She did not want to. She wanted to leap like an enraged lion and chop Hawke to slivers. The conflict was etched in every taut line of her face. But Blackbird, huge and grim-faced, had swaggered through the doorway like an avenging angel, and she was not mad enough to do anything but his bidding.
Blackbird brandished a blunderbuss, fully cocked. It was short and stout, with a flared brass muzzle that would ensure a wide spread of shot. Not a weapon of precision, but in the hands of an expert, in the confines of this little chamber, its carnage would be unspeakable. And so, staring dumbly into the flintlock’s gaping maw, Clementine lifted her hands.
Hawke felt his legs start to tremble, relief as potent as fear had been. “Christ’s blood, Blackbird, but you took your time.”
Blackbird snorted. “Bested by a woman.”
“I was not bested,” Hawke began, but his protest was cut short by the appearance of another, far more diminutive, form that stepped out from behind the dark-skinned resurrectionist.
“So this is our persecutor?” Corissa Lott said, regarding Clementine with curiosity. She seemed incongruous in this grim place of spattered blood and buckled walls, so resplendent was she in a long-sleeved evening gown of white gauze, satin roses sown onto one shoulder and its corresponding hip. She wore pink shoes, to match the roses, and fine white gloves, and in her hand she held a silk reticule. The little tasselled bag, embroidered at its edges with a floral design that was shot through with silver thread, seemed utterly unsuitable for the item she took from it. Pulling free the pistol that she had once rammed in Hawke’s own face, she cocked it and brought it level with Clementine’s heaving chest.
Blackbird made a sucking sound with his teeth. “You were in the right of it, Solly-yom. My compliments. I shall inform Szekely.” He looked at Clementine. “You follow him here?”
“She followed Lucas,” Hawke said. “The night he died.”
“I followed him,” Clementine said with admirable calm, “then I killed him.”
“Why?” Corissa asked.
“She is a Giltspur,” Hawke answered for their captive. “The gang are behind this.”
“The Giltspurs,” Blackbird’s gravel-hewn voice echoed. “I knew it. I blasted knew it.”
Clementine twitched her right hand so that the cleaver, shimmering orange in the dim light, drew a luminous line in Blackbird’s direction. “The nigger possesses more wit than the rest of you combined.”
“The Giltspur Boys ordered our deaths,” Hawke went on, “but Clementine wields the knife.” He turned to her, meeting her brazen gaze. “Or should I say the surgical probe?”
“Surgical what?” Blackbird grunted sceptically as he fished in a pocket for a quid of tobacco which he stuffed into the corner of his mouth.
“Probe,” Hawke replied. He wiped the knife on his thigh and sheathed it, inspecting the damage to his wrist. Just like the wounds inflicted upon Lucas and Harlowe, it was impossible to gauge the full depth of the puncture, but, when he squeezed the edges, the hole welled with bloody beads that plummeted to speck his bare toes. “The kind of tool used in dissection.” He scanned the floor, eyes quickly settling on the weapon, and he stooped to collect it. “The kind plunged once, twice into the living flesh of Lucas and Harlowe.” He stared at the object, holding it up to the nearest candle. It was red and slick with his blood. Its etched markings, carved by an undeniable expert into the wooden handle, were smeared crimson, but legible enough, proving what he already knew. Because he had known Clementine would come, had guessed it. Yet the speed and ferocity of her attack had still managed to catch him ill-prepared. The probe had come so close, so perilously close, to his neck, as it had done Harlowe before him, and Lucas, in this very room, that he could barely bring himself to look away. “The Giltspur Boys wanted us all dead, but wanted to avoid an all-out war with Szekely.”
“So they sent a woman,” Corissa continued, “known to each of us. Not a friend, but not a threat by any stretch.”
“And they put the rumour about that Butcher Milne is killing resurrectionists in revenge for his daughter’s death, but I’ve seen Milne with my own eyes. He makes threats, but he has done nothing. It is grief that talks through him.”
Blackbird screwed up his pulpy face in confusion. “But our lads were killed with a butcher’s hatchet.” He jerked the blunderbuss at the weapon in Clementine’s raised hand. “Like that.”
“Not so,” Hawke said. “Look closer.” Now that he could see the weapon without the blur and whirl of mortal danger, the jagged teeth became clear. He waited for Blackbird and Corissa to notice the serrations, then added, “It is a bone saw.”
“From the anatomy theatre again,” Corissa said. “Harlowe’s wounds were too ragged to have been inflicted by a smooth edge. That’s what you told me.”
Hawke inverted the probe so that its handle was enveloped within his palm, the slender shaft nestling flush against the inside length of his forearm, utterly concealed. “She inveigles herself into the room, then works her way round the back of her mark with the probe.” He flicked up his hand, recreating the downward stabbing motion with which she had tried to impale him. “Stabs the neck, thus. The victim is incapacitated. With the task made simpler,” his eyes slid towards the basket, “takes the larger blade, concealed therein, and finishes the matter.”
Blackbird moved closer to the basket, crouching to inspect it, though the blunderbuss remained steadily trained on Clementine. “Cunning bitch,” he said, almost whispering. He looked up, and for the first time Hawke saw genuine horror ghost over the man’s hitherto implacable features. “Chops them up with the bone saw when they can’t fight back. Jesus wept.”
Hawke nodded. “And makes it look as though an angry, grief-stricken butcher has taken leave of his senses and made merry with his cleaver.”
“How did you know?” Blackbird asked.
“Someone told me recently that it was wise to do away with those privy to one’s dirtiest secrets.” It had been Ruthven. Puffed up and proud on that misty morning outside Newgate, with not a moment’s consideration to the hunt for a killer of criminals. But it was his words that inadvertently lit a fuse within Hawke’s mind, even if that had not been his intent. So Hawke had considered Goaty as a possible suspect, fearing personal enmity had tipped into direct action. A ruse, perhaps, in order to frame him and eradicate a rival. But even Goaty’s usual hostility had been muted after Harlowe’s death, concern for his own welfare apparently genuine. It set Hawke’s suspicions to the others. To Gilroy Penley and Blackbird, and even Corissa. But each and every one of them would not have dared challenge Colan Szekely for supremacy. Which left Szekely himself. Was the softly-spoken Hungarian callous enough to wipe out his own gang in order to further some hidden agenda? Absolutely, Hawke had decided. But there seemed no obvious reason to do so, and a stranger method of dispatching said gang he could not fathom.
“It made me think of Theophilus Vine,” Hawke continued, deciding it best not to dwell on the alternatives while those candidates were in the room. “Perhaps he no longer wished to treat with resurrectionists. Wanted all trace of us gone.”
Blackbird made a scornful grunt. “Vine’s school cannot exist without fresh corpses.”
“Indeed,” Hawke said, “and if he rid himself of our group, then another would have to be engaged.” He shifted his gaze to the tall, bleeding woman who returned his stare belligerently. “Then I saw Clementine. Two days ago, at Covent Garden. Playing lookout for a party of rough looking men, one of whom I recalled from the night at Hockley-in-the-Hole.” He glanced at Corissa. “Wounded in the neck.”
“The Giltspur Boys we fought,” she said, the trauma of recollection quietening her voice.
“The man you stabbed did not die after all,” said Hawke. He turned to the huge West Indian. “Another man had a hook for a hand.”
“Ran into him at the graveyard that night, didn’t we?” Blackbird confirmed Hawke’s recollection. He whistled softly, absently fingering th
e trigger of his blunderbuss. “Shit on a stick.”
Something else had struck Hawke too. After his dalliance with the pot-girl at the Swan and Cygnet, she had mentioned her fear of being poked and prodded by doctors. It had brought him back to Vine’s anatomy theatre, and the wondrous array of slim, wickedly sharp tools at the doctor’s disposal. All of them freely available for Clementine to borrow as she saw fit. And all of them made bespoke for Vine, at doubtless a pretty price. Each piece bore the initials ‘TV’ marked deep into every handle. A simple but elegant zig-zagging pattern carved into every hilt, at the base of the blade’s shaft. The same pattern that had been stamped upon the flesh of Clementine’s victims as she had stabbed with all her might, effectively tattooing them with her master’s mark.
Hawke had run the idea past Ansell and Kitty Brommett, Corissa too, whilst soaking up the serenity of Drapers Gardens, and they, in turn, had responded with such affirmation that it had served to solidify the theory. By then, of course, he had already alerted Blackbird, having whispered the outline of his suspicion to the gang leader after lifting the body of the farrier’s wife. That was why Blackbird had declared his attendance at the baiting, and why Hawke had overtly stated that he would be at home. They needed Clementine to hear. Needed her to know that he would be alone, probably in an opium stupor, while his only allies were at some back-alley dog-pit, inebriated and useless.
“Seamus O’Neill, the lad Colan killed,” Corissa said to Clementine. “Who was he to you?”
“My cousin,” Clementine answered, and for the first time a tremor crossed her features.
Corissa swallowed falteringly, an unpleasant realisation evidently dawning. “You anatomised him.”
Clementine’s face seemed to crumble, the stoic façade melting away, and she half collapsed, bracing hands upon her knees for support. “A good boy. Deserved neither his fate, nor,” the words were stunted, interspersed with sobs, “what came after.”
Corissa looked at Hawke, her face morphing from rigid determination to revulsion, and even the beginnings of compassion.
And that was when Clementine went for the door.
Blackbird had inadvertently provided a clear escape route by moving to the basket, and Clementine, launching from her crouch like an over-sized frog, made a darting run that was impressive for one of her size. But Corissa’s pistol was up like lightning, the octagonal muzzle hovering steadily a yard from the would-be assassin’s flattened nose. Even so, Hawke thought the bigger woman would duck her head and charge like a stampeding bull, but she pulled up at the last moment with a snarl of frustration, eyeing the gun barrel with seething malevolence.
“Drop it,” Corissa commanded, meaning the bone saw. Clementine did as she was told, the weapon clattering loudly on the wooden floor. Corissa carefully shuffled round to block the path to the door, keeping her pistol arm out, straight and unflinching. When she was satisfied, she said, “The Giltspurs will be coming for us.”
“They’re doing that already,” Blackbird growled.
“Openly, then,” Corissa said. “They’ll know Colan killed Seamus, and it will be war.”
Clementine grinned nastily as she wiped away the last vestiges of tears. “Oh, they know.” The black eyes glided sideways to regard Hawke. “Covent Garden? That’s what we’re looking for. Why we were there. Your people.” Her voice was slow as she relished every word. “Dead men walking, all of you.”
“What now?” Hawke asked Blackbird. He had predicted their quarry would turn out to be Clementine, had meticulously set the trap, but he had given no thought to the aftermath. Clementine visibly bristled, setting her jaw and squaring her shoulders in expectation of summary violence.
“Let Szekely decide,” Blackbird replied after a moment’s consideration. “He’ll want words with Doc Vine, I shouldn’t wonder. How that big wench managed to sneak out with his probes and saws.”
“I doubt it will ruin their dealings,” Corissa said bitterly. “Only tonight they talked business throughout King Lear.”
Hawke looked at her afresh, as if the abrasive pang of jealousy he now felt had scoured clean his eyes. For the first time he properly noticed the gown she wore, and saw that tresses of her raven-black hair had been curled by an expert hand, framing the face, the rest tied back in a severe chignon to expose her slender neck. She was dressed for high society. For Colan Szekely. “And do not forget Monsieur Blanc’s ensemble,” he muttered.
“Fat chance, the haughty bastard,” Corissa scoffed, apparently missing the sourness in his tone. “Every musician clothed more colourfully than a peacock. More gold brocade than down at Horse Guards. More plumage on show than instruments.” She chuckled, shaking her head at the memory of the concert. “Ribbons on their wrists and brooches on their chests.”
Hawke gaped at her. He felt as though he had been struck by lightning. “Brooches?”
Clementine dropped to the floor. She sprawled on the boards, and for a heartbeat Hawke thought she must be suffering a seizure of some kind. But then she was at Corissa’s ankle, wrenching out and up, and Corissa toppled backwards with a shriek, pink shoes skittering away, white satin petticoat flashing bright. The pistol fired, missing the tie beam and punching through the roof, a flurry of plaster and wood splinters fluttering down like snow. Then the larger of the women was up, and she had retrieved the bone saw, its serrations bright, and she scrambled onto Corissa Lott, slithering over her, mauling her in an effort to bring down the brutish weapon.
Corissa bucked and writhed, lashed up with her feet, her cries muffled beneath the weight of her assailant. Her arms were outstretched, clasping and clawing, desperately scaffolding Clementine’s good hand to prevent the blow. Clementine roared furiously as she tried to bring the saw to bear. She dragged up her injured hand. The motion pulled apart the wound so that blood welled and spilt over them both, smearing Corissa’s cheeks as she attempted to gouge her enemy’s eyes.
Hawke, mind reeling, and stunned by the sudden ferocity of the attack, had dithered, but he realised that he still clutched the probe. He bounded forwards, raising the skinny implement with its vicious point, ready to plunge it deep between Clementine’s shoulders. In his peripheral vision he glimpsed Blackbird, nonchalantly raising the blunderbuss.
The world exploded.
There was no warmth to the blast, just a gust of pressure, of force, as if a gale had swept through the rookery, and Hawke was tumbling away, snatched up and tossed about like a dry leaf. He was vaguely aware of the hardness of the floorboards under his back. The high beams spun above him, wreathed in fingers of white smoke. Voices, male and female, melded into each other.
Pain. Searing, white-hot pain. He tried to remember where he had stashed the laudanum. Then all was quiet.
CHAPTER NINE
FRIDAY
Hawke woke with a start. The world swam.
He peeled his tongue off the roof of a mouth that felt like parchment, and lay flat and still as he tried to deduce where he was and how exactly he had arrived. His left side, from lowest rib to pelvis, throbbed beneath fresh sheets, reminding him of Clementine’s attack, the fight that followed and the shot that had ended it. The images swooped and twisted in his head like a murmuration of starlings. Taking form then melting away, real but ephemeral. He stared at the ceiling, blinking clear the heavy dregs of sleep, and knew instantly that he was not at home on Buckbridge Street. No rotten, worm-eaten beams here, but broad panels, unblemished by time or treatment, and painted a mellow orange.
Two windows, shutters thrown back, allowed light into the room. They also carried the taste of tobacco on the breeze, and the hammering, shouts, clangs and whistles of construction work. With a surprising amount of effort, he managed to turn his head towards them, seeing a sky of milky grey that could have been dawn or dusk, though the din of the builders suggested the former. He rolled his head again - gingerly, so as to discourage the perpetual spinning sensation - and inspected the room. It was a bedchamber, sparsely but tastefully
furnished, with a plain rug on the floor, two chairs beside his mattress, and a desk on one side of the room. On the other was a substantial chest, nestled against the wall beneath a portrait of the old king. On the wall opposite Hawke there was a chimney piece carved of dark wood, suspended above which was a large mirror that made the room seem as though it went on forever. The hearth beneath had been recently stoked, flames dancing as if to celebrate Hawke’s wakefulness.
With no hope of identifying his surroundings, Hawke drew a fortifying breath and set himself the task of discovering his wounds. He moved in increments, retreating and sallying by turns, inching off the bed with preemptive oaths and winces, beginning with his arms and letting his head and shoulders follow. The pain was all in his left side, quite low, but too ambiguous to pinpoint, so he gritted his teeth, panting fast, and propped up onto his elbows to leverage his upper body, a little at a time, until he had lifted his whole torso. The covers slid down and bunched at his waist to reveal a naked but undamaged chest. He steadied himself against a wave of nausea, praying it had come as a result of sitting upright, and was not a sign of genuine sickness. The pain had refined into a white-hot stabbing sensation. Hawke swallowed back a groundswell of bile. He felt peculiar, quite apart from his own body, as though he looked down upon himself, and a great urge to collapse and shut his eyes assailed him.
He cursed himself for a contemptible coward and dragged back the sheets, raking his eyes down the length of his body. There were bandages, stained a rusty colour on the left flank, enveloping his midriff and extending down, over the angular sharpness of his pelvis, to finish around his buttocks. He put a hand to the stain, snaking his fingers gently over the surface of the dressing, and was reprimanded by a hot flare of pain so searing that it stopped his head spinning in that moment, dragging his mind free of the groggy miasma. He hissed through his teeth, imagining steam billowing up from the wound like that which had flurried from the water drums at Babcock and Bull, the smithy on Fleet Street. But that seemed like weeks ago. Perhaps, he thought, it was. Cold dread rose through his body as he thought of Corissa. Was she hurt? Dead? Had Clementine escaped, somehow protected by his own stupidity? And what of the Ember Week? Had it come and gone? Were more children lying in other sewers, wrapped in vines and mutilated beyond recognition? And all the while, Hawke had slept, uncaring and impotent.
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