Assassin’s Creed®

by Oliver Bowden

  And now the three men considered the house across the road. The shutters were closed, just a dim light burning somewhere within. Otherwise there was no sign of life, except …

  The Ghost saw it: a slight disruption of ceiling-shadow glimpsed through the window of the front door. With a hand held out – wait there – to the other two, he darted quickly across the road, having to satisfy himself with merely imagining the outraged looks on the men’s faces at being given an order by this new recruit. A boy. An Indian boy, no less. An outsider.

  Stealthily mounting the front steps, he crouched to listen at the front door. From inside he heard voices retreating up an interior passage. He tried the door handle but found it locked and then scuttled back to the Clarence. ‘There’s somebody in there with her,’ he told Marchant and Hardy. ‘Sounds like the peelers.’

  ‘Been a long time since I bagged myself a bluebottle,’ Hardy said through a wicked smile. Gold glinted malevolently in the dark.

  ‘I would guess that whoever’s there is in one of the back rooms,’ said The Ghost. ‘In the kitchen, perhaps. I say we assess how many before we go rushing in.’

  ‘Assess, now, is it?’ sneered Hardy. ‘How about we do it another way? How about we knock on the door and take them by surprise.’ His brass knuckles shone as he performed a quick boxer’s one-two, just in case they were in any doubt of exactly what he meant by taking them by surprise.

  ‘We may be outnumbered,’ warned The Ghost, turning his attention to Marchant. ‘There are only three of us, after all.’

  At last the clerk was spurred into a decision. ‘Right. Hardy, put those bloody things away before anybody sees them. This is a respectable square. You, Indian, go to the back. Myself and Mr Hardy here will await your signal that it is safe to proceed. Assuming it is, me and Hardy enter by the front, and you can make sure nobody tries to leave from the back. Is that a plan?’ The others agreed. The Ghost demonstrated his owl call, and then made off, finding an alleyway that ran through the terrace and darting along it until he came to a door to the grounds of the Waughs’ home. The door would be bolted but The Ghost didn’t even bother trying it. Instead, with a quick look left and right, he leapt, grabbed an overhang on the wall and nimbly pulled himself to the top.

  He crouched there for a moment or so, a dark silhouette against the gunmetal night, enjoying a brief moment of pride in a life that was otherwise shorn of it. He wished he was wearing his robes and could feel the weight of his hidden blade along his forearm but, for the time being, just crouching here would do.

  Moment over, he dropped silently to the other side, where he waited in the shrubs and shadows for his vision to adapt to the new, less malevolent darkness. Stretching away from him was a garden – well maintained, evidently there was money to be made in selling these ‘erotic prints’ – while looming to his left was the rear of the house. He made his way there now, guessing from the glow of interior lamps which was the kitchen window, and there he squatted, allowing the night to claim him.

  And then – very, very carefully – he peered inside.

  Standing in the kitchen with their hats in their hands were two peelers. One was a red-faced plump fellow he didn’t recognize, and the other was Abberline, the constable who’d come to the dig. The Ghost remembered that he’d paid close attention to Waugh’s chest wound. It sounded like a contradiction in terms, but such a clean kill had been careless of Ethan. Abberline’s suspicions had been raised.

  Which was probably the reason he was standing in the Waughs’ kitchen right now.

  He and his mate were talking to a flustered-looking old maid complete with bonnet and apron, who held a rolling pin like she might be tempted to use it in anger. This was Mrs Waugh, no doubt. The Ghost couldn’t see her mouth to lip-read, but she spoke so loudly he could hear her through the glass anyway.

  ‘I always said he was getting in too deep there. I always knew he was playing with fire.’

  Something caught his eye. There in the kitchen doorway, hidden in the shadows, was a figure The Ghost recognized as Hardy. The Ghost had no idea how he’d got into the house, but the reason why was clear from the wicked glint of the knife he held.

  The two constables had their backs to Hardy; they wouldn’t stand a chance. The woman was too busy gesticulating with the rolling pin to see him.

  None of them stood a chance.

  The Ghost had a second to decide: save the peelers and endanger his mission. Or let them die for the greater good.

  28

  They rubbed along without too much strife, but even so Abberline and Aubrey weren’t exactly crazy about one another. For a start, Abberline thought rather poorly of Aubrey’s qualities as a police constable, while for his part Aubrey reckoned Abberline might learn a thing or two about basic human compassion.

  Aubrey had returned to the point earlier, as the two of them made their way to the address of Mr and Mrs Waugh on Bedford Square.

  ‘The job’s about people too, you know, Freddie,’ he told his companion as they threaded through the hustle and bustle of Tottenham Court Road. ‘Serving truth and justice is all very well. But what about serving the people?’

  ‘That’s what the rules is there for, Aubrey,’ Abberline reminded him. ‘Rules is for the good of everybody.’

  They skirted rival pure-finders who were about to brawl over a particularly sizeable pile of dog shit but stopped when they saw the peelers approaching and made a showy pretence of looking like old pals. Aubrey frowned at them as they passed.

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ Aubrey said, when they were past and it was safe to exhale. ‘Just as long as you don’t start putting the rules first and the good of everybody second, is what I’m saying. Besides which, it’s not always so cut and dried, is it? After all, if our theory’s right, then your man with the gun shot down a little girl in cold blood. Where’s the justice in apprehending the man who killed her killer?’

  ‘Well, let’s get to the truth of the matter first, shall we? And then we’ll question the justice of it all.’

  They had reached their destination, a deceptively handsome flat-fronted Georgian house in an appealing square of other deceptively handsome flat-fronted houses. It was just close enough to Tottenham Court Road for the square’s no doubt smartly attired residents to reach their offices each day, but far enough away so that the noise of the thoroughfare was a distant hubbub rather than the never-ending clamour that might send a person mad if they had to live on top of it.

  The two bobbies stood with their thumbs in their belts regarding the house in question. Shutters at the bay window were closed. A light at the window above the front door was the only sign of life. As they trod the steps to knock, Abberline wondered if Mrs Waugh was inside now, weeping as she pined for her husband …

  ‘Where is he, that bastard?’

  Abberline had been correct in one regard. Mrs Waugh was indeed inside the house. When she opened the door it was clear from her flour-covered face that she was mid-baking. But as for weeping and pining?

  ‘Come on,’ she demanded of the two peelers on her doorstep. She had the appearance of a well-fed butcher’s wife, complete with ruddy complexion and a white apron bearing stains of unknown provenance. ‘Where the bloody hell is he?’

  ‘We don’t know …’ started Abberline, sent off-guard by her ferocity.

  It wasn’t the best way to begin, and sure enough Mrs Waugh – at least, they assumed it was Mrs Waugh, unless Mr Waugh had an exceptionally bad-tempered and insolent housekeeper – was sent into a spin.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know where he
is? Why are you coming here then? You should be out there, looking for him.’ She threw up her hands in frustration and dismay, turned away from the door and stomped off up the hall, muttering to herself as she went, leaving flour footprints on the terracotta tiles.

  Abberline and Aubrey looked at one another, Abberline giving Aubrey a look up and down. ‘Just your type,’ he smiled.

  ‘Oh, give over,’ said Aubrey. ‘Are we going in or what?’

  They closed the door behind them, throwing the bolt before following the sound of feminine distress to the kitchen. There they found her already using a rolling pin to take out her frustration on a vast mound of dough, pounding at it furiously and almost obscured by clouds of flour.

  Hanging nearby was a photograph of Mrs Waugh with the man whose body Abberline had lost. They were in the right place. Abberline nudged Aubrey in the ribs and gave him a nod.

  ‘Madam,’ he began, trying again with what he hoped was a little more composure. ‘A man matching your husband’s description was seen in the vicinity of the Rookery at the scene of a –’

  ‘Well, he was on his way to the Rookery the night he went missing, so that’s about right,’ she said, continuing to work at the dough with the rolling pin.

  This was the new middle class, mused Abberline. They ate just as well as the high-borns but did it all themselves. Then something occurred to him.

  ‘What trade was your husband in?’ he asked.

  ‘He was a photographer,’ she replied in a tone of voice that left them in no doubt what she thought of that particular profession.

  ‘A photographer, eh?’ said Abberline. ‘And what business does a photographer have in the Rookery then?’

  Still pounding, she fixed Abberline with a contemptuous look. ‘Are you having me on? How am I supposed to bleeding know what business he has in the Rookery at any sort of hour? He don’t tell me what he’s doing, and to be quite frank with you, I don’t bother asking.’

  There was something about her protestations that were a little too theatrical for Abberline’s liking, but he put that to one side for a second. ‘Aren’t you worried about your husband, Mrs Waugh?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not especially. How would you feel if your wife went and made herself scarce? You’d probably throw a party, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘Well, come back to me when you are and we’ll have this talk again.’

  ‘All right then. If you’re not worried about him, then how come you reported him missing?’

  Indignation made Mrs Waugh’s voice rise, and she was already fairly indignant. ‘Because who’s going to pay for all this if he’s bleedin’ missing?’

  ‘My point being, Mrs Waugh, that the Rookery is a dangerous place at the best of times and perhaps not somewhere that a respectable photographer like your husband might want to visit.’

  ‘Well,’ she snapped back, ‘perhaps that’s why he took his barker.’

  Abberline and Aubrey shared a look, barely able to believe their ears.

  ‘He took his gun, did he?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Yes, except, Mrs Waugh, the man matching your husband’s description who was seen in the vicinity of the Rookery may or may not have been involved in a shooting.’

  Now at last she set down the rolling pin. ‘I see,’ she said gravely.

  ‘It would be a great help to us if you could tell us what your husband might have been doing in the Rookery. What was the purpose of his visit? Was he there to meet somebody for example? Apart from his barker did he take anything with him? Did he tell you what time to expect him back?’

  She ignored all the questions. Pinning Abberline with her gaze, she said, ‘This shooting that occurred. Was anybody hurt?’

  ‘There were two confirmed fatalities, Mrs Waugh. A little girl –’ he watched as the woman winced, closing her eyes, absorbing the pain – ‘and a street thug who went by the name of Boot.’

  She opened her eyes again. ‘Boot? Robert was on his way to meet Boot. As far as I know, Boot was a business associate.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you just said he never told you about his business and you never asked?’

  ‘Well, I picked up the odd thing, didn’t I? Any road up, he was on his way there for some kind of deal …’

  ‘A deal?’

  Her eyes darted. She had already said too much. ‘Yes, well, he’s a photographer. He …’

  ‘… takes pictures,’ said Abberline. ‘Yes, that’s what photographers do. Photographers take pictures of men and their wives and the children of men and their wives. Big crinolines, buffed-up boots, buttoned-up jackets and uncomfortably starched collars, grim and forbidding looks into the camera, all that kind of thing. That’s what photographers do. They don’t do deals in slums with street thugs after dark.’

  ‘Wait a second, you haven’t said yet – if there were two confirmed deaths, does that mean Robert’s still alive?’

  Again, Abberline and Aubrey shared a look. ‘I’m afraid our most likely theory at the moment is that your husband may have been killed by a second assailant. In fact, I was wondering if you have a photograph of him, so I can confirm if his body was found at the Metropolitan line dig in the north.’

  Him asking was a formality so he could break the news, but it was at the mention of the Metropolitan line that a dark look passed across her face. ‘Oh, lummy,’ she said, shaking her head with the terrible inevitability of it all. ‘I always said he was getting in too deep there. I always knew he was playing with fire.’

  Trying to contain his excitement, and as far as Police Constable Aubrey Shaw was concerned not succeeding in the slightest, Abberline leapt on her words. ‘What do you mean “too deep”. Tell me exactly what you know, Mrs Waugh …’

  The Waughs’ kitchen window was tall and as black as night, like a stained-glass window without the stained glass. As Mrs Waugh looked at him, about to speak, something there caught Abberline’s eye.

  And a second later the window exploded.

  29

  There was a split second of indecision before The Ghost decided he couldn’t have the blood of two innocent peelers on his hands, and he made his move.

  In the end he gambled on two things: his own marksmanship, and Mrs Waugh making enough noise to wake the dead.

  He was not disappointed in either respect.

  Two objectives: to save the peelers and to prevent them from seeing either him, Marchant or Hardy. He cast around for a stone, found a large pebble fringing a flower bed nearby and slipped it into his palm, and then, as he saw Hardy tense and the silver blade rise in the doorway, he made his move.

  The Ghost wore only rags, nothing to protect him from the glass, so when he hit the window at full force he felt what seemed like a thousand knife cuts as he crashed through glass and splintered wood and to a crockery table on the other side.

  A single lamp hung from the ceiling, the only light source in the room, and The Ghost let fly with his pebble at the same time as he crashed through the window and his aim was true and the light blinked out and night fell like swift death in the room at exactly the same time as a shout went up and Mrs Waugh started screaming.

  Dislodged crockery fell and smashed and added to the din but The Ghost was already on the move, and he propelled himself to a draining board, going round Mrs Waugh to the peelers by traversing the room without touching the floor, like the games children play – like a game he himself had played at home in Amritsar. Another jump from the draining board took him to the peelers, neither of wh
om saw or heard him or had time to react, as he landed on the tiles just in front of them, and delivered two quick throat-punches, felling first Abberline, and then his companion, all done in a matter of half a second, and all done to the accompaniment of screams from Mrs Waugh.

  It was over in a trice. Nobody but The Ghost knew what was happening and that suited the young man fine. Confusion was his friend.

  ‘Grab her,’ he commanded. Hardy and Marchant had come barging into the room and The Ghost saw the fury of denial on Hardy’s face. ‘Grab her before she brings other rozzers running.’

  Then Marchant was barking orders like he was a man in charge and not a man who was hopelessly confused about a situation that had spun irretrievably out of his control. ‘You heard him. Grab her! Blooming well shut her up!’ And perhaps grateful for the chance to carry out a little violence, Hardy strode across the room to where Mrs Waugh stood screaming, and The Ghost saw the flash of brass knuckles and he turned his head away as Mrs Waugh’s screams abruptly stopped.

  It took all three of them to carry her out of the house and bundle her in the Clarence. The Ghost made sure he was the last to leave, and closed the front door behind him.

  In the house an icy wind blew through the smashed window of the kitchen. On the floor the two peelers lay out cold.

  30

  It was a day of recrimination.

  The name Bharat Singh came bouncing down the shaft and into the tunnel, and The Ghost once again scaled the ladders and made his way across the planks to the office. There sat Cavanagh, just as he had the day before, and there stood Marchant, Hardy, Smith and Other Hardy, just as they had the day before.

  Only things were different now. Where yesterday Hardy had looked at The Ghost with curiosity at best, now he gazed at him with unmasked hatred; Marchant too regarded him with new interest.

  ‘I have some important news for you, young Bharat,’ said Cavanagh with hooded eyes. ‘You are to be promoted. No more working in the tunnel. No more labouring in the trench. From now on you will work under Marchant here, putting your reading and writing skills to good use. Congratulations, you have achieved everything your father would have wanted.’