by Angela Misri
The older gentleman leaned over to right the chair and when he came back up, the index cards were gone, secreted into his jacket pocket. He cracked his knuckles and met my eyes before speaking directly to me for the first time since escorting me into the room. I understood nothing and pantomimed using a pen and paper, pointing at my satchel behind him.
He frowned, waggling his finger at me, and repeated the pattern of sounds he had said before.
Why would I lie about this?
I slowly redid the pantomime. Maybe he was dull-witted.
My third time through this act, he grabbed my upper arm and shook me, his tone recognizably louder and more threatening, even if the actual words continued to evade me. He put the clock I had detached from the bomb on the table between us and said something I couldn’t decipher.
“I don’t understand!” I said, annoyingly aware that my words were probably not the ones I intended to say. “Please, if you give me back my pen and paper, I could explain!”
This just seemed to make him angrier and he pulled me upright, now yelling straight into my face. If he intended to scare me, he failed, because all my frustration poured out of me and I yelled back. I shouted about the unfairness of my situation and the injustice in scooping me off the streets of London like a common criminal. I shoved at the man and he gave no ground. That’s how Lancaster found us, now both red in the face and panting at the exertion of yelling and not being understood. Carrying a file folder, he spoke to the mustached man as he entered the room. The mustached man shook his head, touching his firearm as he spoke and I instinctively backed up, not understanding the words, but not liking the implication of escalating violence. Lancaster stepped between us, throwing the file on the table. I looked longingly at the open door, wondering how far I would get if I just bolted from the room, leaving these two to argue in my wake. I had convinced myself to at least give it a try when the mustached man moved to pull his gun from his holster and Lancaster gave up verbal negotiation and slammed his fist into the mustached man’s cheek.
The man collapsed into a boneless heap at our feet. Lancaster only lingered long enough to ascertain that he was in no condition to follow us before running to the door to look down the hallway. I crouched over the man, made sure he was still breathing, and reached into his pocket, pulling out the coloured index cards. I read details of my life listed next to confirmation dates, more than I thought the Service knew about me, including who my grandparents were. My grandmother was on a different card than the late Irene Adler, so I hoped against hope that her criminal identity hadn’t been discovered. The final card detailed the story Annie and Henry Rees were chasing about the stockpiled weapons — according to this card the rumours may be true. I tucked the index cards into my bra; this information was leaving with me today.
I threw my satchel on and took the last two steps to where Lancaster stood in the doorway. He grabbed my hand, pulling me down a hallway lined with closed doors and with exposed plumbing in the ceiling, confirming the warehouse details of this location. We ran down this hallway and then another and a third before we encountered his peers. Lancaster went around a corner, I heard sounds that sounded like hard slaps, and when he jumped back, I saw the reason why. Dark bullet holes had appeared in the wall opposite the hallway. I logged that gunshots sounded like slaps to my damaged ears as I looked up at the ceiling and pulled him towards the stairs that I knew existed behind the door, based on the pattern of pipes, or the lack thereof. We pelted up the stairs, Lancaster leading us until the slapping sound resumed and he stumbled, a red hole appearing at the edge of the white shirt he was wearing. I looked back to see that yes, men were shooting at us from a staircase down and one of them had hit his mark. I pulled Lancaster along the last few floors to the rooftop, the men closing in on us. I pushed Lancaster through the metal door, slammed it shut behind us, holding it against our pursuers. Luckily, Lancaster picked up a metal strut from the rooftop and, with his help, I crammed it against the door handle, buying us a bit of time. I tripped over a half-finished lunch, and beer bottles rolled away from me. This rooftop was littered with refuse.
I backed away from the metal door, watching it shake as men tried to gain access to the roof — and to us — and then looked over the side of the building, seeing the Thames on this side, and streets I did not recognize on the other. Damnit, I left the clock downstairs. My only piece of evidence was in the hands of these idiots.
I turned to see Lancaster buckling on a large backpack. His hands were shaking and his face was pale but determined. Where he had pulled the backpack from, I knew not, but he threw a glance at the door and stepped up and onto the ledge of the building, looking down at me with expectation. I picked up a mostly empty bottle of whisky, gulped down the last dregs, rolled up the index cards, and tucked them into the empty bottle, shoving it into my satchel. We leapt at the water, the taste of whisky burning down my throat as we fell.
He deployed his parachute immediately, needing to because of the minimal height of this five-storey building, especially with my additional weight. I would have slipped out of his arms at the jolt had he not wrapped his legs around mine. We floated out over the river, men running to watch our descent from the banks. We were entirely in the hands of the wind and all the hoping and wishing in the world wouldn’t save us from our icy denouement.
Lancaster was tightly buckled into the parachute’s canvas straps and the current of the Thames threatened to pull us apart. He fumbled with the buckles, gasping for air as the current dunked him under mercilessly. His hands became desperate, panicky. I held onto his straps with one hand and took a deep breath, giving into the pull of the river. Underwater, I opened my eyes to see Lancaster’s head lolling on his chest, his arms floating uselessly in the murky water. I pushed my arm through the strap and dug into his pocket for the knife he had once held against me. By the time I sliced us free of the parachute, I was starting to see black spots in front of my eyes that were not the rubbish usually found in the Thames. My lungs burning, I kicked to the surface as the parachute shot away from us, finally free to embrace the current fully.
Somehow, I pulled Lancaster to shore underneath a bridge I did not recognize in the darkness.
My teeth were chattering so hard I was sure someone would hear them. I could see boats out on the water, the wavering lights of their lanterns shifting over the Thames as they searched for us. Kneeling beside Lancaster I felt a very faint pulse in his neck and he coughed feebly, rolling onto his side at my attentions. My eyes now accustomed to the dark and free of muddy river water, I spied curious observers staring at us from under the bridge. We had nothing worth stealing, but our location was certainly worth a coin or two to the men pursuing us.
“Can you stand?” I whispered down at the man struggling to stand up.
He pushed himself upright with my help and gaining street level, I almost smiled, recognizing the area. That recognition gave me new strength and we made our way down a long alleyway, Lancaster heavy on my shoulder. We avoided the main roads thanks to my memorization of my grandfather’s map that detailed the back alleys of London. There! I finally saw our destination ahead. I led Lancaster around the side of the house to where, as I suspected, the light was on in the garage. I propped Lancaster against the garage door, knocked, and hoped for the best.
CHAPTER 15
I WOKE UP IN the passenger seat of a Rolls-Royce. I was wrapped in blankets, leaning against the window, and when I looked over my shoulder I could see Lancaster lying prostrate in the back seat. Shirtless, so I could see the large bandages that had been wound around him last night, but obviously breathing, he looked slightly better than when I had fallen asleep. The creaking sound of someone opening the garage door made me duck down, but, thankfully, it was someone I could trust. And he was carrying a pen and a dry notebook. He wrote something in the notepad and handed it to me through the open car window.
“I wish you would h
ave come and stayed in the house with me,” my friend Beans had written. The good professor was the latest dear friend whom I had now involved in this insane caper.
“What could you have said to Lady Grace by way of explanation?” I wrote back, before manoeuvring my way out of the car with a barely suppressed wince.
“She … I …,” Beans stuttered, his lips betraying his indecision.
Not sure if he was more embarrassed that I’d surmised that his fiancée was asleep upstairs, or by the fact that he couldn’t come up with a quick lie, I took the notebook to write, “I would never ask you to lie to your betrothed. We will be gone as soon as Lancaster is able to leave.”
Beans shook his head adamantly, saying something that came out in a rumbling jumble before remembering I couldn’t understand him. “When is the last time you ate?” he wrote on the pad.
I shrugged. The afternoon before, surely. He promised to return, exiting the garage the way he had come.
I heard a light rumble from behind me, signalling that Lancaster was awake. He sat up in the car, managing to look roguish despite the gunshot wound and near-drowning. He leaned out the Rolls-Royce window, reaching for the notepad I was holding. His arms were well-muscled and lean, matching his wide chest, with very little hair on either.
“Where are we?”
“My friend Henry’s home in Piccadilly.”
“You let your friend stitch me up?”
“He’s a coroner as well as a professor.”
“Perfect,” he said aloud, throwing up his arms.
“Why are the British Secret Intelligence Service chasing us?”
Lancaster frowned reading that question. “Because I helped you escape that holding cell. Lucky that I knew that location and that we keep parachutes and weapons on that rooftop or we might not have made it. They think you are behind the bombings.”
Rolling my eyes, I wrote, “That much is clear, if entirely without foundation. But why did they nick us at The Trifle? Why not Éamon O’Duffy?”
He didn’t look surprised at my question or my knowledge that he was following O’Duffy, but chose not to answer directly. “Colonel Kell is the most suspicious man you will ever meet,” Lancaster wrote. “He doesn’t trust the Yard, he doesn’t trust the government. He thinks you’re working with whoever is behind all of this. Your friend Annie’s interest in black market weapons she thinks the British government is stockpiling adds to his suspicion.”
I picked up the whisky bottle from where I’d placed it on the car’s dashboard last night, pulling the index cards free.
“If you’re wondering if those are the only copies, yes, I suspect they are,” Lancaster wrote, eyeing the cards. “But Kell has an incredible memory, so he’s not likely to forget you or me.”
“Why did you hit him? He wasn’t really going to shoot me, was he?”
Lancaster shrugged, and then wrote, “Threatening a woman is something I can’t stomach,” as Beans struggled his way under the garage door carrying a tray.
He looked at Lancaster leaning out the window of his Rolls-Royce, shirtless, and me holding a whisky bottle and index cards, and the tray trembled in his hands. I took the tray before my friend could drop the contents — as he was apt to do — putting it down on a workbench and pouring a cup of tea for each of us, hearing the two men’s rumblings but not understanding anything.
Beans tapped me on the shoulder with the notepad, “Secret Intelligence Service?” he had written on the page.
“That’s the only thing I believe that comes out of his mouth,” I wrote back before stuffing biscuits into my mouth ungracefully.
Lancaster leaned out of the car further to see what I had written and I unabashedly held it up for him to read. If he thought I trusted him because of the events of last night, he was sorely mistaken. He grinned in response, receding into the car’s backseat to search for his shirt. His back was a perfect model of masculine beauty but for two old bullet wounds in his shoulder, scars I had to force myself to look away from.
“Michaels has the Yard scouring London for you. We must go there straight away,” Beans wrote, tapping me on the shoulder, pulling my gaze away from the annoying agent. Beans handed me the notepad and then turned to pull a much cleaner shirt of his own out of a cupboard in the garage. He passed it to the agent with a scowl, saying something I could not understand.
“What about Brian?” I wrote. Surely my partner was searching for me.
Beans glanced down at the floor of his garage before writing, “I have not seen him in a few weeks. He’s been rather absent from the Yard since the incident at the train station.”
That niggling feeling that started when Michaels pointed out Brian’s lateness was growing to alarm now.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I wrote.
Instead of answering, Beans shook his head, dismissing my question, or evading it. I had barely had a moment to think of Brian or poor Annie since I was nicked, but the guilt hit me like a blow to the stomach, complete with nausea. I wished I could at least pick up a phone and tell them I was safe, but I had the verbal communication abilities of a toddler at present.
The shirt fit the agent like a glove, his fingers deftly doing the buttons up over the bandage Beans had applied to his gunshot wound.
“We can’t go to the Yard,” Lancaster said, speaking slowly enough for me to understand the words on his lips.
Of course he didn’t want us to go to the police; that would put a stop to this cloak-and-dagger drama spies seemed to love. I ignored him, writing to Beans instead, “I hate to involve you any more than you already are. Can you please ring up the Yard and have a car sent down for us?”
Lancaster stepped between us to take the notepad and write, “If you go to the Yard, you will put your friends in danger.”
A low blow that underlined just how well the Secret Intelligence Service knew me.
“Why should we believe you?” I wrote on a pad of paper. Beans must have asked a similar question because Lancaster addressed us both.
“Kell suspects Scotland Yard’s involvement in the bombing,” Lancaster replied. “It’s why Portia became a prime suspect so easily. Best to lay low. Maybe even get out of London for a while.”
All three of us whirled towards the garage door — I heard that knock! Lancaster leapt for my hand and pulled me behind the Rolls. Beans, wide-eyed and worried, ducked under the garage door, smacking his head on the way out.
Lancaster grasped my face. “We have to go. Now.”
Everything in me rebelled against the idea of leaving, but it seemed true, that I was putting my friends in danger. Under the garage door, I could see three pairs of men’s shoes. The brown ones were new and polished to a shine; the black ones scuffed and too small a size for the man wearing them. An ill-match that spoke of a collaboration between high and low. Lancaster tugged on my hand and I allowed myself to be pulled to the window at the back of the garage. I still intended to get to Scotland Yard, but Beans did not need to be further ensnarled.
I had one leg through the open window when I saw Beans’ face reappear through the small gap under garage door. He was laid out on his belly, being forcefully handcuffed. He turned his face my way to mouth “Go!” and then he was hauled out of my eye line again.
CHAPTER 16
“WE CAN’T STAY HERE much longer,” read the note Lancaster tossed in front of me as he passed my table. Surrounded by piles of books in the very back room of the oldest library in London, I was going back and forth between old newspapers and the single lip-reading manual to be found on the stacks and Lancaster was orbiting the bookshelves like a caged tiger. He was going to reopen his wound if he didn’t stop that.
I held up the note I’d written a half hour ago in answer, “You’re welcome to leave at any time.”
In our escape from Beans’ home, I could not convince Lancaster to s
top at a police box to ring up Scotland Yard, but I did run into one of my Baker Street Irregulars. She goggled at the man I was with and he just grinned down at her, casually putting his arm over my shoulder. I gave her a few coins to pass on this location to Brian.
Thanks to the newspapers, I could confirm that Éamon O’Duffy was well-known to the police, having been brought in for questioning eight times in six years for everything from public nuisance charges to suspicion of terrorist activity. He declared his motives at regular intervals in front of crowds of Londoners: self-rule for Ireland. He had defended brothers-in-arms, marched in protest in front of Scotland Yard, and organized rallies in response to Parliamentary acts. He was all over the British newspapers. But as much as I had postulated that the bomber would stay close to a bomb site to watch the drama unfold, would he actually sit so comfortably above his weapons after they had been placed? I needed more data. I needed Brian to speak to the man. So here I would wait until we could combine our data and figure a way out of this mess. I couldn’t hear Lancaster’s steps on the hardwood floor, but I knocked on the wooden desk where I was seated and once again, had to smile at hearing it so clearly. I was no doctor, but the data seemed to suggest that my ears — my left more than my right — were healing.
Speaking of data, I wrote a note for Lancaster for his next orbital pass.
“Since we’re here till Brian arrives, why don’t you tell me what the Secret Intelligence Service knows about Heddy Collins?”
The spy reluctantly picked up the pencil to write back. “They know nothing because she’s no one. Widow to Major Collins who was killed in Ireland in one of their internal scuffles. She works at Downing Street and seemed to be of interest to you the day we met there.”
He had still been in the crowd when I bumped into Mrs.Collins outside Downing Street. Damnit.