The House Of Smoke
Page 34
‘They are your first assignment,’ answered Mycroft. ‘The first of many, we hope.’
I waved the papers. ‘Then you need to give me more than this. I need the names of people, their descriptions, background information—’
Mycroft cut me off with a raised palm. ‘These things you already know. The addresses are places regularly frequented by Lee Chan, Sirius Gunn and Surrey Breed.’
I found myself unable to breathe.
‘Chan and his Chinese cousins,’ he continued, ‘belong to a secret organisation called The Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists. We refer to them as Boxers, because they are extraordinarily violent and have peculiarly deadly ways of punching. They are rising as rebels from the rubble of a broken China and growing in strength both at home and abroad. We need to root them out, eliminate them from London, before they are impossibly large to tackle. In short, Mr Lynch, we require you to kill Mr Chan, and do it quickly.’
‘Gladly,’ I replied. ‘It is my greatest wish to do so. I would travel to the end of the world to murder the bastard. But why have you not already done it? You have in your employ many very able men, as I witnessed today.’
‘We cannot get near him. But I am certain you could inveigle your way into his company without much effort.’
‘How so?’
‘I’ll leave that to your imagination, but for example, should you contact Gunn, perhaps send a message suggesting that you are alive and in pursuit of him, then you can be assured he will run straight to Chan, quicker than Anthony flew to Cleopatra. In which case, you would be afforded the opportunity to kill them both.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘It is not impossible to imagine that along the way you might also encounter Miss Breed and have the chance to exact your fullest revenge.’
‘My lord, you are no better than the Moriarties.’
‘To the contrary; I am entirely better. After all, I now have London’s best assassin working for me, not them.’ He cracked a broad smile. ‘Now let us see about getting you some food and rest, Mr Lynch. After all, you have work to do. A great deal of work.’
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my wise agent Luigi Bonomi, my inspirational editor Jade Chandler at Little, Brown and her wonderful colleagues, Ed Wood, Celine Kelly, Nico Taylor, Iain Hunt, Sarah Shea and Stephanie Melrose.
I’m also indebted to Sophie Hutton-Squire for her excellent copy-editing of the final draft and Dr. Mary Shannon for her generous assistance with the Victorian research – any factual deviation is entirely down to me!
As always, I’d be in a mess without Scary Jack and his team, and finally, the biggest thank you of all to Donna and Billy who give me the time, space and understanding to pursue the privilege of writing ‘The House of Smoke.’