, or he’ll assume that I can work it out. He won’t be staying in the centre of the village, because he would be too visible. Despite anything he does with his accent and his clothes, he can’t disguise his height. Virginia is with him as well. So he’ll find a place out by itself, and he’ll probably keep Virginia hidden away.’ He let his mind run loose on the various parameters of the problem. ‘He won’t rent a cottage on the main roads in and out of the village,’ he mused, ‘because there would be too much chance of passing people seeing him. He would choose somewhere high up, so that he would be able to see anyone coming well in advance, and so that he would have the advantage of height. Anyone who found him would have to approach slowly, uphill, while he could throw rocks and stuff downhill at them.’ He frowned. ‘He might choose a place on top of a hill, so that he and Virginia could escape in any direction if they were attacked, but that would mean attackers would be able to come at him from any direction while he could only watch in one direction at any time – or two if Virginia was helping him. No, it’s more likely that he would choose somewhere towards the top of a hill but in a cleft or a dip or something, so that anyone coming at him would be forced into approaching from the front.’
‘That narrows it down,’ Rufus said. ‘We can ask around for cottages that meet that description.’
‘There’s a better way,’ Matty said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Kids my age.’ Matty thumped his chest in emphasis. ‘In every town an’ every village there’s kids like me. They go everywhere an’ see everything. You can’t stop ’em. Just find one an’ slip ’im a tanner. He’ll know where Mr Crowe is hiding.’
‘Better than that,’ Sherlock added, ‘he’s probably paying them. Mr Crowe knows that urchins –’ he glanced at Matty apologetically – ‘go everywhere and know everything. He’ll be slipping them a tanner each himself to watch out for strangers. They’ll be watching out for us, as well.’