It was a fictional father’s admiration that Cavanagh mocked, but that didn’t stop The Ghost feeling a twinge of something approaching pure hatred for him.
‘You may ask why,’ continued Cavanagh. ‘Why have you been promoted? It appears from talking to Mrs Waugh that everything you told us was correct. And as I’m sure you are already aware, Mr Smith here recovered a photographic plate from your hole at the Thames Tunnel. Therefore, your first task is to carry out the sentence of death on the treacherous Mr Waugh. Only, of course, that sentence has already been carried out, and you have proved yourself in my eyes.’
The Ghost nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. What of my victim’s widow?’
‘She’s been taken care of.’
The Ghost kept his face blank but chalked up one more innocent.
Meanwhile, from behind him, Hardy cleared his throat.
Cavanagh acknowledged him, turning his attention to The Ghost. ‘Mr Hardy here feels aggrieved about your actions last night. Neither seem quite sure what happened.’ At this he looked hard at Marchant and then at Hardy. ‘But both are agreed that you acted impulsively and put them at risk.’
The Ghost opened his mouth, about to defend himself.
‘But …’ Cavanagh held out a hand to stop him. ‘I happen to disagree with Mr Marchant and Mr Hardy. We had a body discovered at the dig, which raises questions. The last thing we need is two dead constables as well. There are only a certain amount of questions we can withstand. You, Mr Hardy, should know better.’
‘That’s as may be,’ growled Hardy, ‘but the lad went rogue. It was agreed that Mr Marchant and me would take the kitchen and he would stop anybody leaving from the rear. He smashed through a bloody window, guv. It wasn’t exactly stealthy, know what I mean?’
Cavanagh gave a thin smile. ‘Something tells me our newest employee knew exactly what he was doing.’
31
Abberline and Aubrey had pulled themselves from the floor of the Waughs’ kitchen, made their way back to the station with pounding heads and their tails tucked firmly between their legs, and then bedded down for the night.
Bedraggled, pained and still exhausted, they found themselves at the front desk not long after dawn, when the alarm was raised. A woman had rushed in screaming about a suicide.
‘Where?’
‘House on Bedford Square …’
And they’d looked at one another, a mirror image of slack-jawed shock, and then both bolted for the door.
Less than half an hour later they were back in the very same kitchen they’d left in the early hours. On their departure it had been dark, with wind gusting through the smashed window, the terracotta tiles crunchy with broken glass, and a dropped rolling pin on the floor.
Now, though, it was light, and everything was just as it had been the previous night with the exception of one thing: Mrs Waugh had returned. She was hanging from the ceiling lamp, a noose fashioned from linen tight round her neck, head lolling, tongue protruding from blue lips and a puddle of urine on the tiles beneath her dangling boots.
Nobody likes to see a dead body before their elevenses, thought Abberline, and he turned on his heel and marched out.
‘They piss themselves, you know!’
Cavanagh, Marchant, the punishers and The Ghost were still in the office when Abberline and Aubrey announced their presence with a loud, not-to-be-denied, we-are-the-peelers knock, clomped inside and started talking about people pissing themselves.
Aubrey was as red-faced as ever, but anger had given Abberline an expression to match, and he glowered from man to man, his eyes alighting finally on The Ghost. ‘You,’ he snapped, ‘where did you get those cuts?’
‘Mr Singh is a labourer, constable,’ broke in Cavanagh, before The Ghost could answer, ‘and I’m afraid his English isn’t very good, but he suffered an accident in the trench last night.’
Cavanagh made no effort to be charming or ingratiating with Abberline. He simply stated facts. At the same time he indicated to Other Hardy, who turned to leave.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Abberline barked, wheeling on Other Hardy.
‘He’s going where I say he goes, or where he likes, or maybe even to your own station, should he so desire to speak to a sergeant there … Unless of course you plan to place him under arrest, in which case I’m sure we’re all interested to hear on what charge, and what compelling evidence you have to support it?’
Abberline spluttered, lost for words. He hadn’t been sure how this would go, but one thing was for sure, he didn’t picture it going like this.
‘Now, you were saying … about people pissing themselves?’ said Cavanagh drily. ‘Which people would this be, exactly?’
‘Those who find themselves at the end of a noose,’ spat Abberline.
‘Suicides?’
‘Not just toppers, no, but murders too. Anywhere you find a poor soul at the end of a noose you find some effluent not far away. The bowels open, you see.’ He paused for effect. ‘Lucky for Mrs Waugh that she didn’t need number twos.’
His gaze went around the room: unreadable Cavanagh, sly Marchant, the three punishers seemingly having the time of their lives, and … the Indian.
Abberline’s gaze lingered on the Indian the longest, and he could swear he saw something there, a flicker of emotion, and not an emotion out of the gutter, either, but a proper one. The kind that Aubrey was always saying he himself could do with learning.
Abberline removed his eyes slowly from the Indian, taking them instead to the big guy, the punisher with the gold tooth.
‘You,’ he said. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You was at the house.’
The man, ‘Hardy’ if Abberline remembered correctly, displayed his golden dentistry as well as some other splendid specimens. ‘No, I was here all night, Mr Blue Bottle, as Mr Cavanagh will confirm.’
‘You just blooming watch yer sauce-box, you …’ said Abberline, pointing at Hardy.
‘Yes, Mr Hardy,’ sighed Cavanagh, ‘perhaps it might be wise not to excite our visitor here any more than he is already excited. And as for you, constable, may I reiterate that Mr Singh, Mr Hardy, Marchant, Smith and Other Hardy were all with me last night and, ah … Abberline, it appears you have a visitor.’
‘Abberline,’ the constable heard from behind him, and cringed at the distinctive sound of his sergeant’s voice. ‘Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?’
32
Furious, Abberline stepped out into the noise of the tunnel works, with Aubrey at his heels, struggling to keep up.
‘Hold up, hold up, where are you bleedin’ going?’ yelled his red-faced companion over the never-ending din of machinery.
‘Back to Bedford Square is where I’m bleeding going!’ Abberline roared back over his shoulder. He reached the wooden gate at the perimeter of the site, yanked it open and brushed past a sleepy navvy whose job it was to keep the riff-raff out. ‘This lot are into it right up to their eyeballs. The stink of it, I’m telling you.’
Outside in the street they weaved their way through the human detritus that was either attracted by the commercial possibilities of the dig – traders, hawkers, prostitutes, pickpockets – or genuinely had business in that part of town, and began the short hike back to the home of the unfortunate Mr and Mrs Waugh.
‘What do you think it is they’re up to their necks in?’ Aubrey held on to his hat as he tried to keep up with Abberline.
‘I don’t know that, do I? If I knew that then life would be a lot bloody simpler, wouldn’t it?’ He st
opped, turned and raised a finger like an admonishing schoolmaster. ‘But I tell you this, Aubrey Shaw. They’re up to something.’ He shook the self-same finger in the direction of the fenced-off rail works. ‘And whatever it is they’re up to, it’s no good. You hear me?’ He returned to his marching. ‘I mean, did you see them all, stood there, guilty as you like? And that young fella, the Indian bloke. Blood all over him. Accident in the tunnel, my fat arse. He got all cut up when he came through Mrs Waugh’s window.’
‘You think that was him?’
‘Of course I think it was him!’ exploded Abberline. ‘I know it was him. I know it was him. They know it was him. Even you know it was him. Proving it is the bloody problem, but it was him all right. He came through the window, knocked out the light and then knocked us out.’
Aubrey had drawn level, speaking through gulps as he tried to catch his breath. ‘Do you realize what you’ve just said, Freddie? I mean, isn’t that where this theory of yours falls down? Because there ain’t no way he could have done all that. He’d have to be some kind of acrobat or something.’
By now they were back at Bedford Square, like they’d never left, and Abberline strode inside while Aubrey stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, almost doubled over as he tried to catch his breath.
From the kitchen came the sounds of Abberline muttering and then an exclamation.
‘What is it?’ said Aubrey, holding his side as he joined the other peeler in the kitchen.
Abberline stood at the far end of the room beneath the comprehensively broken window. Triumphantly he indicated the disturbed crockery table.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘what do you see here?’
Whatever it was he was pointing out looked very much to Aubrey like a smudge of blood, and he said so.
‘Right, a bloodstain left by whoever it was who dived through the window, right? You’d expect that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Blood from that Indian geezer we’ve just seen standing in Cavanagh’s office like butter wouldn’t melt, I would wager,’ said Abberline.
‘That’s an assumption, Freddie. Haven’t we always been taught to look for evidence, never assume, look for evidence.’
‘How about if you formulate theories then find the evidence to back it up?’ asked Abberline with a glint in his eye.
You had to give it to him, thought Aubrey. When he was on a roll … ‘Go on …’ he said.
‘See the Indian geezer? He had bare feet, didn’t he?’
‘I know. Bloody hell, must save a few bob on boot leather …’
‘Bear that fact in mind, and now take another look at your smudge of blood.’
Aubrey did as he was told and Abberline watched as the light slowly dawned on his companion’s face.
‘Christ almighty, you’re right; it’s a footprint.’
‘That’s right. That’s bloody right, Aubrey. A footprint. Now look, you and I was standing over here.’ He pulled the other man over to where they were the previous evening, when they’d been remonstrating with the permanently indignant Mrs Waugh. ‘Now, you have to imagine the window is intact. That makes it like a mirror, right? Like a black mirror. Well, I’m telling you, about half a second before that black mirror smashed and seven years of bad luck came in at us all at once, I saw a movement in it.’
‘You saw the assailant before he came smashing through?’
‘Except now we think the Indian geezer was the assailant, don’t we? But it wasn’t the Indian geezer I saw. Who I saw was much bigger than that. So now I’m wondering … now I’m wondering if what I saw was a reflection.’ He pressed a hand to his forehead as though to try to massage a solution out of his brain. ‘All right, what about this, Aubrey? What if one or maybe even two of those security geezers from the rail works were standing behind us? What would you say to that?’
‘I’d say we bolted the door, so how did they get in?’
‘Here.’ Abberline dragged Aubrey out of the kitchen and towards the coal-cellar entrance. It was ajar. Nothing suspicious about that. But inside the cellar the coal had a distinct man-sized groove running through its middle, from the stone floor of the coal hole, right up to the hatch at street level.
‘Gotcha!’ exclaimed Abberline, ‘Now …’ He returned Aubrey to the kitchen where they resumed their positions. ‘We’re standing here, right? Now, say if we’re right and I saw the reflection of a bludger stood right behind us, just waiting to cold-cock us. I saw how close he was. And we had our backs to him, don’t forget. What I’m saying is that he had us, Aubrey. He had us, Aubrey, like a pair of sitting ducks, fattened up and ready for the slaughter. Could have knocked our block off with a truncheon. Could have slit our throats with a knife … And yet, for some reason, even though his mate was in position, the Indian fellow comes crashing through the window.’
Abberline looked at Aubrey.
‘Now why would that be, Aubrey? What the bloody hell was he doing coming in through the window?’
Part Two
* * *
Lost City
33
Fifteen-year-old Evie Frye, the daughter of Ethan and the late Cecily, had developed a new habit. She wasn’t especially proud of it, but still it had developed anyway, as habits have a habit of doing. What it was, she had taken to listening at her father’s door during his meetings with George Westhouse.
Well, why not? After all, wasn’t her father always saying she’d soon be joining ‘the fight’, as he called it? And wasn’t another of his favoured expressions that there’s no time like the present?
For years now Evie and her twin brother, Jacob, had been learning Assassincraft, and the two of them were enthusiastic students. Jacob, the more athletic of the pair, had taken to combat like a fish to water; he loved it, despite lacking the natural gift that his sister possessed. At nights the siblings would talk excitedly of the day when they would be introduced to the fabled hidden blade.
Nevertheless, Evie found her interest wandering. What came naturally to her didn’t quite engross her the way it did her brother. While Jacob would spend his days in the yard of their home in Crawley, whirling like a dervish to practise moves taught by their father that morning, Evie would often creep away, declaring herself bored of the constant repetition of sword practice, and make her way to her father’s study, where he kept his books.
Learning, that was what fired the imagination of Evie Frye. The writings of Assassin elders, chronicles of legendary Assassins: Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, whose name means ‘the flying eagle’, the handsome and dashing Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Edward Kenway, Arno Dorian, Adéwalé, Aveline de Grandpré and, of course, Arbaaz Mir, with whom her father had spent so much time when they were younger men.
All of them had joined the struggle to hold the Templar scourge at bay, fighting for freedom in whatever time and territory they plied their trade; most had at one time or another become involved in helping to locate what were known as artefacts. No museum pieces, these. The artefacts that preoccupied Assassins and Templars were materials left by Those Who Came Before. Of them all, the most important were the Pieces of Eden. The power they harnessed was said to be biblical and the knowledge supposedly coded into them was said to be the learning of all ages: past, present and future. There were some, Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, for example – Evie had pored over a transcription of his codex – who had expressed doubt about them, wondering if they were mere trinkets. Evie wasn’t sure, and perhaps that formed part of the appeal. She wanted to see these artefacts for herself. She wanted to hold them and feel a connection with a s
ociety that existed before her own. She wanted to know the unknowable powers that helped shape mankind.
Thus, when she overheard the word ‘artefacts’ from inside her father’s study one night, she had lingered to listen further. And then the next time George Westhouse visited, and then the time after that.
Sometimes she asked herself if Father knew there were eavesdroppers present. It would be just like him to say nothing. What mitigated her guilt was the feeling that he wouldn’t necessarily disapprove. After all, she was merely harvesting early the information she’d be gathering later.
‘He’s a brave one, this man of yours,’ George Westhouse was saying now.
‘Indeed he is. And essential to any chance we have of one day taking back our city. The Templars believe us to be reduced, George. Let them think that. Having an agent in their midst gives us a crucial advantage.’
‘Only if he learns something of use to us. Has he?’
Evie’s father sighed. ‘Sadly not. We know that Cavanagh is regularly visited by Crawford, and in particular we know that Lucy Thorne spends a great deal of time at the dig …’
‘Lucy Thorne’s presence at the site indicates we’re on the right track.’
‘Indeed. I never doubted it.’
‘But there’s nothing to suggest when the Templars hope to find what they’re looking for?’
‘Not yet, but when they do, The Ghost is in place to snatch it for us.’
‘And if they already have?’
‘Then at some point, as he continues to gain their trust, he will learn that and, again, be in the right place to retrieve the artefact and put it into our hands.’
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