He waited for the fog to make its decision.
At last it billowed and parted, and from it stepped the same boy who had stopped him the other day. Dirty face. Rags. A hollowed-out, hungry expression. This was a child whose appointment with the grave was surely imminent, and Abberline felt bad for the way he and others like him were used and abused. He felt bad for threatening them with the workhouse when threats and cold and hunger was all they knew.
‘I mean you no harm. You have my word,’ he said. He laid down the bat and ball on the ground between them.
The boy looked down at the cricket gear then back at the policeman. Abberline sensed the expectancy of the figures cloaked by the fog. ‘You’ll be angry we took your body,’ the boy said with the reticence and caution of painful experience.
‘I’m not best pleased you took my body, no, you’re right about that,’ conceded Abberline, ‘But listen, I understand why you did it. And let me tell you this, if I were in your shoes right now, I would have done the exact same thing. I’m not here to judge you. I just want the truth.’
The boy took a step forward, more to acknowledge a growing trust of Abberline than for any other reason. ‘There’s not much more to say, sir. You was right. We was paid to distract you in your duties and trade the corpse for the pony. We wasn’t told why, and nor did we ask. A handful of chink was what we got for delivering the body.’
‘And the gun?’
‘I didn’t see no gun, sir.’
‘It was in the dead man’s pocket.’
‘Then it stayed with him, sir.’
‘And where did you deliver this body?’
The boy hung his head. Instead of answering he raised a hand to indicate where the horse slaughterers would have been, if not for the smog. ‘Some of us saw the man go in there with it, and then not long later come out without it.’
‘And what did he look like, this man?’ asked Abberline, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice, and failing miserably.
Not long later, the constable breathed a deep, grateful sigh of relief as he left the choking fog of Belle Isle behind and made his way back to the relatively clean air of his district. He was light some coins, a cricket bat and ball, but his conscience was thankfully clean, and he had a description of this ‘demon’ whose motives were so much a mystery. It was a description that rang bells. He’d heard talk of a man dressed this way, this very particular – you might even say ‘idiosyncratic’ way – who had been involved in some ructions at the Rookery a week or so ago.
Abberline found his pace increasing as it all came back to him. There was a bobby in another district he could speak to, who might know something about this strange figure who should be easy to spot – a strange figure who wore robes and a cowl over his head.
18
Ethan never told The Ghost anything of his home life. The Ghost knew names of course – Cecily, Jacob, Evie – but nothing distinct, apart from the fact that the twins were close to him in age. ‘One day I hope to introduce you,’ Ethan had said, with a strange, unreadable expression. ‘But that won’t be until I’m certain they’re ready to join the fight.’
That was as much as The Ghost knew. On the other hand, he didn’t pry, and besides he hadn’t told Ethan anything of his own life away from the excavation. Ethan knew nothing of Maggie or the denizens of the tunnel, and The Ghost hadn’t told his handler that he often lay awake shivering with the cold, his eyes damp with memories of Mother and Father and jasmine-scented Amritsar. Or that the dying face of Dani continued to haunt his nightmares. Lips drawn back. Bloodied teeth. A mouth full of steel and crimson.
He just continued to exist, working shifts at the dig, burying his spade in its special hiding place before going home to the tunnel and looking after the people there.
And then, four nights ago – four nights before the body had been discovered at the dig, this was – The Ghost had been making his way home, when as usual he’d glanced into the churchyard – but this time saw the gravestone leaning to the left.
Instead of going back to the tunnel he turned and went in the opposite direction, heading for Paddington. It would be a long walk but he was used to it. It was all part of the daily penance he paid for his …
Cowardice, he sometimes thought, in those moments of great darkness before the dawn freezing in the tunnel.
But he hadn’t been a coward the night he had saved Maggie, had he? He had fought for what was right.
So maybe not cowardice. At least not that. Failure to act instead. Hesitancy or unwillingness – whatever it was that had stayed his hand the night of his blooding, and heaped such great shame on himself and his family name.
By rights he should have paid with his life, and would have done – were it not for the intervention of Ethan Frye. Sometimes The Ghost wondered if his ultimate act of cowardice was in accepting the older Assassin’s offer.
The sounds of the street – a cacophony of hooves, traders and a busker’s sawing fiddle – all fell away as he walked, lost in thought, his mind going back to The Darkness. When the door had opened that morning it was to admit his executioner. Or so he had thought. Instead, Ethan Frye had reappeared, grinning broadly from ear to ear.
Ethan had checked himself at the sight of Jayadeep, whose expectation of death was written all over his face, and he took a seat on the straw, just as he had the previous day. Here, Ethan had explained to Jayadeep that he was required in London for an important mission; that Arbaaz had given his blessing for it.
It would involve him going undercover. ‘Deep cover’ was how Ethan had put it. And before Jayadeep went thinking this was some kind of pity mission, that Ethan was doing anything he could just to save the youngster from the Assassin’s blade, he could think again. Ethan wanted Jayadeep because Jayadeep had been his star pupil.
‘You’ll remember I advised against sending you on Assassin assignment?’ Ethan had said, and Jayadeep had nodded his head sadly. ‘Well, that’s because I saw in you a humanity that I think can be helpful to the Brotherhood. The job I have in mind is by no means pleasant. You will become a different person, Jayadeep, all vestiges of your former self buried within the folds of a new disguise. You will no longer be Jayadeep Mir, do you understand?’
Jayadeep had nodded, and then Ethan had left. Only this time the door remained open.
It took Jayadeep some moment of contemplation before he too rose to his feet and left – stepping out of The Darkness at last.
‘The mission begins now,’ Ethan Frye told him the next day at dusk. The warmth Jayadeep was used to seeing in his tutor’s eyes was absent. Ethan’s relief at having freed Jayadeep was short-lived. Now was time to attend to the next order of business, the next phase of the operation.
They stood alone on a harbour wall. The hulls of boats clunked together in the gentle swell, while gulls swooped and called and preened. ‘I’m about to leave you,’ said Ethan, looking the boy up and down, noting the pauper’s clothes he wore, just as directed. ‘You need to make your own way to London. Find somewhere to live, somewhere befitting a man of very limited means indeed. Here …’ He handed Jayadeep a small pouch of coins. ‘This is for your subsistence. It won’t go very far so spend it wisely. And remember that from this moment forth you are no longer Jayadeep Mir, son of Arbaaz and Pyara Kaur of Amritsar, accustomed to comfort and wealth and the attendant respect of others. When you arrive in London you arrive as the scum of the earth, a brown-skinned outsider without a penny to your name, which, incidentally, will be Bharat Singh. However, your code name – the name that I will know you by – is The Ghost.’
‘When you have lodgings I need you to find work,’ continued Ethan, ‘but at a very specific place, the significance of which will become clear in some months’ time. I need you to find work at the Metropolitan railway dig in the north-west of the city.’
Jayadeep had shaken his head in confusion. Already there was so much to take in. A new life? A new job? All of it in a strange foreign land, without the benefit of his family name, without his father’s tutelage and Ethan’s guidance. It seemed impossible what was being asked of him. And now this. A railway?
‘Don’t worry about that just at the moment,’ said Ethan, reading his thoughts. ‘All will become clear when you’re in London.’ He ticked things off his fingers. ‘First find lodgings of some kind. Lodgings suited to a man on the very lowest rung of the social ladder; then become acquainted with your surroundings, then secure employment at the Metropolitan railway dig. Is that clear?’
The young man could only nod his head and hope these mysteries would somehow solve themselves in due course.
‘Good. You have three months from today to do it. In the meantime I need you to study this …’
A folder, leather-bound and tied with a thong, was duly produced from within the older Assassin’s robes.
Jayadeep took it, turning it over, wondering what lay within.
‘I suggest you read the papers during your passage and then toss the lot in the ocean. Just make sure you have committed its contents to memory. We shall meet on this day three months’ hence, in the gardens of the Foundling Hospital off Gray’s Inn Road at midnight. Now, and this is the most important aspect of what I’m telling you, under no circumstances are you to demonstrate that you have any abilities beyond those expected of a dirt-poor seventeen-year-old Indian boy. Walk small, not tall. You’re not an Assassin and you are not to behave like one. If you find yourself under threat, then be cowed. If you appear to be a more competent and able worker than your fellow men, then try less hard. The important thing for you now is to blend in in every single way. You understand?’
The Ghost nodded, and water lapped at the harbour wall as the sun poked its way into a new day.
19
Lost in the memory of his final morning in India, The Ghost had almost walked past the house that acted as his meeting place with his handler.
Number 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens, Paddington, looked just like any other house on the street, but what only a handful of people knew – the neighbours, the builders, and, more pertinently, The Ghost and Ethan Frye – was that the two houses were, in fact, false fronts built to hide a hole in the ground.
It had been Charles Pearson’s idea. Constructing his railway he had come across an immediate problem, which was finding an engine suitable for use underground. An ordinary steam engine with its usual emission would have suffocated passengers and crew straightaway. Since it is unacceptable for railway operators to kill their passengers, Pearson cast about for a solution. First he had the idea of dragging carriages through the tunnels using cables, and then, when that proved impractical, came up with a plan to use atmospheric pressure. That proved impractical too – though it was of course great fodder for the city’s many satirists.
It was John Fowler who came to Pearson’s rescue, in this as in so many aspects of the line. He had overseen the construction of an engine where smoke and steam would be diverted into a tank behind the engine. The only trouble was that the smoke and steam would need to be released at some point, and that was why number 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens, W2, were set aside, so that the engines from below could, quite literally, ‘let off steam’.
The opening of the Metropolitan line was still over a year away, and it was here that The Ghost and Ethan Frye would meet.
‘How are you?’ said Ethan that night. He had been sitting on the edge of the void, staring down to where timbers criss-crossed just below his dangling boots.
The Ghost nodded but said nothing, a closed book. He took a seat next to Ethan. His bare feet dangling next to the boots of his mentor, a great darkness below them.
‘You will be pleased to know we are moving to the next phase of the operation,’ said Ethan. ‘Matters are going to come to a head. You will find yourself under scrutiny. I have no doubt whatsoever that you will be followed and your credentials checked by our Templar friends. Are you confident your cover remains absolutely secure?’
The Ghost pondered whether this was the time to tell Ethan about Maggie and his unofficial guardian role at the tunnel. It was a conversation he’d carried out in his head many times, imaginary explanations where he’d tell Ethan that one thing had led to another and that he hadn’t intended to set himself apart, just that he had been unable to stand by and allow injustice to prevail. And surely Ethan would … Well, even if he didn’t approve, then he would certainly understand, wouldn’t he? And after all, it wasn’t as though The Ghost were a recognizable public hero, front-page news in the Illustrated London News.
But no. He kept his mouth shut. He said nothing and walked willingly into the next phase of the plan.
‘Which is what?’ he asked.
Mischief lit his master’s eyes. It was a look that The Ghost had come to love when he was a child in the security of Amritsar. Now, staring down into the void with only uncertainty ahead of him, he wasn’t so sure.
‘You will need to write a letter to our friend Mr Cavanagh. You can use your knowledge of Cavanagh to establish your credentials. I’ll leave the details up to you. The important thing is that you tell Mr Cavanagh that he has a traitor in his ranks and that you hope to curry favour with him by unveiling this traitor.’
The Ghost nodded, his gaze fixed on the darkness below. ‘I see,’ he said when Ethan had finished. ‘And what then?’
‘Wait for a body to be discovered at the dig.’
‘When?’
‘Difficult to say. In the next few days, I’d imagine, depending on the rainfall.’
‘I see. And am I allowed to know whose body will be discovered?’
‘You remember our Templar friend, Mr Robert Waugh?’
The Ghost did indeed remember him. ‘The pornographer?’
‘The very same. Only Mr Waugh hasn’t been altogether straight with his associates. He’s been using his erotic prints to make a little extra money, a sideline I uncovered last night.’
‘When you killed him?’
‘Oh no, I didn’t kill him.’ Ethan slapped The Ghost heartily on the shoulder. ‘You did.’
20
As he returned from his meeting with Ethan, The Ghost reflected on the first time he became aware of the man he now saw every day at the dig. The man known primarily as Cavanagh. It was on the passage from Amritsar to England, when he had done as he was told and opened the folder given to him by Ethan on the harbour wall.
Inside was an introductory note from Ethan explaining that the contents were dispatches copied and decoded from a Templar haul. The papers had been replaced; as far as the Assassins knew the Templars had no idea they were in possession of the information.
The dispatches had been compiled from first-hand accounts assembled by Templar documentarians, and they began innocuously enough with a factual account of the English retreat from Kabul in 1842.
The Ghost knew all about the march from Kabul of course. Everybody did. It was one of the most disastrous events of English military history, and the turning point of the godforsaken war in Afghanistan. Sixteen thousand soldiers, families and camp followers had embarked on a nine
ty-mile retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad in January 1842. Only a handful made it.
Not only did they have food for just five days, but their leader, Major-General William Elphinstone – otherwise known as Elphy Bey – had a head as soft as his body was frail. Not only was he idiotic but he was gullible, and he believed every lie that the Afghan leader, Akbar Khan, told him.
And Akbar Khan told Elphey Bey a lot of lies. In return for the British army handing over the majority of their muskets, Khan guaranteed safe passage, as well as offering an escort through the passes. He also gave assurances that the sick and wounded left in Kabul would be unharmed.
It took Khan roughly an hour to go back on his word. The march had only just left the cantonment when his men moved in to loot, burn tents and put the wounded to the sword. Meanwhile, the rearguard was attacked. Porters, camp followers and Indian soldiers were butchered, and with little or no resistance from the column the Afghans began mounting increasingly brazen sorties, swiftly devastating the baggage train. Barely out of Kabul and the march left behind a trail of trunks and corpses.
Very few tents were taken on the march, and they were for women, children and officers. That night most lay down to sleep in the snow and by next morning the ground was littered with the corpses of those who had frozen to death in the night. Frostbitten and starving, the march pressed on, hoping to beat the worst of the weather and withstand the constant Afghan attack.
For reasons known only to himself, Elphy Bey ordered a rest at just two o’clock in the afternoon, when what he should have done was heed the advice of his officers and press on through the dangerous Khord-Kabul Pass. Perhaps the old boy had simply lost his mind completely, for his decision meant handing the pass to the Afghans whose snipers took up position on the ledges, while their cavalry readied themselves for more sport.
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