by Andy Conway
Walking down Alcester Road would be too crowded, he thought. He would be too exposed. Something told him to keep to the shadows. He walked up Woodbridge Road, past the Trafalgar pub and turned into Trafalgar Road. Tramping down the hill till he came to Louise Lorne Road on his left – a narrow lane between houses.
He was coming to it from the opposite side he had last night. The lane gave out to the tree-lined square behind Amy Parker’s house. He could see her window.
He vaulted the fence again and crouched in the back garden out of sight of neighbouring houses. Throwing stones at her window. There was no answer. Perhaps they were out.
He sprinted to the outhouse and edged around it to the side yard. A window looked out onto the yard – the middle room that was perhaps a drawing room or dining room – but there was no sign of life.
His back to the wall, he skirted the yard and peered inside the kitchen. A girl at the kitchen sink. Was it the maid? She turned and her eyes met his.
A yelp of surprise. Her hand to her mouth.
It was Amy.
Glancing back into the house, she darted for the back door. He met her there and lunged for her lips. She shrank back, fear in her eyes and he realized it was too much, too soon. He had talked to her only twice.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
He stepped inside and she let him close the back door, glancing again into the house.
“I had to see you again,” he said. “To warn you.”
“Father’s in bed with a migraine. Please don’t wake him.”
“We don’t need to wake him,” he whispered. “In fact, it’s perfect.”
“It’s far from perfect. He has them all the time. He can’t get up, can’t go to his office. I’m about to telephone to let them know. It’s his business. He employs three clerks.”
She was rambling, confused, as if the thread holding her life together was unravelling.
“Listen to me, Amy.”
“The maid has walked out too. Says she can’t cope with father’s strange moods.”
“This is good, too.”
“It’s not. It all falls down to me to save us. We are close to shipwreck.”
She knotted her fingers and couldn’t look at him, distracted, distraught. He took her hands in his.
“Listen, Amy. There’s something I have to tell you. About your father.”
She looked up into his eyes, just as she had the first moment he’d seen her, entreating him to tell her, even though she already knew. “What is it?”
“You need to come with me,” he said.
“I can’t. Not today.”
“You have to, before tomorrow.”
His intensity stilled her. He was sure she could read it in him: that she was in great danger from the man upstairs, the man she both feared and wanted to protect.
“Why before tomorrow?”
“Just come with me,” he said. “Let’s get away from here.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“Amy, you’re not safe.”
“What is it?” she said. “What’s going to happen?”
He held her, his hands stroking her arms, wanting to kiss her, wanting to run with her.
“You know it, don’t you? You know I’m here to help you.”
“I don’t even know you.”
“You know it feels right, though. To come with me, right now.”
She stared into his eyes. She seemed to know it.
“I’m taking you away from here,” he said, suddenly forceful and praying she would give in to him. “Now. You understand?”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere he won’t find you.”
“Where?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said. “Let’s go. Now.”
She stared, stricken, paralysed. He would have to drag her out of there, drag her all the way to the present.
The doorbell rang. A harsh buzz.
Amy broke free from him.
“Don’t answer it.”
“I have to. It will wake father. Wait here and hide till they’re gone. But if it’s the maid, you have to run away. Perhaps she’s changed her mind and needs the money. Yes, that might be it.”
She walked out of the kitchen, through the middle room and down the long hallway to the front door. The bell rang again.
Danny skipped across the room, closing the door to the hall so he could peep through the crack.
Amy opened the door. It was an old man in a bowler hat and greatcoat.
“Miss Parker, I believe,” he said.
“And who might you be?” she asked.
“Inspector Beadle,” he said. “I wish to talk with you about a Mr Daniel Pearce. I believe you’ve met him recently?”
The inspector stepped inside and Amy retreated.
“I don’t know who you mean, Inspector,” she said, turning and looking right at Danny.
The inspector too peered over her head, right at the crack in the door. “Is he here now?”
Danny stepped back, creeping across the rug. He hurtled through the kitchen and out of the back door just as the inspector’s voice came through the middle room.
“Only he’s been sighted here and he’s a person of interest in...”
He was out and sprinting up the back garden, hidden by the outhouses. He took a running leap at the fence and was over it, crashing to the ground on the other side, a searing shot of pain through his knee.
He limped up the quiet lane of Louise Lorne Road, casting glances behind him. No police in pursuit. As he ran on, he wondered how the police had come to be involved, and how the hell did they know his name?
There was nothing for it. He had to go back and plan this. There was still time to get her away from her father, even if it had to be tomorrow.
He limped onto Trafalgar Road and was about to climb the hill when he paused. No, he wouldn’t go home just yet. There was something else he needed to do first.
He turned left and headed for Highgate.
— 36 —
AMY PARKER TRIED TO slow her pace as she walked up the hall, but the inspector brushed her to the side and pushed through. He knew she was lying.
He burst into the middle room, expecting to see Danny Pearce, but there was nothing. He must have run out the back.
“Really, what is the meaning of this, Inspector?” she protested.
He bowled through the kitchen. The back door was open. She followed him out to the garden and found it was totally quiet and empty.
The inspector peeped behind the outhouses, and even looked in the privy, but there was no sign that Danny Pearce had ever been here.
“Are you quite satisfied?” she demanded.
“Was he here?”
“I don’t know who you mean, I’m sure!”
He looked her up and down, sizing her up.
She held his cold gaze and saw that her cocksureness disarmed him. But he knew she was hiding something.
He followed her back into the house, through the kitchen. Someone tramping on the stairs. Had Danny hidden behind the door and waited for the inspector to run through to the garden, having left the back door open as bait?
“What is this!” a voice roared.
Oh, God.
“Father,” she stammered. “This is a police inspector.”
“Inspector Beadle,” he said quickly, as if he also sensed that his innocence needed to be asserted immediately in case Father murdered him. Beadle producing his identity papers.
This wiped the anger from Father’s face and he switched, in a flash, to the concerned demeanour of an upstanding pillar of society.
“Inspector? How can I help? Is this about Rieper? Poor chap. We buried him Wednesday.”
Here it was again. Father always acted normal when the right people called. His madness dissipated. This was a good thing.
The inspector looked from Amy to her father. “Indeed,�
�� he said. “Just following up on a few things. Routine, you understand.”
“You must forgive my state,” father said. “I am rather ill with a recurring migraine. Hence you find me at home.”
“I do apologize. I should come back at a more convenient time.”
“When the lodge is open at three degrees both within and without,” said father.
“I’m sorry?”
“Numbers fourteen eighteen,” father said, smiling.
The inspector stared, trying to make sense of it.
Amy put on a smile. “Father, your migraine has made you disoriented. You should go back to bed.”
“Numbers fourteen eighteen. She knows that.”
The inspector was thrown. Would he take Father away?
Instead, Beadle tipped his hat and said, “I must go.”
“Fourteen eighteen,” father cackled.
Amy pushed the inspector out of the room and down the hall. He was happy to go now, as if he had stepped into something that was altogether too strange for him. He was a plodding policeman, quite dull and boring, nothing like the detectives one read about in books and magazines.
“Numbers fourteen eighteen!” Father called from behind, thankfully rooted to the spot, not following. He was an anarchist’s bomb about to explode and only she knew it.
She opened the door and almost shoved the inspector outside. She didn’t care if he fell flat on his face, as long as he saw no more of her father’s madness.
But the inspector wheeled round and stood firm. “I know he was here,” he said. He pulled out a photograph and shoved it in her face.
Daniel Pearce, arrested, like a common criminal. She snatched the photograph and peered closer. There was no mistaking it was he.
“When was this?”
“Last night.”
“That can’t be so. He was here last night and he was not drunk.”
“So you know him.”
She shook her head. “I only saw him two days ago, at Mr Rieper’s funeral. He calls himself Danny, not Daniel.”
The inspector snatched the photograph back. “I must warn you, Miss Parker, this man was once a suspect in a murder enquiry.”
“Murder?”
“You are in grave danger. Do not answer the door to him again. If he calls, telephone me on this number.”
He gave her a calling card.
“He’s not a murderer,” she said. “That can’t be.”
“There was a murder. He was a person of interest.”
“How long ago?”
The inspector shifted uncomfortably and looked up and down the street. A tram sailed past.
“That doesn’t matter.”
He cast one more glance over her shoulder at the madness behind her, then turned away. She closed the door and fell back against it, her tears falling on his name.
Inspector Beadle.
Danny Pearce had come to protect her, though. That’s what he had said. To protect her from her father.
And she was caught in the middle, protecting her father. This house was the Titanic and she alone knew of the iceberg lying wait in the dark waters ahead. If they put him in the asylum, she would be better off dead. Everything would be gone. Shipwrecked.
Sundered.
The inspector had been too concerned with Danny Pearce to see The Secret – the shameful secret – in this house. She had to guard that secret, protect father, save him from the same fate as his mad mother.
She alone could prevent the sinking of the Titanic, so they might harbour safely in New York and celebrate.
— 37 —
HIGHGATE DIDN’T FEEL as dangerous in daylight. There were no gangs of drunks hanging around outside pubs seething with violence, and the morning mist was not as menacing as the night fog.
Danny strode up to the pharmacy and looked through the window with its display of bottles of blue and red liquid. There was no one but the elderly pharmacist and his assistant. He pushed the door and stepped inside, the bell announcing his arrival.
They looked up. The assistant recognized him.
“Hello again, sir,” he said.
Danny was thrown. No one ever called him ‘sir’ and it felt strange, like being called ‘m’lord’ or ‘your honour’.
“Good morning,” he said, stepping forward and addressing the older man. “I’d like to speak with you, if I may.”
The assistant flushed red. His boss frowned.
“Certainly, sir,” said the old man.
“It’s, er, a delicate matter. Could I speak with you privately?”
He glanced at the door with its brass notice marked Private.
“Of course. Follow me, sir.”
The assistant suddenly stammered. “I hope nothing untoward has happened with your lady friend?”
Danny could see he was panicking, thinking the worst. “No, no, no,” he said. “She’s absolutely fine. You made her much better. This is a totally different matter.”
The assistant heaved a sigh of relief and bowed his head.
The old man frowned again and walked to the door, holding it open for Danny to follow. They climbed a set of steep wooden stairs and walked into a small oak-panelled room with a mahogany desk. The pharmacist took a seat at the desk and indicated the free chair.
“Now, sir, how may I help you?”
“I... don’t know how to say this...”
“Be assured, sir, you can divulge anything here. We are utterly discreet.”
Danny could hear the traces of another accent through his attempt at formal English. Was he foreign? He noticed the slight fray of his cuffs and remembered how worn down his heels had been as he’d followed him up the stairs.
“There was a man here, last night,” he said, trying on the official tone of a police inspector. “A Mr Parker. I’d like to ask you some questions about him.”
The pharmacist glared with sudden fear. “Is this a police matter?” he croaked.
“Not exactly. More a private investigation.”
The pharmacist’s lips pursed and he rose from his seat. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir. I deal with my... patients... in the strictest confidence. I have to ask you to leave now.”
Danny felt his resolve fading. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a sheaf of notes. The pharmacist looked confused for a moment, then much less confused as Danny laid one of the notes on the desk.
“I’m afraid I really must insist that you...”
Danny laid another note on top of the first and the pharmacist wheezed a little.
“Please, sir,” he stammered.
Danny put a third note down and shoved the rest back in his pocket. The pharmacist had actually begun to sweat, pearls of perspiration dotting his bulging neck. He glanced around, as if someone in the room might witness him about to commit a crime. He gazed at the money for a long time, like it was singing to him. Danny watched, curious as to the mesmeric effect these absurdly large, crispy sheets of paper had on him. The pharmacist blinked himself out of his trance, looked at Danny’s blank face, swallowed, nodded slightly and, as if being sent to fetch the cane that would be used on him, hobbled across the room and took a wooden box off the shelf.
When he brought it back to the table, Danny could see that it wasn’t a box but a case with a leather strap for a handle. The pharmacist nodded to him, urging him to open it. Danny flipped the box open and found that the case was divided inside into several sections, each containing a selection of tools. There was a long glass cylinder that ran the length of the case and appeared to collect at one end into a rubber teat from which ran a rubber tube that was coiled all the way and collected inside the cylinder in the opposite, open end. Measurements were engraved into the side of the glass, starting at 50 and running up to 300. A circular compartment held a porcelain dish, locked in place with moveable brass pegs. There was an enamel container the size of a cigarette holder, and a few bottles. One of them was a dropper and two contained liquid, labelled Hydrochlo
ric Acid and Salvarsan.
Danny looked up at the pharmacist, whose face seemed to say that he’d divulged some great secret. Danny shrugged. “What is this?”
The pharmacist frowned and slammed the case shut with sudden annoyance.
“I’ve shown you everything,” he said. “I shall not write it down for you also. Now. Please. Go.”
Danny rose and walked to the door, not sure what he’d just seen. He looked back and was surprised to see the pharmacist slumped in the chair, one hand covering his eyes, the other scraping the notes towards him.
— 38 —
RACHEL BURIED HERSELF in the Local Studies section for the day. She had always liked to do this: disappear into archives, following leads, methodically building up a picture of the past, not realizing where she’d been for hours or that she’d missed lunch and was ravenous. What she found in the Central Library that morning should have shocked her, but she was trapped in a cloud of numbness and stared at it with a sense of inevitability, almost as if she’d expected to find it there.
Flipping through a modern photo book titled Birmingham’s Victorian & Edwardian Criminal Underground, each page a series of mugshots from police archives, she found herself staring at Danny’s face in washed out black-and-white, holding up a chalk board with a few numbers and the words Daniel Pearce — No Fixed Abode — Drunkard.
Just as he had last night.
This was the instant the photographer’s camera had flashed and blinded her, the magnesium flare still floating in her vision even when she had stood staring at the old family house. This was the moment Danny had been arrested, a photograph that had sat in the archives for a hundred years, recorded here in this book ten years ago. It had been here, hidden in the pages of this book even two days ago when they’d first come here, before they’d hired the costumes and gone back to 1912.
She went to the photocopier by the Information desk and pushed in coins to take a copy of it. The redheaded librarian eyed her curiously, and Rachel wondered if she was going to be told off for copying protected material.
“You’re doing the project with your student friend, aren’t you?” she said.